In May last year, the High Court ruled that MPs must release details of their expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.

It is now approaching the deadline for releasing those expenses and guess what?  Because MPs couldn’t lawfully hide their expenses, they are planning to change the law so that their expenses are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.  Morally corrupt bunch of thieving bastards.

Little Man in a Toque has some suggestions for things to do if you’re as pissed off about it as he is.  I’ve written to my MP, the thoroughly useless David Whip Wright MP:

Dear David,

As you are no doubt aware, the High Court ruled on the 16th of May last year that MPs expenses must be published under the Freedom of Information Act.  You are also no doubt aware that your government is now planning to introduce a change to the Freedom of Information Act to allow MPs to hide their expenses claims from the public.

I would urge you to vote against this disgraceful and unjustifiable attempt to avoid proper scrutiny of MPs expenses.  If you don’t think the people who pay your expenses should be allowed to see what they’re paying for, please explain why.

Stuart

No doubt he’ll ignore this email like he does with every other one I’ve sent him in the last few months.

Technorati Tags: Freedom of Information, MP Expenses, David Wright MP

Three weeks after illegally invading, Israel has begun to pull out of Gaza, leaving behind a humanitarian disaster and a very happy Hamas.

Israel says that it has achieved what it wanted to achieve but this is only partly true.  What Israel wanted to achieve was to terrorise Palestinians into withdrawing support for Hamas, to destroy infrastructure so the Palestinians can’t support themselves and to cause as much “collateral damage” as they could get away with.

Israel managed to destroy Palestinian infrastructure – half a million Palestinians in Gaza are without water, 4,000 homes have been destroyed, tens of thousands of people are homeless and schools and hospitals have been destroyed.  They managed to cause “collateral damage” – over 1,300 dead Palestinians so far and bodies are still being found.  But what they failed to achieve – and this was their stated aim – was to defeat Hamas, to take away Hamas’ ability to attack Israel and to turn people away from Hamas.

Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, Hamas responded with a temporary ceasefire for a week to let Israel withdraw its troops.  Does that sound like the actions of a defeated Hamas or a Hamas that is taking the piss, rubbing the IDF’s noses in it?  Hamas is far from defeated and the indiscriminate attacks on Gaza and the deliberate targeting of civilians have done nothing to terrorise people into abandoning support for Hamas.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Terrorism

I went to Birmingham yesterday for a meeting of the National Council of the Campaign for an English Parliament.

Parking in Birmingham is a nightmare at the best of times, especially in the city centre where the National Council meets, so I catch the train.  This was the first time I’ve caught the train since Arriva finally added an extra pair of carriages to the train into Birmingham and it made all the difference.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve stood all the way from Telford to Birmingham and again all the way back.  It’s not fun and when they charge nearly £8 for the privelege, it takes the piss.  But gone are the days of cattle class travel that wouldn’t look out of place in India – I had the luxury of sitting all the way there and all the way back in reasonable comfort.  There was no internet access and no power socket for my laptop but they don’t do first class on that route and I wouldn’t pay for it anyway!

The only complaints I had about my journey were, at Birmingham New Street station they had 8 members of staff at the ticket desk which nobody was using and only 2 on the enquiries desk where people were queueing to be served and the train on the way back was having some sort of mechanical problem, probably a dodgy clutch or gearbox, which meant that the thing kept juddering along before dropping down a gear for a while and then back up a gear and into juddering mode again.

Oh yeah and having all the safety signs on one side of the carriage written only in Welsh probably isn’t the best or safest way of doing things for a train that spends most of its journey in England.

Technorati Tags: Arriva, Trains, Telford, Birmingham, Birmingham New Street

The walking, talking man-made disaster, El Gordo, has struck again.

On the 9th of January he visited Media Wales, part of Trinity Mirror, and was given a guided tour around the facilities by Managing Director, Keith Dye.  On the 13th of January Keith Dye was made redundant in a cost-cutting exercise.

Still, it could have been worse – remember John MacDougal?

The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan is visiting the site of the Olympic village in London today.  We may as well write off 2012 now.

Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown, Media Wales, Keith Dye, John MacDougal, Olympics

The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan has abused the honours system again to appoint another unelected minister to his cabinet of all the talentless.

Mervyn Davies, the Chairman of the Standard Chartered Bank, will be given a peerage so that he can join the British government without the inconvenience of having to get elected.  Davies will join Paul Myners, who was also given a peerage so he could be appointed to the cabinet without being elected, in the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) where he will be serving under Peter Mandelson who was also given a peerage so he could join the British government without having to get elected.

Setting aside, for a moment, the fact that El Gordo – supposedly a socialist and diametrically opposed to the class system – is abusing the honours system to circumvent the democratic process, what it does tell us is that even El Gordo has no faith in his own MPs to weather the economic storm he was instrumental in creating which is why he’s having to cheat the system and bring in unelected outsiders.  Mandelson’s appointment shows just how inadequate the talent inside Liebour’s own ranks is – bringing back a failed communist politician who’s had to twice resign from government because of dodgy financial dealings smacks of desperation.

Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown, BERR, Peter Mandelson, Mervyn Davies, Peerages, Corruption

The hand-wringing liberals are at it again, this time demanding Prince Charles apologise for calling his friend Sooty.

The friend in question, Kolin Dhillon, said “I enjoy being called Sooty by my friends” but that hasn’t stopped the PC fascists from wailing hysterical about how insensitive and offensive Prince Charles has been.

Someone from Give Racism the Red Card, the unequal rights pressure group that started plying its trade at football matches, said “In our view there is no friendly banter where racism is concerned”.  Well clearly there fucking is you muppet, as evidenced by “Sooty” saying “I enjoy being called Sooty”.

