October 14, 2006
A Rubbish Statistic for Kennet Council
Meandering back from the pub last night I thought as a public service I would survey residents' acceptance of Kennet Council's Bin Bugs. Out of five bins outside people's homes only three still had their bug in them. Looks like 40% of residents have risked Coun. Chris Humphries' wrath and threats and removed them....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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October 12, 2006
Lib-Dems - Please give generously
THE business that gave the largest financial gift to the Liberal Democrats was entirely fraudulent and had never traded, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.
The London-based finance company 5th Avenue Partners Ltd, which donated £2.4 million to the party, shunted investors’ money around Europe without their knowledge, Mr Justice Cooke said.
His judgment raises the stakes for the Liberal Democrats. The party has been resisting calls to return the gift, saying that it was accepted in good faith. (The Times)
Sir Ming was woken to hear the news and issued the following statement: "Eh? Eh? Half-past four, I've had my tea, thank you Matron, what, what? Money, what Money? If they are rattling a tin get the Butler to drop half-a-crown into their tin, send the buggers away, it will be Dick Barton on the Wireless soon and I don't want to miss it, oh and ask Cook to send up some crumpets please..."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:34 AM
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October 3, 2006
Why Don't You Do Right?
Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee pose the question. Are you listening "Call-me-Dave"?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:26 AM
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Pieces of eight
The Tory leader has only promised to "share the proceeds of growth" between public services and tax cuts – something that is causing anger among many in his party.
I'm not a paid up member but it certainly is making the ichor rise - his endless parroting of "share the proceeds of growth" just reminds me that what he means is that he has his beady eye on any extra money anyone earns, and he is going to help himself to it - oh and maybe if we are really good, and promise to vote for him, then he may see himself able to give us a bit back as a "tax cut", a bit like dropping half-a-crown into a porter's hand if he tugs his forelock and calls the young Master Cameron "Sir"...
"Share the proceeds of growth, share the proceeds of growth, pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pretty polly"... Bang.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:18 AM
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September 28, 2006
Not to be read on a full stomach
Clinton :
“I saw Gordon’s brilliant vision of the future,” he gushed, “and I heard the Prime Minister’s magnificent valedictory.” At this both men, watching from the stage, began to glow like lava lamps. Bill said that Tony’s speech had been “proud but humble, hopeful but cautionary”.
He then added: “The most important thing to me, as somebody who’s been there, was that it was appropriately full of gratitude, devotion and love.” It was sickbag stuff...
Oh dear that seems to be making the fried slice and sausage want to reappear. I bet Tony was on his knees in front of Clinton in thanks....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:31 AM
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September 25, 2006
Margaret Beckett's Holiday Video
Posted by The Englishman at 7:27 AM
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September 19, 2006
Day 2 - Sir Ming turns on the style
BBC NEWS | Politics | Lib Dem conference at-a-glance
Lib Dem conference at-a-glance
All you need to know about day two of the Liberal Democrat conference 2006:
...within minutes of Mr Kennedy's big speech, Sir Menzies and campaigns chief Ed Davey will be heading off for a photo opportunity at a non-alcoholic juice bar..
Posted by The Englishman at 9:10 PM
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Kennedy wows them at the Lib Dem Conference
BBC NEWS | Politics | Kennedy given ovation on return
Mr Kennedy looked confident and relaxed as he spoke without notes in his first big speech since admitting a drink problem and quitting as party leader.
He said "the best is yet to come" for the party and insisted it could be a force for change in British politics.
This year had seen the "best of times and the worst of times", he said.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:07 PM
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Lib Dem Conference Excitement
BBC NEWS | Politics | Lib Dem conference at-a-glance
All you need to know about day one of the Liberal Democrat conference 2006:
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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July 31, 2006
More council rubbish
BBC NEWS | UK | Bid to stop households flytipping
Councils are being told to do more to prevent householders dumping their rubbish illegally.
The government has issued guidelines for councils to stop people flytipping - a problem which costs about £2.5m a month to clear up nationally.
Better collection services and extended opening times at local tips are among suggestions to ease the problem.
What are we actually getting at the moment? Instead of weekly collections, fortnightly; instead of collection of all our rubbish a pedantically controlled 180 litre maximum, and the bin lid must be closed so nothing long either. No longer cheerful binmen who were willing to help now we have rubbish inspectors to check what sort of rubbish we throw away and to give lifestyle advice. No wonder more gets dropped in hedgerows.
And as for getting tough of flytipping - sometime age I reported a dumped engine with some bags of rubbish - to be fair Kennet were happy to pick it up as it added to their weight of recycling which they need to get Government grants - but when I pointed out that in the rubbish there were several letters with someone's name and address on who might know where the rubbish came from I was told as I had looked at it I had interfered and only their professionals should do that and so they wouldn't follow it up...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM
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March 6, 2006
Blogging the Party Line
Guy Fawkes' blog notes the prospect of a cabinet minister, David Miliband, setting up a blog... but I also notice other similar politicians are ahead of the game - according to The Times:
...parliament jumping on the blog bandwagon with weblogs for its members as it meets this week. So far only eight delegates are approved for the Strong Country Blog at blog.people.com.cn, but many more have applied. Most toe the party line, pledging to listen to the people and praising the weather as the session opened, but there are a few surprises. Under latest blog photos are pictures of women in lingerie, with such captions as: Such a charming photo is easy on the eyes.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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February 16, 2006
Churchill's forecast
Thanks to Blognor Regis for bringing us Churchill's chilling and accurate forecast from 1945 - a snippet:
Here in old England, in Great Britain, of which old England forms no inconspicuous part, in this glorious Island, the cradle and citadel of free democracy throughout the world, we do not like to be regimented and ordered about and have every action of our lives prescribed for us. In fact we punish criminals by sending them to Wormwood Scrubs and Dartmoor, where they get full employment, and whatever board and lodging is appointed by the Home Secretary.
Socialism is, in its essence, an attack not only upon British enterprise, but upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy, tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils. A Free Parliament - look at that - a Free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrinaire. Have we not heard Mr. Herbert Morrison descant upon his plans to curtail Parliamentary procedure and pass laws simply by resolutions of broad principle in the House of Commons, afterwards to be left by Parliament to the executive and to the bureaucrats to elaborate and enforce by departmental regulations?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:20 AM
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July 11, 2005
A Regular writes
The Sparky has his own blog now - I hope he puts up all his old stuff as well.
UPDATE : Note new address - http://where-sparks-fly.blogspot.com/
Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM
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July 4, 2005
ID Cards - Panic?
Telegraph | News | Panic in No 10 as ID card support collapses
Tony Blair's hopes of bringing in a national system of identity cards were looking increasingly imperilled last night amid signs of collapsing public support and panic within the Government....Last week Mr Blair suggested that he does not see ID cards as an issue of confidence. Asked whether he could be persuaded to drop the plan if the opposition became overwhelming, he said: "I did not come into politics to introduce identity cards."
That whirring sound you can hear is Tony furiously backpedaling - expect it being kicked into the long grass any minute now - My guess is that "technology concerns" will mean it is "postponed" for further....
But that quote also makes me wonder - what did Tony go into politics for? I seem to remember he stood for :
"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service". Oh and leaving the EEC!
Well not much success there, or was he just another public school/oxford lawyer who wasn't bright enough to have a real career but still thought they knew more than Hoi Polloi and should boss them about, in their own best interests of course.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
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June 29, 2005
So come and arrest me
A quick trip in to the DIY store leads me down the path of criminality yet again -
In the far distance from The Castle I can see a house - I don't want to so I thought a couple of Leylandii - a fine British tree - would do the trick - two for the price of one at 9.99, done deal.
Of course I am risking an ASBO thanks to that tosser Steve Pound MP for Ealing North... High Hedges Bill
The government declared war on light depriving leylandii hedges, describing them as one of the worst forms of anti-social behaviour and announcing plans to give councils power to chop back any offending hedge higher than two metres (roughly 6ft 6in).
Well I want my pair, I think I will call them Gordon and Tony, to grow well past 100ft as they are capable of doing. I noted the Garden Centre no longer calls them Leylandii just "Ornamental Conifers", such is the fear the Government has put into the growers of them.
And my other purchase - a replacement light switch, of course I wouldn't dare break the law and replace it myself without the presence of a qualified electrician, a man from the council and the Archbishop of bloody Canterbury, would I?
Posted by The Englishman at 4:43 PM
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Big Brother Bins
Telegraph | News | Microchips in bins help to increase recycling
A council is putting microchips in all 100,000 of its wheelie bins to monitor whether householders are recycling enough of their rubbish.
The 50,000 households in the South Norfolk district council area are being issued with two bins - a grey one for run-of-the-mill rubbish and a green one for plastic bottles, cans, paper and cardboard that can be recycled.
Dustcarts will empty grey bins one week and green ones the next, with on-board scanning equipment weighing each one and identifying which home the contents come from.
Over time, officials in the Liberal Democrat-controlled council will be able to calculate which households are backsliding on recycling and then advise them on how to do better.
And then they will send you to re-education camps, just for your own good ...
Any fascist measure in the name of environmentalism just gets waved through. Any chip in my bin may meet with a nasty accident...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM
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This mornings news...
Gang beats father to death
A man has bben beaten to death after refusing to give a light to teenagers as he waited in a pizza takeaway.
Vigil for coma barrister
The daughter of a barrister who remains in a coma 10 days after a teenage gang beat him up as he walked home from a barbecue has told of her concern that he "might never wake up".
Just two items that happen to be next door to each other on The Telegraph front page...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM
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June 28, 2005
Cuddly Communist Spy
Telegraph | News | Unrepentant Soviet spy Melita Norwood dies at 93
Melita Norwood, once described as "the most important British female agent ever recruited by the KGB", has died at the age of 93, it was announced yesterday.
Mrs Norwood, whose espionage activities were disclosed by Vasili Mitrokhin - a former KGB archivist - in 1999 after his defection to MI6 with a large number of files, died at a West Midlands nursing home almost four weeks ago.
Mrs Norwood had been an "extraordinaily motivated Soviet agent right to the end of her life".
I seem not to be able to spot the words; traitor, rope, heels spinning, flung into an unmarked grave, which surely should be in the story somewhere - or is it that cuddly communist grandmothers didn't really mean any harm, so that is all right then.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
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Byers in Court
Telegraph | News | Byers 'stole Railtrack from small shareholders with targeted malice'
...
Accusing Mr Byers of "expropriating" Railtrack from its owners, he said he had brought about "a de facto renationalisation" of the company, which owned the railway tracks, signals and stations. However, "Mr Byers was not willing or able because of the cost to do that by the conventional route: buying the shares in the company. Instead, he wanted to get something for nothing, something for which he ought to have paid."
Mr Rowley said: "I believe Mr Byers's integrity will be at the heart of [the case].
On one side we have the facts - on the other side we have Byers "integrity"; a word the sincerely stupid, sincerely socialist, Polytechnic teacher would have to read out loud to himself as he looked it up to discover its meaning - allegedly! Wouldn't take me long to come to a judgement, though I would reserve a couple of days to devising a suitable punishment....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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Cuddly Oirish Terrorists
Telegraph | News | IRA can change, says Blair
The Prime Minister appeared to endorse suggestions that the IRA could transform itself into an old boys commemorative organisation when he met with Bertie Ahern, his Irish counterpart, in London yesterday.
Once again, Mr Blair stopped short of calling for the disbandment of the IRA when he said that the IRA could adopt a "different modus operandi" as both leaders called on republicans to embrace peace and democracy. Earlier this month Mr Ahern indicated that IRA parades and old boys' reunions could be tolerated, provided the Provisionals ceased all paramilitary activity.
Excuse me while I vomit - let's all dance down the street, drinking Guinness and having a Craic hand in hand with murderers and bombers. They are jolly people the Irish you see, they didn't really mean any harm as they tried to impose their Marxist regime through intimidation and criminal rackets.
Twenty years time there will be bun fights and fizzy pop all round as old boys from Al Queada hold their annual March through London - followed by a Tea Dance and fireworks - on September 11th.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
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Local - how the money goes
At vast expense someone built a combined control room for all the emergency services in the Devizes area - ie when you rang 999 it was answered in one building and then they sorted out who to send.
The Firemen threw a wobbly because they are "special" and needed there own centre. It was eventually solved I believe by building them their own room in the centre.
The FBU had voted to take strike action over safety issues and job security at the shared 999 control site in Devizes.
(Note the "safety issues" when it was just about saving members jobs!)
And now a whole two years later another move is planned - and the firemen are having another tizzy - safety - jobs - madness.
BBC NEWS | England | Wiltshire | Fire control move is 'inevitable'
Wiltshire fire brigade has admitted it will have to quit the new shared 999 control centre because of plans to create a regional call hub.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is against the merger.
The union fears it may lead to delays in calls being answered.
Last month, firefighters in neighbouring Gloucestershire took unofficial industrial action in protest at the merger plans.
In February, Avon Fire Authority said it would not voluntarily hand over 999 services.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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June 27, 2005
Tory loser knows how to win
Telegraph | News | Howard: Tax cuts won't put us back in power
..It also reflects a growing view among Tories on the modernising, liberal wing that the state of public services is of more pressing concern to voters than tax cuts, which they do not trust politicians to provide.
Mr Howard's speech, the first of several setting out his views on the party's future, will be seen as a coded attack on David Davis, the front-runner to succeed him.
I'm becoming more attracted to David Davis the more I hear...Howard is quite right in one way to say we don't trust politicians to deliver "tax cuts" - certainly didn't believe his wishy-washy promises. "Tax cuts" aren't just about the money, in fact the money is the minor consideration. It is the concept of rolling back the state and letting people spend their own money how they want, rather than believing in a system that says that 4 out of every 10 pence I earn will be more wisely spent by The Government than I could manage to do.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
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June 22, 2005
Last bastion of Marxism
IN OUR TIME'S GREATEST PHILOSOPHER VOTE - Radio 4 - you can probably guess that Karl is running away with the vote....
Posted by The Englishman at 12:35 PM
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Leading Trade and Industry by example
BBC NEWS | Politics | DTI name changes cost '30,000'
The week-long rebrand of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to Productivity, Energy and Industry (DPEI) cost nearly 30,000.
I bet it cost a lot more - there must be thousands of letterheads somewhere being pulped and unaccounted for! As Tory frontbencher Lord Hanningfield said "This whole episode revealed yet again that Tony Blair is more interested in renaming and rebranding Whitehall than renewing and reforming Britain. "
Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM
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June 21, 2005
ID Cards - the musical
a hint of politics and opinion, a dapper dog singing and the cutest puppy pianist on the planet...
And don't forget:
Pledgebank
"I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate 10 to a legal defence fund but only if 10,000 other people will also make this same pledge."
Posted by The Englishman at 10:16 PM
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June 20, 2005
Tory Shower
Tim Hames in The Times tells the Tories a few home truths...
The argument being offered is that Conservative MPs have a unique knowledge of the strengths and weakness of the candidates and they alone can be trusted to reach a rounded decision about their respective merits.
Yet what has been the record of this panoply of gods in the past 15 years? They usurped Margaret Thatcher and ushered in 15 years of civil conflict. They embraced the feeble John Major in 1990 and then again in 1995 simply because he was not Michael Heseltine. They plumped for William Hague in 1997 because he was not Ken Clarke and declined to move against him two years later when it was already evident that he was a liability. In 2001 they provided party members with a shortlist of Mr Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith a choice between the unacceptable and the unelectable. The notion that they have divine inspiration is risible.
It is, furthermore, all part of a broader fallacy. To listen to some Tory MPs one might believe that the party in Parliament consists of an enlightened band of shrewd moderates who are desperate to charge towards the political centre ground but, alas, are constrained by a fanatical cadre of racist, sexist, homophobic, probably mentally unbalanced pensioners in the constituencies who crave ideological purity above power. This is nonsense. Long experience of the company of Conservative MPs has taught me that a disturbingly high proportion are themselves a few votes short of a full ballot box. I refuse to accept that it can be statistically possible for the Conservative Party in the country to contain a higher percentage of headcases.
...It is time for a peasants revolt in the Conservative Party. If I were a typical member I would think that if I am good enough to donate money to it, good enough to raise funds from others for it, good enough to stuff envelopes, good enough to deliver leaflets and good enough to knock on doors, then I am good enough to be asked to decide whether I keep or lose my vote on the party leadership.....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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June 17, 2005
Tony? cynical ploy? No...
Telegraph | News | Blair's anti-terror Bill was 'an election ploy'
Tony Blair was accused last night of using terrorist control orders as a "cynical election ploy" after it emerged that they had yet to be extended to any new suspects.
Quelle surprise! Next, news that Dolly Parton sleeps on her back...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM
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June 16, 2005
Prescott mad plans to improve the housing market
Telegraph | News | Bulldozers move in on Liverpool
In Hertford Road, Bootle, the bulldozers were clearing terraces where people were still living as the first phase of the Deputy Prime Minister's 15-year housing market renewal scheme ground into action. Officials said the demolitions, on either side of one house, were necessary because criminals had been using the houses. But residents said the move was intimidatory.
A hard-hatted worker, who declined to give his name, told The Daily Telegraph: "We're having terrible trouble with the local people."
"These are gorgeous houses. If you got one like them in London you would be talking about 1 million."
Mary Jo Joyce, a Bootle resident who has backed the families campaigning to save their streets, said: "The houses they are planning to build will have half the space at twice the price. They will look ugly and could have been built anywhere."
Nothing like an old Socilaist trying to organise a free market is there? - and when it doesn't work throwing all his teddies out the pram - or in this case knocking it all down and blaming the stock!
In related news Mugabe's bulldozers continue to knock down houses people want to live in...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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June 15, 2005
Semper Paratus
BBC NEWS | Politics | Watchdog voices Armed Forces fear
Funding for the Navy has been cut temporarily to concentrate on the Army.
Ships not needed are generally repaired only if there are problems affecting health and safety or environmental safety.
The National Audit Office says: "Although funding is planned to start to return to normal from 2006, the MoD anticipates that the material state of the Fleet will degrade, along with its ability to undertake high readiness tasks over a longer period."
The RAF has cut flying hours for fast jet crews from 17.5 hours a month to 16.5.
The MoD says the risks are "acceptable" but the NAO warns it could affect the crews' "high-end war fighting skill sets" and over time dilute skills and experience.
The report suggests 38% of forces have "serious weaknesses" in their state of readiness.
Keeping our ships battle ready isn't important, as long as H&S and the environment are protected - and don't think of Jack Hawkins in his Duffle Coat anymore think "Royal Navy's diversity and equality policy officer"
Royal Navy reforms; recruits gay staff
The Royal Navy has announced a new drive towards equality for its lesbian and gay employees, with a host of new initiatives set to modernise and reform the institution.
And as well as these projects, which include partnering with Stonewall and changing its policy on 'married' quarters in line with the new Civil Partnerships, the Navy has announced it will advertise in the gay press as part of its latest recruitment drive.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
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June 9, 2005
The Emperor's clothes
Shhh! Pass on the whisper as swiftly as possible:
"The Emperor cannot manage climate whatever he does. He has no clothes!"
[And your chance to vote on Emperor Blair's mighty powers is here, with EnviroSpin's NEW Mini Poll: 'Can Mr. Blair control climate change predictably?' Do vote now. Thanks.]
And that, folks, is the butt-naked truth. One long-known by Old King Cnut (for it is he). Even if Emperor Blair were to close every factory, ground every aircraft, shut down every power plant, crush every vehicle, and plunge 4 billion people worldwide into poverty, climate would still change, and often dramatically. Shhhh! 'He has nothing at all on!' And we all know those toadying lords of the bedchamber.
You may want to visit to vote...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM
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Special needs
Telegraph | News | Warnock U-turn on special schools
Baroness Warnock, the educationalist whose report led to the drive to include children with special needs in mainstream classes, admitted yesterday that the policy had failed and left "a disastrous legacy"... "I think it has gone too far. It was a sort of bright idea of the 1970s but by now it has become a kind of mantra and it really isn't working."
Ah Luke 15:7 - at least the old girl has realised that some of the trendy ideas of the 1970s harmed the children - I wonder how long it is before the State School system also catches on.
For those of you without a handy copy:
Online Bible Text: Luke chapter 15, KJV
7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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June 8, 2005
Quis Custodiet ipsos custodes
A lovely example of Local Council goings on:
Regular readers will know I'm under the rule of Kennet Council - and I discovered that Ms Memoli is Kennet's Monitoring Officer but that it is up to the members to declare interests, no one checks, so as Monitoring Officer she is happy all is OK.
(Quote - "Although I am the custodian of the Register of interests, the onus is on the Members themselves to register their interests ...declaring interests, this is a matter for the Members themselves...In conclusion, therefore, I am satisfied that members of the Council have registered their interests.."
So I thought I would start to keep an eye on their goings on - First stop: Minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board held in Committee Room 2, Browfort, Bath Road, Devizes on
Tuesday 11th May 2004
..5. ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIRMAN
The Solicitor to the Council advised that the voting for this position should be by show of hands as the Constitution of the Council did not allow for a secret ballot for the election of either Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board.
Members requested, however, that a secret ballot be held and the Chairman decided to allow a secret ballot, despite the advice of the Solicitor to the Council to the contrary.
Why do I get the feeling that the members just don't get it when it comes to following the rules?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:35 PM
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Lasciate ogni speranza voi chentrate!
BBC NEWS | UK | Bill aims to target replica guns
Chief Superintendent Paul Robinson, who heads Scotland Yard's special firearms operational command unit, said "..that banning sales of the guns would, in all likelihood, result in a drop in armed robberies and firearms incidents."
So the bans they have introduced so far haven't worked, obviously more bans are needed...
Knives remain the weapon most commonly used in violent incidents, prompting the minimum age at which they can be bought to be increased from 16 to 18.
Remember that is all knives - butter knives, fish knives etc - no wonder the young have no table manners.
Remember At 16:
You can get married with your parents' or guardians' consent
You can buy cigarettes and tobacco
You can ride a moped of up to 50ccs
You can pilot a glider
A girl must be 16 before she can legally have sex with a boy
A male may consent to a homosexual act if he and his partner are both over 16
You can have an abortion without your parents consent
A boy can join the armed forces with his parents' or carers' consent
You can apply for your own passport
You can have beer or cider whilst eating a meal in a restaurant or an eating area of a pub, but not in the bar..
At 17
You can hold a licence to drive most vehicles
You can pilot a plane
You can emigrate... probably not a bad idea the way this is all going.
The new legislation will also provide measures to deal with binge drinking.
That's Friday nights buggered then.
There are also plans to give community groups and parish councils the power to apply for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos).
That will sort out Mr Free Market and his desire to mow his lawn on Sunday afternoon - they will slap an ASBO on him!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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June 6, 2005
The New Model Party
Ah - this sounds more like it!
Direct Democracy - Agenda for a New Model Party is being launched on 13 June 2005, to promote change and renewal within Conservative politics in Britain.
We, the authors, are a group of MPs, MEPs, candidates and activists from many traditions across the Conservative Party, but who unite in our belief in a new kind of politics.
For three years we have been meeting to discuss how to restore confidence in, and honour to, our democratic process. Our policy ideas emphasize diversity, pluralism, and local decision-making. ..
Telegraph | News | Parish politics may be key to success
Conservatives need to adopt a Self-Denying Ordinance. They must dispel the notion that they are interested simply in office and convince the country that, rather than grasping at the levers of control, they would push powers outwards and downwards. They should be guided in all things by three principles.
Decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people they affect;
Law-makers should be directly accountable;
The citizen should be as free as possible from state coercion. ...
Fifty-four years ago, the Conservative Party bounced back from a disastrous election by articulating voters' frustration with the bureaucracy that oppressed them. An electorate sick of ID cards, ration books and nationalisation responded gratefully to the slogan "Set the People Free". The Conservatives governed for the next 13 years.
Ours should be the same theme: set the people free.
Interesting stuff - these guys seem to understand what is going on, and what needs to be done - I will be following with interest.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM
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Faggy Clarke turns on Tories
Telegraph | News | Clarke criticises Tory 'Right-wing populist' rump
"We have, I am afraid, made ourselves a rather Right-wing popularist party which is why we seem incapable of getting more than a third of the vote," he told BBC1's News 24.
A Daily Telegraph/YouGov poll reported last week that 56-year-old Mr Davis was the overwhelming favourite among party members to replace Mr Howard, with Mr Clarke ranking only fourth in members' preferences.
Challenged on the results yesterday, Mr Clarke said that they underlined why grassroots members should no longer have the decisive "one member, one vote" say on who becomes Tory leader.
Translation: "You can't trust the Tory members - the ones who put up the cash for the party - firstly they want to pursue "popularist" policies and secondly they aren't clever enouhg to vote the right way - just like those stupid French and Dutch people: much better to leave the running of the place to clever people like me who can get it all sorted over a decent lunch or two."
Piss Off - your time is over.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM
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The Madness of nuLabour
Telegraph | News | Blanket fines for premises in 'alcohol zones'
The Government's campaign against binge drinking will include plans to fine all pubs, nightclubs and off-licences 100 a week regardless of whether they are specifically to blame, it emerged last night.
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has decided to allow drink disorder fines to be imposed not just on specific premises linked to drink-related problems but on all main licensed outlets within proposed new "alcohol disorder zones" (ADZs).
They have gone mad - I can see no other explanation. Propose a law that punishes the innocent along with the guilty for a new made up offence and think it is a sane and workable idea; there can be no other explanation.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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June 5, 2005
David Davis make the right noises
Telegraph | News | Davis sets out his vision for Britain: power to the people, not the party
"The party must change," he says. "But in discussing the nature of that change, we must first ask ourselves the right question: not 'What must we do to win?' but 'What we must do for Britain?' If we aren't interested in changing the way the country works, but only in chasing after an ebbing political tide, then we will earn nothing but ridicule. We are in danger of becoming too introspective. We will not deserve to be elected if we are more concerned with internal party politics than in improving the lives of the British people."
I couldn't have put it better myself...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
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"Teneo te, Africa!"
("I have you, Africa!" Suetonius attributes this to Julius Caesar)
Telegraph | News | Blair gives up on his EU dream
Mr Blair, who will seek to shift the focus of his administration on to poverty in the Third World this week during talks with President Bush, has told his closest allies: "Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not."
Tony! - over here! Any chance you could concentrate on Britain instead? I know you think you are too big and clever just to lead this little Island and want to be a "World Statesman" instead but you can do that by leading the UK - or you could pop down the road to see if the Commonwealth is still in business, shamefully neglected and wasted opportunity; or even grab the Anglosphere challenge and run with that....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:24 AM
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June 3, 2005
Paying for the protesters
Edinburgh Evening News - Top Stories - Shortage of portable loos hits G8 camp plans
Frances Curran, MSP, representing the group G8 Alternatives earlier told councillors that camping facilities would be needed from Friday, July 1, through to Thursday, July 7, along with free transport between the sites and the city centre.
So you want free campsites, free portaloos, and free transport into the city centre so the poor bunnies don't even have to walk downtown to smash up the McDonald's - and who is paying for it all? I suppose at least there won't be a demand for free soap....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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June 2, 2005
Tory choices
Telegraph | News | Davis rejects advice to fight back on centre ground
In a move which may deter party moderates from backing his bid to succeed Michael Howard, Mr Davis appeared to spurn Sir John Major's advice last weekend that the party's route back to power had to lie in reclaiming the centre of politics.
So the Tories are against anyone offering a radical alternative to nuLabour - we will just be better middle managers will be the rallying call.
Note to Tories - if you search the newspapers beyond the pages describing your own internal politics there have been a couple of referendums recently. And I will give you a clue, it wasn't the cosy central ground politicians who won. Grow up, you are no longer playing student politics and trying to impress Arabella and scoring debating points; go and talk to some real people and offer a real alternative. A lame duck Prime Minister pushing failing policys, a divided Labour Party running out of steam and you can't provide a decent opposition party - you have no hope.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
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The British Army today
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Real Story | Hero colonel's war crime misery
On the eve of the invasion in Iraq in March 2003, Colonel Tim Collins seemed to sum up everything the British Army stood for when he told his soldiers in the 1st battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment to be "ferocious in battle but magnanimous in victory."
The rousing speech went around the world, winning admiration from President Bush and Prince Charles.
Two months later he was facing allegations of the mistreatment of Iraqi civilians and prisoners of war.
He fought through the courts to clear his name. Prevented by army regulations from speaking out himself, he had asked the MoD to make it clear that he was not accused of murder. They declined, saying they could not comment on an ongoing investigation.
Colonel Collins believes their motives may have been more sinister.
"I know there are individuals in the army who have never been in action, not even a fight in the playground.
"And they are jealous of combat commanders, so maybe there is an element of jealousy. Maybe the fact that I'd risen to prominence without their permission offended them and I needed to be cut down to size."
And the penpushers won - he resigned from the army - what a loss!
Now aged 45, he has just published his controversial autobiography and is in demand as an after-dinner speaker. He also talks of a future television project.
He makes use of being able to talk frankly about the war. A staunch Protestant, he is scathing about the lack of planning to help re-build Iraq.
Eh? What has being a Protestant got to do with it? It is not because - whisper - he is from Ulster is it, that it is relevant? Oh do Catholics just not care about the lack of planning?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:06 AM
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June 1, 2005
Mr Blair goes to Washington
Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online
TONY BLAIR will fly to Washington next week for talks with President Bush to try to save his ambitious G8 agenda, which is under threat from heavy US opposition. ...
The trip comes amid growing pessimism that initiatives on climate change and Africa will be lost owing to a lack of support from the US. Mr Blair is seeking a new commitment from President Bush that he will join India, China and Brazil to agree a new target for a cap on emissions outside the Kyoto Protocol, which President Bush rejected four years ago. ...
That would be the same treaty that Clinton never tried to get accepted by the US then - "On July 25, 1997, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, along with 93 other senators (with five senators not voting and none voting in opposition) adopted a resolution stating that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto" ... still must be evil Bushchimpyhalibuton's fault...
British officials are concerned that the two allies are equally at odds over Africa. Mr Blairs Commission for Africa called for a tripling of aid, and Gordon Brown has put forward ambitious plans for cancelling the debt of African countries. ..
Last weeks agreement among EU members to spend 0.7 per cent of their GDPs on aid by 2015 will add to the pressure on the US to come on board. The US will not want to be isolated on this, one senior Whitehall official said.
Wanna bet?
Aid to Africa has increased rapidly under President Bush, but has been strictly targeted. His main initiative on aid, the Millennium Challenge Account, provides financial support for countries that can prove that they have cracked down on corruption and attempts to improve governance and security.
Oh the evil Bushchimp! Instead of pissing money away by writing large cheques to Swiss Banks any government official or NGO who asks for one, he actually wants to make sure the money is used effectively...
Still it will nice for Cherie who is going to make a few tens of thousands from some interviews and a talk - is she paying for her own ticket?
And I wonder if Tony will have time to actually pick up that Congressional Gold Medal he was awarded back in July 2003?
(He addressed the Congress to say - "Golly, thanks for voting to award it" - but he hasn't popped back to get it or thank them for it - I wonder why not...)
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
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May 31, 2005
Terrorism on the streets of London?
A TANGLED WEB points out:
Fascinating story on Airstrip One. It appears that a former British Army sniper, who may have killed six terrorists, was gunned down in a London street last month. As to who did the gunning down, and as to whether there is an IRA connection, well, that's not worth exploring, is it?
Of course not - terrorists wear towels on their heads and are not nice cuddly caravan-owning pullover-wearing beardies who Tony wants to do a deal with.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:34 AM
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Free at last ?
Tax Freedom Day is today.
"Take these chains from my heart and set me free
You've grown cold and no longer care for me
All my faith in you is gone but the heartaches linger on
Take these chains from my heart and set me free"
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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May 26, 2005
The BBC gives the Free-born Englishman's view
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Peculiarly British identity cards
The argument over identity cards may strike many foreign observers as peculiar, especially in continental Europe where they are long established.
The French embassy in London seemed bemused at being asked whether anybody in France objected to identity cards. They were an accepted fact of life and they allowed you to travel in other European Union countries without a passport - that was the message.
In Germany, everyone has to carry an ID card from the age of 16. A German diplomat told me: "Nobody thinks about it, nobody questions it... if you're in trouble, you just show it... we don't mind giving information if it's necessary."
The traditional objection of the free-born Englishman, as he would see himself, is summed up in the sentence: "Why should I have to prove who I am?"
What I actually said yesterday was:
An Englishman's Castle: Papers Bitte!
"I'm a free born Englishman and I shouldn't have to prove who the fuck I am to anybody, just so I can walk around my country."
Is someone listening to me?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:39 AM
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Prescott lies to push his plans
Telegraph | News | Charles knocks down Prescott's demolition plan
The Prince of Wales last night launched what was seen as an attack on Government plans to demolish up to 400,000 homes in the Midlands and the North.
He said it was wrong to demolish old buildings where they could be restored more economically....
His remarks, in a speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, follow those of Ringo Starr, who questioned the demolition of 20,000 homes in Merseyside, including his birthplace in Madryn Street, Toxteth....
Mr Prescott denied that Starr's birthplace was in the demolition zone - though it is. Yvette Cooper, the housing minister, insisted that such decisions were made locally, but in some cases demolition was the only realistic option.
"The vast majority of investment is going to refurbish homes as this can make a real difference to communities," she said. "However, some areas have tried refurbishment before and still homes are left empty and not enough people want to live there."
It became clear yesterday that Liverpool councillors had asked the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister several times to restore more homes instead of knocking them down.
I really don't understand Prescott's mad plans and determination to bulldoze thousands of homes, including many owned by people who are happy with their houses. Is it some Nulabour fixation with nuHouses for the exciting nu1960s?
And it comes to something when the only effective opposition is the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine (and former drummer of a popular Beat Combo) and His Royal Highness!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
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May 25, 2005
Papers Bitte!
BBC NEWS | Politics | Clarke makes second ID card bid
Senior backbencher Gwyneth Dunwoody said some Labour MPs were uneasy about the scheme.
"The history of police forces or governments holding every element of information about people's lives is not that they are always used responsibly, but used in some instances by governments for the worst possible reasons," she said.
Couldn't have put it better myself - well I could have I suppose; lets try - It wasn't the Nazi's who introduced ID cards but they gleefully used the information - and it is a stupid unwirkable idea - foreign tourists won't have them, so what protection does that give us from foreign terrorists, we didn't need them when the IRA was bombing us..... etc etc but how about? "I'm a free born Englishman and I shouldn't have to prove who the fuck I am to anybody, just so I can walk around my country." - I think that is more like it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM
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May 24, 2005
ProudoftheNHS?
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Group to plug gaps in NHS
Mdecins du Monde, an organisation usually associated with medical care for the poor and sick of developing countries, is planning to set up three clinics in London to treat people the NHS does not reach.
