Friday, May 31, 2013

Making it up as you go along...

The pro EUphiles must be getting desperate, they are peddling the 'leaving will cost jobs' myth and stamping their feet because no-one really believes them anymore.
Express.
TALK of leaving the European Union is damaging job prospects and is economically "irresponsible", according to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
And islam is a religion of peace, saying it doesn't make it so...
Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander believes Britain is in the perfect position to lead changes to the EU as large eurozone countries are politically and economically too weak to oppose reform.
Speaking to Manchester's Chamber of Commerce, Mr Alexander also vowed the Government would not be changing the course of its economic police, despite calls from a leading think-tank to increase investment in infrastructure/
He said: "Half of our trade is with Europe. In fact, EU countries trade twice as much with each other than they would without the single market - activity which is worth £3,300 per British household. Over 3.5 million British jobs are linked to that trade.
And this trade will stop if we leave? Is mr Alexander so stupid as to believe the EU will not want to trade with us even if we leave? They'll certainly want to carry on selling us stuff, after all, they sell us more than we sell them.
So, the pro EU Lib Dems continue to make things up whilst expecting us to believe them. Well I have some news for mr Alexander, more and more people are coming to the view that the fourth largest party in terms of voter support has it completely wrong on the EU and hence you are losing votes left right and centre.
Perhaps you should re-evaluate just why Ukip is doing so well...

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Not the EDL...

A few days ago someone sprayed the Bomber Command Memorial with the word islam and attempted to blot out some of the names. In the aftermath of the Lee Rigby barbarism the weird and wonderful people who inhabit the left of the political spectrum immediately denounced it as a put up job by the EDLto discredit the downtrodden and victimised muslim communities of the UK who clearly had nothing to do with the barbarism other than being muslims who follow the tenets in the quran that the killers did, same book, same rules...
Well seems that there has been a video released of the perpetrator and sadly he doesn't fit the profile of the average EDL member... despite the hopes and dreams of many on the left and the MSM.
Mail.
Working alone in the dark and covering his face with a balaclava, this is the vile thug responsible for scrawling the word 'Islam' across Britain's celebrated Bomber Command Memorial.
The vandal was caught on camera desecrating the Central London monument to the 55,573 RAF crew who lost their lives in the Second World War.
The suspect is seen moving in and out of the shadows to spray it with red paint early on Monday morning, in a shameless attempt to stir up hatred.
Hatred for whom, the Mail does not say though considering their past form they appear to think it was to stir up hatred against muslims... because astonishingly the Mail misses out one vital detail in their article...
Express.
The man, of African appearance, is captured moving in and out of the shadows to spray the monument in London in the early hours on Monday.
Now the EDL does have African members, it's not normally mentioned by the left or the MSM because it rather makes their arguments that the EDL are somehow racist look a tad weak...
However the EDL do not target monuments, do not target mosques and would like as not string up any member they found doing such a thing. However the left and the MSM are desperate to move the narrative along from the fact that the killers of Lee Rigby were muslims onto anyone else and the EDL because it opposes islam is the target of choice and is often held up as the opposite coin to islamic extremism despite never having flown planes into buildings, blown up tube trains and buses, blown up disco's, set off nail bombs in cafés or groomed underage girls to name but a few islamic 'habits'
Despite the media claims, the EDL are very law abiding ordinary folk who want the government to deal with islamic extremism, it's a naive hope perhaps, but it's a start. People are getting angrier and angrier with the governments inability to deal with the issue, this is self evident in the articles attacking the EDL. It's much easier to blame the reaction rather than the real culprits after all.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Gosh, what a surprise... NOT!

