Archive for December 2007

Is there another West Midlands euroregion somewhere?

Birmingham Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Birmingham City Council were criticised yesterday for arranging a seminar for local businesses on how to move their business away from the West Midlands.

The President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, ironically, has a seat on the board of Advantage West Midlands, the unelected regional development agency whose job it is to attract jobs and investment into the West Midlands.  No wonder they’re on track to miss four out of their six targets from the British government!

The seminar has been arranged by Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and is being supported by Birmingham City Council and will offer advice and assistance on offshoring all or part of their business.

Of course, if the board of Advantage West Midlands was elected rather than appointed from a pool of eurofederalist yes-men, we would be able to boot the President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce out of office through the ballot box.  But it’s not elected and the electorate is only allowed to pay for Advantage West Midlands, not have a say in how it’s run.

If a local councillor started offering practical assistance to local businesses to move to another town they would most likely find themselves out of a job come the next election but in the unelected regional quangos, incompetence is rewarded.  Take Phil Davies as an example – he used to be the Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, was sacked by his own party for incompetence and has gone on to secure several high-profile, taxpayer-funded jobs with regional quangos.  The reason?  He’s a member of the Labour Party, he’s a eurofederalist, he supports the balkanisation of England into euroregions and – most importantly – he does as he’s told.

Call me old fashioned, but I think that if you’ve got a job to do then you do it and if you don’t then you should be out of a job – doubly so if your job is in the public sector and funded by the taxpayer.  The President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, John Crabtree OBE, has failed in his position as a director of Advantage West Midlands by allowing his Chamber to arrange a seminar to encourage local businesses to relocate abroad.  He should be removed from the board immediately and a free and fair election held so that the electorate can decide who is going to have a say in spending Advantage West Midlands’ £300m taxpayer-funded budget.

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Two out of six ain’t bad … it’s terrible!

Advantage West Midlands, the unelected Regional Devleopment Agency, has some targets set by what is now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

The half-year results for April-September 2007 have now been published and on balance it’s looking … well, a bit poor really.

The first target is job creation – how many jobs have AWM created?  Their target is to create a minimum of 13,347 jobs and a maximum of 17,653.  So far they reckon they’ve managed 6,211 which is over 900 short if they continue at the current rate.

That’s 0 out of 1 so far, not a good start.

The second target is assisting people into employment – how many people have AWM helped to get a job?  Their target is to help a minimum of 4,306 people get a job and a maximum of 5,695.  They reckon they’ve helped 3,856 so far this year which is well above the maximum target (is it a good thing to exceed a maximum target?).

That’s 1 out of 2 (assuming it’s ok to exceed a maximum target), getting better.

The third target is business creation – how many businesses have AWM helped to create that have shown growth and are stil in business 12 months on?  Presumably this is last years start-ups because these are half year figures, or perhaps it’s an estimate … who knows?  It’s not really relevant anyway because their minimum target is 1,361, their maximum target is 1,799 and they’ve managed 70 (no, I didn’t miss a zero off the end).

1 out of 3 … not good.

Target number four is business support – how many businesses did AWM help to improve their performance?  They have a minimum target of 10,333 and a maximum target of 13,667.  They have achieved 3,626 so far which leaves them almost 3,100 short of their minimum target at the current rate.

Oh dear, only 1 out of 4 so far.

Their fifth target is split into two – how much public and private infrastructure investment has been used and how much brownfield land has been redeveloped.  They have minimum and maximum targets of £172m & £228m for the former and 129 & 171 hectares for the latter.  They have so far levered £52m of investment which is £68m short of their minimum target if they continue at the current rate and they have redeveloped 3 hectares of brownfield land which is 123 hectares (or over 95%) short of their minimum target if they continue at the current rate.

A rather disappointing 1 out of 5 targets hit.

Target number six is the number of people that AWM helped to develop skills.  They have a minimum target of 18,083 and a maximum of 23,917.  They have managed 9,313 so far which is 543 over their minimum target if they continue at the current rate.

So that’s 2 out of 6 targets they’ve been set by the British government that they’re on target to hit.  At the current rate they will scrape through one minimum target and exceed one maximum target which, as previously mentioned, we can only assume is a good thing.

