Stuart Wheeler And Wealthy Idiots

Part of me thinks Dave 'The Rave' Cameron has played a very astute political game these last few days. On the Jacqui Smith debacle I thought he was very cool not calling for her resignation. If Brown has an ounce of sense her departure will come, probably when the dust has settled a little and it doesn't look like the man in charge has reacted to the mob.

Where Dave was so cool was the way he rubbed her nose in it in a very gentlemanly manner. He could almost have said: "Leave the poor girl alone, hubby was caught looking at naughties and we all know, the whole world. She must be mortified the poor little thing. The whole world is embarrassed for her". Bang, credibility of Home Secretary zero. In fact minus zero as her reputation was crap anyway.

Then up pops another super-rich entrepeneur to prove that making a mint doesn't make you intelligent. Step forward Mr Stuart Wheeler, quaintly described as 'spread betting millionaire'. What is it with UKIP and bookies? Now, Wheeler, I think he must be especially stupid. Donating £100,000 to a party's EU election budget is a bit like cobbing a bag of Sainsbury's ice cubes into the Arctic, or is it the Antarctic I can never remember, thinking it will save the Polar ice-caps.

No, by donating to UKIP Wheeler was trying to force Dave's hand, nothing more nothing less. But Dave called his bluff by chucking him out of the Tory Party for publicly supporting a rival party. Like Declan Ganley, who I will get to shortly, Wheeler has proved that making a wedge doesn't automatically make you a good politician. Quite the opposite in fact, people with pots of money lose their brains when they buy a football club, or try buying a political party, and end up looking and acting like complete clowns. Best to quietly make your donation then take a back seat. It also makes me think that if the Tories can sack a man who a few years ago gave them £5m, then they must have some very serious donors in the wings.

Now then, time for a pop at Declan Ganley. As I have blogged previously, here, I also think Declan is a chap with more money than sense. He was shocked that the UK accepted Lisbon immediately after the Irish voted no. I said then, and I repeat, that shows a naivety about the EU on a quite frightening scale. They don't listen to the people when they vote 'the wrong way' in a referendum, they just hold a second referendum and get the result they wanted. Ask the Danes, the Dutch, the French and the Irish, soon to have their re-run referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Ganley, in the meantime, will waste a lot more time and money standing Libertas candidates in the June European elections trying to reform the EU.

There Wheeler and Ganley diverge. The one thing they do have in common is a naive view that EU withdrawal (Wheeler possibly) or reform (Ganley) can be achieved by electing MEPs. Wrong, they do not have the power.

Electing MEPs does nothing whatsoever to further the cause of UK independence. I say that with confidence having worked for nearly five years for a UKIP MEP. Only our Parliament in Westminster can withdraw us from the EU. If all 70 or so MEPs in the UK after June represented UKIP so what? They would still be a mere 70 out of 500 or more. Since 1999 UKIP have gone backwards in terms of UK local and national elections and that, to those of us who had such high hopes in 2004 and before, is a very sad situation but true.

Mr Wheeler would have spent his £100,000 more wisely urging UK voters to boycott the June elections, increased turnout only gives the EU a veneer of democracy and returns people who are only interested in lining their pockets. Let's face it, the MEPs are the only politicians in the world who still, just about, make British MPs look like paragons of virtue and decency. And to UKIP I say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Stinking MPs

Here are the top five parasites for expenses claims:

Eric Joyce (Lab: Falkirk West) £187,334
Michael Connarty (Lab: Falkirk East) £183,466
Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dem: Orkney and Shetland) £176,190
Ben Wallace (Con: Lancaster & Wyre) £175,523
Mohammed Sarwar (Lab: Glasgow Govan) £174,882

That Ben Wallace is on the list doesn't really surprise me. He represents the neighbouring constituency to mine, and has always struck me as being second only to Nigel Farage in being the politician you would be least likely to buy a second hand car from.

I was going to stand against Wallace in the new constituency of Wyre and Preston North, shame I'm not now. But I'm sure I'll pop up somewhere in the general election, it would be rude not too, but where I'm not sure yet. Watch this space.

The Prisoner

I always say that all work and no play makes Gregg a dull boy, or actually Gregg and Jules a dull couple. So we're off to North Wales for some peace and walking in Snowdonia. Problem is we come back no healthier because we know the best chippy in the world, in Betws, and the best curry house outside Manchester or Altrincham which is in Llanrwst.

