Can't see, wont see

I always thought that becoming a bus driver indicated a few things, though admittedly until today, one of them was the ability to read or at least observe, which I took as a given. One of the others was the ability to be a complete jobsworth on occasion, at least seems to have survived...
Mail.

A furious housewife was thrown off a bus because she was carrying a pot of white paint.
Anna Porreca, 52, was stunned when the driver told her she was a health and safety risk because the paint was flammable.
But the emulsion paint Mrs Porreca had just bought from a DIY shop was water-based and completely safe.
She said: 'The bus driver saw me getting on and said: 'You can’t come on here with that.
'I asked him why and he said it was to do with health and safety - because it was flammable.
'I’m furious - I checked the tin and it doesn’t say that anywhere.'

It's true enough, any tin of anything even mildly inflammable has to be marked as such, the problems usually only start when people use containers which weren't designed for the purpose after decanting the product into it, hence the recent case of the woman who set fire to herself after decanting petrol into a glass container. Though petrol itself isn't actually flammable as such, but the fumes mixed in an oxygen atmosphere are. So, I could understand a bus driver refusing to allow anyone on with a can of petrol. Paint is another problem though, certain glosses are highly inflammable as they contain certain solvents and spirits, though not all glosses are flammable, yet oddly enough those that are, are marked...

See the little orange square? That means it's flammable...

Yes, that one, it can sometimes have extremely flammable on it too, mostly though it's just a sign with no writing on and is required by law on all products that are... well flammable.
Yes, the bus driver may have been acting in ignorance, though it's difficult to see how he's managed it considering that the lady tried to show him that the paint which was an emulsion wasn't flammable.
I suspect what we have is another jobsworth who when pushed into a position he didn't like simply refused to accept the evidence in front of his own eyes and hoped to get away with it.
I expect after the investigation he'll be promoted to his true roll in life, inspector...

This ought to start alarm bells ringing...

So, George Galloway won the Bradford bye election and he did it by quite a margin picking up mostly protest votes along with the usual Muslim block vote. A 10,000 majority in an area that was thought to be a Labour stronghold is quite impressive.
Yet the mainstream parties only have themselves to blame on this by having supported mass uncontrolled immigration from people who are not friendly to our country, its customs and our way of life. Galloway has jumped on a bandwagon that would only work in a Muslim dominated area, but as we all know, Muslim dominated areas are growing and they have an odd tendency to vote as a block towards anyone who is "Muslim friendly" regardless of actual policies. In the past this has benefited Labour, but with Respect being generally more "Muslim friendly" along with pro Fakestinian and anti-western policies then the result really should not have surprised anyone. It certainly didn't surprise me.
Not that Bradford West is a typical constituency of course, well not yet anyway and I doubt Galloway could win anywhere these days except in an area with a large Islamic community. However a combination of a large Islamic community coupled with a protest vote is something that all political parties should take note of. After all, it could be them next. Problem for the mainstream parties is that any attempt to debate about the Muslim block vote will be flagged by the usual suspects as racist, yet the evidence is out there, Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green, Bradford West, all areas with large Muslim communities and all areas where Respect has managed to upset the applecart and as for George Galloway having the interests of the UK at heart...

There's your answer...
He sides with the fascistic, genocidal, Islamic Hamas movement in Gaza so is pro anti West terrorism.
This is why he can get the Muslim block vote, this is why Islam and Muslims in the UK will become an increasing problem over the next few decades.

Consequences

There are consequences to every government attempt to force people into doing something they don't want to do, be it with booze or cigarettes, or simply by allowing through their actions the price of a commodity to become too high via excessive taxation.
10+ years ago, no one would really have considered wood burning stoves as a way to heat their house, or even to help cook, yes it was available, but it wasn't mainstream so to speak. Well not until the environmental levy on fuel prices...
BBC.

The large-scale theft of timber from National Trust woodland in Gloucestershire may be due to high fuel prices, say countryside rangers.
Staff at the Haresfield Beacon estate near Stroud say people are driving away vehicles laden with logs.
An increase in the use of wood-burning stoves because of high gas prices has been blamed for the thefts.
The trust says dead wood left on the ground is an important part of the woodland habitat.
National Trust countryside ranger Tim Jenkins said at least 20% of trees cut down in managed woodland were left on the ground deliberately. The remaining trees are sold on.

One of the guys I work with has just fitted a wood burning stove into his house, unsurprisingly he has a chain saw, as far as he's concerned if it's left lying on the ground for more than a day, is not on private property (he doesn't regard country parks etc as private), it's his, otherwise known as gleaning.
This is a direct consequence of the idiotic government green levy to pay for global warming climate change global climate disruption. He sees it as a relatively cheap way to heat his house and frankly considering my heating bills, I can't blame him. I guess you could call it the dark side of social engineering, alongside feral youths and welfare sink estates. You make something too expensive or restrict access to it, you either start a black market in the product, or people will find some alternative and to hell with the supposed legalities, as the National Trust is finding out.
Oddly enough the National Trust are all for measures to assist with global warming climate change global climate disruption. Save possibly people nicking their timber because of the measures taken to deal with this imaginary concept, though burning wood does release the carbon captured in the substance, so I guess they hate wood burners all the more.
But, if the government is going to use our taxes and levies us on our guel bills to subsidise bird mincers and uneconomic solar capture, this sort of thing is going to happen, legal or not.
You can almost imagine the enviroloons grinding their teeth over this, but then again they rarely consider the consequences of their actions fully anyway.

Curious

A jail in Doncaster has been expanded to house 325 new inmates, yet according to a source in the BBC they're all apparently sex offenders, which has not exactly gone down well in the town.
BBC.

More than 300 sex offenders have been sent to an expanded South Yorkshire jail in a move described by a town mayor as "outrageous".
It means sex offenders now make up about a third of the population of Moorland Prison near Doncaster.
The town's elected mayor Peter Davies questioned where inmates would go on their release from the category C jail.
Sources told the BBC that all 325 new inmates were sex offenders. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) denied this.

Well, in one sense they've got to put them somewhere, though most people would rather they were put down, though personally speaking for the child molesters I'd far rather they were put on an isolated island somewhere and told to grow their own. But if they are all sex offenders, that does give Doncaster a bit of a problem when they do come out, assuming they don't wish to return to where they are known and face summary justice from the locals. I can't imagine any town or city would appreciate the scum of the Earth hanging around their environs, but as an aside, they do have to go somewhere.
The situation also has the potential to become a lot worse for the prison system anyway, there are a lot of ongoing trial in the various grooming cases happening throughout the country, some are in trial, a lot more are being investigated as the "official" cover up appears to have failed, with a possibility of riots in the summer if the full scale of things ever comes to light (which it hasn't yet, this thing is apparently a lot bigger than the few trials to have happened so far) So we may well need a lot more prison space and it does appear that prisoners are being shifted around the country to make room for something.
It might just of course be that our prisons are full to overflowing (they are) and that this is just an administrative transfer. However it is curious with all these grooming trials going on that sex offenders are being shifted from various other prisons and being put in one place (assuming this is happening)
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, though I do have a sneaking suspicion that the BBC source is right, though the BBC themselves haven't thought through the implication or have as ever avoided them in the name of community cohesion.

Raising standards?

Everyone except possibly the teaching unions knows that education today is nowhere near as rigorous as education 50 or so years ago, constant meddling with the system by governments over the years have brought a respected establishment low in discipline and teaching methods. That coupled with unnecessary subjects being added to the curriculum has left the state of education in the public sector of the UK in a woeful condition.
Still, it looks as if standards are to be raised, at least in maths and English...
Telegraph.

