Ranting Stan's Irrational Hatred Of The Week: Headlamp Fetish

Driving along a pretty country road and a beautiful late spring evening with the sun low in the sky last week I was briefly dazzled by the light as I approached the crest of a hill. It wasn't the sunlight, though, it was some idiot driving along in broad daylight with his headlights on.

Why? It wasn't dark. It wasn't raining. It wasn't even a dull, overcast and gloomy day. It was a perfect English evening, bright with light and blessed with sunshine - so why was this fool driving around with his headlamps on?

It wasn't even one of those silly Swedish jobs which only run when you have the sidelights turned on. Did he think I wouldn't see him otherwise? I managed to see all those other cars driving around without their headlights on and I managed to see all those parked cars OK - so why would I not be able to see this car?

I'm seeing more and more people driving around in perfectly good light and weather with their lights on. and it drives me bananas. Headlamps, used inappropriately, are distracting and can dazzle other road users - particularly these days with these very bright halogen bulbs. Why do they do it?

It's beyond me, but I hate it

That went well, then

A couple of weeks after Dave heralded the coalition as a new type of politics and we're already hearing about members of the new Cabinet up to the same old tricks.

David Laws says it was because he wanted to keep his relationship with his partner secret - and in doing so decided it was OK to defraud the taxpayer out of £40,000.

This wasn't even a case of Laws working "within the rules" as it has been against the rules since 2006 to make payments to MPs partners. Laws tries to excuse this by saying that he didn't think it applied to him - a remarkable claim that suggests Laws is either very, very stupid or a lying, conniving git.

Either way, I don't think that sort of person should be serving in government let alone in The Treasury.

It'll be interesting to see what Dave will do now. After all, he's made a big thing out of cleaning up dodgy expense claims from MPs in his own party - except for close allies and himself of course - so it will be fascinating to see what he will do with an MP in his Cabinet from a different party.

It's crunch time for Clegg too. Laws is something of a rising star in Lib Dem world - which says a lot about the Lib Dem party - and Clegg will find himself somewhere between a rock and a hard place. Will he back the sacking of a Lib Dem colleague or will he defend the "next big thing" in Liberal Democrat politics? Either way he is going to upset some people in his own party.

Laws has been "credited" with being the chief architect behind the £6 billion of cuts introduced as if this is something of a good thing. Personally, I think that someone at such a high level in the government drilling down to such excruciating levels of detail is a signal that that person is too focused on micro-management and unable to see the bigger picture - something which is all too common in government today.

It's not surprising, though. I've been saying for years that the three main parties are the same in terms of overall policy and only differ on minor details - so it is likely that they will tend to focus on detail when they are in government.

Consumerism is the new opium of the masses

Religion, as Karl Marx once claimed, was the opiate of the people.

What he was trying to say is that religion fills a void in people's lives when they become disaffected and disillusioned - unhappy - and creates an "illusion" of happiness.

Of course, Marx, being a revolutionary atheist, didn't understand that what religion - or, specifically, Christianity - actually did was provide the comfort and contentment through which people attain real happiness rather than an illusion of it.

However, in our modern world where Christianity has been all but abolished by secular atheist militancy, it is no surprise that people turned to other things to try and fill the voids in their lives and provide the contentment and comfort which leads to happiness. And, as is the way of the modern world, the people didn't turn to something which requires thought, discipline and time but turned instead for quick fixes.

For a lot of people that means real drugs - hard drugs - but for many millions more they use something else. They use the quick fix of consumerism. Go out and buy something and, for a brief, fleeting moment you will attain happiness. What else explains the reaction to the launch of Apple's iPad - with people queueing up overnight to buy one and describing themselves as "elated"?

It's a quick fix to a problem that won't go away. The "high" induced by buying something new will quickly wash away and the consumer junkie will be compelled to go out and find their next "fix" as they search for that elusive peace and contentment which so many people find is missing from their lives.

Consumerism has become the new opium for the masses - but unlike religion which really can provide comfort and contentment, consumerism creates a truly illusory delusion of happiness and one which requires ever higher dosages to fill the void. It is also certain, ultimately, to fail.

As a nation we've turned to consumerism as a quick fix to the problem of attaining happiness. We build our temples in the form of out of town shopping malls - ever larger, ever more grand - and worship at the altar of our new gods - Ikea, Next, Sony and so on - every Saturday and Sunday. We give generously of our wealth in return for a shiny, new possession which we will display and worship at home.

Welcome to the new secular atheist religion - the new opium for the people. Unlike Christianity, it won't help you achieve happiness and you'll end up deep in debt, but at least you'll be able to be miserable comfortably. For a while, anyway.

Even really clever people can be stupid

I'm a big admirer of James Dyson - a man who carries on a long and proud British tradition for invention and innovation - but his comment piece in today's Telegraph demonstrates that even really clever people are incapable of thinking things through sometimes.

Dyson makes the now traditional call for Britain to lead the world in science and technology. I say "traditional" because it's been going on ever since Harold Wilson bragged about the "white heat of technology" and promptly started the systematic destruction of our arms industry which was in the fore front of that "white heat". As Dyson asks ....

"Why is it that only in war will governments recognise the contribution of science and technology?"

Dyson is talking about the failure of the Air Ministry to recognise the potential of Frank Whittle's jet engine during peace time, but Dyson ignores the fact that the Air Ministry is not "government". Their failure to back development of such a revolutionary idea was primarily due to two things - the first being the fact that the Air Ministry was run by men rooted in First World War ideas and the second being government cuts to defence budgets and the policy of "appeasement".

But that's not my main complaint about Dyson's comments. What really annoys me is that Dyson seems to think that coming up with ideas is enough in its own right. It isn't.

My point is this. Although Whittle's idea was ignored for a decade, when Britain finally did decide to back the jet engine it had the engineering know how to develop it and the industrial base to manufacture it. Even though we started serious work on producing a jet fighter long after the Germans had the RAF still managed to have their first operational jet fighter in service around the same time as the Luftwaffe.

Dyson goes on to say that the new government must encourage new ideas in science and technology. My response is to ask why? I'm sure he would think I were mad for asking this - and I suspect he is not alone, but think about it. Where are Dyson vacuum cleaners made? Not in Britain.

Coming up with ideas is not enough if it is other countries that take advantage of those ideas. Dyson demands that we learn the lesson of Frank Whittle's jet engine - but he hasn't learned it himself. For us to take advantage of those ideas we need to have people who can turn an idea into a practical concept and then we need factories and workers to manufacture those goods.

The fact that Dyson chooses to make his products in some country other than Britain demonstrates that we are not in a position to do that. He does this because it is cheaper to employ people wherever it is he makes his vacuum cleaners these days and because they are able to provide him with the labour he needs to do repetitive manufacturing work in his factories.

The truth is that we can not all be great inventors, precision engineers and research scientists. A nation needs to get the balance right. Of course it needs to provide the environment and facilities in which technical innovation can flourish, but it also needs to provide an education system that finds the brightest and the best and enables them to rise to the top.

