Sky TV, Oxford and Prisons

I was left flabbergasted and discombobulated when I read that, apparently, the inmates of HM Prisons have access to Sky TV. Not only is the government cutting down on defence, increasing foreign aid spending and destroying the party over something so irrelevant to voters, as gay marriage. They also have time to court society's wrongdoers with Sky TV.

Let me put this in perspective for you.

Here, in Oxford, where I am studying. We do not have Sky TV at my college. Some colleges do not. It is a choice, perhaps a financial choice, one that my abode chose not to indulge its students with. A sensible choice one might argue, we are all here after all to complete our doctoral thesis', not to watch TV. Perhaps the distraction of Sky TV would be so large, that no research was done at all? Regardless, the odious contrast now spitting in out face is this:

Sky TV is paid for and available to inmates of HM Prisons, but not to most students at the University of Oxford.

What does that tell you about the government's priorities.

An original thought of defence

It is Christmas yet once again. It is a festive season. I quite enjoy it and always have. I think it is fair to say that I used to enjoy it a lot more. But fret not, I shall take pleasure in being with my family and friends as much as I ever have. Perhaps it will be different this year though, perhaps we might finally reach that crescendo where we realise that lo and behold we already have so much junk in our tiny houses that we really do not need more of it courtesy of the consumer society that we live in. Would it not be nice if we could give away happiness and joy instead of iPods and jewellery. Naturally I realise that this is an inimical part of capitalism but to me at least it seems that we have so much stuff these days that we simply do not need more.

But I digress. My thoughts are on defence. The defence budget is shrinking and this is sad and bad - but does it really matter? The first duty of the state is to protect the people under its aegis. To protect their values and cherish their believes and way of life. A budget must reflect its people. Certainly the welfare budget does. But, maybe, just maybe, the budget is a true reflection of our country these days. The budget is decreased because there is less to defend and protect, not physical things, but abstract concepts like 'family' or 'afternoon tea'. As these concepts continue to crumble then can we really be so surprised that the MoD is reducing the budget, after all, what is there to protect anymore? Our right to binge drink, to not participate in democracy, to shun work?

Quote

G.K. Chesterton pointed out that condemning patriotism because it has been cited as a cause of war is like condemning love because it has been cited as a cause of murder.

Mohammed online what a crime

It is all kicking off again. We have seen it before and before we saw it before, we saw it before that. It is becoming a prevalent theme in the world now, not just where there are large concentrations of Muslims but also where there are not. After all, people need to hate, they need to get their daily dose of two-minute hate as was described in 1984 by Orwell. The difference is of course that we are not seeing two minutes now, we are seeing a lot more, and far more violent and apparently because someone, somewhere, in some country, on the other side of the planet (relative to the middle east), had the audacity to post a video insulting Mohammed and thus Islam itself.

Lets do an experiment. I put into google the following phrase "mohammed pictures". Google gives me 46,200,000 results. Lets spell that out: forty-six million results. Now I do not have time to go through all the websites, but whilst we cannot make the assumption that all websites do harbour images of Mohammed, we can be quite sure that the number of images of Mohammed rank in the order of millions.

These have been around for years.

How come no one is getting upset about these images? Google, business savvy as they are, also exists in arabic form. Here is the really interesting thing. If we put in the same search term as above into the arabic Google then we suddenly have 105,000,000 results. That's twice as many as the English version. This is curious indeed. The results would suggest that to an arab speaking audience, there are more images of Mohammed available than there are to an English audience. Naturally we are only speculating as to the content of these 105 million websites, but statistically speaking it is not inconceivable to make such an extrapolation to further the argument.

We are thus in the curious position of exposing abject hypocrisy on the part of the minorities who insist on prevailing a culture of hatred towards, well, anything that in their minds insults Islam (but this, mind you, appears to be just about anything). Now, the western media has almost exclusively been focusing on the producer on the film which supposedly insulted the great swathes of Muslims down yonder (this is of course ignoring the 105 million search results...) - they are trying to figure who had the audacity to make a film criticising Mohammed. That clearly is what we should be focusing on, not that fact that hundreds of thousands of Muslims have gone completely ape-shit over a crappy 14-minute amateur film, exposing the views of one person. It is a bit like last week when we had two unfolding stories: first the tragic brutal slaying of two unarmed police officers in Manchester; the second about a Cabinet Minister who gave a police officer a gob-full out the front of 10 Downing Street. Hardly comparable events, yet a week on and one has overshadowed the other.

With Islam, should one so like to initiate debate one does have to tread carefully, granted, they are far more sensitive about anything regarding their religion than most other theisms.

