Brexit - Why?

I went to sleep last night thinking that Project Fear had worked, hell earlier in the day even I had started to have doubts about which way to vote.

At 10pm last night I heard the poll forecasts of 52:48 for Remain and that the pound was hitting $1.50. This just seemed odd, the mood of the country didn't seem to be towards Remain, but maybe Project Fear had worked, after all even I had nearly cracked. However it felt wrong, so I tweeted...

I slept and awoke at 4ish thinking that being a gracious loser was important and that at least Sterling was up so holidays would be a little cheaper. Then I heard the news... Leave had won!

Of course the BBC are all doom and gloom and 'told you so' re the financial markets. Sterling down 9% they are saying, will yes against a figure that was illusory, a figure whose value was decided on wrong information. I was buying dollars not that long ago at just under 1.40, so the drop is about 5%, painful but not unprecedented.

But why did the Brexit campaign win? The blame can be laid in four main places:
1. The EU itself - By taking away democratic control from the people, the people felt powerless. This referendum gave the people some power and they exercised it. Also when David Cameron asked for a few scraps from the table to allow him to present his EU renegotiation as a success, they couldn't even allow that. So David Cameron had to pretend that he'd got a good deal but it was obvious that he hadn't.

2. Tony Blair and the Labour Party - Tony Blair was an EU supporter and an ally of the EU fanatic Peter Mandelson. But Tony Blair's culpability in this regard actually lies elsewhere. By opening the UK up to unprecedented immigration from both within and outside of the EU, Tony Blair and the Labour Party hoped to 'rub the right's noses in diversity'. Immigration into the UK increased to unprecedented levels and the people that were affected the most were those working class people, historically Labour voters, who saw their wages drop, their jobs disappear, their schools get more crowded, their roads fill up, their hospitals at breaking point and their ability to buy or rent a house recede as demand for housing and other public services outstripped supply.

3. The British media - The BBC dominate the British mediasphere and they have been very pro EU, pro unlimited immigration and frankly insulting of anyone who dared to hold a contrary view. A large proportion of the British people were tired of being called 'racist' when they pointed out that their hospitals, schools, roads etc were being adversely affected  by immigration. If the BBC had allowed their voices to be heard, if the government had listened to their legitimate concerns, then maybe the people wouldn't have become so angry. But the media and the establishment always know better, know what's good for the people and left the people voiceless, until...

4. David Cameron - I really believe that David Cameron didn't believe that he win the 2015 general election with a majority Conservative government. So a promise of an EU referendum was safe, he could say that the price of having another Conservative lead coalition with the Lib Dems was that there could be no EU referendum and he would probably have got away with that. Unfortunately for David Cameron the mood in the country was such that Labour voters fled the Labour Party for UKIP in sufficient numbers for the Conservatives to win a majority government. Now what was David Cameron to do? He went to the EU (actually see 1. for what happened)

5. Angela Merkel - Her decision to open the floodgates to Middle East and North African immigration and the resulting images of, mainly, young ,men walking into Europe helped to decide the views of many who don't benefit from cheap cleaners, gardeners and builders but who can no longer get work in thise jobs because they've been undercut by immigrants.


What do you think? Am I right? Have I missed something?

The one hundred and ninety ninth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

'The government's Fixed Term Parliaments Act was a "mistake", ex-Conservative cabinet minister Ken Clarke has said.'

More here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31917502

No shit, Sherlock

Is 'Islamic State' Islamic?

Robert Spencer and Michael Coren discuss whether 'Islamic State' is Islamic.

Do you believe an expert on the Koran such as Robert Spencer or Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron or the BBC?


Here's some more facts comapring 'Islamic State' with the Koran:

So is 'Islamic State' Islamic?

A few days ago, I blogged along similar lines, here's part of that  post:

The ever watchable Andrew Klavan, determines if President Obama and others are correct when they declare that the terror group ISIS/ISISL/Islamic State is not, in fact, Islamic.




So is 'Islamic State' Islamic?

Pornography filters for the UK

I see that David Cameron has decided that he must 'do something' about children accessing porn on the internet and thus he's decided that everybody will be denied access to porn unless they opt to be able to access it.

Hmm, I foresee a few problems:
1. Proxy Servers - Has David Cameron ever heard of proxy servers? These nifty web services allow you to access any website from anywhere, so long as you can access the proxy server. Using the proxy server means that you can surf anything your heart (or other bodily organ) desires and there's nothing that the UK government can do about it.

