Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

England . . . wasn't that a country once?

2009-11-07T12:27:35Z

In the next few months and years when people discover that we have been reduced to the role of a rural district council on the fringes of Europe with the same sort of influence we have in the Eurovision song contest then remember the two Scots responsible, Brown and Blair.

Thanks to them we now live in a country where most of the important decisions are taken by people we have never heard of let alone voted for while before long we will find that far from having a place on the world stage we just have a seat in the audience where we will be told to turn off our mobile phones along with the likes of Chile, Thailand and even Zimbabwe.

It is easy to blame the Czechs for agreeing to the Lisbon stitch-up or the Irish where you feel they would have had a referendum a week until they voted yes but let's be honest it is our lot, led by the two Scots, who denied us a right to vote on our own future for their own reasons.

WIth Blair it probably did not fit in with his business plan for T Blair Ltd while with Brown who knows? Maybe he wants a seat on the European gravy train when he is run out of No 10 or maybe he knew what the result of a referendum would be - and New Labour have never been great admirers of democracy.

Whatever, just remember their names though when your children and grandchildren ask what it was like when England RDC used to be a country.

Tone for Pres - OK

2009-10-29T08:08:37Z

Poor old Gordon Brown is taking some flak for pushing the claims of Tony Blair as EU president but, if we are going to be lumbered with a federal Europe that none of us wanted which is why we were never asked about it and a President we can't vote for, then for once I actually agree with Gordon.

It is hard to think of a less democratic, more corrupt, self-serving, lying, meddling, interfering bunch of self-important rogues chasing the main chance and feathering their own nests than you will find in the EU.

So let's be honest Tony Blair would be perfect for the job.

And it does give us a little bit of revenge for all we have suffered under the yoke of Brussels for the past generation. We have had our dose of Blair so it would be nice now to to inflict him on the EU - that will teach them to mess with us.

Looking for a sign . . .

2009-10-27T16:29:53Z

I went to see the RSC's Twelfth Night at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford upon Avon last night and it was excellent.

It came about from running my new theatrical website www.behindthearras.com with John Slim.

He deals with all the amateur stage and I concern myself with the theatre and the disciples of Thespus, who was a sort of early Greek Lew Grade.

It really is a very funny production with Richard Wilson as Malvolio, James Fleet as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Richard McCabe as a rather flatulent Sir Toby Belch. Well worth seeing.

But beware the journey home. I was heading towards the M40 where, in the rain, late at night, in roads set out by cones which merge into a meaningless pattern in the glare of headlights on wet tarmac especially when all around are dumper trucks and heavy machinery in the glare of spotlights.

Now I am but a simple soul but even I would have thought that some system of decent signs might just warrant slightly more than an afterthought. But no. Whoever was responsible for the signs thought it would be much better to have temporary signs directing you first to the M40 north and than a line of cones directing you away so you could have another circuit of a vast building site

That way you can approach the slip road yet again - this time with feeling when you discover you are being directed to a slip road that is closed with no diversion signs or anything so helpful.

With that level of management it is not hard to see why we have no car industry, steel industry, ship building industry, manufacturing . . . the only people making anything is MPs and that's only on their exes.

Pig sticking politics

2009-10-24T11:15:17Z

Anyone see Question Time? Apparently more people watched the infamous BNP episode than Strictly Come Dancing and just as the BBC shot themselves in one foot by sacking Arlene Phillips they have blown the other leg off completely with their new sport of BNP baiting.

Having invited the odious Nick Griffin to appear the BBC could not leave it at that and run a normal Question Time when no doubt his more extreme views would have been revealed and people might have really seen what he represented. Oh no that is far too civilised and sophisticated for the chattering classes who seem to run the BBC.

Instead they installed what appeared to be a hand-picked audience who would not have been out of place cheering Madame Guillotine - it just needed a couple of old crones smoking pipes and knitting on the front row.

The questions were all loaded against Griffin and had little to do with current affairs, with many along the when did you stop beating your wife? line of interrogation, Griffin was hardly allowed to complete a sentence without interruption and everyone seemed to have been given a stick to poke the BNP leader. It was all a bit like a scene from a grown up Lord of the Flies.

Now apart from seriously damaging the standing of the programme and calling into question its impartiality in the future, the programme must have done wonders for the standing of the BNP who can now add the sympathy vote to the protest vote.

Has no one at the BBC got the wit to realise that bear baiting went out of fashion years ago. These days people tend to have sympathy with the bear, in this case Griffin, and if there is a boost in the BNP's standing in opinion polls that can be put down fairly and squarely to the BBC's crude attempts to give Griffin a good kicking on national TV.

