Postal Voting

I've had it with postal voting. Normally you give voting some thought, get into the polling booth and stick a coss on the ballot paper. The deed is over and done with in seconds. With a postal ballot the envelope sits there, unopened for days while you think about it.

Conservative? Vacuous Dave and the chance of silly George, the one Dave has hidden in this campaign, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer? Scary.

Labour? Enough said.

Green Party? Leather patches and dandruffy beards? If I want to vote far left I will thank you.

Liberal Democrat? An in/out referendum on the EU sounds good. But up to now Nick has promised to join the Euro, not join the Euro and to join if circumstances are right. Then he wants to grant illegal immigrants an amnesty. Then he calls his kids things like Jose Maria Clegg, Juan Antonio Clegg and Francisco Santa Maria Clegg, making them sound like an an Anglo-Spanish version of 'Last of the Summer Wine'. Why didn't he just take his Spanish wife's name or call them Compo and other Yorkshire names?

Then I had UKIP on the ballot paper. But my old friend Nigel was on the election address and somebody I've never heard of was on the ballot paper. On top of that their party leader has told everybody to vote Tory or Labour.

So, until the state dicates that I have to do it by post, I will be cancelling my postal vote for future UK elections. Doesn't matter in EU elections because I don't intend voting in them.

Gordon Is A Moron

Gordon Brown is officially an idiot. The Prime Minister didn't have the bottle to tell a 66 year old widow that he disagreed with her for questioning the levels of immigration into the UK, a concern for many millions of people in the country. Instead he schmoozed her then called her a bigot in the safety of his car, forgetting that he still had a mic on. What a statesman!

So this one's for you Gordon:

Putting UKIP In Perspective

UKIP just don't understand politics. They constantly whine about not getting a fair crack of the whip, then go out of their way to alienate the media and the public.

The disastrous Lord Pearson thinks that as leader, he should be on Thursday night's leadership debate with the old three party leaders. He really is certifiable and should be kept well clear of the public, let alone the media.

Last June Paul Nuttall, when elected MEP in the North West, flounced off the platform rather than share it with Nick Griffin of the BNP, who had also been democratically elected to the European Parliament.

Next Fred McGlade throws a tantrum and refuses to join a hustings meeting in Lancaster on behalf of UKIP because the BNP have not been invited.

Tonight, here in Birmingham, I have started watching the BBC regional election debate. Guess what? UKIP are boycotting because they are not being given 'equality' with the old three party representatives. They don't want to sit with the other parties who have no MPs so haven't bothered.

Last night we had a hustings meeting in Meriden constituency with over 200 attending. Where was the UKIP candidate? Nowhere to be seen, maybe washing his masturbation t-shirt, I don't know.

Maybe they are already preparing excuses for bombing yet again in UK elections. But when they blame the media look at their media stupidity.

UKIP Must Be Joking

I just had to check what I heard on the radio is correct, UKIP are threatening legal action if their leader, Lord Pearson, isn't included in Thursday night's leaders debate.

Surely judging by his recent performances they would be well advised to only take legal action to ensure he doesn't appear in the leaders debate.

Nikki Sinclaire in Meriden.

It's been a long hard day slogging the streets of Meriden, but really worthwhile. The response to Nikki has been fantastic.

Last night we were at a hustings in Knowle, in the southern part of the constituency, where there must have been over 200 people present. The BNP candidate was thick, the Green candidate very pleasant, but 'dippy' might be the best word to describe her, and the Lib Dem was decidedly lacklustre. Nikki did very well and was well received on all issues.

Today has been in the northern half of the constituency slogging around estates and in and out of blocks of flats. But again the response has been fantastic, so much so that Nikki is quoted on Ladbrokes at 50-1 with Labour on 20-1. Sadly the Tories are still way ahead as odds on favourites. The BNP and UKIP are stuck on 100-1 alongside the Greens.

Despite all this foot slogging I suspect there will be little weight loss with full English breakfasts every morning and a chicken Madras every night.

Rosie Bites Back

A new blog has been launched by a woman! Rosie's Forum.

These wilful women, I don't know.

Libertarian Party Endorses Nikki Sinclaire in Meriden

I am pleased to say that the Libertarian Party has endorsed Nikki's campaign here in Meriden. Over a pleasant lunch Nikki and I met the LPUK's Deputy Leader and had a very interesting meeting.

As a libertarian Nikki found it impossible to remain a part of UKIP's grouping in the EU parliament, which largely consists of right-wing authoritarians and assorted oddballs. In standing up and being counted, not wishing to be associated with homophobes, Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, Nikki had the UKIP whip withdrawn. She has since been undemocratically run out of UKIP and is standing in Meriden as an independent under the banner of the Solihull and Meriden Residents Association.

Vote Nikki

Libertarian Party

Happy St George's Day

UKIP Lose the Plot

Standing a clown (Barry Allcock above) against Nikki Sinclaire in Meriden has seriously backfired on UKIP. The reaction here in the constituency is universally "are they mad?". But when it comes to scoring own goals UKIP are the creme de la creme. Let's face it, they elected the clown Lord Pearson as leader a few months ago!

Here is how UKIP boosted our campaign in Meriden by getting us this excellent coverage in the Birmingham Post:

Eurosceptic party UKIP has continued a bitter war against one of its own MEPs by standing a rival candidate against her in the general election.

Nikki Sinclaire, who was elected as a UKIP member of the European Parliament last year, is standing in Meriden as the candidate of the Solihull and Meriden Residents Association.

But her opponents will include Barry Allcock, who is standing as the official UKIP candidate.

Ms Sinclaire said she was “astonished and disappointed” that UKIP was standing against her.

The row is the latest twist in a long-running disupte between Ms Sinclaire and the party she still belongs to.

UKIP was ecstatic when Ms Sinclaire was elected as their second West Midlands MEP last June. It meant the party had beaten both Labour and the Liberal Democrats, which each returned only one MEP in the region.

But the celebrations were short-lived, after she publicly condemned UKIP’s decision to join a group in the European Parliament called the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, which includes right-wing parties from across the EU.

She claimed that some of the parties involved, from other European countries, supported anti-Semitism and violence.

As a result, UKIP withdrew the party whip, which means Ms Sinclaire is now officially an independent MEP. However, she continues to be a member of the party.

UKIP’s national executive also sacked her as the party’s general election candidate in Meriden. But she stood anyway, as a candidate of new party Solihull & Meriden Residents’ Association, which cites its ethos as “restoring political power to local people.”

Ms Sinclaire said UKIP had broken its own rules by standing against her.

She said: “My views on Britain’s membership of the EU is widely known, this is another breach of trust and discredits the stated policy of not standing against known eurosceptics.”

A UKIP spokesman said: “We have candidates standing in all constituencies in the region except Aldridge-Brownhills, where there was already a eurosceptic candidate, and Nuneaton, where our candidate had to pull out.”

Here is the original article.

Nikki Sinclaire Campaign Update-Barry Allcock Stands for UKIP

Nikki's campaign is going extremely well, so much so that UKIP have decided to put up a candidate against us. Of course this is an incredibly spiteful move as UKIP are standing down candidates against Tory and Labour Eurosceptics and Stuart Wheeler's Trust Party.

