Useful idiots

This is one of those stories that is both astonishing and "hardly surprising" all at the same time.

I have recently arrived home, in Leeds, from work to be confronted by two Police Officers, who according to neighbours have been calling back and forth most of the day and at one point sat outside my door for over an hour during which time a number of neighbours were quizzed as to my whereabouts and "what sort of person I am".Many of whom thought that perhaps I had commited some heinous crime.

...

I have flown the National flag of England on my property for the past two years since we bought this house, and Ihave been told, in no uncertain terms, that I risk arrest if I continue to do so.

It appears that someone who walked past my house over the weekend has reported that she finds seing the National Flag of this Country "uncomfortable" and has surmised that I am clearly a Racist and should be stopped from doing so.

One of the many problems, as I see it, with the modern police force is that they are allowing themselves to be used as tools of harassment. Their rules probably deny them any reasonable room for flexibility. The correct response to the complainant should have been "madam, to feel in some way intimidated by the national flag of the country you are living in indicates a significant failure on you part to integrate. I will not allow myself to be used as a tool for your sensibilities in this case."

Via Gareth.

Blogopheric Amber Alert

Any US readers out there with a blog please help spread the word about Jordan.

I guess it will also help if all blogs, regardless of location, help to spread this.

Good luck to you and yours Kim.

Via Scott.

Hold the front page

Hehe, via Voice of the Future comes this.

Not even on his radar

This quote of Gordon Brown's in the Scotsman is very bad news:

"I will in the next year visit every region and nation of our country. With you I want to listen, hear and learn, to discuss the economic, social and constitutional changes we need to build for the future"

When he talks about the regions in this context he means the carved up bits of England. For him to have the confidence to deliver this quote in a speech at the Labour conference means that the cause against the regionalisation of England, and the concerns that many of the English have, is not even on his radar.

The same can be said of the case for an English parliament.

If he had any fear over these issues and how they might affect any future term as prime-minister he would not have said what he did.

It's very bad news indeed.

We are failing to make our case to the wider population in England.

RAF Museum

A few more closeups from the RAF Museum, Hendon, London.

One small step

Nice:

This morning the Cross of St. George had been hoist on the flagpole in place of the EU flag.

Web Engine

I took this at a nearby weir. This is part of the machinery that controls the flow of water.

View larger image

Farewell Sport England, you had your chance and blew it

Sport England have failed to make the case for sport on the national level. They have made what could be a fatal mistake on their part. While the sports councils of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been plying their trade proactively for their respective nations, similar support for sport at the national level in England has been a confusing affair.

The Tour of Britain, as readers are no doubt aware, was a distinctly sordid affair. It lacked an English team, which is a situation that the other nations of Britain could never entertain for their own sportsmen and women. These competitors were proud to enter the tournament and their sports organisations supported them. After all, it is part of their roll to do so. Not so with Sport England, who I can only assume found it a rather daunting task to support a national team who they considered would not be competitive either individually or collectively. They argued that [a]n England team that is not competitive would have limited impact on the sport, and potentially be detrimental.

That is a spectacular failure to grasp the very essence of why many people compete. How many times have we been told by an athlete how great it was to represent their nation? It’s fair enough to say that British athletes often mean Britain when they say this (which is after all what they are representing in most cases) but in a competition of nations within the Union what does being forced to represent the whole of the Union whilst other competitors are permitted to represent their home nations actually mean to an athlete? If it means nothing then this only highlights Sport England’s ‘magnificent’ failure.

The result of this bland performance by Sport England is beginning to surface:

Moynihan and Hoey argue for a one-stop funding agency to be called the Sports Foundation, which would be part of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport and chaired by the Secretary of State. All the governing bodies of sport in this country would go to that one source for funding, replacing the jungle of organisations that exists at present.

This would mean the end of UK Sport and Sport England, along with their regional English structures. But neither Hoey nor Moynihan wants the sports councils of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be disbanded.

Of course, they may well argue about not having influence over the organisations of devolved nations but we all know that any attempt to dissolve these other bodies would be met with a nationalist whirlwind that no politician would be prepared to weather.

This cannot be said of England. The lacklustre efforts by Sport England to proudly and adamantly express and support actual national sport has left them in a very weak position. There can be no whirlwind. Indeed, on quite possibly the very eve of loosing their jobs they have no moral authority to do anything other than look at their feet and whistle.