They turned him into an underdog and even people who hate what he stands for ended up with sympathy for the man - generating floods of complaints to the BBC about his unfair treatment which must be a PR disaster of Biblical proportions.

While the mainstream parties on Question Time were all patting themselves on the back about the wonderful multicultural society we live in, by the way, and how everything in the garden is rosy, that same night Panorama was showing an item about appalling racism on a Bristol estate.

Good news on the crime rate, isn't it?

2009-10-22T19:54:45Z

Nice to see that the number of crimes committed in Britain has almost halved. There has been no Government announcement yet but I am sure there will be otherwise why would the Forensic Science Service be closing three of its seven laboratories.

Unless of course the bosses are cutting costs, axing staff and making the whole shooting match more attractive for privatisation which, on past Government record, will mean the bosses becoming rich men overnight and eventually a critical report on the sale, with all the bite of a rocking horse, produced by the public accounts committee a few years down the line.

Freedom of speech Part 2

2009-10-22T19:03:21Z

So we now have the BBC being warned that if there is blood on the streets after Question Time it is their responsibility - and obviously nothing to do with the anti-fascist protesters invading Television Centre and mounting a picket outside.

The BNP crave publicity and respectability and all the protests have not only made Question Time a ratings winner but made Nick Griffin a victim of oppression and for good measure have handed him freedom of speech as a trump card.

What's next? Everyone stick their fingers in their ears and sing la-la-la whenever Nick Griffin speaks?

You don't have to agree with Griffin, you don't even have to listen but if freedom means anything it applies to him just as much as to anyone else.

Freedom of speech is for everyone

2009-10-22T13:13:16Z

MPs and others demanding that the BBC withdraw their invitation to the BNP to take part in Question Time really should grow up. I hate to defend the BNP but democracy and freedom of speech means that people you really do disagree with have the same right to their point of view as you do.

If you are not prepared to defend their rights then everyone else's rights are eroded. Once freedom of speech applies to just people we can tolerate or agree with then it becomes meaningless.

As for Peter Hain's claim it is an illegal organisation? Why should the BBC fire the arrows handed to it by the Government? If it is illegal - fine. The Government have the means to ban it - if they want to risk months in court of course.

It should be remembered though that enough people prefer the BNP to Labour, Tory or Lib Dem to have given them two MEPs and numerous councillors. The BBC, quite rightly, want all shades of the political spectrum on Question Time, not just those approved by New Labour.

It would be foolish to underestimate Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, but to ban him makes it look as if the mainstream parties have no answer to his arguments or are frightened of him and if that is the case we are all in trouble.

Determined to make swine flu fly

2009-10-18T13:33:01Z

Remember avian flu? That was the virus that was going to mutate into the rogue killer flu that would wipe out civilisation as we know.

Meanwhile as we awaited pestilence of Biblical proportions to visit upon us along comes swine flu - which was going to mutate etc . . .

Now in the scale of things that are likely to shuffle off your mortal coil for you swine flu and bird flu combined must come somewhere between being hit by a meteorite and trampled in a stampede of cattle.

There have been 106 deaths in the UK so far and, although sad for the families concerned, ordinary, run-of-the-mill seasonal flu will kill anything between 3,000 and 10,000 or so souls in the UK this winter.

That will hardly register as a news item but have you noticed we had a little flurry of swine flu shock stories again last week? I suspect they won't be the last so brace yourself for the swine flu could become winter killer, nation braced for swine flu death toll and so on stories over the next few weeks.

I am sure that these warnings of doom ahead, no doubt followed by advice to be vaccinated or risk death and destruction, have nothing whatsoever to do with the vast stocks of Tamiflu which were originally purchased by the Government to combat bird flu and then used to show how we were the best prepared nation in the world to deal with swine flu - the usual world class and all that that this Government tags on to anything it does.

The bulk of the 14 million or soTamiflu doses reach their expiry date next year so it's a case of use them to save a grateful populous or bin them at considerable cost just before an election.

Someone has to pay the bill

2009-10-17T15:05:11Z

I was in Sutton Coldfield today and passed Blacks, which is closing down and where the staff are trying manfully to stop it looking like a jumble sale.

The staff there are all facing redundancy next week as part of the closure of 89 stores and 1,000 job losses at the group. It was amazing that the staff were still helpful and polite as customers scrambled over stock in a 70 per cent off everything sale - everything must go . . . including jobs . . .

The figures wash over us these days; 1,000 more job losses . . . but bring it down to people and that is 1,000 souls who will be wondering if they can pay the bills and the mortgage, or buy toys for the kids at Christmas.

