Russell Howard

I have been asked why Russell Howard, the comedian that isn't in the least bit funny but really puerile and childish, isn't in my 'Prick of the Year' poll. The reason is I didn't want my poll to degenerate into the 'Who Will be Runner-Up to Russell Howard as Prick of the Year' poll.

A Nation of Wet Nellies

No wonder the kids of Britain are fat, soft and dense.Forgive that sweeping generalisation but we really are screwing our kids up. And before anybody starts I'm a porker myself, losing my hair, pretty rapidly, but, while I don't claim to be Einstein, I don't think I'm dense.

What kicked it off for me today was that Big Brother is now going to put internet safety on the national curriculum for five year olds. This government loves nothing more than making people feel like victims, or potential victims, then riding to the rescue, as they think. What is wrong with parents actually taking responsibility for what their kids do or do not look at? Oh, of course, parents haven't necessarily been police checked or cleared by the Independent Safeguarding Authority so are probably paedophiles in the eyes of this government, or in the eye of the Prime Minister.

So the poor little darlings are growing up being told that the internet is dangerous. That the man with a camera by the football field is probably a pervert. That conkers could blind you so wear these goggles. That a car could kill you so mummy and daddy will be fined if your car seat is an inch too big or small. That daddy smokes so will die a long lingering death from cancer before you reach your teens. That every other kid in the world is a bully and therefore to be avoided. That playing with toy guns will lead to you being shot by a police marksman. That fat kids, like you should be taken into care. That fat kids who need adopting will stay in care because the potential adoptees smoke a fag on a Saturday night while having a pint, which means they're irresponsible binge drinkers destined for early deaths from cirrhosis and lung cancer. That social services are so busy imposing political correctness that if you are in genuine danger you will probably be beaten to death by one of your fat slapper of a mother's junkie boyfriends.

So the the parents go to the supermarket where there are special parent and child parking bays right next to the entrance so fat little Tarquin doesn't have to wobble too far to make a right effin' nuisance of himself in the shop, mother cooing like an over-indulgent dove while her litle fat nerd makes a right nuisance of himself in the sweets and chocolate aisle.

Then there is the school run. Fat little Tarquin and Tamara can't possibly walk the half mile to school, that would be child cruelty and have social services on you like a ton of bricks. No, mummy has to use the Hummer to get her precious ones safely to school. Then, when she double parks on those yellow zig-zags outside school because some other mummy has already parked on them, she gives you the middle finger for daring to suggest she stops causing a traffic jam. But of course, you park with a bumper over the zig-zags and you'll get a hysterical lecture about endangering the lives of our little ones who are all going to die before their teens anyway because the melting polar ice caps will drown them or they will be eaten by migrating polar bears, unable to save themslves because guns have been outlawed and the only kids who were trained with toy ones were shot by the police anyway.

So now you know!

Frankie Boyle

Following are five classic clips of Frankie Boyle, with thanks to Alex Rochester. The only drawback is that the imbecile Russell Howard gets in a couple of clips.



Now please remember to vote for my Prick of the Year 2009 on the left side bar.

Voting Open for Prick of the Year 2009

Voting has now started for this blog's Prick of the Year Award, please visit the side bar. You may also like to make a donation to my Christmas charity which is The Prostate Cancer Charity. Again there is a link to the donations page on my side bar.

Most of the people on my poll are pretty obvious. However, a word about Alex. He is the kind of politically correct obsessive who cries RACIST! if you look up to the sky and say: "Oh no, that black cloud looks dodgy". You can find his rather obsessive blog, but I wouldn't recommend it, via a link on yesterday's post, it's very tedious.

Which reminds me of the politically correct pantomime: Precipitation of Indeterminate Colour and the Seven Persons of Diminutive Stature

Prick of the Year

A late entry for my Prick of the Year award has stormed into contention, albeit slightly late in the day. Step forward Alex who has the blog below:

usually fairly calm about these things

He has taken advantage of my blog to make a complete nob of himself here and here.

He has also made a nob of himself by attacking Old Holborn, an all round good egg in any sane person's opinion.

He sounds like one of those box bedroom revolutionaries who spends his time searching for 'isms' to get fairly angry about while trying to remain fairly calm. But I suspect people who see 'racism' everywhere are actually covering their own latent racism.

So Alex is a serious contender for Prick of the Year 2009. Who knows this time next year he may have grown up and found a bit of sense, which would put him right out of the running for 2010.

Oh yes, he's also one of those thickos who writes 'ers' into a sentence, which gives him even more marks on the old prickometer.

However, Geraldine Smith, the incredibly stupid MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, is still the bookies' favourite. Voting begins next week and you are welcome to make a nomination, preferably somebody who has featured on this blog at some point during 2009. However, if you nominate somebody they will then feature so let's go with the flow.

Annual Police Terror

The Annual Police Terror has officially begun. Traffic filth had a 'Police Drink Drive Check Point' in central Lancaster at 11-00 this morning, no doubt trying to catch people who had enjoyed too good a time last night.

They were also getting belligerent, or at least one of them was, with people they thought had dodgy tax discs. The fella I saw had a fine tax disc, but his windscreen was a little steamed up with condensation. Cue disappointed copper.

Still, I suppose it stops them shooting children playing with toy guns or, as Anonymous pointed out in comments to my post yesterday, Brazilian electricians.

So, it's now time for my traditional Christmas joke about the traffic police, traditional because it's an ancient joke:

Q.What's the difference between a police Range Rover and a hedgehog?
A.The hedgehog has the pricks on the outside.

Kill Your Sons

Thank God I'm past the age of opening my Christmas presents to find a Johnny Seven or a toy Luger. Parents are being warned not to buy them for their kids this Christmas because the police will shoot them:

Police are warning parents about allowing their children play with toy guns, saying they are running the risk of having them confronted with police marksmen.

Essex police said parents should not buy youngsters plastic guns for Christmas in case passers-by thought that the toys were weapons.

”Replica weapons look so much like the real thing that they … can terrorise individuals and communities,” Supt Simon Williams told The Daily Telegraph.

”The majority of children, teachers and parents are simply not aware of the issues and consequences of carrying around such items - they don’t realise the impact these so-called ‘toys’ have on our communities and on us.”

Police said that had been called to nearly 1,000 incidents involving guns in 2009, with many turning out to be false alarms caused by toy and replica weapons.

”When we respond to such incidents we cannot always identify whether a gun is real or fake,” a spokesman added.

”Carrying an imitation gun could ultimately result in a highly-trained armed officer having to challenge a teenager and so, naturally, we are worried.

”We have been deployed to nearly 900 firearms incidents so far this year, with a significant number involving replica or BB guns. This has to stop now.”

Imagine the bloodshed in the '60s when kids ran around shooting each other playing 'war', or 'cowboys and injuns', if armed police had turned up to spoil the fun with a bullet to the temple. I grew up next to the Moors Murderers but survived, it's hard to think that today I would have survived that but been shot by the police.

Am I the only one who wonders why, when handguns are banned, we see more and more armed police on the streets? Even more worrying we see armed police who are not trained well enough to differentiate between toy guns and real ones, but seem to have decided to shoot 'just in case'.

Still, what's the problem with shooting a few kids in the hunt for a nutcase with a long beard in a cave somewhere in the Hindu Kush?

I wonder what Dixon of Dock Green would have to say about this. Or Commander George Gideon.

Racism

I think this poster says it all.

Serge Gainsbourg

Time for something a little different methinks.

Serge Gainsbourg reminds me of some fantastic holidays driving around France, I even smoked Gauloises for a long time as well as listening to Serge. Anyway I think Comic Strip typifies the unique talent that was Serge Gainsbourg:

No Cameras Allowed

As the police state tightens its grip it even now takes on a very British hue. We aren't actually very good at dictatorship, remember Cromwell and the return of the monarchy not long after?

