Simon Kirby MP in attack on Church

Some Conservative MPs are fast becoming secularists and anti-Christian lobbyists. I'm all in favour of people being themselves, but it ill becomes those who lecture others about their beliefs, especially when there is a paucity of knowledge. Simon Kirby MP says of the current clamour over same-sex unions being blessed in Church, “Public opinion is moving faster than the Church on this issue and it is increasingly in danger of getting left behind.” Mr.Kirby must surely know that public opinion has nothing to do with revealed truth. Christ's Gospel was His and is His and does not come from public opinion. The Church is not in danger of getting left behind or anything else. Mr.Kirby would probably have told the woman at the well all sorts of stuff, but going and sinning no more would likely not be that. Christians are supposed to be in the world but not of the world. Mr.Kirby wants it the other way round.

Maybe he should stop being a Conservative MP and become a modernising revisionist of secular doctrines. Far more honest!

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Eric Illsley's positive porridge time!

The wife of disgraced Labour MP Eric Illsley says he's doing fine in jail. He's keeping his head down. She says, "The first few phone calls were slightly emotional obviously because it was a shock but he's keeping his head down and getting on with it. He seems chirpier now than the first few days. He'll cope. He's not always been an MP. Eric didn't come from the playing fields of Eton, he comes from the playing fields of Kendray (in Barnsley)... so he's quite resilient, he'll handle it well." Hold on a minute, dear! So you think public schoolboys are not up to a period in the slammer? Most of those who ever do find themselves on the wrong side of the law fit in perfectly well. It's the pretentious middle classes that don't fair so well.

Recent old Etonian lags have done quite well. Lord Brocket got knifed in jail, which gave him a rise in the pecking order on kudos. Jonathan Aitken has reformed himself from being a perjuror. Old Etonian Simon Mann found himself in a frightful jail in Equatorial Guinea after trying to get rid of the dictator. He is now working as an adviser to President Obiang  -  six years after trying to overthrow him. No doubt he told the despot it was all a terrible mistake.

Mrs Illsley may think the playing fields of Kendray will have given her husband a sense of coping but I think she's just trying to get her ten pence worth of class bitterness in. Eric will do far better if he comes out with his head held high, realising that he did wrong (which she tells us he does realise) and put his time and skills to good use.

Also Mrs Illsley should remember what Roger Cooper said almost 20 years ago when he was released from Ervin jail in Tehran. When questioned by eager tabloid journalists about his time at the hands of his Persian prison guards, he said, "Anyone who has been to a British public school can do five years in an Iranian jail."

Eating porridge is only the start!

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By-election in Buckingham? Bercow to be bounced?

John Bercow got the overwhelming support of the electors of Buckingham in last year's general election. They seemed satisfied with an MP who was a bit dodgy on expenses and a bit dodgy on political savvy. But then this a seat that elected the bouncing Czech Maxwell, the maverick George Walden and, in the late 1800's, Edmund Verney, who managed to get expelled from the House because he was jailed for more than a year. Verney procured the services of  girl under 21 years of age for immoral purposes. He should have waited for Harriet Harperson to come along!

Buckingham electors may need to be looking around for another MP. Not that they are clamouring to get rid of Bercow. They seem very satisfied with him. No, it's the MPs in the Commons who are desperate to be rid of their Speaker. They have been badgering the government for a vote and the government will not stand in their way now. If a vote does happen, it is more than likely that it will be curtains (or heavy drapes) for Bercow. The dechaired Speaker would not fit in well on the backbenches. Which set of backbenches? Where would he go? Would they give him a peerage or a steerage? He wouldn't last in the Commons. Far better to resign his seat and cause a by-election to occur.

Who would win in Buckingham? They've had a Labour MP who went Conservative later in a different constituency (Aidan Crawley) and a Conservative MP who had been Labour in a different constituency (Frank Markham). Another famous MP for Buckingham was John Radcliffe, the physician. He was royal physician to William and Mary. His predecessor in the job, Ralph Verney, was against William being king. The one thing Buckingham has not done is elect a shrinking violet.

John Bercow's days may be numbered but with how many numbers?

