We could always set fire to it instead

Seems that the EU believes we should fly its flag rag every day from our public buildings and wants to fine us if we don't.
Mail.

Eric Pickles reacted with fury last night after being ordered by Brussels to fly the EU flag continuously over Whitehall.
The Cabinet Minister said the demand showed a ‘deep sense of political insecurity’ and called on the European Union to ‘grow up’.
Mr Pickles is currently obliged to fly the flag – a circle of 12 golden stars on an azure background – for a week each year, starting from Europe Day on May 9.
But under the proposed change, drafted by the European Commission and due to take effect within the next two years, the flag would have to fly permanently outside any organisation which managed development funding from Brussels.
Under the new rules, Mr Pickles, who is Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, could even face being fined by the EU if he fails to comply.When the proposal landed on his desk Mr Pickles erupted because civil servants advised that, as drafted, it would mean more than 1,000 bodies being forced to comply, including Cambridge University, Jamie Oliver’s 15 restaurant in Cornwall and The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, known as the ‘home of snooker’.

Whilst I suspect it's only civil servants playing at gold plating a regulation in order to stretch a regulation over as much territory as possible, it simply will end up winding people up seeing the flag of tyranny flying anywhere.
I'm never quite sure if the EUphiles actually know just how disliked the EU is by ordinary people, sure it's not exactly high on their lists of dislikes, but it's still their and it rankles as and when people become aware of its influence on anything affecting their lives. It's almost as if they think that putting up symbols will somehow or other make us change our minds, as unlikely as that seems. There seems to be almost no indifference to the EU (as much as EUphiles would like to think) you either like it or you hate it.
Most of us hate it...
But sadly we're not the ones in power and you have saps like Cameron who have to pretend to hate it in order to dupe people into voting for him.

Combined savings...

I'm not a great one for the government spending cash on waste however in a bit of whimsy it occurred to me that we might just be able to justify this...
MSN.

The Army is set to station soldiers and high velocity surface-to-air missiles on top of a block of residential flats to ward off any airborne terror threats during the Olympics.
Residents in the private, gated flats in Bow, east London, have received a leaflet warning them that a team of 10 soldiers and police will be stationed at the building - home to 700 people - for the duration of the Games.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) leaflet says the missiles will only be fired as a last resort, said 28-year-old resident Brian Whelan, a journalist.
He said: "They are going to have a test run next week, putting high velocity missiles on the roof just above our apartment and on the back of it they're stationing police and military in the tower of the building for two months. It's a private, gated community with an old watch tower which is now a lift shaft.

With a suitable target for practice with this...
Mail.

Revelations about a deal to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on private jets to whisk the EU's top officials around the globe in luxury was met with fury by one senior Conservative MEP.
The European Commission has just signed a contract costing more than €12 million (£10million) for private jets to ferry senior Commissioners such as Britain's Baroness Ashton, President Jose Manuel Barroso, and their acolytes between meetings, reported The Sunday Times.
Only on Wednesday the Commission provoked fury by proposing an inflation-busting 6.8 per cent increase in the EU's budget for 2013.

I mean, what's not to like, the army gets target practice and we get rid of some of the higher lower echelons of the parasite class...
Ok, it's a bit costly, but come on, it would bring joy to millions...

A close shave

One of the things that some men do is shave, I'm one of them and it costs me. It costs me because I have to buy razor blades at around about £3+ a packet and they don't last forever. I don't have the most modern razor in the world for that matter, but it still came as a bit of a shock that the blades themselves only cost 10p to make.
Mail.

The price of razor blade cartridges has surged by as much as 99 per cent in just three years – driving many men to adopt designer stubble.
The cartridges cost less than 10p to make, but shoppers are being charged as much as £3.49 each.
The biggest player, Gillette, has imposed a stealth price rise by cutting the number of replacement cartridges in its Mach3 Turbo packs from five to four.
The smaller pack did not bring a corresponding cut in the price, leaving men paying at least 20 per cent more.
At Asda, the price per cartridge has risen by 99 per cent over a three-year period.
In 2009, the chain condemned razor manufacturers for their high prices and won plaudits for slashing the cost of a five-cartridge pack of Gillette’s Mach3 blades from £8 to £5.
However, it has since pushed the price back up, to £7.99 for a smaller pack of four, which means the cost per cartridge has risen from £1 to just under £2.

I suppose it's a case of the price being that of the market and I like many others use the damned things far longer than the manufacturer recommends too. It's not like there aren't alternatives out there too, though the initial cost of an electric shaver often puts people off. I suppose I could always grow a beard too, though my last attempt did not look so good looking somewhat akin to a man eating a badger with its arse hanging out.
Still, for a long while now I've been fairly convinced that I was being ripped off in the pricing of blades, at one stage it was actually cheaper to buy a razor itself with 3 free blade packs than to buy a new set of blades.
Still, charging £8 for something that costs 10p does leave a sour taste in the mouth.
 

Just another reason to leave.

Many people think that the health service is free, when in actual fact it's anything but. It's free at the point of use for some things (though not all) and it's certainly free for those who don't contribute to the system via taxation.
Which is where this lovely little EU decision comes in...
Express.

BRITAIN was ordered by EU chiefs last night to give millions of foreigners full access to NHS healthcare.
In a move that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds, the Brussels-based European Commission insisted that immigrants from within the EU are entitled to stay and use the service indefinitely even if they do not pay UK taxes.
The Eurocrats ordered the British Government to scrap current rules stating that jobless EU citizens cannot stay in the country for more than three months unless they have their own health insurance.
“This breaches EU law,” said a statement from the commission.
It insisted that “entitlement to treatment by the UK public healthcare scheme” was sufficient to allow migrants without health insurance to stay indefinitely.
The Government was given just two months to comply or face being dragged to the EU’s European Court of Justice and hit with a swingeing fine.
And it was also instructed to go much further in giving full rights to EU citizens to live and work in Britain.

Now to my mind, if you weren't born here or have not paid into the system some sort of fixed amount then you should have to take out health insurance, however the EU rarely thinks like that, as far as it's concerned we're all Europeans and what applies in one country applies to all. In other words you get free health care here, but in say France you have to pay for extra insurance to use their system. Pretty much the same in any country you choose to move to to take up work or residence.
They might think it fair, but the costs will come out of my pocket, out of any taxpayers pocket. It really is simple, you pay in or you get nothing, but I'm not going to hold my breath on the government actually fighting this, Cameron's gutless giveaways extend to pretty much all aspects of the EU and abroad.
Can we please just get some politicians with the gumption to actually get us out before it leaves us penniless?

Healthy options

Five years ago I had an operation on my arm to remove a malignant cancerous tumour, I was lucky, I didn't lose the arm and I was able to return to work with the minimum of difficulty, though I have lost some fine motor skills and there is still (and always will be) nerve damage to that arm. Never once though did I think that taking vitamin pills would have prevented the cancer...
Express.

