And there was me thinking discrimination wasn't allowed

Watching BBC Breakfast this morning I was intrigued by the story of the black councillor who had been prosecuted for "racial harassment" after describing an Asian councillor as a "coconut".

Councillor Shirley Brown was apparently so incensed by the demand of her Asian colleague that, what with money being tight and everything, it would be a good idea to cut spending on council projects for black and Asian people, that she accused her fellow councillor of being a "coconut" - i.e. brown on the outside, but white underneath.

I found this story interesting for two reasons. First of all, I couldn't help wondering why - with incidents and prosecutions for racial incidents involving councillors going on up and down the country all the time - this particular incident was worthy of prime coverage on the BBC Breakfast programme.

The other thing I find interesting is that councils throw money into projects that specifically exclude white people and no one gives a damn.

It seems overt discrimination and blatant racism are acceptable after all.

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.

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 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 "GDR" Syndrome

I'm not convinced by the suggestions of Brown "the bully". Or rather, I have suspicions about the timing of the claims.

It's not that I don't think he is capable of being a bully - I'm sure he is - it's just that I very much doubt whether Number 10 has seen anything other than bullying and intimidation over the last 20 years - so why the big deal about it now?

Even though I'm one of the few who didn't like it, I did watch "The Thick Of It" on a couple of occasions and the thing I didn't like about it was that the programme glorified bullying in a rather unpleasant way. What is more, "insiders" suggested that the programme was a fairly accurate representation of the culture at Number 10 during the Blair years.

But bullying isn't just about abusive language or aggressive mannerisms. Maggie Thatcher also had a reputation as being a bit of a bully - but generally her bullying was reserved for other world leaders - however, the equivalent of "The Thick Of It" at that time was the much funnier and considerably more subtle "Yes, Minister/Prime Minister".

What that programme demonstrated was that bullying was rife back then too - far more subtle and understated, but no less intimidating. Bullying in the workplace has been common since I first went out into the big bad world to make an independent living for myself - but it is far far worse today than I have ever known it to be.

My first job was as an apprentice in an electrical workshop and I was "bullied" unremittingly, but it was a different sort of bullying - really nothing more than extended mickey taking. I'm sure I wasn't the only sixteen year old who stood outside the storeroom for an hour with a chitty for a "long weight" while the stores man smoked fags and drank tea (long wait - getit? It took me half an hour to realise they were taking the mickey and another half hour to get up the nerve to call them on it).

The "bullying" back then was light hearted and designed to help you become part of the team. You soon learned to join in the banter and hold your own - either that or you left the job and went elsewhere - but you always knew your place. When one of the senior workers told you to make the tea, you made the tea - there was no back chat or disrespect, you did what you were told and bided your time until the the next victim came into the job and you moved up the pecking order.

These days the bullying isn't about banter, team building or putting a cheeky young whipper snapper in their place. It is often quite vicious and aggressive or underhand and downright nasty and it exists in every strata of society. Wherever you go you will encounter bullying - some of it authorised. The modern council is more likely to bully the residents with threats and intimidation than it is likely to help them and the police are regularly seen behaving in a bullying and intimidating fashion.

And yet, every company, school, council and organisation has "anti-bullying" procedures - none of which make the slightest bit of difference. But then, they are not meant to - they are there purely to enable the organisation to declare that they "take bullying seriously" - which they don't. All they really want to do is go through the procedure and then sweep it under the carpet - no evidence of bullying found.

I call it the "GDR" syndrome - named after the German Democratic Republic. A nation which proclaimed its democratic credentials in the very name of the country, but actually had nothing to do with democracy. The same goes for the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea - the louder they shout their credentials about something, the less likely they are to actually apply those principles.

The same goes for bullying, sexism, racism, discrimination and illiberalism - the more an organisation or individual declares that they are opposed to those things, the more likely they are to be sexist, racist, discriminating, illiberal bullies.

So. is Brown a bully? No more than any other progressive liberal politician or organisation is. In other words - very much so.

Burka ban is the wrong approach

I gather that UKIP are planning to ban the burka if they achieve power - which isn't very likely.