On Saturday we will be paying homage to Patrick McGoohan at The Prisoner Convention at Portmeirion.

Be seeing you.

The State Of The World

Since walking away from top flight football in 2005, many people have asked what made me, and thousands like me, turn our backs on the beautiful game. In a word disillusionment.

Money had taken over, the fans were being ripped off. The players in many cases, not all, were taking the mickey and football as a spectator sport had lost much of it's fun. It seemed to be reflecting the world, we were being legislated out of the game.

Admittedly watching football in the 70s and 80s had its scary moments. Supporting United at Chelsea or West Ham in those days took particular strength of character, not to say stupidity, but eh, I survived.

Terrace surges and standing on an uncovered terrace in the February sleet were all part of the fun. As was running the gauntlet of City fans through the back alleys of Moss Side after a Maine Road Derby. Now it really is like going to the opera, to the extent that an overbearing jobsworth at Middlesbrough FC recently wrote asking fans in one section of the ground to stop making so much noise.

It's quite simple really, football as a spectacle, has been sanitised beyond recognition. The best way to find out how this mess came about, the corruption and greed that have destroyed the game as we knew it, is to read David Conn's excellent book The Beautiful Game? . Even a hardened cynic will be shocked by the financial goings on revealed in this story of the financial rape of football in England since the early 80s.

In the meantime this excellent short film sums it all up nicely:

Chris R. Tame Memorial Lecture

From the Libertarian Alliance Website. A Libertarian View of the Financial Collapse.

Male Menopause?

I've always thought that the male menopause was a fabrication, an imaginary device invented by some drunken bum, of a certain age, because he'd beeen caught behaving like a wally.

Then yesterday I read of 56 year old John Hunt who is starting some kind of action against the Church of England to de-baptise him. It seems that he objects to having been baptised as an infant without giving consent. Now that must be the male menopause or, more likely, he is having some kind of terrible mental breakdown.

Anyway, that got me thinking. When I was but a babe in arms I was circumcised without giving consent. Now there's an idea to conjure with. Who's your solicitor John?

Snouts In The Trough

Yet another Labour MP, Tony McNulty (pictured), has been caught thieving from you and me, the taxpayers. He claims that the rules allowed him to claim allowances on a second home even though it was only eight miles from his main home. The poor lad had to use the house, his parents home, when in the constituency so he needed financial recompense because the rules allowed it. Well Tony, just because you can doesn't mean you have to.

I stay occasionally with my parents when in Manchester, but they don't charge me. When I've been there on business I have never claimed expenses from an employer for staying there, it was a chance to actually save on hotel bills. But we can't expect politicians to think like that. That involves a level of morality, coupled with a conscience, that is sadly lacking in most politicians.

I also saw headlines yesterday, but no more, about a Labour MP being caught with his pants down in the House of Conmmons. Strange because it always used to be Labour in financial naughtiness, the Tories involved in sexual shenanigans. Labour seem now to have cornered the market in both, shafting anybody and everybody in every sense of the word whenever they get the chance.

Mother's Day

Poor old mums, we don't half put them through it. So if you haven't done yet, get on and do something special for her, you know she deserves it.

Police State-Update

The BBC has this article about the government's plans to further erode our freedoms and liberty by introducing the world's most 'comprehensive' anti-terror legislation.

As it is already illegal to photograph the police or government buildings, and Walter Wolfgang was nicked under existing anti-terror legislation for heckling a politburo member, oops sorry, I mean cabinet minister, and a young chap in Manchester was nicked recently for looking at a manhole cover, I dread to think what even more 'comprehensive' may involve.

Now ask yourself if all that carry on has made you feel any safer. Then, when you've answered that question try this one: Are you more scared of Al Quaeda/IRA or Her Majesty's Government?

Chance Meeting

We've been away for a couple of days, hence the lack of blogging. I make no apology because it was a tremendous couple of days, quite momentous really.

The break took me back in time, and also involved searching through some old photographs, and I was taken aback. I hadn't realised how hard I had worked around 1980 to look like Bryan Ferry. Those who know me now will be shocked, but I did then have a full head of hair and a waistline that would have people wondering if I had been anorexic.

But a Roxy Music song, from their first album, imaginatively entitled Roxy Music, kept coming into my mind these last couple of days. The first few lines are particularly relevant to Friday. So thank you to some very special people, and enjoy the following from Roxy Music.

