How come we were more effective at dealing with pirates 200 years ago than we are now?
I mean, we have ships, helicopters and aircraft with high powered radar that can spot a bottle top floating on the sea from a distance of 15 billion miles away, but for some reason we can't stop a rag tag bunch of sailors armed with nothing more than a rickety speed boat, a few AK47s and an RPG from stopping and capturing enormous floating warehouses as easily as they can capture a pleasure yacht.
Come on! Why aren't they stopping this? I don't think it is lack of technology or ships - it is the lack of will. Two hundred years ago they would have stopped the suspicious vessel with a shot across the bows - and if it failed to stop they'd sink it.
Now they are too tied up with red tape to do this. They can't do anything unless they have "reason" to do so - i.e. they actually see the bastards firing their machine guns at someone. They should be doing what they did 200 years ago - and with the technology at their disposal it should be easy to do. Spot a suspicious blip on the radar - send a helicopter armed to the teeth out to check it out - and if the suspicious blip fails to stop - sink it!
Why are we so pathetic today? If this is progress you can shove it.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Drug Nutt
The government have sacked their chief advisor on drugs after he went beyond his remit and started trying to rail road the government into accepting his policies by promoting his views on television.
And now he's been sacked he is doing the rounds on television playing the victim.
Who cares? Well apart from the BBC and the rest of the drug soaked media, very few people. This is the lead news on BBC television this morning - as if any of us care one bit if the government's advisor on drugs has been sacked. It's not important - though if you watch the BBC you could be forgiven for thinking it is.
Professor Nutt is claiming that some of his colleagues may quit in sympathy. Good! I think they should all be sacked. We don't need them, they don't serve any purpose and if they believe that they have the right to set government policy they should stand for election.
And now he's been sacked he is doing the rounds on television playing the victim.
Who cares? Well apart from the BBC and the rest of the drug soaked media, very few people. This is the lead news on BBC television this morning - as if any of us care one bit if the government's advisor on drugs has been sacked. It's not important - though if you watch the BBC you could be forgiven for thinking it is.
Professor Nutt is claiming that some of his colleagues may quit in sympathy. Good! I think they should all be sacked. We don't need them, they don't serve any purpose and if they believe that they have the right to set government policy they should stand for election.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Campaign or coronation?
The prospect of a President Blair has reared its ugly head again over the last couple of weeks. As the EU Constitution edges ever closer to taking full effect (many parts of it have already been introduced) the talk has moved from if to when.
Cue various politicians and political commentators telling us why we should or shouldn't accept Blair as EU President - as if we have any say in this whatsoever!
The reality is that we have no choice in this matter. Blair may or may not be appointed EU President regardless of what we or anybody else in Europe think or want. There is no election for this post - just a simple coronation followed by a huge salary and entourage for the new President.
And don't fool for all this garbage that we're hearing from the geeky Milliband or grumpy Brown about Blair being there to represent British interests. The post of EU President requires that person not to represent the interests of any particular nation. What he will do is represent the politics of his preferred ideology - socialism - and with the vast majority of the EU in the thrall of socialist doctrine there is no doubt that the appointment of Blair (or any other candidate) will not be in the interests of Britain.
This isn't an election. This is the coronation of the new socialist Emperor of Europe.
All hail Anthony Blair - the new Charlemagne.
Cue various politicians and political commentators telling us why we should or shouldn't accept Blair as EU President - as if we have any say in this whatsoever!
The reality is that we have no choice in this matter. Blair may or may not be appointed EU President regardless of what we or anybody else in Europe think or want. There is no election for this post - just a simple coronation followed by a huge salary and entourage for the new President.
And don't fool for all this garbage that we're hearing from the geeky Milliband or grumpy Brown about Blair being there to represent British interests. The post of EU President requires that person not to represent the interests of any particular nation. What he will do is represent the politics of his preferred ideology - socialism - and with the vast majority of the EU in the thrall of socialist doctrine there is no doubt that the appointment of Blair (or any other candidate) will not be in the interests of Britain.
This isn't an election. This is the coronation of the new socialist Emperor of Europe.
All hail Anthony Blair - the new Charlemagne.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Britain is a paradise ..... for criminals
No country is perfect, but Britain is fast becoming as near perfect a nation as it is possible to be...... if you are a criminal, that is.
There is the case of one of the men convicted over the death of Baby P having his sentence reduced which could lead to his release in less than three years, while in another case a man who killed a burglar while defending his mother's home from two teenage thugs is being prosecuted for murder.
Mass immigration has led to an explosion in organised crime and even though the police have more men and resources than they've ever had they are so stretched to cope with the high level crime that immigration has brought - terrorism, prostitution, people trafficking, drugs, gambling - that they are unable to provide the personnel to tackle the sort of crime that most people have to put up with and which has now become so common place that we just shrug it off and don't even bother to report it. Or if we do, it is only to obtain a "crime number" which we can report to our insurance companies for a claim.
The majority of crimes are never solved. Don't let the official figures fool you - the police administrators are happy to join in the illusion that they are "solving" crimes by using various statistical tricks as reported by various professional police blogs - the reality is that the vast majority of crimes will not even be investigated, let alone solved. Even if the police do investigate the crime and catch the criminal, the chances are that it won't go to court.
And with the prisons filled to overflowing, the justice system is under pressure not to send criminals to prison - so even in the unlikely event that a criminal is caught, prosecuted and convicted they are more than likely going to walk free to re offend. And, contrary to popular myth, criminals who aren't in prison are far more likely to commit another crime than criminals banged up inside.
Britain has become a haven for the criminal and this is not likely to change as long as we continue with the progressive nonsense that has dominated politics for the last 50 years. It's no coincidence that the rise in crime has happened at the same time as we've followed the road of social liberalism.
When Britain embarked on this journey into progressive hell we were far from being a perfect nation - but we had achieved the best possible balance that could exist for the majority of people. The irony of this - the irony of leftism in general - is that the socialist attempt to create Utopian society has made things far worse than it was when they began. The more socially "liberal" we've become, the more authoritarian the government needs to be.
That isn't going to change until this progressive experiment is ended once and for all. Only then can we start to undo the huge damage wrought upon our nation by the left.
There is the case of one of the men convicted over the death of Baby P having his sentence reduced which could lead to his release in less than three years, while in another case a man who killed a burglar while defending his mother's home from two teenage thugs is being prosecuted for murder.
Mass immigration has led to an explosion in organised crime and even though the police have more men and resources than they've ever had they are so stretched to cope with the high level crime that immigration has brought - terrorism, prostitution, people trafficking, drugs, gambling - that they are unable to provide the personnel to tackle the sort of crime that most people have to put up with and which has now become so common place that we just shrug it off and don't even bother to report it. Or if we do, it is only to obtain a "crime number" which we can report to our insurance companies for a claim.
The majority of crimes are never solved. Don't let the official figures fool you - the police administrators are happy to join in the illusion that they are "solving" crimes by using various statistical tricks as reported by various professional police blogs - the reality is that the vast majority of crimes will not even be investigated, let alone solved. Even if the police do investigate the crime and catch the criminal, the chances are that it won't go to court.
And with the prisons filled to overflowing, the justice system is under pressure not to send criminals to prison - so even in the unlikely event that a criminal is caught, prosecuted and convicted they are more than likely going to walk free to re offend. And, contrary to popular myth, criminals who aren't in prison are far more likely to commit another crime than criminals banged up inside.
Britain has become a haven for the criminal and this is not likely to change as long as we continue with the progressive nonsense that has dominated politics for the last 50 years. It's no coincidence that the rise in crime has happened at the same time as we've followed the road of social liberalism.
When Britain embarked on this journey into progressive hell we were far from being a perfect nation - but we had achieved the best possible balance that could exist for the majority of people. The irony of this - the irony of leftism in general - is that the socialist attempt to create Utopian society has made things far worse than it was when they began. The more socially "liberal" we've become, the more authoritarian the government needs to be.