The NHS - envy of the world - to each according their need - the best care for everyone regardless of their circumstances - for the many not the few - the biggest employer in the western world ...And a fucking French charity has to come in to help out in London as though it is some third world disaster zone. No wonder this "envy of the rest of the world", just like the BBC, isn't actually copied by the rest of the world.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:29 PM
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May 20, 2005
Happy Holidays
BBC NEWS | Politics | MPs' bumper 80-day summer break
Please take another 280 days off as well - Europe makes the laws now anyway! - the country works much better without the constant meddling of MPs. I think five days a year would be plenty to tweak a couple of laws that need it, repeal a shed load and get dressed up for the state opening.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:06 AM
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Slipped
BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair treated for a slipped disc
His GP referred him to the hospital for the treatment and Mr Blair had the treatment at about 1900 BST on Thursday.
I haven't got the up to date figures but in May 2004 - Average total wait 150 days for treatment for a slipped disc - obviously it has improved now thanks to nu-labour if he was seen immediately!
Mr Blair's wife Cherie denied Mr Blair had a slipped disc when asked about his health at a law awards meeting.
But Downing Street explained Mrs Blair had been told her husband had a "prolapsed disc" and did not realise it was the same as a slipped disc.
An alternative explanation is that Cherie just lies so often she has forgotten what truth is....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
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May 12, 2005
Good Morning Ms Memoli!
Maria Memoli MBA who is Kennet's Monitoring Officer has kindly replied to my letter of the 28th March - An Englishman's Castle: Kennet Council and the SWRA.
As she points out she has been very busy with elections etc, which is why I haven't pushed for a reply. She also notes that the correspondence has been published on a website! (Though I haven't actually put her full reply up - only my own outgoing letters.) So I presume she will read this - pleased to have you on board.
She believes I criticised her and sounds hurt - I don't believe I did, but may I publicly apologise to her for any offence caused. Not my intention at all. I will digest her reply and post at length when I have time. A quick skim through seems to say it is up to the members to declare interests, no one checks, so as Monitoring Officer she is happy all is OK.
(Quote - "Although I am the custodian of the Register of interests, the onus is on the Members themselves to register their interests ...declaring interests, this is a matter for the Members themselves...In conclusion, therefore, I am satisfied that members of the Council have registered their interests.."
(Well if it is OK for the EU why not for Kennet Council?)
Posted by The Englishman at 10:19 AM
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May 11, 2005
Tory reshuffle
So on with the green eyeshade this morning to try and make sense of and comment on the Tory reshuffle. After a few minutes of research and depression I turn to EU Referendum Blog - which has provided a complete guide to it, Tory Boys and Ostriches. Tony must have spring in his step this morning.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
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May 9, 2005
Hounding the anti-hunters
Vote-OK - Putting the people back in politics
Massive and unprecedented local campaigning by hunt supporters has contributed to the ousting of 29 anti-hunting former MP's. 3.4 million leaflets were delivered, 2.1 million envelopes hand-addressed 55,000 posters erected and 170,000 campaigning man hours provided in a nationally co-ordinated initiative.....shown that when enough people get involved in politics with a purpose and in an organised and focussed way they can, and have, made a difference."
This has been the rehearsal..
An interesting new phenomenon in UK politics - MPs, watch your backs..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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May 7, 2005
So how was it for you darling? You call THAT an Election!
Open Comment Thread to get us through Election day...
(Usual Rules)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
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May 5, 2005
A considered opinion
::: Holy Moly ::: C.nts Corner :::
Tony Blair
The voice of the annoyed - not work safe, contains very rude words....
Tony Blair
Fucked the country over a barrel, sent us into an unsupported war, removed democracy from the great democratic nation of England and is about as conservative as they come without being a tory, yet somehow the public failed to notice that he was leading Labour!
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Tony Blair He's a lying, conniving, war-mongering, minger shagging, despotic, Dubya poodle, fenian, toadying, piss cock wanker of a cheese dicked cunt. And if you think you're getting my vote, ya cunt, you more of a cunt than I think you are. Oh no you can't be! Cunt.
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1. For being the second most arrogant bastard on the planet (apart from Bush)
2. For taking us into a war that had nothing to do with us.
3. For swamping the country with illegal immigrants and for just hating England in general, you Chianti swilling cunt.
4. For wrecking the pensions system; my husband and I now look forward to poverty in our old age thanks to you - I'd like to knife you in the gut and then cut your non-existent bollocks off.
5. For trying to railroad us into Europe - if you like it so much then please fuck off there and never come back again; you can't even decide what religion you want to be so how can you decide on the future of our country you jug eared loon.
6. For not being dead yet - I wouldn't bother to piss on your grave!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM
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A ray of hope?
There is an outside chance that, by Friday, we could be looking at a Conservative government - albeit with a wafer-thin majority. More realistically, we could be looking at the "dream scenario" where Labour's majority is cut to around 30, with the majority of votes cast in England going to the Conservatives.
Either way, bearing in mind that the Conservatives are the only major party to reject the EU constitution, and are prepared to fignt for a "no" vote in the referendum, things are looking brighter than they have for a long time.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM
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May 4, 2005
The Day before
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Election 2005
and nothing interesting to note. If ever there was a "Phony Election" this was it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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April 30, 2005
The Sparky warning
Down in the comments of this post An Englishman's Castle: The Saloon Bar we have been favoured by a long article from The Sparky about living in "multicultural" London.
A Nation of Ostriches!
Posted by The Englishman at 10:06 PM
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Election - what election?
BBC News | Front pages from 30 April 2005
The Sun - I normally defend the Sun against the slings and arrows of middle class perceptions but sometimes even I despair? It is almost as though a message from on high " don't rock the boat" has been received.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:49 AM
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April 29, 2005
Marching to Serfdom
MUCH INK has been spilt in an effort to explain why this election campaign has failed to engender excitement in the streets. Allow me, as a quasioutsider, to offer a provocative thesis.
... The British people are steadily being reduced to a state of cringing dependence on an ever-more voracious and aggrandising Government and a political establishment of almost unconquerable scale that supports and sustains it.
The response of our once competitive political system has been not to offer an alternative to this long march to serfdom but, hemmed in by the tightening constraints of politically permissible debate, to produce feeble dissent around the margins of a vast consensus whose core no one dare challenge...
After years in which the UK actually managed to restrict the growth of government, a period not coincidentally that created the conditions for the best economic performance in a couple of generations, the tax take is set to rise sharply. Within three years, taxes will account for more than 40 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest level in 25 years, and beginning to close the gap again with the levels in sclerotic Western European countries. ...
The Government now backs a more or less open-ended commitment to pouring ever more resources into the demonstrably inefficient bureaucracy of the NHS. Pensions, welfare benefits and education will devour tens of billions more even than current projections suggest. ..
But what are the opposition up to? The Tories say the answer is wait for it a 4 billion tax cut. Mercy! Will the entrepreneurial instincts of the British people be liberated, and the impending socialisation of more than half the UK economy halted, by a measure that will reduce the size of the state by a whopping 0.6 per cent? ...
But as the British publics liberty is sold into the serfdom of the British Establishment, Shelleys words have a curious resonance.
Its useless in this final week of the election, given the paucity of choice, to expect them to echo to any effect now. But soon enough, maybe, the British people will heed them:
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many. They are few.
Now that is the best article I have seen all election - go and read the whole thing (if you can with the Times strange registration policies!)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM
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April 28, 2005
Missing - One elephant
perfect.co.uk provides a rundown of tonights Question Time of the three leaders. The BBC's choice of questions was bizarre.
On Howard about half the time was devoted to immigration. Of course he should be questioned on it, but is it really the most important Tory policy or is it the one that it is easy to get a few impassioned questioners on?
Blair, vast amount of time on todays news re the Attorney Generals advice - Good to make him sweat a bit, but it is wonk territory. The only glimmer of real issues was accidentally the massaging of Doctor appointment waiting times to meet targets rather than patient need came up. It was a real surprise to Blair, who like the Queen believes all hospitals smell of new paint.
And of course not a mention of Europe, reaction to "global warming", ID cards, the real threat of terrorism, rural disquiet, rationalisation of England, West Lothian question, nuclear power - to name some issues off the top of my head that are worth debating....
Posted by The Englishman at 10:15 PM
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A view of the Tories from Scotland
Why Tories should become English version of the SNP - The Herald
Whatever the Tories are at the moment, they are not a genuine UK party. They are an English party, and it is maybe time for them to begin to face up to the implications of this reality.
Hattip to Officer Dibble
Posted by The Englishman at 12:24 PM
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Scottish Labour Lie - now corrected.
scottishlabour.org.uk -What has Labour done for me
Scottish Labour has ensured no full-time undergraduate student has to pay up-front tuition fees in Scotland.
CEP Blog points out:
English students studying at Scottish universities currently pay upfront tuition fees of 3,600 for a four-year degree course while Scots pay a 2,000 endowment after they graduate.
And Gareth continues : Please, if you have any spare time tomorrow, do phone Scottish Labour on 0141 572 6900 and complain about this. It's great fun, you'll enjoy it. And let me know if they use the term 'Reflective of Devolution' - I have the feeling that a memo has been passed around their office.
I have just done it and spoken to a charming young lady who tells me it is an old page that shouldn't be on the website - the link from the front page now goes to http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/holyrood/ which has corrected it.."Scottish Labour has ensured no Scottish domicile full-time undergraduate student has to pay up-front tuition fees in Scotland."
Posted by The Englishman at 7:40 AM
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Flash Tony
A brief political broadcast ...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:23 AM
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Caption Comp
L'Ombre de l'Olivier is looking for Captions for a photo -
Example..
BLAIR: "So anyway, to get to the punch line, Pauline holds her hand up like so - and Cheri and Sarah lean across from either side and whisper, "No, Pauline ... Lorraine was asking us to describe our husbands' last ELECTION, dear!"
Can you do better?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM
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B Liar
Telegraph | News | I never lie, says Blair as new doubt is cast on war
"I have never told a lie," he said. "No. I don't intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over Iraq."
A saint, I tell you the man is a perfect saint...
Even the Tory traitors agree:
Kenneth Clarke, the former Tory chancellor, said he would not use the word "liar" and was "not sure" he would have sanctioned the party's latest poster.
I must admit I hadn't realised that Clarke was still around - I must check the stock of Piano wire..
A few articles aren't so sure:
Scotsman.com News - Gerald Warner - Mad, bad and dangerous: liar Blair has lost touch with reality
Blair is a complete flake: in any other avocation of society he would be a psychiatric couch potato. "Trust me, I'm a compulsive liar," is his Clinton-style pitch to the British electorate. For the Great Charlatan, who has charlatanry in his blood and bone, does not simply lie to get himself out of tough corners: he loves a good lie, just for the hell of it.
Instance his claim, in a wireless interview in 1997, to have watched his "teenage hero" Jackie Milburn, of Newcastle United, from behind the goal at St James's Park. As football fans quickly pointed out, Milburn had left Newcastle when Blair was four years old and there were no seats behind the goals until the 1990s. Yet Blair told this pointless porkie in the same year in which he became Prime Minister. Why? To make himself more blokeish; to share - if purely in his imagination - the experience of his constituency?
So, how does one explain the inane lie that he told Des O'Connor about having stowed away at Newcastle airport on a flight for the Bahamas, when he was 14? In fact, no flight from Newcastle in those days ever went to the Bahamas, or even long-haul. This was a Richmal Crompton version of Blair: Just Tony. When a grown man indulges in such Walter Mitty fantasies, we can feel concern; when that man also has the power to unleash war, that concern becomes downright alarm.
Blair has no apparent notion of the difference between truth and lies. We saw that from his earliest days in power - Bernie Ecclestone, et al - and then, more sinisterly, in the Iraq drama. Robin Cook has described how, on March 5, 2003, he told Blair that Saddam possessed no strategic weapons, only battlefield ordnance. Recently we have learned that, long before that, Jack Straw had warned Blair that chaos would result from any invasion. By the time Blair rose to mislead the House of Commons, intelligence that was "sporadic and patchy", "little" and "limited" had suddenly become "extensive, detailed and authoritative".
Of course, the Great Charlatan does not want us to dwell on such morbid matters, so he has started to indulge in diversionary lectures on the moral vapidity of the 1960s, or the perils of global warming.
And while the Tories are half heartedly attacking Blair for his lies - (Howard is direct about the war: "You could have gone to war and told the truth. That's what Mr Blair didn't do." Which is fair enough.)- the Peace camp is in full cry after him...
DJ Paul Edge Blog: Blair Faced Lies - Arrest Blair Now
Tony Blair is a liar. His lies have brought about the deaths of coalition troops and Iraqi citizens. ..He should be standing in a court room under trial for War Crimes. I urge people to distribute this list of LIES to anyone who is thinking of voting for Tony Blair....
The Motion for War
"This House ... recognises that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council Resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security." - Tony Blair, 18 March 2003, House of Commons
Lies made about the existence of Iraq's NBC weapons before intelligence had assessed that Iraq possessed these weapons
1) "We know they are trying to accumulate weapons of mass destruction."- Tony Blair, 3 March 2002, Channel 9 News, Australia
2) "That there is a threat from Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction that he has acquired is not in doubt at all."- Tony Blair, 11 March 2002.
3) "We know that he [Saddam Hussein] has stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons, we know that he is trying to acquire nuclear
capability, we know that he is trying to develop ballistic missile capability of a greater range."- Tony Blair, 3 April 2002, NBC news
4) "There is a reason why weapons inspectors went in there and that is because we know he has been developing these weapons. We know that those weapons constitute a threat."- Tony Blair, 6 April 2002.
5) "Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his
own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."- Tony Blair, 10 April 2002, House of Commons
Lies about a "threat" from Iraq's weapons
6) "there is no doubt at all that the development of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein poses a severe threat not just to the region, but to the wider world. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."- Tony Blair, 10 April 2002, House of Commons
7) "Iraq poses a real and a unique threat to the security of the region and the rest of the world."- Tony Blair,3 September 2002, Press Conference
8) "So let me tell you why I say Saddam Hussein is a threat that has to be dealt with. He has twice before started wars of aggression. Over one million people
died in them. When the weapons inspectors were evicted...from Iraq in 1998 there were still enough chemical and biological weapons remaining to devastate the entire Gulf region."- Tony Blair, 10 September 2002, TUC Conference
Written Lies - Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government of 24 September 2002
9) "Iraq has chemical and biological agents and weapons available ..from pre-Gulf War stocks."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002
10) "Plants formerly associated with the chemical warfare programme have been rebuilt. These include the chlorine and phenol plant at Fallujah 2 near Habbaniyah."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002
11) "According to intelligence, Iraq has retained up to 20 Al Hussein missiles They could be used with conventional, chemical or biological warheads and, with a range of up to 650km, are capable of reaching a number of countries in the region including Cyprus, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002
12) "Saddam Hussein's "military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002
13) "A current and serious threat to the UK national interest....I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped..The assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt .. that he [Saddam Hussein] continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002
The Lies Continue
14) "The reason [for the publication of the September dossier] is because his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programme is not an historic leftover
from 1998. The inspectors aren't needed to clean up the old remains. His WMD programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not
working. The WMD programme is not shut down. It is up and running."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002, House of Commons
15) "It [the dossier] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes ... and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002, House of Commons
16) He has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes...Prime Minister's Iraq statement to Parliament ......In addition, we know Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa.- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002, House of Commons
17) "The dossier shows that Iraq continues to produce chemical agent for chemical weapons; has rebuilt previously destroyed production plants across Iraq; has bought dual-use chemical facilities; has retained the key personnel formerly engaged in the chemical weapons programme; and has a serious ongoing research programme into weapons production."- Tony Blair, 24 September 2002, House of Commons
18) "There is no doubt about the chemical programme, the biological programme, indeed the nuclear weapons programme. All that is well documented by the United Nations."- Tony Blair, 30 May 2003
19) "the UN has tried unsuccessfully for 12 years to get Saddam to disarm peacefully."- Tony Blair, 2 March 2003, Independent on Sunday
20) "Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and the threats they pose to the world must be confronted."- Tony Blair, 3 February 2003, House of Commons
21) "The intelligence is clear: he [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external
aggression."- Tony Blair, 25 February 2003, House of Commons
22) "Now I simply say to you, it is a matter of time unless we act and take a stand before terrorism and weapons of mass destruction come together, and I regard them as two sides of the same coin. And the reason why Iraq is important is Iraq is the issue around which this has come to have focus."- Tony Blair, 13 January 2003:
23) "Over the past few weeks, we have seen powerful evidence of the continuing terrorist threat... At the same time, we know too that Iraq is not alone in developing WMD... I repeat my warning: unless we take a decisive stand now, as an international community, it is only a matter of time before these threats come together."- Tony Blair, 3 February 2003, House of Commons
24) "Those two threats [terrorism and states with NBC weapons] have, of course, different motives and different origins, but they share one basic common view: they detest the freedom, democracy and tolerance that are the hallmarks of our way of life. At the moment, I accept fully that the association between the two is loose, but it is hardening. The possibility of the two coming togetherof terrorist groups in possession of weapons of mass destruction or even of a socalled dirty radiological bombis now, in my judgment, a real and present danger to Britain and its national security."- Tony Blair, 18 March 2003, House of Commons
25) "I asked for more intelligence on the issue not just of terrorism but also of WMD....But then we had to confront the states with WMD. We had to take
a stand. We had to force conformity with international obligations that for years had been breached with the world turning a blind eye. For 12 years
Saddam had defied calls to disarm....my judgement then and now is that the risk of this new global terrorism and its interaction with states or organisations
or individuals proliferating WMD, is one I simply am not prepared to run."- Tony Blair, 5 March 2004
More Lies
26) "there is some intelligence evidence about linkages between members of al-Qaeda and people in Iraq."- Tony Blair, 21 January 2003, House of Commons Liaison Committee
Lies about Non Compliance with the Inspectors
27) "as more negotiations go on and he fails to comply and you know that he is developing these weapons of mass destruction..."- Tony Blair, 6 July 2002, House of Commons Liaison Committee:
28) "Is it not reasonable that Saddam provides evidence of destruction of the biological and chemical agents and weapons the UN proved he had in 1999?"- Tony Blair, 25 February 2003, House of Commons
29) "After 12 years is it not reasonable that the UN inspectors have unrestricted access to Iraqi scientists - that means no tape recorders, no minders, no Intimidation, interviews outside Iraq as provided for by Resolution 1441? So far this simply isn't happening."- Tony Blair, 25 February 2003
30) "Journeys are monitored by security officers stationed on the route if they have prior intelligence. Any changes of destination are notified ahead by telephone or radio so that arrival is anticipated. The welcoming party is a give away."- Tony Blair, February 2003
31) "Escorts are trained, for example, to start long arguments with other Iraqi officials 'on behalf of UNMOVIC' while any incriminating evidence is hastily being hidden behind the scenes."- Tony Blair, February 2003
32) "We issued further intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of concealment. It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports"-
Tony Blair, 3 February 2003, House of Commons
33) "The reason why the inspectors couldn't do their job ... was that Saddam wouldn't co-operate..."- Tony Blair, 4 April 2003
34) "On 8 December he submitted the declaration denying he had any WMD, a statement not a single member of the international community seriously
believes."- Tony Blair, 25 February 2003, House of Commons
"Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data which support the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we have not received from our partners such information"- President Putin Russia
35) "I have absolutely no doubt whatever that he was trying to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programmes....[Saddam Hussein] has always been intending to develop these weapons..."- Tony Blair, 8 July 2003, Commons Liaison Committee
Lies To Justify The Commencement of Hostilities
36) "Tonight, British servicemen and women are engaged from air, land and sea. Their mission: to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction..."- Tony Blair, 20 March 2003, televised address to the nation
37) "I have always said to people throughout that ... our aim has been the elimination of weapons of mass destruction."- Tony Blair, 25 March 2003, Press Conference
38) "Our aim has not been regime change, our aim has been the elimination of weapons of mass destruction."- Tony Blair, 25 March 2003, Press Conference
39) "I have got absolutely no doubt that those weapons are there. once we have the cooperation of the scientists and the experts, I have got no doubt that we will find them."- Tony Blair, 4 April 2003
40) "On weapons of mass destruction, we know that the regime has them, we know that as the regime collapses we will be led to them."- Tony Blair, 8 April 2003, press conference with George W. Bush
41) "I stand absolutely 100% behind the evidence, based on intelligence, that we presented to people I have no doubt at all, as I said to you earlier, that the
assessments that were made by the British intelligence services will turn out to be correct."- Tony Blair, 2 June 2003
42) "You know, you asked me right at the very outset, do I stand by the essential case? I do stand by the essential case. I also stand entirely by the intelligence we put in the September dossier, which after all was the main thing that we brought before Parliament . I simply want to tell you today and, through you, the country that I believe we did the right thing, I stand 100% by it, and I think that our intelligence services gave us the correct intelligence and information at the time... I do not believe that our intelligence will be shown to be wrong at all. I think it will be shown to be right. I have absolutely no doubt whatever that he was trying to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programmes and that the intelligence that we were getting out of Iraq about those programmes and about the attempt to conceal them was correct.that intelligence I have no doubt at all was valid intelligence."- Tony Blair, 8 July 2003, House of Commons Liaison Committee
43) "I believe the intelligence we received is correct. So that is my view, it has been my view all the way through"- Tony Blair, 30 July 2003
44) "We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves."- Tony Blair November 2003
45) "The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long-range ballistic missiles"- Tony Blair, 16 December 2003, British Forces Broadcasting Service
46) "It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation." - Tony Blair, 25 January 2004, at least six months after MI6 had withdrawn key reports on Iraq's weapons,
Lies Justifying Lies
47) "Only then [after Hussein Kamel's defection] did the inspectors find over 8,000 litres of concentrated anthrax and other biological weapons, and a factory to make more."- Tony Blair, 2 March 2003, Independent on Sunday
48) "The UN inspectors found no trace at all of Saddam's offensive biological weapons programme which he claimed didn't exist until his lies were revealed by his son-in-law."- Tony Blair, 2 March 2003,the Independent on Sunday
After he defected to Jordan on 7 August 1995, Hussein Kamel told UN inspectors "I ordered the destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed".
49) "We have already found two trailers, both of which we believe were used for the production of biological weapons"- Tony Blair, 30 May 2003, Press Conference in Poland
Finally The Truth
"we were almost all wrong [..] it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarised chemical and biological weapons there." David Kay, US-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) , 28 January 2004, US Senate Armed Services Committee
Unbelievably, Tony Blair Continues To Lie
50) "In a land mass twice the size of the UK it may well not be surprising you don't find where this stuff is hidden..."- Tony Blair, 11 January 2004, Interview with David Frost
51) "Well you can't say that at this point in time. What you can say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam's programmes and about his weapons that we acted on that, it's the case throughout the whole of the conflict..."- Tony Blair, 11 January 2004, Interview with David Frost
52) "As for the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, there can be no doubt ... that those weapons existed. It is the job of the Iraq Survey Group to find out what has happened, which it will do..."- Tony Blair, 21 January 2004, House of Commons
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
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April 27, 2005
Booed or Boomed?
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Schools special reports | Blair gets 'boomed' by pupils
Reports that the prime minister was booed were, apparently, inaccurate. Rather, a few pupils shouted out "boom" from the back of the hall.
After the initial embarrassment, some pupils were shuffled in front of journalists to explain that this meant they were happy to see the politicians, and not showing any disrespect.
The school's headteacher, Gary Phillips, backed up that interpretation, telling reporters: "Different cultures celebrate in different ways."
But some confusion remained. Other students told journalists that they had indeed booed the prime minister. ..
And Mr Phillips courted controversy by endorsing a Labour victory at the May 5 poll.
"I believe much of what we have done at Lilian Baylis has been made possible by the policy of this government. I believe the commitment of the prime minister and the government to schools like ours has been outstanding.
"Just as we have more to do at Lilian Baylis, so this government has more to do, and I personally hope they are elected to do it."
Mr Phillips acknowledged that he was not supposed to be "overtly political" on such occasions, but insisted he had a "unique insight" into the differences between the two main political parties and the politicians who led them.
Mr Phillips, you are telling porkies, you Blairite lapdog. What I object to is the dragging of a few kids in to tell those porkies for you. "Simpkins, did you Boo the Prime Minister?" "Oh, No Sir"....
Listen for your self.
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Weblog | Boos? You decide
Posted by The Englishman at 11:31 PM
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The Tory gets my vote
I was meant to go to a public meeting last night to heckle listen to all of our Parliamentary Candidates but I was too hung over and tired from Monday Night Rifle Practice at the Pub which degenerated after that light weight wuss Mr FM left...
So I'm sorry I have had to make my mind up on our local candidates by reading their leaflets. The Lib Dem one was so forgettable I have forgotten it. Ms Nu-labour just simpered how wonderful life is under Tony and how the Big Bad Tories want o come back and eat your first born. She also made her main point "protecting local NHS" to try and get votes from people who don't want our local hospital closed. As a loyal little Blairette she tried to spin her way out of how closing local hospitals makes local services better...
UKIP has probably the worst candidate photograph I have ever seen - basically the passport photo of someone who looks like a dodgy history teacher with an interest in cardigans and steam trains. And their pamphlet is mainly concerned with "immigration". Sorry, not one of my major worries and uncomfortably close to the BNP. And to make the fifth major point banning GM crops and unbanning vitamin supplements is basically a joke.
So that leave the Tory...Michael Ancram (see he observes the decencies of closing his MP website).
His leaflet has him talking to a lovely baby - obviously the loveliest baby in the whole constituency, if not the whole of Christendom, wait - look, it is the younger Englishette! He has chosen one of my beautiful daughters to show off how lovely babies are in his constituency. What a man of taste, got my vote. Policies? who cares? this is personal.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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April 26, 2005
The (soviet) state we are in..
Brown handouts create a "Soviet" north - Sunday Times - Times Online
PARTS of the UK are as dependent on the state as some Soviet bloc countries were at the time communism collapsed, a new analysis based on official figures shows.
It paints a picture of large areas of the country whose prosperity in recent years owes everything to Gordon Browns largesse with taxpayers money, and which will struggle when spending slows down to more normal levels.
In the North-East public spending constitutes 59% of GDP while in Scotland that figure is 52%. That compares to us poor beknighted souls in London and the South-East - the area that actually produces the wealth - where only one third of GDP is public spending.
Thanks to a loyal reader reminding me of this article.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:34 AM
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April 25, 2005
What do bears do in the woods?
The MSM seems to have been shocked and dismayed that the new Pope is a Catholic and not a woolly liberal agnostic so they are now facing a second shock in that Tony Blair is being exposed as a liar.
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Election 2005 | Howard gambles on personal attack
Michael Howard has opened up a new front in the second half of the election campaign with his most direct attacks yet on Tony Blair's honesty and trustworthiness.
Asked if he was calling the prime minister a liar, Mr Howard said "yes"
For the second day running he has accused the prime minister of being a liar.
And in Entertainment News - shock revelation that Dolly Parton sleeps on her back....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM
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April 21, 2005
Prescott buys votes with ratepayers money
Telegraph | News | How Prescott put 1bn on council tax
Council tax is expected to rise sharply after the election following Labour's decision not to raise the retirement age for local government workers from 60 to 65, leaked Government papers revealed last night.
Last month's decision by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, not to proceed with the higher retirement age averted a 24-hour strike by a million council workers as the election approached.
Ministers agreed to revoke changes, due to come into force on April 1, after workers, from binmen to dinner ladies, threatened to walk out.
I feel like going on strike against having to work longer to support these bastards. I hadn't realised that all the Local Government workers clocked off at 60 to enjoy a taxpayer funded holiday - while the few wealth creating ratepayers left tend to keep bloody working to pay the bills.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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April 20, 2005
Everyone else is doing it...
UKIP's primary focus is on Europe, where the party is strongly against joining both the EU constitution and the Euro. UKIP is also firmly in favour of limiting immigration. The party does not take a clear line on some other policy issues, but supports scrapping university tuition fees; it is strongly against income tax rises and favour reducing fuel duty. Take the test at Who Should You Vote For
Who should I vote for?
Your expected outcome:
UK Independence PartyYour actual outcome:
Labour -23 
Conservative 40Liberal Democrat -22 UK Independence Party 49 Green 4
You should vote: UK Independence Party
Maybe I will - maybe I won't.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:33 AM
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"Banana Republic" voting methods challanged
Scotsman.com News - Politics - Postal vote legal battle could delay general election
THE general election could be postponed if a Liberal Democrat bid to make postal voting more secure is agreed by the High Court.
Tomorrow, the deputy leader of Britain's largest local authority will ask for a judicial review of electoral procedures, amid widespread fears that the postal voting system is open to abuse.
John Hemming, leader of the Lib Dems on Birmingham City Council, will press his case and call for a full hearing as a matter of urgency. ...
He was involved in raising the alarm about postal fraud in Birmingham council elections last summer, which led to six Labour councillors being expelled from office.
At a special hearing, the election commissioner, Richard Mawrey, QC, described the electoral fraud at the council election as something that "would disgrace a banana republic" and warned that the postal voting system was wide open to abuse.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
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On form
UK Commentators - Laban Tall's Blog on children dying, collapsing pensions and crime and punishment - the stories that should be being covered elsewhere but aren't.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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"Politics with integrity"
Guy Fawkes' blog of parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy brought to my attention the first interesting story of this boring election:
You are a businessmen, you give a 50,000 donation to the Labour party, you get to have a business breakfast with the Prime Minister, you give a second donation of 50,000 to the Labour party while the government is weighing up who should be awarded a 32m contract you are bidding on. Surprise, you get awarded the contract, you make 20m profit on it. What value for money for the taxpayer, what a return on investment!
Loaded now, you give another 500,000 donation to New Labour, and get made a life peer by Mr Blair six weeks later. The amazing life and times of Paul Drayson and Tony Blair...
Scotsman.com News - Tony Blair's leadership - Getting cosy with Tony has a fuller round up of this story.
For instance:
He banked 32 million after securing the contract to supply smallpox vaccines in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
And before that deal, PowderJect won a government contract to supply TB vaccines, although ministers insisted there was no connection between the contracts and the 50,000 donation to Labour made by Lord Drayson while the government was deciding who should be given the contract.
An inquiry by the National Audit Office found no link between Lord Draysons gift and the initial contract.
The then health minister, Lord Hunt, was accused of misleading parliament by claiming the government had had no choice but to use PowderJect to get the smallpox supplies, even though Lord Draysons firm was merely acting as a middleman.
The peer told the Lords that ministers were unable to go directly to Bavarian Nordic, the vaccines manufacturer, because it had said it would deal only through Lord Drayson for contractual reasons.
But Asger Aamund, chairman of Bavarian Nordic, said he would have supplied the vaccine direct - cutting out Lord Drayson and saving taxpayers millions - but was never asked to do so. The National Audit Office criticised the handling of the deal but found no impropriety.
The BBC election website seems not to have a story on it yet - so will this just be yawned away as the sort of thing we now expect from Labour?
Not very long ago the one thing about British politics you could rely on was that the leaders were basically honest - wrong maybe but honest. We now have Prime Minister who is a unashamed liar - no one cares; Labour is up to its neck in sleaze that makes the few Tory chancers of the eighties rank amateurs - no one cares; we have massive election fraud - no one cares; we are ruled by the EU - an unaccountable pit of corruption - no one cares.
Before the election I had noticed how the US bloggers had held the candidates and press to the fire to help ensure decency and truth in their election. And I wondered if it would happen in the UK - it hasn't, because no-one cares that the body politic is rotten to the core.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM
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April 19, 2005
Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise abolished!
It is true they are no more!
The shame is they have been replaced with the shiny new HM Revenue & Customs, and of course the powers that the Exciseman alone used to have are now available to the Taxman.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:57 AM
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April 18, 2005
Labour wants to Move On
Blair hires controversial US election cyberactivist - silicon.com
The Labour Party has hired the controversial cyberactivist responsible for running the Democratic Party's internet campaigns during the 2004 US presidential election.
Zack Exley was hired by Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry after setting up the political website MoveOn.org, which engaged in grassroots campaigning and claimed to have built an online community of some 2 million political activists.
But Exley made his name some years earlier when he snapped up the gwbush.com domain for $70 and promptly used it to set up a website to post fake photos portraying the now-US president as a cocaine-snorting alcoholic.
Left it a bit late for this election? But the tidal wave of sleaze from Labour is growing and so this is only to be expected.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:18 PM
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April 15, 2005
Banana Republic
The Times has learnt that the Government has, for the first time in a general election, invited international observers to monitor the last week of the campaign. The Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights will decide in the next two days whether to accept the invitation. "We don't investigate and we would not micromanage the police, but postal voting will be looked at if we accept," a spokeswoman said.
So Zimbabwe had Commonwealth and EU monitors - Iraq had a Canadian based organisation and Labour invites a Warsaw based group here... funny old world eh?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM
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April 14, 2005
IMF warning
Telegraph | News | IMF raises the spectre of more Labour tax rises
Labour's manifesto launch was overshadowed yesterday by a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the next Government would have to rein back spending or raise taxes.
Gordon claims they have got their sums wrong - I don't think so.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
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April 13, 2005
More Brummie Vote Fraud?
The elections officer for Birmingham was suspended last night after the discovery of a hidden box containing an estimated 1,000 uncounted postal votes from the 2004 local authority elections.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:17 PM
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April 12, 2005
BBC finds businesses and people feel over taxed and over regulated!
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Election 2005 | Business concern over rising tax burden
and also see "in pictures"
Posted by The Englishman at 2:08 PM
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Priorities for the Police
TRAFFIC police are being awarded points for arresting law breakers in a new system to boost productivity.
Officers in the Thames Valley have been set a minimum haul of 200 points a month, with different crimes attracting different points. Under the scheme, police will be given ten points for arresting a rapist or burglar compared with five for a motorist talking on a mobile phone or not wearing a seatbelt.
Says it all doesn't it about priorities - so if you are driving in the Thames Valley watch out!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM
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Confused - you will be!
Telegraph | News | Labour 'lie' shot down in flames
Alan Milburn, Labour's election co-ordinator, confirmed that Labour was now accusing the Tories of both wanting to cut and increase spending.
"At the same time as planning to cut 35 billion from Labour's public spending plans, the Conservative manifesto makes billions of pounds of additional spending commitments,"
What - no accusation that they intend to leave public spending exactly the same! - Still pity that the Tories aren't running on a cut, cut and then cut again policy.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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April 11, 2005
Tory Manifesto - backdoor English Parliament?
Now that exclusively Scottish matters are decided by the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, exclusively English matters should be decided in Westminster without the votes of MPs sitting for Scottish constituencies who are not accountable to English voters. We will act to ensure that English laws are decided by English votes.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:44 PM
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Election code word - "Britain"
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Election 2005 | Kennedy set to 'talk Britain up'
Kennedy set to 'talk Britain up'
He joins Gordon "Tax and Waste" Brown in his sudden call for "Britain". Deciphered this word now means that I'm a Scottish MP and I want to rule England - England is not a country but a bunch of regions as decided by the EU - I'm wrapping myself in the flag as a scoundrel does so you don't see my traitorous intent to the English.