Go back a year or so ago and the world was being crippled by the greed, arrogance and recklessness of financiers and bankers when the sub-prime bubble burst.

In a sane world the banks would have gone bust and those in charge would have been unemployable and, in some cases, in jail.

Instead it was "Yes, Sir, No Sir, Three very large bags of cash full Sir" as Governments bailed them out. Since then Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have huffed and puffed a lot about excesses, bonuses, bonus culture and anything else that might catch the evening news but it seems that not only have they failed to blow down any of the houses of the little pigs but the little pigs are back in the trough as if nothing had ever happened. All helped of course by the fact that they have managed to sell all their junk, baggage and debts to us at no loss to themselves. To the financiers it was little more than a bad day at the office which has all been passed on to us.

All the empty rhetoric and threats of action and restraint from Gordon and Alistair seem to have had about the same effect, and indeed standing, as telling an alcoholic at a free bar not to drink too much.

Of course someone has to pay for reckless excesses and avarice on such a huge scale so perhaps the bankers will all raise their new bonuses and say thanks to the staff at Blacks, Sutton Coldfield, and of course the 1,000 staff of Blacks Leisure Group nationwide, as well as everyone else who has lost their job or had their life turned upside down, thanks for picking up the tab.

Nothing to declare, Doc

2009-10-15T09:59:26Z

I discovered the other day that chats with your doctor may not be as confidential as you might have thought.

It seems, and I am sure someone with correct me if I am wrong, that if you fill in an application form for a mortgage or insurance and tick the little box saying you authorise the insurance company, bank or building society of whatever to contact your doctor then the bank, insurance company or whatever will have access to your medical records.

It is not a chat with the surgery, or a form the doc fills in ticking boxes, but access on line to your medical records with such things as blood tests, medication, blood pressure and even chance remarks to you friendly GP - who keeps notes to help him deal with his patients and to help other doctors in the practice you may see.

But these can be a ticking time bomb. For example, never ever say you are depressed, unless of course you are really clinically depressed and heading for the head-in-the-gas-oven stage. Feeling a bit cheesed off and calling it depression is dangerous. If it goes on your notes, just as an aside, it can be picked up later by some financial firm and add points to your risk score - which means higher premiums.

Similarly, anyone who has more personal worries should avoid asking for AIDS tests, at least in the surgery. Confidential NHS clinics don't add the test to your notes so the financial firms cannot find it.

I am not saying lie but if you ask for a test and the result shows you are as pure as the driven snow the mere fact you have asked means you are at risk according to the gospel according to the insurers.

I am not sure when this came in, the right of banks and the like to examine your medical records, but rest assured there are probably a few senior civil servants, ministers and senior MPs who found themselves with some nice consultancies and directorships out of it, so obviously it was all worthwhile.

It strikes me though that part of the value of a GP, rather like that of a priest, is the absolute confidentiality. If you are worried anything you say might be picked up by some spotty oik at some insurance firm or a bank to up your premiums, or turn down a claim, then trust and confidentiality go out of the window.

It is things like this that make me very worried about this desire to have a national DNA database. All the cobblers about the innocent have nothing to fear is just that - cobblers. The Government would flog it off in an instant to insurance companies, major employers and the like to make a few grubby millions.

DNA is a valuable resource. It might help to solve crimes but there is no money in that for the Government. Increasingly though, it can pinpoint who is more likely to suffer breast cancer, heart disease and a whole range of other conditions and that is worth a lot of money to insurers who can use it to hike up premiums.

Things to ponder

2009-10-12T12:15:03Z

Why did An Evening with Pam Ayres at Symphony Hall start at 3.30 in the afternoon? Is time different in Brum?

Why is David Essex's current tour which arrives at Symphony Hall next week called The Secret Tour when it has flyers and is advertised on his website and the internet to try to make sure as many people as possible know about it?

Ritual killing by post

2009-10-09T20:53:52Z

The postmen might well have voted to inflict a blow on the Royal Mail from which it could well never recover and the media have been quick to point the finger at the posties.

But there is an unwritten rule in industrial relations that when you have appalling management you will create unreasonable behaviour by trade unions. It is cause and effect, action and reaction.

The management of Royal Mail have been working towards a New Labour agenda to flog the profitable parts off to private enterprise, most likely German or Dutch, at a song. That would have provided plenty of handsomely paid jobs for ex-ministers, senior civil servants and Royal Mail top dogs and at the same time ensured the taxpayer was left funding the non-profitable and loss making parts of the postal service.

Why there was any need to break the monopoly of the postal service in the first place was a mystery to me. Most countries see the post as an essential service but then again service is not something New Labour is good at.