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Mad dogs and Englishmen

Colonel Gaddafi has some nerve. He calls those opposed to him mad dogs. If ever there was a person in need of cerebral therapy it is him. He is a tyrant that deserves all he gets. People all over the world just want to live in freedom. Free to wander down to the shops without some nerdy creep telling tales about them. Free to worship in peace. Free not to worship in peace. Free to express an opinion without getting shot, or locked up and tortured. Gaddafi took away those freedoms. Yet he was free to steal from his people, to play havoc in world politics and to curry favour with corporations keen to sell their souls for a fistful of dollars.

I hope he's gone by the end of today!

The British government has been caught blinking at the moon again. When it comes to helping stranded Brits abroad, the British government invariably puts the commercial cart before the humanitarian horse. It sometimes seems best to tag along behind a group of foreigners. Seems the Chinese are up to speed in Libya. Enoch Powell said that the Foreign Office was a nest of vipers. The only thing to change apparently is that the tongues are not forked anymore.

I saw Question Time last night. Peter Hain made a fool of himself. Fancy saying it was OK to sell Gaddafi weapons so long as he he didn't use them "on his own people". It's like saying a fat man can buy donuts so long as he doesn't eat them. And I'm uneasy with Cameron gallivanting around the deserts of Arabia with booted and suited gunsmiths when most of the Middle East is fighting for basic human rights.

It was OK attacking Saddam Hussein but it isn't OK stopping Gaddafi paying mercenaries to kill people in the streets of Tripoli. Double standards? I'd say so. The Western governments could do a lot more than they are doing right now. Libya is an ancient civilisation that has had the misfortune to be ruled by a despot of semi-civilised behaviour. The new government of Libya will not thank the West for allowing the country's major assets to go up in smoke or sit in a tax haven somewhere. David Cameron needs to know that Arabs favour strength over weakness. Britain looks rather anemic right now.

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Gay weddings to be held in St.Featherbrain's church!

The Liberal Democrat minister for "equality", Lynne Featherstone, is pushing ahead with so-called religious gay weddings. Seeing as most of those campaigning for this novelty are either atheists or agnostics or revisionists, I'd say this was an attack on Christianity rather than a measure of that euphemism of equality.

Ms Featherstone, bless her, knows nothing about the Church. She is Jewish and a liberal. That makes her rather inadequate to pontificate on this matter. The only religious bodies to get excited about this are the Quakers and the Liberal Jewish synagogues. I've nothing against them offering whatever the wish to offer. What I do object to is Ms Featherstone trying to find a way to force the Church to adopt secular notions. The sacrament of Holy Matrimony is a holy estate between a man and a woman. What the state does is one thing. We may agree or disagree. She should leave well alone on matters of doctrine of which she apparently knows very little. Strange noises? Sounds like she consulted her boiler!

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Mubarak, the robber of Egypt

I see in the Daily Mail today that Mubarak and his family have stashed away £25 billion over the last 30 years. Did he think he earned it all? Was there a salary as president? How much time was he spending on running Egypt and how much time was he in his counting house?

When the new democratic government comes in they should ask the rogue with the Just for Men hairdo where the cash is. The Swiss bankers have already got twitchy and put a stop on him writing cheques.

And is the US government going to stop the gravy train for the Egyptian military? How much of the US taxpayers' tax dollars have passed through Mubarak's chubby fingers?

It's going to be a summer of questions. I do hope the answers are easily understood!

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Mubarak falls off the wall, with slight bump and heads for the beach!

I wonder what it must be like for a dictator's mindset. Over a million people crammed into a square all baying for your blood, the rest of the country wishing you'd clear off and your erstwhile cronies fingering their rubber daggers. It's ridicule, hatred, pity, distaste, indifference and much more all rolled into one for the people. But surely Mubarak didn't think anyone still thought him fit for the presidency? What on earth was going through his mind?

The only thing I can think is that politics for some is a cause for insanity. Are most of the world's leaders insane in some way or other? Berlusconi must have a few insanity cells in that numbskull of his. Anyway, Mubarak had enough mentality left to realise he'd be better off kicking the sand in Sharm El Sheikh than he would be studying the script for another TV broadcast to the nation!