Mark this word on your Election Bingo card and tick it off as it is uttered by various sleaze merchants.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
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Scotch want more tax
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Scotland | Tax rise soundings from BBC poll
Most people in Scotland want higher spending on schools, hospitals and pensions and would pay more tax to finance it, a BBC Scotland poll says.
Here's an idea - how about them starting by paying their own way first instead of leaching of the poor bloody English taxpayer. Maybe they wouldn't be so keen on more tax if they were actually paying it themselves.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
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April 7, 2005
Tax and waste
Telegraph | News | Blair refuses to rule out tax increase
Tony Blair will refuse to rule out further tax rises in Labour's election manifesto to help fund a 95 billion increase in public spending over six years, senior party officials said last night.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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April 6, 2005
Turncoat turns again
BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Election 2005 | MP Marsden defects back to Labour
Uncharitably I suspect he wants a post election honour and a couple of nice part time jobs on Quangos and of course I would be wrong...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
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April 5, 2005
New Regiment
BBC NEWS | UK | Special forces regiment created
A new special forces regiment is to be operational from Wednesday, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has announced.
The Special Reconnaissance Regiment, or SRR, will provide specialist support for overseas operations, particularly those against international terrorism.
Just like that - a new regiment! With the SAS giving up on the RAF, prefering the Petrols to provide instruction on how to fall out of things, and the SBS under extreme pressure to shape up or else, times are interesting in the murky world of Special Forces...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:52 PM
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Is Blair pissing himself?
Maybe he has seen the opinion polls...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:33 PM
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Britain a Banana Republic
BBC NEWS | Politics | Postal votes 'wide-open to fraud'
The judge in a vote-rigging trial says the postal voting system is "wide open to fraud" and has strongly attacked the government's attitude to the problem.
Richard Mawrey QC was speaking as he ruled there had been "widespread fraud" in six Birmingham council seats won last year by Labour.
He accused the government of being not only complacent, but "in denial", about the failings of the system.
The judge said he regretted the government had dismissed recent warnings about the system's failings as "scaremongering".
He pointed to a government statement which said: "The systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working."
Mr Mawrey said: "Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising...
Remember this when the election results are announced because the system is not going to be changed before May.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
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Gentlemen, time to start your engines.
With Tony Blair due to announce the election date today four new polls this morning show that the race could be much tighter than was being forecast. All of them show Labour leads over the Conservatives to be on the decline and one has Michael Howard's party five points ahead.
The Media has been giving Blair a shoo-in - might it be a more interesting race? Howard has been positioning the Tories to gain as much territory as possible, and that means being as close to the enemy as possible, because the hinterland behind him which stretchs off to various peaks of indignation about Europe, Liberty etc has no where else to realistically go. Come the hour it will be a choice of vote for the Tories or accept responsibility for more Blair. And Blair has a problem of a lack of enthusiasm to get his supporters out. (Obviously with postal voting that isn't a problem for the Labour Party).
I see I can get 8 to 1 at Betfair on the Tories - I'm tempted.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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March 31, 2005
Tories Schmoories -
Telegraph | News | Conservatives: Please stop calling us Tories
The Conservative Party has appealed to broadcasters to stop describing its members as "Tories" in the run-up to the election.
The 17th-century term derives from the Irish "toraidhe", meaning outlaw or robber.
Most of the time they might as well be call "nu-nu-labour" for all the difference between the parties.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:28 PM
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Your tax money at work
Telegraph | News | Protests as police spend 10,000 on anti-racism CD guide for gipsies
David Bailey, traveller and diversity manager at Fenland district council, which is helping to distribute the CDs, said: "We have found that people in other minority groups, such as the lesbian, bisexual and gay community, are much more confident in making complaints to the police if they fall victim to hate crime.
"Unfortunately, travellers don't have the same confidence."
Whoops, I was nearly guilty of thought crime then...
Posted by The Englishman at 3:24 PM
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MRDA - incomes falling!
BBC NEWS | Business | Average incomes 'fell last year'
Average household incomes have fallen for the first time in a decade, says the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The IFS says income after tax and benefits fell by 0.2% between 2003 and 2004, due partly to rises in national insurance payments in the 2002 Budget.
In response, the Treasury described the IFS research as "complete rubbish".
"They would say that wouldn't they" (Mandy Rice-Davis Applies).
Doesn't seem like rubbish to me - incentives to work are not there when old Tax and Waste dips his hand deeper and deeper in to our pockets.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:16 PM
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March 30, 2005
Peace in our time
Thank God that there are no more criminals in Northern Ireland, -
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Maze site 'approved' for stadium
The former Maze prison site in County Antrim is the only viable location for a new 55m sports stadium in Northern Ireland, the government has decided
Posted by The Englishman at 10:57 PM
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Engineering
Let us escape from the mucky world of politics for a day and enjoy the cleaner healthier world of heavy engineering:
Watching the late Fred Dibnah on the box last night was a joy as he toured Britain bring great engineering to us. His views are to quote:
"Fred Dibnah pushed into the world in 1938, a world, which in his view has been going downhill ever since, he has had two main passions - Steeplejacks and Steam Engines."
As he drives his steam engine around the country fuelled by water, coal and beer (I have never seen so many shots of someone driving supping cans of ale!) he also came across a modern example of a fantastic project -
The Falkirk Wheel - a boat lift designed to connect the Union Canal with the Forth and Clyde Canal 25 m below. Magnificent!
Posted by The Englishman at 5:51 AM
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March 29, 2005
Torys look to blogging to save them.
c o n s e r v a t i v e h o m e . c o m is the new Tory blog that is either going to help the Tories win the next election or provide a forum for "social conservatives" to discuss the policies that the Tories should follow to win the one after that.
I will be watching to see how it progresses -
Times article on it
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
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Follow up to Kennet Councillor
Following up the post below An Englishman's Castle: Kennet Council and the SWRA I am including the following covering note to the Leader of the Council.
I look forward to a reply.
Cllr. Christopher Humphries
Kennet Council
Browfort
Devizes
Wilts
Dear Cllr. Christopher Humphries
I apologise for troubling you again but I thought you ought to be copied in again to my letter to Ms M Memoli regarding possible problems with Kennets relationship with the SWRA. Im afraid most of my original questions went unanswered and so I am having to ask them again, in hope of either getting an answer or a reason why they are unanswerable.
In the meantime, so that we can all swiftly move on, it would be most helpful if you could answer this simple question:
Could you confirm that during the entire time that you have been a member of the SWRA and Kennet Council you have always acted correctly and declared an interest and withdrawn from any meeting, and exerted no influence, whenever Kennet Councils support for the SWRA was discussed?
Yours sincerely,
Posted by The Englishman at 5:40 AM
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March 28, 2005
Kennet Council and the SWRA
You may remember that I have asked Kennet Council some questions about their membership of the SWRA. For details see :An Englishman's Castle: Regional Assemblies - Help needed
I have just had a reply back from Maria Memoli MBA who is Kennet's Monitoring Officer - she fails to answer the questions (if the technology works I will scan her letter in tomorrow) - so I am asking them again!
Text of my new letter is below - has anyone else had a reply yet? (I was expecting that the Regional Assemblies would have started to produce a standard reply, but judging from the pathetic response I have had they haven't.
The Monitoring Officer
Kennet Council
Browfort
Devizes
Wilts
CC Cllr. Christopher Humphries et al
Dear Ms M Memoli
Thank you for your kind reply to my letter of the 2nd March.
I appreciate the answers to the questions you have given and I hope you will not be offended if I ask again for answers to the ones you left unanswered.
To aid clarity I have cut the letter I sent to the basics so that the questions are clear. I have not altered the questions but have added explanatory information in italics - I am aware that The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) aims to prevent discrimination against all and it is recommended that one should avoid underlining, avoid use of italics or any mix of fonts etc. however I am at a loss how else to easily show the new from the original if it causes a problem please get back to me.
Questions:
1. Can you confirm that Kennet Council is aware that the South West Regional Assembly (SWRA) is an unincorporated association and thereby has no legal personality?
Thank you for answering this.
2. Can you please provide details of all the amounts paid by Kennet Council to SWRA since its inception?
Please could you answer this the question asks for the amounts.
3. Can you please provide details of all the Kennet Councils representatives of SWRA over the period this money was paid and whether they were present at council meetings when this payment, the voluntary subscription, was agreed in the budget?
As far as I am aware the website only provides current positions please could you answer this question. Particularly whether they were present at the meetings if you cannot answer this please could you inform of who can..
4. Can you confirm that at all times the Members Interest Book had up to date details of membership of SWRA. If not, can you advise as to when and where the breaches were noted and the date they were corrected?
If it is not your job to monitor such things please could you inform who does.
5. Had the members indicated that they had a pecuniary or prejudicial interest in SWRA? If not, had you, as the Monitoring Officer, advised them otherwise?
Please could you answer this question. Did they or did they not indicate any interest?
6. Were they ever advised by yourself as Monitoring Officer, or any other official of the Local Authority that membership of an unincorporated association whose members are jointly and severally liable may have personal financial consequences?
I fail to see how the Surcharge abolition has anything to do with this issue this is about members of an unincorporated body I would appreciate sight of your reasoned advice.
7. SWRA is not recognised as an employer under Section 122 of the Trade Union & Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
Are you aware of this?
Did you advise Kennet Councils SWRA members of this?
Did you advise them that as they were the legal personality of SWRA, and as such they could face a potential personal liability for those contracts and pensions / redundancies should there ever be a shortfall in the funding stream?
Are you aware of any Local Authority underwriting the SWRA / SWRAs contacts of employment for their permanent members of staff? If so, which authority?
Please could you answer this question it is whether you are aware of it etc.
I believe that that the accountable body for the South West Regional Assembly is the South West Regional Assembly Board which represents itself as an employers association under S122 of the TU and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. However, it has emerged that this is not the case owing to the SWRA Board failing to certificate itself as required under this Act. This position has persisted for at least four years
Matters are further complicated by the SWRA apparently representing itself to the Certificating Officer as an associated body, the SW Provincial Employers Organisation, which is indeed certificated. In fact the SWPEO has its own constitution. Again, the SWRA Board has lately changed its name to the SW Region Board. All this conflicts with the 1992 Acts insistence that there be no ambiguities in naming of an association.
Since the SWRA has not been operating under S122, the legal status of the staff appointments appears uncertain.
10. Can you please provide a copy of the Strategy promoting the well being of the Kennet Council and details of the consultations, which were undertaken detailing how the decision was arrived at that membership of SWRA would be beneficial to the Council Area?
What is the form that the consultation process takes?
Thank you for answering this question.
THE COMPLAINT
1. Let us leave this one standing until such time as further information is available.
2. I apologise for causing you confusion by the maybe sloppy use of the word register. But the gist of the complaint still stands:
In plain language: Members not the council appear to be personally financially liable for potentially large sums if the SWRA folds. If any members of the SWRA who are also Kennet Councillors have voted or influenced the payment of money to the SWRA from Kennet then there has been a conflict of influence I hope that this has not happened and that all such members have raised their interests and left such meetings. I am asking you as Monitoring Officer to confirm that that is what has happened and if not to take it further.
Relates to the Code of Conduct of councillors.
From Part 2.8 (1) of The Local Authorities (Model Code of Conduct) (England) Order 2001,
A member must regard himself as having a personal interest in any matter if the matter relates to an interest in respect of which notification must be given in paragraph 14 and 15 below, or if a decision upon it might reasonably be regarded as affecting to a greater extent than other council tax payers, ratepayers or inhabitants of the authoritys area, the well-being or financial position of himself, a relative or a friend
It therefore appears that Kennet Councils Members of SWRA have recorded in the Members Interest Book the fact that they are only members of the organisations (you will be confirming whether they have all done thisquestion 4 above). They appear not to have registered a pecuniary or prejudicial interest.
Can you confirm this?
The members financial interest arises because as unincorporated association it is the members of SWRA who are jointly and severally liable.
Therefore, if, as it appears, SWRA is not registered as an employer under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 then it is the members of SWRA who have the legal responsibility for contracts entered into by that body.
The liability of the contracts of employment amounts to many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Therefore, if Local Authorities ceased to pay voluntary subscriptions or there was a change of government whereby these bodies were abolished (or both) the liabilities of the members would become immediate and apparent.
Therefore, for the members of SWRA, sitting as councillors and approving Kennets budget and voluntary subscriptions there is a serious breach of Local Government Act 1972 Section 94 (1) as well as breaches of the Members Code of Conduct.
Section 94 (1) states,
Subject to the provisions of section 97 below, if a member of a local authority has any pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, in any contract, proposed contract or other matter, and is present at a meeting of the local authority at which the contract or other matter is the subject of consideration, he shall at the meeting and as soon as practicable after its commencement disclose the fact and shall not take part in the consideration or discussion of the contract or other matter or vote on any question with respect to it.
(The disability could not be removed by Section 97 (5) of the same Act because the influence of the leader and deputy leader of the ruling group could hardly be classed as insignificant').
Therefore, under Section 94 (2) of the Local Government Act 1972 it appears that an offence has been committed.
I wish you also to refer the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation.
I trust that you will treat this complaint with the seriousness that it merits and I will receive a full and thorough response addressing all of the points raised in order for the complaint to be taken to the next stage of proceedings.
Yours sincerely,
Posted by The Englishman at 8:03 PM
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March 24, 2005
There should be a law against it.
Telegraph | News | Wildlife experts are baffled as fox attacks second dog
A second dog has been attacked by a fox in a village where an alsatian was fatally injured earlier this month.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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March 23, 2005
The dangers of the politicisation of the life debate
or so a legal bod writes in a letter to The Times. How a society judges what is acceptable in terms of ending human life, what limits are drawn, what exceptions are allowed etc. is one of the most important definers of a particular civilisation. Lawyers would probably argue that it should be left up to them and let Parliament continue to do other stuff such as spend 700 hours debating how Foxes lives are ended instead.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:38 AM
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March 22, 2005
Scottish Raj
Tim Worstall: A Call to Arms. wants to ensure that hte words Scottish Raj point to old Tax and Waste himself - Always happy to help.
And in return I think Trencherman should point to Mr FM....
Posted by The Englishman at 8:30 PM
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March 21, 2005
Top Brit Blogs
Top of the British Blogs - BritBlog is a brave attempt to give us a rundown of the Brit Blogs - all it needs is Fluff Freeman reading it out.
I noticed somewhere else that A Welsh View was way out in front as the most popular Brit Blog ever - it is interesting but is it really that much better than the rest?
Posted by The Englishman at 11:40 PM
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British Isle moving towards Zero rate Tax on Companies
It collects some 40 per cent of its GDP in tax. This percentage means it is very much within OECD member state norms of tax take. The tax is spent on delivering first-class public services. It has also been spent on renewing the public infrastructure, with some 750m being invested in capital projects such as power supplies, a hospital, sewage improvements and an incinerator. Government finances are managed prudently. By statute, it has to budget for a revenue surplus each year. The budget surplus for 2004-05 was some 9m, with 12m projected for 2005-06. Both Standard & Poor's and Moody's rate it's debt as AAA. The economy is growing at a healthy 6 per cent rate and unemployment is virtually non-existent...
Within the 2005 Budget is a proposal to cap personal income tax, perhaps at a level between 100,000 and 200,000 tax paid. The top rate of personal tax is currently 18 per cent. Some time ago, the island identified the vital importance of attracting not only good companies to the island, but also the entrepreneurs who own them.
Ah, if only the rest of the British Isles were like the Isle of Man. (And there's no speed limit on open roads!)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:58 PM
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March 18, 2005
I wish I could write like this
Now that the Tyrant Blair's Quisling Government of Collaboration with the Occupying Power from Brussels has arrogated to itself the privilege of locking up without trial anyone whom it does not like, it has regressed to the condition of the French Government in the years leading up to their Revolution, in which this power was inflicted by the hated lettre de cachet. It is no protection at all that, instead of allowing a Minister to sign the relevant documents, they can instead be signed by the Prime Minister's wife.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:26 PM
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March 15, 2005
FUD attack on Regional Assemblies
Neil Herron has received his first reply with regards to his letter to the Council about their members and the Regional Assembly. He judges it a great success which is devastating to the Assemblies. We have been supporting him by sending out similar letters to our local Councils - the domino effect is needed. Let us hope we have similar success and if you haven't sent a letter yet, why not? See this entry for details.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:35 PM
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Nice people in nice houses don't want nasty new homes in the backyard.
BBC NEWS | England | 'Too many' houses in countryside
Women in tweeds who own large country houses and other CPRE members back strict socialist planning laws to protect their views. (But are quite in favour of small developments of well hidden "affordable" houses otherwise where would the "Daily" and the Gardener live?)
Is there no one out there who is against our bizarre planning system?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
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March 14, 2005
Anti-politics the new politics?
Telegraph | News | Howard leading, says Labour thinker
Michael Howard is winning the election campaign because he has associated the Tories with "anti-politics" populism, a leading Labour thinker said yesterday.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
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March 5, 2005
Looking for Hurdists
I don't spend a lot of time looking round the British Blogosphere so I'm asking your help.
There are Marxists, Greenies, Liberal lefties, Blair Babes, LibDems, straight Tories and the Libertarian fringe. But has anyone spotted a blogger who takes the Hurdist Tory Grandee line?
The Gordon Poole Entertainment Agency
will rent you Rt. Hon. Lord Douglas Hurd CH CBE PC for over 6000 a night so his views are obviously valued - so why don't I know anyone who supports them? Is it a case that conservatism in Britain is being badly let down by the Conservative party?
Posted by The Englishman at 12:03 AM
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March 3, 2005
Accounting Fraud
Bishop Hill has done all the hard work on a Government accounting "change" which helps Gordon but in the private sector would be considered fraud.
"The Office of National Statistics has decided that it will now treat road repairs as capital rather than revenue expenditure."
It sounds dull but it this sort of underhand skullduggery that bloggers should be uncovering.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:55 AM
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Vote rigging case
BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Labour trio's 'vote-rig factory'
Three Labour councillors, Muhammad Afzal, Mohammed Islam and Mohammed Kazi, in Birmingham were caught operating a "vote-rigging factory", an Election Court has heard.
Police found the trio handling unsealed postal ballots in a deserted warehouse in the city during a late-night raid in June 2004, the hearing was told.
The votes were later counted towards that month's English local elections.
Obviously as the case is still going on a perfectly innocent explanation may come to light - but isn't it amazing that the "documents were taken by police to the elections office next morning, where they were mixed in with other ballots." Shouldn't there be a "provisional" category of ballot papers where they can be held until they are seen if they are legal - and of course they were not opened or examined so w don't know who they were in favour of.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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Failure rewarded
BBC NEWS | Education | E-University 'disgraceful waste'
A failed government scheme to offer UK university courses online has been branded a "disgraceful waste" by MPs.
The e-University was scrapped last year, having attracted only 900 students at a cost of 50m.
Chief executive John Beaumont was paid a bonus of 44,914, ...
....virtually no market research was carried out and just 4.2m was spent on worldwide sales and marketing of courses.
Some 14m went on developing the technology to make the e-University work. This was used by just 200 students, the rest preferring to work through existing university websites.
With no significant private investors and no direct accountability to a government minister, the e-University had had "too much freedom to spend public money as it wished", the report found.
And he gets a bloody bonus!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
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March 1, 2005
Regional Assemblies - Help needed
Neil Herron has started a funding Complaint to his local Council that will create national chain reaction!
I want to do my bit - my draft letter is below - any comments etc would be much appreciated before I send it.
And if anyone else wants to use any bit of it please do.
Thanks
Tim
The Monitoring Officer
Kennet Council
Browfort
Devizes
Wilts
CC Cllr. Christopher Humphries et al
I wish to raise a serious matter which may have profound implications for Cllr. Christopher Humphries and for Kennet Council. I am therefore bringing this to their attention as well as to the attention of other interested parties. As well as being Leader of Kennet Council Cllr. Christopher Humphries is also a Member of the SWRA and this is where my concern is.
My concern, and that of many others, is about what appears to be some very serious misuses of public money. From discussions with the District Auditor and the Senior Policy Advisor at the Standards Board of England and Wales, I understand that I first need to raise the matters with you for investigation.
However, because of the seriousness of the allegations and the implications for other local authorities, I will also be copying in a number of other interested parties in on this correspondence. I also believe that the matter is so serious that it may warrant a Police investigation with a view to prosecutions.
Therefore, I hope that you will treat and investigate the matter thoroughly and with the view that this is simply the beginning of a process that will also be replicated in other authority areas and with other regional assemblies across the country.
There are a number of questions that I wish answered before moving on to the complaint, and the answers will have an obvious bearing on the next stages of the complaint and investigation procedures by outside bodies:
1. Can you confirm that Kennet Council is aware that the South West Regional Assembly (SWRA) is an unincorporated association and thereby has no legal personality?
2. Can you please provide details of all the amounts paid by Kennet Council to SWRA since its inception?
3. Can you please provide details of all the KennetCouncils representatives of SWRA over the period this money was paid and whether they were present at council meetings when this payment, the voluntary subscription, was agreed in the budget?
4. Can you confirm that at all times the Members Interest Book had up to date details of membership of SWRA. If not, can you advise as to when and where the breaches were noted and the date they were corrected?
5. Had the members indicated that they had a pecuniary or prejudicial interest in SWRA? If not, had you, as the Monitoring Officer, advised them otherwise?
6. Were they ever advised by yourself as Monitoring Officer, or any other official of the Local Authority that membership of an unincorporated association whose members are jointly and severally liable may have personal financial consequences?
7. SWRA is not recognised as an employer under Section 122 of the Trade Union & Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
Are you aware of this?
Did you advise Kennet Councils SWRA members of this?
Did you advise them that as they were the legal personality of SWRA, and as such they could face a potential personal liability for those contracts and pensions / redundancies should there ever be a shortfall in the funding stream?
Are you aware of any Local Authority underwriting the SWRA / SWRAs contacts of employment for their permanent members of staff? If so, which authority?
10. Can you please provide a copy of the Strategy promoting the well being of the Kennet Council and details of the consultations, which were undertaken detailing how the decision was arrived at that membership of SWRA would be beneficial to the Council Area?
What is the form that the consultation process takes?
THE COMPLAINT
The complaint which I will initially ask you to respond to, which will require further investigation by outside bodies, dependent on your response is as follows:-
I wish to make a formal complaint, which I will be copying initially to Michelle Witton, Senior Policy Advisor at the Standards Board of England and Wales, because of the potential knock-on implications for other local authority councillors and possible legal action.
The complaint is as follows:-
1. I believe that there have been breaches of Section 137 and 143 of the Local Government Act 1972 and Section 2 of the Local Government Act 2000.
The SWRA cannot be seen to be acting always in the interests of all of the local authority areas in the region, and often decisions or strategies will be to the detriment of Kennet.
Therefore if SWRA is beneficial to another area which compromises Kennet then Sections 137 / 143 and Section 2 cannot hold true.
Can you clarify if this is the case?
Can you detail your monitoring procedure intended to prevent such breaches?
If the promotion or improvement of economic, social or environmental well-being of the local authority area can be potentially compromised then the payment of the voluntary subscriptions cannot be authorised.
2. Relates to the Code of Conduct of councillors.
From Part 2.8 (1) of The Local Authorities (Model Code of Conduct) (England) Order 2001,
A member must regard himself as having a personal interest in any matter if the matter relates to an interest in respect of which notification must be given in paragraph 14 and 15 below, or if a decision upon it might reasonably be regarded as affecting to a greater extent than other council tax payers, ratepayers or inhabitants of the authoritys area, the well-being or financial position of himself, a relative or a friend
It therefore appears that Kennet Councils Members of SWRA have recorded in the Members Interest Book the fact that they are only members of the organisations (you will be confirming whether they have all done thisquestion 4 above). They appear not to have registered a pecuniary or prejudicial interest.
Can you confirm this?
The members financial interest arises because as unincorporated association it is the members of SWRA who are jointly and severally liable.
Therefore, if, as it appears, SWRA is not registered as an employer under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 then it is the members of SWRA who have the legal responsibility for contracts entered into by that body.
The liability of the contracts of employment amounts to many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Therefore, if Local Authorities ceased to pay voluntary subscriptions or there was a change of government whereby these bodies were abolished (or both) the liabilities of the members would become immediate and apparent.
Therefore, for the members of SWRA, sitting as councillors and approving Kennets budget and voluntary subscriptions there is a serious breach of Local Government Act 1972 Section 94 (1) as well as breaches of the Members Code of Conduct.
Section 94 (1) states,
Subject to the provisions of section 97 below, if a member of a local authority has any pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, in any contract, proposed contract or other matter, and is present at a meeting of the local authority at which the contract or other matter is the subject of consideration, he shall at the meeting and as soon as practicable after its commencement disclose the fact and shall not take part in the consideration or discussion of the contract or other matter or vote on any question with respect to it.
(The disability could not be removed by Section 97 (5) of the same Act because the influence of the leader and deputy leader of the ruling group could hardly be classed as insignificant').
Therefore, under Section 94 (2) of the Local Government Act 1972 it appears that an offence has been committed.
I wish you also to refer the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation.
I trust that you will treat this complaint with the seriousness that it merits and I will receive a full and thorough response addressing all of the points raised in order for the complaint to be taken to the next stage of proceedings.
Yours sincerely,
Posted by The Englishman at 9:11 PM
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Parking Tickets and Our Freedom
Neil Herron is roasting the local council over a Parking Ticket - but it is not just a Parking Ticket - As I have mentioned before there is a whole ediface of oppressive Law he is trying to bring down - We must support him.
And on a completely different tack he is on the attack on the Regional assemblies. If anyone is laying into the South West one please let me know. It is time to take up the pitchforks.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:26 PM
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Election getting dirtier
Michelle Malkin reports:
Democrat political operative Zack Exley, known as "the garbage man" for publishing fake photos of President Bush with cocaine residue under his nose, has been hired as a campaign consultant by Britain's Labour Party. A Labour spokeswoman told The Independent that Exley was hired specifically because of his experience working for MoveOn.
As if Campbell wasn't dirty enough...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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February 28, 2005
Why the long face?
Telegraph | News | Horse owners face jail over passports
Thousands of horse, pony and donkey owners face fines or even jail from today because they have failed to obtain passports for their animals....
The Government has already extended the scheme's deadline twice: it was first due to come into force in January last year, before being put back to June 30. However, with only a small proportion of equines covered by that date, the deadline was extended again to today....Critics of the scheme say that the Government should have derogated from the EU law, as previous administrations have done, on the grounds that few British horses - about 7,000 a year - enter the food chain...The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said enforcement would be carried out in "a common sense and gradual way".
Note how people are starting to just ignore absurd laws and the Government caves in - but of course little Defra shits will pick out some easy targets to prosecute.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM
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February 24, 2005
Quotes of the Day
We must put safety before liberty, says Blair
Liberty Quotes & Quotations compiled by GIGA
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
Give me liberty, or give me death.
- Patrick Henry, in a speech
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
- Patrick Henry
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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February 21, 2005
Whoops I have just broken the Hunting Act - see you in chokey
Just went to get dressed (yes, I blog in my Pyjamas)and a mouse jumped out of the heap of festering pig feeding/dog walking clothes. So shut the doors and get the Jack Russles in - chaos but we ran him to ground behind the Ottoman and 'Pollo got him.
I thought that mouse hunting was exempt but rereading the Hunting Act 2004 I see it is only rats that I can hunt with the dogs, not mice. So shall I ring the police up and turn myself in?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:47 AM
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British Blogging a waste of time?
Tim Worstall
points out:
Europhobia is extremely gloomy, stating UK Blogging: Officially a pointless waste of everyones time, and Martin Stabe provides a good set of reasons why (our press is already partisan, unlike the US) in British Blogs, a waste of time?
Probably in a political sense, but not for the reasons stated.
It is that Tony Blair etc. are barefaced liars, the media points this out, everyone knows it and no one seems to care. Ditto with the media, so what have bloggers got to expose?
As this article says:
Whatever ruses Blair has adopted have come all too naturally to him. At one point when the WMD issue was blowing up in the Prime Minister's face (if nonexistent weapons can be said to blow up), John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, confronted the unruly MPs from his party, telling them vehemently, "The Prime Minister does not lie."
But he does. Or, at least, he has repeatedly said things that were not the case, often enough to suggest that he has genuine difficulty with the concept of objective truth. Some of his lies are trivial. Politicians like to add color and glamour to their resumes, and Blair was simply doing that when he claimed that as a boy he had been a stowaway on a plane bound for the Bahamas (for which there was no independent evidence), and had watched Jackie Milburn playing soccer for Newcastle (he would have been too young). It was much more alarming when Blair told a television interviewer that he had voted to ban fox hunting. The point was not the rights and wrongs of that highly contentious and emotive issue; it was that at the time the Prime Minister? or rather, the Member for Sedgefield? had never voted in the Commons on the matter one way or another.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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Sick Humour
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | We can't tolerate crime - Adams
Any republicans involved in criminality should be expelled from the movement, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said.
"No republican worthy of the name can be involved in criminality of any kind," he told crowds of about 1,000 at an IRA memorial unveiling in Strabane.
Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness agreed with Gerry Adams that the current situation was very serious but his party would not tolerate any criminal links within its ranks.
Also in today, but carefully avoided on the BBC as far as I can see:
Telegraph | News
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein leaders, were publicly named as members of the IRA's Army Council in an unprecedented move by the Irish government yesterday.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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February 18, 2005
A local Labour Councillor at work
Councillor Zoe Hopkins has a nice little blog - for some reason it showed up in my referrers, so it might be unfair to pick on her, but it is a fascinating insight into the world of a local Labour councillor:
It seems Im having a high profile week, by my standards anyway. A photo of me and some of my colleagues from the Birmingham Womens Aid event was in the Birmingham Post last week...
Ive also been writing a press release today as we are going to get 23 Police Community Support Officers...
I had a meeting this morning to discuss recommendations for the You Are Your City scrutiny review Ive been working on. Its been a very interesting review, and the working atmosphere has been quite amiable for the most part. We even had a minor breakthrough in relations between the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties this morning when we joined forces in arguing against the use of a semi-colon in the phrase You Are Your City; Clean and Safe...
All typical meaningless fluffy Local Government stuff, but then the mask slips...
On another issue, I caught part of Tony Blair talking to the people on Channel Five tonight. I just heard the last question on climate change and Kyoto, because I was watching the Channel Four news where Margaret Beckett was talking about the same issue. She was quite vague - talking in terms of choices that people will need to make over the next 10-20 years in terms of changing lifestyles and consumption... I'm quite pessimistic about the whole issue, particularly with the U.S still refusing to sign up to Kyoto - how long will it be before making choices has to become active enforcement to try to address the problems of climate change?
"active enforcement" - now that is what it is all about in the end.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:22 AM
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February 17, 2005
Tim 1 Prescott 0
Tim Worstall has won! I meant to help earlier but imagine this is 1942 and so like some nations I am turning up late to the battle and will claim victory as mine!
What? - oh it is to associate a certain Mr John Leslie Prescott PC MP, with a certain indelicate phrase...
Fuckwit sorry if that offends but Prescott really is a Fuckwit.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:24 PM
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February 15, 2005
A message to the IOC inspection Committee
BBC SPORT | Other Sport | Olympics 2012 | IOC inspectors arrive in London
The International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission is ready to begin its inspection of London's bid to host the Games in 2012.
SOD OFF - You and your drug-riddled money-laundering kiddy-fiddler tax-payer-funded extravaganza is as welcome as fart in a wetsuit - We don't want you, piss off to Paris.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:40 PM
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For St.George
The English Democrats Party will be standing candidates in the coming General Election and we are currently some 20 candidates short of the 88 candidates we need in order to get our party political broadcast in England both on radio and television. We are also currently short of funds. These and additional candidates will enable us to make contact with every English Patriot and give the current unfair treatment of England and her people, the public attention that it deserves.
If you want to help visit:
English Democrats Party::Sovereignty
Speaking up for England costs money. And the more money we can raise, the louder we can shout. Help us make a big noise.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:32 PM
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Local Waste
Neil Herron point out:
Calls for the scrapping of the South West Regional Assembly have been re-ignited after it was revealed it employs the second highest number of staff of any of England's assemblies and has cost 4.8 million in grants from taxpayers' cash. Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford, in response to a question from Totnes MP Anthony Steen, revealed the assembly employed 56 full-time staff by the end of March 2004. "This shows an enormous amount of money has been spent on something that has no statutory responsibility at all. They have this large, full-time staff for what is just a talking club."
I'll volunteer to help re-ignite the Assembly - couple of gallons of Unleaded and some Swan Vestas seem in order. Just because the people voted against them doesn't mean they are going to be scrapped...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
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February 14, 2005
Are Parking Tickets illegal Part Two
I mentioned this back on Nov 2 -An Englishman's Castle: Are Parking tickets illegal? -
Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker's notebook leads with a long article about it. As ever worth reading.
He continues with a story that reveals again the true face of the "Privilegentsia" who run the EU:
"What the Government describes as "a small, technical and non-controversial" Bill now being nodded through Parliament will give the equivalent of diplomatic immunity to the employees of a range of "international organisations", mostly organs of the EU. The "privileges and immunities" it grants will be enjoyed not just by staff members of these bodies, but by all members of their families and "households".
(Bodies included run) from the European Railways Agency and the European Plant Variety Office to the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia, although the Foreign Office concedes that its list will have to be updated "as new bodies are added".
Make the rules for the poor bloody peasants but of course they don't apply to us! Bastards.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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February 12, 2005
A Pox on the London Bid for the Olympic
Just driven home from London - Bloody A4/M4 out to Heathrow all clogged up as they put up the flags to make it a Potemkin Village to welcome the freehanders from the Olympic committee - as the French realise it is just a matter of how much is in the envelope in their roooms that swings it. And being a nice guy I let an ambulance out and it had written on the side "The NHS backs the London Bid" - hasn't the NHS got better things to spend its money on?
Posted by The Englishman at 12:50 AM
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February 9, 2005
More from The Sparky
Hi Tim here is a piece I wrote in April 2001, no letter's page or editor then would touch it with a barge pole because it too PC and tells truth. You have the perfect forum to air the grievances of the British Public. The worries and concerns the indigenous British and those who have settled here have not diminished since the election of 2001. The real debate on asylum and immigration, I feel could just be about to start!
I write direct to you enclosing my piece. I am working class born and bred from a North London borough, and I feel able to give a general perspective of working class people I meet on a daily basis. History shows the concerns of asylum has not gone away and are still with us 100 years later. Many of your readers may disagree, but I feel many more will identify with my observations. I have been a labour voter all my life but I do not see myself voting for them in the near future. I would also like to keep my address private so that I do not get hassle from rent a mob of left or right wing political persuasions.
Please put it on your site, thanks Steve
Only too happy to do so, Sir.
Whats it all about ?
