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.