But whether a UKIP victory is likely or not, I don't think the correct approach to the rise of militant Islam is to ban the visible symbols that remind us of its oppressive and illiberal nature. Instead, what we need is the freedom to be allowed to discriminate and make personal judgements the way we once used to.

The reason things like the wearing of the burka have become commonplace is due to the enforcement of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism" by liberal progressive governments. Laws brought in to force us to "celebrate" this "diversity" have restricted our ability to make personal judgements about what is or isn't acceptable to us.

The thing is, equality and anti-discrimination laws sound good in theory, but in practice all they will do is entrench feelings of injustice and favouritism on both sides. What we have here - with this UKIP proposal - is the law saying on one hand that you and I may not discriminate against people who wear the burka and then the law discriminating against people who wear the burka!

The right thing to do is to peel pack the layers of anti-discrimination laws as it is those that cause racial, religious and ethnic tensions far more than anything else. Moslems should be free to wear the burka if they wish, but non-Moslems should be just as free to shun those that do if they so wish.

It should never be the job of the law to tell people what it is they may or may not tolerate. It is ridiculous in this age of "human rights" that the government use the law to suppress one of the fundamental human rights - the right to exercise free will.

The double standards in demonstrations

I had hoped to post about this yesterday, but the w word intervened again (that's w for work - not wife!) and it had to wait.

Basically, it's about the double standards that exist in society today at all levels as demonstrated by the repeated calls in the media, from the police and various politicians for a group opposed to the islamification of Europe to call off a planned protest in Harrow later this month.

Personally speaking, I don't like marches, protests and demonstrations. It's not that I have a problem with them in principle - I don't - my main concern is that the vast majority of them are now hijacked and controlled by large politically motivated groups which often have no real interest in the local issue other than an opportunity to push their own political dogma.

Hence a minor protest by a group of residents concerned about council plans to turn their allotments into a block of flats gets taken over by Greenpeace and turned into a mass worldwide demonstration against "climate change". That's a bit of an extreme example, but I do know of some instances where something like that has happened and the original complaint of the protesters has been forgotten in the end.

Having said all that, I do recognise the right of anyone to peaceful protest - but it seems that certain elements in society, including elements of authority, do not. The group calling itself "Stop The Islamification Of Europe" have been urged to call off their planned protest outside Harrow mosque because it is alleged that it may spark violence.

Why would it? If, as we are frequently told, Islam is the Religion of Peace then why would there be any violence? Are the protesters planning to beat each other up?

The actual concern is not with the original march - but that counter demonstrators from so called "anti-fascist" groups are planning to do whatever they can to curtail the rights of fellow citizens to hold demonstrations. Incredibly, the irony of such a plan is lost on these "anti-fascist" groups who can not seem to understand that their attempts to silence other opinions is itself fascistic in nature or indeed that they are demonstrating in favour of Islam, an ideology which embodies fascistic principles.

If the police, media and politicians are really concerned about the possibility of violence then they should be telling these anti-free speech groups to call off their protest as that is far more likely to spark violence. Indeed, it is actually the intention of these groups to provoke violence as that is the tactic which will see the protest by SIOE abandoned and increase the likelihood that future planned marches by the group will be prevented by the authorities.

But these "anti-fascist" groups are are not some cobbled together group of concerned citizens. They are funded by the mainstream parties - including the Tories - and the unions. They are made up of well known left wing political activists, communists and anti-capitalists and they have not been shy in using violence and intimidation in the past.

Personally, as I've hinted at, I'm opposed to the protest by SIOE outside Harrow mosque. If the people of Harrow want to protest then they should be free to do so, but I don't like large political groups doing this sort of thing. If SIOE want to protest they should do so outside government offices and buildings. ANY organisation or group of protesters which is not local to the place in which they are protesting should be restricted to holding their protest in designated areas - such as public parks or town squares - but that is just my personal opinion.

However, given that our regulations permit these groups to hold their protest outside a mosque in Harrow then they should be permitted to do so and not be subject to intimidation by counter protests or by the authorities to abandon their lawful demonstration.

Tolerance is a privilege - not a right

Tolerance is a word that is bandied about an awful lot these days - particularly by those on the liberal left - and yet little thought is given to what tolerance means and how it should be applied.

