I'm out of here
Going Camping, back in a week.
The World according to Wonko. Warning! May contain naughty words including expletives, common sense and England.
Jack Straw has said that footballers wages should be capped and that clubs should have a fans charter and a fan on the board. This is, of course, because he's a football fan and nothing to do with the EU which has been saying this for the last month or so.
Keep the flag flying
I have noticed that, with the World Cup nearing, the England flags have been popping up again.
Now I issue a plea to every Englishman in the county. Let's do the opposite of what happened after Euro 2004 and keep them up permanently, not just until England eventually get knocked out.
Tom Wright, 15
Telford
Big stores only back England at World Cup
It is great to see so many English flags fluttering from people's cars.
It would be nice to think that most of them would stay after the World Cup, but it seems that most people only think about supporting their country when it comes to a sporting event.
For the past few weeks all the supermarkets have been selling the England supporter kits which contain these flags and are obviously doing a roaring trade.
I would urge anyone considering buying one of these kits to think about where they make their purchase.
For instance, Tesco refuses point blank to label any of their own products as English. They will gladly label Scottish items, but English products are labelled as British. They even have specialist buying teams in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but not in England. Tesco says England is too big to market as a country, but apparently not if there's a World Cup they can make money from.
Sainsbury's and Somerfield both label at least some of their own products as English so it must be possible to market England as a single country.
So, if you're tempted to buy one of these kits take a look at what they have on their shelves. If they can't support England when there isn't a World Cup don't support them when there is.
Stuart Parr
Telford
English nationalists often get accused of being right wing racists and are quite often associated with the BNP. This is not true. Some English nationalists are BNP supporters but they make up a minority of supporters of the BNP.
The Minister for Europe, Hoon the Buffoon has the following to say on Montenegro voting to give themselves independence:
The people of Montenegro have expressed a clear desire for an independent state. This is an important moment in the history of Montenegro.
We are pleased that ODIHR declared that the referendum complied with international standards. All sides in Montenegro, and the Serbian Authorities, must now work together to determine the way forward.
My many enquiries to the Home Office asking if the Home Secretary will exercise his right to legislate in Scotland under section 28 (7) of the Scotland Act 1998 to force Scottish police forces to merge in the interests of national security have solicited only an automated response informing me that my enquiry has been forwarded to the Scottish Executive. Understandably annoyed at the blatant fob-offs I decided to ring the Home Office and spoke to Sally Waples on the Police Restructuring Team (020 7035 4747).
Last week saw Traitor Blair claim a ToTW record by becoming the first person to win the award twice in a row. This week sees another ToTW record being set - the biggest landslide vitory so far!
Cheltenham have followed in the footsteps of Blackpool by banning cabbies from flying England flags from their cars. The council claim that it is because people might get confused if taxis fly England flags and think that any car with an England flag is a taxi.
Warmonger Bush has urged the Israeli president to bypass the democratically elected Palestinian government, which is controlled by Hamas, and negotiate directly with the Palestinian president instead.
The Local Government Association, a group of local council leaders, has announced that English cities should be given the same powers as the Scottish Parliament so they can better compete with major European cities.
John Reid, the new Home Secretary, indicated that he was thinking about whether or not to press on with the regionalisation of English and Welsh police forces. Either it didn't take him long to think about it or he was lying because he has just made Tony McNulty minister for police because he is the best person to push through police reforms including the mergers.
Shropshire NHS recently donated £13m from its already overstretched budget to setting up a new West Midlands regional bank. They have now accepted a £34m loan from the regional NHS bank. Interest will presumably be charged on the whole £34m meaning that Shropshire NHS will be paying interest on £13m of its own money on top of being £13m out of pocket in the first place.
A Shropshire breast cancer sufferer has been given a course of Herceptin after staging a week-long sit-in protest at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. She will now be able to join the Welsh women who are already receiving the drug free of charge at the same hospital.
Yes, I'm late again but I've been pretty busy. Please cast your votes from the following:
Anyone vaguely interested in marketing/advertising/graphics/DTP who is prepared to help me produce some World Cup related advertisments for the CEP, please contact me.
Someone from the south of England is in court today after being charged with not properly recycling their rubbish. This person has apparently been putting non-recyclable rubbish into their recycling box and now faces a fine of up to £1,000.
