How "egalitarianism" works

You can not have failed to notice the way everyone is talking about "fairness" these days. I've blogged before on how unfair "fairness" is - as well as how juvenile and negative it is as a policy, but how does fairness actually work in practice.

Well, I could go on for hours about how "fairness" in education has resulted in lower standards in teaching, less rigour in examinations and a mediocre system for everyone. Having decided that the grammar/secondary modern system was "unfair", the progressives took the good working bit - the grammar schools - and chucked them in the bin in favour of the failing bit - the secondary modern.

They changed the name of the secondary modern to "comprehensive" and condemned future generations of kids to the dire consequences of its failings. Well done, guys - brilliant work. As I said, I could go on and on for hours to try and explain how it works. However, thanks to the ever excellent "House of Dumb" I've now come across an old BBC story that highlights how egalitarianism works in practice perfectly.

In 1999 the Macpherson Report branded London's Metropolitan Police institutionally racist. The report, which followed the Met's failure to successfully prosecute a gang of white youths for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, found ethnic minorities in Britain felt under-protected as victims and over-policed as suspects.

Just over ten years later and ethnic minorities still feel under-protected as victims and over-policed as suspects - the difference is that so does everyone else. Everyone is treated with equal disdain and the only ones who benefit are the criminals.

Yep, That's progressive egalitarianism in practice. Take the worst possible option and apply it to everybody.

Can we be serious now?

Now that the knockabout comedy posturing of the "leaders" debates are over can we get down to some serious discussion about the future of Britain and the General Election?

I mean, the media may be falling over themselves to tell us how these debates have "changed politics for ever" - which may be true although I don't believe for one moment that the change has been a positive one - but remarkably reticent to admit that after four and a half hours of public scrutiny we're still none the wiser about what any of them plan to do much of anything and even less about the disastrous state of our economy.

Meanwhile, Mervyn King - the governor of the Bank Of England - is reported to have said that whoever ends up in government is likely to be so unpopular that they'll eventually be kicked out and out of power for a generation. If this is true, then one can only hope that the three main parties put aside their differences, form a coalition of "consensus" which will make all three of them unelectable in the future.

And I do think Mervyn King is right - indeed, I've said pretty much the same thing myself both here and on other blog sites. Peter Hitchens is urging anyone who will listen on his blog to not vote Tory at the next election in the hope that another Tory defeat will result in the collapse of the Conservative Party allowing room for a proper conservative party to emerge.

Although I share Mr. Hitchens' views that the Tory party needs to collapse before a proper social conservative party can make any inroads into the political scene in Britain, I don't share his view that this can only be achieved by a Tory defeat. Whether they win or lose the election the Tories are likely to collapse - the only difference is that it might take a year or two longer if they win.

The worst possible outcome for those of us wanting the Tory party to collapse and a new conservative party to emerge is for the Tories to "win" the most seats, but end up as the opposition to a Lib/Lab coalition - that's the only scenario where I think Cameron and his ilk can make a case for the survival of the Tory party in its current form.

It doesn't really matter though. After a couple of disastrous years under a Lib/Lab coalition that government will also collapse and the Tories - under Cameron - will sweep to a landslide election victory. Two years later and they'll be all washed up too. It just means we'll have to wait a couple of years longer for a political party to emerge which is serious about putting Britain back on its feet.

And if nothing else, I hope by then we can be serious about our politics instead of this infantile "X Factor" version we have now.

This is what they really think of you

A lifelong Labour supporter questions the Prime Minister on immigration and he is as nice as pie to her face - but as soon as he thinks he can't be heard anymore he refers to the woman as "bigoted".

The media have jumped on this and the Prime Minister is described as "dismayed" and "apologetic". I've no doubt he is dismayed and apologetic - at being caught out, not for calling the woman a "bigot"

Gordon Brown may have been the one caught out, but don't think for a minute that he is the only one who thinks like this. Far from it - it is the default position of all progressives and that includes those in the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party - they all genuinely believe that anyone who opposes immigration is a racist bigot motivated by hatred of other nations and peoples rather than a love of their own country and people.

If anyone seriously believes that Gordon Brown - or any other progressive liberal - has genuinely changed their mind about those who criticise immigration then they are a complete fool. He really does believe the woman to be a bigot.

This is the reality of progressive liberals - they say one thing to your face and another thing entirely when they think they are out of earshot and back in their cosy circle of elitists. It's why they stage manage "public" meetings so closely and take such pains to cancel dissent.

Politics used to be an open and free exchange of views and opinions - both within the political parties and in public, but the rise of progressive liberalism has changed this. Nobody is allowed to question their real motives or their real intentions - and to do so will result in the person being subjected that person to personal abuse.

We've seen in the past how these political parties are prepared to dig out any dirt they can find on people who criticise them. We've seen the way they handle dissent in their own parties - throwing people out of conference meetings and using the police to threaten and frighten them.

This is the world of progressive liberal politics - authoritarian, illiberal and vicious.

And that applies to ALL progressive liberals - and that is all we have.

And this helps how, exactly?

To be honest, I don't know the details of the dispute between Birmingham council and the unions over equal pay for women. It's something to do with bonuses being paid to "men" which were denied to "women".

It doesn't sound quite right to me, because, as far as I can make out the bonuses were paid to people doing different jobs - for example, refuse collectors got a big bonus while care workers didn't.

I don't actually see what that has to do with equal pay for genders myself. After all, there are plenty of men working in social care and they didn't get the big bonuses either - and there is nothing to stop women working on bin collections which means they could have got big bonuses if they'd decided to do that job - but hey, I've given up trying to make sense of the equal pay rubbish (I can't make sense of it, because there is no sense to it).

What I do wonder is who has actually benefited from this court case. As I understand it, Birmingham City Council have stopped paying bonuses to people doing "man's" work - so they lose out. The women who are supposed to have lost out will get a couple of grand each maybe - but they've probably all lost their jobs by now or seen them transferred to a private care company who will give them even worse pay and conditions and Birmingham City Council don't actually have any money other than that they take off the taxpayer.

So the men working for Birmingham City Council lose out, the women working for Birmingham City Council lose out and the people of Birmingham City lose out. As far as I can see, the only people to benefit from this are the lawyers who now see an opportunity to milk councils up and down Britain for more cash.

And all this at a time when we are facing the biggest cuts since the nineteen seventies according to some think tank.

It's a bit like handing a glass of water to a drowning man.

Beware of Greeks bearing gilts

Yes, I know Greece doesn't issue "gilts" - but I like the pun! OK?

I am, of course, referring to the decision to downgrade Greece's credit rating to "junk" status meaning that they are now paying the sort of interest on their borrowing that you or I might face on our credit cards - bad enough when you owe £1000, but a total disaster when you owe £1000 billion.

This will, of course, make borrowing prohibitively expensive for Greece and they will have to rely on handouts from the rest of the EU and the IMF to meet their financial commitments - and they'll have to slash public spending massively at the same time.

