Man in a Shed

Cough up Mrs Kirchner

2012-05-23T20:16:00.001+01:00

Another chance missed

2012-05-23T14:44:00.001+01:00

There's been a lot of excitement about the RaspberryPi computer - designed to give us Dad's some credibility when we re tell stories to the youth of today about falling off RAM packs, 1k space invaders, and having to transpose Commador Pet computer programmes line by line from Electronics Weekly to work on our own home computers ( in my case a Sharp MZ-80k ). Yes the opportunity has presented itself to make the kids suffer too - which must be why their eyes glaze over every time I mention getting one.

By accident the brave hero's who gave us the Raspberry Pi have stumbled across a new market segment - the plug into TV computer.

Will the UK be leading the world in the commercialisation of this idea ? Or will some other lucky nation be picking up the opportunity. You can guess the answer.

Now if the government did something to encourage this sort of imitative then perhaps we'd get growth. But as we all know government is hopeless a picking winners - just see the green technology disaster for details.

Horror on late night TV

2012-05-15T12:11:00.001+01:00

I was up far too late last night and for a few minutes started watching a film called Quarantine - according the the info button on my TV this was about a news team caught up in a block of flats filled with rabid tenants. This bit I saw involved a dog foaming at the mouth and heading towards the TV crew before some poor chap allowed the lift to open across the hall and Fido decided to savage that individual instead whose last act was to allow the lift doors to close followed by much screaming and slobbering from Fido.

But what was really honorific was on BBC2 where Michael Portillo was going between Greece and Germany and offering people who had just admitted the Euro was a disaster and everything was going to hell in a hand cart the possibility of their own currency back. To a man and woman in a display of Stockholm syndrome that will have warmed the hearts in Brussels each captive went for the instrument of their destruction - the Euro when offered the choice. There are no lessons learnt and there is no hope.

At that point it was well past bed time - but given the choice the adventures of Fido the dog with the shaving foam just making friends by savaging people looked like the less disturbing viewing.

The wets/modernisers will spike the EU referendum

2012-05-14T15:44:00.002+01:00

There's a growing amount of excitement about the prospect of the political class giving in on the idea of a referendum on the UK's independence from the EU. Guido hints playfully that Labour might change their position to make life impossible for Dave.

But don't expect a fair fight, the wets and modernisers will spike the guns of the referendum before the campaign starts.

As the alternative Queen's speech on Conservative home hints the wets and modernisers have many tricks up their sleeves to keep the UK as a trophy for their Brussels masters. The Referendum on renegotiation is just the start of their creativity.

Any referendum in the current climate, especially one suggesting change is most likely to fail. Make it appear to be all about Angles dancing on the heads of euro-pins and the contempt from the public will be nuclear.

The political class know this and I think we can safely expect them to exploit it.

So we may finally get our referendum, but we won't like the question and we will like the answer even less.

Its going to be a much tougher and long term fight to liberate the UK from the EU than just a vote on a single day.

The Culture wars come to the UK

2012-05-11T13:09:00.000+01:00

Fraser Nelson has a good article about how unwise David Cameron has been to pick a fight with his own activists in the mistaken belief that their a limitless supply of mindless valueless people to replace conservatives he's alienating by destroying marriage with his redefinition for triangulation plan.

But also on offer today is news of how some thugs are trying to intimidate the author of the Cramer blog, using the Advertising Standards Authority, and the new thought crime of making someone else think you've been homophobic. Read it an weep here.

What this shows is that all the reassurances from Cameron and Clegg about the Church and other not being forced to change their view on marriage were the utter rubbish that the voters last week took them for.

It also shows that its time to repeal all this half baked legislation from Labour about "feelings" where someone can use their feelings to make someone else a criminal.

One of the reasons I hold a UKIP party card and not a Conservative one is that the Equality Act is still on a statue books.

Update: See the Law Society banning discussion of Marriage here ( which is legal and the basic pillar of our society for all its history ) . Note they are happy to debate illegal things like self murder.

