What Katie did next.........

Needless to say, the meeja is squeezing every drop of juice out of the Wedding. We are breathlessly informed that Katie went to Westminster Abbey so that’s where the nuptial will be started. Wow! We would never have guessed. And Wills and Katie sat down to start the wedding plans. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Er..............no! The plans will already have been well and truly in place for years, down to the finest detail. We Brits may no longer be terribly good at much, but we beat the world in setting up pageants, and this requires meticulous planning well in advance.

‘Let us pause to consider the English,

Who, when they pause to consider themselves they get all reticently thrilled and tinglish,

Because every Englishman is convinced of one thing; viz –

That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is;

A club to which benighted bounders of Frenchman and Germans and Italians cannot even aspire to belong,

Because they don’t speak English, and Americans are worst of all because they speak it wrong.

Englishman are distinguished by their traditions and ceremonials,

And also by their love for colonies and their contempt for colonials............’

All State occasions will have their plans – the funerals of Her Maj and the Duke will be already in salt, although hopefully both doleful events lie far in the future.

The DT published a 15-page supplement – and there’s months to go yet. Needless to say, it has not taken long for the Grub Street smelly-socks to start raking up dirt. They are now running with the story that the rough side of Kate’s mother’s family (she is famously working class by background) will not be invited. The truth, as I understand it, is that there was a rift in the maternal side in Kate’s grandma’s time. The parents may be millionaires but they are self-made from mostly working-class stock. That should put a bit of muscle into the Windsor line, as Diana put some height into them.

Presumably, when it is all over Katie will take up residence in Anglesey as an officer’s wife. That should liven up ladies’ nights in the Officers Mess, and also has the added benefit that the Old Bill will be able to stop the smelly socks on the Menai Bridge.

Peter Oborne did a cracking piece in the DT about Maggie’s resistance to the wretched Euro, and the treachery that went on in the Tory party. By A strange irony, the present crisis seems to be leading to the rehabilitation of G Brown, late of No 10. Keeping the UK out of the Euro probably suffices to make up for his manifest and manifold sins as PM. We are not told whether the other non-members, such as the Baltic States, are still itching to join. I guess the enthusiasm has wilted somewhat. But as we have a wedge of drinking vouchers in Irish banks, we are not gloating.

Reverting to the Blessed Margaret, a couple of anecdotes that might give a small insight into her character.

A colleague of mine who was in the Cabinet Office on the staff of No 10 told me that one afternoon she was at a meeting there. Partway through, a sepulchral figure arose from behind the sofa. Maggie looked round and simply said ‘Subside, Denis!’ Which he did.

Shortly after her demise, I was having dinner with George Thomas, the former Speaker. George was renowned for his wonderful speaking-voice, so it was a cruel tragedy when he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He went into hospital for an operation, and when he came round from the anaesthetic he was conscious of a women sitting by his bedside holding his hand. It was the Iron Lady herself. He said that there were two Maggies – one the tough, uncompromising politician; the other one who was extraordinarily kind. Needless to say, George, an ex-miner and a Welsh Labour Party man of the old school, would not hear a word against her.

Here is the latest in Dave’s defence cuts fiasco.

The Service Chiefs generally wanted to demobilise the Tornados because they are high-maintenance and limited in payload during the hot season in Afghaniscam; because there were already sufficient fighter-bombers in Afghaniscam, and because the RAF only needed one type of fast jet, the Typhoon. So what does Dave do? Why, he decided to keep the Tornados and decommission HMS Ark Royal, our only fleet carrier together with its Harriers so that there will be no top cover until HMS Prince of Wales gets its aircraft at some remote time in the future. Decommissioning the Tornados would have saved £5 billion. It would have cost £120 million to keep Ark Royal going. Bet they loved that in Buenos Aires. The previous Ark was decommissioned not long before the last punch-up with the Argies, only now there’s oil down there.

Nice one, Dave. La Luta continua!

I reckon that when Dave reads the obituary columns he can’t figure out how people die in alphabetical order! If his crazy immigration policy is any guide, he must have got his degree by outsourcing his exam papers to Bangalore. There is a cap on skilled people, but otherwise it seems monkey business as usual; the latest is that one of the kidnappers of the Chandlers says he is joining his wife and family in London because he owes £50,000 to his handlers as start-up money for the kidnapping. Don’t fret, Ali; Social Services will pay. The cap will have a minimal effect on immigrant numbers; stupid gesture politics.

As is the 50% top tax band. Labour’s policy, insofar as they have any, is to get rid of Alistair ‘call me’ Darling’s sop to the chattering classes about bank bonuses. George is silent, but it is estimated that the 50% rate will lose the Treasury about £800 million through tax avoidance, emigration and people simply working less. He is obviously a stranger to the Laffer Curve. Gesture politics are usually pointless; these do actual harm. He has just announced that he will hand over £7 billion to the mangy Celtic Tiger, about the same as the total cuts announced in his last budget, plus another £7 billion to the Brussels brigands for the ‘bail out’. That would have kept the Ark going for few years yet.

And POTUS is following the customary line for politicians who have lost it at home by going on ulendo around the globe (‘If it’s Thursday, it must be Paris’). Let’s hope he doesn’t follow that other well-worn route to distract attention from domestic failures by having another bloody war somewhere; there are those in American politics who follow Talleyrand – ‘you can use a bayonet for anything except sitting on’.

'Canute', King of clean power

Let me introduce ‘Canute’, harnessing tides to generate power.

The concept is beautifully simple. There is a humungous great cistern with a turbine inside. As the tide flows the turbine is driven by water entering the cistern. When the tide ebbs, the turbine is driven by the outflow. This means that it generates power 24 hours a day, unlike other tidal systems that are inert for two hours at high and low tides.

It has no adverse effects on marine life, river silt, salt marshes or mudflats

It is environmentally friendly. There is no noise, no pollution, no use of carbon fuels. The cistern can be used for fish farming or breeding. Built in linear fashion, several units along the coast could form a barrier for land reclamation.

There are no fuel costs because the entire ‘grunt’ is provided by Neptune for free, it has unlimited lifespan, the technology already exists, and traditional construction materials are used throughout. It would be prefabricated onshore, and sunk in its required location.

All the basic research has been done. What is now needed is development funding.

So if this is the solution for clean power, what’s the problem?

Could it be that there are now so many vested interests in the ugly, bird-macerating, inefficient, environmentally-unfriendly wind farms marching across the British countryside that they will fight tooth-and-nail against competition that might wipe them out?

I think we should be told!