More Crap From Brown

Here is Gordon Brown waxing lyrical about how he feels for the plight of the jobless.

But the piece de resistance has to be the following taken from the above article:

The Prime Minister told MPs he had got into politics to tackle joblessness and poverty.

Well you've buggered up properly then haven't you you nitwit?

I suppose he'll be on a fast-track teacher training course after the next general election. Or are the populace really stupid enough to...no, I can't even contemplate that.

Police State

The film below is from Manchester's Channel M news.

If you want to read a comment on it then please visit the North West Libertarian blog where Citizen Stuart has commented.

Time To Legalise?

From the Independent Institute:

Officials in the international war on drugs had their work cut out for them last week as they convened in Vienna to collaborate on strategies for victory--or whatever outcome that could reasonably be called successful. Over the past decade, according to a recent study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, opium and cannabis production have doubled while cocaine production has increased slightly. In addition, the former presidents of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia recently issued a report condemning the drug war as a counterproductive failure. In Mexico alone, the drug war has resulted in the killing of ten thousand people on either side--and often on the sidelines--of the battle between the state and the drug cartels; it has also brought corruption to the office of attorney general.

These and related persistent problems should prompt policymakers to consider the merits of drug decriminalization, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa.

"Today we regard the Opium Wars of the 19th century--by which the British retaliated against China for clamping down on opium imports--as crazy," Vargas Llosa writes in his latest column. "One and a half centuries from now, people will read in total amazement that so much blood and treasure was wasted in the failed pursuit of a private vice that a relatively small percentage of the world population was not ready to give up."

Full Article.

Another interesting article from 2002.

Is The Mayor Mad?

No, not Boris Johnson, we all know he's mad.

This is the mayor of Kiev, Leonid Chernovetsky. I first heard about him this morning when I read that he had recorded a CD of songs because only God had a better voice. In selfless fashion the millions of dollars a day he expects from sales will help bail Kiev out of a financial hole.

But now killjoy MPs have demanded a psychiatric report after a series of eccentric initiatives. Chernovetsky recently issued a call for all OAPs to be tempted into state care with a diet of caviar and pineapple.But killjoys in the Ukrainian parliament have called for medical tests after fears for his mental condition.

He has also approved plans for a giant sculpture of a flying cow and a public monument to street lights. He has refused to comment on the MPs demands and has instead gone on holiday.

But Kiev residents have demanded he return home and undergo medical examinations immediately. One resident said: "Anyone who thinks old people are going to just move out of their homes they have lived in for decades because someone offers them a bit of exotic fruit and caviar is obviously completely bonkers. He needs testing."

Personally I think it's a shame, after all he hasn't started bombing countries he doesn't like. Now that is madness.

Taxing The Poor (Drinker)

One of the most ridiculous quotes for a long time must be the following from health fascism supremo Professor Liam Donaldson:

"Cheap alcohol is killing us as never before".

Speak for yourself matey boy, you might be drinking yourself to death on cheap cider but the overwhelming majority of us aren't, even if we do drink more than you suggest we should when you pop out of your Whitehall ivory tower to nag and patronise us.

All his suggestion would do is put the poorer drinker, probably on a sink estate, into even more poverty. He has lost touch with reality to such an extent that he doesn't realise that the worst drinkers will give up on almost everything else, including relatively healthy food, to pay for booze and fags.

Up to now it looks like the governmant are ignoring him thankfully.

A Mother's Lament

I know it's not Friday Funday but I couldn't resist this. I first came across A Mother's Lament with Mr Connolly at Xaverian College in Manchester. I wonder if he knew it from the Cream version? Either way he was a bloody great English teacher and I will always love, and respect, his enthusiasm. Thank you JVC, thank you sir!

Red Nose Day

I don't want to sound like a miserable old turd, nor do I want to sound holier than thou BUT you can stick Red Nose Day where the sun doesn't shine.

A bunch of overpaid celebrity ponces creaming money out of a drooling and gullible population of arseholes. And if I see some spotty youth sat in a tub full of baked beans, in a stupid red nose and a collecting bucket, he'd better make the most of that last breath he will pull into his stupid nostrils because I will drown him in his bloody beans.

