From the Right Side

Ex-Tory Peers to Pay the Price for Sleazy Labour Lords

2009-02-01T06:24:00.001Z

Why am I not surprised that the most likely outcome of the recent sleaze scandal involving Labour peers appears to involve the expulsion of ex-Tory Lords Archer and Black?

PEERS who avoid tax or have criminal convictions - such as Lord Archer and Lord Black - are to be expelled from the House of Lords in the wake of the lords for hire scandal.

The reforms are being drawn up by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, in an attempt to restore the Lords’ battered reputation after last weekend’s revelations in The Sunday Times. He plans to enact the legislation necessary to expel them before the general election, which has to be held by May next year.

Retrospective legislation is inherently unjust - so no wonder it appeals to our Labour 'Justice' minister, especially if will result in media stories focusing on ex-Tory peers just before the next election.

Europe's Tentacles Spread Ever Wider

2009-01-31T17:24:00.001Z

The European Union now wants to bring recreational fishing within the ambit of the Common Fisheries Policy! Excerpts from the relevant regulation are here. You can sign the online petition protesting against this here.

Saving us from the corner-shop (non-)terrorists

2008-12-05T22:21:00.002Z

On 20 November:

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker admitted the scale of council snooping on people was undermining public support for the anti-terror law, and promised action 'in the near future'.

In today's Cambridge Evening News:

ANTI-terrorism powers were used by a council to spy on newsagents who employed paper boys without the correct permit in place.

Cambridgeshire County Council adopted surveillance techniques to bring Rashmi and Dips Solanki, who run the general store in Melbourn, to court after officials discovered that a number of children were working for the store as paper boys.

The Solankis now have a criminal record, after being found guilty at Cambridge Magistrates' Court of employing delivery boys without a valid permit. They had denied the charges, claiming that there had been a simple mix-up over paperwork.

It gets worse and worse. The more powers government takes, the more it will abuse them. I'm slowly but surely turning into a follower of Proudhon, who comprehensively sums up the nature of modern government in all its ghastly glory:

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorised, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the public interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolised, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. Pierre Joseph Proudhon

The future's bright...

2008-11-22T09:27:00.002Z

the future's blue, with gold stars:

By 2025, the European Union will be a "hobbled giant" crippled by internal bickering and a eurosceptic citizenry. Eastern European organised crime could dominate one or more member state governments, and the bloc will likely be kowtowing to Moscow after having failed at all attempts to wean itself from Russian energy supplies.

This is the rosy view for Europe's future mapped out by the United States National Intelligence Council (NIC), Washington's main intelligence body.

Unbelievable

2008-11-15T14:31:00.002Z

This, from a letter of support for Sharon Shoesmith signed by the head teachers of 61 state-funded primary schools and seven secondary schools in Haringey:

Should the Child P case result in her loss from the borough, then our children and young people will lose one of their most effective, determined and committed champions...[Someone who since their appointment had] continued to work relentlessly and with a determination that the service she leads and develops ensures best practice in providing education, care, support and protection for all of our young people.

Circling the wagons to protect an over-paid bureaucrat from being held responsible for the actions of her department.

The most depressing thing is that if, by any chance, this woman is sacked, it is entirely predictable that within a short time she will secure another lucrative post within the bloated public sector.

Criminal Record for Overfilling a Wheelie Bin

2008-04-22T15:58:00.002+01:00

Oh, my God! What a bloody country we have become - a nation of 'jobsworths', petty bureaucrats, regulators, local government Fuhrers and publicly-paid-for snoopers.

Lord Desai on Gordon Brown

2008-04-17T18:24:00.001+01:00

Labour peer Lord Desai on his glorious leader:

Blair was like champagne and caviar, Brown is more like porridge or Haggis.

This is how we do things here, Mr Lamb

2008-03-29T10:10:00.002Z

It seems that 'officials' are quite happy to see large areas of Norfolk disappear under water, with the consequent disappearance of a number of villages. The local MP, Norman Lamb is shocked by how this decision was arrived at:

What shocks me is that profound, devastating implications are being discussed at a conference between delegates without the communities affected being part of the decision at all.

Where has he been? Doesn't he know by now that this is how we do things here?

Take notice of the people! What a quaint concept.

The Truth About Immigration

2008-03-29T10:07:00.001Z

The truth will out - eventually.

What many of us have known for some time:

Ten years of record immigration to Britain has produced virtually no economic benefits for the country, a parliamentary inquiry has found.

Global Warming?

2008-03-18T16:58:00.001Z

For your sceptical reading pleasure, by way of Watts Up With That?, a news article from the Washington Post:

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

The date of the article? November 2, 1922.

Ho, hum.