Greece is not going to be a nice place to be for the next few years - they are, effectively, in a deep depression which is going to last for a decade or more and it is only a matter of time before other European nations join them (including us). It wouldn't be so bad if they could rely on tourism - but what with the euro, Greece is just so damn expensive when compared to Tunisia or Turkey.

Anyway, my post isn't really about bashing Greece, but bashing their decision to join the euro - after all, it is that choice which has shackled Greece's ability to do anything about their debt and finance problem - and has hamstrung, Portugal, Spain and Ireland too - and made the country a much more expensive place to visit.

It also demonstrates just how wise a decision it was for Britain to keep out of the euro - a fact which most of the euro supporters have not mentioned over the last couple of years for some reason - particularly the Liberal Democrats who were once pushing for Britain to join as soon as possible, something which that nice man and financial genius, Vince Cable, seems remarkably reticent to talk about these days.

And let's be honest, here - the only reason the Tories and Labour parties didn't take us into the euro was because they didn't think they could get it past the British people. The truth is that they both favoured the idea privately - and some of them publicly - but knew that it was pushing the people too far too soon to make them ditch the pound.

Of course, all three main parties remain committed to our membership of the European Union and remain determined to take us into the euro as soon as they practicably can.

Just bear that in mind when you listen to them discussing how they would deal with this economic crisis (which hasn't even really started yet) in the run up to the election. They don't have any answers - so they'll just lie - but don't be fooled. If the politicians of all three of our main parties had had their way we would be as deep in the mire today as Greece.

So much for the "great ignored"

They say that a week is a long time in politics. If that is true than three weeks must be a lifetime - and I suspect that the Tories are hoping that three weeks does feel like a lifetime ago for most people.

Because, back then when they launched their election campaign they told us that they were going to focus on the "great ignored". As usual with the Tories, this big idea was long on rhetoric and short on detail in so much as no one was actually sure what they meant by the great ignored, but it would be fair to assume that they meant the very large number of people who are disillusioned with our political parties and the lack of choice offered and have stopped bothering to vote.

At the last election that amounted to around 40% of the electorate - which is quite a large slice of the pie. There can be little doubt that if any party could motivate a significant proportion of those people to go and vote for them then they'd win the election by a landslide.

Unfortunately for the Tories - and the great ignored - the great ignored got forgotten about again as soon as the first "great debate" was over. After that debacle, the Lib Dems enjoyed a huge surge in support - but not because the great ignored decided they were going to back them. No, the surge in support came from voters who were previously planning to vote Labour or Tory switching their support to the Lib Dems.

The trouble is, this proportion of the electorate represents a fairly small proportion of the total - we're talking maybe 10% of the 60% who are expected to vote - and because these people are comfortable voting for either the Tories or Lib Dems or Labour or the Lib Dems it means we're talking about people whose politics pretty much reflect those parties politics anyway.

In other words, progressive liberals.

Consequently, the great ignored are going to be ignored again. Forty per cent of the electorate will not bother to vote because there isn't a party standing which they feel represents them enough to justify putting a cross in a box for that party on election day.

And if you assume, as it's probably fair to do, that a large proportion of the people who vote Tory, Labour or Lib Dem do so out of tribal loyalty and would vote that way regardless of their policies, then it's fair to say that this election is being fought on the basis of winning the votes of less than 10% of the electorate.

And because that 10% is comprised of left wing, progressive liberal elitists we get political parties that fight for the votes of left wing, progressive liberal elitists - and that is what those parties have become. Left wing, progressive liberal elitists.

As for the "great ignored" - they might as well not exist as far as the main political parties are concerned.

Aspiration not envy

Although I enjoyed, for the most part, the TV series "Number One Ladies Detective Agency" based on his books I'm not familiar with Alexander McCall-Smith's political affiliations, but what ever they are he has written an excellent article in the Daily Mail.

Mr. McCall-Smith touches on a variety of points which are all valid, but the central thrust of his article hits out at the way the political process has been infantilised. With Nick Clegg enjoying a massive boost in his popularity thanks to his ability to talk to people like they were ten year olds, this is not an entirely surprising development - because the fact is that we have become more and more child-like.

Mr. McCall-Smith points to the over use of a particular word to highlight this issue - the word "fair" - and he points out the phrase "it's not fair!" is the among the favourite sayings of the average five year old and goes on to wonder whether it is even possible to achieve such a thing as a "fair society".

Fairness is a very subjective measure and McCall-Smith rightly makes the connection between fairness and envy and the fact that what politicians who make a fuss about fairness are doing is actually playing up the emotion of envy.

Envy is a very negative emotion which closely associates with jealousy, anger, fear and hatred. When politicians talk about fairness they are encouraging you to feel these emotions - and that is why we see increasing evidence of community breakdown.

Is this any different from the past?

Yes - because what politicians used to go on about wasn't "fairness" but aspiration. Aspiration is a positive emotion encouraging endeavour, enterprise, responsibility and, above all, hope.

We all know that social mobility has declined since the advent of the progressive movement and I don't believe this is a coincidence. It's declined because the progressives - with their emphasis on creating a "fair" society have declared that people do not need to aspire to make their own lives better - the progressives will do it for them.

Of course, this is impossible - but it hasn't stopped them trying and the result has been to create an even more unfair society. What we need are politicians who are not scared to tell the truth and who are prepared to tell people that if they think something is "unfair" they have the power to change that through hard work and that it is their responsibility.

The job of the government is to make it possible for everyone to be able to do that, but progressive politicians concern themselves with equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity.

No where is this more apparent than in the education system which has been stripped of all that was good about it and turned into a factory system designed to churn identical "products" rather than push children to do the best that they can achieve.

If you want to know what the progressive vision of a "fair society" in Britain would look like just look at our schools.

No - it's not a pretty sight is it.

The missing link

I have to admit that I avoided the second Prime Ministerial debate.

I'm not watching them because I basically know what they are going to say. I know that their essential policies are the same - and I know they won't work.

Oh, I suppose you could argue that the Lib Dems have shown "clear blue water" by saying they won't go ahead with the Trident replacement (actually, they are saying they won't go ahead with it just yet - but the likelihood is that if they ever got into power they'd still replace Trident) and I suppose you could argue that the Lib Dems disagreed with the Iraq war, but as we've already withdrawn from that and the Lib Dems supported the current war in Afghanistan then it's a moot point.

When it comes to the EU they are all in agreement. They'll argue over minor technical details, but they'll all say pretty much that it is better to reform the "club" from within than without - although that didn't seem to stop them forcing reform on the BNP.

There are plenty of reasons for not watching the "Prime Ministerial debate", but one that hasn't been mentioned is the increasing likelihood that the person who ends up as our Prime Minister will not have taken part in them.

In the event of a hung parliament, it is looking more and more likely that Gordon Brown will be forced to step down and David Miliband installed in his place. This is, of course, the ideal result for the liberal progressives - as then they will have a vacuous, idea free, left wing mouthpiece devoid of values running the country just as we did under Blair.