Trainee teachers are facing tough new tests in literacy and numeracy before being allowed to enter the classroom amid fears over poor standards in the three-Rs, it emerged today.
Students will be required to pass rigorous exams to qualify for training places as part of sweeping Government reforms designed to attract the brightest graduates into the profession.
An expert panel – led by top head teachers – will be tasked with drawing up new-style assessments of basic skills in a move designed to root out poorly-qualified candidates.
Ministers are also proposing to raise the pass mark for existing tests and clamp down on the number of times students can re-sit exams.
Currently, one-in-five trainees fail to pass both tests first time round and one-in-10 take the numeracy exam three times or more.
It comes despite the fact that the tests – containing large numbers of multiple choice questions – are often seen as “too easy”.

Any test in which the answers are already written down or can even be luckily guessed strikes me as being a little too easy, particularly in the case of those who are going to teach themselves. When you look at a couple of questions themselves, you can see that there's still a little bit to worry about...

For a practical task a primary teacher needs 25 millilitres of liquid for each pupil. There are 28 pupils in the class. How many millilitres of liquid are needed?

Teachers organised activities for three classes of 24 pupils and four classes of 28 pupils. What was the total number of pupils involved?

Nadine was _________ that she had passed her Geography examination. Is the correct word: releived, relieved, releaved or realived? 

:: Apart from the _________ details, the art lesson was truly inspired. Is the correct word: administrative, adminstrative, administretive or adminstretive?

Not exactly rocket science, particularly for one of my generation, though I suspect the textspeak generation might struggle with the English test. Yet it would appear that people who struggled with this sort of simple education test were allowed loose at our kids.
If we are allowing people who have problems with this test then it's small wonder that the way teachers are regarded has nosedived, the fact that the teaching unions also have far too much influence in keeping those who are incompetent or at least not suited to teaching in their jobs, often for life.
Whilst this is a start, it strikes me as being nowhere near enough, though sadly the generations of kids that are coming through have already been badly let down by the system.

For every action...

There is an equal and opposite reaction as the saying goes, it's as true in physics as it is in life. You'd have thought that unions having (supposedly) learnt the lessons of the Thatcher years when they went to excess in attempting to disrupt the nation would at least bear this in mind against pushing too hard...
Telegraph.

New driver-less Tube trains will lead to cheaper tickets and challenge the power of “hardline union bosses” , Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, will say today.
Ahead of the mayoral election in May, Mr Johnson will pledge never again to buy a tube train with an old-fashioned driver’s cab as long as he is in charge of the city.
Londoners have been plagued by 23 tube strikes over the last four years Mr Johnson has been in office, as drivers demand better pay and conditions.
In a speech on his campaign trail, Mr Johnson will ask residents for “new mandate to automate the tube network”.
He believes half of London’s line can be automatic within two years, with drivers replaced by “train captains” in charge of supervising the trains.
“It is time to move forward with ‘train captains’ with all the efficiency benefits at will bring, and absolutely no loss of safety,” he will say.

Now I expect the unions will fight this, I expect the grounds to be health and safety and they might have a point. After all there will be circumstances in which a machine just will not be programmed to cope and it might just do the wrong thing and at tube speeds carrying passengers that's a risk. However after 23 strikes taking their wages up to just under £50,000 plus blackmailing holding transport for London to ransom over Olympic (nice games, shame if a transport strike were to happen in the middle of them) what did they think TfL would do? Though knowing the likes of the transport union leaders, the chances are they never gave it much thought. However they've managed to push the likelihood of having some of their members replaced by a computer chip that much closer to reality whilst alienating the general public over the years getting there. Fact is, they're the ones who have brought this upon themselves because it's now cheaper to replace them than keep them on, they really should have learned by the example of the once powerful miners union.

The Mayor will also promise to lobby the Government for changes to national strike law, so that industrial action “can no longer be triggered by a small minority of union members”.
The RMT union has described driverless trains as “lethal and unworkable”, while Aslef, Britain’s biggest drivers’ union, has said it would “vigorously” fight any attempts to eliminate the need for drivers.

It was Thatcher who said that socialism works fine till someone else's money runs out, well Aslef and the RMT are discovering what happens when you price yourself out of the market, sooner or later people either stop using your product or they'll find a cheaper replacement. They've brought this upon themselves and if it works, they wont be missed.

Just confirming what we already thought

A quarter of a million can get you a lot of things, granted not as much as it could say 25 years ago, but still, I doubt that many of us would turn our noses up at being offered that amount. However when you are touting access to the Prime Minister for a party donation, then you're well into the realms of corruption, it doesn't matter how you spin it, it looks bad.
Telegraph.

Peter Cruddas, who runs an online trading company, allegedly told potential donors that gifts of more than £200,000 would get them into the party's "premier league."
This would be enough to get donors invitations to dinners with the Prime Minister and George Osborne, the Chancellor, it was alleged. Mr Cruddas was apparently filmed making the offer to undercover reporters.
He was filmed apparently telling reporters posing as businessmen that making a large donation would be "awesome for your business" and that "things will open up for you".
The party immediately launched an "urgent" amid signals from senior sources that Mr Cruddas's future as co-treasurer was being immediately reviewed.
In a statement Mr Cruddas said: "Specifically, it was categorically not the case that I could offer, or that David Cameron would consider, any access as a result of a donation. Similarly, I have never knowingly even met anyone from the number ten policy unit. But in order to make that clear beyond doubt, I have regrettably decided to resign with immediate effect.”

Most people who read this blog will probably already have an extremely jaundiced view of politicians anyway, regarding them as corrupt incompetent parasites on an already debased political system that rewards theft and peculation throughout the entire system. So what Cruddas did has not really come as a great surprise, after all most of the political parties are struggling to maintain their memberships (and failing) and are looking to donors to top up their funds, though heaven alone knows the parties themselves could increase their memberships simply by offering the public something they want, such as an exit from the EU. As it is, donations can mean that the donator is after influence on policy or access to those who can influence policy. After all, the golden rule applies in that the man with the gold makes the rules. Yet what Cruddas has done along with the unions in Labour's case is bring the entire system into disrepute as the public see that votes and influence can clearly be bought.
Yet what's worse will be the inevitable call for party funding to be made by state funding, in other words getting those of us who hold the system in utter contempt to pay for the parasites via taxation and thus giving the big two and a half parties a virtual monopoly on power. Frankly I don't want any of my money going to any political party I don't choose to support anyway, if they want my money, offer me something I want, then I'll consider it, as it is, none of them do, certainly on average anyway. Even a party I might consider supporting has decided it doesn't want my vote anyway (hello UKIP, yes, you don't want EDL members, so you forfeit my vote) So why the hell should any of us pay for them out of our pockets?
We really should just hang them all and start again, pour encourager les autres.

An unbecoming trait Oxford

My recent post "This seems to be an unbecoming cultural trait" about the activity of "Asian" grooming gangs in Dewsbury touched upon in the comments regarding some sort of similar activity in Oxford, though the information given in the Oxford Mail and the Telegraph was notable more by the absence of certain facts about the perpetrators, though the Modus Operandi was apparently the same. Still it was always possible that the miscreants in this case were not Asians and were from the indigenous community despite it not really being their style (UK white paedophiles tend to be solitary individuals who only pass information online, as they know what the general public think of such activities)
Oxford Mail (1)

Twelve men, aged between 21 and 37 years old, were arrested on suspicion of a variety of offences including causing the prostitution of females under the age of 18, administrating drugs for the purpose of rape, trafficking, grooming and rape.
They are currently all in police custody.
The raids were carried out as part of Operation Bullfinch, an investigation into child exploitation on 24 girls aged between 11 and 16 years old in Oxford. 

 Telegraph.