Remember, this is the Regional Development Agency that has a taxpayer-funded annual budget of £300m but which, it claims, controls over £1bn of public money in the West Midlands.  Also remember that this is the Regional Development Agency that is to take over most of the West Midlands Regional Assembly’s powers, responsibilites and budget by 2010 when it is finally abolished.

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Template Tweak

I’ve taken the MSN and Skype online status out of my sidebar to speed things up a bit, tweaked the header to display better on smaller screen resolutions and I’ve made a few festive additions.

Let me know if I’ve broken anything.

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The horse has already bolted …

The British government has announced that a review of market liberalisation in the postal sector to see how it has affected Royal Mail and to consider how to maintain the universal service.

The BBC says that the report has the following 3 objectives:

  • Assess impact of market liberalisation
  • Look at future market trends
  • Consider how to maintain universal service

How much is this going to cost the taxpayer?  Bound to run into 6 figures and for what?  It’ll either say how wonderful it is and how Federal Europe should be congratulated for making the British government drive Royal Mail to the brink of bankruptcy or it’ll tell us what we already know – that it has been an unmitigated disaster and the only people who have seen any real benefit are the foreign postal companies who have moved in to take advantage of deregulation.

The universal postal service will soon be a distant memory.  The Royal Mail no longer has a monopoly on postal services but it is still obliged to deliver any and all mail given to it to any location for a fixed price.  Its competitors have no obligations and can choose to target only the most profitable parts of the business.  The future is bleak, indeed, for Royal Mail because not only can their competitors have their cake and eat it, but Royal Mail have to pay for all the ingredients and bake the cake for them.

It’s not practical to give Royal Mail its monopoly back now so the only solution is to give state aid to Royal Mail but that would attract the wrath of Federal Europe who only allow important countries like France and Germany to give illegal state aid to their companies.  Companies like Deutsche Post which competes directly with Royal Mail in the UK with its Global Mail service and its subsidiary, DHL.  There is only one way to maintain the univseral postal service and that is to leave the EU.

There, I’ve done their report for them in about half an hour and it cost the taxpayer nothing.

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Britblog Roundup

I’d forgotten all about the Britblog Roundup until I saw an incoming link from Matt Wardman.

My post on the EU admitting it was a tinpot dictatorship gets a mention.

Funnily enough, I was thinking this morning that we haven’t had a Witanagemot roundup for a long time.  I was going to do one today but the blogroll is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge.  I’m not one to shy away from a challenge though so if you want to nominate a post from a Witan blog, drop me a line.

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All aboard the bandwagon

A group of scientists in America have predicted that Arctic summers will be ice-free in 5-6 years time.

Eco-terrorists have been bleating about the receding ice caps and declining permafrost for a while now with their doom and gloom predictions about mass flooding all over the world.  The BBC provides a helpful graphic to illustrate the receding ice caps (right) but – like the eco-terrorists – fails to explain that the ice caps have historically been much smaller and increase and decrease regularly.  As I’ve said many times before, Greenland wasn’t named Greenland because it was covered in ice.

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski doesn’t stop at his 5-6 year perdiction though.  He claims that it may be a conservative estimate because it doesn’t take into account 2006 or 2007 data so we could all be snorkling round Sainsbury’s within a couple of years.

So what will happen when, in 5-6 years, the polar ice caps haven’t melted and London doesn’t look like a set from Waterworld?  Will Maslowski and his team of doom-mongering “experts” be told to fuck off and stop wasting our time?  Will the self-declared climate change experts at Greenpeace disappear from our screens forever?  Will the left wing, bearded, sandal wearing, smelly tree-huggers be forced to eat their own discredited propaganda printed on recycled, shit-stained toilet paper until they admit that they’ve been talking complete bollocks?

Of course not.  The American Navy will continue to pay Maslowski and his fuckwit mates to come out with this sensationalist shit and the BBC will continue to bring in grubby little dreadlocked eco-terrorists to talk about global warming for the price of a bowl of lentil soup in the canteen because they can’t be arsed to argue.  Why report the facts and expose the global warming scam for what it is when you can rake in government cash for spouting their left-wing, car-hating, anti-capitalist propaganda?  The BBC is little more than New Liebour’s lazy sockpuppet.