How could they argue the case for England when they have, to all intents and purposes, been part of the machinery for British sport to the detriment of the nation of England? After all, the reorganisation should, ethically, mean nothing to them.

They failed to make the case. They failed to inject that nationalistic element into their support for sport that could and probably would have warded off any attempt at a ‘hostile takeover’. They are to be fractured and absorbed into a UK sporting body and those in the takeover boardroom know that there will be little or no trouble. They could never say this about the sporting bodies of other component nations.

And what of England? Well, if this absorption goes ahead the task of building an honest to goodness national sports body will be impossible. With English consciousness on the rise it would have been an uphill struggle to change the mindset of our national bodies. A struggle but probably not impossible. At least they had the right name. If this osmosis of Sport England into the murky waters of a wider agency goes ahead we should probably all go home to lie in our beds and think of England.

Remember her?

Yasmin, who are you really?

Peter Briffa calls Yasmin Alibhai-Brown the Yazzmonster. It has more letters in it than the word paranoid but less than the more risqué title of Guardian columnist. A happy compromise I suppose.

She’s a difficult woman to understand but that may well be as a result of prejudice. You see equality cuts many ways. If one were to, say, speak up for the rights of one particular racial group then you would expect that those same rights should be extended to all racial groups. For instance, thou shall not prescribe a particular kind of wicked behaviour to a particular racial group. It makes sense. All people have the right to go through their daily lives without this kind of prejudice forced upon them. Don’t they? Don’t they?

Let’s ask Dr. Gabb.

Hello everybody.

Hello Dr. Gabb

I once questioned Yasmin, here’s what she said::

"Yasmin, are you saying that the white majority in this country is so seething with hatred and discontent that it is only restrained by law from rising up and tearing all the ethnic minorities to pieces?"

Her answer was yes, though she seemed to think better of this answer immediately after. But she did not take the invitation to deny that the white population was only kept in line by criminal laws to restrain them from attacking ethnic minorities. When Dr Gabb asked if she seriously believed he wanted to murder her, his microphone was turned off and he was "released" from his engagement with 20 minutes of discussion still to run.

Strange way of thinking eh? Like I said, a difficult woman to understand. She fights against prejudice with prejudice. What you gain in chips you loose in beans. We really should have both.

Mr. Briffa brings us further news on the monster herself:

In February last year David Goodhart wrote an essay about diversity. As he puts it:

"All hell broke loose. I was accused of ‘nice racism’ by Trevor Phillips, ‘ignorant scapegoating’ by Sukhvinder Stubbs and people even rang my wife to ask what it was like living with the new Enoch Powell".

…

"The Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, whom I had once counted as a friend, was the most distraught and irrational. She refused to look at the essay when I asked her for comments before publishing it and then attacked me personally with barely a glance at the argument in several of her newspaper columns. She refuses to give up. This year at the Edinburgh book festival she told 300 people that I had once said to her at a Christmas party, ‘Don’t you think there are too many people like you here?’ This is pure invention.

I don’t know what her problem is I really don’t. Can it really be paranoia as Peter Briffa suggests?

Oh cripes, not the English again

Ok, time to be honest here. Who of you out there actually come across this kind of attitude to the Welsh?

After a millennium and a half of putting up with Wales, the English attitude towards the Welsh remains one of irritation interrupted by bouts of insult. Abuse of the national neighbours is a familiar story - the Germans do it to the Poles, Czechs think the Slovaks are dozy and the Greeks find the Bulgars dodgy.

The irritating thing about Wales - for the English - is the sheer persistence of the linguistic difference. We do, it is true, assimilate well, which is why, per capita, few countries have produced so many actors as Wales. English liberty is really the freedom to imitate the English - which then gives the English the right to mock the assimilated.

Erm, it's not even on my radar.

Via Nicholas .

Fear the truth!

Blair's fashion police at work:

Police arrested a 20-year-old gamekeeper for wearing a “Bollocks to Blair” T-shirt at a game fair last weekend.

Now stop banging on, we're busy

Former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing has criticised the UK for achieving "very little" so far in its presidency of the European Union.

