A Brief Encounter

Scottish Independence

2013-06-14T10:56:00.000+01:00

A right bunch of arseholes!

I have just caught up on the BBC's Question Time from last night. I have concluded that the SNP are a bunch of detestable bigots fuelled by hatred of the English.

I am unaware of any Scottish people being attacked, verbally or physically, in England. But that claim was made on last night's programme, along with other lies about England and the English.

I am aware of numerous cases of English people being attacked in Scotland and in one case the boy was beaten to death. I am unaware of similar in England, although I do remember Scottish football fans ransacking Manchester before a recent football final.

When I visited Scotland a few years ago I was warned that I could have problems with local people if I left my Cross of St George on the back of my car. Friends have been told similar when visiting Scotland.

Maybe I'll make a donation to the SNP to help their breakaway from the United Kingdom.

Political Correctness? National Self-Loathing More Like!

2013-06-05T10:54:00.000+01:00

There are idiots then there are the politically correct, far worse than the most idiotic of idiots. I haven't been blogging much in the last twelve months because I've been working hard, and doing very long hours, building a new business.

Now I know that will be a surprise to John Bercow, who thinks that Eastern Europeans are the ones who work hard and the English are lazy, slovenly bastards, but it happens to be true. Ironic really that a man who makes a very substantial living sitting on a throne shouting 'order, order' and living in palatial state apartments in the Palace of Westminster should be so arrogant as to slag off those of us in the real world but eh, he's got little man syndrome I suspect, reinforced by a gobby wife who towers above him just to emphasise his diminutive stature.

Then the news today has been full of crap from the new Children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman, banging on about how white parents don't buy books with black people on the cover. How she knows that I'm not sure, unless she's done a survey of several million people. But I suspect she's just making as offensively sweeping a generalisation as the BNP and their ilk are wont to do. Bear in mind this is a woman who writes books, for children, about whites being in a minority in this country and being oppressed and victimised by the black majority. She also claims to have felt 'invisible' growing up because she read books that didn't have black people in them. Didn't put her off becoming a successful writer though did it? I wonder if in her parallel universe there would be a white Children's Laureate?

Then in the Torygraph Tanya Aldred is banging on about how disgusting it is that there will not be a female cricket commentator when the Ashes are played this summer. Big bloody deal. Personally I find female commentators on football, cricket and rugby shrill and off putting and am glad it will be an all male commentary team. I also don't like the idea of male midwives, not that I've ever needed one, and actually feel much more comfortable seeing a female GP rather than a male GP. If that makes me guilty of any 'isms' then shame, but I don't give a shit.

Of course the real reason for political correctness is to cow us all into submission. When whites loathe themselves, men loathe themselves, the able bodied, the heterosexuals and other 'traditional' groups loathe themselves and they all loathe christians the job will have been done. We'll be mere cogs in the wheel of a powerful and controlling police state, bullied and pushed about because we hate ourselves and are too afraid to fight back .

Not far to go.

UKIP-Nutjob Alert

2013-05-25T08:31:00.000+01:00

When I first heard Tories proclaiming that a vote for UKIP would let Miliband and Labour in I wondered if that was the best they could do. But UKIP do have a habit of proving that they are truly on the lunatic fringe. Well, look at Nigel Farage for starters. Somebody who tries so hard to be 'a character' only proves himself to be a completely mad, egocentric, attention seeking berk.

Now UKIP councillors in Norfolk have proved that this problem is apparent throughout the party. The ~~nutters~~ UKIP councillors on Norfolk County Council have gone into alliance with Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems and a Labour leader has been installed. The Tories are the largest group on Norfolk County Council.

Forgive me but I am not aware that supporting that motley crew of statist misfits is very libertarian, which UKIP claim to be. Did the people of Norfolk who voted UKIP really expect to find their county council led by a Labour councillor because of the support of UKIP councillors? I doubt it.

Furthermore, on Twitter I saw a UKIP member asked what the party's position was on the legalisation of marijuana. The UKIP member replied that the party would hold a referendum to find out what the populace wanted. Oh right, so would they hold a referendum to find out if 51% of the population wanted murder legalised? What a cop out to avoid answering a question on a controversial issue. Again, if UKIP was truly a libertarian party it would support the legalisation of marijuana, and be honest about that.

Like wanting out of the EU but wallowing on the gravy train, UKIP are just proving themselves to be the most cynical of the political parties rather than an alternative. Making the right noises to attract protest votes on a range of issues, but offering nothing of any substance. Their policy of massively increasing state expenditure, but cutting taxes, would bankrupt the country faster than you could say Gordon Brown. They aren't bright and I would warn anybody to look beneath the surface if you think these nutjobs are a credible alternative to the LibLabCon.

Woolwich-Proving The World Has Gone Mad!

2013-05-23T11:00:00.000+01:00

I wasn't going to say much about the brutal murder of a squaddie yesterday in Woolwich by a couple of barbarians, and I still won't. But I will make a couple of observations on the reaction to events.

It seems that many people can only condemn the murderers if they also condemn the 150 or so demonstrators who turned up in Woolwich last night.