If the North Pole is ice free by 2013 I’ll eat my own faeces.  In fact no, worse than that – I’ll vote Liebour and eat my own faeces whilst a rabid badger hangs from my tabasco-covered testicles by its teeth.

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Interim government for Belgium needed urgently

About 18,000 trade union members have taken to the streets in Belgium to protest about rising prices and the fact that they haven’t got a government.

The protest was organised by the three main trade unions in Belgium which collectively represent about 3m people.  The population of Belgium is approximately 11m so that’s quite a protest.

King Albert has asked the outgoing Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, to form a government urgently.

Why is forming a government so urgent that it must be done by the former prime minister who wasn’t elected to do the job?  Well, Belgium is the only EU member state that can’t sign the EU not-a-constitution at the moment because the caretaker government isn’t allowed to sign international treaties.  Or maybe that’s just a co-incidence.

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Not in my name

The One Eyed wonder of Wankistan, Prime Minister unelect, leader of the rump cabinet, Gordon “No Mandate” Brown, is travelling to Lisbon today to sign the EU not-a-constitution.

The EU Constitution was rejected by the French and Dutch in referrenda and has now been repackaged into another treaty that is 96% identical but has a different payload.  Instead of replacing existing treaties with a new one, it is amending existing treaties – the same acts of treachery but a different method of committing them.  The main differences between the constitution and the not-a-constitution are the bits about flying the flag and playing the anthem of Federal Europe.

The Goblin King couldn’t make the official signing to get his picture taken with all the other traitors signing away their own independence because he was busy getting his bollocks kicked over, amongst other things, signing the EU not-a-constitution.

The BBC shows its usual impecible impartiality on this page with one comment opposing the EU not-a-constitution and four supporting it.

Gordo may be signing the EU not-a-constitution but not in my name.

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An Embuggerance

Not my words, Terry Pratchett’s.  My favourite author of all time, the man who brought us the Discworld, has announced that he has early onset of alzheimers.

I have read every single novel he’s written, I buy his new books on the day they’re released, I have read and reread them all over and over again.  The man is a genius.

Mrs Sane bought me three new books I haven’t read yet (different authors) the other day and a Terry Pratchett book I’ve read a couple of times before.  The three new books are still on the floor next to the bed unopened and I’m reading the Terry Pratchett book again.

This is on his publisher’s website:

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news.  I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism.  For now work is continuing on the completion of  nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers.  Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet :o)

PS  I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell. I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

If he doesn’t write any more books I may have to give up reading.

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We’ve heard it all before and we still don’t want it

The British government is still determined to press ahead with plans for 42 day internment for “terrorist” suspects.

As I’ve pointed out, several times before, anti-terrorism laws have so far caught 0 terrorists but have been used to arrest, detain, harass and deny liberty and fundamental constitutional rights for many innocent people.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has proposed that the amount of time a “terrorist” suspect can be detained without charge be extended to 42 days from the current limit of 28 days.  This would give us the rather dubious honour of being the only developed nation on the planet to allow its citizens to be detained without charge for more than 28 days.  The law of that beacon of liberty and democracy, Zimbabwe, allows someone to be detained without charge for 9 days with a further 21 days allowed by Presidential decree.  Most developed nations allow only 3 days of detention without charge – even France, which has suffered far more attacks than England, only allows 4 days and Greece, which has an active terrorist organisation inside its own borders carrying out intermittent terrorist attacks, allows only 6 days detention without trial … even for terrorists!

Current a “terrorist” suspect can be held for 28 days without charge.  To get the extra 14 days, MPs would have to vote on a request for an extension by a chief constable and the Director of Public Prosecutions.  The “terrorist” suspect would be held while MPs took a vote.  MPs will have 30 days to make their decision.  Do the maths.

Jacqui smith is going to give a briefing to Liebour MPs on Tuesday evening.  Why just Liebour MPs?  Don’t all MPs need to know why the Home Secretary believes that the state needs to be able to lock people up without charge for 6 weeks, especially when only 6 out of 71 responses to a Home Office consultation fully supported the plans?

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Cameron for Scotland

David Camoron gave a speech in Edinburgh yesterday in which he extolled the virtues of the union and dashed any hopes that England under the Conswervatives might ever achieve equality.