I wish the broadcast media would understand the basic principles of our parliamentary democracy - particularly the fact that we do not elect Prime Ministers and never have. Unfortunately, when this fact finally dawns on them I suspect they'll begin a campaign to include Prime Ministerial elections - only we'll call him "President" and get rid of the monarchy.

God, British politics is so crap these days. It's as if the whole thing has been taken over by children.

Minority self-interest groups

My previous post has prompted a couple of commenters to accuse me of "socialism".

First of all, I have never denied that there are elements of my politics which some would clearly label as socialist - so what? The idea of a state owned monopoly is "socialist" but I still think that the only way to provide such a service as a universal postal service is through a state run monopoly - and so did many great conservative leaders. Does that make them "socialists"?

Secondly, the previous post was aimed at the vast amount of attention that the relatively few Britons stuck abroad were receiving from the media and the government in comparison to the lack of interest shown in the millions of "abandoned" Britons at home that are never given a second thought.

My personal political philosophy has always been a mixture of left and right - I am a social conservative. My over riding belief is that the principle job of a national government is to manage the country to the benefit and with the least inconvenience to the majority of the nation's people.

My main complaint about progressive liberal governments and the media that supports them is that they do not do this. Instead they manage the country to the benefit of various minority self-interest groups at the expense of and with the most inconvenience to the majority - and this flight ban episode has demonstrated this all too well.

What else can you call 150,000 people stuck in foreign airports because their flights back from their very expensive Easter holiday (one of the most expensive times to fly) have been cancelled but a minority self-interest group?

If you believe these people deserve special attention from the government and the media then you accept the principle that other minority self-interest groups also deserve such special attention.

I do not.

Abandoned Brits

I've got to be honest and say that I don't have a lot of sympathy for the estimated 150,000 British people stranded in various parts of the world by the flight ban.

People who take holidays at Easter in places such as Florida, Lanzarote, Thailand and Australia tend to be fairly well to do people - what we would have called the upper middle class twenty years ago or so. They have credit cards with which they can pay for hotels, ferries, train tickets, buses, hire cars and food and in most cases they will have insurance through which they can recoup most if not all of those costs.

Consequently, I'm a bit fed up hearing about these "abandoned" Brits abroad. Nobody forced them to fly to far off places and everyone who does that does it knowing full well that it only take a French or Spanish air traffic controller strike to leave them stranded in some foreign airport for days.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits in council estates plagued by feral youth, crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits jettisoned from their jobs because of unfair foreign competition, cheap immigrant workers or because the foreign owner of their factory has decided close it down and move production to Malaysia.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits whose children struggle to get any sort of education in schools without discipline, where bullying is rife and where a small clique of disruptive pupils hold sway over the majority who just want to learn.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits in hospital corridors and cupboards left to die in squalor and indignity - unfed, unwashed and unwanted - while hospital chief executives enjoy bumper pay rises and protected pensions.

There are millions of abandoned Brits up and down this country who are far more deserving of attention, help and consideration and are left to struggle through no fault of their own than a relatively small number of affluent jet setters who wouldn't know real hardship if it bit them on the backside. The real abandoned Brits are left to fend for themselves with little hope of rescue from the problems that blight their lives - crime, drugs, unemployment, immigration, rubbish schools, lousy hospitals and so on and so forth.

They are the abandoned Brits we ought to worry about.

Eh?

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has apparently described Gordon Brown as a "desperate politician" in a newspaper article.

Is there any other sort?

I'd have thought that even in the best of times, the average MP would be "desperate" to make things better for his or her constituents and the nation - it's the least we can expect from our elected representatives, isn't it?

Given our current economic plight, the perilous state of the "recovery" and a society edging ever closer to anarchy I'd have thought that any politician who might be relaxed or complacent right now is someone in need of a good, sharp kick up the backside.

I guess that would be you, Mr. Clegg.

The herd mentality of the political media

From a personal point of view, it's been nice to see a number of commentators in the mainstream media coming out and agreeing with me that these televised leaders debates may have been a bad idea.

Although that is, in some small way, quite satisfying, it is much less satisfying that only managed to reach this conclusion after the event. It demonstrates, in my view, a considerable failing in our political media that they are unable to consider the consequences of something before it happens correctly.

This is due, at least in part, to the fact that they are so deeply enmeshed in the political machine itself that so many are now unable to think independently anymore. They political media is the grease that keeps the political wheels of the three main parties moving and in power. They are the reason why progressive liberalism has such a hold on British politics and why nothing else can get a look in at the moment.

The leaders and main players of the three main parties know that they'll have camera crews, reporters and photographers following their every step as they move from stage-managed "public" event to another and they make use of this free and extraordinarily biased publicity while every other party scrabbles for the crumbs that the media throw in their direction - on very one-sided terms.

The trouble is, because the political media are so close to the three main parties, they have lost the capability for objective journalism which is why they can not see the possible consequences of various proposals such as these debates.

It's why they can not understand the problems that things such as proportional representation, an elected House of Lords or alterations to the voting system will bring. They have a herd mentality now and can not think beyond the narrow margins that they work in. Nor will they be able to as long as they remain in the thrall of the three main parties.

What we need more than ever is an independent and free media.

Peace and quiet

I know I shouldn't be happy considering the economic damage to the country and the thousands of Britons stranded abroad, but I've enjoyed the most peaceful, quiet and relaxing weekend completely devoid of the constant drone of jet aeroplanes flying overhead as they approach or depart Heathrow.

It's been fantastic to be able to sit in the garden and hear the birdsong for a change.

Class wars

One of the few things that any of the three leaders said which contained any substance or policy was Nick Clegg's commitment to slash class sizes to 20 in primary and 16 in secondary school.

Of course it's nothing more than an "aspiration" - there's no indication of how this will be achieved, how it will be funded and where all these extra teachers are going to come from, but it sounds good on the telly.

The trouble is, it's an expensive policy which has little benefit.

When I was in primary school the average class size was close to 40 and there were no teaching assistants either - just the one teacher - yet none of us had any problems learning and nobody felt left or that they weren't getting the attention we needed. If we had a problem we put our hands up and the teacher would come and talk to us while the rest of the class got on with the work or waited their turn to be seen.

When I went on to grammar school the average class size plummeted - to around 35 - and the system was just the same. Throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies children learned in large classes without any problem.

In countries like India and China, children often start their education in classes of 60 - 80 with just a single teacher and they still manage to learn without a problem. The education system of both nations is very effective - they are churning out large numbers of highly skilled graduates with whom we are struggling to compete, but they don't need ever smaller class sizes.

The important factor in the classroom is not the size of the class - it is discipline. Teachers have lost control of the classrooms in Britain and this is why our education system is failing. They've lost control because successive governments have given children increasing "rights" while simultaneously stripping away the options available to teachers to enforce discipline - and these things have happened with the active participation and approval of the teaching profession.