Wind farms are a racket

The following is an extract from a learned paper on the wind farms that are disfiguring much of Europe. It makes disturbing reading. What is rarely mentioned is wind turbine interference with air traffic control radar. It tends to break up the radar 'paint' at speeds araound 200 m.p.h,more or less the approach speed of airliners and the cruising speed of general aviation planes

Wind Energy Favoured by conservationists and politicians alike, only recently has adverse publicity been observed, largely caused by high profile local pressure groups objecting to sites in their locations.  When on-shore they are visually intrusive, noisy and inefficient. When offshore they are a great deal more costly and unlikely to survive more than 10 years without major repair – and both need expensive re-cabling to bring into the National Grid, causing even more expense and visual impairment. The cost of overground pylons are about £1.6M/mile, underground about £20M/mile. Almost 3,000 wind turbines have been installed in the UK, with another 4,800 planned. UK consumers have not been informed of the huge subsidies needed, nor have the stealth taxes supporting these subsidies been revealed. A 3 Megawatt (MW) unit costs about £3-4M to build, will produce about 9,200 MW hours/a, with an annual value of £0.33M.  It also gains £0.442M through subsidy via ROCS (see EU Emissions Trading Scheme below). With the UK government providing a 20-year guaranteed subsidy, over its 25-year life the turbine attracts £20M of revenue.  This provides an explanation for the “rush-to-gold” by many entrepreneurs. If this is bad for the UK, other European countries are much worse; Germany provides a subsidy of four times cost of generation. The total cost of subsidies for wind power, producing 6.8% of the Germany’s electricity, is estimated at 20.5 billion Euros over the last decade.  This palls to irrelevance compared to the solar subsidy; 53.3 billion Euros to produce just 0.6%! Currently UK users pay an average of £12 (direct charge) + £31 (carbon permits) + £38 (carbon emissions reduction) per site. The total (£81/a) is the effective current total subsidy applying to renewable sources of power.  Further taxes are proposed up to 2020. But it gets worse. The UK government has announced 30GW of renewable-based power is to be built. Since wind generation is the only mature low carbon technology, ergo wind power becomes the only current source of renewable energy. But wind turbines are non-continuous sources, necessitating the building of 24GW of conventional power generators for backup. By coincidence the capital cost of building 30GW wind generators is approximately the same as building nuclear generators of the same capacity. Both are effectively carbon emission free. Consequently the taxpayer is paying twice as much as necessary to gain 30GW of carbon-free electricity, whilst blighting the landscape with unsightly windmills.  The simple question is: why?

Deja vu all over again............

The prospect of a Royal wedding next year will ensure that cheerfulness will break out all over; just what the economy needs, especially for those in the tourist industry. Needless to say, the meeja is wall-to-wall. When I went to ‘Jeff Randall Live’ did I get the business news? Nope. So I switched to ‘Quest means business’ on CNN. And what did I get? That’s right. It is all very good news for the UK. In the space of a year it will have the Wedding, HM’s Diamond Jubilee (that will be the biggest street party of all time), and the Olympics. This will be good both for business and for the country’s morale.

It is also very important constitutionally. Wills and Katie are a more glamorous couple than Charles and Diana ever were. He is tall, very good looking, has an amiable personality, a University degree, and a proper – if somewhat dangerous – job as a search-and-rescue chopper pilot. He also speaks like a normal person. She is beautiful, intelligent (Diana herself said that she was a thick as two short planks), middle-class and seems very sensible. If things go OK the future of the monarchy should be assured for another half-century. If not, I doubt that it will survive Charles. It would be good for the country if Chuck were to renounce the throne. His conduct during the Diana affair showed that he was not fit to be King, but in any case he is too old and too lacking in charisma. Neither is he very bright.

I now have a distinct sense of déjà vu all over again, only this time it’s China-bashing; seems like all America’s woes are down to the evil Mr Chin, who has ‘a carefully thought-out plan to take over America’, according to that well-known anti-masturbator, professional virgin, part-time-witch and no-time politician, Christine O’Donnell. The fact that China’s trade surplus as a percentage of GDP has been steadily reducing and that its current account surplus has halved in three years don’t enter into the Palinista thinking. Neither does the fact that the US has a huge export trade to China in agricultural products, particularly poultry and corn (a billion-plus population takes a lot of grub) or that General Motors has sold 2 million vehicles to China this year, more than in the US.

We are old enough to remember the recession about 30 years ago. As we know, it was all part of a Yellow Peril plot by Japan to take over the world with a politically-motivated economic strategy involving manipulating the yen and paying unfair subsidies to exporters. I remember scenes of laid-off American car-workers smashing-up Japanese cars in parking lots. Reagan was constantly vetoing congressional attempts to build trade-barriers against the evil Japs, proposed by politicians too young or too stupid to understand that it was protectionism that wrecked the world economy in the 1930s. That the Japanese worked harder, saved more and respected education, and built better cars and cameras was neither here nor there.

That the Chinese work harder, save more, and respect education (see what I mean about déjà vu?) and make better and cheaper consumer goods may well have something to do with their success, whilst European workers are not allowed to work more than 48 hours a week.

Still on déjà vu, when Deepwater hit the news months ago we commented on Obama’s foolishness in rushing to blame BP ‘profit before safety’ deficiencies before there was a scrap of evidence of the causes of the spill. We considered that he was in danger of looking a complete prat with his Brit-bashing, macho, gung-ho posturing in front of the cameras. And so it comes to pass. The joys of schadenfreude!

And the originator of our title phrase, the inimitable Dubya seems to have a runaway success with his apologia. At least he was able to have book-signings unlike the Smarmy Swami Blair.

With ‘students’ beating up Tory Party HQ in protest against Labour’s increases in fees, we should be grateful for the opportunities of University education offered to the new generation. They may fit themselves for top jobs in business, industry and the professions by studying ‘Football Culture’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Feel the force; how to train the Jedi way’, ‘Robin Hood Studies Pathway’ and ‘History of lace knitting in the Shetlands’, all of which are taught at various universities here. Meanwhile, Dave has decided to pay his ‘vanity’ photographer out of his own capacious bin, so perhaps he’s been reading Heffer’s caustic comments.

Obama: stirring up apathy!

Well, O is on his way home from stirring up apathy in Asia. Sources here indicate that he might just as well have stayed home for all the credit the US received from friends and opponents alike. I don't count the applause he received in Jakarta, after all, he spent 4 years of his youth there. Yet, protests against his visit continued outside the US embassy well after his departure.

While complaining about the futility of competitive currency devaluation, he commissioned Bernanke to print over a trillion dollars, i.e. instant devaluation. Mind you, I am not at all sympathetic with the Chinese who refuse to devalue their currency either. About all they offer internationally is sour grapes. They are at odds with South Korea, Japan and the US and are not at all liked in Southeast Asia. Then again, the US virtually handed China the technical hardware, software and training to manufacture what we had been happily producing for decades. We kept too little for ourselves and we are now paying the price.

I suspect O will also pay the price in the form of a single term president. He went from a bang to a whimper in record time and still seems incapable of capturing the hearts and minds of the public at large. Some say, and I agree, that he will be like Jimmy Carter and make too many wrong moves and bad decisions. His future to some extent depends on the gravity of the Republican candidate. He would beat Sarah Palin, but not Huckabee or even Romney. Too bad that the US does not punish candidates for telling porkies as in the UK. That would make short work of nearly all these scoundrels.

I like the term 'headcount creep' with respect to released civil servants returning to service. I am afraid that our US bureaucracy is, like the third world, populated by tens of thousands of individuals with political connections. As the largest employer in most countries, the civil service needs reducing across the board. I have always found that these people almost need to commit murder to be fired. The ministries and secretariats serve as employment agencies to repay political favors and for nepotistic purposes. Also, like the third world, if no places are available to place the minions, new ministries or departments are created. We have done a very good job of this with respect to our top heavy, and overpopulated security services.

The newly elected senators and representatives are arriving in DC. Monday, they will be scrambling for office space which is allocated on a seniority basis. In the meantime, senior Republicans are threatening to enact legislation to ban earmarks. Reminds me of O's first month in office. After that month, all was quiet on the earmark front as he took a scalding from old timers who must have threatened non-cooperation if he insisted on fighting against their pork barrel projects. I seriously doubt the Republican majority in the House will have any more success and if they do, it would be a major sign of political reform.

Our beloved governor, Rick Perry, looks like a matinee idol. He has longish flowing hair, a permanent tan and is always impeccably dressed. Everything about him is just that, a facade. Sadly, he just won another term against a Democrat who had served well for four years as the mayor of Houston. He, too, came to the table with multiple skeletons in his closet, but to my mind was the lesser of two evils. You may recall that Perry threatened to take Texas and cede from the union; which is a legal Texas right dating back to the time it joined the US. He is an idiot, spends lavishly, puffs up, blows smoke and eventually crawls back into his hole to lick his wounds. A loser.