Camoron is a tit.  A complete and utter fucking idiot.  The Tories will never be elected in Scotland yet at every possible opportunity, Camoron treks up to Scotland to tell them how great the union is and how shit the English are.  Get it through your thick skull Camoron, only England votes Conswervative.

The following statement by Camoron confirms that England will always be bottom of the Tories’ list of priorities:

BETTER AN IMPERFECT UNION THAN A BROKEN ONE 

This is where I stand, here in this great and beautiful capital, an English politician in a Scottish city saying clearly today and for all time that Britain comes first.

Britain comes first.  The shitty, pointless, unwanted union comes before English people being treated as equals with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  It comes before all those people who go blind because so much English money goes into subsidising the celtic fringe that there’s not enough left for the NHS in England to give the same treatment to English people that they’re paying for Scots and Welsh to receive.  It comes before all those people who needlessly die of cancer because there’s not enough money in England to pay for the cancer drugs that English people are paying for Scots to have.

And in every part of these islands I want people to hear me when I say this.

That if it should ever come to a choice between constitutional perfection and the preservation of our nation, I choose our United Kingdom.

Constitutional perfection?  Constitutional frigging perfection?  You mean English people getting treated as equals in the union?  You mean English people getting a devolved government of their own the same as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have?  Not at the expense of the union though, eh?  And anything that doesn’t keep English people unrepresented, discriminated against and continually out of pocket is a threat to the union isn’t it?

That is because being British is one of the most successful examples of inclusive civic nationalism in the world. We are a shining example of what a multi-ethnic, multi-faith and multi-national society can and should be.

What?  What the fuck?  What is so great about a union in which 85% of the population have no national government whilst the remaining 15% have 3 between them?  What is so great about a union that can only function whilst the nationality of 85% of the population has to be abolished and suppressed for it to survive?  What is so great about a union where 15% of the population are financially insolvent and have to live off hand-outs from the other 85%?  What is so great about a union where 85% of the population are racially discriminated against by the state just to preserve the union?  And what is so great about a union that NOBODY EXCEPT POLITICIANS WANT?

That means saying loudly and proudly: together, we are stronger.
Britain is one of only five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

We have a seat at the top table and are listened to in a way that other countries can only dream of.
So yes, together we are stronger.

And you know that England won’t inherit the seat on the UN Security Council do you Camoron?  No you don’t because nobody knows.  Most people in foreign countries don’t know there’s a difference between England and Britain anyway you muppet.

The City of London overtaking New York as a global powerhouse……Edinburgh’s role as a great financial centre.

Yeah, Edinburgh.  Well know international financial centre.  It’s got the Royal Bank of Scotland and … erm … yeah, Edinburgh.  London is in England Camoron, they subsidise the rest of the UK by an enormous amount.  London would benefit more from the end of the union than any other part of England.

The NHS is the best of British……created by a Welshman and benefiting from the skills of doctors trained in the great medical schools of Scotland.

Yes and if you live in England you will receive inferior medical treatment to the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and you will pay for their superior health service.  The NHS practices medical apartheid, it’s hardly something to be proud of of and there are four national health services – one for each nation – not a single British NHS.

Britishness is also about institutions, attachment to our monarchy, admiration for our armed forces, understanding of our history, recognising that our liberty is rooted in the rule of law and respect for parliament.

Our institutions, most of which have been split up into two or more national versions.  Most institutions have seperate Scottish versions.  Is that what Camoron means?  And our history?  Who knows about our history?  Our history is being written out of history books.  Anything between the Battle of Hastings and World War 1 is out of bounds in schools now.  We even have fucking retards like No Mandate Brown claiming Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as great British achievements.

So, to those in England who are angry about rising council tax, angry about the rising cost of living, and angry when they look across the border and hear about no prescription charges and free social care, I say this.

Don’t blame the Scots.
Don’t blame the Union.

It’s not because of the Union that your aspirations are not being met.
It’s not because Scotland is taking and not giving.
It’s because your Government is failing and not delivering.

