Blogging and Retreating

Off on a rearranged retreat, but with Franciscans rather than Benedictines as originally planned, so might not be able to blog for a few days. That might please many, but I'll be back in the bosom of my family on Thursday.

Here's a spot of Charlotte Church in the meantime:

Manchester City FC-Happy Anniversary!

We would like to wish Manchester City FC, their staff and supporters a very happy 34th anniversary today.

Considering they are such a massive club, with a massive council house ground, with massive curly stairways up the outside, a massive fan base with massive corner flags on their massive pitch, massive numbers of celebrity fans like Curly Watts and that singer Peter Kaye called a knobhead on the Brits, it really is an achievement to go 34 years without winning a trophy.

Then of course there is that famous boast that "Ciddee fans are all Mancunians, Trafford United fans are all Cockneys", so following, from the MCFC supporters' club website, are just some of their Manchester based supporters' clubs. Or are they?

Bath & Wiltshire
Belfast
Blackpool And Fylde
Bolton
Brantwood Belfast
Carlisle & District
Cheadle
Coleraine
Cookstown
Cork
County Wicklow
Dubai
Dublin
Dukinfield
Dundalk
Gloucester & Cheltenham
Greece
Guernsey
Hazel Grove
Isle Of Man
Lincoln
Mcfc America
Milton Keynes
New York City
Northenden (Trafford)
South West
Southport
Spanish Blue Moon
Stretford & Urmston (Trafford)
Sussex
Thailand
Thames Valley
Warrington
Woodside

My word, Manchester has expanded faster than Germany under Adolf Hitler. Wonder if there is now incessant drizzle in Dubai? And is there a Metrolink that runs to Thailand from St Peter's Square?

Anyway happy 34th anniversary MCFC and here's to the next 34 years. Hope you all enjoy this:

Van Rompuy and Nigel Farage-Behind The Scenes

Nigel slithered along a dark, windowless corridor, deep in the labyrinthine mass of a dark, characterless building, in a dark colourless city in Europe. He instinctively knew when he had to stop. He looked to his left, knocked once and entered when he heard his master beckon.

He sat in the upright chair facing his master who, after finishing signing a 600,000 word document with a flourish of his right hand, looked up, pushed his gold rimmed glasses up his nose and said:

"Neil Farage, you are a wicked, wicked man. But very good. Very, very good. Only you could pull that off".

"Oh, you know, Hercule, sorry I mean Herbert, I did enjoy that, you know".

"Well, so you should young Neil. You attacked me so effectively but, you know, I did worry, at one point, you hadn't been nasty enough. But you did it, you pulled it off".

"But, you know Herbert, it was so difficult, balancing an attack on you the way I did. The hardcore 'Eurosceptics' love pure venom against you Mr President, but the mild 'Eurodoubters', you know, don't like the nasty stuff, like that chap from Plaid Cymru on the BBC Question Time. You know, he was definitely sceptical about my 'attack', should we say, on you Mr President".

" And so, Neil, he should have been, that was your mission. To attack me in order to please the 'Little Englanders' but to make all those who question our project scared that they will also look like 'Little Englanders'. People in your country, sorry region, hate the venom in your little so-called parliament in Westminster so you, Neil, attack me in a way that makes me look all hurt and vulnerable, another victim of nasty parochial British parasite politicians. Yet again, you made us Europeans look civilised and cultured. You, by contrast, made your 'Eurosceptics' look like small minded, nasty Little Englander buffoons".

"Thank you Mr President, that means a great deal to me".

"No, no, Neil, your Machiavellian mind is perfect for us. Or would be, if you didn't keep getting my damned name wrong. It is Herman you damned fool, not Hercule or Herbert. Guard, Olaf, take this fool away!".

Olaf the guard enters to drag a grovelling Neil away.

"But Hercule, Herbert, Herman or whatever, what's in a name? It's the cause that matters. I have spent all my life, well, since 1999 when I started earning big bucks anyway, working to further the project and......".

"And now, Neil Farage, you have served your purpose. Olaf, take him away. And the fool thinks he can win in Barkingham, Berkingham or wherever. Deluded fool".

"Please Mr President, I'm not Neil, not Neil, I'm Nigel, Nigel Farage".

"Very well Olaf, take Nigel, Nigel Farage away. He has served his purpose".

Don't Believe We Live In A Police State?

Thanks to Old Holborn.



The Love Police are well worth a visit.

Things That Piss Me Off!

Here's a list of things that currently turn me into a grumpy old man:

Mothers who let their kids run wild in the supermarket as if it's a playground. It's a shop you stupid bags!

Drivers who sit in the middle lane on the motorway. We drive on the left you gits!

Motorists who speed up to 90mph as you overtake them, then drop back to 60mph again when you've passed. Grow up prats!

Government propaganda adverts on the TV, it's like the USSR. Piss off Gordon!

Piers Morgan and any misfit who goes on TV with him. Up against that wall and here's your last fag!

Traffic police. Get a proper job you tits!

Speed cameras and most, if not all, traffic lights. Let's blow 'em up!

Russell Howard. He gets me so 'effin angry!!

Socialists. Off to Cuba you misfits!

Champagne socialists. Here, drown in this vat of bubbles!

Cafes that can't do a decent cooked breakfast. Piss off and just offer tea and toast, if you can get that right!

Prats who slag off politicians then want the state to do everything. Pillocks!

Those who stupidly welcome the state enslaving us ever more with the words: "Well, if it saves us from terrorists it's fine by me". Fuck off to Cuba!

Professional immigrants like Yasmin Alibai Brown and that black fella, what's his name? Darcus Howe, he's the one. If we're all so horrible and racist how come you've done so bloody well you pair of bastards?

This government, the next government, and probably the one after that, at least. Self serving bastards!

Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott with Andrew Neill. The most smug, patronising, mutual arse licking trio of knobs in the world today!

Anti-racists and racists, two sides of the same coin. Just leave us to get on with each other for God's sake!

Michael Moore. Fat, patronising, self-serving hypocritical scum!!

Manchester City fans who claim that "real Mancunians support City and United aren't even in Manchester". 34 years!

Hazel Blears. Short arsed, patronising, self-serving hypocritical ginger scum!!

That was very therapeutic, but I suspect there's a lot more. Feel free to send in things that really get up your goat.

