Militant Mushroomists

I had to have a chortle at this tale about a jar of mushroom soup leaking onto a plane passenger, who just happens to be allergic to mushrooms.

But then I have to wonder why you can only take a tiny bottle of shampoo on a flight, and in a plastic bag too, but a jar of mushroom soup is OK. Maybe it was concentrate which was why the passenger it leaked on had such a severe reaction. Or was it planted by militant vegetarians?!

Police State

Here is a link to the story of a Lancaster cabbie fined for having a fag in his cab when on a break.

And here is a link to the logical extension of the fascist actions of Lancaster City Council. Jacqui Smith's very own Stasi, or perhaps an updated Stalinist NKVD.

Still don't think we are living in a fast developing police state? Well just remember, that neighbour, colleague, friend, even your spouse, may soon be spying on you just as East Germans in the DDR did on each other.

Manchester Debate

I have been invited to contribute to the debate tonight in Manchester on congestion charging. Obviously I will be speaking against. For full details click here. Why not get along, the more the merrier.

Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize

The latest Libertarian Alliance's Director's Bulletin contains details of this year's Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize. If you are a libertarian, especially an aspiring libertarian writer, then please follow the link above and get all the details.

If you do go for it then good luck and I hope to see you at the Libertarian Alliance Conference, being presented as winner, on 25/26 October.

Cuba's Cantona

Here is a video of a Cuban competitor kicking the referee after being disqualified. No doubt he will claim he reacted to a racist comment, and get off with it.

Pop Goes Socialism

I've just watched yet another of those TV documentaries about how pop music saved the world, especially how it saved it from capitalism. I can't help wondering how the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, and latterly Oasis and U2, would have gone on had they been nationalised.

But they weren't and look what a bunch of sanctimonious arseholes they've become. The Gallaghers, with their fake Mancunian accents, Pete Townsend rabbiting on about 'his generation' and the huge sociological impact of pop music, and all living in the splendid isolation of Saxon sheiks.

The two biggest pop songs of the '60s were actually 'Two Little Boys' by Rolf Harris and 'The Last Waltz' by Engelbert Humperdinck, so let's keep some sense of perspective. Did pop really rock the world in the '60s or did it just give us free love, a dose of clap and the one parent family? Moral degenaracy on a Manchester council estate isn't quite as appealing as on a private estate in Surrey with a nice alimony settlement and a bunch of supporting, sycophantic minnions pampering your every whim.

Pop music became the opium of the masses. Punk was the next big one, and I admit to enjoying Punk, as I did Motown and reggae. But hearing old slappers like Pauline Black of The Selecter now rambling on incessantly about racism and socialism, I can't help wondering how she, and John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), can whine about their 'huge impact on society' with any credibility when the people, in 1979, chose Margaret Thatcher rather than dodgy pop music revolutionaries like them.

Popular music is probably Britain's most free market capitalist industry. So the moaning bastards like Bono, and all the others who whine about equality and revolution, can sod right off. Just as those in the '60s,70's,80's and '90s can. You entertain, nothing more, nothing less.

European Gendarmerie Force

Following my post yesterday, linking to Torquil Dick-Erikson's article about Eurogend, I have been trying to track down the official website of this fascistic EU force but have been unable to. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right place, but I found eurogendfor.eu easily enough last year.

Anyway I have now found this piece on the website of the Portuguese Presidency 2008. It really does make for chilling reading, a sign of what life in the future EU authoritarian state will be like.

There is more about it on this French Ministry of Defence website, including an interesting picture gallery. The following quote is also taken from the same website:

"EGF was implemented as an instrument to shift from a military crisis management to a civilian one, meant to intervene more specifically towards the en d of a crisis. It can deploy about 800 men under 30 days' notice".

Yet Another Data Shambles

I do sometimes get the feeling that the government are just taking the piss out of us. Here is the tale of how some prat lost a data stick holding the records of every convict in Britain. This really is beyond belief and I can just imagine the queues of greedy solictors outside Strangeways and elsewhere, drooling at the thought of all that compensation they will be able to get for their 'clients' who have had their 'human rights' abused.