Leading on from that people seem to be drawing parallels between the EDL and islamic nutters. I know little about the EDL but am not aware that they have killed thousands of people throughout the world in assorted terrorist attacks.

For saying what I have just said above about the EDL I am likely to be attacked for being at best an EDL supporter, at worst a raging fascist/racist/xenophobe/islamophobe.

I've seen one idiot's response on the internet that effectively said that we shouldn't condemn muslims because last night he had a good muslim in a takeaway cook his nan bread just how he likes it, slightly burnt around the edges. Muslims should also be excused anything because said muslim even offered to cook him another if it was too burnt. That makes it alright then.

One nutjob on the internet has already claimed that Cameron organised last night's murder so he could react like a strong man and shore up his plummeting poll ratings.

I saw a screen shot (I think that's what it's called) of the EDF Energy Twitter account. They had to constantly deny that they were demonstrating in Woolwich last night and that it was in fact the EDL.

I also saw an internet forum where EDL supporters were demanding that the Brighton Pavilion be demolished and be rebuilt in Saudi Arabia. I suppose from a certain angle, just about at dusk, if you squint a little and use your imagination it does look a tiny bit like a mosque.

But don't despair. David Cameron's in charge and he's chaired a Cobra meeting this morning. We'll be OK.

Don't Blame UKIP-Blame Cameron!

2013-05-22T10:39:00.000+01:00

The Tory Party is in denial, and UKIP is their convenient scapegoat. But let's be perfectly blunt, the reason they are heading for defeat is David Cameron. The man is a totally unprincipled, clueless, uncharismatic chancer who has blown his opportunity. So the Tories blame Farage, a totally unprincipled, clueless chancer who at least has a little charisma, but ultimately is a con man who will be exposed by the glare of publicity heading his way.

Cameron and the Tories claim that they must occupy the centre ground. But all that seems to mean is 'let's piss everybody off, not just the wet pinko liberals'. Ultimately it means trying to be all things to all men and it just doesn't work. Tory activists who try to defend this government increasingly sound like occupants of a certain Berlin bunker in April 1945, or Comical Ali as US troops marched into Baghdad. 'Swivel eyed loons' maybe?

What the Tory Party leadership has done, is what the party has been doing for decades, it has driven solid hard working supporters into the arms of a party whose leadership, not just its membership, consists primarily of swivel eyed loons. Attacking and vilifying defectors from your own party is hardly going to tempt them back. What the Tory Party needs to do is to stop being so arrogant and aloof and look at the real reasons, reasons far deeper than the mere existence of loonies like Farage and UKIP.

It is evident to most people that the desire to be free of the shackles of the EU, and the need to control immigration, are two positions that are based on common sense. A majority in this country clearly have deep concerns about these issues, they therefore represent the centre ground. The more Cameron and company cling to their nice cosy idea of their own peculier centre ground then the more activists and volunteer branch officers will walk away. Cameron seems happier pissing off his party activists than pissing off the political elite in London's trendy bars and tearooms.

You only have to look at the set of daydreams that UKIP call policies to see that apart from leaving the EU, they still have no credible philosophy or practical policies. Indeed, it makes a dedicated anti-EU campaigner like me wonder if membership of the EU would actually be preferable to an independent Britain under UKIP rule. Their policies are every bit as barking mad as those of the EU, Farage and his MEPs have learnt well during their time on the gravy train.

With two years to go there may just be a chance of the Tories changing and taking a common sense approach but that would mean ditching Dave. Even then it would be a tall order, but at least there would be the chance to install a leader who could use common sense and start rebuilding after the defeat in 2015 that looks increasingly inevitable.

Let's face it, Cameron couldn't win the 2010 general election when Brown was the loathed, ridiculed and generally despised successor to Blair. What chance against Miliband in 2015 when you have driven a sizeable proportion of your natural supporters out of the party? Sitting on the sidelines, playing nicely with Clegg and Cable while blaming UKIP is patently absurd and lazy. It's Dave stupid!

Graduate Social Workers-Oh Shit!

2013-05-17T09:05:00.001+01:00

I nearly choked on my Weetabix this morning when I read about graduates being fast tracked into social work here. What a waste of a degree that. Three years studying to end up screwing up peoples' lives as a social worker.

Now, if this government wasn't such a wet, pinko gang of misfits they could help reduce the deficit by abolishing social workers, not fast tracking bloody graduates into becoming mithering do gooders.

Then they could abolish swathes of degree courses, starting with the ones that are so useless you are only fit to go into social work when you graduate.

George Galloway MP

2013-05-10T16:16:00.000+01:00

Just in case you ever start taking the sick bastard seriously, above is a reminder. He's the one on the left, naturally.

Yesterday Was Europe Day!

2013-05-10T10:14:00.001+01:00

Here's how Europeans marked the European Union and its flag:

Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall and Barbara Hewson

2013-05-10T09:47:00.002+01:00

Barbara Hewson has been pilloried this week for an article she wrote for Spiked Online.

The gist of her well reasoned argument was that accusations of relatively mild sexual misbehaviour by stars years ago, stars who are now elderly, are being used in a wave of puritanical vengeance by police forces and pressure groups.

