Archive for January 2009

Mock outrage at Prince Harry

January 12, 2009 General 6 comments

Islamic pressure groups, newspapers and David Camoron have lined up to express mock outrage at Prince Harry calling one of his asian army friends a paki another, a raghead.

The Torygraph has a copy of the mobile phone videos recorded by Harry three years ago, courtesy of the News of the World, in its article about the mock outrage of the father of the soldier Harry calls a paki.  The videos confirm my immediate thoughts – that it was friendly banter between friends.  At the end of the video an asian asks Harry if he has ginger pubes, to which Harry replies “yes”.  Where is the mock outrage at the gingerism?

David Camoron was the first politician to express his mock outrage, saying it was “a completely unacceptable thing to say” while Nick Cleggover was hot on his heels, saying it would have caused “considerable offence”.  He didn’t look offended.

What people like Camoron and Cleggover don’t realise is that asians call each other names all the time, including paki and raghead.  In one of my previous jobs the Indians called the Pakistani’s “paki” all the time and the Pakistani’s called the Indians “paki” to wind them up.  All harmless banter and nobody took offence as, I suspect, is the case with the asians in Prince Harry’s videos.

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Welcome to Planet Labour

January 11, 2009 Labour, UKIP No comments

The LabourList website is being relaunched with a new design. Don’t worry though, it’s still a waste of bandwidth populated by the same tired old sycophant party officials, failed politicians and corrupt communists.

Of course, with the website being hosted on Planet Labour, you can expect the usual bizarre version of reality that Labour supporters and politicians inhabit. There are some amusing comments on the home page, such as:

This is a challenging but exciting time for Labour. Twelve years in office have brought huge advances to Britain, and we continue to be the party of ideas and innovation.

… and …

The distinction between the major parties has rarely been clearer

The blogroll in particular made me laugh. There’s the “A-List” of blogs, a small selection of other sycophant Labour-supporting blogs and the “Z-List” of blogs, comprising the two most popular blogs in the UK – Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes – and ConservativeHome, the Tory grassroots website that the likes of LabourList can only look at with envy.

As well as the entertaining alternate reality stuff, there’s a bit of naughtiness – a link to FixMyStreet in amongst other Labour buttons with the clear implication that the site, which was set up by the same charity behind the petitions.pm.gov.uk website, is a Labour initiative.

We’re under no illusions as to how popular Bloggers4UKIP is likely to be – UKIP is a minor party and we wouldn’t expect to compete directly with the likes of ConservativeHome but if the best “grass roots” website the Labour Party can come up is LabourList then we’re pretty happy with what we’ve managed to achieve in our spare time with a budget of zero and without any help from UKIP.

Just a quick note to LabourList before I finish though: ministers and paid employees aren’t “grass roots“. Ordinary members giving up their spare time without being paid or otherwise rewarded – like us here at Bloggers4UKIP – are the grass roots of a party.

Gross!

January 10, 2009 General 4 comments

Just done the mini-wonko’s a sandwich and gave them the choice of the extensive cheese collection.

Two orders for a Red Leicester cheese sandwich, one for a white Lancashire cheese sandwich and one for a Chive and Onion cheese, Tuna & Mayonnaise and Cucumber sandwich.

Where on earth does that child get his tastes from?  Certainly not me!

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Microsoft Browser Arrogance

January 10, 2009 General 11 comments

I have a hotmail account which I only use for MSN Messenger but from time to time I do check Hotmail because some of my MSN contacts send emails to my Hotmail account.

For instance, I received an invitation today to contribute to a blog and it was sent to my Hotmail account.  MSN Messenger notified me of the new mail and I clicked on the clicked on the notification which launched Internet Explorer, despite the fact that my default browser is Flock.

Internet Explorer 7 is reasonable stable, it has tabbed browsing but it’s not a patch on Firefox or other Mozilla-based browsers such as the aforementioned Flock.  The latest browsers using the Mozilla engine have excellent support for CSS2 and half-decent support for CSS3 (even though it’s not a ratified standard yet).  Internet Explorer is a nightmare for anyone who does any web design with its terrible support for CSS and its dodgy implementation of some of the most basic CSS.  That and the extra functionality is why I use Flock instead of Internet Explorer.  Making MSN Messenger launch web pages in Internet Explorer instead of the default browser is unnecessary and arrogant.