This is done through a process called selection and a system known as "elitism" - but both of these things are abhorred in modern social liberal Britain where equality of outcome is considered more important than equality of opportunity. The point to selection is that you discover at an early age who has the most potential and the point of elitism is that you make sure those people fulfil their potential.

But even then that isn't enough. What is the point of coming up with brilliant inventions when Britain just can not compete with those foreign countries where the labour pool is massive, the wages are cheap and the working conditions are less ..... regulated. That means that we can not have the factories and plants filled with workers producing the goods we develop and that is why Dyson has his factories somewhere else.

That gives us a choice. Either we change our welfare system and industrial regulation so that we can compete with those foreign workers in developing nations - employing children, slave labour wages, dangerous working conditions, 15 hour days with no breaks and so on - or we do something to protect our industry at the borders.

I know which I prefer.

Banking on a loser

Do you have a bank account?

I do and I suspect that pretty much every British subject of working age does too.

My dad, on the other hand, went through his entire life without a bank account. He did have a building society savings account - he had to have one to get a mortgage - but only ever had just one account - and this was a man who didn't have a day off work from the day he was demobbed from the army to the day he retired.

My dad was paid weekly in cash. Once a week he would take his place in the queue for the payroll office and wait his turn to be handed a brown envelope stuffed with notes and coins. When he got home he'd hand the paypacket - unopened - to my mum who would check the deductions, hand dad back his weekly "allowance", take the money she needed for housekeeping and the rest would be set aside to pay bills. Whatever remained at the end of the week went into the savings account.

The routine remained the same for as long as I can remember - and probably went on long after I left home until my dad retired. My dad never had a bank account, never had a cheque book or credit card and never had any debt apart from his mortgage. If we needed something new it would wait until enough money was saved to pay for it. If there wasn't anything we needed then dad would use any excess savings he had to pay off part of his mortgage - although he always maintained a healthy "float" in his savings account for emergencies.

My dad was not untypical of people back then. Millions of people didn't have bank accounts - because they didn't need them. I'm not sure when this changed - my first job was paid weekly in cash and, although I had to have a bank account for my second job I later went on to have other jobs that paid weekly in cash - it was probably the mid eighties when paying weekly started to go out of fashion.

And then, later again (mid nineties?), you had to have a bank account to receive benefits. So, whether you are in work or on benefits, these days you need to have a bank account. This has created a couple of problems.

The first is the most obvious one - the credit bubble. The sudden proliferation of bank accounts - these days most people have multiple accounts with different banks - meant that the banks were suddenly awash with money. The more money banks have the more they tend to lend so credit became more readily available and, of course, more people took advantage of it. The result of all that is the economic mess we have today.

The second problem is less obvious, but a problem nonetheless. The problem is that, because we are required to have a bank account banks have a guaranteed pool of customers - plus they have a guaranteed pool of potential new customers coming along each year as children leave school and start work or claim benefits.

Why is this a problem? Because it means that banks do not have to work so hard at winning customers or keeping them. They know that you and I HAVE to have a bank account and so we will use them whether we want to or not. You can't call it a monopoly as such, but it does amount to something of a cartel and while cartels are not necessarily bad, when it comes to banking they aren't particularly good either.

The situation hasn't been helped by the fact that so many building societies converted to banks and were then subsequently gobbled up by bigger corporations. So, not only is there a cartel, but the cartel is dominated by just a few organisations.

None of this is good for competition or customers. Speaking personally, I've been with the same bank for thirty years and the service I receive now is staggeringly bad compared to that which I received when I was 20 years old! My original branch was closed down. The branch they moved my account to was closed down and the branch I am with now is so hard to access that even an hour lunch break isn't enough for a "quick visit".

The personal letters I received from my bank manager - some nice, some not so nice but all of them relevant and personal to me and signed in ink by the manager - have been replaced with computer generated junk mail for services I don't want or have. When I do want to speak to someone I have to go through an impersonal automated call centre system where I end up speaking to someone whose first language isn't English and who usually can not help me first time anyway. And when I call back I get someone totally different and have to explain the whole thing afresh only to get cut off and find I have to repeat the procedure again and again. I'd write a letter, but I have no idea who to write to or where to send it.

Some days I long for the simple life my dad had. Just give me a weekly paypacket full of notes and coins and I'll manage without the bank account from a bank that couldn't give a damn.

One size doesn't fit all

When the previous mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, decided to get rid of the Routemaster double decker buses and replace them with continental style, articulated bendy buses he forgot the reason why we had double decker buses in the first place. I say "forgot" - the chances are that he never knew in the first place, so, just in case anyone else was wondering the reason was simple.

British roads - and particularly London roads - were just too small. What was needed was a vehicle that could carry seventy or more people while being able to negotiate the multitude of tight, narrow corners and streets that proliferate in England's capital city. Consequently, they had to be short and narrow - by bus standards - but they could be tall as most bridges allowed clearance for a horse drawn carriage with a driver sitting atop carrying a driving whip in the upright position - hence double decker buses and thus an icon of Britain was born.

The vehicles were, of course, designed and built in Britain - for two reasons. Firstly, because we had the industrial base and technical know how to do it then and secondly, because British designers understood British requirements and nowhere was this more apparent than in car design.

American car designers were able to build large cars which suited their wide, straight roads. French car designers tended to concentrate on soft, long travel suspension to make driving over rutted cart tracks which proliferated in rural France less arduous and German designers concentrated on over engineering everything to the nth degree as they always have done because Germans are obsessed with such things.

In Britain, we made cars to suit British roads and this meant - on the whole, small and nimble. However, since globalisation we no longer have such diversity and choice. Everything is made pretty much for the some fictional ideal that only exists in the world of advertising. So the BMW 3 series is now more than seven inches wider than it was in 1992.

It's hardly surprising that more and more minor scrapes and accidents are happening on British roads with such large machines roaming around the countryside. Add on the fact that many of our roads have been narrowed to accommodate painted "cycle lanes" and are clogged with parked cars - many of which park on the pavement making it difficult for pedestrians to get by - and you can see why these accidents happen.

It also explains why few of us bother to put our cars in our garages anymore - they just don't bloody well fit! My garage was built in the seventies and, while it may have been wide enough to fit a Cortina into and still allow space for the driver to get out, the only way I could have got my Alfa in was if I climbed out of the sunroof (which it didn't have, so I couldn't have done).

However, since the Alfa was totalled last winter by a brainless idiot who thought (or didn't think) that just because he had a four wheel drive he could drive two yards behind my car in snow and ice and still be able to stop in time (he couldn't), I've been making do with a 1989 Ford Escort which fits in the garage nicely.

It also explains why parking spaces seem a lot smaller these days than they used to - and why my Alfa, despite me never personally having put one dent, scratch or mark on it - was covered in various dings and scrapes from other people opening their doors carelessly in car parks.

Actually, going off at tangent for a moment, that reminds me of something which sums up Britain today. I remember years ago when my mother and I returned to her ancient and battered Ford Anglia sitting in a car park in Maidenhead to find a note under the windscreen wiper. It had been left by a gentleman who had inadvertently clipped the bumper of the Anglia while reversing his car out of the space beside it. The note apologised and gave the gentleman's phone number along with an offer to pay for any damage.

