Proud of Britain? You bet ya google I am

In the interests of the google bomb I would like to announce that I am Proud of Britain. So Proud of Britain in fact that my pride is literally and recursively also Proud of Britain.

Protesters invade Cabinet Office

Another day, another security failure:

Anti-war protesters managed to force their way past security and gain access to the Cabinet Office in Whitehall.

Ruth Kelly said three people managed to get into the building while a security guard was dealing with someone who was also trying to get in without a pass.

The sooner we get ID cards to stop this kind of thing the better.

Oh oh

You know when you make a comment on someone's blog and you suddenly get this feeling that you are about to be severely mauled. Well, I got that feeling.

Historical darts

Tim Worstall is playing Historical darts. This seems like a fine idea to me.

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has one hunnerd and eighteee!

One for the pot, but for how long?

In the light of this article (Animal rights groups turn their sights on to game shooting) I wonder how relevant the following poll will be to our political masters when pressure once again builds up on the backside of the benches in the House of Commons:

On 21 November Countryfile explored the issues surrounding game shooting and we asked viewers to take part in a phone vote.

Of the 58,315 people who voted, 9% thought shooting should be banned while 91% were against a ban.

Some viewers asked for more information about preparing a pheasant for the pot.

I was asked on one of the shooting forums that I frequent "Now lets see how the Labour backbenchers manage to twist that around!" the answer to which seems relatively simple to me:

"Mr. Speaker. It is clear that there is a small demographic, mainly based in the countryside, who believe that it is their right to breed, kill and maim various species of wildlife for their own self gratification. But....but, Mr. Speaker, this opinion is not shared by my constituents who were not even aware that any polling on the issue, scientificly run or not, was available to them to take part in. Only yesterday I received a number of letters.........."

Drone, drone, drone.

Drinking? You know, it's always possible

Via the Campaign for an English Parliament we have this:

"Surely the result of the recent referendum and subsequent change in New Labour policy towards English devolution serve to illustrate that Scotland is different from the English regions in that we are a nation...."

Richard Lockhead, MSP, Scottish Parliament.

The English regions that he speaks of are artificial and fanciful made up sections of England so, I suppose, in that context he is right. For instance, if we were to substitute his reference to these fairytale and ephemeral secret regions with something more concrete that the people of England are familiar with, say counties, then....:

"Surely the result of the recent referendum and subsequent change in New Labour policy towards English devolution serve to illustrate that Scotland is different from the English counties in that we are a nation...."

I wonder, was the reason that it cost so much to build the Scottish Parliament building something to do with how high up a mountain it was constructed? Is Dickie's problem simply altitude sickness?

Still, once again it shows our common ground because, like Scotland, England also differs from its various areas in that it is a Nation and they are not.

Similar countries separated only by an air of incomprehensibility.

A day out

Today was a red letter day in The England Project household. The boy did his first bit of shooting, firing off approximately 25 .410 cartridges over at my clay ground.

He is six, which means he has beaten his father into the game by about three years.

The UN rides to the rescue, of some

The UK government has been urged to review its policy of detaining foreign terror suspects without trial, by the United Nations Committee on Torture.

Drake wades into the Civil Contingencies Act over at The Edge of England's Sword.

Honestly!

We're good people over here at The England Project so I ask, what have we done to deserve this:

Or this:

Textbook warnings

It's amazing what you stumble upon on the web.

This is just one of many of what look like warning stickers to be used on scientific text books.

Politics is everywhere. Everywhere!

Anyone else out there wondering why a government that ran TV ads informing us that politics is everywhere has refused to get involved in the Zimbabwe cricket tour debacle?

I'm not saying that they should, just pointing out that they spent our money on a campaign that is incompatible with the message keep politics out of sport.

Quote of the day

Via Nick and from the graphic novel V for Vendetta:

'It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, [...], for silence is a fragile thing...one loud noise, and it's gone... Noise is relative to the silence preceding it - the more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations...and it is much much louder than they care to remember.'

Welsh Pro-hunt protest

This this pro-hunt protest seems to have let the side down. There is no place in the pro-liberty campaign for racist and homophobic insults and I hope that the majority of the protesters will take it upon themselves to eject these idiots from their ranks whenever they find them.

Frankly, I'm surprised at the above.

However, this I am not surprised at:

'Unfortunately, factions within the crowd were intent on a non-peaceful response and caused considerable disruption," he said.

"At one stage, missiles were thrown and previously unseen levels of aggression were shown to police officers.

The same event reported by The Scotsman.

The same event reported by icWales.

The same reported by the Guardian.

Only the Beeb reports racial and homophobic abuse.

Woof!

Hah! Andrew, over at Non-Trivial Solutions has some advice for the Tories. Oh, and woe betide anyone who doesn't have the stomach for it:

Do not assume the media battle is lost. I sense that the people at CCO have no faith in their ability to control the media message. Don't wanna take on the New Labour media machine? Get out, you're fired. We want a big dog in this fight, not a bitch.

404 on BBC Charter Renewal

Sweet. This 404 page not found message comes to us by way of Dumb Jon.

Spending rules, OK!

This is doing the rounds at the moment and I think it's worth repeating here. Go to Neil Herron's site for more:

Referendum spending rules 'unfair to No vote'(Filed: 25/11/2004)

Spending rules governing the referendum on the European constitution will give the Government an unfair advantage, Sam Younger, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, said yesterday.

He told an academic seminar that ministers should be banned from promoting the European Union constitution using taxpayers' money for at least 10 weeks before polling day.

Mr Younger said the rules should be changed because it would be wrong for the Government to be allowed to spend unlimited sums highlighting the advantages of the constitution at a time when the organisations campaigning against it could not.

Neil on England

Neil, over at German for Beginners has a three parter up on England, his country and why he is no longer a supporter of New Labour.

I can't help feeling that many of us are rapidly running out of people to vote for.

Who's to blame, do you think?

Something about Dwarves

Mr. British Spin is blogging over at the Honourable Fiend.

Kennet Council? Not THE Kennet Council?

Tim of the Worstall variety has this to say about these goings on over at the place of Tim of the Englishman variety:

Riding to the aid of The Englishman and his Castle, we should all be linking thusly in order to spread the word about the inane bureaucrats of Kennet Council.

Currently number 10 and rising, he needs your help. You know what to do.

Of course, I am assuming they are talking about Kennet Council, England rather than any other Kennet Council that might exist elsewhere in the world.

Kennet Council, the more I say it the sillier it sounds. Kennet Council. See!

Kennet District Council sounds just as silly if you say it enough. Kennet District Council, Kennet District Council.

You are not alone

A little while ago I wrote that Blair's New Labour Levellers are a shambles on the freedom front. They wouldn't know what freedom was if captain freedom himself beat them half to death with his freedom bat. Well, it seems that many others are thinking along similar lines:

An overwhelming majority of voters think the Government is going too far in restricting individual liberties on issues like smoking, smacking and fox-hunting, according to a poll released today.

Some 71% of people questioned by ICM for thinktank Reform agreed that too many “infringements on personal liberty” were being proposed.

And the poll suggested Prime Minister Tony Blair was even alienating his own supporters with “nanny state” legislation, with 62% of Labour voters agreeing too many restrictions were being imposed.