It’s the Scottish government that have introduced all these things.  It’s the Scottish-British government that has allowed them to do this by giving them home rule and billions of pounds of English taxes to pay for it all.  We even paid for their bloody parliament building.  It is because of the union that our aspirations are not being met – it is because of the union that the British establishment won’t give us our own parliament so that we can give ourselves what the Scots have got.  We can’t afford to have what the Scots have got at the moment because they get what they want first and we get what’s left.  It’s not our government that’s failing, it’s your government Camoron.  You and your British chums are just as bad – you will not give England parity with the rest of the UK and that is why we are unhappy and that is why the union will be dead within a decade.

So yes we will take part enthusiastically in the Constitutional Commission, and I applaud Annabel Goldie for her courage and determination to do that.

So you’ll take part in the second Scottish Constitutional Convention but not in the first English Constitutional Convention?  Fucking hypocrite.

We have not leapt on the Barnett formula bandwagon.
We have not sought to exploit these matters to foster a sense of English nationalism.

And we never will, because we believe in the Union and we will never do anything to put it at risk.

SCOTLAND DOESN’T VOTE CONSERVATIVE.

Consider all our Party’s history, not just the recent past.
It was a Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, who set up the Scottish Office.
It was a Conservative Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who elevated the Scottish Secretary to full Cabinet rank.

And it was the Conservative Party after the war that stood up for Scotland’s identity, and the life of Scottish businesses, against the attempts at nationalisation and centralisation by Labour.

And they still don’t vote Conservative.  And they never will vote Conservative.  What is this obsession with Scotland?

Stronger together; weaker apart.
Stronger together: let us keep that precious idea forever in our hearts.

Fuck off Camoron, just fuck off.  You are a turncoat, you are a traitor, you are a disaster.  I will never vote for your Conswervative Party and if I ever see your grinning face in my vacinity I will spit in it.  If you love Scotland so much, buy a house up there and move out of London.  We don’t want you and we don’t want your union.

How can any English person support this party?

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Fuel Protests – 12th Decemeber

According to the Transaction 2007 website, nationwide fuel protests will commence on 12th December.

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Could England’s future be in the hands of Kosovo?

Kosovo has suffered terribly at the hands of the Serbs ever since Yugoslavia broke up.

For a while now, Federal Europe has provided mediators to try and come up with a solution that would allow Kosovo to remain part of Serbia which would be acceptable to both the Serbs who don’t want to lose Kosovo and to the majority Kosovan Albanians who want independence.

They have so far failed to come up with a solution and it’s now almost certain that Kosovo will declare independence very soon but there is opposition amongst some EU member states who are concerned that recognising Kosovan independence would set a precedent and force them to recognise the independence of their own seperatist regions.

Belgium has seperatist movements in Flanders and Wallonia; Denmark has seperatist movements in the Faroes and Greenland; Finland has a seperatist movement in Åaland; France has seperatist movements in Brittany, Corsica and Savoy; Italy has seperatist movements in Sardinia, Sicily and Northern Italy; Romania has a seperatist movement in Transylvania; Spain has seperatist movements in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Navarre; Sweden has a seperatist movement in Lapland; The UK has seperatist movements in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Cornwall.

Belgium has been without a government for months now after the main parties failed (several times) to form a coalition government.  The former Prime Minister has been caretaker-Prime Minister ever since the last election.  There are strong calls for independence for Flanders and to a lesser extent, Wallonia.  The situation in Belgium is similar to in the UK – a constitutional monarchy, no-mandate Prime Minister, an artifical union at the end of its useful life, one nation of the union subsidising the rest and a lack of concern as to whether the union breaks up or not.  What is different, however, is that Belgium is held up by Federal Europe as the perfect multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual union.  It is, in short, what the European Union wants to be when it grows up and that’s why the break-up of Belgium is so important to the majority of Europeans who don’t want to live in a Federal Europe.

The Basque Country is virtually independent now within Spain.  They have so much autonomy that there is virtually nothing that can be devolved from Spain other than foreign relations and defence.  It is only a matter of time before Basque declares unilateral independence from Spain.

Scotland is also on the verge of leaving the UK but it’s proving difficult for the SNP to convince the Scots to cut the apron strings and go it alone.  This is, I think, partly to do with the fact that they want to leave a union that they control and benefit from financially to a European Union in which they will be an irrelevance and will probably end up being a net contributor to.