To be honest, the bumper was already crooked and dented and it was hard to see any new damage, but when my mother called the gentleman and said that there really was no need to pay he nevertheless insisted and consequently sent a £20 postal order to my mother (it was a long time ago and that was a lot of money then). We didn't get the bumper fixed, but it did go a long way to paying for the family holiday that year!

It was symptomatic of those times - when people owned up and took responsibility. I've never had anyone own up to damaging my car in a car park despite the fact it has happened on at least half a dozen occasions. I think that is symptomatic of our times.

Anyway, back to my original point - the fact that one size doesn't fit all. That not only did we used to have cars designed specifically for the needs and requirements of British roads, but we also used to have laws designed to suit the British legal system; we had regulation to suit and benefit British industry; we had rules that made sense for British businesses and we had societal institutions that were tailored to meet the needs and requirements of the British people, its customs, traditions and quirks of constitution and culture.

Just as continental bus design doesn't suit British roads and cities so do a lot of EU inspired regulations, directives and laws fail to meet the needs of Britain. The countries of Europe are as diverse and different as chalk and cheese and it simply isn't possible to have a one size fits all approach to them all. It's stupid to even try, but it's even more stupid to insist it can work when common sense and evidence of your own eyes tells you it doesn't.

Quote of the day

OK, it's an old quote but just as appropriate today.

"Happy Victoria Day, the day we honour an old queen by giving her not a moment's thought. A year or two back, some professor thought we should change Victoria Day to Heritage Day to "strengthen our heritage." We strengthen our heritage by obliterating it, apparently. "

Of course, we do not strengthen our heritage by obliterating it. What this sort of thing is supposed to do is enable a different kind of "heritage" to take precedent over the established heritage - and hence the relentless machine of "multiculturalism" grinds on, it's purpose to obliterate the glories from the past and only to remind us of the bad we did before progressive liberalism opened our eyes to the "truth".

Thus children are taught that British sailors endured weevils in their bread and rough punishment, but not that the Royal Navy was the spearhead by which the British Empire rid the world of the abomination that was slavery - an abomination which, in case people forget, was in place long before Britain was a nation in its own right and has since resurfaced since traditional conservatism was replaced by social liberalism.

People like myself are criticised for harking back to some golden age of the Victorian era as if we want to take Britain back to the "good old days" of workhouses, rickets and horse drawn carts - but the reality is that people like myself seek only to remind people that the Victorian era was a time when modernity worked hand in hand with traditional conservatism and created the environment that resulted in greater social progress for the majority of people than at any other time in history.

In other words, traditional conservatives are not afraid of change, progress or technology - we just recognise that real progress comes by applying change and using technology in conservative ways.

It's liberal progressivism that has taken us back decades in terms of societal progress, education, health, industry and morality - and we're far more likely to end up with poor houses, rickets and horse drawn carts if we stick with it than if we restore traditional conservative values. Given a choice between the golden age of Victoriana or the seething cesspit of immorality, crime and truly grinding poverty that preceded it I'll choose Victoria any day of the week.

You can't beat a cuppa

In case anyone was wondering why I haven't posted much in the last few days - it isn't because I haven't been around. True, I did spend most of the weekend out and about enjoying the glorious weather - is there anywhere better than England in spring time when the sun is shining? I don't think so (mind you, I don't think there is anywhere better than England whatever the weather) - but I've had plenty of opportunity to post.

The truth is that I just haven't felt motivated to write anything. Oh, I still get annoyed that the mainstream media make such a big fuss over Osborne's plans to cull quangos to the tune of half a billion quid - like that makes the slightest bit of difference - and I'm still frustrated by the trivial coverage of the coalition which calls itself "journalism" - but I've said plenty on those points over the last couple of weeks and there doesn't seem much point on banging on about it relentlessly. No doubt I shall return to these issues in the near future, but for now I've said all I have to say.

Instead I'll content myself with singing the praises of that great British institution - the cup of tea.

When I was a kid my mother always used to tell me that the best thing to revive you and cool you down on a hot sunny day was not an ice lolly or a bottle of fizzy pop, but a nice cup of tea. To my immature mind this seemed ludicrous - how on earth was drinking a hot drink supposed to cool you down? It didn't make sense to me - and the mechanics of it still don't.

But she was right. Over the weekend I tried various beverages - ice cold lager, a cool pint of real ale, ice cream cornets and lollies - but the one thing that seems to really work was a cup of tea. You really can not beat a good cup of tea for quenching the thirst and reviving your hot sweaty limbs. That a good, strong hot cup of tea is equally good at warming you up on a cold day as it is at cooling you down on a hot sunny day is testament to the remarkable properties of this outstanding beverage.

Time for a brew, I think.

Ranting Stan's Sunday Drive: Alvis TE21

It's been a glorious late May weekend here in Slough - the sort of weekend that makes you wish you had a convertible car to waft around in.

Not that long ago, British manufacturers could have supplied you with a plethora of drop dead gorgeous drop top models to choose from - from the utlilitarian but wonderfully fun Moggy Minor to rampant beasts like the E Type Jaguar and everything in between.

The Alvis TE21 didn't slot between those two examples above - instead it stood apart from just about anything else on the market. Everything about it screamed class - but it wasn't just a very well put together and very desirable motor car, it had a five speed gearbox, 130 bhp (later 150 bhp) and a suspension you could adjust from the dashboard.

Built in Coventry by a company more famous these days for putting tanks together, the TE21 had an equally impressive presence and air of solidity as the Challenger II does today - but it was also unbelievably beautiful.

In our modern world where cars tend to be bog standard conservative or utterly vulgar and model development is focus grouped into oblivion such a machine could not exist today. I'm just glad it once did and that it was British, although - could it have been anything else?

New Model Tories

It's telling that the day after the coalition published its manifesto -which, incidentally, nobody had the opportunity to vote for or against - Dave has penned an article telling us that he remains a Conservative.

And I believe him.

The trouble is, the Conservative Party is a conservative party in the same way that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is democratic. - in other words, it isn't - and Dave knows this which is why he calls himself a progressive and has branded the coalition with the Lib Dems as a "progressive alliance".

Since Cameron took over the leadership of the Conservative Party he has pushed through the changes initiated by the likes of Howard and purged the Tory Party of any last semblance of conservatism. They are now the New Model Tories and they are not the party that the majority of people who voted for them thought they were.

Curiously though, those people who voted in this copy of Blair's "New Labour" are uncommonly quiet about the fact that they have been led up the garden path.

Where are all those people who were telling me "just wait till Cameron gets in" and "he has to do this to become PM"? Well, he got in, he is PM and he is exactly the same as he was before.

No - that's not fair. He isn't exactly the same as he was before because now he has thrown away any pretence at being a conservative. Now he's our Prime Minister he is all progressive this and progressive that - talking about "radical change" and "moving on" and other meaningless progressive phrases.