Hello, all our state operators are busy working on things of national importance right now. Your call has been prioritised. There are currently 1,379 callers before you in the queue. Please press 1 to leave a message.

New blog on the block

No idea who this new blogger is but he goes under the name of The Gun Guy.

A very English protest

A bit more on Sir Ian Blair, his troops and their extra special employers over at The First Post (via Parliament Protest):

Meanwhile, it seems the Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, is keen to have a memento of a lovely Sunday, which was no doubt why his emissary, a police photographer, took pictures of all the picnickers.

Dredd without the Judge

Sir Ian Blair is a dangerous man and should be sacked:

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said "modernisation" of the force should be carried forward by introducing "an escalator of powers" for the dispensing of instant justice.

If someone with a firearms or shotgun certificate spouted such nonsense they would probably have their certificate withdrawn and their firearms taken away. "I believe that certain people in society have the right to dispense instant justice without any of this inconvenient involvement of law courts, judges and magistrates and the like.". Why? Because they would be displaying a serious lack of judgement and a propensity to be a danger to the public. Make no mistake, instant justice handed out by a state police force is a danger to the public.

Consider the whole debate on what a householder can and cannot do when confronted by a home intruder. The police expect the householder to only respond to direct bodily threat and then only up to the point where the householder acts to protect themselves from injury.

If the householder were to, say, hit the burglar he or she would have a great deal of explaining to do and if it turned out that the punch was thrown to deter the burglar from carrying the TV out through the window the householder would find themselves on the wrong side of a courtroom debate.

The same would happen if the householder happened to lock up the burglar in a secure room in the house. The police would prefer that you would use the room to lock yourself up and would be more than happy to charge you at the behest of the intruder with whatever they can find.

It's not for the householder to dispense justice in his or her own home.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the 'important' people in the police force think that their men and women are significantly different from the rest of us and should be seen as different in law. Super citizens.

RAF Museum

Here are another couple of images from the recent trip to the RAF Museum along with some of the text at the display. The Rolls Royce Avon Mk203 Turbojet:

"After a major re-design in 1950 a new and very different Avon emerged which led to the 200 series, including the RA.28 Avon Mk203 shown here. This particular engine type was used in the Hunter F6, later Valiants and Canberra PR9 as well as the World speed record-breaking Fairey FD2. However, Avon production was not confined to aircraft use: the industrial and marine division of Rolls Royce successfully developed the engine for electricity generation, gas and oil pumping. More have been sold for these uses than any other gas turbine."

"In 1983 an Avon aero-engine was fitted into a specially designed car for an attempt on the World land seed record. On 4 October 1983 the car, Thrust 2, was driven by Richard Noble to a new record of 633.468mph at Blackrock in the United States."

Oooo, we've been naughty

The UK is to be reprimanded after breaching the European Union's (EU) stability pact

Oh fuck off.

ARRSE!

I seem to be getting a lot of hits from the British Army Rumour Service, or ARRSE as they are more, erm, affectionaly known. Incoming from their forums. If any of you ARRSE’s (please don’t kill me) out there know why drop me a line. My ears are burning.

Where is the off switch?

What would be the next step, I wonder, in a country that is already seeking to allow the police to arrest and detain individuals for significant lengths of time without affording them the luxury of a proper trial?

What would be the next step in a country where the police are seen as being increasingly political in their actions and motivations? I mean, they already seem to have excessive representation when it comes to deciding what new legislation is required, a situation that is already beginning to motivate some politicians into making statements. The ”police don't run the country” they say. We know that but do they?

What would be the next step, do you think, in a country where the police seem to get away with restraining protesters via the use of approved punches to the face when the subjects they are supposed to be protecting have no recourse to such approved methods?

What would be the next step in a country that seeks to impose compulsory ID cards on all of its population at huge cost when there are countless better ways of spending the billions of our money that such a scheme will require?

What would be the next step in a country whose government has no effective political opposition?

Troops on the streets? Yeah, why not?

We are living under special circumstances at the moment but they will not last forever. After victory, which will come as sure as eggs is eggs in the coming years, will we see all of these special requirements repealed and withdrawn?

I very much doubt it.

You see, even though we know these are ‘interesting times’ there has been no official government declaration of the fact. No specific Act of Parliament around which all these infringements of our civil liberties are structured, such as a declaration of war or some such. No bargain with the people. There is no single event and no single legal article upon which we can say “right, that’s done with then, now we can get rid of this framework that was created to deal with these special times”.

