Archive for October 2007

Leave our schools alone Gordo

The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan has proclaimed that all failing schools in England will get a visit from a specialist management team to help turn them round.  If that doesn’t work then a change of “management” will be instigated and if that doesn’t work then the school will be shut down.

It was pointed out this morning on GMTV or some morning Trash TV programme that roughly 50% of schools are underperforming.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t pointed out that he has no mandate on the English education system.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

Trick or Treat?

Got home from work and the trick or treaters were out in force.

Made sure they didn’t bother me though, I blocked the path with a wheelie bin.

My parents came to visit and said I was tight.  Be honest, was that tight?

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Letter: Torygraph

Letter in today’s Torygraph … 

Sir – The Conservative proposal for an English Grand Committee is
nonsense.

Simply grouping together the same British MPs who have allowed a
system of apartheid to grow following devolution into a Grand
Committee will not mean better representation for England – these MPs
have demonstrated where their loyalties lie and it is not with the 50
million people who call England home.

The only solution to the West Lothian question is a devolved English
Parliament. The Scots have one and the Welsh are looking to upgrade
theirs – it’s not as if we’re asking for anything more than our
partners in Britain already have.

Is this really so unreasonable?

Stuart Parr, Campaign for an English Parliament, Telford, Shropshire

It’s about half what I sent and missed out the best bit but never mind.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

Rubbish Tax

The British government has given the go-ahead to English councils to implement a pay-as-you-throw rubbish tax.

An EU Directive means that unless we cut down on the amount of rubbish sent to landfill, the English taxpayer could end up with a £180m fine per year from Federal Europe.  To try and avoid paying this again (we’re already paying huge fines to our masters in Brussels) the British government wants local authorities to tax residents in England on the amount of rubbish they produce.

I have a suggestion – TELL THE EU TO FUCK OFF!

Why should we pay any fines to Federal Europe?  Our country, our money, our rubbish, our decision.

Council Tax isn’t going to go down as local authorities bring in the rubbish tax, it’ll be extra.  People with large families or poor people will be the ones who suffer the most.  I have four kids and we fill two large recycling boxes and then some every fortnight.  We recycle at least one third of our household waste but we still fill two small wheely bins and one large wheely bin during the same period.

Instead of targetting consumers for throwing away too much rubbish, why not target the manufacturers of goods who insist on wrapping everything up in 2 or 3 layers of packaging?  Unfortunately, the cheaper goods are, the more elaborate the packing tends to be to make it more attractive to the buyer.

Charging for the amount of rubbish produced is going to make fly-tipping a massive problem.  Any potential profit the local authority might make from a pay-as-you-throw rubbish tax will be eaten up by the team of enforcement officers and street cleaners they’re gong to need to employ to deal with fly-tipping.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Abortion

Christian fundamentalists and pro-lifers have celebrated the anniversary of the legalisation of abortion by calling for a reduction in the time limit on abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks citing medical advances as a reason for the change.

Anyone know what medical advances these are?

Pregnant women have a detailed scan at 20 weeks where the foetus is checked for abnormalities.  If nothing was suspected prior to the 20 week scan then a detailed scan wouldn’t be done any earlier.

So, assuming the limit was dropped to 20 weeks and a serious problem is found then is the mother to be expected to make a decision there and then whether to keep it?  With the best will in the world, not everyone can cope with a child with serious medical problems.  We have four children and if Mrs Sane was to get pregnant again and it had severe medical problems, we wouldn’t be able to look after our family properly.

I don’t think there is a case for reducing or increasing the limit for abortion.  Increase it and you start getting into the whole ethical issue over when a foetus becomes a person and it’s “wrong” to abort it.  Reduce it and you end up with children being brought up by parents who don’t want them or with serious medical problems – in both cases they would have poor quality of life.

Technorati Technorati Tags:

Bit more salt in the wound, sir?

The Crossrail project – a huge train network in the south east of England, centred on London – is estimated to cost the taxpayer £16,500,000,000.

