Have their say

Eric the Unread and Laban Tall are encouraging us to enter into a little jolly with the BBC Have your say forum. That’s a place where you submit your thoughts on a pre-selected subject to the BBC’s editorial team (or someone) and then it is either published or chucked in the bin. Eric says:

So, your challenge, should you accept it, is to attempt to get a lunatic Have your Say comment published on any subject. Points will be awarded for pandering to the bias of the BBC Have your Say team, outlandish comparisons, anti-Western sentiment, stupidity, and mentioning Blair is a liar.

It’s not as easy as you might think, you know. I’ve been pushing lunatic stuff their way for ages without success.

Don’t let that put you off though, it might be fun to try and write in the style of your favourite moonbat. My advice?

• Make submissions quickly as the BBC seem to stop considering entries after a while.
• Make out you are a member of some kind of state approved minority or something.

Is this a joke?

Al-Qaeda tea:

A new tea craze is sweeping through Guinea. It is not the brew itself that is new, but its name: Al-Qaeda.

One tea drinker remarked:

When I take al-Qaeda tea there is positive result in so far as my respiratory system is concerned.

Quite the opposite of its namesake then.

Who can you count on?

After an incident where two sisters were gunned down at a BBQ and the emergency services waited what seemed like an extraordinary amount of time before entering the premises to offer help I asked if this is what we can expect from the emergency services during such dangerous situations.

Well, evidence would suggest that this is indeed the case:

Earlier, the coroner was told Mrs Pemberton pleaded with a police operator that she had "about one minute before I die" as she hid in a downstairs cupboard while her husband rampaged through their home in Hermitage, Berkshire.

However, despite receiving the call at 7.11pm, police did not enter the property until 1.53am the following day.

A 16 year old was also killed in the incident.

The situation in the house was unknown to the police, which is why they did not enter the building earlier. They wanted to ensure their safety. That’s all fair enough, I suppose. If you are not willing to take the risk on behalf of a helpless victim then who am I to suggest otherwise?

However, what this does highlight again is the fact that in certain violent situations you really are on your own. In the first incident above a woman lay dying but the police refused to allow medical help to enter the building for an hour on safety grounds.

In the second incident no one knew the state of the victim. It was a black box situation. But, dead or alive, she was on her own for hours. For safety reasons.

Later the coroner remarked that the police could not have prevented their deaths, adding that:

…in his opinion, the deaths were inevitable.

"Nothing could have prevented him (Mr Pemberton) doing what he did," the coroner said.

That’s just the thing isn’t it? In situations like that you can only rely on yourself because the state is incapable of helping. The police are too slow and too safety minded to cope with such circumstances. But how can you protect yourself when the need for personal protection (and I mean from violent and determined attack) is not considered important enough in this country to warrant the legal ownership of equipment capable of saving your life and for the purposes of self protection?

Where does this leave the rest of us? Is it right that we ignore these extremes by not providing now for people that may find themselves in such situations in the future? Are these situations really that extreme? What level of damage to victims is acceptable and at what level should we say, enough is enough, someone needs to protect these people and they themselves are the best people for the job?

These may be difficult questions to answer but what we do need to avoid is the situation where we measure performance by the amount of riga mortis that has set in.

Is education sometimes a bad thing?

Sometimes, those people convicted of a road traffic offence are asked to retake their driving test. They have shown themselves to be irresponsible with their car and the state (notionally on our behalf) thinks it’s a good idea for them to be trained again in responsible use.

Sometimes, people misuse airguns. Some people think that it’s a good idea if these people are trained or re-trained in the correct use of these items and lectured in the importance of responsibility and safety.

Some people would agree with the first issue and not with the second. Why would that be?

Buzzer man and me

I went to the police station this morning at about 7:30. There was no one there. Well, when I say no one what I actually mean is that two other members of the public were there but no policemen. One visitor said that he’d been to two other police stations that morning but they were both closed. At least this one was open, though seemingly unmanned.

He pressed the buzzer near the front desk. Again. That was fun for a while. We waited.

Then one guy left.

We waited a bit longer.

Buzzer man pressed the buzzer again.

Then I left.

I did see one policeman as I walked through the car park towards my car but he was in his patrol vehicle and went through the exit before I thought to shout over to him or throw a stone to grab his attention.

I don’t know if what I had to tell them was important or would have been judged so by them because, well, I don’t tend to get involved with things that may or may not require the attention of the police so I have very little life experience of what actually matters to them in their professional capacity.

It was a swan. Sitting in the fast lane of the A414, obviously injured but able to sit upright with a fully extended neck, watching the traffic come and go. That’s a large swan I thought, I wonder if it’s large enough to cause an accident? Someone should really do something about it. One car swerved to avoid it so I decided that someone should be me.

I’ll phone the police. No. No I won’t. I don’t have the number to the local station and phoning the emergency number (999) should only be done in emergencies. We’ve been preached this over and over again in recent times. Is it an emergency? I have no idea if it will be judged that way or not so I decided to go 5 minutes out of my way and visit the station.

I visited. Nice building.

Enjoying the task is a good thing

Stephen Newton, in article titled Underage Sex and Country folk says:

And thankfully, that’s a morality that says underage sex and inflicting animal suffering for fun are wrong, whatever your community elders told you.

He's talking about the Pitcairn island abuse case and fox hunting. Yes, in the same article.

He’s half right.

Pest control in the countryside is a necessary job and I would argue that most effective way of performing a job is to do so while enjoying it. Your productivity tends to be good, your job satisfaction is generally high and your stress levels low. Also, a job that is both undertaken with zeal and with joy contributes greatly to ones overall contentment. That’s no small thing.

