The 'Numpty' Oscars Part 2

Totally incompetent Government Department of the year award.

Fierce competition for this one, but Immigration wins by a short head – hardly surprising since the head suit is a woman who was responsible for the voter fraud in Birmingham a while back, described by the judge at the election court as ‘a disgrace to a banana republic’,left under a cloud and was immediately recruited on a higher salary.

What do you know about immigration into the UK? Nothing. Nought. Zilch. Bugger all. And what does the Government know? The same. You would have thought that in order to meet immigrant demand for housing, social services, health care, education and the rest the authorities would need to have a least some idea as to how many immigrants come to UK. The data does not exist. There is no systematic record of who comes, where they go, and who leaves. Immigration is the largest component of population growth, exceeding the net effect of births and deaths. It wasn’t until 2009 that the Government even acknowledged that there was a problem.

The ‘Malaprop’ award for mangled English.

This one is really tough even though Dubya has a ‘lifetime achievement’ award for such gems as ‘The French don’t even have a word for entrepreneur’, and ‘deja-vu all over again.

Finalists include the Labour Party Chairman Ian McCartney. He is 4ft 11in. Opening a conference he declaimed ‘Comrades, together; we can walk tall’.

But the clear winner must be John Prescott with ‘own homership’, ‘fist time buyers’, and best of all – introducing his ministerial team with the words ‘How can I not lose with a team like that?’

Here are some more gems:

‘The green belt is a great Labour achievement and we intend to build on it.’

‘It's great to be back on terracotta!’

‘I had to live in one of these hostiles’ when he obviously meant to say ‘hostels’.

‘Industrial disputes can be solved through "meditation" ‘.

‘Any definition of homelessness that suggests that people haven't got a home is not good’.

The Whitewash Award for the most egregious cover-up

As I have previously predicted, Dr Kelly refuses to go away, so ‘no contest’ here. Doctors asking for a proper inquest have now submitted a formal request for a High Court direction.

The DT reports that ‘the doctors insisted the Hutton Inquiry failed to address key questions, such as how Dr Kelly obtained a packet of coproxamol painkillers, why his blood and stomach contained only a non-toxic dose of the drug, why he was not spotted by a police helicopter with thermal imaging cameras which flew over the wood where his body was later found, why no fingerprints were found on the knife apparently used to slit his wrist and whether he in fact intended to kill himself’.

Numpty of the Year: the outright winner.

No contest. By acclamation, it’s none other than Gordon Broon, the forgotten man of politics. A review of his book reckons that to give it as a Xmas gift would be a hostile act. He claims to have saved the first crisis of globalisation. What crisis? I don’t remember India, China, or Australia being in crisis. He took credit for the prosperity of the earlier years and was praising bankers as late as 2007. He says that he was fooled by the bankers who didn’t tell him about the risks they were taking. Wasn’t it his job as Chancellor to know? He admits that he was clueless about what was happening in the economy. The review says that by the end of the book the reader is likely to have lost the will to live.

Welcome to the land of eternal earmarks

Welcome to the wonderful world of earmarks; those lovely inventions that enable our esteemed politicians in Washington to pay their political debts at public expense. We cannot do without them and I am sure that ways and means will be quickly discovered to perpetuate this tradition in spite of audible public outcry.

Earmarks are parochial add ons, or riders, to important legislation. Popular bills are favored because they pass quickly. For example, the Patriot Act legislated shortly after 9/11 zipped through both chambers with hardly a flinch. Appended to this Act were a myriad of earmarks, each of which required a comparative pittance of public expenditure. Collectively, they also amounted to little by comparison with the subject bill. Hence, they are not worth Congressional time to fight against. More important, precious few legislators want to fight against earmarks given their raison d'etre, to wit, repay political debts, or at least to expand a legislator's electoral base.

An order of magnitude figure of the number of individual earmarks in a single piece of legislation is in the thousands. Yes, the thousands. This makes sense, because there are a lot of individuals, groups, businesses and who knows what who contribute significantly to a congressional election.

A plank in our Dear Leader's presidential campaign included the elimination of earmarks. That promise lasted until he signed his first bill. In fairness, O's first bill was the TARP legislation which had been formulated at the end of the W era. TARP contained heaps of earmarks, but given its origins, they were grandfathered. Significantly, there was a hue and cry over threats to delete the earmarks and O quickly learned there was no way he would succeed in eliminating them. Major House and Senate figures were adamant that earmarks would remain institutionalized, thank you very much.

Ironically, and tactfully, the Republicans took up the anti-earmark crusade during the mid-term election last November. Key Republican figures are making every effort to persuade other Republicans to join this crusade, but with only limited success. The crusaders are at last aware that the public is disgusted with Congress in general and with the particular way legislators thread earmarks into major bills to suit their state electorates. I believe the crusaders understand that they cannot resist earmarks any longer without incurring public wrath, demonstrations and even violence.

The image of our Senators and Representatives has changed over the years, or at least it has cycled. Their image following the WWII was dominated by one of honor, trust and public service. In suspect this was more the result of public naivete than good character. The character has not changed, but the public has matured and become somewhat more realistic about our Congressional leaders. Adjectives describing them would include imperious, vain, arrogant, fawning, insincere, elitist, superior, self-satisfied and smug. This is not exhaustive, but sufficiently indicative to deliver my message, and more to the point, the public message; clean up your act.