The breakdown is as follows:

  • Building Crossrail – £16,000,000,000
  • Buying Scottish votes – £500,000,000

Under the Barnett Formula, Scotland is entitled to £500m purely because £16bn is being spent in England.  It doesn’t matter that the money is being spent on London and Crossrail will benefit nobody outside of the London commuter belt.  It doesn’t even matter that Scotland doesn’t need the money or have anything in particular to spend it on.  They will get half a billion pounds simply because the Scottish Raj won’t risk losing Scottish votes by abolishing the unfair Barnett Formula.

Scotland gets its own budget, a multi-billion pound subsidy from the English taxpayer, its own parliament and its MPs treat England as a personal feifdom.  Then they pull this kind of stunt which really rubs salt in the wound.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

English Grand Committee

The media has been awash with stories of the Conswervatives “new” radical plan to save the union and solve the West Lothian Question.

It’s not a new idea though, they’ve been talking about it for a couple of years at least and even then it’s not an original idea – someone told me that it first reared its ugly head in the 1800’s!

Anyway, this is all by the by – English Votes on English Matters or an English Grand Committee (they’re basically the same thing) will not solve the West Lothian Question, will not save the union and will not make England equal within the union.  What it will do is fail miserably and expose the extent to which party politics has made an utter sham of democracy.

If the Conswervatives introduce a bill for an English Grand Committee and somehow manage to get it through Parliament, Liebour will do everything in their power to make it fail.  That’s assuming they get it through, of course, because Liebour MPs will be whipped until they’re sore to make sure that their Scottish MPs can still vote on English matters because without them they don’t have a working majority in England.

There is a marked difference in the attitudes of MPs from Liebour and the Conswervatives in response to the English Grand Committee idea.  Tories are coming out and saying something has to be done to make the system fairer because it’s not right that MPs elected in Scotland have a say on health and education in England but not in their own constituencies.  Liebour, on the other hand, are rolling out minister and after incompetent, discredited minister to say that the idea is unworkable and will lead to the breakup of the union.  They’re right but what do they propose as an alternative?  They don’t because they don’t have one.  They know that the only way to make governemnt fair in England is to give us our own parliament but that’s bad for the party so they won’t entertain the idea.  In short, the party is more important than the people and that’s the root of all the problems with the sham of a democracy in this country.

There are many problems with the idea of an English Grand Committee is that it doesn’t create a seperate English Executive.  The MPs sitting on the Grand Committee won’t be there as English MPs representing the interests of England, debating English legislation.  They will be there as British MPs representing British interests on British legislation relating to England.  They certainly can’t be relied upon to represent England’s interests, they’re the ones who’ve been letting all this happen in the first place.

This Grand Committee idea also means there’s no pot of money for England.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get a wedge of cash to spend on what they want, spending on England comes from the British budget.  If the money is needed to buy a few votes then tough luck England, there’s no more money for you.

And don’t even get me started on the Speaker of the House deciding whether a bill should be certified as an English bill – the Speaker is a Scottish Liebour stooge whose partiality at times is so breathtaking that it’s a miracle that Conswervative MPs are even allowed to speak in the presence of a Liebour MP, let alone disagree with them.

So what’s the solution?  Nothing short of an English Parliament is going to work but nobody wants to give us one.  I asked a few people today – some interested in politics, some not – what they thought and the same two answers came from everyone:

  • Hold a referendum
  • Revolution

The first one is simple and every day that passes and the Scottish Raj don’t give us a referendum is an insult to every English man, woman and child in England.  The second?  I’m not suggesting that a group of armed revolutionaries should storm parliament and hang every MP that’s supported the apartheid but a short sharp revolution like the one in Ukraine followed by a snap election not long ago would suit me just fine.  We need an English Parliament and whether it’s by referendum or revolution we will have one.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Foreign Rugby

The Great Britain rugby team beat New Zealand today.

The level of interest in the British team is so low that I didn’t even know it was happening or had taken place until it was on the news and it only made the news because the winning try was so farcical.

I wonder how much having a British team costs the taxpayer?  We already have an English team with a massive following.  The British team, by contrast, is largely unknown and of very little interest to the man on the street (or in front of the TV).

I will have to keep an eye out for any future matches – especially if they’re televised – so I can support the opposition.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Could our fate lie in Denmark’s hands?