Also carried by The Adam Smith Institute blog.

Chicken hunt?

Another protest ,another failure to attend:

MORE than 150 pro-hunt campaigners turned out in Todmorden yesterday to protest at the Government's ban on the sport as a conference met to discuss the future of the countryside.

...

Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael, who piloted the recent legislation to ban fox hunting through Parliament, had been due to address the conference, but failed to attend.

And another who says:

"The whole thing about democracy is it only works if you respect minority views"

Democracy is loosing respect among disaffected minority groups. What a legacy.

Shooting organisation goes all regional

I've just noticed the following in my recent copy of the British Association for Shooting & Conservation magazine (scanned in using OCR software, but hopefully there are no errors):

BASC is creating a new region in the south of England and re-structuring others to match the boundaries of the new local government areas. From January 1 there will be five regions: Northern, Midland, South-West, London & East of England, and South-East. The largest single change involves splitting the existing East & South-East region into two and moving Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and the Isle of Weight from the South-West to the new South-east region.

Other changes involve moving Cheshire and North Lincolnshire into the Northern region while the rest of Lincolnshire moves to the Midland region.

The changes are being made to align the boundaries of BASC’s English regions with those of the nine Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) which in many ways are assuming the powers of regional assemblies.

This means we can work with the RDAs -and regional assemblies if they are created -in the key areas of politics, economic planning and partnership development.

We will now be better placed to exploit the opportunities presented by the regional economic strategies, work more closely with local government and gain access to new funding. Much of BASC's work already involves co-operation with statutory agencies and NGOs who are also developing their approach to regional working.

Here is their map which matches this one on the Campaign for an English Parliament web log.

My beef with this is that it adds to the weight of legitimacy of these new and highly artificial EU inspired servings of England and it also does the same for the unelected regional assemblies in those regions.

Now, the BASC is a private organisation that can do what the hell it likes but, as a member, this frustrates me no end.

Those of you who are of a mind might like to advise the BASC of their complicity in the carving up of our country.

More farmland off limits

So another pro fox hunting farming family begins a campaign of non-cooperation:

Pat and Raymond Ford are withdrawing permission for an overhead electricity line due to be built across their land at Alverdiscott, near Bideford.

Mrs Ford said: "We are very sad that we have come to this situation.

"But we feel that Parliament has not listed to us."

Geoffrey Cox at Witheridge has written to the water companies, Western Power Distribution, BT, Devon County Council and environment ministry Defra.

The letters say that access to his farm is prohibited unless prior written permission is sought.

But if vehicles are allowed in, they will have to be disinfected and pressure washed according to a strict interpretation of government guidelines.

So, let’s see if we can spot the first accusation from a government mouthpiece that this kind of behaviour is petty and counter productive. At that point we will know that it is starting to have an affect.

Will they finally grow a pair?

Via the Englishman we hear that Otis Ferry, the young man who invaded the floor of the House of Commons, has had his legally held rifle and shotgun removed from his home by the authorities. This is to be expected and I am confident that similar removal of private property will be visited upon any gun owning huntsman or woman who, in the mind of the authorities, protests too strongly or continues to hunt with hounds illegally.

This is my prediction (not a difficult one to make) and (except in exceptional circumstances) I disagree with such a course of action.

Breaking the law does not make one a threat to public safety. If it did we would see far more criminals locked up for far longer, rather than out on our streets painting fences, wearing tags and what not. This does not change if you are the owner of legally held guns although I suspect that the government would have us believe it were so.

I am not sure what the situation is with getting, for instance, a shotgun certificate if one has a criminal record because I have none so have not paid much attention to it but I am guessing that it is suitably draconian.

Of course the reason why the government will likely remove guns from protesting and active country folk is not necessarily because they believe they are a danger to public safety but, instead, to send them a clear message. Break this law and you will loose the gun owner privilege that we have temporarily granted you.

These are the times when we find out a little bit more about how well represented us gun owners are by the organisations that take our subscriptions. I’m not talking about demographically represented but, instead, fundamentally represented. How strongly will they come out in protection of our liberties and privileges?

Many hunters are members of the British Association for Shooting & Conservation and some of those will break the law in coming months and, probably, years likely loosing their licenses and certificates. What will the BASC do about it? Will they hide behind the criminal act, even though they are strongly against the ban on hunting or will they support their members with everything that they have got?

Many shooters and ex-shooters already feel that the various shooting organisations in this country are all to quick to remove the line in the sand only to re-draw it a few feet further back every time the shooting minority come under pressure.

Frankly, I think it’s about time this changed.

ProudofBritain?

Apparently The Honourable Fiend thinks proudofbritain.org.uk is a far right sounding domain name. I don't get it. To me the name looks neither left nor right, just proud.

Ooo, wait. If that domain name is far right, imagine how extreme this must seem.

Boo!

I thank you all

Well, what can I say? It’s a great honour to be nominated in the best UK blog category of the 2004 WebLog Awards. To see The England Project listed along side the other excellent nominations just fills me with pride and, I might add, makes me feel very important indeed.

I would like to thank my parents (who have no idea that this site exists), my friends (who also have no idea) and my manager (who I am married to). I would also like to thank those who have nominated me. The cheque, as they say, is in the post (so don’t expect to see it any time soon).

I would also like to pledge my support to all the other UK bloggers who are working so hard behind enemy lines right now. You know who you are. In spite of great danger to themselves they continue to bait the authorities by pointing out the total lack of ability of our political masters, their sexual perversions and their total misunderestimation of how highly we value freedom. A great big tally ho to you all.

I’d like to take this opportunity to recite an enhanced version of The Path that brought me to The England Project, a path that has taken the best part of three years. There have been tears, oh yes. But also joy. And the boredom, oh the boredom.

THE PATH

From the Front Rank,
To the Solent.

From the Solent,
To the Samizdat.

From the Samizdat,
To the Edge.

Then Across the Atlantic,
To Lileks.

And back again,
For The England Project.

I thank you all.

Listen up Tory party

If the Tories want to win back my support in the General Election then they should take the following advice:

Tory hawks will urge Michael Howard to harden party policy on Europe after poll findings

CONSERVATIVE Eurosceptics are to step up pressure on Michael Howard to harden his party’s policy on the European Union after a poll suggesting that the British people — particularly the young — would back a renegotiation of Britain’s membership terms.

A survey by ICM for the European Foundation over the weekend indicated that 58 per cent agreed that Britain should renegotiate EU treaties so that they were reduced to trade and association agreements.

The poll found that 68 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds backed a policy of renegotiation. It also suggested that 63 per cent of professionals and managers backed that policy, which has always been seen as a crucial step towards withdrawal from the EU. Sixty per cent of the skilled working classes supported it.

there would be no change of policy and no change of emphasis. The Conservative leadership would under no circumstances talk about withdrawal from the European Union.

However, no change of policy or emphasis is a pretty clear statement of intent by the Tories and they will have little chance of winning back my support with that kind of attitude.

Listen up. I feel badly let down by the party I have supported for over 20 years. I'd much rather face a clear enemy in opposition than a false ally in power.