Then up pops some prat of a politician on the telly trying to do a funny sketch with Lenny Henry. But all he succeeds in doing is reminding us why we effing loathe politicians. They are just not trendy and shouldn't try to be, neither is Red Nose Day, it should have happened once and once only, finito.

When I give to charity, which I do without being pushed by some z-list nonentity trying to resurrect his failing career, I like to know where my cash is going. Would you give to a charity that some manic Irish poof like Graham Norton supports? No, neither would I. And guess what 'celebrities'? There are people climbing Kilimanjaro and Everest on an almost daily basis for charity, difference is they just get on and do it without turning it into a huge great 'look at me I'm a saint' exercise.

Right, now that's off my chest I'm off to see if there's a repeat of Grumpy Old Men on the telly. Now they are funny, especially Rick Wakeman:

Friday Funday

Imagine Tony 'Nancy Boy' Blair taking on Saddam Hussein:



Then let's introduce a new style general election:



But let's have a revolution instead:

Luton-The Fightback

Yesterday I was out and about most of the day so didn't see much TV news. However, I did hear on the radio news an interview with one of of the Islamofascist scum who demonstrated against the Royal Anglians, accusing them of rape and murder.

I really thought we were finished, but then I saw the footage below on YouTube. If you watch it you will see the police apparently protecting the scum, then having to corale them away as the mob, of blacks and whites opposed to them, grows bigger, noisier and more angry. Well done that crowd.

Libertas EU Election Campaign

Libertas launched the UK branch of their EU wide party yesterday in London. It's an interesting academic exercise and nothing more in my view. Declan Ganley launched it by asking how the UK government could adopt the Lisbon Treaty (constitution) immediately after the Irish voted no, the only people given that 'privelege'. To ask that question indicates to me that you don't necessarily have to be bright to make a wedge of cash.

Well Declan, dear chap, that is the nature of the beast that you think can be reformed. You did what you did in Ireland, but the Lisbon Treaty will still be forced upon you one way or another. Even if you get MEPs elected, it will not make one jot of difference. The European Union is undemocratic and parties that think they can change it from within, only end up equally corrupted. Just look around you.

The problem is that MEPs have no power. If 51% of MEPs wanted reform or withdrawal tough, they don't have the power. The EU is the world's worst example, even worse than the United Nations, of a self-perpetuating, power hungry bureaucracy hiding behind a wafer thin facade of democracy. It is beyond help. It needs putting down.

The only thing for those who oppose continued EU membership to do is to boycott the June elections. They are a sham PR exercise and a 0% turnout would have a far bigger impact than electing a few withrawalists or reformers. Only our own Parliament might, one day, be able to get us out of the EU. Wasting time and resources, not to mention credibility, on EU elections is a nonsense. Once they are out of the way the publicity dies, along with another piece of our democracy.

For the first time ever I voted in the EU elections in 2004, seduced by the arguments about publicity for the cause, resources and profiles of MEPs being used to get MPs elected subsequently and so on. Life and politics don't function like that, I was naive and will return to boycotting in June. I hope you do too.

Financial Mess

I've just received my latest bulletin from the Independent Institute, well worth a read it is too. This warning particularly struck me as it seems like commonsense, aimed at the USA but equally relevant here:

U.S. Policymakers Should Avoid Japan's Mistakes, Not Repeat Them

In the 1990s, Japan tried to revive its moribund economy with deep cuts in interest rates, bank bailouts and nationalizations, and multiple fiscal stimulus packages--including a 1998 spending program that amounted to a whopping 8.5 percent of gross domestic product. Despite those drastic measures, however, the economy languished: the 1990s were Japan's "lost decade."

Economic policymakers in the United States have taken a cue from their Japanese counterparts, enacting similar policies but doing so more quickly. Unfortunately, it is the basic similarity of their approach that is cause for alarm, according to Benjamin Powell, a research fellow at the Independent Institute.

"Bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus bills don't work because they strive to maintain the status quo," writes Powell. "But the status quo is the problem and exactly what needs to be corrected.... To achieve long-term economic recovery, market forces, not political forces, need to direct capital and labor to their most productive uses."

"Avoid Japan's Mistakes," by Benjamin Powell (Washington Times, 3/8/09)

Gordon Fiddles While Britain Burns!