That isn't going to change until this progressive experiment is ended once and for all. Only then can we start to undo the huge damage wrought upon our nation by the left.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Race, tolerance and immigration
Some New Labour insider has apparently blurted out that unrestricted immigration and open borders are neither unintended or regrettable, but were in fact a deliberate attempt by the left to flood Britain with foreign faces and ethnic minorities with the intention of forcing their disastrous policy of multiculturalism on the native population.
The only real surprise about this for me is that anyone is surprised. Surely this has been obvious for some years to anyone who casts a critical eye over our nation and the monumental cultural changes that have been imposed on it over the last ten years?
Of course, nobody really is surprised. Most of us knew this was the case long ago and we also knew that the policy of calling anyone who opposed this massive cultural change on Britain a "racist" was purposefully intended to stifle debate and any genuine scrutiny of this open door immigration policy.
The question is - now that the truth is out in the open will it make any difference? I don't think so. I don't think the left are going to have a sudden change of mind and from what I have seen of the Tory Party there is little hope that they would do anything about it.
One of the few lucid moments of the comedic Question Time last week was when someone questioned whether Labour's "failure" to tackle immigration was to blame for the rise of the BNP?
Are you serious? Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course it was to blame for the rise of the BNP - Jack Straw's bumbling response was not because he couldn't admit that the BNP electoral success is due to Labour immigration policy - it was because he didn't see it as a "failure" of that policy. Far from it - it was, from his perspective, a complete success.
Labour are also quite happy to see the BNP become more prominent. It serves their cause of portraying right wing as "racist" and thus increases the left wing hegemony on mainstream politics. The Tories have no choice but to move further away from the right to avoid being tarred with the same brush as the BNP - not that the Tories seem to bothered by that - and even UKIP run scared of being guilty by association.
The important thing now is how we as a nation respond to this revelation and how our political parties treat us in response to our response. My guess is that the mainstream parties will hope that any dissatisfaction amongst the population will quickly dissipate and they can return to their usual style of arguing about minor details of almost identical policies.
However, I think that this, combined with the way the indented "mugging" of the BNP leader on QT has so disastrously backfired, will increase dissatisfaction of the British working class with Labour and see an increase in support for the BNP. A poll taken shortly after QT was broadcast suggested that one in five British voters would consider voting for the BNP - I think the real figure is actually probably higher. After all, how many of those polled were actually white British?
You'll often find that those who claim most not to be racist are quite often the most racist - which is why people like Ken Livingstone deny rights to white men that they extend to black or Asian men, but can't stop themselves making outrageous slurs against a Jewish reporter when they're caught off guard. The denial of the same rights to white people that black or Asian people enjoy is quite demonstrably racist - just because the person you are being racist against happens to be the same race as you doesn't make it any the less racist.
The thing is, everyone is racist to some degree or another. To deny this seems ludicrous to me. And yet to be declared a racist in today's society is one of the most damaging slurs you can throw at someone - people have lost their jobs, their reputation and their livelihoods on a single allegation of racism. For some daft reason it is even considered a "crime"!
We're supposed to live in a tolerant society - although, in truth, our society today is far less tolerant than it was 50 or even a 100 years ago. So why can we not tolerate someone who wants to be racist? As long as they don't go around demanding that we slaughter all people they don't like (although there is one group which frequently does that and are never held to account for it) and observe some basic principles of manners and politeness then why does it matter if a white person doesn't like black people or an Asian despises white people?
Many people may not like this viewpoint - but they have no right to impose their view on society any more than I have the right to impose my view on them. It should not matter - but as long as someone tries to enforce that it does you will see an increase in real, nasty racism. People do not like being forced to accept things that they do not like. You can not make a racist a non-racist just by saying they can't be racist. It will only fuel their sense of injustice and increase their feelings of being ignored at the expense of a minority.
We're storing up huge problems for the future that will tear this country apart if we do not address them soon. If we truly want to be a tolerant society we have to learn to tolerate ALL viewpoints - including those we don't like - not just those which a small elite deem to be acceptable.
The only real surprise about this for me is that anyone is surprised. Surely this has been obvious for some years to anyone who casts a critical eye over our nation and the monumental cultural changes that have been imposed on it over the last ten years?
Of course, nobody really is surprised. Most of us knew this was the case long ago and we also knew that the policy of calling anyone who opposed this massive cultural change on Britain a "racist" was purposefully intended to stifle debate and any genuine scrutiny of this open door immigration policy.
The question is - now that the truth is out in the open will it make any difference? I don't think so. I don't think the left are going to have a sudden change of mind and from what I have seen of the Tory Party there is little hope that they would do anything about it.
One of the few lucid moments of the comedic Question Time last week was when someone questioned whether Labour's "failure" to tackle immigration was to blame for the rise of the BNP?
Are you serious? Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course it was to blame for the rise of the BNP - Jack Straw's bumbling response was not because he couldn't admit that the BNP electoral success is due to Labour immigration policy - it was because he didn't see it as a "failure" of that policy. Far from it - it was, from his perspective, a complete success.
Labour are also quite happy to see the BNP become more prominent. It serves their cause of portraying right wing as "racist" and thus increases the left wing hegemony on mainstream politics. The Tories have no choice but to move further away from the right to avoid being tarred with the same brush as the BNP - not that the Tories seem to bothered by that - and even UKIP run scared of being guilty by association.
The important thing now is how we as a nation respond to this revelation and how our political parties treat us in response to our response. My guess is that the mainstream parties will hope that any dissatisfaction amongst the population will quickly dissipate and they can return to their usual style of arguing about minor details of almost identical policies.
However, I think that this, combined with the way the indented "mugging" of the BNP leader on QT has so disastrously backfired, will increase dissatisfaction of the British working class with Labour and see an increase in support for the BNP. A poll taken shortly after QT was broadcast suggested that one in five British voters would consider voting for the BNP - I think the real figure is actually probably higher. After all, how many of those polled were actually white British?
You'll often find that those who claim most not to be racist are quite often the most racist - which is why people like Ken Livingstone deny rights to white men that they extend to black or Asian men, but can't stop themselves making outrageous slurs against a Jewish reporter when they're caught off guard. The denial of the same rights to white people that black or Asian people enjoy is quite demonstrably racist - just because the person you are being racist against happens to be the same race as you doesn't make it any the less racist.
The thing is, everyone is racist to some degree or another. To deny this seems ludicrous to me. And yet to be declared a racist in today's society is one of the most damaging slurs you can throw at someone - people have lost their jobs, their reputation and their livelihoods on a single allegation of racism. For some daft reason it is even considered a "crime"!
We're supposed to live in a tolerant society - although, in truth, our society today is far less tolerant than it was 50 or even a 100 years ago. So why can we not tolerate someone who wants to be racist? As long as they don't go around demanding that we slaughter all people they don't like (although there is one group which frequently does that and are never held to account for it) and observe some basic principles of manners and politeness then why does it matter if a white person doesn't like black people or an Asian despises white people?
Many people may not like this viewpoint - but they have no right to impose their view on society any more than I have the right to impose my view on them. It should not matter - but as long as someone tries to enforce that it does you will see an increase in real, nasty racism. People do not like being forced to accept things that they do not like. You can not make a racist a non-racist just by saying they can't be racist. It will only fuel their sense of injustice and increase their feelings of being ignored at the expense of a minority.
We're storing up huge problems for the future that will tear this country apart if we do not address them soon. If we truly want to be a tolerant society we have to learn to tolerate ALL viewpoints - including those we don't like - not just those which a small elite deem to be acceptable.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Ranting Stan's Irrational Hatred Of The Week: Cordless Phones
Anyone who has been following this blog for a while will know I like to do a sort of "series" of posts. I've tried things as diverse as poetry (not too popular) and classic cars (very popular). I enjoyed doing them enormously, but they were very time consuming as posts go.
Normally my posts are fairly ad hoc affairs which I write while I think about them. Something piques my interest and I think "that will make a good idea for a post" and off I go. They are rarely planned and rarely researched and I like to think that gives each posting a sort of organic nature - although others will probably think they are just inane ramblings.
