Labour loves the TUC, whilst the rest of just wished they got a room

David Cameron must be so happy that his opponents are so comprehensibly stupid. Milliband speaks at the TUC rally and Balls has the balls to propose that there is another way even though they planned to HALVE the deficit in this parliament with their proposals. In the meantime of course the violent element of the TUC, the anarchist if you will, are attacking the police and the logical discourse is to connect them with Labour. Labour will of course condemn any form of violence, lefties always do (yet look at any major conflict in the past century and see how many were caused as a direct result of left-wing ideology; and I dare you mention the nazis at your own peril), but the fact remains that they willingly associated themselves with a violent demonstration that had a significant element of destruction embedded within.

Never get involved with trade unions.

My fellow blogger and equally nerdy political geek Dizzy has succinctly wound up the matter.

In the meantime I am going to continue to read my book called 'All you need to know about the city' by Stoakes. All-in-all fuck you, you tax-eating, good for nothing lefty-wankers.

(Just to round-off with some irony; Marx's seminal work was called 'Das Capital' and it spans three volumes).

An addendum, I am going to write this from my perspective as a proper student once more. Most people in my class have got internships this summer with some very large companies and a lot of banks. Some have already landed their first permanent job offers. It would be fair to say, arrogantly of course (but you must surely be used to that by now), that the majority of my class will be net contributors to society via the extortionate amount of tax the government already makes us pay. But let me ask you this; do you think we will stick around forever and wait around for these tax rises to remove every hard-earned penny we have? Do you think I am going to work 80 hours a week in a bank just so that I can see my money being spent on £197bn worth of a British well fare state? The answer is no, I will leave and take my skills with me and so will others, and we wont return until the tax regime is more favourable. Where we get to keep the majority of our earnings. Why the flaming fuck should the government be allowed to take 50% of my money just because it happens to be above some arbitrary threshold, a threshold which they themselves could never aspire to reach because they have studied unproductive subjects like english and history. Do not get me wrong we need writers, historians and artists, but why is it so wrong to start a company and make money from that venture? Why is it wrong to work hard and see your ideas come to fruition? Why is it wrong to be clever and use your talent in a company (or, shock and horror, in a bank!)?

Who is going to fund your socialist shit hole once we are gone?

Daniel Hannan is spot on as well.

Labour, EU and the Independent - what the flunk?

Yeah I am as confused as you are.

John McTernan

John McTernan; who is that you might ask? Well, you would be right in asking that question. He is a very pointless person in my opinion, who blogs for the Telegraph. Now if you go to the link that I have provided you will find a short synopsis about Mr. McTernan. It says

John McTernan is a commentator and political strategist who works internationally. He was Political Secretary to Tony Blair and has been an adviser on health, welfare, defence and Scotland.

Smack me senseless and call me Charlie, how on earth can he have been an adviser on health, welfare, defence and Scotland. Is he some kind of super academic, perhaps he holds several PhDs in these areas of interest? Maybe he is a savant? All in all he only has one degree from Edinburgh but maybe we are supposed to believe that it has modulus on everything in the whole wide world, hence he is 'qualified' to do anything.

The depressing truth is that he is just another pointless leftie with no real life-experience which could ever remit him even remotely qualified to 'advise' on the fields he has. It would for example be logical to assume that someone who advised on defence would have some military background, you know so that he could actually bring a qualified opinion to the table otherwise his advise is no more relevant than your average Joe on the street, without any military experience. That at least is what common sense suggests, but as you know, Britain no longer does common sense.

Ministers in important departments often have almost no understanding of the briefs they hold. We have had ministers of agriculture who think slurry is a home county. We have had ministers of defence who think a mess is something they must avoid creating. It is almost compulsory to have chancellors of the exchequer who know nothing about economics. What is really uncalled for, though, is when a government appoints to a semi-official position a politician who is not a minister, so has no responsibility apart from seeking attention, and is let loose on something of which he knows nothing. Simon Heffer is on the ball all right...

Now the only thing I can possibly imagine Mr. McTernan being qualified for is being scottish - his name rings of that, at least a bit. But for all I know he might as well be irish yet he still advised on Scotland for some inexplicable reason. Hopefully he'll one day read this blogpost and make a fuss about it - that would be fun.

Pastor Martin Niemoller

They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.

You do not, and I repeat, you do not remove a political candidate from a venue just because you happen to disagree with his beliefs. That is not democracy. Remember what Orwell said you pathetic autocratic scum; if freedom of speech means anything it means telling people what they don't want to hear. You may not agree with the BNP but this is a slippery slope towards fascism when people are being ostracised for what they believe in, I don't support them either but like Voltaire never said I will defend their right to say it until death.