Almost eleven million people voted Tory at the election - they might just as well have voted Lib Dem or Labour because that is what they have got. And yet, for some reason, they refuse to admit they were wrong even though they privately know they were.

Give it a couple of years and I doubt whether you'll be able to find many people who admit to voting for Cameron in 2010 - just like few people admit to voting for Blair. It doesn't really matter - because those people know they voted for Cameron and they know that they voted for a fraud.

I did keep trying to tell people that is what they would get - because Cameron's whole campaign was built on a monumental fraud. The only thing we weren't sure of is whether it would be the fraud of pretending to be progressive when he really was a conservative or the fraud of being conservative when he is really progressive.

Well, now we know that it was the latter. You people voted for a man who was deliberately perpetrating a deceit in the vain hope that he was deceiving the enemy. He was - but his enemy was conservatism.

Just what we need - more quangos!

Hooray!

We're saved!

The ConDem coalition have released their "radical" new document that tells us how they will save Britain - and how will they do it?

More quangos, more agencies, more devolving of power from elected representatives to appointed authorities.

Seriously, the document is vacuous drivel - full of noble sounding phrases which, on examination, amount to precisely nothing. For instance, they promise not to join the euro for the lifetime of this parliament.

Big deal! At best, this parliament is going to last five years - but it's by no means certain that the euro is going to! It's a bit like someone sitting in a lifeboat declaring that they won't climb aboard the Titanic while it's sinking.

They talk about how reducing the deficit is the biggest single issue - but reducing the deficit is never going to be nearly enough. All that will do is reduce the rate at which our debt is growing - it does nothing to reduce the debt itself.

The document is devoid of detail and utterly lacking in direction. I've mentioned before how Clegg and Cameron look and sound like a couple of public school sixth formers trying to be grown up and "adult" - well this document is the sort of thing such sixth formers would come up with.

They might win a school prize for it, but no one would take it seriously.

Be wary of those who meddle with the constitution

We all know that Britain has an "unwritten" constitution. All that means is that our constitution is not written down in one single document, but is actually made up from a number of other documents - Magna Carta, Habeus Corpus, Bill Of Rights, Act of Union etc.

Some people are critical of this claiming that a single written constitutional document would make the constitution clearer to the people and not so dependent on constitutional experts to decipher. Such a view is clearly rubbish as many other nations have written constitutions but still require constitutional experts to make sense of the legal technicalities - often defying logic in the process.

The British constitution is what I would call an organic constitution - i.e. it developed slowly, steadily over centuries and is therefore part of the very fabric of the nation. How can I explain this clearly?

The problem with written constitutions is that somebody has to write them.

Perhaps the best analogy I can come up with is this - an unwritten constitution is like an autobiography while a written constitution is like a biography. An unwritten constitution is created by the people while a written constitution is written "for" the people - and this is why I believe that our constitution is the best we could have or hope for as it derives from the nation and people rather than from a selected or self-appointed group.

We also need to consider why we have a constitution - written or unwritten. The principle point of a national constitution is to impose limitations on the power and authority of government.

This is a crucial point to consider when you hear people talking glibly about "constitutional reform" - because nobody in power changes a constitution to give themselves less power or impose further restraints on how that power is exercised. The first thing Hitler did on becoming Chancellor was introduce "constitutional reform" with an Enabling Act.

Now consider this. Since Magna Carta was signed in 1215 there were just eight constitutional reform acts in 500 years - and most of these coincided with major changes such as the Act of Union in 1707.

We have had as many constitutional reform acts since Labour came to power just 13 years ago as there were in those 500 years since Magna Carta. Labour even managed to introduce as many constitutional changes in their 13 years as were managed in the previous 70 years - and the 20th century was the busiest period in our history for meddling with the constitution!

People who meddle with a constitution as frequently as this do so because they have little understanding of it and absolutely no respect for what it represents. Worse still, they invariably do so because the existing constitution prevents them from doing what they want to do - i.e. it places constraints on their power which is the whole point of the constitution in the first place.

In simple terms it comes down to this. A leader wants to introduce something, but his legal advisers tell him that he can not do this because the constitution forbids it - so the leader changes the constitution. That is power grabbing.

Anyone who changes the constitution when there is no major reason to do so is only making that change because the constitution as it exists limits their power. At best, those people are authoritarian in nature - at worst, they are dictatorial.

Neither is very British.

Feeble and pointless

The big argument between Labour and the Tories during the election was whether to cut spending immediately or wait a bit. The Labour party argument was that cutting spending now may harm the "recovery" while the Tories claimed it was vital to make cuts at the earliest opportunity to boost confidence.

To be honest, my own personal views crossed into both camps. Cuts in public spending are absolutely essential if we are ever going to get out of this economic mire the Labour Party have landed us in, but you either cut hard or don't bother - and a measly £6 billion off of a deficit of £165 billion is not going to make a blind bit of difference.

Remember, this is not making any difference to our growing debt problem - we're talking about the budget deficit here, not the national debt. In other words, we're talking about knocking a tiny off of the amount we're overspending. The 6 billion quid that Osborne hopes to save will be swallowed up by interest payments on the amount he is still having to borrow.

Think of it this way - your credit cards are almost maxed out, but each month you are still putting another £165 on them and all you resolve to do is cut that to £159 a month - and you still get clobbered for another £80 in interest.

It's as pointless spending £6 billion less in the government terms as it is spending £6 less in that scenario I just mentioned - it is nothing, It is a feeble and pointless amount and Osborne may as well not bother. And thanks to the coalition with the Lib Dems, the Tories have abandoned their plans to cut the taxes that might have given some stimulation to the economy (the £10,000 tax threshold will not make a difference if employers are still getting hammered on National Insurance).

My view is that you either cut now and cut substantially - I mean 50% or more not 3,5% - and plough many of those savings into tax cuts or you leave alone and take the opportunity to borrow money while you can to start investing in the things that will ensure your future - industry, infrastructure and energy - because, sooner or later, Britain will default on that debt or face hyper inflation (or both) and then nothing will make a difference.

Men of no substance

It must be obvious to even the most ardent conservative pre-election supporter of David Cameron that the man is an unrepentant social liberal by now, but I wonder if they are now aware of just how ignorant he is too?

By ignorant, I do not mean uneducated - it is quite obvious that Mr. Cameron has had the most lavish education money can buy - but it is one thing to educate someone and something else for that person to be able to use that education.

And is only ignorant people who brush aside a centuries old constitution to introduce something as unconstitutional and anti-democratic as the fixed five year parliamentary term and the requirement of a 55% majority in the House of Commons to force an election before that time.

I've not mentioned this before, because it was always obvious to me that Cameron is no defender of Britain and therefore no defender of our constitution - I'm just keen to know what Tory voters who thought I was wrong about this think now.

I know that there are traditional conservatives who read this blog and voted for Cameron in the belief that he was only playing the social liberal game until he was in power - but the first thing he does when he achieves that power is jump into bed with the nearest social liberal he can find and embark on the continuation of the vandalism of our historic constitution begun by New Labour.

What do you people think now?

I'm not trying to say "I told you so" - even though I did - I just want to know that there are real conservatives out there who are prepared to say "this is not what I Tory voted for".