Class sizes make little difference to the quality of learning children receive. It doesn't matter if you have a class size of 20, 10 or 1 - if the teacher has no control and the pupil has even a vague awareness of the "rights" they have (and few don't have this awareness these days) then the teacher will struggle to teach the kids anything.

Everybody over the age of 50 knows that it is perfectly possible to have effective learning in large classes. You don't need more teachers, smaller classes or fancy gadgets - you just need to have proper control and discipline and teach kids properly.

Exactly

This little tidbit from the Telegraph's "Election live" section caught my eye.

12.57 A cheeky graduate in Brighton asks Gordon Brown what he can do to help people like her find jobs - and whether she can have a job in his office.

He asks what her degree is in. It's African history. He can't help himself - he bursts out laughing. "Good luck with that," says Izzard.

What is the point of getting 50% of young people into university when the degrees they come away with are useless to British industry? It's all very well the PM having a bit of a chuckle about it, but it's his parties stupid policies that have led us to this point.

The big sleep

Ok, I only managed to watch three quarters of an hour of the "prime ministerial" debate last night - and that was more than enough to get me dozing off in my armchair. As debates go, it was one hell of a yawn and if this is the best that they can come up with galvanise the public into going to the polling booths to cast their votes then we could be in for a record low turn out on May 6th.

Where do I begin? I suppose the best place is to start with the policies and hard substance that the three leaders came up with.

............

OK - that's got that bit over with so let's move on to what this was really about - style and personality.

Brown looked awkward and shabby. For some reason he always reminds me of the TV detective Lieutenant Columbo played by Peter Falk - perhaps it's the dodgy eye. If his stylists gave him a grubby mac and stuck a half-chewed cigar in his paw he'd probably appeal much more to viewers than he does now. Or he might look like a flasher - it's hard to know unless they try it.

Of course, they can't do that because modern politicians never wear overcoats these days (because they are rarely out of their cars) and because being seen to be a smoker is considered slightly worse than strangling cats for a hobby.

Cameron looked shifty. The poor man tries so hard to appear sincere, but fails miserably - he just comes across as opportunist and fake. Part of the problem is that nobody knows what he stands for still. He talks in vague, sweeping generalisations and mouths the required rhetoric - but none of it sounds genuine no matter how hard he tries to appear earnest and passionate. It's clearly as false as Lt. Columbo's glass eye.

Clegg won the "debate" easily - but that was to be expected. As the leader of the Liberal Democrats he has nothing to defend so could spend all his time on the attack - but the man looked like a sixth former at a school assembly alongside his headmaster and geography teacher. That image was exacerbated by the patronising way both Cameron and Brown repeatedly kept trying to ally themselves to Clegg - possibly a tactic in the event of a hung parliament.

Ultimately, none of them had anything to say that was new, fresh or even vaguely approached the idea of real solutions to Britain's many problems. Worst of all, they all seemed to agree on the fundamental approach to these problems with only minor differences on detail. This is, of course, because all three lead parties with broadly similar political philosophies - left of centre progressive liberalism.

Overall, the event confirmed my worst fears. It will do nothing to improve the democratic process of Britain but will further entrench the social liberal hegemony. The media got what they wanted - they froze out dissent, stifled argument and bolstered the liberal elite's stranglehold on British politics.

They'll spend the next few days telling us how fantastic this was - how it was "groundbreaking" and will change the face of British politics forever. In truth it was dull, dishonest and instead of changing anything it has merely ensured that the progressive liberal hold on the political system - an ideology supported by the media at the expense of all others - remains intact.

I suspect that was always the intention.

The Pink Inquisition

McCarthyism is alive and well and living in Britain.

I found this out last night as I watched Channel 4 News and a debate about immigration consisting of Chris Grayling for the Tory Party, Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats and Phil Woolas for Labour.

Th debate was dull with none of the parties offering any solutions to the problem, but as it ended, Jon Snow - the news presenter - turned to Chris Grayling (who was the only one in the studio) and began asking him questions about his comments regarding B&B owners turning away gays.

He then finished with a series of rapid fire questions - I don't recall the exact wording or sequence, but they were along the lines of .....

"How did you vote on civil partnerships?"
"How did you vote on Section 28?"
How did you vote on gay adoption?"

This amounted to nothing less than a McCarthy style witch hunt - but one being conducted by an unelected clique. Grayling's voting in the House of Commons is a matter of record - Snow could have found out the questions to all of these with a little research - but that wasn't the point.

The point was to ram home the message that opposition to the pink agenda will not be tolerated - that those who dare oppose it will be ruthlessly hunted down, vilified and, if possible, punished.

Personally, I've been indifferent about gay rights up until this point - it doesn't effect me so I don't much care about it either way - but this has revealed something sinister. It has revealed the fact that elected members of parliament are no longer allowed to hold opinions that do not match those of the liberal elite who really run this country.

I believe that people have the right to approve of homosexuality, but equally believe that others have just as much right to disapprove of it. The most important thing is that those opinions are freely and honestly held - not demanded or forced.

I also believe that news presenters are not there to push their own opinions down the throat of the watching public. Snow is entitled to his own views, of course, but he is not entitled to use a news programme to push those views or promote his own personal agenda.

He should be sacked. If he isn't then we will know that McCarthyism is not just alive and well in this country - it is an active policy of the media.

The deficit delusion

All three of the main political parties are making the same noises regarding the economy. All three of them have creative - and largely unsubstantiated - plans for reducing the budget deficit.

None of them seem to understand that this is not enough. Not only is it just "not enough", it's far far too little.

None of them have any proper plans for tackling the real issue - the spiralling debt problems. What they are basically saying is that all they are going to do is reduce the speed at which they continue to recklessly spend money they don't have.

Nor is there any point in paying off any of the national debt while running a deficit. If you have £100,000 of debt, does it help to borrow £6000 more and pay off £3000 of that debt? of course not - you'll now be £103,000 in debt! As long as we continue to run a budget deficit then the national debt will continue to increase.

All this talk by the main parties about how they will tackle the budget deficit is deceitful and delusional. The deficit doesn't need to be halved or slashed - it needs to be eliminated entirely.

Everyone knows this, but no one is saying it. They won't say it because they know it won't be popular - but it is necessary. We have to reduce spending and/or raise taxes to the point where the budget is in surplus. Until that is done, our national debt will continue to increase and the harder it will be to administer the medicine required.

We can not continue to spend what we haven't got.

We can't even continue to spend slightly less of what we haven't got.

We must spend less than we have available and use the surplus to reduce the huge debt burden.

There is no other choice. To pretend there is is delusional.

Fair questions

Both the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have put "fairness" as their overarching principle in their manifestos.

Sounds good in theory - but what does it mean in practice?

Is it fair that a straight A student is denied a place in their chosen university because the state decrees that that child comes from the wrong background?

Is it fair that a hard working couple with a couple of kids have to pay for a service that only lazy, itinerant, selfish criminals use?