''The experience of our members in the network is that both victims and offenders come from a wide range of cultural and social backgrounds.''
The alleged crimes include causing the prostitution of females under the age of 18, administrating drugs for the purpose of rape, trafficking, grooming and rape.
The trafficking allegations are not understood to involve children being transported into the country from overseas.
Instead the charge relates to the alleged victims being moved from elsewhere in the UK.
"My neighbourhood policing teams will be carrying out reassurance patrols in the area issuing information about the operation with contact details if people need further information, or would like to report any activity in relation to this investigation" 

A wide range of cultural and social backgrounds?
Oxford Mail (2)

THREE men have appeared in court so far today after police raids on an alleged child sex ring in Oxford.
The men - who can now be named for the first time - appeared at a magistrates’ court.
Thirty-one-year-old hospital porter Akhtar Dogar, of Tawney Street, East Oxford, faces three charges of rape, one of conspiring to rape a child, three of arranging the prostitution of a child, one of making a threat to kill and one of trafficking.
His 30-year-old unemployed brother Anjum Dogar faces one charge of conspiring to rape a child, one of arranging prostitution of a child and trafficking.
Twenty-six-year-old security guard Kamar Jamil, of Aldwich Road, Oxford, faces four charges of rape, two of arranging the prostitution of a child, one of making a threat to kill and one of possession of cocaine with intent to supply.

Now colour me sceptical if amongst the offenders at least there appears to be only one culture involved (so far) that being the Islamic culture of Pakistani origin, Dogar and Jamil being Pakistani surnames. So, now we have trials in Dewsbury, Liverpool and Manchester (involving a Rochdale ring) an ongoing trial in Telford, plus an ongoing case in Blackpool involving the grooming of 60 young girls vis 4 "Asian" owned takeaway premises in that town. All involving Muslims of Pakistani origin and all involving the grooming and abuse of underage girls not in their communities for sexual purposes.
You'd think that local authorities would be falling over themselves to make sure that the community involved is investigated thoroughly to make sure that young girls on their patch are ok.
You'd of course be wrong...
Lancashire Telegraph.

BLACKBURN will be given a six-figure windfall to help the area deal with right wing extremism.
The council has been chosen to lead the way with tackling community integration issues following its response to the English Defence League protest last April.
Council leader Kate Hollern welcomed the funding boost to tackle ‘the menace’ of the EDL and far-right organisations.
The high-profile 2011 demo was Lancashire Police’s biggest ever operation, but passed off without major incident.

Yes, the people protesting about the behaviour of the grooming gangs are the ones to be targetted by the local councils.
You really couldn't make it up...
Addendum, this is a comprehensive list of (known) grooming crimes committed by the Muslim community.

Keighley 2005 :

http://www.thetelegraphandargu…..be_jailed/

Oldham 2006 :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/…..195523.stm

Blackburn 2007 :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e…..e-13589828

Manchester 2008 :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng…..713983.stm

Blackburn 2008 :

http://www.lancashiretelegraph…..r/?ref=rss

Skipton 2009 :

http://www.thetelegraphandargu…..ing_girl_/

Rotherham 2010 :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..ng-12.html

Rochdale 2010 :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8488624.stm

Rochdale 2010 :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..slave.html

Nelson 2010 :

http://www.burnleycitizen.co.u…..ted_teens/

Preston 2010 :

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/jail….._1_1493788

Derby 2011 :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e…..e-12137400

Blackpool 2011 :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..urder.html

Burnley 2012 :

http://www.pendletoday.co.uk/n….._1_4206114

Dewsbury 2012 :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..z1pmhxo83Z

Barking, East London 2012 :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..z1kXsCUYxS

Telford 2012 :

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho…..-kids.html

Rochdale 2012 :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e…..r-17291143

Blackburn 2012 :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..house.html

Oxford 2012 :

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-ne…..e/16195305

List compiled by Raj Singh, EDL forum

A matter of pride

The English are the forgotten partner of the United Kingdom, save only perhaps when it comes to taking the blame for some of the UK's more heinous acts, the Scots and Welsh often sidestepping their role in the Kingdoms more murky past when blame is being cast. The English themselves until fairly recently were happy enough to interchange the terms English and British, at least until the Scots and Welsh were afforded the means to partially go their own way after Blair's devolution, when it became obvious to put it as Orwell did, that some animals were more equal than others.
Yet still in the world of the powers that be there are slights against the English, whom most of them appear to hate and derided with petty little slights. Take the new Olympic strip...

Something missing here...

Designed by Stella McCartney, three cheers for the Black, white and blue...
Yes, with only a very scant helping of red on the collar and cuffs, Stella appears to have decided the English flags part of the Union Flag is an unnecessary option in the colour scheme.

Here's one I did earlier, sorry Irish people, it's just a quick knock up.

Not everyone's happy of course, save perhaps the powers that be and the odd "well it doesn't matter so long as we win stuff" types. But it matters to a lot of the English who are pig sick of being treated as second class citizens in their own land.
Yes I know the Welsh have a right to be aggrieved over the lack of incorporation of their flag into the design, though there are historical reasons for that and their flag is not part of the Union flag to begin with (perhaps it should) But you could imagine the reaction of the Scots to an all shades of red union flag Olympic design. I also doubt that the Irish represented by their flag are any too happy either.
Once again the powers that be who represent the UK and hate the English have gotten their way with a petty snub to our flag and our nation. I suspect there are a few more English today that were british yesterday...

This seems to be an unbecoming cultural trait

Another day, another grooming case and again it's an "Asian" gang responsible.
Mail.

A drunken 15-year-old girl was filmed naked and pleading as a gang of six men sexually abused her throughout the night, a court heard.
Harrowing footage from one of the defendant’s mobile phones seen by Leeds Crown Court showed the young girl lying naked while men laughed and touched her.
She could be heard saying: 'Give me back my clothes' and 'let me go'.
Ali Rehman, 26, his brother Hassan, 18, Larasab Hussain, 45, Faisar Younas, 23, Saqib Hussain, 31, and Wahid Hussain, 19, are on trial in West Yorkshire after the teenager was 'used and abused like an object'.
The jury watched the videos as Sharon Beattie, prosecuting, transcribed the men's conversation - which was in Urdu, Punjabi and English.
Miss Beattie said: 'In her account, various videos were taken that evening, only one was recovered - taken at the end of the evening. The men, all from Dewsbury, deny the charges. The trial continues.

Now the girl involved is no angel, however she is/was underage and it's fairly obvious that she was too drunk from having been plied with drink to object to what was being done to her.
This trial follows similar trials ongoing in Liverpool and Manchester involving "Asians" from Rochdale, along with a trial ongoing in Telford again involving "Asians" from the local community. There's also an ongoing police investigation in Blackpool involving the grooming of 60 underage girls by four "Asian" owned premises.
Yet from certain sections of the political spectrum there is a deafening hypocritical silence on these activities, or occasionally an attempt to shift the blame. Can you imagine the outcry from the liberal left if the perpetrators accused of such a crime had been preying on the "Asian" community involved?
We've seen what happens in such cases as the Stephen Lawrence trial where laws protecting us for centuries were overturned and used retrospectively to prosecute the men involved. Yet the most you hear from the liberal left or the hard left on these cases are "well white males are paedophiles too" which is true, but no excuse for the cover up and lack of silence on these cases from the media in the past. For all I do not care for Nick Griffin and the BNP, I do remember how they were derided in the press and by the left for bringing the matter to the public's attention way back in 2004.
Even today, you can read the press reports and you can not see the true description of the perpetrators, though it's fairly obvious from the names involved, yet the press continue to call them "Asians" which is a gross insult to the billions of fine people from Asia who do not partake in such uncivilised and barbaric behaviour. I've yet to see the men involved described as what they are, Muslims of Pakistani origin in the MSM, they Aren't Indians of Hindu, Sikh or Jain heritage, they certainly aren't Chinese or other oriental Asian heritage, nor are they of the Mongolian heritage of the former states of the Soviet Union.
No, these men are Muslims from Pakistan or occasionally Bangladesh origins, they may have been born here but they've kept their culture which is reinforced by their religion to view the women of elsewhere as easy meat for the taking, the younger (and more easily lead and abused) the better.
The only way that this will be resolved peacefully is by honesty, this has yet to happen with the MSM and the powers that be. The longer this goes on the more likely civil unrest becomes.