Tim Yeo who has made an absolute fortune from his business dealings in the green sector in selling bird mincers to be subsidised by the likes of you and me now appears to be moving on to the next scam. Well he must be if he's coming out with statements like this...
Telegraph.
Humans may not be responsible for global warming, according to Tim Yeo, the MP who oversees government policy on climate change.
The chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee said he accepts the earth’s temperature is increasing but said “natural phases” may be to blame.
Such a suggestion sits at odds with the scientific consensus. One recent survey of 12,000 academic papers on climate change found 97 per cent agree human activities are causing the planet to warm. Mr Yeo, an environment minister under John Major, is one of the Conservative Party’s strongest advocates of radical action to cut carbon emissions. His comments are significant as he was one of the first senior figures to urge the party to take the issue of environmental change seriously. He insisted such action is “prudent” given the threat climate change poses to living standards worldwide. But, he said, human action is merely a “possible cause”.
The saying involving rats and sinking ships springs to mind a little here does it not?
Thing is, good scientists have been saying for years that the whole climate change scam methodology is deeply flawed and that the earth rather than warming up was actually heading towards another cooling phase. The very fact that Yeo is now alluding to the admission that anthropomorphic driven climate change may not be the case after all suggests that he's about to bail out of the scam and use this statement as proof of his 'denier' credentials when the entire green cash machine comes off the rails later this year (I hope)
I expect we'll get a lot of this sort of thing from the politicians over the next few months as they quietly seek to distance themselves from the scam.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Bet this wasn't related to islam either...

No sooner has the dust settled over the bank holiday and the powers that be breathed a collective sigh of relief in the hope that things would go back to normal and those beastly EDL types would just stop pointing out the obvious about the states islamic pets when up pops another example of islam in action...
Express.
COUNTER-terror police are investigating an attack on a prison guard who was left beaten and bloody after three fanatics launched a vicious assault when they were asked to pray for soldier Lee Rigby.
So much for the religion of peace meme that has been forced down our throats since the barbarians did for Lee Rigby.
The terrified officer, in his 30s, was lucky to escape with his life after five hours of being battered by the Islamic convicts who told him they would kill him at the British maximum security jail.
He was freed by a specialist riot squad who stormed the cleaning room where he had been held at Full Sutton jail, near York.
A female officer was also injured as she tried to stop the three male prisoners, two aged 25, one 26, dragging her colleague away.
The North East counter terrorism unit has now taken over the investigation at the prison amid the reports that the attack was Muslim inspired.
But, but, muslims are peaceful people* I have it on the authority of several imams, politicians, media experts and the UAF!
The UK's prisons are very sadly a hotbed for islamic extremism, mostly because instead of deporting them to an islamic shithole where they'd be happy we keep them well fed and privileged and allow them to practice their barbarism without fear or censure. The muslim prisoner percentage is 12% and the general populace percentage is about 5% but apparently we aren't allowed to extrapolate from those figures as that would of course be racist despite muslim not being a race...
The more the state denies there is a problem, the bigger that problem will grow.
There is no place for islam in a civilised society.


* Apart from the ones who very obviously aren't

Monday, May 27, 2013

Must!

Two articles caught my eye today, both in the Daily Mail along with the usual hysterical headlines and justification for yet another government intrusion into our lives.
Both are calling for the banning of something and demand legislation from the government to 'do something' rather than accept that people ought to run their own lives to suit themselves...
Mail 1.
Hate preachers will be banned from British television, Theresa May signalled last night.
The Home Secretary condemned the BBC and other broadcasters for interviewing ‘disgusting’ extremist cleric Anjem Choudary after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.
A Mail probe revealed that hundreds of videos encouraging extremism can be found on YouTube using Google searches, and Mrs May threatened internet giants with legislation unless they removed them; 
Anyone remember the Gerry Adams fiasco when instead of his words on the screen, an actor read them out instead?
 Mail 2.
Charities have demanded urgent action to prevent access to illegal and ‘disgusting’ child pornography via Google and other web browsers.
A coalition of organisations is arguing for the introduction of blocking software and on-screen warnings to deny internet users access to the material.
The group includes the NSPCC, Barnado’s, Action for Children, BAAF, Beat Bullying, Children England, Children’s Society, ECPAT UK, Kidscape, and Stop It Now.
Ah yes, the infamous 'for the cheeldren' meme in action.
Now despite the claims of these charities, the vast majority of people who look at porn do not turn into child molesting perverts. Nor do I suspect that Google could prevent people from accessing child porn via other means, it's only one search engine amongst countless others (if the most famous) and I'm pretty sure that the real perverts out there have their own network and don't use any sort of mainstream search engines, well the smart ones anyway.
Yet both articles are calling for the same thing, that people should be banned/prevented from making their own minds up and sorting out their own lives, whilst forgetting that there's already legislation in place to deal with such things anyway, it's just that law enforcement for one reason or another fail to use it. In the case of hate preachers it's fear of accusations of racism, with child porn it's because the real problem is the authorities themselves appear to be up to their necks in it. Just check out John Ward in the Slog if you have any doubts on this.
Don't get me wrong, I believe hate preachers and child molesters should be strung up by the gonads until they drop off pour encourager les autres, but I do not like government or anyone else telling me or preventing me from viewing what I want for my own good, mostly because once they start, they never seem to stop.
The legislation is already in place, the government do not need encouraging to take more of our freedoms away.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