What all great religions need to understand about the West, as they seem so potent to impress upon us; the sanctity of Mohammed/Islam, we value freedom of speech and freedom of expression just as highly as they value their religion. People dislike me for what I say on this blog, and I patronise most people who hold objectionable views to mine (because they are silly). But, and this is a big but, I do appreciate their criticism when I get it (and that is a lot). I value their opinions because it means I can improve mine - improve, but not change.

If someone insists upon complete and total absolution of their item of virtue, be it religion or e.g. democracy. They must also understand that the sword that they propose to wield in order to defend said institution, will be wielded tenfold by those who do not. The reason for this is simple; most people do not harbour under the illusion that theirs is something free of criticism.

The wisdom of the Duke of Wellington

With the Government insistent that the military must bear its fair share of the budget cuts, relying on an army of part-time soldiers is the only option available, and one the top brass have reluctantly concluded that they must embrace. Indeed, their approach is not that different from the Duke of Wellington’s, when, during the Peninsula War (when the British Army was roughly the same size as it is today), he remarked: “As this is the last army England has, we must take care of it.”

A slow and callous update albeit happy

Dear readers (if there are any of you left),

You will have to as always excuse my ineptitude at posting as frequently as one should, one who is interested in the world and what goes on around us. As players in it we have a duty to take an interest in its functioning (or lack thereof).

This persona has been exceedingly busy the past few months and is currently in the final stages of his degree. Glorious times these are indeed until a research degree starts this autumn which will be even more difficult than this past undergraduate experience has been. Difficult but fun it must be said.

What of politics then? Well, things on that arena seem to be going rather jolly well I would say; the coalition is an utter disaster, voters think the coalition is an utter disaster, the Liberal Democrats will be removed from the face of politics for a generation, the Conservatives will be sorely punished as well come the next election, Labour are doing well because they are not Dave and Nick not because they have anything genuine to say and finally it would appear that politics in the UK has quite lost its way.

Where will it lead? Very hard to say. Disillusionment takes many forms. Not all of them good. It is likely that we shall not see a coalition again for some time. The political cost of entering into a new one would simply not flush with voters. People will surely be reminded of this spectacle whenever they hear the word `coalition' and wince at the mere notion of another one. No, I think we can give the future the benefit of the doubt that there will be no more coalitions for the foreseeable time to come.

So many words have been written by pundits about why the coalition is not working, analysing the relationship between Clegg and his moron Lib Dems, between Cameron and his moron Conservative MPs (none of which seem to have a spine large enough to actually nail their colours to another mast) and not really concluding very much. Well a simple conclusion will be that on current form, being lead by a man so bereft of principles, moral values and general beliefs of a society he wishes to live in, can not lead to victory in a general election. It would be genuinely non-sensical for a common-sense voter to support David Cameron. Equally why anyone would ever be stupid enough to ever `agree with Nick' again is question for that person to answer.

A disillusionment with politics then is seemingly the X-factor of our time. Jeff Randall takes a stab at summing it up rather eloquently in today's Telegraph. Though his is a very very coarse and general description, it does ring so very true for those of us who do not have the luxury of working in a palace courtesy of the Queen. That said, my university used to be very pretty until they tore most of it down, built by the Victorians, and replaced it by those sad edifices of buildings often caricatured by the 60s. Nonetheless, Mr Randall goes through the vices (few virtues of the coalition I am afraid, though if I were pressured into naming one it would be Mr Gove) of this ineptitude personified that is the coalition.

Mr Randall exfoliates it as such...

Well, immigration remains a shocker. The Office for National Statistics says that net migration to the United Kingdom in the year to September 2011 was above 250,000, despite David Cameron’s promise of reducing it to “tens of thousands”. Arrivals are pouring in at nearly 600,000 a year and the majority, 58 per cent, are from outside the European Union. While the number of student visas has dropped, many economic migrants seem to have little difficulty bypassing dysfunctional border controls. The evidence of illegal entry is there for any minister to see – on the streets of London, Birmingham and Manchester. Theresa May talks tough, but her credibility is threadbare. Fail.

Education is a mixed bag. Michael Gove appears to be attacking dumbed down A‑levels, but his colleague, David Willetts, has joined forces with social engineers to debase our best universities’ entry requirements. The problem is not Oxbridge but a comprehensive system which, in far too many cases, delivers abysmal results. Fail.