Is it fair that pensioner who fought for his country in WW2 is not allowed to enjoy a cigarette with his half of bitter in the local pub that he has frequented for forty years? And is fair that that pensioner - who has paid more than his fair share in tax for his smoking habit - is denied health care because he enjoys a perfectly legal pursuit while violent junkies addicted to illegal narcotics are given free health care, expensive treatments and substitute narcotics for their indulgent and illegal behaviour?

Is it fair that a man who has scrimped and saved for years to buy his own home is forced to sell that home just to pay for the care that the lazy, frivolous and wasteful get for nothing?

Is it fair that public sector workers receive pay increases higher than the rate of inflation at a time when private sector workers - whose taxes pay for those pay rises - are facing pay freezes and even pay cuts?

I could go on and on - but my point is simple.

Labour and the Lib Dems have no real interest in fairness - like so many other words and phrases it is just something they bandy about because they know it sounds good. Their only interest is in penalising the hard working, the self reliant, the responsible, the law abiding and the conscientious to fund their every expanding client state.

No Dave required

I don't know if you saw BBC Breakfast this morning, but they featured an item about a small village in Rutland who, fed up of slow speed Internet connections, decided to band together to get high speed broadband access. They got together with a local telecoms company and now have the fastest rural broadband access in the country.

Good for them.

I really hope Dave was watching too - because it demonstrates two very important points. The first being that his "new idea" for "big society" isn't anything new and doesn't need to be big. It also demonstrates that it doesn't need a Tory government either - but that's by the by.

The second and more important thing that this demonstrates is that this was achieved without any intervention from the state whatsoever. There was no need for any "development agency" or fake charity to get involved - indeed, it is quite likely that it only became possible because the scenario was such that the state wasn't involved at all.

And that is the important point - the state does not need to be involved.

The biggest obstacle to society in a democracy is the state - and the more the state gets involved the less democratic that society becomes. Because the state decides what a society will and will not be allowed the society becomes competitive rather than collaborative. Rather than having communities agreeing on what is required you end up with factions fighting against each other for the cash the government will hand out.

And the way this state interference manifests itself is through the myriad of quangos and agencies that proliferate up and down the country and if the were really serious about enabling people to take control than the only thing they need to do is dismantle this quangocracy and the Tories have no intention of changing that.

I know they have no intention of doing so because the reason most of these things exist is our membership of the European Union - and the Tories have no intention of doing anything about that.

We don't need a big state or a big society - we just need to get out democracy back.

And the only way we can do that is by leaving the EU.

A bad smell

I don't smoke.

Well, I do smoke the very occasional cigar - nothing complements the smoky subtlety of a good malt whisky like a quality cigar - but I don't smoke cigarettes. It's not because I have any particular objection to cigarette smoking - I don't - it's just a habit that never caught on with me.

One of the reasons for that is possibly that I grew up in a household that was permanently shrouded in a fug of cigarette smoke. My dad smoked cigarettes, my mother smoked cigarettes and both my older brothers smoked cigarettes. I remember how we would all be sitting around chuckling along to Morecambe & Wise with a blue grey haze hanging from the ceiling like an inverted morning mist.

I know that all of my many cousins grew up in similar households as did my school chums. I remember wedding receptions where the adult guests smoked freely in the local village halls while us kids sipped our bottles of cola through straws and how a dozen or more of us would crowd around a table at the local British Legion where the ashtray would be overflowing with stubbed out cigarette butts while we peered through a shroud of cigarette smoke at the band playing "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" for the third time that evening.

Despite all this, neither myself or any of the other kids I knew at the time suffered from the effects of "passive smoking". There was one kid at school who was always ill with ear infections, asthma and the like, but his parents were amongst the few that didn't smoke, refused to allow smoking in their home and were obsessive vegetarians. I remember going around there once for tea (not the drink, but the evening meal as it used to be when we had dinner at midday) and being confronted with a plate of leaves. I never went there again and that kid never seemed to have any friends.

Anyway, people of my generation grew up in homes filled with cigarette smoke. We played in streets choked with leaded petrol fumes, smoke from coal fires and pollution from the Slough Trading Estate.

So why is it all different now?

Between 500 to 1,000 children a year end up in hospital because they are exposed to their parents' smoking.

Right. So we now live in a world where kids rarely come into contact with cigarette smoke, don't play in streets clogged with pollution from coal fires and leaded petrol and they're less healthy than we were?

Something stinks about this story and it isn't cigarette smoke.

This is not America

Whenever I discuss the impending television debates between the leaders of media approved political parties I frequently come across the argument that "they've been having these debates in America for decades" as if this somehow clinches the argument.

We're not in America so it is totally irrelevant. If all that mattered to an argument is whether America does it or not then one could equally claim this is a clincher for an argument on the death penalty or chain gangs.

I get a similar response on the question of an elected second chamber - "it works for America", they bleat. It's true that the USA has an elected upper house, but whether it works or not is a contentious issue given that the US President is often too powerful when his party controls both houses and then a "lame duck" when his party controls neither. If that's the idea some people have of something that "works" then I'd hate to see something which they think is a complete dogs dinner.

Our democratic process and system is totally different from the USA's - and France's, Sweden's or Germany's. We share some cultural things with the USA - language, institutions, traditions (something we don't do with our European neighbours) but we're still an entirely different nation to the USA - or France, Sweden or Germany. The supposition that because something "works" for some other nation it ought to work for us is tenuous at best and ludicrous at worst.

The idea that this "leaders debate" will somehow improve democracy is ridiculous. First of all, we do not elect our Prime Minister - so Messrs Cameron, Brown and Clegg having a chat on national TV has no impact on who becomes Prime Minister - only on which political party gets to choose him or her.

Secondly, the debate excludes all the other parties which are not Labour, Tory and Lib Dem, therefore circumventing the democratic process and narrowing the choice down to three parties which are all pushing the same fundamental policies. Now some of those parties being excluded are not likely to win seats - but they are likely to win a considerable number of votes which could have a significant effect on the outcome of the election while other parties, though insignificant in England, are considerably important in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

I don't believe that these debates will do anything to improve our democracy or to mend the "democratic deficit" which results in lower and lower turnouts and more and more disinterest in General Elections - but even if they do then I wonder at what cost that will be to our process of parliamentary democracy.

This is not America, we are not American and we do things very differently here. Just because the media are obsessed with copying everything the Yanks do in their seedy industry doesn't mean that we have to turn our democracy into a personality cult based soap opera.

Sick

No, I'm not talking about our society for a change - although there is no doubt that that is very sick - but myself.

I've got a stinking, streaming cold so won't be posting much for a few days.

Normal service will be resumed when I can type for longer than 30 seconds without an explosive sneeze or hacking coughing fit - and when my eyes can focus properly.

The path to faith

As someone who grew up in the seventies when just about every 16 year old was hammering around on a 50cc sports moped at the earliest opportunity and then progressed onto a "proper" 125cc, 200cc or even 250cc motorbike as soon as they were seventeen I belong to a generation of modern day car drivers who understand what it is like to ride a motorcycle.