Tolerance does not mean - as some seem to think - acceptance. It actually means "to put up with" - usually for a particular behaviour with defined limits and the implied understanding that should those limits be breached then toleration of that behaviour will be withdrawn. As such, tolerance is a privilege and not a right. No one and no behaviour has a right to be tolerated - instead that tolerance has to be earned.

Consequently, tolerance can not be legislated for - as the progressives increasingly try to do. When they try to do this it is actually counter productive because the more you try and instruct people to tolerate something the more likely they are to resent being told to put up with something which they do not like - and they will say so.

So what the left then do is legislate to prevent people saying that they don't like the sort of behaviour they are being asked to tolerate which makes the people even more resentful - but worse still, rather than openly discussing their concerns, they keep their thoughts private or share them only amongst their close friends and family.

The result of this, as we are seeing increasingly in Britain today, is that there is more likely to be intolerance of certain behaviours by ever more people than there was 50 years ago. This is because those who wish to indulge in certain behaviours did so with more and more disregard for the concerns of those who were being asked to tolerate those behaviours - but successive progressive governments told those people to shut up - by law.

So they did - and that caused even deeper resentment. Once that point was reached it was inevitable that many people would kick back in any way that they could. Some did so by forming their own behaviours which others were forced to accept, while others went further and started physically attacking people or groups whose behaviour they found unacceptable.

The attempts by successive governments to enforce tolerance has led to an even more fractured society with various "tribes" establishing their own "safe havens". It's not helped by the left dictating what can and can not be tolerated - as if this was either reasonable or possible! What gives anyone - whether they are in government or not - the right to tell someone else what they can or can not find acceptable?

It's like passing a law that everyone must like the colour green, but no one is allowed to like orange. What happens if someone doesn't like green, but really likes orange?

Nobody and no behaviour has an automatic right to be tolerated. It is a privilege that they earn by moderating that behaviour in such a way so that others are not offended by it. It doesn't matter what that behaviour is - binge-drinking, homosexuality, racism, infidelity or whatever - the behaviour has to be moderated to within tolerable limits for the rest of society.

And the more militant a group is about demanding "tolerance" the more likely they are going to find that society is not willing to tolerate their behaviour any longer.

Before pulling the trigger, aim gun away from foot

Apparently the BNP is to start permitting non-whites to join as a result of a legal challenge. I'm not too convinced that there will be a massive rush from non-whites to sign up to the BNP, but I certainly know at least a couple who will apply.

The thing is, though - if the BNP do start allowing non-whites to join then the mainstream parties will have simply removed one of the key barriers that prevents many people voting for the BNP. By forcing the BNP to stop discriminating on the basis of race, they will have deprived themselves of their favourite taunt that the BNP racially discriminate!

They might then claim that the BNP are only allowing non-whites to join because the law says they must, but the same could be said about any other organisation - including the mainstream parties.

I have a feeling that the establishment has just shot itself in the foot.

Different standards apply

Driving home very late last night I finally gave up on the CD and switched on the radio and tuned in to Radio Five Live - which turned out to be a big mistake.

The radio show playing at the time was a "debate" about whether is is right to ban BNP members from being teachers. I put debate in quotes because it was nothing of the sort - anyone who dared to oppose the idea of banning BNP members from teaching was shouted down by various participants while anyone supporting the ban was given ample opportunity to rant and rave no matter how ridiculous their proposition.

For example, one idiot kept ranting about whether we'd allow paedophiles to teach. Well, judging by the frequent and numerous incidents of teachers having sexual relations with their underage pupils I'd say it is pretty apparent that we already do - but what the hell is this equating being a member of a legitimate political party with kiddy fiddling?

The moderator - or whatever he was - allowed this on the basis that the BNP is "openly racist". Racism, apparently, is actually a crime according to the people on the show. I actually thought the crime was racial discrimination, racial harassment or incitement to racial hatred rather than just expressing or thinking racist views or thoughts - but what do I know. After all Ron Atkinson was sacked for casting aspersions on a black footballers commitment, but he wasn't actually convicted of any crime - I guess things have moved on from those days.

Anyway, the assertion was that anyone who is a member of the BNP must be racist - a sweeping generalisation which wouldn't be allowed in any other situation. For that reason, the panel decided that it was right to ban BNP members from being teachers as they would treat non-white children as inferior.