Following the Strategic Defence Review in 2010, the Ministry of Defence is cutting the Armed Forces by 25,000 military personnel and 29,000 civilian staff in order to save £4.1 billion (about 0.6 per cent of the Chancellor’s annual budget). Meanwhile, we have been left without an aircraft carrier until 2020 and until then will rely on the kindness of strangers. Fail. (It should be said here that this author, 13th, could probably write a book upon that ignominious defence review as could probably a lot of people who care of it - that is how shambolic it was).

 As for policing, the news is no better. The number of officers in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest levels for 10 years. In September 2011, there were 6,000 fewer (down by 4 per cent) compared with one year earlier. Only one of the 43 forces, Surrey Police, increased numbers over that period. On this issue, there is a gaping disconnection between those in power and the people they purport to serve. While the Coalition stresses the need to cut prison numbers and emphasises rehabilitation, voters demand harsher sentences and are deeply sceptical about claims that crime is falling. A recent poll shows that only 13 per cent think that the Coalition has been tougher on crime than Labour was. Fail.

On Europe, Mr Cameron had his chance to call a referendum and flunked it. His pledge to take back powers from Brussels has, so far, been unfulfilled. Fail.

Households are being squeezed by stealth. The Bank of England has been encouraged to print money, enabling the Government to bilk its creditors through inflation: so much easier than paying them back the hard way or default. Despite the myth of “austerity”, real public spending was just £8 billion (1.1 per cent) lower in 2011-12 than in 2009-10. Higher taxes and inflation, not lower spending, are Plan A. Fail.

And what of the Coalition’s minority partners? I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending to understand the average Liberal Democrat’s mindset, but on one issue we can be very confident. When a party’s flagship policy is the abolition of university tuition fees and it later oversees an increase from £3,000 to £9,000, its supporters are unlikely to look favourably on the architects of betrayal. Fail.

After being trounced in the recent local elections, representatives on both sides of government expressed regret that they had not explained their policies well enough. This is self-delusion on a grand scale. The electorate knew precisely what was on offer – and stayed at home. Fail, fail, fail.

A proper raison d'être

To be a man means that you are brave, loyal and true. When you are in the wrong, you own up and take your punishment. You don’t take advantage of women. As a husband, you support and protect your wife and children. You are gracious in victory and a good sport in defeat. Your word is your bond. Your handshake is as good as your word. It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. When the ship goes down, you put the women and children into the lifeboat and wave good-bye with a smile.

Back to West...

The most pathetic British Political Party: The Liberal Democrats

There was me thinking that the wretched AV referendum was the price paid for the boundary changes. The Lib Dems are, for reasons best known to themselves, determined to cement their reputation as the most duplicitous, weak-willed, and incompetent party in British politics.

Perhaps we need to occasionally remind them of this:
- despite spending an election saying they'd back the party with the most votes and seats in a hung Parliament they desperately tried to hatch a deal with Labour
- despite telling voters that tuition fees was such a priority for them it was worthy of its own pledge, when the coalition negotiations got underway they dropped it immediately in order to get a compromise on constitutional change
- despite wearing their green and rural credentials on their sleeve they didn't ask to have a Minister in Defra
- despite voting for the original Health Bill and signing off on it, they then did an about-turn when it looked unpopular
- despite getting their compromises on the Health Bill during the pause, when it was still unpopular they came out against it again
- despite agreeing to the tactics over the proposed EU treaty, when those tactics being played out resulted in a UK veto, they howled outrage

They rank alongside cowards and traitors, and they deserve nothing but the boot come the next election, thankfully the British public seems realise that as well. For that I am glad. It is a quite a feat indeed to be more incompetent, hated and to excite a feeling of disgust, in the contemporary political classes that rule this stupendous country of ours. They arouse nothing but snide remarks and general feelings of derision when spoken of, as they bloody well should. They compound the worst bits of left-wing ideology, at least Labour have some good ideas and have as of late started apologising (very slowly albeit) for their time in office as New Labour. We will never get that from the Lib Dems, they will only be happy when they have managed to drag down all that is good in these lands to their mediocre average level.

One simply asks, is there any pro-British matter that Clegg is in favour of? It appears that he is hellbent on destroying the validity of every traditional British institution and mostly in favour of EU institutions.

There are pejorative words for such people.

YouGov / Sunday Times Survey Results

This is rather interesting stuff:

Conservatives: 37%
Labour: 41%
Liberal Democrats: 7%
UKIP: 6%
SNP/PCY: 4%
Green: 3%
BNP: 1%

Self-Control

Fool of a Prime Minister

David Cameron may set targets for women in boardrooms.

Yes - this makes sense. When the economy is a trillion pounds in debt, all you have to do is put more women in the boardroom and - hey presto! - the whole nation returns to solvency and prosperity!