The people have spoken......the bastards!

The people have spoken, so what are we to make of the mid-terms? In two previous elections the GOP got hammered for making a deficit worse with unaffordable tax cuts, letting Wall Street screw Main Street, two wars, stagnant wages and rising job insecurity. Now there is a jobless ‘recovery’, rising unemployment, even more job insecurity, and still war. So was this a vote for O’s opponents? My take is that it was more a howl of rage. If ‘none of the above’ had been an option, it may have been very attractive to many – I have long believed that people don’t vote governments in; they vote incumbents out.

Back in la-la land, Dave’s defence review beggars belief. The matchless Matt in the DT sums it up.

We will have a carrier with no aircraft for 8 years. When the aircraft arrive they will not be the VSTOL Joint Strike Fighter but the conventional carrier version that needs a longer deck and a stonking great catapult. What we are not told is that carriers also require a mini-fleet of escort ships and supply vessels. Not that this would matter for very long in real hostilities. Dave simultaneously cancelled the updated Nimrod. So HMS Prince of Wales will go to war with no planes, no protective escort, and no airborne early warning radar system. Should last about as long as the previous POW that the Japs made short work of in 1941. The hypersonic anti-ship Sizzler missile might see to that.

Never mind, Johnny Frog will help us out. At this point let me reprise the great pun by Miles Kington. The French Navy decided it needed a stirring battle cry, so they decided on ‘To the water; it is time’ (a l’eau; c’est l’heure). Vive l’entente cordiale.

Excellent news is that the former Minister for Immigration in the Broon tyranny, he who got handbagged by the gorgeous pouting Joanna Lumley, has been unseated and banned from Parliament for 3 years for electoral malpractice – in this case telling the most outrageous porkies against his opponent during the campaign. That’s right; what appears to be normal practice in US elections is actually an offence in the UK. This is the first case of its kind in 99 years, and demonstrates the depths to which political morality sank in the NuLab years.

There should now be a by-election and Labour will lose the seat, unless Mr Speaker, the small but beautifully formed Tory John Bercow so decides (he may delay it until any appeal has been heard or until his Socialist wife, who is much bigger than him, tells him what to do).

That last sentence was intended to be satirical. Scarcely had I written it when the DT announces that the by-election has been postponed by Mr Speaker after the intervention of his wife. Beyond satire!

As with so many things debauched by Blair, the voting system, in the words of the Judge on the enquiry into hanky-panky at elections in Birmingham, ‘would disgrace a banana republic’. It was all fitted up quite simply. In former times, you could only get a postal vote for good reason e.g you were in hospital or incapacitated. Very few were handed out – maybe a couple of hundred in a constituency of 80,000. Under Blair, postal votes were handed out to all and sundry. Result: party apparatchiks would go around collecting up as many as possible and – bingo – our man elected! The official responsible in Birmingham left the £130,000+ a year job under a cloud shortly afterwards and immediately got another public service job at £140,000+ a year. As Immigration commissar. You couldn’t make it up!

More mendacity over Dave’s ‘cuts’. Public expenditure will actually increase during the Brokeback Coalition’s 5-year Plan. ‘More’ is the new ‘less’.

Meanwhile, a member of the nomenklatura of UNITE, the portmanteau of trade unions, declares that ‘upwards of 1 million’ hard-working, deserving, devoted public servants will be thrown on the scrapheap. ‘Upwards’, comrades, means ‘more than’, not quite what you meant to say, I fancy. The Plan predicates a reduction of 800,000 over 5 years.

During that time a large number will be accounted for by natural wastage. There is the related prospect of savings through a recruitment moratorium. Many will take early retirement at age 50 (public service pensions provide for the full pension to be paid on a 40/80 basis so that once you have done 40 years you get a 50% index-linked pension, but there can be 10 added years meaning that you can retire on full pension at age 50 on completion of only 30 years, plus a lump sum). Still with me? Do try to keep up.

Others will take voluntary redundancy. Many staff in any event will be on fixed term contracts. Others will be temporary staff. Compulsory redundancy will certainly be nowhere near the figures quoted by the comrades. But I remember years ago when the Civil Service had to be slashed, a Government Department fired all its temps at the end of the financial year so that the reduction showed up in the statistics. Then they took them all back on again. Moral: never mind about job reductions. Let’s see establishment reductions, so that there is no headcount-creep later.

Scrapheap, anybody? The big loser, of course, will be UNITE as it watches whole swathes of its membership evaporate.

‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’. Er.......not quite. Whilst things are falling apart domestically, the ever-generous British taxpayer will be consoled by the thought that that the overseas aid budget, which was the fastest growing budget under the Blair/Broon reign of terror (by a factor of nearly 3-times the 1997 figure), is set to increase by a whopping 37%. Triples all round, then, in Kampala, Addis Ababa and other centres of political rectitude. And now we have revelations that Dave has a raft of ‘vanity’ staff, including his personal photographer, video cameraman, wife’s style advisor (a what?) and other drones on the public payroll; rather insensitive in these hard times, n’est pas?

Heffer gets Obama wrong

I am disappointed with Simon’s latest effort at O bashing. It is popular among the conservative media to refer to O as the anointed one, or the sainted one. Now, Simon is calling him Saint Barack. There is little in the public eye that supports this frivolous moniker. My call is that Simon spoke with some conservative nut during his recent visit to the US and swallowed every word that was said. Simon then put the regurgitated tripe into his Torygraph column today without plumbing the depths of what was said and ground-truthing the facts. Cheap journalism if I am correct. If Simon wants to beatify someone, he should focus on someone who merits the title; the Blessed Margaret?

Our notorious Rush Limbaugh has been arguing that the Democrats should gear up to put Hillary Clinton as their nominee for President in 2012. This is what Rush does for laughs and not one bit of it could happen and if Hillary has her way, will not happen. Rush’s humorous effort to divide the Democratic house failed miserably save for gullible Simon to pick it up, dust it off, and actually put it into his column.

Yes, O’s visit to India and the Orient is over the top, but it is not an escape from the line of fire as Simon argues. Moreover, Simon claims 34 US warships are to guard O during his trip; a rumor that the US military has categorically denied. Lazy and sensational journalism on Simon’s part and he should know better.

There are other examples of the type of commentary that comes from a quick visit to New York and Simon’s departing as if he were an expert on the country. Alexis de Tocqueville he is not. His puny efforts to denigrate O fall seriously short. O is not regarded here as capable of walking on water and is sadly aware of his shortcomings and, I suspect, the insurmountable difficulties he will have in overcoming them. I also doubt the O will have much success in his efforts to expand US exports to Asia, but this is not because of Simon’s call that Asia can probably manufacture whatever we have for sale more cheaply. We are not selling kewpie dolls, but rather big ticket defense items and high tech equipment that goes along with it. We continue to be competitive in this arena and I am sure that O will employ whatever political leverage he can while making his sales pitch. I expect more from Simon and am dismayed at his parroting the views of American pundits without adding his usually brilliant insights.

Republican hopefuls that remain in the forefront include Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and, can you believe it, Sarah Palin. I fail to place Sarah as anywhere near presidential material and continue to disdain her backwoods, 'hockey mom' image and her red neck promotion of Republican women as 'mother grizzlies'. Huckabee's take on O's Asia tour began with the observation that the political opposition is always critical of a president who leaves the country. In other words, the visit itself is no big deal. Many Americans believe, along with myself, that the presidential entourage is obscene in number of people and cost.