 MILLIONS of people who take dietary supplements to boost their health may be doing themselves more harm than good, a leading study warns.
Scientists claim taking pills and capsules, like folic acid, vitamin D and calcium, do not reduce the risk of cancer.
They also warm that antioxidant pills – natural chemicals that boost health – such as beta carotene, and vitamins C and E may even promote the disease.
The study warns individuals may be toying with a “two-edged sword” that might do them harm.
US scientists, writing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, warn people are being misled by “messages from supplement manufactures” stressing the health benefits of their products, including cancer prevention.

I don't take vitamin pills as such, I do take mineral supplements and omega fish oil (QM tip do not take just before a hot drink or you will burp and you will regret that burp) However I take them for the health reasons as known, not because I think they will prevent cancer. I take magnesium because it's supposed to aid with nerve damage and other supplements for joints, not because I think they'll prevent some terrible disease, but because they might help me maintain a reasonable degree of health for as long as possible. I don't tend to read the claims on the packet though nor would I believe them if they said they prevented cancer, anyone who has had it tends to know more than they are comfortable about it and how it happens. Yes a healthy lifestyle helps, but with some it's genetic, others it's exposure, some it would appear to be just bad luck.
Yet what it boils down to in the end is that no matter what you do, what you take, how you live your life, there's a study out there saying that what you're doing is wrong. So my advice for what it's worth is live life the way you want too, you aren't getting out of it alive after all.

Guess

Seems someone other than the English hates Jack (the English used their propensity to violence, "in Europe and with our empire".) Straw. At least I presume it's someone not English...
BBC.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of making threats to kill the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the Home Secretary Theresa May.
The threats were allegedly made in a phone call to the office of Rossendale and Darwen MP, Jake Berry, on 18 April.
Lancashire Police arrested a 33-year-old man who works for Blackburn with Darwen Council.
The suspect, who is from Blackburn where Mr Straw is the local MP, has been released on police bail.

Now colour me suspicious and invoke the name of Qatada but I do suspect that the person involved will have a pretty much un-English name and has a damned good chance to have an affinity with the name Mohammed. I also suspect he isn't going to be C of E either. What I do know about Darwen is the proportion of Muslim population (19.4% or 26,674 people) is the third highest among all local authorities in the United Kingdom and the highest outside London (the Islamic republic of Tower Hamlets no doubt). 20.4% of the districts population belongs to those of a Pakistani, Bangladeshi origins, making it the highest percentage in any UK region, and almost four times higher than national average.
So...
Making threats against a former Home Secretary who'd already criticised veils and Theresa May who is trying (unsuccessfully so far) to remove the cancerous growth of an Islamic terrorist from our shores and who do you suspect the person making the threats will be?
Not that I expect the BBC to tell us any time soon.

Racism

In a hysterically funny (for a given value of hysterically funny) announcement Lee Jasper declared to the world as Jo Brand did that black people cannot be racist. They apparently can hold prejudiced views, but that shouldn't be ascribed as racism.
Telegraph.

Ken Livingstone's former race adviser Lee Jasper has claimed that “no black person in the UK can be racist”.
Mr Jasper, an equal rights campaigner and activist, said that while black Britons may hold prejudiced views, they should not be described as racist.
The 53 year-old was forced to resign as senior policy adviser on equalities to Mr Livingstone, who was then mayor of London, in March 2008 over allegations of cronyism. Leaked emails showed that he had exchanged highly flirtatious messages with a married mother of three, whose projects received £100,000 from City Hall on his recommendation.
In one email, he told the woman that he wanted to “whisk her away to a deserted beach and honey-glaze her”. Mr Jasper, who is now the chairman of the campaign group Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, took to Twitter yesterday to complain about the number of black youths being jailed.
Using the hashtag “sackboris2012”, Mr Jasper asked: “Which mayor has seen the number of black youth going to jail in London increase by 100 per cent during his term?”
His comment prompted a bitter war of words on Twitter between him and Ahzaz Chowdhury, a former adviser to the Conservatives in Tower Hamlets, east London. Mr Jasper went on to say: “Institutional racism in the criminal justice means black citizens face discrimination.”
Mr Chowdhury asked: “So you yourself could never be a racist?”
Mr Jasper answered: “Why is it African activists like me seem to attract public political criticism from Asian men? Don’t see Africans attacking Asian activists? You’re confused about the political reality and power dynamics of racism.
“No black person in the UK can be racist. Racism is prejudice plus power. Black people can be prejudiced but not racist.”

So there you have it, when 4 drunken Somali girls are beating up a white woman calling her a white bitch, they aren't racist in Jasper's eyes (or the courts apparently) but when a white woman mouths off on a tram train telling other passengers to go back to where they come from (just words no violence) she's incarcerated without bail and had her child removed and faces a Crown Court trial later this year.
The question is, how are we ever going to get any form of equality whilst the state elevates obvious racists like Lee jasper into positions of power. For yes, that is what Lee jasper clearly is if he cannot recognise that racism touches all and affects all. It's like a self hating infection within the white political classes and is being fostered in the non white communities too. Aided and encouraged by multicultural and non-integrationalist policies from the liberal left.
All Lee jasper has done is confirmed in the eyes of the many that there is a two tier system in place fostering prejudice and racism against whites by the minority political classes and some in their communities and which is enforced by the judiciary and the political class themselves, the so called powers that be.
Eventually though this will lead to the very situation they want to avoid where people will decide that if the state thinks them to be a racist, they'll vote for a party which will tell them they aren't and will look after their rights.
There is no place in a civilised society for people like Lee Jasper or even Jo Brand. Yet we have them telling the majority that non whites cannot be racist but the rest of us are in similar circumstances...
This cannot go on without violence...

How is this justice?

How is it possible to knife someone 3 times in the back deliberately and with malice aforethought and not end up in prison? Well, read on...
Express.

A TEENAGE thug who stabbed a hero father protecting his son from a baying gang has walked free from court.
Despite knifing the man three times in the back, the 16-year-old was sentenced to just 60 hours community service.
The gang was trying to rob two schoolboy brothers who had just left cricket practice in Rainham, Essex.
The terrified brothers fled and phoned their father pleading with him to rescue them. When the brave 46-year-old confronted the youths he was surrounded and stabbed in the shoulder and back.
None of those involved in the case can be named for legal reasons.
The 16-year-old, from Romford, was handed 60 hours community service, a three-month curfew and a three-year supervision order after admitting wounding with intent and affray.
Three other youths were each given 10 month referral orders after pleading guilty to affray.

