Archive for wonkotsane

Harriet Harperson replies … well, her flunky does

December 16, 2008 Political Correctness One comment

A month ago I wrote to Harriet Harperson after she announced that she would be launching an inquiry into the “too white” British Parliament.  I had all but given up on receiving a reply when out of the blue, one of her underlings sent a reply:

Dear Wonko,

Thank you for your email of November 14th 2008 addressed to Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP expressing your opinions regarding a “too white” British Parliament. Due to their busy schedules Ministers are unable to reply to all their correspondence personally.

You have asked about “proposals for ensuring that Parliament has adequate quotas of ethnic minority, female, disabled, homosexual, trans-gender and other oppressed sections of society.”

The Government’s position is that:

  • Everyone has the right to be treated fairly and to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential, but equality is not just right in principle.
  • Promoting equality is essential for individuals to fulfil their potential, for the creation of a cohesive society and for a strong economy.

In the forthcoming Equality Bill the Government has identified several grounds for protection including race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, or belief and also gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity and marital status.  For the majority of these, the protected ground is an inherited characteristic which is rarely subject to change.  They have been chosen due to wider recognition of needing protection from discrimination and disadvantage, especially when accessing goods, facilities and service.  The Equality Bill will ban unjustifiable discrimination against people.

To speed up progress in tackling the inequalities that still exist and to end inequality you have to take positive action to redress disadvantage as well as tackle discrimination. Positive action in employment terms means that, all other things being equal, you can take steps to recruit under-represented groups to your organisations or develop talent within under-represented groups in your workforce.  Such measures are voluntary and include job advertising and training.

Widening the scope of positive action will make a difference because it will increase opportunities for people from underrepresented groups. There is clear evidence that certain groups, for whatever reasons, do not get the same opportunities as others – despite having equivalent educational qualifications:

  • There is only one High Court Judge from an ethnic minority
  • Only 8% of University Vice Chancellors are women
  • Only 11% of Directors in the UK’s top 100 companies are women
  • Not a single Member of Parliament is an Asian woman

The Bill will extend positive action so that employers can take under-representation into account when selecting between two equally qualified candidates, for example choosing a male teacher if the school already has a large proportion of female teachers.

The new positive action measures will be available to all employers to use on a voluntary basis. They are not about employment quotas and will not allow people to promote one candidate above another if that person is less suitable. They can be used in all types of organisations from businesses, to local authorities through to bodies such as police services. This will allow employers to recruit more people from groups that are currently under-represented in their workforce, so that their workforce in turn better reflects the local community.

Yours Sincerely

Kimberley Reed
Government Equalities Office

I couldn’t resist replying …

Dear Kim,

I agree that everyone has a right to equality, does that mean that you are going to be creating a position of Minister for Men and introducing legislation that allows “positive discrimination” in favour of white English men or is it a case of (to paraphrase George Orwell) “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others”?

I note your comment that only one High Court judge is from an asian minority.  Perhaps you could tell me how many people from an asian minority want to be High Court judges, how many have applied with the relevant qualifications and experience and how you determine the number of people that haven’t applied because of a perceived race barrier.  I always find statistics on people not applying for something paradoxical in much the same way that statistics on unreported crimes and terrorism are paradoxical.

Your point of there being no asian women MPs is the most important one.  The electorate chooses who should be an MP and if a female asian doesn’t manage to get elected in a free and fair election then that isn’t because of racism, it’s because they’re just not the best candidate for the majority of voters.  To allow all women lists for elections serves only to undermine one of the most fundamental concepts of democracy which is that (subject to legal bars) every citizen is entitled to stand for election and sit in the Commons if elected by their peers.

Finally, a company would (and should) employ people who are suitable for the jobs on offer.  Whether their workforce reflects the ethnic makeup of the local community is an irrelevance and rightly so.  If, for example, 10% of the local community is asian and only 5% of the applicants for a job are asian, why should a company be encouraged to employ a higher pro-rated amount of asian applicants?  To consciously do that would be to discriminate against the majority of applicants who weren’t asian and discrimination in all forms is wrong.

Regards,

Wonko

I don’t imagine I’ll get a reply this time. 🙂

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Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today

December 15, 2008 Climate Change No comments

Via the excellent Englishmans Castle, this article in the Canadian Free Press:

How many failed predictions, discredited assumptions and evidence of incorrect data are required before an idea loses credibility?