Mindless stupidity, carelessness and selfishness

2012-05-11T10:52:00.001+01:00

Now this is going to be slightly off the wall, but its based on one of those "expressing yourself" ideas that some "artists" ( Guardian readers all no doubt ) have had.

They want to send tweets at a nearby star system that could have an earth like planet around it.

Why is this unwise ?

For the same reason we don't let our children talk to strangers, or indeed climb over the fence in the tiger enclosure to pat the nice kitty on the head.

Maybe ET is home, only he's not a cuddly BMX ridding alien who just wants to be our friend, but a technically advanced aggressive socio path who's evolutionary imperative has taught him ( don't even get me started on that ) to eliminate potential threats and ask questions later. ( Indeed if the Universe if full of life this type of alien probably fills it for reasons you can work out in about 1 minute of thought. )

And if ET does want to be our friend he'll wait a bit longer until we have the military capability to ensure he stays that way.

Sending out a message to the dark is insane, especially give that any answer is much more likely to be the growling of wolves closing in that the wonders of the Universe being given away for free. ( And just so we're straight - if ET can cover interstellar space for a fight then he's going to win hands down - there will be no "resistance movements" like on the TV/Hollywood. )

These artists are probably just talking to themselves, and we had all better hope so. But they don't have the right to put everyone at risk and should be stopped.

Thoughts on the Woking council elections

2012-05-08T21:26:00.000+01:00

I've had a go at doing a brief comparison between the council election results in 2012 and four years earlier in 2008 and here are my headline takeaways:

The Conservative share of the vote held up - the Lib Dem didn't:
Con from 45%[2008] to 43%[2012] , Lib Dems 46%[2008] to 33%[2012]
or to put it another way "Not winning here". ( Sorry couldn't resist that. )
Labour appear to have done better, but this is really all in the Maybury & Sheerwater ward where "local factors have dominated and personalities and other relationship ties perhaps trump politics.
Lab from 5%[2008] to 15%[2012]
UKIP have more than doubled their vote almost everywhere they stood. Numbers in 2008 were at the level that straight mistakes in the polling booth might deliver, now this is no longer the case. If you assume that UKIP voters are mostly Conservatives this is going to start costing Woking Conservatives seats very soon. ( This is perhaps an assumption that can be applied only in part. UKIP also appeal to Labour voters strongly. )
UKIP from 4%[2008] to 8%[2012] ( which is 10% if you consider only those wards UKIP stood in)
The UKIP vote is below the 14% that was reported nationally, but is on a clear upward trajectory in an election that UKIP would not normally expect to do well in.

My conclusions are that in the short term the Conservatives can look forward to running Woking borough council without interruption for quite a few years. The Lib Dems have fallen back from their grab at the ultimate prize of the Westminster constituency in 2010 and at least some of their borrowing of Labour support for tactical voting is unwinding. This is unlikely to recover whilst they are in national coalition.

In the medium term all three of the major opposition parties have the capacity to create trouble and return Woking borough council back to no over all control.

Of course if the Conservatives make good use of their time with overall control to win the trust of the people of Woking they will be in a strong position.

I've put a spreadsheet which I've used to calculate these figures online here if anyone interested. Its always possible I've made errors ( most spreadsheets have them ) - if you find one let me know in the comments.

PS I might put a few graphics up latter ( maybe even a bar chart for the Lib Dems amongst you ).

I should perhaps also add the turnout was down - it was a wet and cold day. I can't remeber in 2008, but I think the weather was perhaps far better.

Perhaps I should also add that I expect there was a certain amount of refusing to turn out by some Conservative and Lib Dem supporters - angry with their parties in government, but not willing to vote for another party. ( The parties themselves will have far better information having watched the count and with electoral role information saying who vote ( but not for whom of course! ) which can be cross referenced with their own canvassing returns. But they won't be sharing that !)

Minimum change

2012-05-07T23:10:00.002+01:00

Those critics of David Cameron and the Coalition in the Conservative party have tried their best over the last few days to get a hearing. The bad news for them is that Cameron thinks he has a public relations problem - and a bad attack of disloyalty ( which he will no doubt seek to sort out later ).