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Israel engineers civilian massacre

January 9, 2009 Terrorism 11 comments

The UN released a statement last night claiming that Israeli soldiers evacuated 110 Palestinian civilians, half of them children, into a single home telling them it was for their safety.  The brave Israeli military then deliberately self-defenced the house with their American bombs the following day killing 30 people, 3 of which were children.

This latest act of Israeli terrorism was obviously a step too far because the US Ambassador to the UN sat next to his Israeli counterpart and abstained on a vote for a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, Israel to withdraw its troops from Gaza, the cessation of smuggling weapons into Gaza and the re-opening of border crossings.

The terrorist appeasing Americans were never going to vote in favour of a resolution against Israel – they could have bombed the Vatican and the Americans would claim the Pope was a terrorist – but an abstention, whilst morally reprehensible, is a serious rebuke for the Israeli’s.

All that remains to be seen is whether Israel complies with the UN resolution or whether they continue to defy the will of the international community.

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The NHS at its best

January 7, 2009 Health 4 comments

My father-in-law is disabled because of an über-rare disorder caused by a brain tumor when he was a child.  He is now deaf, has no balance and has no short-term memory.  My mother-in-law is his carer – he can’t go out without a wheelchair any more, he doesn’t feel pain and if left to his own devices he would either eat 10 times in a day or not eat at all because he can’t remember if he’s eaten even a few minutes after doing so.

My father-in-law has fallen over 4 times today and cut his head open which required stitches.  Caring for an adult is hard work as I’m sure you’ll apppreciate and it’s important she gets a break once in a while.  Last year she didn’t get one but this month it’s her 50th birthday so she’s booked to go away to a hotel for a weekend with my wife and some friends and relatives.

She booked my father-in-law in for a couple of days of respite care months ago at the only respite care room in the whole of Telford that will take under-60’s.  One room for a town with a population of around 160,000 people.  This morning social services phoned her to say they had cancelled the booking because the hospital in Telford is full and they’re sending their patients to the care home that the respite room is in and they’re going to use the respite room.

The reason why the hospital in Telford is full is because the hospital in nearby Shrewsbury has closed three wards because of an outbreak of norovirus.  This wouldn’t be a problem if Telford hospital wasn’t already full because it’s winter and there’s been a minor flu epidemic in the county.  So Shrewsbury hospital are paying Telford hospital to look after their patients while Telford hospital is paying private care homes in Telford to look after their patients.  But what really takes the piss is that social services in Telford have offered to put my father-in-law into respite for the same dates that they’ve just cancelled in Telford – in a home on the other side of Shrewsbury!

If Shrewsbury hospital is full and Telford hospital is full but the care homes in Shrewsbury aren’t then why is the hospital in Shrewsbury sending their patients to Telford instead of sending them to the care homes in Shrewsbury?  And why aren’t they cancelling elective surgery in Oswestry hospital which is run by the hospital in Shrewsbury and sending their patients there?  The hospital in Oswestry no longer has an A&E department, a sizeable proportion of their patients aren’t emergency cases and could wait a few weeks – as inconvenient as that is – while the current crisis is dealt with.

This is the problem when a service is run like a business – people lose out when there’s a profit to be made.  I wouldn’t mind so much if Telford and Shrewsbury hospitals weren’t run by the same Primary Care Trust.

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Israel continues to defy will of international community

January 7, 2009 General 14 comments

The head of the UN has again called for Israel to cease its military action in Palestine and Israel has again ignored him.  Just like they have when every other president, prime minister and foreign minister (apart from the Americans of course) has called on them to stop.

I’ve just sent the following email to David the Millibeast:

Dear Mr Millibeast,

Israel has ignored calls by the UN, the ICRC, presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers (including yourself) to cease military in action in Palestine.  Up until 2006, despite the constant use of the American veto, the UN made 101 resolutions against Israel for its aggression against Palestine and its other neighbours.  This is more than any other country in history.