For the police to use a Nuremberg defence to justify their actions is beyond reproach, that is nothing but despicable. This country is loosing the plot quicker than under New Labour.

Not a revolutionary prospect but close

You read it here first, a long time ago actually, but the next election will be the election of the so called "fringe". Only difference of course is that the fringe is not longer the perpetrators of the right or the left, they will be the flag-bearers of the left and the right. Why? Because no other political parties do; they have no colours to nail to the mast and no defining streak which sets them apart from the other in the majestic political landscape (notice the sarcastic hyperbole), they are to all intents and purposes 'centre'. Not 'centre-right' or 'centre-left' but bang, slap, middle of the bar, is where most mainstream political parties have set up camp today, and guess what, I reckon that voters will realise this too a much larger extent once the next election creeps closer. Consider why:

Have we had reduced immigration? No

Have we repatriated power from Brussels? No

Is the defence budget being slashed in the middle of a war? Yes

Can gypsies still set up camp wherever they want? Yes

Is the Human Rights Act going away? No

Is health and safety madness still prevalent? Yes

Is political correctness madness still prevalent? Yes

Are the trains and bus-services still too expensive? Yes

Is Britain still being sold off; lock stock and barrel? Yes

Are the pubs still dying? Yes

Is religious insensitivity to every single fucking thing, still clogging the news? Yes

Is there still too much red-tape? Yes

Are the righteous still preaching 24-7 how we should live our lives? Yes

.

.

.

Now consider why nothing has happened with these rather large issues, it has to with political ideology or maybe it just has to do with vested interests - personally I think it has to with principles or lack thereof rather:

New Labour: Centre-left

Conservatives: Centre-right

Liberal Democrats: Centre-left

The Green Party: useless and pointless

BNP: Left

UKIP: Right

SNP: Centre-left

Now this is what I think is going to happen come the next election. People who at this election were on the verge of not voting for either LibDems, the Tories or Labour wont be on that note again. This time it is abundantly clear that all of their parties have moved away from their traditional ground and into the centre where, as this post so fragrantly demonstrates, everyone hates them particularly those us with a very firm set of principles, and that pretty much entails the entire blogosphere.

The Tories will most likely loose a lot of votes to UKIP because after 13 years in opposition and perhaps two or three in government it is as clear as daylight that they do not espouse right-wing policies. A lot of working class voters will probably shift to the BNP because of 13 years in government they were completely ignored and their two or three in opposition was an abject failure and a complete waste of everyone's time, because they are trying to defend the most abysmal mandate period in British political history. They have not yet succeeded in that goal and if anything it will turn into a pyrrhic victory if they do, but then the party at large will probably disappear as well. Here comes the interesting part; a lot of LibDem voters wont know what to do with themselves. They are at face value left leaning people who were not completely convinced by Labour but they have also come to realise that neither their party nor their most obvious successor, Labour, are going to serve as a reasonable substitute for their vote. Who they go for instead is anyone's guess but probably some really weird party like Socialist Alternative or Trade Unionist & Socialist.

And such is my thesis (and has been for about 1.5 years now, remember you read it here first); The election that really counts was not the one past, but the one we are about to have sometime in the next 4 years.

Fury

Words cannot describe the immense anger and resentment I am experiencing right now. Words cannot integrate their poignancy enough to render their typing meaningful. How the fuck could this have happened?

Note: I hope the reader will excuse my adolescence; I will be using a lot of foul language over the coming days for something tells me things are about to get much worse.

Round-up

Today in Britain we have; a Prime Minister who has never been elected as leader of his Party or Country, and who came second in a general election with both votes and seats. Tomorrow we fight wars to teach the world democracy.

What a mess.

A few Facts about Mr. Brown

Hat-tip: Subrosa

We used to have 6 independent regulators to regulate the different divisions of the financial services industry, including our Banks. (Margaret Thatcher knew what the Banks were like and in the 1988 Finance Act she bound the Banks up in regulation to prevent them from being reckless).

Then Gordon Brown became Chancellor on 6th May 1997

1. Gordon's banker friends said "We want all these regulators to go, we don't want regulators watching everything we do" Mr. Brown said "OK".

So, Gordon announced on the 20th May 1997 (2 weeks after becoming Chancellor) that the six regulatory bodies would be broken up and a new Financial Services Authority would replace them. The FSA had virtually no powers over the Banks and he also took away the powers from the Bank of England to enforce regulation on them.