But hang on a second - if that is the assumption then we should also ban members of the Labour Party from being teachers as you could equally claim that they are just as likely to treat children of bankers, accountants, company directors etc as inferior. And you should ban Conservatives from teaching as they would be inclined to treat children of miners (if we had any), factory workers (ditto) and union activists as inferior.

Likewise you should ban Green Party members from teaching as they would treat meat eating children, those that arrive at school in 4x4s and just about any kid who isn't a tree hugging nut nibbler as inferior. Actually, we ought to just ban Green Party members. And what about Moslems - particularly those who go for the full Moslem garb? There you have a radical Moslem teacher who may be treating non-Moslem children as inferior - and may even be putting pressure on moderate Moslem children and their families to adopt the full regalia! Why don't we ban Moslems from teaching, then?

And as someone pointed out - to universal silence - we should ban feminists and gays from teaching as they may be inclined to treat boys or straight children (huh?) as inferior. If you take the proposition to its natural conclusion - nobody should be allowed to teach.

But of course that is ridiculous. The fact is that teachers have to obey stringent rules in the way they treat children - both national laws and local school rules - no matter what their political affiliation or particular world view is. If any teacher breaks those rules they can be disciplined and even sacked - whether they are BNP members or members of the NUT (and the vast majority who have been disciplined or sacked have been members of the latter rather than the former).

What is being suggested here is that different rules should be made for BNP members purely on the basis that those who make the rules don't like them. That is bigotry, discrimination and intolerance on a grand scale.

New police tactic reaps rewards

Gloucestershire has seen a stunning drop in crime with figures plunging to a 20 year low. What lies behind this remarkable turnaround?

Is it new forensic advances? No.
Is it due to a change in police tactics? No.
Better intelligence and improved informant networks?
Improvements in technology? No.

What then?

The Johnson family was a ruthless gang of travellers who carried out countless crimes over two decades, from cash machine raids to sheet metal thefts.

Yep - the tactic is locking up do-as-you-likeys.

It was down to the arrest and imprisonment of one - just one - group of "travellers" .Now these are not to be confused with proper gypsies who are both rare and actually inclined to travel around the country rather than set up long term "camps" - a euphemism for semi-permanent home sites and building structures erected without permission often on land which is owned by someone else.

No, these travellers are what we used to call tinkers or - before it became politically incorrect to do so - pikeys. When I was a lad they well known as trouble-makers and the police were well aware and not adverse to telling you that when the pikeys were around crime would shoot up.

But thanks to decades of political correctness and "diversity" awareness indoctrination we have been forced to accept that these "travellers" are just exercising their right to live an alternate lifestyle which is just as valid and desirable as any other.

The fact that they live beyond the law, pay no taxes, dump their filth where ever they want and show absolutely no respect for authority or the rights of you and I while making full use of the "rights" afforded them by the very laws they ignore means nothing to the stupid liberal do-gooders who force us to accept pikeys into our communities - where they are then free to launch their crime sprees with little from the law to deter them.

Still, there is some benefit to having these travellers stay - if you're a car dealer who specialises in expensive 4x4 vehicles, a commercial vehicle dealer or a luxury caravan salesman - because their "camps" seem to have a proliferation of relatively new items of these types.

The definition of irony (2)

From The Times.

Outside a large, modern pub on the edge of Barnsley, penned in by police, 150 demonstrators chant “Nazi scum off our streets” and “String ’em up like Mussolini”.

Incredibly, I bet none of those at the protest recognise the irony. I'm not sure, but wouldn't chanting "string 'em up" be incitement to violence? I wonder how many of those at the protest were arrested?

Just as a test, substitute the fact they were a bunch of "anti-fascists" protesting at a BNP meeting for a bunch of anti-gay Catholics protesting at a Stonewall meeting. Do you think they'd be able to chant "gay scum off our streets" and "string 'em up" without being arrested?

Even if they could, do you think they would?

A touch of class

Around the blogosphere and in various newspapers there are still quite a few people who seem to think that the introduction of the 50p tax rate had something to do with raising revenue. It won't and it wasn't. It was about Labour doing something - anything - that would win them favour with the Old Labour class warriors and, to be fair, from what I've seen and heard it has mostly worked.