It will not happen. Our representatives in Washington have for too long been sucking the milk and honey that defines America leaving the masses with bread and water. Costs of living have increased far in advance of wages and salaries. Professional services have gone wild in comparison for the lower and middle class capacity to pay for them. This includes medical, legal, dental, accounting, finance, engineering and the money we pay to our representatives for salaries and allowances. In addition, Civil Service salaries have skyrocketed far beyond what they were relative to the private sector and to what the public is getting from these services.

The ‘Numpty’ Oscars 2010. (trans: A reckless, absent minded or unwise person}

As this is Awards time, I thought I would select a few winners for the Numpty Oscars.

Moron of the Year.

The title must surely go to your Home Security chief, closely followed by the UK equivalent. Scarcely a day passes without hearing of more idiocy in airport security. (Mind you, a close contestant must be the woman who dialled 999 to report that somebody had stolen her snowman).

We have the lady who was forced to remove her breast prosthesis, inserted following cancer mastectomy. We have the bladder cancer-sufferer who urine bag was burst by a rough-handling goon. We have the sexy lady who appeared in her undies only, but still got pulled over for checking (seeing her photo. I guess the guys just couldn’t resist the temptation). We have the lady who was made to strip to the waist, so that the boys could play the video over and over during their rest break. We have the 3-year old who was body-searched.

Now there is a ruckus between the US and European authorities because the Yanks are asking for details of passengers’ bank accounts to be submitted with the passenger lists. Why on earth would they want this? How would they collect the information? Does this mean that we will have to give the airline a copy of our bank statements? Is the real intention to lessen the security burden by ensuring that nobody travels to the US unless it is unavoidable?

I think we should be told!

I have been delving into how the Israelis, the most endangered country on earth by a wide margin, copes with airport security. First, they obviously only put the full monty on those who might be up to no good. If you are a grey haired old lady with a walking stick, your baggage gets x-rayed, you go through the scanner, and that’s it. They have no compunction about racial stereotyping.

So the answer to airport security is simple; outsource it the Israelis.

Best pantomime.

No contest here. The easy winner is the absurd coalition between Call-me Dave and Cleggover. Cutting the defence budget and increasing the overseas aid budget by 37% is beyond parody. I also suspect a con. I predict that the ‘increase’ will largely consist of transfers from other budgets; the substantial cost of running the BBC World Service radio from the Foreign Office; the British Council budget; the £50 million UN emergency fund just announced, to name just a few.

Our political masters couldn’t lay straight in bed. As ever the LibDems operate on the basis of ‘If you don’t like my principles, I have others.

Non-event of the year

The clear winner is Ed Milliband as Leader of the Opposition. Already the vultures are circling, including his brother(see picture) who, after a protracted sulk, is now back in the fray rubbishing Ed. I tell you, this guy is so grey you have difficulty in seeing him on a foggy day.

Best news of the year.

More than three cheers that England failed to host the soccer World Cup. But the thought of royalty and top politicians having to grovel before the gang of pimps, crooks and comic singers who make up the FIFA hierarchy makes one reach for the sick-bag. Unfortunately, there is no way of getting out of the Roman circus of the Olympic Games. The effect on London will be simply awful. The IOC has already booked 40,000 of the best hotel rooms in London – not for competitors but for themselves and their hangers-on. The will be ‘Zil’ lanes on the highways which may only be used by the humungous fleet of IOC limos, stretching as far as Weymouth where the yachting is taking place. No advertising of goods competing against sponsors will be allowed, so if you have a shop displaying a Pepsi advert, expect a visit from the Wooden Tops. The London authority will have to commandeer all advertising hoardings for the duration. And to crown it all, the first language will be French!

More to come............

Don't forget Dewani.............

The Dewani case takes yet more twists and turns back towards my original standpoint that without an apparent motive it was rash to jump to conclusions that this was a hit arranged by the husband.

The Dewani brief seems to be constructing a sound case to deny the extradition application, although why this should be displayed in the meeja before the court gets to hear it is extraordinary. Perhaps the case should be called R vs. Max Clifford to be heard in the Court of Meeja Speculation. It is now said anent the second murder in King William’s Town that in fact it is provable that Dewani had never been to SA before his honeymoon. Now a German of the homosexual persuasion pops up and says that he had had 3 sodomy sessions with D in London and Birmingham when D can conclusively show that he was never in either place at all material times. Nothing to do with brown envelopes, of course.

In addition, ‘General’ Wotsit, the chief of the SAPS, has made some extraordinarily prejudicial comments about the case, including describing D as a monkey who had come to SA to murder his wife. The family of the driver now convicted of murder says that he was paid R1000, not in unadjacent to £100 – for a hit! Not unreasonably, they say that this was for driving and that the video showing D handing over the money was his fare.

The latest reports on the forensic evidence show that she was shot through the hand and the bullet then severed the carotid artery. There was finger-bruising on her thighs which were consistent with a rape attempt, so together this suggests to me that she grabbed the muzzle of the gun during attempted rape and the crime was not a hit but rape gone wrong.

The defence is now saying what I said at the beginning; this may about restoring the image of the SA tourist industry, and the chances of a fair trial are considerably diminished if this is even remotely true.