The killing of foxes, rats, pigeon etc. are activities that will continue for some time to come for one reason alone; necessity. The people who perform these activities are varied, ranging from farmers to sporting shooters, professional pest controllers to traditional hunters and these people use different methods that tend to vary marginally in the level of cruelty involved and probably more significantly in the levels of enjoyment experienced by the person carrying out the task.

Often one method that is successful with (and not unusually cruel for) one kind of animal is not so successful when used on another. Shotguns for foxes, for instance, is not usually a good idea requiring, as it does, special loads and a good degree of luck or uncommon amounts of skill.

The tool needs to match the quarry. There’s a method/quarry matrix.

There are also great arguments and some confusion over the level of cruelty caused by any method/quarry combination. Even the issue of fox hunting is not as black and white as the anti-hunting brigade would like to think.

Lord Burns, author of the Burns Report on fox hunting commissioned by the government as part of its “legislate on evidence and principle” period (now sadly passed), states:

Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty.

Cruel, here, needs to be taken in the context of ‘unusually cruel’ I think and not that there is zero suffering. It’s a comparison against acceptable levels of cruelty involved in any pest controlling exercise.

One can argue the cruelty vs liberty case, but I don’t think the issue of enjoyment is meaningful in the debate other than to say that enjoyment is a good thing in a task, particularly when it is a task that needs to be done, and that will continue to be done.

All that is going on now is a messing about with the method/quarry matrix. Foxes, rats etc will still be killed and will still often experience suffering and not a single one of us is qualified to say whether this overall level of suffering will be greater or lesser if traditional fox hunting stops.

But then again, it’s not about foxes really is it?

Ways to fish

Fishing in England:

I parked up the van (man that was a tight spot) and wandered over to the river. My usual spot had gone so I had to make do with a rather slippery fishing point. The reeds were very difficult to fish through and the ducks kept trying to nick my maggots.

Fishing in the USA:

We left the trailhead at 11:45 in the morning. The trip down was quite uneventful until we crossed Soda Creek, when we ran into a mother bear and two cubs. One of the cubs had climbed an oak tree just as I came over a rise in the trail. Mike had his Ruger .357 out before you could say "oh @&*#!" Unfortunately, the trail went under the tree the cub had climbed, and the area all around had high brush which could easily conceal a whole army of bears. With me blowing my whistle and Mike at the ready, we advanced very slowly on the tree and eventually determined the bears had moved on.

Plastic policemen

Joining the laughing policeman and the sleeping policeman in an inner city estate this October.

Mr Blunkett will announce there were a record 139,728 police officers by the end of August in England and Wales, up 10,000 on two years ago.

But he is particularly pushing up the political agenda the CSOs [community support officers], who do not have powers of arrest but can detain people for up to half an hour.

Make those criminals late, that'll teach 'em.

Bling

This I like:

And a snip at only £149 (gulp) from the Royal Mint. Will someone buy me one please? No?

You're all so cheap.

I am being taunted. Mark writes:

First a gay dog and now jewellery?

Someone's in touch with their feminine side alright!

I'm going to sulk. Erm, I mean, come here and say that.

Absolutely

No question. Without a doubt:

The current voluntary option has failed

The incantation used all too often in this country to usher in a new piece of freedom crushing legislation.

Police advice on pro-hunt demonstrators

Is this BBC report correct?

Over the past 10 days, Mr Michael had to cancel two official events after police warnings protests might turn violent.

We have already seen that this excuse has been used by the minister before when in fact the police had issued no such warnings:

The Countryside Alliance has today condemned Alun Michael MP for misrepresenting police advice. Mr Michael stated that Lancashire police had advised him that the right to roam launch last weekend might turn violent. This has been categorically denied by the force in an e-mail to the Countryside Alliance.

I'm guessing that this is a case of the BBC not keeping up.

On leaving Blighty

Laban Tall shows us that many native Brits are leaving these fair isles at a rate of knots:

The people leaving are middle class and educated. When my wife was organising a reunion for her Barts nursing trainees of 20 years ago, she found a quarter of them were living abroad, nearly all in the Antipodes or North America.

I’ve often thought about it, you know, leaving England.

People leave for all kinds of reasons but for me it would be that there are things that I would like to do that are simply against the law in this country. Indeed, my whole profession would almost certainly be different if I was, say, born in the USA. I wonder how many leave for similar reasons? Probably not many. It certainly doesn’t appear as a factor in the New Statesman article:

A survey in Emigrate magazine found that roughly three-quarters of potential emigrants think quality of life in Britain is deteriorating. The YouGov poll cited crime, council taxes, congested roads, lack of space. Eighty-five per cent thought Britain was "grinding to a halt". ICM added a few more reasons to be miserable: bad weather, long working hours, regional unemployment, high house prices. The Alliance & Leicester study found that the top reason for emigration was the search for a better quality of life, with work stress the main trigger, and destinations which place a "greater value on leisure and lifestyle" the most favoured. Among older people, the main reasons for moving abroad were climate and environment, pace of life, health, lower living costs, and "social advantages". What is also notable throughout such surveys is gloom and pessimism about Britain and the lack of attachment to the homeland.

These are reasons that we can all appreciate to some extent I think. The article also suggests that one of the things against which people are voting with their feet is enforced multiculturalism, which is interesting. Only the outward going Brits can tell us if that’s true and I expect a great deal of flack to be sent the way of the NS for even mentioning such a thing. It will disturb the sensibilities of a lot of easily disturbed people I think.

I find this mentioned lack of attachment to the homeland interesting. I wonder how much if it has to do with the way the education system teaches history. I think that Peter Hitchen's book, The Abolition of Britain goes into some detail on this. Certainly, when I was doing history, it was all about how bad the slave trade was and how dark and satanic the dark satanic mills of the industrial revolution were and very little in the way of blowing our own trumpets, if you know what I mean. Nah, probably nothing to do with it. More likely is that people just don't feel well represented anymore. Not appreciated. Pushed around. Used. That kind of thing makes you loose attachment pretty quickly.