Well there's a surprise

No, not that the murderous gunman in Toulouse happens to be Mohammed Merah, a Muslim of Algerian origin and supporter of Al Quaeda who happens to think butchering kids is the answer to the Palestinian problem.
No it's the fact that local councils have refused a grant to help them not put up their rates...
Telegraph.

New figures show that one in nine local authorities in England are defying ministers and refusing to freeze council tax by pushing though increases. A small number of the rises are more than inflation.
Prime Minister David Cameron had pledged £1billion to help English town halls freeze the levy, but many of the councils have said they would still face a shortfall.
Official National Statistics released by the Department for Communities and Local Government shows that 10 per cent of councils declined the offer. The increases go through from next month
In all, 37 councils out of 353 in England, comprising over two million housholds, opted to increase the tax by up 3.5 per cent, the maximum allowed before triggering a referendum.
Big unitary authorities raising council tax by 3.5 per cent include Redcar and Cleveland, Leicester, Darlington and Stoke-on-Trent. 

 Overall the official statistics showed the average council tax bill for a band D property set by local authorities in England will be an average of £1,444 – £4 up on last year. 

 Well there's no surprise that they are mostly Labour, though not all, nor is it a surprise that they are all prepared to raise council tax whilst cutting frontline services. Darlington for one has doubled its council tax robbery payments in the last 13 years and I rather doubt the people there have seen any great difference in the way things have been run, save possibly in the negative sense.
Most of the council tax will go to cover the cost of wages and pensions, those who don't pay council tax and unnecessary services such as translation and minority support. Very little will be channelled into emptying the bins and keeping the streets lit and potholes filled, which judging by comments when this sort of thing arises is what most people want.
Councils over the years for reasons ideological and greedy have taken upon themselves to provide services which are neither wanted or needed, often in the name of equality, sometimes diversity but more often than not because they see it as a way to raise more funds for the town twinning and fact finding holidays missions.
The surprise? Well sadly it's the fact that there is no surprise, councils have a tendency to be greedy and dogmatic, not all of them by any means, but certainly enough of them to give the few that don't a bad name.

Paramilitary?

The BBC is scaremongering again, there was a demo outside Dewsbury Magistrates' Court to highlight the case of a young man charged under the Communications Act 2003. He'd written an offensive Facebook message about the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.
BBC.

Protesters gathered outside a court as a teenager was accused of posting an offensive Facebook message about the deaths of six British soldiers.
Azhar Ahmed, 19, of Fir Avenue, Ravensthorpe, appeared at Dewsbury Magistrates' Court charged under the Communications Act 2003.
A racially-aggravated public order charge was withdrawn at the hearing and Mr Ahmed denied the new charge.
He was bailed to appear before Huddersfield magistrates on 3 July.
There was a large police presence outside court as about 50 protesters staged a noisy demonstration when the defendant arrived and left.
Some of the protesters held placards - featuring the name of the paramilitary group Combined Ex-Forces - calling for those who insult British armed forces to be jailed.

Now, I know the term paramilitary generally means a group of citizens organized in a military fashion, especially to operate in place of or assist regular army troops. It can be used to describe terrorist organisations such as the IRA (and others) who are engaged in armed insurrection against a state. However for all CXF are well organised and ex military, I don't believe the term "paramilitary" could be used to describe them. They are like the EDL and other groups similar simply apolitical single issue protest groups. However as a scaremongering tactic to put a hint of "these guys are dangerous" onto innocent people, well the BBC seem to have decided that this is the path to go down. For pretty much the same reason they always tag "right wing" in front of the EDL, it seems the BBC in their wisdom have decided to tag paramilitary in front of CXF. If anything it's a compliment, as they have no real answers to the questions raised by CXF as do the government who refused to accept a petition from them.
If you want to know what the CXF have to say for themselves  you can read a statement at the Casuals blog.

Passionate and committed, yes, paramilitary? No.

Btw, I believe in freedom of speech, so Azhar Ahmed was entitled in my view to write what he did.
I also believe he has the freedom to take the consequences of his actions and it should not be in front of a judge...

Biblically speaking

Matthew 18:8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away...

Not terribly good advice from a physical point of view, though that wasn't really the advice Jesus was giving, it was more about keeping stuff around that makes you sin, a close analogy would be letting a toddler loose in a sweet shop.
But for this woman it sounds as if it might be a good idea...
Telegraph.

A British woman is considering having her hand cut off and replaced with a bionic one after she lost use of her right arm following a car crash. 

Nicola Wilding, 35, suffered serious neck and shoulder injuries 13 years ago, which left her entire right arm paralysed.
Although nerve transplants and physiotherapy allowed her to regain movement in her upper arm, her hand has remained paralysed and withered.
She is now hoping to have the hand removed because she said it is “useless” and merely gets in the way.
Mrs Wilding believes a bionic hand would change her life by allowing her to carry out basic tasks such as cooking and dressing.
She said she was inspired to take the drastic step after seeing a television news bulletin about an Austrian man who underwent elective amputation to have his withered hand replaced with a prosthetic one.

Five years ago, I had a tumour removed from my right arm, it was growing to the front of my elbow and was wrapped around the radial nerve, it was also malignant and growing pretty fast. I was lucky, I was put in the hands of a very skilled surgeon in one of the leading cancer research hospital in the UK (Royal Marsden) Under normal circumstances, I'd probably have lost the arm, as it was he was prepared to attempt to save it, though he warned me that he might just have to sever the radial nerve on my arm leaving me with no wrist control. As it was, I lucky, I lost half my bicep, suffered some nerve damage but essentially was able to return to work after a 6 month convalescence mostly due to the nerve damage. (I would be very reluctant to hold anything if I'm the one hammering, but at least I can hammer) Fine motor control is a thing of the past with me, but I can type and can write, though sadly my guitar playing days are behind me, I can no longer strum very well or finger pick.
Still, for all it seems extreme, I can well sympathise with the lady having been in a similar if not so extreme position. It is of course an all or nothing position to be in, most people intending to have something similar have already lost a limb.
I wish Nicola well, I'm fairly sure that bionics so to speak is only in its infancy and we're nowhere near 6 million dollar man territory yet, they haven't as far as I'm aware even got to touch or pain sensation yet.
Still, great oaks from small acorns etc...

Pharisaism

My previous post mentioned the resignation/retirement of the Archbeardy of Canterbury and touched upon who was the front runner to be his successor, namely Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. I did wonder how the church would react if it was faced with having an actual Christian running it. Seems I was right in wondering, he hasn't even got the post yet and the knives are out...
Mail.

Senior insiders have questioned whether the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is up to the job of leader of the Church of England as bitter infighting broke out between rival factions.
The popular and outspoken Dr Sentamu has been widely tipped to become the first black Archbishop of Canterbury following Dr Rowan Williams’s announcement on Friday that he is to resign.
But in a taste of the political intrigue to come as conservatives and liberals battle for their favoured candidate, a source close to Lambeth Palace said Dr Sentamu lacked the diplomatic skills for the top post.

Well, Mr Beardy had diplomatic skills and look where that left him, a church on the brink of schism because he wasn't firm on areas of the faith where compromise was impossible and irresolute on attacks on the faith from most notably the followers of Islam, but also various secular authorities in the previous Labour government. Instead of dealing with the causes of the problems the church faced he instead tried to compromise between the liberal and the traditional wings of the church, in short the act of a diplomat, not a leader. Sentamu is a leader, this is what the liberal factions fear, he has some support from the masses as he's a popular guy though sadly not the all career minded church hierarchy, particularly the toadies that surrounded Williams.
I suspect if Sentamu wishes a diplomatic approach he'll do as governments do, appoint someone to take care of it for him.