But not being able to take a photograph of a sunset over St Pauls, because of anti-terror legislation, has even stirred Matthew Parris. In the following piece in The Times he becomes, for the usual mild to bland Parris, animated to the extent of almost ranting, well a Parris style rant anyway:

Funny how the house rules of broadcasting and journalism insinuate themselves into our unconscious without our knowing it. Ours is the least “deconstructed” trade in Britain: you never let the pipes and girders, the stage props, lawyers and technical gadgetry show. Readers just see a finished newspaper, viewers a clean screen with sofas, trees and views of Big Ben. So when on Sunday I sat beside Mariella Frostrup on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, and a professional photographer I know, Jeff Overs, strode in front of the cameras, photographic equipment round his neck, something jarred. Quick, Jeff’s gone berserk. Get him off.

But he’d been invited. He was there to describe an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to stop him photographing a sunset over St Paul’s Cathedral. The officer had been acting, she said, under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. She’d been stopping loads of people taking pictures that afternoon “and nobody’s complained”. I mentioned that I’d been moved on from among the pigeons in Trafalgar Square when recording (into something no bigger than a Dictaphone) for a radio programme about wild animals in London. Mariella said she thought it was sinister.

I think it’s worse than sinister. It’s plumb stupid. Is there anything you could call a presiding human intelligence at work in our counter-terrorism operations? Has nobody in the Met heard of Google Street View? Do senior officers talk to junior officers about priorities, and if so, do they think it likely that al-Qaeda would use operatives carrying professional photographic equipment, rather than disguised as tourists with mobile phones? Do they think that if an officer has reason to suspect someone of taking pictures for the purposes of terrorism, the appropriate response could ever be just to tell them to stop?

I discussed this next morning on BBC London radio, which had approached the Met to be told that such operations are carefully limited to “iconic sites and crowded places”, ie, where thousands of people have a good reason to take snapshots.

I have been trying hard to visualise an organisation composed of sentient individuals, in which these questions have not been asked. The attempt defeated me. I’m scared, Mariella, not because Big Brother is watching, but because Big Brother’s a noodle. Given the quality of our response, the untold story of our age is surely the incompetence of al-Qaeda.

The police state is actually scarier than Parris paints it. But I suspect that he represents the bland, touchy feely Conservatism that will see Dave Cameron becoming just an extension of the current Big Brother lovers in government. Moan about it over a G&T while turning a blind eye, as Gordon Brown has so expertly, to its ever more threatening intrusion into our lives.

Nicolas 'Le Dwarf' Sarkozy

If you still doubt that our independence has been given away to the European Union then please read the comments of Nicolas 'Le Dwarf' Sarkozy in the Times.

We are in charge now, Sarkozy tells the City

Democracy

Pondering the vote this week in Switzerland I couldn't help thinking that the people of France, Holland and Ireland voted against the Lisbon Treaty but they, and we, got it any way.

Then the bleeding heart liberals go all self righteous and condemn the Swiss for voting against more minarets going up than the four that already exist in that country. The chances are the decision will be overturned when the Council of Europe stick their long noses in anyway:

“Bearing in mind that it is a fundamental right of democratic states to debate and vote on issues of importance to their societies, the referendum held yesterday on the construction of new minarets in Switzerland raises concerns as to whether fundamental rights of individuals, protected by international treaties, should be subject to popular votes,” said the council’s secretary general, Thorbjørn Jagland, a former foreign minister of Norway. “The ban on the construction of new minarets is linked to issues such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion and prohibition of discrimination guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Therefore it would be up to the European Court of Human Rights to decide, should an application be submitted to the court, whether the prohibition of building new minarets is compatible with the convention.”

So forgive me for asking, but exactly what type of 'democracy' are the forces in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting to impose on those poor sods? Is it the one that says the people can have their say, as long as they agree with the political class?

Christmas Charity-The Prostate Cancer Charity

Christmas is a wonderful time for giving and receiving and, if you are a Christian, for celebrating the birth of Christ. Who knows, we may even get a white Christmas this year.

Via this blog I am supporting the Prostate Cancer Charity. I don't believe in asking people to donate rather than give presents or send cards, that's too much fun to not do, but I would ask you to consider clicking on the image on my side bar and making a donation, no matter how small, to the Prostate Cancer Charity.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Islamabad Comes To Luton-Again!

Baroness Warsi, Shadow Minister for the ludicrous portfolio of Community Cohesion and Social Action has been verbally abused and pelted with eggs by Muslims in Luton. The BBC footage here looks more like a film from an election gathering in Islamabad than a street in Luton.

I'm a great believer in live and let live, that religions should be able to live side by side without causing problems for each other or anybody else, but tolerance does have to have its limits.

What is starting to concern me is that every time there is an incident involving Muslims, no matter how great or how trivial, throwing an egg at a politician or the London bombings, we hear the same old tired mantra that "they are not representative of real Muslims". Well socialists/communists used to use that old chestnut whenever the evils of a socialist/communist country were exposed, "ah but that isn't true socialism".

That mantra didn't convince me then, and I'm starting to doubt it today too.

John Demjanjuk and Nazi War Crimes

Many years ago, back in the '70s, I knew an elderly woman who had a deep and abiding hatred of Germany and Germans because of the Second World War, and no doubt from reading about the First World War. Not having lived through the blitz and growing up with a rehabilitated Germany playing a key role in European affairs I didn't share her loathing but part of me could understand it. What I found I couldn't accept was that she had a stack of newspapers from 1939 to 1945 and, if she ever felt her hatred for all things German waning, she would take them out and read them to stoke up her venom.

I had a similar feeling yesterday when I read about 89 year old John Demjanjuk's trial starting in Munich. Demjanjuk has already been tried in Israel for war crimes and found guilty then had the conviction overturned, he was found innocent but had spent several years wrongly imprisoned. This time non of the co-plaintiffs in the trial can positively identify Demjanjuk as a guard at Sobibor concentration camp. In his first trial he was wrongly accused, yet found guilty, of being a guard at Treblinka known as "Ivan the Terrible".

The Germans forced many Red Army prisoners to become guards in camps to free up Germans to fight on the front. How many of us could raise our hands if asked whether, in 1942 or 1943, we would have stood up to the Nazis and refused to become guards, especially knowing the treatment you would have received for doing so?

Don't look back with 21st century glasses on either. We can only imagine the de-humanising effects on people of two barbaric philosophies, fascism and communism, going in a bloody and often primitive head-to-head, a fight for survival, a fight to the death. In those circumstances men will do things that they would never dream of under normal, civilised circumstances.

The trial of John Demjanjuk, an 89 year old in seriously ill health smacks of the civilised world behaving in the same way as that old lady I knew in the 1970s. Neither dignified nor civilised.

Libertarian Party

It's been a busy weekend but very satisfying. Yesterday was an old fashioned Sunday visiting family during the day then watching ice hockey in the evening, Manchester Phoenix beating Basingstoke 6-4.

Saturday was the Libertarian Party conference in Bristol. It was a really good, constructive day that saw Chris Mounsey of Devil's Kitchen being elected Party Leader and I was elected Party Chairman. Cllr Gavin Webb became Director of Communications.

We didn't exactly then head back to our constituencies to prepare for power, but we are certainly going to work hard to put libertarianism well and truly on the political map, building on the excellent done by those, such as Andrew Withers and others, who have built the Party from scratch in the last couple of years.

Oh yes, the hefty book ends on the top table are yours truly (left) and Andrew Withers, who stepped down as Chairman to become Deputy Leader and Treasurer. Chris is speaking and the fourth chap is Tim Carpenter, Director of Policy Development.