He's promising to work harder, refocus and not be swayed to the left or the right. Some of the stuff like making the traditional definition of marriage illegal and house of lords jobs for the Lib Dem boys scheme are delayed but not shelved ( already those who have the ear of government ministers who helped create this mess in the first place are busy whispering about not doing U turns ).

There's also some sort of relaunch in the offing.

Time to face up to the truth - Cameron's not going to start acting like a Conservative for any prolonged period. Time to consider your position folks.

The problem for the Lib Dems is ...

2012-05-04T13:33:00.002+01:00

The problem for the Lib Dems is that they just don't have that much support.

The truth is they borrow a lot of support. ( All that tactical voting - winning here stuff ).

Hence in government the votes they have borrowed from the now opposition have all moved to that opposition, but where they stand against Conservatives things have stood up - for now.

The Armageddon scenario for the yellow ones is if Labour become nationally credible, especially in the South. At that point their position, kept by borrowing Labour votes in the south, may collapse.

I think the commitment of Lib Dem activists to their hobby of getting elected is far too strong to let this happen. Hence I predict Nick Clegg and the Coalition are doomed.

14% is a real achievement for UKIP

2012-05-04T11:07:00.000+01:00

UKIP seem to have achieved another growth in our voting base with media reports giving a 14% support where candidates stood.

The first past the post system means a lot of the progress is below the surface of numbers of elected representatives. But UKIP will now be changing the results of elections and the agenda set by UKIP must surely be addressed by the other parties.

Though early signs from the unelected Baroness Warsi suggest the Gadfly approach and insult are still the knee jerk response. ( That's the sort of attitude to Conservative core supporters that has helped UKIP to where it is today of course ).

From my personal perspective I'm committed to ideals, ideas and morals mostly found on the right of centre. I'm not married to the idea of any political party existing for ever. As Daniel Hannan has suggested the route for success for the right should be via a merger between UKIP & The Conservative party, but that will mean the modernisers and wets will need to find a new home ( I hear the Lib Dems are short of self serving europhile hand ringers these days. ). But it won't happen any time soon as my guess is CCHQ will respond with bile.

My guess is we'll get a few more half baked Euro-Sausages from Cameron ( all approved as worthless scraps by Clegg et al ). They may even stall UKIP's advance for a while, but life long Conservatives like myself are getting into the habit of voting for UKIP - and a new reality will emerge from this over time.

See also Paul Nutall and the panel discussion about the rise of UKIP below and below that the ever reasonable Tim Montgomerie pointing out the danger of the short changing of the right that has lead people like me to leave the Conservatives for UKIP.

Even Guido is arguing for UKIP's agenda to be listened to and acted upon, though you need to be careful when Peter Mandelson starts suggesting a referendum on Europe as things are never straight forward with him.

So is Sam the Conservtives problem not Nick Clegg ?

2012-05-04T09:53:00.002+01:00

A thought occurred to me whilst watching the obligatory election day pictures of party leaders and their wives voting.

What is Sam Cameron signally by her choice of colours to wear ? It was certainly not a safe choice. It is rumoured that she is not a conservative at all, and may be the reason that David Cameron sticks to such vote losing policies such as abolishing marriage and replacing it with the liberal elites alternative.

So wear the Lib Dem trousers to the polling station might be her sub conscious sending out a message.

OK I'm probably over doing this - but it begs the question and in this world of spin doctors and image consultants you have to wonder who let this question get asked ?

How will Woking vote ?

2012-05-03T06:00:00.000+01:00

Well here's a turn up for the books, the local faithful Lib Dem "Winning here" poster site is sporting a Labour poster. The coalition has clearly been a bit too much for at least one Woking former Lib Dem voter.

I wonder how wide spread their problem is ?

Each party has it problems in Woking this time round.

There have been warnings in the press on electoral fraud, and I hear that (all) parties have been called by the returning officer to be warned on the subject.