But the classic car and poetry posts required a lot of thought and planning (believe it or not) and I just don't have the time to devote to those sort of posts anymore. That's not to say I won't post more poetry or thoughts on classic cars again - I will if and when I get the time - but I didn't want to not have any serial posts at all.
So I tried to think of something I could write a series of posts that wouldn't take too much time, but would still kind of fit with the general theme of my blog. Being a right winger I am often accused of having countless "irrational hatreds" of various things, most of which I neither hate or, if I do, the hatred is far from irrational. But that's not to say I don't have things which I do hate rather irrationally - so what better than a series of posts about those things?
First up is the cordless phone. Now, in theory, these seem like such a great idea - a telephone which isn't connected by a piece of cord to a wall thus enabling you to wander around and get on with other things while chatting on the phone. Great, eh?
No - they are a pain in the ass. Why? Well, first of all there is the fact that the last place you tend to find the phone is back on the charging base - especially if you have kids. Kids have a habit of chatting for long periods of time and not putting the phone back where it should be. Consequently, when you get a phone call you spend the first thirty seconds of ringing time trying to locate the bloody phone!
Quite often you can hear the ring vaguely, but it doesn't seem to come from any particular place. Eventually you find the phone stuffed down the side of the sofa or under a pile of clothes in the kids bedroom.
Then there is the problem of trying to locate the phone when you want to make a call. Because the phone isn't ringing it is even harder to find. The charging base usually has a "page" button which causes the phone to emit a pathetic beep for a few seconds, but by the time you move towards the vague, far off beeping sound it has stopped - so you go back to the charging base, press "page" again and try once more .... before giving up and embarking on random search of the house.
Eventually you find the phone and make your call - only to find that the bloody thing runs out of charge 30 seconds into your call! And so you return the phone to the charging base with the idea of trying again in an hour only to find in the interim that someone has used the damn thing and left it somewhere else again!
So that is why I have an irrational hatred of cordless phones.
Normally my posts are fairly ad hoc affairs which I write while I think about them. Something piques my interest and I think "that will make a good idea for a post" and off I go. They are rarely planned and rarely researched and I like to think that gives each posting a sort of organic nature - although others will probably think they are just inane ramblings.
But the classic car and poetry posts required a lot of thought and planning (believe it or not) and I just don't have the time to devote to those sort of posts anymore. That's not to say I won't post more poetry or thoughts on classic cars again - I will if and when I get the time - but I didn't want to not have any serial posts at all.
So I tried to think of something I could write a series of posts that wouldn't take too much time, but would still kind of fit with the general theme of my blog. Being a right winger I am often accused of having countless "irrational hatreds" of various things, most of which I neither hate or, if I do, the hatred is far from irrational. But that's not to say I don't have things which I do hate rather irrationally - so what better than a series of posts about those things?
First up is the cordless phone. Now, in theory, these seem like such a great idea - a telephone which isn't connected by a piece of cord to a wall thus enabling you to wander around and get on with other things while chatting on the phone. Great, eh?
No - they are a pain in the ass. Why? Well, first of all there is the fact that the last place you tend to find the phone is back on the charging base - especially if you have kids. Kids have a habit of chatting for long periods of time and not putting the phone back where it should be. Consequently, when you get a phone call you spend the first thirty seconds of ringing time trying to locate the bloody phone!
Quite often you can hear the ring vaguely, but it doesn't seem to come from any particular place. Eventually you find the phone stuffed down the side of the sofa or under a pile of clothes in the kids bedroom.
Then there is the problem of trying to locate the phone when you want to make a call. Because the phone isn't ringing it is even harder to find. The charging base usually has a "page" button which causes the phone to emit a pathetic beep for a few seconds, but by the time you move towards the vague, far off beeping sound it has stopped - so you go back to the charging base, press "page" again and try once more .... before giving up and embarking on random search of the house.
Eventually you find the phone and make your call - only to find that the bloody thing runs out of charge 30 seconds into your call! And so you return the phone to the charging base with the idea of trying again in an hour only to find in the interim that someone has used the damn thing and left it somewhere else again!
So that is why I have an irrational hatred of cordless phones.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Bullys and bias
I've now watched QT on iplayer and it was, as others have pointed out, a travesty - but my own view was that was always likely to be the case. Let's be honest here - neither the BBC or those non-affiliated people taking part are in the least bit impartial and no one who goes on QT espousing views which the liberal elite do not deem acceptable is going to get a fair hearing.. It's been that way for some years now - at least since the departure of the late, great Robin Day.
Nick Griffin was rightly lambasted by Dimbleby over his past - but it is then wrong for Dimbleby not to apply the same standards to the other guests. Why, for instance, is he not criticising Jack Straw for his communist past? Why isn't he pointing out to Bonnie Greer that the Black Panther Party are now a respected political movement in the USA, but began as an overtly racist organisation (and quite probably remain so)? Not that I'm suggesting Ms Greer was involved in the Black Panther movement, but it demonstrates the absurd non-critical approach taken to overtly racist non-white organisations compared to the highly critical approach taken towards the BNP.
And why wasn't Dimbleby pointing out to Warsi that the majority of Moslem countries still treat women and non-Moslems as second class citizens (at best) and that perhaps she ought to consider why it is that non-Moslems are banned from entering certain cities? Not racist, strictly speaking, but most certainly fascist! How would she feel if Britain decided that non-Christians were not permitted within 10 miles of Westminster Cathedral?
Ultimately, though, I think Griffin has suffered some personal damage from this - but nothing that he won't recover from. He actually came off less badly than the others who were shown to be rude, ill mannered and incapable of proper debate. Shouting at your opponent and interrupting them at every opportunity does nothing to improve your own standing, but will encourage others to take a more sympathetic view of the person being bullied.
So this may not have worked out great personally for Griffin, but I don't think it will have done the BNP any harm. What it most certainly has done, though, is damage the credibility of the BBC and the other guests who appeared on the show.
Bring back the typing pool
I didn't get to watch the controversial Question Time last night featuring the medias favourite hate figure, Nick Griffin. The reason for this is that I spent most of the evening typing up something for work.
Most people my age who have worked in an office will know that having to spend hours typing up stuff yourself is a recent development - only becoming common in the last decade or so. Before that we used to have a team of typists who had both the skill to type these sorts of things up quickly and the knowledge of corporate formatting etc. to get it right first time.
Now I have to do all the work myself, submit the draft for approval and then make any suggested changes myself. However, I am not a typist and I am not paid to be one - it is not my job. So I have to either do all this typing at the sacrifice of my usual work or do it in my own time.
And, of course, my pay rise and bonus is based on how well I do the job I am supposed to do - not how good my typing and formatting is - so I tend to end up doing all this typing in my own time!
How the hell did we allow things to get to this situation? Not only am I having to do extra work outside of my normal hours - work I am not paid to do - I'm also denying some youngster a decent job and a foot on the career ladder.
Bring back the typing pool!
Most people my age who have worked in an office will know that having to spend hours typing up stuff yourself is a recent development - only becoming common in the last decade or so. Before that we used to have a team of typists who had both the skill to type these sorts of things up quickly and the knowledge of corporate formatting etc. to get it right first time.
Now I have to do all the work myself, submit the draft for approval and then make any suggested changes myself. However, I am not a typist and I am not paid to be one - it is not my job. So I have to either do all this typing at the sacrifice of my usual work or do it in my own time.
And, of course, my pay rise and bonus is based on how well I do the job I am supposed to do - not how good my typing and formatting is - so I tend to end up doing all this typing in my own time!
How the hell did we allow things to get to this situation? Not only am I having to do extra work outside of my normal hours - work I am not paid to do - I'm also denying some youngster a decent job and a foot on the career ladder.
Bring back the typing pool!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The rise of fascism
As BNP leader Nick Griffin prepares to appear on BBC Question Time this evening I thought it would be appropriate to explore the phenomenal rise of fascism in Britain today.
And what better place to start than with the revelation that the Tory Party are to ban men from being candidates for election in certain constituencies. This was an arbitrary decision taken by a small elite of the Tory Party without consultation or vote by the ordinary members. How fascist is that? Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the Tory Party.