Certainly nobody, convicted criminals or anybody else, should have their personal data treated so carelessly by the state. It is one more reason for us to oppose the ever expanding database state.

European Gendarmerie Force

Here is a link to an update on the European Gendarmerie Force by UKIP's Torqil Dick-Erikson.

The image on the left is not EuroGend but our very own Dixons of Dock Green 2008 style. EuroGend really will make even our current batch of miltaristic riot police look like a bunch of fairies.

Interestingly I put a link on a previous post to the EuroGend official website, which boasted about the militaristic nature of this force, that website has now been taken down. I have checked other blogs with links to the EuroGend website and none of them work any longer either.

Mother Mac's

I was in Manchester yesterday afternoon on business, and that invariably includes a pint being in a very sociable kind of business. I couldn't resist a trip down memory lane and had to pop into Mother Mac's on Back Piccadilly, a pub I first frequented as a cocky youth some time in the late '70s and, thankfully, it hasn't changed.

If you don't know Manchester very well, and stick to the main roads when you visit, you won't know of the existence of this superb hostelry. It is a real pub that hasn't been savaged in the name of modernity and has a real friendly local feel in the City Centre. Most of the clientele are probably from Ancoats or Ardwick with the odd smattering of office workers en route to the suburbs via Piccadilly Station. Next time you're in Manchester treat yourself. Don't let the Manchester City FC paraphernalia put you off.

Meadowbank Stadium

With politicians falling over each other in the rush to claim responsibility for Team GB's success in Beijing, let's take a look at what those unreconstructed socialists in Scotland are up to. No trendy glory hunting by politicians up there in the workers' paradise. Instead they are carrying on the legacy of many previous governments by selling off sporting facilities to property developers. Very socialist!

Here is a link to the Save Meadowbank Campaign.

Ironically enough with our cyclists, including Scotsman Chris Hoy, doing us proud the demolition of Meadowbank includes the velodrome as well as the athletics facilities.

Middlesbrough's Lazarus

This is a cracking story from Ananova. I once knew Salford's Lazarus.

A few years back I had a summer job in Salford and worked with the most foul-mouthed little old fella I'd ever come across. He also had the bandiest legs I'd ever seen, in fact the whole set-up, being under some railway arches, was more than a little dickensian. There was even a portrait of Mrs Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha on the office wall that vibrated and almost fell off the wall every time a train went overhead.

Anyway the gist is that Noah, the little bandy fella, had also been declared dead a couple of years after his boat had been sunk in the last world war. When the war ended a grand memorial service was held in Salford Cathedral and, with perfect timing, he returned and walked into the church just as the service began. It seems he had not fancied going back into battle after facing drowning and spent the last two years of the war living it up with various hospitable tribes around North Africa.

I often wondered if this was myth but I met his daughter some years later who confirmed it. She knew straightaway who I meant when I referred to once having worked with the most foul-mouthed little fella in Salford.

Taking Liberties

Last night I decided to hit the sack early after a long day working, then starting a radio presenter training course in the evening. Having just received the DVD 'Taking Liberties' I thought I would start watching it, as a documentary it's the kind of thing you can dip in and out of. But once I started watching I couldn't stop.

If you don't know then 'Taking Liberties' is a film, and now a book, about our loss of fundamental liberties since Blair took office in 1997. The film was released to coincide with Blair's handover to Big Gordy Brown. Somehow it passed me by but is a real must to anybody of a libertarian persuasion.

The film comes at the subject from a pretty left-wing perspective but there is an element of balance provided by regular contributions from Boris Johnson and others. The subject matter is very often of the green/left persuasion but the principle of the film is equally valid to those on the libertarian right. It provides a near perfect picture of how the New Labour experiment has united the left and right in defence of freedom and liberty. It deftly portrays the way Labour have destroyed the six basic tenets of our liberty since 1997. The six being:

Right to Protest
Right to Freedom of Speech
Right to Privacy
Right not to be detained without charge
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Prohibition from Torture

Some aspects of the film are almost comic, such as the absurdity of officialdom, especially the police, but the underlying message is terrifying. Anybody who has sensed the development of an authoritarian state in the UK, especially those of the 'nothing to hide nothing to fear' tendency should watch this film. It tells what many of us have been warning about for many years and proves how, even those with 'nothing to hide', can easily find themselves 'banged up', living under a control order or ending up with a criminal record for no reason other than wearing a 'Bollocks to Blair' t-shirt, or for the state not liking the cut of your jib.