More airport security nonsense

Big Brother Watch has head from a supporter who wishes to remain anonymous but is, in her words, a lady "old enough to have her bus pass".


She tells us that she was subjected to a humiliating experience at Stansted. She has had both her hips replaced and when going security she was taken off to a room and made to undress to show her operation scars to prove that she had had the surgery claimed.

She said the whole experience was utterly humiliating. She questioned the need to put her through this and was just told that it was the law.

Big Brother Watch will be contacting the airport to ask them if that is in accordance with their policy and would love to hear from you if you have heard or seen anything similar, at Stansted or elsewhere.

Can't pay, won'tpay

Where will Dave end up with his battle in Europe? 40% of the budget goes on the hopelessly bent CAP and another 40% on pork aka Regional Funds. The new foreign department headed by the invisible ‘Lady’ Ashton already costs more than the entire F&CO, and it is scarcely up-and-running (and hopefully never will be). The snouts in the European Parliamentary trough are looking for bigger hand-outs. A touch of the Blessed Margaret needed here, Dave – you remember ‘No, no, NO!!’? I suggest yelling ‘can’t pay, won’t pay!’ The French would. And why didn’t he leave it all to Little Willie Hague? As the Blessed Margaret memorably said, ‘Every Prime Minister needs a Willie’. When did we last see Little Willie? He was with Dave in Brussels but not seen while Dave hailed his ‘victory’!

(To add insult to injury, the nomenklatura in Brussels have decreed that the UK must change its election law to enable prisoners to vote. They may have a problem or two getting to the polling stations, but presumably they will all qualify for postal votes under Blair’s vote-rigging legislation).

The Sunday Times continues to run a vendetta against the DFID Minister, this time for accepting a political donation in return for certain lobbying over coffee trading in Ghana. With his budget rising by 37% during this Parliament he is very vulnerable in defending the indefensible.

The politicians’ expenses scandal just won’t go away. Three ex-Labour MPs are still trying to get a High Court ruling that they have Parliamentary privilege. Lord Hanningfield failed in his attempt. This what Richard Ingrams says in the matchless Oldie magazine.

Indignation likewise should be felt in the case of two of the Labour peers suspended this week for claiming huge sums for bogus home allowances. Lord Bhatia is known to be a millionaire, while the Labour benefactor Lord Paul is described in press reports as a steel magnate and one of the richest men in England. In this week's House of Lords debate over the suspension, another Labour peer, Lord Alli, accused his fellow peers of racial bias against the three offenders - the third being the Bangladesh-born Lady Uddin. He might just as well have asked whether racial bias was not responsible for their being elevated to the House of Lords in the first place - all three political parties being keen to show their multicultural credentials by promoting coloured spokesmen whenever possible. The same argument could just as well be applied to Lord Alli himself, a relatively obscure but wealthy independent television entrepreneur befriended by Tony Blair.

The serious meeja here has started to give a lot of attention to the Tea Partyists, treating them as a legitimate political movement rather than as a rag-tag of simple-minded backwards-looking, flat earthists, red-necks, pro-lifers, and Palinistas. The Economist devoted a lengthy analysis to them in Lexington, and the general tone was extremely favourable, suggesting that the influence of the TP might well have the beneficial effect of forcing the Republicans back to their basic principles. It also revealed that research tends to show that the TP are rather better educated and well-off than the average. Now they have scented blood, will they become part of mainstream Republicanism or just fade away?

BBC had a whole hour at peak time fronted by Andrew ‘Brillo Pad’ Neil, beloved of Private Eye and former Fleet Street Editor. Glenn Beck feature prominently. I think that I now have his measure; he’s nuts! Mad as a box of frogs! He said that Palin is the reincarnation of Washington. A ranting demagogue, weeping and posturing for the cameras; here he would be a figure of ridicule, but then so was Goebbels.

Ms P has a very screechy voice and strikes me as thick as mince ‘n tatties.

The scenes at the TP gatherings were worrying. To them O is a Socialist, a Communist, a Kenyan, a Nazi, a Muslim. There was a big rally at the same spot and on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech with Beck once more foaming at the mouth. I was unsure of the symbolism of this, but it was noticeable that no blacks were present. There was a lot of blatant political pontificating from various pulpits; people should be very concerned about evangelistic preachers getting involved in right-wing (or any wing) politics, which also strikes me as against the spirit of the Constitution.

The President (I thought they were a spontaneous meeting of people, not an organisation – at least that’s what they tell us) has a hairy face resembling the orifice from which he was plainly speaking. There seems to be big money involved and there is an outfit called ‘Freedom Works’ pulling the strings. Shades of ‘The Family’. America should be worried if all this is accurate.

On the more positive side, it became clear that the US at large has diametrically opposite political values and ideology to Europe. Here there is a ‘gimme, gimme’ culture, one of ‘entitlement’ and ‘compensation’; a conviction that government should solve all problems with higher ‘tax and spend’ measures. In the US it is more about rolling back the frontiers of the state, less governance, lower taxes, less public spending. But O comes across as lacking in empathy and having neither understanding of business or much sympathy for it. Some of his public utterances give a worrying impression that he is wedded to the European dirigiste ‘social model’..

So Barack got a haircut. No surprise there, then. However, I suggest that those who see a victory for the Reps in the mid-terms as the end of O are forgetting their history e.g. the experience of Ronnie and Bill.

You couldn’t make it up.......

• We hear from Wall Street that bankers have been making a nice little earner by selling investment products and then betting against them. Although this is clearly fraud, it is not a crime.

• The Old Bill has just revealed that of over 100,000 stop-and-searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, there has not been a single arrest for a terrorist offence. Seems as if the police have used S. 44 to stealthily revive the old and discredited ‘sus’ law.

Roi Barack & Michelle Antoinette

It is difficult for me to wrap my head around the concept of the UK and France sharing a rapid deployment force, aircraft carriers and nuclear research efforts. It will all end in tears of frustration. It is impossible for the French to compromise on anything. Theirs is the French way and zat iz all, monsieur. There is simply no grounds for unity between the French and UK cultures. DeGaulle was not subordinate in his mind to anybody and I dare say his military successors are of much the same frame of mind. In the final analysis, the UK and France are better at fighting one another than fighting side by side and they certainly had more practice at it.

The interminable mid-term elections are finally over. As predicted, the Republicans won big and are busily committing hubris over that event even though the wiser pundits are cautioning that the vote contained a strong anti incumbent element. Some of the Republicans main targets managed to get reelected. Namely, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Ried, Senator Barbara Boxer of California and, by a larger margin owing to a safe seat, Nancy Polosi the former Speaker of the House. O will have a nationally broadcast speech tonight in which he is likely to pledge his, and ask for their, non-partisan cooperation. Fat chance.

Regardless of their motives, the public has largely sealed the fate of O's campaign for change. Not that it ever took off in the first place. The campaign foundered on O's inability to manage the legislative process needed for success in orchestrating change. He made too many compromises and offered to many deals to legislators seeking quid pro quos in spite of his promise to maintain an open and transparent administration. Even more important in the public eye, was O's failure to markedly reduce unemployment. Not that he could have done so, but rather he could have been much more proactive in educating the public as to the difficulties of this task and the time needed to make it happen. Big failure here as seen in the voting.