She quite reasonably argues that certain investigations in this climate of moral outrage go against the most fundamental principles of our judicial system. The complainant automatically becomes the victim and the presumption of innocence, in cases of alleged paedophilia and other cases of sexual assault, is being abandoned.

The point she makes that caused wild headlines and huge media interest was at the very end when she suggested lowering the age of consent to 13. I recommend reading the article in full and have provided a link below.

The full article can be read here.

Libertarian v Fabian

2013-05-09T08:55:00.000+01:00

If a Libertarian doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Fabian doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Libertarian is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Fabian is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Libertarian sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A Fabian wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a Libertarian is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Fabian is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a black person is Libertarian, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their Fabian counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a Libertarian is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Fabian demands someone take care of him.

If a Libertarian doesn’t like a TV programme, he changes channels.
Fabians demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a Libertarian is an atheist, he doesn’t go to church.
A Fabian non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it’s a foreign religion, of course!)

If a Libertarian decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Fabian demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a Libertarian slips and falls over, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a Fabian slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he’s in labour and then sues.

If a Libertarian reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Fabian will delete it because he’s “offended”.

The Centre Ground. What is it?

2013-05-08T09:46:00.001+01:00

Modern politicians are grey, bland nonentities. That's not a mind blowing statement, it's actually pretty much a given. The pitiful mess that was the election of Police and Crime Commissioners last year, and the poor turnout at last week's county council elections, wonderfully underline that point. People no longer trust our politicians, and the more disliked they become the more they cry about staying 'on the centre ground'. But what is this sacred 'centre ground'?

The centre ground seems to be a political euphemism for doing very little that anybody could actually disagree with. It is the ultimate in political correctness, don't upset, offend or disagree with anybody. Those on the centre ground are basing their political careers on not rocking the boat by having a firm belief that somebody else may oppose. European Union? We know it's not working so we'll renegotiate. Immigration? We can't do anything about that because of the EU, but we'll pass some minor tinkering legislation that sounds good. Sick of murderers and other serious criminals being released early, often to reoffend? We'll clamp down on criminals, we'll take their tellies off them. And so it goes on. It pisses everybody off.

Increasingly when I see Clegg and Cameron, looking like bland genetically modified versions of Blair, I feel like throwing a heavy object at the telly. They are patronising zombies with about as much passion as a pair of beached jellyfish. If they represent the centre ground it's time we rocked the boat and dumped them overboard.

I have never known a time when politicos despaired quite so much about the mainstream parties in England. I don't include the Lib Dems in that, they have never really been more than political whores prepared top sell their grannies to get a town councillor elected, they epitomise the centre ground, so they don't count. By mainstream I mean Labour and Conservative. Few socialists I'm acquainted with regard the Labour Party as a party they can actively support. Few conservatives I know regard the Conservative Party as a party they can actively support.

John Major garnered 13m votes in 1992, then the Tory Party moved to the centre ground. In 2010, despite being up against a generally loathed and ridiculed Gordon Brown, Cameron's Tory Party could barely muster 10m votes. Welcome to the centre ground Dave. You stay there while the rest of the country looks for something else. Problem is, while you sit on the centre ground the ever growing vacuum you create will be filled by some potentially very dangerous opportunists.

The Problem with Protest Votes

2013-05-01T11:02:00.000+01:00

More and more people seem to be becoming ever more disillusioned with political parties. They seem to trust politicians less and less which is hardly surprising looking at the ever increasing number of broken promises and scandals such as the expenses farago and the Chris Huhne fiasco. But is a protest vote the answer or is abstention the better option? Personally I prefer spoiling the ballot paper, at least you show that you have bothered to turn up and spoilt ballot papers are counted. Not turning up could be seen as not caring or being just too lazy.

In the run up to the elections tomorrow I have seriously pondered abstention but have been told, by several people, that I have a duty to vote, that people fought wars for my right to vote. No they didn't. They fought to protect our national interest, to defend us from invaders and yes, to save our democracy. But that democracy includes the right to vote, it does not mean I have to vote. True democracy means that you have choice. I have the right to stand for election, but choose not to. I have the right do lots of things but choose not too. It is not democratic to merely go into a polling booth and vote for a person or party you do not support just because it is the lesser of several evils, especially because you are forced to or expected to. If I have no candidate I feel able to vote for why vote just for the sake of it?

If we choose not to vote for a mainstream candidate why vote for a fringe/protest candidate we don't know or necessarily agree with? The risk of electing a nutter is far too great. This last fortnight we have seen a stream of nutty candidates exposed, mainly UKIP candidates, but the leader of the Green Party was on the BBC last week and struck me as being seriously unhinged. Indeed I have seen Green Party and UKIP activists at close quarters and the prospect of either running my city or county council is quite terrifying. I prefer not to even contemplate either party actually forming a government.

The problem with minor parties is that they tend to attract either single interest eccentrics, or serious obsessives. Numerous fringe candidates have been exposed this last fortnight and been disowned by their party, mostly too late to be removed from ballot papers, meaning there is a danger that a disowned fruitcake could still be elected. But if a handful of fruitcakes have been exposed standing for fringe parties, out of several thousand candidates in total, how many loonies have not been outed and could be elected? UKIP have accepted they have not vetted their candidates. Is potentially inflicting a loony on the electorate a sensible form of protest? Is it even true democracy? I don't think so.