The insider said the decision by Dr Sentamu to write a column for the newly launched Sunday edition of The Sun newspaper, which is known to have angered aides of Dr Williams, will have been seen as ‘a serious misjudgement’.

So good to see the spirit of the Pharisees is alive and well within the church, the Pharisees didn't care for the sermon on the mount either, I suspect they felt that to be a serious misjudgement too. Dr Sentamu is taking an opportunity to bring his message from the church to a wider audience, one who probably only turn up in churches for births, deaths and marriages. Jesus himself rarely preached in the temple, he was out and about in the countryside preaching and ministering to the masses. I suspect if he were around today he'd have a column in the Sun or perhaps the Mail, whilst no doubt he'd be condemned by the Guardian reading Pharisees.

Another senior source claimed that Dr Sentamu, though charming and articulate, had a reputation for occasionally losing his temper.

John 2:15,  So he (Jesus) made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
There do come moments when it's perfectly correct to lose your temper in matters of faith, Dr Sentamu does appear to be following more in Jesus' footsteps than Mr Beardy has ever done.
In short though, the hierarchy surrounding Mr Beardy  does not want change, they especially do not want anyone who actually believes in a position of real power in the church, after all, he might actually decide that they'd be better off ministering to the poor and sick, rather than living like princes on the fat of the land.
Now there's a thought.

You wont be missed

Well the arch-beardy of Canterbury has spat his dummy out, thrown the toys out of his pram and announced his retirement due mostly to the row over gay marriage and the controversy over the wearing of crosses.Yet strangely enough he was perfectly happy for the misogynistic and bigoted shariah law to be practised in this country as well as constant interfering in the business of government in areas he had no concern in. Rather it seems that the Labour placeman (for that is what he is) irritated the government enough to strike back in areas in which he was vulnerable.
Telegraph.

Dr Rowan Williams resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury with an attack on “dim-witted prejudice” against symbols of Christianity, such as wearing a cross. 

But his resignation comes after he accepted a likely defeat in his efforts to prevent schism in the Church.
Hours before his announcement he admitted to a group of senior clerics that the initiative is likely to collapse and spoke of his sense of “foreboding”.
He announced he would step down as leader of 77 million Anglicans early, ahead of a series of votes in dioceses which would spell the end of the unity pact on which he staked his credibility.
He acknowledged his decade-long tenure had been marked by “crisis management”. His comments came after weeks dominated by a public debate over the role of the church in national life, including a High Court ban on council prayers, the row over gay marriage and the controversy over the wearing of crosses.
He presided over one of the most turbulent periods in the Church’s modern history with long and, at times, acrimonious arguments over the ordination of women bishops and divisions between liberal and conservative branches of the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality.
Yesterday he acknowledged that his time had been marked by “crisis management” adding: “The worst aspects of the job I think have been the sense that there are some conflicts that won’t go away, however long you struggle with them, and that not everybody in the Anglican Communion or even in the Church of England is eager to avoid schism or separation.”

The problem for many in the Anglican Church was that Mr Beardy was not seen as a Christian, rather he was seen as a theologian strapped to a socialist ethos and what he believed was not what the Bible actually told Christians to believe. He was appointed to his position by Tony Blair ahead of the other candidate the Bishop of Southwark because he was thought to be sympathetic to New Labours plans and so it turned out to be with a disaster laden tenure in which he spent most of his time firefighting problems of his own making. In a time where Christians were under attack in Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Iraq and even occasionally in the UK by Muslims he felt the need to tell us that shariah law in the UK was unavoidable. Despite the fact that it was obvious that the ongoing jihad was part of shariah law and that under shariah law itself...
There is no freedom of religion
There is no freedom of speech
There is no freedom of thought
There is no freedom of artistic expression
There is no freedom of the press
There is no equality of peoples-a non-Muslim, a Kafir, is never equal to a Muslim
There are no equal rights for women
Women can be beaten
A non-Muslim cannot bear arms
There is no equal protection under Sharia for different classes of people. Justice is dualistic, with one set of laws for Muslim males and different laws for women and non-Muslims.
Our Constitution is a man-made document of ignorance, and must be twisted so that all must submit to Sharia
There is no democracy, since that means that a non-Muslim is equal to a Muslim
Non-Muslims are dhimmis, third-class citizens
There is no Golden Rule
There is no critical thought
All governments must be ruled by Sharia law
Unlike common law, Sharia is not interpretive, nor can it be changed.

Mr Beardy was the wrong man in the wrong place, he suited New Labour just fine, but as a representative of Christianity he was an utter failure and appears to have broken that which he tried to hold together, he was essentially an administrator rather than a leader and it showed. He was of the gentle Jesus meek and mild persuasion, forgetting that the same Jesus was prepared on occasion to take a whip to scourge those who dishonoured God.
His successor is rumoured to be Dr John Sentamu, though this will be a decision for Cameron vis the Queen. It will be interesting to see what happens if it is, Sentamu actually believes, is an actual Christian.
I wonder how the Church of England will cope with having an actual Christian running it after all these years...

Temporary solutions

Seems that both Cameron and Obama have realised that high fuel prices might just be the straw that breaks the camels back, the camel being of course the opportunity to be voted in by the various mugs electorates they represent. So, what are they proposing?
Express.

HARD-pressed motorists were given a glimmer of hope yesterday after it emerged that David Cameron and President Barack Obama had discussed taking action to ease soaring fuel prices.
The two leaders talked about the possibility of releasing some of their countries’ reserve oil stock to increase availability and lower forecourt prices.
Speaking in New York, Mr Cameron said: “We are all facing the problem of higher oil prices and that translates into the cost of filling up the family car, which is very high here in the US, but frankly even higher in the UK.
“I want to try to help British families, just as Barack Obama wants to help American families.
“We didn’t reach a decision but we discussed the issue and I think it is important we do what we can to try to help families trying to make their family budgets add up.”

So instead of reducing the real cause of high fuel prices (taxation) they are going to attempt to glut the market with their reserves. That might work for the USA who only appear to have a taxation level of 20% on their fuel, but in the UK we pay something near 66% so for all a reduction might come it will not be as effective as far as I can see, though any reduction is of course to be welcomed.
The problem is though that these measures are only temporary, sooner or later the price of oil will rise again and we'll still have ludicrously high levels of taxation on the stuff.
The other thing that did occur to my paranoid way of thinking is that by opening up the vast U.S reserves, it rather looks like the USA (and the UK) are setting the stage for an attack on Iran, one of the first things the Iranians would try is to close the Straits of Hormuz to shipping thus cutting off the West's oil supplies, opening up the USA reserves would appear to be both a warning to the Iranians and a solution to the shooting war problem.
Either way, don't expect the price of fuel to come down by very much.

Stalled

You really would think that in any country with aspirations to be a modern technical democracy would get a handle on the basics of education and push it as hard as they could. Then again, many of us suspect that this is the last thing the powers that be who rule the UK actually want, they want an ignorant proletariat to do their bidding, who through ignorance don't know enough to question their betters. They want propaganda, not education to form views, save only for their own offspring and the elite education system set aside for them.
BBC.

England is being overtaken by other leading nations because progress on literacy has stalled, says chief schools inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw.
Reading standards have not improved since 2005, he told BBC Two's Newsnight.
Speaking ahead of a speech on Thursday, in which he will call for targets for 11-year-olds to be raised, he said: "Our standards should be higher."
Teaching unions say big improvements have been made in the past two decades.
They have accused Ofsted and the government of "playing fast and loose with international data".
Sir Michael, who took over the chief inspector's role in January, told Newsnight: "Standards in literacy and reading went up between 1995 and 2005.