Montenegro has voted for independence from Serbia in a referendum. It was a close result with 54% of people voting in favour of regaining their independence which they lost to Yugoslavia 90 years ago.
According to Conservative Home, the Ignorant Jock has been especially generous with English taxes of late. The average North Briton now receives in excess of two grand a year more than the average English
Taxi drivers in Blackpool have been banned from wearing clothes featuring the word England, the three lions or St George's Crosses and from flying England flags from their cabs. One driver claims that he was told that it was to prevent causing offence to foreigners and to prevent any possible trouble from Scottish and Welsh people. One cabbie had his licence suspended for wearing a shirt which said the word England on it.
In response to a letter calling for the removal of the monarchy and establishing an elected monarchy ...
Fair elections?
From: Stuart Parr, Briarwood, Brookside, Telford.
ALED Jones fails to understand one major point about democracy – elections don't make a system democratic (Yorkshire Post, May 18).
The Government has shown itself to be corrupt and morally questionable while simultaneously legislating to strip us of our rights and freedoms.
An elected head of state, just like an elected House of Lords, would have the opposite effect to that imagined by perpetual optimists in that it would merely cement the ruling party's hold over the country and sweep away effective opposition.
Labour won the General Election nine years ago and took control of the Commons. At the time the Tories controlled the House of Lords but Labour have since "reformed" the Lords so that they could appoint peers based on their political affiliation and have now given themselves a majority in the upper house.
So, the Labour Party now controls (albeit tenuously) the Commons and the Lords. If we had an elected Head of State, what party would he or she represent do you think?
Would the electorate vote Labour in the General Election, Labour in the House of Lords and a Conservative for President? The answer, I'm sure you'll agree, is no.
Therefore, both Houses of Parliament and the presidency – the highest authority in the land – would all be controlled by the same party.
Is that your idea of democracy?
Please send me your Twat of the Week nominations. Either post in the comments or contact me.
The Home Office, responsible for controlling immigration, has discovered 5 illegal immigrants.
Yesterdays joke of the day:
How many illegal immigrants are there in England?Traitor Blair was asked yesterday how many illegal immigrants there were in this country and he doesn't know. Nobody knows apparently. That's reassuring.
Nobody knows.
The EU has, bizarrely, agreed to allow Slovenia to join the Euro.
I have just emailed the Home Office with a very serious concern over our safety and security.
Growing Scottish influence on cabinet
I had the misfortune to see Labour's party election broadcast the day before the local elections.
The broadcast talked about how well Britain was doing under Labour and finished with the strapline "Britain is moving forward - vote Labour".
Bearing in mind that these were the English local elections, I wonder how many people were left wondering what Labour were planning to do for England and how many votes they lost as a result of Labour's continued denial of the existence of our country.
Can you imagine what would happen to Labour's all important majority in Scotland and Wales if they used the word "Britain" in a local electon broadcast there?
The cabinet reshuffle that follwed Labour's humiliating loses at the local election had both positive and negative sides.
The positives were the sacking of Chalres Clarke and John Prescott being stripped of all his powers. These two men were possibly the biggest threat to freedom and democracy in this country.
On the downside, there are now 5 MP's with Scottish constituencies in top ministerial positions running departments that are rarely permitted to do anything that affects their own constituents.
This is a clear message from Tony Blair - if England can't be trusted to vote Labour then he will have to bring in people we can't vote out of office. There are only two ways to get anywhere in this Labour government - you either have to be incompetent or Scottish.
Stuart Parr
Telford
The Herald is almost unique in the Scottish press in that it not only understands the discrimination against England as a result of devolution but, unlike the cowardly "English" press, it actually dares to report it. But your editorial, Scottophobia lives on today (May 15), certainly falls short of your usual balanced reporting.The opposition by English people to a Scottish MP becoming prime minister is nothing to do with a phobia or even dislike of the Scots. It is simply the case that, since devolution, Westminster now spends roughly 80% of its time dealing solely with England. It is not unreasonable for the people of England, representing 85% of the population of the (dis)United Kingdom, to want somebody who is accountable to the English electorate as prime minister.Were Gordon Brown to become the British prime minister, he would have a free rein over England but would be almost incapable of introducing any legislation that would affect his own constituents. He would be safe in the knowledge that no matter how unpopular a piece of legislation was, nobody in England could vote him out of office as he is elected in Scotland. Westminster has become largely irrelevant in Scotland since devolution so the diehard Labour constituents, most of whom would vote for a chimpanzee if it wore a red rosette, are very unlikely to vote him out based on what he has done to the auld enemy south of the border.I have no problem with a Scottish MP becoming prime minister of the UK once a fully-devolved government, with at least the same powers as the Scottish Parliament, has been introduced in England. Until this happens, increasing numbers of English people will refuse to submit to minority rule by unaccountable Scottish politicians.