Labour have lost all their councillors in Woking and will be looking to claw some ground back, and perhaps even get to the balance of power position.

The Conservatives are looking to extend their recent period in overall control, and on paper should have a good chance especially given the 0% town council tax rise ( but the unhelpful Surrey (also under Conservative control) large rise completely blows this out of the water ), however that's before you factor in the disillusionment with the modernising Cameron Conservatives. Woking has strong Christian and Muslim voting constituencies and Cameron's attack on marriage is going down like a bucket of cold sick here. Apparently it looks like it will be hard to get the vote out, and even if they do can they be sure that X isn't going in the UKIP box in the privacy of the ballot booth ?

The Lib Dems have the problem of being in coalition nationally, but relying on squeezing the Labour vote as the party of the left locally. Their tactics have been to be more positive this year, trying to take credit for things that have happened, rather than the usual range of Tory phobic attacks. How will that work ? Is the vote squeeze over ? ( I know some people who think there are more Labour supporters in Woking tactically voting Lib Dem than Lib Dem supporters, so there could be a dramatic unwinding. However the record shows that where the Lib Dems have high voting support it holds up - regardless of the national picture. )

For UKIP the aim will be to carry on the steady increase in local votes, potentially altering outcomes which will at least put the other parties under pressure.

What will today bring in Woking ? About the only thing I can predict confidently now is rain !

How you've called it

2012-05-02T23:40:00.001+01:00

For the first question What result do you expect for London mayor ?

Firstly you expect Boris to beat Ken - as apparently do some bookies who are already paying out before the polls open.

Boris to beat Ken		44	88%
Ken to beat Boris		3	6%

For the second question How bad will Thursday be for the Conservatives ?

You seem to think pretty nasty. I should point out that the Little change crowd are not the same as the three expecting a victory for Ken.

Little change	3	6%
Small loses	3	6%
Big losses	26	52%
Catastrophic loses	18	36%

Thanks if you voted - just a few more hours now till the real polls open.

So how bad in Thursday going to be for Team Cameron ?

2012-04-30T20:21:00.000+01:00

The hostile press is piling into Cameron, and that's just in the Telegraph. Over at Conservative Home they are trying to suggest a truce with the Heathite wing of the party, fearing perhaps they have gone too far.

But the voters have turned.

Many like me a frankly bloody furious about Cameron attack on marriage and jack booted imposition of the metropolitan elites dinner party morality to destroy my marriage by their current changing of the meaning of the word - i.e. its redefinition. The Coalition for Marriage thinks this may cost the party 30 seats at a general election.

There a near constant stream of defections from the Conservatives to UKIP. Many more people will just refuse to vote Conservative on Thursday.

Boris is lucky to be facing Ken, because a donkey with a Labour rosette would win in London - its only the fierce hostility to Livingston that gives Boris his main chance.

What will the impact on Cameron's close circle of old friends be of Thursday ?

If past performance is any indication - he'll just march on or say some PR stuff.

It really is time to start thinking long term ( code for join UKIP) - accept the Cameron/Heathite disaster for what it is. Realise the utter horror of Red-Eds elevation to PM and start planning the fight back.

Poll now closed.

25% Unemployment

2012-04-27T14:03:00.002+01:00

Reports are coming in that Spanish unemployment is reaching 25% at the same time that the cost of borrowing is rising for it government, and we must assume tax revenues are going down as welfare goes up.

That's not financially or politically sustainable is it ?

Soon Spain will have to worry about things like paying to feed its population.

Soon countries like the UK will have to rethink the free movement of peoples in Europe, as our job market comes under yet more pressure and our own children ( maybe they are too pampered, but there still ours ) are unable to get that first job.

Soon the consensus on all this is going to snap.

In the mean time think about the appalling fact of 25% unemployment. Who's to blame ? The last socialist government ? The EU ? You can be sure a scape goat will be needed soon.