Proponents of human induced warming and climate change told us that an increase in CO2 precedes and causes temperature increases. They were wrong. They told us the late 20th century was the warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us, using the infamous “hockey stick” graph, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) did not exist. They were wrong. They told us global temperatures would increase through 2008 as CO2 increased. They were wrong. They told us Arctic ice would continue to decrease in area through 2008. They were wrong. They told us October 2008 was the second warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us 1998 was the warmest year on record in the US. They were wrong it was 1934. They told us current atmospheric levels of CO2 are the highest on record. They are wrong. They told us pre-industrial atmospheric levels of CO2 were approximately 100 parts per million (ppm) lower than the present 385 ppm. They are wrong. This last is critical because the claim is basic to the argument that humans are causing warming and climate change by increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2 and have throughout the Industrial era. In fact, pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today, but how did they conclude they were lower?

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Go and read the whole article at the Canada Free Press website.

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Genius

December 13, 2008 Transport One comment

According to South Worcestershire Police accidents were up 1,000% the other day thanks to the icy road conditions.

I’d be surprised if it was only 1,000% here in Telford because the roads on Wednesday were lethal.  The council sent the gritters out the night before but they’ve started using this new type of grit which is based on molasses (sugar) which is, of course, cheaper that salt-based grit.  They were warned by a motorists group a couple of weeks ago in the local paper that this new grit was dangerous but it’s cheaper so they carried on regardless.

The roads were largely clear of ice and frost but they were still slippery.  Dangerously so, in fact, judging by the mangled cars that still litter the grass roads around Telford.  The council blamed the diabolical road conditions on a surprise frost in the early hours of the morning (there was no frost on the roads but never mind) but some of it may have been down to what my dad saw the other night – a gritter followed by a road sweeper.  I kid you not – grit on, sweep off.

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Who’s a brave boy?

December 13, 2008 General One comment

Regular readers will know that I have a phobia of dentists so bad that I recently spent a week and a half in agony with a gum infection rather than go to the dentist.

Well, yesterday was my first trip to the hospital for some dental work.  I wasn’t in the best shape by the time I got into the dentists room but luckily Mrs Sane was there to hold my hand (literally).  I told the dentist about the gum infection the allergic reaction I had to penicillin the other day and the various tablets I’m taking half hoping she’d say she couldn’t do anything but she said it was fine.

The dentist had a look around by mouth and said I think we’d better just take these two teeth out, are you happy with that?  Erm … bit of a daft question but I told her to do it.  They pumped me full of vallium which did mellow me out enough to have the work done but didn’t supress my memory of it or anything like she said it would.

So, I’ve had two broken teeth out that have been causing me problems for ages – one on either side of my mouth – and I’m going back next year to have some fillings.  I can only eat using two back teeth on one side of my mouth because of the hole where my tooth has been taken out and the infection on the other side.  The infected gum is making its presence known – I’ve got one hamster cheek and my mouth still tastes of blood but it should be sorted in a day or two.

If anyone else has a phobia of dentists that they can’t get over then I really would recommend going to see a dentist, telling them about your phobia and asking for a referral to your local nervous patients service.  The dentist won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with and you’ll feel better once you’ve gone through with it.

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Never a dull moment

December 11, 2008 General 3 comments

I finally got round to going to the dentist yesterday to get some antibiotics to sort out the infection in my gum that I’ve had for weeks.  It doesn’t hurt any more unless I push on it but it needs sorting out.

So, I went to the dentist yesterday afternoon, she had a quick look and two minutes later I was out of the door.  It was free as well – apparently they aren’t allowed to charge NHS patients just to give them a prescription.

She said I just needed a course of antibiotics and had I ever had a problem taking penicillin.  I told her that I had once when I was a kid but I’d had it loads of times since so she gave me my prescription for penicillin.  You can guess what happened next can’t you?

Five minutes before I was due to go home from work last night the back of my head started itching.  Then my ears went really hot and prickly.  Then my forehead.  I drove home with the windows open, breathing steam and still my head was hot.  I got into the house, went straight into the bathroom and my face and neck were bright red.  The word “bollocks” sprang to mind.

I took my temperature which was normal but my face was burning up – just like I’d been badly sunburnt.  I popped a piriton (anti-histamine), phoned the out of hours doctor who agreed that I was probably having a reaction to the penicillin and to take pirition and phone 999 if my mouth or throat started to swell.  Just the sort of reassurance I needed, that.