2. We used to have a Monopolies and Mergers Commission

Then Gordon's friends said we don't want the Monopolies and Mergers commission telling us who we can and can't "Take Over" - Gordon said OK. So, in 1998 Gordon scrapped the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and created a replacement called the Competition Commission, with very much reduced powers and different ideas of what used to be regarded as a "Monopoly".

3. We used to have pension regulations, which included something called "The Pensions Cap"

The pensions cap set a limit on how much pension any scheme member (including directors) could get from an occupational pension scheme, irrespective of how high their earnings were. It was there to protect the ordinary members pensions. To prevent Directors paying themselves obscene salaries and then draining the pension funds with huge pensions.

Then Gordon Brown's banker friends said that they wanted the pensions cap removing so that they could get pensions related to their obscene earnings. (The whole Pensions industry gave him warnings of the effects it would have. Even the Inland Revenue put forward objections). Gordon said "ok". Because Gordon never likes to disappoint his banker friends.

So Gordon took away the Pensions Cap in 2005 and then some of his friends were able to leave their boardroom positions with huge pensions. For example Fred Goodwin was apparently entitled to a pension of over £700,000. If Gordon had left the pensions cap in place that would have been a mere £125,000.

(The Superannuations Division of the Inland Revenue have kept a record of what it should be, in readiness for when we get a new chancellor who sees fit to re-instate it. George Osborne has pledged to do that). The record of Pensions Cap limits are available to view on the Revenue's website.

4. The result of this is that along with Gordon's "Tax Raid" on pension funds starting July 1997, over four thousand UK company pension scheme's have closed their doors to new members and many of them have had to close down altogether, leaving millions of workers without any pension provision. This man Gordon Brown professes to be a socialist and "for" the working man.

The working man's main form of long term financial security had for many years been his company pension scheme, something to look forward to at the end of a life of hard work, his reward, light at the end of a long dark tunnel. Gordon has put an end to that by destroying the most valuable asset of the average British worker.

5. It is one of the greatest travesties of justice that this man, who pretends to be "for the working man" has in fact been his worst enemy for the last thirteen years and will leave a legacy that we will be clearing up for man years to come. The real injustice is that it's all been done in areas which are totally out of sight to the general public and beyond the understanding of many.

Mr. Brown relies entirely on people's ignorance to get away with his indiscretions.

6. Finally what Mr. Brown likes to call the "Global Banking Crisis"

Have you noticed that we were the first to be in it and are the last to be out (and whether we are out is very speculative).

As he has openly admitted, The Royal Bank of Scotland was the world's biggest bank.
So when RBS and HBOS were about to go BUST in October 2008 and they had to be bailed out overnight so they did not take the entire country down with them, (that by the way was almost certainly a decision made by the hierarchy in Whitehall for which Gordon loves to take the credit).

As the world's leading banks now all lend money to each other on a collosal scale, isn't it obvious that the worlds biggest bank going down would have a devastating effect on all the others it dealt with. This "world's biggest bank" had also sold bad mortgage books to other banks.

Most of the Banks in Europe which ran into crisis were dragged into it because of the crooked dealings of our big banks. A fact that both Germany and France were quick to remind Gordon Brown of at the G20 emergency meeting shortly after the crisis.

There are many other of Gordon's indiscretions, far too many to list here, but perhaps the few biggies shown above will give some insight into how Gordon operates.

By the way have you noticed how he has suddenly become interested in Social Issues now an election is looming and seems to be able to promise the world when, as Alistair Darling put it a few days ago, there is not a penny left in the bank.

The General Election, the outcomes

The general election has three possible outcomes:

1. The Conservative Party will win with a workable majority.
2. The Labour Party will win with a workable majority.
3. There is a hung parliament.

Nr 3 is of importance here because it is by far the most interesting one. This country does not do hung parliament as does the continent. They just break down completely. Some might argue that we had a coalition government during WWII, and we did but the keywords you are missing are in those two 'W's. There was a World War going on, not cooperating means loosing, it is as simple as that. Hence that is a completely moot argument because that was an extraordinary situation handled by an extraordinary government.

Further, Nr 3 is interesting because it presents some very curious consequences. If there is a hung parliament there will almost certainly be a leadership election in either party. Simply because either has failed in gaining a workable majority in the Commons. What is also certain is that there will be another general election within months to sort out the mess that currently inhibits the great halls of Westminster.