The Falklands/Las Malvinas

The rumpus over the Falklands brings back some memories, mostly from the year of the conflict 1982, and then when I was in Argentina with Mrs B in 1991. Nine years seemed like a lifetime then, it's gone in a flash now.

The weekend in 1982 that the Argentinian invasion was being discussed in Parliament I was at a Freedom Association meeting at the Commonwealth Club in London. One of the senior figures, a retired Rear Admiral I think, kept popping back from the House of Lords to update us on the debates. It was incredibly exciting and all of us there sensed being at the heart of a great event that would live long in our history.

Soon after I was responsible for organising a counter demo to an anti-war demo in Manchester led by, amongst others, the then MP for Manchester Central Bob Litherland, one of their more left-wing MPs as I remember. There were some pretty unsavoury characters on the anti-war march including Sinn Fein and the National Union of Mineworkers and scuffles were breaking out all along the route of the march as counter demonstrators, our numbers swelled by sympatetic members of the public, became increasingly angry and vociferous. Several arrests were made, even among our Young Conservative ranks!

Now it's time to fast forward to 1991. We had been working in Mexico in 1990 then set off travelling, mainly overland, down Central and around South America. We had been warned by other travellers that British tourists were still being given a hard time in Argentina over 'Las Malvinas'. But we wanted to see the country so decided to go anyway.

We took an overnight train from La Paz in Bolivia and the following day arrived in Argentina to be greeted, at the border, by huge billboards proclaiming 'Las Malvinas son Agentinas'. Of course they aren't, and never will be, unless our forces are so overstretched fighting illegal wars of aggression we can no longer defend our own territory. The next time we saw the Malvinas billboards were round the docks of Buenos Aires.

We spent about three weeks in Argentina and came across absolutely no animosity at all from anybody, be that local people, immigration officials, hotel staff or anybody else. The people were without exception friendly and hospitable, and the steaks are the best you will find anywhere in the world, worth the trip for the steaks alone.

We met one man who, we discovered during a conversation, had been taken prisoner in the Falklands by the Paras. I must admit this information did make me gulp as I wondered how he felt then about his experience nearly 10 years earlier. He just smiled and told me that they should never try anything like that again if for one reason only. His only reason was that in his view we British are all crazy people. He meant it in the nicest possible way, after all who expected us to send a taskforce to the South Atlantic and kick the arse of a military dictator? Not the Argentinians that's for sure.

So its with a strange sense of deja vu that many of us are keeping an eye on the current developments in the South Atlantic. It's amazing what hated, authoritarian governments will do when there is oil about and they are suffering in the opinion polls. Isn't it Tony and Gordon?

Wonder who more resembles the deperate despot General Galtieri, Gordon Brown or Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner? It's Gordon Brown for me.

Classic Pop Music and Nostalgia

It's hard to believe that this classic was a hit in 1968, it feels like only a few years ago. The fact that it only got to No 8 in the charts is another surprise, I really thought it had reached No 1, it certainly should have done.



And for complete nostalgia freaks here is a clip of the song featured in the Nimble TV ad of the early 1970s



All about The Honeybus

Gordon Brown-Assisted Suicide

No, I'm not about to suggest legalising assisted suicide so we can see Gordon Brown off, tempting though that may be. I am actually referring to an article I was pleased to read in today's Telegraph by Gordon Brown opposing the legalisation of assisted suicide.

Over a million people marched against the Iraq war carrying placards proclaiming 'Not In My Name', where are they now? Would you be happy to lie in a hospital bed and have some pillock like Ray Gosling, or anybody else for that matter, creep in and smother you with a pillow then, years later go on TV sobbing like a fourth rate Hollywood actor telling the world how he committed murder, your murder? If indeed Gosling did commit murder and isn't just on some mad PR stunt to sell his book.

Why do so many people oppose the death penalty for child murderers, but want the state to introduce it for the sick or terminally ill? At the moment I am pretty healthy, and share the view of many terminally ill people I have met through my work, that a terminal illness is cutting short a life so why cut it even shorter?

Having said that I am not terminally ill. Faced with a long painful death I might think differently. If that day came I would discuss it with my wife, and vice versa as we have already discussed in very general terms, and we would then agree on a course of action. We would then take responsibility and, if it came to it, hope that whichever one of us was left behind would be treated mercifully by the authorities. That would be our decision, it would be up to us to deal with it and we would not hide behind the state, or want our action to be approved by the state.

The last thing we need is the nationalisation of death.

FC United of Manchester-Rally 27 February

FC United of Manchester will be holding a rally before their home game on Saturday at Gigg Lane, Bury. With Portsmouth FC pointing the way that many more clubs will inevitably follow, there is a need for real football fans, whichever club you support, to stand up and be counted. Let's be honest, if even United and Liverpool fans are considering the possibility of a joint demo at the game next month, then radical moves really are afoot and desperately needed.

Below is all the information about Saturday's event currently on the FC United website:

On Saturday 27th February, before our home game against North Ferriby United, FC United will host a supporters’ rally aimed at putting supporter ownership at the very centre of the debate on the future of the game.

Alongside our own speakers, guests will include Guardian journalist David Conn, representatives from Schalke FC and Supporters Direct. Two other high profile European sides have also been invited and we await their confirmation. It is also hoped that groups from English clubs affected by the escalating debt in the game, will be in attendance.

Football is at a critical juncture, with the need for clear leadership and regulation never more evident. An alternative model of how the game is structured has never been more needed with supporter ownership absolutely fundamental to that model.

FC United is part of that debate, an example of that alternative and with our guests and friends that will join us on the day we aim to make the point that supporter ownership is the only way forward.

Join us on the 27th, 12 noon, Gigg Lane Social Club - Free Entry

Please try and support the rally on Saturday and here is the Love United Hate Glazer website.

Alex Ellis Roswell-Libertarian Party

There are countless reasons for people becoming politically active, the overwhelming majority are well intentioned and honourable. How far the well intentioned and honourable can go under our current system is another issue.

Recently the Libertarian Party were extremely pleased to welcome to our ranks Alex Ellis Roswell, Alex's blog is Alex Ellis Roswell LPUK. Alex is standing in the local elections in Canterbury and will be the country's youngest candidate. I invited Alex to do a guest post on my blog about joining the Libertarian Party.