Anyway, about three hours, a bag of smiley faces wrapped in a tea towel and a cold shower later and the redness and swelling had all but gone.  Back to normal this morning apart from an itchy rash on my arm and I’ve still not got rid of this bloody infection!

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Government are out of control

December 9, 2008 Corruption, Labour, Police State, Sleaze 6 comments

What a surprise, the Liebour Stazi have suppressed democracy again.

A motion was put forward to set up a committee to investigate the arrest of Damian Green MP, the police search of his MPs office without a warrant and the complicity of the Speaker and the Serjeant at Arms in the search.  It would have seven committee members, four of which would be Liebour MPs and they would start their investigations after the Police had finished their investigations into the leaks for which Damian Green was arrested.

Minge Campbell put forward an amendment to have the committee start their investigations straight away but this was rejected by just 4 votes so the Conswervatives and Lib Dums have told their MPs not to take part in the committee because it’s a sham.

A police investigation could take months or even years to complete, by which time there may have been an election (if Gordo hasn’t banned them in the interests of national security by then), a new government and a new Speaker.

This really is taking the piss – it’s virtually impossible now to hold the British government to account, either as a voter or an MP.  They get away with fraud, corruption, gross incompetence and even treason.  They’re out of control, no longer acting in the interests of the country but only in the interests of themselves and their party.  Liebour has only one objective – to stay in power.  My off-the-cuff remarks about elections being banned aren’t really that off-the-cuff, I can quite believe it happening.

When your government no longer acts in the interests of you or your country and effective opposition ceases to exist there is only one course of action available.

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Non-partisan Speaker?

December 8, 2008 Labour One comment

The role of Speaker of the House of Commons is held by an elected MP who promises to be non-partisan.  The current Speaker, Michael Martin MP, is the Liebour MP for Glasgow North East and he’s proven to be anything but non-partisan.  I don’t think there have ever been so many complaints and accusations of bias against any Speaker.

And Gorbals is at it again with the committee investigating whether he and the Serjant at Arms were wrong to allow Police to raid Damian Martin’s office in the Palace of Westminster.  The Speaker appoints members to such commissions, even though the commission is investigating him, and he’s decided to appoint 4 Liebour MPs to the 7-man commission ensuring they get the “right” answer.

Of course, the role of Speaker is non-partisan so there’s no reason for Liebour MPs to whitewash the whole affair because Gorbals wasn’t acting on behalf of the Liebour Party, right?  Well, not exactly.  Not at all in fact.

A survey of MPs by the BBC found that 32 of the 90 MPs that responded thought the Speaker was in the wrong.  In response, Liebour ministers have rallied round Gorbals with Margaret Beckett even going as far as saying that there is a long-standing tradition of MPs not criticising the Speaker.  Perhaps if the Speaker had upheld the long-standing tradition of not supporting the party he belongs to, not showing bias towards the party he belongs to, not abusing his expenses to pay for his wife’s shopping trips and protecting the parliamentary privillege then MPs would be more inclined to respect the tradition of not criticising him.

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A mission

December 7, 2008 General 2 comments

Mrs Sane wants Professor Layton’s Curious Adventure on the Nintendo DS.  Only problem is it’s out of stock in all the shops, eBay is full of scams and Play are taking the piss charging £50+ for the game.

I’ve tried to convince her to have one of those cartridges where you can play … ahem … backup games but she won’t have one, she wants the real thing.

I’ve got a copy on pre-order at one interweb shop but they can’t guarantee delivery by Christmas so I’m appealing to my readers – if anyone can get me a copy of the UK version of Professor Layton for the DS for the RRP (+/- £5) I’ll be most grateful.  I’ve got an England flag here still in its packet as a reward for finding it – not much but it’s better than nothing.

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Licence to print money

December 7, 2008 Funny One comment

From the Daily Mash, via the ginger one:

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Just following orders

December 7, 2008 Health, Police State 2 comments

You may recall that back in August I wrote about the NHS deciding it was going to weigh and measure children in England, check them against the Body Mass Index (BMI) and then send parents a letter to tell them if the computer says their child is fat or thin.  You may also recall that I said the BMI was a bloody stupid way of measuring obesity.