It's a tally ho, tally ho issue

It is interesting that the virtually unemployed John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, should admit this about fox hunting:

"I think the majority of people in my constituency, quite frankly, see it as one of those tally ho, tally ho issues and nothing to do with modern Britain."

Why interesting? Well, because he doesn't mention cruelty. It's a tally ho, tally ho issue. I think it's clear what he means by that and it is not incompatible with the opinion of Peter Bradley, the parliamentary private secretary to Alun Michael, that the fox hunting issue was at least in part a class war.

Now, some of you might accuse me of putting words into Prescott's mouth by equating his tally ho comments with what I think he means. In my defence I would like to say that someone needs to put words into his mouth and that it might as well be me.

Drinking and the English

Of course, it is no big secret that the people of this great nation of ours enjoy a drink or two. What is a big secret is our actual behaviour after a good session down the local.

Overseas the myth seems to have spread that drunken Englishmen are violent and loud whereas the truth is that most drunken Englishmen actually seek comedic excellence. It's one of the reasons our producers, directors, actors etc are famous for the genre. Practice.

Look, here's an example if you don't believe me:

We tumble into the front garden and up to the large bay window. We are extremely quiet as only drunk people can be, with lots of whispering, giggling and hisses of 'sshhh!!!' There is no gap in the curtains, but a noise from within suggests that our plan has been rumbled.

"Quick!" cries Short Tony. "Into the bushes!"

We leap into the bushes.

Look, a castle!

To make up for the lack of any half way decent blogging today here is a picture I took of a castle:

It's Roch Castle in Wales and I took the picture the last time I stayed there. You can rent it out and it comes complete with its own dungeon, which we found quite useful.

Cruelty is not the only measure

The UKPoliticalHack says about fox hunting:

Licensing was a cop out. If we're banning it because it is cruel, then licensing it does not reduce the cruelty.

Cruelty alone is not generally accepted as the deciding measure for a ban, no matter how many MPs might say it is.

The real measure is even more subjective than that. It’s about the balance of cruelty inflicted measured against rewards or benefit gained.

One result of banning battery farming would probably be a significant inconvenience to the majority of the electorate both in terms of scarcity of product and, consequently, the cost of that product.

A result of banning the religious preparation of animals for the table would be a minority backlash by a group more in favour with the authorities because of their claim to a religious right to the activity.

With fox hunting the perceived balance of cruelty against benefit gained is seen by the Labour backbenchers and their supporters to be in favour of the ban. To others who have a slightly (or very) different subjective idea of the balance the ban seems wrong.

Pest control will take place regardless of the loss of one method of control and I suggest that, though it might act as part of the balance towards the defence of fox hunting, it is really only a very minor consideration, particularly with those such as myself who do not hunt and who perhaps are not that aware of the details (only what we have read in the government report).

What I would argue is that the main item of consideration for the pro-hunting side of the balance is quite simply liberty. The belief that an individual should be free to do what he or she wants as long as it does not hurt another person. More than that it is their strength of belief in that principle. At which point do they decide to sell out?

The balance, for many if not most whether they realise it or not, is the weight of their belief in liberty against the cruelty inflicted because the maintenance of hunting as a pastime surely protects an existing liberty.

The actual formula, if we want to think about it in those terms, is even more finely balanced than we might think because we have to take into consideration the cruelty involved in the other methods of pest control that will be substituted in for hunting.

The balance actually is the weight of liberty lost measured against the total of the cruelty involved minus the cruelty involved in the alternative methods of pest control.

Of course, other factors can upset the measure. For instance if one is prejudiced against the hunters themselves as people (perhaps their perceived station) then this would weigh in on the ban side of the measure.

It isn’t just about cruelty, these things rarely are.

Ahem, I'm not happy about the above post. It's not written particularly well and I don't think it actually tells anyone anything they didn't already know whilst kind of attempting to do so. I thought about pulling it but that's just bad form, so I'll leave it up.

There you have it. Self fisking.

Please do come again.

A unique perspective

After some careful analysis here Andy asks:

So are the Countryside Alliance pro-Nazi, anti-UKIP and anti-gay now?

Wait a minute.....

Image of England

The Campaign for an English Parliament run a competition called a picture of England which I think is an excellent idea. If you have taken any photographs that you'd like to share I'm sure they'd be more than happy to receive them.

Not being one to enter competitions and the like (fear of failure) I thought I'd just put one up here. I took it last weekend when we paid a visit (walked the dog) to the Youth with a mission in our home town.

It's been slightly adjusted to fade the borders, but I'm like that.

Taken with a Canon S20.

A prayer for Maastricht

Dear Lord, please find work for these idle hands to do.
Something nice, but not too expensive.

Blessed are the weak.

Please protect them from the EUrocrats, the Health and Safety Executive, and their like.

Yours is the Kingdom, but they'll come for that too, soon enough.
Forever and ever.

Amen.

Saturday night's alright I suppose

This Saturday night is dinner party night at the England Project household. It happens less often than I would like and I like it less often than I usually imagine I would. Mainly because of the pain I tend to feel the next day.

Now, normally the dinner guests are all women and unreservedly so which is simply the way my life seems to have turned out. For one reason or another I have always preferred the company of women and, without intending to, most of the dinner party set that me and Mrs. England Project have gathered around us for use within our own home are of that persuasion. Not all of them mind as I have continued to cultivate friendships with a few select men, mostly those I grew quite fond of at University and once and a while they are included at our table but this is not a common occurrence.

I think this joyful overrepresentation of women at our table is down to a number of factors. Mostly because Mrs. England Project is popular with her lady friends but from my perspective it is because I tend to enjoy conversing with women far more than I do with men, I enjoy looking at women more than I do men and, frankly, I tend to find them far more interesting than men. Am I a girly man? Yes, yes I am, but not in a girly way I would like to think.

Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of our sweet, sweet guests was bringing along a friend and that this friend was in fact her new boyfriend. Not just any old boyfriend but one that I happen to know in an occasional mutual drunken event kind of a way.

He’s a charmer, far more intelligent than he lets on, quite wealthy and quite humorous so I should be welcoming his inclusion. But welcoming as I will be, and as good a host as I am sure I will turn out to be I can’t help thinking of him as, well, contamination.

Hodge handcuffed

I don't know, I guess you have to feel sorry for the Children's minister:

A Fathers 4 Justice campaigner handcuffed himself to children's minister Margaret Hodge at a family law conference in Manchester.

Jolly Stanesby, who was handcuffed to the minister for 40 minutes, said he had made "a citizens arrest".

Police were called to the hotel and Mrs Hodge was released unharmed.

A spokesman for Fathers 4 Justice said the protest was the first of a planned "Christmas of chaos", with "super-hero santas" staging more stunts.

Bogeywoman

From the radio on the way home this evening, a listener said:

I hope that the man is unhurt but what I really don't understand is why it took the police so long to release him.

Heh.

Shooting ducks

I have to say that I am not sure I can agree with this analysis:

BAN OF THE DAY...seems to be fox-hunting, which is of course repellent. But me, I can admit what others can't, which is a degree of jealousy of these people - most of whom are rich and never have to work.

Interesting times

Well, there you are then. Another minority pastime banned. However, this time it’s different.