English Resistance

On a trip to France earlier this year we went to see the Bayeux Tapestry. In the gift shop was a book I couldn't resist but have only just started to read. It is by Peter Rex and is entitled 'The English Resistance. The Underground War Against The Normans'. It is, as the title suggests, the story of five years of heroic resistance against the Norman conquerors. The foreword opens with the following quote:

"England has become a residence for foreigners and the property of strangers. At the present time there is no English earl nor bishop nor abbot; foreigners all they prey upon the riches and vitals of England".
William of Malmesbury, 1135

Looking at the European Union, especially with the Lisbon Treaty, little has changed.

Cause Congestion, Then Bring In A Charge

The following is a press release issued by the Association of British Drivers.

TfL Admits Livingstone Regime Deliberately Obstructed Traffic Flows
The latest report from Transport for London 1 states that despite 70,000 fewer cars a day entering the central zone and 30,000 fewer in the Western Extension, congestion in both of these areas is every bit as bad as it was before the charge was introduced.

Although some of this is down to road works, the report admits that many traffic lights and other road schemes have reduced road and junction capacity, and publicly confirms what previously was only admitted behind closed doors — that obstructing traffic was a deliberate policy.

"This latest report on the London congestion charge demonstrates the fundamental dishonesty of all road pricing proposals," said the ABD's Nigel Humphries. "They claim that by paying even more money to use the roads, drivers will benefit from lower congestion. But London has proved that anti car authorities and pressure groups will simply not allow this to happen. They just increase the number of traffic lights and reduce the road space available until drivers are just paying through the nose to sit in the same jams as before."

The crazy transport schemes of Ken Livingstone and his friends have brought London to a halt — they put in bus lanes to give the bus priority, but then they louse up the junctions with "pedestrian priority" measures which negate all the advantages to buses as well as hitting car drivers with a double whammy of delays. These problems are not confined to London — with or without road pricing they are endemic in every city in the UK.

Boris Johnson has made a start by reviewing the flow implications of all proposed schemes, announcing the death of roadspace eating bendy buses and consulting on the Western Extension, but he needs to go much further.

The ABD would propose the following:

A major programme of investment in trunk roads and junctions to remove conflict between heavy traffic and vulnerable road users by means of underpasses and pedestrian/cyclist bridges/tunnels. All money from the congestion charge should be ringfenced to pay for such schemes which benefit all road users equally and reduce danger and stress for all. Once these schemes are complete the congestion charge should be phased out.

All bus lanes to be reviewed to ensure that they do not restrict overall road capacity. This means no bus lanes through junctions or across pelican crossings, which halve the amount of traffic that can pass when there are no buses or taxis on the road.

Removal of at least 20% of the traffic lights in central London by identifying those which do nothing but obstruct traffic flow.

Removal of constriction points which create danger for cyclists and pedestrians by restricting the maneuvering space for large vehicles.

Redesign of all "forward stop line" schemes for cyclists. These are ill named as they really are "backward" stop lines for motorists and reduce the capacity of light controlled junctions irrespective of whether any cyclists are there. Forward stop lines for bikes should be just that - in front of the normal stop line - and should not place cyclists in front of the traffic.

Reversal of ruinous schemes like Trafalgar Square which reduce road capacity and create huge jams, mostly comprising buses and taxis.

Removal of all 20mph speed limits imposed on main roads.

ENDS

For those concerned about the introduction of a congestion charge in Manchester there is a debate on August 27 in central Manchester. Details on the Manchester Junior Chamber of Commerce website.

Politburo Tactics

The more oppressive our police state becomes the more secretive become the politicians and bureaucrats. According to this article in the Mail on Sunday our MPs are now going to extraordinary lengths to hide the full extent of their corruption from us. Thanks for bringing this out goes, once again, to The Taxpayers' Alliance.