Bureaucracy in the EU

A comparison of what you might need to know about bureaucracy within the EU:

Pythagorean theorem: ...................................................24 words

Lord's prayer ...................................................................66 words

Archimedes' Principle: ...................................................67 words

The 10 Commandments: ..............................................179 words

Gettysburg address: .....................................................286 words

US Declaration of Independence : ..........................1,300 words

US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: .............7,818words

EU regulations for the sale of cabbage: ................26,911 words

Curious academic world

It is an absolute mystery to me why Oxford's Plant Sciences division has so many PhDs available whereas Physical Sciences don't have any. What's going on I say? What?

Here's the question of the day boys and girls: why are academics so fucking rude on email?

Socialism

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.

Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

It is not just Oxford who have lost their glory

This is an interesting story I find on academic standards at Oxford, interesting I find because it resonates very well with what I have experienced during my time at a "top 5" or "G5" university in the UK. It is a depressing picture I will paint for you indeed, very depressing. To say that standards have dropped is a bloody understatement. Standards have not dropped they have quite frankly disappeared.

First of all, to not get a first these days, at least from my course, would place you amongst the failures in this world. That said it is by no means an easy course to get into: you need at least 40 IB points (out of a maximum possible 45) and at least A*A*A with the two A*s in Maths and Physics and the third A-level should preferably be in Further Maths. The graduate tutors struggle to find good people unfortunately. We started of as a group of 80 students. 20 have since disappeared. Some have changed course but most have failed, which means either retaking a year or leaving the university. Most opt for the former but it is out of their own purse.

The status of our coursework is not much better, some of us try to produce original work but are placed in a very depressed situation when one finds that a lot of people have simply copied from the previous years. Seemingly without anyone noticing. This is so common that it is standard now. They have plagiarism software but it is totally useless; you could probably get away with claiming all of MacBeth as your own. It would never notice. Some lab rapports might as well be taken from a standard template. Zero thinking involved, only copying.

Then we have exams. This is the truly most depressing area of them all. Now, the reader should note that your humble narrator is by no means on course for a first. He is a pretty feeble academic superstar, a goon amongst the aces if you will. A first is not his business, he is not that clever. However I do appreciate a good challenge for my brain and we get that sometimes but mostly not. You see the way we and most people revise for exams is not by learning and understanding the material, no, we revise by exclusively doing past papers. Yes, you can throw in a few tutorials as well if you want to mix things up. But first and foremost people do past papers to pass the current papers. This manifests itself in a very strange way, particularly when the examiner has attempted to actually examine us and refuses to be part of the degree making machine. When they truly examine us, when they truly make original questions, people fail. They fail because they cannot think outside the box, they fail because they have learned a model answer and they fail because they have not actually learned anything at all, only a method. A way of doing things, not how or why it works, only that it does. Because that, it in the end, is what goes on your transcript; a mark which says that you know how to do X in Y way. And if Z presents itself you best get another scientist 'cause this one don't know of a method to solve this slightly different problem.

There is nothing original with our degrees anymore at least, they are nothing but certificates with a lot of really fancy sounding names on them.

Oh and I should also mention a really funny quirk; when a majority has failed an exam they scale the marks. Instead of asking themselves why they failed, or if the students genuinely know anything in their respective subject, they scale the marks. An exegesis of the student's actual academic fortitude is ostracised.

Britain will buy French Rafales - guaranteed

This is how it starts, an 'official leak' has been instigated, showing that the Americans have some serious doubts about the F35. As they quite rightly should. That it has reached British media is a coincidence.

Reports on this security level are not just "leaked" as if it were another NOTW story. If it actually were that easy then the Russians and Iranians, the Chinese and god knows who else, would be all over it. In reality this sort of classified information barely gets out of the building in which it was compiled. Hence, this is not a 'leak story'.

We wont be able to buy the F35 simply because it will cost us too much, it is a hugely complex aircraft which might fly some day, but not on their budget nor timeline. It will fly but not under our flag.

As you might understand, this unfortunate situation lends itself to the rather politically embarrassing scenario where we have: two aircraft carriers, one which we have mothballed straight away because we cannot afford planes to fly from it and the other does not have any planes at all because they do not work. What is the quick solution? Navalised HAWKs possibly yes, but they have virtually no weaponry to speak of, pretty A/C though. We could buy Americans F18 Hornets, and loads of them for probably a reduced price. But no, we will buy French because, as you know, we are now in a strategic alliance with the French. This means that they will buy the second mothballed carrier and put their Rafales on them, and we will buy their Rafales to put on ours. A neat but very dishonest solution. As such it fits very nicely with the British political landscape, where there has not been an honest voice since the end of WW2.