Anyway, I think about leaving every now and again but I don't think that I can really afford the luxury. My family is settled and my parents are getting old and long gone are the days when I can think just of myself.

One of my sisters, on the other hand, has no such qualms. She left England over two years ago with her husband for, you know, tax reasons. They’ll be back some day. I hope.

Picture of the day

Here's a nice one from the cover of the latest copy of the BASC magazine Shooting & Conservation:

The front door rule

As part of the England Project we have always tried to stress upon the young lad that certain rules should be followed to ensure safety. The rules are many but one that I am sure is shared with many other families is the front door rule.

Never, we say, never open the front door to someone unless one of us is with you. A simple rule which is there for a simple reason; anyone can ring our front door bell. The law will not allow us to wire it up to the mains as a preventative measure so we have to cope best as we can with house rules and the like.

So, yesterday evening I get home and as I am pulling onto the driveway I see a man standing at the open front door to my house chatting to the young lad. No Mrs. England Project in sight.

It turns out that she was in the back garden and had no idea that the doorbell had rung and the little lad had, contrary to instruction, opened the door and struck up a conversation with the stranger.

Imagine my surprise when I got to the door and interrupted their little parlay only to discover that the stranger was in fact a professional politician (well, local councillor but that’s a sub-group of the same species surely). The shock! This is exactly the kind of thing we warned the lad about! A textbook example of why we need the front door rule.

Yes, yes, I know the lefty readers among you will say that all I need to do is put up a few stickers saying NO POLITICIANS or NO AGENTS OF THE STATE or what have you but honestly, don’t you think I haven’t already tried that?!

Chip eaters of the world unite!

Pupils at a school which voted to increase the cost of chips to encourage healthier eating have protested because the food prices are too high.

The school council put the price of a plate of chips up by 5p from 60p to 65p in the name of healthy eating. Sheesh, I bet the fags in the TUC shop cost a bomb.

Is nothing safe? Now even birthday cake is under attack. Shame! Shame!

Another fox lamping tragedy?

What's going on? This is quite possibly the third such incident of a member of the public being shot during fox lamping in the last month. I raised some questions on this issue here suggesting that if nothing changes to prevent the public and shooters being in close quarters in these circumstances then this kind of thing will happen again.

If this is another accidental lamping accident then there is something obviously wrong with the system under which such vermin control takes place. Everyone needs to take responsibility for where and how they shoot but the recent run of incidents implies to me that the system could do with more safeguards to help combat human error.

Lurch over at over at gunculture.net adds:

There is some talk that the weapon was an airgun and the perpertrators were kids.

Boris warns pro-hunt protesters

In today's Telegraph, Boris Johnson warns the pro-hunt protesters to remember what happened to Scargill.

Go back to that miners' strike, and the Scargillian revolt. Remember how people began with some feelings of sympathy for the rebels. We all heard their message; the threat to the communities, the Hovis ad pit villages, the way of life that would never return.

But suburban Britain was never likely to indulge Scargill for long, and as soon as police were pictured with blood running down from under their helmets, the mood began to turn. Neil Darbyshire was spot-on in these pages yesterday, when he noted the basic apathy of suburbs on the question of hunting. Middle England may be interested in principle in the doctrine of liberty, but if the pro-hunt lobby starts impeding their liberty to use the motorway, or to get home for supper, then there will be hell to pay.

He makes sense and he certainly does not over estimate middle England's interest in principle in the doctrine of liberty.

The pro-hunt alliance is quite a large movement and within any large movement there are always going to be people who are willing to step over the line, wherever you think that line should be drawn. With the media the way that it is it will be this group that will get the most press attention; it will be this group that will be labelled pro-hunt or countryside (alliance) campaigners and it will be by these actions that otherwise disinterested members of the public will judge the issue.

Pro-liberty people will look at what happens and may say that it is the wrong way of going about things but will, more than likely, not change their views. What did they expect, they will say (and I count myself as being in this group). People who have pro-animal principles and judge them higher, in this case, than minority rights will not be persuaded to change their views no matter how peaceful or how ugly the thing gets (they will just use violence as positive reinforcement).

The disinterested will have no deeply held principle by which to judge the underlying issues and this, as always, will make them vulnerable to easy persuasion. They will make up their minds based upon the actions of a few more militant protesters and by whichever way the media decides to spin this.

No, I don't think that middle England is that interested in liberty, in principle or in any other form. Not really. Not properly. Not so much as to defend something they don't care about or find mildly distasteful on the basis of that principle.

Some guy called H.L. Mencken once said:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppresive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Now, I don't for one minute categorise pro-hunting people as scoundrels, but even if I did I would still be on their side.

That's what I call being interested in principle in the doctrine of liberty.

Let's play a game

Wow. This comes from the guys over at the Campaign for an English Parliament. It's apparently a BBC advert for the Proms (not sure what publication it appeared in but I'm confident that the tax payer paid for it).

Can you spot what's missing?

How rude

In The Times Libbey Purves asks:

More and more this feels like a nation of bitter, insecure little tribes avid for bones to snarl over. Insults fly through the air: Snob! Trendy! Leftie! Tory Boy! Townie! Peasant! White-van man! Luvvie! Tree-hugger! God-botherer! Hack! Fat cat! Frump! Slapper! Lout! D-lister! It is as if, banned by law from uttering racial abuse, we seek to define ourselves by finding social, economic, pursuit or belief groups to despise. If public discourse is anything to go by, Britain is not so much a Big Tent as a sackful of enraged ferrets.
How did we get here?