Contrast the methods of our current batch of MPs with the late Enoch Powell. Despite being one of the most controversial figures of modern politics his telephone number and address were in the London telephone directory until the day he died.

Taxed To Death, And After Death

I've just found my recent attack on EU inspired taxation in the Lancaster and Morecambe Citizen. You can read it by clicking here.

Hot Curry

I don't tend to get paranoid about restaurant stories, the ones about how this or that restaurant was fined for some breach of hygiene regulations. I tend to work on experience, if it gives me Delhi belly I tend not to return. Indeed some of the best restaurants I came across on my travels were in Paraguay where there were no hygiene rules, the market ruled supreme, if you poisoned your customers they stopped going and you went bust. And it worked!

This story, from the Manchester Evening News, slightly concerned me however. If you care to read it the end of the article mentions Al Bilal restaurant in Rusholme being fined for breaches of hygiene regulations. Some months ago now I was in Manchester on UKIP business with Phil Griffiths, North West Chairman. Like me Phil is a curry fanatic so I took him to the curry mile and we ended up in Al Bilal. We did have some intestinal reaction the next day and I have not returned.

On Thursday night there was a programme on TV called 'Rogue Restaurants'. One of the dodgy ones featured was on Brick Lane. Mrs Beaman immediately declared that it would be The Clifton, sadly she was absolutely right. This is the place where I took a dozen UKIP members from the North West before last year's conference in East London. I have never had a reaction from The Clifton but promise not to take any other UKIP members to Indian restaurants of my choice.

End Of Another Tradition

As a new football season kicks off, with the English Premiership bearing little resemblance to an English league at all, another great English icon is disappearing. Walthamstow Stadium, the Wembley of English greyhound racing, has seen its last ever race. Along with Catford, Hackney, White City, Haringey and Wembley dog track itself, the stadium has been sold off to property developers.

I don't profess to be an expert on greyhound racing but do enjoy the occasional visit to the dogs. When domiciled in the capital I went with friends, and my sister and her other half, to Hackney dogs and to several charity nights at Catford, South London. It's fine entertainment and extremely sociable too, with the chance of winning, on my part rarely, the odd quid. But it is great fun first and foremost.

Of course if the government sees something is a success it has to get in on the act and a few years ago removed the tax-free status on betting at the dogs. Add to that the constant showing of greyhound racing in bookies shops, thus taking revenue away from the tracks, and yet again government action helps to destroy a part of our cultural and sporting life.

Of course a few animal rights nutters will be pleased at the closure of yet another dog track but, for my part, I think I'll counter that by popping along to Belle Vue dogs in my old part of east Manchester soon. No good crying over such closures, they need support to survive so get to the dogs when you can, I'm sure you'll love it.

Been Away

We've had a few days away in Northumberland, going over there last Friday. It must be one of the most scenic coasts in the country, with magnificent castles and the Farne Islands to visit complete with Atlantic Grey Seals and assorted bird life. It may have poured down every day but was well worth the visit.

One thing that struck us, not having had a holiday in the UK for a long time, was the ridiculous amount we spent on parking. Every town seems to have double yellow lines from about two miles out of town. You then find the ludicrously expensive car parks with outdated pay and display machines that make you pay up-front and they don't give change, take notes or accept cards. You then end up paying all day because you are tking a trip around a castle or on a boat that will take 2 1/2 hours. But you have to pay to park for up to 2 hours or all day! You also spend half the holiday trying to build up a huge cache of change acceptable to these awful machines, amassing change becomes an obsession.

Pubs have been wrecked too. We saw very few that were recognisable as traditional pubs. Most of them were mock bistros or fake restaurants, empty outside eating times. The death of another part of our culture, thanks to the last Tory government for effectively abolishing the tied house system and New Labour for the smoking ban.

On the way home we heard a debate on Radio 2 about local authorities accessing our text, phone records and emails under supposed anti-terror legislation. Some prat from Buckingham University tried to say that the public supported it because of binge drinking and gangs of kids hanging about on street corners. And he claimed to be some kind of intelligence expert! What next, take your letters to the Post Office open so that the censors can read it before you post it? Anyway every member of the public who risked intrusion by emailing or texting in was against. So much for the 'expert'.