That's fair...

Annual salary of an MP: £65,738

Private, British Army, Level 1: £17,265

To note

It is in the nature of institutions to seek to extend their power. Always.

HS2

£33bn to travel to Birmingham...

Who the fuck wants to go to Birmingham?

Compare the Navies! (no this is not about the movie Avatar)

IRAN

28,000 personnel
65 aircraft
5 Frigates
3 Corvettes
26 Submarines
24 Fast Attack Craft
98 Large Patrol craft
+100 light missile boat
16 Hovercraft

USA

324,466 active duty personnel
284 ships
3,700+ aircraft
11 Aircraft carriers
9 Amphibious assault ships
8 Amphibious transport docks
12 Dock landing ships
22 Cruisers
60 Destroyers
27 Frigates
75 Submarines

Who would 'win'?

What a stupid stupid woman...

No, it is not Marry fucking Riddell actually it is the Toynbee woman this time.

In my political lifetime, I have never seen a more callous or inept crew in charge

Or, in my political lifetime I have never seen a government dealt such a rotten hand, with no easy solutions, no money to spend, no joy to bring and nothing feasible to offer but misery.

Still, let's pretend that's not true eh?

Though I suppose the article might be half convincing if:

a) other countries all over the world were boosting welfare spending. In reality most are imposing far more severe cuts than the present UK government,

b) Ms Toynbee ever had a good word to say about any Tory leader still alive, and

c) the prevalence of a culture where people see others live off a multiplicity of benefits which rewards them far more than any job they have any serious prospect of holding down is truly the myth that it is widely claimed to be by all leftist social commentators (and which directly contradicts the experience of most 'normal' citizens).

Probably one of the greatest pieces this month

Here is the link.

And here's the full piece.

Twenty-one years after being overthrown by her party's pro-euro faction, Margaret Thatcher still continues to exert an enormous gravitational pull on British political life. With The Iron Lady film soon to be released, there has already been much speculation about whether she should be given a state funeral (in fact, and sadly for Labour, Thatcher's death is more interesting than Ed Miliband's entire life).

As Charles Moore recently wrote, what other modern British prime minister, aside from Churchill, would be worthy of a biopic? (Blair has been portrayed on several occasions, but always as a slightly comedic salesman or trendy vicar.)

So it's entirely fitting that, as official papers now reveal, Mrs Thatcher was so modest that she insisted on paying £19 for an ironing board. As this paper reports:

Files released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule include a note about the cost of refurbishing the Prime Minister’s official residence, in which Baroness Thatcher pointed out that she and her husband, Denis, used only one bedroom and already had their own crockery.

She wrote: “I will pay for the ironing boards and other things, like sufficient linen for the one bedroom we use. The rest can go back into stock. MT”

As a rule the great leaders are not made great by having the most lavish balls, the swankiest private jets or the grandest titles. Looking back, it was obvious that the New Labour project would end in dismal failure when its leaders began lavishing a fortune on new wallpaper, sofas, and grace and favour mansions. And David Cameron – the £680,000 of taxpayer's money he spent refurbishing Downing Street does not bode well.

Of course we can't entirely blame Cameron, just as we can't entirely blame MPs for making the taxpayers fund their lifestyles. Thatcher grew up in an era of hardship and penny-pinching, but she also lived in an age of high social solidarity and restraint. Politicians rarely cheated because they were more likely to see the taxpayers as people like them; there were also a greater sense of national solidarity, and though religion was in decline, the general climate was still strongly influenced by Biblical prohibitions. When did all this change? Depending on political allegiances, once can either blame the 1960s or the 1980s, although personally I think things started to change in the 1990s, when conspicuous consumption became the norm, bling came into fashion, and the typical song format changed from "I love you" to "I love me".

It is not that people are more selfish – there is still plenty of altruism about, as the case of the woman who gave a kidney to a lady she met at a dinner party illustrates – but rather there are no social restraints or taboos or pressures forcing not-very-altruistic people to behave themselves. Like when Thatcher came to power, we're entering a period of austerity, when hundreds of thousands are losing their jobs and belts are being tightened across the land. Yet we also have among the richest Cabinets in history, with a prime minister worth somewhere in the low eight figures.