According to Prodicus, enough Danish MPs have signed a motion to force a referendum on the EU not-a-constitution.

THis is excellent news – the not-a-constitution theoretically can’t go ahead without every member state ratifying it.  With the leaders of every member state desperately trying (and mostly succeeding) to avoid a referendum, we could very find that our fate as an independent nation relies entirely on the Danish people doing the right thing and voting against the not-a-constitution.

There is, of course, a possibility that the Republic of Ireland might hold a referendum but the Irish are eurofederalists and we can’t rely on them to derail the EU gravy train.

The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan won’t let us have a referendum now and that’s for sure.  Even if it wasn’t for the fact he’s a rampant eurofederalist and the bribes he was undoubtedly offered the other day, he wouldn’t give us a referendum because the Tories are calling on him to do so.  There’s a difference between stealing populist policies like reforming stamp duty off the Tories and changing his mind on holding a referendum.  There is no way in the world that he is going to hand the Tories a propaganda victory over the EU not-a-constitution.

So it will fall to our neighbours on the continent to put a stop to the not-a-constitution.  Our fate in the hands of foreigners … at home and abroad.  Not a good position for an Englishman to be in.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

BBC Cutbacks

The BBC is shedding thousands of jobs to cut costs.  People like Jonafan Woss and Jeremy Clarkson are looking like losing their jobs for being too expensive.

However, the mini-budget the other week announced new farsi and arabic channels from the BBC but there’s no mention of cutbacks on that front.  Nor is there any indication whether they’ll stop the totally unnecessary cost of broadcasting both English and Welsh versions of the same sports events.

Flicking through the channels this afternoon I came across the same rugby match in English on BBC1 and in Welsh on S4C (courtesy of the BBC).  I expect it was on BBC Radio Wales in English and BBC Cymru in Welsh as well.

How much does this cost on average, I wonder?

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Fraser Nelson: come on down

Fraser Nelson, Political Editor of the Spectator, needs to pay a short visit back to reality before he goes on national television and comes out with anything else like this:

Right now we don’t really notice that we have 14% of the population on benefits, a huge figure.  But if immigrants weren’t here then my god we’d notice.  There’d be huge labour shortages everywhere, we would be forced to actually confront this huge joblessness.

He said this on BBC Question Time in response to a member of the audience saying that yes, we need immigrants, but what about the British people who aren’t working?

Ok Fraser, this is what would actually happen on planet earth.  We stop mass, unfettered immigration and make the lazy scrotes who won’t work get a damn job.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Philip Hollobone MP might benefit from reading the odd newspaper

Philip Hollobone, the Tory MP for Kettering, is calling for a change in the law to stop Police from telling asylum seekers to find their own way to immigration centres.

Quite why this is a shock to an MP is a mystery to be honest.  It’s been happening for years and if I remember rightly, somewhere in the region of 50% of asylum seekers are never seen again after being sent on their way.

Even if asylum seekers report to immigration as soon as they get off the banana boat/gravy train/airplane, they are processed and given an appointment at a specified immigration centre.  They are then turfed out and half of them are never seen again.

There is a relatively cheap and simple solution to the problem – stick them on one of these buggers, 5 miles off the coast, and see them do a bunk:

The best place to moor a prison ship full of asylum seekers would be in the middle of the English Channel seeing as how the French are so keen on accidently letting them leave their country for ours.  International law says that you must claim asylum in the first friendly country you set foot in.  As we’re an island that means most asylum claims are going to be invalid and they should be deported back to the first friendly country they arrived in to make a valid claim for asylum.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Blogging Habits: Results

Results of the Blogging Habits survey:

“Because I’m not Iain Dale, size isn’t everything” … is it Iain?

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

I would say this takes the biscuit but …

Up to 200 muslim prisoners in a high security prison in Leeds are planning to sue the British government because they were offered ham sandwiches during Ramadan.

The menus were printed in error and given to the prisoners who kicked up a fuss because they’re not allowed to eat pork.  Most of them chose cheese instead but some of them were forced to eat the hame because they were so hungry.