Following is his very personal account of what led him into politics, and the Libertarian Party.

I got actively involved with Politics at the age of 16 because I had a passion. My passion was to see positive change happen in my lifetime. Something totally different. To understand how I ended up with this passion and involved with The Libertarian Party, you must first understand where I come from.

I was born in Margate, Kent to a divorced Mother. My Mum. A legend and an inspirational person in my life. She worked and struggled every hour of the day to give me the best upbringing possible in what was a pretty harsh environment to live in. When I was 9 years old she met and married someone equally as special to me. My Step Dad. We moved out to live with him just before they got married. He lived in a beautiful village 30 miles away, just outside of the as beautiful city of Canterbury. He was healthy, middle aged and working for the ambulance service. That was until a year or so later, when his health took an irreversible turn for the worse. He suffered a major heart attack which was to be one of 3 in the coming years, and a mere drop in the ocean compared to his strokes some years later. Needless to say he was forced out of work. My Mum had left work and became his full time carer. Through all of my teenage life I lived in a household totally dependent on the Government and the Welfare System.

I saw the struggle of my Mum and Dad to be financially independent. I saw them fail and forced to accept Government “help”. I saw them struggling to pay for food and bills with what the Government dictated they have. I have spent my whole life witnessing a struggle for independence. An independence from Government, the Welfare System and the hold over people’s lives that these institutions currently have.

This constant struggle led me to hold very Liberal beliefs. What if my Mum and Dad hadn’t been forced to pay taxes all their lives? What if they had been able to save enough money up during their working lives, to be independent when life turned sour? What if things could change? How can I personally make things change? These were all questions that were (and still are) racing around my head like a greyhound on a dusty race track.

This is what created my passion for positive change and a totally renewed direction. My first experience of Politics was in The UK Independence Party. I spent nearly a year with them helping at different elections and meeting some truly great people. That was until it finally hit me that UKIP were in fact far from the Libertarian party they purported to be and were steaming towards a head on collision with the Authoritarian Right of Politics.

This brought me to The Libertarian Party. A party I had heard much about, but never given any serious consideration to. It wasn’t until I fully read their manifesto, their beliefs and their vision and then compared them to the other parties that I decided to make the plunge and put my support and faith with them. The Libertarian Party represents a breath of fresh air in the current dull and stale political landscape of the UK. They represent not a half hearted “change” but a true change in direction. I believe LPUK will become a strong voice for all true liberals and people who believe in freedom, democracy and liberty.

Alex Ellis Roswell

Geraldine Smith MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale

As a general election approaches it's important that the spotlight is turned on MPs seeking re-election as well as PPCs. Yesterday I posted about my local MP, Geraldine Smith, and the story of her guzzling champagne in a drinking contest with another champagne socialist MP. Today I reproduce an article about her expenses from the Lancashire Evening Post.

Morecambe and Lunesdale MP Geraldine Smith left taxpayers with a dry cleaning bill of more than £700.
The MP's allowance receipts from 2004/5 to 2007/8 reveal she claimed more than £14,000 for food and more than £3,000 for furnishings.

Ms Smith also claimed more than £1,000 to buy newspapers over four years and £424.99 on a Sony camera.

Among the items claimed to furnish her home were a £235 picture, a £249 table lamp, a £185 mirror and £224 on "kitchen equipment" such as pots and pans.

She spent £210 on a table, £173.60 on bed linen and £42 on cups and glasses. £186 was spent on cushions and a further £148 on bedspreads, sheets and pillows.

Her biggest claim came as part of her communications allowance when she claimed for £4,042 for preparing a questionnaire and letter on the Heysham M6 Link, which was delivered to 30,000 homes in her constituency.

One claim from November 2005 was for £650 for meals.
The MP also claimed £728.30 on taxi journeys.

Morecambe and Lunesdale MP Geraldine Smith said: "If you look over the four years (furniture) is quite a small percentage. I didn't get a flat in 1997, I lived in hotels for five years."

On her dry cleaning costs, she said: "There are extra additional costs when you are away from home. It was a legitimate expense."

She added she felt the large sum spent on the questionnaire and letter about the M6 Link was justified because she was fighting for a real cause. She added: "The problem with a lot of these expenses is they have been abused by some people.

"But if there is an issue to write to people about...I don't think that is a waste of money."

And according to They Work For You she has never voted on a transparent Parliament. Voted moderately for introducing ID cards. Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws. Voted very strongly for the Iraq war and voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.

Geraldine Smith MP, Champagne Socialist?

I wonder if excessive champagne consumption makes your hair change colour.

If you've found your way here before you might have read that I upset MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, Geraldine Smith, last year. She was so upset she phoned my home when I was away last November and rather nastily ranted at my parents that she was going to sue me. Such a nice girl.

She has developed some expensive tastes has our Jezza and, according to today's Mail on Sunday, champagne is one of them. Even if she does allegedly pour it into plant pots. You see in this article in the Mail on Sunday she is alleged, by a couple of fellow Labour MPs, to have become involved in a champagne slurping contest with another prat MP, Bill "Loadsamoney" Etherington, famous left-wing champagne guzzler.

This is how the article starts:

Two Labour MPs took part in a champagne drinking contest on an official Commons junket to Paris, which led to one of them being violently ill.
Left-winger Bill Etherington drank so much that a doctor was called.

It was feared the MP might die after he defeated fellow Labour MP Geraldine Smith in the expenses-fuelled boozing competition.

I don't have a problem with people having drinking competitions but at least pay for the booze yourself and don't do it when you are representing your country. But we all know that MPs are complete shites who think pissing taxpayers money down a drain, or projectile vomitting it against a Parisien wall, is fine.

But in defence of the indefensible prat Etherington, there are certain morals involved in drinking competitions. Even worse than making a complete prat of yourself, and shaming your country into the bargain, is being a spineless shite who pretends to be drinking while the other person gets worse, and worse and, in his case, so much worse that a doctor has to be called. Now a person who does that is a complete and utter shit who deserves to be forced to gulp a couple of bottles of whisky in short order, followed by a good long stomach pump as a forfeit.

More on Bill Etherington here.

Please follow links below to read more about Geraldine Smith.