No you won't

Cameron was blowing hot air yesterday by making promises that he simply can't keep, but look good on the pages of the newspapers.
Mail. (usual caveats)
David Cameron is planning new powers to muzzle Islamic hate preachers accused of provoking terrorist outrages such as the killing of soldier Lee Rigby.
The Prime Minister wants to stop extremist clerics using schools, colleges, prisons and mosques to spread their ‘poison’ and is to head a new Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) made up of senior Ministers, MI5, police and moderate religious leaders.
The high-powered group will study a number of measures, including banning extremist clerics from being given public platforms to incite students, prisoners and other followers – and forcing mosque leaders to answer for ‘hate preachers’.
What's a definition of insanity? Oh yes, trying the same thing over and over in the exact same way and expecting a different outcome...
Appeasement doesn't work, you are not going to be able to get the muslim communities to rat out their fellow muslims when truth be told they are fare more afraid of the extremists than they are of the government.
Also the EU and the European Court of Human Rights have time and time again rapped the governments knuckles for attempting any such actions via our courts. Hell we can't even deport the scum, never mind get them silenced (Thank you Tony Blair)
Also, anyone want to take bets on any legislation suffering from mission creep? After all, if they somehow can pass it, you can bet that somehow or other it will be used to silence anyone the government don't like, though I suspect somehow or other the real extremists will get away with it.
It's the same time and time again, some atrocity happens and all we get are mealy mouthed phrases and legislation that takes away ever more of our civil liberties and nothing ever changes.

Sounds about right...

Saturday, May 25, 2013

What I did on my holidays (By QM Twoflower) #1

Now normally QM would have nothing to do with a Muslim country, I avoid islam as I would avoid bubonic plague. That said... QM is a history buff and Egypt is the largest archaeological site in the world and I really wanted to see with my own eyes just what was there.
So, QM and Lady QM set off for Egypt and a Nile cruise...
We arrived late at Luxor airport, nearly midnight Egyptian time and the first thing you notice when you get off the plane is the heat, at 24 degrees, it was much hotter in the middle of the night than it was in the height of summer last year. It's also a dry heat too, none of that muggy heat that means a mega sweat in the UK just before a thunder storm.

MS Royal Viking our ship for a week
The first thing we found was that we had been upgraded to a five star ship which because it was much bigger did not seem that much of an upgrade, however passenger numbers were low at 22 rather than the normal 60, so it worked out pretty fine for us.

Our first full day took us to the Valley of the kings and this was where we discovered the delights of Egyptians desperate to sell us stuff, fortunately they don't mind being completely blanked, although I did pick up a few good (to me) deals. I didn't mind paying a little over the odds, this is a third world country after all and they had suffered due to their so called revolution and a bunch of religious yahoos bollixing it up totally for the population by driving off the tourist trade.

Dry and hot
 The tombs themselves were impressive, the dry atmosphere having preserved most of the original artwork, though taking pictures inside was forbidden.
We then visited the temple of Hapshetsup or hot chicken soup as some seemed to call it. This had been carved out of the solid rock of the mountains and was seriously impressive.

Hapshetsup temple
We then visited the Valley of the Queens (and nobles) and headed back to the boat to view the Colossus of Memnon en route.
The certainly did them big.
Back at the boat we discovered that Egypt was famous for something other than Pharaohs, seems the Egyptians invented beer...