As they are clearly defying the will of the international community and are in possession of weapons of mass destruction – the reasons given for invading Iraq – can you please advise why Israel is not being dealt with in the same manner?

Regards,

Wonko

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Petition for El Gordo to resign

January 6, 2009 General One comment

Either someone was snoozing or pissed off when this petition came in:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign due to gross financial incompetence in running the British economy.

Sign the petition.  Tell your friends, relatives, acquaintances and mortal enemies to sign it.  Put it on your blog, on forums, even on the noticeboard at work!  Let’s show the ignorant jock just what we think of him.

Hat-tip: Daily Referendum

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Israel self-defences two UN schools

January 6, 2009 Terrorism 16 comments

Israel claims that it is acting in self-defence by invading Gaza to stop the indiscriminate attacks from Hamas which are targetted at civillian areas.  So can someone explain how Israel bombing two UN schools in crowded refugee camps in Gaza – presumably deliberate targets bearing in mind the top-grade weaponry the Americans have given them over the years – is any different or somehow right?

In the 11 days since Israel kicked off, over 600 Palestinians have been killed.  During the same period, 3 Israeli civillians and 1 Israeli soldier have been killed by Hamas rockets.  In the first couple of days, the UN said that about 25% of Palestinians killed were civilians – who knows what that figure is now if they’re bombing refugee camps.

We’ll never get the truth out of Israel, Palestine, the UK, the US or any of the arab states – they have access to information but they all have their vested interests.  Israel has banned reporters from Gaza to try and keep a monopoly on information but the UN and the Red Cross are still there.  The UN has condemned Israel’s invasion of Gaza, saying the conditions there are horific.  The International Committee of the Red Cross are also very concerned about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, something Israel denies is a problem.

The director of the UN aid agency, UNRWA, said:

You cannot conduct huge military operations in such densely-populated places without killing hundreds and injuring thousands of civilians

Funnily enough, I said much the same thing over on Iain Dale’s blog but the Israeli terrorist appeasers that prowl the comments on Tory blogs to find people to call racists and anti-semites either didn’t get the point or have such little value for the Palestinian life that they just don’t care.

How different would it be if Palestinians were Jews and Israeli’s were Arabs?

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Gordo has all the answers

January 4, 2009 Economy 19 comments

Alistair Darling has said that injecting more taxpayers money into the banking sector “is not your first port of call”.

Well thank fuck for that because printing a few billion extra pound notes just isn’t an option.  Darling has already handed over £50bn to the biggest banks and £200bn to the Bank of England for short-term loans – we didn’t have enough money to pay for the bail-out in the first place, we certainly can’t afford another one.

El Gordo is quite happy with the outcome of the bail-out even though the banks still won’t lend money and the subsequent devaluation of the pound is causing a double blow to the taxpayer.  In fact, he’s so confident that everything is going swimmingly, he’s planning a Keynesian-style public works programme that he claims will create 100,000 jobs including 20,000 in the construction industry repairing schools.  He doesn’t give any indication as to where he’s going to find the money to pay for the work that’s going to support 100,000 people but then he really hasn’t got a fucking clue what he’s doing anyway so I wouldn’t expect him to have any idea where the money was coming from.

The BBC reporter, Robert Peston, has made another one of his groundbreaking predictions.  He reckons that the British government are going to start guaranteeing bank loans in an attempt to get the banks lending again.

My strong sense is that the Treasury is moving towards a plan that looks awfully like the Tories’ proposal for taxpayers’ to guarantee a proportion of lending to business

How inciteful of Lord Peston of Threadneedle Street.  Was his prediction based on his in-depth knowledge of business and finance?  Was he tipped off by a Treasury insider?  Or could it be the fact that Alistair Darling announced that the Treasury would be setting up a loan guarantee company with £250bn of taxpayers money back in October?  Still, I’m sure the BBC will make the most of Peston’s “prediction” when the loan company is set up (if it isn’t already).

