German Healthcare Part II

Here's another one from Germany.

It seems that a woman went into hospital to have her wrinkles sorted out but came to after the operation to find they had given her new breasts by mistake. It follows this tale of the woman who went in for a leg operation and came out with a new anus!

Whatever happened to German efficiency? Or is it some form of sexism? Harriet love.........

Please Harriet love, tell us you're joking darling.

So now the New Labour Stasi are going to hound you for sexual harassment if you call the barmaid 'love' or 'darling'. As ever the dead hand of the EU is lurking in the background, but it's nutty old slapper Harriet Harman who is responsible. Come on Harriet petal, tell us it's a joke. She's probably just peeved because even David Blunkett wouldn't sexually harass her.

Here's the full story from the Mail.

Where does that leave Alistair Darling?

Where is Newcastle?

It's quite incredible that the Department for Communities and Local Government doesn't seem to know the difference between Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Newcastle Staffordshire.

It transpires that this beacon of government excellence gave £2m of our taxes to Newcastle Borough Council by mistake, when it should have gone to Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Council for encouraging local businesses. Quite why it should be rewarded in this way for doing its job is another issue.

The interesting finale to this fiasco is that the government is only asking for the return of £970,000 of the £2,000,000. So I wonder what has happened to Newcastle, Staffordsire's unexpected windfall of over £1m. And, if the government had informed Newcastle-upon-Tyne that it was due this £2m, why they didn't question its non-arrival.

Here's a tip for the civil servants. You can tell the difference by phoning the two councils, if the person answering the phone seems to be talking a long forgotten dialect of Swahili, that is Newcastle-upon-Tyne. If you don't need an interpreter that is Newcastle, Staffordshire.

BAA Backdown

Here is the story of the British Airport Authority backdown on fingerprinting passengers in the new Terminal 5. It seems that they now wish to photograph everybody going through the terminal instead because the legality of fingerprinting has been questioned.

Their reasoning for these measures is to allow domestic and international passengers to mingle in the terminal, then they can check that the passengers are who they say they are when they come to board domestic flights, danger of illegal immigration you see.

In other words, by piling them all together, and infinging their freedoms and liberty in the name of security, the BAA can make more money from passengers in their vulgar shopping mall style terminal.

Dismantle Traffic Lights

I have just been contacted by Martin Cassini asking for a link to an article I wrote earlier this year on 'shared space', or abolishing traffic signals, road signs and markings. He is putting together this website.

I also found this article that Mr Cassini had in the Times last year, which is an excellent read for those of us who want to liberate our roads.

Manhattan Declaration

Here is an interesting article from the UKIP website written by a colleague of mine.

It gives an alternative view on climate change to the current orthodoxy, and condemns the media's ignorance of the Manhattan Declaration, signed by scientists attending a New York conference on climate change earlier this month.

Police State

Until the Glazers took over at Old Trafford in 2005 I used to travel with my Dad, who was also a season ticket holder, to watch United in Europe on average about 2 or 3 times a season. Good fun and we spent a day or two in some great cities sightseeing and watching football with friends who were also on the trips. Since then we have had one foreign jaunt watching FC United of Manchester in Leipzig in 2006. Withdrawal symptoms have set in.

This week we were mulling over possibility of a sporting away trip when a weekend in the USA to watch our first ever baseball game came up as a possibility. But, considering the oppressive security measures now operating at US airports, that thought was knocked on the head, if I behave criminally then treat me like a criminal, until then no thank you.

So instead we are off to Oslo to watch a Norwegian championship game between Lyn Oslo and the quaintly named HamKam, otherwise known as Hamerkameratane, not a name that lends itself easily to pithy chants from the terrace songsters of Hamer, the club's hometown. At least going from Liverpool to Oslo we only have to show passports, and will be outside the EU for a few days which is a nice bonus.

However, this article by Nigel Rumfitt QC highlights a worrying development at Heathrow's Terminal 5. Here the Spanish owned British Airports Authority, and British Airways, are fingerprinting all passengers on domestic flights claiming it to be a government requirement. When challenged on this, as ever, the standard response is that by agreeing to use the facility you are "consenting" to being fingerprinted therefore there is no compulsion. How long before our airport security, for domestic and foreign flights, becomes as oppressive as US security currently is?

Yet another step in the direction of a full blown police state. Support for No2ID is now more vital than ever.

German Healthcare

Here is a quite unusual, if shocking tale from Germany. We complain about the NHS and its problems and many people seem to think foreign healthcare is so superior to ours. Well I wouldn't be too happy if I had gone into a German hospital for a leg operation and came round from the anaesthetic with a 'new anus'!

Teaching Unions

Easter is always enlivened by the sheer idiocy of the teaching unions who have their annual gatherings around now. The latest from the NUTters is to request a ban on army recruitment in schools. Even their own executive find that a ridiculous position, so it will probably fall.