Well, this week #1 brought home a letter from the council and the Primary Care Trust (PCT) telling us that they will be weighing and measuring children in his year so they can gather statistics on obesity.  To this end they would be taking the child’s weight, height, name, address, postcode, date of birth, gender and ethnicity.  The statistics would be anonymised and sent to the NHS “nationally” (they mean England but the NHS aren’t allowed to use naughty words like that) but the weight and height would be recorded on the child’s file locally within the PCT.

The BMI is a graph with two axis – height and weight.  It doesn’t have ethnicity, address or age on it.  Therefore, the extra information is not required to calculate a child’s obesity on the BMI scale.  I accept that the statistics would benefit from having a geographical element to them for which the start of the postcode would be sufficient.  In fact, even this isn’t necessary because primary schools in Telford take their children by catchment area as opposed to selection like a secondary school so 99% of the children going to the school will all be from the same postcode area.

So why do they need names and addresses?  Oh yes, to send the “our computer say your child is fat/thin” letter which may or may not be a load of bollocks.  I won’t go into the reasons why the BMI is bollocks, click the link at the top of the post and read what I said originally.  All I’ll say is, quite a few “health professionals” have agreed with me that the BMI is bollocks.

Anyway, a form was attached to the letter so that we could refuse consent for the weighing and measuring which we filled in and returned.  The form was put in a folder with the others that parents had returned – quite a few of them by the look of it.  One thing that was missing from the form was somewhere to write down why we’d objected so I phoned up the PCT to tell them.  I said that I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that they have to provide every bit of personal information the authorities ask them for, because the BMI is a rubbish way of measuring obesity and because they were recording too much information.  The woman I spoke to said she agreed with me to a certain extent but said that they had been told to do it.

Just following orders, that’s ok then.

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Police DNA database is illegal

December 5, 2008 Federal Europe, Police State 7 comments

Two English men have successfully challenged South Yorkshire Police’s decision to retain their DNA samples even though neither of them have been convicted of a crime.

The Police have amassed the world’s largest database of DNA samples, a sizeable proportion of which were retained illegally before the law was changed to allow them to keep DNA samples of innocent people.

A handful of people have successfully managed to have their DNA samples destroyed on request but South Yorkshire Police evidently refused to do so and the case ended up with the European Court of Human Rights where 17 judges ruled unanimously that the practice is in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore illegal.

The fascist bitch, Jacqui Smith, said that the existing illegal law will remain in place and Police will continue to illegally collect and retain DNA samples of innocent people until they’ve decided what to do about the judgement.

I’ve already written my letter requesting the destruction of the fingerprints and DNA samples the Police have on file for me following my arrest a few years ago after a malicious accusation of assault which I proved I was incapable of committing for the two reasons that I was at home talking to someone on MSN at the time and that I was (and still am) medically incapable of doing what I was accused of doing.

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Illegal fines to be increased

December 4, 2008 General 9 comments

Telford & Wrekin Council has announced that it is going to increase the unconstitutional and illegal on-the-spot fines that it issues for dropping litter in the borough.

The Bill of Rights says:

any promise of fine or forfeiture before conviction is illegal and void

Magna Carta says:

No free man shall be captured, and or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, and or of his liberties, or of his free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against him by force or proceed against him by arms, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, and or by the law of the land.

Both these laws still stand today and form the core of the English constitution and English common law.  The laws that say someone can be fined without first being convicted have not repealed any part of the Bill of Rights or Magna Carta and so, in accordance with the judgement in the “Metric Martyrs” case, take precedence over these newer, non-constitutional laws.

I will be writing to the lawyers at Telford & Wrekin Council giving them notice that I believe the council is acting unlawfully and if they don’t stop issuing illegal fines I’ll report the cabinet to the Standards Board for England for bringing the council into disrepute.

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Queens Speech: load of bollocks

December 3, 2008 General 3 comments

The Queen has regurgitated the Liebour propaganda piece more commonly known as the Queen’s Speech and a load of shit it is too.

Here’s a brief overview of all the draft bills in the Queens Speech:

Banking Reform Bill

Gives the Bank of England, the Treasury and the FSA more powers to intervene in failing banks like Northern Rock.  Doesn’t stop the Bank of England being forced to make public any offer of help to a bank whether it’s needed not which is what caused the run on Northern Rock.  The Market Abuse Directive (MAD) – issued by the EU and “gold plated” by the British civil service under El Gordo’s beady eye -prevents the Bank of England from giving a commitment to help a bank without making the offer public.

