Archive for November 2011

£37k of taxpayers’ money spent on painting and Coat of Arms for Speaker Bercow

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has unveiled a portrait of himself and a lovely new coat of arms … all for the bargain price of 37,000 taxpayer pounds.

The coat of arms was clearly designed by a team of lefty liberal PR consultants with a brief to produce a coat of arms so nauseatingly politically correct and “progressive” that even the Guardian couldn’t find anything to disapprove of and therefore ignored it.  It has a ladder to show how he’s climbed the social ladder from comprehensive-educated son of a taxi driver to MP and Speaker.  It has Lib Dem gold roundels to represent his love of tennis and his position as ex-officio head of the Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and NI.  The main part of the shield is divided half and half Labour red and Tory blue.  The motto is “All are equal” with the words separated by pink triangles with the back of the scroll the motto is written on a gay pride rainbow pattern to show his commitment to championing the rights of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people.  It also includes two swords to represent the county of Essex where he went to university.  The use of Lib Dem gold, Labour red and Tory blue was deliberate to show his “impartiality”.

The portrait isn’t bad but it’s not worth the £22k of our money that was handed over for it.  For £22k I’d want a painting the size of my house and Vincent van Gough’s bloody signature in the corner!

Wednesday’s strikes are anti-government, not anti-cuts

The head of Unison says there is no way a public sector strike on Wednesday can be avoided, even if the British government wanted to do a deal.

UNISON placard: Tell the Tories to stuff the pay cutsThis is hardly a shock announcement – the strikes would have gone ahead whether they caved in to every unreasonable demand the unions issued because this isn’t about pay and conditions, it’s a union protest against the Tories.  Even the BBC can’t avoid showing pictures of anti-Tory slogans on official union placards because they’re everywhere.  The protests are being backed by the far left extremist Socialist Workers Party and senior Labour politicians.

This is a party political campaign, not a grassroots one.  The public sector have pensions that most of us can only dream of and perks like guaranteed pay rises and being paid by the mile to drive to work are a public sector invention, the majority of us that work in the sector don’t get anything like the pay and conditions the public sector get.  The strikes on Wednesday aren’t about keeping the pay and conditions – even the economically illiterate unions understand that it’s simply not sustainable – they’re about trying to overthrow the ConDems and installing a puppet Labour government in its place.

Not all public sector workers are highly paid of course – cleaners, lollypop (wo)men, dinner ladies, etc., don’t get paid a great deal – but that doesn’t mean that all public sector workers should keep their gold-plated pensions and expensive perks at the expense of some of the poorest, low-paid workers in the country.  The public sector and unions are infested with communists who bang on about wealth redistribution and capitalist greed so I’m sure the highest paid public sector workers such as the 447 civil servants that earned more than £100k last year will be more than happy to redistribute their wealth to the low paid public sector workers they’ll be striking with on Wednesday.  As, I’m sure, will the champagne socialist union bosses who earn at least three times the median salary for the public sector workers they are supposed to represent (the list is out of date – the head of the FBU is on £82k per year).

I wish I was in Telford this week instead of away on a training course so I could find a picket line to cross just for my own little protest.  I object to having so much of my money taken off me on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment to to fund pay and conditions for “professional” public sector workers that I could never realistically expect in the private sector.  The country is broke, we are too highly taxed already and it’s time the public sector got a dose of reality.

BNP Butler joins BNP Barnbrook in the English Democrats

Eddy Butler, the former National Front, former BNP, former Freedom Party, former BNP a couple more times, former BNP national elections co-ordinator, has joined the English Democrats.

The announcement, which was the EDP’s worst kept secret since his mate Richard Barnbrook joined in January, will be a bitter blow to the handful of party activists that haven’t yet joined UKIP who had hoped to stop the BNP takeover of the party.

UKIP recently announced a revised devolution policy that would see the creation of a federal UK with devolved parliaments for all four home nations.  The final touches are being put to the full devolution policy paper before it goes to the membership for ratification.  UKIP is the only non-racist, mainstream democratic party advocating the creation of a federal UK with equality for all four home nations.

English Democrats: not left, not right, just racist.

Virgin Money snaps up Northern Rock on second attempt at huge discount

I’ve written about Northern Rock quite a few times since they were brought down by Saint Robert of Peston in 2007 and looking back at what I wrote and what others said is quite interesting.

When Saint Robert of Peston whipped up a frenzy of consumer panic with his misleading reports on Northern Rock’s request for an emergency credit line from the Bank of England (misrepresenting it as a loan rather than the offer of a loan if they needed it) he caused a run on the bank which deprived it of its working capital.  The inevitable happened of course and the Northern Rock ran out of cash and was nationalised.