It's only when you've been a biker that you can understand how a biker rides and why - and know where and when to look out for them. I'm firmly of the belief that the single biggest thing we could do to reduce motorcycle accidents is not force every biker to go through more and more training - we should compel every car driver to take the CBT test as a minimum.

Such an idea would mean that every car driver would see road use from the perspective of a biker - and the roads would be safer for bikers as a result.

It's a similar thing with science. The best and most successful scientists are those whose approach to a problem contains a healthy dose of scepticism and who are not controlled by dogma. In other words they see things from all perspectives - not just any single one - and are far more able to make sound scientific judgements as a result.

I think the same thing applies to faith - particularly my faith, Christianity.

I was brought up as a Christian - not a strict, regular church-going Christian - just your average C of E Christian. I believed in God, Jesus and the Christian message, but I didn't really think about it that much.

As I got older I started to question my belief and, eventually, became an atheist. I won't go into details of why that was - let's just put it down to impetuous youth - or what I got up to (hedonistic would hardly cover it) - but I abandoned God, Jesus and The Bible.

Just as my loss of faith was not a momentary decision. my rediscovery of faith was not a sudden Damascene conversion either. Rather it was the result of a series of events in my life that forced me to take stock, look for some consistency in my life and culminated in me finding that consistency through Christ. I can honestly say that I've never looked back since and never regretted my decision.

Perhaps the most revealing thing, though, was that I found I was able to read The Bible with an entirely new perspective - that given to me by my time as an atheist - and was able to make far greater sense of what I read than I could before.

I realise this would not be the same for everyone and I can see no reason why someone who has been a committed Christian all their life can not read and understand The Bible with just as much clarity as I can - or more.

But it does go to show how a new perspective on things can bring new light on an old subject. Like car drivers learning to ride a motorbike first or scientists who retain a sceptical approach, returning to Christianity from being an atheist can open new doors to understanding of the Christian message for anyone with an open mind.

Money and the economy

Inspired by the excellent Fat Bigot and the squabbling on Question Time, I'd just like to add my two penneth worth to the argument on National Insurance.

In particular, I'd like to concentrate on the issue of "taking money out of the economy".

The Tories argue that increasing National Insurance will "take money out of the economy"

Labour argue that reducing the tax take for the government will "take money out of the economy"

They are both wrong. Before I go on, I'd just like to point out that of course I favour lower taxation and of course it promotes jobs and growth - but that isn't the point here. We're talking about what "takes money out of the economy" and the truth is that neither a NI increase or an NI reduction takes money out of the economy.

If you leave NI the same then the money stays in the economy in the form of money in the private sector (from where all money comes from) in the pockets of employers and their employees.

If you increase NI then the money still stays in the economy - it just goes to a different set of pockets. Either way, the money will remain in the British economy. You can argue that one use of the money is better than the other - but not that one way takes money out of the economy.

The only way money leaves the economy is if it leaves this nation and every year we "take money out of the economy"- billions of pounds - and hand it to the EU who graciously allow us to have a little bit of it back - but not much.

The biggest way to "take money out of the economy" is to run a trade deficit - and we've been doing this for decades. Every year 5% of our GDP is taken out of our economy in the form of the trade deficit. Even in years when our economy is growing at a decent rate this is usually over and above the level of growth by 2-3%.

In other words, even if you grow your GDP by 3% per year, you are still losing 2% of the money out of your economy. It's not like the money is lying dormant somewhere or just not being put to the best use - it has gone. For good.

When money is leaving your economy faster than wealth is being created then you have two choices. First of all, you can resort to debt - which is what we have been doing for the last 20 years to support the fallacy that was our "economic miracle". Well - we all know where that ended up.

The second choice is to print more money - which is what we've been doing for the last year or so - but that is just storing up inflation which is yet to hit us, but inevitably will.

There is a third option. You can reduce your trade deficit or, even better, run a trade surplus. However, that requires some sort of commitment to protect and preserve your national industries - particularly manufacturing.

But no one wants to do that.

Yet.

They will - eventually.

The real bigots in our schools

Thanks to one of the commenters on this site - Larry - I hear that the teaching unions are trying to ban BNP members from being teachers or governors.

I've no doubt that these same people are the sort who were up in arms the other day when the shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, said that B&B owners should have the right to refuse entry to homosexuals.

Personally, I think he is right. Furthermore, I think the NUT is quite within its rights to refuse membership from anyone who is a BNP member. I also think it's quite right for a club to refuse entry to someone who doesn't meet their dress code or a bank to reject an application for an overdraft from someone who doesn't have any money.

My point is this - everybody, every business and every organisation should have the right to decide who they allow in. There should not be any laws restricting you on who you can turn away - regardless of the reason.

Why is there such a big furore over a tiny B&B refusing to admit a homosexual couple and yet no concern at all by the establishment at the blatant discrimination by liberal progressives towards BNP members? They are not doing anything illegal by being members of the BNP. It isn't against the law (yet) to be a member of the BNP and yet the NUT are not just clamouring for a ban from their organisation for BNP members - they are trying to bully the government into blatant discrimination.

Like I said - if the NUT want to ban BNP members from being part of their bigoted, fascist group then that is up to them. If I were a teacher and a member of the BNP I would not want to belong to such a disgusting extremist organisation as the NUT - but it is none of their business who schools employ or have as governors.

Once again we see the blatant hypocrisy and bigotry of the liberal establishment. They do not stand for "equality". They do not stand for "fairness". They stand for shoving their sick social agenda down the throats of the British people.

They are vicious nasty bigots and they think nobody notices. They are wrong.

The love that dare not speak its name

I've been quite critical of Simon Heffer recently - justifiably in my view, I might add - so it's nice to see him coming back to the fold somewhat in his latest comment piece for The Telegraph.

OK, Heffer is pointing out what is, to many of us, the blindingly obvious - that the three main parties are all basically the same and that the lack of real alternatives will mean that millions of people won't be visiting their local polling station on May 6th - but at least he's one of the few journalists who seems to recognise this.

Only yesterday in The Telegraph we had an editorial eulogising the Tories grand plan for a "big society" and how it was so different from Labour's "big government", but Heffer squashes this completely as he refers to Cameron as ....

.... a PR spiv whose "big idea" is to appoint 5,000 commissars to assist the development of "communities".

I'm glad Heffer sees through Dave's rhetoric and it's about time that there was some serious criticism of the Conservatives from "conservative" media - it's just a shame that Heffer is something of a lone voice on The Telegraph and a rather inconsistent one at that.

Even so, it's a good article and one which I more or less agree with entirely. However, I do have one quibble.

Heffer correctly notes that all the main parties are "social democrat" parties - I prefer to call them progressive liberals, but it's the same thing - and that they are pursuing the same broad agenda using broadly similar methods.