Wasting Police Time

2008-03-16T23:36:00.002Z

This is beyond parody:

The children's television character Basil Brush is at the centre of a police investigation after an allegation that an episode of the programme was racist towards gipsies.

Tall MPs to Make up Third of Tory Ministers

2008-03-10T13:47:00.004Z

David Cameron has defended his pledge to give a third of ministerial jobs in a future Tory government to tall MPs, although he admitted that imposing 'all-tall' shortlists would a 'step too far'.

It was a fact of modern Britain, he said, that average height had increased, and that too many Tory MPs were unrepresentative of this trend in contemporary British society.

Mr Cameron said the party was 'pushing very hard' to get more tall candidates from all walks of life to stand as Tory candidates in seats, especially marginals, it needs to win to form a government.

He said that 'there are not enough good tall candidates coming forward, not enough getting through to the later stages of selection and then not enough getting selected.

With organisations like 'Lofty to Win', we have encouraged more tall candidates to put themselves forward...We've gone out to find tall people in various walks of life who would make good politicians and try to encourage them to get on to the list and stand for Parliament...If we exclude tall people, which the Conservative Party has for too long, you exclude an extremely talented part of the population.

Mr Cameron denied that this policy represented an attack on the remnants of the old-guard 'nasty' party. 'Of course, there will always be room in the modern Conservative Party for short, dumpy and un-photogenic candidates - for people like Oliver Letwin and Michael Gove – but they can't be allowed to dominate a modern, compassionate Conservative Party that seeks to be representative of modern Britain'.

Stop Press: A new Conservative Task Force - 'Where Have All The Fatties Gone?' - has been established under the chairmanship of Ken Clarke to examine how representative the Tory party is of modern, obese Britain.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

2008-02-14T10:12:00.002Z

History provides many examples of a British Army being asked to operate under appalling handicaps by the politicians responsible for British policy, but I doubted that the British Army had ever found itself in a graver position than that in which the governments of the last twenty years had placed it.

Maj-Gen Noel Mason-MacFarlane – May 1940

From Ewan Butler's Mason-Mac: The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Noel Mason-Macfarlane (1972)

The Glories of Sharia Law

2007-11-17T10:16:00.000Z

King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia during his recent visit:

I should like to take this opportunity to call upon our Muslim brethren living in Britain to be honest and upright Muslims and worthy British citizens, striving to build and construct so that they may convey the true image of the principles of Islam - those eternal principles of love, mercy and moderation.

And in case you need to be reminded, here is an example of the 'love, mercy and moderation' of which he speaks:

A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she was the victim of a gang rape.

Right on, with the oh-so-PC BBC

2007-11-17T10:07:00.000Z

'Typical, bloody typical', as my old man would say.

The BBC stoked controversy yesterday by announcing plans for a 'contemporary' nativity play featuring Mary and Joseph as asylum seekers instructed to report to the nearest passport office.

The only saving grace is that the hour-long 'event' will be broadacst on BBC 3 - which means that no one will watch it.

The Ciggy Police Are Here

2007-02-15T12:25:00.000Z

Another nail in the coffin of the liberties of free-born Englishmen:

Thousands of council staff are being trained to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England.

Exactly what sort of "training" is required to know if someone is smoking? Are these people completely stupid?

Ian Gray, policy officer for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and chief trainer for the government course, said..."These officers do not have to identify themselves when they go into premises and they can even film and photograph people to gather evidence..."

Another bunch of snoopers added to the public-payroll, at a cost of £29.5m - but that is a government figure, so I expect you can double that, and add the number you first thought of.

This country has moved beyond satire.

Where Does All the Money Go?

2007-02-13T15:36:00.000Z

Colin Parnell, the chairman of the Peterborough branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, on government support for small business:

The Government is spending £2.6 billion each year supporting small businesses, but we don't know where that money goes.

I think that Mr Parnell has neatly summarised the attitude of many of us towards government spending as a whole.

Tony Blair: Time for the Men in White Coats

2007-02-04T16:55:00.000Z

The quote of the day comes from an (unnamed) Labour MP reacting to yesterday's speech by Tony Blair to Labour Party activists:

If he genuinely believes that this is not doing serious and lasting damage, we don't need the 'men in grey suits' to tell him to quit - we need the men in white coats.

Roy Hattersley Believing the Impossible

2007-02-02T13:07:00.000Z

...and, finally, the Alice in Wonderland Award for believing something impossible before breakfast goes to old blubber-mouth himself, that old-Labour stalwart and failed politician - Roy Hattersley - for the headline to his story in this morning's Times: How Prescott can save the party and his reputation.