Now the work begins.

Magazine-Song From Under The Floorboards

I heard this classic on BBC Radio 2 yesterday as I was driving through my old stomping ground of East Manchester. I was probably there when I heard it for the first time a thousand years ago. Well, in 1981.

It still sounds so good I thought it was only right to share it:



More on Howard Devoto and Magazine here.

Iraq Inquiry-Blair Was Weak

The Times report on the Iraq Inquiry today has Sir Christopher Meyer unfavourably comparing Blair with Margaret Thatcher.

Sir Christopher Meyer, then British Ambassador to the US, told the Iraq Inquiry that Mr Blair would have been more influential if he had attached pre-conditions to British support at the Crawford ranch meeting - which was six months before Hans Blix began looking for weapons in Iraq.

“I think that would have changed the nature of American planning,” he said. “By the time you get to the end of the year it’s too late. . . I did say to London that we’re being taken for granted.

“To this day I am not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood at the Crawford ranch,” Sir Christopher said. “[But] they weren’t there to talk about containment or strengthening sanctions."

The high point of Britain’s influence on Washington amounted to “bugger all” and a stronger Prime Minister like Margaret Thatcher could have done more, he told the inquiry.

Sir Christopher told Sir John Chilcot and his five fellow panellists that the high point of Britain’s influence on the Bush Administration was encouraging President Bush to publish a road map on the Middle East but that “led to bugger all, let’s be frank”.

“We found ourselves scrabbling around for the smoking gun,” he said. “And we - the Americans, the British - have never really recovered from that because of course there was no smoking gun.”

How the hell were people stupid enough to keep voting Blair into 10 Downing Street?

Personal Responsibility versus State Control

People often grumble about intrusions into their lives by officialdom then, whenever there is a problem, they are the first to shout for government action. Government action then means more intrusion into our lives and so on. What the 'government should act' brigade need to understand is that they are asking for those stinking scroungers known as politicians to do more damage and boss us around even more every time they shout 'the government should do something'.

The more the state intervenes and bullies the more society, whatever your perception of society is, seems to become increasingly dysfunctional. So the more dysfunctional society becomes, the more the state interferes and so on. Familiar?

Yesterday saw another one of those obnoxious state sponsored ads telling us what to do and what not to do, a bit like those other great totalitarians the Nazis and the communists used to broadcast. Last night's had a pretty ugly image of a pair of nostrils and was designed to make me stop snorting coke, regardless of the fact that the only thing I snort is a hayfever remedy, and obviously not in November.

Too many charities have now become extensions of the state, selling their souls and their noble ethos for easy money from the government, or you and me to be accurate through our taxes. Hence you then get sick adverts hectoring us about beating our children. These organisations have to justify their existence, and pay some huge salaries, so they sensationalise and exagerrate to shock us into donating.

Then yesterday it was announced that children are to be taught about domestic violence in schools. It is to become a subject in the personal, social, health and economic education part of the curriculum. Topics include: alcohol, drug and tobacco awareness; bullying; sex and relationship education; sexuality; careers advice; personal finance; healthy living; body image and how the body changes; personal well-being.Teaching domestic violence will be compulsory by 2011. Teaching or brainwashing? Where are the parents? Is the state now the parent, the parent merely the economic unit and breeding machine?

Domestic violence is sick and needs to be dealt with but are we always told the truth. The only time I have witnessed domestic violence was some years ago and it was the wife beating the husband. When I gave a witness statement to the police they told me that in London at that time it was roughly 50:50 when they were called out to 'domestics'. It isn't always big hairy thugs beating up the little woman, in that case she was about 5'00" and he was a 6' builder.

But the incidence of domestic violence, thankfully, is tiny although obviously huge and life ruining if not threatening for the victim. But introducing it into schools is making a thankfully rare event appear like an everyday happening to kids living happy lives in harmonious families. That is plain wrong and is likely to create more problems further down the line. On the really dark and scary side how many kids, when told not to do something, immediately go out and give it a try?

The problem is that government thinks it can come up with answers to everyting in a formulaic way, but life doesn't work like that. Government is turning the whole populace into potential victims or potential villains. It has created, through its actions and its propaganda, an unhealthy nation where a man outside the school gates is likely to be lynched by the mob for being a 'paedo' when he was there to collect his grandson. The husband of the woman who falls and ends up with a bruise on her face is likely to be hauled in by the Domestic Violence Unit for beating her. The newsreader who impersonates Trevor McDonald in rehearsals is accused of racism rather than imitation, the sincerest form of flattery.

Have no doubt, we are deeper into a police state than many people wish to acknowledge. But in 2005, despite CCTV cameras sprouting up all over London, we had the London bombings. CCTV, the hardware of the police state, couldn't protect us and neither will the propaganda, the brainwashing software of the state improve our lives or protect us. Personal freedom, liberty and resposibility are what we need.

When the government introduce the Hedonism Bill, prepare for complete and abject misery to follow.

Climate Change

Many of us 'deniers' are taking a great deal of delight at the debunking of the environmental fascists and their hysterical claims about 'man made global warming'. James Delingpole, as ever, cut straight to the chase in the following tremendous article:

James Delingpole on Climategate

I've always been sceptical about those who put all their faith in scientists, just like the rest of us scientists can get it wrong too.

The only thing I would take issue with this week is the tagging of 'gate' (Climategate) on to yet another scandal/cock-up whatever you want to call it. Please give it a break.

Farewell To Pubs

I have spent most of today in Salford and East Manchester and was yet again shocked at the number of boarded up or demolished pubs. The pub on the left is the Hare and Hounds, a great traditonal local in Abbey Hey, Gorton. It has seen off almost every pub within a couple of miles, and believe me there were a lot of pubs in that part of Manchester, almost one on the corner of every terraced street. Let's hope the Hare and Hounds survives. So I started wondering again how it had come to this. I know we all have our pet theories but I think the problem, if indeed it is a problem, has many threads.

One reason is the smoking ban, which has undoubtedly contributed although it cannot be solely responsible for the level of pub closures. However, if I still smoked I wouldn't be prepared to go outside on days like this for a fag, I'd stay at home and drink and smoke in comfort, as indeed thousands of smokers are doing.

There was the Tory reforms in the '80s restricting the number of pubs a brewery could own. This opened the door to the plastic pub chains that we see today, that rip off landlord and customer alike. It also saw the beginning of the end for many small brewers such as Wilson's and many, many other small local brewers. I remember when you couldn't buy Boddington's south of Crewe because apparently 'it didn't travel well'. It isn't even made in Manchester today.

Young people also seem to have changed their drinking habits, which has inevitably contributed. We used to sit drinking beer in pubs until 11-00, later if there was a bit of 'extra hours'. We would then go clubbing, and continue drinking beer. It seems today, and not having kids I am one step removed, that young people tend to go straight to bars rather than pubs and hit shots straightaway rather than much weaker beer. Or, as friends kids have told us, they meet at someone's house to get drunk then go to a club.

There is also, linked to the change in younger peoples' habits, a breakdown of community. Pubs were once the heart of many communities, especially in working class areas. But people don't tend to socialise together publicly as much now. Social clubs, working mens' clubs, Tory and Labour clubs, parish social clubs have nearly all gone. There are changes in our homes that keep people from the pub. The proliferation of TV channels in recent years, especially sports channels. There are computers too that offer an alternative and any number of other lifesytle changes. There are government experts constantly harping on about having a bottle of wine when it's not Christams means you are an alcoholic who probably beats your wife and kids. All these things, and probably many more, have contributed.