This is nothing new or unique to the Tory Party either. The former London mayor, Ken Livingstone, was prone to rejecting duly appointed personnel purely on the basis of their gender or their colour - those personnel being too white and too male for Red Ken to bear. Fascism is alive and well and thriving in London.
Meanwhile, the Labour deputy leader pledges to end "the nightmare of men only boards" suggesting that she will use the power of government to interfere in private industry purely to promote a specific gender group at the expense of the other gender group. Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the Labour Party.
It's not only in politics where we see fascism is thriving. Environmentalists are trying to close down power stations, thus depriving millions of essential energy at a time when they need it most, purely on the basis of their misguided beliefs. They have no mandate to do so - just their belief that they alone are right - and they have demonstrated that they are prepared to use violence and destruction to achieve their aims. The parallels with Nazi brown shirts are all too obvious. Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the environmental movement.
Then we have the police - once a respected and independent crime prevention organisation, but now nothing more than government enforcers. They arrest and imprison people purely on the basis that they hold views which the government object to or have said something which the government has decreed you are not allowed to say. How fascist is that? Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the police "service".
Fascism is alive and well and thriving every where you look in Britain today. The main political parties are as fascist as anything we have ever seen in this country come to power. And we worry about some minor party leader coming on to a TV programme once in a blue moon? The time to worry about fascism in this country is when the government of this country dictate who you can vote for and who you can listen to. Unfortunately, I don't think that time is far away now.
And what better place to start than with the revelation that the Tory Party are to ban men from being candidates for election in certain constituencies. This was an arbitrary decision taken by a small elite of the Tory Party without consultation or vote by the ordinary members. How fascist is that? Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the Tory Party.
This is nothing new or unique to the Tory Party either. The former London mayor, Ken Livingstone, was prone to rejecting duly appointed personnel purely on the basis of their gender or their colour - those personnel being too white and too male for Red Ken to bear. Fascism is alive and well and thriving in London.
Meanwhile, the Labour deputy leader pledges to end "the nightmare of men only boards" suggesting that she will use the power of government to interfere in private industry purely to promote a specific gender group at the expense of the other gender group. Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the Labour Party.
It's not only in politics where we see fascism is thriving. Environmentalists are trying to close down power stations, thus depriving millions of essential energy at a time when they need it most, purely on the basis of their misguided beliefs. They have no mandate to do so - just their belief that they alone are right - and they have demonstrated that they are prepared to use violence and destruction to achieve their aims. The parallels with Nazi brown shirts are all too obvious. Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the environmental movement.
Then we have the police - once a respected and independent crime prevention organisation, but now nothing more than government enforcers. They arrest and imprison people purely on the basis that they hold views which the government object to or have said something which the government has decreed you are not allowed to say. How fascist is that? Fascism is alive and well and thriving in the police "service".
Fascism is alive and well and thriving every where you look in Britain today. The main political parties are as fascist as anything we have ever seen in this country come to power. And we worry about some minor party leader coming on to a TV programme once in a blue moon? The time to worry about fascism in this country is when the government of this country dictate who you can vote for and who you can listen to. Unfortunately, I don't think that time is far away now.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sophisticated nonsense
One of the most revealing statements you are likely to hear from a progressive liberal is their oft repeated belief that our socially liberal society is more "sophisticated" than it was before the cultural Marxists held sway.
It is revealing for two reasons. First of all, because it dismisses any previous society as crude in comparison thus displaying a complete disregard for both the history and culture of our nation. This is deliberate - the intention being to paint anything that came prior to the social liberal society as not only old hat, but also worse.
They attempt to back up this claim by saying that, as we are more socially liberal these days our society is better for, for example, homosexuals and women. Of course, this is patently rubbish - as we see from the fact that homosexuals are still beaten to death in busy streets and women today are far more likely to end up abandoned with a bunch of kids and dependent on welfare just to scrape by a meagre existence. In what way is that "better"? If anything, social liberalism, while giving an appearance of giving these groups more opportunity, has created a situation where they are more, not less likely to become victims.
Furthermore, it has also altered the way society impacts the rest of us. The social liberalism that created the permissive society has led to the "do what you want" society - and in such a society the mob rules. As a result, fathers are beaten to death by gangs of drunken youths in front of their children, women are gang raped by gangs of immigrants and the police and authorities are helpless against an onslaught of criminality. Thus is the law of unintended consequences.
Which brings me to the second revelation about the progressive claim about society being more "sophisticated - it is patently untrue. Given the origins of the word "sophisticated" this is hardly surprising as it comes from the term "sophistry" - meaning a "superficially plausible but generally fallacious method of reasoning". Sound familiar?
The claim that our society is more "sophisticated" thanks to social liberalism is clearly rubbish. We live in a world where the cult of celebrity dominates everything, where stories about a boy wizard are celebrated as works of great literature and where slicing a cow in half and pickling it in a large tank is considered a great work of art. On the ladder of true sophistication our current society ranks several rungs below the Victorian society and early 20th century Britain and more around the Britain of Hogarth.
In many ways, the progressive claims of a more "sophisticated society" are a bit like their insistence that their policies are more "nuanced". Nuance is just another way of saying "I don't really know what I'm doing and I dare not tell you what I really mean, so I'll fudge around and evade direct points in the hope that by the time you realise what I really mean it will be too late for you to do anything about it". That is nuance - and that is what anyone who claims they are "nuanced" really means.
Our social liberal society is not more sophisticated than previous societies. It is just more pretentious and more adept at deception than any previous societies. It has to be - the truth would be too much for most people to cope with and society would collapse without the thin veneer of shiny superficiality that holds it all together. The question is - how long before the veneer breaks and the true seething, unedifying mass that lurks beneath breaks through?
It is revealing for two reasons. First of all, because it dismisses any previous society as crude in comparison thus displaying a complete disregard for both the history and culture of our nation. This is deliberate - the intention being to paint anything that came prior to the social liberal society as not only old hat, but also worse.
They attempt to back up this claim by saying that, as we are more socially liberal these days our society is better for, for example, homosexuals and women. Of course, this is patently rubbish - as we see from the fact that homosexuals are still beaten to death in busy streets and women today are far more likely to end up abandoned with a bunch of kids and dependent on welfare just to scrape by a meagre existence. In what way is that "better"? If anything, social liberalism, while giving an appearance of giving these groups more opportunity, has created a situation where they are more, not less likely to become victims.
Furthermore, it has also altered the way society impacts the rest of us. The social liberalism that created the permissive society has led to the "do what you want" society - and in such a society the mob rules. As a result, fathers are beaten to death by gangs of drunken youths in front of their children, women are gang raped by gangs of immigrants and the police and authorities are helpless against an onslaught of criminality. Thus is the law of unintended consequences.
Which brings me to the second revelation about the progressive claim about society being more "sophisticated - it is patently untrue. Given the origins of the word "sophisticated" this is hardly surprising as it comes from the term "sophistry" - meaning a "superficially plausible but generally fallacious method of reasoning". Sound familiar?
The claim that our society is more "sophisticated" thanks to social liberalism is clearly rubbish. We live in a world where the cult of celebrity dominates everything, where stories about a boy wizard are celebrated as works of great literature and where slicing a cow in half and pickling it in a large tank is considered a great work of art. On the ladder of true sophistication our current society ranks several rungs below the Victorian society and early 20th century Britain and more around the Britain of Hogarth.
In many ways, the progressive claims of a more "sophisticated society" are a bit like their insistence that their policies are more "nuanced". Nuance is just another way of saying "I don't really know what I'm doing and I dare not tell you what I really mean, so I'll fudge around and evade direct points in the hope that by the time you realise what I really mean it will be too late for you to do anything about it". That is nuance - and that is what anyone who claims they are "nuanced" really means.
Our social liberal society is not more sophisticated than previous societies. It is just more pretentious and more adept at deception than any previous societies. It has to be - the truth would be too much for most people to cope with and society would collapse without the thin veneer of shiny superficiality that holds it all together. The question is - how long before the veneer breaks and the true seething, unedifying mass that lurks beneath breaks through?