While it is clear that America has spoken, it is not at all clear what they said. As a result, the Republicans are now busy putting words in the public mouth and praising the public for having said them. Before long, crow will be regularly served at Senate and House dinners. The new Speaker of the House, John Boener (pronounced Bayner) lacks spark and is not an inspiring speaker. Add to this the growing rift between common everyday Republicans and the further right wing Conservatives and their Tea Party acolytes and party solidarity becomes more of an aspiration than a reality. Janet Daley puts the dilemma quite well in her Telegraph column today:

'The truth comes now: can a party that tapped grass roots anger remain in active touch with the grass roots?'

We live in interesting times and if the Republicans fail to internalize the message that the public is fed up with self-serving politicians, there will be hell to pay.

Meanwhile, O is will soon tour in India. It remains rather unclear as to why, but he booked 750 rooms in the Taj hotel to accommodate some of his entourage of about 7,000 people stuffed into 40 aircraft led by Air Force 1. Roi Barack and Michelle Antoinette are way over the top in their excesses which is no way to make much needed contact with struggling poor and middle class Americans. It is absolutely unbelievable that they are so adamant about cutting their own throats. He who campaigned as a man of the people has succumbed to the good life and is eating their cake in the process.

Posers and pretenders

Recent studies just revealed that liberalism is genetic. In other words, there is a bodily gene that aids in determining one's liberal or conservative tendencies. At least, this is what scientists from a joint Harvard and University of California, San Diego team learned. One commentator observed that we can now trace liberalism to a birth defect.

It was ironic to read that Russia is assisting NATO with its war efforts in Afghanistan by training Afghani Army forces and providing helicopters for the troops. One need not suspect that Russia knows more than we do on the subject of fighting in Afghanistan as its former leader, Gorbachev, is eager to confirm just than. Gorbi acknowledges the war is unwinnable and advises NATO to cease and desist which I suspect is Russian for go fourth and multiply or words to that effect. He always had a knack for speaking his mind. More important, we might well profit from studying and following his advice. After all, he continues, there was an agreement signed with Russia after they resigned from Afghanistan stating that all parties, including the USA, would recognize Afghanistan's neutrality. He could also not resist mentioning, with extreme schadenfreude, that the Afghani forces the US trained and armed are the very same ones fighting against us today. Pity we did not train the ones that are currently on our side as war stories from the front indicate the Afghani Army is just short of useless, can't read and cannot shoot straight.

Within the next week, we Americans will have elected another batch of posers and pretenders intent upon imposing their collective egos on the public at large. Judging from the rhetoric, there is not one iota of difference between this set of characters and the incumbents. One candidate is accused of being a banker to the Mafia while his opponent is accused of attributing to himself war medals that were never awarded. Yet another railed on about his service record in Vietnam although he never served there.

The papers are also full of stories about vote tampering. These are the same old stories that could be written anywhere and no doubt were. One difference might be that the new electronic machines could well prove easier to tamper with than the old fashioned ballot box. Commentators in Nevada reveal that people who voted for one party found the automated machine had ticked the other party. Officials reacted to this charge by citing the sensitivity of the buttons on the machines. Who is pushing whose buttons now?

The Democrats have their back to the wall. The hope and glory promises from O have not materialized. Nor are there any concrete signs of them materializing. His signature legislation was the Health Care bill which now seems to have all sorts of cracks, imperfections, contradictions and complexities hitherto unexamined. One result of all this is that insurance companies are beginning to increase their premiums to cover eventualities made possible by the bill. For example, individuals with pre-existing conditions may not be denied insurance. Their argument, and it looks like a valid one, is that the bill will in fact increase health care costs by a measurable amount. The interplay between the government, the drug companies, the health care administrators, the insurance companies and medical professionals would confound Euclid. One thing for sure is that costs will not go down.

It is these spiralling costs, along with a myriad of others, that are eroding middle class American bank accounts and savings. The overall cost of living in the US is out of control. Yet, for the past two years, our government has denied the existence of any cost of living inflation. To be sure, the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. I would also hazard to guess that larger and larger numbers of middle class families are falling into the 'poor' income category.

Germany calling.......

‘Sensationalist; hysterical; distorted; exaggerated’ – choose your word to describe the ludicrous meeja reaction to Little George’s ‘cuts’. The chatterati are foaming at the mouth about the withdrawal of child benefit for earners of over £44.000. ‘He doesn’t know what it’s like to try living on £44 grand’ they squeal. Well, neither does a farmer on an average income of £23,000 or a newly trained nurse, or an OAP for that matter.

And yet in opinion polls, over 80% of people thought that this was fair.

Cuts? Public expenditure will rise by billions over the next 5 years. The overseas aid budget is going up by no less than 37%!

George might care to consider the following:

 Restore the married person’s tax allowance;

• Restore the tax breaks on pension funds;

• Restore the children’s tax allowance;

• Restore the tax breaks on mortgages;

• Abolish all hand-outs to OAPs and add the savings to the basic pension (including the costs of hordes of civil servants administering all these add-ons);

• Abolish MPs’ allowances totally and simply pay the same daily subsistence allowance as the Civil Service for those who have to spend 4 nights a week away from home;

• Abolish the race relations industry whose raison d’etre is ensure that racial discrimination continues and which is essentially patronising of minorities;

• Restrict benefits for immigrants to those who have paid UK tax for not less than 5 years;

• Require bankers’ bonuses to be paid in shares in the bank which can’t be redeemed for at least 5 years;

• Get rid of overseas aid – that would just about take care of the deficit;

• Bring the troops back from Germany – the Cold War is over, Dave;

• And whilst you are about it, bring them out of Afghaniscam – that war is unwinnable (read your history, Dave).

Why don’t they listen to us?

But when I hear of firemen in California getting $180,000 a year and retiring on full pensions at 50 I realise that we are behind the curve when it comes to being generous with taxpayers’ money.

Since the Greek economy went tits-up, we have seen a fascinating shift in the tectonic plates in European politics. France and Germany are no longer the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the EU. The Hausfrau and the Pocket Napoleon are distinctly at odds as France descends yet again into chaos and Germany emerges as the single big hitter in Europe. The Germans now seem to have had quite enough of bank-rolling the Club Med who keep getting their fingers caught in the till.

The strange dichotomy is that Germany is the biggest economy in Europe by far, but can’t punch its weight because it has no military clout whatsoever. Interesting, is it not, that the UK and France between them contribute no less than 70% of European military power, and Britain, despite the cuts, has the fourth largest military expenditure per GDP in the world. How long before Germany, which alone accounts for 80% of Europe’s manufactured exports starts putting a bit of stick about? It is already causing some real problems in ‘two-speed Europe) because if the ECB intervenes to cool Germany down, it will stuff Greece, Spain, and Ireland.

France and Germany are also involved in a punch-up with the nomenklatura in the European Commission over their ideas for yet another Treaty to follow Lisbon in order to clobber the Club Med.

The one thing the French and Germans agree on is keeping Turkey out of the EU. Lucky old Turkey, although why they would want to join this revival of the Holy Roman Empire is beyond me. Negotiations have been going on for 5 years. No country that began negotiations has ever been refused entry, so in come the corrupt, ramshackle third-world countries of Eastern Europe. But Turkey, the Brazil of the region, not likely! Romania, which has 25% of its people living below the poverty line, gets in, but not Turkey which has an almost identical GDPpp. And we all know why!

Turkey is the coming place. Its economy is booming and it is that rare thing, a Muslim democracy but a secular state. It is intolerant of criticism and minority rights but it also occupies an increasingly strategic position economically. They should forget the Fourth Reich and turn their attention to the east, to India, China, Thailand and other growth areas, not to the Club Dirigiste in Brussels. It’s already a member of OECD and the G20.

O seems to be due for an early bath, looking at his approval ratings. Question: is he automatically the candidate at the next presidential election, or can the Democrats ditch him for, say, Hillary? And a further thought – is Clinton the only ex-POTUS to have had political clout after his retirement?