From my own experience crap landlords put you off. I went a pub recently with a colleague at lunchtime. We ordered drinks and asked what food they were doing. We got a terse reply that they didn't do food. So we asked if he minded me popping over the road to bring a sandwich in. No, I couldn't, so we left without drinks and will never darken his doorway again. Some landlords should look at themselves when seeking to aportion blame.

So I still wonder if pub closures are a man made problem, or is nature just running its course?

Green Totalitarianism

Here is a link to an excellent piece by Melanie Phillips in the Spectator.

It's good to see the emotional retards of the environmental fascist movement getting their comeuppance.

Thanks for that Hugh.

Downing Street Petition-Digital Economy Bill

The Digital Economy Bill is the start of government control of the internet. It must be stopped before the government prohibit our freedom to communicate through the internet.

Needless to say Lady Mandy of Mandelson is behind this piece of wolf in sheep's clothing legislation which says it all. He won't be happy, it seems, until he rules the Universe and we are his slaves, the bastard.

Please follow this link and sign the petition.

British Police State

Professor Jonathan Montgomery can expect to be sacked soon from his post with an 'independent government advisery commission' for this report. People are being arrested for little or nothing in order for the authorities to get their/our details on the national database. As Professor Nutt discovered, the government don't like honesty and truth.

Meantime the official whitewash into the illegal war against Iraq begins. In case you were thinking it was going to be an open, democratic and searching enquiry the following quote might put you straight:

“Should a witness feel unable to answer questions due to a genuine fear of self-incrimination of a criminal offence, it would be open to the Inquiry Committee to consider whether, in order to secure the greatest possible openness and co-operation, it would be appropriate to seek an undertaking from the Law Officers that evidence provided to the inquiry will not be used in criminal proceedings against them.”

Full report from the Telegraph here.

Funny how Sadam Hussein wasn't offered immunity, or Radovan Karadzic, or John Demjanjuk, et al.

Oh yes, I forgot, Blair and co carried out their war crimes in the name of democracy. That's alright then!

Plane Stupid Or Just Sick Bastards?

The following shows the depths the emotional retards of the environmental fascism movement are prepared to sink to:



Then they expect us to believe that their certifiable ramblings about 'man made global warming' are based on reason.

Bollocks!

Parliament Could Be Hung

I don't believe in the death penalty normally, but could accept it being brought back before the next election so we could have a proper hung parliament, then get rid again. Don't worry I'm only kidding, I think.

No, I've said for a long time that we are heading for a hung parliament after the next election and, according to an Ipsos Mori poll in today's Sunday Telegraph, I could be right. Cameron's poll lead is plumetting so as I've said before to so many complacent Tories, don't get too excited, there's time for them to blow it.

Personally I can't tell the difference between Labour and New Tory, except that Cameron is more like Blair than is Brown, so there will be little change if the Tories win. The prospect of Nick Clegg's snivelling Lib Dems gaining from a hung parliament fills me with dread, you can't trust that bunch of political prostitutes to do the right thing.

The Libertarian Party offers a real alternative if you value freedom and liberty.

More Scum In Parliament

Imagine you have a very generous boss who pays your mortgage for you. He then discovers that you have fallen out with your wife, who has effectively kicked you out of said house, and you are now staying in a hotel. Not only are you staying in a hotel but you are claiming for the cost on your expenses.

So you are now claiming for the mortgage on a property you no longer inhabit. You are also claiming for hotel bills. How do you think your boss would react? I'm pretty sure that most of us would give aforementioned employee a steel toecapped kick up the jacksy before considering calling in PC Plod.

I bet that won't happen to David Curry, Conservative MP for Skipton:

The Conservative MP David Curry claimed 30K for a home in his Yorkshire constituency which he did not use because his unhappy wife had banned him from living there in case he used it to continue entertaining his mistress, a local teacher. He admitted he had not stayed in the house recently “as much as I would have liked” and instead claimed additional expenses for hotel bills.

It’s no surprise that Curry is chairman of the Commons standards and privileges committee. Do you have the weeniest suspicion, reading this, that MPs still don’t get it?

Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times.

World's Biggest Idiots

The Chandlers , a right couple of misfits, must be the biggest idiots in the world at the moment. No doubt soon some other idiot(s) will challenge for the title, maybe, but they are it by a country mile at the moment.

You don't have to be a genius to know that taking your yacht around the Horn of Africa is not the best idea you've ever had. A merchant seaman recently told me that piracy in that neck of the woods has been going on for years, way before the recent big attacks and the publicity they have generated. But no, the Chandlers knew better and now men will have to risk their lives, and millions of quid will be wasted, trying to rescue them.

My bet is they will be do-gooding Guardian readers who think that those Somali chaps are just poor misunderstood peasants trying to benefit from the exploitation of their country by the wicked capitalist West. You know, "if you only you show them that you are a nice caring 'liberal' they will love you" types. Well they don't you jerks, and now you know what the rest of the thinking world knew anyway.

I'd let them rot, or maybe insist that the Guardian be shut down as a condition of their release.

Eric Cantona

There are times when an event makes a huge impact on your life, completely unexpectedly. That night at Selhurst Park was one.

Me and my dad were in the opposite stand, but knew that what happened was momentous. Eric had gone from legend to God.

Living in South East London at the time, among fantastic people in Plumstead which was Charlton territory, Palace fans were famously detested as whining whingers and misfits, and rightly so.

If you enjoy poetic justice enjoy this:



In the words of Corporal Jones: "They don't like it up 'em".

God Save Our President

The couple on the left haven't just met on an OAP speed dating evening, you can tell by how grey they are, especially him, let's face it under normal circumstances I am sure they would find each other thoroughly unappealing. You can tell straight away that he wouldn't be scintillating company, he just looks drab and dreary, probably because he is the President of Belgium. But now he's your president too, if you are unfortunate to be enslaved within the European Union that is.

Ladies and gentlemen the old grey fella in the picture is the first President of the United States of Europe, President Van Rumpy Pumpy! The woman is one of Gordon Browns old slags, Baroness von Ashton van der Upholland, your EU Foreign Secretary. Known hereon as The Odd Couple. President Van Rumpy Rumpy, upon becoming Fuhrer, asked to see a doctor claiming he was suffering from amnesia. It was a brief consultation, in fairness there is usually NO consultation in the EU, and he was reassured that he hadn't forgotten the election, he hadn't actually been elected.

It is quite apt that the first President should be a Belgian as Belgium too is a failing state cobbled together by the ruling elites of Europe to suit their purposes. In 1831 the Saxe-Coburgs had a spare monarch who should have become king of England, but for an unfortunate chain of events, so Leopold was instead plonked onto the throne of the bastard state of Belgium.

The one consolation is that the artificial states of Europe, apart from Belgium, have now disappeared-Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia the USSR. Belgium has only survived because the ruling elites want it to survive and it has been the model for the development of the current monstrously undemocratic supranational body known as the European Union.

So the Saxe-Coburgs were integral to the development of Belgium, and Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha has demonstrated in recent years that the German monarchs are only interested in their own selfish survival. The only way forward in a post-EU democratic state, be that Great Britain or an independent England, will be as a republic. Our monarch has done nothing to stop our freedoms and liberties being eroded and no longer deserves our support.

The monarchy is an anachronism and should be abolished.

More on President Van Rumpy Pumpy here.

Cameron, Brown or Hung Parliament?

Gordon Brown: "Last time thank God. The next Queen's Speech will be yours."

David Cameron: "Piss off, I was enjoying this."

Then from the back come the dulcit tones of Nick Clegg: "Actually girls, I'll be kingmaker in the hung parliament, so it will be my decision."

Queen's Speech

I was talking to somebody this morning who was looking forward to hearing Lady Mandy of Mandelson's outline programme for his government. I had to point out that the Queen's Speech was Lizzie Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, not the other big queen. Anyway, life goes on.