Business Rates Supplement Bill

Local authorities are going to be given the power to levy an extra business tax for “economic development”.  Basically, taxing local businesses to subsidise new competitors to try and put them out of business.  Expect harmonised “city region” business tax levies to be announced soon.  Proposed by the New Liebour think-tank, IPPR, in April this year and an ambition of the city region in the West Midlands as far back as 2006, as discovered by me with my West Midlands NO! hat on.

Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill

More regional government, more “partnerships” between local authorities (aka city regions) and more community consultations on local services.

Constitutional Renewal Bill

“Independent” commission to protect civil service impartiality (interesting use of the word “protect” as that implies there is an ounce of impartiality there in the first place), prevent Attorney General interefering in prosecutions, removing restrictions on protests in Westminster and stops the Prime Minister from appointing Supreme Court Judges (there’s no supreme court but never mind).  This bill is the only decent one in the whole speech and it’s being dropped from the draft legislative programme.

Citizenship, Immigration & Borders Bill

Creates the UK Borders Agency to ineffectually police our borders but won’t be able to stop Eastern European gangsters and criminals from exercising their “right” as EU citizens to roam around our country whenever they feel like it.

Communications Data Bill

More power for the state to obtain information about your internet and phone use in the name of preventing and investigating serious crime and terrorism.  Like every other “anti-terrorism” law it won’t catch any terrorists but will be abused by the British government, the police and the myriad public bodies that are allowed to gather “intelligence” for petty purposes like dog fouling and putting recycling in your wheelie bin. 

Coroners & Death Certification Bill

Creates a national coroners service to replace the existing, perfectly servicable county coroners.

Education & Skills Bill

“Fair access” to schools and improve performance of weak schools by stopping the top performing schools from picking out clever and able children and giving them the education they need to develop their natural ability in favour of dragging everyone down to the same level.  Also gives employees the right to ask for training from their employer.  Doesn’t mean they’ll get it but they’ll have the right to ask.

Equality Bill

Should be known as the Discrimination Bill – this is the piece of fucking awful, hypocritical and white man-hating discriminatory legislation that the evil man-hating bitch Harriet Harperson proposed in June.  The Equality Bill allows discrimination against white working men in favour of every other section of society.  The Equality Bill will also allow political parties to have all-women short-lists, undermining one of the most basic principles of democracy by effectively banning men from standing as MPs in some areas.  God I hate that fucking woman.

Geneva Conventions & UN Personnel Bill

Adopt a new “humanitarian emblem” and prmises more protection of UN personnel.

Heritage Protection Bill

Transparent and simplified management of heritage sites.  Why is this a priority?

Law Reform, Victims & Witnesses Bill

Creates new murder offences so some murders will be more serious than others, gives more “auditing powers” to the Information Commissioner for data protection purposes and more state interference in the legal system.

Marine & Coastal Access Bill

More seaside resorts and “simplifed management” of the coast.  Which is a priority, apparently.

NHS Reform Bill

More “reform” of the English NHS with new targets and financial penalties for the hospitals that don’t meet the targets, depriving them of the money they need to hit the next lot of targets.

Policing & Crime Reduction Bill

Cutting down on paperwork for police and clamping down on anti-social behaviour and binge drinking.  What the fuck has binge drinking got to do with policing or crime reduction?  It’s a social choice and fuck all to do with the police or the British government.

Saving Gateway Bill

A new savings scheme for low-paid people where the British government will top-up the savings from the Treasury.  Or, more accurately, from the billions of pounds they’ve borrowed from the banks that they borrowed billions of pounds to prop up.

Transport Security Bill

More “terrorist” offences relating to carrying weapons of mass destruction by sea and terrorism at sea.  A hastily-added clause after what happened in Mumbai no doubt.  Gives the Royal Navy more power to tackle piracy – already a capital crime in international waters so completely pointless.  The Royal Navy aleady has the power to scuttle pirate ships and execute the pirates.

Welfare Reform Bill

Force dole dossers to go on training courses so they can be skilled dole dossers instead of unskilled dole dossers.

The best quote out of all of this has got to be this line from the Citizenship, Immigration and Borders Bill which says that the citizenship process will be held up if:

migrants don’t make an effort to integrate or commit even minor crimes

Should we really be passing laws to encourage immigrants to commit crimes?

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Telford wants to be a speed camera pioneer

December 2, 2008 BBC Bias, Propaganda, Transport 2 comments

Telford & Wrekin Council are on the offensive promoting their plans to put average speed cameras on the A442 dual carriageway through the town and surprise, surprise, the BBC have stepped in to do their propaganda work for them.