And finally........

After all the efforts made to extradite Gary the Hacker, why has the US not issued arrest warrants for the Wikileaks boss?

The French are revolting.......

I have to confess to being completely baffled by the economy. We have the return of the soixante huitaires in France fighting on the streets of Paris so that they can continue to retire at 60 when for many of the mob that event is 40 years away, and strikes abounding over very modest financial reform proposals. Sarko is proposing to raise the retirement age to 62. Quelle fromage! Since 60 was introduced the life expectancy has risen by 12 years. Do the maths. The French are revolting, the Belgians are striking (one commentator remarked that nobody likes Belgium, not even the Belgians), the Eurostar is cancelled and France is running out of aviation fuel. Not all bad, then.

Meanwhile, across Le Manche the phlegmatic Rosbifs are facing an economic and social revolution with aplomb – at least do far. The Armed Forces face a cut of 8% in the middle of a war whilst the biggest money waster of all, foreign aid, is ring-fenced. Dave has decided to scrap our only fleet carrier, HMS Ark Royal. There will be no replacement for 10 years. The last Ark was scrapped just before the Falklands were invaded, sending a clear signal to the Argies. Truly ‘those who forget history will be doomed to repeat it’. Maybe the Brits are not phlegmatic; just plain stupid. And when Dave’s spokesman on TV news was asked whether the Yanks would think that the defence cuts meant we were poor relations, the reply was ‘Well, so we are!’ Politicians telling the truth – where will it all end?

And it reminds me of Miles Kington’s great French pun. The French Navy decided it needed a stirring motto, so they came up with ‘To the water; it is time!’, trans. ‘A l’eau, c’est l’heure!’

We have Jaguar announcing, at the same time, that it intends to double output from what it was before the crunch. We see that contrary to popular impression, the UK is, in fact, only 12th in the league table of indebted nations (the US is 9th; Japan is top, worse than Greece, but still the world’s 3rd biggest economy). The Big Mac index shows that the USD and the GB£ at their correct exchange rates. We must be suffering from economic schizophrenia, but then it is well-known that if you ask two economists you get three opinions.

Elections always seem to bring out the loony-toons, but the US mid-terms have not only produced a larger than usual crop but some of them actually seem to have a chance of getting elected. One, an unemployed veteran, has no manifesto except to reduce unemployment by one, yet he is an official party candidate. Another has seriously alleged that two districts are already living under Sharia. Of course, you only have to mention ‘Sharia’ and you immediately conjure up a vision of public beheadings (which in these degenerate times would probably fill the Houston Astradome),floggings and amputations.

The fact is that Sharia is already here in the West. If two people wish to settle a personal or commercial dispute under Islamic law, they are free to do so. In the Anglosphere we have a tradition of arbitration which allows, inter alia, religion-based disputes to be handled outside the formal legal system. This permits Jews, Catholics and Muslims a way of settling disputes that is simple, cheap and principled.

There are already many places in the UK where Muslim arbitration tribunals offer dispute resolution under Sharia. Obviously, the law of the land has supremacy and some decisions would not be either recognised or enforceable – e.g. marriage without a civil ceremony to legalise it and divorce without court sanction. And by the way, a fatwa is not a call to bump off unbelievers; it is a religious opinion by a scholar. And another thing. The chattering classes have been frothing at the mouth because a Muslim expressed the opinion that rape is not possible in marriage. Until a few years ago this was so in English law also. But from my experience in Muslim countries  the treatment of women is unspeakable, sure, but also madness because the talents of half the population are left unused and undeveloped. In Pakistan, over 80% of women are uneducated. What a waste! No surprise that the country has shown little progress since the Raj.

'Out of the frying pan..........'

The poor miners, out of the frying pan, into the fire. Now that they have been rescued, their troubles are only just beginning. To be sure, this will end in tears. I hope the Chilean President got his full measure of publicity out of the incident, because he will surely have to distance himself from downstream capers as the miners are introduced to publicity and fame.

As to the Hausfrau's observation on failed multicultural society in Germany, evidently there was some serious effort made to establish a multikulti society in which people of different cultures could live happily side by side.

Shades of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell in Lalaland? Not even the Germans live happily side by side. Throw in a million or so Turkish gastarbeiters and voila, instant disharmony. I do believe we could have told them that when they first opened their doors to foreign workers from the Middle East.

I take it the Turks made a bad impression. Perhaps their workmanship was not up to snuff. Immigrants must work harder, she continues, to learn to speak German so they could better integrate. Do you recall the last German effort to promote its language as a standard throughout Europe and the UK?

And the scandal in the Lords with three Asian peers charged with padding their expenses. Is Parliament taking lessons from these two Indians and a Bangladeshi, or are they taking lessons from the Brits? In either case, it does not look good for the peers. I am sure this lot is the tip of the iceberg, or should I say the camel's head in the proverbial tent?

Lest one might perceive these comments as coming from one holier than thou, we are in a mess over here as well. The media has taken control of American society. We seem to be in a perpetual state of electioneering.

The run-up to the mid-term elections in early November is becoming hotter and faster with more negative and hostile campaigning than I have ever witnessed. Media surveys 'prove' that negative campaigning is highly effective in winning votes. The public would rather hear something nasty about you, than something nice about me. Terms like thief, liar and whore have been noted along with a host of others both more and less colorful.

Anyone escaping the campaign who is not branded as misanthropic, sodomite, careless with the truth and light fingered would be the exception. This all gets a bit boring day after day, but the media is so consumed with affection for itself and its ability to attract viewers through conflict, hate, sensation and the like, we are only assured of more of the same. No wonder our society is going bonkers with road rage, school shootings, crime, homicide, and generally freaking out at the drop of a hat.

We are relieved that China has finally come out and flatly stated that our economic problems are not their fault. Thank you China, we were so worried that you had been the root of our prevailing economic mess. Perhaps you could also make it clear that you did not control the election of Obama as well.

‘An awful lot of praying in America………..’

The world seems to have stop rotating in testament to the drama and fine work of the miner’s rescue in Chile. Good news is the best antidote to the doom and gloom in the papers as of late.

The mood here is calm with a strong undercurrent of anxiety over our political and economic future. There is also an awful lot of praying going on. Michelle Obama is asking people to pray for her husband. Glenn Beck asks people to pray for his good health. Our churches are praying for the miners.

We have just been informed by our Dear Leader’s economic minions that social security payments will again, for the second year in a row, remain unaltered. There is no inflation in America and therefore our inflation indexed SS system need not be increased. I am OK with the lack of an increase thank you very much, but I despise the lies about inflation. Our cost of living is rising and, I believe, our government lacks the funds to meet the additional payments.

I note with interest that gobs of your quangos are about to get the axe. This looks like a sane move which immediately alerts me to look for the hidden agenda. Or is it just a case of saving money and eliminating dens in which public figures can hide from accountability? So far I would opine; keep up the good work David.

Concern is mounting over the anticipated mid-term election results and the prospect of a resurgence of Republicanism. Such resurgence would not be a bad thing, but I seriously doubt the capacity of the anticipated newly elected to make any difference at all. If elected as a majority in either the House or Senate, they will simply stymie action be it good or bad action until they have sufficient power to successfully enact their own legislation. At that point, the Democrats, as a minority, will do their level best to stymie Republic legislation.