This is interesting particularly for real conservatives (with a small 'c') like myself. There is the real possibility that a real conservative takes the helm of the Conservative Party and delivers a manifesto that us conservatives can relate to. I think it is no a secret that most of us are leaving in droves to parties like UKIP and UKLP (scaremongering rarely works such as "a vote for any party but the Conservative Party is a vote for Labour" - bollocks to that). Whilst I see no light in the end of the tunnel with Mr. Cameron there is certainly enough brains and talent in the Conservative party, to produce a leader worthy of the helmsmanship. I am not going to insult the reader's intelligence by listing those people for he or she is most likely more knowledgeable than myself.

We have not had a lot of hung parliaments (for reasons explained above). The most recent elected hung parliament in the UK was that which followed the February 1974 general election, which lasted until the October election that year. Prior to that the last had been following the election of 1929. Hung parliaments can also arise when slim government majorities are eroded by by-election defeats and defection of Members of Parliament to opposition parties. This happened in 1996 to the Conservative government of John Major (1990-97) and in 1978 to the Labour government of James Callaghan (later Lord Callaghan of Cardiff) (1976-79). You can clearly see thus, that the track record is not good for that type of governing in the UK.

And finally, as always, a real conservative would have Britain tell the EU to Foxtrot Oscar.

A400M is shit and delayed; to add insult to injury the British parts are to be made in Spain instead

It cannot be said enough: I loathe everything and everyone related to the Labour party. Brits used to be famed worldwide for their fair-play but I think we can safely assume now that we are the laughing stock of the world, 'pushovers' and 'suckers' that is us.

Howard Wheeldon on reports that Britain may allow A400m work to go to Spain...

It seems that in his hatred of anything to do with defence spend our extraordinary Prime Minister is even now even prepared to risk UK based manufacturing jobs being given to Spain!

Last evening, by courtesy of Tim Hepher at Reuters, I learned what I had feared for several weeks – that by prevaricating on how it might fund a share of the package that would allow the A400M military heavylift to proceed, PM Brown is prepared to risk UK based jobs being stolen by another A400M partner – Spain. The bottom line of what Spain is saying is that if Britain is not prepared to join the other six partners on a similar basis of A400M refunding then it should not be allowed to retain the existing levels of work share on the actual program. No one is commenting of course – not EADS, not Spain and certainly not the UK government – but having been personally aware for some time that a problem existed on the A400M UK funding process I have absolutely no doubt that the Reuters account published last night is 100% correct.

Before providing a damming view of what such policy could mean – for British based manufacturing jobs plus for future defence partnerships between Britain and Europe – let me say here that for once there is absolutely no blame attached in my commentary to the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson. Indeed, it is true to say that Lord Mandelson and Minister of State for Trade Promotion and Investment Lord Davies really have worked tirelessly to ensure that Britain plays a full part in the A400M manufacturing process. The problem it seems is fairly and squarely behind the doors of Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. Sadly it seems that the legacy of Baroness Shriti Vadera and the hatred by this government of anything to do with defence lives on!

Spain, in which nation the A400M will be finally assembled, is apparently demanding that Britain now shifts considerable composite related wings work, including jigs and cradles, from Filton near Bristol to Spain. It is of course a ridiculous notion and will not occur for the simple reason that just doing this would put the already three-year delayed A400M program back by at least another year. The method in Brown’s madness though is most probably in my view that he hopes that if Britain prevaricates on funding arrangements enough with a bit of luck the whole A400M program that the RAF (Britain is down to buy 25 A400M aircraft) plus the other six partner governments are now so desperate to see moving to full production will get killed off. With it of course would go about 8,500 directly employed jobs and thousands of other indirect jobs in the UK.

Even if there was now to be backtracking on the part of Britain and maybe even Spain the damage done by the UK government to this program and indeed the prospect of future industrial partnership between Britain and any of its European partners is enormous. It may well be that Mr. Brown and his cohorts have signed the partnership’s death knell. It begs the question on other partnership programs such as Eurofighter Typhoon and maybe even the UK government participation partnership with Lockheed Martin on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. After all, why should anyone ever trust Britain again if this is how it attempts to turn the screw on official manufacturing partnerships?

The damaging action of the British government that will in my humble view do such serious further damage to the future of the A400M program shows conclusively that while other nations – despite having similar economic problems to Britain – are prepared to treat their respective aerospace and defence manufacturing concerns as huge strategic assets to the economy, Britain couldn’t care less about the future of the remaining 140,000 jobs that remain in the UK defence industry as a whole let alone those employed right across the aerospace industry. (Worth noting here that in 1990 numbers of personnel employed in UK defence was around 555,000. By 2000 that number had essentially halved and today is has halved again. And yet in terms of actual UK export note that in 2007 Britain achieved a record £10bn of defence equipment exports that brought substantial benefit not only to the exchequer but also helping trade figures and employment.)