Stuart Parr, Telford, Shropshire.
THE growth in Scottophobia was inevitable. The idea of devolution might have been to strengthen the Union, but only fools could have thought that a manifestly inequitable system, that Labour created, could possibly achieve that aim. Gordon Brown or John Reid have every constitutional right to be prime minister but neither will have any electoral mandate for the bulk of that job. Post-devolution, the duties have changed dramatically. Besides going on lots of holidays and prancing about the world saying how they are going to save it, the PM's main function is to oversee the administration of England.Brown/Reid are, however, elected to Westminster to represent their constituents on non-devolved matters. So they have no mandate from either Scottish or English electors to deal with things like health, education, law and order, etc. That is why they should not be PM of the UK until England has a devolved parliament of its own. Constitutionally, there is no reason why an English MP representing an English constituency should not be secretary of state for Scotland, but if any such person were appointed there would be a big protest from Scotland.
Edward Higginbottom, Rea Bank, Weir Road, Hanwood, Shrewsbury.
Traitor Blair is certainly one for setting records. Not only is he the most unpopular Prime Minister for nigh on a century, not only is he the worst Prime Minister in living memory, not only is he the Prime Minister that has used the Parliament Act to bypass democracy more times than every other British government since it became law, but he is also the only person to win Twat of the Week twice in a row!
Poor Tony, nobody likes you. Why don't you resign?
Steve McClaren 1 (6%)
Traitor Blair 10 (56%)
John Reid 6 (33%)
Gordon Brown 1 (6%)
18 votes total
The Higher Education Minister (didn't realise we had one, he must be good) has announced today that the British government is considering making lessons on British values compulsary in secondary schools.
Traitor Blair and the Ignorant Jock have come to an agreement over linking state pensions to earnings. The link will be restored in 2012, not long after the next election.
The unelected Scottish Lord Chancellor of England, Charlie Falconer, has indicated that the Human Rights Act could be amended to put the safety of the public first.
Time for this weeks Twat of the Week nominations. As usual, either post in the comments or contact me.
City proposal will mean more tax
I wonder how many residents of Telford know anything about the West Midlands city region that Michael Frater has sold us to?
It took me about a month, many phone calls and e-mails and I ended up speaking to Birmingham City Council but I finally managed to get some information on the proposal.
I didn’t get a copy of the proposal as that is to be kept secret for the next few months, presumably so that members of the public can’t give their councillors reasons to object to it.
The city region, Messrs Frater and Austin tell us, will bring us economic benefits and help us attract investment.
The blueprint for city regions produced by the UK government suggests that city regions will be able to levy business taxes. Extra taxation will encourage investment in Telford?
The economic benefits will be in the form of extra money from the UK government and EU in return for complying with regional policy.
This is nothing short of bribery and, in the case of the EU, they are bribing us with our own money!
The city region will mean higher taxes, less democracy and accountability, move more control of our daily lives away from our own democratically elected local representatives to unelected regionalists in Birmingham and the “economic benefits” are little more than bribes paid out of our own pockets.
Stuart Parr, Telford
Source: BBC News
The Lords have passed the Northern Ireland Act today allowing the Northern Ireland Assembly to be reconvened later this year.
The Transport Minister was on the telly this morning talking all about road pricing. It's going to be great, it's going to be fair, it's going to save the environment and, of course, it's only going to affect England.
I read a story in the paper last night about the Fat Turd asking that he be left to get on with his job. Obviously this confused me as he doesn't actually have one but I read on and it all became clear. Apparently, John Prescott's new job is as a "deal maker" for Traitor Blair. For this he is getting paid over £130k a year, two ministerial homes and all the perks, priveleges and benefits of being a minister.