I blame those wankers at the BBC.

Country sports

I understand that there is no better time than the present to make that move from the city into the countryside. Country folk seem to have decided to abolish all Labour MPs from their communities, promising to hound them whenever and wherever they do encroach.

Then again, vermin have never really been welcome in the sticks so it comes as no great surprise.

Heh, just noticed this up on the Adam Smith Institute blog:

If you go out in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise.

It's a nursery rhyme about war. Who knew?

Dirty, ugly things

Everywhere I look I see vandals:

Tony Blair will curb the powers of the House of Lords to delay and block legislation if Labour wins a third term in the general election expected next May.

A House of Lords (Reform) Bill to be introduced after the election would remove the 92 remaining hereditary peers from the second chamber. In a new development, it would also clip the wings of the Lords by limiting its traditional power to delay proposed laws supported by the House of Commons.

In a controversial move, the Labour blueprint would extend the use of the Parliament Act, which allows the Commons to override the Lords. It would apply for the first time to legislation introduced in the Lords as well as the Commons, allowing it to be used for all government bills.

Spiked on hunting

A great little article by Mick Hume, editor of spiked:

For instance, the eco-protesters who have defied parliament and the law by wrecking GM crop trials on farmers' land have been sympathetically treated, and even hailed as the true representatives of 'the People', by voices as diverse as the Guardian and the Daily Mail. Animal rights protesters may not always be so popular, yet the Guardian gave prominent space last week for an opponent of animal research to warn that more violence and law-breaking was inevitable unless the government gave in and stopped scientists using animal experiments in medical science.

...

It seems clear that despite all the high-minded language about offending democracy and the law, protesters are judged not according to what they do but why they do it. Certain types of extra-parliamentary action can win wide approval these days, just so long as it is used to highlight the 'right' kinds of issues that press fashionable buttons. But woe betide those who would stage the same sort of protests in support of politically incorrect causes. And there is nobody in Britain considered less PC than the pro-hunting lobby.

The ferocity of the reaction against the hunt protesters was not motivated by the way that they made a little scene in the Commons. It was motivated by the fact that many in the political and media class think that these people are scum. This provides an instructive insight into the limits of New Labour's much-vaunted belief in social inclusion. We are forever being lectured about the importance of tolerance, minority rights and respect for other people's lifestyle choices in modern Britain. But the vitriol poured on the hunters' heads shows that there are new dominant prejudices at play. The illiberal elite cannot tolerate the choices of these people, whose attempt to exercise their 'rights' is deemed not just wrong but repugnant.

I know, I know, I've quoted too much of the article without adding any value. Once again I fall foul of the rules of the blogosphere. No matter, go read the rest. Obviously, only if you like.

The end of time

To believe that our current democracy cannot or should not be challenged is to believe that we have reached the end of time and that no further advancements can or should be made in methods of governance.

My eyes!!

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

It's that bully again

So, I’ve been asked again what my deal is with all the pro-hunting sympathy. I guess the answer is shared experience. You see, I’ve been bullied by the same powerful people that are now bullying the hunters. Call this bully the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Government, Populist democracy, whatever, it matters not to me. What I want to see is for the bully to be thumped square between the eyes. Maybe even taken outside and given a good thrashing.

Yes, the later I think.

Metaphorically speaking of course.

I look at the country that I live in and I feel let down. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great in spite of the loss of memory, but I do think there is something not quite right with the way we are governed and the way decisions are made. You see, I think a democracy needs to have built into it certain mechanisms that safeguard the interests of minority groups and I’m not just talking about ethnic minorities here, you know, perhaps like the ones that only eat animal flesh if the animal was bled to death in a particular way. No, I’m talking about all kinds of minorities whose activities don’t generally cause any kind of problem for their fellow men and women.

So I look at our democracy and I search for these safeguards and what do I see? Well, not very much really except perhaps the House of Lords. The second chamber. Our democratic safety valve. And then I see what this government is doing to that safeguard and how it intends to jam it open using the parliament act and I see that bully again. But this time I see it in even starker relief. Caught with its trousers around its ankles, fully intent on rogering another helpless bunch of people at the supposed behest of the popular masses.

I see that and I hate it.

There's a poem in there somewhere

Who would have thought that when Pandora’s box was finally opened they would find nothing but a huntsman’s horn?

Hey, I didn't say a good poem.

Living history

This kind of nationalistic display has no place in a modern multicultural society. There are more responsible ways of bringing history alive:

Scotland's greatest win over England is to be re-enacted and watched by up to 15,000 people on Saturday.

The National Trust for Scotland is staging a reconstruction of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn in Stirling.

The Scots, under Robert the Bruce, routed the English led by Edward II in a victory which has been celebrated and marked down the centuries.

In truth I think that this kind of thing should be encouraged. It looks like great fun.

Commons security - what the serfs say

Some of these BBC Have Your Say opinions on Commons security after the pro-hunt protesters invaded are interesting. My favourite:

What I want to know is why John Prescott didn't hit them?
- Graham, Southampton

Heh.

Have a nice day

What's this? The French wanting to become more like the Americans?

The owners of France's 60,000 bars, brasseries and cafes have said poor service is driving customers away, and have promised to do better.

"Customers are right to complain of a poor or non-existent welcome... and a lack of basic courtesy and reactivity," an industry spokesman said.

I have to say that the one and only time I found myself in Paris (working undercover you understand) I couldn't experience this aspect of the cafe culture because everything seemed to be closed. It was a Sunday afternoon you see. Mind you, that was a long time ago now and maybe that's changed too.

Premonition

Rt. Hon. David Blunkett MP, Home Secretary:

Even though the inner sanctum of the House of Commons was breached I am happy to report that all the security cameras worked perfectly.