Yes usage of proxy servers is low in the UK at present, but that's because the UK has no internet censorship. Just watch usage increase as 1 January 2014 nears. But these are difficult to use, I hear you say. Actually they're not but also when people are denied their access to porn, just watch the proxy server setup services spring up...


2. Misclassification - The existing web filters that I have used at work are poor at best. Misclassification is not uncommon and highly annoying when it occurs. A 1% error rate and I've seen much, much higher rates quoted, would mean many million of sites being mistakenly classified as porn and thus inaccessible from the UK. Imagine if your site had once had an image of Michelangelo's David on one page among hundreds on your site, for some web filter vendors that would be enough to brand your whole site as hosting nudity and thus porn. How would you get your site delisted? Could you? What would it cost you? How much business might you lose?


3. The thin end of the wedge - It's restricting access to porn today, in the interests of the children ("Will nobody think of the children"), what next? Bomb making sites? Radical Islamist sites? anti Islamist sites like Jihad Watch, The EDL website? UKIP? Once a government starts down the road of internet censorship, a precedent has been set and subsequent governments will be always tempted to extend the scope of the restrictions. Today there's no internet censorship in the UK, in 20 years we could be like China or one of the highly restrictive Middle Eastern states (not Israel).


4. Publicity  - How much would these opt-in lists be worth? How much would The Mail pay for such a list, so that they could check on teachers who have opted in? How much would The Guardian pay to see which Conservative MPs have opted in? I presume that you could think of many, many more such examples.



Pornography filters for the UK, it's coming sometime... but should it and will it work?

Woolwich and the dark underbelly of British Islam

MP Tom Watson speaks sense:

'And yet the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby overshadowed – or should have overshadowed – everything. The attack by adherents of a hateful and violent iteration of Islam was an awful reminder that Islamism remains, even 12 years after 9/11, the greatest threat to our way of life.

There are people living in this country who believe as an article of faith that it is acceptable, even necessary, to kill citizens of any country which has dared to attack a Muslim country. They believe that the kaffir, as they insultingly refer to non-believers, are of less value to their God than Muslims. They despise a culture which extends equal rights to women and gays, and scorn those women who dare to dress "immodestly" as whores.
...
I understand the reticence of those who see the word "Islamist" and are reluctant to condemn it because, well, it sounds a lot like "Islam", doesn't it? After criticising adherents of Islamism on Twitter, it doesn't take long for some oddball to accuse you of racism, either because they've misidentified the word or because they're stupid.

Uncomfortable though it is for some, we need to examine the dark underbelly of what goes on in some of our mosques. True, the vast majority of British Muslims would never associate themselves with Islamism. Yet preachers of hate as well as their followers and fellow travellers, worship in the same buildings, speak to, work with, and are related to that sensible majority.

And those law-abiding citizens have a duty to challenge them, expel them and, if necessary, report them to the authorities.

Calls for unity in the face of terrorism are correct and necessary. But that doesn't mean we ignore the real implications of a nauseating act of violence against a brave young man who served our nation in its defence.
Focusing on the EDL might salve the conscience of some, but it's a strategy that will come back to haunt us in the most awful way imaginable. '

More sense from a Labour MP here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10095899/Woolwich-and-the-dark-underbelly-of-British-Islam.html


It's a shame that our lamentable Prime Minister, David 'dhimmi' Cameron can't make as much sense.

PMQs 3 March 2013

Following the Eastleigh by election, David Cameron has decided to take the attack to Labour at PMQs. He's reminding people of Labour's record in office. He should have been doing this for months and years, not starting now.

Too little, too late.

David Cameron - Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?

"Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain? Brave Hungarian peasant girl who forced King John the pledge at Runnymede and close the boozers at half-ten. Is all this to be forgotten?"..."

From "Twelve Angry Men" BBC-TV Series 5 of "Hancock's Half Hour"

"We cannot possibly let Greece go because if she leaves the Euro other countries will want to follow and that will be the end of our European project"

According to Nigel Farage the above were the words of Chancellor Angela Merkel, here's Nigel...

Plenty more in the speech about democracy in the EUSSR, David Cameron's broken promise and so on.

Like minds?