However, D will probably not escape extradition because SA is one of those few countries that does not have to submit a prima facie case.

Lockerbie lies and claptrap........

The US senators ‘investigating’ the Mehgrabi affair have come up with their report at last. From the accounts published here it seems as if they arrived at their conclusion at the beginning and then came up with a load of spurious claptrap, including a list of powers of the UK Government over the Scottish Parliament that do not exist. Needless to say, Tony Hayward gets a walk-on part. And it was all a piece of grandstanding by Alex Salmond, the Scottish Chief Minister. The Torygraph asserts that the only motivation was compassion.

Pull the other one. To me it stands out like a bulldog’s gonads that it was to avoid Mehgabi’s second appeal which might have revealed the truth. This is what I wrote at the time.

‘Lockerbiegate refuses to lie down. I have been reading an interview with Dr Jim Swire whose daughter was on the flight. He has spent 20 years devilling out the truth, including several interviews with Gaddafi. The initial suspect was a Syrian-Iranian terrorist group. But along came the Gulf war and it was necessary to keep Syria onside and Iran neutral, so suspicion was heaped upon Libya. The prosecution case rested on obfuscation and lies. Evidence of a break-in at Heathrow close to an Iranair office and the shed where the baggage for PanAm 103 was assembled was withheld from the defence. The bomb had a pressure detonator set to go off at a certain altitude and therefore it must have been put on board at Heathrow, not Malta, as the prosecution claimed, which implicated Mehgrabi.

‘Other prosecution evidence was fabricated. The UN observer at the trial said that the only way ‘this incomprehensible verdict’ could have been reached was through ‘deliberate malpractice’ by the Scottish Crown Office. It was not a jury trial. In short, Mehgrabi was fitted up. Because of all this, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found evidence of a potential miscarriage of justice sufficient to grant a second appeal. The prospect of all the dirt coming out in the appeal hearing was enough to get Mehgrabi out of the country as quickly as possible. But it may come out anyway, because apparently Mehgrabi has handed over about 300 pages of evidence to his Scottish lawyer.

‘The case for the prosecution was that Mehgrabi loaded the bomb in Malta. This was technically impossible because it was detonated by a fuse set to go off at a predetermined altitude. The two Maltese witnesses were paid $3 million by the US authorities (a very serious criminal offence).

‘The UN observer at the trial that ‘it was a consistent pattern during the whole trial that, as an apparent result of political interest and considerations, efforts were undertaken to withhold substantial information from the Court.........Virtually all people presented by the prosecution as key witnesses were proven to lack credibility to a very high extent, in certain cases even having openly lied to the court’. So it does look as if Mehgrabi was stitched up like a kipper.

‘It will come of no surprise that there is to be a further police investigation into Lockerbie, but don’t hold your breath. The armchair experts are banging on about the advances in DNA detection in the last 21 years, but the fact that the Scottish local constabulary are handling the investigation when it is clearly one for MI6 does not exactly inspire confidence. It is now obvious that the key prosecution witness was totally unreliable and identified Megrabi only 13 years after the event. One of the investigating officers at the time has now said that they wished to interview 8 other suspects ‘but never had the opportunity’ (eh?)’.

Wikifloods, not leaks.

As I predicted, US lawyers are desperately trying to frame charges against Assange under Espionage Act, as admitted by Joe Biden. But there are a few problems. From my surfing around on this, I reckon that the lawyers will find it difficult to make a charge stick under this venerable piece of legislation because in my interpretation it only applies to agents of a foreign power or to servants of the US Government. In addition, Assange is a journalist and would therefore be able to pray in aid the freedom of speech provisions in the Constitution.

My guess is that they would be able to get an extradition warrant under the odious extradition treaty, because no evidence needs to be filed to support the charge neither need the offence be one recognised in English law.

But there is another snag. Extradition is not permitted if the offence carries the death penalty – which, of course, it does. If extradition is granted, Assnge’s next step will be to appeal through the English courts. If it gets to the House of Lords, there could be months before it is resolved under the English jurisdiction. If he loses, he will take it to the European Court, which, being very politically motivated, may well find in his favour – but not anytime soon. The EC has a backlog of cases stretching years ahead.

Never mind; Sarah the Moose-eater is going after him as an Al Qaeda supporter, so eventually we may expect a drone to be launched from the American air base at the conveniently-situated Mildenhall airbase.

This is not going away.

There have been some interesting revelations amidst much dross.

The leaks about the Arabs hating the Persians so much that they were persistently pressing the Yanks to bomb the s**t out of them show that the Islamic world is not as one in regarding the Americans a serial aggressors against Islam.

The comments from US Generals and diplomats about British soldiers not pulling their weight in Sangrin caused outrage in the UK but if it strengthens the ‘troops out’ movement it may have done some good. When the US forces replaced the Brits they very quickly discovered to their cost why 50% of British deaths since the war began have been in Sangrin. Coincidentally, at the same time as the leaks, General Petreaus went out of his way to praise 3 Para for an extraordinary series of 5 close-up raids on the Talban which terminated them in large numbers without causing any civilian casualties, including one in which they put an anti-tank missile into a fortified compound and reduced all 10 occupants to hamburger

‘Assanje’ – a farce in multiple acts.