New Labour Democracy - the needs of the few

Over 10,000 people demonstrating against the position of 300 or so more powerful people about a subject that tens of millions of people are not particularly interested in.

I hear reports that at least five protesters have got into the chambers of the house of commons and that all proceedings have been halted. It seems that at least one of the protesters appeared from an entrance behind the speakers chair which is an astonishing thing to happen. This is just a wild guess but I find it hard to believe that such a thing can happen without at the very least extensive knowledge of the inside layout and workings of the house of commons and at most without specific help from someone on the inside. Obviously just a guess mind.

The scene inside the house was, apparently, astonishing with the protesters attempting to speak to an MP whilst being wrestled by Labour MPs and some bloke in tights.

There have also been scenes of some violence outside the house with, reportedly, some heavy handed tactics by the police. Many protesters have been injured though the extent of those injuries are not yet known.

A Pandora’s box has been opened, it would seem.

These intrusions into the house are another major blow to the security services and that coupled with the reported violence will leave many questions to be answered by an already troubled service.

Report on the commons protest here:

Parliament has been suspended after five protesters got into the Commons chamber while MPs debated whether to ban hunting with dogs.

Four of the men ran out from behind the speaker's chair. Another wrestled past a doorkeeper from a different entrance.

They were chased by officials but one harangued minister Alun Michael.

Police in riot gear have also been sent into parliament square - expect the usual results.

A rather stale release (a bit of background) from the Countryside Alliance on the demonstration can be found here:

Mr Hart's [Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance] comments followed an extraordinary and inflammatory admission by Alun Michael [junior Labour minister] this morning on BBC Radio 4 'Today' , when questioned by presenter John Hunmphrys, when the minister effectively conceded that his wrecked bill's return, and its proposed 2-year delay to a fox-hunting ban, were for Labour party management reasons rather than animal welfare.

Apparently the five protesters that made their way into the commons were not the only ones. I hear reports that 'several more' were stopped in the corridors of the house. This is a massive breach of security.

Some live quotes from the radio:

One of the protesters inside the house said You've mucked up pensions, you've mucked up everything.

Outside: Come on lads - we need to open a second front.

Scotland yard (from memory): A minority of the crowd rushed the perimeter of the police security cordon outside the house and missiles were thrown. Control has been regained and the majority of the crowd are protesting peacefully.

Woman on the TV, bloody faced: I wasn't even demonstrating! A policeman did this to me!

Presenter: This will go down as the day that the pro-hunt lobby unsheathed its claws.

MP (library pictures I believe): There are those that do not understand that the numbers are against them. They should get on with the job and tell the House of Lords to go to hell.

Radio: Apparently the vote to ban fox hunting is taking place now.

Results in: For a ban on fox hunting: 356; against 166.

Live interviewer at the protest to, I believe, Victoria Jonston (random protester): You've heard the vote. Are you prepared to break the law?

VJ: Yes; I'm prepared to do anything.

As seen on TV

I’m finding this whole CBS memo thing fascinating. Not just because of the likelihood that they are forgeries and not because a media hack was outed by the blogosphere in the time it takes to skin a rat but because blogs are being given a high profile in the US papers, on the radio and on the TV. Big media are handing out URL’s to people like they were sweets*.

An alternative news source to big media? Who knew?

* Candy.

Old aunty beeb

This morning on BBC radio five live (around 7:15am though I am not sure) a member of the League Against Cruel Sports was interviewed. Over a period of a few minutes he explained his position on fox hunting and, not just limiting it to hunting with hounds, explained how all fox hunting was completely unnecessary because foxes eat dead things and they act like cleaners of the countryside. He also said that killing foxes will just result in another predator taking its place (odd that, a predator taking the place of a carrion eater/vacuum cleaner but we’ll let that pass). I’m not sure how long the LACS guy had but it must have been 3 minutes or so at least.

To balance this confused/confusing side of the hunting issue with views from the other side of the debate the BBC read out a couple of text messages from two members of the public. Total time, 8 seconds maybe ten.

The BBC is indeed like an old aunt. The smelly one with the dribbling and the flatulence.

The footsteps of th' invader

Monbiot, in the Guardian, writes:

The Norman lords' superiority, Shoard writes, was established by two features of feudal society: the castle and their "association ... with the horse, which enabled them literally to look down on the serfs, who walked".

As an animal welfare issue, foxhunting comes in at about number 155. It probably ranks below the last of the great working-class bloodsports, coarse fishing. It's insignificant beside intensive pig farming, chicken keeping or even the rearing of pheasants for driven shoots. But as a class issue, it ranks behind private schooling at number two. This isn't about animal welfare. It's about human welfare. By taking on the hunt, our MPs are taking on those who ran the country for 800 years, and still run the countryside today. This class war began with the Norman conquest. It still needs to be fought.

He’s an astonishing guy, is Monbiot. In one article he’s managed to paint me into a corner. Drop me into no-mans land. Place me between a rock and a hard place.

I’m pro fox hunting but if this does turn out to be a class war against (near as damn it) French imperialist invaders then what can I do? I’m in a quandary.

I’ve decided to re-categorise the Normans. They no longer have anything to do with the French, never invaded England and have been our good friends ever since we taught them how to cook food properly.

See, it’s not just writers for the Guardian who can make crap up. Checkmate Mr. Monbiot! Aha!

A new hope

So, I’m thinking that if Bush can pull off a victory in the US elections in spite of the combined might of the Democrats, popular film makers, fading performance artists and the biggest media machines in the world then why can’t he pull off a victory in the war on terror? I mean, if you can beat a corrupt ideology once surely you can beat it again?

In Britain...