But below is her voting record on key issues (from They Work For You), not particularly impressive in my opinion:

Has never voted on a transparent Parliament.
Voted a mixture of for and against introducing a smoking ban.
Voted moderately for introducing ID cards.
Voted a mixture of for and against introducing foundation hospitals.
Voted moderately against introducing student top-up fees.
Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
Has never voted on replacing Trident.
Voted very strongly for the hunting ban.
Voted moderately against equal gay rights.
Voted moderately against laws to stop climate change.

Tiger, Terry and Playing Away

What a sad sign of the times that Tiger Woods had to appear before the world's media grovelling and whining like a dog about to be put down. He makes a fortune from a game that should only really be played by middle aged businessmen licking the arses of their clients, then plays away from home in the trouser department. Big deal.

He should have been left to patch things up, or not, with Mrs Tiger then left to get on with his life. But in these puritanical days there has been a media obsession with the naughty lad that could only be eased by him appearing in sack cloth and ashes grovelling publicly to his wife, family and that bloke at 10 Acacia Avenue, Surbiton who he'd upset by having a sly shag or ten.

In the middle of the Tiger affair (sorry) the media turned its attention to former England captain John Terry. He shagged a French woman. As if that's not bad enough for an Englishman, an English football captain indeed, she was also the ex-girlfriend of a former teammate at Chelsea. Ex-girlfriend note. The only person who needed to know the ins and outs (sorry again) was Mrs Terry.

Now Mrs Terry, living in a mansion in Surrey with a hubby who earns over £100,000 a week was whisked off by said hubby to Dubai by way of an apology. Mrs Terry must be very understanding, and must love the extremely wealthy Mr Terry an awful lot, because she forgave him. And in a display of emotion she couldn't even hide from the press photographers she cuddled him by the pool of their £1000 a night hotel as a sign of genuine love and true forgiveness. The fact that she was probably a minimum wage checkout girl at Woolies Dagenham before they met is irrelevant.

What these incidents say is that the West really is in the shit when these two stories have been so prominent. The media are only giving the punters what they want and one radio station ran a poll, the result was that most listeners thought the John Terry story was more important than coverage of Afghanistan.

What was that saying about bread and circuses?

Paloma Faith

Independents, Independence And Alliances

There seems to be a growing feeling that politics is full of nutters, which attracts people of an independent persuasion to try and make a difference. This is a good thing in my view but too many of the people who find politicians of the mainstream to be nutters, and want to displace them, are even bigger nutters themselves.

Many such nutters were formally members of mainstream parties, but were found to be a little too eccentric and scared the voters. Others became tired of the slimy self-seekers in the mainstream parties and got out, seeking something politically purer. Some are so obsessive about a single issue that they got out to start a single issue party/pressure group. Others, so full of ego and vanity and a generous dose of insanity, were convinced that they had been stopped from becoming Prime Minister after two years activity because internal opponents, or security service operatives or both, had been conspiring against them, so they hopped it.

There are also a goodly proportion who are not nutters at all. They are extremely genuine, able and honest and only left the mainstream parties because those parties changed. They changed to such an extent that they had to leave in order to start or join a party that they actually believed in again, or to fight as independents. It is virtually impossible for a few capable, honest, hardworking party members to fight and defeat the huge professional forces of the major parties. If you doubt that look how the professional Labour party castrated the Labour movement.

The forthcoming general election is likely to see a record number of independent candidates and smaller, newer parties. Sadly, I also suspect that they will face meltdown as people desperately vote to get Labour out or to keep the Tories out. The media is virtually a closed shop, protecting the position of the big three while putting up a seemingly impenetrable barrier around the smaller parties and independents. Unless you are a political and media whore like Martin Bell of course.

Part of the problem for smaller parties is the single issue tag. It's one thing for the Greens, UKIP and the BNP to win seats in the EU elections, that is the election where hardened Tories and Labourites kick their parties in the pants, it's another for them to win seats in Westminster. I would put my house on none of those three winning a solitary seat on May 6th. The main reason being the Green Party is seen as nutty environmentalists, UKIP is seen as obsessively Eurosceptic and the BNP are seen as dangerous racists. They appeal to far too narrow an interest group and people in general elections vote on a range of issues, education, health, law and order and many more.

So the small groups, parties and independents then realise that breaking the monopoly of the three tired old parties is not easy. Up pops 'the alliance'. So our independents and small parties pretty soon realise that to achieve anything they need to go down a road that inevitably makes them bigger, forces them to work with lots of other people and effectively sets them off towards becoming political parties. But that's another argument.

What set me off in this train of thought was a recent chat with a friend about a new alliance that had been formed to act as an umbrella for independents in the May 6th election. So I've had a look around and below is a list of current alliances that I have been able to identify. There is even an alliance including New Veritas! Although New Veritas looks identical to the loonytunes outfit that split from UKIP, complete with boasts about being founded by Kilroy Silk. Or should that be by 'New Kilroy Silk'?

So, here is my list of alliances fighting the general election with candidates, some sticking to the party names others sing the name of the alliance:

Alliance for Democracy

Independent Leave-the-EU Alliance

Independent Network

There is also a huge array of alliances, networks and other pressure groups trying to get candidates to speak out on a whole range of issues but I'm not going into them all.

So if you don't have the good fortune to have a Libertarian Party candidate to vote for, a quick look at some of the alliances above might be helpful. Or at least some of them will give you a good giggle!

Age, Smoking, Drinking and Exercise

Taking a bit of fresh air this morning I saw an elderly fella staggering and wheezing down the canal towpath towards me. As he got closer I could see he was well into his 70s, glowing red, sweating and doing about 1 MPH. Seriously worried for him I asked if he was OK, he stopped, bent down with his hands on his knees and said: "I'm out for me morning jog, you should try it porky".

To say I was taken aback is putting it mildly, to such an extent that I just left him, no witty retort or torrent of abuse, and carried on walking. At least I don't have people checking I'm not about to die when I do go out for a spot of exercise is the best I could muster, and I just thought it as I walked away.

But it made me think, and I remember a few years back a colleague telling me about her husband, two years younger than me and without a hard earned beer belly and smokers cough. She was urging me to 'look after myself' and to think about doing some jogging, even a marathon or two like her husband. My feeling was sod that, you don't get St John's Ambualance and emergency doctors sitting around in pubs the way they line the route of a marathon. He died three years ago, just after I'd given up smoking.