A collapse of the fuzzy centre

2012-04-27T09:57:00.004+01:00

The BBC has a bad French Presidential election first round. Their inbuilt left wing sympathy made them spend much time exploring the rise of the Front Left, speculating that it might replace the National Front as a home of protest. In the actual event the National Front thumped the Front Left and has placed itself in range of the ultimate prise.( Not inconceivable if the next few years bring the economic apocalypse that doesn't seem to be of put by Euro zone rescue and more European solidarity. )

In the Netherlands the centre can't hold the line, and Wilder's party withdraws its support from the government and Dutch Labour refuses to support the austerity that is the requirement of Dutch support for the €uro.

We've seen the centre eaten alive in Northern Ireland as the Ulster Unionists and Social Democratic Labour party have fallen victim to their challengers.

And still the Conservtiave modernisers tell us that electoral power can only be found in the centre.

The Lib Dems dream of permanent jobs in the Lords with all those rich expense accounts and ego stroking publicity. The are convinced that STV will deliver them pork on a substantial scale that will make their surrender to the reality of government worth while.

Well I'm not so sure.

As I've argued previously I think STV might destroy the centre Lib Dems and it will open a full range of political options, which the current main three parties don't provide. These things have happened with changes in the voting system in other countries, and so are not unbelievable ( see New Zealand's experimentation with voting reform ).

As Bradford has shown the centre isn't holding. Given the extreme economic pressure that the Euro disaster and Gordon Brown/Ed Balls' debt disaster and public sector splurge have given us, combined with a newlly assertive competition from the BRICS countries this country is in the middle of a deep and long term crisis.

The public is learning instinctively that things can't carry on as they have, all they have been short of is a political option to crystallise that. I'd hope it could be UKIP, though there's a long way to go yet. It might be to a new left wing but still EU loving Labour party ( which will of course be a disaster ).

But the herd of voters is ready to stamped, and it won't be to the centre that they run.

Further: Fraser Nelson has an interesting argument about the localisation of party support here, and blames the lack of overarching causes. If he's right then the moderniser drive to the mushy centre is the exact opposite of what political parties need to do right now.

Another year with no English Parliament

2012-04-23T19:11:00.005+01:00

I hope you have had a good St George's day.

One day we can do this with an English Parliament and an English Government.

Then we can really have a celebration !

How fracking can save England

2012-04-19T18:54:00.000+01:00

This post by the Economist's current Baghot columnist shows what the stakes could be over the UK, and especially English, Shale oil & gas reserves.

In short we could be energy independent for a long time, and not dependent on the insane areas of the world where we currently have to send vast sums of cash which some of them then use trying to destroy our society.

The flies in the ointment are the left ( Greens etc ) and the EU. The greens love poverty and the evil of desperation and deprecation for their little selfish fantasies and are concerned that a good energy source might stop their left wing utopia being forced on a captive population. The EU will screw things up just by being itself and over regulating to please French peasants and Green Germans.

Yet another reason to leave the EU.

Drill for the economic recovery baby - drill !

2012-04-18T09:17:00.000+01:00

At last the green light has been given for shale gas production using the hydraulic fracturing technique in the UK.

The initial estimates of reserves were massive, but use of this technique in these sorts of rock formations is still novel and we can't yet be sure of how much hydrocarbons can be recovered, or indeed the precise size of reserves. ( Uncertainty is a big part of the business of oil and gas exploration and production. )

In the US, which is ahead of us here, cheap shale gas is helping reduce energy prices and driving their economic recovery. The US has gone from a net gas importer to an exporter in a short period of time. This is in danger of being one of those black swan moments that will be get used as the prime example for Naseem Taleb's hypothesis for years to come.

Of course the Green's a spinning like their windmills ( except when its too windy, or not windy enough, or the grid doesn't want the power when its blowing etc etc ).

Their plan for mass poverty and high unemployment caused by energy poverty rationed by sky high energy prices is in ruins. Now having failed to impose socialist tyranny and misery at the ballot box their plan B of suing environmentalism looks in doubt. ( The our politicians do seem especially slow and dim witted in realising that the games up. )

They cling to any excuse they can - the flaming taps example ( which you could have achieved before the fracking happened by the way ) or a small Earth tremor in Blackpool. ( Notice how only the Shale Gas fracking is considered wrong not the geothermal power production under Newcastle ).