Ask yourself one question. Would you prefer your kids to be taught by a regimental sergeant major or a bearded Ernie 'Che' Guevara loving Marxist?

A more useful position would be to ban trade unions from recruiting in schools.

Ireland and The Lisbon Treaty

As Ireland prepares for its referendum a colleague has drawn my attention to this video. It was made by the WiseUpJournal.com, a site or organisation I cannot vouch for, but the video, what I have seen of it, is excellent and contains interviews with some serious and respected politicians from Europe and Ireland.

Tibet, South Africa and Sport

As Tibet, or the Chinese brutality in Tibet, continues to make the news here is a link to the history of the conflict according to the National Democratic Party of Tibet. Although they obviously have their own 'spin' on events, I suspect it is more objective than the Chinese version and probably the BBC's.

Having said that here is also a link to a BBC broadcast of the demo, and attack by Chinese soldiers, that probably sparked the riots and growing unrest.

The problem for Tibet is that vested interests makes a boycott of the Chinese Olympics highly unlikely. The last serious boycott was of the Moscow games in 1980 over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Americans were forbidden from competing while our government 'advised' athletes not to compete.

Similarly, despite serious security concerns, and even doubts about the supply of electricity to the event, the South Africa Football World Cup in 2010 will go ahead, because it would be politically incorrect not to. Would the Euro Championships in 2008, in Austria and Switzerland, go ahead if they couldn't guarantee the power supply?

Sport is about money and power these days unfortunately, principle went out of the window a long time ago.

Now The Gurkhas

Here is a link to yesterday's story of how badly one of our servicemen, who married a Canadian while posted in Germany, is being treated by this government while he is away fighting their war.

Today the Gurkhas are demonstrating against their appalling treatment at the hands of this, and previous governments. They have been a proud part of the British Army for over 200 years but are refused, in many cases, the right to settle here and many have to return to Nepal after service on pitiful pensions. 50 Gurkhas are reportedly handing back their medals to the government today in protest.

Support the Gurkhas by following this link!

IRA and BBC

No real surprise at this report from Reuters appearing on St Patrick's Day. No surprise either that the Irish police arrested a number of BBC men in connection with paramilitary activity.

Last night I had the misfortune to watch the South Bank Show 'special' on the march of the Marxists in 1968. Seeing Melvyn Bragg brown-nosing prime t~*t Tariq Ali was truly vomit inducing, especially having heard Tariq The Trot on Desert Island Discs that morning also being brown nosed, that time by Kirsty Young.

Looks like we are in for a load more heavy duty slagging off of Western culture and civilisation, especially the British type, by the media luvvies in celebration of their failed attempts at Marxist insurgency 40 years ago.

Tibet

The Chinese are at it again. It seems that Buddhist monks on a peaceful protest are fair game for the Chinese security forces. But I suppose our government would look rather hypocritical condemning China when we are in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have also been sent this link to Youtube, allegedly showing Chinese troops murdering Tibetan pilgrims.

European Champions League

Although the European Cup, as was, has been grossly diminished by the pursuit of cash, the quarter final draw has thrown some tremendous games up:

United v Roma-again!
Arsenal v Liverpool
Chelski v Fenerbahce
Barca v Schalke 04

Full story here.

The EU

More hot air here from the European Union.

National No Smoking Day

No idea what Al Gore is smoking here but don't go near him when he exhales, sure it must be causing global warming.

Go on have a cig!

Clarkson in lumber again!

Here are two names to remember: Adam Blake and Hayley Byford. It seems that they are claiming to have a photo of Jeremy Clarkson driving along the M40 while talking on his mobile. Not content with getting his photo they have now forwarded it to the Thames Valley plod who are 'looking into it'.

I bet they went to a newspaper to make a few bob too. What a sad nation of misfits we are becoming when people bahave like these two quislings.

Oath of Allegiance

The proposed oaths of allegiance, suggested in a report by Lord Goldsmith, are just more patronising pap from our political masters who have spent years demolishing any sense of patriotism and national pride. Now, when they realise that people are slowly starting to wake up to the situation, they try and nationalise patriotism and force their form of it on us, whether we want it or not.

Personally I prefer the understated nature of our patriotism to the organised flag waving, and other overt demonstrations of pride in one's country that others display, but each to his own. After years of political correctness damning all things British does anybody actually believe that getting pupils to swear allegiance as they leave school is going to make any difference? Would a pupil, student or anybody else who supports a terrorist organisation refuse to swear the oath and say why? I doubt it, they would just go through the motions. This proposal won't do a single thing to turn empty words into a true feeling of patriotism.

Lord Goldsmith accepts that there is a "crisis of national identity" but will not accept that it was caused by people of his ilk in the political class in the first place. Perhaps the timing of this ludicrous posturing is designed to divert the minds of the simple from the Lisbon Treaty. Or am I being cynical?