Every now and then I wonder whether I should start smoking again, just to be on the safe side. It's especially good with a nice glass of Laphroaigh.

The End Of Trial By Jury?

There is yet another attack on our freedoms and liberty with a study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, reported here, into trial by jury.

The Ministry of Justice study, based on 69,000 jury verdicts conducted over the past 18 months, found men were less likely than women to listen to arguments and change their mind when they hear evidence.

The study, carried out by Prof Cheryl Thomas, from University College London, found that juries in rape cases convict more often than they acquit.

Based on almost 552,000 charges and interviews with nearly 800 jurors, it is expected to lead to an overhaul of the criminal justice system.

In reality this is the precursor to politically correct tampering with the jury system, if not its complete abolition. The study is effectively saying that juries are made up of different people, in different areas, from different backgronds so is therefore wrong and needs reforming. But they put in couched terms such as:

The study, published on Wednesday, found that Crown Court convictions rates were a postcode lottery.

The point is that a jury is a complete lottery with random selection, that is its strength and its indepoendence. If juries regularly go against the directions of a judge, isn't that also the point? That the people can decide the judiciary are wrong? That the people rule supreme? Not in our ever tightening police state it seems.

This report effectively says, yet again, that the people are nitwits, the state knows best so you lot can bugger off. How very New Labour/New Conservative.

Lou Reed-Heavenly Arms

From the great man's 1982 album Blue Mask.

Calling Climate Change Deniers

If, like me, you get pissed off at being slagged off as a 'climate change denier' for not being a gullible idiot then there is a Downing Street petition just for you.

The Prime Minister has chosen to give his full backing and support to the case for Anthropogenic Global Warming. That is his right as an individual and that right is part of the constitution of this country. The Prime Minister does not have the right to insult millions of British people by describing them as "deniers", a particularly hateful and emotive insult, because they do not share his view. Recently Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, said “I don’t think it’s healthy to dismiss proper scepticism. Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can’t be changed.” In spite of this, and significant evidence to show that there is indeed much in doubt, the Prime Minister continues to issue his insults.

Please sign the petition at 10DowningStreet.gov.uk

Those Loveable Scousers

It's nice to see even the police coming a cropper under the weight of stupid regulations being brought in by New Labour.

The arrest of a teenager in Liverpool for stealing a car, no surprise there then, could land police in court for illegally using an unmanned flying surveillance drone. But the police may have committed a criminal offence not having permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly its new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

Officers used the UAV, which is equipped with thermal imaging cameras, to pursue two suspects travelling in a stolen car in Bootle in January. But they appear to have overlooked legislation brought in to address concerns about the safety implications of flying unmanned aircraft in built-up areas.

A spokesman said: "Since the force has known of the change in regulations, all UAV flights have been suspended and will remain so until the appropriate licence has been granted."

Shame the thing wasn't shot down, but it seems Scousers only shoot each other.

The BNP, Gordon Brown and Black Sunday

The police have had to erect anti-crush barriers outside today's special meeting of the BNP to hold back the crowds of black people desperate to be allowed to join the party (pictured left).

The meeting has been forced on the BNP by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, upset that so many ethnic minorites, desperate to join the far-right, racist party have until now been denied the privilege and honour because of a clause in the party's constitution. Soon we will be able to look forward to a Patel, Singh, Fu or even a Drogba leading the BNP.

Or can we? On a serious note doesn't this whole charade show the State and its quangos and henchmen up for the completely fatuous deadheads that many of us have known them to be for a long time?

Do the equal rights fascists really think that black people will be joining the BNP in droves once they are forced to accept ethnic minority members? Do they really think that ethnic minorities will be welcomed with open arms and encouraged to build stunning careers as BNP councillors or even the BNP's first ever MP?

No, this move is another fatuous gesture from a bunch of politically correct poseurs. I'd prefer the BNP to continue refusing membership to ethnic minorities, at least then it is even clearer to decent people that they are not a party that we should touch with a bargepole.


Then later tonight we have the unedifying prospect of watching the biggest prat on TV, Piers Morgan, interviewing the biggest prat in world politics, Gordon Brown. As if that isn't enough to make you turn over, or turn off, then the prospect of Gordon sobbing like a big girl on national TV (pictured left being comforted by Piers Morgan) will surely have you reaching for the remote, if not the sleeping pills and a bottle of whisky.

Whatever happened to the dignity of politicians, especially the office of Prime Minister? In my opinion Gordon Brown's appearance on TV tonight, like some teenage wannabe desperate for fame is demeaning, vulgar, ill advised and is far worse than even the actions of those politicians who have claimed the odd dodgy grand or two here or there in their already overblown expenses.

Another black Sunday under New Labour.

Another Attack on Christianity

Nadia Eweida has lost her appeal against a ruling which cleared British Airways of discrimination by stopping her wearing a cross visibly at work. Three judges refused to overturn a decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal that she was not a victim of indirect religion or belief discrimination.

What next the burqa, the Muslim or 'idealogical' beard as Turkey did a few years ago,the turban or even the wedding ring?

As political correctness tightens its grip, in the interests of 'diversity' and 'equality', I feel more and more that I am living in a bloody awful Oliver Cromwell style puritanical theme park.

Homophobia and Football

I was unfortunate enough to catch the headline in the Independent this morning as I went out to buy my preferred morning newspaper, which is not the Independent or The Grauniad. The headline that caught my eye was "Football accused in homophobia row". Now I'm a football fanatic and take offence at being accused in this way by a rag like the Independent, because as a supporter I am certainly tarred with the Independent's brush (hope that's not seen as racist).

Isn't this the newspaper that takes pride in attacking people for blanket attacks such as 'the French smell of garlic' or 'old peope smell of wee' or 'Muslims are terrorists'. Making sweeping statements like that is wicked and to be discouraged, unless it is made by the politicaly correct against its enemies it seems.

So the truth is that the FA wants to make a video against homophobia but certain players and their agents said they didn't want to take part. Hence they are homophobic, indeed not just those who said 'no' but the whole of football, meaning Wayne Rooney, the women's football teams and little Tommy kicking a ball around in his under-9s team in the local park.

