'I've got a little list..........'

‘As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,

I’ve got a little list,

I’ve got a little list,

Of society offenders who might well be underground,

And who never would be missed’

Trawling the media for something stimulating turned my thoughts to what or who is most disliked these days, and I came to the conclusion that the list is likely to be long.

News International would be high on the list. We are heartily sick of Murdoch, Leveson and all the coverage giving to the hacking scandal. But with prosecutions imminent this will run and run. The Murdoch press has started attacking Dave at every turn. Not a good move. Revenge beckons. And I predict a diet of porridge for the accused hacks, especially the one with hair like an explosion in a mattress factory.

Foreign courts must be current hate-targets with a succession of farcical decisions that bring them into ridicule and contempt, the latest being the deportation case which all turns on the meaning of ‘three months’. The ECHR says that the appeal was properly lodged with one day to spare. The deportation notice was issued on the 90^th day. Is this three months? Or is it three calendar months? And does time start to run from the date of the judgement or the following day? And does it run according to the time at the place of judgement – one hour ahead of GMT – or the place of domicile of the original jurisdiction (it was issued at midnight on the 90th day)?  What a load of nonsense! We have rules in English law about the computation of time.

‘Health and safety’ is a prime candidate. The poor old HSE gets most of the flak, but there are many villains – jobsworths who love inventing a little bit of power for themselves, such as telling parents that it is illegal to take photos of their kids’ Nativity Play’ when it is not – but ambulance-chasing lawyers and insurance companies are the main culprits.

PC is loathed by all except the Libdems. They say it is designed to ensure decent speech and conduct. It isn’t. It is to propagate the perversion of language and the suppression of free speech, the better to control us.

The EU is a favourite Aunt Sally, and justifiably so. It has destroyed the sovereignty of Parliament and left us to the untender mercies of a corrupt and unelected bureaucracy based in a foreign country. We were tricked into joining by persistent lying by Ted Heath, who told us that we were going into a ‘common market’. What the chatterati cannot fathom is that we English are by nature suspicious of foreigners (I can’t speak for the Celtic fringe). It is part of our race memory. In most of our history the arrival of foreigners has signalled invasion. As an island race we are, well, insular. Apart from the Irish, we have little in common with the members of the EU by way of tradition, constitution, politics,  law, outlook, even culture. And we are a maritime people; most of the others are not.

Now a Common Market of the Netherlands, Germany and the Nordics would make a lot of sense, but the present set-up is a rag-bag. Some of the far-flung members which have joined in recent years are not much more than third-world countries.

And finally, there’s the whole of the political class. In both the UK and the US politicians seem to be almost universally despised, with a few honourable exceptions, but worse for the US where governance depends on compromise of which little is to be seen right now.

A personal hate of mine is selfish and obsessive dog-owners (and if it comes to that the whole of the animal rights lobby; they don’t love animals, they just hate people).  Where I live it is quite common to see people taking walkies as many as six variegated mutts. Their passage is marked by piles of steaming poo. The owners will scream blue murder at attempts to bar them for children’s’ play-grounds. We have a nature reserve near us which is one of the few breeding grounds for terns. Every year between April and August signs go up saying that dogs must be kept on leads so as not to disturb the nests. Do the owners respect this? Nope. They even tear down the signs. The terns have not nested for about 4 years.