Friday, October 16, 2009
Before pulling the trigger, aim gun away from foot
Apparently the BNP is to start permitting non-whites to join as a result of a legal challenge. I'm not too convinced that there will be a massive rush from non-whites to sign up to the BNP, but I certainly know at least a couple who will apply.
The thing is, though - if the BNP do start allowing non-whites to join then the mainstream parties will have simply removed one of the key barriers that prevents many people voting for the BNP. By forcing the BNP to stop discriminating on the basis of race, they will have deprived themselves of their favourite taunt that the BNP racially discriminate!
They might then claim that the BNP are only allowing non-whites to join because the law says they must, but the same could be said about any other organisation - including the mainstream parties.
I have a feeling that the establishment has just shot itself in the foot.
The thing is, though - if the BNP do start allowing non-whites to join then the mainstream parties will have simply removed one of the key barriers that prevents many people voting for the BNP. By forcing the BNP to stop discriminating on the basis of race, they will have deprived themselves of their favourite taunt that the BNP racially discriminate!
They might then claim that the BNP are only allowing non-whites to join because the law says they must, but the same could be said about any other organisation - including the mainstream parties.
I have a feeling that the establishment has just shot itself in the foot.
The scum of the earth
That's one Philip Laing, sports technology student at Sheffield's Hallam University.
Laing's "crime" was to urinate over a war memorial still adorned with poppys representing the fallen. Laing was to later issue an apology for his disgraceful behaviour - claiming he has no recollection of the events due to the fact that he was blind drunk at the time.
No doubt there will be those who take this apology at face value, but I think Laing's behaviour reveals the dark underbelly of much of Britain's youth.
You see, there is an old saying in Latin which is something like "in vino veritas" - which I believe means "in wine, there is truth". Basically, what this means is that people tend to reveal their true selves when they are rat arsed. The truth about Laing and his like is that he has no respect for the men who died to keep this nation free. In the cold sober light of day, Laing may appear to regret his actions - but what I suspect he really regrets is getting caught out doing what he did.
Oh, I'm sure there will be hundreds of Laing's "friends" from Facebook queuing up to tell us what a lovely guy he really is and how he would never intentionally do such an awful thing - but it's there for all to see.
The truth is that people like Laing represent a growing section of British youth. Studying a worthless degree, dressing like a five year old and showing nothing but contempt for the brave men who at a similar age to Laing were fighting and dying so that piece of filth will some day have the right to piss all over their memorial.
The truth of people like Laing is that they have no respect for those who fought and died for them. They only see the survivors of that time as a nuisance - a relic from the past that needs to be swept away on a tide of young piss. It is their Britain now. A Britain where they get drunk, copulate indiscriminately and publicly - like animals - and where such things as restraint, respect for others, good manners and common decency are obsolete.
If it were up to me, he would be made to spend the next six months scrubbing that memorial down every night - right through the winter - for 6 hours every night using his own toothbrush - but in the modern Britain, scum like Laing are only required to issue an apology they don't mean to people they don't care about.
Laing's "crime" was to urinate over a war memorial still adorned with poppys representing the fallen. Laing was to later issue an apology for his disgraceful behaviour - claiming he has no recollection of the events due to the fact that he was blind drunk at the time.
No doubt there will be those who take this apology at face value, but I think Laing's behaviour reveals the dark underbelly of much of Britain's youth.
You see, there is an old saying in Latin which is something like "in vino veritas" - which I believe means "in wine, there is truth". Basically, what this means is that people tend to reveal their true selves when they are rat arsed. The truth about Laing and his like is that he has no respect for the men who died to keep this nation free. In the cold sober light of day, Laing may appear to regret his actions - but what I suspect he really regrets is getting caught out doing what he did.
Oh, I'm sure there will be hundreds of Laing's "friends" from Facebook queuing up to tell us what a lovely guy he really is and how he would never intentionally do such an awful thing - but it's there for all to see.
The truth is that people like Laing represent a growing section of British youth. Studying a worthless degree, dressing like a five year old and showing nothing but contempt for the brave men who at a similar age to Laing were fighting and dying so that piece of filth will some day have the right to piss all over their memorial.
The truth of people like Laing is that they have no respect for those who fought and died for them. They only see the survivors of that time as a nuisance - a relic from the past that needs to be swept away on a tide of young piss. It is their Britain now. A Britain where they get drunk, copulate indiscriminately and publicly - like animals - and where such things as restraint, respect for others, good manners and common decency are obsolete.
If it were up to me, he would be made to spend the next six months scrubbing that memorial down every night - right through the winter - for 6 hours every night using his own toothbrush - but in the modern Britain, scum like Laing are only required to issue an apology they don't mean to people they don't care about.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
And these are our "allies"?
The revelation that French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan after the Italian secret service stopped paying the local Taleban bribes to stop attacks in areas they controlled may cause revulsion and shock amongst many - but it should also serve as a signal warning to Britain.
When the Italians handed over the areas to the French the threat was underestimated and, as a consequence, a patrol was ambushed, ten soldiers killed and a further twenty one injured. The French people were rightly horrified - although the French press were not horrified enough for them not to arrange to meet and photograph the enemy soldiers who had killed their countrymen and stripped their mutilated corpses of guns and equipment.
You have to give modern photo journalism credit where its due - they are as adept at feigning shock and revulsion as anyone, but they never let that get in the way of a good photo op. Why the rest of the world then feels the need to publish those pictures around the world is beyond me - it can only serve as propaganda for our enemies, but ........ well, it's increasingly hard sometimes to tell whose side some people are on.
Anyway, this story - and the conflict in Afghanistan in general - should act as a wake up call to the EUPhiles in Britain who seem to think that we can rely on our European "partners" should things ever get sticky. We can not - nor will we ever be able to. Sure, there are a few EU nations who we can always rely on to back us up when the going gets tough, but they don't include Italy, Germany or France.
It's no coincidence that the bulk of the actual fighting in Afghanistan is being done by the same nations that did the bulk of the fighting in Normandy - Britain, Canada and the USA. This is how it was in 1944 and thus is how it will always be because they are our true allies - the nations of the Anglosphere. To the main nations of the EU what matters is looking after their own interests first and foremost while other countries soldiers are just considered cannon fodder - particularly British soldiers.
Our geographical location does not mean that we have anything in common with the other nations of Europe. In fact, other than our geographical location just about the only thing we do have in common with most of Europe is our Christian cultural heritage - and most of the EU nations (including Britain) are doing their best to dump that as fast as they can!
The allies of Britain do not lie across the English Channel. Our allies exist in the Anglosphere - USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India. The rest are only our allies as long as it suits them to be so. Once that stops being the case they will drop us as fast as they can. That alone is a good enough reason to leave the EU.
When the Italians handed over the areas to the French the threat was underestimated and, as a consequence, a patrol was ambushed, ten soldiers killed and a further twenty one injured. The French people were rightly horrified - although the French press were not horrified enough for them not to arrange to meet and photograph the enemy soldiers who had killed their countrymen and stripped their mutilated corpses of guns and equipment.
You have to give modern photo journalism credit where its due - they are as adept at feigning shock and revulsion as anyone, but they never let that get in the way of a good photo op. Why the rest of the world then feels the need to publish those pictures around the world is beyond me - it can only serve as propaganda for our enemies, but ........ well, it's increasingly hard sometimes to tell whose side some people are on.
Anyway, this story - and the conflict in Afghanistan in general - should act as a wake up call to the EUPhiles in Britain who seem to think that we can rely on our European "partners" should things ever get sticky. We can not - nor will we ever be able to. Sure, there are a few EU nations who we can always rely on to back us up when the going gets tough, but they don't include Italy, Germany or France.
It's no coincidence that the bulk of the actual fighting in Afghanistan is being done by the same nations that did the bulk of the fighting in Normandy - Britain, Canada and the USA. This is how it was in 1944 and thus is how it will always be because they are our true allies - the nations of the Anglosphere. To the main nations of the EU what matters is looking after their own interests first and foremost while other countries soldiers are just considered cannon fodder - particularly British soldiers.