The Perverted Priorities of Modern Law Enforcement

2007-01-27T10:04:00.000Z

As they used to say in examination papers, compare and contrast the following passages:

1. A mother has spoken of her fury after police refused to chase her sons' stolen motorbikes — because the thieves weren't wearing helmets. Pauline Nolan, of Droylsden, Greater Manchester, claims traffic officers told her they could not pursue the pair in case they fell off and sued the police force.

2. When Diane Fountain encouraged her 12-year-old daughter to recycle, the last thing she expected was a letter from the council threatening her child with six months in jail. But after a cardboard box was found next to the overflowing recycling point with young Anna Fountain's name on it, council officials decided something must be done. The 12-year-old was issued with a notice stating that illegal dumping carries a £50,000 penalty and possible six-month jail sentence.

These two stories tell you all you need to know about the perverted, and inverted, priorities of law enforcement in today's Britain.

MPs: Pigs, Snouts and Troughs

2006-12-04T12:35:00.000Z

From the BBC:

MPs have been criticised after reports some are calling for a 66% pay rise, taking salaries to £100,000 a year.

If there were any logic or justice to the way things are organised in this country, MPs would be paid the average salary. Perhaps then they would appreciate more directly the impact that the policies they implement, and the taxes that they raise, have on ordinary people.

Half of them would be challenged if asked to run the proverbial whelk-stall. As for the others, if they want to make more money let them get a different job. No one forces them to become MPs and, God knows, there are enough hopefuls queing up to take their places. Perhaps if the laws of supply and demand were to be applied strictly, we could end up in the happy position of MPs paying the public for the privilege of being an MP. At least then we would get a financial return out of them, and they could serve a useful, if minor, purpose.

What They Really Think About Us

2006-11-18T11:41:00.000Z

This is what they really think of us:

We have a citizenry which can be caricatured as being increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government.

This was said by Matthew Taylor - Tony Blair's chief adviser on political strategy and the former head of the centre left think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research.

The arrogant, patronising, condescending little !**$!!*'s

Envirodoxy Rules! OK!

2006-11-15T13:01:00.000Z

Envirodoxy: an attitude of mind revealed by an inability to think independently, coupled with an acceptance as scientific fact the worst-imaginings of some client-change scientists and green campaigners.

Usually associated, particularly amongst politicians, with a strong psychological need to pontificate, preach, and regulate, combined with a lack of faith in human adaptability and technological innovation.

The aptness of the term is illustrated by the responses of MPs to a Rough Guide survey on climate change. The following are just a sample, but illustrative of the views of all but a handful of MPs which are published in today's Independent:

Climate change is the most serious threat to human kind ever. Ben Bradshaw (Lab)

The most difficult challenge that Governments have faced since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. David Chaytor (Lab)

We must make the green agenda central to everything we do and, in that agenda, climate change is the issue which overrides all others. It is the biggest threat facing our planet... David Cameron (Con)

My own opinion is that it is more important than any other challenge we face (and that is saying a lot with nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, pension meltdown and other worries being very strong candidates). James Arbuthnot (Tory)

Climate change is a threat greater than any other faced by mankind and is therefore the most important political issue of our time. Norman Baker (Lib)

The position of any who disagree with the new Envirodoxy has been aptly described by George Orwell:

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals. George Orwell

European Union Accounts

2006-11-14T12:30:00.000Z

The House of Lords may be happy with EU accounting procedures, but Marta Andreasen - who was suspended by the European Commission in 2002 (before being sacked in 2004) after going public with worries that its accounting system was open to fraud - is less charitable:

These changes of more than €20 billion that have surfaced in some chapters would certainly cause heads to roll and the prosecution of the directors if they happened in the private sector.

Who do you believe? Difficult choice.

The Poetry of Politics

2006-11-11T18:33:00.002Z

Hart Seely of the Los Angeles Times has been lamenting the exit of Donald Rumseld, and the consequent loss of material for American comedy. In passing, he re-presents some of Rumsfeld's...er...thoughts...as a form of existential poetry. For example:

It's amazing.
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing
something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I
doing here?"

It's a big surprise.

So, why not try the same with our own politicians? The following 'poems' are lifted directly from the speeches made by Blair and Cameron to their party conferences earlier in the year.

Green Declaration, by David Cameron

I grew up in the countryside.
I've always loved the outdoors.
...I'm quite keen on trees.

In Praise of (Modern) Marriage, by David Cameron

There's something special about marriage.
It's not about religion.
It's not about morality.
It's about commitment.
...It is about we - together,
The two of us,
Through thick and thin.

That really matters.

And by the way,

It means something whether you're
A man and a woman,
A woman and a woman or
A man and another man.

Challenges, by Tony Blair

The future requires restless courage:
To know and act upon the coming reality
However hard the challenge it holds.

And when the two,
Conviction and courage,
Combine their strength...
They beat them

And in time what was a challenge,
Becomes part of the new consensus.