Happy New Year - 2008!

Just signing off for this year. Happy New Year to all who may pass this way! Let 2008 be a good year.

Read More

Baptist ministers for Ron Paul

Huckabee may be a Baptist minister with a bomb-the-buggers mentality, but those with a traditional Christian viewpoint think otherwise. These Baptist ministers are for Ron Paul.

Rev. Creighton Lovelace, Danieltown Baptist Church, Forest City, NC
Dr. Chuck Baldwin, Pastor of Crossroad Baptist Church, Pensacola, FL
Rev. Matt Chambers, Student Pastor, Blountville, TN
Dr. John Killian, Pastor, Maytown Baptist Church, Maytown, AL

plus others too!

3 days to the Iowa caucuses. Ron Paul is the man for all decent caring Americans. And Ron Paul will help to cement good relations with other countries, so making for a safer world.

RON PAUL 2008

Read More

Tancredo out of Republican race!!

The first major fruitcake candidate to depart the scene goes before the year ends. Tom Tancredo (an immigrant name no doubt!) has slammed other immigrants as a causal link to to terrorism and rape. Nice stuff, eh! No self-respecting American could vote for such nasty opinions, could they?

Hopefully fruitcake #2, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, with his own Christian take on foreign relations, such as those regarding Iran, when he says "it was right to start with trying to bankrupt them before we bomb them but ultimately the United States must do whatever it takes". Did those who listened to his sermons think they got inspiration? Too many don't realise what a flaky customer this guy is.

The Iowa caucuses are next month. The ONLY candidate on the Republican side is Ron Paul. Voters will get the truth here and not a series of fantasies and fables.

Read More

New Year - New Promises?

Gordon Brown is getting off to a head start in the New Year promises department. How about some resolutions instead? Like not being a job-sharing MP with an MSP in Edinburgh? Mr. Brown's constituents get two to tango with! The English have to make do, as usual!

He's promising "For Britain, 2008 will be a year of real and serious changes.
With important legislation making long-term changes in energy, climate change, health, pensions, planning, housing, education and transport, 2008 will be a year of measurable changes in public services." It'll make 2007 look like a bad history lesson, no doubt. His affable, but lamentable attempt to solve the Surrey foot-and-mouth outbreak (has he given those farmers their compensation yet?) was a poor example of his previous promises. The Northern Rock fiasco will be with him all through 2008, for what banker in his/her right mind could swear on a stack of bibles that they could repay the government coffers?

How on earth is he going to make "long-term changes in energy, climate change, health, pensions, planning, housing, education and transport", all of which require public money, when a downturn in the economy is likely in 2008. A lower tax take means more money to spend, does it? Have we got Mr. Bean or Mr. Micawber before us? It's a mystery, to be sure!

However, if he makes one change only in 2008, it will be for the poor benighted souls of Iraq. I was horrified to see tonight on BBC Parliament Gordon Brown's indifference to the point raised by Vincent Cable in the last PMQ's of the year (Dec 12th). This is the bit -

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD): When the Prime Minister tucks into his Brussels sprouts on his one day off at Christmas, which of the various disasters of the last six months will haunt him most: his indecision over the election, his inaction over Northern Rock, or the gross incompetence of the loss of 25 million people’s personal data?
The Prime Minister: It is nice to have the hon. Gentleman here, and I thank him for his appearances over the last few weeks. Given the history of the Liberal party, it may not be long before he is back in that place again, representing his party. As for the issues of the last few months, we have made long-term decisions on energy, the environment, transport, infrastructure, planning, skills and the economy, and that is what governing is all about.
Dr. Cable: Given the Prime Minister’s own position, he might not be wise to speculate about leadership elections. Is not the real disaster, for which he has personal responsibility, the continuing tragedy in Iraq? When he was in Basra this week, was he told that at least 40 women have been executed for personal immorality? Is that why 173 British troops have died—transferring power from the fascist regime of Saddam Hussein to the terror of the fascist militia who run the streets of Basra?
The Prime Minister: Iraq is now a democracy. Millions of people have voted. When I went to Basra, only two days ago, I found that there had been a 90 per cent fall in violence over the last few months. We are now able to hand over Basra to provincial Iraqi control. So instead of the British forces having to engage in a combat role, we will, over time, be engaged in training role, supporting the Iraqi forces. Over these last few months, 50,000 people have been trained up as
police and security forces. This is Iraqis taking control of their own security. I would have thought that, even with the differences over the war, the hon. Gentleman would have welcomed the progress that is being made.

So no concerns there for Mr.Brown. Not a mention about the wretched women brought before these seedy "courts". Not even a desire to find out about it all. Just a glib answer. I hope his New Year's resolution will be for helping the minorities in Iraq, the beleagured Christians, the limbless, the unemployable, etc, etc. But let's have no more waffle and piffle about democracy.