The economy has gone tits up, unemployment rates are soaring, the NHS is in crisis, sinking under bureaucracy, as is the teaching profession and Northern Ireland looks like kicking off again. The Euro is likely to collapse causing chaos in Europe, but at least it would speed up our departure from the European Union. Not forgetting Islamist nutters taking potshots at our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So the government decides to tinker with even more statistics, feedback and reviewing of the NHS and the schools. Which will inevitably mean even more bureaucrats to monitor it. Do you think nurses should nurse? So do I, but the government wants them to become managers (bureaucrats) too:

It will consider how nurses could develop their skills as leaders and managers such as being given more freedom to commission and run their own services.

I can imagine the scenario. Poor old boy in hospital bed: "Nurse, nurse, I think I've just coughed up a lung". Old boy in next bed shouts: "It's no good they're all on a management awayday looking at ethnic and disabled recruitment levels". But he wouldn't be in there in reality because they will be refusing to treat smokers by then to finance more managers!

And people in business complain about bureaucracy. Tell you what try being a teacher and then moan about bureaucracy and red tape. Yet again I've been considering teaching but not now, having seen what is involved, more and more bureaucracy and politically correct posturing.

Tell you what Gordon, if the government just let teachers, health professionals and others just get on with their jobs, instead of constantly tinkering, we may then have a health service and education system to be proud of again.

Parents and patients don't want to fill in evaluation and monitioring forms every time they fart, they just want to be confident that their schools and hospitals do the job which their ever spiralling taxes pay for. The less government does the more chance of that actually happening.

Sean Gabb's Book Reviewed

I have been having a bit of a sort out and found some old stuff I'd done. Below is a review I did last year of a book I still really enjoy dipping into, it's well worth giving another plug here:

Cultural Revolution and Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, by Sean Gabb (Hampden Press, London, 2007)

Sean Gabb is Director of the Libertarian Alliance and an economist who advocates the closure of economics departments in our universities. He has had more than a million words published and is a broadcaster as well as a writer.

His new book is not the run-of-the-mill attack on political correctness that many writers indulge in; he does not merely recycle tabloid headlines, but goes deep into the heart of the political revolution known as “political correctness” that is destroying our country. He then outlines his manifesto for counter-revolution, the cornerstone of which is unilateral withdrawal from the European Union. The ground is covered in 105 pages with not a word wasted and in a style that is extremely readable as well as enlightening, a rare quality in an academic. His words hit the target as effectively as an English bowman on St Crispin’s Day. Be warned, Dr Gabb pulls no punches and to many his medicine will seem extreme.

Even the charity world comes under Dr Gabb’s microscope. Many charities are vehicles for politically correct revolutionaries, but too many commentators shy away from criticising these “worthy” organisations. Not Sean Gabb: “…we should reform the charity laws, so that the only organisations able to claim charitable status would be those unambiguously devoted to feeding soup to tramps and looking after foundlings.” (p15).

Reading this book en route to a political meeting meeting in London, I laughed out loud on the train more than once, not because it is a comedy, but at the sheer courage and honesty of Dr Gabb’s observations. He truly does say what many people only dare think.

The book exposes the terrible manipulation of popular culture and the media to enhance further the politically correct revolution. Dr Gabb cites the TV soap opera Eastenders and the Radio 4 soap The Archers, where any similarity to real life has been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. In how many inner-city or rural farming communities would there be numerous same-sex, or mixed-race marriages? Furthermore, would not a single one prompt even mild criticism or objection from some locals?

The hope is expressed that once the frontiers of the state have been rolled back, newspapers such as The Guardian will close down because there will no longer be revenue from the thousands of public sector/politically correct jobs currently advertised in it that keep it afloat. A redundant Polly Toynbee would be a welcome bonus!

Dr Gabb admits that his stance on the legalisation of recreational drugs may not have the support of all, even all libertarians, but when there is an acceptance that a problem exists, and that current policies are clearly not working, then more radical solutions need to be considered. However he states quite clearly that: “It is not the business of the authorities to tell adults how to live – and especially how to behave in private” (p66). And finally, he advocates the abolition of all new criminal offences created since around 1960!

Whether you agree wholeheartedly with Sean Gabb, or agree with some of his philosophy, this book will certainly stimulate thought and discussion. It would make an excellent present for libertarian friends, or for politically correct friends whom you may wish to enrage. Either way, at £9.99 the book is extremely good value.