This is the single most troubling issue for me in this war on terror. The government adds to its machinery of power stating that it is necessary for our own good during this distressful period. They do so without offering us any kind of off switch.

And that is crucial, for without one these the new powers for the powerful will never be reversed.

Clowns to the Left of me jokers to the Right

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to define my place on the left/centre/right scale. You see growing up I was a big Thatcher supporter and, until recent times, always voted Tory. My friends and family always considered me somewhat to the right of Peter Hitchens and I always felt happy with this categorisation. After all I was more often than not right, and they were more often than not wrong. However times have changed:

The Right sees single mothers as immoral and slobby products of bad neighbourhoods.

I have never subscribed to this type of thinking. Single mothers are no more than that, single mothers, and to make a judgement about their morality is too imply that one is clairvoyant. I am many things but clairvoyant is not one of them.

Alice Miles makes some interesting points in her article but I simply can’t bring myself to engage with them.

She continues:

I prefer the Right’s look of embarrassment when they find I am a single mother to the Left’s smile of sympathy, but perhaps that’s because I don’t need their money. I want to tell them how much fun it is, and how easy, and how much easier and more fun it is for me than for many married couples, because raising children within a marriage often looks like hell.

Well that’s sorted it. I can’t be on the right. I felt not a single tinge of embarrassment when I found out that Alice is a single mother.

Oh my God. I’m a lefty. Where’s the yoghurt?

Commission on Britishness

Via Blimpish we notice this national one day conference hosted by HM Treasury:

How 'British' do we feel? What do we mean by 'Britishness'?

These questions are increasingly important in defining a shared purpose across all of our society. The strength of our communities, the way we understand diversity, the vigour of our public services and our commercial competitiveness all rest on a sense of what ‘Britishness’ is and how it sets shared goals

This national one-day conference, hosted by HM Treasury, will launch the first ‘Commission on Britishness’. It will hear from leading figures as to the future of a multi-faith, multi-ethnic Britain, and , delegates will also have the opportunity to discuss the benefits and impacts of the Government’s programme of devolution on Britishness [my emphasis].

I wonder if anyone from the CEP would be interested in booking a seat.

Ships

A photograph of some of the ships that arrived as part of this game. The ship in the foreground is the Titan which is, apparently, quite a capable ship when played properly. My boy sunk it with one of his disgracefully underpowered pirate vessels

I reduced the overall brightness of the image and filtered it through a 'gothic' blur filter.

Another image - Shutters

This one I took on my way to work as I passed an old barn local to me. I've passed it many hundreds of times over the years and have watched the thing slowly degrade. The texture of the peeling paint is the attraction of the photograph for me though, once again, it's a pleasure that you are denied as a consequence of the small size published here.

Another image - Orchid

Taken on the spur of the moment at my parents’ house a few weekends back. The orchid, a moving in present now beginning to fade, was photographed and framed so that it can be hung when the real thing finally goes the way of the Dodo.

Today's image

Here's another image from the D70. Local farm taken at about 7am as RAW then passed through Raw Shooter to increase saturation, reduce exposure, increase fill light and shadow contrast. It's hard to see the overall effect on such a small version of the image but when I look at it it makes me think, oh bugger, better get out of here.

Vincent Cable MP

Apparently Vincent Cable's roll could be cruicial to the LibDem party. Crucial it is, but not in a good way.

Of course, it won't bother him one little bit that he has offended a bunch of people he's never met just because they want equality. You see, it's the wrong kind of equality they are after.

Come join the party

This man should join this club.

Now if we can only get DumbJon to finally crack.

How dare you English!

Oh dear, I missed this one from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian:

Yesterday's [the ashes] victory was laboriously attributed to "England". The flag of Saint George waved everywhere over its celebrations. This was as absurd as that "England's" World Cup team should be beaten by Northern Ireland, and that what is really Britain must face the world explicitly to the exclusion of Scotland and Wales.

Americans do not stage a knockout competition to decide which state should represent it abroad. Bavarians and Catalans, with far more autonomy than Wales or Scotland, do not exclude themselves from their national teams. British cricket has always respected the United Kingdom, and even its governors have felt obliged to add Wales to their formal title. For goodness sake wave the union jack and let this glorious game belong to the nation as a whole.