Are we bothered? Not now we've seen the following photograph of Mr Allcock. We only hope it isn't going on his election address!

Which UKIP Candidate?

In the Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency we received our UKIP election address urging us to vote for Nigel Brown. But when the candidates were declared on the Lancaster City Council website the declared UKIP candidate is Mark Andrew Knight. Both appear as the candidate on different parts of the UKIP website.

Who knows, maybe Nigel got cold feet when he saw this now notorious video of Party Leader Lord Pearson on The Campaign Show. Jon Sopel's expression is priceless!

Then again maybe Nigel stood down when the Lib Dems announced their promise of an in/out referendum on membership of the EU. Surely according to UKIP's policy of not standing against Labour or more importantly, Tory Eurosceptics, they should now stand down against Lib Dem candidates? After all, the Lib Dems in a hung parliament are more likely to deliver UKIP's desired referendum than half a dozen misfits in the other parties, even if the Lib Dems aren't Eurosceptic.

Country before party, surely?

UK Airspace Re-Opens

General Election-Campaigning with Nikki Sinclaire in Meriden

Blogging will be light for the next couple of weeks as I will be working hard with a great team on Nikki Sinclaire's campaign in Meriden. To give you a flavour here am I (the porky one) campaigning with Nikki, Josh and others in Solihull Town Centre on Saturday.

And Gary has discovered the best curry house in England to sustain us after a hard day's campaigning.

General Election

Here was me thinking I would be having a nice quiet general election when the phone rings. As a consequence I am now sat in an office in Birmingham working as agent for general election candidate Nikki Sinclaire who is an independent MEP standing in the Meriden constituency on the SAMRA ticket.

Shame she's not standing in Morecambe and Lunesdale, I might have been able to vote for somebody then. As it is it looks like I won't be able to bring myself to support any of the misfits I am currently aware of, Tory, Labour, Lib-Dims, Greens and UKIP in my constituency, so will be spoiling my ballot paper.

Happy days

Hazel Blears-The Bitch is Back

Driving down to the Midlands this morning I thought I'd gone back in time, it was scary. Listening to the BBC the interviewer asked a question and I thought I heard Hazel Blears (left) respond. Surely not? But yes it was, gassing off as if she was a real person instead of the gobby, lying little freak she is.

Since she was exposed as a main player in the expenses scandal she has, sensibly, kept a low profile. But the bitch is back. This morning she was claiming that people on the doorsteps aren't bothered about the expenses scandal. I can just imagine a big hard Salford lad politely chatting to her then closing the door, when asked by his wife who it was he'll reply: "That cheeky little, thieving carrot topped bitch Blears. She thinks we'll actually vote for her the deluded bitch. She's gone off all smiling the cow!"

She further claimed that politicians have always been regarded as scum. Nobody has ever been regarded as lowly as this current batch you thick cow, and you're the lowest of the low.

If you're disillusioned with the three old parties then watch tonight's leaders' debate. And you'll really despair.

Broken Britain?

A young slapper called Ellie Gellard has been in the news this week, goes to show what a useless bunch of prats our politicians are if that pathetic little attention seeker gets national publicity. But for some bizarre reason Gordon Brown had her sat next to him at their manifesto launch, despite her calling for him to resign not too long ago. Maybe he was right not to listen to a 20 year old idiot who thinks Britain isn't 'broken'. But why have her sat up there on the podium? Because Gordon the Moron is desperate and wants to show how they all love him really, and he has united them.

In fact that summarises nicely British politics at the moment. What can you say when a nothing like Vince Cable is about to be sainted as some kind of financial and economic messiah? Maybe even Chancellor of the Exchequer if we have a hung parliament after May 6th? That really would be time to shift all your savings and other assets safely away to Zimbabwe for example!

Yesterday I was off the campaign trail on family business in East Manchester. In the area now called Eastlands, much to the annoyance of locals born and raised in Miles Platting and Bradford, the council estates built in the 1960s are being demolished. Those who bought under Right to Buy are now having their homes compulsorily purchased way below market value. Many of the deck access flats built in Hulme, Ardwick and Beswick in the 1960s have already long since been demolished. Communities were wrecked to make way for those developments, and now they are being split asunder yet again. And Labour talk of 'community'. They are the wreckers of communities.

A huge model comprehensive was built in Gorton in the 1960s. Now demolished and rebuilt. A Catholic secondary school was built in Gorton in the 1970s. Now demolished and rebuilt. A school for people with 'learning disabilities' was built in Gorton in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Now demolished but not rebuilt. A school built in the 1920s in Gorton, and extended only a few years ago, is about to be demolished and has been rebuilt a few hundred yards away. Another school built in Gorton in the 1970s has been demolished and not rebuilt.

One day we will find out financial the cost of all that nonsense. The social cost of our appalling governments, and I'm going back to before 1997, we can see all around us. The country is in such a mess that I find it increasingly difficult to regard myself as patriotic. It is not just the politicians to blame, the vast majority of the population have sat on their fat lazy arses, waddling away from Coronation Street only to pay homage at the new cathedrals to consumerism and greed such as the Trafford Centre, the Metro Centre or Meadowhall. Then back home to slump in front of their TVs with a bargain bucket of KFC to watch and learn from the Jeremy Kyle Show or Tricia Goddard. Meanwhile the country goes down the pan.

Yesterday I read about an 'ex-soldier' who got £100,000 compensation from the British Army because she couldn't get childcare, being a single mother, so went AWOL.

Then I read how to 'earn' £42,000 a year as a parasite sponging off the taxpayer. No, not by becoming an MP or an MEP, they get even more, this is the story of a family on Anglesey. The father realised he would be better off packing in work and sponging off us. So that's what he has been doing for years. They are now whining about needing a bigger house, paid for by the taxpayer, because the misfits are producing another little parasite to bleed off us.

Don't tell me that the Tories would do any better, they never have, although Margaret Thatcher did a great deal of what was needed, but not quite enough, from 1979 to 1990. Yes, you socialist misfits, she did leave Downing Street 20 years ago so stop obsessing about her. Bloody hell, in 1965 the country had long stopped blaming the Germans for everything and look at the mess they really did create 20 to 30 years earlier!

The Lib-Dems? Don't make me laugh, that shower are so firmly sat on the fence their arses are full of splinters.

UKIP? Do me a favour. Build more prisons is about all they can offer, apart from getting out of Europe. Tell you what, stop slamming people in clink for ridiculous offences and you might be surprised how many prison places you freed up. And don't tell us you are going to slash taxes and massively increase spending. We're not all stupid.

BNP? Let's be serious.

So that leaves the only socialist party fighting the election, the Green Party. I'd have more respect for them if they were honest about their extreme left-wing socialism, instead they disguise it behind claiming we are all about to drown under a melting ice cap if Caroline Lucas doesn't get elected in Brighton. Up against that wall you lot....

What a mess. And I haven't even started on Elizabeth Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha and her bunch of misfits. How apt that we have the matriarch of the most dysfunctional family in the world on the throne. Actually Ellie Gellard does have a look of Phil the Greek about her.