And I wonder if the Americans are having sleepless nights. All this came about because of Wikileaks emboldening the Arab subjugates. Washington has paid billions into Mubarak's coffers, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to his regime's cruelty. They sound a bit jittery and nervous now he's gone. Could be that a democratic Egypt will reveal the nasty truth about renditions, special or monetary ones.

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Six killed as Belfast plane crashes in Cork

Six people have been killed after a small plane travelling from Belfast crashed in fog at Cork Airport.

Cork University Hospital is treating six other people who were injured.

More from BBC News

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Health worker sacked for making cheeky joke as she straddled naked patient was unfairly dismissed

A nurse who cracked a saucy joke as she helped to restrain a patient having an epileptic fit was unfairly fired, the Appeal Court has ruled. Laura Bowater, 34, quipped, 'It's been a few months since I have been in this position with a man underneath me' as she straddled his naked body while doctors tried to give him an injection. The trousers of the 'extremely strong' 31-year-old patient had been removed so doctors could inject his buttock and Ms Bowater sat on his ankles to control his flailing legs.

So reports the Daily Mail. They go on to say that a panel at Watford Employment Tribunal upheld her unfair dismissal claim but North West London Hospitals NHS Trust successfully challenged it at the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The NHS Trust did what? Who works for these outfits? Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, herself a former nurse, called the sacking insane. I get the impression that insanity is a top requisite for working in the NHS these days.

These are the great and the good who run this trust. Any of them put down insanity as a CV page turner? They should hang their heads in shame.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353595/Nurse-Laura-Bowater-sacked-lewd-comments-unfairly-dismissed.html#ixzz1D80aGG2e

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Jo Johnson MP in uncommon prayer request

Who is Jo Johnson, I thought. Sounds like a Safestyle double glazing salesman. The sort that have been banned from doorsteps. Then I found out he's the MP for Orpington and the brother of Boris. One thing that family is not shy about is talking.

He wants to end the daily practice of saying prayers in the House of Commons chamber because he claims it would improve the image of MPs among the public and save time. That's a rather weak claim. A bit like his brother's desire to put an airport on the Thames marshes and get daily bird strike. Johnson junior has little clue about the constitution. We have an established church. It weaves in and out of Parliament. Left to his own devices he may forget this notion. If it ever caught on it would help to unravel our way of life.

The Conservative Party was once likened to the Church of England and vice versa. Now the Tories have left the party to be festered with modernists creepily posing ideas that they think will ingratiate themselves with the public. Misguided, I'd say. The CofE is fast becoming a sect where doctrine is scribbled out on the back of an envelope. The Conservative Party is in danger of imitating Shakespeare's “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Is there any place for High Church High Tories anymore?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353386/Boris-Johnsons-MP-brother-Jo-says-prayers-scrapped-Commons.html#ixzz1D7u83FWl

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Personal insolvencies at record high

People going into voluntary insolvency has rocketed. There were 135,089 people declared insolvent during 2010, up by 0.7% compared with the previous year, the Insolvency Service has said. There were twice as many personal insolvencies as in 2005 and it was the highest since records began in 1960.

I have a problem with some of the aspects of personal debt. Many credit and loan arrangements were sold with PPI or Payment Protection Insurance. In a lot of cases these policies are worthless or do not meet the needs of customers. With rising unemployment, financial companies are keen to cut their losses. By that I mean getting rid of loans they have no further use for. They sell them on to so-called Debt Collection Agencies who are really nothing of the kind. They are mainly chancers seeking to make a quick buck from loans the original lender has seen fit to dispose of, often blithely forgetting about PPI. Sort of financial scavengers, the vultures of the loan industry.

Most people want to repay their debts. Most people do not like being in debt for longer than necessary. However, this new "industry" is keen on debt. It's all a bit like a fish farm for passed on debts. Loads of companies all fishing in a pond. If one fails to get a bite, they sell a debt onto another, possibly one with a net instead of a rod.

These companies care little for contracts, for PPI arrangements, or just simply obeying the law. They seem to prefer bamboozle and bravado. The House of Commons was debating loan sharks. I think they need to clean up the whole industry. Financial contracts can't just be "sold" without any legal niceties in place. The current arrangement implies that the law takes second place. We need some changes. I happened to find this site about debt buying companies. Virtually all appear to be rogues. And it's a succesful business for the debt chasers!

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