Usually, the way it goes is that a minority pastime is, for one reason or another, singled out and banned. The pursuers of the pastime are usually a disjointed bunch scattered across the country with no clear identity, no base of power other than their individual votes and no great combined voice. They also usually lack the knowledge and the kind of sophistication that is required to fight for their freedoms within the context of state institutions. How the system works and what have you. Another thing that they also usually lack is the ownership of something of intrinsic value to both the state and other institutions.

It’s different with the minority pastime of Fox Hunting.

Hunting, though enjoyed by people from both town and country has its base in rural communities; communities which have felt neglected by the state for a number of years. There is no love lost between them and their political masters who they see as remote and out of touch with their needs.

The communities are usually close knit with everyone knowing everyone else’s business. A common cause would run like wildfire through such a community, particularly when the individuals who make it up have so many shared values and interests. Everyone will know someone affected by the ban in one way or another.

Within their ranks they have landowners who are already beginning to use their assets as a tool in the fight against the ban and they also have a large number of people who are willing to stand their ground on the issue, knowing full well that if the state and its agents cannot get resources into their communities to protect them and their property from the criminals, they themselves are unlikely to be challenged regularly if their behaviour is somewhat less than that expected of a good state citizen. There are also the Hunt saboteurs to throw into this mix; explosive.

They have people who understand state institutions and the law courts (just look at the House of Lords for some of their supporters) and they know exactly how to make life difficult for certain people who dwell in these places.

The also have an organisation in the Countryside Alliance that really knows how to campaign. I’ve seen nothing like them in this country before and that is going to count for something. They channel information through their grass routes network on a regular basis and everyone knows what’s going on and what is expected of them. The organisation also attracts funding and knows exactly how to use it.

But by far the best thing these people have is themselves. They are angry. They are most definitely not lazy and will get out to London, Manchester, anywhere at the drop of a hat on receiving information from the CA. These people are hunters and our politicians are their prey and this is the way it is going to be for some time to come.

All this will lead to a continuation of the fight. In the law courts, on farmers fields which will no longer be available to the state or to other private industries, over the hedgerows where many will continue to hunt, and in the law courts where some of those caught hunting will find themselves. They will be punished and the anger will continue.

This is part of the whirlwind, but unfortunately not the whole of it.

Part of it lies in the hearts of those who are experiencing not just anger but a burning hatred for those on the nuLabour backbenches who they see as having a personal vendetta against them. A hatred for their political masters who refused to reign those class warriors in. A hatred for the disgraceful way in which they feel they are being treated for no good reason whatsoever.

I once said:

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

What I am sure of is that, on our shores, these are now interesting times.

Those pesky UKIP MEPs

Lurch, over at Gun Culture brings us a revealing press release concerning a recent clash in the EU parliament between UKIP MEP Nigel Farage and, well, everyone else it seems. Money shot:

Today, the European Parliament is prepared to overlook the conviction of a senior member of the Commission for embezzling government funds, and is prepared instead to threaten with arrest the person who reveals it.

Read it and weep.

Advanced and sophisticated

Apparently scientists think that running could be the key to human evolution. I always thought that the French were an advanced bunch.

(I understand that this is a game that the British and French have played with each other for centuries but please, another one like that and you'll be out on your ear - Ed).

Hard to see the future is - cloudy is the dark side

Those are the words of Yoda, who I have been emulating more than I would like recently. However, in this particular case, wrong he is.

The Bunny that Blithers reflects upon the republic that is a banana:

How does the EU have any credibility at all? For the tenth year in a row its own auditors refused to sign off on the budget. How come that doesn't completely demolish the EU's credibility? Where are the "Banana Republic" headlines? Why hasn't the EU been laughed out of politics?

Of course this will more than likely happen through the careful moving of the goalposts. Unsafe spending will become safe as houses. Errors will become adjustments.

I have 25 billion quid and a butter mountain to bet on it if you're feeling lucky.

Great Britons of 2004 - vote, vote, vote

This is interesting:

The Daily Telegraph are running a series of awards, described below...

Who are the Great Britons of 2004?

We are looking for your nominations
Great Britons 2004 is a series of awards to be presented to the people
who have done the most to personify British success in the past year.
And we need you to tell us who they are...

As a Director of the North East No Campaign I have nominated the
Campaign Director, Neil Herron in the category of Campaigner. His
tireless efforts over the past two years were instrumental in
delivering the massive landslide of a 78% 'No' vote in the recent North
East Referendum. Although based in the North East he has become
recognised as the most formidable people's representative in the
campaign business nationally. The emphatic result was testament to his
ability to challenge and expose the political classes and take the
people along with him.

Follow the link above for instructions on how to vote if you so wish.

Mad dog gets madder

Is David Blunkett finally admitting publicly that he is just plain mad?

There should be more checks on the use of information collected through supermarket loyalty cards, Home Secretary David Blunkett has suggested.

In a speech, Mr Blunkett said the cards produced key details about people's shopping habits but were accepted because they run by the private sector.

On the same argument, people should not distrust his ID cards plans because they were a state idea, he said.

Anyway, no supermarket is going to drag me up in front of the courts for not joining one of their loyalty schemes.

How Blunkett can confuse supermarket bribes with his enforced ID card scheme is beyond me.

He really, really doesn’t get it does he?

Or is he just trying to present his scheme in stupid terms so the stupid peasants can understand it?

One paragraph changed has been to reduce the amount of pain to its readers caused it might have.

The regionalisation of Parliament – a charter for success

Our successful and progressive modern democracy is a complex and organic system. This complexity is reflected in its Parliament, a large and complex building containing a multitude of corridors, doors, chambers, refectories, bars and smoking rooms.

Being the seat of an electoral democracy that does not have any worthwhile in-built protection for minority groups it is only natural that over a period of years a large number of minority campaign groups will emerge.

This document outlines a proposal that will help simplify the demonstration process for these groups by regionalising the Parliament building into easily manageable and individually accountable pieces towards which each designated minority group can target their peaceful and lawful demonstrations.

The Regions – Designated and reserved for the trampled minority demonstration period: JAN 2005 – JUL 2005

• Red Region: Fox Hunters for Hunting
• Blue: Smokers for Liberty
• Yellow: Shire Folk for British Independence from Europe
• Orange: Shooters for Freedom
• Green: Kebab Shop & McDonald Workers Fast Food Defence League
• Purple: We’ve Just About Had it With You Politicians Focus Group and Friends

The next group of minority protesters will be selected half way through the forthcoming demonstration period.

We would ask that each group keep to their designated areas and that all groups refrain from bumming fags from Smokers for Liberty. They ask us to remind you that they pay a great deal for their smokes.

The truth is out there

This from Gawain is interesting:

Interesting discussion with a political veteran of the European parliament - (1975-2004) about the impact of the North East Referendum. His comments went something like this.
'Devastating blow, bad news for the regions, make that bad news for all of England. The thing is the EU is designing itself around funding through regional systems. It will be unable to fund through national govrnments which means that England will miss out on increasingly large anmounts of funding'.
So the UK will continue to send cash to Brussels, where it is so well audited and then it will send out money back to Scotland, Ulster and Wales as the have 'Regional' governments, but England will miss out.