Over the last few years, Labour has kind of abandoned their traditional cause of sticking up for the working man - which, at least in part, has allowed the British National Party to flourish - and moved on to pastures new such as discrimination, immigration, multiculturalism, sexual orientation and so on.

There are a couple of reasons for this, in my opinion. First of all, let me say that it wasn't because the class system had been erased and was therefore no longer appropriate for the Labour Party to fight for the working man. The class system is alive and well - just slightly restructured with considerably less movement between social groups. The social mobility that characterised the forties and fifties has not only been frozen - it's been largely reversed and people find themselves entrenched in a social class with little opportunity to move on.

We have also lost the slow improvement in meritocracy that was, gradually, taking place in Britain before the advent of progressive dogma. Although it is true to say that it is less now about having the right school tie, it is now - as much as ever - necessary to belong to the right "club". It's not so much who you know, anymore - it's what you think that opens doors to the institutions of power.

Anyway - the first reason that Labour abandoned their traditional working class roots is that they realised that achieving their aims would effectively mean the end of their raison d'etre. The Labour Party was formed to support the working class man - but once the socialist model had achieved hegemony then working class man no longer mattered. So they had to find other reasons for being and other causes to support - hence the branching out into the areas above.

The other reason is that the Labour Party could not foresee any circumstance whereby their core voter base would vote any other way. Who else was white working man going to vote for? Yes, there were a fair few who switched to supporting Thatcher in 1979 - but given the mess Labour had made of things, who could blame them?

Besides, that disaffection was also driven by the Labour abandonment of social conservatism - pretty soon the electorate would realise that the Tories had also abandoned social conservatism as well and they'd all come back to the fold. They had to - there was no alternative - except not to vote which many many people are increasingly choosing to do.

But the Labour Party didn't reckon with the BNP or the Internet. They thought they could just continually smear the BNP as racist extremists and, with the support of the MSM and various other groups, that would be enough to ensure the BNP would always be seen as "right wing extremists".

Unfortunately for Labour, the BNP publish their views and their policies on the Internet and anyone can go and take a look for themselves what they really say and what their policies are - and when they do, as many thousands are doing every week by all accounts, they find that the policies of the "far right extremists" are actually fairly socialist Old Labour policies which, not that long ago, would have been quite at home in a Labour Party Manifesto.

Unsurprisingly, this has found favour with a considerable number of white working class people who feel abandoned by their traditional party of choice and led to a trickling of support away from Labour and to the BNP - but the trickle keeps getting bigger and soon it may be a stream and then a flood - and that worries Labour.

They've found that continually shouting down the BNP as far-right racist nutters isn't actually putting people off the BNP. Instead, all it is doing is alienating and offending those people who have taken a look for themselves and found themselves in considerable agreement with much of what the BNP say. Labour may have been able to win those people back with reasoned argument - but calling them racist scum isn't going to do it.

So Labour have reverted to their old ways - bash the rich. They would have liked to have done far more than they did, but they realise that too much would scare off many of the floating voters who, now more than ever, are essential to their chances of securing any future role in government.

Hence the 50p tax rate - nothing to do with raising revenue and everything to do with trying to stem the loss of support from the white working class. To be honest, I don't think it will work. Any kudos they regain from the white working class isn't going to be enough to sway the balance in their favour unless they can come up with other ways and means of showing that they mean it without alienating the floating voter into believing that Labour are back to their old tax and spend ways (which they never actually abandoned).

The next General Election isn't winnable for Labour - instead they will have to rely on the Tories to lose it. And I still don't believe that that is beyond the realms of possibility.

Rampant sexism (2)

Poor old Dave - he got his nose all bent out of shape at the Times suggesting there aren't enough women in his team yesterday, so he's been given his own space in the Times comment section to put his point of view.

Yesterday, The Times accused my party of failing to do enough to promote women in politics. Today, I want to set a few things straight.

See - told ya.

It is crucial that the people who make decisions that affect everyone's lives represent Britain as a whole and that we end the chronic under- representation of women in politics.

Why?