We’ve seen what happens when a nominally socialist government tries to run a capitalist economy, now we’re going to find out what happens when a nominally socialist government tries to run a Keynesian public works programme.  God help us.

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Israel launches ground invasion of Gaza

January 3, 2009 Terrorism 26 comments

So, Israel has finally launched its inevitable ground invasion of Gaza.  It was bound to happen ever since they got embarrassed by Hezbollah when they invaded Lebanon last year.

It’s now 8 days since Hamas broke its ceasefire with Israel.  It wasn’t much of a ceasefire anyway – Israel has been bombing Gaza and Hamas has been firing rockets in Israel for most it – but it was a relatively low-key series of skirmishes with very few deaths.

There’s no denying that Hamas broke the ceasefire although their excuse was that Israel has been launching attacks on Gaza during the ceasefire which there is also no denying.  Who broke the ceasefire first?  Who knows – both sides accuse each other.

Whoever was first to break the ceasefire is now irrelevant – the ceasefire is finished and things have escalated.  Israel’s retaliation against Hamas’ mixture of homemade rockets and other weapons of indeterminate origin and quality is, as usual, infinitely out of proporition to the threat posed.  If you doubt the scale of threat that Hamas poses to Israel you only need to look at the casualties – four Israeli’s have been killed by Hamas rockets, over 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israel and the UN estimates that as many as 25% of those killed were civillians.  This is despite Hamas rockets apparently being capable of reaching far into Israel and supposedly targeting civillian areas and despite Palestinians being used to being under regular and sustained attack by Israel.

Israel is as indiscriminate in its attacks on Israel as Hamas is in its attacks on Israel but the consequences of indiscriminate airstrikes on the most densely-populated strip of land on the planet (over 11,000 people per square mile) are far more deadly than a Hamas rocket anywhere in Israel.  Now Palestinians are going to be subject to a ground assault as well as the airstrikes that have already claimed hundreds of innocent lives.

There is only one solution and that is for Israel to withdraw from all Palestinian territory that it is illegally occupying.  It won’t be a popular move with the Israeli electorate but it’s the only solution that will ultimately be acceptable to both sides.  Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal, there are more UN resolutions against Israel than any other country since the UN was created and the scale of their military action in Palestine is also illegal under international law.

It’s time the pro-Israel apologists stopped trying to justify and condone Israeli state terrorism and realised that the only way the Israel-Palestine situation is ever going to get resolved is when Israel withdraws from illegally occupied Palestinian territory and allows Palestine to get on with governing itself.  The only good thing that will come out of the impending Israeli massacre in Gaza will be that it will become increasingly impossible to justify their actions.

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British government refuses to scrap hospital parking charges in England

January 2, 2009 Health No comments

The Scottish government ban on hospital parking charges came into effect on the 1st of January leaving England the only part of the UK where everyone has to pay to park on hospital car parks.

Hospital car parks have been free to use in Wales since April and in Northern Ireland, chronically ill patients and their visitors were also expempted from parking charges last year.  Now Scotland has joined them by abolishing parking charges in all but three hospitals north of the border where the car parks are covered by a PFI agreement.

The cost of being ill in England is increasing year on year thanks to the indifference of the British government to the needs of the English while the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments look after their own people.  The price of prescriptions is rising every year in England but in Wales they are free, in Scotland they will be free this year and in Northern Ireland they will be free from next year.

A spokesman for the British Department of Health said that abolishing parking charges in England wouldn’t be a “sensible use” of limited NHS resources yet in December the NHS in England reported a budget surplus of £2.1bn for the 2007-08 financial year.  That’s £2.1bn of profit made by the NHS in England from charging cancer patients for life-saving medication and charging relatives of terminally ill patients to park when they visit their loved ones in hospital.  The NHS in England raises £430m a year in prescription charges.

What the accountants, managers and consultants at the British Department of Health think is a “sensible use” of English taxes isn’t necessarily (or often) what the English taxpayer thinks their money should be spent on and what most of us think is not a “sensible use” of our taxes is subsidising hospital car parking and prescriptions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland while we still have to pay ourselves.

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