Free at last! After three attempts Assanje is out of the slammer and is now comfortably ensconced in rural Suffolk. He is tagged and has to report to the turnip-tops every eight hours. Presumably the village booby will trundle down to the country mansion on his bike three times a day at 8 a.m, 4 p.m, and midnight. He has had to put up humungous bail, and when I read that Ken Loach and Bianca Jagger were amongst other lefty pond-life who had stumped up, I had a vision of him scarpering back to Oz, leaving them bereft of large quantities of drinking vouchers.

There was his brief outside the court, wearing a suit that transgressed the Obscene Publications Act and a tie that looked like the TV test card, complaining that his poor client had been held in conditions that were ‘Dickensian’. Funny; I thought that Newgate and the Bridewell had been closed years ago.

On BBC World News we had a phlegmatic Swede (good on phlegmatic, these Nordics) telling us without even a hint of a smile that the Swedes had nothing to do with the three extradition hearings. It was all down to the intellectually constipated Crown Prosecution Service. The Swedish prosecutor had no locus in the bail hearings. Yeah....right! The CPS went through no less than three bail hearings entirely off its own bat. So that’s all right then.

What he failed to explain was why the Swedes are going to so much trouble to extradite poor Julian on charges that they have not served on him. We don’t know for a fact what they are, except that they are sexual offences. Neither does he, which is an outrage and a denial of natural justice. It is said that the rape charge rests on the allegation that he had sexual intercourse without a condom whilst the woman was asleep. That must have been an exciting lay; he should ask for his money back! But then under the EAW the strength of the case is irrelevant. Welcome to Brave New World.

So the extradition hearings have nothing to do with Wikileaks, either; we must all be relieved to know that.

No wonder the figure of justice is blindfolded!

It seems that the US lawyers are now drafting charges under the Espionage Act 1917, so if A stays in Britain long enough they will get him under the extradition treaty. But since A was the procurer not the publisher we can then await warrants to be served on the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, and all the rest of the meeja which have published the leaks. Could be a long wait.

The main casualty of this affair will be transparency. Politicians and diplomats will be far more circumspect about what they commit to writing. The shredders will be working overtime. Files will be deleted big-time. Security will be tightened up, and there will be a tendency to revert back to the departmental secrecy which does not share information between agencies, the main failure of 9/11 in the first place. The plus-side of all this is the plain fact that, with the internet, blogging, social networking and the rest –facebook, twitter etc – our masters no longer have a stranglehold on information about what they get up to. We are the masters now – or will be.

Religion in US politics

It is sometimes annoying to me to learn what the Economist is saying about American society. Its report about religion in the US is not consistent with my observations. Correct, Yanks are religious, incorrect, they don't care much about a persons religious affiliation. Society in small town America is largely dictated by which church residents attend. Yes, Islam is very disliked, but Jews are not off the hook. There is a considerable amount of anti-Semitism here fostered by a lingering allegiance to the old stereotypes.

The religious preference of high society is arguably Episcopalian which accounts for much of the confession of our wealthy WASPs, (white, Anglo-Saxon, protestants). Here in Central Texas, Lutherans, Catholics and Baptists dominate while the small elite are mainly Episcopalians. Catholics came here from Czechoslovakia about the same time as the German Lutherans. Prior to their arrival, there were the Baptists which can be readily and strictly divided into white and black congregations. Yes, the most segregated time of American life remains Sunday morning. We have a smattering of Methodists and Presbyterians, but they bear little resemblance to those of the UK. Much of the dourness is missing here. It did not travel well I guess.

Jewish families in our area can be counted on one hand and are almost entirely immigrants from outside the US. All are professionals and are subject to mild types of prejudice emanating from locals who think that the word Jew is a verb. Gross ignorance among our relatively isolated and underexposed population is predominant. It accounts for blaming the Jews for economic ills including high oil prices. Most of the locals would not, and do not, recognize a Jewish person when they meet or see one.

As a person's religious affiliation is strongly linked to his or her ethnic heritage, the tendency to intermingle is constrained. It is still difficult, for example, for a WASP Episcopalian to develop strong social ties with an American Catholic of Italian or Irish origin. Catholics and Lutherans get along fine, but Czechs and Germans do not and seldom do they intermarry. Mind you, these observations are anecdotal, but nevertheless representative of the majority opinion.

Politically speaking, the Protestants here are largely Republican while Catholics are inclined to be democrats, as are Jewish people. This tendency may be applicable throughout the US, although political labels are in a state of flux just now and many Americans are shunning them altogether. The right is divided between Republicans and Conservatives while the left is divided between Liberals and Democrats. The number of Independents is growing which gives credence to the tendency to shun labels; being an Independent is often a refuge for those who want to decide allegiances on issues rather than party affiliations. Some believe that Independents are Democrats who don't want to admit it, but I think that is not entirely accurate. As for Libertarians, they have largely gravitated to the Conservative camp.

Assanje’s bail refusal

The Swedes seem to have shot themselves in both feet over the Wikileaks affair. Assanje is in the slammer, on a trumped up charge of a sexual nature that is as transparent as cling-film. If the Swedes had stayed out of it and abided by the decision of the English court, there would have been time to draw up proper charges against him under English law. Espionage has been trailed. We hear that US lawyers are rushing around like blue-arsed flies to find something they can charge him with. In that event they could have applied for extradition without producing any evidence to support the charge or indeed that an offence had been committed that was an offence in English law, under Blair’s odious extradition treaty (which is one-sided per se because the American Constitution would probably forbid extradition on those terms). So off goes A to the pen.