Why is it crucial that the people who make decisions represent Britain as a whole? Does that mean a quarter of your cabinet is going to be under 16? Is a third going to be over 60? How many disabled? How many left-handed?

Why is it necessary to end the "chronic under-representation of women in politics"? Politics managed along quite well without any women in politics before and those that were good enough have always managed to do very well in politics - so why do they need any special help?

And why is that more important than, say, ending the chronic under-representation of men in education, social services or various other female dominated employments? Dave decides to tie himself in knots.

If you want more women in your party, there are two routes you can take. The first is straightforward positive discrimination - including blocking men from shortlists, as Labour did. Though this would have guaranteed an increase in the number of women in our party, I instinctively knew it was wrong for a party that believes in meritocracy - that people should rise on the back of hard work and not who they are.

So positive discrimination is wrong, eh?

The second route is the one I predominantly choose to take - positive action.

Eh? What's the difference?

If straightforward positive discrimination is about closing doors to those who don't fit the new mould, positive action is about opening them to those we want to welcome. Above all, that's what I've done. I introduced a priority list with the explicit aim of getting more female candidates into our key marginal seats.

So ....... positive discrimination is about preventing men from getting on a list while positive action is about creating a priority list of women. If I were going to be polite, I'd say that Cameron was dealing with semantics here - but I'm not ... it's utter bullshit. It's discrimination - pure, unadulterated and blatant sex discrimination. There isn't a difference between positive action and positive discrimination - and he bloody well knows it!

What is important is that the people who make decisions make the right decisions. I don't care whether they are male, female, black, white or a combination of all - just make the right decisions.

How do you know when the state becomes authoritarian?

When this sort of thing happens.

Social services have removed two young children from the care of their grandparents and arranged for them to be adopted by a homosexual couple.

They were allegedly stripped of their carer's rights and informed they would be barred from seeing the children altogether unless they agreed to the same-sex adoption.

The children have been in foster care for two years while their grandparents battled the social services department in court.

However, the cost of legal bills forced them to drop the case and relinquish their rights.

The grandparents reluctantly agreed to adoption, provided the children were found a "loving mother and father".

They were told last Thursday that two homosexual men had been chosen as the adoptive parents.

When he protested to social workers, the grandfather alleges he was told: "You can either accept it and there's a chance you'll see the children twice a year, or you can take that stance and never see them again."

There are still people in Britain who will tell you that becoming an authoritarian state "couldn't happen here". They are wrong - it already has.

They're making a list, they're checking it twice .....

The disclosure of the BNP membership list has got the witch hunt underway - with all 43 police forces checking the list against names of officers and staff. Welcome to the new McCarthyism. I wonder if those lefties who so adamantly opposed the methodology of McCarthy will be as vociferous about this? I doubt it.

I'm not sure how the list got to be revealed, but I doubt whether it was accidental. I'm sure whoever did it was motivated to do some harm to the BNP - if this is the case, then I think their tactic is going to backfire enormously.

The British people don't take kindly to this sort of persecution of ordinary people - and the list reveals that the vast majority of BNP members are just that; ordinary people doing ordinary jobs with ordinary interests. The media like to paint a picture of the average BNP member as a shaven-headed, tattooed, sloping forehead, snarling racist thug - but thanks to this revelation we can now see that the membership is just a bunch of everyday folk just like you and me.

I don't think the BNP could have got better publicity if they tried.

Just ignore her

I've got to be honest and admit I've never heard of Katy Perry, don't know her music and don't really care, but I realise that a lot of youngsters will.

Perry has caused outrage by posing for publicity snaps while brandishing a flick-knife and this has upset anti-knife campaigners, understandably - but this fits in very well with the marketing belief that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Many "celebrities" have done very well out of doing stupid, illegal or offensive things.

Mediocre chefs become stars just by uttering the eff word loudly and often on TV. Rather plain models boost their careers by allowing themselves to be photographed snorting coke and we've already seen how other rather talentless pop wannabees can improve their profile by getting themselves arrested repeatedly.

This latest stunt is deliberate and calculated. Perry may not even be aware of the outrage she is causing - although that is unlikely - but the PR men will be only too aware and will be rubbing their hands with glee at the publicity it is getting. The best thing to do is to ignore her - and by that I mean we should not allow her into the country, should not play her music on radio or show her performances on TV.