Otherwise, what is the point?

The new snobbery

For as long as I can remember, I've been hearing various women's rights campaigners telling me that it is OK for a man to have a woman manager or to have to deal with women in authority - and, to be honest, it's never really bothered me.

Over my working life I've had several female managers and several male managers. Some have been good, some have been bad - but I've also had regular dealings with women in authority too. Some of those have been clients of the company I work for and some have been people I had to deal with in public services - teachers and the like. It's never really bothered me that the person I had to deal with was not the same gender as me. I'm a grown up and I deal with people in grown up ways regardless of what gender they are.

But having spent the last 40 years of my life being told - by women - that it should not matter if the person in authority is not the same gender as me, why are so many of the sort of women who would make that assertion now be telling me that it matters to women that the person in authority is not the same gender as them?

Either it doesn't matter or it does - which is it? Why are men required to put up and shut up if the person in authority is female, but women are supposed to make a big deal of it if the person in authority is a man?

This is the big problem with progressives - they claim one thing and then deny the opposite. It's discrimination if you only employ men, but it's equality if you only employ women. It's racist to deny black people opportunities, but it's good practice to deny white people opportunities. It's homophobic to not include gays, but it's perfectly OK to exclude heterosexuals.

To any sensible adult these things should not matter - it can only matter if you are a racist, sexist, bigoted snob.

Nice to know they're listening to me

I understand that the 500 euro note (about £430) is to be withdrawn from circulation as it turns out that 90% of them were tainted by criminal activity.

It's quite gratifying to realise that the powers that be are actually listening to yours truly ;)

It is, I suppose, an example of the law of unintended consequences, but I wonder if it is in fact possible to devise a system better suited to money laundering than the euro currency?

Jobs for the boys

Perception is a funny thing.

I listened to the joint Con-Dem press conference from the garden of Downing Street yesterday on the radio rather than watch it on television and was, frankly, appalled by the jokey, matey nature displayed by the two men who are supposed to lead us back to prosperity.

However, the media reports of the press conference were almost gushing in their praise for Clegg and Cameron. Had I missed something?

So I watched it later and my first thoughts were not just confirmed - they were reinforced. It wasn't just the inappropriate levity on display at a time when seriousness and gravity was called for, it was that both men appeared to be so lightweight both politically and intellectually.

They looked like boys. They talked like boys.

Neither man said nothing of note or worth - except for Cameron when he mentioned that this was a "progressive alliance". They talked without knowing what they were saying - they just strung together vacuous phrases which it was clear they neither understood or really even bothered to think about.

We're always hearing about the infantilising of society, but even I had realised just how bad it has got. When the leaders of our nation are behaving and looking like a couple of sixth formers let off the leash by the headmaster then you know we've got something to worry about - just about the only thing missing was that they didn't start flicking each other with wet towels.

And back to that "progressive alliance" thing.

Come on Tory voters - don't tell me you didn't notice it. Your dear leader has sold out your principles for that of the opposition. I've known that for years, but when Dave actually said it the blatant confirmation that the Tory party is no longer conservative sent a cold shiver down my spine. God only knows what it did to those who thought Dave was going to get in to Downing Street before throwing off his "mild mannered"cloak and emerge as Dave the conservative superhero.

So I'd really like to know - all you people who have been saying to me "wait and see". I waited and I saw - and what I got was exactly what I expected. How about you?

In the end it's kind of appropriate that as Britain teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, the Union verges on collapse and society totters on the brink of anarchy we have a Con-Dem government.

What now, conservatives?

This is a question for all those people who kept telling me that Cameron really was a proper conservative and that we'd all see his true colours once he was Prime Minister.

Well, he's Prime Minister and we've already seen him sell out to the Liberal Democrats. So what now?

Do you still think Cameron is a conservative or have you now realised that he really is the "heir to Blair"?

And do you now understand that the party you support is closer to the philosophy of John Smith than it is to that of Margaret Thatcher?

Cameron has pulled off one of the greatest coups in modern times - not by becoming Prime Minister, but by fooling the Tory party into believing they were still a conservative party and capturing the last free-thinking political party for the progressive left.

Now he's openly thrown his lot in with the progressive left and revealed his true colours after all - and they have turned out to be another shade of red, not Tory blue.

So what now?

More constitutional vandalism, a parliament ever more detached from the people and a ruling elite who sneer at the things you believe in and that you thought they stood for.

So what now?

As one loser bows out, another slips in

So Gordon Brown - a man who never led his party to an election victory - stands down as Prime Minister and David Cameron - a man who has never led his party to an election victory - takes up the post.

Another "unelected" Prime Minister is incumbent at 10 Downing Street - do you think the press will give him the same sort of hard time they gave Gordon Brown for being "unelected" and never having won an election?

I don't.

But I will.

Rejected not elected

I'm not often in agreement with the Marxist John Reid, but this time he is right. All three parties were rejected by the electorate and none more so than the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties.

Which begs the question - why is it he can understand this yet so few other people in the political world can't?

There is no call for the parties to "work together" and there is no mandate for any of them to work independently. The message from the electorate is clear and unequivocal - and it is "we think all of you are useless".

A couple of quickies

Listening to various "experts" pontificating over the election, a couple of things have struck me over the last couple of days.

First of all, I keep hearing them say that the "people" have "decided" that we want the parties to work together. I don't see how they can draw that conclusion - millions of people voted for the various parties wanting to see the party they voted for gain an overall majority. We didn't "choose" this situation - it just arose because the three main parties are unelectable in their own right.

That's not the same as saying we want them to work together - it's saying we think they are all rubbish.

The second thing that struck me was supposedly intelligent and knowledgeable people talking about "unelected" Prime Ministers.

In the sense that they mean, we have never ever had an elected Prime Minister. The PM is chosen by the governing party - not the people. The person chosen as PM is usually (but not always) a member of the House of Commons and, therefore, elected.

It's a fundamental part of our parliamentary system and the fact that so many people fail to understand this is ridiculous. In some ways I shouldn't be surprised as the failure of our schools to teach anything about Britain or British history other than how awful we were has been evident for some time - but most of the people making these stupid statements about "unelected" Prime Ministers were educated a long time before our education system was turned into a left wing indoctrination programme.

It makes me wonder if they are being disingenuous rather than inaccurate. If they are, then they are deliberately seeking to mislead the people as much as the government is. If they aren't then they really should not be given the prominence they receive on national television and radio to peddle their lack of knowledge.

Call my bluff

Can anybody honestly say that the unedifying public auction for the support to govern the country from the party the people of Britain least wanted to govern the country is what they want for our future elections?

Because this will what it will be like in the future if we change our electoral system - except it will probably last for weeks or months each time and there will be frequent back room deals during the lifetime of a parliament.

What a system! What a disaster!

How can anyone think this would be a good thing?

Dithering and dodgy dealing

Five days after the country went to the polls and we still do not know who will govern our country or who will be Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the Tories and Lib Dem leaders continue to meet secretly to thrash out little deals to satisfy their personal ambitions or the ambitions of their parties while the big hitters of Labour put out constant probes and feelers to test the waters or to force the issues.