You'd almost have to laugh at the sheer gall of the teaching unions response to Ofsted's report if it weren't so serious to the future of the country. Not a day goes by without some report in the MSM bewailing the poorly educated young people applying for jobs in the private sector and it all boils down to an education system no longer fit for purpose because it has been the tinker toy of politicians for the last 50 years, it became worse once we joined the EU because under its rules education is one of the few areas in which they don't set policy and so is one of the few places where our politicians can actually go hands on. This is why our kids are learning about equality, climate change and alternative sexuality rather than reading, writing and arithmetic, all with the connivance of the teaching unions.
Unless or until we seize back the powers we've lost to the EU and remove the parasite class root and branch from the levers of power and relegate the teaching unions (amongst others) back to their proper roll in wage and other disputes rather than managerial decisions, the situation will only get worse.
It may well be though that we've gone too far and will not be able to repair the damage.
I hope not, because it will mean a return to the dark ages in this land we love.

You're not doing yourself any favours here...

I occasionally have a go at the police here, though I'll be the first to admit that there are some situations where come what may, they just are not going to come out of something looking good. There are however a few situations where a simple admission that they got something wrong and backing off would help, a little.
Telegraph.

Police officers assaulted a 16-year-old boy with severe autism by forcing him into handcuffs and leg restraints during a school trip, the High Court has ruled.
Judges said the boy, who is now 19, and also suffers from epilepsy, had his human rights breached after he was subjected to unlawful disability discrimination and false imprisonment.
He was awarded £28,250 in damages following the incident at a swimming pool in Acton, west London, in 2008.
However, the Met has signalled its intention to appeal against the decision.
The boy was physically removed from the swimming pool and forcibly restrained after he jumped into the water fully clothed.
The court heard it was the first time police in London had been found to have subjected a member of the public to inhuman or degrading treatment, and to disability discrimination.

Let's face it, there's never going to be a great defence of your actions involving the words child, severe autism, handcuffs and leg restraints. I can accept that a 16 year old can be quite big, and with autism can be difficult to control, however a quick word with the people in charge of the boy (as I doubt he'd be out by himself) could have warned them as to the consequences of their action, still, what was done was done and a court case ensued.
You'd have thought though that someone in the PR dept of the Met would have had a quiet word with the legal dept about going for an appeal. There is no way that going for an appeal against compensation for restraining a disabled, severely autistic young man is going to look good even if you feel you have a good case to appeal. That plus there is the fact that you aren't doing it with your own money, it's coming out of the ratepayers pocket too.
There are times when it's wise to simply cut your losses, this was one of them.

The EU Arrest Warrant

Read this and weep


http://www.annaraccoon.com/madeleine-mccann/portuguese-men-o-law/#comments

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Symbology

A lot of Christians wear a cross of some description, a lot of Christians are also getting a wee bit peed off with the current government too with its insistence on gay marriage and what appears to be a mild persecution of their faith. The government may come to regret this later, but we're in the here and now and looking at a double standard.
Telegraph.

Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case.
In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.
It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.
A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so.
The Government’s position received an angry response last night from prominent figures including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
He accused ministers and the courts of “dictating” to Christians and said it was another example of Christianity becoming sidelined in official life.

To my mind,the government is actually right in the detail, but acting in gross hypocrisy in the wider sense of what it does appear to allow. They are correct in stating that it's not mandatory for Christians to wear crosses, a lot of Christians don't after all. It's not mentioned in the Bible and is in a lot of cases just a piece of jewellery, no matter the personal significance of it to the wearer. It's not for example mandatory as in the case of Sikhs with turbans and hair cutting, along with the kara bracelet. However, in the case of the NHS which is technically a branch of the state Muslim women are allowed to wear a hijab whilst nursing and despite claims by some Muslims that this is a religious symbol, it isn't. It's not mentioned in the Quran and it's only mention in the hadiths is An-Nur 24:31, which doesn’t explicitly say that the head should be covered, it just talks about modesty. To wear the Hijab is certainly NOT an Islamic obligatory on women. It is just an innovation of Islamic men suffering from a piety/sexual complex who are so weak morally that they just cannot trust themselves to keep their hands off women.

The Government claims the two women’s application to the Strasbourg court is “manifestly ill-founded”.
Its response states: “The Government submit that… the applicants’ wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was not a manifestation of their religion or belief within the meaning of Article 9, and…the restriction on the applicants' wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was not an ‘interference’ with their rights protected by Article 9.”
The response, prepared by the Foreign Office, adds: “In neither case is there any suggestion that the wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was a generally recognised form of practising the Christian faith, still less one that is regarded (including by the applicants themselves) as a requirement of the faith.”

I suspect it's time to get the popcorn out, because if I know about the hijab, you can bet that those bringing the case know about it and whilst two wrongs don't make a right, they do make for interesting court cases.

It was never going to happen

I raised a wry smile at the resignation yesterday of Michael Pinto-Duschinsky who was on the committee discussing a new "British" bill of rights. He apparently didn't know that any new rights had to be on top of existing EU rights vis the HRA, though the inclusion of Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg should have been a major giveaway.
Express.

HOPES of curbing the interference in British life of European human rights law were yesterday hit by explosive claims the process has been rigged by Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg.
A member of the commission ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron to consider a British Bill of Rights quit saying it has been nobbled by pro-European politicians to back the status quo.
Political scholar Michael Pinto-Duschinsky said the commission was following the agenda of “the human rights establishment”. He said it was ignoring the view held by the Prime Minister and the overwhelming majority of MPs that power must shift back from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to the UK Parliament.
Mr Pinto-Duschinsky claimed the commission had been “consistently directed” by its chairman Sir Leigh Lewis away from considering the issue of “parliamentary override” – giving Parliament ultimate power over the Strasbourg Court. “After one year, it’s now clear that it’s been intended all along to issue a report in favour of the status quo,” he told BBC One’s Sunday Politics show.
“We have considered the question of parliamentary sovereignty only once in the whole year that we’ve been in existence.”
Put to him that he meant the c­ommission was working to thwart Mr Cameron and Parliament, he said: “Yes, that’s exactly what I see and exactly what I’m saying.” He said that the commission answers to Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, ­adding: “His civil servants run the commission and staffing, his hands are everywhere.”
He said the commission was set up by Mr Clarke with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and they selected the chairman.

The very fact that Ken (I never saw an EU statute I didn't like) Clarke and Nick (I have an EU pension to protect) Clegg were involved ought to have told Mr Pinto-Duschinsky everything he needed to know about the intentions of Cameron who set up the thing in the first place. Cameron is an EUphile pretending to be an EUsceptic in order to hold onto power. He has no intentions of upsetting or thwarting the EU's grand design of ever greater integration and giving the British rights over the EU was a non starter from the off.
The Human Rights Act gives the EU a degree of control over our laws and sentencing that it uses to keep our ancient rights from being asserted. In our old system if it wasn't forbidden, it was allowed, under the HRA and other EU legislation, if it isn't specifically allowed then it's forbidden. Whilst that sits well on their system it directly clashes with ours.
Until we leave the EU, the likes of Clarke, Clegg, Cameron and the various power seeking mandarins of the civil service will always work to thwart our freedoms and tie them into the EU's system as it gives them far greater powers and a lot more opacity over what they say and do to us.

The return of the parasite class

Blagging at the taxpayer or ratepayers expense is an all too real event in many of our government departments and local councils, after all, it isn't their money they are spending it's ours. You have to wonder just how much has been spent on town twinning and fact finding missions to foreign parts staying at our expense in luxury hotels and wondering why many of us think that they are simply having a free holiday at our expense.
Express.