Unless you have spent a relatively short amount of time doing a little research I would suggest a protest vote is far more dangerous than abstention or spoiling your ballot paper. Then again, if you can't be bothered spending a few hours researching the people who may spend the next five years representing you, then maybe you get what you deserve.

Gun Control

2013-04-26T10:34:00.000+01:00

One law for individuals, another for the state

Another UKIP Scandal

2013-04-25T16:15:00.001+01:00

Crampton and UKIP leader Farage

Only this morning I posted about the pitiful election leaflet we have received from our UKIP candidate. I was only out for a few hours but when I came back I heared of yet another reason, far more serious, for not voting UKIP on May 2nd.

One of their candidates in Sussex, Anna-Marie Crampton, has been told to stand down in the election, although her name will still be on the ballot paper, for alleged anti-Semitic remarks regarding the Holocaust. It seems she has also urged people to read 'The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion', a pretty vile hoax written around 1900 by Russian anti-Semites to justify their anti-Semitism. The story is covered in the Jewish Chronicle Online.

The problem with UKIP is that despite an army of staff, funded by their MEPs, they don't seem to use those resources to vet their candidates. Or maybe they just hope the more 'eccentric' ones will be able to survive a campaign without coming out with something embarrassing at best, utterly damning at worst.

Part of the problem is that the amount of coverage a party gets during an election campaign, such as the number of election broadcasts they are allocated, depends on the number of candidates they have. So pressure is put on branches to find candidates, at all costs, so an occasional nutter slips through the net. But it's hard to blame it on that when the photograph of a shamed candidate with her party leader is all over the internet.

UKIP is riddled with people who believe in conspiracy theories, especially Common Purpose and the New World Order. The problem is that people like Anna-Marie Crampton are exposed every now and then, as are other 'eccentrics' in UKIP, but what if the one that flies under the radar gets elected?

More on this story from The Brighton Argus.

UKIP-County Council Elections May 2nd

2013-04-25T10:34:00.001+01:00

Nigel Farage-serious politician?

This week I had a UKIP election leaflet popped through the letterbox. I've now had Tory, Labour and UKIP election material. Comparing the three it is quite obvious why people who claim to be voting UKIP to pollsters don't actually vote for them when the real election comes around. To say the UKIP leaflet is amateurish would be an understatement. It is like a fourth formers first effort in the school mock election.

For a start it is only A5, and one side of that is blank. What a waste of space. But I suppose as the party has gone native squandering EU funds like that is now par for the course. But here is the start of the message from the candidate:

"I have decided to stand in this election for UKIP as I am sick of Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour local politicians taking me and my vote for granted and offering nothing in return, preferring to follow orders from their masters in Westminster."

Oh the irony. UKIP's masters sit in the EU parliament, including leader Nigel Farage whose grip on the party makes Stalin's grip on the USSR look tenuous. The party exists merely to keep their MEPs and their staff on the gravy train, hence the lack of serious effort in these UK elections. Just compare their literature this year with the standard they will produce for next year's gravy train elections. But the next paragraph on the leaflet goes on:

"If elected I will never follow a party line to the detriment of our area. I promise to represent your views and will always put our community first."

Well then, tell that to Nikki Sinclaire MEP. Nikki refused to sit with the UKIP group in the EU parliament because of the assorted homophobes, racists and other nutjobs in the group from various EU countries. Nikki was promptly expelled from the party and now sits as an independent MEP for the West Midlands. More on Nikki's treatment by UKIP here.

He then continues:

"Common sense solutions for a Britain independent, free and fair."

There is no explanation as to what the candidate or UKIP's idea of 'commonsense' is or what they mean by 'fair' or 'free'. Just empty rhetoric that means absolutely nothing. But there's more. The leaflet goes on:

"UKIP is a patriotic party that believes in putting people first. To shore up the collapsing Euro and (I think that should be 'the' rather than 'and') EU is now seeking to pull away the props of our national economy-control over taxation and spending.

Only UKIP will give the power to the British people to regain self-government."

Interesting to look at a few of the words in this little offering, or rather a few of the words not in this little offering.

Although the head of the leaflet carries the sentence 'County Council Election' the name of the county isn't mentioned once. It is actually Lancashire County Council.

County Hall is in Preston. This isn't mentioned once but Westminster pops up. As does the Euro and the EU.

Mention is made of the EU taking control from Westminster over taxation and spending. Not once has a service provided by Lancashire County Council been mentioned, let alone a UKIP policy at that level.

Any party that can produce an election leaflet that fails to mention one single policy, that fails to mention one single service that the county council provides and fails to even mention the name of the authority for which the candidate is standing, deserves a sound thrashing on May 2nd.

Happy St George's Day

2013-04-23T08:58:00.001+01:00

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

If You're a Scouser, Look Away Now!

2013-04-20T16:25:00.000+01:00

They teach them young in Liverpool

I've been especially busy recently earning a crust, to pay the taxes that keep our bloated welfare state afloat, so I was shocked yesterday to hear that there had been a purge of people I'm acquainted with on Twitter.