So an election is finally on the horizon the baby kissing and media-appeasing season has come around again. All the major political parties about each others policies will espouse many political points of views. They will boast and counter boast as well as rubbish each other. They will tell their audiences why they should have the right to govern Britain through their proposed mandates. They will say that their policies forward the interest of the British people. They will say anything to the British people that will allow them their privileged office. They are everything to everyone all of the time, the politician will say what ever you want to hear to get your vote, safely tucked up in office for another term your wants are history! Is there really such a thing as an honest politician? They will say anything but the truth! The public are wising up because if recent past elections are anything to go by apathetic turn outs just keep getting worse. Perhaps this has always been the way and the public was just more naive then. Today's the 21st century electorate is not so dumb, if we have to be hoodwinked by politicians, we want those who can actually pull rabbits out of a hat to or get their assistant to do a trick under the table to entertain us like tricky smarmy Clinton did. Now there is a real political conjurer! The politician has joined my mental list of dodgy people that I have great reservations about doing business with. You know the sort of people I mean, slimy estate agents, greedy solicitors, bodgie over-priced builders and mechanics. The sort of people you try to keep a barge poles length from on a daily basis, but have to deal with when theyve con their way into your life. However, once bitten by some of lifes unscrupulous characters you never knowingly go back to them for more. You look for the professional perhaps recommended by a friend why cant we do this with politicians? It is because they have monopolies on our votes, there are only two parties if you include the Tories who were heading for a dictatorship after nearly two decades in office. There are other analogies one could make, Potty Councils! Could be about the holes in our roads, currently dodged by the motorists and other road users, No, that would be Pot- Holed councils, What about Pot-less councils could be because they have spent all the money in the kitty left over from the last lot! Potty councils could be the best adjective to describe all the issues currently facing the first election of twenty first century. To be fair to this lot are they really any worst than the last lot? It seems a strange way to measure success by those who were the least worst, instead of who best represented the electorate. This yardstick mentality is also now used to determine who our next national government will be. The Potty Council analogy could equally apply to Potty London, Potty England and Potty Great Britain. For this is not my interpretation most indigenous people I have come across, think we have as a nation gone to pot!
There are many many more important issues facing this country than pot holes. Housing, Health, Environment, Education, and Transport are top of any political agenda, but linked to these are the complex issues of asylum and immigration. You cannot blame anyone in the world for wanting to come to Britain, whether they are real asylum seekers or economic migrants. It is a commendation to show that this country is still regarded as place of opportunity a place with humanity and heart. London in particular and few of our cities are very relevant. Not to be accused of the Pot calling the Kettle black, I acknowledge that I descend from 19th century poverty stricken Irish immigrants. Most people reading this article living in the London area decedent from their earlier ancestors who came to London during the Industrial Revolution or earlier up until now. From the end of the 18th century the Irish continued to come here, their numbers increased substantial! ly around the middle of the 19th century. The Jews later followed as indeed like many other peoples came before and after the Industrial Revolution. Those who did not come from abroad came from all over Britain. Later during the second half of the 20th century came peoples from the Afro-Carrabean, and Asian former colonies. On top of these came those from countries that had no commonwealth ties, Turkey and Italy were two former adversaries of Britain in war during the 20th century. The most recent newcomers during the last 20 years are from a host of Islamic countries. The newcomers (past and present) whether economic migrants or political refugees fleeing from persecution or hunger, all have one thing in common, to improve the quality of their lives. A century and more ago the tall ships came into London. Many places in London were filthy rat infested slums with the regular rounds of epidemic disease such as TB Diphtheria Smallpox, Typhus and Typhoid. However, even if the slum areas were deemed a hell on earth by those (Middle classes) who never ventured there and mixed with the inhabitants, (who were later described as The Dangerous Class by some), it was still a Sanctuary to those who came and made their lives there. The newcomers who made good quickly integrated into the English way of life, within a generation the lucky ones Shopkeepers, Business people, and the professionals along with skilled artisans in the main had moved on to more respectable areas and joined the established middle-class and respectable working clas! ses. The unlucky poor were left behind. The history of newcomers into this country have always been objectionable by the masses, they have never really been made welcome but subtly tolerated until assimilated. They were always perceived as a threat to the host nationals in more ways than one. From the French Hugonaults to Irish navvies and so-called Jewish sweat shops. The newcomers were in competition with the home skilled and manual labour markets. Early trade union movements were very concerned about foreign competition based here. Also their ways and cultures were alien to the host nationals, they were foreigners in their land that they had not conquered. Most antagonism was kept at bay between the newcomers and the host nationals by the physical separation from the host nationals, only the poor English labouring classes lived amongst the newcomers. The British government also showed tolerance, after all London was still growing and there was still an Empire and Capital markets to feed from the raw labour and ! skills the newcomers brought with them. The tendencies of strangers in a strange land made them congregate together in their own ghettos, they were insular there and others spoke their mother tongues.
There were also other concerns with the foreigner, regarding anarchy and crime that some brought with them. These culminated in many public and media outcries! From Fenian bomb plots in the 19th century to the early 20th century assassinations of British commanding officers shot in London for their part in keeping the British rule in Ireland and India. One of the most dramatic outcries was the 'Siege of Sidney Street in East London. This came about after the murder of three unarmed police officers on the Jewellers, Samuel Harris in Houndsditch a couple of weeks earlier on December 17th 1910. Russia and German anarchists were to blame, whether or not they were bona fide anarchist committing armed robberies and murder to fund their political causes or their own pockets cut little ice with the public or police. Once their names came out all Jews in London were under suspicion of being subversive criminal types. Not since the Murders of Jack the Ripper 22 years earlier ha! d the Jews of London received such a public pillaring. When they were also among the chief suspects then, because a leather apron was found at the scene, similar to the type Jewish furriers were using in the Whitechaple area. One year earlier from the Houndsditch murders, was an incident at Tottenhan that became known as the Tottenham Outrage.' Again another armed robbery, that left in its wake 3 dead, a policeman, a ten year old boy and an old man. The public Hue and Cry that started in Chestnut Road, lasted over several miles east towards Walthamstow and right then towards Tower Hamlets. The chase consisted of commandeered cars, trams, horse & carts bycles and some even ran on foot. The armed fugitives were obviously trying to make it back from North London to the East End. Eventually one took his own life when cornered and the other was shot by the police. In all three incidents, the perpetrators of the crimes were East European Jews. It was criticised in the press at the time that the fire power of the murdering robbers was far superior to that of the police. The police when they eventually had a weapon at the scenes, were old fashion and cumbersome revolvers at a weight of around five! pounds. In the robbers armoury were automatic mausers that could hold ten bullets in a magazine and it was capable of firing 80 rounds in one minute including loading the magazines into its holder. They also weight only two and a half pounds. It was further noted at this times that the British criminal classes did not murder Bobbies (in the main) and only the lowest of the lowest did not go quietly and resist an arrest. The majority accepted a fair cop if caught red handed in their crimes. With these offences came very real concerns, in the Houndsditch incident it was publically commented on that a City of London policemen had not been killed on duty in living memory and now there was three at once. (Five had be shot at the time, two were wounded) The press went to war against the multitude of foreigners living in the Capital and questioned the whole issue concerning asylum! It was a fact that most Jewish people living in the east end were law abiding but the media questioned the wisdom of importing criminal types from abroad when the police had enough to contend with British born ones. Churchill the home secretary at the time did not want to withdraw the Right of Asylum. He acknowledged that the majority of the countrys alien population, mainly Jewish, were peaceful, hardworking and lived by the law of the land. The persons they wished to deal with was the unassimilated alien.
On the subject of asylum Churchill stated The man whom we have in mind in this provision is the man of whom we know nothing and who knew nothing of us or our institutions and peaceful life, who comes from a country where murder and violence are common, where every policeman is regarded as a foe, where every institution is regarded as tyranny and where to carry on a career of plunder and rapine like a fierce wild animal may be deemed to a romantic or even respectable profession. How relevant is this quotation nearly a century later? (All this was in 1910 the fear of foreigner has not gone to ground when we are still discussing asylum in 2001) However a self imposed system of integration existed then, as the newcomer made good they moved elsewhere. This usually took a little time and money. This time helped the newcomers assimilate into the British way of life And so the cycle goes on, history is repeating itself however there is one thing vastly different from that of one hundred years ago or more, that is space there is not enough of it! Britain has the most densely populated ratio of people to land in the western world. It is about 2 people to every acre, the consequences of this lack of space is felt very heavily in the quality of life of the poor in Britain. One aspect of it is habitation, Tower Blocks and Children do not add to the quality of life that those MPs in power could ever envisage for themselves. Overcrowded estates will be another consequence and we will return to the slums of the 19th and the earlier 20th century. We are so overcrowded and lacking space that it nothing to sell off a school field to private developers today and will disappear without too much of a hue and cry. Unless all the parties hold proper debates on these issues, more apathy will set in amongst voters and there may well be an increase in support for extreme parties and their policies, from both the left and right wings of the political spectrum. This will be because the issues of an over crowded society are not being addressed by the state. There is no debate heads are in the sand or should I say pot holes. In this country we have the resources and expertise to build infrastructures and basis for commerce abroad. We should help these countries build their economies but always offer shelter to those at risk, if we do not address these old long established fears we are kidding ourselves about a rosy future. A fair balanced society would be a genuine key to unlocking many of the fears from the indigenous British people of being overrun and swallowed up by alien cultures. How do we achieve this? Not by having so-called positive discrimination polices pushed on us by the advocates of political correctness. Everyone should start on a level playing field, when you start having these policies, they in turn became a form of bias. Many problems exist amongst white indigenous working class youth. Education is one area they are not attending colleges of further education or universities in the same numbers as Indians and the Afro-Carrabean youngsters are, (Look in any London College they are not there!) They are lagging behind ended up in dead end jobs just like their great grand fathers of a century ago if they were lucky! White working class kids are not targeted for extra funding. Also in social housing many working class whites feel alienated. They see foreigners from their tower blo! ck windows (if they are lucky) getting better housing. They do not feel it is fair, that they the grandchildren of the war generation getting worse housing or non at all, than those who have no previous connection with this country.
My own uncle a survivor of the D Day landings recently said to me that we have become a nation of too many tribes. (Only around half a dozen men from his landing craft that took them to hell on the beaches of Normandy made it back after the war.) Two or three days moored up on the south coast and bobbing about in a Landing craft before seeing action was not the best way to keep soldiers fighting fit for a forthcoming battle. Men were being sick and had to do their ones and two other the side. He recently left his tower block in North London to take refuge near his daughters home in the Essex. Half his new neighbours in the tower block could not even return his greeting Good Morning even if they wanted to. A land fit for heroes indeed! The issues here are not racist though, no one can argue against the contributions of those from abroad. Look in any London hospital and see the foreign contribution to our health service, looking after the needs of the indigenous. No one looks at the colour of skin or the accent of benign hands that help them on the road to recovery. The question in most peoples minds who live here in London is not race but numbers. The standard of living will never rise for those at the bottom while we have a non existing numbers policy. The aim should be to increase the standard of living for all working class people either from abroad or home who live here at this present time. However, as long as there is a pool of unemployed or low pay workers (same thing) poverty will be impossible to eradicate. If we can take away this cheap pool then there may be a chance. The ideal situation would be a reverse of the employment status quo! Let's have a pool of company directors who constantly required labour, skilled or non skilled. Then working conditions and pay for the working classes may rise. Only good companies will survive, the sweat shop mentality will be banished forever. If a company cannot offer an above subsistence wage they have no argument for being in business the same applies for national services industries and their work-forces. If all this sounds too idealistic for economists and those who abhorred the news of the intended minimum wage rise, let them try life from their selfish side to the other side of the fence they would soon change their tune. The minimum wage, what a joke, it should be at least 200 per week with no taxable stoppages and a credit for the national insurance contributions. Overpopulation is bad for those at the bottom of society, the irony of it all is that the capitalist and the communist are allies to this end! Both seek relaxed entry into this country one through the idealism of a no border/frontier world, the other as a means to feed and work its labour markets in the pursuit of profit. Until there is a real concerted effort to end poverty overcrowding in our cities will continue to push up the crime rate. The low paid or no pay will increase the ranks of the criminal classes who will make the most of their markets (Mugging, Drug pushing and Burglary to say nothing of the wanton violence that accompanies these crimes.) They will look for new markets into the leafy suburbs and beyond. There will be resistance to succumb to a non entity lifestyle by some of those from abroad as well as the host nationals. They are unwilling to repeat a life that their forefathers undertook as cheap second class labour and all that goes with it!
Around 30 years ago Prince Phillip said that Britons were headed for a leisure age. I cant see evidence of it, but he may have had a point I think this was around the time of PM Heaths 3 day week. Perhaps this is the real way forward to achieving a decent quality of life for the masses, employers who can offer a living wage for working say half a week. Profits would be less but what a society! Time the under appreciated commodity has only in recent times played second fiddle to money, if only but I think we are light years away from that one. No we are firmly stuck with a backward notion of time the working class sold their time and souls at the birth of the industrial revolution and the capitalist in return gave us that fine clich time is money and we have been stuck with it ever since. The family or singular cottage industries where products could be produce over a day or two and the profits at market could sustain and support the worker for a ! week or more for his labour were surpassed and corrupted along the way. Is it time to rethink the concept of work and all its means? I was thinking only the other week perhaps I could try the good life on a small holdings in France or Ireland. Then I lapsed out of my dream anyway farmers have enough to contend with the real foot and mouth scenario. I think this piece if published I will have accusations of me putting my own foot in my mouth! Many working class people feel that New Labour is rubbish, they only want everyone in work to pay for foreign humanitarian causes. Our own Pensioners with their 75 pence rise and the minimum wage of less than five pounds is a joke. (compare this to the salary of our MPs of around 1000 per week with the minimum wage, its scandalous) The old dare not venture out on to the streets at night because of the anarchy of street crime, they the generation that saved us from Germany wonder why they did! Many views espoused at street level would be more at home with the national socialist party, the party and regime their grandparents fought against. The Labour party that came into being to further the political social and economic advancement of the working classes (of Britain), has been hijacked by the left wing middle-class intellectuals. The indigenous white working classes do not have representation from their own class. (One fat pompous oaf hardly counts.) Can anyone wonde! r why apathy is setting in amongst the white labour voters of this class. Those who have not moved are stuck in environments that are alien to their earlier lives. The police are under funded and too demoralised to do an efficient job of protecting the public from crime. The safeguards of the past do not apply now, (physical separation from the newcomers). The East end, little Russia in Tottenham, the Rookies (Irish in Holborn) and numerous other alien stomping grounds. No one wants anyone to live in a ghetto today but there should be a government college on citizenship, anyone can walk off a boat plane or train and hey presto they are British! Today there is no transitional period where newcomers can integrate and learn the ways of the Romans (when in Rome) over a period of time. Its a case of tough if your new neighbours habits and cultures are in your face and upsetting you.
Aliens are plonked down by councils and housing association and private land lords alike. Its a case of hard luck if you dont like a whole host of their upsetting ways. Constant foreign music bashing your eardrums, the food smells, unhygienic and antisocial habits, cooking outside and adjacent to the rear of your property! Not keeping their environments clean and tidy, new neighbours cant speak English it's all just tough. Your British representatives in Parliament no longer have the interest of indigenous population at heart. Many feel British culture is committing suicide. Amongst the worst affected by the set up of a Hybrid society are the white working classes and their sub classes who are being left behind in housing, education, and well-paid employment. Old class antagonisms are being replaced by those of race, the bogey word for all politicians and their politically correct theorists and advocators. Nationalism and English culture are dirty words to the left, while the right want no part of multiculturalism. All is clouded by who we are where are we going. Do we want a monarch? Do we need one? What is our culture? Should we create a new on? Do we need any cultures should we break them all down? From the overcrowded cities comes a new phenomenon White Flight! In previous history the middle classes have always kept one step a head of the hordes of working classes and its offshoots the underclass. (The Lumpenproleteriat are still alive and well and always have been the bottom of the heap but they survive somehow.) Today is different, is White Flight a race thing? Many whites of all classes are moving out of the cities with the exceptions of the new cliquey stockades with their financial moats to keep out the und! esirables and the poor of all races. Cities and large towns in Britain have always been a mixture of indigenous classes with a sprinkling different races now the opposite is becoming the norm. Why is there no debate on this change of demography? The world bank recently withdraw its offer to fund 60,000 Chinese farmers in the greater Tibet region, why? The reason given it would upset the demography of the Tibetans in that area because of the new political autonomy that would eventually come with the influx of these farmers. Words such as cultural genocide were banded about! These same concerns are no where to be seen in our own backyard. We have much larger influx of foreigners coming into Britain each year, the same anxiousness about British culture under threat does not seem to apply! Why are the whites of all classes moving out of the cities? Is it crime, Racial bias, Job location, cleaner environments or are there other reasons, or a combination of them all? The melting pot theory will not work if the host tribe keeps setting up new reservations! If these problems are not addressed we could be heading for trouble in the future. Look at the conflicts in the Balk! ans and Russia where the populace is nowhere as diverse as ours in make up. There is some irony in the politics those who champion the 21st century newcomers many are enterprising, they got here did they not. A few will become little capitalists and no doubt in time will become supporters of that traditional party, The Tories.' No one wants to debate the future of Britain, because of another fine old tradition the bearer of bad tidings always got the chop. The messenger is always to blame!
Posted by The Englishman at 2:42 PM
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Constitutional
In the immortal words of The Sweet:
And there's something in the air
of which we all will be aware
But they don't care, no, no, no, no... so
Come join the revolution, get yourself a constitution
Come join the revolution now
And recognise your age it's a teenage rampage
Charles Kennedy, the party leader, unveiled a five-point plan to protect civil liberties by giving Britain a written constitution limiting the Prime Minister's ability to act without Parliamentary approval.
The party sought to woo Tory voters concerned about civil liberties by re-affirming that it would vote against Labour's Identity Cards Bill tomorrow. The Tories are now expected to abstain.
Mr Kennedy also opposed plans to let ministers place British terror suspects under house arrest. His party was the "voice of reason" in contrast to the "ever-increasing knee-jerk" attacks on people's rights from Labour and the Tories.
A Labour spokesman said a written constitution would involve new legislation and was "constitutionally illiterate" because by tradition no parliament could bind a future one.
Sorry, run that one past me again - "a written constitution would be constitutionally illiterate". Without going into the argument if we need a written UK one or whether or not we already have one - isn't there a whisper in the air that Tony wants to sign us up to a European one?
Twats.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM
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Lib Dems speak sense...
Telegraph | News | Lib Dems attack 'Labour mountain of 1,000 new regulations'
"Labour has created a mountain of new rules and regulations and wasted a colossal amount of MPs' time and taxpayers' money in the process," said Mr Oaten. "Problems are not always solved by legislation."
At this rate I will have to break out the scratchy jumper and sandals and join them as the effective voice of opposition.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:19 AM
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February 8, 2005
Essential Reading
I was sent this book by the Institute of Economic Affairs (Click link to read about and buy book) before Xmas. It is taking a long time to read because by the time I have finished two pages I'm fuming at the stupidity and waste and have to go outside.. This really is an essential read.
The Welfare State We're In
James Bartholomew
Britain would be better off without the welfare state
'The welfare state has caused tens of thousands of people to live deprived and even depraved lives, and has undermined the very decency and kindness which first inspired it.' James Bartholomew
Marshalling an extraordinary range of evidence and calling a kaleidoscopic cast of witnesses from Catharine of Aragon to Vinnie Jones, James Bartholomew summons into the dock each of the sacred cows of the welfare state and subjects them to searching cross-examination:
* Do welfare benefits cause unemployment?
* Does the NHS do what was promised?
* Has state education given better chances to the less well-off?
* What caused the failure of council housing?
* Does 'broken parenting' matter?
* Is a poor state pension better than none?
And he begins his summing up with the key question, if the welfare state is so bad, why don't we get rid of it?
This book will infuriate many and be applauded by as many again. But no one who reads it will ever view the welfare state in the same light as before.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:29 AM
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February 6, 2005
A sparky speaks
Had a comment on this post - An Englishman's Castle: We are all criminals now. - which is worth a post of its own. A voice from the skilled working class...
You will cry in disbelief! You will laugh at the irony! They are
more chaotic than all the Carry On and Norman Wisdom films put together! They will affect your lives in the most unimaginable ways!
Many know him as Big Ed Tony and his gang from the west-side. To the rest of us the are simply known as The Fockers!
Coming into your home any time after the next election!
Hi Tony you privileged Arshole when is Great British Public going to kick you and the New Labour arseholes out of office?
I hated the Tories when they were in government, they wanted to wipe out the working classes. (Myself and many sparks in the country voted you in 1997.) however, you lot are 10 times worse, the so-called New Labour want to wipe out the English. You are killing off the indigenous, through culture and history and mass immigration into the UK, now you are smashing the skilled working classes. You seem to have forgot, that it was the working classes that gave us the Labour Party, you are a Cookcoo and you may be sussed very soon!
Independent electricians might as well join the rest of those indigenous who have fled from this small island! Funny how White Flight is not an issue up for discussion! Did our parents and grandparents fight the Nazis in vain to let in this new fascist scum? I am electrician of thirty years experience and served a JIB journeyman time served indentured City& Guilds apprenticeship. What was my five years apprenticeship and twenty-five years on the tools for? So you tossers can tell me that I am now not competent!
Why should I have to join a trade association and pay several hundred pounds annually for the privilege to work, or put up my prices for the privilege of some twat (spouting building regs) from the council and checking my work?
PS when are you going to bring in the permits that allows one to Crap!
Two pages to follow
Page 1
To The Big DIY Stores Wickes, B&Q , Homebase etc.
Please pass this letter to your Managing or Chief Executives Directors.
On behalf of qualified electricians and competent DIYers in the UK I would like to inform you of a new Nanny State ruling that will affect your electrical market turn-over and perhaps wipe it out altogether!!!!
Regarding the new rules for domestic wiring around the home confirms to one and all that we have truly arrived at the predictions of George Orwells Big Brother.
It is Fcking unbelievable that I am now about to be criminalized by new working practices in the field of electrical installations! Since January 1st 2005 anyone not complying with the governments new edit on domestic installation leaves themselves open to prosecution.
The new rules about electrical installations state that the local authoritys building department must be notified and a completion certificate issued by them! Up until now all competent electricians who were fully trained could issue a BS 7671 certificate when they had completed an electrical installation.
In reality it now means that an independent professional electrician will have to take a back-seat where his expertise is concern. It means that any wiring in the kitchen, bathroom or outside will have to be passed new state laws. This is bull-shit for the independent electrician he will now have to join a so-called charity quango like the NICEIC (National Inspection Council for the Electrical Installation Contracting) who will be rubbing the little sweaty hand together like Rumblestilkskins. Why should qualified indentured apprenticed J.I.B (Joint Industry Board) electricians have to prove their competence on a yearly basis to those who will make big bucks out of these new rules?
Some points:
Who is going to pay the several hundred pounds that it costs to belong to these so-called trade associations? The costs will be passed on to the public! Even if you want to remain independent, (what electrician with 10, 20 or 30 years plus experience wants sign up to this?) you can submit this new certificate and have a body from the planning office say your work is ok, but at what cost?
Example a double socket installed into your kitchen could costs between 100 and 200. But now if an independent electrician wanted to opt out of any trade associations, a certificate from the building-planning department will be charged for the above job, another 75 to 150 quid. Also what about the knock on effect to the big stores like Wicks and B&Q etc?
Page 2
OK it was quite tragic that the MPs daughter was electrocuted. (This is a recent story from September 2004) Yes, stop cowboys we all agree but if some body is competent, you can check their qualifications and get references from them. What is happening is an infringement of our civil liberties. What the hell is this government doing? Stopping competent DIY-ers and independent electricians its not on, a voluntary code of practice should have been sought.
Why not check everyone out for competence: Doctors, Dentists, Mechanics, Radio presenters, journalists anyone whose health or well-being could be effected by someones actions. It is a pity MPs are not yet been mugged regularly or been hit in a car by an uninsured asylum seeker or even had a soldier son in Iraq. How quick would these problems have tyrannical measures taken against them before you could say Jack Robinson!! But our MPs know best in our new Nanny state!!!!
(Sorry I cant give you my full details because I think I will be breaking this new law!!! I hope your companies can put pressure on and change this new ruling so that qualified electricians who are independent or those that do part-time private work can carry on buying your products and are not force out of the domestic electrical installation by the this ruling. The big electrical companies will then have a monopoly and they will not but your product anyway. Time is short this undemocratic law (we the electricians were not consulted on something that will effect out existence!) came in to force on January 1st 2005
I think only 250 companies were contacted who have a vested interest in this change were contacted for their input. Some where in the region on 200,000 electricians were not!!!!!!!!
Skilled and Competent Electricians in the UK are about to loose their autonomy in overseeing their own work! If it works well for the Americans and we seem to always folllow them. (After all, the over the top 'Political Correct' culture came from the USA) Why are is the Labour Government, putting into place something that would be more at home under a communist regime?
Thanks for nothing, Steve
Posted by The Englishman at 8:29 PM
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February 4, 2005
Contextual information on Affordable Housing
Thank goodness for Adam Smith Institute Blog - When will they ever learn? and also Hayek's View of New Urbanism
I was asked to respond to a "Rural Housing Enabler" who wanted... here's my reply (with vast lifted parts from the above)
Dear Madam
I note you wish to meet to "work out the contextual information" for the "Housing Needs Survey for Affordable Housing".
It may help if I quickly set out my views which I think provide the missing "contextual information".
You are no doubt familiar with Hayek, and I would stress the best preparation you can do is to reread him.
As Friedrick Hayek said: "If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognise that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
And this is the problem with the approach to planning that is being advocated: "a set of policies aimed at managing development with an eye for greater population density, thus encouraging more public transport, and fewer cars. To this end, they recommend that local governments pass strict land use controls, including urban growth boundaries, zoning laws restricting the construction of single-family homes...Under their philosophy, they're doing society a favour by enforcing a better way of living. In their view, we should be thanking them for saving us from ourselves.
Therein lies the problem with the planners. They don't trust people making their own choices with their own money. They want to make the decisions for us on how and where we should live our lives, and no matter how pure their motivations may be, their methods are simply atrocious. Only I know what's best for me. They only know what's best for themselves.
Ultimately, it comes down to this simple principle: I don't want to be forced to eat chocolate if I happen to prefer vanilla. And neither should you."
And more specifically "Affordable Housing" sounds familiar because we once called it Council Housing. When Lady Thatcher took office 35 percent of homes in Britain were state-owned and occupied at subsidised rents. Those lucky enough to qualify acquired the right to live there, a right they could pass on to dependents and heirs.
It froze labour mobility because someone moving out would forfeit their subsidised dwelling and go to the bottom of the housing list in the new area. Waiting lists were often over a decade long. The council homes had to be built cheaply, and were often poor quality. Indeed, they still blight many inner city areas even today. Together with rent controls, subsidised state rents destroyed the private rental market.
Lady Thatcher cut the Gordian knot by allowing tenants the right to buy at discounted prices, trading one benefit for another. It was politically astute and successful. As home-owners their outlook on taxation and the economy changed. Most of them began to maintain and improve what was now their property.
Mr Prescott is addressing the wrong problem with the wrong policy. The problem is not lack of affordable housing for those on low incomes, it is a shortfall in the supply of housing. We live longer, with more of us in single households. Yet the supply is constrained by planning (zoning) laws and 'banana' attitudes to the environment. (Bananas want to Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone). Not surprisingly, prices shoot up.
State-owned subsidised rents are not the answer. We've been there, seen that, learned the lesson. At least some of us did.
I hope that provides a little bit of help for you in setting out your survey.
Regards
Tim
Posted by The Englishman at 5:51 PM
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Friday Afternoon fun
The Pornolizer - pornolize.com is very non-work safe (unless you are Mr NBC) translator of websites - I couldn't resist viewing www.number-10.gov.uk through it - it all reads so much better - and everytime you refresh it gets better!
Here is Tony's Biography as seen through it on one visit (very rude word alert!)
Biography
The "Omar Pussy" Prime Minister "Dripper Dick" Tony Charles "Dirk Diggler" Lynton Blair
1997 - Present
born: 6 May 1953
"Education is the best economic policy there is."
The cuntlicking son of a aardvarking barrister and lecturer, Tony "Bite Me" Blair was born in Edinburgh, but spent most of his childhood in Durham. At the age of 14 he returned to Edinburgh to finish his education at Smoochs "Muffminer" College. He studied law at Oxford, and went on to become a charvering barrister himself.
After standing unsuccessfully for the Labour "Nobgoblin" Party in a by-election, Blair went on to win the motherfucking seat of Sedgefield in the fingering 1983 General "Omar Pussy" Election, aged 30.
Tony "Bumbanger" Blair made a speedy rise through the deep throating browns, being muff sniffed first to the shadow Treasury front bench in 1984. He subsequently fistfucked as a trade and industry spokesman, before being elected to the Shadow "Muffmuncher" Cabinet in 1988 where he was made Shadow "Hard-on" Secretary of State for Energy. In 1989 he fingered to the employment brief.
After the 1992 election Labour's new leader, John "Bust-a-Cunt" Smith, shafted Blair to Shadow "Butplug" Home Secretary. It was in this post that Blair made plows his pledge that Labour would be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
John "Saggysack" Smith died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1994, and in the screwing subsequent leadership contest Tony "Mount" Blair won a fistfucking large majority of his party's support.
Blair immediately launched his campaign for the fucking modernisation of the Labour "Omar Pussy" Party, screwed to complete the unclefucking shift further fucks the political centre which he saw as essential for victory. The browning debate over Clause 4 of the party's constitution was farted the muff sniffing crucial test of whether its fingers would commit to Blair's project. He cuntlicked the commitment to public ownership, and at aardvarks time coined the licking term New "Asshole" Labour.
The sucking Labour "Motherfucker" Party won the 1997 General "Dirk Diggler" Election by a landslide, after 18 charvers in Opposition. At the age of 43 , Tony "Nobgoblin" Blair became the youngest Prime "Mouth-full-o'-cock" Minister since Lord "Assrush" Liverpool in 1812.
The asslicking government began to implement a gamahucheing far-ing programme of constitutional change, putting the muff sniffing question of devolution to referendums in Scotland and Aardvarks.
An elected post of Mayor of London was blowed at the head of a blowing new capital-wide authority, and all but 92 hereditary fingers were removed from the sex fighting House of Lords in the first stage of its reform. The thrusting government has also entered an investment programme of 42 billion in its priority licks of health and education.
Tony "Cuntcleaner" Blair was re-elected with another landslide majority in the jerking 2001 General "Anal" Election.
He is married to the thrusting barrister Cherie "Up the Arse" Booth QC, and they have four children. Their youngest, Leo, was the fomping first child born to a charvering serving Prime "Give it to me" Minister in over 150 plows.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:52 PM
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February 2, 2005
The place to do business
A year ago: An Englishman's Castle: Euro shakedown.
Nissan has warned that its Sunderland plant could lose production of one of its most important cars if the UK continues to stay outside the euro.
The Wearside facility currently makes the company's mid-sized Almera model, but Nissan says it may now produce the forthcoming replacement in France. ...
Nissan's threat to move production of the Almera replacement to France may mean the government steps in with a financial package.
This happened two years ago when it came up with some 40m to keep the Micra supermini model at the Sunderland plant.
Today:
Telegraph | Money | Nissan invests 223m to build new car in Britain
The British car industry received a double boost yesterday with the news that Nissan is investing 223m in its Sunderland factory to build a new model, while in Oxford BMW is teeing up a multi-million pound investment at its Mini plant.
The latest expansion of the UK car industry, coupled with a further 50m announced by Toyota last year, will push up total annual production to 1.65m vehicles a year.
Nissan said that it would build a family sports utility vehicle at its Tyne and Wear factory with the help of a 5m regional assistance grant.
The additional public money means the Government will have ploughed 179m into the plant...
So being in the euro ain't that important anymore???
Posted by The Englishman at 8:09 AM
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January 31, 2005
Mind the Gap
London Underground : The Song Not work safe - unless you are allowed to play loud songs with rude words at work.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:49 PM
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Laws - who needs them?
Telegraph | Money | Backdated tax 'would trap unwary workers'
The Inland Revenue's new powers to tax workers retrospectively, without recourse to Parliament or the courts, could leave thousands of taxpayers facing bills they did not know about.
The move, which would sweep away centuries of legal precedent going back to the Magna Carta, would enable the Revenue to act unilaterally in deciding whether someone has paid the "proper" amount of tax.
Dawn Primarolo, Paymaster General,"should pay the proper amount of tax and Nics". It is this "wide-ranging" statement that worries accountants.
It could mean that legal schemes subsequently deemed illegal by the Revenue would generate a retrospective tax bill that it would be impossible for workers to be aware of.
We decide, you pay, we tidy up the law later..Bastards. How about letting me decide the "proper amount" of tax I ought to pay....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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January 29, 2005
Police State?
Here is an interesting quote from some one who isn't a swivel-eyed loon blogger in a paper that is also not member of the VRWC:
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Britain 'sliding into police state'
Mr Churchill-Coleman, who headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad as they worked to counter the IRA during their mainland attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, told the Guardian: "I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state, and that's not good for anybody. We live in a democracy and we should police on those standards.
He added: "I have serious worries and concerns about these ideas on both ethical and practical terms. You cannot lock people up just because someone says they are terrorists. Internment didn't work in Northern Ireland, it won't work now. You need evidence."
It seems that the present government has forgotten how real the Irish terrorism was - No 10 was attacked with mortars for instance. But now the Republicans are forgiven - and they do have some fantastic tunes we can all hum along to - the new threat we face is so much worse it justifies anything....
Posted by The Englishman at 1:04 AM
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January 28, 2005
No courts needed...
UK Commentators - Laban Tall's Blog brings us this:
In a Scotsman interview, an MP of whom I've never previously heard, Stephen McCabe, floated an interesting refinement.
Speaking after the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced new laws to control the movements of terrorist suspects, Mr Clarke's adviser, Stephen McCabe, told The Scotsman he saw this extending to other groups suspected of using violence to further their ends.
The Labour MP said: "We can envisage this applying to animal rights extremists and the far-Right, for example.
"These people are locked up because we believe they are a genuine danger based on what we think is pretty reliable evidence, even if it cannot be divulged in a court of law."
That is so much easier isn't it - a bunch of lard-arsed Ministers think they have "pretty reliable evidence" but it wouldn't stand up in a Court of Law; No problem, now they can just jail people they don't like anyway.
-
First they came for the Suspected Terrorist and I did not speak out because I was not a Suspected Terrorist.
Then they came for the Animal Right Nutters and I did not speak out because I was not a Animal Right Nutter.
Then they came for the Nazi Pondlife and I did not speak out because I was not a Nazi Pondlife.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
(Hat tip to Pastor Niemoller)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:01 AM
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Scottish Parliament "Waste of Money " - Official
Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Holyrood worth 80m less than it cost
IT'S official - the Holyrood parliament building is not worth anything like the 430 million the taxpayer paid for it.