I thought we were moving towards a police state. Wrong, we are well and truly in one. The reason I haven't blogged since last Friday is that to access the internet I used Northumberland County Council's libraries as a temporary member. I could access the internet but blogs are blocked. I could neither read blogs nor access my own blog. Welcome to Britain 2008.

Must be off now, must get home before curfew!!

Smoking and Brainwashing

I find the current spate of anti-smoking ads on TV quite disturbing, not to say dishonest. The ones I mean are the ones that tell smokers that they cannot possibly give up 'without help', and who's there to help? Yes the government, in the shape of the NHS. You really can't do anything without the nanny state under New Labour!

One thing I object to is the patronising tone of the adverts. It is possible to give up 'without help', I did it last March after smoking 20 a day for 30 years. I know plenty of other people who gave up 'without help' too. Indeed many of us would have given up earlier, but the more the state nagged and whined at us, the more determined we became to continue. And, having recently had my lungs examined, they show no signs of me ever having smoked.

I also object to taxes being wasted on medicines, support groups and whatever other paraphernalia the state funds to help people give up. Let them pay themselves if they really want to give up, it'd be cheaper than buying fags. And if people don't want to give up for God's sake leave them alone to get on with it.

All this government brainwashing has had a truly sinister result that is often overlooked, the vile and ultimately dishonest attitude of so many people to smokers. I've seen people 100 yards away, in the open air, suddenly start coughing and spluttering when I've lit up. Then there are the weirdoes who claim that after being in the company of smokers they have to shower when they get home, and send their clothes to the laundry because of the smell.

We've had friends to dinner since we gave up smoking (Mrs B has too) and they refused to smoke in the house insisting on going onto the balcony for a fag between courses. They thought they were being thoughtful but we really had to convince them, and several bottles of wine helped, that we had no problem with them smoking at the table. We didn't have to shower before bed, or change the curtains next day, because of the stench, but it really highlighted the power of propaganda.

So I still wish FOREST good luck in their campaign.

Be Afraid!

Whenever the people of a European state, or EU region, say enough is enough you can bet they will be ignored, or told if saying 'no' via a referendum to do it again. Hence the building of the EU superstate continues apace, despite the French, Dutch and Irish saying enough.

In the news today are reports of the EU moving towards formally sharing intelligence. That means that MI5 and MI6 will have to pool their intelligence with all members states (regions) of the EU. Immediately we could kiss our special intelligence relatonship with the USA goodbye. It was French military personnel who leaked American intelligence about Kosovo in the '90s that caused such terrible problems. And do we really want to share our intelligence with the likes of Bulgaria and Slovakia?

But, also bear in mind, the EU will then see the inevitable next step as developing the EU Gendarmerie force into a full blown EU national guard, operating freely in any member state (region). It's time to act and time for Europhiles to be honest and stop pretending that the EU is only a glorified trading bloc.

Passports Cloned

No real shock with this story, no real surprise either. A computer boffin has cloned the details of an e-passport. They were introduced into our glorious police state to protect us from the terrible real world by New Labour in 2006.

It just means that the government will try even harder to find more ways to monitor, bug, film and index us.

“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own.” The Prisoner

Free Tibet

I have every sympathy with the people of Tibet and would happily campaign in the UK on their behalf, although I haven't yet. I fully agreed with the demos in London and elsewhere when the Olymic Torch was being carried to China. What I do find objectionable is people going to China, from this country, and demonstrating on behalf of the Tibetan people, or supposedly on their behalf. The case in point being this story that broke this morning.

Once again it seems to be 'eco-warrior veggie green' types indulging in a spot of cultural imperialism. They probably despise Britain for our imperial past but have no qualms about trying to impose their values and beliefs on alien cultures and systems when it suits their agenda. Yet another case of double standards on the pinko liberal left, a subject on which I posted here last month.

Eco Warriors

I have no reason to doubt this report about weapons being found at a demo of the great unwashed.