Labour MPs Get Legal Aid (Chaytor, Morley and Devine)

Labour MPs David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine (left) are granted legal aid to defend expenses theft charges.

I was convinced that Labour had shafted the country anyway, now I'm absolutely bloody certain. But what really angers me is the number of thick, idiotic, lunatic, educationally subnormal morons in the UK who will still vote Labour on May 6th.

Communism, Fascism, Racism I Smell a Rat

Frankie Boyle

The wonderful Frankie Boyle is under attack again by the angry brigade of Britain's new puritans.

If you don't know, Frankie Boyle's humour is extremely near the mark, often teetering on the brink of outright offensiveness. But he is hilarious. Now I've never yet bought tickets to a show I think I may not enjoy and anybody buying tickets to a Frankie Boyle show, then getting all offended and pious, should really keep quiet and slink away, you cocked it up, not him.

So, this week a woman with a Down's Syndrome child has hit the headlines for heckling him when his routine included jokes at the expense of people with Down's Syndrome. Most humour is at the expense of somebody else, especially Frankie Boyle's. I can't help wondering if this woman, who has hit the headlines, laughed at all his jokes at the expense of others. In which case she is as guilty as she claims he is. No, actually she's far worse, she's a hypocrite.

If any other sensitive souls with tickets for any of his shows would now prefer not to go, then I will happily buy your tickets as we couldn't get any, it's a sell out tour.

Just in case you don't get the point below is a clip of Frankie Boyle live-it contains a swear word or two!!

Nikki Sinclaire MEP-PPC for Meriden

While UKIP continue to self-destruct amid exposes of sordid film making by its Liverpool Branch chairman, one of its MEPs (Stewart Agnew) informing an undercover reporter that he and another MEP (David Campbell Bannerman) were making illegal payments to their Regional Organiser (Pete Reeve), the only MEP elected last year with any principle, Nikki Sinclaire, was unconstitutionally thrown out of the Party for sticking by her principles and leaving UKIP's far-right EFD Group in the EU Parliament.

However, Nikki has been making a huge impact in the West Midlands as an Independent MEP and has now become the first MEP to publish her fully audited accounts. At a public meeting on Wednesday night in Knowle, in the Meriden constituency, she spoke passionately about her beliefs and to enthusiastic applause announced her intention to fight the Meriden constituency on May 6th.

Following is Nikki's press release announcing her candidacy:

At a public meeting arranged by the Solihull & Meriden Residents Association (SAMRA) in Knowle, on Wednesday April 7th, Nikki Sinclaire MEP declared that she would stand for the Association in the forthcoming General Election against Caroline Spellman, one of a number of MPs hit by expenses scandals, in the Meriden constituency.

Having been elected to the European Parliament in June 2009, Solihull resident Nikki announced the surprise move, pledging her commitment to SAMRA’s ethos of restoring political power to local people.

An outspoken opponent of transfer of power from Britain to Brussels, Nikki has campaigned against sleaze and corruption. “I am the first British MEP to receive a satisfactory audit of my accounts” she said, “and if I am elected to Westminster I will lose my seat in Brussels, and take a £20,000 pay cut. I am not in this for the money; I am in it because I believe in honest and open government.”

SAMRA is campaigning on a number of local issues, including more efficient local governance, protection of the West Midlands Green belt, and is opposed to the further threatened cuts to local hospitals.

Speaking about the proposed high-speed rail link, Trevor Eames of the Solihull Ratepayers Association said “There are important consultations coming up, and for us to have an MP representing our interests rather than those of political parties will put us in a fantastic position. It is about time that local people had their say.”

In a radical move, the Resident’s Association will be fielding candidates in both the general and local elections on May 6.

Nikki is being extremely well received in Meriden and I would keep an eye out for that result on election night, it could be a good one.

General Election-A Sham

It's been a phoney war for months and now it's here. But, assuming a few people bother to go out and vote on May 6th, will we get the government we vote for? I would say no.

In the last election Labour got 36.91% of the popular vote, Conservatives 33.86% and the Lib-Dems got 23.09%.

That resulted in Labour getting 356 seats (55.11%), Conservatives 198 seats (30.65%) and the Lib-Dems 62 seats (9.60%)

In this day and age that doesn't seem fair to me, and that's without looking at the smaller parties.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

I hope you have all had a peaceful and happy Easter. Had a nice relaxing day with my beloved before the non-stop graft of a general election campaign kicks off. Can't wait for it now!

Time for a bit of music first from the wonderful Penguin Cafe Orchestra with Southern Jukebox Music. Maestro, play on:

Happy Easter

After Mass today Canon Gibson gave us all a chocolate egg. Mine was a caramel egg and it was joy after giving up chocolate for Lent. That's why he is a Canon!!

Happy Easter to all.

Gene Hunt or David Cameron?

Last week the Labour Party scored a spectacular own goal by trundling liar and war criminal Tony Blair out to campaign for them. Now they have scored another own goal by likening Dave Cameron to the ever popular Gene Hunt.

It seems that every day between now and May 6th our politicians will be out to prove how out of touch they are. If Cameron had half the charisma and bluntness of Gene Hunt the Tories would be way ahead in the polls. If Gene Hunt led either party I bet they would win.

Perhaps the Tories will retort with a poster asking if we want Labour to take us back to the 1970s, remember that decade? The decade of the first Gene Hunt series, Life on Mars? If you don't the 1970s were when Labour turned us into an economic basket case. The dead couldn't be buried because of strikes. We had the three day week, for the few workers that weren't on strike most of the decade. We had power cuts because we lacked the resources to light up the country after dark. Even the IMF told us to bugger off. We had the troubles in Ulster and rumours of a coup plot at one stage. Life on Mars was decidedly more appealing than life in the UK in the 1970s under Labour.

At least the 1980s, though tough, got us out of the shit Labour had got us in, a recovery so effective that Brown inherited a great financial legacy, which he promptly squandered. Sound familiar? The difference is the Tory Party today is no different to Labour and Cameron, just like Brown is a big, useless poofter, as Gene Hunt would say.

Phil Cool, Ken Nicol and East Cheshire Hospice

What a great night last night at the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club. Dinners there are always enjoyable, great food, wine and catching up with family and old friends.

Last night was Phil Cool and Ken Nicol performing at a fundraiser for the East Cheshire Hospice.

Ken Nicol's guitar playing was amazing, they both sang some great songs, solo and togeher, were both funny and Phil Cool is still absolutely hilarious. And pots of money raised for a very good cause hopefully.

Lancashire must have produced more top notch comedians than anywhere else in the world.

Scientists and a Good English Breakfast

One thing that really pees me off is scientists making announcements, about things we all knew anyway, as if they're announcing they've just split the atom or found a cure for the common cold. They're at it again, and I'll bet they are extremely well paid for this 'research'.