And bloody good it was too, bar prices were roughly that of the UK too and yes we drank loads. Egypt also produces some wine too, I can't recommend the white too much, though the rosé and the red were reasonably palatable.
One of the things you do notice about Egypt is the poverty, though the people seem happy enough and the ones we met not terribly religious at all, though the mosques were certainly giving it some five times a day. Turned out Luxor though was 50/50 muslim/Christian and the usual extremists were petty much all in Cairo making a mess of running the country. Everyone we met believed the ex president Hosni Mubarak to be a corrupt old man and were glad to be shot of him, but, they also though the muslim brotherhood were a disgusting bunch of cretins as since they took over power cuts were a regular thing and there were fuel shortages throughout the land too.
Seems they exchanged one crook for a whole new set of crooks and our guide expected another revolution within a year to drive them out.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Hypocrisy

Some 1200 extra officers were on the streets to apparently protect the command and control centres of the islamic barbarians today. Makes you wonder where they can get these from and yet have to wait 20 mins before coming to get the said islamic barbarians who behead an innocent man on the streets.
Mail.
More than 1,200 additional police officers took to the streets last night amid heightened fears of further violence targeted at the Muslim community by far-Right groups.
Officers were guarding 'key locations' in London, including religious venues and transport hubs, Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley said.
Leave for officers has been cancelled following ugly scenes in Woolwich involving the English Defence League and a spate of attacks on mosques elsewhere in England on Wednesday night.
English Defence League supporters clashed with police near Woolwich Arsenal railway station just hours after the bloody attack on Lee Rigby. A group of around 250 men gathered at The Queen's Arms pub in Burrage Road, where they sang nationalist songs.
The mob then began throwing missiles at police officers, who responded with baton charges, witnesses said.
Elsewhere, a 43-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of attempted arson and possession of an offensive weapon after walking into a mosque with a knife and an explosive device in Braintree, Essex.
The secretary of the mosque, Sikander Saleemy, said it was 'some sort of revenge attack'. He added: 'We absolutely condemn what happened in Woolwich, but it had nothing to do with us.
'It was an appalling act of terror – but it wasn't Islamic in any way. I wish it wasn't described like that, because sadly people will now start to blame Muslims.'
Ok, point 1) The EDL do not target mosques, never have, never will despite a lot of claims to the contrary, the only people convicted of targeting a mosque at an EDL demo were actually members of the UAF.
Point 2) Beheading and slitting the throat of a victim is an islamic method, despite the denial from the mosque secretary, people are blaming muslims because IT WAS MUSLIMS THAT DID IT!
Point 3) The Mail is a bit coy (downright lying) about what happened in Woolwich with the EDL, the police attempted to physically move on a peaceful demo with their batons and were then attacked because of this, not the other way round despite the weird witness claim.
You'd almost think the police and government were more scared of the EDL and ordinary people wanting to show their revulsion at the crime than they are of those who behead soldiers on our streets.
Julia's article below this one is worth reading about the government and the powers that be using the act to try and control us even more rather than actually deal with the real issue of the barbarians amongst us, who despite the claims of the government, police and the Daily Mail are not the EDL.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Disparity

How come reports tell us that the police took 20 minutes to react to the atrocity in Greenwich?
How come when someone smashed some cabinets at a mosque in Gillingham, the police said  the damage happened at 20.00 and an arrest was made at 20.04?
Guess it shows where the priorities lie.
The one good point is that the cowards were not killed but were brought down by a policewoman and won't be getting their 72 virgins white grapes.
The bad news is that we can't string them up pour encourager les autres.
Boris Johnson also seems to think we shouldn't blame the mindless fascistic ideology wrapped up in religious trappings that is islam for the atrocity. It's noticeable that he doesn't tell us who or what to blame.
I also learned that one of the cowardly barbarians who perpetrated the act is a converted Christian, you'd think people would have far more self respect.
There is no place for Islam in a civilised society, now or ever.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Enrichment