Welcome to the world of hung parliaments - a world of dithering, shady deals in secret meetings and murky, clandestine politicking. A world where manifesto pledges mean nothing and all that matters is for each party to negotiate their own little slice of pie. A world where support for the government is dependent on backroom deals and money pledged to the causes of the minor parties.

This is the world we will see more and more of if we go through with electoral reform and some version of proportional representation. You think your vote counts for nothing now? Wait till we have PR - then you'll know how little difference your vote makes!

Sure, you'll have a parliament that more accurately reflects the way the people voted nationally, but we do not elect MPs "nationally" - but constituency by constituency. You'll have no connection to the House of Commons, the parliament will be more detached and remote than ever and your vote will actually make even less difference than it does now.

Instead we'll have dodgy deals to support dithering governments. This is only the first stage. Once this is over and we have some sort of coalition government, then the real horse trading begins - day by day, week by week, vote by vote - and none of this will have the government we want - just the government the political elite want.

How to ignore the electorate

I keep hearing politicians on all sides telling us how the electorate "has spoken" and that they have heard what they said - then go on to demonstrate that they have completely ignored the voice of the people.

They keep telling us that it is clear the people want "electoral reform" - but the two parties offering electoral reform were the ones who lost seats! There is only one clear message from that and this is that the electorate don't want electoral reform - or if they do, they don't want this pathetic bunch deciding what sort of electoral reform we get.

The other thing they are claiming that this election means is that the people want the parties to "work together". How do they work this out? The last time we had a hung parliament we had two political parties who were pretty much diametrically opposed to one another - was the conclusion drawn from that that the people wanted them to work together?

I don't think so - the one thing it does demonstrate is that the people have no faith in any of the parties to steer the nation through the coming economic storm. It is not a vote in favour of "consensus politics" or electoral reform - it's a vote of no confidence in the political parties of Great Britain.

Politics has been totally discredited - and the people who run our politics (including the media) are unable to see this. Instead they are portraying it as a vindication of all that they hold dear - a conclusion which can only be reached if you are completely and utterly detached from the people.

It's a lesson in how to ignore the people and a lesson to us all that our politicians are now so firmly perched in their ivory towers that they do not have the slightest idea what the people want or think.

There is nothing "unfair" about first past the post

Is it "unfair" that the horse that comes first in the Grand National is the winner?

And is it "unfair" that the bookies don't payout to the people who didn't back the winner?

Of course it isn't "unfair" - that is the system and our parliamentary and electoral system is first past the post. I'm getting a bit fed up of hearing various Lib Dem and Labour supporters of PR coming on television and being allowed to call this system of ours "unfair" without any challenge from the broadcasters.

For instance, in what way would it be "fairer" if the person who was the first choice candidate for more people in a constituency than any other was not the one elected to stand as that constituency's MP? Is that fair? Of course not.

The first thing to understand about our electoral system and the way our parliamentary democracy works is that it is based on an historic and important link between the people and parliament - the single MP constituency.

Every constituency has one MP and one MP only that they can send to parliament and the job of that MP is to represent the people of that constituency in parliament. There are flaws to this of course, not least the power of the party system through their whips to coerce reluctant dissenting party members - but we the people still retain that historic and very direct link to our government. Very few other systems can make the same claim.

Under a proportional representation system we can not have these single MP constituencies - because, as they are now, they are already "proportional". The candidate who gets the most vote also has the highest proportion of the vote - and so gets to sit in parliament. That is a fair proportional representation system is it not?

But what the Lib Dems and some Labour people want is something else - they want the number of seats in parliament to be decided by the number of votes cast nationally. You can not work this system and retain the historic and direct link between people and parliament - the only way to do it is to have a party list of candidates who get a seat depending on the national proportion of the vote.

What that will mean is that the parties will decide who gets to sit in parliament - not the people. For instance, I am in no way a Labour supporter, but I am always happy to see Frank Field elected to parliament. Under a party list system, Frank Field would be way down on the Labour list and would be unlikely to get a seat.

You have similar problems with STV, AV or AV+ - in particular, you will end up with MPs who are not first choice of most people, but MPs who are the least unfancied by most people. What a way to select the person to represent you in government.

To paraphrase Churchill, first past the post is the worst form of electoral system apart from all the others that have been tried. We can not change that system without fundamentally changing our entire parliamentary democracy - and that is a very dangerous thing to do, particularly given the track record of those who will be entrusted with this change.

But worst of all, changing that system will remove that very direct link between people and parliament. It will make government more remote, more detached and more inclined to act in the interest of government rather than the interest of the people or nation.

Is that really what you want?

I don't.

Politics is out of touch with the people

There can be no doubt that the British people have delivered a devastating critique of British politics at this election. The clear message is that the electorate are deeply unsatisfied with all of the main parties.

It was apparent right from the start of this campaign that the things which concerned the people of Britain were the dire state of the economy and rampant immigration, but the three main parties either avoided or skirted around the issues which concerned the electorate.

Not one party has put forward any coherent plan to tackle either the economy or immigration. With immigration, this isn't entirely surprising as all three remain committed to membership of the European Union - and as long as we remain part of that organisation we will not have control of our borders and can not, therefore, have any significant control of who enters our country.

On the economy the parties have offered very little of real substance. There is the talk of "efficiency savings" (why couldn't they make efficiency savings while the economy seemed good?) and some talk of cuts, but nothing on the scale that will be necessary.

You do not have to be an economics expert to understand the problems. Our nation is deep in debt and on top of that our government are borrowing more each year than they can earn. For a simple, household analogy it is like this ...

You have a massive mortgage, your credit cards are maxed out and each month you are spending £500 more than you have coming in. Cutting £5 off your monthly spending is not going to keep the debt collectors away or the bailiffs from your door, but that is, effectively, what the three main parties have offered us.

Even so, having been given a resounding thumbs down from the electorate what is it the three main parties are concentrating on? Is it the economy? Is it how to control immigration? No - they are concentrating on "electoral reform" - the one thing that nobody outside of the political parties gives a damn about.

Worse still, the political media are encouraging this discussion as if they seem to think it is the central issue as well. Apart from worrying a little that "the markets" might be a little unstable while our government remains in a somewhat confusing state, it is the only issue they are talking about!

How incredibly out of touch they are - the parties and the media.

No one gives a damn about electoral reform. It is a non-issue as far as the election was concerned and as far as the electorate were concerned - but for some reason it has become the only issue as far as the politicians, parties and political media are concerned.

They live in their own little world, totally detached from the rest of us.

How much longer are Tory voters going to keep fooling themselves?

How much more confirmation do traditional Tory voters need that the party they support is no longer conservative than the fact that Cameron is prepared to work with the Lib Dems to form a government?

And how much more confirmation that the three main parties are all the same than the fact that the same party that Cameron is prepared to work with is also prepared to work with the Labour Party?

The only reason Labour and the Tories aren't prepared to work with each other is the traditional enmity of their supporters.