My mum always used to say that the way to eat healthily was to "breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and supper like a pauper". A bit like needing a full tank in your car starting out on a long journey then as you approach your destination (or bedtime), you obviously need less fuel. Commonsense. But scientists in Alabama are making news all over the world announcing the bleeding obvious, yet again. Remember scientists? The ones who gave us nuclear bombs, God knows how many viruses from their cocked up experiments, thalidomide, warned us that by 1990 every family would have lost somebody to Aids, that by now the British population would be 29 and falling because of Swine Flu? Well, they've now decided a good breakfast is indeed good for you.

So all those who scamper through town centres in the morning pretending to be so busy they you only manage coffee in a paper cup for breakfast, wise up! You aren't that busy that you can't pop into the greasy spoon for a full English. It's probably only a quid more than a poncey coffee in Starbucks, and you'll be served just as quickly in my experience.

I thnk every penny these 'researchers' have made should go to my mum, they're frauds.

British Police State

For the first time in over 400 years a judge has found people in a British Crown Court trial guilty without a jury. If you voted Labour in 1997, 2001 or 2005 I hope you are pleased with yourself.

What price liberty? Here is the breakdown:

"It was estimated that providing protection for the jury would cost in the region of £6 million and need more than 82 police officers, but a trial with only a judge would cost £1.6 million and need 32 officers".

So the jury can piss off! Well done Labour, you really have stuffed the whole country well and truly.

But what worries me is the number of complete muppets who will still vote Labour on May 6th. I only hope you end up on a trumped up charge, preferably under the fascist anti-terror legislation, and get strung up.

But of course if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear have you?

A bit like these people?

Full story here.

The Birth of the Liberal Democrats

Who remembers Spitting Image?

Them were t'days!

Ceca Raznatovic

Spent the morning writing an article about being a Catholic libertarian. Just finished, popped onto Facebook and found a video of the therapeutic warblings of Ceca Raznatovic awaiting me.

Hope you liked her singing too!

Tony Blair-Liar and War Criminal

As Blair wades into the general election campaign today, a quick reminder of what a lying, conniving, scheming hypocrite the man is:



And don't forget, Gordon Brown is no better.

Labour Trying to Buy Football Fans

Labour is so desperate it is now jumping on yet another bandwagon, the ownership of football clubs. Not content with cocking up every other thing it has touched it now wants to take control and ruin football. If it sees a bandwagon it just can't resist jumping on it.

Yes football is in a mess but that is down to FA negligence, verging on criminal complacency in the 1980s. State dabbling will do nothing but screw it up even more. Let's face it when did state control ever produce anything remotely dynamic, innovative and envied outside the small minded obsessive minds of fanatical socialists?

Remember Skoda? The butt of so many jokes when it was a state owned basket case under socialism, now a different thing all together under capitalist ownership. Indeed all socialism, or state ownership, ever does is take what has been built by capitalism and smother it. Name one dynamic improvement or great invention in the twentieth century that sprang from state owned operations rather than capitalist operations.

Following is an excellent piece from today's Times online:

When politicians interfere in sport it’s the mark of a Middle Eastern dictator with psychopathic sons or a Soviet bloc regime. But flushed with its success at saving the world’s banks, Labour is now promising to sort out professional football.

Its proposals include requiring clubs to give a chunk of shares to supporters’ trusts; giving fans the first option to bid if clubs are put up for sale; that the FA restructures its board and leagues be given powers to oversee takeovers.

Labour wants to give clubs back to communities; its ideal is the Spanish giant Barcelona, whose president and board are elected every four years. Fans want an end to clubs such as Portsmouth going into administration, crippling debts at Manchester United and Liverpool and mid-season chaos like that in the Blue Square Premier, where Chester’s collapse provoked expensive legal squabbles.

But government interference isn’t the answer. OK, nobody likes to see their club go down the Swanee — but many, such as Aldershot and Accrington Stanley — come back. English football isn’t in such a bad shape. Each week the Premier League’s internationalism, on the field and off, delivers a product that millions pay good money to follow. We also have the world’s largest professional and semi-pro structure. Every town and village of any size has journeymen pros kicking lumps out of each other for beer money and the dream. My own tastes — I am a supporter of Southport (Blue Square North) — lie in this hardcore direction.

We surely don’t need more employees at another regulator producing more rules. And if private football clubs make a hash of things, it shouldn’t be the business of ministers — football is not vital to the economy.

Nor are supporters’ trusts any panacea. Barcelona’s structure is not perfect, tied up as it is with dodgy doses of Catalan politics. Nor is Spanish football immune to debt: bankers have extended credit lines that would cause Alistair Darling to have a fit of the vapours.

You have to be pretty convinced that management will improve to interfere with private property by redistributing company shares. But supporters are no more forward looking than today’s pantomime villain owners. Fans’ forums are the first to demand the sacking of managers and the purchase of overpriced superstars.

And if trusts fail to deliver hoped-for prudence, the regulator (OffSide?) will surely want more laws. Oh, and a bigger budget. Don’t go there is my advice. It’s only a game.

Professor J. R. (Len) Shackleton is Dean of Royal Docks Business School, University of East London

And if you are naive enough to scream that the government should do something every time there is a problem, just sit back and think. What you are really saying is Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and all those other stinking parasites you probably loathe should do something. Think about it!

Original article and some excellent comments here.

Classic Boddingtons TV Ads

Sadly no longer brewed in Manchester but worth revisiting a couple of classic old TV ads:

Labour Party Throw in the Towel with Tony Blair

I was shocked to hear this morning that Gordon Brown has decided to lose the general election, he's obviously realised how loathed he is. But why didn't he just resign and let some other two faced hypocritical moron take Labour into the election? Asking Tony Blair, liar and war criminal extraordinaire, to make a speech in support of the government tomorrow seems a strange way to make sure you cease to be Prime Minister on May 6th.

Health Fascists and Bus Shelters

Waiting to be picked up for a short break we huddled in a bus shelter. Unbelievably we found the health fascists have been at work. One on each side panel. Hardly an enclosed space is it?

Jihad Jane in Eastenders

I think it's a bloody scandal that my licence fee money is being used to employ Jihad Jane to play Phil Mitchell's bit of rough in Eastenders. She should be behind bars or tied to 'Old Smokey'.

Nick Clegg's Wife

This is an interesting article.

Nick Clegg's wife saying, to a journalist, how she will stay in the background during the general election campaign and concentrate on her children and her job.

Can't imagine how the three pictures of her got into the piece, especially the one of them both having a brew and reading the Times at their kitchen table and the one of them kissing their new born baby.

A bit of advice though. With her Spanish accent I'd keep her away from your Sheffield constituency Mr Clegg, Yorkies aren't very bright and might think you've married a Lancastrian.

But I do like the names they have given their children. Antonio Clegg, Alberto Clegg and Miguel Clegg. They could write at least three hilarious episodes of Last of the Summer Wine with material like that.

Oh aye Mrs Clegg, you're doing right staying in the background.

If you don't know Nick Clegg is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. He's the one you'll see occasionally on TV as the general election campaign lifts off. But don't confuse him with David Cameron, he's the other one. I suppose they are a bit like Ant and Dec really, which one's Dave which one's Nick?

Mithering Bastards!

I'm just about sick of bastards who want to dictate to other people how they should live their lives. Just get off our backs you interfering bastards.