Instead, by refusing to accept the umpire’s decision, they have swung popular opinion back to A.

I firmly believe that the whole of this gang of cyber terrorists have to be rounded-up before someone gets hurt. I read in the Bangkok Post that the latest is the release of communications between the US Ambassador in Zimbabwe and Morgan Tsvangirai suggesting that the PM did not support the continuation of sanctions against the ruling party, contrary to official policy. The barbarians who run ZANU(PF) are yelling treason. Tsvangirai’s life is put at risk yet again.

I knew the whole situation was tainted when the obnoxious Aussie uber-leftie, Guardian-scribbler, Form 3 noisemaker John Pilger, was putting up bail money, along with a gaggle of rich celebs. When A threatened to bring down another major bank, my sympathy for the underdog disappeared with the realisation that the guy is a megalomaniac who wants to recast world order according to his personal beliefs

Is Obama anti-British? The Limey view.

Dan Hannan is a rising star of the right, an MEP who wreaks havoc amongst the Brussels politicos because he is just too smart and articulate for them to keep up with him. He came to wider attention when he slaughtered Broon when that article addressed the European parliament. The video on u-tube registered gazillions of hits. His piece was about O’s attitude to UK, not about the so-called ‘special relationship’. This exists at the ‘people’ level, not the political. Lord Palmerston summed it up:

Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.

Kissinger pinched it as ‘America has no friends only interests’; not quite so eloquent.

I very much doubt whether O’s dad was either in the Mau Mau or detained by the beastly Brits. My recollection (and it was a long time ago) is that Mau Mau was exclusive to the Kikuyu. Only 32 whites were killed by the Mau Mau, the huge number of others being Africans, including Kikuyu. The hard core was ex-soldiers from the Kings African Rifles who had served in Burma and were therefore highly experienced in jungle warfare.

But as we both know, come independence and everyone was suddenly an ex-freedom fighter.

If O returned the bust of Winnie because of his role in suppressing the Mau Mau, this shows that O doesn’t know his history. The uprising was from 1952 to 1960. Winnie resigned in 1953. The villain of the piece was an idiot Colonial Secretary called, if I remember rightly, James Griffiths. He enraged the indigenous populations by giving the minority Asians, who then as now were heartily disliked by Africans, far more seats on the Legislative Council, than to African politicians. In doing so he instantly converted a barbarous Kikuyu terrorist insurgency into a national freedom movement. Perhaps this is where O’s grandpappy came in.

Although nobody cared a toss about O’s humiliation of Broon, we did care about his behaviour to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. And we thought that the presents fiasco was simply demeaning to our American buddies.

Like you I thought that O’s approach on foreign policy was more mature than his predecessor’s, and has been competently handled by Hillary. As for him failing to mention the British presence in Afghanistan, Dubya never once mentioned that more Brits were killed on 9/11 than in any other single terrorist attack, despite 30 years of the IRA.

Although we are joined at hip and thigh by legal tradition, language (after a fashion), multiparty democratic governance, and many other matters, one huge difference is the impact of religion on politics and on society. In England (I speak not for the Celtic fringe) it has no significance whatsoever. We are not necessarily unbelievers as non-worshippers.

A recent survey summarised by the Economist reveals that in American politics religion is of the highest importance, often in a deleterious way. In society it is the glue that holds the nation together. Interestingly, Americans are not bothered about denomination or whether they are Christian or Jew, provided that you are God-fearing. Unsurprisingly, this does not apply to Islam, but Americans also dislike Buddhists. What on earth have the most gentle and peace-loving of people done to get up your noses?

Anti-Americanism is an essential qualification for Guardianistas, especially for those who have never visited the US and know little about it. Of course there are stereotypes, but the essence of stereotypes is that they are broadly true. For example the Yanks and the Aussies believe that Brits are largely unacquainted with the bathtub; get a whiff of bouquet Anglais on an early morning commuter train and you will have physical proof. The Aussies reckon that in England the safest place to keep your money is under the bath soap. The Yanks believe that we have terrible teeth. Mostly very true. The English have always had a reputation for drunkenness, lascivious women, and a love of fighting. Plus ca change.

Otherwise, the Brits visit America in humungous numbers, and the holiday home market in Florida is heavily UK-orientated.

I firmly believe that we Brits regard the ‘special relationship’ as a somewhat dysfunctional family that have their differences but will turn on any third party that meddles. We have distrust of Europeans that is in our DNA because over the last 2,000 years they have arrived on these shores – or tried – as invaders. Contemporary history suggests to me that the French in particular are still bent on wrecking the Anglosphere, for example, by shackling hedge funds through EU restrictions despite the fact that almost all hedge-fund business is in the UK.

Flanders and Swan put it this way:

It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad

It's just that they're foreign that makes them so mad

The English are all that a nation should be

And the pride of the English are Chipper and me

The English the English the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

.

Australian Prime Minister does it again!!

It took a lot of courage for this man to speak what he had to say for the world to hear. The retribution could be phenomenal, but at least he was willing to take a stand on his and Australia 's beliefs.

Whole world needs a leader like this!

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - Australia

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks..