This actually follows up quite neatly on my post of Friday on the effect of government policy on carrying weapons,what we have is a classic example of only criminals being allowed to carry knives and get away with wounding an innocent guy who'd turned up to protect his kids from being robbed by said scum. I do wonder what would have happened to the father if he'd turned up with some sort of edged weapon, I suspect it wouldn't be 60 hours community service.

So what we have is a situation where the state via the law has abdicated its responsibilities to the law abiding, we can no longer expect justice in any shape or form and yet if we were to defend ourselves, we'd soon find ourselves facing far worse than those who the state does not deal with.

It's almost as if they're trying to make us angry and do something in order to crack down harder.

Of course, they'll be hoping we don't take our anger out on them...

The number of the beast...

Well you can't let a good opportunity pass when it comes to a blog heading now can you and this news is particularly apt...
Express.

EUROCRATS are to demand an extra £900million from taxpayers next year, taking the annual cost of EU membership to £666 for every family in Britain.
Brussels was accused of gross ­hypocrisy for planning what one critic branded a “disgusting” cash grab while demanding swingeing austerity ­measures across Europe.
Yesterday the UK signalled it would press for restraint but no single country can veto the EU Commission’s annual budget, meaning the Government would have to build alliances with other like-minded governments to win a vote to block an eye-watering hike.
The Commission’s draft budget for 2013 is understood to propose a “substantial” seven per cent, £7.4billion, increase in spending power from this year’s budget of 129.1billion euros, or around £107billion. The percentage rise would be double Britain’s latest inflation rate and more than four per cent above the EU’s cost of living increase.
And it would raise the cost of EU membership for Britain – which ­contributes 12.4 per cent net of the Brussels budget – by £898million next year to £14billion.

Always nice to know where you stand isn't it? Though it gives me no pleasure to be in this position or read that the politicians who are supposed to be fighting for us are simply planning to ask for "restraint" rather than a more apt "bye, bye, thanks for nothing".
Sadly not one of the mainstream parties has the balls to tell the EU where to get off, the Lib Dems practically orgasm over the whole edifice such is their love affair with the EU. The Tories and Labour leadership both control their parties and both support ever greater integration into the EU, which simply turns around and keeps asking for more and now we can't even simply veto it.
More than ever we need to be starving the beast, do not vote mainstream, oppose state funding of political parties, get out there and get active.
Also we must never fall into the trap of asking for a referendum, the EU has a history of cheating, bribing and spending millions on its own propaganda, they also don't take no for an answer either, just ask the Irish.
Can we please just leave? Anyone?

An effective policy

For years now the state has been doing its level best to disarm the population, leaving only the enforcers and criminals with weapons. Every abuse of weapons was taken as an excuse to tighten up the law, the Hungerford massacre and the Dunblane massacre finally lead to the 1997 firearms act which pretty much outlawed the carrying of firearms in the UK, along with the Knives act of the same year which outlawed so called combat knives on top of the offensive weapons act of 1996, which pretty much did for anyone carrying a bladed weapon. Indeed anyone carrying a folding knife, scissors, plastic knife, multi-tool, or other bladed object can be detained and searched, and the defendant may have to wait weeks or months for a trial or other disposition of his case by the public prosecutor.
And it's worked...
Express.

MUGGINGS and street robberies rose by eight per cent last year despite an overall reduction in crime, figures revealed yesterday.
Pickpocketing, bag and phone-snatching soared by 13 per cent and knifepoint robberies went up nine per cent. The category of theft from the person increased by an alarming 10 per cent – the biggest year-on-year increase in a decade.
The number of Britons falling victim to any crime rose from just under one in 20 in 2010 to almost one in 16.
But total recorded crime fell three per cent, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Campaigners voiced fears that police cash cuts contributed to the rise in street crime and were leaving forces powerless to stop it.
David Hanson, Shadow Policing Minister, said the Coalition was “taking huge risks” by imposing budget cuts that will cost the jobs of 16,000 officers.
He said: “These figures show some very concerning rises. David Cameron is taking huge risks. Despite promises to protect the front line, we know that thousands of officers have already been taken out of 999
response teams, neighbourhood teams and traffic units.
“The Government is taking risks with crime and people’s personal safety.”

Indeed they have, they've effectively removed peoples rights to carry anything useful to defend themselves should the need arise. So, with cutbacks in the police and other areas of law enforcement, what's happened is now only the criminals are armed. It isn't helped by the fact that if anyone does defend themselves, they are frequently charged with an offence themselves. Remember Cecil Coley, arrested by police on suspicion of murder after taking on two intruders, who tried to rob his flower shop? That's pretty much what successive government legislation in the nanny state has lead us too. Instead of a congratulations and a careful check of the facts just in case, it's an "I'm arresting you and thank you for your DNA sample."
It's my belief that crime would fall if people could carry weapons, yes there are risks, Hungerford and Dunblane tell us that, though if the teachers or a member of public been armed as well, would the gunmen have gotten so far or caused so much grief?
There has to be balance to be sure, we don't want anyone with a record of violence holding guns legally nor anyone on the mental register, though a history of Raoul Moat will tell you how easy it is for someone like that to get them anyway.
It just strikes me that the only reason the government banned knives and firearms is because they feared we'd end up using them on the government.
An armed society would be a more polite society.

False flag

I rarely use wikipedia as a source, particularly on current events and movements, it's run by people I don't trust and whose political affiliation is suspect to say the least, look up the EDL page for example a bigger pack of lies and conjecture as you're ever likely to find, based mostly upon articles by the movements enemies. However for some things it's ok...

False flag (aka Black Flag) operations are covert operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colours; that is: flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations and can be used during peace-time.

And so we come to Anders Breivik, held up as an example of right wing hate and an Islamophobe, mass murderer and probably tied to every anti-islamist in the world, well according to the left anyway. They certainly tried to pin him to the EDL referencing the fact that he was a member of the EDL forum. Which is true enough, though the couple of posts he made in the intro section gave no hint of his real agenda. he even decried the EDL in his manifesto as not being radical enough, still that's never stopped the left from giving up a resounding smear job.
Yet something he did in his trial pictures gave me pause...

It's the salute,that's not a right wing salute, that's the salute of a left wing revolutionary...

Wikipedia, again.

The raised fist (also known as the clenched fist) is a symbol of solidarity and support.

During the Spanish Civil War, it was sometimes known as the anti-fascist salute. The traditional version of the salute, originally a symbol of the broader workers' movement, became associated with the parties of the Comintern during the 1920s and 1930s. Since the Trotskyists were forced out of the Comintern, some Trotskyists have made a point of strictly raising the left fist in the tradition of the Left Opposition.

• Albanian National Liberation Front

• April 6 Youth Movement

• American Indian Movement

• Anarchist Black Cross

• Black Panther Party

• Democratic Labour Party of Brazil

• Earth First!