Mr.Brown, we have democracy in Britain. It allows you to be where you are, as a job-sharing MP, leading a government on 20% of the electorate's support. Thankfully we haven't executed 40 women for "personal immorality". After all, if it were that sort of democracy, you'd have half your front bench with their heads off!!

Read More

Twelve Days of Christmas?

This year Christmas started for some folks on 1st December. A neighbour was proudly sitting in his front room with plastic tree, well-bedecked lights all a-blaring. Interesting that Advent Sunday was the next day. It seems that we have had it with "Christmas-in-Advent", as now we are getting Christmas before Advent as well. Maybe he was a Northern Rock shareholder, in which case he can be forgiven!

Sainsbury's got going with the mince pies just before September 25th!! Silly of them really, because they were discounting like mad two weeks before. I got some festive stilton at half price and a really decent green pineapple for 50p! (I had to get it scanned three times to get the advertised bargain!!). I wonder what they must think of us in the pineapple farms wanting them green!

So we are halfway through the festive season of Christmas. Twelve days to be precise, but most people think it's all over. Well, the sales are on, the new sofa must be on its way. This is the new retail epiphany. The three wise men always get there too soon, especially in shop windows.

What of the real Epiphany? Will it be forgotten again?

Read More

Tony Blair goes over to Rome!

So he has joined the Roman Catholic Church. I wish him well, but he has joined with a rather large carpet bag of dodgy legislation behind him. What now of gay "marriage", what now of forcing Catholic adoption agencies to take on board non-Catholic beliefs, and what of his lacklustre approach to family values?

I would dearly love to have been a fly on the wall at the meetings with the RC hierachy. Perhaps he confessed all, and is now on a clean sheet. Maybe. However, the rest of us are left with his ideas and his laws. He will now have to get used to the fact that the Catholic faith is not like the Pick 'N Mix at Woolworths but very much a set menu! In that, it is a pity that large parts of the Anglican Church seem to make it up as they go along rather than taking on the "faith once delivered to the saints" as handed down from the apostolic fathers.

Read More

Brown bungles his politics again!

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said recent scandals to have hit the government, such as data loss and proxy donations, will be "quickly forgotten". By whom, exactly? Himself? or the rest of us? As far as I know, my wife's data, along with all the others, is still lanquishing on some council dump somewhere! Those child benefit details haven't been found, have they Gordon?

Come off it! You've turned the country into a White Elephant, so how come the beast has suddenly got memory loss?

Read More

The Ron Paul phenomenon!!

Ron Paul moves up in the race by being himself. No gimmicks or gizmos, just plain common sense. How could any American fail to vote for this man?

Read More

Thinking of being a criminal?

People who commit crimes generally don't think straight. If they did they wouldn't end up as either sad cases or frightened refugees from society. When someone thinks of perpetrating a misdemeanour, which may go onto a fully-fledged crime, they think only of themselves. It is the greatest act of selfishness.

Now take the hapless, and some may say stupid, John Darwin. Allegedly, he conspired with his wife to defraud insurance companies in order to stave off mounting debt. Now one good thing that this New Labour government has done is to make personal bankruptcy both more socially acceptable and easier to arrange. Why he didn't avail himself of this route only the good Lord above knows!

John Darwin has with one stroke of his oar made it an impossible task for the rescue services to know whether any other canoeists who venture out onto the sea or lakes of this country are genuine. "Help! Help! I'm drowning!" "No, you're not, you're trying to get to Panama!" So he hasn't helped them, has he?

Then he has done a disservice to all the relatives of missing people. Will the police be round to see if there are any hidden doors into the next house? Grieving relatives in genuine cases need no more hassles, surely?

And what a plonker to get his picture taken by an estate agent in Panama City. Apparently someone Googled the words John + Darwin + Panama and up popped the picture above. It really is like a bad Columbo case!

The police have been really good about all this and I commend the detectives for the way they have pieced together this tale of deception.

But above all, the family of the Darwins, in particular their sons, have been deceived in a very distressing way. To believe that a father, brother, or cousin (I leave out husband, as Mrs Darwin had no such grief!) is dead in such circumstances is bad enough, but to have those circumstances changed beyond belief is the stuff of tragedy.

Let's hope the Darwins can have time to reflect and make an attempt to make amends.

Read More

Britishness?

What exactly is Lord Goldsmith up to? He's currently in charge of some committee set up by Gordon Brown to review Britishness. That in itself is very un-British. Lord Goldsmith is hardly the right guy to pontificate on the matter. He was up late, burning the midnight oil, trying to legalise Tony Blair's dodgy dossier on Iraq, so anything he touches could well be suspect.

He's grumbling about the wording of the National Anthem, he's looking the Union Flag over, and he suggesting we have a "statement of values" about what it means to be British. What a lot of nonsense. On top of all that, he thinks newly arrived immigrants should have a "mentor" to help them settle. Is that a subtle way of putting them off coming in the first place?