In Britain the selling and manufacture of a particular kind of low powered airgun called the self contained gas cartridge gun (often called the Brocock) was banned. All existing owners had to hand them over to the state without compensation or had to apply to the police for firearms certificates to keep the ones they had. If they were refused a certificate they would loose the gun. This was done because the particular airgun in question could, according to the government, be easily converted into a lethal firearm by criminals, an activity already banned by law.

In Britain new legislation introduced at the same time as the Brocock ban allowed for the Home Office to ban any gun they thought “especially dangerous” (which is how they viewed the Brocock) without offering any compensation to owners and without consultation.

In Britain the minimum sentence for being found in possession of an illegal firearm (such as the now banned brocock airgun) is, I believe, a 5 year prison sentence mandated by the government at a similar time to the ban on the Brocock airgun.

In Britain many thousands of law abiding sporting shooters had to give away to the government (without receiving a penny in compensation) or had to get a license for (until they fell into ruination) over 75,000 items of personal and private property.

In Britain, if you sell 574 guns to the criminal underworld and are one of the criminals that caused thousands of people to have their liberties reduced by the state because of your criminal activities in converting airguns into firearms you will receive a sentence not exceeding 6 years.

Two men were jailed on Friday for conspiring to supply hundreds of firearms to London's underworld.

But Herbert said he was delighted to receive only six years for selling 574 guns to criminals.

As he was being led out of the dock at the Old Bailey, Herbert told Judge David Paget: "That's lovely. Thanks very much - we got away with that."

Herbert, 45, and his partner Beard, 47, had faced up to 10 years in jail.

Both pleaded guilty to conspiracies to manufacture prohibited weapons, sell them and cause fear of violence with them.

Herbert and Beard bought hundreds of replicas guns, blank-firing pistols and airguns legitimately, converted them into lethal weapons and then sold them to criminals.

In Britain a growing number of people are getting really pissed off.

Good show old chap

Hey, what a lucky guy. It looks like Dan, over at Jackalope pursuivant has landed himself a job as a Professional Scouter. Beats sitting in front of a desk all day so well done there Dan.

In a freaky coincidence Dan also wins a prize for having the blog with the hardest name to type. Pursuiant, persviant, purs....

Ok, I'm listening.

I've historically had a problem with Kilroy-Silk, the face of the UK Independence Party. I didn't like the cut of his jib (an important point I am sure we can all agree). However, like a lost sailor drawn to the haunting sound of the siren I find myself strangely attracted by his song:

Robert Kilroy-Silk, the former Labour MP turned daytime TV star, returned to his old Westminster haunts yesterday to warn the "metropolitan political elite" that the UK Independence party intends to defeat the European superstate and "change the face of British politics forever".

In a speech which deftly mixed self-deprecating humour and combative politics with lacerating attacks on "lying politicians" and "lazy, sloppy" media, Mr Kilroy-Silk repeatedly predicted that an angry and betrayed electorate is poised to overthrow the "old politics" and that he intends to be its instrument.

No! Snap out of it! Put your hands over your ears - Ed.

I can't, it's soooo beautiful.

The importance of accurate labelling

Animal rights activist

Fox hunting?

I don’t hunt. I never have and I don’t think that I ever could but that does not mean to say that I do not support it. But why do I? I live in suburbia, I know little about the countryside and I know absolutely no one with any interest in the activity whatsoever. These observations are hardly qualifications for my feelings on the subject which are, quite frankly, ones of anger.

It’s the same with the Handgun ban. I’ve never owned a handgun of the banned variety and never felt the desire to. I didn’t know anyone who had or wanted one and knew little about them at the time. But the ban really pissed me off. After all this time I’m still angry about it. Same M.O. as fox hunting.

I thought, at first, that perhaps I had a problem with authority but I soon discounted the notion because there are many examples of authority in action that I simply do not have a problem with. I thought that it might be that I have a strong sense of fairness but I don’t think that’s it either. For instance, I can be a pretty unfair guy when I want to be and certainly don’t mind certain unfair tactics being used to achieve an end that I support.

I’m not a great thinker (no, you don’t say) so my positions on various topics tend to be instinctive and not based in any formal pre-formulated rational framework but after I have instinctively made my mind up about something I can usually come up with a reasonably rational argument in support of my position given the time. It’s rare that I change my mind on a subject, though I appreciate that admitting to doing so carries a certain amount of kudos in the blogosphere.

There is, however, a common theme and it’s that theme that first drew me to the Libertarian Alliance and it’s militant dinner party wing, samizdata.net. I have a strong liberty streak that runs right through me. People, I think, should be allowed to do pretty much what they like as long as what they does not hurt another person or damage their property (and no, I’m not talking about hurting sensibilities, that’s a fact of adult life and a perfectly reasonable and acceptable state of mind for the enemies of liberty to be in).

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t consider myself a libertarian as there is much that I disagree on with people who do call themselves libertarians but I think that I have more in common with them than any other, what do you call it, movement – ideal – whatever. I believe in the individual and the individuals right to do pretty much whatever they want regardless of what a majority of individuals might think about it.

It’s a frightening situation to find ones self in for the first time I can tell you. To begin to ask questions of yourself that, at first, seem contrary to what you thought you knew as right and proper is no easy thing. It’s messy. Do I really believe that, within a certain framework, the desire of one person to do something is as important as the desire of one million for him not to do it? More to the point, do I believe it even if I am among the one million? Cleary no, then clearly maybe, then clearly yes. That’s the process.

Of course, I’ve still got to go through the really messy part. The big question. The one that will have me excluded from polite company. Isn’t your position incompatible with the whole notion of democracy? Errrm…….don’t ask difficult questions (see what I mean about not being a great thinker). I don’t know what the answer to that one is yet.