• Women's Liberation

• Food Not Bombs

• International Brigades

• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

• International Socialist Organization

• Italian Radical Party

• Jewish Defense League

• Kach

• National Equality March

• Occupy Wall Street

• Otpor

• Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Socialist Party of Malaysia)

• Partido Socialista (Portugal) (the socialist party of Portugal)

• People's National Party

• Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (Turkey)

• Red Front Fighters' League

• Saor Éire (1967-1975)

• Socialist International

• Socialist Party of England and Wales

• Socialist Workers Party (Britain)

• Socialist Youth Front

• United Farm Workers

• Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front

Now it might be that Breivik is just playing mind games, I am though wondering if Breivik is actually of the left trying to smear the nationalist movements. Certainly the opinion of the nationalist movements is that the man's an utter loon and what he did was an abomination. Though the left and islamics in general do have an almost monopoly on abominations, they certainly aren't above false flag operations of this kind.
Certainly raises a few questions as to his real motives...

If you can ban one thing you can ban anything

One of the things obvious about the governments attempts to ban hate speech was not who it was aimed at but who decided what was and wasn't hate speech. At the moment it is mostly used by the race industry to prevent often fair criticism, though no doubt if a group of pets falls out of favour it will be applied to them just as rigorously. The same goes with censorship, personally I believe the best person to censor me is me, if I don't want to look at something, I wont. However as ever the government is approaching the issue from a "for the children" mindset in getting an automatic block on all online porn unless you opt out.
Mail.

Internet users should automatically be blocked from accessing pornography at home to stop the surge in children seeing adult material, MPs will demand today.
Anyone wanting to view hardcore images online should have to ‘opt out’ of a special filter, according to the panel of MPs and peers looking into child protection.
Their report said that six out of ten children download adult material because their parents have not installed filters. The use of protective filters in homes has fallen from 49 per cent to 39 per cent in the last three years.
They concluded that parents were often outsmarted by their web-savvy children and felt unconfident in updating and downloading content filters. Many parents were ‘oblivious’ to the type of material available on the internet and were often shocked when they realised the content that children were accessing

Yes kids are quite internet savvy, but the fault for them looking at what they do lies with parents, letting a kid run unsupervised with a computer is a bit like leaving a loaded gun around the place, it's just something you should not do. But because some parents are irresponsible, they've given the government an opportunity to legislate for all. So, what the government is proposing is an opt out system, where you no doubt have to go through some process to clear a filter. I rather suspect a lot of parents might have to get their kids to do this for them.
The danger is of course once they've managed (assuming they do) get a system in place that works it will then be available for other purposes, anti-government websites, inconvenient bloggers and political movements being but a few of the options. After all, if we can't find it, how will we know it's there? Particularly if there is a secondary filter that cannot be over ridden for extreme sites...
The problem with anything like this is that at some stage it always ends up being abused by those in power who do not cope well with criticism and who do not like their motives and business being in the publics eye. Much easier to blame someone else if those who want to know can't find the evidence in the first place as it's hidden away from the publics view.
Don't say you haven't been warned...

Here we go again.

Looks like the government are about to hive off another £10 billion to the IMF to bail out the €uro as it spirals ever closer to complete collapse. A case of throwing good money after bad, particularly when it's our money and not the governments.
Express.

A NEW £10billion handout of British taxpayers’ cash to prop up the failing euro is set to spark fresh anger at George Osborne.
The Chancellor is expected to agree a hike in the UK stake in the International Monetary Fund at talks in the US later this week in the hope of boosting global economic confidence.
MPs believe he will raise the contribution from the current £30billion right up to the £40billion maximum limit set by Parliament last year.
The expected increase in Britain’s IMF contribution is equivalent to £400 for every household in the country.
But any extra British payment for the fund is bound to anger hard-pressed taxpayers and pensioners fed up with seeing their hard-earned cash squandered on supporting the crisis-hit European single currency.

Ok, it's a loan and we will (probably) get it back, though if there is a complete collapse, perhaps not. Again though this is money which should be spent elsewhere, though government over the last 15 years have increased both the size and in some respects the power of the state to such an extent that £10 billion is just small change to them (though sadly not to anyone else)  Currently the government figures on borrowing show it at around £168 billion and the National debt is about to go over a trillion. Government borrowing, to give you an idea of how bad it is, the UK went bust in 1976 running a budget deficit of 6% of GDP. In 2010 that deficit is going to top 11%.
The government is playing with fire, if the €uro collapses the knock on effects to our economy could be catastrophic. Instead of developing markets elsewhere, we're tied into a trade cartel which is likely to take us down with it.
We need to get out of the EU, cut back the state and start finding new markets quickly, though I suspect that we're already too late.

The barbarians in our midst

What is it with Muslims that they seem to think that they are above the laws of this land? Or that the laws of this land are subservient to their own special brand of law that permits misogyny and (dis)honour killings? You could understand it if it was some ignorant Imam fresh off the immigration train and who wasn't cognisant with the way we do things, but a peer of the realm?
Mail.

A Labour peer was suspended last night after allegedly claiming he would put up a £10million bounty for the capture of Barack Obama.
Lord Ahmed of Rotherham is reported to have made the gesture after the U.S. announced a $10million bounty for Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, whom it blames for orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
He is said to have described the bounty on Mr Saeed, who founded banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as an ‘insult to all Muslims’.
Pakistani-born Lord Ahmed, Britain’s first Muslim peer, reportedly said Mr Obama had ‘challenged the dignity of the Muslim Ummah (community)’ and said his reward also applied to Mr Obama’s predecessor as U.S. president, George W Bush.
Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper said Lord Ahmed had made the remarks at a reception in Haripur on Friday.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘We have suspended Lord Ahmed pending investigation. If these comments are accurate we utterly condemn these remarks which are totally unacceptable.

This I assume is the same Lord Achmed who threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to prevent Mr. Wilders film Fitna being shown in the Lords and threatened to take the colleague who was organizing the event to court? Who also killed a man whilst driving his Jag on the M1, was imprisoned and yet freed on appeal just 16 days into his sentence?
Yes that would be the Muslim peer Lord Achmed...
Now it might be that Lord Achmed said no such thing, or that the context is wrong "If the US can announce a reward of $10 million for the captor of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of 10 million pounds on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush." Is not the same as "I have announced a bounty" So chances are he's going to plead being misinterpreted, though his previous record speaks for itself, this is a man who like to use his compatriots to threaten violence.
Still, once again we have a Muslim in controversy, who has a track record of controversy and does not feel that normal rules regarding free speech and lawful content apply to him with regards to his religion.
Yet we still have people among us who insist that Islam is the religion of peace and that Muslims are misunderstood.
I'm of the opinion that Islam from its critics point of view isn't misunderstood at all.

