Archive for June 2009

Two steps forward, one step back on ID Cards

The British government has abandoned its plans to force airside workers in London City and Manchester airports to sign up for ID cards after workers and unions kicked up a fuss.

No2ID and others are calling it a humiliating climb down but don’t get too excited about the demise of the ID card scheme because it’s far from dead.  Airside workers will no longer be required to have the ID cards (yet) but Mancunians are going to be spammed relentlessly from the end of the year telling them to volunteer for ID cards and the rest of the North West and London will be offered voluntary ID cards from next year.  And every over-75 is going to be given a free ID card.

The amounts of money being spent on this particular white elephant are obscene, especially when the national debt has reached 150% of GDP and the Tories have said they will cancel the whole ID card scheme after the next election.  Of course, you generally can’t trust Camoron to tell the truth (his lies about the EU constitution are a prime example), but the Tories have written to the 5 main companies bidding for ID card contracts warning them not to invest any serious money in them because they’re going to be cancelled.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to find an incoming Tory government saying that the cost of cancelling the contracts would be too high and continuing the ID cards scam.

Technorati Technorati Tags:

Surprisingly good customer service from Sky

My trusty Netgear ADSL router gave up the ghost yesterday which was a bit inconvenient.

Some investigations pinned it down to a problem with the wireless on the router so I phoned Sky technical support.  I was most surprised to get an answer at 10pm and even more surprised to speak to someone who spoke passable English (they were from Scotland, not Mumbai).

In total I spent an hour and 20 minutes on the phone to technical support convincing them that the evidence pointed to a problem with the router and not my laptop as the router couldn’t be found on my wife’s laptop either, nor on my phone, the desktop computer or the printer.

I eventually convinced them of the need to replace the router and a 2 minute conversation with the customer support team this morning secured the replacement which is being posted out to me.

Interestingly, the woman I spoke to in technical support said that my exchange is one of the first to get the upgrade from 16mbit to 20mbit and a quick test she did on my line suggests that I’ll get over 21mbit (I currently connect to the exchange at about 16.7mbit).  Which is nice.

Edit:
The postman delivered the replacement modem at 6:45 this morning.  Are they supposed to ring the doorbell at that time of the morning?

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Another half a million will be in fuel poverty in 12 months time

El Gordo wants to set up a £60bn climate change fund to help poor countries come up with bullshit ways to deal with climate change.

Meanwhile, BBC News is reporting this morning (on the TV but not on the website for some reason) that an extra half a million families could be forced into fuel poverty because electricity companies are being forced to spend billions on expensive, inefficient and unreliable windmills instead of cheap, reliable power stations to hit bullshit government targets.

This is just getting beyond a fucking joke.  Climate change has been happening for millions of years and it will continues to happen for millions of fucking years.  There is no proof – not one single piece of evidence that stands up to the briefest of scrutiny – that the climate is being changed by human activity in any significant or detrimental way.

Windmills and solar panels can’t even come close to producing enough electricity to meet demand.  Relying on “renewable” energy will turn electricity into a luxury that only the ruling classes can afford which will, of course, solve the problem of electricity rationing which we will be seeing in the next few years.

And to rub salt into the wound, we’re going to be contributing our “fair share” of a £60bn fund so that corrupt third world despots can come up with similar bullshit claimte change policies while an extra half a million people are expected to be spending 10% of their income on gas and electricity in the next 12 months.

Where on earth can I get away from this fucking bullshit?  I swear to god, much more of this and I’m going to go postal in Westminster Palace.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Animals on Ice

This animation was made by my 11 year old son and a couple of his mates at school. Step aside Nick Park!

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Setanta goes bust, Liverpool to follow?

Setanta went into administration today owing £3m to the Scottish Premier League and £30m to the English Premier League.

The Scottish Premier League is looking for a new buyer for £125m of broadcasting rights for the next 4 years and the English Premier League is looking to offload the rest of the matches Setanta had already won the rights to after ESPN took the 45 games that would have been on Setanta next season.

Good.  Serves the greedy bastards right.  £125m for 4 years of what is, to be perfectly honest, amateur football?  They’re taking the piss.  And the English Premier League are really taking the piss.  They may be some of the world’s best football teams but they’re partly responsible for Setanta running out of cash through their greed.

Liverpool are desperately trying to refinance their £350m of debt to avoid bankruptcy with an announcement that RBS have virtually guaranteed to refinance their share of Liverpool’s debt coming on the same day that they announced a £17.5m transfer for Portsmouth’s Glen Johnson.  How can they even contemplate spending £17.5m for a player when they could be days away from going into administration?  The future of their LiverpoolTV channel – a lucrative source of income – is also in doubt as it was being shown exclusively on Setanta and they haven’t got anyone else to broadcast it.