However, once we get rid of these unelected ones (if we ever do) then the real question behind all this will come into stark focus. Why on Earth are we organising our country to fit in with the machinery of the EU project when there is no established mandate from the people for this to happen? Quite the contrary could well be true given the massive victory in the North East for those that want to maintain their own (non-EU directed) local structures and identities.

Gawain writes:

The MEP in question foresaw the shocking possibility that a future Government would close down the regional Assemblies now it realised that they would never receive legitimacy from the lumpen proles.

Well, blow me down with a huntsman's horn

Them protesters are everywhere:

We feel we need to make a strong statement to Tony Blair. I think that the British fox hunters are not going to stop. They’re going to take it to the courts and through every legal avenue they can. Mr Blair has been so strong for freedom for the Iraqi people, but he is trying to suppress people at home.

Harry Potter and the Holy Places of Jerusalem and Nazereth

Last night just as I had finished reading the boy his bed time story (continuing the first Harry Potter book) he said something that was so completely out of context and surprising that I had to ask him to repeat it. Not because I didn’t hear him but because I couldn’t believe what my six year old had said.

I’d just finished the bit about the sorting hat and decided that it was a good place to stop so I replaced the book mark, closed the book and said that it was time for him to go to sleep.

”Dad” he said, “tell me about the Crimean war.”

I couldn’t believe it. I certainly hadn’t introduced him to it (knowing very little about it indeed) and it was unlikely that Mrs. England Project had so it must have been his school. But surely not; a modern state school teaching 6 year olds about such things?

”I don’t know much about it” I said. “How do you know about it?”

”School” he replied. Blimey, I thought.

Not wanting to get all regimental on you quite yet it turns out that the Crimean war was only discussed in brief to set the context for the great Florence Nightingale who was the actual subject matter but still, at least the boy has come back home from school with a thirst to find out about something.

I promised him that I would find out more and tell him about it and, thanks to the wonder that is google, I found this (why I didn’t go to wikipedia I don’t know but hey, you end up where you end up).

The boy is in for a show tonight what with a thin red line tipped with steel, Scarlett’s charge with his outnumbered Scots Greys and Dragoon Guards and that charge by the Light Brigade.

I’m told there’s a rather nice poem about that last one.

Well, the boy enjoyed it. I have written The Battle of Balaklava For Six Year Olds and made it available here as a word document.

False preacher?

Eric the Unread has part of Tony Blair's Mansion House speech up.

But I know one thing. If we were under direct threat, America would be our ally. I know that its people enjoy, as we have seen, a vibrant competitive democracy; and that in America, Hispanics, blacks, Asians and former Europeans live together, worship in their different ways and can rise from the bottom to the top in a manner we could do well to emulate. I didn't agree with Michael Moore's film. But in America he was able to make it and be praised for it. This is called freedom. We are in danger of forgetting these simple truths.

But, and it is a big but, his continued talk of freedom is beginning to grate on my nerves. Of course the freedom's he refers to are the big ones, the obvious ones, the ones that most unsophisticated schoolchildren can agree on but I am beginning to think that his whole notion of what freedom actually is is fundamentally flawed. Deficient. Built on poor foundations.

Taken as a party Blair's New Labour Levellers are a shambles on the freedom front. They wouldn't know what freedom was if captain freedom himself beat them half to death with his freedom bat.

I think that Blair himself needs to take some responsibility for that. I think he needs to spend a little more time preaching in favour of the smaller freedoms at home.

An Englishman's home is his castle

So the government is proposing a ban on smoking in a number of enclosed public spaces:

BBC News has learned the White Paper on Public Health will plan to make most enclosed public areas, including offices and factories, smoke-free.

Only private clubs, where members voted to allow smoking, and pubs which do not serve prepared food would be exempt.

Personally I am in no way inclined to support the legislation. As far as I am concerned the proposition that public houses, restaurants and the like offer to potential customers is completely down to them. They are private businesses selling product to customers. If we don’t like what they have to offer then it is a simple consumer choice not to buy it. What the government is doing is influencing the proposition that these private firms can offer through draconian legislation.

"Yes, but what about the people who work in these places", your dinner party guest might ask of you, "they can’t really make the same choice as the public can they?" Well, they can obviously choose not to work there but this kind of dirty talk hardly ever goes down well with the kind of person whose vegetarian meal you have been forced to make in spite of the perfectly good Mexican chilli that sits on the table. You’ve made a hash of it, the yoghurt has curdled due to excessive heat and they are in no way inclined to forgive you.

"It’s not about the people who work there. People work at private members clubs and the government does not intend to ban smoking there. If anything these clubs, particularly the smoking clubs, are likely to have atmospheres thick with the stuff. I might add that a large percentage of MPs belong to such clubs and the cynic in me would suggest that this is the reason that they have not been included in the ban."

You may win some time with that one but the half starved fruitcake will eventually come back at you.

"Well, one step at a time. It will be banned everywhere soon enough. Thankfully."

Do not at this stage go over the ground you have already covered. Repeating your belief that a private business should be able to offer any legal product for sale to its customer base without the government interfering with the menu will not help.

You see, it’s not really just about smoking. If it were some progress might be possible and the dinner party might not descend into the last one that old cow ever comes to. It’s about different types of people with different values and principles. You might not have noticed but you and yoghurt girl have never really got on that well. She’s abrasive, she hates your 4x4, your good lady forbids you to bring up any number of your hobbies when she’s around and, frankly, she’s a bit of a trog. She thinks guns are evil but for one reason or another your wife won’t allow you to take the woman upstairs and lock her in your specially constructed ‘evil room’.

My advice to you is to wait until pudding has been finished and the after dinner mints come out and then light up a big one. Perhaps that cigar you have been saving for a special occasion. Sit back and watch as the rage builds and just imagine what must be going through the stick insects mind.

I wish someone would make him stop.

Not in my house baby. Not in my house.

Today's headline award

I love Technorati even if it's just for the laughs that some of the headlines generate:

The source of this most excellent headline is this blog here.

Free! Free for all! Well, nearly

I for one congratulate the BBC on their success at the Online News Association awards. Winning first place in an international competition by providing high quality online news services to the world is a great comfort to those of us at home who pay the BBC TV license fee.

Note: If your computer is capable of receiving Internet traffic and you do not currently have a valid BBC News Over IP license then you are committing an offence punishable by a fine of up to £1000 or 6 months in prison. Our Internet detector vans are in your neighbourhood now.

Sorry Gordon, too busy

In the Times the Chancellor Gordon Brown gets all excited about enterprise in Britain:

And it is because we must unlock entrepreneurial ability right across society that in over 1,000 different competitions, masterclasses and business events starting today in Britain’s first National Enterprise Week, we will crown Britain’s young entrepreneurs of the year, celebrate the fastest- growing inner-city start-ups and school-based companies, start to choose Britain’s first capital of enterprise and send out a message that Britain’s economic destiny depends upon enterprise open to all.

Fox hunting and farmland

I remember commenting once, somewhere out there in the blogosphere, that the greatest asset that fox hunters have (besides their people) is the land on which they hunt and that there is, in all likelihood, some way that it can be used to show their contempt for government meddling. Well, following closely on the tail of threatening to stop military training on their land comes this from the Times:

FARMERS and landowners fighting a ban on foxhunting are planning a war on electricity installations.