I enjoyed a recent interview with former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Conner, on the subject of Court impartiality. She made two good points. One was that the system of appointing Justices flaws the Court as it implies that successful nominees are to some extent politically indebted to the President and to the President’s party. Secondly, she continued, the election of Federal Circuit Judges is flawed because of the need for campaigns and campaign contributions. The latter tend to come from wealthy corporations that may well be before a Federal court in some criminal capacity or another. O’Conner was the champion of the liberal persuasion, but nevertheless maintained as fair and balanced an interpretation of the law as anyone else on the Court did.

Our friends in North Korea are enacting the stuff from which bestselling novels are created. Number three son is now the heir apparent and is being groomed by the loyal and dedicated military to rule as they dictate. Number one son, when not chasing women or gambling abroad, claims foul, but nobody listens to him because he is a playboy. North Korea’s worst enemy is North Korea

'Don't go down the mine, Daddy......'

And so let joy be unconfined at the Chile mining recue – not ‘miraculous’, as the cliché-driven media say but the outcome of determination, leadership, organisation, sound management, tremendous technical and engineering skills and plain old-fashioned guts. There will be many heroes in all this, not least the shift boss who was obviously the guy who kept it all together. We were amazed at the miners’ condition. We had expected filthy, ragged, half-starved wretches to come tumbling out of the ground. Instead, the ones whom we saw were freshly-shaved, clean and smart, and in boisterous good spirits.

Then O had to spoil it by bragging about the American contribution – to be fair, he may have spoken of Chile’s marvellous achievement, but if he did it was not broadcast, and perhaps he was not simply basking in reflected glory. By contrast, one of the true heroes, Jeff Hart, the American mining engineer who organised the drill, was too modest even to be seen when the men came out. No doubt the US made a tremendous contribution, but it would have been in better taste if Chile had been left to celebrate a great national achievement which seems to reflect on everyone involved from the President downwards.

I am indebted to James Delingpole in the Speccie for coining a new word – ‘localvore’, those smug, self-satisfied carbonatics who believe that they are saving the world from climate change by buying their grub in Farmers’ Markets. This, they say, reduces the carbon footprint (whatever that might be) involved in feeding ourselves.

Wrong!

No less than 48% of the energy demand in food production is from the shopping trips in the SUV or whatever. Only 4% is accounted for by surface transportation, and only 1% by air freight. Glass-raised fruit and veg from Holland have four times the carbon release of those grown in Kenya. The carbon ‘take’ of a leg of Welsh Lamb on the British dinner table is vastly greater than one from New Zealand. And I have still found no answer to my earlier question as to why the eco-warriors pray in aid science to support their views on climate change and deny it for GM foods.

University challenge.

The latest political blathering is about University fees and how the beastly coalition is going to make it impossible for bright young working-class people to get into college. I have two thoughts on this.

One – there are too many ‘universities’ turning out people with useless degrees (football studies, I ask you!). The eejit Major had polytechnics morphed into universities overnight to meet a target of 50% of school-leavers being able to get a place. The fact that only about 10% of people have the intellectual capacity to benefit from university was of no consequence. So scrap these useless spending-pots, and convert them back to technical colleges where 14 to 18 year olds can learn employable technical crafts and skills. Who needs a degree in basket weaving and religious knowledge?

Two. If someone graduates with a debt of £20,000 for fees, the answer is simple. Declare yourself bankrupt, and in three years you will be free of debt.

Now here’s a funny thing.

Last week-end, the Leicestershire Police banned a march by the English Defence League. As the media tells it, the EDL consists of a bunch of white thugs and racist skinheads intent on beating up the nice, anti-fascist, anti-racist, peace-loving demonstrators. The EDL said that it would defy the ban; their spokesman is – er – a Sikh.

And another.

Sir Phillip Green this week produced his report on Whitehall waste (no doubt written on his 200-ft yacht in the Med). I tell you, you couldn’t make it up. The level of management incompetence beggars belief, such as reducing payment terms from 30 days to 5 days without any compensating financial advantage for the cash-flow effect. Green’s report suggests that the mandarins simply don’t know what is going on.

The funny thing is that the report got a one-day page 2 coverage and then silence.

What a gwaan, man?

America is fed up.........



Thw Economist's view.



Americans are fed-up.

I believe I speak for the majority when I say we are fed up with political life at all levels. We are fed up with the corruption, the sense of entitlement, the lies, the slander, the sinecures, the rape of the middle class, the outrageous cost of legal, medical and other professional and non-professional services, the overweening greed of politicians and bankers, the absence of empathy for those torn asunder financially and emotionally by the recent economic crises, the hunger for power and money and the relinquishment of those values we hold so dear about the quality of life and the integrity of those who represent us. Moreover, I have special disregard for those many pundits, broadcasters, spokespersons and the like who make the above case against their political opposition while casting themselves and their party as next to God in holiness. To borrow your imaginative expression, we are going tits up and we are doing this to ourselves. We are political cannibals consuming the flesh of our enemies.

Testaments are emerging in the thousands of individuals who are suffering financial loss because of increasing costs and stagnant wages and salaries. Despair prevails as we witness foreclosure after foreclosure and to top that off, some banks are now placing a freeze on foreclosures because they cannot trace the paper trail leading to the actual owner of mortgage holders throughout the financial world. I should think the banks would by now have gotten their act together.

I am deeply intrigued by the change in party branding that is occurring under my very eyes. The political left was once thought to represent the people, the downtrodden, the underdog, the workers, the poor. This emerged straight out of Marx and the European Socialists and manifest itself in the massive changes brought about through political action by unions in particular as a counterbalance to the industrial revolution and all its inequities and inhumanities. The political right, on the other hand, represented the rich, the aristocratic, the entrepreneurial and the political and military institutions that supported them.

The task of the right was to control the masses so as not to destroy or even threaten the financial and political infrastructure that enabled the rich to retrain their power and wealth. Thousands of laws were enacted with this in mind and in the process, social control mechanisms were introduced to maintain public order and the status quo.

Recently, the political left has been branded as the faction most desirous of controlling, organizing, systematizing, counting, pigeon-holing, recording, and regimenting the public at large. It is the left that now seeks to maintain DNA records, insert implants and to monitor telecommunications and travel.

The right, meanwhile, is promoting social values including the right to be left alone, privacy, basic freedoms, fewer regulations. It is as if the right is now the oppressed class, and the left is the bete noir.

Opponents of the left use Hitler as an example of left wing politics gone wrong. This is indeed a point of dire confusion to me as I always regarded the totalitarian regimes of Germany and the USSR in particular as classic examples of right wing domination. The journey from leftist origins to right wing power regimes was short and bloody, but the end result was a coalition of political, economic and military power under a non-benevolent dictator who, to my thinking, was decidedly right wing. Hence, I viewed the political right as authoritarian, powerful, controlling, solidly aligned with economic and military institutions and very much involved in matters of state (and regime and personal) security.

Today, I find a blending of traditional right and left values in both parties and I continually want to cherry pick those values which best suit my understanding of what is good. Hence, my Independent status as a voter, even though Independents have been traditionally castigated as closet Democrats. Lately, however, Independents are emerging as converts to Tea Party and Libertarian values, whatever they are. It is not that I don't have any idea what these values are, but that those who espouse them seem radically different in their definitions.

'On yer bike'

The event of the week here on the Isle of Man was the passing of our uncrowned king, the comedian Sir Norman Wisdom. The meeja gave it big coverage. There will be a ‘state’ funeral with the cortege going the whole considerable length of the Promenade in Douglas followed by drinks at Sir Norman’s Bar at the swanky Sefton Hotel. That should ensure a big turn-out!