Laboriously attributed to England? Holy smokes, the English can’t even win a sporting event without the haters coming out of the closet. That’s how bad things have got. How dare the English wave their dirty flags in the very faces of those poor innocent bystanders?

Jenkins reveals himself as a Unionist of the worst kind; the kind that loves the Union in spite of England.

Via Nicholas at British Nationalists in Wales WATCH who has this message for Jenkins:

Fetch me a bucket - the Brit Nat just can't stop! Which nation? Wave the union jack - is this some kind of joke? Get over it Jenkins. Britian is on its way out. The English cricket team are rightly proud of their win. Let the English celebrate it. Stop stuffing your British Nationalism down the throats of liberal-minded English and Welsh people, and why not catch up on some international politics whilst your at it.

It’s an interesting tactic that Jenkins employs to try and smooth over the cracks appearing in the Union. Laborious condescension and absurd demands for the Unionisation of the English cricket team.

A national what now?

What does it mean when a politician says that he will not modify government policy until there has been a national debate? No honestly, what does it mean?

Beer and a day off, what’s not to like?

We all know that St. George is a little cross over the lack of recognition he has been getting of late. Everyone has been ignoring him for donkey’s years and, little by little, he’s been getting more and more depressed. Why not try and cheer the old man up a little and sign this petition being run by Wells brewery (via Gav).

Parliament protest

I have a great deal of respect for people who do this week in, week out. Or even once.

Labour's Raging Bull

Via Neil Herron:

So many people are using the "Bill of Rights defence" to justify non-payment of automatic penalties - HM Customs has backed down more than once over refusal to pay surcharges for late VAT returns - that, according to Birmingham city council last week, Government lawyers are considering emergency legislation to override the Bill of Rights.

No mandate to do that is forthcoming from this direction.

How about the rest of you little people?

This litterally is about the scales of justice:

When those Sunderland officials seized Mr Thoburn's scales in 2000, they can little have guessed what a constitutional can of worms they were about to open.

The rising levels of disaffection

For the past eight months a set of figures has been working a hole in my mind. On April 16th New Politics published a letter from a famous political pundit saying that many of the worlds democracies “are not shrinking but in fact are growing…87% of democratic nations studied by the World Democracy Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland have been growing since 1980”. His letter was instantly taken up by the usual deniers and it began to worry me that a wrong and dangerous message was spreading like wildfire faster that the forces of realism and education could stamp them out.

Academics, political scientists, historical statistics and observation all prove without a shadow of doubt that democracy is in decline. More to the point the people, and particularly the poor and vulnerable, all know the truth. The truth that if we do not finally get a grip and reduce the emissions coming from the many thousands of politicians across the globe, the Worlds very existence will be in danger.

The concentration of disaffection in our atmosphere is growing rapidly year on year, a situation not helped by the greedy and wealthy who insist on expounding upon the subject of politics whenever the opportunity arises. It’s not necessary and the cost of this self indulgence will be borne by future generations.

The worst offenders, the very exemplar of the selfish and corrupt abusers of our natural resources of time and reason are the unbalanced devolutionists. The emissions these individuals are responsible for directly increase the disaffection concentration in the air we breathe to the extent that the instances of disaffection, especially among the young and the elderly, are increasing on a virtually instantaneous basis.

Of course the deniers are always there, chipping away, talking about more powers for this Assembly, more law by that Parliament and they do so without shame and in the open air. It’s good for us, they declare, but not good for everyone. And there! Another disaffected youth is created.

Figures show, and this is undeniable, that at the current rate of disaffection Great Britain will look like this within fifty years:

Is that what we want for our children? Well, is it?

It’s just not cricket

Some people are just dipped in confusion at birth.

Peter Briffa highlights an example of such a person in the form of Yasmin Alibhai Brown who tries, and fails, to spin the prospect (and eventual fact) of English success in the Ashes into something akin to crapness:

If the cricket is won, many more white Britons will give up on Britain and take refuge in England

Eh? The Cricket? Responsible for turning Unionists into English Nationalists?

“Look son, we’ve won the cricket. Burn all the Union Flags in the house.”