No one from the main parties will tell the truth about the need to sack hundreds of thousands of people on the public payroll in order to ensure we live within our means. Nobody will tell the truth about how lower taxes increase revenue, because there are too many cheap votes in bashing bankers who earn lots of money. Nobody will properly defend capitalism as an essential ingredient of a free society. Nobody will champion selective education, which gives such a chance in life to bright children from poor homes, and nobody will be truthful about the pointlessness of much university education.

Nobody will dare to be radical about the corrupt effects of the welfare state. Nobody will take the radical approach needed to counter the results of unlimited immigration. Above all – and that last point leads on to this – nobody will confront the public with the realities of our membership of a European Union governed by the Treaty of Lisbon, which has left us with a choice of staying in on Europe's terms, or getting out.

Actually, the choice with the EU has always been one of staying in on Europe's terms or getting out - the idea that it can be reformed from the inside and that we could reform it has always been ridiculous as every Prime Ministers has discovered since Edward Heath first signed us up to the damned thing.

Anyway - that's not what irritates me with Heffer's comment. It's the fact that Heffer is spot on in describing the main parties and their policies as "social democratic", but doesn't ever mention what the alternative to such dogma is - social conservatism.

It's as if one dare not say that you are a social conservative these days. To some extent, that is understandable as the social democrats always jump on that to portray those of us who are social conservatives as gay-bashing, racist, sexist Jew hating, parochial "little Englanders"

We're not. We're just people who love our nation and want it to remain the country we love. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde ....

Social conservatism in this century is such a great affection of an Englishman for his nation and such as you find in the sonnets of Shakespeare and the prose of Wordsworth. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Constable. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the "Love that dare not speak its name," and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between a patriot and his nation. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.

I'm a social conservative and proud of it. Heffer should be too and ought to come right out and say it. We're not "non-social democrats" - we're social conservatives. Yes, the bigots of the establishment will mock us, call us names as and try to portray us as something we are not just as the establishment did to Oscar Wilde - but we must stand up for what we believe in and not be afraid to say it

Interesting

I've just completed The Telegraph's "Vote Match" test to see which party most matches my views. An option at the end allows you to deselect the parties which you wouldn't consider voting for - but as I wouldn't consider voting for most of those listed I didn't see much point - so I selected all.

The big surprise (for me, anyway) was that my top match was the BNP who nudged UKIP out by 2% (73% against 71% match).

However, I wouldn't place too much store in that as, according to Vote Match, the Green Party were a reasonably (OK, just under 50% match) close third! Considering that I answered that I believe AGW to be a myth and that my least concerns included the "environment"* - this is plainly ludicrous.

Perhaps the most revealing result, though, was that the two parties at the bottom were the Conservatives (23% match) and Labour (21%). Give it a go - but don't rule any party out of the decision and see what it recommends for you.

* As it happens, I am intensely concerned about the environment, but about real environmental issues in my own country and my own backyard - not about some made up scaremongering regarding some distant land over which I have and can have no control whatsoever.

The great ignored

I saw Michael Gove being questioned on this morning's BBC news and telling the interviewer that his parties big idea was to tap in to the "great ignored".

Yeah, right. In other words, his parties going to try and get us to vote for them and then they'll ignore us again.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Still, credit where it's due. At least he had a "big idea" unlike the Lib Dems or Labour who just waffled on about "public services" again.

Incomes, outgoings and outcomes

Following on from my post regarding "free trade", I now want to explain why this matters to the economy.

I suspect most of the people who read this blog have a job - or have had one in the past - and know what it is like to manage their finances. A job brings income and this is your "wealth" - but living also has costs attached to it and these costs represents your outflow of wealth. Eventually you reach a balance between the two which becomes your "living standard".

With any luck you can reach a point where your increase in income growth is faster than the increase in expenses growth - and when you reach that you have improving living standards.

But if you reach a point where the rise in your income is less than the rate at which money is leaving your household then you will be forced to cut back and this will represent a drop in living your living standard.

We all know this. It's why we want and negotiate pay rises every year - not just to give us more money, but to cover the increased costs we are having to face through inflation. If the rate at which our pay increases is less than the rate of inflation we all know that we are worse off in real terms.

It's the same for a national economy. We have an income and expenses. However, for a national economy the income comes from GDP rather than wages and the expenses - the outflow of wealth from the national economy - is the trade deficit.

The trade deficit represents the flow of money out of the "household" and is equivalent to internal inflation. It is currently running at around 5% of GDP per year - but, more than this, our trade deficit has been consistently higher than our GDP growth for decades.

We all know that if we receive a 2% pay increase while inflation is running at 5% then that represents a 3% drop in our wealth in real terms. We are faced with a choice - increase our income or decrease our costs. Few of us can increase our income arbitrarily, so most of us choose to cut costs - and this invariably means lower living standards.

Over the last decade or so we have all experienced this in some way. For many of us we have been able to cushion this by increasing our debt - but we also know that this is ultimately unsustainable. The debt has to be repaid at some point and the only way to do this is to either increase your income substantially or face significant cuts in your living standards.

How we do this is up to us. It might mean cutting back on nights out or cancelling the Sky subscription or cutting back on the groceries - but whatever it is it will mean a reduction in living standards.

It's exactly the same for a national economy - except on a bigger scale. I know people will argue that it isn't as simple as I have suggested here, but in essence it is. Increasing our national income by growing GDP is only beneficial if it is more than the rate at which the money is flowing out of our country through the trade deficit.

Over the last 30 years we've not been doing this - instead we've been storing up debt. There are only two ways out of this. Either we reduce the outflow of money from our economy by getting the trade deficit below the level of GDP growth or we face up to the fact that we are going to have to suffer substantial cuts to the services and benefits that our national economy can afford.

We know this is true because we all deal with it day after day - but for some reason we ignore the obvious when it comes to the national economy. Trade is income - and when the money coming is rising slower than the money going out you know you're going to struggle.

Debt can not be the solution forever. You all know that if nothing is done about it then the outcome is going to bankruptcy.

There is no such thing as "free trade"

Yep - we're back on this old chestnut again.

If it wasn't for the fact that the consequences of this fixation with "free trade" was so damaging for Britain as a nation there would be some sort of delicious irony in the fact that "free trade" conservatives will be the authors of their own destruction. However, their destruction will also mean the destruction of this nation and its people.

Free trade does not exist. It is questionable whether it is even possible (or desirable) to attain free trade within a national economy, but it most certainly is not possible beyond national borders.

For free trade to exist you have to have identical conditions for trade between the two trading parties - not mostly similar or relatively close conditions - they have to be identical. If they are not then one or other party will have a "penalty" and the trade can not be free.

As I said, this is pretty hard to achieve even within the national context. There are still regional discrepancies and so trade is never really free within national borders - but at least you can have a single government that can make those conditions as similar as it is possible to be.