Firstly freedom of speech means freedom of speech. There is a hackneyed old phrase that says; 'freedom of speech does not mean the right to shout fire in a packed cinema'. Fair enough, there are logical limits. But causing offence is an integral element of free speech. If I read something that I find offensive I have the freedom to continue reading or to stop reading. That is my right. Why should the writer, who offends me, be stopped from writing? But that is what is happening in our ever encroaching authoritarian, police state. Plod can't come out to deal with a burglary, but offend some oversensitive pillock and Knacker of the Yard will feel your collar faster than you can say.....well, something offensive.

It seems to me that social media is more like attending a football match than attending a heavy duty political debate or debating society. There is a great deal of macho posturing and outdoing of allies as well as opponents. We don't behave at a football match the way we do in the office, and people don't behave on Twitter and Facebook, in the main, the way they would on the hustings in an election campaign. I am speaking here of politicos using social media. Rather than reasoned debate aimed at converting opponents it is much more about trying to grind down opponents and boost your allies. If you don't like people on the right calling people on the left 'leftards', or even worse, then don't read them. If you don't like lefties throwing the word 'fascist' at anubody who disagrees with them, then don't read them. If you do, and engage them, expect it to get bloody but don't cry.

This week several heavyweights of the no nonsense, largely libertarian area of the internet have been purged. They have done nothing terrible. They haven't incited people to riot or to blow something up. They have offended somebody. For causing offence they have been banned from Twitter. In the case of Old Holborn his blog has also been taken down, whether by him voluntarily, or by the authorities forcibly I am unsure. But this link gives a good appraisal of Old Holborn's blog.

So what has Old Holborn done? It seems that he has upset Scousers and their questioned their famed victim status. From what I have found on the censored internet he questioned the accepted view of the Hillsborough disaster and the murder of Jamie Bulger. Old Holborn is hard hitting and controversial. As far as I am aware he put forward perfectly reasoned arguments that you may or may not agree with which, when I was at school, was what free speech was all about. Old Holborn, as far as I'm aware, has been writing on the internet for a few years and has survived. Until now.

Old Holborn may have caused offence but what happened to him says it all about modern Britain. His real identity, and that of his wife and children, were published on the internet as was his address. His mobile number was published and he has received numerous death threats. Threats have also been made against his employer.

But he chose the wrong target this time. He chose Scousers, and one of them complained to the police that he was upset. You see the problem is that Scousers think they are so hard and tough, but offend one and it cries like a big baby. So the Old Bill felt Old Holborn's collar, for expressing a personal opinion. Old Holborn has been nicked and banished to some kind of internet Siberia.

Other people on Twitter have been banned after lynch mobs of lefties have hounded them after 'being offended'. I'm not aware of anybody on the libertarian right having anybody banned for being offended, although I have seen some appalling abuse fired at people by lefties. Libertarians believe in free speech. But that's for another blog post.

If you sit in your armchair watching TV, never uttering an opinion or taking sides in a debate then you'll be fine. But if you think that one day you might just, possibly, maybe want to say something that another person may not agree with then you should be very worried, you may find yourself nicked.

Thoughts on the Thatcher Years

2013-04-10T15:58:00.001+01:00

I joined the Tory Party around 1979, maybe 1978. Prior to Mrs Thatcher Ted Heath had been their leader, and I could never have got involved while he was there. But Mrs Thatcher was a breath of fresh air. Yes she made mistakes, who doesn't? But after the depressing, conflict ridden 1970s her vision and conviction were a breath of fresh air. I'm not going to write some heavy duty, academic style resume of 'The Thatcher Years', but a purely personal look back at those years.

Britain in the 1970s

The 1970s were pretty dire in this country. Yet again Labour had bankrupted the country, with Denis Healey and Jim Callaghan going cap in hand to the IMF to bail out a busted economy.

Trade unions had the power to bring down democratically elected governments, wreck businesses by forcing workers out on strike, workers who were slaves to 'closed shops' where they couldn't work unless they joined a union.

Workers who dared to defy their union were routinely harassed, threatened and physically assaulted. So called 'flying pickets' would turn up at businesses that weren't on strike and blockade the gates intimidating staff to turn back, effectively bullied into striking by trade union bully boys.

We had to endure the three day working week and power cuts, because we didn't have enough power to keep the lights on. Football games couldn't be played in the evenings to conserve the power that would be wasted lighting the floodlights. I remember walking through streets of Manchester when we all carried torches because there were no street lights. The dead could not be buried because of strikes and waste mounted up in the streets as the refuse collectors spent months on strike, on a regular basis. Britain in the 1970s was almost third world. Indeed, I visited relatively poor Latin American countries in the early 1990s that were far more pleasant places to spend time than Britain in the 1970s.

Margaret Thatcher's governments dragged Britain into the modern era and away from the living nightmare that was the 1970s. Those old enough to have been politically aware in the 1970s should remember how bad things were, it just couldn't continue. What underpinned Margaret Thatcher's philosophy was that hard work should be rewarded, and that freedom depended upon economic success. Creating business creates wealth which creates jobs. The welfare state should be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. The left want welfare dependency, they can then claim to be the protectors of the poor and downtrodden, it is a cynical and inhuman position. Mrs Thatcher wanted to create a world where people didn't need welfare, where people could live independent of benefits and live with pride and dignity.