AN ARMY of British politicians, town hall fat cats and quangocrats spent four days wining and dining alongside tycoons and prostitutes at the world’s biggest property fair in French Riviera Cannes.
Sports Minister Hugh Robertson headed a list of politicians and council chief executives who enjoyed the sunny high life last week while taxpayers struggled with the closure of libraries, leisure centres and public toilets at home.
They were among 20,000 overwhelmingly male delegates who jetted to the south of France from all over the world for the MIPIM property show where hotel lobbies, super-yachts and bars became a magnet for prostitutes cashing in.
The public officials were there to woo investors for their pet property schemes, from housing blocks in Bristol to possibilities in the Olympic Park.
While some councils funded their trips from public funds, others were on freebies with thousands of pounds of expenses paid by their business friends.
The Sunday Express counted 41 councils and other publicly funded bodies which sent about 120 delegates to Cannes for four days last week.
The entry ticket to the famous Palais des Festivals conference centre alone was £1,400 a head, while flights cost several hundred pounds.
Newham Council in east London, one of the most deprived in Britain, sent six delegates, four more even than investment bank Barclays Capital.
Its contingent included powerful Labour Mayor Sir Robin Wales and communications head Douglas Trainer, who boasted his only expense was a “three euro” hotel room tax.
Bath and North East Somerset council sent four delegates, including two councillors, Lib Dem Tim Ball and Tory Francine Haeberling.
They shared a basement stand with Bristol but during one hour’s observation by the Sunday Express on Wednesday, only two people stopped by and that was to collect free mints.
The nearby Leeds stand, which included six officials from Bradford and Leeds councils, was not much busier possibly because cities from Eastern Europe, such as Riga in Latvia, employed glamorous women to entice the male property experts to chat.
The City of Edinburgh Council fared better by offering free whisky tasting sessions.
Coventry Council helped hire a two-storey apartment opposite the Palais, while MIPIM regular Manchester also went to greater expense.
It hired the Palais’s prime location, a balcony overlooking its famous red carpet film star entrance.

Nice "work" if you can get it and much of it coming from the pockets of ratepayers and taxpayers. The thing is, they know we hold them in contempt, yet they go ahead and do it anyway, they don't care that at home services (usually essential ones as they get more publicity) are being cut, so long as they can have a long weekend in Cannes swanning around at our expense and not really doing a lot other than being there. Many of these people are the ones who scream about bankers bonuses too, forgetting that at least banks earn their money, rather than leeching it off the public purse.
One of the commenter's on the article called them lazy thieving cockroaches, which was probably too kind and rather a slur on cockroaches as well.
We really do need to start getting these people out of office by not voting mainstream and stringing them up.They really are a parasite class and serve no useful purpose in society.

Honesty being the best policy

I've occasionally had to return goods to shops, most times I've had to have the receipt, occasionally at Christmas time the goods have been recognized as being part of the shops range and exchanged. Occasionally they've asked me for proof of address or some form of identity, though it's never been a problem. I do wonder what Harriet Wheeler thinks of the process though...
Mail.

When Harriet Wheeler was given a £2,000 Mulberry jacket by a generous male friend, she faced an awkward dilemma.
Beautiful though it was, she felt it did not suit her.
Not wanting to upset her friend by telling him, she took the black quilted leather jacket back to Mulberry's flagship store in London and asked whether she could exchange it for something else.
There the ancient art specialist found herself handcuffed, arrested and marched off to a police cell on suspicion of handling stolen or fake goods.
To make matters worse, her friend was dragged into the row when he was telephoned as part of the criminal inquiry.
Now police have decided there is no case to answer, and have told Miss Wheeler, 25, she can collect her jacket from them.

Looks like an anorak to me

Now in my closeted world of ordinariness I've never heard of Mulberry, I suspect it's probably well made if overpriced tat where you pay for the label for something you could get at Primark for 100th the price (at least) though no doubt without the quality stitch up ing. Still,the store does appear to have over reacted just a tad, even if they did have suspicions of the item being either a) a fake or b) stolen, a simple we'll have to take this higher as you've no receipt and can we have a contact number/address for when we've made a decision would probably suffice. As it is, the maxim "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is probably not going to hold up too well to scrutiny this time, especially since the store have refused to apologize and still maintain the article is possibly a fake, not even a mealy mouthed "we were just following procedures and lessons will be learned".
Now I realize that shoplifting and making fakes is a problem for certain companies, though in this case charging over £2,000 for what ostensibly appears to be an anorak does seem to be asking for trouble, however, arresting someone and taking them off your premises in handcuffs on a suspicion of handling stolen goods does appear to be a little counter-productive, especially since the person arrested has been freed, has no case to answer and went straight to the Daily Mail.
The only odd thing about this to me is why wait a couple of months and wouldn't her friend expect to see her in the jacket at some stage.
But then again, that's not a crime either...

An exceptional quote

It is often said debating the left is like playing a pigeon at chess, they knock over the pieces, shit on the board and then strut around like they won.

17 HDoodson // Mar 9, 2012 at 2:30 pm

Political discourse in the modern age

Tim Worstall.

Anna Raccoon and Longrider have the full story  

Denormalising history

Such is the venom of the righteous to attempt to denormalise what are pleasurable activities that they appear to be going back in history to accuse the Captain of the Titanic of causing the ship to sink because he'd been drinking...
Express.

THE captain of the Titanic may have been under the influence of alcohol when the liner hit an iceberg and sank, an unearthed document suggests.
Captain Edward Smith was apparently seen drinking in the ship’s saloon bar before the collision. The history books record the skipper was woken in his cabin at the time of the impact before taking the brave decision to go down with the ship.
But the previously unseen account by survivor Emily Richards blames Captain Smith, 62, for the tragedy.
The allegation was made in a letter she wrote on board the rescue ship Carpathia two days after the sinking in April 2012. Mrs Richards, 24, and her two young sons were rescued but her brother George, 23, was one of the 1,522 people who died.
Mrs Richards, of Penzance, wrote: “The boat struck an iceberg at 11 o’clock on Sunday night. The captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to someone else to steer the ship. It was the captain’s fault.”

I mean seriously come on, did the woman expect the captain to be steering the ship 24/7? That, plus what anyone does off duty so long as it doesn't affect their performance whilst on duty means that like anyone else whether at sea or not can choose to have a drink when they are not at work. It's a bit like accusing me of causing a crane fault at work when I'm on my days off or between shifts, it really doesn't make sense. Though I suspect it will be taken as evidence on the evils of alcohol; by certain pressure groups and used to advance their cause.
The real reason the Titanic sank (other than hitting an iceberg) is that the men on watch had no binoculars as for some reason they weren't requisitioned on board for the first trip, that meant owing to time limitations steering a very large ocean liner out of the path of the iceberg was a case of too little too late, though perhaps if they'd hit it head on the ship might not have sank either.
I expect this letter was part of the blame game that went on at the time, people look for reasons and then they look for scapegoats.
Doesn't mean now though that it wont be used as a further excuse to make a legal pastime more expensive and more prohibited...

Killing us softly

There was something of a furore recently over Ken (I've never found an EU law I didn't like) Clarke suggesting that some trials should be held in secret. Turns out that our local friendly terrorist misunderstood Muslim activists have won a ruling on an anonymous witness to be allowed to give evidence in a secret trial to support their case.
Express.

HOME Secretary Theresa May suffered a setback in her bid to deport seven Algerian terror suspects yesterday when the Supreme Court gave them a chance to appeal.
The men can now return to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and fight to have a witness statement heard in secret. If Siac agrees to make the statement in their favour confidential, Government lawyers will not even be allowed to check it is true.
Mrs May is trying to deport the suspects, who cannot be named, on national security grounds. They went to the Supreme Court after Appeal Court judges rejected claims that they risked “inhuman treatment” if sent home.
Algerian ministers have pledged not to torture the men, but they claim to have a whistleblower who can prove they will be harmed.
They want their witness to give evidence in secret because if British officials try to check its truth they may unwittingly reveal his identity.