It seems to be another programme of interference and legislation, but not as grim as it could be, only 13 new pieces of legislation. Having said that I look forward to a Sean Gabb style government that will repeal all legislation passed since about 1963!

Oh well, we'll be rid of Gordon the Moron soon then we can start having a serious pop at Dave who will be just as bad.

Wonder what the odds are on Lady Mandy popping up, in some position or other, in a New Tory government?

Bill by bill summary here.

ID Cards and the Police State

The government has announced that residents of Greater Manchester will be able to apply for an ID card and registration on the National Identity Register from 30th November.

The Home Office claims the cards will be secure, though similar cards issued to non-EU foreign nationals were recently cracked and cloned, and police admitted that printers until recently available in high street IT stores were able to produce replicas. The prime selling point now offered is that they will be convenient for young people. But any application involves the individual ‘voluntarily’ joining the National Identity Register database, being fingerprinted, and becoming subject to all present and future regulations issued under the Identity Cards Act 2006.

I'm proud to say that none of my family or friends in Greater Manchester are stupid enough to fall for this, as they didn't fall for the congestion charge the government tried to bully them into. In fact there is a view that the ID card sheme is being foisted on the people of Greater Manchester now as a punishment for voting against the congestion charge.

Reports of the the death of the ID scheme are unfortunately premature.

Gordon Brown's announcement to Labour Conference that "in the next Parliament there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens" is the same misleading line that ministers have been using for years — whatever he says about the card, the ID scheme has been designed to force people to 'volunteer' for a system they cannot leave. For all his crowd-pleasing words, you will still be forced to register when you apply for a passport or, in time, any officially-designated document.

Mr Brown's statement, "We will reduce the information British citizens have to give for the new biometric passport to no more than that required for today's passport" cannot be true even if taken literally, since biometric passports must have at least the biometrics (i.e. compulsory fingerprinting) in addition to the information already on existing ones.

The Identity and Passport Service programme to build linked databases – the National Identity Register – that will be shared between the passport and identity schemes, and integrated with the DWP's systems has not been scrapped. And a raft of regulations defining the information to be held and the masses more information involved in the application process were passed earlier this summer. If what Mr Brown says were true, these would be repealed forthwith.

The ID scheme and database state steamroller on, and we cannot afford to let up the pressure.

If you want proof, all you need do is pay attention to Manchester. IPS has not withdrawn its propaganda campaign and is still looking for guinea-pigs. NO2ID's first Stop the ID Card Con campaign events are on 10th October, and it's more important than ever that we counter the government's spin. Please help us spread the word on the streets of the North West and across the country.

The ID scheme is not dead.

The above is from the No2ID website. Here is their summary of the curent state of play with the government's scheme.

Talking Heads-Heaven

Some songs just provide comfort, this one is a song that caresses and takes you over. It has appeared previously on here but deserves another outing. David Byrne-genius!

Pakistani Politicians Fighting In Manchester

Politicians love to play the tough guy, but if you look on YouTube their fights are invariably as camp as a row of tents. Just look at this pansy style slap:



I suspect that Lady Mandy of Mandelson could have done a much butcher job. Actually, on second thoughts......

Vacuous Apologies

It's a pathetic spineless government that apologises for events in history. I was brought up to apologise for things that were down to my actions, not other peoples' actions. That is just plain vacuous and designed to make the apologiser feel good, it is shallow and meaningless.

So after the crass apology for slavery, despite many black Africans still buying and selling each other, Gordon Brown has now apologised, on whose behalf I do not know, to all the children shipped out to Australia some time between the 1930s and the 1960s. I hope he didn't apologise on my behalf because it wasn't anything to do with me.

I wonder how many years it will take him and Blair to apologise to our servicemen and others over Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn't hold your breath, that would mean accepting respoonsibility too, something else New Labour isn't good at.

Glasgow By-Election

I've just seen the news about the Glasgow by-election, and it doesn't make encouraging reading. A turnout of around 32% is disastrous and makes me worry for the future of our democracy, or more to the point, wonder if the populace of the UK care about our democracy.

At a time when there are illegal wars to protest about, a recession to protest about and record youth unemployment, the people of Glasgow still voted for the party that has been wrecking Britain since 1997. We are living in an ever more invasive and oppressive police state, but still the people of Glasgow voted for the pig in a red rosette.

Furthermore the BNP gained over 4%, only just failing to save their deposit. Previously the BNP have been dismissed in Scotland as a fringe English party, not any more, they gave the Tories in Glasgow a good run for their money. But what it does show is that the BNP's brand of socialism, with a heavy spoonful of racism, is much more a threat to Labour than the Tories.

I have felt for a long time that the general election is not as cut and dry as people think, it is not a foregone conclusion that Dave will win with a landslide. If I were a Labour MP with a small majority in a constituency such as Morecambe and Lunesdale, my constituency, I would be very worried. My guess is that the Tories will reclaim the seat because of the number of Labour supporters who will defect to the BNP. UKIP are hardly likely to dent the Tory vote enough to do real damage so hey presto, the BNP let the Tories in.

I think that scenario will occur up and down Britain but will only produce a small Tory majority. However, it will be a Tory majority and Dave will have Nick Griffin and the BNP to thank for getting him into Downing Street.

Belgium and the European Union

It's been a very interesting week in Flanders. Yesterday we watched the wreath laying ceremony in Brugge, with the minute's silence at 11-00am.

Last night we were at the 8-00pm ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ieper (Ypres for the Francophiles). Always a very moving occasion that happens every night at 8-00 throughout the year, on the 11th day of the 11th month it was a huge event with military bands and soldiers from the Commonwealth parading. Everybody should try and get there at least once.

We had an interesting chat en route with a Belgian who regards himself, first and foremost, as Flemish rather than Belgian or European. He feels that the Euroopean Union has now gone too far and has become overly interfering and oppressive. We sense that mood throughout Europe and have done for a few years now, certainly since the Constitution/Lisbon Treaty reared its ugly head.

He also commented on the British obsession with surveillance and the numbers of CCTV cameras in the UK. As did the Australians we spoke to in Ieper.

Goes to show, the rest of the world is watching us being watched! Ever felt like a goldfish?

Geraldine Smith MP-Coward or Bully? (Part 2)

If there is any doubt that my post, the one that prompted an unpleasant and threatening response to my parents from Geraldine Smith MP, quoted from the House of Commons Library believing it, of all places, to be a reliable source, then perhaps the message below will convince:

Dear Sir,

It has come to our attention that there is a link to one of our Standard Notes, about all women shortlists, on your blog site. Regrettably the table erroneously listed Geraldine Smith as being selected as a candidate at the 1997 general election as a result of being on an all women shortlist. I gather that this mistake has caused Ms Smith some embarrassment and we are very sorry that this has happened; the corrected note is now available at http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-05057.pdf.

Yours sincerely,

Isobel White

Isobel White
Parliament and Constitution Centre
House of Commons Library
1 Derby Gate
London
SW1A 2DG

I can only suggest that Isobel and her colleagues warn their parents to expect a call! Unfortunately the House of Commons library failed to send me, the author, this email otherwise I would have dealt with it earlier.

By the way, if you would like to see Geraldine Smith´s record as an MP visit here.

Geraldine Smith MP-Coward or Bully?

Tonight, Tuesday 10 November, I was sat with my wife having a quiet drink in the centre of Brugge. Then my mobile rang, so I felt I should answer it, I was extremely concerned as it was my elderly father, and something was obviously wrong. My parents were distraught and I had to calm them down, they are both elderly and quite vulnerable and not in the best of health.