Britain in the 1970s

To the left Mrs Thatcher was wrong. She was an aberration. To the left the Tory Party was the party of grey men in suits who saw a woman's place as in the home. But the Tory Party, not Labour voted a woman as leader first. The left claimed the Tory party was full of toffs and aristocrats. Mrs Thatcher was the daughter of a grocer from a provincial town. Indeed even now the hate fuelled left use the language of the demented picket line to shriek about the Tory Party being full of rich toffs and posh boys, equality unless you fail to fit their bigoted stereotype it seems. Labour banged on then, and still do, about how women were discriminated against in education. Mrs Thatcher went to Oxford. They never forgave her for proving them wrong, wrong and wrong again.

Throughout the North of England and in Scotland there were Conservatives elected in 1983 when Mrs Thatcher was re-elected, and again in 1987. The myth that she destroyed the North and wrecked communities is purely that, a myth. Even John Major, against all the odds, won the 1992 general election after Mrs Thatcher had been ousted. Hardly a country that loathed the Tories. Quite the contrary, Mrs Thatcher garnered huge support among the working classes, support which has gone now with the steady move to the left of the Tories since 1992. After all, even Barrow elected a Conservative MP in 1983 and '87.

Strip down the hysterical reaction by elements of the left, pure venom and hatred, and they were concocted by one pretty vile egotist who became the darling of the irrational left, Arthur Scargill. It revolves around the final laying to rest of a dying industry, the coal industry, that had been gradually wound down by successive governments after nationalisation. Let's face it, the left love nothing more than a lost cause to whip themselves into hysteria. The miners were the perfect lost cause. Whole communities ripped apart by Thatcher? I don't think so. Sadly a few small communities around a few failing pits lost some jobs. But then again, chariot makers and bow and arrow makers lost their jobs too. It's called progress, whether we like it or not.

An interesting thing these last couple of days is hearing the left ranting about what she did to the Falkland Islands. What she did was to liberate a population, invaded and illegally occupied by a foreign, military dictatorship. I would have thought most right thinking people would applaud that.

The reaction of elements on the left show that Britain, since Margaret Thatcher, has slipped into a moral decline that may not be reversible. We now have the children of the sixties in charge, and can see all around us the results of the liberalisation of society since the sixties that even Margaret Thatcher couldn't halt. The lack of respect, the inhumanity, the vile insults and civil disorder that greeted her death are a symptom of our decline, and show the danger that the brainwashed moral bankrupts of the left still pose.

Margaret Thatcher RIP

2013-04-08T16:09:00.000+01:00

Welfare Police State

2013-04-07T14:18:00.000+01:00

When I heard that Greater Manchester Police were banging on about people having a go at Goths and Punks having committed 'hate crimes' I thought it was an April Fool's joke a little late. Then I heard an interview with a senior officer and I realised that it really is GMP being a bunch of wet, pinko liberal arsewipes trying to ingratiate themselves with 'sections of the community' while alienating, which they don't seem to realise, the vast majority.

When this idiot was being interviewed I fell deeper and deeper into despair. The interviewer kept asking him if this meant that an attack on a Goth would get more resources than an attack on a bloke in a suit and tie he kept wriggling until I almost felt sorry for him. Well actually, I ended up wondering how he'd ever managed to become a copper, let alone a senior one but that's beside the point.

When I was at school I was taught that we were all equal under the law. No longer it seems. So-called 'hate crimes' apparently get priority meaning that somebody else, somebody who isn't the correct race, the correct sexuality, the correct sub-culture or whatever, is going to get second class treatment by the police if assaulted, abused or anything else. Another example of the tyranny of the minorities.

Before some leftard starts having a pop about me being some kind of 'ist' I'm not. I believe that the full weight of the law should be brought to bear on any criminal, whether motivated to carry out a violent crime against somebody because of their sexuality or because of which football team they support. It's surely commonsense isn't it?

Then this week we've had whining in the football fraternity about homophobic chanting against Brighton supporters. Again I misunderstood at first and thought that being gay must have become a prerequisite for supporting Brighton FC. But no, it was opposition fans having a pop at the liberal culture of the town with the country's first Green MP by chanting 'does your boyfriend know you're here?' at Brighton fans. Now, maybe I'm being all hard and macho but I hardly think that's going to drive any self-respecting gay person to weep any more than chanting 'you fat bastard' at me will drive me to a bottle of whisky and a gob full of paracetomol. Sodding hell some people really should look at what hatred really is and get a sense of perspective.

Now if I've upset, or offended anybody please do not read any further. You've been warned.

I've spoken to a few people about that evil bastard Mick Philpott this week. The general consensus being that we hope he gets a bit of corporal punishment when he's in chokey from his fellow campers. Indeed a couple of us pondered the satisfaction to be gained by getting imprisoned if you could be guaranteed access to Mr Philpott. But on the whole I decided that wasn't a very good, or very practical idea.