Power companies are to be besieged with requests to remove or relocate installations as part of a new campaign of non-cooperation with the Government, its agents and utility companies.

Girly council hammer boy

The Blithering Bunny points out this act of anti-Imperial violence:

One day last year, Mr James, a trading standards official of Torbay council in Devon walked into Dennis Webb's fruit shop. When he saw that, despite a previous warning, Mr Webb was still using scales that measured only in pounds and ounces, Mr James produced a hammer and a metal punch with which, according to Mr Webb, he struck the scales so hard as to render them unusable.

I bet if the scales were one of those new fangle EU approved metric scales, rather than a set of stout Imperial ones, they would have been completely destroyed.

Or, more likely, they would have surrendered at the first sight of the hammer.

Quote of the day

Listening to BBC radio 5 live this morning I caught the end of a programme about the various politically correct attitudes that seem to be in fashion with our moral guardians these days. You know the kind of thing, eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, don't smoke, don't eat this or that, don't drive that particular kind of car, don't make derogatory remarks about this group of people etc. etc. During this piece one of the guests on the show said (and I am paraphrasing because my memory is dreadful this time of the morning):

These people want us to take responsibility for leading our lives the way they tell us we should be leading our lives.

Unelected East of England Regional Assembly decides to build 80,000 homes on most densly populated county in England

From the herts Advertiser:

A FURIOUS response has greeted a Regional Assembly decision which will lead to thousands of new homes being built in Herts.

On Friday the unelected East of England Regional Assembly (EERA) agreed a housing strategy which will result in nearly 80,000 additional homes being built in the county by 2021, of which 7,000 will need to be constructed in the St Albans district.

Quote of the day

It’s one of life’s great tragedies that the brands of your own stupidity end up on the backs of the people who love you most.

Giant squid taking over the world!!

This is interesting:

GIANT squid are taking over the world, well at least the oceans, and they are getting bigger.

According to scientists, squid have overtaken humans in terms of total bio-mass.

That means they take up more space on the planet than us.

Livingstone under investigation

It's about time:

Ken Livingstone's woes pile up with the news that the London Assembly is to formally investigate his links with the 'controversial' Muslim cleric Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

after a dossier of al-Qaradawi's alleged comments and views was compiled by a coalition of Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and gays.

No crime number

Of course, by today’s modern day sophisticated standards this is assault:

The villain clutched his chest and screamed "I've been shot!" and his "friends" dropped the bag and ran off.

The shot man fell on the floor then jumped up and run off yelling into the distance at which point, the guy shot him again in the back of the head.

He fell writhing on the ground and his mates came back and dragged him into the van which then sped off.

The end of the Great War

In 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month Germany signed an armistice with the allies. This marked the official end of the First World War.

I’m currently reading Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front by Richard Holmes, a rather large book that I tuck into on occasion, which is full of short accounts of the war written by some of the soldiers who fought in it. It is by no means without the authors commentary but hardly a couple of pages go by without some snippet from a soldiers diary or a letter home, all too often followed up by a note from the author telling us when and in what battle the writer died.

The book also offers us some photographs of the conflict and one set in particular caught my eye. Two photographs that I think capture the devastation that was the hallmark of the Great War. Two photographs that do not require any commentary. They show Passchendaele village before and after the Third Battle of Ypres, more commonly known as the Battle of Passchendaele and, thanks to the wonder of wikipedia we can see what I think are the very same pictures that appear in the book.

There's always something.....

Michael Howard, the leader of the conservative party, has called on the government to scrap unelected regional chambers. The North East voted against a regional assembly and because these chambers were set up as precursors to elected assemblies Howard argues that the NO vote proved that they were dead. Blair disagrees and argues that they serve a purpose. It's not clear what that purpose is, other than to meddle in local affairs while not being directly accountable to the electorate, but this little gem caught my eye:

Under the terms of the 1992 Maastricht treaty, EU member countries had to organise themselves into regions in order to gain access to development cash.

Unelected regional chambers? The need to organise our countries into regions regardless of the voiced desires of the local population? Who knew?

It's because of stuff like this that mistrust in the affairs of the EU project is rife in England. I mean just read this:

Their official role [these chambers] is to oversee the work of the regional development agencies, which were set up in 1999 to encourage inward investment.

But they have also taken over some strategic planning roles from local authorities.

For example, the South East England Regional Assembly will consider controversial proposals to increase new homes target from 29,500 to 36,000 a year.

Like I said, there's always something with this damn EU project.

Mark writes to tell me that it doesn't matter whether you voted for no freaking South East Regional Assembly or not. You live in the area covered by the freaking East of England Regional Assembly. He also provides a pointer to this government site to prove it.

Apparently the new region that I live in is a better place to live and work in so it's just as well that I no longer live in the south east. Thank the EU for that I say.

Early fisking

Is this the earliest example of fisking in the world?

No enemy plane will fly over the Reich territory.

I took the picture at the RAF museum in Hendon but haven’t posted it until now because, well, it’s not a particularly good photograph. I believe the aircraft is a Lancaster bomber and the phrase written on the side is, apparently, an infamous Goering quotation suitably fisked by the addition of a number of bomb graphics symbolising each completed raid over the stated territory.

Och, Donald, where's me troosers?

From The Scotsman:

SCOTLAND was given the go-ahead yesterday to decide its own national anthem in a ruling that is likely to pave the way for a nationwide contest to decide the nation’s official song.

Thirsty work

Building an engine like this one is thirsty work:

Merlin 23 Rolls Royce Engine (from the Mosquito I think, but never mind that)

Why not pay a visit to Mr. Free Market for refreshment.

(NB: More WWII aircraft related stuff here).

Sometimes you need to take responsibility for what you have done

All those arrested for possessing mace spray were women, who said they carried it for self-defence, and they received cautions.

We have a problem you see, and it is one that I do not wish to go into in too much detail about, but suffice it to say that we suspect that an acquaintance of ours is of the predatory nature and a particular risk to women but cannot do much about it at this point in time due to a commitment we have made to his wife and children (who have moved out with our support).

The above quoted text comes from this police web site document on the recent Wimbledon sporting event which they did a good job of policing but, no matter how much I support the police and the difficult work that they do, I cannot help feeling angry and let down by the situation we find ourselves in and I cannot help feeling a certain amount of disgust at the implementation by the police of a law that helps prevent the vulnerable from helping themselves.

While the police make arrests and dish out cautions my wife is sitting at home on her own with only a telephone for company. You can use whatever argument that you want in support of the current laws on self defence and self protection in this country but right now, feeling as we do and in the situation that we find ourselves in, you would be wrong.

Those who would support the current state of affairs need to take some responsibility for the way my family, and the family of the young woman we are helping, feel right now.

You have played a part in taking away something that you have no moral right to take away.

You AND your 'ideas'

But if devolution was right and necessary on Thursday morning, it was still right and necessary on Friday afternoon. And I cannot pretend otherwise. What is more, I do not believe that the north-east is opposed to regional assemblies. It did not vote against devolution. It expressed its distaste for politics and politicians.