Tears of a clown

Ken (tax avoider) Livingstone the arch hypocrite of the London mayoral race apparently did an election broadcast where he got all tearful at the praise he received from "ordinary" Londoners for his policies and manifesto. Lot of people got suspicious at this point and suspected he was play acting...
Express.

KEN LIVINGSTONE, who wept while listening to “ordinary” Londoners support him at the launch of his mayoral election broadcast, has admitted it was all a clever PR stunt.
Labour’s candidate, 66, confessed yesterday they were activists reading ad agency scripts.
But his spokesman said the tears were genuine. “He does get moved,” he said. 

Not really too surprising, Labour do have form for this after all and it was a tad suspicious the gushing compliments anyway, anyone who has had to live under Labour rarely gets that worked up about their generally disastrous policies at the best of times. Still, what kind of person gets genuinely moved over their own propaganda?
Mind you, this is the Ken Livingstone who wants to make London a beacon for Islam, despite the wishes of the majority of people in the city who already think it's a bit of a beacon for them anyway, certainly seems to attract more than its fair share of them to the profound relief of certain parts of the country. This is the same "quaint" group that threatens shop assistants for not covering up, puts up anti-gay stickers, declares shariah controlled zones and wants to turn the UK into the kind of hell hole that Muslims generally try to get away from. He also apparently wants to give them more money or at least make their lives a bit easier financially. Which I suspect comes down to the same sort of thing.
They say that people generally get the government or the leaders they deserve...
I don't think anyone deserves Ken Livingstone as a mayor.

I wish him success

Nightjack was a hero of the blogging world, he told several cynical tales of his life as a detective, most outstandingly his "guide for decent people". In the end he was cruelly exposed by the Times despite an attempt to get a court injunction to stop it.
Telegraph.

The detective exposed by the Times as the man behind the anonymous NightJack police blog has begun legal proceedings against the newspaper.
Richard Horton lodged a claim against the publisher of the Times at the High Court on Wednesday.
Documents show that he is claiming aggravated and exemplary damages from Times Newspapers for breach of confidence, misuse of private information and deceit.
Mr Horton, a serving officer in Lancashire, was exposed by the newspaper after a reporter hacked into his email account in 2009.
A High Court bid to prevent the Times from naming him was unsuccessful after a judge was told his identity had been gleaned by “deduction” using information that was in the public domain.
Alastair Brett, the paper’s former legal manager, has since admitted that he did not give the court “the full story” of how Patrick Foster, a former reporter, had unmasked NightJack.
Mr Foster submitted a court statement claiming that he had worked out the officer’s identity via information on the internet, neglecting to mention the email hacking.
Mr Brett told the Leveson Inquiry last month that he told Mr Foster “not to engage” with the suggestion that he had hacked into Mr Horton’s emails because he “might have been prosecuted”.
The lawyer even neglected to tell the newspaper’s own barrister, who was fighting the court action on Mr Foster’s behalf, about the email hacking.

I truly wish Mr Horton well in this, what the Times did was despicable and unnecessary. Nightjack lifted the lid on police thinking in the upper echelons. The expose by the Times ended up with him getting a written warning and probably put paid to him getting promotion too.
The Times, its reporter Patrick Foster, and its editor James Harding managed to close down an award-winning blog, and caused problems for those of us who believe in free expression in this country. They were (and are still) a disgrace to their profession especially as it turns out they used illegal means to identify Nightjack in the first place. It was not (in my view) in the public's interest for Nightjack to be exposed, it appears to have been a matter of seeking an exclusive at the cost of the confidentiality of an anonymous blogger.
The Times was wrong then, I hope he makes them pay big time.

 

Al Qaeda are not the problem

I do wonder at times if David Cameron actually understands the problems of Islamic extremism, then he says something on the subject and I become absolutely sure...
That he doesn't
Express.

DAVID CAMERON today issues a passionate appeal to Muslims across the world to defeat Al Qaeda and pave the way for their own future prosperity and freedom by embracing democracy.
In a dramatic and significant speech in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population on earth, the Prime Minister will insist that Islam and democracy can “flourish” side by side.
He was urging Muslims to face down democracy’s “dangerous foes”, ranging from the corrupt and extremists to Northern Ireland-style “tribalists”.
And he was warning extremists not to destroy the potential of the Arab Spring – urging Egypt in particular not to allow the persecution of its Christian minorities to taint its future.

Islam is not democratic, there is no place for democracy in an society where Islam does not dominate, since that means that a non-Muslim is equal to a Muslim. That's why the extremists reject it totally and why Muslims will vote in a block for a Muslim (or Muslim supporting) candidate no matter their political affiliation. That's why Galloway won in Bradford West despite the Labour candidate being a Muslim because Galloway was always going to put Muslims first, his whole campaign was based on issues central to them. The entire Muslim ethos is stratified, Male Muslims are first, female Muslims second. After that, non-Muslims of Christian and Jewish faiths (dhimmis), third-class citizens, below them come idolaters such as Hindu's and Sikhs whom Muslims are allowed to slaughter with impunity.
Whilst it's possible to have a democracy of sorts in a Muslim state, the real power rests as ever with the Imams, not the politicians, Iran being the perfect example of this.
As for the Arab spring, it's not extremists who are attacking the Copts, it's ordinary Egyptian Muslims, the same ones who raped the reporter in Tahrir Square. Islam is essentially incompatible with any other culture, it either dominates and extorts protection money or it kills them off, there is no middle ground once it reaches a point of dominance.
So no, Cameron, Al Qaeda are not the problem in the Islamic world, the problem is the Islamic world.

Summer?

It's only just spring, it technically starts at the equinox on the 20th of March yet already bits of the MSM are claiming summer is on hold...
Express.

BRITAIN’S typically cold and miserable spring will last for weeks as summer is put on hold.
April will bring shivering temperatures, rain, sleet and even snow with early forecasts for May no better.
The gloomy prediction comes as the country this week prepares for another icy blast that will send temperatures plunging to -5C (23F).
Forecasters said up to four inches of snow could fall in parts of Scotland with downpours expected as far south as the Midlands. But persistent drizzle in the South will not make a dent in the drought crisis.

Since when has April or May been summer? The leaves have barely sprouted on trees so far and the bluebells are not even in full bloom!

Telegraph.

Freezing gales and snow bring Britain's early summer to an abrupt end...

Except it wasn't summer, it was barely the first week of spring and simply unseasonably warm.
Ok, I might be being a bit pedantic here, but is it too much to ask that the MSM at least get their basic facts right?

Money for nothing (and your chicks for free?)