I know that certain newspapers and politicos have been attacked for daring to link the welfare state with Philpott's crime of torching his own home and killing six children, but I think they are right to make a link. There is a problem in this country when the authorities hand over ever more of our cash in benefits to scum like Philpott who breed children to sponge more money from the system. Personally I would scrap child benefit, why should people receive tax money for having children? If they can't afford them don't have them.

In the case of Philpott didn't alarm bells ring that he was living, with two women and sixteen children, in a three bedroomed council house? If we have to waste money on social workers aren't these the kinds of cases they are supposed to sort out? I suspect their attitude would have been to tolerate Philpott and his harem as just another lifestyle choice. It wasn't the welfare state that made him do what he did, it didn't make him a vile psychopath, but it certainly created the environment for his evil to be enacted.

Fair enough, the country isn't full of psychos like that, but the welfare state has created a culture where the lazy, the feckless and the irresponsible can survive comfortably without having to trouble themselves with the responsibilities and hassles of those who work to pay their taxes to fund the parasites.

If welfare benefits aren't too high then why do so many people from eastern Europe come here to work despite us having so many unemployed? They work hard and evidently find coming here worthwhile, so benefits are quite obviously too high. Just a shame we don't have a government strong enough to deal with the problem.

Race War-The New Class War

2013-03-30T10:52:00.000Z

The left love to divide and rule, or maybe that should read; the left have to divide and rule. They create hatred and animosity where it needn't exist so they can rush in and defend those 'under attack'. Just look how many decades they've been claiming the Tories are going to privatise the NHS, and the gullible believe it and become convinced the Tories will let poor people die if they form a government. Lies, lies and more lies.

But the old class warfare doesn't wash these days. Most people laugh if they hear an old school class warrior banging on about 'the workers' and 'comrades', and quite rightly too, it's a joke. The poor these days smoke, drive, have decent accommodation and a huge TV on the living room wall. Of course some people have less than others, that's life. But nobody in the UK today is starving to death, going to school in bare feet or living in squalor with inhabitable accomodation and cockroaches. So the left have had to create an alternative to class war. Race war.

The left, through political correctness, has created a climate whereby people daren't make a comment, no matter how harmless, about somebody of another race without the cry of racism going up. This week it's been race warrior Rio Ferdinand banging on about racism. It seems he and his brother were subjects of unpleasant chants this week from England fans, not surprising as they are obnoxious prats, but the claim is that there were 'racist undertones'. So "Rio Ferdinand, you know what you are" followed by a song about putting him on a bonfire is racist? Obviously not, to the sane, but many on the race obsessed left aren't sane. United fans have sung similar about City fans and Scousers for years. Is that racist too?

It's always a shame to see loony extremists using race for their own ends, be that the BNP on the nationalist far-left or the more internationalist left-wingers. Left, pardon the pun, to our own devices I reckon people of most races just rub along nicely together. As ever it is politicos and obsessives who cause the problems and resentment.

Of course we must remember that poor old Rio Ferdinand has faced such vile racism in this country that he only earns about £200,000 a week. Makes apartheid South Africa look cushy doesn't it?

Another Fine Mess, Still!

2013-03-20T11:14:00.000Z

I'll lay my cards on the table, I'm no economic genius, I managed to scrape an 'O' Level in Government, Economics and Commerce but that's it. But even I can sense that something is wrong and little seems to be being done to fix it.

It seems to me that basic economics on a national scale should follow, roughly, the principles of our personal economics, meaning that by and large you live within your means. OK you take out the occasional loan for a new car, a holiday or whatever but to build up debt way beyond your income is seen, quite rightly, as irresponsible. So why should government behave any differently?

Many individuals are in a position, if they have borrowed a little too much, to work some overtime or maybe get a second job to bring in some extra money. What can government do? It is unproductive, it doesn't earn money, all it can do is tax or borrow. Anybody thinking the current government is acting responsibly should think again, maybe take a look at this report from the Taxpayers' Alliance. It details how this government has raised taxes in over 200 instances.

That doesn't strike me as being very conservative. A personal economics analogy might be the family who run up an unsustainable debt being able to look at the family next door, who have been prudent and saved, and take a few grand out of their savings account. That doesn't seem very fair to me. To put it on a national scale look at the proposed theft from savers in Cyprus by the European Union. I don't see government trying to tax its way out of debt being any different. But many people seem to accept this, failing to understand that government doesn't have a big money tree that it can pluck the odd million quid off, it has to take it from us, or borrow it.

What it seems to me is that we need a conservative government with guts. Osborne today could take some brave measures. He could cut VAT, cut income tax for the lower paid. Give the long term unemployed a tax holiday if they find work. Reduce fuel duty and the hated alcohol duty, and that's just a few ideas.

Yes people have become welfare dependent. But that is because government has created the conditions where it is possible for people to not bother working. People attack migrants, especially from Eastern Europe, but they are coming here and finding work, and living quite comfortably, in jobs that it seems too many people refuse to take. Otherwise why are there so many British people on benefits while migrants are gainfully employed? Blame the state, not the immigrants.