Following is a letter in today's Times from a group of do gooding ponces from assorted medico-fascist bodies:

Sir, A new report launched today by the Royal College of Physicians, Passive Smoking and Children, confirms that passive smoking is a leading cause of death and disease in children. About two million children are currently exposed to cigarette smoke at home, and many more outside the home. In addition to the serious health risks of passive smoking, however, the report also points out the additional health risk to children posed by family smoking, which makes children about twice as likely to become smokers themselves.

These health hazards to children can be avoided entirely by acting to reduce the number of adults who smoke, particularly parents and care-givers, and to reduce still further the exposure of children to smoke and smoking, both in and outside the home. This will require a comprehensive strategy including tobacco price rises, mass media campaigns, more effective health warnings, prohibition of point of sale display, generic packaging and better provision of smoking cessation services.

Smoke-free legislation also needs to be extended much more widely, to include public places visited by children and young people, and including prohibition of all smoking in cars and other vehicles. The Chief Medical Officer, in his foreword to the report, says that we must keep up the momentum to continue to reduce the harm of tobacco use in our communities, and create a truly smoke-free future. As doctors, we agree, and call on governments to take the necessary actions to protect our children’s future.

Professor Ian Gilmore
President, Royal College of Physicians of London

Professor Andy Adam
President, Royal College of Radiologists

Professor Steve Field
President, Royal College of General Practitioners

Professor Alan Maryon Davis
President, UK Faculty of Public Health

Dr Peter Nightingale
President, Royal College of Anaesthetists

Professor Arulkumaran Sabaratnam
President, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Professor Terence Stephenson
President, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Mr Ian W. R. Anderson
President, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow

Professor Dinesh Bhugra
President, Royal College of Psychiatrists

Dr John Donohoe
President, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland

Dr Neil Dewhurst
President, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh

Professor Sir Neil Douglas
Chairman, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

Professor Peter Furness
President, Royal College of Pathologists

Mr John Heyworth
President, the College of Emergency Medicine

Professor Frank B. V. Keane
President, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

Mr John Lee
President, Royal College of Ophthalmologists

Professor Adrian Newland
Deputy Chair, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

Dr Richard Tiner
President, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine

Professor David Tolley
President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (signing in a personal capacity)

Professor Derrick Willmot
Dean, Faculty of Dental Surgery

Tell you what you lot, concentrate on your own children and leave others to bring up theirs. I'm pretty sure it's more dangerous to send your children to Afghanistan and Iraq than to have the odd fag in your own living room or car.

I can see the day coming when the only freedom we will have left is to take these types of people out into the streets and string them up from a lamp post, along with the vile selk-serving greedy vermin in parliament, and to start again.

If this so-called 'democratic' government can use force to impose their idea of democracy on Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, we have the right to use force to reclaim our lost rights and liberties.

King Crimson

Last week I saw a tremendous documentary on BBC 4 about Progressive Rock, which made me quite nostalgic. Strange because at the time, early 1970s, I was much more into Slade, Wizzard and the like, prog rock was for the sixth form lads who were very earnest and wore long hair and army trench coats. But I did always like King Crimson, maybe it was because Fripp and Eno played such a part in Roxy Music, one of my all time favourite groups.

Anyway I thought I would indulge the nostalgia and post a King Crimson classic:

Edinburgh University's Racist Policy!

It seems that Edinburgh University has kicked off a bit of a kerfuffle by deciding to give priority on popular courses to applicants from Scotland and the North of England. Interestingly they do not class Lancashire as the North of England so bang goes my dream of studying there. Bastards!!

Of course there are the usual cries of racism, especially from people in the South of England, not those in Lancashire I might add, but people in Brighton have been quoted as being angry. I wonder if a black person from Durham would get in? I wonder if they are accepting overseas students on courses.

What the decision of Edinburgh shows, rather than racism, is the nasty small minded bigotry that is prevalent in Scotland with the growth in recent years of the SNP. I know many Scots who are not as I have described, so I am not claiming Scots people per se to be small minded bigots but that mindset does seem to be inculcating Scottish culture and it is very sad.

On a visit to Scotland last year I was warned to be careful because I had a Cross of St George sticker on my back bumper. I have never been aware of any threat to Scottish people displaying the Saltyre from people in England and here in North Lancashire we get plenty of overty patriotic Scots visiting us, many displaying stridently nationalistic messages on their vehicles.

What Edinburgh University's policy highlights is the slow breaking up of the United Kingdom, and we might as well get used to it. The break up is largely down to the EU providing an alternative source of subsidy because, without the cash the subsidy junkies north of the border get showered on them, they would be a little more coy about independence.

Tony Blair's shambolic devolution mess has also encouraged the Scots and, let's face it, when you look at Westminster, getting rid of that lot is very appealing even if it means declaring independence.

I don't care if Edinburgh wants to look like a small minded, second rate parochial polytechnic, or if the Scots want to break away and suck on the teat of the EU for years to come. Just get on with it and bugger off and let us English get on with our lives.

Full story here.

Capital Punishment-The Death Penalty

I used to be completely for the death penalty but had a change of heart a few years ago. Every now and then though something happens to make me wonder, and I couldn't help feeling a warm glow when I read the following:

A murderer who wrote a bragging letter to prosecutors when he believed he could not legally face the death penalty has been executed by electric chair. Paul Powell was convicted in the 1999 murder of Stacie Reed and the rape of her 14-year-old sister in their family home in the US state of Virginia.

He was sentenced to death in 2000 but higher courts ruled he could not be executed because the crimes were considered to be separate ones.

Convinced he no longer faced the death penalty, Powell then wrote a letter to prosecutors in which he said he had outsmarted them and also provided more details on the murder.

The details allowed prosecutors to charge Powell a second time for capital murder and win a new conviction and death sentence in 2003.

In his letter Powell wrote: "Since I have already been indicted on first degree murder and the Va. Supreme Court said that I can't be charged with capital murder again, I figured I would tell you the rest of what happened on Jan. 29, 1999, to show you how stupid all of y'all ... are."

He then went on to give more details about his crimes before concluding: "I guess I forgot to mention these events when I was being questioned. Ha Ha! Do you just hate yourself for being so stupid ... and saving me?"

It was the first execution this year in Virginia, which is only second to Texas in the number of executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Powell was the 11th defendant on death row to be executed this year in the US.

Original article here.

Reggae

Time for some Peter Tosh:

BBC Question Time RIP

I watched Question Time last night and it was total crap. The highlight for me was the admission by Caroline Lucas MEP that the Green Party was indeed a socialist party, something most people with a brain knew from the days of the old Ecology Party.

So at least pissed off Labour voters can turn to the Greens or the socialist British National Party. After all, most old working class Labour supporters a few years back were pretty racist in outlook hence the BNP success in Old Labour areas. So I suspect middle class sandal wearing lefties will go Green, horny handed sons of toil will go fascist.

The pissed off right wing Tories will remain with UKIP whereas those not obsessed with the EU, but pissed off with devolution and the mithering Scots, will turn to the English Democrats. So back to Question Time.