But when you are talking about two different nations with two different governments with widely differing approaches to trade then "free trade" is nothing of the sort - and if those conditions of trade offer one of those nations such a massive advantage that you can not compete with it then it is in your national interest to impose conditions on trade with that nation.

If you don't then you are effectively giving up on your national economy. Other nations will take advantage of that and plunder your nation for what they can get. They'll sell you whatever they can and buy up whatever they want - until you've got nothing left to offer them at which point they'll leave you and go elsewhere.

Get disconnected

Over on The Telegraph comment section, Philip Johnston (or it could be Philip Johston - The Telegraph doesn't seem to be sure of his name) wonders if the decline in voter turnout might have something to do with the reluctance of politicians to get out and mingle.

Mr Johnston (or Johston) refers to his son who is eligible to vote for the first time, but may not bother to do so. When asked why not his son told him that he felt .....

..... none of the political parties actually listened to the electorate, but rather conducted a debate among themselves and with the media that excluded the rest of the population.

Mr Johnston's son strikes me as being a very astute young man - because he is exactly right. As Johnston goes on to note himself, politicians are very quick to jump on any technological bandwagon that comes along from television to Twittter - but the more they do so the less they connect with the people. When they do appear in public - as Mr Johnston notes as well - it is carefully stage managed to avoid any embarrassment. So "public" meetings are nothing of the sort, but actually stuffed full of party activists and sympathetic journalists.

The trouble with politicians today is that they are so keen to prove just how hip and trendy they are and so desperate to demonstrate how much they love technology that they've forgotten some of the basic fundamentals of human interaction - trust. And they forget that trust is built by real person to person contact and not through electronic media.

However, even though I think Johnston ha hit the nail on the head with regards to the lack of trust and belief in politicians, there is something else which is missing. The other observation that Mr. Johnston's son makes is this ......

Why bother voting if you feel it cannot make a difference?

This is perhaps the most fundamental point of all. People have stopped voting because, regardless of who they vote for, they get the same government. They get the same government because all the main political parties are all the same. The media and political activists love to make a big fuss over the "differences" between Labour and Tories - but those differences are nothing more than minor discrepancies over how to implement a policy - not about the actual policy itself.

The question is, are those parties all the same because they don't bother getting out and meeting real people anymore or are they not getting out and meeting people because they have nothing to say that is different?

Who knows. What I am pretty sure of, though, is that politicians need to disconnect themselves from their cosy little Westminster world and do more to connect with people face to face and not through a wire.

A good start

So another member of the body set up to advise the government on drugs has resigned.

Good. Now would be a good time to be shutting down pointless and unnecessary quangos - let's start with this one.

Desperate to find a difference

The argument over the Labour and Tory plans for NI demonstrates just how pathetic our politics has become.

First of all, of course lots of "business leaders" support the Tory plans. On the whole, businesses support anything that means lower costs to them - but their opinions are no more worthy or valid than anybody else's so it really isn't relevant.

Secondly, in terms of the deficit and debt faced by this country, the sums we're talking about are trivial. It might sound like a lot - anything with the word "billion" after it always does - but it isn't really. That's the trouble when currencies reach the situation we have now - people lose all sense of value.*

Finally, the Tories are not proposing to reduce NI - only not to raise it by quite so much as Labour. Fundamentally, they are not arguing over the general idea - just over the scale of the idea - which demonstrates, once again, just how similar the two parties are.

It also demonstrates how desperate our political media is to find something to distinguish Labour and Tory policy - that they cling on to this minor quibble as if it is something of great importance while, in the grand scheme of things, it's very, very minor. In terms of our economy, it's like fighting over a farthing in the gutter while pouring hundreds of pounds down the drain.

* Which is why I believe we need to revalue our currency so that £10 becomes £1 - to bring back a sense of value to money. Consider this, if you've got £100 and spend £10 - you still have £90 left. That's a lot of money, right?

But if you only have £10 and spend £1 - you only have nine quid left. It's the same proportion, but suddenly it doesn't sound so much and you're much more likely to watch what you spend. Of course, this isn't a popular idea in a consumption based economy.

Big state or "big society"? It's the same thing when government is involved

So Dave has revealed his grand plan and what makes him "different" from Brown. Dave's going to replace the "big state" with a "big society". Yay!

Oh dear, oh dear. Is that it? Really? Is that what all those Cameron supporters are pinning their hopes on?

Because, when you strip it down, all Cameron is proposing is a big state through different means. All he is offering is more quangos and more fake charities gobbling up government funding (our money) to pay for various government initiatives. In other words - it is exactly the same thing that we've been getting for the last 13 years under Blair and Brown.

Cameron claims that this is a "bottom up" process - but he is wrong. He is wrong for two reasons. First of all, in a bottom up process, the "community" decide what they want and decide how they will fund it. There is no government involvement whatsoever - but under his plan the community may decide what they want, but government will decide whether it is acceptable and will decide how it is funded.

Forget the fact that the decision may be made by some regional authority or "charity" and that the funding may not come directly from a government department - it is the same thing with a different name.

The second thing to bear in mind is that we do not have society because we have a government - we have a government because we have society. This is essentially the problem for the socialist ideology because they attempt to model society to what they want which, ultimately, can not happen.

A society is a group of people with shared values, mutual interests and a common culture. There are obviously levels of society - both geographical and class - but the ultimate conclusion of that society is the nation state. It can not go beyond that - as I have said many times before - because there isn't a group of people with the shared values, mutual interests and common culture beyond the nation state.

Government does not make society. It can not make society. All it can do is impose state directives on a society - i.e. big government. Dave's idea sounds different - but it isn't. It's the same thing with a different name.

Much like the Tory and Labour parties.

Understanding the "anti-bullying" process

The revelation that a six year old girl suffered sexual and physical abuse over a sustained period at the hands of her class mates in a Welsh school should, quite rightly, send shivers of shock and revulsion through every parents spine.

How can such a thing happen in a British school today?

Well, although I am as shocked as anyone, I am not the least bit surprised. I've had some experience of the modern school "anti-bullying" processes and I can tell you that their priorities are not what you might think. The first thing to recognise is that the process is not designed to identify the bullies or, even if it inadvertently does, punish anyone. The whole process is designed to make sure that everyone in authority has their backside covered and can not be blamed.

In terms of "concern" the priorities run something like this ...

Top comes the school, then the head teacher, then the department head, then individual teachers, then the bullies and finally - getting the least consideration in the process - the victim.

It's vital to understand that if you are to understand the modern way of dealing with bullying. The point is not to deal with bullying, but to demonstrate that the school "takes bullying seriously" and has "robust" procedures. Ultimately, the point of a school's anti-bullying process is to demonstrate that the school does not have a bullying problem.

Consequently, low level bullying goes on without censure or punishment and gradually ramps up over time until something like the incident at the top of this post happens - at which point the regional authority process kicks in and we hear that "lessons have been learned".

And most of the time it is the victim who is punished by being forced to find a new school and make new friends while the bullies - and those who allowed it to happen in the first place - continue as if nothing has happened.