When the greed bubble burst and the banks went belly up and the few members of the proper Labour party left on the New Labour benches threatened a revolt, the Royal Mail part privatisation - i.e. sell the bits that make any money to chums in Europe or the city - did not seem so rosy.

The postmen have suffered years of cuts, savings, efficiencies, threats of sell offs and have seen a total disregard for customers by those in charge - hands up anyone who asked for one delivery a day sometime after lunch or for parcels that don't get delivered because management won't sanction vans.

The postmen have had enough. We might all suffer as a result and the Royal Mail could suffer the most. But stop and ask why they have become the most belligerent union in the country? The answer is probably nearer Royal Mail HQ and Downing Street than your local sorting office.

Good moaning

2009-10-09T20:38:33Z

Do developers and estate agents think bunging in a bit of foreign when they name their estates of boxes makes them seem sophisticated? Or somehow lifts the slums of tomorrow on to a higher plane of technical excellence? It all seems a bit like Del Boy and his fractured French trying to look a man of the world.

I mention this as I have just travelled up from Cornwall and in Bodmin is a new development of reasonably looking apparments which have ben named Victoria Parc which is enough to confuse postmen and grannies everywhere. Why didn't they go the whole hog and have Vittoria Parc to get some Italian in alongside the French?

Of course I could be doing them a grave disservice. Maybe it is not an attempt to appear cosmopolitan at all and is just an example of the falling standards in education.

Trust me - I'm a politician

2009-10-04T12:26:25Z

There must be an election in the air. Down in the voting war bunkers the planners have just spotted the grey vote, the crinklies and baldies, have enough votes between them to win - or lose - an election.

Somebody has probably worked out that telling the elderly they have to sell their homes to pay for care when they reach the point where they struggle to care for themselves is not a guaranteed vote winner.

So with knees jerking like a hokey-cokey on speed out come the fag packets - you need something to write these words of wisdom on after all - for the all-singing, all-dancing, brave new world for the OAPs.

Now the Tories have come up with this plan where you shell out £8,000 when you are 65 - just in case - as an insurance policy and if you end up in the old wing-back chair waiting for the bingo to start then the care bill will be paid.

This will be done through insurance companies and we all know how they bend over themselves to help out . . . and the elderly don't have the best of eyesight for reading small print.

Labour meanwhile want a £20,000 premium but you can pay it when they finally nail the box lid down if you want.

Now, don't get me wrong, at my age I do have more than a passing interest, but don't we already have an insurance policy? I seem to remember paying out ever increasing amounts of national insurance so are both parties telling me that was all a con? It was just another tax?

There can't be many insurance policies where it is those who pay the premiums loose out when the time comes to claim. Take up benefits as a career and you are laughing.

Try going to Direct Line or whoever and telling them you have never paid a penny premium in your life but you are making a claim and could they send the cheque by return.

It seems the state forced 45,000 pensioners to sell their homes to pay for care last year - probably a significant number never even knew it happened - and all that was done in our name remember.

Probably the most galling thing is that virtually everyone of those had worked, paying tax and insurance, and saved for most of their lives.

Spend every penny as you earn it, live a life on benefits paying nothing in or be rich enough to fiddle the system with a clever accountant and the state will provide. Work all your life paying into the system and perhaps you should remember it is best to die before you need help.

Maybe it is the cynic in me but New Labour don't seem to have taken much interest in the grey vote for the past 12 years - private pensions raided, state pensions left to stagnate, inheritance tax threshold falling in real terms - but now they face an election wipe out . . . it's trust me I'm a politician time.

The Tories don't have the best of records as the caring party but with an election coming up they can talk compassion with the best of them.

Perhaps the time has come for the OAPs to put their own candidates up - I suspect it is the only way anyone in Westminster will really care.

May the force be with you

2009-10-02T05:03:16Z

I reviewed Cliff and The Shadows last night who were very good with Hank Marvin's guitar playing worth the price of admission alone. But Cliff always reminds me of my favourite moment ever at any concert.

It happened at a Cliff concert I was reviewing about four years ago and I was sitting behind a group of old biddies about three rows from the front.

They had been quite subdued in the first half, a bit of hand jiving but nothing approaching the local chapter of Hell's Grannies.

Come the second half though and it was a different story. Whatever they put in their coffee was 100 per cent proof. From the first chord they were up bopping in their seats and after about 10 minutes out came the lights sticks. You know the things, fluorescent green sticks that glow in the dark about 9 inches long.

Four of the women were waving their sticks while the fifth was rummaging through a cavernous handbag. Suddenly there is a look of triumph as she pulls out, extends and lights up . . . a four foot Star Wars light saber.