Beckett and Lansley last night talked complete bollocks when they weren't just rambling along aimlessly trying not to actually say anything at all. It's interesting that the country is financially going down the pan, we are becoming a more oppressive police state as every day passes and there is a general election next month but none of the big three parties have got anything worth saying.

QT used to be a lively political debating show, not now. It is just a vehicle for the vile, patronising Dimbleby to preen and pose on. The politicians have been emasculated by their leaderships and the odd person of sound outlook, last night the historian David Starkey, always seems to come over as eccentric at best, at worst downright insane.

Then last night the build up was not that the show was coming from Manchester, oh no. The build up last night was that the show was coming from Wythenshawe. If you don't know Wythenshawe it is, or at least used to be, the biggest council estate in Europe and its immediate neighbour is Manchester Airport. I suppose those middle class patronising BBC types thought that announcing Wythenshawe as the venue would give them street cred, but it didn't.

The reason last night's QT had no credibility was that I didn't hear a single Mancunian accent in the audience, let alone a Wythenshawe accent. If you wonder what a Wythenshawe accent sounds like imagine somebody who makes the Gallagher brothers sound posh. The BBC cocked up yet again and proved that the QT audience is not representative of the area in which it takes place. If it had done last night I suspect that Beckett and Lansley would now be in mixed sex wards in Wythenshawe Hospital, while Charles Kennedy would be just coming round after an almighty session in the Red Beret on cheap lager after being relieved of his wallet, watch and any other valuables.

Just to show what bollocks you find on Wikipedia I want to digress briefly and mention the following bit about Wythenshawe from Wikipedia:

Wythenshawe is the outdoor filming location for the Channel 4 series Shameless, which shows various shots of the local tower-blocks, housing estates and other architecture unique to this area. Wythenshawe also housed the outdoor sets for the show, which were built on private property. Production moved from Miles Platting and Ancoats (in East Manchester) in early 2007, following disruption to filming caused by local youths.

That's bollocks. Shameless was filmed in West Gorton, Manchester 12. Yes they did move to Wythenshawe because the crew and cast kept getting attacked by local yobs. They now film on an enclosed, fortress like set in on a Wythenshawe industrial estate where a replica set of West Gorton has been built. It was not filmed in Miles Platting or Ancoats but yes, I believe the cast and crew were also attacked when they used to film on the streets of Wythenshawe too. The tower blocks curently seen on the show are still the West Gorton tower blocks from the original. Sorry but that is a hobby of mine and I know both Wythenshawe and West Gorton particularly well as I was born in West Gorton and the missus was born in Wythenshawe.

But I suppose that QT, which is what I really should be rambling on about, indeed the BBC as an institution, mirrors the country at the moment. Used to be great, is now run by shallow, money crazed imbeciles who use political correctness to stifle real debate, and impose the tactics of totalitarianism to save us from terrorism, which means in their patronising fascistic minds, actually saving us from ourselves.

RIP Question Time.

St Patrick's Day

Now I don't believe myself to be churlish, but I don't actually care that today is St Patrick's Day. If I had more Irish blood than great grandparents on my mother's side in me perhaps I would. If people who want to celebrate St George's Day weren't treated like xenophobic, racist, homophobic, paraskevidekatriaphobic monsters, and every other phobia you can imagine, I might be slightly sympathetic to St Patrick's Day. But I don't care.

What really pigs me off is Americans claiming to be Irish, especially American politicians claiming to be 'Oirish' to get the Irish vote, on the grounds that their great, great, great grandfather once had a pint of Guinness or once cut a piece of peat out of a bog. It's just wrong. If you want a piss up then have one, you don't have to sing maudling songs about perceived injustices three hundred years ago, wear a stupid green Leprechaun hat and drink vast quantities of Guinness until every bodily fluid oozing from you is jet black. Get over it.

Although a pretty patriotic person I don't naturally go for over-the-top demonstrations of patriotism anyway, I don't think it's very English. But I must admit to liking the following very, very much:

Wasting NHS Resources

When seemingly sane people talk about the NHS they so often lose all commonsense. It's a bit like mega successful businessmen who buy a football club, all their business acumen seems to go out of the window and they screw it up.

Here is a commonsense article from a journalist, Jamie Whyte, about GPs missing the point of people wasting their time. Or rather missing the commonsense approach to deterring people from wasting their time:

I like most of the doctors I know. They are earthy and unsqueamish, about minds as well as bodies. Few, however, know much about economics. This normally does not matter. But doctors occasionally stray off piste, get on to health policy issues and make fools of themselves. Yesterday’s letters page of The Times contained a vivid example.

Seventeen health professionals wrote lamenting that about 20 per cent of visits to GPs are for “common disturbances to normal good health, such as coughs and colds”. This costs the NHS about £2 billion a year without making any difference to people’s health, since they could just as effectively treat themselves. According to the medics, “The NHS has become the victim of a demand-led culture.”

Then, having got almost all the way to the answer, they miss it. Reading their letter is like watching your one-year-old with a square peg in hand and the square hole directly in view, trying to stuff it into the round hole. The square peg in the medics’ hand is the word “demand”, and the square hole is the fact that the price of visiting a GP is zero.

Perhaps the most familiar law of economics is that demand increases as price decreases, be it demand for apples, foreign holidays, doctors’ visits or anything else of value. The reason people visit GPs so frivolously is that it costs nothing besides the lost time. The obvious solution to the problem is to charge a fee. £10 should be enough to deter people with sniffles. People with something potentially more threatening will be happy to pay this.

But the medics miss this trick. Instead they fall back on the hoary old distinction between real needs and mere wants, which they combine with the popular modern absurdity that people should be educated into acting against their own interests. Specifically, they call on politicians to “enable GPs and practice nurses to give people the confidence to use the NHS at the point of need, not demand; educate people to manage minor ailments . . .”

If they think this is a good method for rationing GP visits, perhaps they will like this idea for rationing food. Nationalise supermarkets, set the price of all food to zero, then eliminate the problem of wasteful overconsumption by educating people that they should take only the food they need rather than what they want.

The proposal is obviously absurd. No such education could possibly have the desired effect; no one could sensibly specify which food is really needed as opposed to merely wanted; and, even if they could, why should people be allowed to eat only what they need? All the same goes for visiting a GP.

I can already hear the bleeding heart liberals raging about how the bodies of the poor will be piling up in the streets if those callous bastards brought in a £10 charge to see a GP. Bullshit, it's the price of a packet of fags and a pint of bitter for God's sake.

General Election Nutjob Alert-Egality!

As the general election creeps closer more nutters and psychos are crawling out from under their stones. The one I heard about on the radio today is a bunch of deluded misfits called Egality. Here is what they say about their latest loonytunes idea:

"Empowering people in the UK and abroad to directly challenge our unequal world, here and now, by sharing one of our most valuable political rights – the right to vote".

They think that global warming affecting Bangladesh, farmers being shafted in Ghana and the war in Afghanistan are so important that people in those countries should have a vote in our general election. They want you and me to register, and to vote on May 6th, the way some similar lunatic nutjob in one of those countries asks us to.