For quite a while I have wondered why David Cameron spent quite so much energy appealing the lefty types that dominate the UK media, especially those at the BBC and Guardian collective, when they will never vote for him or do anything other than seek the destruction of him and his party. I am not alone in wondering this as this article with David Starkey in The Spectator shows:

' ‘What he [David Cameron] has been doing with Steve Hilton is totally and absolutely misconceived,’ he says...  The idea of prioritising foreign aid, being nice to minorities, hugging homosexuals to death — of whom I am one — always strikes me as fundamentally daft,’ he says. ‘A) these are not terribly popular causes and b) these are trying to appeal to the Guardianista class. The Guardianista class will never in a thousand million years vote for him. It’s an absurd strategy and no one with an understanding of British politics would actually do it.’

No, he says, Cameron should seduce the working classes and, if he were really bold, he’d junk Scotland. ‘It would fuck the left completely. There would never be a Labour government again.’'

Is David Cameron so stupid that he doesn't see the truth in this? Or is he not really a Conservative at all?

Perspective

Dizzy Thinks wonders at the current furore over David Cameron, Andy Coulson and phone-hacking:

 'Prime Minister: Tony Blair
Allegation: Accused of modifying government policy relating to tobacco advertising in sports in return for a donation of £1 million to his political party
Truth Status: Not proven - opinions on truth dependent on personal prejudices. Donation eventually returned (although modified policy remained in force)
What Opponents Said: Resign
Political Status: Survived and won following two elections.

Prime Minister: Tony Blair
Allegation: Along with his Director of Commmunication accused of lying to Parliament by embelishing and "sexing up" the case for the Iraq War. Presure intensified by the sudden, mysterious death of whistleblower leading to multiple inquiries and conspiracy theories.
Truth Status: Not proven - opinions on truth dependent on personal prejudices.
What Opponents Said: Resign
Political Status: Survived and won following election.

Prime Minister: Tony Blair
Allegation: That peerages and knighthoods were offered and exchanged for loans and donations to the Labour Party. Staff in Downing Street including the Prime Minister questioned by Police.
Truth Status: Not proven - opinions on truth dependent on personal prejudices.
What Opponents Said: Resign
Political Status: Survived

Prime Minister: David Cameron
Allegation: That he previously employed someone who has since resigned, who may have - as yet to be proven but alleged by a whistle-blower who has suddenly died - acted criminally prior to his employment; and to have met with multiple times on both personal and business terms (in keeping with his two predecessors), the Chief Executive of a newspaper business.
Truth Status: What exactly is the allegation? Opinion will depend on personal prejudices.
What Opponents Said: Resign
Political Status: To Be Confirmed (oddly)'

Dizzy Thinks has a very good point. I think there may be other examples involving Gordon Brown...

Has the time come to actively oppose David Cameron?

The more I hear David Cameron witter, the more I realise that he is no better a Prime Minister than Tony Blair was. Witness the lack of intellectual honesty he regularly displays and his regular twisting in the wind of public opinion. Three prime examples being his refusal to stand up to the EU, his abandonment of his principles over support for Israel and his inability to see the truth about climate change. These are all good reasons why David Cameron is moving, in my mind, from being a possible good thing as PM to being almost certainly terrible PM.

I vehemently opposed Blair and Brown, do I have to start to do the same to Cameron?

'Banker bashing' has consequences

HSBC has revealed plans to quit London for Hong Kong and it seems to be due to combination of factors: higher UK taxes & costs and of course regulation. On the matter of taxes my information is that moving to Hong Kong could deliver a 30pc premium to the HSBC share price overnight as operating expenses had soared to $37.7bn in the last financial year (a rise of 9.6pc on the previous one) and payroll taxes have risen as well. Meanwhile Britain's capital requirements are now amongst the toughest in the world and the introduction of the Basel III regulations from 2013 will raise the bar even higher. HSBC believe that the more relaxed capital requirements in Hong Kong would cost the company less and allow them to generate more profit by making greater use of its balance sheet.

Maybe Boris Johnson was right, maybe the UK does need to do more to keep big City banks in The City. Do David Cameron and George Osborne realise how much Corporation Tax HSBC pays in the UK, how much PAYE and NIc is paid by the bank's staff and how much money the bank's employees put into the UK and especially London economy?

Another poor David Cameron appointment?

This Next Left article fills me with dread:

'Andrew Cooper is to become Downing Street director of strategy, having been head of the pollster Populus.

There was a nervous reaction from Tim Montgomerie, the influential editor of ConservativeHome, who quickly tweeted:

Andrew Cooper once described the Tory grassroots as "vile" to me. And now he's head of strategy for David Cameron.

There is good evidence that Montgomerie, and the Tory backbench and grassroots right more generally, have substantive reasons to be nervous.'

Read the whole  article and see if you agree with me...