Our geographical location does not mean that we have anything in common with the other nations of Europe. In fact, other than our geographical location just about the only thing we do have in common with most of Europe is our Christian cultural heritage - and most of the EU nations (including Britain) are doing their best to dump that as fast as they can!
The allies of Britain do not lie across the English Channel. Our allies exist in the Anglosphere - USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India. The rest are only our allies as long as it suits them to be so. Once that stops being the case they will drop us as fast as they can. That alone is a good enough reason to leave the EU.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
You know that schools are in a a bad way ...
.... when the products of the system are not deemed qualified enough to stack shelves or to waft a box of detergent in front of a bar code reader at Tesco. Sir Terry Leahy says the standards are "woefully low" and he should know - being the boss of Britain's biggest private employer.
I suppose some will argue that those in the education system - such as the inspectors, teachers and exam markers - have a much better insight into the real state of education, but those people are terribly biased towards a system which generally they support thanks to the default political stance of your average "educationalist" (i.e. raving Marxist).
The boss of Tesco knows the reality, though and the reality is that schools are churning out dross these days. Quite often it is dross with 4 or 5 GCSEs, but frankly those are virtually worthless qualifications. The vast majority of school leavers who go on to university spend the first year of their life in tertiary education doing remedial work to bring them up to the standard required to study for a degree - something which the sixth form of a secondary school is supposed to prepare them for!
I know it's set in the USA, but do you remember the film "The Graduate"? Yes, I know it had little to do with education - well, formal academic education, anyway - but Dustin Hoffman played a character called Benjamin who had just attained a bachelors degree (I can't remember what in). He was just coming up to his 21st birthday.
The character was pretty unremarkable - he was certainly no prodigy - just your average everyday graduate of those times and the average graduate in England back then was also around the 21 mark. These days - what with gap years before they start, remedial years when they do start and more gap years during their time at university - the average age of a graduate is likely to be two or three years older - and yet they appear less able than their sixties and seventies equivalents.
Our entire education system is in a dire state - from primary through to university it is failing to deliver the standards required and is falling well below the standards of 30 years ago. The reason is obvious. Education stopped being a process for preparing children for the world of work and became a tool for indoctrinating children into the left wing political dominance.
Even in that sense, though, there are signs that education is failing. Not only are more and more school leavers lacking in the basic skills which were once taken for granted it is also becoming apparent, to me anyway, that many of those school leavers (including many that left school some time ago) are increasingly disillusioned with the left wing world view that has been foisted upon them and are turning to conservatism.
Generally they tend to be from white "working class" backgrounds - the very people the left was supposed to support, but who were long ago abandoned in favour of more appreciative "victim groups" such as immigrants, gays and feminists. The working class of Britain has always been socially conservative and, I suspect, will always remain so. The fact that they have been failed so abysmally by all our mainstream parties is the reason why so-called "far-right" parties such as the BNP are starting to prosper. The truth is that the BNP offer left wing politics with social conservatism - something which the white working class is bound to find attractive after so many decades of being sacrificed for the causes of minorities.
I suppose some will argue that those in the education system - such as the inspectors, teachers and exam markers - have a much better insight into the real state of education, but those people are terribly biased towards a system which generally they support thanks to the default political stance of your average "educationalist" (i.e. raving Marxist).
The boss of Tesco knows the reality, though and the reality is that schools are churning out dross these days. Quite often it is dross with 4 or 5 GCSEs, but frankly those are virtually worthless qualifications. The vast majority of school leavers who go on to university spend the first year of their life in tertiary education doing remedial work to bring them up to the standard required to study for a degree - something which the sixth form of a secondary school is supposed to prepare them for!
I know it's set in the USA, but do you remember the film "The Graduate"? Yes, I know it had little to do with education - well, formal academic education, anyway - but Dustin Hoffman played a character called Benjamin who had just attained a bachelors degree (I can't remember what in). He was just coming up to his 21st birthday.
The character was pretty unremarkable - he was certainly no prodigy - just your average everyday graduate of those times and the average graduate in England back then was also around the 21 mark. These days - what with gap years before they start, remedial years when they do start and more gap years during their time at university - the average age of a graduate is likely to be two or three years older - and yet they appear less able than their sixties and seventies equivalents.
Our entire education system is in a dire state - from primary through to university it is failing to deliver the standards required and is falling well below the standards of 30 years ago. The reason is obvious. Education stopped being a process for preparing children for the world of work and became a tool for indoctrinating children into the left wing political dominance.
Even in that sense, though, there are signs that education is failing. Not only are more and more school leavers lacking in the basic skills which were once taken for granted it is also becoming apparent, to me anyway, that many of those school leavers (including many that left school some time ago) are increasingly disillusioned with the left wing world view that has been foisted upon them and are turning to conservatism.
Generally they tend to be from white "working class" backgrounds - the very people the left was supposed to support, but who were long ago abandoned in favour of more appreciative "victim groups" such as immigrants, gays and feminists. The working class of Britain has always been socially conservative and, I suspect, will always remain so. The fact that they have been failed so abysmally by all our mainstream parties is the reason why so-called "far-right" parties such as the BNP are starting to prosper. The truth is that the BNP offer left wing politics with social conservatism - something which the white working class is bound to find attractive after so many decades of being sacrificed for the causes of minorities.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Flogging off the family silver
So Brown's big idea to save the nation from drowning in a sea of debt is to sell off some government assets. Unfortunately, for Gordon, most of the decent stuff was sold off to foreigners a long time ago so all that's left are a few relatively worthless bits which nobody is really keen on. It's a bit like a family struggling to meet the demands of a loan shark, but having sold off the family silver a long time ago, resorting to selling any old tat they can find at the local car boot sale.
Add on the fact that any money raised will be eaten up by the ravenous public sector within months and it all seems pretty pointless and smacks of desperation - which is what it is. And, of course, it is a buyers market - meaning that the price received for any assets they do flog off will be well below what they could have expected to fetch when the market was buoyant.
I've often remarked that a nation and its budget is just like a family and their budget - just on a much larger scale. You can tell an awful lot about the real state of a family at any time by looking at the state of their finances. They might have a big house, a flashy car on the drive and appear to be well off, but when you find out that everything is funded by huge debt you realise that things aren't what they seem.
When you see that they are flogging off every last bit of tat with any value at all, that is when you realise that reality has started to bite.
Add on the fact that any money raised will be eaten up by the ravenous public sector within months and it all seems pretty pointless and smacks of desperation - which is what it is. And, of course, it is a buyers market - meaning that the price received for any assets they do flog off will be well below what they could have expected to fetch when the market was buoyant.
I've often remarked that a nation and its budget is just like a family and their budget - just on a much larger scale. You can tell an awful lot about the real state of a family at any time by looking at the state of their finances. They might have a big house, a flashy car on the drive and appear to be well off, but when you find out that everything is funded by huge debt you realise that things aren't what they seem.
When you see that they are flogging off every last bit of tat with any value at all, that is when you realise that reality has started to bite.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Alfa Bravo
It's now been eight years since I decided to give up my company car and take the allowance instead. For most of those eight years I've been justified in making that choice as I wasn't doing the mileage to justify a company car, but in the last three months I've managed to add 4000 miles to a car that only managed 48000 in the first 7 years and 9 months of my ownership making me wonder if I wouldn't be better off with the company car option again.
To give the car its due, though, it hasn't missed a beat which, for an eight year old car even with relatively low mileage, is pretty good going. Its proven to be a reliable, comfortable and - even though I say so myself - stylish cruiser as I've hacked up and down the M4 and M5 on various trips to the South West over the last few months.
When I first took delivery of my brand new Alfa 156 back in October 2001, most of my friends and colleagues thought I was mad. An Alfa! It'll spend more time on the side of the road and in the garage than actually going anywhere they told me. I knew all about the reputation of Alfa Romeos before I bought it, but I'd always promised myself a new Alfa at some point and, as I knew I wouldn't be putting that many miles a year on it, I wasn't too worried. I just needed something that could get me to and from work and that could carry me and the family to the coast once a year for the family holiday.