So stuff voting on ID cards and the police state, schools and education, hospitals and the NHS and so on. No, they want a pissed off farmer in Ghana to vote for you thus practising his new found 'right to vote' by depriving you of yours. I suspect the people at Egality just don't understand democracy.

Haiti-Shane McGowan, Paloma Faith and Others.

This is excellent, and for a very, very good cause. It also includes Paloma Faith which is enough for me:

Vote Labour?

It's very interesting in my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale at the moment. The defending MP is the idiot champagne guzzling socialist Geraldine Smith, who is something like 110th on the Tory Party's hitlist of targets for a general election victory. Even after winning a champagne guzzling contest with the prat MP Bill Etherington she'll probably get back in. No leaflets yet though.

The Tories, on the other hand, are sending us regular bumph that would, a few years ago, have ended up on a nail in the bog at the end of the yard. What's interesting about the Tory bumph is that it is mostly fired off from Millbank and carries a photo of chubby cheeks Cameron with a gormless half grin on his face. Having said that it strikes me as odd from a party that claims to want to decentralise power back to us local yokels. In fact, despite all the crap from the Tories I still don't know the name of the local candidate. What I do know is he looks like a gimp middle manager in a grey suit and has a similar chubby cheeked imbecilic half grin on his face to Dave's when I have glimpsed him in a leaflet peering at a cracked pavement or cleaning up a steaming dog turd to show how caring he is.

But anybody thinking of voting Labour should remember that Gordon Brown's "new start" includes Lady Mandy Mandelson, Charlie Whelan,Damian McBride and Derek "Dolly" Draper. What a team of spivs, shysters and utterly devious and deviant knobheads.

So if you want more of the same old authoritarian bullshit, government mithering and lies then vote Labour.

On the other hand, if you want more of the same old authoritarian bullshit, government mithering and lies then vote Conservative.

What's the difference?

Eddie Izzard at the Munch Box

We have a little Sunday morning ritual. I tootle off to Mass at St Mary of the Angels in Bolton-le-Sands at 9-00am, then bring in bacon butties from the Munch Box for brekkie on my way back.

If you don't know, the Munch Box is one of the finest dining establishments in Lancashire, great bacon butties, a great chinwag and usually a good laugh while your choice of breakfast butty is being freshly prepared to order. It's situated in the lay-bye on the A6 at Bolton-le-Sands with wonderful views across the Bay to the Lake District mountains.

Last night, recovering from yet another political gathering in London, I was lounging in the west wing, enjoying a reviving glass of Laphroig while Mrs B gently snoozed in her armchair, and on came Eddie Izzard in a series about his heroic marathon jaunt last year for Sport Relief. Very sensibly he stops at the Munch Box for a refuelling stop proving that he is a man of taste and discernment. Here is his visit to the Munch Box from his video diary:



That was a lovely bacon, black pudding and tomato butty this morning Bob, many thanks, and I look forward to seeing your "By Appointment to His Izzardness" plaque going up above the hatch.

Morrissey

After today in Manchester, then London on the milk train for a meeting tomorrow back later on tomorrow, it's time for some music from the genius that is Morrissey.


Top man!

Nick Hogan-Hero or Clown?

If like me you have been away, or extremely busy recently, you may have missed the fact that anti-smoking ban pub landlord Nick Hogan has been sent to prison, but has now been released. He wasn't imprisoned for breaching the smoking ban, but for non payment of fines in relation to breaches of the smoking ban in his pub. On many blogs he has become something of a cause celebre.

I don't accept that his actions are a great blow for libertarianism even though I heartily oppose the smoking ban, though no longer smoke. If I ignored every law I oppose I would have spent most of the last thirty years in Strangeways. What we all need to do is to campaign and fight against all those things that we find oppressive. There are issues that require civil disobedience but first we have to garner the support of the general population. The general population see those who stood in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square as heroes, somebody going to prison over the smoking ban they are more likely to see as a clown.

If real progress is to be made then libertarianism has to be seen as a credible philosophy. Too many people see libertarians as a group of people who just want to scrap laws so they can do what the hell they want and stuff everybody else, legalising drugs being the easiest thing to beat us with. I don't want to get bogged down in the drugs issue but I'm sure any libertarian knows the arguments back to front.

Supporting somebody over an issue such as the smoking ban, which is even supported by many smokers now, is picking the wrong fight at the wrong time. In a nutshell very few people give a shit. We can either tilt at windmills or we can fight a savvy and credible political war. Supporting Nick Hogan is clearly tilting at windmills.

What it really comes down to is a choice between libertarians posturing and posing on the internet for the next however many years, or building credibility, getting people to vote for them and getting people elected then making a real change. Supporting somebody who stamps his feet and throws a tantrum because he hasn't got what he wants invites ridicule and ultimate failure.

National No Smoking Day

In case you didn't know today is 'National No Smoking Day' when the government, and assorted hysterical anti-tobacco nuts and health fascists, badger us about having a drag on a fag. No doubt the government propaganda device in your living room will be pumping cancer and bronchitis warnings at you all day in between telling you how they will crush your car if you even think about not taxing it or will remove your finger nails with pliers if you forget to get your TV licence.

I gave up smoking three years ago but feel it is our patriotic duty to support our oppressed fellow citizens who are forced, by fascistic authoritarian government automatons, to brave the elements whenever they fancy a smoke, be they at work, in the pub or even at home it seems. Even on a railway station platform with no roof and a howling wind, smokers will be shot if they light up according to the tannoy announcements about not smoking or blowing up a train at Lancaster Station.

So, back to our patriotic duty. You get knobhead celebrities, like Prince Harry or William (which one's Ant which one's Dec?) kipping in cardboard boxes to support the homeless, smokers are much more deserving, at least they pay taxes, so each and every one of us should support the oppressed smokers of the UK and go out, buy a packet of ciggies and light up in solidarity.

Can you still get 5 Park Drive and a book of matches?

Sean Gabb on Compulsory Voting

There is much talk of falling voter turnout and compulsory voting is a ploy used to divert attention away from the truth; that people don't vote because most of the parties standing in our election are vermin.

OK, so people have fought and died for the right to vote. They have also fought and died for the right NOT to vote. Being forced to do something means it is no longer a 'right'. Are you proud of your 'right' to pay council tax? Exactly!

Here is a brief clip of Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance on compulsory voting:

Sean Gabb, Should Voting be Compulsory? from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

CCTV- State Surveillance

I've just discovered the following film on YouTube. The documentary, looking at the ever expanding use of CCTV, includes Sean Gabb, Tim Evans and Brian Micklethwait of the Libertarian Alliance.

Nikki Sinclaire UKIP MEP-A Statement

Poor old Nikki, one of the few if not the only UKIP MEP, with any principles is being attacked again by the Party Leadership. Here is her latest video statement:



I've told her before and I'll say it again, UKIP are a lost cause. They are now in it for the money, nothing more. She would do much more for the cause outside UKIP and within a proper political party.

Frank Skinner-A Catholic

Having just spent the week at the wonderful Pantasaph Franciscan Retreat Centre, I really enjoyed the following article by Frank Skinner in The Times today:

I’m a Roman Catholic and I go to church every Sunday. Towards the end of Mass, there’s a thing called the Sign of Peace. We all shake hands with everyone in shaking distance and say “peace be with you”. Last Sunday the priest told us to drop the handshaking element to show our solidarity with Wayne Bridge.