There are those who insist that our society has been enriched by mass uncontrolled immigration. A good few of us disagree, we're often called racist/fascist/bigots by those who insist that we're wrong. The problem that those of us who disagree have with the issue is the 'mass uncontrolled' part of the issue, not immigration as such. We tend to believe in integration rather than multiculturalism, we aren't opposed to immigrant groups remembering their roots, but we don't want them bringing their entire society with them and creating ghetto's where they speak their own language exclusively and demand that we have to adapt to them rather than the far more natural adapting to the majority. However those who are in power tend to see things differently because sadly they don't get to live with the actual problems...
MSN News.
A man has been killed and two others were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds following a "serious incident" understood to involve a serving soldier.
Several witnesses described seeing a "beheading" while another described seeing a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt being attacked with a machete-style knife and dumped in a south-east London street.
One witness, identified as James, said he and his partner saw two black men attack a young man aged around 20 in a Help for Heroes T-shirt with kitchen knives like he was "a piece of meat". "They were hacking at this poor guy, literally," he told LBC radio. "They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him." Fighting back tears, he added: "These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there."
He said after the "horrendous" attack, the two men, in their 20s, just stood around, waving knives and a gun, even asking people nearby to take pictures of them "as if they wanted to be on TV or something". "They were oblivious to anything, they were more worried about having their photo taken, running up and down the road," he said. "They had no intention of running off or leaving or anything. In my opinion, they were waiting for the police to arrive to be shot by the police. That's the only thing I can think. It's horrendous what they were doing to that guy." Some "brave" women tried to shield the man on the ground from them, he added.He also said it was 20 minutes before armed police arrived at the scene. "When the armed police came flying around the corner, the man with the beanie hat, the tall guy, he charged at the police vehicle,"

I believe we could so easily do without this kind of enrichment.
Details at this stage are of course sketchy, though the pattern does appear to fit the profile of certain groups who are inordinately fond of guns and knives and even had their own police task force known as Trident, which appears to have been disbanded though the money to deal with such problems still seems to be pouring in despite no real effect as far as I can tell other than enriching those who are doing good and of course various community leaders who appear to lead nothing.
It really does come to something when 123 people are stabbed to death in London a year alone mainly by black youths and/or foreign criminals. 54 Muslim grooming gangs are about to be raided by police around the country for raping white children. Hundreds of white people have been killed by non whites yet the media only want to talk about Stephen Lawrence.
Amazingly enough though if you point this out, guess who is causing a problem?
BBC’s Nick Robinson reporting that the “People carrying out the attack were of Muslim appearance and cries of God is Great or Allahu Akbar were heard”.
Are you feeling enriched yet?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Offended? Well yes, I suppose 'you' would be...

Well I'm back from Egypt having had a great time, I'll write about my experiences at some other time though, possibly the weekend when I have a bit more time.
One of the first things to hit me upon my return to England was the work of property management firm Places for People who apparently finf my countries flag so offensive that despite it being on a blokes door for over 10 years decided that it would have to go, despite the guy having won awards for the upkeep of his house.
The Sun.
A PATRIOTIC ex-soldier who painted a St George’s flag on his front door has been ordered to cover it up by his housing association landlords who claim it could be considered "offensive" and may bring "distress" to neighbours.
Steven Rolfe, 52, painted the red and white colours of the English flag on his rented home in Preston, Lancs, 10 years ago and added hanging baskets to celebrate his love of England and mark his former career in the forces.
But despite being runner up in a council "best kept house" competition, he has now received a letter from an official at property management firm Places for People saying neighbours could be "alarmed" by the symbol.
The letter also warned the design could place him in a category of "nuisance neighbours" and said it could see him being evicted if he failed to cover it up.
In a letter to Mr Rolfe, Neighbourhood Officer Leanne Hardy gave him 14 days to repaint the door saying: "It has been brought to my attention that you have painted your front door in a way that could be considered offensive."
When he asked for permission to keep the flag, Ms Hardy sent another letter refusing his request and giving him seven days to paint over it in one colour.
She also warned him that failure could see him being in breach of his tenancy agreement.
In her letter Ms Hardy said the flag design fell foul of rules tackling unruly tenants who caused "a nuisance, annoyance, disturbance or harassment" of others.
Ms Hardy also said his conduct breached tenancy conditions concerning those tenants who were "injurious to the interests of neighbours" and those who "cause distress, alarm or interfere with the peace and comfort of any other person."
Mr Rolfe, who served in Northern Ireland, said: “I couldn’t believe it when I got the letter.
Why am I not surprised that Ms hardy is a Ms...
As it is, you have to wonder at what Places for People are playing at, sure the guy didn't have permission to paint the door, but considering that he did do it in 2003, you have to suspect that if there were a real problem, it would have surfaced by now.
Places for People have since apologised for calling the flag offensive, though one suspects that Ms Hardy doesn't agree with with their 'official' position, they are however still trying to evict the guy for having painted it 10 years ago without 'official' permission. This is the fallback position of any organisation where the actions of one of their officials however barmy need to be backed up no matter what the fallout from the decision.
It's interesting that only the company seems to have a problem with what Mr Rolfe has done, no one else from the local community or Labour Party seems to have an issue with the door. But, that's what happens when someone gets offended by proxy...