The English Premier League and Premiership clubs have been pissing money up the wall thinking the amount of money involved is just too big for their pyramid scheme to collapse.  Guess what.  It’s not.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Anyone but Murray

Wimbledon has started and the BBC are excited about the prospects of British Scottish British Scottish British Scottish Sour Faced Tosser, Andy Murray.

Personally, I couldn’t give a flying fuck which round he crashes out in as long as he cries like a baby.

Anyone But Murray

Amusingly, the above image is the first match in a Google image search for “Anyone But Murray”.

For followers of the perpetual British/Scottish schizophrenia of Andy “Anyone but England” Murray, the Andymurrayometer is worth a visit for a bit of a giggle.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

Warning, may contain raisins

Printed on a box of raisins from Asda:

Ingredients:
Raisins (100%).
Suitable for Vegetarians.

Do we really a list of ingredients in a box of raisins?  And is there anyone, anywhere on the planet (except Glasgow) who doesn’t realise that fruit is suitable for vegetarians?

As the late, great Douglas Adams said in So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy):

Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.

‘It seemed to me,’ said Wonko the Sane, ‘that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.’

Madness.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

Blogger curiousity

Just checking the referrers for Bloggers4UKIP and a strange one came up:

http://bloggers4ukip.blogspot.com/notify-Deloitte_Notify?aHR0cDovL2Jsb2dnZXJzNHVraXAuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLw==

The url doesn’t work but Google turns up the url on a lot of Blogger blogs.  The wording of the url would suggest that Blogger are notifying Deloitte whenever some or all blogs are updated.

Anyone know what it’s all about?

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Thieving Bastard Telford Politicians – Part 296

So the House of Commons have released details of MPs expenses, self-censored by the MPs themselves.  Did your thieving bastard MP make any inappropriate claims?

Here’s a couple of examples from the two thieving bastard MPs in Telford:

David Wright, thieving bastard MP for Telford, claimed over £7k for a photocopier and £300 for an accountant to do his self assessment tax returns.

Mark Pritchard, thieving bastard MP for the Wrekin, claimed 31p for an air freshner, £170 for bed and breakfast at a hotel a mile away from his house and hundreds of pounds for short taxi journey’s (how far does £4 get you in a black cab?) in London.

I have just sent Mark Pritchard an email about his expenses …

Dear Mark,

I note from your recently published expenses that you claimed about £170 for bed and breakfast at the Buckatree Hall Hotel, about a mile away from your house.  Can you please explain why you believe the cost of staying in a hotel a mile from your house is a legitimate expense incurred wholly and exclusively in carrying out your duties as an MP and should have been borne by the taxpayer?

I also note that you have claimed for various low cost items such as 31p for an air freshener and a pound for some tissues.  Could you please explain why, with a salary of £64,775, you felt unable to pay for your own tissues or a 31p air freshener?  Could you also please explain why you believe that tissues and toilet rolls are expenses incurred wholly and exclusively in carrying out your duties as an MP?  Would you not have blown your nose or wiped your backside if you weren’t an MP?

Finally, I see that you have spent hundreds of pounds on taxis for short journeys.  I understand that a £4 taxi ride in London would get you about a mile, two at the most.  I have attached a text document containing details of something that is commonly referred to as “walking” which I copied from Wikipedia.  You may wish to investigate the feasibility of taking part in this new “walking” craze as an alternative to charging the taxpayer hundreds of pounds for you to be driven a mile or two down the road.

Regards,

Stuart Parr

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

What’s good for the goose …

Some people accuse me of being a piss-taker, how can they say such things?

Fixed Penalty Notice to Telford & Wrekin Council for leaving wheelie bins in the road

This will be in the post today.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Judge abolishes constitutional right to jury trial

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales has ruled that a trial can take place without a jury for the first time.

The trial in question is for an armed robbery at Heathrow Airport which will be heard for a fourth time because of alleged jury tampering.  It was because of the jury tampering that Lord Judge ruled the trial can be held without a jury.

Whilst it is important for the defendents to be tried for their alleged crimes, to do so without a jury is unconstitutional.  If the defendents are interfering with the jury and their trials are being abandoned then they will simply spend longer in prison until a fair trial can be held.

This ruling sets a dangerous precedent.  How long will it be before the British government uses this ruling in “terrorism” cases?  They already have people under house arrest or subject to curfew and tagging orders after they’ve been found innocent by a jury on the orders of the Home Secretary, how long will it be before the constitutional right to a trial by jury is swept aside and kangaroo courts are set up with secret trials?