But as it has turned out, the car has been trouble free in all that time. The only problem I've had in eight years has been a dead battery which only happened after a long journey to Cornwall was completed and was swiftly replaced by the AA. Meanwhile, my friends and colleagues have got through two or, in some cases three cars and all of them have seen their "quality German engineering" sitting in garages for long periods having various faults detected and rectified.
Indeed, one colleague who was a huge fan of a certain German marque even though he had never owned or driven one before (I'll not name it - but it starts with B ends in W and has an M in the middle) took delivery of his brand new company dream machine around the same time I got my Alfa. His car spent the next six months in and out of the garage and my colleague quickly fell out of love with the marque. After four years of living with a car that was never right and which he ended up despising he now tools up and down the motorways of England in a Japanese repmobile.
The Alfa has proven to be a reliable and faithful family friend. So much so that, when I started to clock up the extra miles and suggested to my family that maybe the time had come to trade it in for a newer model the missus and kids were aghast. And they were right - what would be the point? The car was paid for a long time ago, is hardly worth anything to a second hand buyer and I'm just as likely to end up with a duff new car as I am a duff old one. It still has everything I need from a car and does it with more style and panache than 90% of the cars on the road these days.
So I'm hanging on to it. Here's to the next eight years!
To give the car its due, though, it hasn't missed a beat which, for an eight year old car even with relatively low mileage, is pretty good going. Its proven to be a reliable, comfortable and - even though I say so myself - stylish cruiser as I've hacked up and down the M4 and M5 on various trips to the South West over the last few months.
When I first took delivery of my brand new Alfa 156 back in October 2001, most of my friends and colleagues thought I was mad. An Alfa! It'll spend more time on the side of the road and in the garage than actually going anywhere they told me. I knew all about the reputation of Alfa Romeos before I bought it, but I'd always promised myself a new Alfa at some point and, as I knew I wouldn't be putting that many miles a year on it, I wasn't too worried. I just needed something that could get me to and from work and that could carry me and the family to the coast once a year for the family holiday.
But as it has turned out, the car has been trouble free in all that time. The only problem I've had in eight years has been a dead battery which only happened after a long journey to Cornwall was completed and was swiftly replaced by the AA. Meanwhile, my friends and colleagues have got through two or, in some cases three cars and all of them have seen their "quality German engineering" sitting in garages for long periods having various faults detected and rectified.
Indeed, one colleague who was a huge fan of a certain German marque even though he had never owned or driven one before (I'll not name it - but it starts with B ends in W and has an M in the middle) took delivery of his brand new company dream machine around the same time I got my Alfa. His car spent the next six months in and out of the garage and my colleague quickly fell out of love with the marque. After four years of living with a car that was never right and which he ended up despising he now tools up and down the motorways of England in a Japanese repmobile.
The Alfa has proven to be a reliable and faithful family friend. So much so that, when I started to clock up the extra miles and suggested to my family that maybe the time had come to trade it in for a newer model the missus and kids were aghast. And they were right - what would be the point? The car was paid for a long time ago, is hardly worth anything to a second hand buyer and I'm just as likely to end up with a duff new car as I am a duff old one. It still has everything I need from a car and does it with more style and panache than 90% of the cars on the road these days.
So I'm hanging on to it. Here's to the next eight years!
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Anything you can do .....
As those of us who are old enough to remember will testify, we used to have two main political parties that were ideologically opposed to each other. For most of the time this worked pretty well - whoever was in government governed and whoever was in opposition opposed them. The advent of programmes like "Question Time" and the broadcast of parliament meant that sometimes the whole thing seemed a little childish and tiresome, though.
The reason for this is that politics is essentially about argument and, whichever way you look at it, argument is not great theatre for the vast majority of people. What "Question Time" and parliamentary broadcast demonstrated is that most of the time politics was about one side saying one thing and then the other taking a virtually opposite view. One side saying one thing and then the other saying "no, you're wrong" followed by the other side saying "no, YOU'RE wrong" isn't really that entertaining.
But at least there was a clear choice. What we have seen over the last couple of weeks with the Lib Dems, Labour and now Tory party conference is that there isn't a choice any more. The parties no longer argue about what is the best ideological principles for governing the country - they just boast about who does it better. Thus you have the Lib Dems saying one thing one week, followed by Labour saying "yes, but we'll do it better" the next and then the Tories saying "ah, but we can do it best of all" the next.
There seriously isn't a difference between them anymore. They are all the same and the only argument today is about who is the most "progressive" (the rebrand of socialism). And for those of you who are still planning on voting Tory at the next election - remember that it isn't Labour or the Lib Dems who have moved to the right, it is the Tories lurching massively to the left that has brought this about.
I won't vote for any left wing party (and that includes the BNP) which is why I can not vote Tory.
Just to clarify - it is entirely possible for a left wing party to subscribe to capitalism and for a right wing party to believe in nationalised industry. The Chinese are still communists, but use capitalism and the USA is still conservative but has a nationalised postal service (and various other agencies). Capitalism is simply an economic system - not a political ideology.
The reason for this is that politics is essentially about argument and, whichever way you look at it, argument is not great theatre for the vast majority of people. What "Question Time" and parliamentary broadcast demonstrated is that most of the time politics was about one side saying one thing and then the other taking a virtually opposite view. One side saying one thing and then the other saying "no, you're wrong" followed by the other side saying "no, YOU'RE wrong" isn't really that entertaining.
But at least there was a clear choice. What we have seen over the last couple of weeks with the Lib Dems, Labour and now Tory party conference is that there isn't a choice any more. The parties no longer argue about what is the best ideological principles for governing the country - they just boast about who does it better. Thus you have the Lib Dems saying one thing one week, followed by Labour saying "yes, but we'll do it better" the next and then the Tories saying "ah, but we can do it best of all" the next.
There seriously isn't a difference between them anymore. They are all the same and the only argument today is about who is the most "progressive" (the rebrand of socialism). And for those of you who are still planning on voting Tory at the next election - remember that it isn't Labour or the Lib Dems who have moved to the right, it is the Tories lurching massively to the left that has brought this about.
I won't vote for any left wing party (and that includes the BNP) which is why I can not vote Tory.
Just to clarify - it is entirely possible for a left wing party to subscribe to capitalism and for a right wing party to believe in nationalised industry. The Chinese are still communists, but use capitalism and the USA is still conservative but has a nationalised postal service (and various other agencies). Capitalism is simply an economic system - not a political ideology.
Monday, October 05, 2009
The EU and BBC bias
As expected, the Irish people - faced with a mounting economic crisis and the offer of substantial bribes coupled with thinly veiled threats - have reversed their original vote against the Lisbon Treaty and have now voted to accept it at the second time of asking.
No doubt some people will argue that this proves that the Irish media, business and political establishment have successfully argued the case for the Lisbon Treaty - personally I think it more accurately reflects the pragmatism of the Irish people who, realising that they will be repeatedly asked to vote again and again until they say "yes", decided to concede now rather later.
So the Irish vote tells us nothing new - just reinforces the point that any attempt by any member nation to reassert their national sovereignty as a member will be received with the usual cold contempt by the architects of the EU.
For me, though, the most infuriating thing about the run up to the Irish capitulation was that whenever the BBC mentioned the impending vote they always referred to the treaty as ".... the Lisbon Treaty - designed to improve/reform/modernise the way the EU works" or something along those lines. This is the worst sort of subliminal indoctrination there is - repeatedly slipping in some term with positive connotations for the explicit purpose of making the subject more acceptable.
Who says that the Lisbon Treaty was "designed to improve/reform/modernise" the EU? The designers! Yet they know full well that that is not what the Lisbon Treaty was designed for. It was designed to give the EU full legal status - to allow for the imposition of a permanent EU presidency and foreign office. It was designed to make sure that the Irish, French, Dutch, British or whoever - regardless of their constitution - will never ever be allowed a referendum on such things again.
Yet not once did you hear any of this from the BBC. And while we are on the subject of BBC bias - I watched this morning as Bill Turnbull interviewed Boris Johnson on breakfast television and asked him about his time in the infamous Bullingdon Club while at university with Cameron - as if this is somehow relevant or important.