So what had happened? Well tonight they received an extremely unpleasant, threatening phone call from my local Member of Parliament, Geraldine Smith. She apparently "ranted and raved" about their only son, threatening to sue me, take me to court etc. because of some comments on my blog. I think I have soothed them without the need to return home early, I hope so, even though they were both obviously badly shaken.

It seems that a post of mine in June quoted a House of Commons library source that was wrong, she (Smith) had not, it seems, been on a women only shortlist in 1997. In effect, I had been misled by the House of Commons. Nothing new there then! Sorry about that and I will perhaps seek an apology myself.

Now then, to matters now. With all her allowances it took the genius team of Geraldine Smith nearly 6 months to pick that up. As they said nothing to my parents, or another blog I write for, anything about her expenses claims, which I also wrote about in June, I assume she is happy with that piece.

You can visit both posts if you track back, using the side bar, to my June 2009 blog posts.

So next time you want to throw your weight around Geraldine, pick on me, not my elderly parents.

That's that. I would now like you to apologise to my parents. If you haven't when I return then I will take matters further.

More MEPs On The Make-Sajjad Karim and Giles Chichester

This from the News of the World:

TODAY we name TWO MORE money-grabbing Tory Euro MPs who are cashing in on the great Brussels gravy train first uncovered by the News of the World.
Top Tory John Purvis has siphoned up to £1MILLION of public cash meant to pay staff into his own firm.


And a second Tory MEP, Sajjad Karim, will face questions after paying his wife £26,000 A YEAR out of the public purse to act as his assistant-while she was working as a teacher.


These revelations come after our two-month investigation blew open the long-suspected scandal in the Brussels Parliament.


At last the gravy train is crashing off the rails-and already two top Tories have quit cosy jobs after our undercover probe showed:


- SENIOR Tory Giles Chichester PAYING up to £445,000 of taxpayers' cash into his family map firm.


- BRIT MEPs, led by Chichester, JET-SETTING to holiday paradises at the taxpayers' expense.


- A STRING of high-profile Tories HANDING their wives and children hundreds of thousands of pounds to work as their "assistants".


- HIGH-LIVING Euro MP Tom Wise BRAGGING how he milks thousands every week in dodgy allowance and travel claims and


- GRASPING politicians, including Chichester, filling their boots with FREEBIES paid for by big businesses eager to cosy up to them.


Our findings sent shockwaves through Brussels and led to Chichester quitting as the Tories' European leader. Party chief whip Den Dover also resigned his job this week after paying his wife and daughter £758,000 of taxpayers' cash.


Conservative leader David Cameron has now been forced to send his own sleazebuster out to Brussels to clean up his party's act.


Neil O'Brien, director of campaign group Open Europe, said: "At last the wheels are coming off the Brussels gravy train.


"Finally people are waking up to the scale of the abuse after it was exposed by the News of the World."


Now Scottish MEP PURVIS will be facing questions after paying up to £120,000 a year in taxpayer-funded expenses to Purvis and Co. That breaks strict Brussels rules because he is a salary-paid partner in the company.


And top-secret pay records obtained by the News of the World suggest he could have creamed off £1million in 14 years as an MEP.


Files show Purvis has been paying the staff allowance into his firm for years, certainly as far back as 2002-at £4,178 A MONTH.


Banned

With annual payments in recent years up to £120,000 and up to £50,000 from the previous terms, it is believed the total could hit £1m.


That dwarfs the £445,000 payment since 1996 that cost Chichester his job. And Purvis could be forced to pay back more than £500,000-cash he wrongly shelled out after 2003, when rules banning payments to MEPs' own firms were laid down.


With his snout firmly in the Brussels trough, Purvis is hardly short of euros. Along with the income from his firm and his £67,000-a-year MEP salary, he is also paid for a string of other posts.


They include owning Brigton and Gilmerton Farms with its rental houses in St Andrews, Scotland, and being a partner in farming firm Brigton Partners.


He also declares being a partner in London investment management firm Life Science Capital and non-executive chairman of Belgrave Capital Management.


Sajjad KARIM, who paid wife Zahida £26,000 a year as his assistant, is the other Tory MEP whose actions are being questioned.


His wife was also working two days a week at Great Harwood primary school in Blackburn, Lancs, while being paid to help run his office. Karim, an MEP since 2004, hit headlines last year when he defected from the Lib Dems. He was the first Muslim Brit elected to the EU Parliament.


His former constituency manager David Smithson said Karim's wife was employed to run his office but added: "She only came in for two or three hours a month.


Niggling

"Other MEPs have people in the same position but they do 35-45 hours a week. Zahida didn't even have a desk in the office.


"Last summer I said to him, 'We need to review what Zahida is paid'. It had been niggling at me for a while. Very quickly he told me, 'That's none of your business, it is off limits.'"


Karim insisted he was no longer paying his wife and was looking to replace her. He insisted she had worked at least three days a week on Brussels business and he had paid her the same as her predecessor for the same hours.


He said: "My wife has been paid £26,000 a year for a bit more than three days a week. To say she could have done what she did in just two or three hours a month is just completely unacceptable.


"She used to go into the office once a week. The rest of the time she had a room as an office within our house."


Do you have any information about greedy MEPs? Call us on 020 7782 1001 or email newsdesk@notw.co.uk

Remember Saj, the North West MEP? That's right, he's the former Lib Dem MEP who jumped ship to the Tories when he got scared he might lose his place on the EU gravy train.

I'm pretty sure there will be more, much more to come about various MEPs. After all, MEPs do make MPs look like cost cutters.

Tom Wise, Former UKIP MEP

This from Daniel Foggo in The Times:

Tom Wise, a bon viveur who once boasted of his “cushy job” doing frankly very little as an MEP for the UK Independence party (UKIP), became, last Thursday, the first British politician to be convicted of expenses fraud for more than 10 years.

It was a victory for justice, and a victory for me, too. Four years ago I wrote an exposé accusing Wise of claiming £36,000 a year in expenses to pay for a researcher, Lindsay Jenkins, while passing on to her only a fraction of that sum. The story prompted a European Union inquiry, which was eventually referred to the British police, as was acknowledged in court last week.

In the intervening years I continued digging, uncovering bank statements and contracts that proved Wise blew thousands on a car and fine wine, as well as paying his credit card bills. The resultant stories prompted UKIP to remove the whip from Wise but not to expel him; he continued to sit in Brussels until stepping down at the Euro elections in June.

The case will have had ominous overtones for several MPs and peers currently under investigation by the police over their own expenses, in the same week that Sir Christopher Kelly announced his crackdown on the widespread profligacy of our parliamentarians.

UKIP’s leaders were falling over themselves last week to condemn Wise. The party’s chairman, Paul Nuttall, said: “We believe as a party it is vital as a matter of public trust that justice is done.” But UKIP’s commitment to seeing “justice done” leaves a lot to be desired.

After my first article, the party rallied round Wise, insisting he had done nothing fundamentally wrong. Nigel Farage, a UKIP MEP who went on to become the party’s leader, even breezily told me that Wise had committed a simple, silly error by making himself a “paying agent” for his own staff, something that was against the EU rules to prevent fraud.

Back then, party bigwigs, including Farage and the leader at the time, Roger Knapman, said they could “not state strongly enough that at no time has Mr Wise attempted to seek personal gain”. Furthermore, Knapman said, the party’s own inquiries had satisfied him that Wise’s actions had been “honest and honourable throughout”.

However, it turned out the party had been aware, even before my original exposé, that Wise had a bank account with tens of thousands of pounds in “surplus” funds sloshing around, thanks to an underspend on his expenses. And several thousand pounds that Farage had promised Jenkins as part-funding for a Eurosceptic book she was writing had even somehow found its way to her out of Wise’s account.