Poor Tony, he's not having a good week. He's had to sack one of his yes men and demote another couple and then he had to appoint some of his Scottish friends to the cabinet because the English keep voting their Labour representatives out of office. Now, to top it all off, he've been voted as Twat of the Week!
Shareholders in GlaxoSmithKline have been sent threatening letters by what the media are calling "animal rights activists". It's time these people were correctly referred to as animal rights terrorists.
Happy Europe Day everyone. Here are some images to get you in the mood ...
So, Granny Weatherwax ... is she more powerful than the wizards? Magic is magic right? In a magical deathmatch between Granny Weatherwax and one of the wizards, who'd win?
Source: Telford Live
Letter to Ms Beckett:
My friend, who is in farming at the moment, received a cheque for £3000 from the government for not rearing pigs. I now wish to go into the ‘not rearing pigs business.’
In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all Government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.
I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?
As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government Local Authority courses on this?
My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for twenty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1422 in 1968, until this year when he received a cheque for not rearing any.
If I get £3000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6000 for not rearing 100?
I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. Then I can afford to buy an aeroplane.
Another point. These pigs I plan not to rear will not eat 2000 tons of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?
I am also considering the not milking cows business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the Government information on set-aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual-reality fields?
In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will qualify for unemployment benefits.
Below is a copy of the Schuman Declaration, the document that declared a European Community (now the European Union). When a pro-EU person tries to tell you that a federal dictatorship isn't the ultimate aim of the European Union, just show them the image below and point them to the bit I've ringed.
This was in the Shropshire Star a few days ago. Since this story, Margaret Beckett has been promoted to the Foreign Office as reward for her incompetence in charge of DEFRA.
Debt-ridden farmers across Shropshire have contemplated suicide as the only escape from the government’s single payment fiasco, it was revealed today.
The Rural Stress Network, founded during the foot and mouth crisis in 2001, said financial pressures were intolerable for farmers who have been waiting months for subsidies.
Many were battling with banks over sky-high charges. Others had no money to feed their families, while “three or four” in the last week said they had thought about suicide.
The Single Payment Scheme, which provides support payments to farmers for the environmental work they carry out, has descended into chaos with 70 per cent of claimants still unpaid. Now it could take until November to clear the backlog.
Helen Williams, for the Rural Stress Network, said many farmers were on the edge.
Not even the BBC can ignore the number of North British MP's the Traitor Blair has installed into his new, reshuffled cabinet.
Please send me your nominations for Twat of the Week. Either post in the comments or contact me.
Well, the expected cabinet reshuffle has been announced. Not quite the vote-winner I suggested earlier today but interesting nonetheless.
Following yesterday's local elections Labour have dropped to third place overall. The Conservatives are now the majority party with a 40% vote share, Lib Dems are second with a 27% vote share and Labour are third with 26%.
It looks like Traitor Blair's speech the other day worked. He asked the people not to vote on the basis of the previous few days' headlines in which Labour have been shown to have taken incompetence to a new level, but to vote on the basis of their achievements in the last few years. It appears that voters have certainly done that because yesterday Labour lost 254 seats in the English local elections.
The EU may fine the UK government for its incompetence over farming subsidies for English farmers.
EU law provides for the free movement of workers between member states. Under EU law, all member states are required to allow the free movement of workers from other member states. So whay is it that since the last batch of Eastern European countries joined the EU, only three countries are allowing unrestricted migration from from those new member states?
Police are investigating 7 London Borough's over electoral fraud (Labour controlled I believe). They are also investigating Labour-controlled Birmingham (again) for electoral fraud.
Nurses and medical staff were protesting outside the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital yesterday over 300 job cuts at the hospital and its sister site, the Princess Royal in Telford.
More smoke and mirrors from the Labour Stazi. In a blatant attempt to divert some attention from the Sweaty Baboon's utter incompetence and inability to do his job the Home Secretary has decided that rather than use existing laws to deport foreign nationals who are in prison, he will rush in some new laws that mean they will be considered for deportation automatically.
I saw the party election broadcast for Labour yesterday as well as a snippet of Traitor Blair's speech telling us to forget the bad headlines and remember the good things Labour have done instead like ... ummmm ... hmm, anyway...
The Sweaty Baboon told the BBC last week that he had offered his resignation to Traitor Blair and that he had refused to accept it. It now transpires that that was a complete lie - the Home Secretary did not offer to resign.