Rape and Unemployment

Sports journalist and role model Charlie Webster

There's been quite a fuss made of the release of footballer Ched Evans, he went to prison for rape but his case is currently being reviewed. There have been demands that he never play football again and two or three people have resigned from honorary positions at Sheffield United FC where he is currently training, though not employed. The main thrust of the outcry is that footballers, supposedly, are role models. Really?

Interestingly a woman called Charlie Webster has led the outcry and is one of those who resigned from her position at Sheffield United. The main thrust of her argument is that he is not a good role model. Well I think this article might suggest that Charlie, a sports journalist, stripping off for a lad mag isn't such a wonderful role model herself.

Firstly I don't accept that footballers are role models. Role models are people in your life who have a real influence on you. Parents, teachers, priests, relatives. In other words people who are real and whose behaviour has a direct influence on people, especially younger people. A man kicking a ball about is just that.  He is one dimensional, he is not 'real'.

While rape is clearly one of the most vile crimes, there are many other vile crimes. If a footballer commits another crime should he never be allowed to work again either? Is it right that criminals in high profile positions should be treated more severely than the rest of us? Does the law no longer apply equally to all men? Should all rapists be forced to pay for the rest of their lives, even after they have been punished? Or just famous ones?

If Ched Evans is never allowed to work again the logical conclusion is that no convicted criminal should ever be allowed to work again because every criminal is a role model to somebody, somewhere whether it be to a son or daughter, a friend, a relative or whoever. If that is the case we have completely given up on rehabilitation and will be creating even more huge problems for the future, problems that will impose painful financial and moral burdens on us in the future.

But I don't think that will be the case. I firmly believe the Ched Evans affair is yet another example of the lynch mob mentality of social media and the desire of so many people today to be regularly morally outraged and offended.

More Tory Lies Or Just Plain Idiocy?

When Cameron said that we would not be paying the £1.7bn extortion money to the EU on December 1st  I wondered why he didn't just say that we wouldn't be paying it full stop. I had a good idea that he was bullshitting, as he usually does.

Then last week the Tories claimed to have won a great success, they claimed they had had the amount to be paid halved, after hard negotiation. That's not actually true.

The Tories have agreed to pay half the extortion money, correct. The other half is being paid by us losing £850m from our rebate next year.

Now I'm no mathematician but £850m plus £850m equals £1.7bn. Which is the exact amount the EU demanded from us.

In Remembrance

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Gay Wedding Cakes and a Burning Effigy of Fatboy

Two things angered me today. Yes, that's right only two, but it's only 16:10 so there's time yet. Of course driving into Morecambe today a couple of motorists pissed me off, but that's usual and not worth banging on about.

No today a gay wedding cake pissed me off and a burning effigy of Alex 'Fatboy' Salmond did. But what really angered me was the intervention of the police state into both episodes.

I think we should all move to Lewes in Sussex, especially if you live in a high crime area because in Lewes they have no crime to investigate. It must be a no crime area because the police are investigating the burning on a bonfire of an effigy of Scotland's very own Kim Jong Un Alex Salmond. When asked why the police were wasting their time on triviality like this the reply came: "Well, a member of the public complained so we have to investigate". Forgive me but would the police investigate if I phoned and complained that Gregg's had run out of Steak Bakes? There are times even the police state should tell idiot members of the public to piss off and grow up.

Now then, anger inducer number two was news that a baker, in Northern Ireland I think, is being dragged through the police state legal system by the Stasi (aka Equal Opportunities Commission or some similar gang of fucking misfits) for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. Now personally I think they should have just got on with it but eh, if their conscience and moral beliefs dictate that baking a gay wedding cake is verboten then so be it. It used to be that totalitarian states oppressed gay people, how times have changed, now our police state oppresses people who object to gay marriage. Or, put it another way, our police state kicks peoples' doors down at dawn for not baking a cake.

Why didn't they just find a baker who would have baked their sodding cake? Of course, the couple are going for compensation.

P.J. O'Rourke and Welfare

The sooner we shrink the welfare state down the better. Let's face it, when there are unemployed English people lazing around moaning about Poles getting the jobs there is a problem. The problem is politicians buy votes by paying the unemployed enough to not bother working.

This P.J. O'Rourke quote says it wonderfully

"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as 'caring' and 'sensitive' because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money".