Ok, they chose not to eat all day because they’re such devout muslims but then they ate ham sandwiches because they were hungry even though their religion says they’re not allowed.  Would they have starved to death if they hadn’t committed this heinous sin?  Of course they wouldn’t but I bet they saw an opportunity to expose the infidels for the godless heathens that they are, stir up a bit or racial and religious hatred and get some money out of the zionist pig-dogs.

Regardless of their race or religion, this raises some fundamental (no pun intended) questions.  Prison is supposed to be a punishment.  You are deprived of your right to liberty as punishment for your crimes.  Why should you keep the right to practice religious ceremonies?  There is also the seperate question of whether prisoners should be allowed to take legal action against the state for financial benefit when they’re banged up.  If all they were offered every day was pork sandwiches then fair enough, let them take legal action.  But only to change what is happening, not to make money out of it.  Would a Christian in a prison in a muslim country be able to sue for not being offered fish on a Friday?

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Dysgu Cymraeg … or else!

The Welsh Assembly is trying to get control of bilingualism from the British government so that it can extend its language rules to the private sector.

Large numbers of public sector jobs are restricted to Welsh speakers only in an attempt to force more Welsh people to learn the language.  The Welsh Assembly, responding in part to pressure from border-line militant groups, are seeking to extend legislation to the private sector requiring companies based in Wales to provide services in Welsh as well as English.

Out of approximately 3 million people that live in Wales, only 30% speak Welsh and for most adults it’s a matter of choice (lots of children now have compulsary Welsh lessons).  Millions of pounds of taxpayers money is thrown at promoting the Welsh language including dual language road signs and translation services.

British Sign Language (BSL) is the first language of between 50,000 and 70,000 people in the UK.  Deaf people really don’t have a choice whether they speak BSL or English – it’s hard enough to speak when you’ve lost your hearing over time, it’s pretty much impossible if you were born deaf.  BSL is an official minority language recognised by the British government and has a similar legal status to Welsh and Gaelic.  Try getting a BSL interpreter in a hospital or a signed version of a DVD though and the difference is immediately obvious.  Interpreters are available on the end of a phone within minutes if you speak Polish or Punjabi or some other foreign tongue but if you’re deaf you get get a piece of paper and a pen.

The Disability Discrimination Act says that a deaf person is entitled to the same access to services that an able-bodied person is.  That should include translation services, interpreters, even things that you wouldn’t think twice about like a TV with Teletext if you stop in a hotel which has TV’s in the room.  In reality this doesn’t happen though.  My father-in-law went deaf over a period of years and has some über-rare disease but when he goes to hospital he doesn’t have a sign-language interpreter.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

It’s for their own good?

Israel is planning to cut the amount of power it supplies to the Gaza Strip claiming that because it has declared Palestine as “hostile” it is not bound by international laws requiring it, as an occupying power, to supply utilities to the civillian population.

The view of the “international community” is that Israel still has its obligations but, of course, Israel is about as interested in the “will of the international community” as Graham Norton is in girls.  As long as America supports them – which they will – then they will continue with human rights abuses in Palestine.

Israeli officials said that power will be cut completely, initially for 15 minutes after every rocket fired into Israel, with the period increasing over time.  General Vinali said he hoped that gradual disconnection from the power grid would encourage Gazans to produce their own electricity but doesn’t appear to indicate how long he estimates the power station to survive before being blown up by Israel in the name of counter-terrorism.  Israel regularly destroys infrastructure and then complains about the Palestinian government’s inabaility to prevent militants from attacking them.  A power station is unlikely to last for any significant amount of time and building a power station would need the Israeli’s to lift the unilateral economic sanctions it has placed on Palestine in order to withhold emergency aid it is given by various countries and organisations, including the UK and UN.

The UN has previously warned Israel that collective punishment on Palestinian civillians by cutting vital supplies and services is not acceptable.  Israel is the worst offending nation in history for ignoring UN resolutions and warnings – one of the excuses the Americans used for invading Iraq.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

We don’t need another Bill of Rights

The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan is still harping on about his new Bill of Rights and how important a British Bill of Rights is going to be and how it’ll prevent the Prime Minister from going to war without a vote of MPs first.