There is a reason why we have jury trials and open courts.  The jury consists of laymen who consider the evidence and give their opinion on whether they think the evidence is good enough for a reasonable person to believe the accused has done what they’re accused of and whether it is wrong while open courts allow members of the public to see that justice is being done and that nobody is being deprived of their liberty or otherwise pubished without just cause.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Bringing English nationalism into disrepute

The English Democrats have been a largely benign force in English politics for a few years but recently they’ve become more aggressive in their self-promotion and in doing so have become toxic to the cause of English nationalism.

English Democrats - Bringing English nationalism into disreputeAnyone criticising the English Democrats, and particularly Steve Uncles, is generally treated to threats of legal action or worse.  One prominent English nationalist blogger says he has received threats against himself and his family for daring to criticise the party.  A mentally ill blogger who was opposed to an English Parliament and the English Democrats committed suicide seems to have amused Steve Uncles at the time.  PigDogFucker was impressed with Uncles’ behaviour.

You see, Steve Uncles thinks that if you don’t support the English Democrats you can’t be an English nationalist, you are an enemy of the English nation.  I have, of course, committed what amounts to a capital crime in Steve’s book – I joined UKIP, a party that not only doesn’t believe in the same type of English Parliament that the English Democrats (and myself) believe in but has the audacity to keep defying his pronouncements that it is dead and will be beaten by the English Democrats.  I am quite prepared to accept people being anti-EU and not joining UKIP but the reverse, for Steve, isn’t true – you can’t be pro-English and not join the English Democrats.

I could have joined the English Democrats of course but I was never comfortable with them.  I was asked to join the EDP (as they called themselves a few years ago) several times, was asked to run a local branch in Telford (the branch chairman at the time was suffering from a long term illness) and was offered whatever support I needed as a PPC.  I was tempted for a time but thankfully went with my gut feeling.

England needs an English political party and it may as well be the English Democrats.  They are, at least, more acceptable than the England First Party – a BNP splinter group – which the English Democrats have an electoral pact with.  But if they are going to represent England they need to get rid of the members that bring not only their party but the whole English nationalist cause into disrepute.  Unfortunately, the ring leader happens to be one of their biggest creditors, having loaned the party somewhere in the region of £30k if memory serves me.

I must point out here that I don’t tar all English Democrats members with the same brush.  Quite the opposite in fact.  The leader of the English Democrats, Robin Tilbrook, has always been friendly with me, even when I’ve been complaining about something they’ve done.  He’s even given me some very useful advice in the past.  Ed Abrams is another prominent English Democrat who I’ve never had a problem with and think his vision of uniting left and right behind the cause of an English Parliament is an excellent one.  There are, naturally, many Campaign for an English Parliament members that are also members of the English Democrats and I have never had a problem with any of them, even when they’re getting enthusiastic about why I shouldn’t be a UKIP member.  There are some people who are in the English Democrats who are good friends.  But then I have friends who are also BNP members and even though I know they have joined the party in protest at the way the country is being run, they don’t make the BNP a party I could support when elements of their leadership are rotten and some of their policies are equally so.

Rewinding slightly to the complaining about things the English Democrats (or rather, Steve Uncles) have done.  I used to be a member of quite a lot of English groups on Facebook until I checked one of them and found that it had sprouted English Democrats logos and was no longer the group I joined but a group for supporters of the English Democrats.  I have since found loads of groups that were once groups supporting St Georges Day public holidays or just English and proud groups but have been given the same English Democrats treatment.  I complained in the groups before I left them and got messages from Steve Uncles and Robin Tilbrook saying what they were doing – fraudulently implying that people were supporters of their party when they were just supporting England – was legitimate and that they would carry on doing it.  Steve Uncles said they intended to take over ever English group on Facebook.  Billy Bragg’s office is now threatening to sue them for setting up a group fraudulently claiming that he is a supporter of their party.

Until recently, Steve frequented the British Democracy Forum, banging the drum for the English Democrats, attacking anyone who criticised them and posting the odd offensive joke.  He has now, for some reason, removed all the references to the English Democrats from his profile on the forum (even changing his username) and replaced them with the Campaign for an English Parliament logo, name and website.  Why he would seek to associate the CEP with his poor behaviour on a public forum I don’t know but I suspect that having attracted widespread criticism from English nationalists and apparently facing deselection by his own branch, he has decided to go on a wrecking spree to try and do as much damage to the movement as possible before he goes.