But why do they want to make a video against homophobia? Well, like the politically correct in all things they reach a conclusion, usually aimed at dividing and ruling, then set out to justify their conclusion. In the Independent piece they cite the case of Justin Fashanu as galloping homophobia in football. They claim that, as one of the first openly gay players, he was driven to suicide in 1998 by taunts and prejudice. Forgive me but he went to play and coach in the USA after his career here ended, not discriminated aganst there on grounds of sexuality. He committed suicide after allegations of sexual offences against a 17 year old boy in his care in the States. Tragedy yes, homophobia I doubt.

I am aware of more cases of footballers involved in domestic abuse than of players, or indeed fans, being involved in homophobic incidents. I am unaware though, of the FA making a video against that. I am also aware that the FA have somebody called Peter Clayton, who chairs the FA's Homophobia in Football advisory group and is the FA's only openly gay councillor. Homophobia didn't stop him getting on in football did it? I wonder who chairs the FA's Domestic Violence in Football advisory group?

I have heard that one senior Manchester United player is rumoured to be gay. There have been absolutely no taunts from the terraces and no sick comments in bars that I am aware of.

Contrast that with the treatment of John Terry for having an affair with a woman. He has received some vile abuse in games since his affair was exposed. I look forward to watching the FA's anti-heterophobia video soon.

Labour and Immigration

It has been obvious for decades that Labour, and socialists generally, have used, abused and manipulated immigration and race for their own cynical ends. It is refreshing now that the politically correct wall of protection around multiculturalism is starting to crumble and, to some extent, free speech is being restored.

What has brought about this change is the unhealthy and irresponsible rise in immigration since New Labour came to power, coupled with the European Union's open borders. Immigration has been vital to the development of the UK over centuries and was inevitable when you consider our ties with Commonwealth countries from the former Empire.

What socialists have done is used immigration to divide and rule. A high proportion of ethnic minorites do traditionally vote Labour, which is one reason why Labour and socialists generally encourage uncontrolled immigration. But inevitably when there is a reasonable level of immigration those migrants, and their families, assimilate and in many cases will turn to other political parties as they become more and more integrated into national life. Integration doesn't suit socialists, because socialists thrive on conflict.

They welcome new migrants with the offer of protection from the evils of British life and some of it's supposed nastier elements. Much the same as it does by cutting other people in society off into splinters from the mainstream, such as gays and disabled people. 'Wimmin' are downtrodden, in charges Harriet Harperson to champion their cause. Where no 'equality issues' exist, create them. Create the threat, perceived or otherwise, proclaim yourself the protector and they will become dependent upon you to look after them.

In that vein there was a very intersting article in today's Daily Telegraph Online by Ed West. The article is about the discovery of Labour's plan to encourage irresponsible immigration in order to attack the non-socialist mainstream of British politics in the most cynical and inhuman fashion. Here is an extract:

The document released yesterday suggested that Labour originally pursued a different direction. It was published under the title “Migration: an economic and social analysis” but the removal of significant extracts suggested that officials or ministers were nervous over references to “social objectives”.

The original paper called for the need of a new framework for thinking about migration policy but the concluding phrase — “if we are to maximise the contribution of migration to the Government’s economic and social objectives” — was edited out.

Another deleted phrase suggested that it was “correct that the Government has both economic and social objectives for migration policy”.

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said the document showed that Mr Neather (former government speech writer), who claimed ministers wanted to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, had been correct in his account of Labour’s immigration policy.

The following extract is also interesting as so many people on the left sneer if the term 'indigenous British' is ever used:

It is almost impossible to exaggerate what a revolution Britain has undergone in the past dozen years, a demographic change not just unprecedented in our history, but in almost any country’s. This island was quite fantastically undiverse until recently – before the Second World War between 70 and 75 per cent of British DNA had been British for 13000 years, and later migrations made a neglible impact, with even the largest and most culturally influential, the Anglo-Saxon invasion, comprising only about 4 per cent of British DNA. Last year a quarter of births in England were to foreign mothers.

I use that quote not to profess support for some form of racially purity, that idea is absurd, but to demonstrate that everybody especially the left, need to face the facts and not shirk the realities. There is such a thing as 'Britishness' and an 'indigenous' population, the word 'indigeous' does not only apply in Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in the world, it also still applies in the decadent West that the left loathe so much.

What I always find interesting about people of a left-wing multicultural persuasion is the level of their sheer hypocrisy. One thing that gets me is their use of the term 'native American', as if people whose forebears have been there a mere 250 or 100 years are not actually 'native'. Then they attack people who question the 'Britishness' of people whose families arrived in the UK in the '60s or '70s.

In the same vein why is Obama constantly referred to as 'First African-American President' rather than plain old President Obama? Isn't that setting him apart from others, therefore racist?

Similarly why do so many on the left worship multiculturalism as a marvellous improvement in the UK and the West generally, but hate and detest it elswhere? The Swiss should build mosques in Switzerland but McDonald's style imperialism is pure evil when their 'restaurants' appear all over the world destroying, apparently, local culture and customs.

They love the exoticism of places like Brick Lane, with it's profusion of Bangladeshi restaurants and shops, but deplore Benidorm because British holiday culture has ruined the Spanishness of the place. I prefer to avoid Benidorm myself and love Brick Lane, but each to his own. The left don't see the hypocrisy of their positions on so many of these issues.

Under the current overbearing state and its excessive welfare provision reasonable immigration control is necessary, based purely on numbers and resources. In an ideal world there will be free movement of people, but we will only move to places where we know we can sustain ourselves and our families and live financially independently of others, or more accurately other states. Until that day we must fight the exploitation of race and immigration by the left and the right, two sides of the same coin in reality.

Ultimately the left have known for many years that the West will not fall to socialist revolutionaries. Instead they use the tactics of political correctness, instill self-loathing and self-hatred that destroys a nation's culture and institutions then, with the minimum of bloodshed, build your alternative society.

Ali Dizaei-A Politically Correct Icon Demolished

It was good to hear the news about Ali Dizaei, the London copper who was a right bastard but worshipped by the racist Black Police Officers Association, getting his comeuppance. Here is what was said about him:

Nick Hardwick, head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which investigated the case, said that Dizaei was “a criminal in uniform” and “a bully”.