Only when doing stupid, illegal or offensive things causes harm to someones career or personal circumstances will they stop doing it.

Good Lords!

The government have been forced to abandon plans to introduce 42 day detention without charge thanks to the House Of Lords. Whatever your opinion of the 42 day detention plan, this demonstrates that our Upper House is capable of doing what it is supposed to do - providing a vital check and balance to the Commons. It is also worth mentioning that this is something which elected or appointed upper chambers frequently fail to do.

I've always been opposed to the reform of the House of Lords - although constitutional vandalism would be a more appropriate term for what Labour have been doing. My opposition is due, in part, to the fact that I see the potential flaws in an elected system - principally the potential for either a too powerful governing party or a "lame duck" executive depending on how the electoral barometer swings at the time.

I also see the problems with an appointed upper house which would be open to being stuffed with cronies - something which already happens to an extent - and with that the potential for the rise of a tyrant.

The Lords was far from perfect, but then so is democracy. However, the point that everyone seems to forget and the other reason why I was opposed to the idea of "reform" of the House of Lords is that, basically, it worked. Anachronistic it may be, but as Mark Stein used to say - if something has been around long enough to become anachronistic it must be doing something right (or words to that effect).

There are many areas of our government that do need reform - not least the bloated public sector, failing processes of various departments (lost data? Home Office "not fit for purpose"?), but the least of them was the Upper House or even our constitution. The motivation for the constitutional vandalism perpetrated by the Labour party was not to improve our democracy but simply class hatred.

Hatred, for whatever reason, is a motivation that should not be part of government. That alone should be enough to disqualify the Labour party from ever holding power again. The damage they have wrought on our constitution is merely the clincher.

Moslem only!

Anyone still in any doubt that the so called "multicultural" society is leading to certain "cultures" being given special treatment above that of the indigenous culture should look at this.

A grieving family have been prevented from holding a funeral service for a close relative at the weekend because they are not Muslim.

Sheffield City Council said it did not allow funerals to be held at weekends, except for Muslims because Islam deems that the dead must be buried as soon as possible.

Martin Green, senior bereavement services manager for Sheffield, said the council's policy was in line with that of other local authorities.

He said: "The council recognised the specific cultural and religious needs surrounding burial and has been offering an extended burial service to the Muslim community.

One rule for us - special treatment for Moslems. Welcome to England in the 21st century.

When are we going to wake up to what is happening to our nation? This has to stop. More than that - it needs to be reversed. No more "positive discrimination" no more "cultural sensitivity" - if people come to our nation they should respect our laws and our customs or go somewhere else.

Would you allow a guest in your home to rearrange the furniture, chuck out stuff they don't like, redecorate your bedroom to their taste? Of course not - so why do we think we have to be so bloody accommodating to foreign cultures in our home land?

Next time some dozy liberal tells you that we should do more to welcome foreign cultures - get their address, walk into their house and do what you want. They don't allow smoking? Tell 'em your culture requires you to smoke. They don't like you wiping your backside on their Egyptian cotton bath towels? Tell them your culture doesn't allow you to touch your arse with paper. See how they like it when their home is invaded by foreign ways - because that is what is happening here in England.

This has nothing to do with tolerance - it's about having backbone and not being spineless apologists. It's about having some pride in our own history and culture and restoring the confidence of our nation - a nation which has an unparalleled history of fairness, equality and tolerance.

Good God! When did we become so pathetic? How could a nation which stood firm and alone against the malevolent threat of Nazism and the might of National Socialist Germany have decayed so completely in such a short space of time?

Our current generation of politicians have betrayed us. Every one of them. They are not fit to govern - they never will be. If something doesn't change soon we will become a nation of subservience ruled by petty bureaucrats and jobsworths who are completely incapable of performing the first duties of government - to protect and preserve this nation, its people and its culture.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and Joan

Look, if you can name me one disciple that Jesus chose to follow him and spread his word after his death I'll readily concede that it is OK to have women bishops - or even women vicars.

Until then, I will continue to believe that it goes against the teaching of Christ - and therefore Christianity.

Discrimination? Take it up with God.