Now David Camoron is promising to introduce his own British Bill of Rights which will replace the Human Rights Act and stop lengthy appeals to European courts.

Firstly, WE ALREADY HAVE A BILL OF RIGHTS!  It’s been there since 1689 and is still in force now.  Rather than creating a new 5 million page document full of multi-culti Britishness bullshit, just stop depriving us of the rights that we already have.  There is no way in the world that a new Bill of Rights will give us the freedom and protection we already have in the 1689 Bill of Rights.  The right not to be ruled by the someone other than our own government and the right not to be fined or have our possessions taken away unless we’ve been convicted of a crime for example.  The 1689 Bill of Rights makes summary justice and on-the-spot fines illegal and void but the establishment turns a blind eye because they rake in billions and what judge is now going to rule that the hundreds of billions of pounds of illegal fines and forfeitures the British government has received are illegal?  But they are and one of our ancient and fundamental rights has been eroded forever.

Secondly, MPs might get a vote on going to war under No Mandate Brown’s Bill of Rights but it won’t stop them being lied to like last time.

Finally, Camoron‘s Bill of Rights is a non-starter.  Gordon the Goblin King just signed the EU not-a-constitution which means that the highest court in the land is European.

Technorati Technorati Tags:

Democracy, EU style

I get the occasional email from my UKIP MEP, Mike Nattrass, about dodgy votes he’s seen in the European Parliament.

Yesterday he sent me this email:

Votes were fast and furious and as usual with hundreds being taken by a show of hands, some were wrongly counted. I screaméd “CHECK!” after one particular vote was said to be “in favour” and they checked it on the buttons.

The President said it was passed but the check showed only 134 in favour and 499 against. How’s that!

Ok, if it was 299 in favour and 334 against I could understand the mistake but how can the corrupt mafioso, President Barosso, not see the 350 extra hands voting against?  Simple answer: he can’t.  It was quite obviously a deliberate fraud but will he get into trouble for it?  Will he bollocks.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

New Toy

Orange sent me one of these yesterday …

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Free Prescriptions for all …

… Scots.

The Scottish government is abolishing prescription charges in Scotland for all Scots.  At the moment, 96% of all prescriptions are dispensed free of charge.

Abolishing prescription charges north of the border is going to cost the English taxpayer another £70m.

In April this year, the Welsh government abolished all prescription charges in Wales on the same day that prescription charges in England rose to £6.80 per item.  Paid for by the English taxpayer of course.

The Daily Mail is calling this “The Great Divide” and says that it’s the final straw for English taxpayers.  For me, the final straw whizzed by years ago and I’m now in a constant low-level rage aimed at this racist Scottish Raj.

My nan has Age Related Macular Degeneration (ARMD).  It’s the most common cause of blindness in over-60’s in England but can be cured.  Can she get it treated?  No.  She lives in England and therefore must go blind so that enough money can be stolen from the English NHS to pay for ARMD treatment in Scotland.  She worked and paid taxes all her life, right up until she was in her 50’s when she had to stop because of ill health.  She worked in a munitions factory during the Second World War while my Grandad was on the front line in Korea.  What reward does she get for her contribution to the country?  Second-rate, third-class treatment at the hands of the NHS – she even got a hospital superbug when she had a knee replacement!

My youngest son has Dyspraxia.  He was lucky enough to get it diagnosed at such an early age – 5 years old – because he can get help before he gets too far behind and loses interest at school.  He already complains that it’s hard at school and he has a concentration span you measure in seconds.  A doctor has referred him for speech therapy and occupational therapy.  There is one child occupation therapist for the whole county of Shropshire.  The NHS provides one child occupational therapist for around 444,000 people.  Unsurprising, then, that the waiting list is at least 12 months long.  In Scotland, they’ve been pumping money into occupational speech therapy for children since 2003 to improve the service.

Meanwhile, a new report by the Audit Commission into the English NHS says that one third of NHS Trusts were still in the red.

The American Civil War started on the premise of “No Taxation without Representation”.  The American colonies were taxed by the British government but weren’t allowed to vote.  The American colonies were subsidising Britain and got foreign rule in return.  Sound familiar?  Come the revolution, we’re going to need a big wall.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , , ,