A post or not a post

I was going to post about two ridiculous items that pissed me off royally but the anger just wouldn't decrease enough to make it feasible. So for commentary on:

1. the matter of abu Qatada, Osama bin Laden’s right hand man and, the most important al Qaeda operative in Europe, and why he cannot be deported to Jordan under human rights law because witnesses in any future prosecution of him might themselves have been tortured by the Jordanians

and

2. on the matter of the Royal Navy being instructed not to arrest Somali pirates because doing so may breach their human rights and that there is also a risk that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain


Please take a trip over to Melanie Phillips instead.

Who is "innocent"?

I have blogged before about the the never asked question "Who is innocent". Inayat Bunglawala and Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain were oft heard to say in the days after the London bombings that

"we condemn the killing of all innocent people wherever they are" or "Those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of us all..."

I pointed out Anjum Chaudri's revealing explanation

"When we say innocent people we mean Muslims, as far as non-Muslims are concerned they have not accepted Islam and as far as we are concerned that is a crime against God... As far as Muslims are concerned, you are innocent if you are a Muslim, then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are a non-Muslim then you are guilty of not believing in God"

"I must have hatred to anything that is not Islam"

I now note that al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri, has issued a declaration that includes this

"we haven’t killed the innocents, not in
Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else. And if there is any innocent who was killed in the Mujahideen’s operations, then it was either an unintentional error, or out of necessity as in cases of al-Tatarrus [taking of human shields by the enemy]... we are confronting the enemies of the Muslim Ummah and targeting them, and it may be the case that during this, an innocent might fall unintentionally or unavoidably, and the Mujahideen have warned repeatedly the Muslims in general that they are in a war with the senior criminals – the Americans and Jews and their allies and agents – and that they must keep away from the places where these enemies gather."

"I think it's time to recriminalise crime"

"I think it's time to re criminalise crime. What I mean by re criminalising crime is taking your experience of crime seriously and not endlessly downgrading things that happen, assaults, thefts of mobile phones, and just calling it anti-social behaviour. This is a crime!"

That's from Boris Johnson's latest campaign video - you can watch it here.

Why are we so poor compared to the rest of Europe

Mr Eugenides has the details...

"Snot Guilty"

"A LANK-HAIRED lout shocked David Cameron on a walkabout yesterday – by smearing SNOT on his back."

So the Sun reports today. I know what you are thinking and no Gordon hasn't flown back especially to do this. It appears that there is another snot loving lout in the UK.

Vulcan XH558

I have written before about Vulcan XH558 and the Vulcan to the Sky Trust and was really pleased when I read that the old girl has been test flying over the last week and with great success.

Then I spotted this piece on the BBC, it's entitled "Symbol of destruction takes to the air" and is quite a mean-spirited article including the line "The debate over whether a symbol of destruction should be restored will continue".

The BBC proud to hate anything British. Thank heavens they have so little knowledge of history that they don't know about the Vulcan's mission to bomb the runway at Port Stanley airport during the mission to retake the Falklands. Do read the book Vulcan 607 for the fascinating story of this mission.

More problems for Gordon Brown

Whilst Gordon Brown's US visit is failing to attract much attention in the US, as his team of PR experts managed to book him in during the Pope's visit, back at home his problems multiply.

Here's a Labour Home piece and comments on the problem with Gordon. Tony Hannon's article includes this:

"with Gordon. I look at the conference Q&A where barely a question from his own Party members went satisfactorily answered. The video link is out there somewhere. Waffle and platitudes around the topics raised.

Whenever there was a crisis for Blair – Gordon was nowhere to be found and a statement came a few days after the fact. We’ve now stumbled from issue, to crisis, to non-issue for almost a year and this guy never makes his argument convincingly.

To put it frankly – someone who has hidden away from difficult conversations with the public and the press has no real right to associate himself with courage.

Someone who contrived relentlessly and remorselessly to oust the most successful leader this party has ever had is in ill a position to expect loyalty.

Someone with the least credible ability to argue a case or policy has no right to call himself leader."

As ever, the comments are even more cutting...



Meanwhile, The Guardian report on the call by some Labour MPs for a new type of inheritance tax, just the policy Gordon Brown wants to be associated with...



If Gordon Brown wasn't quite such a monumental disaster for this Country, I'd almost feel sorry for him - almost!

A breach of the Trade Descriptions Act?

Cannon & Ball
Paul Daniels
Frank Carson
Jimmy Cricket
Brotherhood of Man
The Krankies

The above is the advertised line-up, "coming to a town near you" for the show:

"Best of British Variety Tour 2008"


I think not...

Koyapigaktoruk

"Global warming is not pushing the robin to extinction. Au contraire: It's expanding the robin's range northward, into places where it's never been seen. Robins are venturing so far north that they've even been sighted in the Inuit territory of northern Canada, where, Sen. John McCain tells us, there isn't even a word for the birds. Yes, even John McCain has feathered his political nest with the robin's expansion. Back in 2004, after a hearing McCain organized as chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, The New York Times' Andrew Revkin noted that he was particularly concerned about the rapid warming of the Arctic. "The Inuit language for 10,000 years never had a word for 'robin,'" McCain lamented, "and now there are robins all over their villages." The BBC even titled a program on arctic warming "No Word for 'Robin': Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic." What a shame! Pretty little birds invading the Arctic, bringing joy with their whoop of spring!"

Of course the Inuit do have at least one word for the robin - Koyapigaktoruk. Read the whole story at Greenie Watch.

"Labour government breaks rules"

Hardly earth-shattering news as they have form in this area. In this instance it seems that the Conservatives are reporting Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, of breaching Whitehall election rules and have reported her to the cabinet secretary. The reporting follows Jacqui Smith's announcement of 300 "new" police jobs to counter the threat of terrorism. (Off subject but having listened to Jacqui Smith's bad tempered interview on the not quite as Toady as she hoped programme this morning, I am not 100% convinced that this is new money) There is meant to be a three week purdah before the local elections and the Conservatives have complained that the police announcement "breaks both the convention and official rules that official Civil Service resources should not be used to attempt to influence elections in the three weeks up to elections".

The ever impressive Eric Pickles has written to the less impressive Gus O'Donnell

"It is clear that Labour ministers have intentionally broken Cabinet Office rules in an attempt to create a political smokescreen.

"They are trying to hide the fact that police authorities across the country are now axing the number of police officers, whilst hiking the police levy on council tax bills."

He added: "I fear that this is growing evidence of the politicisation of the civil service under Labour, as ministers desperately try to salvage a sinking election campaign."

Of course the Labour government believe that normal rules do not apply to them, after all they are "the political wing of the British people".

"Gordon Brown is not up to the job"

Hardly an earth-shattering view, but do take a read of Simon Heffer's column in The Telegraph. Here is an extract:

"I do not think Mr Brown is dishonest. I think he is blinkered by sociopathy, narrow-minded and inflexible in a way that is bad enough when you are right but fatal when you are wrong.

He also seems to detach himself and his actions from the consequences that are now being played out, notably in the economic arena.

Finally, he is a poor judge of people, having kept in important jobs people who are either incapable or who have the knack of instantly repelling the public. That is why his party now languishes in the polls: it is also why, given the absence of a big idea, the odds are against it reviving enough to win an outright majority at an election."

As always do read the whole article and take a browse through the comments section beneath.

"a different type of politics - a more open and honest dialogue"

"a different type of politics - a more open and honest dialogue" that's what Gordon Brown promised when he became Prime Minister back in June last year. The deputy leader of the Labour party, Harriet Harman, said that under Mr Brown, there would be "no spin". However I read that

"he dramatic reversal in his popularity at the end of last year apparently triggered a dip in confidence that has led Mr Brown to appoint, on average, a new adviser every fortnight since the start of the year.

As a result, the annual wage bill for the Prime Minister's special advisers was estimated to have risen by more than £350,000 to £1.75 million - roughly the same as when Mr Blair was at No 10."

I seem to be writing a lot about the inadequacies of Gordon Brown at the moment, as are many other commentators. However I would like to point out that unlike many of them I have been doing this for more than a couple of months.

The war on drivers (yet more)

Further to lower blood alcohol limits, redefining potholes and increased motor offence fines, all news stories from the last month; today I learn that a new weapon has been unleashed against the motorist. This time it is a trial of average speed cameras monitoring a five-mile stretch of the A13 between Canning Town and the Gorsebrook interchange in the east of London.

I have experienced driving though areas controlled by average speed cameras, normally where there are roadworks on A roads or motorways. The presence of average speed cameras seems to increase the chance of accidents occurring; I find myself driving with one eye one the speedometer almost the whole time in case I should stray above the usually reduced speed limit. The other thing that happens is that the I, a very law abiding citizen, find myself resenting yet another restriction on their my life and liberty and have to come home and blog about it!

This Labour government and their local authority and police fellow travellers in the war on the motorist and the raising of revenue through fines, will not stop ratcheting up the fines, penalties and restrictions until the motorist fights back.

I am convinced that there are votes aplenty available to a political party which promised to reduce the stringency with which motorists are monitored.






UPDATE:

I think Pete Moore at A Tangled Web might agree with this article. Go and take a read.

For the record I have a clean driving licence now, although I have had a few points over the last 20+ years. Happily they have long ago expired from my driving licence.

DWP incompetence

You really couldn't make it up...

The Sun report that:

"A WOMAN who claimed a bad back made it impossible for her work was employed at the SAME Government department that paid out her benefits.

Twenty-four-year-old Joanne Kirman fraudulently obtained over £9,000 whilst employed at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)....

Prosecuting for the DWP, Warren Spencer said Kirman stated she was incapable of work but it was discovered she was employed 37 hours a week at the DWP national helpline centre in Blackpool.

The court heard it was a £15,000 a year job which Kirman obtained through a disability advisor at the Department of Work and Pensions."

You really couldn't make that sort of story up, could you?

First GOAT to leave government

It's OK, not me but Lord Jones, Curly has the detail.

BBC pro-Labour bias

The Toady programme sounds more and more like the Labour party's house radio station. For the most part overly positive about the Labour party and its leader; with a negative article allowed every so often so as to show that they are not totally under the spell of "the man". Of course these pieces of "independent thought" are always "balanced" by a more serious and harder hitting attack on the hated Conservatives. David Cameron and other leading Conservatives have a problem; if they want not to be totally savaged by the BBC then they have to try and tickle the BBC's collective tummy by sounding as cuddly and "liberal" as possible. Of course the BBC hate the Conservative party and will look for any excuse to attack them and their policies so the Conservative leadership have to as anodyne as possible when interviewed by the BBC. This lack of policy teeth then allows the Labour/BBC axis to attack the Conservatives for having no distinctive policies.

As the BBC will not change its spots and as the bias of the BBC is becoming more obvious to the general public; the question is should the Conservative leadership make clear their distaste for the pro-Labour bias of the BBC.

Keeping the economy on track is Gordon Brown's "sole focus"

Hmmm, is that a sensible thing for the Prime Minister to say? Obviously he should be concerned about the state of the economy, after all he is largely responsible for the dire state that it is in. However, from now on, is he going to completely ignore the threat from Islamic terrorists, the major problems with the NHS, the ever increasing crime and fear of crime, uncontrolled immigration and the tensions that that is exacerbating, etc. etc. etc.

Has Gordon Brown reached the point where he really has little more than a tenuous grip on reality? I think that the upcoming local election results will cause more than a little panic amongst Labour backbenchers who fear for their seats on the "gravy train".

The Breakdown of Family Life

"Without being in any way over dramatic or alarmist my prediction would be, looking back and seeing where we have come from and projecting forward on the present trajectory, that the effects of family breakdown on the life of the nation and ordinary people in this country will, within the next 20 yrs be as marked and as destructive as the affects of global warming. We are experiencing a period of family meltdown whose effects will be as catastrophic as the meltdown of the ice caps. For what is the point of pouring resources into the physical protection of society if its mental health is so damaged and undermined that life for many is so miserably unhappy that it is hardly worth living anyway."

Read the rest of a speech by Mr Justice Coleridge to the Resolution National Conference on 5 April 2008 here and weep at what this country has become and where it is heading.

"It is a never ending carnival of human misery. A ceaseless river of human distress."

Gordon Brown rumbled?

The BBC Have Your Say entitled "Can Gordon Brown revive the economy?" is eliciting lively comments. Take a look at the Readers Recommended comments; distinctly "off message".

Delusional?

Does Gordon Brown even know what he is talking about any more? This is a clip from an interview with Adam Boulton on Sky News. The captions are 3rd party, obviously.

"We had to diversify into gold", what is he talking about? As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was responsible for selling half of the Country's gold reserves in 1999 after pre-announcing the sale and so depressing the price he could obtain - rather similar to his recent prediction of an interest rate fall before the Bank of England decision and so pushing the value of Sterling.

It has been estimated that his decision to so much gold has cost the Uk around £5 billion. You might be interested in reading this article as well.
Why does Adam Boulton not pick Gordon Brown up on this?

I am all but speechless...