Separately, Rudd angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Quote:

'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.. Take It Or Leave It.

I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians. '

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'

'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'

'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'

Norwegian Nobel Numtpties.

As I write the BBC World News has been showing for what seems 2 years an address by an astoundingly ugly and mind-numbingly boring old bat called Liv summat who once appeared in a film 200 years ago banging on about human rights in China.

This is the Nobel Peace Prize that we all remember was awarded to Obama within a few minutes of assuming office, presumably on the grounds that he had not started a war in that time (and had not done anything else then – or since).

The BBC has reverted to its role of institutional uselessness by taking the whole of its news time to report this Norwegian farce, when the lead story in the rest of the meeja is the astounding breach of security anent the Prince of Wales which could have seen old Chuck taken out by a lefty loony.

We are at a loss to understand how the internal affairs of China are anything to do with Norway or the Nobelistas.

If Assanje gets the cheque next year when he is in an American pen, will the Numpties criticise the Yanks for human rights abuses?

I think we should be told!

Dewani does Lord Lucan.

Having been granted bail (an extraordinary decision – more later) how long before Dewani ‘takes the gap’? Scarpers. Absconds. Buggers off.

This is how it will be done.

As soon as he is out of the bridewell he dons a burka and niqab, Hindu or not. He will then have total protection from every law enforcement and anti-terrorist authority in the UK. If John Simpson can do it and fool the Taliban, the Old Bill stands no chance.

He then gets a false passport. Easy peasy. The racket is dominated by Asians (Pakistanis have just been arrested in Thailand for passport theft and forgery for terrorist purposes).

He is then passed down the Asian escape route, never to be heard of again.

The bail decision beggars belief.

Time was when the criteria for refusing bail were at minimum.

• The seriousness of the offence, which meant that any felony carrying a long prison sentence meant ‘no chance’.

• The likelihood of the accused absconding – inevitable in this case, I predict.

• Possible interference with witnesses or jurors.

• The likelihood of a repeat offence.

At the same time, Assanje is refused bail on a lesser and trumped-up charge although his mug shot is known throughout the world and two of the three options available to Dewani don’t apply here.

They should both do porridge until trial.

The world has gone mad.

Is Obama anti-British?

Dan Hanna’s polemic in the DT this week asks whether Obama is antiBritish, and opens...


‘Let’s review the evidence. President Obama received from Gordon Brown a pen-holder made from the timbers of a Royal Navy anti-slavery vessel, and reciprocated with DVDs. He silkily downgraded the UK from “our closest ally” to “one of our allies”. He gave the Queen an iPod full of his own speeches. He used the Louisiana oil spill to attack an imaginary company called “British Petroleum” (it has been BP for the past decade, ever since the merger with Amoco gave it as many American as British shareholders). He sent a bust of Winston Churchill back to the British Embassy. He managed, on his visit to West Africa, to refer to the struggle for independence, but not to the Royal Navy’s campaign against slavery. He has refused to acknowledge our presence in Afghanistan in any major speech. He has even come dangerously close to backing Peronist Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands. There’s no getting away from it: Barack Obama doesn’t much like Limeys.


What has he got against us? The conventional answer is that he is bitter about the way his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was interned during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya........'


This is the take by Texas Haymaker.

I did not know that O's grandfather was imprisoned during the Mau Mau uprising. There must be more to the story seeing as how Mau Mau was a Kikuyu age cult that had nothing to do with the Onyangas, Obamas and other Luo people.

No apologies for the faux pas committed by O with respect to gifting your dignitaries with undignified presents. As for his anti-colonialism, so what? The vast majority of Americans are anti-colonial and this vast majority most likely understands colonial dynamics as poorly as O does.

Perhaps naively, but I found O's approach to foreign policy refreshing. Yet his efforts to promote discourse and understanding were vilified by his predecessors who treated North Korean, Iranian and Venezuelan leaders to name a few as lepers. Is it sophomoric to deliver the message that Americans are not the bad guys that people might think? Hannan takes umbrage with this approach and in his article rapidly chronicles who and where we bombed since our independence.

These are small points that do not focus on the main issue; America's relationship with the UK. Believe me , it is healthy and we continue to look kindly on your lot over there. Anyone who speaks with an English accent (and to us that includes South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders) has immediate respect and credibility. Don't ask me why. Our TV and radio commercials are chuck full of promoters of this product and that speaking at us in accents ranging from posh to Cockney. We love it. I often wonder what the impact would be if an American-accented person were to attempt flogging the latest brand of tooth paste in the UK.

O and other Yanks criticized British strategies in Iraq and Iran. If I recall, so did Ike and his general staff during WWII and I could go back further. Your bright red uniforms with white straps across the chest and lines of soldiers made easy targets for our colonial lads in the bush. A lesson, I might add, that we have forgotten when it comes to guerilla warfare. Yes, we have different styles of warfare. We also have different health care and education systems. Any one of these systems, I have learned the hard way, should be off-limits for intercultural discussion as they are pregnant with emotion.