Even the campaign manager of the anti-monarchy campaign, Republic, has got in on the act saying it shows how out of touch the royals are.  Which it doesn’t.  What it shows is how out of fucking touch people like Republic and Give Racism the Red Card are.  Has Prince Harry’s former colleague, the one he called “paki” three years ago, taken offence at being called “paki”?  No.  Has Kolin Dhillon complained about being called “Sooty”?  No.  Not every black or asian person is obsessed with being a victim.  Not every black or asian person sees racism in everything that is said or done to them.  It’s only the gobshite professional whingers, hand-wringing liberals and spineless politicians that blow things like this out of all proportion and they’re the ones creating this climate of fear where ordinary people are scared to speak their mind in case they get accused of racism.

But, strictly speaking, the jobsworth from Give Racism the Red Card is right.  There is no friendly banter where racism is concerned.  Racism is a hatred or intolerance of another race or other races or a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.  Did Prince Charles demonstrate a hatred or intolerance of Kolin Dhillon because of his race?  No.  Did Prince Charles express the idea that he was superior to Kolin Dhillon because of his race?  No.  So was Prince Charles being racist?  NO!

Publicity is the oxygen of the fascist groups “anti-racism” that are driving a wedge between the natives of these islands and rest of society.  Every time a newspaper quotes them it gives them an unhelpful and undeserved legitimacy.  They are the ones you can thank for the kind of society we now have where groups like the Muslim Council of Britain and Reach receive taxpayers money and have a seat at the decision making table but the Steadfast Trust, a charity dedicated to promoting English culture, is denounced as racist.

Technorati Tags: Racism, Prince Charles

When you speak out on a subject with a different viewpoint to what is presented by the media, the government or your peers as the “right” opinion to have, it often feels like you’re beating your head against a brick wall.  This is the case with Israel – the government sides with Israel, the media tries to come across as impartial but overcompensates in favour of Israel and the majority of my right of centre peers in the blogging world most definitely side with Israel.

That’s why it was a relief to read this article by Avi Shlaim, a former Israel soldier turned professor of international relations at Oxford University which says pretty much what I’ve been saying for the last few years.  I won’t reproduce the article because it’s too long but, as much as I dislike driving traffic to the Guardian, I would encourage you to go and read it.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, Avi Shlaim

The Millibeast didn’t reply to my email the other day so I sent him another one this evening:

Dear Millibeast,

I wrote to you a few days ago as you can see below but I haven’t received a reply as yet.  Perhaps your secretaries didn’t forward the email on or you’ve been too busy.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what’s happening in Gaza at the moment although you may not have seen the latest fatality figures.  According to the paper I read tonight the death toll is somewhere in the region of 13 of Gods Chosen People (3 of which self-defenced themselves loading one of their Weapons of Mass Self-Defence) compared to 870 Arabs.

The other day, some of Gods Chosen Soldiers rounded up some civilian terrorists and put them in a house for their own safety and then the next day they self-defenced the house, killing quite a few of the civilian terrorists, three of which were children.  After this the international community, through the UN, expressed its will by way of another UN resolution calling on Israel to stop self-defencing Gaza.  Israel has ignored the will of the international community again, when will you be taking the same hard stance that the British and American governments did with Iraq for the same offence?

Vive La Revolution!

Wonko

I reckon trying to get a reply from government ministers should be made an Olympic sport, it’d be a perfect addition to the list of Olympic sports we’re no good at.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Terrorism, David Millibeast

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.

Technorati Tags: Prince Harry

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!

Technorati Tags: Food, Kids

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.

Technorati Tags: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, Flock, Browsers, Microsoft

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

Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, David Millibeast

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

Technorati Tags: Petitions, No Mandate Brown

I’d like to wish all my readers a Happy New Year.

Hopefully 2009 will be a happy and prosperous year for you all and if it isn’t then at least you’ve only got 365 days until 2010!

Technorati Tags: Happy New Year

We just had a power cut for over an hour.  This might not sound like much and I’ve certainly been through much worse but it’s unusual for round here and it must have been pretty severe.

As far as I can tell, the whole of Brookside and Stirchley were out (over 10k people) including the street lights and the mobile phone masts.  According to a friend on the other side of town, their power dipped a couple of times and someone a few miles up the road said that their lights had been flickering.

When I still lived with my parents we had power cuts that lasted half a day or more.  I think we had one lasting over a day once.  Every time it rained heavily, snowed or there was a strong wind, the power would go off.  As kids we were used to it but it’s different when you’re an adult with kids of your own trying to get them to go to bed in the dark when they’re not used to it and thinking ahead to how you’re going to warm the house up if the electric doesn’t come back on soon or if the fuse box has blown (we did wonder when the street lights came back on but we still had now power).

Anyway, the power is back on now and it was only an hour or so but it was such an inconvenience even for that short an amount of time – no landline (digital phones), no internet (no power for the routers), no TV and no lights (other than candles but they’re not much use compared to an electric light).  Looks like we need to prepare more for the future power shortages.

Technorati Tags: Power Outage

I’d like to wish all my readers a very merry Christmas.

I’ll be taking a few days off blogging but I’ll probably update Twitter from time to time so if you really have nothing better to do over Christmas than read about whatever is annoying me you can follow me on Twitter!

Technorati Tags: Christmas

The Belgian government has resigned yet again.

Prime Minister Yves Leterme tendered his government’s resignation in June, just 3 months after forming a government, after failing to get an enhanced devolution deal approved by parliament.  On that occassion, the King refused to accept the resignation and told Leterme to sort himself out.

This time, however, the King has accepted Leterme’s resignation for its part in the controversial privatisation and impending sell-off of the Belgian arm of the Benelux bank, Fortis.

Belgium is broken beyond repair, anything other than the break-up of the union is just a sticking plaster.

Technorati Tags: Belgium