All this was started because we have a part-time MP job-sharing with an MSP who happens to be Prime Minister and feels uneasy being a Scot running the English but having passed off most of his constituency interests in a shabby constitutional deal. And it resulted in Alex Salmond getting all chirpy as First Minister.

They should know that being British is not about all this but about just being oneself. If that isn't good enough, why is half the world queuing up to get in?

Read More

Jobs for the Boys

We all thought Paul Gray, the former boss of HMRC, did the decent thing and resigned. That was when he found out that the buck stopped at his desk over the missing CD fiasco. But now it turns out that resigning for him means something rather different. For he is now working in the Cabinet Office supposedly "developing civil servant skills".

You see, nobody can actually resign because of the contracts! You can say "I'll resign!" but it is Humpty Dumpty talk for "I'm moving sideways to something equally good!" The Cabinet Office explained quite helpfully. "Paul Gray resigned with immediate effect on 20 November. However for contractual reasons he remains a senior civil servant. He will be leaving the civil service at the end of this year. In the meantime he has agreed to a request from Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to undertake a short piece of work on cross-government matters until Christmas."

Vince Cable, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats said "it makes the whole resignation look cynical", and Chris Grayling, from the Conservatives, said that "people must be beginning to think that Gordon Brown has no judgement at all". Apparently Ed Miliband, the Cabinet Office minister knew nothing of it. Oh dear, jobs for the boys indeed!

Read More

Policing the Police

Jim Jardine was once the chairman of the Police Federation. He always stood up for the average bobby. He didn't like wrongdoing, he wanted a well-paid police service and he was proud of the methods and traditions of British policing. That was some 25 years or more ago. I know times have changed, as we are constantly being told, but surely integrity, honesty and decency don't. Jim Jardine said that a policeman came from society in order to police, not that society should be controlled by the police.

Over the years, the various constabularies having taken on fanciful initiatives, bucket loads of political correctness, and an increasing propensity for incredible activity (such as the Stockwell shooting). Now if the police come from society, they bring to the job all the manifestations of society. Like thinking it OK to speed!!

I cannot understand what went through the mind of the Chief Constable for South Yorkshire, Meredydd Hughes, when he was clocked going 90mph in a 60mph zone. Did he think that 70 was too fast when his speedometer got there? What about 80? No, he can't have thought much about it, because he shoved it up another TEN mph!!

The trouble is that today there is a general arrogance with a lot of drivers. "I'm in charge, sod the rest of you" seems to be the thinking. So in that sense Mr. Hughes is only mirroring society. Driving reflects the tenseness of people, the tiredness of people, their agressiveness, their stubborn refusal to see a public dimension to a private activity. Motoring has gone, driving is the thing, and unless our attitudes are seriously revised, it will drive us crazy.

And to add insult to this tale, Mr. Hughes only gets a ban for 42 days. Lucky for him he didn't kill anybody.

Read More

New watchdog on the prowl!

A new anti-sleaze watchdog is settling into his kennel. Let's hope his bite is better than his bark. A watchdog without teeth is definitely no good.

Sir Christopher Kelly is the new man. He should take no nonsense from the spinners and spivs. Just saying "It wasn't me, guv!" is no longer any good. He will remember that the chairman of the Labour NEC came on nearly every programme saying she knew only one man knew (the resigning General Secretary) and this has since been held up as the stuff of bad pantomimes.

As the Dodgy Donor Drama continues, Sir Christopher will need to keep a beady eye on the motley crew in charge of the sinking ship that is New Labour.

Read More

Don't Wind Me Up!!

I can get so wound up sometimes watching the news and hearing of all the things going on in the world. My general outlook is conservative by nature but libertarian by inclinination. I certainly don't want to live in a country where officialdom is run by mixture of andrenalin junkies and incompetents. The former seem to be twitching away in parts of the police service.

This ongoing corruption in football inquiry. Are the police really do themselves any favours? I think not. Football agent Willie McKay has criticised police after his home was raided as part of their inquiry into allegations of corruption in the game. Mr McKay, who insists he has done nothing wrong, said some 28 officers stormed his house while his family were inside and even came in to his bedroom. 28 officers? Even if he lives in a house of, say, above average size, this is quite a number of police officers (all belted up with helmets on?) running up and down the stairs.

"It was like a terrorist operation, like something out of a film," he said. "It was 6am, all I could hear was people shouting 'police' - I got out of bed and there were police officers all over the place. I got ready but I was absolutely startled and amazed; they actually came up into my bedroom - I think there were around 28."

If the City of London police think this is the proper way to run policing in this country, then I think they need to go back into the classroom for some "re-training". The chap pictured above is Mike Bowron, the City of London Police Commissioner. Come on, Mike, tell us if you think it really needs 28 of your finest to go clodhopping into Mr. McKay's bedroom?

This story just tells us that the police treat every allegation and every suspect in exactly the same way. Mr. McKay goes down on the same page as known hoodlums and manic street preachers like Abu Hamsa.

Get a grip and a sense of proportion, Commissioner!

Read More