It’s not even remotely plausible as a reason for denouncing the Union and to suggest that it is reveals something very strange about Brown’s opinion of Britons. Well, not just Britons but the usual suspects, you know, the English ones.

What is it about the English that forces her into such commentary? Why does devolution in Scotland and in Wales not fill her with the dread that she so obviously feels about the dilution of the Union or a rise in English Nationalism. Devolution is a far bigger threat to the long term health of the Union than the cricket. Is it because those issues lack a certain, oh I don’t know, Englishness.

What’s the word I am looking for?……….Youbetcha!

The fact that devolution has completely ignored the nation of England is a far more believable reason for a gradual rise in English Nationalism than a win at a sporting event.

Alarmingly, she continues:

But this is more than just cricket I sense. It is the agony and ecstasy of Englishness, today in resurgence after years of confusion and surliness. From Orwell to Tebbitt, cricket has been used as a metaphor for English nationalism.

Actually Yasmin, cricket has been used as a metaphor for fairness and balance. Your attitude simply isn’t cricket.

After the mandatory cooldown period I have written the following email to the columnist:

Dear Yasmin,

I am assuming that by making that comment you have a keen desire to see white English keep true to Britain rather than decry the Union in favor of England.

There are a number of issues I would like to take up with you if you can spare the time.

Firstly I don't really see the point you are trying to make by bringing colour into the issue. I am of Greek and Italian descent and quite, quite brown. Indeed it is very likely that I do not have a drop of Anglo Saxon blood in me though I was fortunate enough to be born in London and raised entirely in England.

Why would I be immune from an incentive to 'take refuge in England' when, say, my perfectly lily white neighbour would not be? It's an interesting point I think because it seems to me that you are implying a strong correlation between colour and certain behaviour. How does this differ from stereotyping to the lowest common denominator of a particular ethnic group? For instance, it has been some time since I have seen anyone in the press seek to tarnish black Britons with the belief and behaviour of the supporters of mostly forgotten Black Power movements.

Of more importance, however, is the real crux of the matter. The great local issue of the day and quite possibly the next few decades or so. The real pressure on Britain, the thing that has and is likely to continue to fragment those that once considered themselves as British into English Nationalism, is the question of the unbalanced approach to devolution that this government has taken.

Many Britons have been more than happy to move along through life with little concern regarding the Union but knowing that it effectively consist of a number of nations all generally getting along together rather happily. Devolution has suddenly changed all that because, frankly, people are very slowly beginning to notice that the nation of England has been left out of the deal struck with other nations.

Indeed, the language coming from our leaders has raised the temperature rather than cooled it what with talk about Scotland being different from England because Scotland "is a nation in its own right". The English are suddenly realising that their Nation doesn't exist in any real political terms.

There is great inequality in Britain at present. A political inequality which can only increase the number of people in England who, in your language, would seek to take refuge in England.

That is the real danger to the Union and, I fear, a fragmented and declining Britain will be the inevitable result unless the asymmetry is addressed on a National level.

Write about that and I'll invite you round for tea.

PS. Don't talk Regional Assemblies, they do not represent politics on a National level and, for instance, could have done nothing to address the issue of Student top up fees.

Sincerely,

I’m off clubbing

Wow, I’ve received an invite to dine at the Carlton Club to commemorate Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. I’ve heard of the place but not really paid it much attention but one can tell a great deal from its web site. For instance the dress code:

In exceptionally hot weather the Secretary, or in his absence the senior member of staff on duty, may allow gentlemen to remove their jackets in the Wellington Room only.

Another interesting thing about the club are the membership rules::

The Rules of the Club state that only persons of full age who support the Conservative Party shall be eligible for membership.

Erm.

Iain Duncan Smith refused membership to the club when it was offered to him on the grounds that it refuses equal access to women.

EU gets bullish…again

How can this be good for democracy?:

For the first time in its 53-year existence, the European Court of Justice has given the Commission in Brussels the power to impose criminal sanctions. In a landmark ruling that is as ominous as it is deluded, the Luxembourg-based court yesterday overruled the governments of EU member states, removing from them the sole right to impose their own penalties on people or companies breaking the law, and giving the unelected EU Commission an unprecedented role in the administration of criminal justice.