Kosovo could be the key to independence for many nations in Europe and ultimately the dissolution of the European Union.  The UK, Italy, France and Germany have written to other EU member states asking them support Kosavan independence if they declare it.  Italy, France and Germany don’t have much to worry about from a precedent for recognising independence because they don’t have strong seperatist movements but the British government does.  There are two possible reasons why No Mandate Brown would support setting a precedent for recognising unilateral declarations of independence – either he thinks that he could take power in an independent Scotland or he really is stupid enough to think that the union will last beyond the next 10 years.

No matter what the reasons the powers that be have for supporting independence for Kosovo, it has the potential to give English people what they want – self-government (one way or the other) and the break-up of the Federal Europe.  For these reasons, every Englishman should actively support the Kosovan independence movement.  A vote for Kosovo is a vote for England!

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EU admits to being tinpot dictatorship

The Portuguese president has described the EU-Africa summit as “a summit of equals”.

Human Rights Watch has concerns about the following African nations:

That’s a good 90% of African nations on Human Rights Watch’s list.  So what he’s saying is that the EU and a bunch of tinpot dictators and human rights abusers are equals.  Won’t get any arguments from me there.

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Fuel Tax Protests imminent?

The Road Haulage Association have agreed to back Transaction 2007 in “legal protest action”.

The price of fuel in the UK is now higher than ever and mostly thanks to the crippling amount of tax put onto it by the British government.  The average price of a liter of petrol is now over £1.00 thanks to a deferred increase in fuel duty imposed by Gordon Brown in his final budget before he was installed as Prime Minister.

Hauliers now pay 25% more than their competitors on the continent who can save so much money by filling up on cheap fuel in France that they can serve the South East of England and still undercut hauliers based in this country.  The British government is losing huge amounts of tax as these foreign companies take business away from our own hauliers.

Something must be done.  Asking nicely for a decrease in fuel duty has done nothing to help hauliers or ordinary motorists.  Last time No Mandate Brown was asked to cut fuel duty he said that we needed to concentrate on a cheap and secure oil supply to bring down prices.  Only a couple of pence from the price of fuel is down to the cost of the oil – most of it comes from refining, transport and (highest of all) tax.  The cost of fuel doesn’t just affect motorists – it affects the cost of everything you buy, whether it’s a pint of milk or a ton of bricks and that cost is passed on to the consumer.

I will support any protest action that aims to bring down the amount of tax paid on fuel and road tax but the RHA and Transport 2007 will have to be a lot cleverer than they were last time.  They lost the support of the public because they allowed the British government to spread lies and propaganda about the protests and to buy the patronage of Rupert Murdoch.  Cutting off their members and supporters, whilst undoubtedly intended to prevent the British government’s moles from getting information to help the state interefere with their protest, leaves them without the widespread support they going to need, particularly from bloggers.

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Transforming Telford wasting money again

About a year ago, Transforming Telford was officially launched for the first time.  I say first time because they’ve been officially launched at least twice under the name Transforming Telford and once under the name Telford First.

The company, Transforming Telford, is another one of these taxpayer-funded, unelected quangos put in place to ensure that public money can be spent without the usual problems of accountability or transparency and without having to worry about voters.  This one is no exception.

Whilst running as a shadow company it managed to spend £1.3m of taxpayers money.  It has a board of ten – the Chief Executive of Telford & Wrekin Council, the Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council and another eight members from the private sector.  Only the Leader of T&WC can be held to account at the balot box.

Transforming Telford was set up in conjunction with the equally unelected regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands, to bring investment and regeneration to Telford.  It joins a seemingly endless string of regeneration and investment quangos dipping into the same pot of money, wasting increasing amounts of taxpayers money bidding against each other for funding.

Transforming Telford’s first big piece of work has been planning the redevelopment of Telford Town Centre.  As a new town, Telford Town Centre differs from most other towns and cities in that the town centre is entirely artifically constructed and consists of a shopping centre, lesisure and entertainment facilities and that’s it.  No houses, no small shops, no independent retailers – the whole retail area is own by Hark Group and the leisure facilities are owned by Telford & Wrekin Council.