This, and other books by Sean Gabb, are available from:
The Hampden Press, Suite 35, 2 Lansdowne Row, London, W1J 6HL, or via: Hampden Press.

Legalise Drugs?

Every now and then an article jumps off the page and really hits you hard. I very rarely read the Independent but this article, by Ed Howker is a must if you are concerned at the never ending drug problem we have, not just in the UK but the world.

OK, like all lefties, he blames the world's ills on Thatcher and Reagan, with a pop at Nixon as he's in the news at the moment, but that aside, it's a very persuasive article. I have to admit that in our household, when it comes to drugs, there is a split. My wife is a very definite prohibitionist, I take the view that prohibition has failed, and failed badly. Prohibition of drugs, like prohibition of alcohol in the USA did, has just led to a spiralling associated crime problem.

It's time to think again.

Howard Marks has some interesting stuff on his website and links to groups associated with the legalisation issue.

Mandy Arrest Shock

Forgive me if I've missed something here, but it seems to be big news that the pinko liberal greenie veggie type who turned Mandelson's head into a trifle has been arrested. At a time when our politicians are so loathed I was amazed that the pinko wasn't nicked there and then.

But no, she could have also sprinkled hundreds and thousands on his head if she'd been properly organised. You would have expected security around HM's Business Minister, whatever his title is, to have had her pinned to the floor within seconds, for forgetting the jelly and cream if nothing else. But she just casually walked away and had a chat with a few TV reporters. The following says it all:

Lord Mandelson...told Andrew Marr that he was "slightly surprised" his attacker "could just saunter off without being apprehended".

That's scary, I actually agree with Mandy. Maybe all the security fellows were doubled up laughing like I was when I saw it.

But trust Jacqui Smith to come out with crap like this:

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told Sky News' Sunday Live programme: "I don't think in a democracy where people are able to speak up that anybody should chuck custard at anybody in the street. It's not appropriate."

Tell you what Jacqui, it's a damn sight more 'appropriate' than bombing the crap out of other countries.

Can't Be Bothered Today

I'm trying to get some writing done but can't really concentrate. I might just bugger it and watch Coventry v Chelsea. As I can't be bothered blogging either I will just stick the piece below on, no need for comment:

Action has been taken against parents who took their children out of school in protest over lessons on lesbian, gay and bisexual history, a council said.

Dozens of parents took children out of Leytonstone's George Tomlinson primary school, saying their children are too young to learn about such matters.

A Waltham Forest Council spokesman said that the absences were "unauthorised" and action has been taken.

Want A Laugh At Mandelson's Expense?

This is brilliant.

OK so the girl is a pinko liberal greenie veggie type. But I still keep watching it again, and again, and again......

He has such a smug look before the custard flies. Magic.

Even better here it is:

Friday Funday

At the moment the sun's shining, God's in his heaven and all's well with the world. So it's time for a bonus with a bit of Friday fun, starting with Peter Kay:



Then a bit more mellow with This Is How It Feels by Inspiral Carpets live in Glasgow:



Finally here is a tremendous interview with Morrissey, kicking Jonafan Woss and politicians. It was when he was promoting You Are The Quarry about three years ago, it really is worth a butchers:



And if you liked that here is the second part, where he talks about us, his fans. And there's a clip of Harry Hill doing Morrissey on Stars In Their Eyes:

North West Libertarian Blog

I am pleased to have been invited, by Citizen Stuart, to contribute to the North West Libertarian Blog.

I shall now put on my thinking cap in the hope of blogging a good one for my first post.

Mash The Swedes

We tend to think of Sweden as a liberal, tolerant and generally very civilized kind of place. But no, it is just as sick as any other decaying Western 'democracy' according to this report from an English language Swedish newspaper.

Israel puts up with Arabs firing bombs at her from Gaza and eventually, quite rightly, reacts in self-defence. Loonies in Sweden, and elsewhere, liken Gaza to South African apartheid or, even more ludicrously, the Warsaw ghetto. As a consequence the local authorities, where Sweden are due to play Israel in the Davis Cup, are refusing to open the tennis competition to the public in protest. There will be no spectators, how very tolerant. Good luck to Israel I say.

It reminds me of when I visited Guernica in Spain. Guernica is famous for being bombed in the Spanish Civil War, then becoming the subject of a painting by Picasso. It too is a cause celebre for the left, much as Gaza is today.

However, if you look into Guernica properly it was not the innocent picturesque little town, bombed to crap by evil fascists that the lefties make out. It was actually extremely wealthy because for decades, while Spain remained neutral, it produced the arms that fed the First World War and many others, including the Republican side in the civil war. Tough on Guernica I say, no sympathy whatsoever.

And in solidarity with Israel, we won't be having swedes with our Sunday dinner this week!!

Snickers, Mr T And Poofs

I'm not going to rattle on so please follow the link to T Bishop Finger's blog to see what a laughing stock the PC brigade have made of us throughout the world.

T Bishop Finger

Things Have Only Got Better?

I will never forget that awful night, or early morning, when we finally knew we had a Labour government again. Look what a mess we are in now.

But while many of us will suffer financially from the economic mess inevitable when a bunch of statist authoritarian nutters are in charge, spare a thought for the real victims of 'New Labour Same Old Results'.

I have a housebound mother-in-law thanks to neglect in an NHS hospital. Millions more have suffered at the hands of the NHS despite millions and millions of pounds spent, largely on bureaucrats.

The verdict is due on the psycho who killed a Harry Potter actor today. Remember too all those other victims of knife crime and other violent crime. But don't blame the uniformed busybodies in uniform they call PCSOs, if they run the other way when they see a crime it's only because they are human and untrained, meaning useless!

But the worst result of New Labour has to be the continuing disaster that is known as 'childrens services'. Here is a BBC report on that particular area of our national disaster.

One of the very few things government should do is to protect the most vulnerable. A consequence of this government's desire for power and control is an overbearing state, so expanded under New Labour that it is now terminally obese. When the state bureaucracy grows so powerful control and accountability disappear and inertia takes hold. This is what we now have, the bureaucracy protects the bureaucrats not the vulnerable.

The Spirit Of 1984

I like to keep abreast of public opinion by reading letters from the public, be it to newspapers, magazines or Teletext. The letter below is reproduced, with agreement from the scribbler, from today's Teletext letters:

The spirit of 1984 is alive

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas admits he tried to stop data being published by the Office for National Statistics regarding immigration saying the publication was, at worst, sinister.

Surely the only sinister move is the attempted banning of information, collected by a government department, by a government who wants to restrict what information the public is allowed to see. What next, book burning?

J B, Carnforth, Lancashire

Couldn't have put it better myself missus!

Morrissey-Years of Refusal

Morrissey's new one dropped through the letterbox this morning, so I've had a quick listen and it's a belter. I especially liked 'You Were Good In Your Time' and 'That's How People Grow Up'.

One critic has said it sounds too much like Morrissey. Idiot! If he sounded like Michael Jackson he'd be Michael Jackson, he sounds like Morrissey because he is actually Morrissey.

Roll on May and the Brixton Academy.

It's Kicking Off-Part III

I've done a couple of posts in recent weeks about the possibility of riots as things in the UK get worse, and there seems to be an increasing number of articles elsewhere also predicting civil disorder. The latest, today, is in the Daily Express. Inevitably class warriors, above is the front cover of Class War, will be preparing already.

With such an authoritarian government rumours of contingency plans involving mobilising the military should not be dismissed.

The news clip below is from June 2008 and predicts 30 years of riots, and that was before most of us knew quite how bad things were going to get.

It Could Only Be Italy

I love Italy, the people, the food and the wine. Until a couple of years ago I hadn't really spent any time there then, in 2007, we had a winter break in Val Gardena and a few weeks in the summer in Venice and Rome. Everything about Italy surpassed my expectations and this story about Italian MPs refusing to be fingerprinted doesn't surprise me in the least.

What really made me giggle was their reason for refusal. Not because they objected on grounds of civil liberties, or anything so noble. No, this was the reason given:

But some MPs are refusing to be fingerprinted, saying it will mean spending too much time in the chamber

.

It could only happen in Italy. Let's hope they never try to introduce the system here. The less time the buggers spend in Parliament the less time they have for mithering us with yet more intrusive, authoritarian legislation.

More Celtic Fascism

More bad news for the inhabitants of that social engineering laboratory they call Scotland. The SNP minority government is trying to introduce a minimum price per unit for alcohol. Not content with driving the electorate to drink, they are now going to try and bankrupt them too.

I'll bet the politicians will carry on guzzling single malt like there's no tomorrow though.

Full report here.