Face the truth Conservative supporters - the party you support do not support your values anymore. The Tories are the same as the Lib Dems and the Lib Dems are the same as Labour. There is no conservative party for you to support anymore.

So stop voting for them.

The forgotten election

While the media attention is directed towards pontificating over various scenarios for a hung parliament and various Lib/Lab/Con coalition connotations something very interesting has been happening in the local elections.

Big gains for Labour - heavy losses for the Tories and Lib Dems.

Early days in those results yet I guess, but if this keeps on then I think it will signal a total disaster for the Tory party.

They would not listen, they're not listening still

So let's see - the one categorical thing you can say about this election is that the two parties which talked most about electoral reform did worse than the one that didn't.

Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats lost seats and the party that talked about it most of all - the Liberal Democrats - did much much worse than the opinion polls suggested.

That being the case, the only thing you can say about this election result it that it was more about what the British people didn't want more than it was about what they did want - and they have quite clearly rejected any idea of electoral reform.

But having heard the wishes of the people, the two main party leaders have chosen to ignore them and extend the offer of coalition to the Liberal Democrats with the promise of "electoral reform"!

How much of a kick in the teeth do you want the old parties to give you?

Whatever happened to the likely lad?

Nick Clegg that is.

We were told that he won the debates.

We were told that he had increased Lib Dem support across the nation.

We were told that his personal popularity was greater than that of either of the other two leaders.

We were told that he'd lead more Lib Dem MPs in the next parliament than ever before.

We were told that he'd beat the Labour Party into third place for share of vote.

But at the end of the day he's lost seats. Anyone wondering why? I've certainly heard plenty of commentators on TV and the radio wondering about this - but I'm not.

You see, the people of Britain might like Nick as a person - but they don't like his policies. What we can categorically say from these results is that the British people .....

..... do not want an amnesty for illegal immigrants or any more unrestrained immigration.

..... do not want to be subsumed further and further into the EU.

..... do not want the euro as their currency.

..... and they most certainly do not want proportional representation or "electoral reform".

Being nice isn't enough to win over the British people - especially when you're an anti-British, narrow-minded fool whose idea of government is to kneel subserviently to a foreign power.

The Cameron conundrum

It depends on how the remaining few seats pan out, but it is looking increasingly likely that neither a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition or a Tory minority government with ad hoc and Ulster Unionist support will win enough seats to be able to govern effectively.

So the likely outcome is that one of those two scenarios will struggle along for the next few months until their position becomes untenable and we end up going to the polls again. This throws up another interesting scenario.

Because, if Cameron gets to form a Tory minority government it is likely that Brown will stand down and be replaced by David Miliband. Much as I abhor Miliband, the media like him and he isn't tainted in the same way that Brown is - and as such he will probably be able to bolster Labour support much more effectively than Brown.

Although that may not be enough to give Labour an overall majority, it will probably be enough to give a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition enough of a majority to govern with some degree of authority - and leave Cameron out in the cold.

All of which is quite ironic - as the best bet for Cameron is for Brown to remain PM. It's also something of a conundrum for Cameron. If he is seen to have failed to unseat the most unpopular PM in modern times after the Tories had been out of power for four elections and with the state of the nation in a more perilous state than it was at the start of the depression then he will be seen to have failed.

But if he does become PM in a minority Tory government then he is likely to be facing a fresh challenge in months which he may well lose.

Either way, Cameron is looking like a loser.

The electorate have "punished" all the parties

So says Boris Johnson and I completely agree with him.

You ain't got no mandate either, mate!

Dave's speech to his constituency workers consisted of some line about Labour having "lost the mandate" to govern.

True enough - but they've not given that mandate to you either, sunshine. In fact, it is pretty clear that the voters don't think much of any of the three main parties - and that is despite them spending huge sums of money persuading you to vote for them and despite an enormous amount of free publicity provided at great expense by the media (and the taxpayer) which included three television "debates" in which only those three parties were represented.

The only clear message from this election is that the people of Britain have had enough of the old parties. They don't like them, they don't trust them and they don't want them.

Their time is running out.

A pathetic Tory performance

With about sixty seats still to declare it is still not clear what the outcome of this election will be, but it's looking increasingly likely that it will be a hung parliament with the Tories having the largest number of seats, but not sufficient to for a majority government.

This may be a surprise for many, but not for me. As I said two years ago when the supposedly informed political commentators were looking forward to a Cameron landslide ....

[R]egardless of what the polls say, I still believe that when an election does come the Tories will not win. Labour might lose - but the best the Tories can hope for, in my opinion, is a hung parliament and that, in my opinion, will be a disaster for them and for Britain.

It does get to be something of a burden when I'm always right - but it's a cross I'm learning to bear.

As I said, the outcome of this election is still far from being clear. Will Gordon Brown manage to form a coalition government with the Lib Dems or will David Cameron be Prime Minister with a minority government? I think it might still be a couple of days before we find out, but there are some things about this election which are clear.

The first is that the Nick Clegg "bounce" proved to be as solid as a David Cameron "cast iron pledge". Personally, I'm not surprised - the British people just aren't that keen on politicians who are as vehemently anti-British as Clegg. He might come across OK in the sanitised world of TV "debates", but the problem for the Lib Dems - as always - is that their policies don't stand up to scrutiny.

Even that nice Vince Cable - who everyone seems to think would make a great chancellor (I don't - if Cable had had his way we would be in the euro now and our economy sinking faster than a Tequila Slammer at an Ibiza hen party) wasn't enough to bolster Lib Dem support.

The second point is that Labour's support has collapsed in some areas but held up reasonably well in others. I expect someone will do a proper analysis of this at some point in the future, but it will be interesting to see whether those areas where they've retained much of their core vote are areas with EU sceptic and/or traditional Labour MP's.

The biggest and most telling point, though, is the abject failure of David Cameron's Tory Party - because that is what it is. His party may have won the most seats, but not enough - and this against a backdrop of Labour Party riven by internal wrangling, the economy on the brink of collapse and one of the most unpopular men as Prime Minister that we have ever had.

There is only one word to describe the Tory performance.

Pathetic.

Booze up in a brewery

Nothing sums up the state of modern British politics better than the utter debacle of voters unable to vote and polling stations running short of ballot papers.

After 50 years of progressive meddling and fiddling we are now so inept that we can not even run the fundamental basics of our democratic system - and this is despite the massive increase in postal voting (and electoral fraud).

What an utter shambles - and they want us to trust them to manage the national economy, our national defence and our borders?

I wouldn't trust any of them to run a booze up in a brewery

Opportunity knocks

In a comment to the previous post, Steve suggests that it may take two generations or more to rebuild our nation once the progressives have finally disappeared up their own backsides - as they very shortly will. To be honest, up until a few years ago I shared this view, but my viewpoint has changed somewhat due to events.

First of all, let me say that Britain - or an independent England - will never be the nation it once was in terms of economic and political clout, but it doesn't need to be. The main reason for this is that the economic power base has shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific and this is unlikely to change back again quickly. So whatever happens, we can never be anything other than on the periphery. That doesn't really matter - and in many ways it is no bad thing.