UKIP must have known that MEPs are not allowed to come into contact with taxpayers’ money that is designated as salaries for their assistants. EU rules state that assistants nominated by an MEP must be paid directly from Brussels or else via a third-party agent. The fact that one of its MEPs had in his possession a “surplus” on his assistant’s allowance should have sounded warning bells. Yet it was an alarm that UKIP chose to ignore.

Six months after my first article, the party was still confident that the whole matter had gone away. The EU payments office had written that it would take no further action — it later emerged that the office had passed the matter to official investigators — since Wise had rushed to pay back £25,000 after the exposé. UKIP pronounced that Wise was “cleared” and threatened to sue me.

UKIP’s internal inquiry had concluded there was no case to answer: the party claimed it had looked at the paperwork. It couldn’t have looked very hard. When I managed to obtain copies of the relevant documents, Wise’s was the most blatant, open-and-shut case of fraud I have ever come across. On the contract he submitted, Wise had simply put his own bank account number next to Jenkins’s name, so that the EU payments office would think it was paying her directly.

Wise had told Jenkins he would pay her £500 a month, plus extra for any ad hoc work done. She later told the police that she had signed the forms he sent her even though they were blank. He had then filled in the £36,000 annual rate that he claimed in her name and submitted it. Much of it he ended up spending on himself.

Jenkins, 62, was initially charged, but when Wise admitted his guilt last week she was acquitted of all charges. In court, the bearded and bespectacled Wise cut a pathetic figure for a man once elected in the name of a party committed to ending the EU “gravy train”, though his arrogance remained intact.

It was a quality that had first struck me four years ago when he had attempted to bluster his way through my questions about his employment of Jenkins. Later, when he had been supposedly “exonerated” by the EU payments office, he had pompously said that my “attack on his character” had not deterred him from his important work. Wise even took legal advice on how to sue a political commentator who wrote blogs on the story, paying for it — although he did not proceed — with taxpayers’ money from the same fund he was accused of abusing.

Arrogance is a quality that is not in short supply within UKIP; nor is an ability to dissemble and prevaricate. As Wise awaits a possible jail term at his sentencing this week, who knows which politician and which party will enter the dock next.

I wonder who will be the next one up?

Here's a clue: News of the World

Remembrance Sunday

For The Fallen

Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Miss England

How apt that Lance Corporal Katrina Hodge (left) should become the new Miss England. When she proclaims "I want to see peace in the world" for the first time it will be said by someone with conviction, how refreshing.

I always thought the British Army could give the Israelis (above) a run for their money in the beauty stakes!

Adolf Hitler-German Football Coach

It's been an interesting week with Tom Wise, former MEP, at least being honest enough to admit fiddling his expenses. There are around 650 politicians in Westminster and 700 in Brussels who still won't hold their hands up and admit it!!

So let's have a look at the effects of our interfering, expense fiddling, egotistical politicians interfering in, for example, the education system, which should never be under the control of politicians anyway. The article below, from the Telegraph, is actually quite disturbing.

One in 20 schoolchildren thought Adolf Hitler was a coach of the German football team, a survey said.

And one in six youngsters said they thought Auschwitz was a Second World War theme park while one in 20 said the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of the war.

The survey for a veterans' charity also found one in 10 thought the SS stood for Enid Blyton's Secret Seven, and one in 12 believed the Blitz was a European clean-up operation following the Second World War.

Scottish-based charity Erskine, which provides nursing and medical care for veterans, said it would now take part in a nationwide scheme to educate schoolchildren about the two world conflicts.

The charity questioned 2,000 children between the ages of nine and 15 about their knowledge of the key people and events of the two wars.

While a quarter admitted they did not think about the soldiers who died in the conflicts, and 40 per cent said they did not know when Remembrance Day was, 70 per cent of all those surveyed said they wanted to learn more about the two wars in school.

Major Jim Panton, chief executive of Erskine, said: ''Some of the answers to this poll have shocked us and it has shown that Erskine, amongst others, has a part to play, not just in caring for veterans but in educating society as a whole.

''As we approach Remembrance Day it is hard to believe that 40 per cent of our children do not know when it is. Schoolchildren are the future of the country and it is important that we help them to learn about our history.''

The charity said it wanted some of the 1,350 veterans it cares for every year to share their experiences of the war with younger generations.

Erskine will work in partnership with Their Past Your Future (TPYF) project, a partnership of the Imperial War Museum, the Museums, Libraries and Archives England, the Northern Ireland Museum Council, the National Library of Wales and the Scottish Museums Council, to help schoolchildren learn more about the conflicts.

Andrew Salmond, a project manager for TPYF in Scotland, said: ''This initiative offers a fantastic opportunity to inform young people about the experiences of war - both at home and abroad.

''Some, we know, will convey wartime loss and suffering, others will speak of daring and inspiration. However, all will be of great educational value, offering an insight to what previous generations have endured in times of conflict.''

What a sad indictment of our education system as we approach Remembrance Day. Actually, what a sad indictment of modern Britain.

Tom Wise, Former UKIP MEP, Pleads Guilty

From The Guardian:

A former British MEP who masterminded a £36,000 expenses fiddle was facing jail today after he confessed during his trial.

Tom Wise, 61, had been charged with false accounting and money-laundering after an investigation into claims that he misused thousands of pounds of expenses.

Originally elected for the UK Independence party, Wise sat as an independent after being expelled from the party. (See note below)

The former policeman, whose term of office in the European parliament came to an end in July this year, spent a year channelling taxpayers' cash into a bank account he secretly controlled.

He pretended the £3,000 "secretarial assistance allowance" he received every month was for his 62-year-old researcher Lindsay Jenkins.

After paying her just £500, he spent the rest "in support of his own interests", London's Southwark crown court was told.

Mark Fenhalls, prosecuting, said: "He used the funds, for example, to buy a car, to purchase fine wines and pay off some of his credit card debts."

The barrister said that when the fraud was eventually exposed by a national newspaper four years ago, the MEP promptly "took steps to cancel the claim and repay the money".

"He did so because he had been caught and was trying to minimise the trouble he was in," said counsel. "Perhaps he hoped by swift repayment he could somehow head off further inquiry."

Had it not been discovered, the scam could have lasted five years and netted £180,000.

Wise, of Ship Road, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, who was kicked out of Ukip over the scandal, denied false accounting between 14 October and 16 November 2004.

But, on the third day of his three-week trial and just before Ukip leader Nigel Farrage was to give evidence against him, Wise began a protracted round of discussions with his legal team.

After several hours and an overnight adjournment to finalise details, the jury trying the case was discharged and the disgraced politician then admitted he was guilty after all.

Jenkins, of Queens Club Gardens, Barons Court, west London, had also been on trial, but was cleared.

She had denied both the false accounting charge and an allegation of using criminal property between 14 November 2004 and 1 November the following year.

The court heard she allegedly used "just shy" of £5,000 of the stolen money to publish a political work she had written.

Fenhalls explained that, in pleading guilty, Wise "fully accepted responsibility for his actions and, by virtue of his plea and what he says, he has effectively exonerated Mrs Jenkins".

The barrister said the former MEP also accepted documents he got Jenkins to sign to pull off the fraud were "misleading and were in all probability blank when he asked her to sign them".

"His acceptance of responsibility is fully consistent with the prosecution's opening and makes his basis of plea acceptable."

He told the court Jenkins's case had always been that the documents were blank, that she had "trusted him", and that the £500 Wise paid her each month was for work actually done.

"We are able to say ... there is no realistic prospect of conviction, nor, in fact, were it necessary, a public interest in continuing. In those circumstances we do not invite a trial against Mrs Jenkins and invite verdicts of not guilty against her."