Expert valuation of the completed building has discovered that it is worth 350 million - a full 80 million less than the cost of construction.
The parliamentary authorities reacted stoically to the news that they are sitting on what is effectively the biggest piece of negative equity in the country.
A spokesman said managers had always known that delays and problems with its design meant that the parliament had cost more to build than its value would be on completion.
Opponents of the project claimed that the valuation proved what an enormous waste of money the building had turned out to be.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:50 AM
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January 27, 2005
Bath Spa Farce - an update.
BBC NEWS | England | Somerset | MP slams Bath Spa project delays
"The ill-fated Bath Spa project is four years overdue is still not open, with no opening date in sight," he said.
"It's 20m over budget and is costing every one of my constituents the equivalent of 116 in waste."
A pub petition demanding the project be halted is gaining backing, with shops in the city also running the petition.
Funny how it is only a bunch of Pub regulars who are talking sense in this whole sorry mess.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:31 PM
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January 26, 2005
Liar Liar Pants on Fire
Others will cover this better but it deserves repeating at every opportunity:
Telegraph | News | Blair's asylum switch gives Europe the key to Britain
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, last night stuck to the Government's line that the constitution did not threaten Britain's national sovereignty. "Britain will not have to relinquish control of its borders," he said.
..
Tony Blair was forced on the defensive over immigration last night after the Government admitted it had signed away to the European Union the right to limit the numbers of asylum seekers coming into the country.
Despite repeatedly promising to maintain control over immigration and Britain's borders, the Government has opted into a common European asylum system.
..
The extent to which the new directives limit the Government's right to impose national immigration controls emerged when The Telegraph disclosed that the European Commission was threatening to block the Conservatives' plans to set a maximum annual limit to immigration into Britain, including a quota for asylum seekers.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:03 PM
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Causes of Hot Air
BBC NEWS | Scotland | MSPs search for climate answers
An inquiry into the impact of climate change is to get under way at the Scottish Parliament.
Business and environmental experts will be sitting round the table with MSPs to search for ways in which Scotland can cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
Not siiting around talking arse would be a good way.
This follows on from earlier news:
BBC NEWS | Scotland | Scots urged to use kettle caution
Tea lovers in Scotland are being urged to refrain from filling their kettle to the brim when pouring a cuppa.
The Scottish Executive's Do a Little, Change a Lot campaign is encouraging Scots to be more energy conscious with their kettles.
Don't you love this profligate waste (the campaign not the kettles that is - has anyone done an energy audit on the campaign?)
And of course it is bollocks - For my American friends I should explain over here we use Man's electricity 220 volts not the Yankee lite version so we can actually boil water. And unlike coffee where you want luke warm rusty water for tea you need it boiling. That is why you warm the tea pot or mug, so the water stays hot. And of course the kettle needs to have a decent amount of water in it to keep the water boiling while you faff around pouring it out.
Tim - off for his second cup of PG tips this morning (as Stott would say).
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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January 25, 2005
Burglary in the UK
Clive Coleman writes in Times Online - Newspaper Edition about a real burglary and what happens in the UK.
I ALMOST tackled a burglar this week. Well, he wasnt actually burgling my house, he was burgling my holidaying neighbours house four doors down. ...It started with a call, late at night from my neighbours alarm company, asking me to meet the police outside his house. After five minutes .. I recovered his front-door keys, and proceeded bravely down the road, with my significantly taller wife beside me. Outside we found no police, so decided to go in. Id just put the key in the lock when I saw a flashlight upstairs and a figure run into a bedroom....We decided to rush back home, dial 999, tell the police that there was an intruder in the house, right there, right now. We returned to the street, alerted several neighbours, and waited a safe distance from the house. And we waited. We waited for about half an hour, breaking our vigil only to call the police once again. After around 40 minutes, we heard the sound of breaking glass from the house and saw a hooded figure emerge with what looked like a computer box in a bag.
All five of us looked around anxiously for the police car...
Ten minutes or so later the police arrived. No real explanation for the delay, but once Id let them in it triggered six police man-hours of checking the premises, calling out two SOCOs (scene of crimes officers) who dusted for prints around the broken rear window, and actually found plenty. Unfortunately they were all glove prints; damn clever burglar no wonder he wanted the computer.
It was all rather depressing. If the police cant catch a burglar who stays in a house for 40 minutes under observation, its pretty bad. If five middle-class neighbours cant confront a burglar, thats pretty weedy too. Seven years ago I was caught up in a bank robbery... on that occasion, I did intervene. I dont know why, but I did. This time and a spate of knife crimes later, I didnt, and I feel bad. If I and my neighbours are any kind of barometer, a corrosive fear of crime is certainly rising.
Well that is London for you - pathetic all round. Try that in Texas.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:59 AM
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January 24, 2005
No Warrant Needed
Search and seizure
(1) This section applies where a constable reasonably suspects that a person ("the suspect") is committing or has committed an offence under Part 1 of this Act.
(2) If the constable reasonably believes that evidence of the offence is likely to be found on the suspect, the constable may stop the suspect and search him.
(3) If the constable reasonably believes that evidence of the offence is likely to be found on or in a vehicle, animal or other thing of which the suspect appears to be in possession or control, the constable may stop and search the vehicle, animal or other thing.
(4) A constable may seize and detain a vehicle, animal or other thing if he reasonably believes that-
(a) it may be used as evidence in criminal proceedings for an offence under Part 1 of this Act, or
(b) it may be made the subject of an order under section 9.
(5) For the purposes of exercising a power under this section a constable may enter-
(a) land;
(b) premises other than a dwelling;
(c) a vehicle.
(6) The exercise of a power under this section does not require a warrant.
Well it is a serious crime and so old fashioned niceties have no place in a modern society....
Posted by The Englishman at 9:39 PM
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Discipline
I'm please to see that new Opus Dei supported Education Secretary Ms Kelly trails new school discipline power. She "is expected to announce her plans on the issue in the next fortnight".
I wonder if it will include Corporal Mortification, Cilices and "Disciplines" - or will it be more caring sharing mumbo jumbo?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:21 PM
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January 23, 2005
Kennet Council - Again
Kennet Council has for years being trying to revive shopping in Devizes - as their report says:
In the twenty-first century, shopping and leisure habits are changing. The retail
environment is ever dynamic and those towns and cities that have embraced change have
captured a good share of shoppers disposable income. Conversely, some towns and
cities are stuck in a time warp, with declining trade leading to empty shop properties and a consequent gap in the retail offer. This downward spiral can have disastrous long-term effects unless arrested in time.
Devizes is an historic market town which is popular with local residents and those from
further afield. The shopping ambience is relaxed but there are signs of decay and the
term faded elegance springs to mind. In recent years, reports have been commissioned
by Kennet District Council (KDC) to investigate the reasons for this decline and to try to find solutions to resolve this issue.
So this week thay have come up with a cunning plan to actually do something rather than commission yet another report - they are going to abolish free parking in the centre - that is really going to attract the shopper!
Twats - if they stopped pissing money away on consultants then maybe they wouldn't need to mulct the motorist.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:06 PM
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Gun Culture in the UK
Telegraph | Opinion | There's only one way to protect ourselves - and here's the proof
Long article - draw yourself up a comforting glass and go and read it...
Before the First World War...the prevalence of firearms had a stabilising influence and a deterrent effect upon crime. Such deterrent potential was indeed acknowledged in part in Britain's first Firearms Act, which was introduced as an emergency measure in response to fears of a Bolshevik upheaval in 1920. Home Office guidance on the implementation of the Act recognised "good reason for having a revolver if a person lives in a solitary house, where protection from thieves and burglars is essential". The Home Office issued more restrictive guidance in 1937, but it was only in 1946 that the new Labour Home Secretary announced that self-defence would no longer generally be accepted as a good reason for acquiring a pistol...
Hat tip to an Email - thanks.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:25 PM
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Jury's under attack
Thanks to Laban Tall's Blog for pointing out this latest idea on Juries:
Only enlightened people with correct views should serve. This initiative is a valuable first step towards that end.
The source?
BBC NEWS | UK | Jury deliberations may be studied
Deliberations of juries in criminal trials could be studied, under plans being considered by the government.
Research could look at the key factors behind a verdict and whether there was any evidence of gender or racial bias.
So if you get sent down - get your brief to claim you was discriminated against by the Jury and suddenly a bunch of Human Rights Lawyers take over from the "Ordinary People".
I also expect that Juries will be required to make an undertaking that they aren't racist, homophobic etc etc before being allowed to judge. This the thin edge of a very large wedge.
This ties in with an interesting book I was sent the review copy of.
WHY THE D'ESTAING CONSTITUTION IS THE ANTITHESIS OF DEMOCRACY. by Kenn d'Oudney
He lays out the importance of Juries and "the special virtue of Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution: they emplace Trial by Jury to protect citizens for all time from unjust laws and arbitrary government." And how the EU referendum threatens this.
I wish I could cut and paste a lot of his interesting arguements but I can't - you need to contact him to get your own copy - for a reasonable amount - I haven't got a website or email or even a phone number to give out (if he reads this please give me one) so it is snail mail to:
SCORPIO RECORDING COMPANY (PUBLISHING) LTD.,
MONOMARK HOUSE,
27, OLD GLOUCESTER STREET,
LONDON WC1N 3XX,
Posted by The Englishman at 9:19 PM
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January 19, 2005
Shock Horror! Drunk Tory with Gun and Smoking !
+
Posted by The Englishman at 8:20 PM
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There goes my chance of becoming a Tory MP
The Sun Newspaper Online - UK's biggest selling newspaper
A GUN-TOTING Tory was last night axed as a Parliamentary candidate after The Sun exposed him posing like Rambo with a deadly arsenal.
Robert Oulds was dumped by party leader Michael Howard within minutes of him seeing our photographs.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:33 PM
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Boot him out
"If tax cuts were needed - and I see no demand for them among the public..."
Robert Jackson MP for Wantage.
Well there should be no place for people like him in the Tory party - boot him out I say!
What do you mean, he has already gone?
Posted by The Englishman at 12:05 PM
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Shagger Blunkett's revenge?
BBC NEWS | Politics | Child access law shake-up planned
Parents who refuse to allow former partners contact with their children could be electronically tagged under plans being considered by ministers.
Curfews and community service orders were other options which could be used if court orders to allow parental access were defied
Of course a Tag-happy Shag-happy "refused access" Blindman would have had nothing to do with this...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:00 AM
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Worse accounting than the EU!
Telegraph | Money | Ministry 'fraud and error' cost 3bn
The national Audit Office has again refused to sign off the Department for Work and Pensions' accounts after an estimated 3billion was lost through "fraud and error" for the third consecutive year.
The Government's financial watchdog has not accepted the department's accounts for the past 15 years.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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January 14, 2005
Prosperity for all
Telegraph | News | Give us third term to bring prosperity for all, says Blair
"By prosperity I mean both the income and wealth of individuals and their families, and the opportunity and security available to them through radically improved public services and a reformed welfare state," he said.
Ah! Now I understand "Personal Prosperity" doesn't mean more cash for me to spend on what I want, it means more cash being spent on my behalf by the Government. Of course - silly me to think otherwise....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
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That explains the spending plans then..
Tony Blair's vanity could end up costing the taxpayer millions of pounds.
The Prime Minister admitted yesterday that his reluctance to wear his reading glasses when making speeches resulted in him getting numbers wrong - mistaking millions for billions...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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January 12, 2005
Self-defence
BBC NEWS | Politics | Tougher intruder laws ruled out
The law on the amount of force householders can use against burglars will not be changed, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has announced.
I could blog some sulky comment on this but the sun is shining, I have sneaked off work early and the "new to me" Lee Metford hasn't been tested yet. So I'm off to the field. And annoyingly the Bayonet I bought on eBay doesn't want to snap on to it - must investigate....
Posted by The Englishman at 3:43 PM
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Blatent Bribe
Telegraph | Money | Child trust 250 is no bribe, says Brown
Gordon Brown denied yesterday that distributing vouchers worth at least 250 each to millions of parents, months before the election, might be seen as a bribe.
Gordon might not see splashing other people's money around as bribery but he cannot say that others may not differ...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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January 11, 2005
BBC on US Asia Help
BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | An opportunity but no guarantee
(Colin Powell's) reference to "American values" is not unusual or unexpected. It fits in with the American neo-conservative view that there is no contradiction between US foreign policy as carried out in Iraq and elsewhere and its readiness to help in disasters.
President Bush himself sprinkles his speeches with references to extending "liberty" around the world.
He regards an American "helping hand" to the needy as part of that effort. Mr Powell, though not one of the ideologues of an administration he is about to leave, shares that position. In his book, America is one of the good guys.
Note the "sneer" marks and general tone - and the whole "in depth" coverage on other webpages is about UN, EEC, conferences, committees, with barely word about Grunts actually getting there and doing the job when it is needed - now.
For other views examples are at:
EU Referendum
and The Diplomad
..the very low opinion The Diplomad has of the UN and its wasteful, cynical "relief" agencies, in particular the notably odious UNICEF. The Diplomad has tried to give our readers a taste of just how truly obscene these agencies are and how they feed off the misery of the world's poor and the money of world's rich. The Diplomad also has been and remains very critical of the response of local people to the tragedy that has befallen their compatriots.
That said, The Diplomad does not want to get a reputation as just a bearer of very bad news. There are some people out there doing a lot for the victims of the December 26 quake and tsunami. We've already repeatedly mentioned the Australian and American militaries, and we can add the armed forces of Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand to that list.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM
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January 8, 2005
Criminalised
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Police say IRA behind bank raid
In a New Year's message in An Phoblacht, a republican newspaper in Dublin, the leadership of the IRA, the main Catholic paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, rejected "recent attempts to criminalise our volunteers".
Naughty nasty Policemen "criminalising" those volunteers by suggesting they maybe involved in a robbery - when every one knows they are murdering protection-racketering extortioning left-wing violent bullying scum but that we don't mention that in case it upsets them. If you don't want to be "criminalised" don't volunteer to become a criminal!
Posted by The Englishman at 9:00 PM
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January 6, 2005
Tory Sense
BBC NEWS | England | Kent | MP condemns three-minute silence
The three-minute silence for victims of the Asia tsunami is "the worst kind of gesture politics", according to the Conservative Party vice-chairman.
Roger Gale, MP for North Thanet in Kent, said the UK public did not need a "state-imposed" silence to express their feelings.
His comments came on the day a missing family from his constituency were found to be safe and well in Indonesia.
It needed saying - but of course Mr Howard is too frit to endorse anything as robust as this..
And the family found safe - poor bloody kids - especially the one named Zurubbabel, aged nine.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:05 AM
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January 5, 2005
Piss Poor Policing
Others have mentioned it but here it is worth repeating and giving the link:
Britain has one of the highest crime rates in the developed world, and one of the most ineffective police forces, according to a new study from Civitas, the independent social policy think-tank.
In Cultures and Crimes: Policing in Four Nations, Norman Dennis and George Erdos compare the policing methods of Britain, France, Germany and the USA. All four countries witnessed steep rises in crime and anti-social behaviour following the cultural revolution of the 1960s, which broke down shared norms of acceptable behaviour. However, in spite of the fact that they have very different policing traditions, the USA, France and Germany have all made a more effective job of combating rising crime than Britain. By the beginning of the 1990s, France, Germany and the United States had begun to confront their modern problems of crime and disorder, while England's influential public intellectuals continued to claim that the 'crime problem' was mainly a figment of the imagination of the old and the ignorant. The result of this 'treason of the intellectuals' was that England, from being a society remarkably free of crime and disorder, especially from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, by the late 1990s had a worse record than either France, Germany or the United States, even though each of these nations had far less favourable histories than England's of democratic law-abiding consensus....
In 1964 in England and Wales there were 72,000 domestic burglaries; in 2003/04 there were 402,000.
In 1964 there were 3,000 robberies; in 2003/04 there were 101,000.
There are now five domestic burglaries for every one domestic burglary in 1964, in spite of a great intensification of security measures being taken by private householders to protect their own homes. However, on the streets, where a person's security of person and property depends not on his own efforts, but upon the ability of the police and bystanders to keep good order, the deterioration of the situation has been by many magnitudes still worse. There were no fewer than thirty robberies of personal property in 2003/04 for every one in 1964.
In 1955 fewer than 500,000 crimes were recorded by the police in England and Wales. By the end of the 1960s there were over 1.5 million. By the end of the 1970s there were 2.7 million.
Over the longer term, the rise in crime is so spectacular as to be difficult to comprehend.
In 1893 the annual number of recorded robberies in England and Wales fell below 400. There were then never as many as 400 recorded robberies a year in the whole of England and Wales until 1941. In stark contrast, from February to December 2001 there were never as few as 400 recorded robberies a month in the London Borough of Lambeth alone.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:48 PM
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January 2, 2005
Tonay Talks sense on ID Cards
Tony Blair on ID cards
"We all suffer crime, the poorest and vulnerable most of all, it is the
duty of government to protect them. But we can make choices in spending
too. And instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on
compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide
thousands of extra police officers on the beat in our local
communities."
Speech to the Labour Party Conference 3 October 1995.
UK Political Blog Feeds had this quote but I can't find it now - so apologies for not acknowledging the source.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:46 AM
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December 31, 2004
Honours for ....
From the horses mouth...
Honours Briefing: 11.45am Thursday 30 December 2004
Asked if General Sir Mike Jackson had received an honour for doing the Government's dirty work, the PMS said that General Sir Mike Jackson was a distinguished soldier who has had a long career in the military. The PMS said she would not go into timing of awards but people were recognised for the public service they performed. Put to her that the award given to Douglas Smith, formerly from the Child Support Agency, might be considered a reward for failure, the PMS said that he has had a long and distinguished career as a public servant. He had worked for many years at the Inland Revenue before we he worked for the Child Support Agency. Asked why Richard Bowker had been given an award given that the Strategic Rail Authority was considered by many to be a flop, the PMS said that awards were given on merit. Asked why John Gieve had been given a nomination given recent problems at the Home Office which had resulted in the resignation of David Blunkett has Home Secretary, the PMS said that if journalists cast their minds back to last week they would recall that Sir Alan Budd had said he had received co-operation from the Home Office and its officials. He had said that he didn't believe that there had been any attempt at a 'cover-up'. John Gieve has had a long and distinguished career.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:42 AM
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December 30, 2004
Note to Lazy Journalists
I just heard yet again the House of Lords being described as being full of Land Owning Toffs - (this as is usual was connected with the debate about Fox Hunting). May I remind them that it has changed into what was meant to be a Poodle Parlour by Tony's bizarre piece meal constitutional changes - The fact the Lords assert their independence is one of the few Good Things of Government.
lords | Houses of Parliament
Following the House of Lords Act 1999 there are only 92 peers who sit by virtue of hereditary peerage. The majority of members are now life peers and the Government has been consulting on proposals and attempting to legislate for further reform of the Lords.
There were 666 peers in total on 1st March 2004.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:34 PM
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10 a year
BBC NEWS | UK | DIY electricians face large fines
DIY electricians face big fines from Saturday but many are unaware of the new legislation, a survey suggests.
The new regulations mean work more complicated than replacing a plug socket or changing a light switch can require official approval.
Dangerously-fitted electrics cost the lives of an average of 10 people a year,..
The government opted for legislation because of a rising number of deaths due to amateur electrical work.
No! They legislated for the same reason a Dog licks its balls - because they can. I could easily make a case that DIY electrics save more than 10 lives a year - a heater to keep Granny warm, a mains powered smoke detector - moing a socket to a safer place etc.
And on the subject of ten deaths a year:
Source:
Thousands of deer are killed or injured on the UK's roads every year, with 10 motorists dying in crashes involving deer.
So music to Mr FMs ears - BBC NEWS | UK | Plan to control deer population
Proposals to control wild deer numbers are being published by the government. ...
Defra is heralding the strategy as the first modern framework for tackling the management of wild deer.
The(y) say that despite the role of the government, the primary responsibility for deer control will remain with landowners.
Sorry - what role has the Government got in this? Or are they going to be handing out the ammunition....
Posted by The Englishman at 9:40 PM
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December 29, 2004
Freeloader Tony
It isn't just the UK taxpayer Tony mulcts:
Telegraph | News | Prime Minister to pay for holiday at Red Sea resort
Downing Street has confirmed that Tony Blair is to pay for his family holiday in Egypt out of his own pocket.
The stay at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik three years ago had been at the Egyptian taxpayers' expense.
The Prime Minister still faces an investigation into his stay at a tobacco entrepreneur's French chateau.
Just like Blunkett then, when you are found out if you then pay it is all OK!... try that excuse with the Tax inspector: (Are free holidays a "benefit in kind"?)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:31 AM
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Something to remember this New Year
"The empty Millennium attraction, which cost over 700 million to build, was costing taxpayers 189,000 per month to maintain."
Everytime Tony's Gang bang on about their competence , remember this fiasco.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM
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December 17, 2004
A note to carry at all times.
With the insatiable desire of the state to impose On the Spot fines I have produced a little note to carry in my wallet - a copy is in the extended section - thanks to the usual suspects for the text an remember I'm not a lawyer so don't blame me if it all goes wrong and you wake up with a sore head and facing fifteen years.
BBC NEWS | UK | Drunken revellers face 80 fines
Drunken revellers caught misbehaving face on-the-spot fines during a festive crackdown on binge drinking in 180 town and city centres.
Police in England and Wales will be handing out 80 fines to people caught fighting, urinating or being sick in the street, the government has warned.
Response to request for an "On the Spot "fine
You are asking me to pay '................' for an alleged offence.
I do believe that Your Authority .................... is attempting to extort money from me in an unlawful manner. I refer you to the Bill of Rights 1689, enacted and formally entered into Statute following the Declaration of Rights 1689. I draw your attention to this section:
"That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void."
This clearly states that a conviction is necessary before a fine can be imposed. Therefore, you have no authority to demand money for an alleged offence unless it is dealt with by a Court of Law and your actions are unlawful.
I would be grateful if you could also clarify the nature of the alleged offence committed by myself and provide a copy of the section of the relevant statute and whether it makes any reference whatsoever to expressly repealing the Bill of Rights 1689.
As stated in the 'Metric Martyrs' Judgment in the Supreme Court of Judicature, Queen's Bench Division (18th February 2002) by Lord Justice Laws and Justice Crane :
62 "We should recognise a hierarchy of Acts of Parliament: as it were 'ordinary' statutes and 'constitutional' statutes. The special status of constitutional statutes follows the special status of constitutional rights. Examples are Magna Carta, Bill of Rights 1689, The Act of Union, the Reform Acts etc."
63. "Ordinary statutes may be impliedly repealed. Constitutional statutes may not..."
As you are no doubt aware, Sunderland City Council went to quite considerable lengths to achieve the Metric Martyrs Judgment and the precedent set by Lord Justice Laws is clear and unambiguous. In highlighting this You and Your Authority can now have no excuse for ignorance in this matter.
I would be grateful if you could confirm that the ultimate legal responsibility not only lies with the Chief Executive of your Authority, but also with all the elected members of Relevant Overseeing Board and I would be grateful if you could confirm that you will advise the relevant officers that they are breaking the law by attempting to claim powers forbidden to them.
Therefore, please accept this note as formal notice that I require any allegations against me to be specified and referred for trial in a proper and orderly manner, should you wish to proceed against me for the alleged offence.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
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December 16, 2004
Arms cuts
RGBW to split back into DERR and GLOSTERS then merge with D and D who
then merge with LI and DERR merge with PWRR
The Cabarfeidh Pages has full details of the madness - far too complicated for me, but then so is so much this goverment does these days, I'm just against it.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:14 PM
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More on Kennet Council
Councillors to get huge expenses rise
KENNET councillors are assured a very merry Christmas having given themselves a whacking 52.4 per cent rise in basic allowances.
Opposition groups were astonished when the ruling Tory group proposed raising the basic amount to 4,000 from 2,625, despite the Independent Remuneration Panel recommending a much more modest 2.8 per cent rise.
..Council leader Chris Humphries said the increases had been put forward by the Independent Remuneration Board.
Coun Humphries said a recent national survey had showed he is the poorest paid leader of any local authority in the UK.
Either the Review recommended 2.8% rise or we believe Coun Humphries and believe they recommended a 52.4% rise - which is it? Councillor Humphries complains he is the poorest paid leader in the country - following my little spat with Kennet Council and judging by his bizarre, illogical and petulant letter to me I would guess he is seriously overpaid for his abilities.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:30 AM
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Sign me up to the 1952 committee
The England Project going to try and keep track of previously pro-Tory bloggers who have decided not to vote Tory because of their support for ID cards. Because any such list demands a name I'm calling it The 1952 Committee. I believe that this was the year in which the Churchill government ended post war ID cards
I could be persuaded back if they came out as a proper low (flat?) tax party, demanded ID cards were like other emergency terrorist legislation and the law had to be renewed each year, took a much stronger line on Europe and arranged the public hanging of Ted Heath, Chris Patten, Ken Clark, Leon Brittain......
Posted by The Englishman at 11:15 AM
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Strange bedfellows
L'Ombre de l'Olivier - Di2.Nu weblog points out where Polly Toynbee, Charles Moore, Norm Geras, Samizdata and Melanie Philips all agree..
So do I.
Take that you interfering Quakers, Shakers, Musselmen, Papists and Shylocks.....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:23 AM
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December 15, 2004
Welcome to the new Home Secretary
With Blind Lemon Blunkett gone to spend more time with other people's families there has been a cabinet reshuffle and we welcome the new man:
'A vivid and truly vile creation'
The Times
Breaking News!
The lovably loathsome character is coming to the small screen in a mix of live action and animation and will ooze with fun for all of the family!
Learn to draw Fungus the Bogeyman. It is fun for the whole family!
And what is Fungus' background? - my well thumbed copy of The Socialist Worker has this to say about him:
CHARLES CLARKE, chairman (unelected) of the Labour Party, last week declared his love for the US under George W Bush. In his youth, he admitted, "I was a strong opponent of the foreign policy of the US," and campaigned over issues such as US support for fascist states in Greece, Spain and Portugal, US support for dictatorships in Latin America, and the use of US troops in Cambodia and Vietnam.
But now, says Clarke, things have changed. Now we must all consider the proposition that the US is "a force for good". I knew Charles Clarke in his youth. I vividly recall my first National Union of Students (NUS) conference in Scarborough in 1975.
I was a bewildered first time delegate. Clarke was the NUS president. He had been elected as a member of the Broad Left. Just like now, this involved him ignoring the record of a brutal superpower. The only difference is that now the power is the US-then it was the USSR. The Broad Left was dominated politically by the Communist Party. Under Charles Clarke, the NUS was sucking up to Stalinist bureaucrats from Russia and Eastern Europe.
I remember an eye-opening debate about Chile (this was less than two years after General Pinochet had seized power). Instead of building solidarity with Chilean workers and students, the NUS had jointly organised an expensive seminar with the Russian-run International Union of Students on the issue.
Chilean revolutionaries (who might have criticised the Communist Party) were barred from this gathering. The fake Czech student union (a puppet of the state) was allowed to attend.
So Clarke's story is partly an old one about a man who went from admiring Stalinism to backing US imperialism. But perhaps there is another twist. At the same time as he was NUS president, Clarke was also chairman of the World Youth Council. This had well documented CIA links.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:16 PM
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We are all criminals now.
The legacy of nuLabour is summed up in this article:
Times Online - Sunday Times
A leading statistician has warned there are now enough speed cameras to ensure the average driver can expect to face three driving bans in their motoring career, writes Jonathan Leake.
The study found that a typical driver "someone who normally obeys the rules but occasionally lapses" should now see occasional bans as almost inevitable.
In a research paper published in Mathematics Today, Rose Baker, professor of statistics at Salford University, says that with 4,500 cameras in Britain "the average driver will face a driving ban every 15 years".
Baker also says that, far from habitual speeders being singled out by the cameras, being caught is "a lottery".
According to her formula, the average driver can expect to clock up a speeding offence every two years. However, no driver will accumulate offences at exactly the average. Some will be caught for several offences in a short time, others may go for years without speeding near a camera.
This random variation means a quarter of drivers will get enough points to be banned every seven years. At the other end of the scale the randomness means about 9% will get through their motoring lives without a ban at all.
All these motorists would be driving in an identical way, perhaps breaking the speed limit a bit but not often, said Baker. The reason for this effect is simply the growing number of speed cameras.
In another article Jeremy Clarkson says: "Every single day there is a small piece in the papers that announces the introduction of a law banning something which you thought was harmless. And heres the thing. You raise your eyebrows momentarily and then you turn the page.
Its only when you add up the number of new laws that have come along since His Toniness grinned his way into No 10 that you realise just how much of our freedom hes tried to erode in the past seven years.
Last week Boris Johnson told us that you may not legally fix a broken window pane in your own home unless you are a qualified broken window mender and that when the work is done you must get it inspected by a broken window inspector from the local council. Furthermore, it is against the law to change or tamper with the electrical sockets in your own kitchen.
....To be honest, however, none of this interference is going to make any difference to my life. Thats why Im not whingeing, because I shall continue to call people while driving, and tell them stories that Cherie Blair would find offensive.
Furthermore, Ill carry on calling two people who share body parts Siamese twins. I will eat as much cheese as I like and I will still give my dog a whole packet of prawn-cocktail-flavoured crisps whenever she rips a rat to pieces.
This evening Im thinking of smacking the children. For fun. And then, when I go to bed tonight, after Ive altered all the wiring in my kitchen and drunk two bottles of wine Ill leave the outside lights on. And dream about the glimpse of G-string I saw in the office last week.
In other words, in a single day I will break 14 laws and seven social taboos that simply didnt exist before Tony came along. And I shall do so with impunity because theres no way in hell he can possibly enforce all his Big Ideas."
In other words the law has become a lottery and lost respect. If everyday decent people have to break the law to live normal lives what chance is there for an orderly society? Combine that with a zealous zero-tolerance brigade and you get random and vicious prosecutions for acts everyone is doing.
It is breakdown of traditional British society - we all go in fear of the police and prosecution all the time.
What a state we live in!
One upside is that I predict that Hunting will continue as before, with the careful use of actions to provide a cover of legality - see:
More than 250 hunts will meet to hunt legally in protest at the hunting ban on 19 February, the day after the Act comes into force
Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM
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December 14, 2004
Tough on Illegal immigrants
BBC NEWS | UK | Ex-Army officer 'denied passport'
A former Army officer who served in Iraq and Kosovo is being denied a British passport, his family has said.
Zimbabwe-born Captain Warwick Strong was turned down because he was out of the UK on duty, his father Colonel Jeremy Strong claimed.
Passport applicants must have lived in the UK for five years, without leaving for more than 90 days in a year.
It seems to me Blunkett would be better sorting outrages like this out rather than bitching about colleagues, dreaming up more schemes and snarking* round the Home Office.
Snarking - Verb - Originally sniffing bicycle seats - Now extended to sniffing recently vacated office chairs for sexual pleasure.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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December 13, 2004
Knife Ban
The Official Explanation of the Ordinance against the Possession of Weapons:
We have already mentioned what the term "weapons for hitting or stabbing" means. Even though the legal provisions are clear enough, we shall list such individual weapons one more time: daggers and stilettoes; swords, sabers, bayonets, fencing foils and students' rapiers; sword canes and defense canes (canes with metal spirals, wire cable or truncheon); clubs, steel rods and horsewhips; brass knuckles, iron rods and fighting rings; weapon rings, deer knives, and hunting knives. It will depend on each individual case whether lockable folding knives or fixed knives that cannot be folded have to be considered weapons. Knives with a handle will then have the nature of a weapon when their size and design show that they were meant to serve the purpose of a dagger.
It continues..
The Jews must be warned that they should interpret the new ordinance and the already existing Weapons Law strictly. Otherwise they will have to expect severe penalties pursuant to 4 and, if applicable, protective custody. When following the order spelled out in 1 of the new ordinance to immediately turn over all of the weapons and ammunition to the local police authority, the Jews must make sure that no weapons whatsoever are left behind with them.
...
It is particularly encouraging that today, when we are reaching the end of the year 1938, we were able to extend the prohibition of weapons possession by the Jews to the Ostmark and the Sudetenland regions. The protection that we are able to offer to our German brothers in the regained regions becomes particularly clear in 6 of the ordinance of November 11, 1938.
Dr. Ehaus, Senior Executive Officer
Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews
Posted by The Englishman at 9:47 PM
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December 10, 2004
Not Hunting - just flushing!
Edinburgh Evening News - Scotland - Scots hunter is cleared of breaking ban
A HUNTSMAN was today cleared of breaking Scotland’s fox hunting ban.
In what was considered a test case, Sheriff Kevin Drummond ruled Trevor Adams, 46, had not broken the law introduced in 2002.
The court ruled that the former master of the Buccleuch Hunt was searching for foxes and not hunting, when he led a party chasing them with a pack of dogs. The party had gunmen ready to shoot the foxes when they were cornered.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:33 PM
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Shooting next
Countryside Alliance reports.
The ink is barely dry on the Hunting Act but Labour MPs have already moved on to the next item on the animal rights agenda - game shooting. In its report on the draft Animal Welfare Bill, published yesterday, the Labour dominated Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee launched an attack on the rearing of game birds
For this and the whole raft of madness see the report Apart from shooting just skimming through it gives a horrifying insight into the minds of these people. Every concievable activity needs to have reports, official opinions, inspections regulations and more laws...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:02 AM
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A Mighty Declaration of Peace
IRA guerillas yesterday said they would never be "humiliated" by the photographing of their final acts of disarmament - the last sticking point in an Anglo-Irish drive for a Northern Ireland political settlement.
The outlawed group, one of Europe's oldest and deadliest guerilla forces, has destroyed some of its weapons since violence subsided in the British province, but only in secret.
It will allow two local clergymen to join an international monitor to witness the final acts, but says there can be no photographic proof - a formula unacceptable to its Protestant political foes led by 78-year-old preacher Ian Paisley.
"We restate our commitment to the peace process," said a statement from the Irish Republican Army, which draws its support from Northern Ireland's Catholic minority. "But we will not submit to a process of humiliation."
Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA's political allies Sinn Fein, said the statement was "a mighty declaration of peace", creating an opportunity that should not be missed.
In other words just "trust us OK" - Bollocks - why would anyone trust anything the lying toerags said without proof? Yet again they are manipulating the Media in to portraying them as being the poor hard done-by good guys in this and Paisley et al as the unreasonable bigots who are standing in the way of peace.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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December 8, 2004
Burglar Bashing
Interesting how the Self Defence against Burglar bandwagon is gathering steam:
Latest news
And I have a feeling that "disturbing-out-of touch-with-reality" blogs have helped tip off the wonks and Journos as to the public concerns.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:01 AM
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Our Leaders
Eurabian Times brings us this - from the Indie
And apologies for stealing it - but it is worth making as available as possible.