Back to the central issue though – could any of us imagine that Britain might one day attempt to stitch up Spain, France or Germany in the manner that Spain appears to be doing on the A400M manufacturing issue? No….we have not even got the guts let alone the inclination! Indeed, one might say that if allies such as Spain are attempting to do something like this what on earth would our enemies be doing if they are given the chance? And that thought makes what Spain is trying to do in stealing away UK technology, UK skills and jobs, UK research and development, UK based expertise, UK industrial advantage look the equivalent of a second armada sailing up the Bristol Channel! The trouble is that today we do not have a Francis Drake – we have a burnt out unelected Labour politician at the helm and one that is prepared to throw not only important manufacturing assets to our European competitors for nothing but also virtually all future decisions that effect the British economy as well.

I conclude by asking the following: When will the UK government finally wake up to the importance of its defence and aerospace manufacturing champions? When will Britain learn to treat our manufacturers in a similar manner to the way our competitors do in the US, France, Germany and Spain? When will our miserable government realise the importance of employment created and maintained by the defence manufacturing industry in Britain? When will it realise the export potential of what we do, the mass of research and development effort put in by the private sector and to an extent by the government as well that not only provides our troops with excellent equipment but also creates the potential for exports? When will they learn to support the defence industry, to support our troops by providing sufficient equipment, to provide our troops and their families with the huge support that they both need and deserve? When will they stop cutting corners attempting to do everything in defence of the realm on the cheap and risking the lives of our soldiers? When will they accept that as a proportion of GDP and despite self inflicted wounds of the economic crisis that we must still put defence of the realm at the top of the tree?

Fuck Labour

I do not normally link to the Daily Mail for they are not exactly high level journalism... but here the numbers speak for themselves.

Fuck You Labour Wankers

The real national debt is £1,340 billion (Centre for Policy Studies), 103.5 per cent of GDP. Including public sector pension liabilities and Private Finance Initiative contracts. The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money as Maggie T said (I thought I best keep the language colloquial in this post so that I do not get accused of breaking the PC agenda by spelling out the former PM's full name - the horror).

We owe all the money we have plus a bit more to someone else.

Put it this way:

X is all the money we have; every single penny in all of the UK

K is all that money which we do not have

Q is all the money we owe to someone else

Hence

X+K = Q

That equation makes no mathematical sense since we owe money we do not have to people who want us to have it.

The Best Labour Poster in my Book

UK closing embassies + EU opening embassies = coincidence? No fucking way

Some "coincidences" are just too enticing to ignore. Weeks after the Lisbon Treaty saw Europe's burgeoning overseas diplomacy service finally gain legal status, it has been announced that cash-strapped Britain will be forced to close many embassies because it can no longer afford them. While that was announced it was quietly glossed over that 50 EU embassies are to open.

The Conservatives claim that the Foreign Office has drawn up a "secret list" of posts to be closed. Much of the financial shortfall is down to the fact that £ Sterling has plunged on the foreign currency exchanges over the past two years. Coincidentally, this is around the the time Foreign Secretary David Miliband abolished the Overseas Price Mechanism, which made up for budget shortfalls due to currency fluctuations.

A Labour peer revealed yesterday that anti-extremist activity in Pakistan was being wound down thanks to the budget shortfall. The government says that it will make up the shortfall thanks to the crucial priority the Afghan-Pakistan border region has for British security; the future of our many embassies is less clear, yet more obvious: The EU's Foreign Affairs will rush in where Britons can no longer afford to tread.

As usual with these events, once we get used to living without embassies in unglamorous nations and political backwaters, the closure of British missions will become more and more widespread, with the ever-eager EU taking up the slack. We might even make a few quid selling off our abandoned premises to Brussels. Before long, our independent diplomatic service will consist of a couple of "cultural centres" in Paris, Washington and Beijing.

The Conservatives of course are having great fun at the misfortunes of their Labour stunt doubles. Yet David Cameron and George Osborne promise an even harsher age of austerity than that Labour threatens.

Can we have a commitment from the Conservatives to keep our embassies open, however the Pound Sterling performs?

No? Didn't think so.

Good man EUROSOC always on the ball.