I mean, come on. This is getting a little too serious for comfort. Once every 4 or 5 years we get to vote for a bunch of loonies to rule over us and that is our only real window of opportunity to keep the loonies from overrunning the asylum. We don’t even get that with these Empire building fantasists at the EU Commission.

RAF Museum 2005

Another picture of the Bristol Mercury:

Finally

A use for cats. Catalytic converter, hehehe, it’s got to be a joke right?

Village life

If you don’t read JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary you are missing out. Read this followed by this if you don’t believe me.

BBC regional fantasy

Dear thinkofengland@bbc.co.uk:

By organising your "think of England" web site into a regional affair you are actually supporting a political agenda. If you wish to break down England into areas you should be using traditional boundaries such as shires, though I see no reason why England should not be considered a whole.

It is tragic that the BBC has become so overtly political, particularly when the chosen agenda may ultimately prevent England from benefiting from devolution at the national level.

You are pandering to the governments regional agenda and it is a disgrace.

A disgrace that I am forced to pay for.

Mark takes me to task over this posting inviting me to get a grip and he's right:

I'm not usually one for defending the BBC, but that map you've linked to on that "think of England" page relates to their broadcasting regions as used for the local news and such like that they've used for many years and bear no co-releation to the EU regions.

My bad. My red face. Sorry BBC.

Dear little thing offended by TV programme about cars

Protester Denise Lock said Mr Clarkson "makes a living out of offending people".

Well Denise, he’s not made a penny out of me.

Everyone gets their fifteen minutes of being a terrorist

You see, this is the problem with legislation built by people who don’t know very much about making law. The Terrorism Act of 2000, taken at its word, strongly suggests that fuel protesters, and anyone who justifies or condones their behaviour, are terrorists.

Actually, my presumption that the Act is poorly designed might not actually be true. It may well have been the governments intention to word the act in such a way that allows them to pick and choose who the terrorists are from day to day.

Petitions

Petitions, petitions. Here’s one that you might want to sign. If you win you get your own Parliament which means your country suddenly pops back into existence again. Bargain!

Here’s another. If you win this one it means that you loose a Parliament but get to keep your country. Wow!

Imagine if there’s a rollover next week!

I’m not a big fan of petitions myself but that’s only because I’ve signed a few and nothing ever comes of it. However, once they have been set up it can be quite important to get the number of signatories up as this removes the opportunity for the detractors to call the whole thing a failure.

So sign, sign, sign.

RAF Museum 2005

Another up close and personal image. This time of a Fiat CR42 Falco.

RAF Museum 2005

Yesterday, the England Project family and friends paid another visit to the RAF museum at Hendon, London. Not our first visit but the place is always worth seeing again. Unfortunately this time the bomber hall was closed; I think they are dismantling a vulcan so that it can be loaned to another museum somewhere.

Anyhow, this time I decided to get close up and personal with the exhibits and stuck the lens of my D70 where most lenses are too scared to go.

Here's an example of the kind of thing, this one of a Napier Gazelle helicopter engine:

And here's another, this time of a Bristol Mercury:

Now these are what I call dirty pictures and there's plenty more where they came from.

Land of crappy MSM commentators

Look! There! A swarm of racist British Nationalists!:

It's just a party, I hear you say. Well, fine, hold it somewhere else, maybe at the headquarters of the British National Party”

Their true crime however is not racism but the fact that some of them take some kind of pride in waving the Union flag at a distinctly British event. Shock followed by horror, but only at the Observer. The flag itself has lost a certain amount of its lustre with me over the past year or so but at least my reasons (the Union does not offer enough equality for its member nations at present) have foundation. The prejudice that does exist comes not from the flag waving folk at the proms but, instead, from the author of the piece.

As England Expects says:

The only prejudice, the only bigotry, the only hate about the whole event is in the tiny petty, unpleasant and scabrous minds of the likes of Holden

For shame sir.

Breath deeply and understand that what you desire is nothing less than failed self hate. We are not interested and we wish you only succour for your sadness.

Offensive? Why? How?

This is a disgrace:

Advisers appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims.

Of course, I suspect that the fact that this plan will be offensive to different demographics makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

They must be joking right? Right?

Badges of our youth

Eric the Unread shows us some of the badges of his youth. It's a terrible idea that can only lead to embarrassment so why not join in, I thought.