Fair enough, they would have to balance the books. Well start with looking at the huge waste in bureaucracy, the huge amount of money we send each day to the EU. The huge amount of money it costs us each day enforcing EU rules and regulations. The huge amount of money wasted in education on pointless and trivial degree courses, then look at the quality of some of the so-called graduates. Let's look at the huge amount we send abroad in aid. Stop it, it seems to be either going to countries such as India and China who don't need it, or to countries where it is being squandered by corrupt governments.

But I'm not holding my breath. Let's face it the Tories are led by Cameron, a liberal democrat in reality. He couldn't even beat Gordon Brown in 2010 so what chance has he got in 2015 of winning? Even if he did what was needed today it probably wouldn't be enough. And, when putting Cameron in a list of good Conservative leaders/ PMs remember, even John Major managed to win, against all the odds, in 1992. Cameron was a washed up nothing before 2010 and he just convinces us all the more with every day that passes.

The Times They Are a-Changing

2013-03-18T14:06:00.001Z

Northern Quarter or Ancoats?

Yesterday I was in Manchester. I walked from the city centre to my parents' home in Gorton, about three miles. It was a route, up Ashton Old Road, that many of us took home in our younger days after a night pubbing and clubbing. Over thirty years on I found myself growing nostalgic and thoughtful, as well as more knackered than I ever remember being all those years ago on the walk!

The first thing I found in Manchester was the St Patrick's Day parade. I'm afraid my view is that we should have these parades only when the Irish start having St George's Day parades, hopefully never! I find something cheap and tacky about supposedly sane people dressing up as leprechauns and wearing ludicrous Guiness hats. As for the claim to Irishness of people after drinking a pint of Guiness, don't get me started on that one. If you love Ireland so much it's only a short flight or boat crossing away.

So I decided to get out of the way of all these Plastic Paddies and headed to Ancoats. Except Ancoats has now been renamed the 'Northern Quarter'. Northern Quarter? What is it a quarter of? A quarter of the city centre maybe? A quarter of Ancoats? It's a ludicrously pretentious attempt to make parts of Manchester, and other English cities, sound a little more exotic and continental. Fine in Paris but bloody hell, Manchester? Sorry, no, it's still Ancoats and should always remain Ancoats. It was the heart of industrial Manchester where terraced streets lived in the shadow of great Victorian mills, while not wanting it preserved in aspic, renaming it is cultural barbarianism and an insult to our heritage.

As I headed down Gt Ancoats St., maybe soon to be renamed Northern Quarter Boulevard, I decided to see if a great old pub called the Moulders Arms had survived the recent massacre of the great British pub. But no, not only is it shut but it is now the derelict site you see above. This was the sad story all the way up Ashton Old Road where most of the great old Victorian pubs have either been demolished or turned into white goods superstores or tile warehouses. The Seven Stars, one of my old granddad's many watering holes, seems to be just about surviving, but for how long?

Urban wasteland or Beswick?

I just about remember the old heavy engineering and steel works along the road around Beswick and Openshaw. My Aunty Agnes lived on a terraced street running off the Old Road opposite the works in Openshaw and I remember the hooter sounding and seeing thousands of men swarming through the gates on push bikes or on foot to hop on one of the old Manchester Corporation buses lined up to take them home. Now there are green spaces on one side with tiny lego type houses and flats while there is still a high wall on the other hiding huge mounds of rubble where the factories used to stand.

Going back in time the greatest shock to those people, long gone, who lived in this part of Manchester when it was thriving would be the demographic change. In the hour or so my nostalgic meander took me I must have passed twenty or thirty people. Not a single one was a native English speaker. The only white people I heard speak were Polish or from some other Eastern European country. I couldn't help wondering what they must make of East Manchester. I know what older people left in East Manchester, who were here fifty or more years ago, think of it in 2013, and it's not very much. At least I could pop into the African and Asian foodstore, another former pub, to stock up on jerk seasoning.

Sunny Gorton

I once heard Billy Connolly telling how, living in Los Angeles, he used to get strong nostalgic longings for the Gorbals where he grew up in Glasgow. Eventually he went back feeling rather emotional but, like East Manchester, he found it had changed. He then had the realisation that what he was pining for was not actually the Gorbals, it was for that period in his life when he lived and grew up there. I know exactly what Billy Connolly meant after my nostalgia filled promenade up Ashton Old Road.

SWP RIP

2013-03-16T09:32:00.000Z

Good to see the vile gang of Marxist thugs known as the Socialist Workers Party finally going through its death throes, not before time.

Gone but not missed. More a cult for the psychologically disturbed than a political party really.

Lies, Socialists and Hypocrisy

2013-03-05T09:22:00.000Z

It never ceases to amaze me how the socialists constantly bang on about the Tories attempting to privatise the NHS. Since the late seventies I've heard lefty after lefty banging on about them privatising the NHS, and it hasn't happened yet. But still they are banging on about it. Lies, lies, lies. If only the Tories had the guts to do it I may consider voting for them again.

Then I still hear them banging on about Margaret Thatcher. Even now the loonier fringe of the socialist movement will blame Mrs Thatcher if there is an outbreak of flu. But then dare to blame the Labour governments from 1997 to 2010 for the financial mess we are in, or for the murderous mess they made of the NHS, and they claim innocence citing being ousted in 2010. Hypocrites as well as liars.