Ice Hockey

One of the things certain to get ice hockey fans on their feet is a good fight between players, either one on one or, as happened in Manchester on Saturday night, a mass brawl. Occasionally the crowd get involved too as happened here when Serbian hockey players took on the Lithuanian crowd.

But it isn't limited to Eastern Europe. Some of the worst fights, or best depending on your outlook, are in the USA with many mass brawls and one on ones on Youtube featuring American teams.

Perhaps MPs v Electorate is worth a try instead of elections!

Peter Hitchens-Prize Prat

In the Mail on Sunday yesterday grouchy old prat Peter Hitchens asked the following question:

"Why do respectable, educated people have anything to do with the moronic cult of football, a celebration of cheating, shamming, spite, crudity and greed?"

I try not to read Hitchens, or the Mail on Sunday for that matter, because the man is quite obviously a charlatan and a self serving snob. But for some reason yesterday I made the mistake of reading his column. I wonder when he ever turned down a pay rise because he had enough money? The man is spiteful, a sham populist and a grumpy old fart too . He is stuck in the Edwardian era with the look of a Benedictine monk trying not to break wind . So my question is:

"Why do respectable, educated people have anything to do with the moronic cult of Peter Hitchens?"

NHS Waste

Here is a link to a plea from one NHS hospital trust for the return of crutches by ex-patients, the internet is littered with them, pleas not abandoned crutches. In a small hospital like Cromer 12 pairs of crutches are lost each month and each pair costs at least £20.00. The Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust buys over 200 pairs per month. That is a lot of money over a year.

I'm particularly interested because this weekend I returned a pair of crutches to my local hospital, nearly a year after I needed them after a fractured calcaneum (heel). If Cromer hospital loses 12 pairs a month, I can only wonder how many are lost nationally each month and what it must cost the NHS. Surely a returnable deposit could be asked for. Or is that going against one of the sacred founding principles of the NHS? I often think it's a shame prudence wasn't one of the NHS's founding principles.

Hillary Clinton The Monster

Is it any wonder that people, throughout the world, are sick of politics when those working in politics have to resign for telling the truth.

Samantha Power must have a great future in politics!

Calling All Patriots-Especially Lancastrians

I am saddened to read reports, apparently emanating from Tesco, that certain traditional dishes are endangered species. This is a dire situation and I would urge all patriots to eat, eat and eat again to ensure their survival. If the nutters in Greenpeace can sail the seven seas to save the whale we can chomp away to save Lancashire Hotpot, cow heels and tripe and even Beef Wellington. We must then follow it up with lots of bread and butter pudding and/or spotted dick, two other endangered species. Not sure about saving sherry trifle though, oh yes go on, I'll be selfless and save it for others who might enjoy it.

Don't worry about weight gain, ignore the food fascists, they are only skinny because low fat this and skimmed the other is so tasteless they never eat it and starve.

Military Uniforms

There was a sad inevitability about the news that military personnel are being advised not to wear uniform off base for fear of abuse or attack. There are several reasons for this, a situation which is abhorrent to most reasonable people.

Firstly our government has frequently sent our forces into areas where most people in the UK believe we should not be. The government has used the armed forces to try and garner popular support. Even as the news about RAF Wittering broke Gordon Brown was talking about getting military personnel to wear uniforms off base to try and increase support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thanks to the contempt in which most of us hold the political class, and the corrosive influence of political correctness, respect for our institutions is disappearing and, sadly, that includes our armed forces in some quarters. If the governing class will not listen, and people feel powerless, then the populace will direct their contempt, wrongly in my opinion, at that which they can see and reach. In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq that means the armed forces.

Finally, when you have a sizeable proportion of the population that does not accept our liberal democratic system, values, beliefs and culture, then you have an inbuilt enemy that holds that which we admire and respect in contempt. Internal conflict then becomes inevitable.

No matter how much we disagree with the government's war obsession, our service personnel deserve respect and much better treatment from the public and, more importantly, from this government.

ID Cards-Mad Cow Disease

Jacqui Smith (does she think that spelling her name that way makes her sound exotic?) has resurfaced with a timetable for ID cards.

On the radio this morning she was claiming that ID cards would make our identities more secure, so they are really for our benefit. Tell that to the millions of people who have had their personal data lost by various government departments.

As with every other issue, the government is reneging on previous promises about ID cards being voluntary too. Workers in 'high risk' areas will have to have them from next year but what is meant by 'high risk'? At the moment the government cites airport workers. But what about police and other emergency service workers? Civil servants? Bank staff who could open accounts and launder money for Osama bin Laden? People who work on ferries and at ports? People who work at oil refineries? Pretty soon a sizeable chunk of the population could be exempted from the promised voluntary nature of the scheme proposed by the government.