I am confident that when Daniel Hannan matures a bit, his views will moderate and he will cease and desist promoting the rumor that the UK and USA are at serious odds with one another. If he has any doubts about the relationship, ask him to count the number of American TV viewers intently following the forthcoming royal wedding. Ask him why the UK is the prime area of interest to US tourists going to Europe and to US businessmen seeking investments and partnerships. No doubt Hannan would have preferred that our umbilical cord to the UK had never been severed, but, as the saying goes, the acorn never falls far from the tree. It is not how different we are that distracts me, but how much the same we are that I find so intriguing. We're all right ,Jack, and the affection still swells in our collective breasts when we hear the words of Winston Churchill and refrains from God Save the Queen.

Wikileaks: cock-up or conspiracy?

Which might it be? I tend to favour the cock-up theory because recent history is incontrovertible proof that our leaders arrived from Planet Looney. Who would have thought that rational leaders would have gone to war against the only non-Islamic state in the Gulf that had already been monstered once and posed no military threat to the West? Who would have thought that we would be waging a bloody conflict against the Taliban in Afghaniscam when the casus belli was to destroy Al Qaeda which has since decamped to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia?

Now I am inclined towards the conspiracy theory because it beggars belief that this flood of documents could be easily extracted from US security. What strengthens my belief is that when Gary the Hacker got into the Pentagon with apparent ease and told them what he had done and how, so that they could put it right, they immediately issued a warrant for his arrest and an extradition notice under Blair’s odious extradition treaty which requires no evidence that an offence has been committed. No such warrant or extradition notice was issued against Asanje although he is known to be in the UK.

Some of the leaks certainly add to the gaiety of nations, such as the following press extract

"The disclosures in the cable, posted online by the British newspaper The Guardian, will complicate Rudd's already testy personal links with China after his reported reference to Chinese negotiators as ''rat f***ers'' during the Copenhagen climate change conference."

Some are a cause of great anger, such as the comments by US authorities that the British forces in Afghaniscam were not up to the job – this from a military that ‘rescued’ a British hostage from the Taliban by chucking a fragmentation grenade at her instead of a stun grenade. Maybe some good will come of this if it strengthens the campaign to get out of this ridiculous, pointless and unwinnable conflict. British casualties are approximately at the same level on a per capita basis as WW2, and would be higher if it were not for the extraordinary skill and courage of the medical teams (Our Dear Leaders should read ‘The Great Game’ to understand that you cannot win in Afghanistan). When I was a young Army officer we had in our mess an ageing Major who wore the medal of the Waziristan Campaign which was fought on the Afghan border in the 1920s. Plus ca change

Some are more than a little worrying. One from the US Ambassador to Germany about the Passenger Name Recognition Initiative for exchanging data about travellers is a clear example of bureaucratic stupidity and latent authoritarianism. Included in the information requested by the US, and so far rejected by Germany, are ethnic origin, political opinion, religion, trade union membership and sexual orientation. Political opinion in Germany is that the data transfer agreement would collect pointless information about travellers that would be of dubious value to law enforcement agencies, and that German commercial interests could be damaged by leaks of information about German business travellers to US competitors (a near certainty, I would think) .

Can anybody explain how it would be actually possible to collect such information from travellers? Would we have to fill in a form when applying for a visa? ‘Are you now or have you ever been a serial suicide bomber?’ Do you now have or have you ever had carnal relations with a camel?’ ‘Are you now or have you ever been a member of militaristic organisations such as the Salvation Army or the St John’s Ambulance Brigade?’ And if this is collected can anybody explain what earthly use it would be in catching a terrorist?

Be that as it may, Asanje has put his hands up and is now a guest in the bridewell. So what happens next?

The arrest is under the odious EWA which enables you to have your collar felt at the whim of a corrupt court in Eastern Europe on trumped-up charges for something that is not a crime in the English jurisdiction, a theme to which I will return. The case stated against A is alleged to fail to specify either the precise charges or the prima facie evidence, according to his brief. In the event that the lower court finds against him he is setting up the grounds for appeal. This will go to the Court of Appeal, and if he loses there, he will take it to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords (as the Supreme Court is properly titled). If he loses there he will take it to the ludicrous kangaroo court known as the ECJ on human rights grounds.

The sex charges strike me as trumped up. In the good old days complaints of rape had to be made within a very short time of the offence before the medical evidence was lost. Not anymore, so it is one person’s word against the other’s, so quite simple to set up a spurious charge. The obvious intention is to get him in the collar so that the US can ‘rendition’ him.

I will have shuffled off this mortal coil before there is result.

So what is the conspiracy?

It has all the hallmarks of the sinister, shadowy group known as ‘The Family’. This is a secret consortium of extreme Evangelical Christians of extreme right-wing views who have infiltrated the very highest echelons of US politics, public service and business (and before some numpty calls me paranoid, read the book of the same name). The conspiracy is to destabilise O and Hillary and the whole Democratic Administration – and it’s working because it exposes O as being long on rhetoric but very short on leadership. It has Cheney’s fingerprints all over it.

Conclusion?

Having threatened to release information that would create another Lehman Bros bank melt down, he exposes himself as an arrogant megalomaniac who is prepared to use cyber-terrorism to remould the world to his liking regardless of the effects on millions of decent ordinary people.

I hope they throw the key away.

Wikileaks: a Yankee view

I note the Anglo-American relationship is back in the news along with a zillion other diplomatic red herrings thanks to Wikileaks. Richard LeBaron, the US deputy chief of mission, mirrored my views when he stated that the UK's obsession with the Anglo-America alliance would “be humorous, if it were not so corrosive”. Corrosive, I assume, because it was self inflicted and betrays a totally unnecessary paranoia. The UK is our daddy.