There really is something wrong with a society that pays people to do a job then lets them get away with not doing it. It was Guido who first alerted me and others to the problem of Union Pilgrims and the drain on our taxes and rates that they represent. The squeals from the unions after having been caught with their fingers in the till were of no moment, these people do not represent value for money for the taxpayer and if the unions want full time members then it's up to them to pay for them, not you and not I.
Express.

AT LEAST £13million of taxpayers’ cash has been used by councils to pay teaching union officials who are now threatening strike action.
Figures released under Freedom of Information laws yesterday show councils pay more than 360 staff to work full time for the NUT, NASUWT or ATL.
The total bill for union organisers, whose duties could include planning strike action, is £13.3million a year. Of the 152 councils asked about staff with union duties, 120 responded.
The figures are based on their responses, calculated as if across all of them.
Tory MP Gavin Williamson said: “Taxpayers will be angry at the prospect of more unjustified industrial action.
“Irresponsible union leaders and their taxpayer funded helpers should think again.”
The details emerged as the NUT’s annual conference in Torquay passed a resolution calling for “mass resistance” to plans for regional pay rates.

 So, not only are we paying for some of them to do nothing but union business, they are planning mass disruption which will no doubt cost parents (and taxpayers) a lot of cash as well as they have to work around the disruption. I've also a sneaking suspicion that the ordinary members really haven't a clue as to what they'd be protesting about, especially as ordinary people would have been unlikely to be at the NUT, NASUWT or ATL conferences, just moronic leftist activists (some no doubt paid for out of our pockets) Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against unions in general, so long as they keep to their role in negotiating for their members, I'm just as pissed as hell that they somehow feel that they are justified in taking my money to pay twice for someone to work full time for them and another to do the job they are supposed too!
They want full time members then they should adjust their duties to their members to reflect this and see how many members they keep. They should never ever get a single penny from taxpayers and ratepayers to do it.

Stealth tax

The Tories if you believed Labour were ever ones for stealth taxes as opposed to Labours up front robbery of pensions and general economic incompetence. Though the Tories admittedly on the enviroloony theft green levy are just building on Labours platform. So yet again we have another smash and grab raid on our money should we choose to spend it, so as to reduce our "carbon footprint" Though personally I rather like carbon and do not see it as any sort of danger to the UK.
Mail.

Green tax on conservatories: Home improvements will trigger 10% levy

• Householders must first agree to pay for measures such as wall or loft insulation
• Officials accept the scheme will cause huge inconvenience but claim it will reduce the nation’s carbon footprint

Millions of householders who want to build a conservatory, replace a broken boiler or install new windows will be forced to spend hundreds of pounds more on ‘green’ projects.
They will not be permitted to carry out the home improvement or repair unless they agree to fork out for measures such as loft or wall insulation.
The work is expected to add ten per cent to the cost of any building project in the home.

Those who do not have the money will have to borrow it under the Coalition’s Green Deal – and pay it back for years through an extra charge on their energy bills.
Officials accept the scheme will cause huge inconvenience to homeowners, who will have to take time off work and organise visits by a string of workmen.
But they insist it is worthwhile because, ultimately, it will reduce the nation’s carbon footprint.

What this really is of course is state mandated theft, the equivalent of loan sharking where the interest you pay far exceeds the cost or value of the product you're purchasing. In essence the government is demanding that you pay extra because somehow or other this will be good for you, though considering the recent weather and the latest statistics showing that the planet is slightly cooling seems rather far fetched, a bit like believing that bird mincers and solar panels will somehow meet our energy needs. No, this is just another blatant attempt to raise money for the government and will end up costing homeowners and those who wish to improve their properties 10% more (at least) than the actual cost of the goods they are receiving. In essence it's a 10% stealth tax on a home improvement loan.
Once again the ordinary people of the UK are being forced to shell out extra to pay for something that doesn't really exist save in the minds of a few fanatics and is being used as an excuse to extort more revenue for the government.
The thing that grates most though is that one way or another the people of the UK will still at election time vote for these thieving, conniving, unscrupulous political parties then carry on grumbling that they are all the same.
It's time for change, real change, if you want it, do not vote mainstream, ever.

I'll believe it when it happens

The government if the MSM are to be believed are planning on cracking down on human rights abuses. No, not exactly human right abuses themselves, but people who are abusing the Human Rights Act in order to remain in the UK having been convicted of some terrible crimes, yet claim the right to a family life.
Express.

HOME Secretary Theresa May is to order a crackdown on the “abuse” of human rights laws that is stopping foreign criminals being deported, it was reported last night. She has pledged to stop all but the most “exceptional cases” succeeding on appeal by using the “right to a family life” to stay in Britain.
She said: “It has been causing a lot of concern, not just to the Government but also to an awful lot of members of the public. By the summer we will have in place new immigration rules which I believe will end that abuse.”
However Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg indicated he would curb the plans.

I wonder how they'll define exceptional, could it be government speak for almost all? The reaction of Nick Clegg is fairly typical too, if there's a way to be out of touch with public opinion, the Lib Dems normally manage to find it.
That said, there are cases where deporting illegals is not such a good idea, at least not straight away...
Express.

BRITAIN’S border police faced more humiliation last night after it emerged that officers had accidentally deported 13 key witnesses, leading to the collapse of a multi-million pound prosecution.
The blunder caused a judge to rebuke the UK Border Agency for not realising that “prosecution witnesses are supposed to appear in court”.

 Well done the Border Agency, yes these people should have been deported, but only after the trial, if necessarily on the first plane out after the trial.
I do wonder at times whether the completely ineffectual response to illegal immigrants (or even law breaking legal ones) is quite deliberate, not necessarily by the politicians themselves, but by various government departments with some sort of axe to grind against the government or the people of the UK who do not see immigration as being to the greater benefit of themselves or the nation. Devotees of the Frankfurt School spring to mind in this instance, it certainly fits their depraved attitudes towards promoting a "socialist utopia", an oxymoron if ever there were one.
Still, all we have is words, not actions and a threat to curb the actions at that from part of the coagulation.
As the title goes, I'll believe it when it happens, I'll not be holding my breath on it though.

Perhaps if you hadn't gone along with ideological driven programs in the past you might have a point.

The teaching unions are threatening strike action over ideologically driven attacks on the profession. Something they've not done in the past when Labour were driving the ideology, naturally enough.
BBC.

A teachers' union conference has voted for an escalating campaign of industrial action over "ideologically driven attacks" on state education.
The NASUWT teachers' union, meeting in Birmingham, unanimously backed proposals which could mean strike action in schools in the autumn.
Delegates supported a motion which accused the government of a "vicious assault" on teachers.
A government spokesman said striking would only damage children's education.
Saturday's conference heard warnings of "predatory" plans for privatisation.