The Brokeback Coalition has launched its reform of welfare benefits and the general theme seems to be ‘Get on your bike and get a job’, as the ineffable Chingford Skinhead, Norman Tebbitt, so delicately put it, like the Victorian lady (left) who is dressed for cycling in the days before lycra. The cost of welfare is about 5 times the cost of the defence budget. The manuals of benefits rules run to 9,000 pages (nothing like the 30,000 pages of tax rules – the biggest in the world, even more than the US IRS - but quite enough, thank you). To do something about this plus the immigration problem, they might care to copy our Government’s practice; you don’t get benefit until you have lived and worked on the Island for 5 years. So no illegals and no dole bludgers! The chaterrati are going apes**t over the ‘unfairness’ of stopping child benefit to parents earning more than £44,000 (just under twice average earnings). They don’t mention that 50% of the population receives some kind of benefit that has to be paid for by 100% of the working population.

They have already made an almighty cock-up of immigration by putting a quota on non-EU immigrants. This means that a highly-skilled person from the US badly needed by Ford could be refused whilst thieving Romanies from Eastern Europe are unstoppable. The financial pages report of a company that, taking Cameron at his word that UK business must be much more proactive in seeking contracts in India, recruited a high-flying Indian lady to advise them on how to go about it. The Immigration authorities threw her out. One wonders what the quota is for high-flying Indian lady business advisors. Mind you, intelligent behaviour is not to be expected form an outfit that calls itself the ‘Border Agency’ when the UK, being an island, doesn’t have any borders.

Let us now see what Kittenheels intends to do about the frightful assault on civil liberties during the rule of the Blairbroon nomenklatura. She could start by making a bonfire of the thousands of new criminal offences they created. No wonder Mugabe was an admirer of Blair. He must of thought of him as a disciple. She could reinstate the double jeopardy rule that for centuries had prevented the authorities from pursuing people found not guilty by a jury of their peers until they got a result. She could revert to the old rule barring evidence of ‘previous’ in criminal trials; although Blair was a member of the Bar he must have skipped the lesson when it was taught that the function of the court is to try the offence not the person.

She could dump the outrageous Human Rights Act. Here is a contemporary comment:

The experience of the twelve years since the HRA passed into law is a troubling one, for it has seen the passing of perhaps the most illiberal body of legislation for two centuries. The DNA database expanded to all arrested, regardless of their guilt or the triviality of their alleged crime; hearsay evidence permitted as a matter of routine; bad character evidence routinely admitted; arrests permitted for any crime, even those that do not carry prison sentences; defendants facing accusations impossible to rebut through witness anonymity; and a marked increase in minimum sentences, hugely reducing judicial independence.

Instead, she has adopted Hattie Harperson’s disgraceful Equality Act that criminalises just about everybody. It was described by a commentator as the worst piece of legislation in English legal history.

She promises to introduce a Freedom Bill. How low have we fallen that such a thing should be necessary?

'It was the banana wot done it'

A good week for lovers of schadenfreude.

First, there was the publication of the accounts of The ONE Foundation, set up by Bono (no, that’s not a dog-food, Mavis – do try to keep up!) who competes with that other foul-mouthed Irish noise-maker, Gobby Bobby, to save the world from aids, starvation, malaria, war, pestilence and Strictly Come Dancing.

It raised £9.5 million. It spent £5.1 million on salaries. It gave £118,000 to worthy causes. This is the same Bono who reduced his own tax liability by moving his business to The Netherlands.

Then there was the election of Red Ed as Leader of TIGMOO*. So farewell, then, Millipede Major. It woz the banana wot done it. Call-me-Dave must be doing handstands. An interesting feature of the last election was not the narrow results but the fact that Labour polled its second lowest number of votes since 1945. It came third in the polls in about 200 constituencies, and only got a disproportionate number of seats because of the skewed constituency boundaries that favour urban areas. These will be changed in time for the next outing if the Brokeback Coalition manages to hold on until 2015. My guess is that they will, because the LibDems are tasting the sweetness of office after nearly 90 years on short commons and they love it. Much better than getting a proper job. And the Libs have always worked on the footing that ‘if you don’t like my principles, I have others’.

An intriguing aspect is that the three party leaders are all good looking, young, personable, educated and polished. And completely interchangeable.

And dear old Laura Norder is back in the ‘comment’ pages; it is beginning to look as if the upholders of the law in Europe are going to get a good thraping. It would seem that Kittenheels the Footwear Fashionista is really going to do something about the unspeakable European Arrest Warrant. The old music hall song could have been written for the European law enforcement authorities in their application of the EAW.

We're public guardians, bold but wary,

And of ourselves, we take good care,

To risk our precious lives, we're chary,

When danger looms, we're never there.

But when we meet some helpless woman,

Or little boys that do no harm

Chorus: We run them in, We run them in, etc

This is what the Economist has to say:-

'The combination of Britain’s tough regime and careless procedures creates mess and distress. Fair Trials International, a lobby group, has a dossier of startling cases including that of Deborah Dark, a British woman who has been hounded by an EAW. She was arrested in France in 1989 on drug charges, acquitted, but later convicted in absentia (and without knowing it) after prosecutors appealed. In 2005 France issued a warrant, leading to Ms Dark being repeatedly arrested on assorted holidays and in Britain'.

And we have the case of the young British student extradited to Greece three years ago on a manslaughter charge and still awaiting trial after 13 months in prison despite there being no credible evidence against him; and the London antiques dealer accused by the Greeks of committing an offence without producing any evidence to show that, if there was an offence, it was committed in Greece.

Typically it is only the British who follow the rules. Dr Daniel Urbani, the Afro-German doctor who killed a patient with a massive overdose on his first shift, was convicted in England of manslaughter; he did a deal with the German authorities and got probation and a fine, which the Germans said nullified the EAW.

So, Ms May, here are a few principles to help you with these pesky furriners.

No extradition should be granted unless the EAW can show prima facie evidence that:

1. A crime has been committed;

2. The crime was within the jurisdiction of the government issuing the EAW;

3. The crime is a crime under English law;

4. The person named in the warrant committed the crime;

5. The crime was committed after the enactment of the EAW laws (i.e. no retrospective application of the arrest powers).

6. The crime is an imprisonable offence in the UK.

That wasn’t so difficult, was it, Theresa? For starters you would avoid scandals like the incident when an Australian academic was arrested at Heathrow in transit between the US and Australia on an EAW issued by Austria, a country he had never visited, for holocaust denial, an offence unknown within the English jurisdiction.

Of course, there is still a body of opinion which supports the EAW, ID cards and the rest of the Stasi apparatus and say ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear’. Listen, your morons, it is when you have done nothing wrong that you have everything to fear. Like the retired Bristol Rotarian who spent weeks in a stinking cell in South Africa after being mistakenly arrested on a FBI warrant whilst on holiday in Durban.

Then there’s the outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease amongst the LibDems and the spectacle of them making complete assholes of themselves over ‘tax avoidance’. Latest to join the parade is Danny Alexander, the Celtic teenager who became Chief Secretary to the Treasury when his LibDem predecessor was caught up in the MPs’ expenses scandal and retired hurt after a couple of weeks. His view is that anyone who takes perfectly legal steps to pay no more tax than the state is entitled to is no better than a benefits cheat. This is the same Alexander who designated his London apartment as he second home, claiming £37,000 in expenses and then flipped it into his principal residence to avoid tax on its sale. This is the same Alexander who appointed a businessman as his ‘war on waste’ advisor who paid no tax on a dividend of £1.2 billion because it was all in the wife’s name and she lives in Monaco!

Pedants’ Corner.

These days ‘learners’ go to ‘uni’. I guess this is because they can’t spell ‘undergraduate’ or ‘university’.

*TIGMOO – This Great Movement of Ours.