Northern Rock has now been sold to Virgin Money at a minimum loss of £400m but possibly as much as £653m on the amount the UK Treasury spent nationalising the bank.  Those of you who have taken an interest in the Northern Rock affair and with good memories for these things might be getting a touch of déja vu at the mention of Virgin Money and Northern Rock in the same sentence because Richard Branson tried to take over Northern Rock before it was nationalised and on much better terms for UK plc than what has just been agreed less than a fortnight after Saint Robert of Peston embarked on his career-making hatchet job on the bank.

The original Virgin Money offer was to buy Northern Rock’s entire operation, pay back £11bn of the £25bn Bank of England emergency loan that Northern Rock was forced to take immediately with the balance to be paid within 3 years.  The UK Treasury hadn’t spent any money nationalising the bank so the taxpayer’s exposure to Northern Rock would have been repaid within 3 years, Northern Rock’s operations would have remained intact, Northern Rock’s investors would have had a chance of getting a return on some of their investments and the ripples that Northern Rock’s collapse and nationalisation sent through the banking sector could have been avoided.  The UK Treasury instead chose to nationalist the bank, costing the taxpayer billions and contributing to the virtual collapse of the UK banking sector.

Whilst I hold Saint Robert of Peston significantly responsible for the collapse of Northern Rock, some of the blame has to fall on the EU because Saint Robert wouldn’t have found out about the credit line if it wasn’t for the EU Monetary Abuse Directive (MAD) that required the Bank of England to publicise the fact that it had been offered.  The previous governor of the Bank of England, Eddie George, said at the time that if he was still governor when the EU MAD was brought in he would have resigned over it.

Ed the Millibeast has had a pop at George Osbourne about him selling the Northern Rock off at such a loss for no apparent reason but it turns out that he had no choice because the last Chancellor, Alistair McDarling, had to agree to sell off Northern Rock within 3 years to get permission from the EU to nationalise the bank.  And which government department did Ed the Millibeast work in at the time of the Northern Rock nationalisation?  Erm, that would be the Treasury – he was a minister in the Treasury when his boss agreed to the 3 year restriction on the nationalisation!

Richard Branson’s purchase of Northern Rock is only for the “good bank” – the “bad bank” was merged with Bradford & Bingley which was also nationalised.  The “bad bank” is still slowly paying back the billions of pounds it owes the taxpayer.  What happened to the Bank of England loan is anyone’s guess.  Northern Rock has cost the taxpayer a lot of money – a lot more than necessary so far and the Virgin Money takeover will cost hundreds of millions more.  The mismanagement of the economy and the banking crisis is nothing short of criminal.

The whole Northern Rock saga started with gross incompetence and unnecessary wasting of taxpayers money and it’s perhaps a fitting end for the Northern Rock brand that it will finish with a loss-making sale to the bank that tried to buy it before it cost the taxpayer billions of pounds and precipitated the near collapse of the banking sector and at a snip of the price offered in 2007.

Come the revolution there will be a special part of the wall marked out for Saint Robert of Peston, Alistair Darling and all the other criminally incompetent and irresponsible idiots that have cost us so dearly.

Bloggers4UKIP: No, we do not need a British Bill of Rights

I don’t find myself disagreeing with Nigel Farage very often when it comes to the EU and constitutional affairs but on the subject of the EU Commission on a Bill of Rights I completely disagree with him.

UKIP’s has made a submission to this commission slating the EU Convention on Human rights which was turned into the Human Rights Act in the UK and calling for a British Bill of Rights. Throughout the submission there is a conflation of English and British which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the constitutional laws in force in the UK which is common to all political parties and the media.

The submission is spot on in its criticism of the EU Human Rights Act which isn’t about human rights, it’s about imposing a liberal left wing ideology on the population. Human rights to any right thinking person are things like the right to life, the right to liberty, the right freedom of speech and assembly, the right not to have your possessions and money stolen on a whim and of course the most important right of all, the right to rebel. Getting married isn’t a human right, nor is the enforced religious indoctrination of children or middle aged women moving in their 18 year old Turkish husbands.

Magna Carta Memorial, Runnymede

Magna Carta Memorial, Runnymede

However, the answer is not to create a new British Bill of Rights. We have an English Bill of Rights which, in conjunction with Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Petition of Right and the (English) Common Law, provide us with all the basic human rights we need. The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough rights, it’s with the lack of enforcement of these rights by the judiciary and the attempted usurpation of our constitution by EU laws.