England needs a Parliament and an English equivalent of the SNP but right now the English Democrats aren’t the party to represent England and they’re doing more harm than good.  They don’t exactly have a very good reputation at the moment but they’re a small fish in a big pond.  They’ve got one of their number elected as mayor of Doncaster which will get them some more publicity and that means that if they aren’t going to set us back years they need to clean their act up.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Bill Bragg threatens to sue English Democrats

The English Democrats have been spamming Facebook for months now, setting up groups for England and St Georges Day and then re-branding them as English Democrats supporters groups when they get a few members in a desperateyl pathetic attempt to look like they have some support.

Every group I was a member of that they hijacked I left a message on complaining, left and then reported to Facebook.  I had messages from Steve Uncles and Robin Tilbrook saying what they were doing was perfectly legitimate and that they intended to carry on.

But they took it too far – they didn’t just dupe ordinary Facebook users into putting their name down as supporters of the English Democrats, they set up Facebook groups claiming all sorts of famous people as supporters of their party.  I warned them that they would find themselves in a spot of bother over it but they didn’t listen.  You’d have thought that with a qualified solicitor as party leader they would have stayed away from this kind of fraud but evidently not.

According to this post on the British Democracy Forum, Bill Bragg’s office are threatening to sue the English Democrats unless the remove their fake support group from Facebook.

They can’t say they weren’t warned.  More on the English Democrats later, I’ve had a post brewing for a while now …

Technorati Technorati Tags: , ,

Chris Bryant MP calls for Red Cross to be banned

Chris Bryant MP, a minister in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, says that the red cross logo used by the International Red Cross (IRC) is an offensive reminder to muslims of the crusades and should be replaced with the red crystal logo that the IRC have recently adopted.

It is believed that the red cross logo was chosen as a tribute to Switzerland’s perpetual neutrality, one of the key principles of the IRC.  The red cross has since become a universally recognised symbol of the medical profession.

The cross isn’t a reference to Christianity – it isn’t even a Christian cross – but it hasn’t stopped some muslims from feigning offence at the symbol and successfully pushing for the adoption of an Islamic red crescent as an alternative logo.  There doesn’t appear to be any corresponding call from Mr Bryant for the banning of the red crescent logo which I’m sure is just offensive to Christians and Jews as a symbol of the muslim invasion of the Holy Land.

We really must stop our politicians from apologising for the Crusades – not just because they ended 800 years ago but because they were an attempt to recover the Holy Land from Islamic invaders, not an exercise in Papal empire-building.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

Am I missing something?

Engineers from Shropshire Council are closing Harley Bank once again to try and figure out why rocks keep falling onto the road.

I’m not an engineer so I might be looking at this simplistically but I wonder if cutting into the rock face and turning it into a sheer cliff and removing all the trees might have some bearing on the sudden severe instability of the rock face?

My family have lived in the area for generations and my nan remembers the council employing someone to take a wheelbarrow down the road daily and clear up the stones that had fallen onto the road.

In more recent times the rock face has appeared more stable, I have seen rocks on the road once, maybe twice and travelled it hundreds of times.  But the council must have had a few million burning a hole in their pockets because they decided to “improve” the rock face, the upshot of which is that the road is closing again tomorrow for the fourth time in less than a year (the first time was a week or so after the work was done).

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was a road in an urban area where there are alternative routes that don’t involve a 30 minute diversion but this is rural Shropshire and Harley Bank is a major route.  It also doesn’t help my sister and brother-in-law who run the Plume of Feathers at the foot of the hill because there is no passing traffic when the road is closed and the unofficial diversions from the closest town are still at least 15 minutes of country roads which doesn’t exactly encourage people to make the effort to go to a pub.

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , ,

Bloggers4UKIP: Mandelson says UK will join Euro

Peter Mandelson (I won’t call him Lord Mandelson, a man without honour doesn’t deserve an honourary title) says that the UK will join the Euro.

Does it remain an important objective for Britain to find itself in the same currency as that single market in which it interacts? Obviously yes.

Important objective for who Mandy? Not for me and not for the vast majority of the electorate who would rather return to bartering with livestock than replace the pound with the Euro.

Nobody in their right mind would willingly abandon the pound and adopt a currency that’s run by and for France and Germany. But then Mandy isn’t in his right mind, not by a long shot. The man’s an utter fruitcake – like most eurofederalists his mind doesn’t inhabit the same planet his body does.

Of course, Mandy’s suggestion that we should adopt the Euro might have something to do with the fact that he risks losing his very generous taxpayer-funded EU pension if he fails to promote the European Empire.

No one can serve two masters, because either he will hate one and love the other, or be loyal to one and despise the other.