So what we have here is actually hearsay, which is essentially what unsubstantiated evidence is, bit like saying "everyone knows" when reality will tell you that it's odds on everyone doesn't. They are going to produce a witness that will say the Algerians will torture them and we aren't allowed to check the veracity of the witnesses statement in case we identify him to the Algerians and he's forced to apply for asylum?
You know, frankly I'm at the stage now where I don't give a damn about what happens to people we return to their home countries after committing a crime here, put it this way, if you don't want to be deported, don't come here illegally or commit crimes here. Add to that the twisting of our legal system to justify your desire to stay and what you have is utter madness, we can't find out if the witness they're calling is telling the truth!
So, in the end we may be forced to allow a bunch of Algerian suspected terrorists, including two fanatics linked to the ricin poison murder plot to stay here on hearsay evidence.
The law and those who wrote it, truly are at odds with what the UK public want.

Playing the odds

Insurance companies are like bookies, they figure out a set of odds on a set of circumstances happening and give you a quote based on the likelihood of your failing to avoid those circumstances. After that it's up to you whether you figure the cost is worth it, even with car insurance it's the same for all it's supposed to be mandatory to have it, some people (particularly those who are not good a good bet at avoiding accidents) will choose not to take out the insurance, after all, they are rarely caught and if they are, the fine they get is usually less than their premium.
Well, that used to be the way the system worked until the equality industry got involved...
Mail.

Millions of women drivers could have to pay an extra £362 a year for their car insurance after a ruling by European judges, it emerged yesterday.
The increase follows a decision that men cannot be charged more for their policies even though they are more likely to have a serious crash.
The ruling, described by critics as ‘madness’, means that from December 21 women drivers – although generally safer – will no longer be able to access cheaper car insurance rates because of their gender.
Labour transport spokesman John Woodcock said female drivers face an ‘insurance timebomb’ and called on ministers to curb the impact of the ruling.

First off, this judgement happened on Labours watch, their record on ameliorating ECJ rulings is precisely nil, all that they are doing in this case is using it as a stick to blame and beat the government with (as I'm sure the Tories would have done if the positions were reversed)

Insurance experts warned that younger women will be hit particularly badly as they will end up having to pay the same premiums as ‘boy racers’.
A woman under the age of 22 pays around £1,682 in car insurance while a young man is charged an average of £2,750.
This is because men under 22 are ten times more likely to have a serious crash, 25 times more likely to commit a driving offence and twice as likely to make an insurance claim.
Policies with more than one named driver will be adversely affected if the main policy holder is a woman.
When a man is the main driver and a woman the ‘named’ driver, premiums are likely to come down. The changes will be forced through without Parliament having the chance to fight the ruling by the European Court of Justice.

As you can see, it was all pretty much about odds, statistically women are safer drivers (lets not go down the path of better) in that they have fewer accidents. That meant to insurance companies they were a better risk overall compared to men so could be charged less, it was all about risk after all.
Instead because some idiot consumer group based in Belgium brought a case before the ECJ insurance groups are no longer allowed to play the odds (by giving a good quote) based on gender. As Douglas Carswell put it "Three weeks ago the Prime Minister held a meeting for the insurance industry at Downing Street. But because we are not prepared to do anything about Europe, we can do absolutely nothing about this madness."
Again and again foreign judges are interfering with the way we live our lives, yes I know the ECJ isn't the EU, however it is still allowed to interfere in the laws of this land without taking into account our wishes, after all, what might work for one country may not work for another, but they put a blanket ruling in anyway.
The EU, the ECJ, the HRA, all interfering in our rights, all without a squeak of protest other than the odd bit of media mention and various bloggers plugging away.
When will our politicians start representing us and tell them where to get off or we'll leave?
Don't hold your breath on that one, they are traitors and panderers to the grand European dream.

This is news?

The BBC home to some of the most biased, anti-tech, leftist, greeny, lunatics in the UK seems to believe that a story about Sizewell B nuclear plant shutting down (safely) is news.
BBC.

A fault has caused Sizewell B power station's nuclear reactor to shut down, halting electricity generation.
EDF Energy said it was the first unplanned stoppage for three years, after the reactor was tripped by an electrical fault in another part of the Suffolk plant, on Friday.
The company said the shutdown of the reactor took place safely and post-trip procedures operated as expected.
Work is under way to discover the cause of the fault and resume production.
Jim Crawford, station director at Sizewell B, said: "This brings to an end a sequence of 1,120 days since our last unplanned automatic shutdown.

In other words a fault elsewhere triggered a safety program to stop things safely, does anyone else here think that if it hadn't stopped the plant and then had a radiation leak then that would be real news rather than what appears to be scaremongering?
The actual telling quote comes at the end though...

EDF Energy said Sizewell produces enough electricity for two million homes or about 3% the UK's electricity needs.

That's just one nuclear plant and it produces on demand 3% of our energy needs, as in instantly, not when the wind is blowing just right and it does it cleanly, safely and without any fuss. Now the government has wasted over £8 billion (so far) in sticking up useless bird mincers and plans to spend even more subsidising them with green levies and stealth taxes and in the end are not as reliable as a nuclear plant which costs £2.8 billion, will last for a long time and actually works as and when we need it. And lets not go into the realms of a shale gas powered station which would only cost £1 billion produce the same amount of energy far, far more cheaply.
Green energy has cost us far too much, it doesn't work too well and doesn't last too well. We need to build proper power stations that work as and when we need them, the environmental lobby has shown itself to be an uninformed useless, expensive spatchcock to our energy supply that we neither need nor can afford. We need energy, not green energy, not environmentally friendly energy, just energy that isn't too expensive due to a levy that is supposed to subsidise useless bird mincers.

Not the biggest at all

Not many of the general public probably know what a Ponzi scheme is, I suspect that they know it's a scam, but that's about it, I might be wrong though as my access to the general public tends to be limited to friends, family and workmates. Most people reading this though will have a little political savvy and knowledge and know that a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors.
BBC.

Two men have been convicted of taking part in UK's biggest "Ponzi" fraud scheme.
John Anderson, 46, from West Hampstead, and Kenneth Peacock, 43, from Surrey, were found guilty of unlawfully accepting deposits from investors.
The scheme's mastermind Kautilya Pruthi, 41, of Wandsworth, London, had already admitted seven fraud counts.
Southwark Crown Court heard hundreds of people including cricketer England Darren Gough lost £115m.
The jury is still out on whether Anderson and Peacock deceived investors.

Well done the fraud squad (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) but the BBC are wrong, the UK's biggest (and longest running) Ponzi scheme wasn't being run by those guys, it's being run by the UK government. A lot of people think that National Insurance is money being put away for your pension by the government. It isn't, like a Ponzi scheme National Insurance is being taken in and used to pay out to today's pensioners, there is no savings involved, unlike a regular pension scheme your payments are not nurtured and invested to get a profitable return in order to fund your retirement, they are being used to pay for today's pensioners now. That in part is why the government allows mass immigration, as the working population levels drop, there's less income coming in to top up National Insurance and the countries finances struggle. This is particularly apt in the public sector final salary pension schemes which our (private sector) National Insurance is also being used to top up. So whilst we're left with the dregs of around £6,000 per annum when we retire (assuming we don't have a private pension) someone who has done their bit for the public sector and got their years in can retire early on a decent pension and we're paying for them.
This is also why in the private sector at least the retirement age is going up, the Ponzi Scheme aka National Insurance cannot cope any more unless more people are working to pay for peoples retirement.
So expect the next government to raise the retirement age again (though probably not in the public sector), eventually we'll work till we drop to pay for someone else's pension whose wages we also pay via our taxation.
Believe me, it's coming...