These are the same people who stand shoulder to shoulder with climate change fanatics, have pressed forward multiculturalism and along with politicians have been responsible for the decline in education standards in the UK to the point that over 20% of school leavers have difficulty with reading, writing and basic math.
I'm wondering if perhaps we should hive off the education services in the UK to the private sector, we'd certainly not be doing any worse and at least the private sector would make sure the kids coming through the system were fit for service when they came out. Certainly they'd introduce streaming where you can't progress to the next stage unless you understood the previous one. Rather than moving up a year whether you were able or not.
Education in the UK is a shambles, yes there are a few bright spots, but they tend to be the equivalent of an oasis in the desert, few and far between. Years of political interference from the government and left wing dogma from the teaching unions have ruined a better life for our kids, what should be treated as a valuable resource has been squandered on the altar of alternative teaching methods, multiculturalism, lack of disciple and political correctness. Even the exam system was tampered with to make things easier and make it appear that things were constantly getting better, when it was obvious to anyone from my generation that it wasn't.
Perhaps it is time for change, though I doubt any changes I would be in favour of the unions would like. Perhaps it's time to make teachers self employed, rather than servants of the state and dominated by unions. Let their pay negotiations be defined by results rather than national bargaining and allow the termination of a contract to be decided in months rather than by industrial arbitration.
Perhaps it's time to remove the bondage of the state and the teaching unions from education...
Now that's change I think I could live with.

Living with Mum

The government seem keen to close down a good few benefits available to people, yet as ever they seem to target the wrong groups and do it in a hamfisted way (natural talent I think) Their latest wheeze is to tell young people to live with Mum or as the MSM put it, force them to live with Mum...
Express.

UNEMPLOYED young people could be forced to live with their parents rather than rent homes at taxpayers’ expense, it emerged yesterday.
Many working young people have no choice but to stay living with their families because they cannot afford to move out.
But under-25s earning below a certain level and those on Jobseekers’ Allowance may qualify for housing benefit help towards renting a room or bedsit.
The Government is keen to close the loophole.
It is considering plans that would mean youngsters on benefits should also be expected to stay with relatives until they can afford to move out.
No immediate announcement is expected and discussions are at an early stage.
But Downing Street is determined to ensure that people are always better off in work than on the dole.
But even supporters admit the policy could be difficult to enact. Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It will be hard to tell whether or not a young person has somewhere else appropriate where they can live.

I suspect we'd see a massive rise in the number of homeless people sleeping rough on the streets as the government seem to have forgotten the other part of the equation, Mum herself. There are a lot of families out there who struggled to bring up their kids and for all they love their kids don't particularly like them at any given time, late teens and early twenties being difficult years, that plus the cost of feeding them and keeping them usually exceeds the amount of rent they get from the jobseekers allowance, assuming Mummy's little darling actually tips something up. We've just managed to rid ourselves here of both the kids and frankly we don't want them back, though fortunately there's no danger of that with my stepdaughter and granddaughter, unfortunately my stepson is right in the governments crosshairs for this policy, he has a place of his own (rented) but if he loses the benefits necessary to stay there it's doubtful we'd have him back. I know it sounds cruel, but you lot don't and have never had to live with him.
Most parents strive to see their kids do well, unfortunately not all kids do and the options for them to break out on their own have been severely limited, those not academically inclined have been marginalised to the edges of society, by mass immigration and ridiculous academic requirements for what is essentially unskilled labour (try getting a job at McD's without some form of GCSE and you'll fail) Most agencies are stuffed full with immigrant groups looking for work and often enough they get priority as they can work longer and live cheaper before they return home with a decent wad of cash for their labours. I don't blame them for doing this, but it does cause a problem here by keeping wages low for our own young and prevents a few of them from gaining work related skills.
I personally think a government policy along those lines would have dire consequences for some young people, I'd rather they targeted their cost savings elsewhere, such as removing child benefit after the second or third kid and having a lower cap on benefits.
Sadly though, they remain completely out of touch with real life.

The truth will out...

The Lib Dems are notoriously pro EU, God alone knows why, not many of us see any advantage for the UK being in the damned place, simply just an extra government throwing down costly and intrusive regulation to be passed on the nod by our feckless MP's. Still each to their own and the way that the Lib Dems implement policy (mostly on the hoof) that could (and would) change if they thought there was any mileage in it. They do however have a tendency to highlight certain unwelcome truths about the current government...
Express.

EXPLOSIVE claims by a Lib Dem Cabinet minister that the Government is more pro-European than Labour sparked fury among senior Tories last night.
David Cameron swiftly slapped down Energy Secretary Ed Davey’s claim that it would be “reckless” to rule out joining the single currency in the next few years.
Tories were angered at Mr Davey’s comments which underlined the gulf between the pro-EU Lib Dems and their coalition partners.
But one Tory eurosceptic congratulated the minister for lifting the lid on the truth about how the Government was going along with the EU project despite its rhetoric to the contrary.
Mr Davey said: “In due course, this Government might well turn out to be seen as more constructive, more engaged, indeed, more pro-European than its Labour predecessor.”
He claimed that Tories including the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary William Hague, as well as Lib Dem ministers, were taking “the old Heseltine line” that “the British national interest is served by being at the table”. In a provocatively dismissive comment, Mr Davey described the Prime Minister’s decision last December to veto a new EU treaty as something “I hope and believe will be seen as a blip”.

Well, it was a blip, something most EUsceptics knew anyway a non-veto for a non-treaty, still it's good to see the government wrongfooted by someone on the inside actually saying it how it is, even if they believe it's a good thing whilst we look at it as a condemnation. Whilst I wouldn't say it's exactly nice to have our suspicions confirmed about the Tory leaderships pseudo EUscepticism, it does confirm some things long suspected that they wish ever closer integration and ever greater loss of sovereignty.

I sincerely hope Mr Davey's dreams come crashing down, though God alone knows where the political party or the political will to do so will come from UKIP for all their anti-EU stance and the rhetoric of their leader are highly disorganised at ground level and the BNP are currently going through yet another civil war. Not a single one of the mainstream parties is even remotely interested in taking us out and only occasionally dangle what they believe to be a carrot of a referendum on EU membership when they think it suits them, knowing full well that it's unlikely that we'll vote to leave with the EU bribing the populace to stay in and the politicians hearts not being in it.

No, what is needed is for a party to be elected on a pledge to take us out, no votes save in parliament and a time scale set up for an ordered withdrawal.

With this current lot of MP's though, I wouldn't hold your breath on such an outcome...

The lowest of the low

Well perhaps not quite but this guy is certainly down there with this little number...
Mail.

A man has been arrested after a handbag and shoes were apparently taken from a woman left decapitated in a horrifying traffic accident.
CCTV footage released in the aftermath of the accident shows an Asian man walking away from the scene with what appeared to be the dead woman's belongings.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police has confirmed a 46-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of theft and is currently being held in custody.