In Ireland the shock of financial meltdown has been met, by many accounts, with surprising levels of social solidarity; people have agreed to defer loans to people who might lose their homes; civil servants have handed over money from their pensions to help pay off the national debt. It's not quite Bedford Falls, the setting for Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life; that film continues to bring tears to tipsy eyes every Christmas because it shows how much social solidarity can help a community overcome financial hardship, but it's heading in the right direction. In contrast, Britain now displays one of the major symptoms of low social capital – when the rich do not feel obliged to help out those less fortunate to them. In the past decade less than £10,000 has been gifted to the exchequer by British citizens; why aren't any of our mega-rich Cabinet donating money? David Cameron's catchphrase "we're all in it together" was so pathetic (in the old sense of the world) because it was so plainly untrue.

Maybe I'm doing the man down, and secret papers will reveal in 30 years' time that he spent all his weekend caring for Aids orphans and puppies: but Cameron, unlike Thatcher, seems a fitting leader for our age.

Stolen Christmas Falklands Thoughts

1. What makes anybody think the US will help us?
2. They stitched us up in Suez.
3. They sat on their hands in the Falklands.
4. They sent guns to the IRA.

That is indeed a very special relationship, much like the one where the spouse is trying to, slowly, but surely, suffocate, his other half.

Really, why does Britain have so many useful idiots?

For example...

Christmas

All I want for Christmas is for the LibDems to be destroyed at the next poll. Merry Christmas.

Nick Clegg

...speaks five languages and rubbish in everyone of them. In the parlance of the good old British Army, what a mong.

The 'yoof' of today

I would just like to entertain fellow readers by showing them the following remark, issued by a privately-schooled relative of mine, a young lad in his late teens. The sort of person who, unfortunately, is the future of this country.

Hate dikheads that think there all big but clearly there not!!

Now I believe that if my analysis is correct, what he was trying to say was

'I hate dick-heads, that think they are all big, but clearly they are not!!'.

Thank you Labour. Well done.

What now and what of UKIP?

How on earth will this affect UKIP? I am totally at loss, perhaps we can call it "FU" or "FUUK" as in 'Fuck You United Kingdom' or 'Fiscal Union without United Kingdom'? Reader suggestions are welcome.

"Their views on immigration are stupid and myopic, but that is true of much of the public." - Amol Rajan

Ukip has policies far beyond Europe, and its members are generally patriotic, pinstriped types. Their views on immigration are stupid and myopic, but that is true of much of the public. As the whole European federalist project disintegrates, Ukip will appear prescient, and voters will give them credit.

Source to the person who thinks the general public is stupid. Clearly a vote winner that one.

11.11.11

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

We can see you...

This blog has been going strong now for a good few years, in fact throughout my time at university which is slowly nearing its end. It was set-up with the intent of promoting the destruction of the EU in every form, having realised early on that such a sinister project and ploy had been given far too much space by pushy politicians with broken moral compasses.

And to this we add the latest gimmick that there is suddenly a new grouping in Westminster that is supposedly 'eurosceptic' (don't flatter yourself boys; real eurosceptics know what a kin looks like and you are not one). First of all before we go into to the details of this absolutely non-sensical prospect lets consider the media.

Whenever ministers or a group of say more than 10 people aspire to convene or project something akin to real conservative principles the media have something not too dissimilar to a political erection. The like and metaphor of which would not even be tolerated in the most violent pornographic flicks. Even the adult entertainment world has the sense not to go too far in its sexual exploration for it can be dangerous to accommodate every single fetich in the world. By strange comparison the British media has no such reservations with its response to political events. Instead they go 'all-in' and respond with grandiose and euphemistic pieces of how all of a sudden, we have a minister, a true leader, who has finally seen the light and wisdom of the electorate.

Yet they do not even wonder why it has taken more than 38 years for a seemingly clever person to reach the conclusion that the EU is not good for Europe nor mankind and particularly not the latter.

Hence one should always take the media with a couple of pounds of salts for they are unbelievably gullible and are very much signed up to the party line, and as such will offer no real journalism and criticism where it is truly due and needed.

We do not need celebratory gunshots from hacks who think they have spotted what might be perceived as a bit of right-wing leg, we want to know that if that is really what it is then why the flaming feck has it not been shown before? Why all of a sudden? Do they think we are so stupid that we can see or feel political expediency when it is being shoved down or neck on a daily basis?

Then of course we have the hacks who have had a sudden epiphany, a change or heart or a change in salary is more likely. Either way one must question the reason for reading such tosh when the authors revise one of their most fundamental principles (vis a vis that the EU is a force for good) in the face of mounting opposition from, well, everyone. But it is not just that, a truly brave journalist, and one worth reading, would be he who dared stand his ground and defend his principles. Surely, one must be allowed to trust in and believe in the EU as a force for good, most electorates of most countries would disagree, but a brave man nonetheless. And one whose's opinions would be worth reading.