If were lucky all this may start to feed into cheaper power costs, more jobs and an economic recovery. Government should do everything it can to encourage it - and keep the anti-human green lunatics out of the way. Those who protest should be locked up - somewhere preferably without power, heat and just enough food - the sort of prison they want for the rest of us and our children.

So drill baby drill !

See also UK 'could become one of world's biggest shale gas producers'

-9% less one

2012-04-17T08:59:00.000+01:00

Two headline news items caught my ear this morning. Firstly the okay to carry on drilling for shale gas - more on which later today and the 9% lead for Labour in the polls right now over the Consecrative party.

As you'll see from my about box that will be -9% less one as I've made the move to join UKIP. The motivation for this has two main headings;

1) Despair at the Conservative party.

Its not just David Cameron who has lead the Conservative party into the Heathite muddle its now in. The rest of the party has let it happen. Now perhaps there were few actual party members listening to the leaders speech last year as the hall was filled with Guardian reading lobbiest but a party like the Conservative party should *never* have advocated abolishing marriage and replacing it with a metropolitan elites little dream of the moment. A proper conservative party would *never* have cheered a leader who stood up a tried to pull that sort of heresy off.

Add to this the clear betrayal on the EU.

Also add in the failure to reform public services at a time that they are clearly bankrupting the nation. ( And for a conservative party to try and hide behind just bank bashing, rather than spelling out the truth to the population. ) You see when you fail to take the main issues to the population, then they will not support you when the required actions are taken.

the half baked nature of the government is perhaps blameable on the Lib Dems, but that just doesn't cover it. The underlying problem is summed up in this particular quote from scripture - used for a different purpose here:

Matthew 16:25 "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it."

The current crop of professional politicians have put their careers ahead of the good of the country. Its true anyone who spells out the truth to the voters right now had better have a second career option, but the nation needs that sort of prophetic sacrifice.

The budget fiasco is just the proof of what happens when your half hearted and duplicitous. ( Which is what you get spending too much time with the Lib Dems. )

2) A feasible future needs to be laid out

UKIP aren't perfect. A number of well known bloggers and columnists have joined and then left UKIP. Some policies "need work" - but that is true of any political party. ( I'd personally put defence on that list for UKIP ).

But the truth is a lot of the evils in our society have their root in the EU. Our democracy is undermined by the EU. Our society is undermined by allied institutions such as the court in the Hague and Strasbourg and international treaty obligations entered into when the world was a different place from what it is today.

We are faced with a choice between managed ( and frankly mismanaged ) decline by people who are in it for themselves, with being dissolved into the bureaucratic nightmare of the EU as a distraction or having the strength of character and self belief to pull ourselves out and set a course with a future. Only UKIP offers the hope of that.

The politics might be terrible in the short term. Labour may become the next government as a result, but I've now lost faith in the Conservative party's ability to turn the ship around. We end up at the same final destination - just a little quicker with Labour at the Helm.

Its time to start join those making the arguments for a future for out nations ( yes I like the English Parliament committmemnt from UKIP also ).

I'm told the stay at home factor for Conservative supporters looks massive for the upcoming local elections - UKIPs challenge is to persuade those people and those on the left that there is a futrure for the UK and you can vote for it.

Will there be a UKIP government - not in any near future I can see. But could UKIP force the political debate onto a course that will save our nations ? Yes - I believe it can. And I'm willing to be optimistic enough to give it a go.

Final destination ?

2012-04-12T16:39:00.000+01:00

The stop UKIP campaign is getting up steam over on the usual party sounding boards of the staggers, Con Home, and the Telegraph. Articles by those trying to explain why voting UKIP doesn't make sense are rolling of the keyboards of uber modernisers and Cameroon loyalists, they claim not to be worried and that its idiotic to vote or join UKIP - their need for action tells another story.