Monday, May 6, 2013

Parish Notice

The blog will be on hiatus for the next two weeks as Lady QM and I are off on our holidays. She wishes to see Egypt and as a slave to her desires I am taking her there and will take lots of pictures of pyramids, sphinx's temples and lots of other pre-islamic stuff before the loons there decide to blow it up as it is pre-islamic stuff and they have done in other countries.
Blogging should resume on 21st of May.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

That word 'could' again.

Could and should are the most insidious words in the lexicon of those who would ban things or remove essential freedoms from us in the name of security, health and often enough crime prevention.
And so it is with the police crying out over plans to make them destroy DNA samples after six months...
Mail. (Usual caveats)
Police and scientists have warned that dangerous criminals could escape justice because of a ‘baffling’ Government decision to destroy six million DNA samples.
It means detectives will no longer be able to use a pioneering investigative tool – familial DNA testing – that narrows down suspects using forensic material from relatives.
Martin Bottomley, who leads a specialist police team which uses the technique, argues some cases will now be ‘impossible’ to solve.
And top forensic investigator Patricia Wiltshire, whose evidence was crucial in convicting Ian Huntley of the Soham murders, said: ‘It is a crazy, retrograde move. In forensic protocols and police procedures, Britain is respected worldwide, but this could damage our reputation.’
The process of erasing all existing samples began in December and is due to be completed this month.
In addition, under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 – legislation championed by Nick Clegg in response to a European human-rights ruling – all new samples must now be destroyed within six months.
Ah yes, familial DNA testing, just another tool in the armoury of the police which requires ever more of our DNA to be on record 'just in case' meaning that the police once they have it for any reason will want to keep it.
There are the usual nothing to hide nothing to fear arguments going on in the comments, though the consensus seems to be that somehow or other this is a mistake, though many admit even with such records, mistakes are made.
Part of the problem seems to be that the police have swung into the position that DNA sampling is their first and foremost tool in criminal investigations rather than the old fashioned method of asking questions and investigating. Mistakes can and have been made and the police know this, but still want as much of the population as they can on the databases they have.
There's an old maxim that goes somewhat on the lines of 'It's better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted' something that the police and CPS as well as the powers that be seem incapable of understanding as they demand that the law is flouted in order to keep their precious databases. Sure you can argue that if everyone had their DNA on record certain crimes would be easy to solve, though I can think of a few examples where false accusations can be made of someone who happened to be there and did not commit the act they are accused of (Julia has a whole file full of false rape claims) Yet there are some of us who believe that our DNA is our own and that the state should not have it on record save only if we are previously convicted criminals, after all do you trust the bastards in power? Sooner or later someone would come up with another reason for such records if only to experiment on certain genomes who happen to be inconvenient.
Could and should does not mean will, no matter how hard the powers that be try to tell us it does.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The man who (should of) would be king.