What matters is that we restore our nation to where it was before the progressives took over and that can be done in a very short space of time. It always has been possible to reverse the damage done by the progressives, but the longer they held power the harder it would be - as long as things remained stable.

But thanks to the economic mess that the progressives - both here, in Europe and in the USA - have wrought, things will not remain stable - and this is the crucial point. While there was the semblance of normal economic stability (I say that because it is now apparent that the economic "miracle" of the progressive era was founded on substantially dodgy ground) it would have taken decades to reverse the damage.

We have become so dependent on the state in so many ways that it would have been impossible to roll back these barriers. That was always part of the plan of progressives - make the people dependent and then they will never give up those things on which they depend.

However, so great is Britain's public debt liability that total economic collapse is now not just a possibility, it is an inevitability. To understand why that is, I suggest you read this piece on the American Thinker. They are obviously talking about the USA, but the same things apply here in Britain.

When this happens all of the structures that the progressives put in place to protect their dominance will come tumbling down. It will not be pretty and it will not be easy, but it will happen and when it does it will be end of the progressive era for good.

From that point on, the rebuilding can begin under social conservative leadership. It will be hard work and it will require strong governance, but the rise will be rapid and in ten years we will have restored our nation to a self-reliant, independent, fully functioning country once more.

The problem for social conservatism has always been the existence of the dependency culture. The economic crisis that is about to hit us - much much harder than the depression of the thirties - provides an opportunity which must be taken.

I'd rather it hadn't happened and I'd have preferred it if it wasn't necessary - but it has and it is and when opportunities like this present themselves we must grab it with both hands. Even if we don't and the opportunity passes us by I still believe that we will roll back the damage of the progressive era. As I said in the last post, the coming generation show every sign that they are not keen on the progressive ideology - but that way will be slow and just as arduous.

If we miss this opportunity then we will be struggling for the next 50 years to overcome our problems, but if we take it when it comes then we will have restored our nation to the peaceful, independent, self-reliant and contented nation it once was inside of two decades. Who knows, I might actually live to see Britain great again!

The death throes of progressive liberalism

Actually, the title of this post isn't what I was intending. Although we're coming towards the denouement of progressive liberalism we''re not quite into the death throes just yet. The post was going to be entitled "the twilight of progressive liberalism", but as progressive liberalism has been just one long period of perpetual murky twilight this didn't seem quite right.

Progressive liberalism has dominated British political life and society for fifty years now and in that time it has taken all that was good about Britain and thrown it away. By just about every measure of societal progress, Britain has gone backwards over the last 50 years.

The progressives claim that life is better because of the material goods we can own or the improvements in health care - but these things would have happened regardless of progressive liberalism and given that some are suggesting that the current generation of children will be the first to have shorter life expectancy than their parents, they are dubious claims anyway.

I've had arguments with progressives where they sneer that the days of social conservatism were days of rationing, rubbish cars and rickets - but they refuse to acknowledge that these things were not caused by social conservatism. Rationing was caused by a war against fascism, the "rubbish cars" were improvements over what had gone before and were always getting better and as for rickets - well, it was eradicated under social conservatism, but since progressive liberalism took over we've replaced rickets with AIDS, chlamydia and syphilis - wow, such progress!

As I said, social conservatives fought a war against fascism. It stood up for freedom of speech against a bully regime which tried to enforce a particular doctrine of thought and persecuted those who would not follow it. Today, progressive liberalism is trying to enforce a particular doctrine of thought and persecutes those who will not follow it. Fascism is alive and well and living in Britain thanks to progressive liberalism.

Social conservatives fought a long war against slavery and, although slavery continued at a low level in certain parts of the world, it was eradicated from Britain. Today, thanks to progressive liberalism, slavery exists within our borders once more.

But why do I believe that progressive liberalism has had its time? Whoever wins the election on Thursday we are going to have a progressive liberal government so surely they still dominate?

Well - yes, they do, but they do not have any answers to the problems we face, They do not have any answers because they created the problems. More than that, progressive liberalism IS the problem. More and more people are starting to see this and, once the real economic turmoil hits home as it will in the not too distant future the number of people who understand that the progressive liberals not only can not fix the fundamental problems of this nation, but are the very cause of them will escalate.

Our economy is on the brink of total collapse. This is a very important point to understand. Our situation is even more dire than that of Greece. The only reason we are not where Greece is now is because we still retain some basic control over our economy which enables us to stave off the inevitable collapse for a little longer - but it is not something that can be sustained for much longer.

When our economy finally teeters over the edge then progressive liberalism will be held accountable not just for that, but for all the other harm it has done - the rise in crime, the corruption of our political, governmental and democratic systems, the collapse of our education system, the destruction of our industrial and manufacturing base and the sell off of our sovereignty.

There is a noticeable trend towards social conservatism amongst the young. Don't be fooled by the younger generation wheeled out on to our television screens - carefully selected from the ruling progressive liberal elite - because they are not representative of the generation that will follow us.

That generation are the ones who have most been affected by the damage wrought by progressive liberalism. They are the ones whose parents divorced or never married. They are the ones who are most often the victims of the appalling level of crime in this country. They are the ones who went through a decrepit education system that left many barely able to read and write and others with worthless degrees, no job prospects and massive debts. They are the ones who are going to have to pick up the tab for the profligacy of my generation and rebuild the shattered remnants of this once proud and precious jewel of a nation.

More and more of them are starting to see it and more and more are looking to what their grandparents - the generation before this current ruling one - had with envy. They want that world themselves - ordered, benign, peaceful, law-abiding, content and socially conservative.

That is what they want and I believe they will get it. I'm just so sorry that they will have to spend their lives putting right what my generation have wrecked.

An angry young man

That's Nick Clegg - apparently.

Nick Clegg is angry with Gordon Brown. Nick Clegg is angry with the Labour Party and the Tory Party.

Good! It's about time one of the party leaders got a bit of fire in his belly. So what's got that nice Nick all hot under the collar?

Is it the way that successive Labour and Tory governments have destroyed the British economy?

No.

Is it the destruction and dismantling of our manufacturing and industrial sector?

No.

Is it the dire education systems which fails more and more young people leaving them barely able to read or write and incapable of holding down a proper job?

No.

Is it the way Tories and Labour have committed our armed forces to more and more overseas operations while systemically cutting their equipment and resources?

No.

Is it the way successive Tory and Labour governments have sold more and more of our sovereignty to the European Union?

Of course not.

Is it the way our town and city centres become virtual war zones every Friday and Saturday night as drunken louts rampage through the streets?

No.

Is it the way the police have switched from protecting the law abiding majority to using them as a means of raising extra revenue?

No.

Is it the fact that the police and criminal justice system have given up on trying to deal with the massive levels of crime in favour of "managing" the statistics?

No

What bothers Nick is nothing to do with British people - he's worried about the way we treat immigrants.

Yep - there are a thousand reasons why Nick could be angry for the sake of the British nation and the British people, but all he really cares about are foreigners and sod the British.

And people are going to vote for this idiot?