Please note that the I am 21 badge was in the same box as the other badges. It in no way indicates my age at the time that any of the depicted badges were worn. Ahem.

Quote of the day

On low turnout during elections:

"Is it surprising that turnout is generally falling, when the outcome of elections does not represent what people really want?" - Peter Cranie.

Zadie Smith commentary

England disgusting.

Of course we must have some sympathy for Zadie's position. She is a bit of a hottie which always impresses. In truth she is only reiterating what a great many people have been saying for a while (though not limiting it to just England as Zadie does). It's the great social breakdown and lack of respect thing. I'm not sure I get her "money everywhere" issue but there you go.

However, the good news is that not all people in England can be so easily judged. You see people are far more than just their cover as I am sure Zadie herself will be all to keen to admit:

But Zadie? Well Zadie mopes. She frowns. She sulks. She shuns eye contact. And we’re not the first to notice it. Her shyness gives her a bad reputation, she tells us. In the past, signings have gone badly wrong, a lack of small talk with bookshop clerks the problem. Her publisher received complaints: Zadie Smith is rude, disgusting, anti-social. What did they expect, she asks us, a chat show host?

No Zadie. Perhaps a social commentator instead?

Vincent Cable MP (Liberal Democrat)

This post at the CEP has prompted me to mail Vincent Cable MP (Liberal Democrat - Shadow Chancellor) regarding his alleged quote in this article:

"The threat to harmonious social relations in Britain comes from those who insist that multiple identity is not possible: white supremacists, English nationalists, Islamic fundamentalists.

This is the opposition and they have to be confronted. An important element in that confrontation is the assertion of a sense of Britishness."

It is perfectly possible to be an English Nationalist without any reference to multiculturalism and multiple identity. His accusation is insulting and his grouping of English Nationalists along side white supremacists and Islamic fundamentalists , though a good trick to imply a certain sordidness about nationalism that doesn't exist, is a disgrace.

DumbJon comments:

Here, we have a group of people creating mayhem across the globe, and Vincent Cable classes them with people who support a solution to the West Lothian question he disagrees with ? But, of course! This is the world view of the modern Liberal in a nutshell, a childish tautology whereby the Right is evil, and everyone who's evil is on the Right.

Actions and words, are our liberties actually being 'protected'?

This, I suspect, is a disgrace:

"Before they could even protest about our civil liberties being eroded they were arrested.

"It is shocking that we could not have a peaceful protest in a peaceful country but this is what these ministers want."

The government at least pretends to want our support for their actions on ID cards etc. They assure us that our liberties are actually being protected by their initiatives. Then their agents behave like this.

Banning things is lazy and is not a solution

This is exactly right and it is why the problem will always be so accute.

There's a difference

This is a beautiful picture and this is a picture of something beautiful.

Campaign falls at first hurdle

I tried to set up the following pledge at PlegdeBank:

"I will stick my fingers in my ears and go "la la la" whenever I hear a politician speak but only if 60,000,000 other people will too."

— John, traveller of the highway of disaffection

Deadline to sign up by: 10th October 2005

More details
Dear Lord, someone please make them stop.

Unfortunately their system will not let me enter more than 100 people in my target. Am I really being that unrealistic?

Nailed like a cheap whore in a seedy motel

What Clarke fails to realise is that his is the dictum of "power before principles", which is what is turning people off politics. It is the reason why so many politicians are regarded with the utmost contempt. And it is exactly the reason why Clarke would make a disastrous leader of the Conservative Party - Richard at EU Referendum.

Late to the party is fine and dandy. Turning up with a bottle of Blue Nun is not

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. The Apple iPod is an ok device made special by good design (second only to iRiver so well done Apple). The Apple Shuffle is a crap device made special by the original iPod being quite good. Like an audience watching a good comedian, his last joke was a cracker allowing him to ride out the crap joke he just told because the audience is on his side and still happy. They laugh for him.

Now Apple have released the Rokr, a mobile phone that can play up to 100 tunes randomly.

The audience falls silent (or they would do if they weren't so love struck).

Arrrrrrr, looks interesting

What game is this? Anyone know?

Perhaps it is this one.

Green shopping

Holy smokes! A shopping guide just for Guardian readers!.

Actually, it looks like a good blog but I am weak and couldn't resist.