What will happen eventually is that the UK is going to be broken up and Scotland, NI and Wales will go their separate ways. Upon which England will finally leave the EU and stand alone once again on the world stage. It is a sad future but regrettably the only realistic one we face. Hence we will leave, I do not doubt this, but it will be at the price of the union. To Scottish nationalists I can only say this; it is all very well when you gained independence of your own accord, it gives semblance to a patriotic notion of consciousness. But having it served on a plate from a foreign interlocutor is just not very noble. Though you may gain independence, as will we, you will not have done it on your own and that, I must say, I find less than honourable (no doubt I will receive a lot of criticism from scots who disagree with my harsh future - fine, that is what discussion is all about).

Finally, I find it a bit sad that EU Referendum has not written anything about this yet. Mr. North and Co. are usually very up to date on issues pertaining or relating to the mischievous footnotes of the "democratically negotiated" EU treaties. But, alas, it has yet to materialise.

Note to the reader: I try to keep the cursing to a minimum on this blog for I do not find it a respectable activity to partake in, nor does it convey the message one tries to put forth without a semblance of sensationalism. This time however I have employed the f-word in the title of the post, for I cannot believe what set of low-life and treacherous morals a man bears when he happily sells of his country to the highest bidder. For make no mistake none of the politicians who voted through the Lisbon Treaty in parliament did so on the strength of it actually helping Britain. No, I have read it, so have most people vaguely interest in the EU, and it was clear for all to see what precisely would happen to nation states when passed. This was Judecca-politics of the most disgusting kind. I have not doubt however that they will all get what they deserve in the end.

Update: Victory! EU Referendum has now mentioned it. And defeat on my part for it turns out that they indeed have written about it, lots of times. I should have known... The student remains the student and the master remains the master.

Universities in the UK and Labour - the latter were too stupid to attend the former

I know that I post a lot of generally bad things on this site and I do apologise for this. But if you want to reign in ignorance and care little for the malice that rules this country I suggest you go to something a bit more jolly, such as Funny Dogs. In the meantime I going to cross post a thing I found on the Guardian which again demonstrate why needs to evacuate Parliament of this fuckstick government. This issue pertains to education and more specifically, Universities which I am currently attending why this issue really angers me.

It has taken more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it to its knees. Britain's higher education system is superb – second only to the US, with 18 of our universities in the world's top 100 – and recognised across the globe as a gold standard.

But our gold standard system could be replaced with one of silver, bronze or worse, under swingeing cuts to the funding of higher education and science recently announced by the government. Exactly how much will be slashed and where the axe will fall is unclear, although it has been put at up to £2.5bn.

Such huge cuts in university budgets would have a devastating effect not only on students and staff, but also on Britain's international competitiveness, economy and ability to recover from recession. Research-intensive universities have been given some consolation; we certainly welcome the relative protection for research announced in December and the pronouncement that the needs of world-class institutions must be prioritised. But we are deeply concerned that cuts of this magnitude in overall funding will erode the sustainability of our research and affect even the most outstanding universities.

When Gordon Brown was asked if there was still money to spend on Labour priorities despite the public- sector deficit, he replied: "Of course there is." Perhaps the PM should consider what his international counterparts regard as priorities. Nicolas Sarkozy has just announced aninvestment of €11bn in higher education in France, stating he wants "the best universities in the world". Germany pumped a total of €18bn into promoting world-class research alongside university education, whileBarack Obama ploughed an additional $21bn into federal science spending.

Universities are not immune from this recession. But there seems to be a greater focus on cutting higher education funding than almost anything else. The health service, police and schools are all currently "protected", presumably due to their perceived importance at the ballot box. Not so, it seems, HE.

Some £600m of cuts to HE were identified in the pre-budget report, on top of £180m "efficiency savings" announced by the Higher Education Funding Council for England over 2009 and 2010. In December the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced a further cut of £135m for 2010/11.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that additional cuts of 12.3% over 2011 and 2012 are needed if the government is to achieve its target of halving the national debt by 2013. This would mean another £1.6bn of cuts for the science and higher education budgets, bringing the grand total to £2.5bn – equivalent to a third of the current annual spend on higher education.

Conservative policy is unclear, but the party has indicated an intention to reduce the national debt more rapidly, which raises the spectre of even harder, faster and deeper cuts.

It is a mystery why we are being subjected to this. Students leave university equipped with skills that are an essential part of a successful knowledge economy. The UK is the world's second-most popular destination for international students, generating £2.9bn annually for universities, as well as off-campus expenditure estimated at £2.3bn.

With just 1% of the global population, we produce 7.9% of the world's research publications and 12% of all citations. The total contribution of higher education to the economy in 2007/8 was £33.4bn – equivalent to 2.3% of GDP. Our gross output exceeds that of either the pharmaceutical or the aerospace industry. Sadly, the UK can no longer claim to be world-leading in many fields of endeavour. What a great shame it would be to undermine one of the few spheres, namely our universities, in which we do actually still excel.