But this item is but the tip of this edition of the Wikileak iceberg. We are being delightfully entertained by all sorts of catty back-stabbing real politik snippits and revelations that most of us already knew or at least strongly suspected. Conspiracy theorists must be having a ball with all the confirmations of what the Yemeni's are claiming, and the Chinese are wrangling the French are screwing up and the Germans are wallowing in apathy.

The Wikileak issues and implications have already been dissected and digested by the pundits with the conclusion that this round is but a tempest in a teapot. It speaks ill of the US' inability to manage its confidential and secret files. As I understand the situation, no top secret documents were released, if indeed Adrian Assange has any at all. He neatly encrypted another 'doomsday' batch for immediate release should anything happen to him. Historians are having a field day, albeit short-lived as they fear future original resource data will be much more difficult to obtain and considerably more circumspect and politically correct. Few scalps have been taken as a result and even Hillary turned around her initial bitter reaction by joking about what the victims might have said about her.

The big question for me is whether Assange is an angel or a demon. On the demon side he has stripped naked major world figures revealing, in my view, rather impoverished tackle. He has certainly endangered lives, both physical and political, but to far less an extent than was initially reported. The Turk minister with a Swiss Bank account has some explaining to do, but such revelation is hardly considered demonic, unless of course you are the account holder. He has broken diplomatic rules and flouted national pride. More seriously, he claims to have additional information about banking for example, that could be seriously damaging.

As an angel, he has exposed the lies, the posturing and the inflated egos of bright but unwise people. He has also made the democratic process a bit more transparent. Shrouded in secrecy as the US is, there is much to explain in terms of our constant references to being the world's leading democracy. What we can now share equally among our leaders and their minions is the shame of sham. We now have confirmation that in diplomatic circles, yes means no and compliments are reserved for our detractors. We more resemble the court of Louis the Fourteenth than the traditions of parliamentary process inherited from our English ancestors.

I do not endorse hanging Assange as a traitor. Nor do I seek to deify him. We need to tighten our information security; but we also need to dramatically and drastically reduce our efforts in petty spying. It is totally unreasonable and unconscionable that we know the sexual behavior of a UK backbencher while at the same time we cannot locate Osama bin-Laden. We are snooping in the wrong holes and coming up only with dirt on our faces.

We should be grateful to Assange for having exposed our hypocrisies and we should study the attendant lessons to be learned. Let Adrian float into history as a hero and not a villain and for heaven's sake, pull up our socks and man-up for the difficulties ahead by speaking truth and catering to sound principles.

Down with shortism

The joke that Dave made about the Speaker was as follows:

Someone reversed into Bercow’s car. He got out, looked at the damage and said ‘I’m not happy’. The other driver said ‘Well, which one are you?’ Boom, boom. This is similar to the Aussie cricket joke which they tell constantly. After the 7 dwarfs started their shift a load explosion was heard. Snow White rushed to the pit head. ‘Is anybody hurt down there?’ she called. A voice came back ‘England is going to beat Australia’. ‘Well, at least Dopey’s alright’ she said.

There has been an interesting development here with the NHS. Our son’s local hospital, the Hinchingbroke in Cambridge, has been handed over to the private sector in its entirety to function as an NHS hospital but with the NHS having no management role. I guess that this is experimental, but if it succeeds we may well see the NHS become a funding institution instead a service provider. The NHS is unmanageable if only on account of its size. It is reputed to be the largest employer in the world after Indian Railways and the largest state monopoly outside China. Could this be a way to go in the US?

Still on the NHS, a friend has just returned from hospital in Liverpool where he had a stent inserted. The menu in the cardiac unit offered two choices – chicken and vegetables or burger and fries!

I see that the vultures are now circling over Spain In anticipation that its economy is next in the game of Euro-dominos. The problem is rooted in housing. Ireland has some 300,000 new-build houses unsold. Spain has 1.5 million.

Ireland’s problem was caused by over-exuberance in the building industry which was able to borrow cheap money at a time of rising inflation on account of the Government being unable to raise interest rates to cool down the economy – the price of the ‘one size fits all’ idiocy of the single currency and ECB.

Spain effectively destroyed confidence in its housing market through hanky-panky. It is reported that in Andalusia alone 300,000 expats have had their homes sequestrated and in many cases demolished by the authorities without any compensation. This is said to affect around 900,000 people. The reason is that in the boom years, thousands of homes were built without proper formalities – planning permissions, security of title etc – as a result of criminal conspiracies by crooked politicians, lawyers, estate agents, public officials etc. The scale of fraud appears to be so huge that it must have been common knowledge. We hear stories of OAPs living in their garages without any services because the wrecking ball has visited them. It is estimated that the value of the property is €60 billion.

So farewell, then, to the expat market forever.

A puzzle; we were watching a TV documentary about Israel. There was an interview with young American Jewish immigrants with small children who had built a house less that 1 kilometre from the Gaza security fence, surely one of the more dangerous places on earth. What kind of parents would put their kids at this risk? The immigrants from US seem to be the most fanatical, but then if you choose to leave the comforts and safety of the US to live in a war zone I suppose you must be.