I don't care what religion, race or even species you might be, there are just some things that you shouldn't do and robbing the dead or injured is one of them. The distress to the victims relatives must have been immense considering just how serious the accident was in the first place. Most people in a situation like that either try to help or they try to observe, it's human nature after all, though I often curse rubberneckers when they do it on roads and have nearly had accidents myself when some have slowed down suddenly to observe the goings on across a road. Yet I could never imagine for one second doing what this guy did and believe if convicted the courts should throw the book at him.
But that sadly is another story...

I'm struggling to see why we should give a damn

The Human Rights Act, one of the bane's of the legal system strangling common sense in the UK, introduced by Tony Blair to give his Mrs a nice little earner and since then been used as an excuse for every criminal facing deportation to avoid being told to sling their hook in case the place they are being deported too will torture or kill them.
Express.

ONE of Britain’s most senior judges voiced his anger ­yesterday after hearing how a terrorist convicted of an ­airport bombing got thrown out of France but was able to find refuge here.
Britain has been forced to look after the ­Algerian for more than a ­decade because he cannot be sent home to face the death penalty.
Now the man, identified only as AH in court, is using thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money fighting for asylum as he is technically stateless.
Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Alan Ward revealed his bewilderment that he got into Britain after his ejection from France. He said: “It may seem astonishing to many that the French courts were able to seek to exclude this appellant but that the United Kingdom may be obliged to tolerate his presence in our midst. How could that come about?”
Tory MP Peter Bone last night hit out at the “absurd” situation. He said: “How we let this man into the country in the first place is beyond my comprehension.
“People are fed up to the back teeth with terrorists coming to this country and being allowed to stay here. We should deport these people first and worry about the consequences later.”

Well Tory MP Peter Bone, I've got news for you, you politicians brought this about when you decided that the rights of criminal scum were just as valuable as their victims.Granted it happened under a Labour government, but under the EU it would have come about anyway. And no, I don't give a damn about AH's life expectancy if he's returned to Algeria either, same as I don't care if Abu Qatada is deported to Jordan and might be tortured. They aren't UK subjects, they are wanted abroad to face trial or to face justice on terrorism charges and frankly because they are not UK subjects we should not be keeping them here on benefits. Asylum should be granted to those who face the wrath of another government so long as what they are accused of cannot be proven in a UK court. That means we take in those facing persecution, not those facing persecution because they are mass murderers or have attempted to use terrorism as a means to overthrow a state. There is a fine line to be trod to be sure, but those accused of having blown up an airport are not on the right side of it and never should be.
If Algeria wants to hang him then so be it.

Carrying you out in a box

I'm finally in the position where I can now save for a pension, kids are all gone and there's only myself and my good lady, problem is, it's probably too late to make a difference, well not unless I'm prepared to work well into my 70's (which sounds ok now, but wait till I reach them) Not that the situation has been helped by the Gordon Brown pension raid back in the early Labour days which transformed a fairly successful scheme into an gravely underfunded one, as one off taxes went, that was a stonker and hit the less well off far harder than most, so much for Labour being the party of the working class.
Express.

THE demise of Britain’s private pension system has been graphically exposed by a damning official report revealed to the Daily Express.
Government experts have predicted the era of final salary pensions is coming to a rapid end and that within six years no new members will be enrolled on to the lucrative schemes.
Department for Work and Pensions analysis shows that many of the schemes have died out already.
Millions of workers now face the grim reality of having to work well into their 70s.
The death knell of generous final salary pensions has been sounded in a damning official report which ­confirms how millions of us will have to keep on working into old age.
The stark analysis by the ­Department for Work and Pensions warns that many company defined schemes have already closed down and those that survive will be closed to new entrants within six years.

Problem for the companies is that because of reduced staffing and increased costs plus the losing of their float by Browns robbery they can no longer afford to keep their pension schemes going, it's costing more than what's actually going in. This means that anyone who wants a fairly decent pension is going to have to save longer and harder, which kind of rules me out, I had a fairly good private pension scheme till the CSA got it's claws into me then I struggled to bring up two families it seemed as strangely enough the CSA did not chase after the father of my good Lady's kids as he was self employed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter about the situation and I never begrudged paying my way and the kids turned out fine, it's just that I now have a bit of a problem on my hands and it's going to cost me, so in a sense I'm back to square one.
Of course we could resolve some of the problems by topping up the state pension, taking a chainsaw to government spending and using the excess to top up the pension scheme, the foreign aid budget could go for a start along with all the money spent on fake charities, quangos and translation services.
Mind you, so far the pension crisis only applies to the private sector, the public sector are being cushioned (as ever) and that needs to change too.
If we're all in this together, then we need the system to be fair, I don't like the idea of paying through my taxes for someone to retire earlier than me and on a better pension, especially if they haven't contributed a decent amount into the system themselves.
I expect I'll have to work till I drop to pay for some civil or public servant to retire in relative comfort, that grates a little and I suspect that the older I get the more it will grate.

Avoiding the M word

No, not multiculturalism, that's not something the BBC avoids, rather the opposite, it likes to ram it down our throats at every opportunity. No, it's the use of "Asian" again when clearly what is meant is Muslim.
BBC.

George Galloway's victory in Bradford West was partly due to Labour's failure to connect with the Asian community, the shadow home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper told the BBC her party had not won over young Asian voters or Muslim women.
Respect Party MP Mr Galloway, who was expelled by Labour in 2003, won the by-election by 10,140 votes.
He has said his victory represented a "peaceful democratic uprising" against the established political parties.
In taking Bradford West, Mr Galloway overturned a Labour majority of more than 5,000 at the 2010 general election.

In fact it's only noticeable in the entire article that the M word is used only in a direct quote, though somehow or other Yvette Cooper seems like the BBC to equate Asian and Muslim as being the same thing, which is profoundly absurd and no doubt abhorrent to the vast majority of Asians who are not Muslims.
Yet it's not just the BBC who have form for this, most of the MSM tar Asians with a broad brush when they are actually speaking of Muslims of Asian origin and occasionally just Muslims in general.
Fact is, it wasn't the "Asian" vote that got Galloway elected, though there's a lot of evidence of postal vote fraud, something that Labour made very easy for unscrupulous political and religious groups to abuse. Galloway mostly got elected due to the block Muslim vote on his policies and his contemptible position via the Fakestinian fascist group Hamas and a protest vote against the mainstream parties in general. I suspect in any other community without a large Islamic group that UKIP or the BNP might have given Labour a run for their money.
Yes Galloway won due to a protest vote and unless the postal vote rules are tightened up, he might win again, but the main reason he won was due to the Muslim vote in Bradford West, not the "Asian" vote, lets not forget that.