Some expect Lord Browne's review of higher education funding to solve the entire problem. This review was supposed to happen against a background of stable government funding. Browne's mission has become even more challenging and urgent against the background of the current proposed cuts. He needs to produce a rigorous assessment of how much each beneficiary of higher education – the graduate, employer and society as a whole – should contribute to the costs of this vital service to the nation.

Our politicians must take a responsible approach to the funding of higher education and recognise that it is one of the jewels in the country's crown, worthy of protection because of the extraordinary value that it brings to our society, international competitiveness and economy. We call on the government to state clearly that higher education will not be cut further and to seriously consider reversing cuts already proposed.

Steve Smith, the president of Universities UK, has warned that institutions face having to close hundreds of courses, with fewer academic staff and bigger classes. Reports suggest that as many as 30 universities may not survive in their current form if even minimal funding cuts are introduced.

We would go further than Smith's bleak assessment. We live in a world where ideas, innovation and entrepreneurialism are key to prosperity and wellbeing. Our universities are critical to supporting this agenda for the next 800 years. This is a defining moment. If politicians don't act now, they will be faced with meltdown in a sector that is vital to our national prosperity. They have been warned.

British Farming + Dogs = True-ish

Excellent post from Calling England, reproduced below.

The plight of a Yorkshire Dairy Farmer, one amongst many:

"All across the country, diary farmers are facing the loss of their livelihood. In 1985, there were 28,000 diary farmers in England and Wales. By last November, when Mr Rickatson became one of the nine dairy farmers that throw in the towel each week, there were 11,551 left. As recently as two years ago Britain was self-sufficient in milk. Now we import 1.5 million litres a day. For the farmers who struggle on, their working lives – and that of their herds – have become a grind: such is their despair that one a week commits suicide."

Bringing us closer to a food crisis: 13years of Labour and EU contempt for British agriculture

Since Labour has been in power, Britain's self-sufficiency in food has tumbled from 75 per cent to 60 per cent and is falling at the rate of 1 per cent per year. In that time, too, the UK has produced 35 per cent less beef, 25 per cent less lamb and 35 per cent less pork.

Benn calls for 'more sustainable food' and for shoppers to buy locally. This vegetarian Minister is more concerned with green environmentalism than truly helping British farmers and British shoppers. Green is the new global religion.

Below is a letter for Hilary Benn which illustrates the problems of bureaucracy and idiocy facing British farmers:

Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP
Secretary of State
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR


16 July 2009

Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.

I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven't reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is - until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don't rear?

I am also considering the "not milking cows" business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits. I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,
xxxxxxxxxx

The fall of the Kingdom

Lets get something straight, bloggers by their existence, are not optimists. We are the most ardent sceptics and pessimists that trod this planet. We have to be because as of now we have as a collective taken over the function of the media in scrutinising the state. Commonly the three pillars of power in the UK used to be the House of Commons, the House of Lords and finally the Main Stream Media. Not anymore; the latter have been replaced by a swathe of more powerful bloggers who can singlehandedly produce a more thorough analysis of the state of the nation, than can the entire political section of either of the major newspapers.

Now, in Britain we have a duopoly system of politics. Like major corporations, say between BAE Systems and Thales UK we are under the illusion that there is some genuine competition between these two defence contractors, yet they are both building the new aircrafts carriers for the Royal Navy in unison. In public they portray a facade of mutual friendly hatred, call it banter, based on them perpetuating the lie that defence contracts in the UK are subject to the tendering process (they are but the 'right' guys always get it anyway). The Labour Party and the Conservative party are supposed to be competing against in each other. Are they?

The parties claim to be the champions of the people, they say that they are men and women of the people when nothing could be further from the truth. Politicians are not supposed to be men a women of the people, how could they? They are as far from 'normal' as you could possibly get. A true, well meaning person, who strives to serve his or her country is a man or woman -for- the people and not of them. Hence, I agree to some extent with Peter Hitchens in his length response to ConservativeHome readers; the Tory party of today are not Conservatives for what are they really conserving?