What I do find bizarre is that the police claim that only 150 or so green veggie types were intent on causing trouble, then claim they filled a whole lorry with confiscated weapons.

Summer Reading

Nice to see Dave 'The Rave' Cameron doesn't trust his front bench morons to behave on holiday, so he's given them all a long reading list to get through. Some are books by Old Etonian buddies of his some by Thatcherite thinkers. But the point is that he is trying to make them more 'Cameronite'. To me it just shows that he hasn't actually got a political philosophy to call his own.

Being free to read what I want my current reading is:

Germany Calling-Mary Kenny. The biography of William 'Lord Haw-Haw' Joyce.
The Berlin Novels-Christopher Isherwood. Mr Norris Changes Train and Goodbye to Berlin which became Cabaret.
Crimini-Various authors.(Italian noir or crime stories)

I like to have 2 or 3 different ones on the go to cater for whatever mood I happen to be in. There has of late been a strong pre-war realist tendency with Patrick Hamilton also featuring regularly.

I'd never make a good Tory.

Great Works Of Fiction

There are some pretty unbelievable websites but the New Labour website takes the biscuit.

Here is its list of Labour's 50 top achievements since 1997, according to a spokesman (left) on the Labour website.

But don't expect to find things like Iraq, Afghanistan, loss of border controls, 42 day internnment, CCTV and the police state. No, nothing like that appears in this piece of pure Stalinist propoganda. But truly wondrous achievements such as children getting a piece of fruit appear!

The nice thing is you can send them a comment. Below is what I sent them:

I'm curious as to why Iraq, Afghanistan, 42 days without trial and the building of a police state generally do not appear. I'm sure they would love to hear from you too.

Ageism

Every now and then I pop along and have a nosey at the Fabian Society's website, it usually gives me a giggle and today was no different.

Mike O'Brien, our glorious Pensions Minister, made a speech mid-July about ageism and it is reported on the FS website. I may be being simplistic, but while we are unfortunate to have the state providing so much of the poulation with pensions, I would say the job of Pensions Minister was to maximise the amount of money available to people through their pensions. But Mike seems to have taken on God-like powers and thinks he, or the state, can reverse the whole ageing process. Here is the speech in full, if you can be bothered.

He claims that ageing presents us with 'five new giants'. They are:

Poverty
Loneliness
Frailty
Discrimination
Fear

Poverty could be alleviated by reducing tax. Less not more government would therefore help.

Loneliness hasn't been helped by pubs closing down due to government policies, including high taxes and the smoking ban. Petrol costs (tax) also helps isolate people.

Frailty is a physical symptom of ageing. Sadly it's inevitable and no amount of governement mithering can reverse it. New Labour is not some kind of Dorian Gray.

Discrimination. I have yet to see anywhere stating 'old people not welcome'. I have seen more rude and inconsiderate behaviour from older people than I have younger people. But it is often older people who discriminate, in my experience, against younger people.

Fear. As the government is the most terrifying thing in the country the thought of it becoming 'active' with older people probably terrifies them more than anything else out there. Lots of things scare us throughout our lives, it's called life, mortality, all kinds of things, but is inevitable and natural.

Get back to your abacus Mike and leave poor old people alone!

Jezza the Brownite

Chomping on the rice crispies this morning I had a terrible shock when I read, on teletext, that my local MP, Geraldine Smith, was calling for the sacking of young Miliband. I immediately switched to the TV news and caught a doppelganger being interviewed. Hence the two piccies. But no it was Geraldine, her hair has just changed colour. When I stood against her in 2001 her hair was so black she made your average Raven look Teutonic, her nickname was Morticia. Now she's some kind of strawberry blonde I think you call it. I think she is perhaps overworking.

It's very rare you hear from Geraldine in Morecambe and Lunesdale unless it's an extremely local issue, such as cracked pavements. She got in on the Chinese cocklers' tragedy although excellent local independent councillor Keith Budden had been the man campaigning for years for improved safety and monitoring of cocklers in the Bay, there were TV and radio crews there for days you see.

Yet suddenly she comes out fighting for Big Gordy Brown. I can only think she is tired of politics and knows that if Big Gordy remains in charge she will lose her seat next time round.