Then what about people visiting a government building, especially the House of Commons? People using airports? People using banks? Will they be told they can't without an ID card? But of course they can if they get one voluntarily!

From 2011 anyone applying for a passport will have to also apply for an ID card. From 2010 students and young people will be 'encouraged' to have an ID card.

If you haven't already done so please pledge your support to No2ID .

Referendum? Kick 'em in the ballot box!

Looking back on the fuss about the non-existent referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and the furore will kick off again in the House of Lords, I can't help wondering what the fuss was actually all about.

The most useful thing about the campaign for a referendum was that it kept the issue of the EU and the Lisbon Treaty in the public's mind. That was why many of us joined the lobby last week at the House of Commons, not because of a belief that we would actually get one. That would have been delusional.

If we had got a referendum the government would have chosen the wording, and just think of the power there to manipulate the question in order to get 'the right decision'. And remember the vast resources pumped into the yes campaign in the 1975 referendum campaign, against the meagre resources raised from the public for the no campaign.

Think about the EU's record on abiding by the votes of the populace in referenda. Apart from the UK in '75, where the voters were conned and lied to quite unashamedly, wherever the voters have said "no" there has been a re-run and the voters 'got it right' the second time, ask the Irish and the Danes. Please also remember that the French and the Dutch said "no" in referenda so their wishes have been side-stepped by renaming it the "Reform Treaty".

The biggest benefit of these last few days, weeks and months has been seeing the political class squirm, lie and cheat their way out of the referendum that they all promised us in their 2005 manifestos. And I include the two-faced Tories in that, let's face it when they actually had the power tio give us a referendum, all those years they were in power, they never did. Anybody can make grand promises before an election they know they are going to lose, so don't let the Tories take the moral high ground.

To all those people in the three old parties who work so hard in a variety of anti-EU pressure groups, please remember that your hard work is wiped out as soon as you then campaign for your pro-EU political party. Kicking them in the ballot box, right where it hurts, that's the only way.

What a shower!

Gordon Brown and Labour.

Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats in turmoil.

Tory hypocrisy. They never offered a referendum when taking us ever deeper into the EU in the '70s, '80s and '90s, when they had the power to.

The Cenotaph and Abraham Lincoln

Each time I walk down Whitehall I wonder why there is a monument to wimmin when the Cenotaph, bearing the words To The Glorious Dead, is a suitable memorial for all. Surely in this day and age that must be sexist. Having said that I do recognise the significant role played by women, as well as men, in all wars that we have been involved in so I'm not being a male chauvinist pig about this.

In its way it is very similar to the statue of Abraham Lincoln erected by Manchester City Council in the dark Marxist days of the early 80s. Lincoln sent a letter to the Mayor of Manchester after the civil war thanking the 'working men of Manchester' who had helped defeat the Confederates by refusing to work with American cotton. Manchester City Council, in their wisdom, duplicated the letter on the statue but changed the wording from 'working men' to 'working people'. I call that a gross insult to Lincoln, and to history, and it typifies the way in which political correctness insults the people it pretends to help.

UKIP North West Spring Conference Part 3

Mark Sidwell, author of the Adam Smith Institute report into the misguidedness of Fairtrade, has agreed to speak at the UKIP NW Spring Conference on March 29/30. My post on his report is here.

Other speakers will include Tim Aker from The Taxpayers' Alliance, Phil Booth of NO2ID and Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance.

UKIP speakers to include Nigel Farage, Party Leader, David Campbell Bannerman, Deputy Leader and John Whittaker, Party Chairman.

For more information, and to book places, please contact the NW office on: 01524 387690 or email: lancasteroffice@ukip.org

Referendum Demo

How good to see two demonstrators climbing a crane near Parliament Square demanding a referendum on the EU Constitution, aka Reform Treaty. Well done fellas.

We have just had two chickens rambling around Lancaster City Centre this morning getting signatures on our referendum petition, chickens signifying Brown and the other politicians' cowardice in not holding a referendum. The response was magificent but don't hold your breath.

PS They were really our UKIP branch chairman and secretary dressed up, not real chickens, although they were very agitated when they passed the local KFC.

Social Anthropologist

Yesterday I was privileged to meet Dr Benny Peiser (left), who is a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University. You can find out about Benny here at his homepage.

He was being interviewed for the magazine Brussels Bulletin about his views on climate change. It was fascinating to listen to a scientist who looks at climate change objectively, or from a sceptical point of view. Too many people are committed to the cause of green politics because of a political agenda, or because of vested interest, or they have been brainwashed into a political stand on an issue that is far too important for that. Interestingly since yesterday I have 'googled' Benny Peiser and on at least one website he is labelled a 'denier', meaning that he disagrees, or questions, current thinking on climate change. Check out his homepage and decide for yourself.