But this, this sudden outburst or patriotism? Jingoism? Bellicosity? I do not know what to call it. Either way this government has given away more power to the EU in a shorter timeframe than any other government before them, yet they want us to believe that overnight they rediscovered their people, their real political creed, the flag and most importantly their principles.

They truly do take us for fools.

I am often rather upset by Mr North's constant cynicism towards the ultimate goal of cutting loose the chimera that is the EU from the UK. Surely someone somewhere must be doing something good to further that goal? I am always pleasantly surprised whenever I read anything regarding a politician picking a fight with the EU, and then of course I go to Mr North's blog to find out what is actually going on. The truth is he has been playing this game much longer than me, and he knows the EU better than quite frankly anyone. Though I fully intend to have an autonomous mind, I am of the opinion that when a man has been vindicated as many times as Mr North one should really start to heed his words. And they are easy enough to replicate; this is the most europhile government we have ever had, the Tories are not eurosceptic and they will never ever hold an in/out referendum.

Thought of the day

We do not need a "closer union" we need a closed-down union.

Amazing what greatness can come to you during a lunch break.

Smear by Association

UKIP scares the bejeesus out of the three main parties and their shills in the media because on their big single issue they better represent the opinion of the majority of the British public, as demonstrated in opinion poll after opinion poll. It's therefore necessary to denigrate them wherever possible and to portray a party which represents a wholly mainstream view of the EU as "xenophobic" if not outright "racist" in order to make it seem beyond the pale and unacceptable by association.

This media strategy is so blindingly obvious and, to judge from those same opinion polls on public attitudes towards the EU, not in the least successful.

Autumn Update

Dear fellow bloggers, I would just like to add a quick update on my extended absence. My internship, as it turns out, is far longer that most of my peers' hence my time and energy on this blog is limited as of now. However term starts in just under a month and the 'informed' ranting will start again. Political events which I highly suggest you attend (I plan to) include Congress for an EU Referendum - hopefully you are not too cynical about us leaving the EU. I maintain that it will happen within 10-15 years.

French Riots

Might I just draw the attention of my fellow bloggers to the fact that French riots of 2005 lasted for a month and they were infinitely more violent than ours. Regardless of how you pitch it the French will always be crappier than us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France

Side by Side

It is somewhat heartening to see that normal people are helping the police chase down the nimrods.

Link

London Calling

Nobody says you must laugh, but a sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected, and smile through the day.

Our politicians are smiling in blissful ignorance for they wont do the necessary to quell the unreasonable walking the streets of London. And lest someone should like to play the racial card I advice you to look at the pictures. Black, white, yellow, brown and mixed - every ethnical colour of the rainbow is represented this ominous evening, and all the nimrods of each race are running a riot whilst our politicians look as paralysed as the French did a few years ago. Might it perhaps be an idea to ask the French how they sorted themselves out?

Hear the voice of those brave enough to venture out into the blistering infernos

Well as I write, various parts of London, Croydon and Birmingham are burning. But fear not, I have just read in the Guardian that the Home Affairs Select Committee are going to launch an inquiry into the rioting so that should resolve it PDQ.

This is no longer anything to do with the police shooting a gangster in Tottenham. It is nothing to do with police and community relations. It is nothing to do with police racism. This is about 30 years of a liberal ineffective education system. This is about people being allowed to behave as they wish without any consequences. This is about pandering to to peoples rights with no regard to responsibilities. This is about a criminal justice system that is totally ineffective and that holds no fear for criminals. This is about failing to imprison violent and persistent offenders.

This is the legacy of Blair, Brown, Cameron etc. This is the legacy of the liberal hand wringers who just want to help all these poor offenders and never set boundaries or consequences. Your chickens have come home to roost. The blame for all this will no doubt be pointed elsewhere. Last week the police were criticised for being too hard on protesters. This week we are too soft. When the ashes are raked over this will need a wholesale change in policies not just laying the blame at the door of the police, a la MacPherson.

This is not a popular uprising such as the Arab states as some cretin suggested. This is about 2% of the population who have been taking the piss for years with impunity from the justice system. The police can sort it out but the liberal hand wringers might have to accept baton rounds and a few cracked skulls. If you cannot accept that then let them carry on. The Government might have to have a rethink on cutting police officer numbers, and before they cut payments to officers for being riot trained and for being called back to work they need to think that one through. Thousands of police officers have been called in to help tackle the rioting tonight. Cut the payments and next time you will find no one answering the phones. Most of us are devoted to the job and are happy to take all the crap and criticism and inevitable shaftings, but don't expect it for nothing.