I have a lot of time for David Davis, he's they guy who lost to Cameron for the Tory leadership and whom I suspect many Tories now believe had they chosen him they might not be in the position they are in now. He's also the guy who resigned his seat on a point of principal to highlight the erosion of civil liberties in the UK. So when he has something to say, it's usually worth listening too, even if you don't agree.
Telegraph.
Tories must start listening to ordinary voters, not their old school chums So how should we deal with Thursday’s reverse? Well we should neither underestimate it nor misunderstand it. Firstly, it matters.
In local elections organisation on the ground is very important. Yet Ukip’s surge was done with virtually no locally organised local campaigning at all. In my part of Yorkshire we put in five to 10 times the volume of campaigning that Ukip did, yet we lost 15 per cent, they gained 30 per cent from a standing start.
So come the next Euro elections, when local organisation does not matter anything like so much, it is entirely possible that Ukip will top the poll. That would mean serious political momentum, more financial backers, more attention, more coverage, and the consequences for the Conservative Party in the subsequent general election would be dire.
That is the size of the problem. The nature of the problem has also changed over time. It used to be that the Tory fears about Ukip were unfounded, because the party’s vote was mixed Tory and Labour. Now it is about three Tories to one Labour.
Ukip has deliberately become more than a single-issue party. Since 2004 it has transformed itself into a Primary Colours Conservative Party.
Its policies on law and order, immigration, taxation, foreign affairs, and, of course, Europe mimic a simplified 1980s Tory manifesto.
So the electoral answers are Conservative ones, but the test of our response is less about how Right-wing we are than how relevant we are to ordinary people. So no matter how uncomfortable it makes our metropolitan elite, we have to deal properly with fears over immigration.
We have to do more to help conventional families through the hard times, including serious tax breaks for married couples. We should start cutting taxes to regenerate the economy, indeed we should have started years ago when it had more chance of working before the election.
And of course we should give the people a say over Europe, ideally before the Euro elections. Otherwise Nigel Farage will characterise those elections as “the referendum the Tories wouldn’t let you have”.
But most of all we have to start convincing the people that we care about the things that matter to them.
In a lot of respects he's right, though I do believe this is a case of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Cameron and the rest of the political classes whom he represents far more than the people of the country or indeed the Tory party have done massive damage to the country in pursuit of their own aims which seldom matched those of the ordinary voter. Indeed they treat ordinary voters as fools and finally are waking up to the fact that the compliment is now being returned in spades.
They took a party which enjoyed success after success during the mid 1980's to the mid 1990's and turned it into another soundbite led New Labour clone, then wondered why they were losing traditional support. Hell Cameron couldn't even win an election against one of the most unpopular Labour governments in living memory.
People look at the main political parties and have realised that they are all the same and pretty much all led by an unscrupulous set of utter bastards who are determined to line their own pockets and those who bankroll them at our expense. Why else are they foisting us off with bird mincers and useless solar energy? Yet they don't realise that all the public want is reasonable energy prices as they struggle to pay bills and aren't so stupid as to realise just who the non exec directors of the bird mincing companies are.
Nor have the public forgiven them for robbing us blind via expenses and we suspect that there's a cabal of paedophiles somewhere up there who are throwing aged celebrities to the wolves to avoid being outed themselves.
Ukip are no panacea, but they have one major advantage over the rest of the political dross that makes up the political classes in the UK. It's quite simple, they aren't the Lib/Lab/Con, they aren't tainted goods no matter what scandals the MSM come up with via the political party press advisor's.
Perhaps Ukip's time has come, but I don't think the Tory party can just change policies to get voters to vote for them. Tainted goods will remain tainted until you remove the source of the corruption. Frankly that's most of our current sitting MP's.

Friday, May 3, 2013

The people know...

No, not about Ukip, that's been pretty much done to death everywhere.
Education and exam results. The ever upwards trend of results (till last year) was bound to have an effect. If only from employers who didn't trust the paper they were written on and tended like many higher education establishments to make candidates sit a seperate exam or offer remedial tuition to actually enable their candidates to do what it said on the tin.
BBC.
Many teachers, heads and parents lack confidence in GCSE grades, research into perceptions of secondary school exams in England suggests.
A detailed survey of 4,686 people for exams regulator Ofqual suggests fewer than two-thirds felt that at least 75% of GCSE students were graded correctly.
Overall faith in GCSE exams appears to have been significantly affected by last year's English GCSE grading row.
Ofqual said it wanted to see confidence in GCSEs return.
The only way you'll see confidence in GCSE's return is if you make them of value, rather than giving the impression that like toilet rolls they are serrated at both ends and serve a similar purpose. Exams should be hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff, there should be no grading all the way back to Z from the ridiculous A*
A, B, and C are passes, everything else is an F, as in F for fail. You can resit the exam, but you can't claim a pass unless you actually do pass. If schools want to do easier exams for the less academically talented, then so be it, but the various exam boards really need to be promoting themselves as the only pass worth having rather than the one even a dunce can pass providing he brought a pencil to the exam.
For too many years the only people fooled by ever increasing pass rates were politicians and the moronic left teaching unions. Everyone else knew or suspected that kids were being betrayed by a system that wasn't fit for purpose. Why else were employers complaining that kids with good exam results were coming to them for jobs, barely literate? Why else were universities having to offer students remedial top up courses to enable the students to actually do a degree course. The kids weren't any thicker than you or I, but had been let down by a system that seemingly was designed to make them feel good, rather than actually be any good.
So, I'm afraid Ofqual is barking up the wrong tree when it says it wants to see confidence in GCSE's returned, politicians and the teaching unions have already stabbed the poor thing in the back far to many times for it ever to recover.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

A cast iron hint...