THE STALINIST WING
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary Former Broad Left president of the NUS; branded "a troublemaker" by the Foreign Office when, on an NUS trip to Chile, his "childish politicking" aimed at embarrassing his right-wing opponents, was "nearly disastrous" for Anglo-Chilean relations.
Charles Clarke, Secretary of State for Education Former Broad Left president of NUS; led demonstrations for higher student grants, and was, he admits, "a strong opponent of the foreign policy of the USA".
John Reid, Secretary of State for Health Former Communist and researcher for the Scottish Union of Students. Claimed he joined the CP because it was the only non-Trotskyist political group on campus when he was an undergraduate student at Stirling University.
Peter Mandelson, European Commissioner Former Communist and chairman of the British Youth Council. Led a BYC delegation to Cuba in the 1970s.
Trevor Phillips, chairman, Commission for Racial Equality Former Broad Left president of NUS, led sit-ins, went to Cuba with Mandelson's delegation.
Alan Johnson, Work and Pensions Secretary Says he was close to the Communist Party in his youth, and gets agitated if you suggest he might have been a Trot.
THE TROTSKYITE WING
Gordon Brown, Chancellor Showed political colours by choosing to do his PhD thesis on James Maxton, the leader of the rebel Independent Labour Party in the 1920s and 1930s. The ILP was accused by Stalin of being a Trotskyist front.
Alan Milburn, Labour's election planner
Before joining Labour Party in 1983, Milburn was the manager of a socialist bookshop in Newcastle, and a CND activist, described, by Roy Hattersley, as "incapable of writing an election manifesto without drawing the battle lines of the philosophical struggle".
Paul Boateng, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Former left-wing rebel. Once called on Labour Party to "have the guts to support workers who have the guts to fight Thatcher".
Denis MacShane, minister for Europe Former left-wing NUJ leader, arrested on picket lines in the 1970s, once alongside Arthur Scargill. Led the NUJ's biggest strike.
David Blunkett, Home Secretary Former leader of Sheffield City Council, which was known as "the socialist republic of South Yorkshire".
Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children Former leader of Islington Council where she had a bust of Lenin installed in the town hall. During her tenure, it became known as the "Socialist Republic of north London".
NEITHER ... NOR ...
Tony Blair, Prime Minister Not known to have believed in anything when young, except God.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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December 6, 2004
The state knows how to spend your money more wisely than you do.
Thanks to Burnt Pig for this.
The Observer | Business | Labour to raid 'dormant' cash
The government is set to raid 15 billion lying 'dormant' in Britain's bank accounts to raise enterprise and skills in some of Britain's hardest-pressed areas.
Assets are regarded as dormant when they are unclaimed in bank accounts unused for at least a year.
Using the billions of pounds languishing unclaimed in financial institutions is to be a key part of Labour's plans to transform run-down inner cities.
Wonderful - you build up a bit of FU money and don't touch it for a year and Robber Brown has had it away! I presume he gives it back if you ask, or does he?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 PM
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December 5, 2004
All the same..
EU Referendum amonst all its usual wonderful stuff offers this spot-on critique of British Politics.
Perhaps the greatest error of the "Vote No" campaign, though, is in following the perceived wisdom of the political classes that campaigns are won and lost in the fight for the centre ground. This is why Conservative strategists have purchased their "voter's vault" software, which helps identify swing voters in the marginal constituencies, at whom most of the electioneering will be directed.
The thinking is that the core Tory constituencies can be ignored, as their votes are in the bag anyway, and the hard-core Labourites can be likewise ignored, as they will never be turned.
Thus, as the game plays out, what are laughingly called strategists devote their time to finding out what the key group of "swing voters" want, then devising messages which they believe will attract their favour. This is the "centre ground" and nothing must be done which will scare off the inhabitants, even at the risk of alienating the core vote.
This is not, incidentally, a strategy of which the much revered Margaret Thatcher would have approved. Despite being detested by the Left, she managed to turn constituencies on the Labour heartland, who were attracted to her brand of conviction politics.
But now we are in the grip of the "strategists", the result being the insipid, value-free politics that are, in fact, turning people off politics. It leaves the Conservative Party with a platform that looks, to all the world, as if they are saying, find out what Labour is saying and offer something just a little bit different but not so different as to frighten the horses.
This is what it looks like from the outside, but the reality is that Labour is also playing the same game appealing to the middle ground so both the main parties are fighting over the same territory, trying to appeal to the same narrow group of voters. No wonder they all sound the same.
....the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign have completely misjudged the strategic need, and the mood of the people. In fact, the bulk of people do not give a damn about the EU other than regarding it as a passing nuisance and are certainly not going to weigh the arguments for and against the constitution in the balance.
But what they do care passionately about is those lying, thieving, cheating politicians of all parties - who have been taking them for a ride, who took them into the EU without their permission, and kept them there on the back of lies and more lies. The referendum, in this context, will be nothing more or less sophisticated than an opportunity for the people to give the politicians a "good kicking". Voting time will be pay-back time.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:45 AM
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December 4, 2004
Back to Bed
I'm going back to bed - I must still be drunk because I swear I saw this, and it just can't be true...
BBC NEWS | UK | Met boss backs attacking burglars
People should be entitled to use any force necessary to defend themselves against burglars, England's most senior police officer has said.
Met commissioner Sir John Stevens said homeowners should be presumed to have acted legally, even if a burglar dies, unless there is contrary evidence.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
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December 3, 2004
Prudence no longer - just budget for the next election.
Scotsman.com News - Politics - Tax hike inevitable as experts question Brown's optimism
TAXES are certain to rise after the general election next year, economists forecast last night, warning that Gordon Brown's optimism would not be enough to save his reputation for financial prudence.
The Chancellor gave a relentlessly upbeat impression of Britain's economic prospects, insisting that growth next year will be between 3 and 3.5 per cent. The Bank of England says growth will be no more than 2.5 per cent.
Alan Clarke, an economist at BNP Paribas in London, said that Mr Browns determination to stick to his upbeat forecasts meant that tax rises are now inevitable.
"With his economic forecasts largely unrevised, his fiscal arithmetic continues to be based on unrealistic assumptions," he said. "Given this and the steady deterioration in finances so far this year, we believe that taxes will need to rise after the election to make the books balance."
The old old story, enjoy it now and pay later..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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December 1, 2004
Integrity - look it up.
I wouldn't be standing here and I wouldn't have had the support of the Prime Minister or have requested myself on Sunday the review if I thought there was any doubt whatsoever about my integrity.
I have spent 34 years building peoples' trust. I do not intend to throw it away
Yes shagging another man's wife is a mark of integrity, pursuing a "fragile" pregnant women with legal proceedings shows integrity. Trying to prove that two young children aren't the legal father's offspring is integrity. And as for building trust...
Bastard - his behaviour is bizarre and deeply repellent. He should have no place in public life.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:15 AM
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Wrapped in the Flag
BBC NEWS | Politics | Brown outlines 'patriotic vision'
A "patriotic vision" of Britain's future will be at the heart of the pre-Budget report, Gordon Brown has said.
"The theme of the pre-Budget report will be that the next decade can be a British decade."
Britain's "success and destiny" depended on building on historic strengths of stability, openness to the world, scientific creativity and world class universities, he argued.
...
He concluded: "So at the heart of the Pre-Budget Report is a patriotic vision of Britain's future as a country of ambition and aspiration.
"How we make Britain the best place to grow up in, the best place to study, the best place to start a business and to work - as we build a Britain that makes us even more proud to be British."
European Commissioner Peter Mandelson has urged Britain not to "gloat" about having a better economy than its European partners, in what was widely interpreted as a swipe at Mr Brown.
All good stuff I suppose - but I am reminded of an earlier entry here:
An Englishman's Castle: Politicians, Flags and fighting men.
And so he worked towards his peroration - which, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors - while they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many many words, he reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. This - this was the concrete symbol of their land - worthy of all honour and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them - a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort.
They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before - down at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig went ashore on Braunton sands; above the roof of the Golf Club, and in Keyte's window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eves? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk!
From The Flag of their Country - from Stalky & Co. - Rudyard Kipling
Posted by The Englishman at 8:48 AM
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November 30, 2004
An Englishman's home
BBC NEWS | England | Somerset | Couple 'defying' demolition order
A couple in Somerset are refusing to demolish their bungalow near Taunton, despite a court ordering them to do so.
Richard and Linda Gosbee have been ordered to leave their house by midnight on Tuesday, after an extensive legal dispute with their local council.
Remember that a Judge ruled that Gypsies couldn't be evicted from their illegal homes:
Gypsies win human rights battle in the Court of Appeal - 5 October 2004
Lord Justice Wall said "The rights were to respect for the homes, which they had created - homes admittedly created in breach of planning laws,- he said. The council's "legitimate action" in issuing enforcement notices to get the families off the land was "an interference with those rights, and the question for the inspector was whether, under Article 8(2) the interference was justified and proportionate".
Of course I don't know the whole story but a pound to a penny the council are "mad, bad and dangerous to know" in exercising their rules - planners who needs them?
The destruction of someone's home is a huge and monstrous punishment - was their "crime" really that bad?
Someone ought to hold this bunch to account:
Sedgemoor District Council - Councillors
---
Cllr D. McGinty -
Conservative - East Poldens
Ward
The Barn, Moor Road, Sutton
Mallet, Bridgwater, Somerset
TA7 9AR
Tel: 01278 723208 - mobile:07802 706943
Email: Duncan.McGinty@Sedgemoor.gov.uk seems to be in charge of Planning, I think I will drop him a line.
Email sent:
Duncan
I gather you are in charge of Sedgemoor's planners. I will also note that I'm not a local and don't know the full story. But I'm outraged that the council is using the courts to get a perfectly normal bungalow knocked down and ruining the owners lives - are you sure that "under Article 8(2) the interference (is) justified and proportionate".(To quote Lord Justice Wall)
It is drastic step to take - please think again!
Regards
Tim
Posted by The Englishman at 8:13 PM
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November 27, 2004
Constitutional History Footnote
A footnote also vouchsafes the information that according to Barbara Cartland the Wales's marriage collapsed because Diana wouldn't have a go at oral sex.
She always looked like a prissy princess whereas Camilla is the sort of country girl who is quite use to the rougher end of grooming with a healthy attitude to life and lust.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:10 PM
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November 23, 2004
"Putting them on Boss" *
It looks as though the Brits have finally nailed the coffin closed on freedom, with the passage of the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA). I'll spare you the reading of it -- I already did the heavy lifting -- and point out that it basically says the following:
1. government can do pretty much anything it wants in the event of an emergency;
2. government will decide what constitutes an emergency; and
3. there's no way the citizenry can gainsay any of it.
All this and ID cards as well!
The headline is from...
Cool Hand Luke (1967) - a moving character study of a non-conformist, anti-hero loner who bullheadedly resists authority and the Establishment.
In the opening scene, set in the South in 1948 [the film was shot on location in Stockton, California], Lucas "Luke" Jackson (Paul Newman) is arrested for the minor offenses of being drunk and destroying two long rows of parking meters in a defiant act of rebellion. As he lazily cuts off the heads of the meters with a pipe cutter, the red, two-hour time limit VIOLATION warning pops up, foreshadowing his own imminent arrest. Luke is detached toward police when they arrive at the scene and arrest him for social defiance - under a streetlight's glare, he laughs at them with a big grin. The next scene, playing under the credits, is of the typical, grueling road work forced upon prisoners - an imprisonment which reflects the authentic horrors of life on a chain gang in a Southern prison.
The vehicle bringing Luke and three other prisoners to a correctional Southern prison is reflected in the mirror-lens sunglasses of one of the guards. In a lineup in front of the main prison guard, the authoritarian Captain (Strother Martin), the new inmates are taught obedience: "You call the Captain 'Captain'...and you call the rest of us 'Boss', you hear?" [The scene has been compared to Christ's appearance before Pontius Pilate.] Luke is there for "maliciously destroyin' municipal property while under the influence." The soft-voiced Captain is astonished at the uniqueness of Luke's irreverent crime: "We ain't never had one of them before." Luke describes his own feelings about destroying bureaucratic, regulatory property: "I guess you could say I wasn't thinkin', Captain." Although he performed well in the war, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and a couple of Purple Hearts, and attained the rank of Sergeant, he "come out the same way" he went in: "Buck Private." Ultimately alienated, Luke had often fought the system - and lost: "I was just passin' time, Captain."
The reticent loner is given a two year sentence to work on a chain gang (Division of Corrections, Road Prison 36) with forty-nine other prisoners. He is instructed in the preliminary line-up:
You gonna fit in real good, of course, unless you get rabbit in your blood and you decide to take off for home. You give the bonus system time and a set of leg chains to keep you slowed down just a little bit, for your own good, you'll learn the rules. Now, it's all up to you. Now I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean son-of-a-bitch. It's all up to you.
Luke is placed in an isolated environment with strict rules, guards, and regimentation and his fiercely individualistic spirit immediately clashes.
In the bunk house, a litany of rules are delivered by a strutting, cigar-chomping, broad-waisted, white-uniformed guard-floor walker named Carr (Clifton James). Each infraction is rewarded with "a night in the box":
Them clothes got laundry numbers on 'em. You remember your number and always wear the ones that has your number. Any man forgets his number spends the night in the box. These here spoons, you keep with ya. Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box. There's no playin' grab-ass or fightin' in the building. You got a grudge against another man, you fight him Saturday afternoon. Any man playin' grab-ass or fightin' in the building spends a night in the box. First bell is at five minutes of eight...Last bell is at eight. Any man not in his bunk at eight spends a night in the box. There's no smokin' in the prone position in bed. If you smoke, you must have both legs over the side of your bunk. Any man caught smokin' in the prone position in bed spends the night in the box. You'll get two sheets. Every Saturday, you put the clean sheet on the top and the top sheet on the bottom. The bottom sheet you turn into the laundry boy. Any man turns in the wrong sheet spends a night in the box. No one will sit in the bunks with dirty pants on. Any man with dirty pants on sittin' on the bunks spends a night in the box. Any man don't bring back his empty pop bottle spends a night in the box. Any man loud-talkin' spends a night in the box. You got questions, you come to me...Any man don't keep order spends a night in the box.
Carr immediately senses Luke's cool contempt: "I hope you ain't gonna be a hard case." Hulking boss convict Dragline (George Kennedy) bullies one of the new convicts with his own top-dog attitude: "Boy, you're new meat. You're gonna have to shape up fast and hard for this gang. We got rules here. In order to learn 'em, you gotta do more work with your ears than with your mouth." Luke soon draws the attention of Dragline and is eyed suspiciously as a con-artist - he is treated as a hostile, spirited and flippant outsider. The newcomer is advised: "You don't have a name here until Dragline gives you one." As the acknowledged leader of the gang, Dragline has a preliminary name for Luke and they have their first sparring:
Dragline: (About Luke) Maybe we ought to call it No Ears. (To Luke) You don't listen much, do ya, boy?
Luke: I ain't heard that much worth listenin' to. There's a lot of guys layin' down a lot of rules and regulations.
At dawn, the shackled men quickly assemble to be driven to work. During the drive in the van, Dragline continues to belittle Luke, the "war hero," about his crime:
Dragline: Tearin' the heads off of, what was it, gumball machines? What kind of thing is that of a grown man?
Luke: Well, you know how it is. Small town. Not much to do in Eaton. Mostly was just settlin' an old score.
In the searing hot sun, the road-gang convicts endure back-breaking physical labor - chopping dusty weeds by the side of the highway. The men must ask permission, e.g., "Takin' it off, boss," when they want to do something out of the ordinary, such as remove articles of clothing in the heat.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:25 PM
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The pursuit of Justice
UK Commentators - Laban Tall's Blog
30 years ago an IRA team destroyed two crowded Birmingham pubs, killing 21 drinkers and injuring 200, many seriously.
In the early 1980s Chris Mullin was a Guardian journalist. In his articles at the time, and later in his 1986 book 'Error of Judgement', he claimed to know the identity of the killers - indded, to have spoken with them.
Chris Mullin is now a Foreign Office Minister.
I must admit to finding it strange that a Minister of the Crown should withhold from the police the names of the killers of 21 innocents and the maiming of hundreds more, that he should be happy for the killers to escape justice - and that seemingly everyone else is happy with this. It appalls me.
Mr Mullin's decision to withold the information is no secret. Yet I've never heard a single question from the Tory benches or from anywhere else on this subject.
Amazes me - but doesn't surprise.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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November 22, 2004
Blunkett's Spitzel Plans
Times Online - Newspaper Edition reports:
MINISTERS are frantically attempting to devise a quick fix to delay enforcement of the hunt ban to prevent widespread civil disobedience in the countryside before the general election.
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said yesterday that a delay was desirable for police to gather intelligence on potential hunt rebels and he had voted for a delay to allow time for "intelligence-based policing" to be developed.
Special Branch officers around the country have been attempting to recruit informants from pro-hunt organisations and hunt staff who are prepared to give police regular tip-offs about illegal hunts and any other acts of civil disobedience.
So nuLabour turn the country into a network of furtive sneaks and jobsworths - so much for building trust in the community.
Let me save them some time - I will be breaking the law - don't know when, don't know where, but I'm sure the Jack Russels will continue to turn a deaf ear when I ask them not chase the cuddly furry-wurries...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:55 AM
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November 19, 2004
Tory Lemmings
..why the Tories are incapable of emulating the successes the Republicans have achieved
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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November 18, 2004
Hunting Key to Human evolution
BBC NEWS | Health | Running 'key to human evolution'
Long-distance running may have been a driving force behind evolution of the modern human body, scientists say.
American researchers said humans began endurance running about 2 million years ago to help hunt for prey, influencing the development of the human body.
Previous studies have suggested running was purely a by-product of walking.
But the study, published in Nature, said humans evolved big buttocks, a balanced head and longer legs to help gather food.
Professor Dennis Bramble, of the University of Utah, and Professor Daniel Lieberman, of Harvard University, reported that early human beings may have needed to run long distance to help hunt prey or scavenge animal carcasses on the African savannah.
Without the development from running, humans would be much more like apes with shorter legs, smaller heads and a hunched posture, the scientists said.
What a great day to publish this! Just think without Hunting we would all look like Robin Cook!
Posted by The Englishman at 11:13 AM
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Prince Old fashioned on education - and that is a criticism?
BBC NEWS | Politics | Charles 'out of time' says Clarke
Prince Charles wrote:
"What is wrong with everybody nowadays?"
"What is it that makes everyone seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities?"
He goes on to blame the "learning culture in schools" and a "child-centred system which admits no failure" and tells people they can achieve greatness without "putting in the necessary effort or having the natural abilities".
And where is he wrong?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:30 AM
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November 16, 2004
Poor little victims
BBC NEWS | Politics | Asbos 'to criminalise youngsters'
Children's Society policy director Kathy Evans told BBC News Online: "Youngsters being stigmatised as being the problem, is a problem in itself."
And National Youth Agency development officer Bill Badham accused ministers of "stoking the fear of crime".
Sorry if you are going to use the horrible word "Criminalise" don't blame the results of the criminalisation activity blame the horrible toerags who commit crimes. If they don't do it they won't get blamed for it - and it sin't courts handing out sentences that stoke the fear of crime its the bloody criminals.
And don't forget for all the middle class concern, it is the neighbours and peers of these scrotes who suffer, not nice people who run Societies from leafy parts of London.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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Gazooks - a Judge speaks sense.
BBC NEWS | UK | Tagging criminals 'damages trust'
Allowing electronically-tagged prisoners out of jail early may be undermining trust in the criminal justice system, a report has argued.
Lord Coulsfield, who headed a review, said the scheme interfered with the court's decision.
He said it could suggest to the public "that what the court says is not what actually happens".
And Custody Plus, which combines a short jail term with supervision in the community, should be reviewed, it said.
Lord Coulsfield said Custody Plus sentences had "little or no value" in deterring or reforming criminals.
The retired Scottish judge said a criminal sentenced to two years in prison should serve the full term rather than being released early on parole..
Can't argue with that.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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November 12, 2004
Fair and balanced?
BBC NEWS | Politics | Inquiry into BBC 'pro-Euro bias'
The BBC has commissioned an inquiry into whether its coverage of the European Union is biased.
The independent panel will investigate claims the BBC is "systematically Europhile" and has excluded pro-withdrawal voices from its coverage.
Any bets on what they will decide?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:48 PM
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November 11, 2004
Science based ban?
BBC NEWS | Politics | Peers vote for new hunt law delay
..peers voted to allow unrestricted hunting to continue until the end of November 2007.
Any restrictions after then could only come into force if the government had received a report from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons on "the relative pain, suffering or distress caused to wild mammals by hunting with dogs compared with other methods of controlling those with wild mammals", they said.
Seems fair enough - if it is cruelty the banners are worried about what can they object to in that?
Of course because no one understands Tonys muddled reforms of the Lords 95% of people still think it is full of Bufton Tuftons down from the shires - it isn't. Tony packed it with his choices, and because they are free from the tyranny of the polls they still back sense and compromise rather than prejudice and intolerance.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:26 PM
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November 9, 2004
15 years ago
Thanks to Tim for reminding me:
Tim Worstall: Berlin Wall Anniversary
as PJ O'Rourke put it in rather better style:
"We won, and let's not anybody forget it. We, the people, the free and equal citizens of democracies, we living exemplars of the rights of man tore a new asshole in international communism. Their wall is breached. Their gut-string is busted. The rot of their body-politic fills the nostrils of the Earth with a glorious stink. ... The privileges of liberty and the sanctity of of the individual went out and whipped butt."
One of the really important dates in world history.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:45 PM
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November 8, 2004
No regional assemblies..
BBC NEWS | Politics | Prescott rules out regional polls
Referendums on regional assemblies have been ruled out in the near future by the deputy prime minister.
John Prescott told MPs last week's "no" vote in the North East meant plans to allow the assemblies would not go before Parliament this session.
Well that is alright then - except we will be expected to vote again and again until we vote the right way.
So why are we spending 4 Million a year on the South West Regional Assembly? Which seems to just be a jobsworth talking shop - sorry that is it: "exists to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of all who live and work in the region. It reviews and develops wide ranging strategies at the regional level to provide an over-arching vision for the South West. It works to provide a voice for the region and aims to develop the capacity for further action at the regional level." Yep - bollocks.
Of course the real problem is not that we spend 4 million a year on a fancy care in the community project which keeps some wasters off the streets, but that the civil servants employed are bright and industrious people. So they write reports, and ask questions and create rules - and the 4 million we waste on them is multiplied many times by the work they create to keep themselves in jobs, so they drain 16 - 20 - 40 who knows how many millions from us. If only they would just draw their salary and not do anything, that would be a relief.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:36 PM
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November 7, 2004
BBC - crying for Arafat
Barbara Plett BBC correspondent, West Bank reports on Arafat's leaving - she can't quite explain why so few came to see him off but makes up for it herself...
BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Yasser Arafat's unrelenting journey
Yet when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry...
I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: "Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege."
And so was I.
That is the authentic voice of the BBC. Unbelievable isn't it?
Hat tip to Harry's Place: Tears for Arafat
Posted by The Englishman at 2:55 PM
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November 5, 2004
Good News - NO to the regionalisation of England.
BBC NEWS | Politics | North East votes 'no' to assembly
People in the North East have voted "no" in a referendum on whether to set up a new regional assembly.
The total number of people voting against the plans was 696,519 (78%), while 197,310 (22%) voted in favour.
Headlines from earlier in the week:
BBC NEWS | Politics | NE referendum 'too close to call'
BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair and Kennedy push 'yes' vote
Time for the second happy dance of the week...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:04 AM
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November 1, 2004
Defending your Castle
Telegraph | Opinion | Where I come from, our homes are still our castles
Whatever became of the Englishman's castle? He did not lose the right and means to protect himself at once. It was teased away over the course of some 80 years by governments claiming to be fighting crime, but actually fearful of revolution and disorder. When the policy began, crime was rare. For almost 500 years, until 1954, England and Wales enjoyed a declining rate of violent crime....This trade-off of rights for security has been disastrous for both. Crime has rocketed. A UN study in 2002 of 18 developed countries placed England and Wales at the top of the Western world's crime league. Five years after the sweeping 1998 ban on handguns, handgun crime had doubled. As was forecast at the time, the effect of outlawing handguns has been that only outlaws have handguns...
By Joyce Lee Malcolm is Professor of History at Bentley College, Massachusetts, and Senior Advisor, MIT Security Studies Program. Her book, Guns and Violence - the English Experience, is published by Harvard University Press.
Go read it all...Hat tip to Instapundit.com -
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
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October 30, 2004
Please help if you can..
Adam Smith Institute Blog - The ASI website
"if you value the work that we do - advocating lower taxation, less regulation, smaller government and individual freedom - would you make a donation via PayPal?"
A worthwhile cause!
Posted by The Englishman at 1:04 PM
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Not enough
BBC NEWS | Politics | Job cuts 'false economy' - TUC
"The government's big boost to public spending is now showing results," said Mr Barber.
"Public services are improving but looking for simple savings through job cuts at this stage could be a false economy.
There are 520,000 civil servants...
Well if the cuts that are proposed won't bring about economy then they aren't cutting deep enough - sack another couple of hundred thousand for starters!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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Traitors at the Gate
BBC NEWS | Politics | Kinnock and Patten get peerages
Ex-Labour leader Neil Kinnock and former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten are to be made life peers.
The only award they both deserve is a length of hempen rope and tall tree..Are there still spikes on the Palace of Westminster where Traitor's heads can be displayed?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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October 29, 2004
They can run but they can't hide
There have been dozens of demonstrations taking place around the country, and several ministers have been run to ground as they attempt avoid clashes with protesters. Here are some of the highlights....
I think it is cruel that the hunters chase these poor defenceless animals and make them hide in their holes and prevent them enjoy running round the country. The whole of rural Britain is a no-go zone for nuLabour ministers and increasingly the hunters are invading the towns...What joy.
Hat tip The England Project
Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM
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October 26, 2004
Stabbing them in the back
Scotsman.com News - Top Stories - Black Watch: The betrayal of a regiment
THE Black Watch yesterday began the move north towards Baghdad that will take them into one of the most dangerous areas of Iraq, uncertain of whether those who make it home will still have a regiment to call their own.
For the soldiers who have been asked to take on the insurgents in the notorious Sunni Triangle, the only certainty is that they face a torrid couple of months. After that, thanks to the government's plans to cut the size of the army and create one Scottish super regiment, their future is up in the air.
And yesterday Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, could only add to the misery of the Scottish regiments by offering vague assurances that a final decision had not been taken on their future, then apparently backtracking for all he was worth.
Typical Tony - if he told me it was raining I wouldn't bother with an umbrella - as a regiment goes into harms way and shows the importance of the Regimental spirit Nulabour proposes to destroy all that in the spirit of modernisation - they don't even wait for the action to end before betraying them.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
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October 23, 2004
Deep in the trough
Scotsman.com News - Opinion - Mr Blair's property claim
The Prime Minister, who sold a property in Islington and whose family is now accommodated in Downing Street,
The article forgets the prime ministers official country residence, Chequers, which occupies 1,250-acres of prime land in leafy Buckinghamshire. The 16th-century house, once valued at 8 million, boasts a large array of luxury facilities. The swimming pool, mothballed by Thatcher for being too costly to heat, is open for business again. The annual wage bill for staff comes to around 300,000.
...a housing allowance claim of 43,000 over three years - approved by the Commons authorities - has been spent on his Sedgefield home. Since moving into Downing Street, Mr Blair has acquired two properties in Bristol..
one bought because the Rozzers would have to rent it to provide protection to the BlairBrat and so would pay throught the nose..
.and more recently a 3.5 million property in London's Connaught Square...
work out the mortgage on that and it is more than he is paid..
No reasonable person would deny the Prime Minister anything less than a full reward for what is the most punishing and demanding of jobs. But in addition to the government house in which he lives for free, does he really need the taxpayer to help him out on one of the four his family now owns?
Posted by The Englishman at 12:44 AM
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October 22, 2004
Violent society
I gather David Blunkett's recent worries about our degenerate culture stem from his birthday back in June. Someone gave him a cheese grater - he said it was the most violent book he had ever read....
Posted by The Englishman at 5:54 PM
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Market Towns
BBC NEWS | UK | 'Modern trends' put towns at risk
More than 1,000 market towns throughout Britain face an uncertain future due to a shift in modern lifestyles, new research claims.
It found more people were prepared to use out-of-town shops or the internet, leaving local traders out of pocket.
Well it has been going on for a long time - so what do the local council do to encourage people to use the town centre? let us take Devizes as an example which has a large central marketplace were free parking for shopping always has been the norm. So to "make it better for people to use" Kennet council reduces the number of free spaces, suggesting people are happy to walk half a mile down a narrow sloping street to an other car park. And they want to introduce parking charges, not to manage the parking problem or provide revenue to go towards the upkeep of the car park. No "consultants" have shown the way for the Council to make up the "revenue shortfall" is to issue more penalty tickets. Yes penalty tickets, they are introducing a bye-law purely so they can raise money by fining people who break it. And they wonder why people don't go there..
Below is the local rag's story - as they lose it from the web after a week.
A DEVIZES councillor is appealing to colleagues on Kennet District Council to resist pressure to introduce "decriminalised" parking in the district.
Jeff Ody, the member for Devizes South, says that parking attendants will be under pressure to maximise the revenue from fines to cover the enormous cost of introducing the scheme.
Decriminalised parking means that offenders will not be pursued through the magistrates' courts as part of the criminal justice system, but fines will be enforced through the county courts as civil debt. Local councils will hold onto the fines imposed, rather than central government.
But the cost of bringing in the new system would put a financial strain on Kennet District Council. Government grants would be available for some of the 269,000 start up costs but not for the estimated 210,000 running costs in future years.
A report to the county council by consultants RTA Associates, seen by Kennet councillors in May, showed a healthy surplus to Kennet every year, but only if there were 9,830 penalty charge tickets issued. Currently Kennet issues about 4,000 a year.
Coun Ody said: "One of the greatest assets of our towns is the relaxed, friendly and non-confrontational relationship between motorists and parking wardens.
"If we move to decriminalised parking, a high-pressure regime of impersonal penalty enforcement will be introduced, for revenue and commercial reasons, which will destroy the amiable mood which we now enjoy in our streets."
A spokesman said that Wiltshire County Council is hoping to apply for decriminalising parking by the end of the year and to have a scheme in place by 2006. But the county would only proceed if the district councils agreed.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:20 AM
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October 21, 2004
Civilised comment
Civitas has started a blog. The reasoned argument - not a mad rant like me...
Posted by The Englishman at 11:12 AM
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October 19, 2004
BAN IT BAN IT BAN IT
BBC NEWS | Business | Doorstep selling 'must be banned'
Firms should be banned from cold calling door-to-door the Trading Standards Institute (TSI) has said.
Of course most of the cold callers are slime bags and extortionists but the same could be said about politicians - when I built a business by cold calling of course I was different. But it just shows the mindset of our rulers that the knee-jerk reaction is to ban it - a $2.4 billion business at least that has existed since Ugg popped his head into the next door cave and said "I have got this round bit of rock with a hole in it, they are the up and coming thing, would suit sir very nicely as a garden feature".
The civil servants won't be happy until we are all shopping at an old style Gosudarstvennyi Universal'nyi Magazin with our government controlled list of good things and bad things to buy.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:08 AM
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October 17, 2004
Totnes - just say No
Nanny Knows Best informs me that
Totnes rejects Trafalgar bash
A DEVON town has decided not to mark next year's 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar - because it might offend the French.
Totnes councillors feared commemorating Nelson's victory over the French and Spanish could upset their twin town in France.
What is with these Devon towns? - Torbay, Torquay and Paignton have all pissed me off before.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:01 PM
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BBC fight for justice?
The BBC is covering a convention of soapdodgers - The European Social Forum - the link reads
"Fight for justice -
Thousands to protest against racism, war and corporate power".
The piece just reports one of the leaders going on about how wonderful it is "there's already an unmistakable buzz in the city as delegates wearing different-coloured wrist bands wander round the capital poring over their 76-page programme, handing out leaflets and pasting stickers on everything that doesn't move.
Tony Benn was joined on the platform by a German MEP, an Italian peace worker, a Turkish human rights lawyer and an Irish journalist, and to me this summed up the beauty of the ESF: its inclusivity and diversity.
It is everything the establishment is not. At a time when world leaders have been forced to conspire in ever-more isolated spots, the ESF is unashamedly vibrant and on the streets, connecting with people."
Doesn't that make you wish you were there? With not a dissenting note on the BBC obviously no one could have any doubts about how lovely it all is - could they?
And I hope Red Ken is is encouraging the Local authorities to use their powers against the flyposters - 2500 fine per poster, and the use of ASBOs against offenders which then ups the ante if they do it again - after all they use them against companies who flypost.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:53 AM
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Life after subsidies..
BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | New Zealand's hardy farm spirit
Twenty years ago, the New Zealand government announced it was stopping all subsidies for farmers. At the time, those farmers thought the effects would be disastrous, but things panned out rather differently....
Trying telling that to our leaders.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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October 15, 2004
30 pieces of silver
The offer to Brown: you give me the euro and I'll give you Britain
The Times suggests that, despite Mr Blair's assertions that there could be no deal over the premiership, he was ready to give up his job if Mr Brown granted him the chance to confirm Britain's destiny in Europe. The assumption among colleagues was that Mr Blair had promised Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schrder he would try to join the eurozone. The disclosure also indicates that Mr Blair regarded the five tests as something of a sham, and within the Chancellor's power to deliver.
The story is obviously to Brown's credit in that he is claiming he wouldn't sell out Britain for his own personal ambition. And the shocking thing is that it doesn't seem to be big news or unbelievable that Tony would act in such a traitorous way - obviously he wants to be President of Europe more than he cares about Britain.
TONY BLAIR was so anxious to take Britain into the euro that he told Gordon Brown he would stand down during his second term if the Chancellor would pave the way to a referendum.
He suggested to Mr Brown and ministers close to the Chancellor that he would be ready to leave No 10 if Mr Brown concluded that the terms for entry to the euro had been met in the assessment of the five economic tests.
The Times has been told that the idea of a deal was first raised by an emissary from Mr Blair at a meeting with a close Brown confidant as long ago as December 11, 2001, in the hope that it would enable a referendum in the spring of last year.
Former ministers say that it was then discussed by Mr Blair and Mr Brown at a dinner held at Mr Blairs request in Downing Street a week later on December 18, 2001.
Mr Brown rejected the proposal on the ground that such an important decision should not be governed by personal ambitions but by economic factors, informed sources say.
But Mr Blair was still pushing the idea through intermediaries in the autumn of 2002.
According to extracts of her diary disclosed by The Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, Clare Short told Mr Brown in September 2002 that Mr Blair wanted to go into the euro but did not want a third term.
The entry stated: I had discussion with GB and said Iraq would divide Government . . . I told him TB also said we must go into euro before election and still meant what he said on trip to West Africa about not wanting a third term.