The political system in the UK is not a marked based one of mutual friendly competition, designed to bring forth the best minds and the best policies, perfectly suited to needs and wishes of the people - we usually call this democracy but in the PC world of today that is probably not allowed anymore. No, the political system in the UK is a monopoly because the marxist ideologies imposed by this Labour government will not be rolled back and removed by the Cameron administration for they will simply claim that there is nothing that they can do, that the leftist paradigms are now so rooted in society that nothing in their power could uproot them. Bollocks, where there is a will there is way and if you for a minute think that the people are happy with this excuse for a country that today poses for 'Britain' you are sadly mistaken. I am not a man of the people I am part of the people, and while I do not represent them as a collective voice, you do not have to be a genius or employ the full, taxpayer funded, power of HM Treasury to work out that everything that Labour has touched since they came to power in 1997 has turned to fire and ashes. The tories will be no difference since they, like Labour before them, will continue the charade whereby us gullible voters are to be taken under the impression that Right and Left are as different as East and West when in reality the political compass is pointing the only feasible way for them; North - which is the same if you are at East or West.

Challenge not the Speaker - why not?

There is much talk of the new UKIP leader Lord Pearson and what his predecessor intends to do to the current speaker namely, shock and horror, challenge the "convention" and stand in his constituency.

Some Tories feel this is wrong, some Labourites feel this is wrong, some other people who's party simple has no function at all (LibDems) think this is wrong and some other people also think it is wrong. They say that tradition and procedure dictates that the Speaker should not be challenged in his own constituency. Really?

Labour challenged Speaker Bernard Wetherill in 1987.

But what is more it has somehow become an unspeakable dogma to question the incumbent Speaker, who flipped homes as much as anyone else and indulged in all the little privileges bestowed upon MPs at our expense. Sure they need freebies to do their job, but the Expenses scandal was too much and they know it was wrong and so do we.

The current Speaker John Bercow was elected because Labour made it so, yet again they put party before country in order to damage the Tories. I am as usual lost for words when it comes to describing my contempt for the Labour party - I simply cannot find them. Suffice to say that a man who has been elected speaker on the back of a Tory Opposition ploy conducted by Labour, deserves not to hold that esteemed position for he has not earned the trust and respect which is bestowed upon the post by his fellow Rt. Hon. Members.

Speaker Bercow is not the victim, the Tories are not the victims, we are the victims.

Prospects

I really should not be saying this but I will: the Irish 'yes' is actually a lot more interesting because it has turned the entire British political establishment (fuck Ken Clark, who listens to him anyway) into a EU talking club. This is extremely good news because it means that no party can hide and Labour's and the LibDem's ultra pro-EU credentials will be reproduced again and again, loosing them even more votes at the GE (of course not letting it slip that they promised a referendum on the treaty as well but backtracked this promise). It also means that the Tories cannot hide away from the issue despite Cameron's very poor attempt at appeasement in the form of his "news letter". Even more it will give UKIP more air time which is always good since they can hopefully push the Tories to adopt a proper policy before the GE machine is switched on.

And to top it all off, the Irish are not going to like this - did you know they were a satellite state of Britain all along?

When people look back upon this episode of history what will they think I wonder? Well, I believe that this period can be pretty well summed up in these simple words

‘For you, zee referendums are over. Simples’

Ohh wipe that stern look of your face, it is just poking a bit of fun at zee Germans.

Quote of the Day

The attorney general sacked her housekeeper last night amid claims the woman had overstayed on a visa and was no longer legally entitled to work in the UK. This odd for a couple of reasons. Employers face a civil fine of up to £10,000 per illegal worker and up to two years' jail for the most serious breaches. We should point out that these are "normal" people alas not part of the elite - they can do what they like. More astounding however, these rules were brought in 2006 by the Home Office and you would have thought that their employers ought to know them. But hey one rule for them and one for us. Whatever she does she wont resign be quite sure on this prediction.

"The attorney general is Nu-labour, female and black makes her pretty untouchable don't you think?" - Guardian comment

Again this blog will talk about all those toxic subjects like immigration, social cohesion, Islamism, Europe and Britishness. Why? No one else will.

A Spectator article

I think people should read this article from the Spectator - it sums up very eloquently what everyone knows it the truth bar Labour of course. Snippet...

"This profound sense of despair will take Mr Cameron into government almost by default. But the mood is itself a problem. No senior civil servant has yet said that the government’s job is to ‘oversee the orderly management of decline’, as Sir William Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, famously did in 1973. But this time, no one needs to. The politics of decline is stamped in everything this exhausted government does. Decisions on our defence are being taken on the basis that Britain no longer can claim to play a major role in the world, that we are a little country, which should stop pretending to be a big one.

This sense of defeatism may be pervasive, but it need not be terminal. It can be turned around — as Britain demonstrated, to the world’s amazement, 30 years ago. All that is requires is the right kind of courage and leadership. Thatcher had it. Heath did not. But does David Cameron? It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Britain’s future now depends on the answer."