The A442 dual carriageway – more commonly known as the Eastern Primary locally – is one of the safest roads of its type in the country.  The number of accidents and casualties was very low for a busy 70mph dual carriageway with lots of junctions running through the middle of a town.  But the “experts” at the council weren’t content with having one of the safest roads in the country, they had to mess with it.

A couple of years ago they decided to change the layout of the road, making some of the dual carriageway a single carriageway creating filter lanes.  They also dropped the speed limit from 70mph to 60mph.  A year or so later and the number of accidents is down but the number of casualties is up which means that the accidents that are still happening are involving more people and/or vehicles and the road is more dangerous than before they buggered about with it.

The sensible thing to do would be to put the road back the way it was and make it safer again but local authorities aren’t sensible so what they’re actually planning to do is put up more signs and install average speed roadside tax collectors “safety” cameras.  Signs such as this one on the side of the road in question, telling you may accidents there have been on the road:

Yes, that’s a Ford Ka embedded in the road sign.

The BBC failed to mention the fact that the council had made the road more dangerous in their piece which devoted about three quarters of its 1 minute 44 clip to promoting the speed cameras and included footage of another stretch of the A442 that isn’t in Telford and is about 5 or 6 miles from where the speed cameras are planned.  Peter Roberts, the anti-road pricing campaigner and head of the Drivers Alliance, got a few seconds to put across the sole voice of reason just before they switched to a picture of a roadside memorial to someone killed in an accident.

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MPs complain about police state they created

December 1, 2008 Police State 3 comments

MPs are going to have a hard enough job explaining to a lot of people why it is they should be immune from civil proceedings for things they say and do in parliament and why the police shouldn’t be able to search their parliamentary offices and take away documents they find there.

There is a good reason for this, of course, but there will be a lot of people who will object to MPs having this privilege when the rest of us have to abide by the law or face the consequences.

Which is why they really should make the job of explaining it unnecessarily difficult with bloody stupid comments about how a police state is being built and complaining the anti-terrorism police were used to arrest Damian Green MP or that he was held for 9 hours and had his DNA and fingerprints taken.

They voted for the draconian, illiberal legislation that allowed anti-terrorism police to be used on people who aren’t terrorists.

They voted for the draconian, illiberal legislation that allow the police to forcibly take DNA samples and fingerprints and hold them forever regardless of whether the person is found innocent.

It’s good to see an MP experiencing, first hand, the abuse of anti-terrorism laws and the shocking way that the police have been turned into a puppet of the state.  It’s good to see an MP experiencing, first hand, the way the police have been changed from an independent civillian force whose job is to protect the civillian population and uphold the law to a politicised sockpuppet of the British government that is there to serve the state, not the people.

But most of all, it’s good that so many MPs are complaining about the treatment one of their own has received from agents of the state.  Perhaps next time they’re presented with a bill purporting to be about anti-terrorism or security, they’ll spend a little bit more time thinking about what’s written on the paper in front of them and less about what their leaders and whips are telling them.

The whole affair is being carefully choreographed.  The police have accused Damian Green of “grooming” civil servants to get information out of them.  The word “grooming” is, of course, associated with paedophiles – inferring the seriousness of the “crime” as being on the same level as child abuse.  The police are using character assassination to try and justify what they did – no smoke without fire and all that and he was grooming young impressionable civil servants.

El Gordo and the facsist bitch, Jacqui Smith, are both still denying that they knew anything about it but it’ll all come out in the inquiry, I’m sure.  Except there won’t be one – not if El Gordo gets his way.  He says there won’t be an inquiry into what happened because they don’t know all the facts.  Very sensible Comrade Brown, imagine what would happen if someone held an inquiry without knowing what the answers were in advance – they might not come up with the right answer and then where would we be?
Damian Green’s arrest should be a warning to all MPs, regardless of which party they belong to.

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Histon? Who are they?

November 30, 2008 Sport 2 comments

I can honestly say, I’ve never been excited about a football match that didn’t involve a team I support but I’ve just been on the edge of my seat watching Histon play Leeds.

Watching a team I remember being one of the best in England go down 1-0 to a non-league team is great but wathing them consistently out-played by the underdogs was excellent.  Histon deserve their FA Cup third round place.
Histon played brilliantly and the game reminded me of why I prefer lower league or non-league football to premiership football.  Can you imagine someone like Arsenal or Chelsea playing like Histon just did?