It isn't. Sorry to dismiss all the conspiracy theories, but members of parliament and the political establishment belonging to elite clubs and behaving in arrogant, superior ways when they were young is nothing new. It's been going on for centuries and still goes on today. There have been countless ministers of the state who have belonged to these sorts of clubs from both sides of the house.
What is new to British politics is that there are now ministers of state who have been - and may be still are -active communists, but they never get asked about their past by the BBC. I wonder why that is?
No doubt some people will argue that this proves that the Irish media, business and political establishment have successfully argued the case for the Lisbon Treaty - personally I think it more accurately reflects the pragmatism of the Irish people who, realising that they will be repeatedly asked to vote again and again until they say "yes", decided to concede now rather later.
So the Irish vote tells us nothing new - just reinforces the point that any attempt by any member nation to reassert their national sovereignty as a member will be received with the usual cold contempt by the architects of the EU.
For me, though, the most infuriating thing about the run up to the Irish capitulation was that whenever the BBC mentioned the impending vote they always referred to the treaty as ".... the Lisbon Treaty - designed to improve/reform/modernise the way the EU works" or something along those lines. This is the worst sort of subliminal indoctrination there is - repeatedly slipping in some term with positive connotations for the explicit purpose of making the subject more acceptable.
Who says that the Lisbon Treaty was "designed to improve/reform/modernise" the EU? The designers! Yet they know full well that that is not what the Lisbon Treaty was designed for. It was designed to give the EU full legal status - to allow for the imposition of a permanent EU presidency and foreign office. It was designed to make sure that the Irish, French, Dutch, British or whoever - regardless of their constitution - will never ever be allowed a referendum on such things again.
Yet not once did you hear any of this from the BBC. And while we are on the subject of BBC bias - I watched this morning as Bill Turnbull interviewed Boris Johnson on breakfast television and asked him about his time in the infamous Bullingdon Club while at university with Cameron - as if this is somehow relevant or important.
It isn't. Sorry to dismiss all the conspiracy theories, but members of parliament and the political establishment belonging to elite clubs and behaving in arrogant, superior ways when they were young is nothing new. It's been going on for centuries and still goes on today. There have been countless ministers of the state who have belonged to these sorts of clubs from both sides of the house.
What is new to British politics is that there are now ministers of state who have been - and may be still are -active communists, but they never get asked about their past by the BBC. I wonder why that is?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Different standards apply
Driving home very late last night I finally gave up on the CD and switched on the radio and tuned in to Radio Five Live - which turned out to be a big mistake.
The radio show playing at the time was a "debate" about whether is is right to ban BNP members from being teachers. I put debate in quotes because it was nothing of the sort - anyone who dared to oppose the idea of banning BNP members from teaching was shouted down by various participants while anyone supporting the ban was given ample opportunity to rant and rave no matter how ridiculous their proposition.
For example, one idiot kept ranting about whether we'd allow paedophiles to teach. Well, judging by the frequent and numerous incidents of teachers having sexual relations with their underage pupils I'd say it is pretty apparent that we already do - but what the hell is this equating being a member of a legitimate political party with kiddy fiddling?
The moderator - or whatever he was - allowed this on the basis that the BNP is "openly racist". Racism, apparently, is actually a crime according to the people on the show. I actually thought the crime was racial discrimination, racial harassment or incitement to racial hatred rather than just expressing or thinking racist views or thoughts - but what do I know. After all Ron Atkinson was sacked for casting aspersions on a black footballers commitment, but he wasn't actually convicted of any crime - I guess things have moved on from those days.
Anyway, the assertion was that anyone who is a member of the BNP must be racist - a sweeping generalisation which wouldn't be allowed in any other situation. For that reason, the panel decided that it was right to ban BNP members from being teachers as they would treat non-white children as inferior.
But hang on a second - if that is the assumption then we should also ban members of the Labour Party from being teachers as you could equally claim that they are just as likely to treat children of bankers, accountants, company directors etc as inferior. And you should ban Conservatives from teaching as they would be inclined to treat children of miners (if we had any), factory workers (ditto) and union activists as inferior.
Likewise you should ban Green Party members from teaching as they would treat meat eating children, those that arrive at school in 4x4s and just about any kid who isn't a tree hugging nut nibbler as inferior. Actually, we ought to just ban Green Party members. And what about Moslems - particularly those who go for the full Moslem garb? There you have a radical Moslem teacher who may be treating non-Moslem children as inferior - and may even be putting pressure on moderate Moslem children and their families to adopt the full regalia! Why don't we ban Moslems from teaching, then?
And as someone pointed out - to universal silence - we should ban feminists and gays from teaching as they may be inclined to treat boys or straight children (huh?) as inferior. If you take the proposition to its natural conclusion - nobody should be allowed to teach.
But of course that is ridiculous. The fact is that teachers have to obey stringent rules in the way they treat children - both national laws and local school rules - no matter what their political affiliation or particular world view is. If any teacher breaks those rules they can be disciplined and even sacked - whether they are BNP members or members of the NUT (and the vast majority who have been disciplined or sacked have been members of the latter rather than the former).
What is being suggested here is that different rules should be made for BNP members purely on the basis that those who make the rules don't like them. That is bigotry, discrimination and intolerance on a grand scale.
The radio show playing at the time was a "debate" about whether is is right to ban BNP members from being teachers. I put debate in quotes because it was nothing of the sort - anyone who dared to oppose the idea of banning BNP members from teaching was shouted down by various participants while anyone supporting the ban was given ample opportunity to rant and rave no matter how ridiculous their proposition.
For example, one idiot kept ranting about whether we'd allow paedophiles to teach. Well, judging by the frequent and numerous incidents of teachers having sexual relations with their underage pupils I'd say it is pretty apparent that we already do - but what the hell is this equating being a member of a legitimate political party with kiddy fiddling?
The moderator - or whatever he was - allowed this on the basis that the BNP is "openly racist". Racism, apparently, is actually a crime according to the people on the show. I actually thought the crime was racial discrimination, racial harassment or incitement to racial hatred rather than just expressing or thinking racist views or thoughts - but what do I know. After all Ron Atkinson was sacked for casting aspersions on a black footballers commitment, but he wasn't actually convicted of any crime - I guess things have moved on from those days.
Anyway, the assertion was that anyone who is a member of the BNP must be racist - a sweeping generalisation which wouldn't be allowed in any other situation. For that reason, the panel decided that it was right to ban BNP members from being teachers as they would treat non-white children as inferior.
But hang on a second - if that is the assumption then we should also ban members of the Labour Party from being teachers as you could equally claim that they are just as likely to treat children of bankers, accountants, company directors etc as inferior. And you should ban Conservatives from teaching as they would be inclined to treat children of miners (if we had any), factory workers (ditto) and union activists as inferior.
Likewise you should ban Green Party members from teaching as they would treat meat eating children, those that arrive at school in 4x4s and just about any kid who isn't a tree hugging nut nibbler as inferior. Actually, we ought to just ban Green Party members. And what about Moslems - particularly those who go for the full Moslem garb? There you have a radical Moslem teacher who may be treating non-Moslem children as inferior - and may even be putting pressure on moderate Moslem children and their families to adopt the full regalia! Why don't we ban Moslems from teaching, then?
And as someone pointed out - to universal silence - we should ban feminists and gays from teaching as they may be inclined to treat boys or straight children (huh?) as inferior. If you take the proposition to its natural conclusion - nobody should be allowed to teach.
But of course that is ridiculous. The fact is that teachers have to obey stringent rules in the way they treat children - both national laws and local school rules - no matter what their political affiliation or particular world view is. If any teacher breaks those rules they can be disciplined and even sacked - whether they are BNP members or members of the NUT (and the vast majority who have been disciplined or sacked have been members of the latter rather than the former).
What is being suggested here is that different rules should be made for BNP members purely on the basis that those who make the rules don't like them. That is bigotry, discrimination and intolerance on a grand scale.
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