That’s one of the things I love about being Catholic. You can tell the highly suspicious non-Catholics — their imaginations fired by talk of kissed statues and venerated fibulas — about almost any odd behaviour in a Roman Catholic church and they’ll believe you.

To many British people, Christianity seems like a weird but unexciting theme park. Personally, I like our ever-dwindling status. I even like our ever-dwindling numbers. There was a time when social pressure made people go to church. If anything the reverse is now true. Most adults you see in church nowadays are there because they want to be there. That’s not decline, it’s progress. The wheat has been separated from the chaff. We get quality, not quantity, in the churches and the chaff can enjoy a nice lie-in. That’s just as well, because there’ll be little opportunity for slumber when they’ve got a demon’s pitchfork up their arse.

Christians have always worked best as an unpopular minority. We were surely at our most dynamic when we knelt, eyes to Heaven, hands clasped in prayer, with a Colosseum lion bounding towards us.

That’s why I think Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is wrong to get his cassock in a twist about changing attitudes to Christianity in this country. He speaks of a “strident and bullying campaign” to marginalise Christianity. But that’s great news. “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”

We’re going to have Brownie points coming out of our ears. The evidence of such bullying, many Christians would argue, was evident in two recent incidents when a teacher was sacked and a nurse suspended — both because they offered to pray for sick people. I agree that those punishments seem wrong-headed but both women will receive huge blessings for enduring such injustice. Surely their mistake was up-fronting their intentions.

I’ve prayed for loads of friends, most of them atheists. I tend not to tell them. If I do tell them I fear my motivation for doing so is largely ego-based. I’m just trying to show how nice and caring I am. It’s much healthier to do it on the sly. “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Lord Carey feels that Christians have been too soft. He said that if you behave like a doormat, you get treated like one. I’m a little wary of muscular Christianity. It’s been used to justify everything from the Crusades to the shooting of abortion doctors. It seems to be in direct contradiction to “Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”.

This is the doormat as positive role model — a doormat who’s more concerned about the “welcome” than the muddy feet. Surely the central image of Christianity is someone who can shoot fireballs out of his fingertips allowing himself to be nailed to a wooden cross — submission as the ultimate show of strength — love as impenetrable armour. Most British Christians are badly dressed, unattractive people. We’re not pushy and aggressive members of society. We’re a bit like Goths — no one can remember us being fashionable and we talk about death a lot. I love the glorious un-coolness of that.

The oppression of Christians in some other countries is completely unacceptable. I obviously wouldn’t want to see such genuine persecution of Christians in the UK, though that blessing for the reviled and that championing of the turned cheek would, strictly speaking, still apply.

As Lord Carey admits, here it’s more about some local council not wanting to call Christmas “Christmas” in case it offends someone. I’m hoping that, with the rise of secularisation, Christians will be able to claim Christmas as exclusively their own again. I’m sure the new atheists, many of whom point out that Christianity cynically appropriated pagan festivals, would not want to be guilty of similar hypocrisy. Don’t come begging for church weddings or christenings either. Maybe a bit of strictly observed us-and-them will lead to a new Christian unity.

I went to a debate this week. The motion was “England should be a Catholic country again”. I ended up voting against. The marriage of Church, any church, and State seems alien to the teachings of Christ. Power corrupts and British Christians should be happy to continue relinquishing it.The Catholic Church lost more than it gained when it got into bed with the Emperor Constantine.

Christians tend to save their best work for the “voice in the wilderness” genre. We are most impressive when operating as a secret sect, kneeling in small, candle-lit rooms and scrawling fishes on walls. I’m enjoying this current dose of persecution. It’s definitely good for the soul.

Man Made Global Warming

If you're still daft enough to believe in Man Made Global Warming then this news will finally convince you that it isn't.

"Man is responsible for global warming, according to a new report that hits back at the growing scepticism around climate change.

The Met Office-led report looked at the latest figures on global temperatures, melting sea ice and humidity. It also considered new evidence on the extent of warming in the Antarctic, rainfall patterns and salinity of the oceans.

It concluded that is was "human influence" that is changing the climate".

If the Met Office says it's man made, it must be bollocks! In fact, if the Met Office predict a drought this winter, I'll start building an ark.

Choosing the Common Good

I'll be interested to study the document Choosing the Common Good properly over the next day or two. It is the Catholic Church's position on social and moral teaching in readiness for the general election and the visit, later this year, of Pope Benedict XVI to England.

The following quote from the Most Rev Peter Smith, Archbishop of Cardiff, in today's Telegraph is very encouraging though:

“If you simply try to enforce behaviour by law, it doesn’t work terribly well in practice. Governments can’t do everything, and there’s been a tendency in recent years to think government has to do everything. The downside of that is that people think ‘well, I don't have to bother’

.

Nikki Sinclaire and UKIP-yet again!

While I've been away on my retreat this week poor old Nikki Sinclaire has been further abused and mistreated by Farage and his henchmen. I would hope that UKIP's North West Chairman Phil Griffiths voted against her expulsion now he has sold his soul, sorry, joined the Party's NEC.

You see, Phil was the chap, as North West Chairman, who despised Paul Nuttall so deeply that he even refused to accept a drink from him at the hustings meetings for the NW EU elections list ballots in 2008. Imagine my shock when, in 2009, he was elected to the Party NEC, proposed by Paul Nuttall.

Furthermore, it was Phil Griffiths who, as Chairman of the North West Committee, urged me to stay within UKIP as lead candidate for the Euro elections, rather than walking as I did, but resign from the Party as soon as I was elected to sit as an independent. That was so fundamentally dishonest I was saddened that Phil could even suggest it. But that, sadly, is now par for the course in UKIP it seems. Or perhaps Phil did vote for it, in a rather confused state, believing he was doing what he suggested in 2007! Who knows?

So to Nikki. Following is her statement on the latest abuse of their powers by UKIP's NEC:

It is with great disappointment that I have today received a letter from the Party Secretary, Michael Zuckerman that removes me as a UKIP MEP. A decision that has lost UKIP it's status as the official opposition in the European Parliament and the UK's 2nd largest party.

There has been no disciplinary procedure and no right of reply. I find this course of action incredulous after 16 years of service. This decision has been made despite expression of absolue support for the Party and intention to continue as a UKIP MEP/Candidate. There was an agreed position between myself, Lord Pearson and fellow UKIP West MIdlands MEP, Mike Nattrass

With only eight weeks before a General Election I find it absolutely amazing that the Party decided to open a sore wound rather than fight the real enemy.

I reserve the right to defend my reputation, my political career and the aims of UKIP by all available means.

Nikki

Following is the letter she received from the Party secretary:



Here is how The Times covered the story today.

I find it difficult to believe that the never ending crisis that is UKIP, was caused accidentally. I don't accept coincidences, especially in politics, but, 'coincidentally', there is always one man at the heart of every crisis that UKIP stumbles into. That man is Nigel Farage.