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All animals are equal … but some animals are more equal than others

November 29, 2008 Come the revolution, Labour, Police State, Tories 8 comments

In a civillised democracy a member of an opposition political party would be commended for making public some embarrassing piece of information about the serving government.  Information relating to the employment of an illegal immigrant at the Home Office, the Security Industry Authority giving licences to illegal immigrants or a letter from the Home Secretary to the Prime Minister saying that recession might lead to an increase in crime (claims that it may have mentioned that bears shit in the woods have yet to be confirmed).

But, of course, this isn’t a civillised democracy any more.  Far from it: this is the Brownian People’s Republic of New Britain – an embryonic soviet-style police state in which the police and security services are an instrument of the ruling party and a grinning, jowly hypocrite tells us all what to do while he does the complete opposite.

The Tory MP and Immigration Spokesman, Damian Green, was arrested on Thursday night for just that though.  Civil Service bosses called in the police to investigate the source of a leak in their department, Green was fingered and anti-terrorism officers swooped.  His homes in Kent and London were searched and his office in Westminster was searched with the permission of Liebour MP and El Gordo’s sockpuppet, Speaker Micheal Martin.

It is the latter that has caused most concern because, unless there is an accusation of a criminal offence, Westminster is effectively off-limits to the police.  MPs have parliamentary privilege which gives MPs immunity from civil offences committed inside the Palace of Westminster.  The concept of parliamentary privilege is important because MPs need to be able to speak or act freely in parliament without having to worry about being sued as a result.  There is also the question of privacy – the police removed files and papers from his office in parliament which may contain confidential or sensitive correspondence from his constituents.

Of course, El Gordo says that he didn’t know anything about this in advance and nor did any of his ministers.  David Cameron did and so did Boris Johnson but the Prime Minister says he didn’t and the Home Secretary – the minister in charge of the police – says that she didn’t.  Didn’t know, my arse.  This was a parting shot from Ian Blair on his last day as head of the Met against the party he blames for his demise.  Of course the Goblin King and the facist bitch, Jacqui Smith, knew about it.
The idea that an opposition MP can be arrested by anti-terrorist police, have his home and parliamentary office searched and confidential papers taken away for examination for doing his job is truly shocking and there have been the inevitable and justified drawing of parallels with George Orwell’s 1984.  But it goes deeper than 1984, it’s just a small part of the whole rotten revolution.  Gordo and his champagne socialist co-conspirators are creating their very own animal farm with the One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan as Napolean and Alistair Darling as his Squealer.

George Orwell was a visionary and the most ironic thing is that Orwell was a Labour Party supporter for most of his life.

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Mumbai terrorist latest

November 29, 2008 General 4 comments

Indian troops have killed the last of the terrorists holed up in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel.

The Taj Mahal Palace hotel was the last one to be cleared of terrorists earlier today.

It’s taken almost three days to clear a few terrorists out of a couple of hotels, what has actually been happening down there?

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RBS shares marginally less popular than Gary Glitter

November 28, 2008 Economy, Funny, Scotland 2 comments

I know it’s hard to believe but it appears that being a Scottish bank hasn’t, as previously thought, been a good enough reason for investors to plough their life savings into a bankrupt Royal bank of Scotland. Go figure.

RBS had another bumper rights issue as part of the deal with the devil Alistair Darling to get their hands on a few billion more of our hard earned cash. The idea was that they’d get loads of money of the taxpayer and then issue a few million shares to dilute the taxpayers stake in the bank to make sure the UK Treasury was a minority shareholder. Which would have been quite clever if it wasn’t for the fact that the bank is insolvent and the shares quite obviously so high risk as to be worthless as evidenced by the fact that hardly anybody has bought any of the new shares.

The upshot of this is that the UK Treasury now owns 57.9% of “oor bank”. That should please Alex Salmond.

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MMR

November 28, 2008 BBC, Health 5 comments

The BBC were bleating this morning about another promised measles epidemic (the last one they said was going to happen didn’t, I wonder if this one will) and navel gazing about the number of children that aren’t getting vaccinated.

What they failed to mention was that it was the BBC was one of the media outlets that made such a big thing about the scientifically dubious and widely disputed claims that MMR vaccines could cause autism in children that has resulted in so many children not being given the MMR vaccination.

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