So, fox hunting. The desire of a few over the desire of the…….erm……ah……well, who exactly? I don’t think that anyone has proven to me that it is the desire of the many (not that knowing that would change my view) but it is an interesting point. Who will benefit from the ban? The fox? I said who not what. This stopped being about the fox a long time ago.

I have a feeling that no one will benefit really. I don’t even think its about fox hunting anymore. Its about two small groups (The Blair camp vs his backbenchers etc) of men and women arguing the toss over a subject on which each group is determined to get their way. One group (Blair etc.) would like to let the issue slide because of the trouble it will cause on the streets and in the countryside and another group (backbench MPs) wants to carry it through because no one can get away with ignoring them. It has got to the position where the subject matter could be anything or, perhaps, lost in time like a bad science fiction novel and none of it is based upon evidence or principle.

Of course Blair etc. will capitulate and it is his position that is the most disgusting to me. Sure, it’s in his manifesto but who here believes that he would not make that pledge magically disappear if he could? He is making his choice on the basis of which group scares him the most – the hundreds of thousands of hunt supporters or the relative handful of people who belong to the same club as he does and who can, you know, influence his enjoyment of that club.

He has made his choice and, no doubt, will make all the right noises about promises, cruelty, majority and the like but that won’t change the fact that he’s a pussy and that what he and those other meddlers are doing strikes me as symbolising exactly the opposite of what I believe in.

You know, it’s the same for me really. It’s not about fox hunting, it’s about how I think I should be able to live my life.

Political Culture

Being, as were are, in the great age of legislation on the basis of popular demand is it not about time that all politicians were banned? They are clearly not popular and many see them as not contributing very much to society as a whole. They are also extremely dangerous, as every right minded person knows. Unsupecting members of the public have had them go off in their hands and every now and again one of them goes on the rampage.

Political Culture in this country has been allowed to spread too far. From the countryside to our inner cities, everyone has been (or knows someone who has been) touched by a political calamity. The Liberati might argue that minority interests should be protected in a modern democracy but these intelligencia do not live in the real world like the rest of us do.

We’ve lived under this blight for far too long now. It’s about time we put an end to it, before the culture spreads too far.

Replica

Real

Of course an outright ban would have to be preceeded by an amnesty but does anyone really believe that such an amnesty would yeild anything other than buckets full of old, worn out trophy politicians or perhaps a few blank firers? Sure, the press would call it a great success but some are already calling for the press to be banned too; can we really trust their judgement given that a healthy and spreading Poitical Culture is so clearly in their interests?

The answer lies in harsh penalties for offenders. After the short amnesty period any individual caught in illegal posession of a politician should be interned for a minimum of five years, regardless of the calibre; local coucilor, backbencher or cabinate minister – it makes no difference. Each and every one of them is capable of being lethal.

Replica

Real

There is no place for Political Culture in a modern Britain and the protection of such minority interests should not be at the expense of public safety.

Where is Europe?

Mrs. du Toit takes a visit and says it’s in the detail:

That detail, that desire for beauty where none was required, where a flat stone wall or a plain metal mold would have sufficed, intrigues me to no end. That makes me sizzle. It makes the hair on my neck stand up. It ignites a curiosity. I marvel at who those people were, that we originated from and who enabled all we became, that had risen so far beyond food, shelter, safety, that they would take the time, the incredible luxury of time and attention, to that small detail.

When I worked in London I used to walk from the tube station right past the Houses of Parliament and along the embankment, passing many places of historic and architectural interest along the way. There was much to take pleasure in on my route but the thing that impressed me the most was a set of double doors. I can’t remember what building it belonged to (opposite side of the road to the Thames on the way from the Houses of Parliament to MillbankTowers) but they looked like they were made from two huge slabs of solid pewter decorated with incredible engraving and magnificent relief work. Just a set of doors on an comparitively unremarkable building, but they left a lasting impression.

Quote of the day

People can’t choose their skin colour, or their sex or their sexual orientation, which is why racism and misogyny are so repellent. But a religion is a system of ideas like any other, and if you’re going to make inciting hatred against an idea illegal, you really should be ready for the consequence that upholders of the idea will demand the punishment of their opponents. - Nick Cohen

Yes, so?

Palestinian militant group Hamas has sworn vengeance after 14 of its members were killed in an overnight strike by the Israeli air force on Gaza.

Here's the problem though; it doesn't matter what Hamas threatens because no one believes they will do anything less than their worst regardless of what Israel does.

They, like the terrorists in Russia, have already dished out terror so far outside of the bounds of what is recognisably human behaviour that they can say anything they want, for as long as they like, on any subject they like and no sensible person will listen.

These are the parameters that extreme terrorism sets up and that is why I firmly believe that any who embark upon that road don't want a solution that involves anything other than an infinite conflict or the total destruction of those that they oppose.

Quote of the day

"No coinage is politically neutral" - some expert on coins

I heard this last night on channel 4 during a program on Britain and the origins of the legend of King Arthur. It was uttered by expert in historic coinage , whose name I forget, and seemed not only likely true but also appropriate to one of my pet hates, namely the political union of European member nations and, more specifically, the coinage they want to thust upon us in the name of economic utopia.

Black on black education, or whatever

Apparently white teachers are not capable of teaching black or Asian children effectively. Or black and Asian children are not capable of understanding white teachers. Or something.

A third of London teachers and school governors need to be black or Asian in order to help improve the achievement of black children, a report has said.
…
It says black teachers should be fast-tracked and offered "golden hellos".

It’s exactly this kind of “positive racism” that really gets my goat. I mean, what is it about the colour white that makes teachers clad in it unable to effectively teach black kids? Oh look, here comes the mayor of London:

Mr Livingstone said: "To fully meet the needs of London's diverse communities the teaching profession and school governing bodies must reflect the communities they serve.