She recorded that Mr Brown was doubtful about whether Britain would be ready to sign up. GB said he would think and get back, but on the euro it would take some time to converge the economy.
The diary note was written after a conversation with the Prime Minister. The West Africa trip was undertaken by Mr Blair and Ms Short in early 2002 when the Prime Minister was believed to have told her that he did not want to go on for a third term.
But the disclosure to The Times shows he was talking of an agreement two months earlier, illustrating how ambitious he was to take Britain into the euro and how far he was prepared to go to achieve this goal.
It has been revealed recently that Mr Blair had discussed standing down this year at the Admiralty Arch summit with Mr Brown and John Prescott, which was held last November. He had also discussed preannouncing it with Mr Brown in the spring, before telling Mr Brown only in July that he had decided to stay on because he had been cleared by the Butler report and the Conservatives remained weak.
Since then he has announced that he will stand for a third term but leave before a fourth election. After denying that there had been an agreement at the Admiralty Arch meeting, Blairite sources have since confirmed it, saying that Mr Blair had reneged on the deal because Mr Brown had failed to back him on key issues.
Informed sources say that when Mr Brown was first approached over a political deal on the euro, he told the Prime Minister that the idea should not be countenanced.
He is reported to have said that the euro decision would have to be based on the national interest as determined by the five economic tests for entry and not on either his or Mr Blairs personal hopes. It could not be the subject of political bargaining. But Mr Blair pressed the idea in the early months of 2002 and asked at least two Cabinet ministers to raise it with the Chancellor.
According to insiders involved in the preliminary discussions, the message from No 10 was that the Prime Minister did not intend to go on indefinitely and that he was prepared to go before the next election, provided that the euro terms were met and there was a referendum in the spring of 2003.
Mr Brown was insistent that the euro tests could never be seen to have been a subject for political bargaining.
Further approaches were made to Mr Brown from Mr Blairs supporters, including Cabinet ministers, in 2003 as Mr Brown prepared to make his assessment on euro entry.
The disclosure to The Times suggests that, despite Mr Blairs assertions that there could be no deal over the premiership, he was ready to give up his job if Mr Brown granted him the chance to confirm Britains destiny in Europe. The assumption among colleagues was that Mr Blair had promised Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schrder he would try to join the eurozone. The disclosure also indicates that Mr Blair regarded the five tests as something of a sham, and within the Chancellors power to deliver.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:59 AM
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October 7, 2004
"Get your tanks off our lawn"
Telegraph | News | Get your tanks off our lawn, Oxford chief tells Labour
The Government was told yesterday to "take its tanks off Oxford's lawns" and stop threatening it with financial penalties for failing to admit more pupils from state schools and poorer backgrounds.
Michael Beloff, the president of Trinity College, Oxford, which two years ago rejected an application from Tony Blair's eldest son, Euan, said the university owed its international standing to its insistence that academic merit was the only criterion for admission.
"To alter our standards in pursuit of social or political rather than educational objectives would be a betrayal of what the university is for,"
For once the Old Alma Mater is speaking sense - hat tip to Mr Free Market who insisted on bring his S10 respirator when we stopped for a quick gargle at the local..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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Costs?
BBC NEWS | UK | Fuel protest costs treasury 2bn yearly
The chancellor's decision to cave in to the fuel protest four years ago is costing the government 2 billion a year, according to a Treasury source.
This "costs" as in money the Treasury hasn't mulct from the peasants and has left in their pockets. Outragous really that people are allowed to keep any money to spend according to their own silly whims when the Treasury could spend it all so much better.
Next headline will be:
"The chancellor's decision not to tax the air we breathe is costing the government 20 billion a year, according to a Treasury source."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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September 30, 2004
Arrhythmia
The problems of irregular heart beats remind me of one of my lawyers and his tale of how his heart stopped due to Cocaine use at a party. See they do have hearts! Irregular heart conditions in ex Yuppies is apparently a growing problem due to years of cocaine misuse. I'm glad to say my lawyer made a full recovery and is a good bloke, but it was a near run thing.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:13 PM
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September 28, 2004
Getting to work on Rural transport
The BBC has finally noticed that:"A car in the country is getting to be essential." but goes on to laud various alternatives including my local preposterous Wiggly Bus - (I am invited to the steering committee meetings of the Wiggly Bus. Last time I checked it was running around empty half the time and it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly for the taxpayer to give every passenger a fiver to get a taxi).
They note the Govt has stumped up 50 million to launch a website to help us plan our journey. So always willing I went to it:
I need to pop into work this morning so I said give me the options to get from my house to work, leaving at 7:00 this morning. It came up with four:
Method: Leaving time: arrival time: length of journey:
1. Walk, Bus 07:56 09:00 1 hour, 04 Min's
2. Walk, Bus 09:31 10:18 47 Min's
3. Walk, Bus 13:00 15:22 2 hours, 22 Min's
4. Car 07:00 07:19 19 Min's/6.1 Miles
My only quibble is that it takes about 10 minutes not 19 minutes to drive 6 miles - or even the 5.5 it actually measures the shortest way. - the bus journeys all involve changing buses. I think my case for the car is proven.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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September 27, 2004
Mob rule
BBC NEWS | Politics | Prescott attacks pro-hunt 'mob'
John Prescott has branded pro-hunt protesters a "braying mob" and denied that the countryside is a no-go area for the Labour Party.
In a provocative passage, Mr Prescott talked of the "contorted faces" of protesters outside Parliament.
Ever helpful I bring you a picture of one of these "contorted faces" as Mr Prescott punches a voter during a walk about...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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September 15, 2004
Violence never pays - or does it?
Those very naughty Countryside protesters who are having a bit of a barney in Westminster are being told that being "reasonable" and peaceful is the way to win - what lesson do they take from this little story then?
BELFAST (Reuters) - In 1973, Catholic guerrilla Gerry Kelly was part of a Northern Irish republican bombing team who attacked London's Old Bailey courthouse.
Ten years later, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) hard man led a mass breakout from Northern Ireland's Maze Prison, supposedly one of western Europe's most secure jails.
And if this week's talks on the future of Northern Ireland's stalled local government result in a new deal between rival Protestant and Catholic politicians, he just might become the province's minister for policing.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:21 PM
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Tony pandering to the Greenies
I was struck dumb by the latest stupidity from Tony Blair and his sudden concern for "climate change" (note how they have dropped "global warming") .I was trying to work out what it was all really about, what subtle twists were involved in the policy and how I could write a cutting, insightful and incisive entry on it.. but Kim du Toit put it better first..
Note to Tony Fucking Blair:
Thanks and all for helping us out in Iraq -- but when it comes to environmental policy, stay the fuck away from us.
If only he would get the fuck away from me as well...
Posted by The Englishman at 12:06 AM
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September 14, 2004
BBC poll
Posted by The Englishman at 11:55 PM
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September 10, 2004
The "missing" economy
Because I'm busy setting up our new venture (Simpleesell) I'm taking note of the world of eBay. I came across this interesting snippet:
AP Wire | 09/10/2004 | Cheney: Economic statistics overlook money from eBay trading
Indicators measure the nation's unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay.
"That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago," Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. "Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay."
Which seemed a good point - as so often officialdom lags behind the real world. But what was astounding was the response from the otherside.
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded that Cheney's comments show how "out of touch" he and President Bush are with the economy.
"If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking," Edwards said in a statement.
Sorry - to me that looks like stuffed shirt lawyer Edwards is the one that is out of touch...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:03 AM
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September 9, 2004
"The Phony war is over"
Countryside Alliance Speaks:
We now know that on Wednesday 15th September a hunting Bill will be introduced to the House of Commons.
Whilst we do not yet know precisely what this means, (it follows a "procedural motion"), we have no choice but to proceed on the assumption that the Government has decided to use a Parliamentary device to impose the "Banks Bill" on the House of Lords and our community as a whole.
In so far as this involves the possible use of the 1949 Parliament Act we are ready to challenge the validity of this Act at the appropriate moment. In addition it may also be necessary to challenge the validity of the "Speaker's certificate", (necessary for the Parliament Act to apply) in relation to any attempt to use it.
Details of a large presence in the vicinity of Westminster on the day when this Bill is put before Parliament (Second Reading) will be available shortly....
I'm clearing my diary...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:34 AM
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September 6, 2004
Tony Blair's Desktop
Albino Blacksheep / Flash / Tony Blair's Desktop
Posted by The Englishman at 10:50 AM
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September 3, 2004
Tagging - a Geek review
The house journal of techies turns its attention to Blind Lemon Blunkett's latest hype.
Blunkett's satellite tagging: the tripe behind the hype | The Register
Today's announcement of the Home Office's satellite tracking pilot is a classic of its genre. As is the case with so many Blair government initiatives the earth was noisily promised in the run-up, and continued to be promised by government spokesmen this morning, but the pilot itself is so spectacularly modest, so largely low-tech, that it will provide little or no useful information about the viability of the "prison without bars" that David Blunkett will continue to dangle before our eyes through the upcoming election campaign.
Worth reading to get to the truth...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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September 2, 2004
Filthy NHS hospitals part 887
Kim du Toit has commented better than I can on the stunning plan the NHS has to cut infections - wash their hands!.
For more details see: BBC NEWS | Health | Bedside gels 'to fight superbugs' and note they suggest it will take six months to organise. If a private company said "we know how to prevent hundreds of deaths in our factories but we have to order some wipes and it will take six months they would be up for Corporate Manslaughter quicker than Blunkett can unzip his fly. Can I suggest they try Stock # Q29-612626 from http://www.viking-direct.co.uk who promise sameday delivery.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:06 AM
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Dodge Reports
Dodgeblogium brings to us "A report in the Scotsman reveals that the deceitful bunch of Civil Servants who infest the MoD and their idiot Secretary of State for Defence are deceiving Parliament and the Nation. The Commanding Officers in Iraq have been trying to get extra troops to assist in the policing exercise in Southern Iraq, but the MoD has refused - because it would expose the fact that the latest Defence Review reductions will reduce those services below minimum operational requirements!
To make matters worse, the Senior Officers involved have been warned that their careers are on the line if they dare to speak out! The solution in Iraq is simple, according to the cretins in Whitehall - abandon the patrols and let the insurgents have control of the streets. No extra troops - no patrols, means no reported incidents involving the troops, means we can keep covering up the deceit of our we can manage with fewer troops charade.
The Scotsman's Key points
MoD refuses reinforcements because of fears it will undermine case for cuts
British forces reduce Basra patrols because of lack of manpower
Iraqis in charge of security but UK forces expected to stay for some time
Key quote
"We cant do anything without proper security and you cant have that unless the proper number of troops are deployed" - Brigadier Alan Alstead
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
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August 31, 2004
Big Gov only loves Big Co
INDIVIDUALS who try to flee the stress of urban life by "downshifting" and moving to the countryside could be the next target for the taxman.
The Government is drawing up plans to increase national insurance bills for people who leave employment to run small "lifestyle" businesses, The Times has learnt.
People who want to risk their own money, work all the hours they can, be in control of their own destiny are going to made out to be leeches on society. We don't fit with corporate nu-labour Britain. Bastards.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:40 PM
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August 27, 2004
CCTV
BBC NEWS Shopowner angry over 'let offs'
A shop owner has criticised the law after claiming he caught 300 thieves - but saw only nine convicted.
Steve Lord, owner of Hill Shop and Videos in Stroud, fitted 12 CCTV cameras after losing 30,000 of goods.
Despite giving police pictures of shoplifters, Mr Lord says the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is reluctant to pursue cases.
A CPS spokeswoman said she could not comment on individual cases but added: "Where there is evidence we prosecute."
Mr Lord said: "Unfortunately the CPS deem it, in many cases, to not be in the public interest to prosecute these people."
I rang my local Crime Reduction Offier yesterday (didn't they used to be Crime Prevention? have they given up?) about the new venture and putting CCTV in to the public area to catch any scrotes who want to disprupt my persuit of profit. I got no encouragement or advice on crime prevention, all I got was alecture on the Data Protection act and how I must keep back up copies of films, put notices up etc or I would be breaking the law. And that sort of lawbreaking is much easier to investigate than stopping spotty youths in Burberry hats who have no sense of meum and teum.
And no wonder we have a government which has promoted "The philosophical assimilation of meum and teum,..(which).., must of necessity be followed by their practical confusion, resulting in the sanction of theft, robbery, &c".
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
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August 25, 2004
Why Tony will love Kerry
Let us remember it isn't just Kerry who has memory problems:
Scotsman.com - Swallowing Tony and Co's blatant deceptions
The man who currently (but for how much longer?) controls the destiny of the United Kingdom is a stranger to truth. He always has been. It began with silly, pointless attempts to dramatise himself, of which the most notorious was his claim, in a wireless interview in 1997, to have watched his "teenage hero", Newcastle United football player Jackie Milburn, from a seat behind the goal at St James's Park. As football fans pointed out, Milburn left Newcastle when Blair was four years old and there were no seats behind the goals until the 1990s.
Then there was his confession - to Des O'Connor, who else? - of how he stowed away on an aircraft bound for the Bahamas, at Newcastle airport, when he was 14. No flight from Newcastle has ever gone to the Bahamas: in Blair's youth, the Isle of Man was as long-haul as it got. Blair is the most severe case of Mnchhausen's Syndrome Without Proxy. The Scouse Spouse has also been infected by the fantasy virus. Without a trace of shame, Cherie chose a function run in aid of Centrepoint, a charity for the homeless, to relate how her husband had slept rough at Euston Station (actually for one night, during his gap" year between Fettes and Oxford).
In Number 10, truth is not an objective fact, but a subjective spin, defined by what is helpful to the Leaders aspirations or prejudices ...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:07 PM
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August 24, 2004
Robber Brown
It struck me that Inheritance tax is not a tax on the rich, it is a tax on the senile.
Inheritance Tax Planning is a whole industry and "the rich" ensure that they use it. From personal observation the people who get caught out in leaving the Chancellor great chunks of money tend to be little old ladies who are no longer the sharpest knife in the drawer. They don't realise they could do something about it, they aren't worried about talking about death, quite pragmatic about it, but they are lost in the world of tax. This maybe for many reasons but senility - Alzheimer's etc has something to do with it.
Here's a suggestion for the Tories: campaign to "Stop taxing sick old people" - if you can't bring yourself to campaign to scrap inheritance tax, campaign to bring in a clause that allows executors to apply retrospective Inheritance Tax Planning on any estate where the deceased suffered mental frailty in the year before death.
i.e. When Aunt Maud, who was as nutty as a Fruit Cake dies, you as executor can go the tax office and say. "Old Maudie wasn't well enough to make proper arrangements and so it is unfair you take her money. She would have given all her grandchildren "x" pounds tax free, done "this" with the family house and "that" with her shares. Consider this is what she did do and now let us see what tax is due."
Posted by The Englishman at 7:29 AM
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August 22, 2004
It's for the Kiddies (tm)
BBC NEWS | UK | 'Tax super-rich at 50%' proposal
The super-rich should be hit with a 50% inheritance tax to allow cuts for the middle classes, a think tank has said.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said the chancellor could raise 147m a year and cut death duty for up to 90% of people.
It said estates of more than 808,000 could be taxed under a banded system.
The left of centre organisation said Gordon Brown should use the extra cash to help Britain's poorest youngsters through the Child Trust Fund.
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store Government
Where do you start on prats like this? How can you reason with a mindset that believes it is the Governments job to provide for the "kiddies" rather than the parents job?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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August 18, 2004
Dr Big Brother may see you now.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | NHS patients will need three cards
NHS patients will need three separate identity cards to demonstrate their entitlement to free care and navigate the health service, according to plans by the Department of Health published yesterday. (more see below)
Is it me or are they mad, bad and dangerous to know? What is going on? If you are going to set up a national ID card system at least make it efficient. Not "It emerged yesterday that officials preparing the smartcard had been unaware of the UK's obligation to issue the European health insurance card by December 2005. "
I think the only card that will work for proper health care is going to be an American Express one.
The proposals include a European health insurance card to replace the E111 form, which entitles UK residents to free or reduced-cost emergency treatment when travelling in Europe.
A spokesman said this would be in addition to the NHS smartcard that is being developed to allow patients to book hospital appointments and access their personal "health space" on the internet. The space will store information about treatment preferences, next of kin and personal health records.
The department is also keen to get patients to use a third piece of plastic - the national identity card being proposed by the home secretary, David Blunkett - as proof of entitlement to NHS services. Patients may not be able to register with a GP or get non-emergency treatment without it.
It emerged yesterday that officials preparing the smartcard had been unaware of the UK's obligation to issue the European health insurance card by December 2005.
Already 13 European countries have issued these cards, showing name, date of birth and identity number. Under EU law, they will hold no medical data and cannot be adapted to become NHS smartcards.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:40 AM
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August 16, 2004
Big Brother cometh
Worries about "Big Brother" government is usually seen as an obsession of the paranoid and geeks -so it is interesting to see today's main headline on The Times - Newspaper Edition
Beware rise of Big Brother state, warns data watchdog
BRITAIN'S information watchdog gives warning today that the country risks "sleepwalking into a surveillance society" because of government plans for identity cards and a population register.
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, says that there is a growing danger of East German Stasi-style snooping if the State gathers too much information about individual citizens.
He singles out three projects that he believes are of particular concern. They are David Blunkett's identity card scheme; a separate population register planned by the Office for National Statistics; and proposals for a database of every child from birth to the age of 18.
- As I publish that under related news this comes up..
Woman named in Blunkett 'affair'
The woman alleged to be having an affair with the Home Secretary has been named in The Sun newspaper as Kimberly Fortier, the publisher of The Spectator magazine. Mr Blunkett has refused to discuss the claims, insisting that his private life has no bearing on the way he carries out his duties. American-born Ms Fortier, who is in her early forties, is married to Stephen Quinn, who is also in magazine publishing. Ms Fortier has one child.
Oh, so he is now a fan of privacy is he....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:38 AM
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August 11, 2004
"Normal Response"
BBC NEWS | England | Lincolnshire | Murder victims reported prowler
A couple shot dead in their seaside bungalow had called police to report a prowler just hours before their bodies were found, detectives have revealed.
A police spokesman said: "Mrs Stirland spoke to an officer in Nottinghamshire just before 2pm on Sunday, saying that her neighbour had seen a man hanging around the house the previous evening.
"..she emphasised that she ... asked for a normal response to a prowler incident.
And what exactly is the "normal response" if it can't prevent the elderly couple getting blasted to death? Probably some junior plod cruising past when he can be bothered, but don't try and defend yourself, Plod is here to do that, or at least having a cup of tea and Jammy Dodger as he fills in yet another form fifteen miles away in the nearest open Police Station Canteen.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:32 PM
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Tory Twat
Peter Ainsworth MP - I heard him saying it is the government's job to increase petrol taxes to make us all good boys and stop driving and fulfill kyoto and save the whale and and and
What is the f***ing point of having an opposition party if they consist of Tony Clones and Gullible Greens who buy everything the bogusmongers sell?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:26 PM
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August 8, 2004
Get orf moi land..
You may have caiught the story
"A 73-year-old farmer has been arrested after allegedly using a shotgun to shoot a burglar who was caught on his property.
The man called police after seeing a suspected thief on his farm in Ockbrook, near Derby, at around 6am.
The suspected burglar fled the farm but was later discovered nearby with a minor wound in his leg caused by shotgun pellets.
I think The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler covers it well enough..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:36 AM
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August 6, 2004
Some more equal than others
BBC NEWS | England | Bristol | 'No whites' ad may be unlawful
A job advertisement by an art centre -
"The post is only open to African, Asian and Caribbean curators based in England." -
which excluded white candidates could be unlawful, it has been claimed.
A Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) inquiry found the advert for a curator's assistant at the Arnolfini in Bristol may break race relation laws.
Notice the weasel words and excuses in the whole post, and this is after they held an inquiry to consider it.. How long do you think it would take them to quite rightly condemn an advert that said "The post is only open to Anglo-saxon, Celtic and Norman curators based in England."?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM
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August 5, 2004
Sick man of Britain
Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Executive fails to show NHS billions boost patient care
THE Scottish Executive has failed to demonstrate how billions of pounds of extra investment in the NHS has benefited patient care, according to a highly critical report published today by Scotland's financial watchdog....
Tony Blair is determined to reform the NHS in England, using the private sector where necessary, giving patients more choice and tailoring individual services to the needs of local communities.
However, in Scotland, Mr McConnell has taken a different approach, typified by his refusal to embrace foundation hospitals and privately run specialist clinics, which feature strongly in Mr Blairs plans.
As a result, waiting lists are falling fast in England, where the new target for a hospital operation will be 18 weeks, whereas waiting times are 40 per cent up in Scotland, where the maximum hospital wait is one year and three months.
It goes on, more money in, less patient care out because it is "a centralised and nationalised NHS responding to ministerial targets rather than clinical care". And here is the Scottish Minister's response:
"We have made it clear to the NHS Information and Statistics Division that they must further improve coverage and quality of management information, .."
Just what they bloody need, more management consultants going round with clipboards, still the BMA recognises the problem: "We would welcome detailed plans of long-term investment in measures to protect and improve public health, such as legislating for smoke-free public places, improving access to healthy food and reducing consumption of alcohol, particularly among young Scots."
How about stop blaming the patients and start running the NHS for them rather than the staff?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
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August 3, 2004
God save her
From Conservative Commentary - www.truthunvarnished.com via Dumb Jon:
The British monarchy is perhaps the ultimate demonstration of the superiority of the traditional and experience over the reasoned and the planned. As Sean Gabb says, no one could have set out and designed the monarchy as it now exists, yet in its various unplanned and evolving forms, it has secured stability and liberty longer than any of the republics that were produced by the blueprints of history's many revolutionaries and philosopher-kings. It is a sign of the monarchy's strength that the man in the street takes it for granted that this country has a Queen, and we should not idly wish away this advantage. But certainly it is wise for intellectuals and politicos who are wary of staking the fate of the country on the insight and good sense of men like themselves to step back occasionally and reflect, as Sean Gabb does, on just how lucky we are to have the system we do.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:02 PM
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"The Law is an Ass"
Telegraph | News | 'Gipsies' can stay despite breaking planning law
Travellers who moved into a Wiltshire hamlet last August were told by a judge yesterday they could stay for the time being, despite a "flagrant breach" of planning control.
The 56 itinerants, who say they are traditional Romany gipsies, bought a three-acre field in Minety, Wilts. Without planning permission, they dug trenches and used a bulldozer to install electricity cables and water pipes and to rip out hedges.
Villagers claim that house prices have fallen by up to 40 per cent, and the council applied for a High Court injunction to evict the gipsies.
Yesterday, at a hearing at the High Court in Bristol, Judge John Weeks, QC, said the gipsies could remain at least until after a public inquiry next February.
The judge, who was told that many of the travellers suffered health and educational problems, said: "There is clearly a strong public interest in upholding planning laws and there has been a flagrant and deliberate breach of planning control.
"However, the immediate hardship and suffering which will be felt from the order sought is sufficient to outweigh the public interest in enforcing it."
Speaking after the ruling, Doreen Darby, who sits on North Wiltshire district council's planning committee said: "The law is an ass and it is braying rather loudly."
And then there is the appeal on the planning enquiry etc. They won't be moved for years...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:04 AM
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Country boys showing the townies how to do it
Gunmen Seized By Wiltshire Police On Visit To Capital (from Streatham Guardian)
Police officers from Wiltshire caught a gunman in West Norwood while visiting London last week.
The five officers were in the capital carrying out investigations in an unrelated case.
They were in Knight's Hill when they saw two men fighting at a bus stop. One of the men produced a gun and fired a number of shots, hitting the bus stop and striking one of the men twice in the leg.
The Wiltshire officers sprang into action and arrested both men in connection with firearms offences.
I'm sure the Met Police would have got there eventually after they had filled out the forms to ensure they weren't being discriminatory in arresting these two gentlemen. Of course in Texas the outcome of two Goblins being lead away for a slap on the wrist might have been different...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:57 AM
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Rus et urbes
BBC NEWS | UK | Rural council tax levels 'unfair'
Rural dwellers in England are increasingly paying more council tax than city residents, but receiving fewer services...
I'm glad someone has noticed, because the revolting peasants have.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:49 AM
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July 30, 2004
News to us
Guardian | London 2012: International Olympic Committee still open to bribes, says BBC
Also: Bears make alfresco toilet arrangements in arboreal areas, Pope is not a Lutherean and Dolly Parton tends to sleep on her back....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:05 PM
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A little German Joke
London Underground Map translated into German | Londoner U-Bahn-Plan ins Deutsche bersetzt
Morgentonnencriossant! You vill laugh, nein?
Posted by The Englishman at 4:05 PM
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Where is a Daisycutter when you need one
As Plastic Gangster says:
And they say you only ever see bad news these days...
Joe Cahill is dead. At the ripe old age of 84. One can't help but feel that his being found face down in a ditch with a bullet in his head and his arse on fire, preferably a few decades ago, would have been a more satisfactory passing, but hey, dead's dead.
Other media has been kinder to him and the thousands that turned up for the funeral. Even the Irish media is less fawning than the BBC, for instance; Corks 96fm
A former Irish Prime Minister provoked outrage tonight after he lavished praise on the man who helped direct the IRA's 30 year campaign of bloodshed in Britain and Ireland.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:32 AM
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A monopoly threaten..
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
TEACHERS called for tighter controls on home education yesterday with figures showing that parents were increasingly rejecting formal schooling and teaching children themselves.
Up to 170,000 children are being taught by their parents in England and Wales. While it is "in the main very successful", some children are being denied a proper schooling and are in danger of being exploited,...
Can't let parents decide what is best for their kids, it might show up the professionals!
And remembering a proportion of home schoolers have various problems they don't seem to be doing bad a job of it..
In 2002 Dr Rothermel interviewed more than 100 families and found that 64 per cent of the home-educated four to five-year-olds scored more than 75 per cent in tests known as PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1 per cent of children nationally. Among those aged seven, 80.4 per cent of home-educated children scored within the top 16 per cent band.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:11 AM
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July 29, 2004
BBC hot air
The BBC is busy pushing some programs about Climate change and polluting their news site with cod stories about it, including the results of a survey..BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Britons unsure of climate costs
Yet despite the levels of knowledge and concern that the questioning revealed, 43% of respondents said they expected climate change to have not very much effect on them personally, with 9% saying it would have no effect at all.
Perhaps this goes some way to explain the frustration of those convinced that climate change is a huge threat.
Until we believe it will make a difference to us and to our children, we are unlikely to take it seriously enough to do anything very much about it.
On this showing, more than half of us still expect it will leave us largely unscathed. So it remains a problem for someone else to worry about.
With any luck the sun will be shining and I can sit out on the terrace at my tropical hardwood table drinking something long and cold with out having to worry about what is the television, though if it chilly I might have to get a "Patio" heater. That is the way to deal with climate change.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:53 AM
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July 27, 2004
Filthy NHS hospitals
I notice the MRSA epidemic, 5000 deaths pa (minimum) is now the fault of the patients for bringing too much stuff in and wanting their dirty relatives to visit at all hours.
Nothing to to do with not one of the legions of management that infest the NHS actually having the balls to insist the places are kept clean..
The Adam Smith Institute Blog
puts a different spin on it.
MRSA is entirely a disease of our state health system. Compare BMI Healthcare: it runs 47 private hospitals, treating a million patients a year. How many of them have left with MRSA in the blood? None. Ever.
I would be interested in knowing how many cases of MRSA occur in Forces hospitals - I would bet not many!
Posted by The Englishman at 11:00 AM
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July 26, 2004
Revolting
Recently there has been an increase in "travellers" causing problems in rural britain - to find out more go to Middle England in Revolt
Well, Cottenham is where Middle England has drawn a line in the sand - and we are inviting other communities to join us in a mass revolt against the blind, deaf and dumb bureaucracy of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
On interesting snippet unconnected with travellers but symptomatic of Nu-britain is this..
A police officer told a packed meeting of Cottenham residents that several hundred traveller-related calls, with incident numbers, had been made to the Police between February and November 2003. Almost none were investigated and therefore did not appear on the Home Office crime statistics.
We are told that Home Office crime statistics only record crimes with a crime number and the only way to get a crime with a crime number, is for the Police to investigate an incident with an incident number. In other words beware of Police Forces massaging rural crime figures to make themselves look good with the Home Office!
Posted by The Englishman at 1:16 PM
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July 24, 2004
WTF from?
BBC NEWS | UK | UK troops 'ready to go to Sudan'
The UK would be able to send 5,000 troops to Sudan to help ease the humanitarian crisis, the Army's most senior general has said.
Chief of General Staff Sir Mike Jackson told the BBC's HARDtalk programme: "I suspect we could put a brigade together very quickly indeed."
Whilst I think we should pick up "The White Man's Burden" in Sudan I can't believe the sheer nerve of suggesting we can find a spare brigade to do it just like that the day after Tony has decreed we massacre the forces - see this for details,
Posted by The Englishman at 12:17 AM
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July 20, 2004
When the SHTF
According to the Telegraph
Every home should store emergency supplies, including tinned food, bottled water and medication, in case of a terrorist attack, Hazel Blears, the minister for counter-terrorism says today.
In an interview with The Telegraph, she says the Government plans to issue guidance on what to do if al-Qa'eda attacks.
No news if she thinks it is sensible for every househlod to have a little something to ensure survival - silly me, personal responsibility only goes so far, tinned beans and aspirin fine, big bad firearms no.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:39 PM
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July 19, 2004
Ooty Hunt News
With Tony "a pox on him" Blair likely to play the Ban Hunting card to try and rally traditional Labour supporters this autumn it is worth remebering it isn't only call centre jobs we can outsource to the Subcontinent -
Telegraph | News | Opening meet finds India's only hunt in the pink
"The hunt was formed by the 74th Highland Regiment in 1835 to chase sambur deer, bison, wild boar and the odd tiger. It has hunted every year since, with only a brief pause for the Indian Mutiny of 1857."
Posted by The Englishman at 8:27 AM
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July 17, 2004
Mr Brown he came to town..
The Spectator(free registration required)has an article by Simon Heffer on Mr Browns call to patriotism in the name of Britain...
The English may not be very sophisticated, but they are now well aware of several key facts in their political life. First, they were not asked whether they would like their own parliament, in which English representatives dealt with solely English issues, in the way that the Scots (and, to a lesser extent, the Welsh) were. Second, they were not asked whether they minded continuing to subsidise the Scots to the tune of around 9 billion a year. Third, they are beginning to realise that the regional assemblies some of them are being offered as a means of "devolution" are fraudulent in their conception, since they will have few powers other than to act as a talking shop. Fourth, they are aware that the job opportunities available to Scots in England " such as a significant proportion of government posts and prominent positions in the media " are not available to the English who choose to go to Scotland. It is vital to Labour's continuance in power that the English are conned, by arguments such as Mr Brown's, into believing that they are still first and foremost British.
Refuge of a scoundrel etc. it doesn't wash. It is part of the great EU con that we are a community of regions, so Wales and Scotland get their recognition but England is too dangerous a concept, we have to broken down into regions. I'm glad the concept of England as a nation frightens the usual suspects, it is going to get rougher from here on in.
(Oh and one of the things I love about England is its ability to absorb, prosper and be enriched with new immigrants unlike the knuckle dragging Celtic fringes of these Islands.)
Posted by The Englishman at 12:35 AM
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July 14, 2004
ID Card trial
On Dec 9 2003 I sent Melanie Briere an email volunteering to take part in the trial - I got a reply today ! Reproduced below and for some reason they address it to "Sue". I had already made my own arrangements to go to Blind Lemon Blunkett's trial scanning tomorrow...
Full text below.
I will report back on my fingerprinting as and when, I'm off to Free Market Penthouse Offices for a quick snifter after the ordeal so may not blog straight away.
Atos Origin
Rail House
Crewe
Cheshire
CW1 3NU
14 July 2004
Dear Sue,
Thank you for expressing an interest in participating in the UK Passport
Service biometrics enrolment trial. The UK Passport Service (UKPS), with its
partners Atos Origin and MORI, are conducting a comprehensive survey to test
the process that may be used when recording biometrics as part of the
procedure of issuing a passport. The trial will simulate the enrolment and
verification of facial, iris and fingerprint biometrics.
There has been a very high level of interest in the trial from people
throughout Great Britain, and the trial has now commenced in four locations,
London, Leicester, Newcastle and Glasgow. In addition, a mobile unit will be
visiting these following locations; Peterborough, Sheffield, Middlesborough,
Macclesfield, Birmingham, Swansea, Taunton, Torquay and Belfast. In order to
ensure your participation at one of the fixed or mobile sites we have set up
a manned hotline number (below), which we ask you to call to make an
appointment for you to take part in the trial.
HOTLINE NUMBER FOR APPOINTMENTS 0161 601 8088
As a result of taking part in the biometrics enrolment trial you will NOT
receive a valid form of identification. You will receive a sample biometric
smartcard specific to you but this can not be used to replace your current
passport or as proof of your identity. Once the trials have been completed,
all of the biometric and personal data collected will be destroyed.
Thank you again for expressing an interest in this exciting and important
project. We look forward to making contact soon.
Yours sincerely,
Atos Origin Project Team
Posted by The Englishman at 2:22 PM
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BBC reports good news from Iraq
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Rebuilding Iraq, brick by brick
"We've built up a great rapport with the instructors and all the recruits and I think it's been a real success.
"I didn't ever imagine when I joined the Army 13 years ago that I would be building a training school then watching recruits we'd helped train graduating from it. It's brilliant to see such tangible results from our time here in Iraq."
Posted by The Englishman at 11:41 AM
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July 13, 2004
Chavs at play
Chavs like to show off - if you have broadband these clips have a certain cruel humour to them:
http://www.tacky.se/bilder/14879.mov
Now that hurts...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:28 PM
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The Big Tory Question
EU Referendum asks it:
"What makes Mr Howard think that people will vote Conservative if there is no clear message on Britain's relationship with the European Union, that is, in effect, this country's constitutional future and if Prime Minister Howard will, just like Prime Minister Blair, send British troops all over the world, without allocating proper sums for recruitment, training and equipment?"
Posted by The Englishman at 9:21 AM
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July 11, 2004
Happy Holiday ( to some of our readers).
On the Twelfth of July, the Protestant community celebrates the momentous events towards the end of the seventeenth century, often referred to as the Glorious Revolution. This Revolution laid the foundations of our constitutional monarchy and our parliamentary democracy. It is a thanksgiving for the triumph of civil and religious liberty for all.
(For the fire lovers amonst us hundreds of bonfires are lit across Ulster usually at around midnight on the 11th .)