The BBC has done its best to keep a lid on the UKIP surge in London giving a disgraceful preference to the loony Greens over the UKIP candidate for London mayor on their Newsnight debate.

The debate that has just got very hot, is one that many Conservative loyalists have in their hearts quietly from time to time. If you asked them which party fits most closely with what they believe and want for the country they'd vote UKIP ( I've had long serving Conservative members admit to voting UKIP at European elections ). But Conservatives are usually pragmatists and they worry about letting in Labour or worse the EUSSR fanatic Lib Dems.

This is my guess as to what keeps the lid on any wide spread defections to UKIP.

But this all depends on a strong differentiation between Conservatives and the BBC/Labour/Lib Dem alliance.

What if the deficit goes up anyway ? What if equality fascism continues it march through the institutions ? What is in the end the government just surrenders to Brussels ? In short what if it makes no difference whether Ed Miliband or David Cameron are PM when the final destination is the same ?

This is what things look like to many of us and CCHQ should be very very nervous right now.

Yes Gove's great - and IDS would be great if self serving moron Lib Dems would let him help people - but the rest look like a shower right now.

Things are now very very unstable. A movement may lead to an avalanche. The Conservative party could be heading for its Limehouse Decleration moment or Italian political shock that killed their Christian Democrats.

Incredulity on the rise

2012-04-10T22:31:00.003+01:00

I was just starting to read a post by Alice over at UK Bubble ( the hints in the name ) on house prices where she talks about how much faith people used to have in house prices. I can remember telling my own neighbour in 2007 that things were heading for a crunch - but no one wanted to listen in those days. Things would carry on as they had before.

But now the crowd knows better.

The blog post I'm referring to is about Bond prices heading for a reality based correction, but there are plenty of other normal assumptions that the crowd has that are vulnerable. They are all heading for a crunch with reality soon:

the Euro can continue;
immigration can be accommodated in the UK at the current rate;
life can just continue as normal as the new emerging powers take more and more of the resources that used to go to the west;
all three traditional main parties can continue to treat there members with utter disdain;
austerity in the Euro-region can just be enforced by EU appointed technocrats;
Taiwan can continue independent of China, guaranteed by the US;
the Arab world can feed and employ its rapidly exploding population;
the US will be able to afford all its carrier battle groups and massive military whilst having its debt funded by China, and;
the UK can continue on its current debt fuelled decline, pursued by continuity Brown (Osborne) just as firmly as by Darling, without a crisis.

Can you think of any others ?

In short credit is down, incredulity is up - dangerously so as West Bradford has given us a glimpse of. But is it up enough to help us be motivated enough to defused the UXBs ( Unexploed Bubble's - my redef ) lying around our world.

A new home for the EU Referendum blog

2012-04-10T21:19:00.002+01:00

I just noticed that the independently minded EU Referendum blog has moved house to http://www.eureferendum.com/ - worried by some of the changes made by Google with blogspot.

Personally I can see their point - though I'm having one of those has this run its course type reflections right now that stops me making further effort in that sort on line.

Still if your a fan put a post linking to the new sight and lets get Dr North & co's Google rankings back where they belong, if you excuse the irony.

In the good old days

2012-04-09T15:45:00.001+01:00

You'll have to do better than that Dave ...

2012-04-05T16:41:00.001+01:00

The emerging omnishambles at Number 10 is getting two responses.

Its everyone else's fault ( especially those who didn't go to Eton, organise summer balls at Oxford, or live in Nottinghill / Chipping Norton ), everyone else needs to get a grip and realise how what's happening isn't and if it is it doesn't matter. ( This line is being pushed by a number of promotion desperate MPs hoping to trade integrity for career advancement. )
Lets offer some cheap compromises/ headline grabbing policies and even make a few mistakes that we can then easily rectify to show we listen.

Unfortunately for centre right politics in the UK there is no chance of the real situation being recognised.

Number 10 continues to make enemies out of its natural allies with things like destroying marriage.

Ed Miliband might well be prime minister in 2015, and the Conservative party needs to understand it has no perpetual franchise on support from conservtaive people.