My goodness, Ukip do appear to have the Tories somewhat rattled, what with the smear attempts in the MSM and now Dave 'cast iron' Cameron declaring a hint that he 'might' change the law to guarantee an EU referendum.
Mail.
With anti-EU party UKIP set to make a significant breakthrough today, David Cameron has reinforced his commitment to hold a referendum on Britain’s future in Europe.
The Prime Minister said yesterday he was prepared to consider legislation that would guarantee an in/out referendum if he wins the general election in 2015.
More than 100 Conservative MPs have urged Mr Cameron to back legislation on a referendum in this Parliament – even if Labour and the Liberal Democrats conspire to vote it down.
Mr Cameron also sought to reassure core Tory voters by acknowledging frustration with the slow pace of change on immigration policy, and promised measures in the next few weeks to limit immigrants’ access to welfare and the NHS.
Tory and Labour strategists expect UKIP to perform strongly in today’s council polls, taking seats from both parties, and to come second in a Commons by-election in the South Shields seat vacated by David Miliband. One poll yesterday suggested UKIP could take as much as 22 per cent of the vote in local elections and significantly limit the progress made by Labour.
Thing is though, Ukip are taking just as many votes from those considered traditional Labour voters than they are Tories. Why? Well apart from the fact that the various parties went about acting as if they owned the votes people were casting and treating them with contempt. The main reason is that Ukip are starting to be acknowledged as the only party prepared to do something about the status quo situation where the various parties are run by the political classes for the political classes. Ukip have said they'll deal with immigration, Ukip have said they'll deal with the EU, Ukip have more or less said they'll put the people who live here first and foremost.
Not one of the other parties have said this. Individual members might have, but the parties, no.
Also a lot of people suspect that any referenda on the EU will be a complete stitch up by the political classes. A vote for Ukip means no referendum, just a phased withdrawal from the EU.
Cheaper for one thing, less messy for another.
As it is, I'm not bothered who you vote for, all I'll say on the matter is that a vote for the big three as it were is a vote to continue the system that has wrecked this country inside and out.
I'll never vote for them again.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Just common sense really

There's been a poll (yes another one) in which the public were asked about press regulation (how come no one ever asks me?) the answer was pretty unsurprising, well unsurprising to me and probably you.
Mail. (The Ukip smear press)
A clear majority of the public wants politicians kept out of a new system of Press regulation, a poll suggests.
It showed that only 16 per cent believe that MPs and peers should have the power to change the terms of a Royal Charter enshrining a new watchdog that will have the power to issue £1million fines and require prominent corrections.
Sixty-seven per cent – a huge margin – said the new system should be set up in a way that does not give politicians the final say, the basis of an industry proposal put forward to rival a cross-party plan.
The Royal Charter agreed by politicians in a late-night deal in Ed Miliband’s office would allow changes to be made in future only if two-thirds of both Houses of Parliament agree.
The public also believes that there should be a public consultation on proposals to establish a new system, something the Government has refused.
Only 12 per cent agree that the public should be denied a say, while 76 per cent believe ‘the Royal Charter should be subject to consultation’.
Voters also agreed by a large margin – 64 per cent to 36 per cent – that they were proud that the UK is currently regarded around the world as a model of Press freedom.
It's not that the public don't want to see some form of regulation, probably based on self regulation. It's that once again the public are announcing to the world that they simply do not trust politicians to have any say in regulation, based mostly on the suspicion that sooner or later politicians would try to hide behind some form of press regulation by adding amendments to any regulatory body laws.
After all, MP's have form on trying to use the law and legislation to hide their misdeeds, it's doubtful we'd hear anything about their arrant gross thievery if they did have a say on whether or not the charter could or should be changed.
So, the people are saying that politicians are simply not to be trusted with regulating the press. Hard to argue really, it kind of fits my view too. Though unlike most people I wouldn't want to see any press regulation. We actually have laws which could (and should) have been used in those cases which came up in certain pressure groups demands to regulate the press. Phone hacking is a crime, prosecutions could and should have been made without a lobbying circus demanding regulation for something which was a crime anyway.
Still, at least the majority agree with me about the need to keep politicians away from any levers of power...