Take for instance the multi-billion pound industry around the issuing and enforcement of illegal fines, fixed penalties, penalty charges or whatever new name the crooks that issue them come up with. The Bill of Rights, which is still in force, says “any promise of fine or forfeiture before conviction is illegal and void”. Having the numberplate of your car snapped by a camera does not amount to a conviction, nor does a police officer handing you a piece of paper at the roadside. You can refuse to pay and opt for a court hearing but that comes with a further penalty in disqualifying you from the reduced fee you are offered for not challenging the illegal fine and of course the promise of a fine has already been made before your court hearing and inevitable conviction which is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

It matters not that laws have been passed since the Bill of Rights attempting to legitimise the extortion by summary justice, Lord Justice Laws established in the 2002 case of Sunderland -v- Thoburn (aka “Metric Martyrs”) that constitutional laws could not be repealed by implication and no government has yet been stupid enough to try and repeal the English constitution. Yet here UKIP is suggesting just that!

It is worth pointing out at this point that what is incorrectly referred to as the British constitution is, in fact, the English constitution, “Free Born Britons” is a mis-quoting of the term “Free Born Englishmen” that originated from the Leveller movement and the Common Law is English, not British. The English constitution also applies to Wales because Welsh law was abolished by Henry VIII and replaced with English law. Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights are English laws and don’t apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland (with one exception).

The Criminal Procedure Act brought similar rights to Habeas Corpus and Magna Carta to Scotland in 1701 but neither of the English statutes were ever applied to Scotland or Ireland. The Petition of Right applies to Northern Ireland by virtue of its application in pre-1937 Ireland but not to Scotland and there is no equivalent in Scottish law. The Bill of Rights similarly doesn’t apply to Scotland where the Claim of Right, passed by the pre-union Scottish Parliament, provides roughly equivalent rights to those contained in the English Bill of Rights. Furthermore, in the case of Sunderland -v- Thoburn, Lord Justice Laws included the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act in the list of constitutional laws thus establishing the principle that Wales has a distinct constitution from England..

In order to establish an all-encompassing British Bill of Rights common to all four home nations, each of the four constitutions of the four home nations would have to be brought into line with each other or abolished and replaced with this British Bill of Rights. Since putting the Scotland Act into effect in English law or the Northern Ireland Constitution Act into effect in Scottish law would be a complete nonsense, the only alternative would be to replace the existing four constitutions with a new one. So, to establish a British Bill of Rights would require the full or partial repeal of the following:

  • Magna Carta
  • Bill of Rights
  • Habeas Corpus Act
  • Petition of Right
  • Claim of Right
  • Criminal Procedure Act
  • Scotland Act
  • Government of Wales Act
  • Northern Ireland Constitution Act
  • Northern Ireland Act

I find the prospect of British politicians who have introduced such legislative abominations as the abolition of trial by jury, the EU arrest warrant, internment and arbitrary house arrest amending and repealing our centuries-old constitutions and drafting a new Bill of Rights quite disturbing and I would hope that 99% of the population would be equally concerned at the prospect. Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus have stood the test of time so effectively that they are in force in England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, South Africa, Singapore, Canada and other countries around the world. If a new British Bill of Rights would give us the same rights that we already have then why do we need it? If it would give us extra rights whilst protecting the rights we already have then pass a new law giving us the extra rights and leave our existing constitutions intact.

There is no need to replace our constitutions with a British Bill of Rights because we have all the rights we need. What we need is an end to the EU usurpation of our laws and for judges in the UK to be forced to uphold our existing constitutions. If it is deemed necessary to grant the Scots and Northern Irish the same constitutional rights the English and Welsh have then pass a new law giving them to them.

Assuming the foregoing was ignored and the British government ploughed on with a British Bill of Rights, there is the fundamental problem of repealing or amending any of our shared constitutional laws in that every nation using these statutes has to agree to the change. The Magna Carta on the statute books in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc isn’t a copy of Magna Carta, it is the same Magna Carta as the one in force in England: there is only one Magna Carta. Would every country using Magna Carta be happy to carry out the same act of constitutional vandalism so the British government can create a British Bill of Rights?

There is a tendency amongst the political classes to believe that making major constitutional change is simply a matter of political will but it’s not. Contrary to popular belief, the British Parliament is not an all-powerful supreme law-making body. It can’t change constitutional laws that we share with other countries, nor can it ignore centuries of judgements and precedent made by judges. Creating a British of Rights would involve massive constitutional upheaval and the consent and co-operation of several other countries around the world and in all likelihood would end up depriving us of rights rather than protecting and extending what we already have, not to mention setting a dangerous precedent that our constitutions can be changed on a whim.

UKIP’s submission is wrong in both substance and concept and I hope it has been conceived out of innocent, rather than willful ignorance. It certainly shouldn’t make it into the next manifesto.