"This means that at least a third of London teachers and school governors should be of African, Caribbean or Asian heritage."

Utter rubbish, and oh so typical of Mr. Livingstone. His multicultural dream isn’t actually very much like what it says on the tin, you know, multicultural. Sounds a bit like black or Asian teachers for black or Asian schools, white teachers for white (serving the communities of white areas of Britain and all that of course).

Diane Abbott MP (isn’t she the one that attacked private education and then sent her son to a privately run school?) had this to say:

"Black teachers can sometimes relate better to black children and be less inclined to view them as stereotypes.

"But the focus should now be on the recruitment of more black teachers in the mainstream and the support of black people already in the profession."

Yeah, you tell them Diane. I’ll be sure to inform the three white teachers that live in my road. Oh, there’s a white dinner lady that lives next door too; I should probably tell her. You know, just in case she relates badly to the kids she looks after during the lunch break.

Why does this report make me mad? What single piece of scientific evidence can these people provide to show that black teachers are better at teaching black kids than white teachers are? Is it also true that white teachers are better at teaching white children? Would the same people agree with any head of any predominantly white school if that head introduced a policy to ensure that predominantly more white teachers were employed overall?

More to the point, isn't it ridiculous that London, with such a high proportion of black tax payers, has a white mayor? Shouldn't we ensure that more black mayoral candidates are chosen to run for the position by their respective parties? Shouldn't we encourage independent black candidates?

Is it just me, my Italian mother and my Cypriot father who find this aspect of multicultural Britain sickening?

It's funny, that in Britain today multiculturalism means the state supporting predominantly black teachers teaching predominantly black children in predominantly black schools.

Liberties' fox

Melanie Phillips on the bill to ban fox hunting:

From barbarism to bathos. The centrepiece of the British government's legislative programme in the run-up to the election, the issue that is going to define its priorities and dominate public debate, is... the banning of fox-hunting. And for the fourth time, yet. It is truly astounding that, with international terror still at the top of any sane agenda (an issue, however, that was not mentioned at all in Tony Blair's to-do list for the new parliamentary term), with every public service in the country sliding into disrepair or outright chaos, with violent crime rising and disorder out of control, the Prime Minister's big issue is the revival of the attempt to ban hunting.

It's astonishing, I think, the amount of time that has been given over to this issue in the past few years. I'm personally against any kind of ban on fox hunting but most people simply don't give a fig. That's the astonishing thing about this whole thing and it beggars belief that a serious goverment would even have the issue on the radar at such a time.

So why then does this labour government keep banging on about it? Melanie suggests:

But maybe the real agenda has been revealed in this poisonous little aside by one of Blair's aides:

'"This approach leaves us with the delicious prospect of a win-win situation," said a Government source. "If it gets through then we make keeping the ban the nuclear issue of the election. But if the Lords block it we can retaliate by putting a pledge for fundamental Lords reform in our manifesto."

Maybe the real agenda behind the hunting ban is the delicious destruction of Parliamentary process, the delectable removal of all oppostion to the government machine and the delightful abolition of parliamentary democracy altogether.

I'm far from convinced. I certainly don't think that the hunting issue, as it stands, was engineered for this particular purpose. The following exchange between Blair and the late Lord Jenkins does not support the notion that the hunting issue was a means to a different end:

Jenkins was regarded as the “grandfather of new Labour” and, like a dutiful grandson, Blair always listened intently to his advice. In a typically frank conversation, which the peer confided to friends, Jenkins warned Blair against provoking the House of Lords over foxhunting. Jenkins, a passionate advocate of the euro who also supported university tuition fees, never hunted. But he advised Blair against suppressing the Lords, who rejected the Commons ban in the last Parliament, by deploying the rarely used Parliament Act.

“Tony,” he said, “if you invoke the Parliament Act it will be the most illiberal act of the last century.” Blair’s reply was even more revealing, since most Labour MPs expect the Bill to outlaw hunting to go back to the Lords by June. “Roy,” he said. “I wish I had never heard the word hunting. We are in such a mess. I do not know how we are going to get out of it.”

Now this does not mean to say that, as an opportinuty, New Labour would not jump at the chance to use the problems they have had banning fox hunting as a tool to bash parliamentary democracy. That, I am quite sure, is not beyond them.

One farmer, one gun, one shot, one wounded burglar

So, Kenneth Faulkner, the farmer who admitted discharging his shotgun after finding a burglar attempting to break in to a garage is not going to face prosecution. The Crown Prosecution Service remarked:

"This decision was not taken lightly and only after a thorough review of all the available evidence and careful consideration of the specific circumstances of this case.

"On this occasion we have made the decision not to charge Mr Faulkner on the basis that a prosecution would not be able to demonstrate, to the high standard of proof required in criminal proceedings, that he had committed an unlawful assault.

"I would stress that our decision was reached only after taking into account the particular circumstances of this incident.

"It does not mean that anyone using violence against an intruder is above the law and would not face prosecution."

Now, as far as I can tell the only way this peculiar situation can have arisen is if Mr. Faulkner only admitted to discharging the shotgun in what can generally be described as in the opposite direction to the burglar. The CPS then decided that even though the burglar was indeed the recent recipient of a number of lead shot and was captured about a mile away from the farm a little while later the balance of the evidence would suggest that they could not prove that it was Faulkner who actually shot him.

Ahem. Yes, I know. It sounds like a load of rubbish doesn’t it. It stinks in fact.

My guess is that the decision not to charge the farmer was a political one. A way of avoiding further embarrassment, if you will. I mean, why argue on the side of the criminal when you can avoid the whole subject altogether.

Quote of the day

.....it