Matthew 6:24

Mandelson serves two masters – the British government and the European Empire. So where does his loyalty lie and who does he love and hate? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Mumbai Calling

Just watching the very excellent new ITV drama, Mumbai Calling.  Tonight’s episode guest stars Richard E. Grant …

Now, for instance, if someone speaks to you like this:

“I don’t like you, I deep fry my breakfast and give cigarettes to my children”

… they are called Scottish people who have no appreciation for the touring theatre and whatever they say to you or indeed throw at you your answer must always be “screw you Jimmy”.  After me …
All: Screw you Jimmy

But what if you’re not speaking to Jimmy?

They’re all called Jimmy, it’s the law

Genius!

Ant and Dec are from Newcastle, they seem so normal

On the outside yes, on the inside they’re bastards

Funny but a little unfair on the cheeky chaps from Tynside.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Putting the cart before the horse

Thanks to our glorious overlords on the continent and their proxy war with the US through the medium of anti-trust lawsuits against Microsoft, Windows 7 in Europe will ship without Internet Exploder.

Yes, Internet Explorer is a shit browser but there are plenty of websites out there that just don’t work properly with Firefox and other browsers and lots of people that aren’t comfortable with downloading and installing software.  Not being able to buy a computer, plug it in and browse the internet without any faffing about will put off so many computer illiterate people from buying a computer and getting themselves online.

Presumably nobody at the European Imperial Commission foresaw any potential problems with this scenario …

European buyers of Windows 7 will have to download and install a web browser for themselves.

And which browser will they use to get to a website to download a web browser, pray tell?

Technorati Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Caroline Flint is a lying cow

When was the last time Caroline Flint told the truth?  Does anyone know?  Does she know?

Caroline Flint - No Gordon BrownFlint, whose greatest achievement was to be Secretary of State for the European Empire’s trojan horse in the British government, has just been interviewed on ITV.

They showed the infamous clip of her saying how proud she is to serve in El Gordo’s cabinet of all the talentless which was recorded a few hours before she resigned from the cabinet.  They quoted her slagging off El Gordo for using her as “window dressing” (don’t flatter yourself love, you might be the best looking woman in Parliament but you’re competing against wrinkly old hags and a ginger gnome) and then she said what a wonderful job he was doing.  They asked her if she’d been implicated in a plot against El Gordo, she said no and then two minutes later said she had been implicated in a plot against El Gordo.

The one good thing about all the lies and sleaze in Westminster is that it’s getting previously disinterested people interested in politics.  Mrs Sane generally couldn’t give a shit about politics (with a few exceptions) but this has hooked her.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,

Thieving Bastard MP gets reward for corruption

My thieving bastard MP, David Wright, has been rewarded for taking a £17k bribe from a property developer with a job as a junior minister in DEFRA and DCLG in No Mandate Brown’s new cabinet of all the talentless on the same day that El Gordo announced tough punishments for MPs that have been doing naughty things.  Obviously bribery and corruption are worthy of promotion, not punishment, under the new regime.

I tried to report my thieving bastard MP to the police for the bribe.  He lived in Dolphin Square when it was owned by Westminster Council and the taxpayer paid a low rent.  Westminster Council sold the block of flats to a property developer who offered every tennant – including my thieving bastard MP – almost £17k in compensation for signing a new tenancy agreement with a higher rent.  As he didn’t have to pay the higher rent himself, he signed the tenancy agreements and took the £17k “compensation”.  A few months later he moved out because the rent wasn’t good value for money for the taxpayer.  It wasn’t good value for the taxpayer before he took the £17k bung but he stayed on anyway until after he’d had the money.  On balance of probability there is no plausible explanation for staying in the flat other than the £17k compensation and that makes it a bribe.

Unfortunately, the police are proving to be very difficult over this.  I went to the local police and all they would do was log it as information, not as a crime.  They referred me to the Met who refused to log my report and variously told me they weren’t investigating individual MPs, that I would have to go into a Met police station, referred me to New Scotland Yard who told me that it was outside of police jurisdiction because he was an MP (!) and referred me to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

I emailed the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who were very helpful but said they couldn’t launch a criminal investigation and told me to report it to the police.  That day the local paper reported that the CPS in London said it was unlikely they would be making any prosecutions.
This is one of the blatant and obvious cases of criminality that have come out of the Telegraph’s expenses blitz yet despite every citizen having an obligation to report crimes that have been committed, I find it is impossible to report my thieving bastard MP for accepting a bribe.  I’ll be talking to the local CPS today to try and find a way of getting a police investigation into David Wright’s criminal activities but the way it’s looking, it might take him to sue me (or rather, the publisher of this blog) for libel before the evidence of his corruption gets in front of a judge.

Technorati Technorati Tags: ,