The problem with Dizaei was that he had become an icon of political correctness and always had black and race obsessed organisations on his side when he was in the shit. Dizaei played on this and seemd to think that his skin colour and ethnicity put him beyond the law. He even had his own website glorifying his career and 'activism'. Vainglorious prick. Ironically he has gone off to chokey for smacking his web designer and then faking evidence against him, sweet irony.

But even after all that, the politically correct racists are still at it:

But the NBPA (National Black Police Association), for which Dizaei was a vocal spokesman, expressed surprise at his conviction. Charles Crichlow, the president, said that it was “clearly an extremely difficult and traumatic period for Dr Dizaei and his family”.

Throughout his years of disciplinary problems the divisive loonies of the NBPA have used the old myth of 'racism' to defend him. Let's just hope he uses his time in chokey, slopping out a few times a day I hope, to ponder what damage politically correct prats like him and the NBPA have done to public-police relations.

Here is a superb piece about the scumbag from the Daily Mail.

Here is The Times coverage.

Glen Garioch Malt Whisky

On a visit to Oldmeldrum, near Aberdeen, just before Christmas I was fortunate to go on a guided tour of the Glen Garioch Distillery. I've just received an email from them informing me that their new website is now up and running, here is a link.

It's a wonderful place, a wonderful whisky and some of the friendliest and most helpful staff you could find. I thoroughly recommend a visit if you are up that way. It's owned by the same company who own Bowmore and Auchentoshan, so it's a great place to stock up on a couple of different single malts too.

And, no, I'm not on commission!

Parliamentary Privilege and Scum

My understanding, going back to the days of 'O' and 'A' Levels mostly, was that Parliamentary Privilege exists largely so that MPs can speak freely in the Houses of Parliament, without fear of Queen Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha sending in the troops to drag them out for being nasty about the monarch. It asserted the supremacy of Parliament.

Indeed I have just checked with Answers.Com and here is a slightly longer definition than mine:

Legal immunities conferred upon members of a legislature with regard to acts they may perform in the legislature or on its behalf. The principal parliamentary privilege in the UK Parliament is that of freedom of speech in its proceeding, given statutory expression in article nine of the 1689 Bill of Rights. This marked the parliamentary victory over the royal executive in the struggle that had lasted for most of the seventeenth century and ended with the flight of James II and Parliament's choice of William II to succeed him. No member may be held to account by an outside body or individual for words spoken within Parliament. Similar notions exist in most other democratic legislatures. Also surviving, but of diminished importance, are the privileges of freedom from arrest in civil process, freedom of access to the monarch, and rights of punishment against those abusing parliamentary privilege or those held to be in contempt of parliament.

— Jonathan Bradbury

Now there is no way scum like David Chaytor and his pals can hide behind that to avoid facing trial for alleged expenses offences. As people like New Labour politicians, and Tories and Lib Dems, love to say to the rest of us when imposing ever more draconian "anti-terror" legislation: "If you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear". If I were an MP who had done nothing wrong I would want to face a court to prove my innocence.

I just about remember the olden days when politicians "did the honourable thing", even when there was only a perception of wrong doing, but it could damage the government, parliament or the country. Not any more. Not with the bunch of amoral, self-seeking, money grubbing, authoritarian, unprincipled scum we have stalking the corridors and lobbies of the Houses of Parliament at the moment.

Atheists versus God Botherers

I'll be upfront from the off. I'm a libertarian and a practising Roman Catholic, there's even a Facebook group for us, so there are definitely more than just me.

Throughout my time in politics I have practised my religon without making a huge song and dance about it, for which some Christians would probably condemn me, but that's me. If religion comes up I'll get involved in discussion but tend not to be too evangelical, I suspect many political colleagues over the years didn't even know of my religion.

But increasingly I find myself commenting on religous affairs because of the increasing intolerance of non-believers, characterised by Dawkins and his ilk. Fair enough you don't believe but why bang on and on and on and on and on? It's very tedious. It reminds me of the nutty anti-smoking lobby. OK, you don't smoke but don't bang on and on, a la Dawkins, whining and whinging about people who do. We used to call it 'live and let live'.

On my specific religion, Roman Catholicism, I get weary of the complete rubbish and lies, told by ignorant non-catholics or bitter lapsed Catholics usually, about things that they claim go on in the Catholic church. I was educated from infant school to grammar school by monks and never once witnessed sado-masochism or paedophilia. It's sad that I have had to state that on a regular basis over the decades. Nobody else I know educated by monks, priests or nuns suffered anything untoward either. Yes, I know there have been instances of priests committing evil acts, condemn those individuals not the priesthood or the whole church. There have been a higher proportion of teachers convicted of offences against children but critics don't attack the whole teaching profession. It does seem that all kinds of groups receive official protection from attack but not Christians.

So I was particulalry interested to read this article in today's Times by Hugo Rifkind.

I’m transfixed, in a mind-melty sort of way, by the allegation that Cherie Booth — in her lofty judge capacity, rather than her slightly-chippy-former- PM’s-wife capacity — gave a more lenient sentence to a man convicted of assault because he was religious. Shamso Miah was on his way home from his mosque when he joined the queue at a cash dispenser. After a disagreement about who was in front of whom, he punched somebody else in the face, breaking his jaw. Judge Cherie, the story goes, suspended his sentence, on the basis that he was a religious man, and already beating himself up about it. Albeit not literally. Presumably.

Now the National Secular Society has complained to the Judicial Complaints Office that this sort of thing is unfair to atheists, on the basis that, if Miah had been one, he’d have been off to chokey. It’s got everything, this story. Creepy religious Blairs? Check. Out-of-touch judges? Check. A slightly scary Muslim? Check. They’re probably knocking out a BBC Four docudrama about it as I type. But the nub of the matter, I think, is the old chestnut about the bearing, if any, that religious belief should have on abstract morality.

Judge Cherie seems to be on the same page as the Pope on this, in believing that religious belief gives you a sort of super, better morality, which outweighs everything else. The NSS, equally unsurprisingly, seems to find this quite offensive. My instincts are with it. Annoyingly, though, and as my philosophy degree taught me in week one, it’s only Cherie’s lot that make conceptual sense. There’s no such thing as abstract morality. It doesn’t even make any sense. If God isn’t the ultimate answer, what is?