The EU-Serf lays in to the author of the above Guardian article, Roy Hattersley, as one might lay into a pot noodle after a heavy night down the pub with the rest of us peasants.

What Hattersley fails to grasp is the sophistication of the voters in the North East of England. They not only voted against regional devolution but also and at exactly the same time expressed their distaste for politics and politicians.

Multitasking peasants Hattersley. You and your kind are doomed!

Worlds of my own

Like the now defunct blog of Stephen Chapman (who pointed the software out some time back) I have been gleefully playing with the vista generation software Terragen. Here are a couple of vistas I made earlier (click on the images for the large versions which can be used as desktop backgrounds, if you so wish).

Mountain river

Snow vista

Some of my other images are offworld vistas, an aspect of the generation of these things that I rather enjoy. I may impose some of these on you at a later date.

The Blunkett bot

In an article titled Putting a face to 'Big Brother' the BBC asks us to Imagine a surveillance system that also presents a virtual embodiment of a person on a screen who can react to your behaviour.

Yes, imagine.

You have been seen mixing with the Liberati.
Your entitlement card will self destruct in 5 seconds.

Quote of the day

From this BBC report on regional devolution in England:

The English people identify with their nation, and their cities, counties, boroughs and neighbourhoods, not with the government office regions - Caroline Spelman (Tory spokeswoman).

Foxy foxies

The foxies. That’s what I’m going to call them. They are a new kind of political protester, the type that takes freedom and liberty so seriously that they are willing to hunt foxes to prove it:

Tracey Worsfold is terrified at the prospect of hunting for the first time. She sits bolt upright on a large stallion called Cobweb, after only a few riding lessons. She is dressed to the nines and steadying her nerves with a warm rum punch.

The fox is the last thing on her mind as she prepares to charge through the Surrey countryside with 60 others. She quite expects Cobweb to bolt and end up in the mud. He looks even more alarmed.

Ms Worsfold, a gardener, is not your usual hunt beginner, rather a normally apolitical young woman who is so incensed at Labour's attack on the sport that she has taken it up, just because it is likely to be banned when the hunting bill returns to the Commons next week.

'Sod this nanny state stuff, I'm starting.' It's been happening for the last three years. You could say that Labour have shot themselves in the foot by trying to ban it."

It seems that you don't need to hunt to love hunting

France destroys air force

From the Times:

France destroys the West African country's entire air force as it heads towards civil war

THOUSANDS of machete-wielding thugs looted and set fire to French targets in Ivory Coast yesterday after France responded with force to the killing of nine of its peacekeepers and an American missionary.

The anti-French feeling among many African citizens is a product of French colonialism and France needs to look more closely at its expansionist agenda so that it may avert an increase in its unpopularity abroad.

Also, I was in my dressing gown

On Saturday morning at about 10am the doorbell rang. I opened the door and was somewhat surprised to find a policeman carrying a shotgun. This almost never happens.

I've received a couple of emails about this demanding that I post an explanation. Get on with it demands Andrew:

You are being a big tease - starting off that story about the policeman with a shotgun, and then just leaving it at that.

Come on.

This is, as Peter Simple would say, one of those stories about which one would like to know more.

Look I know there is going to be a very boring explanation, but you can't just leave it like that!

You complain, I respond. I only wish that my life were a touch more interesting.

NO2ID

Go here and sign. People who trust this and every single future government need not apply.

The conspiracy of the toads

The North East has voted NO to a regional assembly, the pet project of the deputy prime minister John Prescott. One has to wonder why the government has been so keen to see this devolution of various parts of England take shape. What’s in it for them? What’s in it for the people of the various regions that the government will quite probably still want to see devolved? The government states that this whole idea is for the benefit of local areas allowing the people to make strategic decisions in economic development, transport, planning, housing and culture and tourism.An assembly would:

give a voice to regions distant from Westminster and return power to local people from the non-elected bodies that oversee many services.

Regional assemblies will give a voice to the people of England who happen to be distant from London. The governments own words. To me this sounds like an astonishing admission; areas of England that are a few hundred miles away from central London have no voice. Their concerns and their desires have no representation in parliament. Yes, it is clearly a falsehood. What are MPs for other than to represent the concerns and needs of their constituents wherever in the country they happen to be?

This whole notion that distance from Westminster is somehow a disadvantage to the people of England is bunkum. The same government that has been pressing this point is also pressing for further entanglement of this country of ours in the European project, the parliament for which is so far away as to be completely invisible from each and every single city, town, village, field, house and public lavatory in the whole of the British Isles. Yes they say, but your MEPs will give you a voice in that parliament. One might think that at least one of these completely different and inconsistent opinions of government must be wrong. I’ve not mentioned this apparent divergence to my MP but I’m sure that it will solicit a politely worded diatribe about flavours, brotherhood, harmonisation and tidying up. Gov-speak in other words and we’re fed up of it.

So we might ask what is it about regionalisation that has the government so excited? I’m not sure that’s the right question. I would suggest we ask what is in it for the professional politician? Things are a whole lot clearer when expressed in that way because it is far easier to imagine what might be playing on the minds of a power hungry megalomaniac than it is to imagine what a complex system of government might be looking for. I also think we are more likely to get to the truth of the matter.

I’m a believer in the conspiracy of the toads. The name of this conspiracy is brand new and I know this because I have just invented it. Checkout google. You won’t find it (unless it points here). This conspiracy is all about the darkest fear of the professional politician; losing office. Democracy sucks on many levels if you happen to be a politician, and one of those levels just so happens to be that every once and a while you need to go back to the electorate to get your membership of whatever club you belong to renewed. It is a process fraught with danger.

The dangers can be lessened by increasing the number of clubs that a politician can be a member of. More opportunity. More options. Longevity.

And even better, all these clubs need support staff and get this; support staff don’t need to be elected. There will always be at least one form of membership that a toad can successfully claim.

The attraction of a massive European parliament overseeing many state parliaments lording it over countless regional ‘parliaments’ which dish out what’s left of our money to club secretaries across the continent must be almost irresistible.

To a toad anyway.

The people of the North East of England have spoken and their answer is no, we don’t want a regional assembly. It remains to be seen how spiteful the deputy prime minister will be to them now that he, once again, has egg on his face.

NB:
(So where does this leave me? I believe that England should have a parliament of its own; isn’t this consistent with the conspiracy of the toads? Won’t it add another level of government? Well, yes. It will certainly create more toadish opportunities but there is a difference between adding more tiers of government and giving parliamentary representation to a nation that currently doesn’t have one. If toads are necessary I’d rather that some of them were officially mine and mine alone (Touchwood seems a suitable name). You ask any minister who has the responsibility to work solely for the interests of the English nation and you will get a gov-speak answer that can eventually be deconstructed into no-one. Then ask him why England should not have such parliamentary representation and you will get a reply liberally littered with words such as elephant and cuckoo’s nest. All obfuscation, but that’s what they are good at.)

Some comments from the site of Neil Herron, leader of one of the NO campaigns:

To Neil and all your helpers - THANK YOU!! We're down here in East Anglia and we are SO GRATEFUL to you. You are now a folk hero for the whole of England. We, the ordinary, working class people of England owe you a great debt for saving us all from fake devolution, a chopped up country of competing tin pot regions.
You've made the difference. We cried with relief when we heard the result. THANK YOU AGAIN!