The plans have proven to be unpopular as Transforming Telford sees the town park – a huge park in the centre of the town that was gifted to residents with a covenent securing it for the free us of resident for leisure purposes – as a rather useful plot of building land.  This has met with opposition from residents with a local referendum being held in one neighbouring parish a couple of days ago resulting in overwhelming opposition to any development of the town park.

Residents needn’t have worried though.  The owners of the Telford Shopping Centre, Hark Group, have their own plans for redevelopment of the whole area which they own.  It doesn’t involve building on the town park and the plans and work are to be paid for by Hark Group.  Transforming Telford’s plans involved spending millions of pounds of taxpayers money and taking on million of pounds of loans.

So why did Transforming Telford spend taxpayers money on producing plans for the redevelopment of someone elses land when the owners of that land already had their own plans?  A very good question and one which we hope to have an answer to in the very near future.  A Freedom of Information request has been submitted today to try and find out how much taxpayers money has been wasted and why.  We have been reliably informed that Hark Group attempted to engage Transforming Telford in their redevelopment plans but could get them to co-operate.

The new Conservative administration at Telford & Wrekin is no fan of this quango which was set up by the previous Labour administration headed up by Councillor “Concrete” Keith Austin.  We will be pressing Telford & Wrekin Council to launch a full investigation into what we consider misfeasance by Transforming Telford and to withhold further funding until the investigation has been completed.

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No Excuse

Liebour was given £183,000 by the Electoral Commission in 2001-02 to help them train staff to understand funding rules under the new Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Despite having full training at considerable expense to the taxpayer, Liebour has continued to accept various illegal donations.

So, not only did they break the law by accepting donations that they knew were illegal but they did so after the party had received training at the taxpayers expense.  This is fraud of the worst kind – the trust they have been given by the electorate to govern this country in an honest and acceptable manner has been abused.  The Electoral Commission shouldn’t stop at reclaiming illegal donations, they should strike them off the register of political parties and seek a winding-up order against the Liebour Party.  They simply can’t be trusted.  Any company that showed such persistent contempt for the law would have been prosecuted and wound up by now.

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Half a boycott for Mugabe

Britishness Brown has boycotted a Federal Europe-Zimbabwe summit because the tyrant Mugabe was attending.

However, his moral stance doesn’t stretch as far as refusing any representation from the UK – he sent Baroness Amos in his place.

Mugabe’s flight should be redirected to the Hague where he should stand trial for crimes against humanity.  Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans (if not more) have died at the hands of this tinpot dictator and his jackbooted militia.  Zimbabwe used to be called the bread basket of Africa because they produced so much suprlus food.  Now they can’t even feed themselves and they can’t afford to buy food from abroad because the Zimbabwean dollar is worthless evan after Mugabe knocked three zeroes off the end of it and the unofficial rate of inflation is estimated to be running at over 11,000%.

Like everything No Mandate Brown does, he appears to be doing one thing but really he’s doing something else.  I knew he was devious but I didn’t think it had reached Blairite proportions.  Guess I was wrong.

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This is why we don’t need to extend 28 days detention

Yesterday I posted an email I sent to my MP giving just a few reasons why the state doesn’t need to extend the amount of time someone can be held without charge from 28 days.

Today there is a perfect example of why it is unnecessary.

The canoeist, John Darwin, who was reported missing 5 years ago walked into a police station in Hartlepool last week.  He has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.  Today the police were granted a further 36 hours to question him without charge.

If a terrorist suspect can’t be charged after 28 days but the police believe he or she is a risk then they can apply to a court for more time to question their suspect, just like they have with John Darwin.

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Stop Translating

Hazel Blears, the Communities Minister, is going to tell local authorities and public bodies to stop needlessly translating documents.

Documents are routinely translated into any number of foreign languages so that foreigners who don’t speak English don’t feel left out.  The City of Westminster has gone further and started translating road signs into Polish.

Blears says that there is no legal obligation to translate documents as a matter of course.

This is a rare moment of sanity in the oppresively politically correct Liebour Party.  I would go further and say that documents shouldn’t be translated into any language that isn’t native to these islands.  Nobody should be allowed to live in this country if they don’t speak English – what possible use are they to the economy if they can’t speak the language?

Don’t speak English?  Click one of these for options:

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