This is precisely why secularists are always even more annoying that religious people. Often they’re even more annoying than Cherie Booth. It’s because they’re insincere. Sooner or later, I always think, secularists are going to have to bite the bullet, ditch “morality” and “fairness” and all that Goddish guff, and start talking about convenience. Crimes are wrong, because they are inconvenient. Value systems are good, because they make life nicer. Murder is a hassle. It’ll never be stirring stuff, but at least it’s honest.

I wonder why so many 'liberal' commentators don't practice the doctrine of live and let live towards Christians that they urge on the rest of us in relation to so many others in sociey. Perhaps that'll be one of the questions I ask when I join the Benedictines at Pluscarden Abbey next week on my retreat.

In conclusion I welcome reasoned discussion of religion, but I find ignorant attacks on religion tedious in the extreme. However, I would no sooner ban those attacks on religion than I would advocate banning the Burqa. So I hope that ignorant bigots like Peter Tatchell learn to practice the liberalism they claim to believe in, and stop calling for the Pope to be banned from visiting England later this year.

Sign of the Times

In an interview in today's Telegraph Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire states, when bemoaning the modern, touchy-feely, wimp culture:

"The disaster of someone dying was talked about for a bit and the person was mourned, but you didn't go on about it and take pills and have to be counselled.

Money and illness and sex were not talked about in those days and they are the only thing people talk about these days, aren't they? Self-pity and self-esteem, which are now the key things in schools, were not allowed."

Contrast that commonsense approach to the following, which appears in the same newspaper:

"Postmen have been told they do not have to deliver to homes on cobbled streets in bad weather, because rain makes them too dangerous."

Big 3 Palladium Orchestra

I found this band on BBC 4 last weekend when channel hopping. They were live at the Barbican in London, absolutely brilliant:

Pope Benedict XVI versus Political Correctness

It's great to see the usual misfits kicking off against the visit, later this year, of Pope Benedict. Of course the main fury seems to be vented as ever by Peter Tatchell, the most sexuality obsessed tyrant figure in the UK.

Tatchell's attitude seems to be that anybody, or anything, that doesn't fall exactly into step with his views and outlook should be banned. I don't see why. For God's sake he even attacks the wrong sort of gays.

On the question of "equality" why should the Catholic church, or any other church, be forced to employ people it disagrees with on grounds of morality and conscience? It wouldn't change the view of a single person within that church, or the fundamental belief of that church.There would probably just be a nod and a wink about a particular candidate who would then be found "unsuitable for the post", especially if she had a huge beer belly and a week's stubble on "her" chin. But would Tatchell, for example, really want to work for the Catholic church anyway?

I was once challenged by a gay friend about the churches attitude to homosexuality. He claimed that it was wicked and promoted hatred and homophobia. I asked him if I, or any of my family, had ever treated him in that way. He sheepishly replied that no we hadn't. I then asked him if he actually wanted to become a Roman Catholic. He reponded that he was an atheist, so I suggested he stop worrying about the Catholic church and gets on with his life.

There is room for all beliefs in this country. Don't try and ban the visit of the Pope, just as I would never try to ban the Naional Secular Society or the British Humanist Association.

The politically correct seem to be becoming ever more intolerant and fascistic. Maybe they fear the end of New Labour. If that's the case I wouldn't worry, Cameron is probably much more PC than Gordon Brown.

Harriet Harman Wins Award!

Because she's such a whining, whinging, 'equality' obsessed bitch I've decided to honour her. It's a long time since I awarded an Obie, so here's one for the Bitchfinder General, Harriet Harperson:

Victory For Commonsense Over Harriet Harperson

Equality dinosaur and Bitchfinder General Harriet Harperson has backed away from a confrontation with the churches:

Harriet Harman has backed away from a confrontation with religious leaders over who they can employ, making clear that she will not force contentious amendments to the Equality Bill through Parliament.

Ministers were astonished on Monday when the Pope said that the Bill violated “natural justice” and urged bishops to fight it. But that attack, along with the strength of opposition in the Lords and the limited time left to get Bills passed before the election, has sapped the Government’s enthusiasm to continue the fight.

Full story.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if she copped a 'Portillo' on May 6th the dreary old bag?!

European? Not me-I'm British!

New t-shirt at Liberty Corner Shop

Pope Benedict's Visit 2010

It was great news yesterday, at least for those of us in the Roman Catholic Church, that Pope Benedict XVI is to visit England later this year.

Of course there will inevitably be rabid demonstrations opposed to his visit. It increasingly seems that the glorious freedom and democracy the Labour government want to spread to places like Iraq doesn't apply to Christians in the UK.

The Pope was right to speak out against even more oppressive "equality" legislation that will force Catholics, and Catholic organisation, to go against deeply held moral and religious beliefs.

I for one will be there cheering the Pope as loudly as I can when he visits these shores.

UKIP's Nikki Sinclaire

Today's the day that Nikki Sinclaire MEP faces the kangaroo court that is the UK Independence Party NEC.

Her crime? Leaving the EFD Group in the European Parliament because of the number of right-wing loonies from assorted countries that are in the group. To give you an idea the Lega Nord, from Italy, were thrown out of the ID Group because of their extreme xenophobia. The ID Group was UKIP's EP grouping prior to the June '09 elections.

Miraculously they were rehabilitated by Nigel Farage immediately after the June '09 elections, much to the shock of many members, not least Nikki. Some say there expulsion was a cynical PR stunt prior to the elections.

Nikki discussed her intention to leave the group with Party Leader, Lord Pearson, who promsed her his full support. Sadly he has shown no support for Nikki's principled stand since she resigned from the group. Nikki has now been banned from using the UKIP name, can no longer describe herself as 'UKIP MEP' and is not allowed to use party offices or attend party meetings.

Contrast that with UKIP's treatment of Tom Wise. Tom Wise is now languishing in chokey having been found guilty of fraud, he couldn't keep his hands off his allowances when he was a UKIP member of the European Parliament. It seems he had a penchant for fine wines and cars but his exorbitant MEP salary wasn't enough. Tom Wise was never disciplined by UKIP.

It's now quite clear where UKIP's priorities lie.

I wish Nikki luck today but suggest that she remains true to her principles and remains an independent MEP, or joins a party that would value her courage and principles.