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC agreed, and formally ordered her acquittal on both counts, adding that her defence costs should be paid out of public funds.

After quashing an outstanding money-laundering allegation against Wise, he told the former MEP he would be sentenced next Wednesday.

He said he could remain on bail in the meantime, but warned: "It must, however, be fully understood that in terms of the ultimate sentence, nothing must be read into that."

The judge then added: "I see Mr Wise nodding because he knows too well what the situation is."

Ukip's chairman, Paul Nuttall, said: "Tom Wise broke faith with the UK Independence party, which is why the whip was withdrawn. We believe as a party it is vital as a matter of public confidence that justice is done and have no doubt that this will set a precedent for many Westminster MPs."

At last some publicity. But, just for the record, UKIP never did discipline Tom Wise, his membership eventually lapsed, or he resigned not sure which, last March, which angered many members.

UKIP policy was not to whip but to leave issues, other than EU withdrawal, to individual conscience. So 'withdrawing the whip' was a convenient smokescreen to cover inaction.

Let's now wait for the first MP to be prosecuted.

Similar coverage from The Times.

Guy Fawkes-Bonfire Night

It is sad that today we celebrate, rather than mourn, the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1603. I think that today millions of people would be on the side of the plotters.

Mind you, with parliament having handed our sovereignty to the European Union bureaucrats, if a modern day plot were to succeed we probably wouldn't notice a big difference.

An example of how bureaucrats ruin simple pleasures can be found in this article. Health and safety is so costly and complex that Ifracombe Rugby Club are having a virtual bonfire tonight.

A modern day plot? We can hope.

Afghanistan and Iraq

Five more soldiers have died in Helmand, Afghanistan. The conflict there is unjust and we should mourn all deaths in Afghanistan, and Iraq, especially the British servicemen.

While our government is happy to hand the power that we loan it to Brussels, they must realise that neither we, the Iraqis nor the Afghans want them over there exercising power by means of an illegal war.

It's time that we brought the troops home and left others to manage their countries as they see fit, not as we would want them to. After all, look at the mess politicians have made of government over here.

And if the politicians of the three big parties claim we are there to make us safe from terrorism, ask them this simple question: "Why are you increasingly legislating against our freedoms and liberties in the name of counter-terrorism".

Lisbon Treaty and the European Union

The signing of the Lisbon Treaty (EU Constitution) sounds the death knell for democracy throughout Europe, not just here in the UK.

The EU is not a democratic organisation. Its MEPs have no power, they merely rubber stamp the edicts of the bureaucrats, be it the EU Commissioners or the Council of Ministers. When does a true democracy tell its populace to vote again in referendum after referendum if they don't get the answer they, the masters want first time? How would you feel if, in 1997, John Major had declared the general election result wrong, changed a couple of his minor policies, then had another election?

When, in a healthy democracy, does a leader declare that a record low turnout in elections shows that the people are happy? Well Barroso did this year.

Not only do the EU re-run referenda when it suits them, note they didn't re-run our 1975 referendum which went their way, but they push something through anyway by renaming it. The Dutch and French also voted against the EU Constitutional Treaty, but it has been foisted on them now under the name 'Lisbon Treaty'.

OK I spent from July 2004 to last September working for an MEP, which is enough to make anybody cynical, but I did see at first hand what a sham the whole structure is. I know MEPs have no power. They are remote. Can you name even one of your MEPs? Can you tell me a positive thing that a single MEP has done in your region? Why do they exist other than to make money? I really don't know.

It is my firm belief that we are now beyond the traditional liberal democracy that we so valued. Too many people sleep walked into the European Union, soon to have its own President and Foreign Secretary, while being soothed with platitudes about it just being a trading block. First it was the Common Market, then the European Economic Community, then the European Community and now the European Union with the power to impose its will on us and to even dictate the splitting up of our banks. Those of us who warned, over the years, about its ultimate destination, were called 'Little Englanders' and worse. Well tell me now we weren't right!

There is a profound difference in the relationship between people and state in much of Europe, compared to the UK, or at least there was. The state has been traditionally much more powerful in Europe than here, largely why in my view Spain, Italy, Germany and elsewhere experienced fascism in the last century which we thankfuly didn't, although we still bear the scars from fighting it.

I also see why the bureaucrats in post-World War 2 Europe wanted to forge such close alliances betweeen countries, starting with the Steel and Coal Confederation, so that European war again would be virtually impossible, after all look at what their politicians had unleashed on Europe. But please do not tell me that it is the EU that has given us peace in Europe since 1945. Until we joined in 1972 there were only 6 member states, peace was preserved by 'the bomb', NATO and the Cold War.

I love Europe, its people its diversity. I loathe the interfering, busybody monster that is the European Union. The scandal of the Lisbon Treaty will surely hasten the demise of the EU. What we will then have to decide is the type of democracy we will replace it with. One thing is for sure, we can't turn the clock back, the EU and New Labour between them have destroyed too much of our democracy, values and freedoms. Tough decisions will be necessary when the day comes, and it can't come too soon.

Political Correctness-The Awful Truth

As Lord Pearson is pilloried for his recent remarks, which I consider clumsy and simplistic but certainly not 'racist', I came across the following website:

Political Correctness-The Awful Truth

I haven't read every single word on the website but, as an antidote to the PC fascists, it seems to do a job. One of the most powerful points being how the word 'racism' is now used totally out of context to oppress peoples' views on, for example, large scale immigration. Of course it is now accompanied by its close friend 'islamophobia'.

It does make interesting reading and I shall have a further look into it later today.

Of course there is also the Campaign Against Political Correctness, but they've always struck me as being fuddy-duddy old Tory types.

Interestingly I've just received a leaflet from a theatre in Manchester where they will be doing a stage version of George Orwell's '1984' next year. How apt.

UKIP's Lord Pearson's Comments on Islamists

There has been much fuss these last few days about Lord Pearson's comments on Islamist extremism. Below is the full interview rather than the clips that have appeared elsewhere.



There are some disquieting comments but he does call on moderate muslims to assist in the fight against extremists and jihadists, there is certainly a debate to be had. Has Lord Pearson merely begun the debate or has he fanned the flames of hatred?

Personally I think his arguments are a little crude and too simplistic to be seen as constructive, but let's see what the response is.

Tom Wise, Former UKIP MEP

Here is a link to the first report I have found of Tom Wise's trial at Southwark Crown Court which began today.

Politics is in a terrible mess and events such as this do nobody any favours. All too often people, or indeed whole parties, set themselves up as knights in shining armour, riding in to save the populace, in this case from a greedy and undemocratic European Union, only for them to actually be as bad as that which they oppose.

I have asked the question before but will ask it again. Does politics attract a higher proportion of crooks than most professions, or are so many previously decent people simply corrupted by the power and egotism of politics?

I am also convinced that the media ignored the Tom Wise affair, and other negative publicity surrounding UKIP in June this year, so as not to drive the protest vote further into the arms of the BNP. It will be interesting to see what comes out at this trial, and in the run up to the general election.

Tom Wise, Former UKIP MEP To Go On Trial

Former UKIP MEP Tom Wise, and his researcher, are to stand trial on Monday for allegedly fiddling taxpayers' cash.

Tom Wise, 61,and Lindsay Jenkins, 62, deny false accounting and using criminal property.They will face trial at London's Southwark Crown Court.

Wise was never disciplined by UKIP and there are rumours that he will make some serious allegations about certain current UKIP MEPs and their 'sharp practices' during his trial, we shall see.

I always thought Wise was a clown and an idiot, and I take no pleasure in being proved correct.

This article gives you an idea how stupid Wise actually is.

As does this article.

I have no doubt that Junius on UKIP will be covering the trial.