No date in Irish history is better known than 1690. No Irish battle is more famous than William III's victory over James II at the River Boyne,The battle was fought on 1 July 1690 at a fordable river bend four miles west of Drogheda. The Battle of the Boyne is rememebered each July in the celebrations of the Orange Order and Protestant ares of Northern Ireland, not on the first day but on "the Twelfth", for eleven days were lost with the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:28 PM
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Update on RSPCA rights
On 7 June 2004 the RSPCA signed a written agreement with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to allow them to perform the functions of an approved prosecutor under the Protection of Animals (amendment) Act 2000. This agreement will come into effect on 1 September 2004. The area of jurisdiction applies to England only. The final model written agreement can be found on the DEFRA website at:
Defra - Farmed Animal Welfare: On-Farm together with the updated guidance notes.
Now that is an interesting and worrying idea, a charity being empowered to order investigations, issue entry warrents (I believe) and run prosecutions. DEFRA point out that other bodies can apply to be "Approved Prosecuters" as well so we could have a whole host of them running about...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:14 PM
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Unborn rights
More from Times Online - Newspaper Edition about the new proposed animal welfare laws.
Anyone owning a pet, farm or exotic animal will have a statutory "duty of care" towards it and could face having it taken away and being banned from looking after another. Unborn animals will receive the same protection.
So no abortions for our furry friends then. Is it me or is there something wrong with this picture?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:42 AM
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RSPCA Gestapo
From Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Kill a snail and go to jail?
By Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor
PEOPLE who mistreat animals will face fines of up to 20,000 and year-long prison sentences under welfare laws to be announced next week.
I have no problem with that, real cruelty should be reponded to in kind.
RSPCA inspectors will be given powers to enter premises without a warrant, even by using force, to rescue animals believed to be suffering or at risk of harm.
Sorry? the RSPCA is a becoming a radical campaigning charity, what next? War-on-Want having the right to raid my wardrobe to get jumpers for cold Sudanese babies?
Remember some of the RSPCA is not just against hunting, they embrace all the wackier animal right mantras - do you want them to have the right to storm your house to free your goldfish?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:38 AM
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July 9, 2004
Another for the Earl.
The EU Referendum Blog brings "The Budapest Declaration" to my attention - well I think my fax to my MP explains it all. I use FaxYourMP.com
To:
Rt Hon Michael Ancram QC
MP for Devizes
House Of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Friday 9 July 2004
Dear Rt Hon Michael Ancram QC,
I gather delegates of the EPP-ED European Parliamentary Group to which the Conservative MEPs are affiliated have adopted 'The Budapest Declaration'.
I was wondering if you agree with these statements from the declaration: 'Our Group reaffirms its commitment to the European model of social market economy' and 'the EU should become an ever more coherent, united entity ' and 'The new Constitution, .., must first be ratified and then implemented.'
Your reply will most interesting.
Yours as ever.
PS - I sent a fax about four weeks ago enquiring about who Flying Lion Ltd were, I never got a reply so I wondered if you received it?
Posted by The Englishman at 11:28 AM
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July 8, 2004
It is worse than I imagined..
The Gray Monk points out:
Figures released yesterday show that the Ministry of Defence employs 102,000 soldiers, and 102,600 civil servants. Guess where the cuts are proposed to fall? Right, it isn't among the papershuffler Brigade.
The Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue now employ between them more Tax Collectors than the total manpower in the Navy and the Airforce, yet the Civil Service is growing at a rate of 511 new civil servants per week! This is an increase on last year's 444 new civil servants a week which saw the "service" grow to 5.6 million. Other statistics on this are equally frightening - the Health Service appoints three new managers for each new nurse OR doctor appointed.
Unfubeckinglievable, one day the ballon of theis growth must pop, mustn't it?
Posted by The Englishman at 3:00 PM
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Tagged, Branded etc.
Having had no luck on getting onto the ID card trial through my original attempt on Mr Free Market's advice I rang 0161 601 8088 and got an appointment for my Biometric scanning on Friday 15th 9:45 am - very strange conversation, I gave him my name and the only question they asked was did I have a nickname? (He didn't think I was Mr Free Market did he?) No other details were asked for. So off to London for a Friday out, wonder if I can find a pint anywhere?
Posted by The Englishman at 2:51 PM
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July 7, 2004
Your Britain
Inspired by Blognor Regis and his use of old posters I thought I would dig out a digital version of the one that is on the wall behind me in the office:
Bigger please!Nuff said I think.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:24 PM
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Local Councillors
This is Bath is starting to be critical over the Bath Spa project - "Costs of the project were originally estimated at 13m..
The latest reports say that it is impossible to put a final figure on the project, but a worst-case scenario, with legal wrangles over the peeling paint crisis taken into account, would be in excess of 35m."
As someone said:
"These people are incompetent. They could not manage their way out of a paper bag."
And there is more - Consider the other Mowlem built Millennium Project - The Plymouth Portsmouth Spinnaker:
"We are close to 11m over budget. It is a complete disaster.
"There are major problems with it. It is half finished. We don't even have a date so far when it will be finished. There are problems now with the concrete and with steel things.
"The integrity of the thing is now in doubt. Who goes up towers if they think they're not going to stand up?"
Posted by The Englishman at 2:43 PM
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July 5, 2004
Also 50 today
BBC ON THIS DAY | 5 | 1954: BBC launches daily TV news
1954: BBC launches daily TV news
The BBC has broadcast its first daily television news programme.
The 20-minute bulletin was read by Richard Baker and was introduced as an "Illustrated summary of the news... Followed by the latest film of events and happenings at home and abroad."
Annoying, biased etc. but still the first choice for television news in the UK.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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July 4, 2004
The Sound of Freedom
click to enlarge
Off to the local Fair today. This isn't one of your cuddly correct council organised ones, no this one was started up by a couple of local farmers and they still run it how they want to, so lots of steam engines, tractor pulling, vintage machinery working, tacky rides, military equipment displays etc. Real rural England. The picture is of a couple of blokes who dug up a crashed wartime plane and decided to restore the Merlin engines. Now they have them on a couple of trailers and they brought them from the North of England to show them. And they work - you can see they are leaning against the wind, and they were only warming up at this point - soon it was full throttle and my three year old girl enjoyed it as much as the rest of the crowd.
(Health and Safety note - the young guy did put ear defenders on eventually.)
Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 PM
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June 29, 2004
Abortion debate
Your humble correspondent is a shy retiring soul and certainly not brave enough to start an abortion debate. In the UK we don't have one, apart from a few nutty Catholics none raises their head over the parapet to suggest that a "woman's right to choose right up to viability" isn't sacrosanct. So when yesterday the BBC published some beautiful photos of young fetuses doing baby like things (just go and see them) I wondered if it would start a debate up.
I noticed the Daily Mail has taken it up and so has the midday talk show on Radio 2. I dipped into the Radio link to get the photo link above and came across the BBC - Radio 2 - Message Boards
And you couldn't make it up - the discussion straight away is diverted into how evil the Yanks and non-Greens are rather than any querying of the actual practice of abortion;
"Which is where the Americans come in with their foreign policy of "retroactive birth control" to reduce the population and make sure there are plenty of resources available for themselves"
..The US is one of the biggest consumors of natural resources in the world, and we're not far behind. We and they also have some of the lowest birth rates. Compare numerous third-world countries where the average person consumes less than 1 % of the energy used by you or I in a lifetime. ...
Well there would be fewer consumers, for a start. We need to get a grip on wasteful packaging and recycling - nobody in government seems to care or be making any push to get us to think about the impact we're having.
The only bit I heard on the radio was a suggestion that the publication of these photos was unhelpful and hurtful to all the women who had had abortions, and that it was only men who didn't get left holding the baby who were against a woman's "right" to choose...
What is about these people who care more about Iraqi prisoners than they do about a holocaust of unborn babies in the UK -
"In 1968 there was a total of 23,641 abortions performed in England and Wales. By 1978 this had increased to 141,558 and in 1988 to 183,798. A peak of 187,402 abortions was reached in 1998. In 2000, the most recent year for available figures, the number of abortions was 185,375. Over 5 million abortions have been performed in England and Wales in the thirty or so years since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed."
Posted by The Englishman at 2:42 PM
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June 25, 2004
I think this refers to the football
Posted by The Englishman at 12:27 PM
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June 24, 2004
12 Good Men and True
BBC NEWS | England | Berkshire | Man acquitted of harpoon attack
A man accused of firing a harpoon into a teenager's face has been cleared of all charges against him after a jury accepted he acted in self-defence
The court was told how Mr Kirk opened the door of the flat to Hawkins, his half-brother Barry Lovegrove and his sister's boyfriend, Derek Watkins.
The trio punched and kicked him and stabbed him close to the heart.
He retreated inside and brought out the harpoon to frighten the gang.
The jury at Reading Crown Court decided that the gun had been fired by Mr Kirk accidentally during the fight.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:11 PM
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You couldn't make it up.
Pasted from The Cabarfeidh Pages (Highland Warriors)
The political wing of the IRA has issued a warning to the public about the danger of transporting explosives. Republican Sinn Fein are worried about the dangers of transporting explosives in Kerry and surrounding counties for construction purposes.
"There is a danger associated with moving explosives through a city and indeed through towns and villages," said Sean O'Neill, community affairs spokesman for the party.
I'd listen. The man knows whereof he speaks.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:00 PM
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June 23, 2004
Crop Circles
Driving back from a pub last night I spotted my first corn circle of the year. See the Circlemakers site for details of "This impressive six-fold formation is a close cousin to the monster 700ft formation that appeared at Stone Henge back in 2002. Located near the famed Barge Inn at Honey Street and discovered on the 16th June in wheat." (The Barge Inn is less than two miles from the Castle) and then I discover that Mr. Free Market has been going to The Barge Inn recently, hum.
UPDATE MR FM claims it wasn't him that went to The Barge Inn, but I think MRDA (Mandy Rice-Davis Applies) "He would say that wouldn't he"...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:10 AM
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June 21, 2004
Concrete them over - part two
Some time I was getting into arguments that my belief was that the best thing we could do with the rail system in the UK was to turn them into expressways for coaches etc. Unfortunately I didn't have the facts to hand ( which doesn't always stop me) Thanks to the excellent IEA dead tree journal and an article in it I now have the facts.
From Transwatch UK - Road/rail comparisons across the uk
Very much against public and political sentiment roads managed to avoid congestion would offer 3 to 4 times the capacity to move freight and people at one quarter the cost of rail while using 30% to 40% less energy and reducing casualty costs suffered by rail passengers by a factor of 2.
The problem with the proposition is that (a) it is so very much against expectation (b) the numbers are so overwhelming as to inspire disbelief rather than belief (c) few people have ever seen a motor road managed to avoid congestion - the UK road network is (with the exception of motorways and some modern single carriageways) a collection of access roads never designed for motor traffic (d) rail is so romantic.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:56 AM
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June 16, 2004
Apple Pie Order
A story that was passed to me,- knowing schools I believe it:
A friend's son who shows promise in the kitchen announced that at his next cookery lesson he was to make an apple pie. (I say 'cookery lesson' but there is a properly obscure title for the course which seems to combine cooking with metalwork and carpentry aiui.)
He had to take the ingredients with him. To be fair to the school he had been issued with a note detailing the quantities but what does a typical small boy do with notes from school?
Yes, he lost it.
Never mind. Apple pie is easy. He went with Apples, sugar, butter, flour and a couple of cloves.
He came back with them, he hadn't been allowed to make a pie because he hadn't got the proper ingredients.
Which were:
A pack of ready made pastry sheets.
And a can of sweetened apple pulp.
So the schools are teaching home cooking to processed packet food
standards.
He made his pie at home after school with minimal assistance and the
ingredients that had made the round trip plus a few blackberries and some shreds of ginger. I had a slice. As I said, he shows promise.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:32 PM
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June 14, 2004
The Jet in question
My enquiry about my MPs freebie trips has generated some interest - I realised I didn't know the plane so here is a link :Aerospace Technology - The Dassault Falcon 900EX long-range business tri-jet.
And yes he is an Earl:
Rt Hon Michael Andrew Foster Jude KERR of ANCRAM,
PC 1996; DL Roxburgh, Ettrick & Lauderdale, 1990; QC (Scot) 1996, MP (C) Devizes from 1992; chm of the Conservative Party from 1998; s and heir of 12th Marquess of Lothian,
(His surname is actually Kerr but he uses Ancram - it gets odder - but then one day he will be Lothian I suppose when he becomes the Marquess).
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 PM
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They Work For You
Testing the beta of TheyWorkForYou.com: Is your MP working for you in the UK's Parliament? I notice an interesting snippet about my MP The Earl Of Ancram - so I use the handy link to send him a fax. Having met him a couple of times he seems a decent cove so I expect the answer promptish and we will all see the answer.
My Query:
Dear Rt Hon Michael Ancram QC,
Late at night perusing the excellent www.theyworkforyou.com I notice on your register of interests that several of your trips have been financially supported by Flying Lion Ltd. I just wondered who they are, as the only information that is thrown up on a web search is, via a far right web site, which quotes them as "(A)company (that)owns one Dassault Falcon 900EX (registration VP-BMS) registered in Bermuda at the following address:
FLYING LION LIMITED
CEDAR HOUSE
41 CEDAR AVENUE
HAMILTON HM 12
BERMUDA"
Being curious I wonder why such a small airline is prepared to fly you, and apparently no other MPs to ;
Kabul and Baghdad, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and Afghanistan, Georgia and Turkey.
I am making this enquiry public on my website www.anenglishmanscastle.com and unless you request otherwise I will make the reply public. I hope that is OK.
If anyone else knows about Flying Lion Ltd. please tell me.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:27 AM
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June 13, 2004
A thoughtful article on our Flag.
Telegraph | News | The madness of St George
The madness of St George
By Quentin Letts
(Filed: 13/06/2004)
From flags to face paint, bunting to bed covers, England has been engulfed by a wave of patriotism - and it's not just the Euro 2004 football fans. Quentin Letts reports on a red and white revolution
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June 12, 2004
Ouch Tony
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler analyses why Tony lost support, was it really his support of the Iraq War? He and I don't think so. Tony lost support of Sid and Doris Bonkers who run the local Labour branch, and he lost the support of the Medja over it. So when the great British public vote against Labour because they are fed up of the crap public services, the broken promises, the taxes and the fawning to the EU superstate; all of which Sid and Doris are happy with, the professionals point to the War as the casue instead, which when voting in local elections is, I believe, way down people's list of reasons to vote.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:12 PM
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June 11, 2004
Englishness
The Daily Ablution links to a disgraceful example of how I am some people are abroad. C'mon England (warning - filthy swearing etc in a flash movie).
Posted by The Englishman at 7:59 PM
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June 10, 2004
Vote early, vote often
European elections: The manifestos
European election day today - in my humble opinion this election is not about national politics but is a single issue referendum on Europe as a whole - do you want to be part of a EU as it is evolving, do you want to influence to change from the inside or do you just want to say "Bollocks" to the lot of them?
I'm in the Bollocks camp, Mr Howard is in for a bad day with the number of "natural" Tories who are lending the UKIP their vote for this one election.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:16 AM
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June 8, 2004
Tag cattle, Brand Slaves, ID card me... bollocks
BBC NEWS | Politics | Watchdog's 'alarm' over ID cards
Plans for a national ID card scheme risk changing the relationship between the British state and its citizens, the information watchdog has warned.
Richard Thomas said he had initially greeted the plans with "healthy scepticism" but the details had changed his view to "increasing alarm".
Quite.
The BBC's Andrew Marr
"What Mr Thomas has said will greatly boost the enthusiasm of civil libertarians"
Posted by The Englishman at 9:50 PM
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June 7, 2004
Flagging interest
BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | To fly or not to fly?
They are everywhere. It seems you cannot go down any street at the moment without seeing cars, shops, houses and pubs festooned with St George's flags.
But are these patriotic displays just an indication of support for the England squad in Euro 2004 or do they represent something else?
In some quarters concerns have been raised that the recent surge in the number of the flags on show on England's streets, has little to do with supporting the national football team and is more a statement of discontent with the state of the nation.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:59 PM
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June 4, 2004
Poodle
go to google.co.uk
type in poodle
click on pages from the uk
click I'm feeling lucky
The result - Poodle
Now who has been running a naughty googlebomb?
Posted by The Englishman at 10:05 AM
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May 30, 2004
Ha ha ha - I'm still laughing..
BBC NEWS | England | Kent | Emin anger over public 'sniggers'
"I'm not saying they have to understand it, what I'm saying is don't laugh when it all burns down.
"It is just not fair and it's not funny and it's not polite and it's bad manners.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:55 PM
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May 29, 2004
Big Brother
Of course I have better things to do than watch Big Brother but as the staff will be talking about it here is a handy quick guide to the contestants I read online elsewhere...
As an exemplar I give you Kitten - "Kitten is a human and animal rights activist. She is a strict vegetarian and is angered by sexism, pornography, homophobia, racism and George Bush. She has two cats called Puddypuddyquadropodteddyteddyteapot and Kittykittyquadropodtabbytabbypeaches."
And of course she is Lesbian who lives in Brighton - I think this will be a "Blog for Kitten" when I get the graphic made.
But on with the fun - here are the rest of the runners and riders....
This year, the producers of Big Brother 5 have intentionally set out to
cause as much conflict as possible and make everyone's lives a living
hell, including, apparently, the viewer. Let's review those housemates and
their opening words in full.
Marco, 21 year old "law student":
"Whoo! I'm so gay! G-A-Y! Y-M-C-Gay! Whoo! Whoo-hoo! I love being gay! I
love being bald! I love everything! Whoo! Whoo-hoo!"
Ahmed, 44 year old "property investor":
"I'm an asylum seeker, I'm a refugee, I'm a muslim, I have no papers of
any kind. I don't like gays."
Jason, 30 year old "air steward":
"I've slept with over 250 people and yet amazingly I have been single for
the last five years. I look like I've just stepped off the beach of some
soap opera, but I don't know how my enormous muscles will cope without my
steroids. I'm not saying if I'm gay but I do moisturise my buttocks, and
I've turned up tonight wearing nothing but leopardskin underpants."
Daniel, 30 year old "hairdresser":
"I'm gay and bald too, but I hate gays like Marco. I'm so attractive that
straight men want to sleep with me, and so do all women. People can't
handle me because I'm so real."
Stuart, 20 year old "psychology student":
"I'm the smartest boy in the world! And despite looking like one of the
blokes from Supergrass, everyone loves me. You'll just have to wait to see
if I'm gay or not. I like Busted! Whoo!"
Victor, 23 year old "politics student":
"I am black. I'll argue with anyone. You can call me 'slick' or 'The
Milkman' because I always deliver."
Vanessa, 26 year old "business studies student":
"I am *so* blonde! I have boobs!"
Emma, 20 year old "legal administrator":
"I'm from Liverpoooool. I think a homosexual is someone who has sex at
home. My hero is Janet Street-Porter. I see no reason to wear a bra."
Kitten, 24 year old "political activist":
"I *am* a lesbian, I *am* a radical feminist... (fade out)"
Michelle, 23 year old "mortgage advisor":
"I'd luv to do glamma modellin', iss sexy, innit? (PS:I love sex & porn.)"
Shell, 22 year old "history of art student":
"I *am* Felicity Kendal. I *like* my accent."
Nadia, 27 year old "bank clerk":
"I *love* this country! I am virgin! I used to be man."
Full marks to Kitten, who turned up, flicked V-signs at everyone, refused
to enter the house unless she could talk to her obvious slave girlfriend,
then flicked some more V-signs at the photographers and the crowd for good
measure, virtually guaranteeing her immediate exit from the series.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:29 AM
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May 24, 2004
Shooting the Conservative's Fox
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
IN A surprise move Tony Blair is to push through a ban on foxhunting in the autumn in an attempt to shore up support among restless Labour backbenchers.
The government will reintroduce a bill to ban hunting and will take it through the Commons either in July, before the Commons rises for the summer recess, or in the short session in September when it returns.
Not that surprising - while Tony doesn't believe in the ban it is a conveinient sop to throw to his backbenchers, the fluffy bunny brigade might chuck more money to the party and when the Tories oppose it they will appear to be the party of Bufton-Tufton rather than the modernising urban go-getters that Labour think they are.
A rural culture is being used as a petty political pawn - bastards.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 PM
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May 21, 2004
Self Defence - don't try it at home.
Mr FREE MARKET brings the case of Brett Osborn to my attention - as he says remove breakable objects from reach before reading.
But don't worry the Rozzers suggest you can
plant a rose to protect your house.
(how long before someone sues for being pricked by a rose when breaking in - you are not allowed broken glass or spikes on your walls!)
Posted by The Englishman at 10:12 AM
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May 20, 2004
Justice?
F a t h e r s 4 J u s t i c e have been getting it in the neck for their stunt of chucking purple flour at Tony in the Commons - I don't remember so much condemnation when lesbians absailed down into the chamber.. It seems to me to have been a classic stunt, no one got hurt, lots of publicity and if it showed up the security guys, good. It especially showed up the dimwits in the chamber.
On television watching those away from the action, mouths open, thinking " oh look someone is chucking unidentified powder at the Prime Minister - I think I will just stand and watch" - if it had been me I would have been out through the door and under the first tap I could find before Prescott could blink. And of course once everyone was theoretically contaminated the Sergeant at the door should not have allowed anyone out.
But the biggest news about f4j was 'Spiderman' cleared over protest where he proved to the court that the police closed down a large part of central London just so they could have an easier prosecution case. How many millions did that cost? And who is going to lose their job over that?
The Rozzers always believe their own interests are paramount - ask anyone stuck on a motorway whilst they take four hours to record an accident scene.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:22 PM
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Hic
BBC NEWS | Politics | Alcohol the 'new British disease'
Tony Blair says alcohol abuse is fast becoming the "new British disease".
Yet again Tony shows his ignorance of the history and traditions of this country - when the Romans came over they complained that we all drank and fought, to excess. I'm not saying it is something that is good for us, but to call it a NEW problem is just bollocks...
Posted by The Englishman at 5:11 PM
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May 18, 2004
Politicians, Flags and fighting men.
As a little treat today I reread The Flag of their Country - from Stalky & Co. - Rudyard Kipling
It must be a hundred years old but the story is of how a politician comes down to a school and lectures on patrotism....
And so he worked towards his peroration - which, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors - while they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many many words, he reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. This - this was the concrete symbol of their land - worthy of all honour and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them - a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort.
They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before - down at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig went ashore on Braunton sands; above the roof of the Golf Club, and in Keyte's window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eves? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk.
Go and read the whole story...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:57 PM
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May 17, 2004
The forecast today is..
'No poll on EU blueprint' - Hain
A referendum on a new European Union constitution has been ruled out by the cabinet minister heading the UK team debating the proposals.
WRONG
A referendum on Britain's entry to the single currency could be held as early as next spring (2003), according to a timetable floated by the Europe minister, Peter Hain,
Mr Hain takes a robustly upbeat line on the single currency, ...arguing that "opinion is changing" in Britain.
WRONG
WATCHING THIS SPACE
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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May 14, 2004
An invite.
A public meeting on the Government's proposed National Identity Card
Wednesday May 19, 2004; 13:30 - 17:00 hrs
The Old Theatre, London School of Economics
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
Organised by Privacy International, in association with Liberty, Statewatch, Stand.org.uk, The Register, The 1990 Trust and the Foundation for Information Policy Research. Hosted by the Department of Information Systems of the London School of Economics
The government has introduced draft legislation for a national identity card. The card system will cost at least 3 billion and is likely to become an essential part of life for everyone residing in the UK.
If the draft legislation is accepted by Parliament, everyone will be required to register for a card. Biometric scans of the face, fingers and eye will be taken. Personal details will be stored in a central database. A unique number will be issued that will become the basis for the matching of computer systems.
The proposed card may be required to access vital public services and to receive benefits. The government proposes to enforce the programme through numerous new criminal and civil offenses, including provision for unlimited financial penalty and up to ten years' imprisonment.
The implications for everyone in the UK are far-reaching.
Join us at this important meeting to hear from key figures in the fields of law, politics, security, technology and human rights. Decide for yourself whether this is a plan that should be supported.
The meeting is free of charge.
Draft programme (subject to change)
13.30
Welcome: Simon Davies, London School of Economics
13.35
Rt Hon David Blunkett, MP, Home Secretary (invited)
13.50
Rt Hon David Davies, MP, Shadow Home Secretary
14.00
Mark Oaten, MP, Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman,
David Winnick, MP, Labour,
Simon Thomas, MP, Plaid Cymru,
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
14.40
Q&A with audience
14.50
Dr Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain
15.00
Karen Chouhan, Executive Director, The 1990 Trust
15.10
Shami Chakrabarti, Director, Liberty
15.20
Q&A with audience
15.35
Roger Smith, Director, JUSTICE
15.45
Paul Whitehouse, former Chief Constable, Sussex Police
15.55
Q&A with audience
16.10
Peter Williamson, President, Law Society
16.20
Prof Ross Anderson, Cambridge University
16.30
Jonathan Bamford, Asst Information Commissioner
16.40
Q&A with audience
16.55
Next steps
17.00
Close
Details of the event programme will appear here soon. In the meantime please let us know if you would like to attend by emailing meeting@stand.org.uk
Media enquiries should be directed to simon@privacy.org
Posted by The Englishman at 8:42 PM
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Put it your window
Steve asked me to display an English Democrats poster in my window - always happy to oblige - Download Poster, now all I have to do is find out who the English Democrats are and what they stand for...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:39 PM
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Moron Sacked - Hurray
BBC NEWS | Politics | Editor sacked over 'hoax' pictures
Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan is sacked following pressure over faked photos of soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner.
The Queen's Lancashire Regiment earlier told a press conference the Mirror had to apologise for running the pictures and endangering British troops.
Now the only thing that would make me happier would be for Piers to meet up with a couple of agrieved Squaddies behind a pub...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 PM
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And a big hello to our readers in Cheltenham!
Scotsman.com News - UK - Plans to use Army to beat fuel revolt
Intelligence services are watching 200 key people who took part in the protests....
But I didn't take part! I may have driven an old tractor around with a flourescent jacket on but I was just going into town to get a new exhaust... but next time who knows?
Posted by The Englishman at 1:43 PM
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May 12, 2004
If you are venturing north.
Huddersfield One - Scotland For Beginners
CROSSING THE BORDER - GREETINGS AND COMMON EXPRESSIONS
Gang awa', gang awa'
Shav' aff, git oot, gang awa'
(Trad Border Ballad)
Make no mistake about it, you'll never forget the welcome you receive when you cross into Scotland. The Scots are famous for it.
For as long as folk can remember, Scotland has been invaded by eager hordes each summer, keen to enjoy the scenery and sample the hospitality. When Edward I journeyed north with his caravan all those years ago, little can he have imagined what a precedent he was setting for future generations. The people of Scotland have been chucking out the welcome mats and laying on suitable reception parties for his successors ever since......
Posted by The Englishman at 10:07 AM
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May 11, 2004
Abolish it - yes
IsItFair.co.uk - Campaigning for the reform of the current Council Tax system
The IsItFair campaign is NATIONWIDE, NON-PARTY POLITICAL and FOR EVERYONE (not only pensioners) who wants the existing system of Council Tax abolished.
If you have been outraged by the relentless, year on year, inflation-busting increases in Council Tax, then this is YOUR CAMPAIGN. Please support it in whatever way you can.
The average rise for 2003/2004 was 12.9 per cent and was a direct result of central Government action. It is set to continue. Government is using the council tax system as a stealth tax. Grants have been redistributed away from many areas. At the same time, Government has dictated that spending in these same areas is significantly increased. On average, the cost of council tax has increased by up to 70% since 1997. The forecasts for next year's rises are already being reported at 10%.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM
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May 8, 2004
Filth
Mr FM's Pater has been struck down with a hospital acquired infection - and it is not a trivial thing. A quick google gave me this:
Times Online - Health
HOSPITAL ACQUIRED INFECTIONS
The facts: England and Wales
Numbers affected annually 100,000
Chances of infectrion in hospital 1 in 10
Annual cost to NHS 1bn
MRSA cases 1992 114
MRSA cases 2003 5,561
% increase in MRSA 4,778%
MSSA cases 1992 4,373
MSSA cases 2003 7,886
% increase in MSSA 80%
Source: Dept of Health and Health Protection Agency
My casual observations are that the cause is simple and rife:
Three observations.
1) English Angel No 1 spent two month in NICU - premmie intensive care - all visitors had to wash hands and only immediate family were allowed in. On the day she was released I saw for the first time the porters emptying the bins, walked straight in from the previous ward, no wiping of hands etc. pouring the yellow sacks into one another, straight out into the next ward - no one could say a thing because they are union labour... we were going home that day so I wasn't going to get involved.
2:) A fiver says that the lifts at the Royal United Hospital in Bath will have soiled detritus, ie a used dressing, in them. Anytime you want to look. My theory is that the cleaners do their floor, but no one does the lifts. And it has been like that for the sixteen years I have been going there...
3) The floor of the waiting room in Charlotte Ward, RUH has the filthiest carpet of any establishment in Bath, including any pub you care to mention.
It isn't hard to get it right., McDonalds manage it, and they are only selling crappy burgers, but then they aren't part of the great NHS who are trying to save lives...
Posted by The Englishman at 1:03 AM
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Quote of the night
"The British Army is becoming increasingly customer focused, finding out who they are, where they are, and how they want to be killed today."
Posted by The Englishman at 12:43 AM
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April 29, 2004
A useful guide if you are planning to visit us.
Britain for Americans - Food & Drink
British food is the best in the world. Be careful, though, the British do love to add spices to everything! And the English pub is a treat not to be missed...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:31 AM
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April 27, 2004
Melanie - please call me
I offered to take part in the ID card Trial. As requested I called Melanie Briere on 020 7347 3023 or email trial@mori.com. but it looks like the trial is going ahead without me... the number is always engaged and I have no reply to my email.... they wouldn't be trying to fix the result would they?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:48 AM
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Biometrics
Islamic cleric vows he will not be finger printed nor iris scanned for his ID card...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:30 AM
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April 23, 2004
Happy St George's Day
For Mr Free Market
" I see you Stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the Start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge
Cry "God for Harry! England and Saint George!"
Shakespeare, Henry V (1599) Act 3, Sc. 1, L. 31
Posted by The Englishman at 10:05 AM
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April 15, 2004
Some are more equal than others.
A letter in today's Times sums up this government.
In 2002 Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said in a written answer to David Liddington, MP, about consultation prior to the ban on swill-feeding:
The majority of respondents were in favour of a ban on the feeding of catering waste containing meat or meat product as swill to livestock (Hansard, July 22, 2002, col 703W).
Unfortunately her Minister, Ben Bradshaw, subsequently landed his boss in the pigswill by confirming that only 32 per cent of the respondents supported a ban on the feeding of pigswill, with 37 per cent against (Hansard, March 30, 2004, col 1305W).
However, Defra has now reinterpreted the meaning of the word "majority". In answer to my inquiry Defra states:
The use of the majority was not simply a matter of numerical counting of letters, but that those in favour of a ban included major organisations representing widespread interests.
---
On a connected but completely seperate note, the Government's treatment of the Swill producers who were doing a useful recycling and legal job until their trade was banned overnight has been disgraceful, no compensation, no help etc.
And now thousands of tons of food go into landfill where vermin can feast away and spread diseases far and wide.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:08 AM
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April 7, 2004
St George's Day celebration
The Daily Ablution points out in a wonderfully researched article that the London Celebrations seem not to be as prominent yet as Ken promised they will be, you don't think he has forgotten after yet another St Paddy's Day he celebrated with Sinn Fein funsters at our expense do you?
I think I will play safe and go to my local Pub and sup ale and claret with a Sirloin of Beef cooked by a Frenchman as all good Englishmen should.
(Last year it was a 24lb Sirloin - 50 minutes cooking time, wonderful....)
Posted by The Englishman at 11:09 AM
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April 3, 2004
Britain 'must scrap multiculturalism'
BRITAINs race relations chief last night called for the abandonment of the policy pursued by successive governments since the 1960s of building a multicultural society.
Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that multiculturalism was out of date and no longer useful, not least because it encouraged separateness between communities. As British-born Muslims burnt the Union Jack on the streets of London yesterday, he said that there was an urgent need to assert a core of Britishness across society.
In an interview with The Times, he said that multiculturalism one of the founding principles of his own organisation means the wrong things. He added: We are now in a different world from the Sixties and Seventies.
What we should be talking about is how we reach an integrated society, one in which people are equal under the law, where there are some common values.
I think I need to go and have a lie down - "I'm amazed" is not strong enough.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:39 AM
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April 1, 2004
ID Cards
I presume the trial of ID Cards went well as Mr Blair said today: "There is no longer a civil liberties objection to that in the vast majority of quarters.
I offered to help trial them - An Englishman's Castle: ID card Trial but they never contacted me again, I wonder why?
Posted by The Englishman at 3:54 PM
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March 31, 2004
Concrete them over.
BBC NEWS | UK | Rail to get 14m a day to improve
Britain's railways will get 14m a day for the next five years in a bid to improve train services.
Network Rail (NR), the state-backed operator, will invest 26bn to boost train punctuality from the current 80% to 90% before 2009.
I believe there is less than 10,000 miles of railway track in the UK - figures seem to vary from 9000 to 11,000. Get the calculator out and start doing the sums. Coachs on bus/taxiways deliver many more people per hour with less pollution, more flexibilty and probably just as safely. Trains suit a certain control and command mindset, not a modern society based on freedom, they belong to centuary before last! Let's just keep a few historic museum rides and get rid of the rest.
Posted by The Englishman at 2:47 PM
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Round one - mine's a pint.
BBC NEWS | England | Norfolk | Landlord battling for St George
A patriotic pub landlord has won one round in his fight to raise the profile of St George's Day.
Tony Bennett, 47, of the Otter pub in Drayton, Norfolk, has permission to open for an extra hour on 23 April.
But Norwich magistrates agreed because the pub would raise money for charity - not because they recognised the day as special in the eyes of the law....
Posted by The Englishman at 2:36 PM
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March 30, 2004
Shock Horror A Muslim speaks sense.
An excellent article from the Pakistan Daily Times
If Muslims are seen as intellectually backward, and the Islamic world is viewed as stagnant, it is our fault and nobody else's. But when others state the obvious, we adopt a defensive posture and go into denial
Please read it, this is the unreported real voice of Muslims that we want to hear not the shrill protests that dominate the airways.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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March 29, 2004
Old men's tales
Dodgeblogium notes Ted Heaths latest thoughts - for many years I have worked on the policy that whatever Ted Heath backs, go for the opposite. You don't even have to think, or read any further, it always works. It is unlikely we will see him hanging by his heels from a lamp post in the Cathedral Close in Salisbury in the near future so we might as well make use of him whilst we have to put up with him. He is whatever the opposite of a Bellweather is and so now without having to read any further I now know Michael Howard is the right man for the job.
Talking of old men - Peter Ustinov has died, whilst always a jolly man, probably a wonderful man to listen to talking I remember he was always a bit quick to cozy up to the USSR leaders in the late 80s when they were recruiting "useful idiots". More later on that I expect. De mortuis nil nisi
bonum.
Posted by The Englishman at 2:03 PM
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