Hi Neil,
England owes a debt of gratitude to you and your team and all those who campaigned for this wonderful result. I know how hard you have all worked to get this result so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your efforts on behalf of the people of England.

Congratulations and thanks, Neil - you're a hero! Those who voted "no" were speaking on behalf of the great majority of the people of England, but their massive rejection of "regionalism" will resound across Europe.

It's all going biblical

Massive eruptions, fish dying mysteriously in their thousands, a plague of locusts. If anyone spots an antichrist type character please let me know.

What can it all mean?

From the Times:

One of the most striking findings of The Times Higher Education Supplement’s survey of the world’s best universities is the position on it of the jewel of German learning. Heidelberg University, the oldest and most eminent in the country of Luther and Einstein, is ranked 47th. France fares little better. Its top-ranked university is the Ecole Polytechnique, at 27th. No southern European country has a single university in the Top 150; China and Malaysia each have two, and India and Taiwan one.

Britain emerges as the only European country able to claim a leadership role in academic research, with two universities in the Top Ten and 29 in the Top 200. Australia is the powerhouse of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region, with six universities in the Top 200, and the US sweeps all before it: the world’s four “best” universities are American, as are seven of the Top Ten and 20 of the Top 50.

The Metrics

Slugs

Read the first verse by Eric the Unread.

Slugs are very tasty,
You can have em' on some toast,
You can cook em' in a sauce,
or make a Sunday roast.

Over to you.......

Blather Blather Corporation

Like I said, now Bush has won the BBC are going all rabid on us, with the frothing and the rage.

The old girl

We've all had one. An old girl. My first was an Escort MK1. Cost me £90. Sold it after a year for £100. Ms. Jones also had an old girl which she tells us about on her blog (scroll to October 25, 2004 - The Old Girl, pemalink not enabled for some reason):

Sadly, on the evening of Thursday 21st October 2004, a gang of youths smashed The Old Girl’s passenger window, hot wired her and drove her into the ground around the council estates of South East London. She was found abandoned on the road side, smashed up and un-driveable.

Over that last two years The Old Girl has forged a special place in the hearts of many and she will be sorely missed by friends, footballers and family members alike.

So here's to The Old Girl. May she Rest In Peace.

Oh my sweet, sweet pint

DumbJon on the demonisation of booze and a TV programme by our beloved public broadcaster:

The program itself, The Booze Business: Consuming Spirits, was a masterpiece of the Beeb's po-faced, finger-wagging moralising. The program tracked a group of young ladies out on the town. Now take a wild shot in the dark which town it was filmed in ? Yep - Newcastle. Let no man say the Beeb is obsessed with stereotypes. The actual report was a perfect example of the 'gorillas in the mist' style Beeb reporters adopt every time they pass the Watford Gap, combined with the aforementioned sermonising, and no little humbuggery. The voice-over informed us that the ladies had spent over £100 on booze - no, actually they'd spent £20 on booze and £80 on tax. Hearing a whiny Liberal complain that people are spending too much on booze when it's people like him who have driven prices up in the first place is like hearing the guy who killed his parents lay claim to the sympathy of the court because he's an orphan.

Or will that be too scary?

So, Kerry...

...why the long face?

Fiddling about

Libby Purves in the Times:

LAST YEAR, learned Government lawyers advised ministers that “as members of the public, burglars have the right to be protected from violent householders”. How sapient! We lurk like spiders, we householders, luring simple-hearted burglars to their doom! A thief, slipping through a window wide awake and well prepared, must be given all possible protection against a sleepy individual in pyjamas clutching some ludicrous approximation to a weapon. A fit, determined, callous burglar needs saving from the menace of a poor drowsy Joe terrified for his sleeping children. Violent householders: the modern menace!

Oh, all right, I suppose there may be a few real vigilantes: perverted individuals who actually hope to kill. But not many. By and large, people want a quiet life. Burglars, on the other hand, presumably do not. It is a naturally dangerous activity. We do not rule that drunken drivers need protecting from brick walls, or worry about bank robbers jarring their backs when the getaway car accelerates. If you prod a sleeping dog it will snap; stick your hand in a fire and get burnt; frighten somebody in his own home and he might lash out. If your victim happens to be lucky, or strong, you could be badly hurt. Well, hard luck. When you forced that window, you forfeited your right not to be thumped.

Indeed, Libby Purves states that the Home Secretary, David Blunkett has indicated that he is open to suggestions about rewording the law which is very magnanimous of him but I wouldn’t hold your breath that anything significant will come of it because the problem is not the wording, it’s the intent.

The state wants to ensure that householders do not use a level of force that is disproportionate to the level of threat that the householder is under and that is pretty much what the law itself says. No amount of jigging with the words will make the current meaning any clearer and there is absolutely no way that they will be able to write in the definition of reasonable force. Consequently, householders will remain confused and burglars will remain emboldened.

A change in intent is what is required and, let’s face it, the bit that needs to change if anything changes at all is the intent to protect the burglar.

Anything else is just fiddling about.

Man who took gun for protection found not guilty

Astonishing, victory for common sense/law.

What would you have done?

This is an interesting development. It looks like a number of firearms officers have either handed in their weapons or are considering doing so after two officers were suspended for shooting a man carrying a table leg in a plastic bag.

Readers in the US might be scratching their heads about now but, I believe, in the UK officers volunteer for firearms training and duty and, consequently, can choose to give up the roll (someone please correct me if I am wrong on this one).

Now, from what I have read in the news and seen in various broadcasts we know that the police had already been informed by a member of the public, incorrectly as it turns out, that the item in the plastic bag was a shotgun and that the officers shot the man dead because they thought that their lives were in danger.

However, what I have not heard very much about is why those officers thought that they were in mortal danger. A clue to something told to me by a firearms licensing officer some time back appears in the BBC report linked to above:

One of the two officers, Pc Kevin Fagan, told the jury he was convinced he was "looking down the barrel of a shotgun".

I have to say that if those were the circumstances I can understand the frustration of the officers who are now refusing firearms duties.

The rise of the machines

Natalie points us to an an interesting conversation between man and machine. Looks like fun:

Me: Hello there jabberwacky.
Jabberwacky: Hello there George.
Me: I'm not George. My name is John.
Jabberwacky: Hi John. My name is Matt.
Me: Tell me Matt, what do you think about the EU constitution?
Jabberwacky: I think they are not that good.
Me: I agree.
Jabberwacky: It's good to know that we share the same opinion on that.

The US election

Either way, us in old Blighty lose. If Kerry wins the BBC will be insufferable, what with all the gushing. If Bush wins the BBC will go all rabid on us, with the frothing and the rage.

This is the way the BBC should cover the results.

Now to the US elections. _____ won. Here’s the weather.

RENUNCIATION OF CITIZENSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Now this post over at Attempting Escape introduces us to the fine idea of renouncing ones EU citizenship. What a spiffing idea and a great way to really annoy Europhile MP's and their like.

Another media muffin roasted

Blow the fire and make the toast,
Put the muffins on to roast,
Who makes Polly scream the most?
That wicked Scott B.