And to round it all off we have Mary fucking Riddell.

We "care"

There have been some rather disturbing events in Norway as of late. Not wishing to distract from the scale and magnitude of events, nor their geopolitical influence if any (the man appears to be plain deprived of his senses, no religion involved). I will focus instead on how we, supposedly, care.

It is common for my generation to respond to a crisis with a very typical form of gesture. This gesture is held in high regard on the vastness that is the internet. What you do is simply to attach some form of symbolic imagery of the event, and attach it to your profile picture on Facebook. Once this is completed your moral duties have been satisfied and you and others will labour under the aegis that you are a magnanimous and compassionate being. This imagery is usually removed within a week, the time usually allocated for a media event to pass, so that the MSM can spin into frenzy over something new, something which sells and preferably something which is utterly sensationalist to satisfy our fix for human misery. Not our misery of course, but someone else's.

It is a disgusting practise.

It is disgusting because no one really does care, but they want people to think that they do, they want to conjure an idealistic portrait of themselves in the minds of their patrons and friends. The latter will follow suite of course, they will be drawn to this gesture like mosquitos to a fire light. It is like drugs for the self-righteous brigade. For of course were you to point out this hypocrisy, were you to underline the notion that they are reaping the benefits of misery and destruction for their own personal gain, to say just to what extent it is wrong... you are castigated and castrated of any voice and reason you once had.

Challenging the accepted notion of false adolescent compassion is akin to social suicide.

For how could they truly 'care', how could they possibly attach any form of sentiment to people thousands of miles away, people they do not know, never met but briefly on BBC1. It is a common trait amongst traditionalists to highlight the strength of the human spirit in adversity and pain. There might have been true compassion once, a long time ago, when there was more to life than your appearance and what shows you follow on E4.

No, my generation cares so much for the victims in Norway that they place a little norwegian flag in the bottom of their profile picture, let it sit there for about a week, then they revert back to what they had prior to this incident, which they have so cleverly exploited for seven days. They revert back to the time in place where they were comfortable, happy and their conscience was as it is now; untarnished and untroubled by minions of people blown to bloody pieces thousands of miles away in a foreign country which they cannot even place on a map let alone pronounce.

That is the true extent of the human spirit in 2011; sympathy without compassion.

Balls

I am guessing that no British politician has the balls to do anything about this.

The fall of Cameron? I am taking bets

So dear friends and readers; who think this might just lead to the fall of Cameron? (fingers crossed, touch wood, and all that bollocks)

£5 says it does.

Any takers?

Bollocked by Hague via the EU

What a joke you are, Hague. Do you not realise the exponentialisation in the number of Conservative and ex-Conservative voters who hold you in contempt and who have no intention ever of voting Tory again without the promise of a referendum on withdrawal within three months of the next election?

I have voted Conservative in every general election since my enfranchisement (several) and I would rather stay at home and see Labour burn the economy to the ground than vote for quislings like you.

You are a damned idiot. There is an electoral premium to offering voters a referendum. Do you think you are going to win our votes by telling us in a Telegraph article that we are in the EU to help spread the EU's special brand of freedom? You are ****ing deranged if you think that your pompous and delusional words will do anything but sicken the millions of right and left wing people in the UK who have no illusions about what the EU is.

Who wrote that article for you? They should be shot. Did you write it? Do you really think we are buying this bull "In the EU but not run by the EU". We are imprisoned by a myriad EU laws; your new little law is like a prisoner in a prison cell making a declaration that he will accept no further shackles on his body.

Take your article and shove it. I can barely believe how much the Conservative Party sickens me these days, though I can barely believe what a pathetic excuse for a leader you are. I thought I'd vote Tory until the day I died, but I didn't figure that spineless, gutless, delusional quislings would take over the party and fail to secure this nation's future by not having the guts to extricate us from the EU quicksand which is threatening our prosperity and freedom. Are those little red boxes really worth it, Hague? Are your dinner dates with EU friends really worth sacrificing your principles and this country, Cameron?

We should be in EFTA, not the EU, or negotiate a separate bilateral trade treaty that suits us perfectly, and then we can get on with rehabilitating our country as a Hong Kong style economic tiger on the edge of the continent. Funnily, Norway and Switzerland get by outside the EU. And you, William Hague, should go down to Beachy Head and follow the Conservatives' electoral prospects in 2015 down to where they deserve to go for so long as you ignore and deride the will of the British people to leave the European Union.

H/T Fausty