Vote For The Policy Not The Personality

I had quite an interesting discussion with a mate of mine in the pub last night. We were, as is inevitable at the moment I suppose, discussing the upcoming election and my friend put forward the view that while he could not, under any possible circumstances, vote for Gordon Brown he didn’t feel that any of the other leaders were worth voting for either.

This got me thinking. After thirteen years of Central Soviet style governance we have all been brainwashed to the acceptance of the myth of the presidential cult of the uber-ego personality. The problem is that the late and unlamented former Prime Minister, Tony B. Liar as I prefer to think of him, ruled alone, imposing his will on his party, the Cabinet and the poor old lobby fodder of mindless drone MPs who were whipped to do his will. This arrogant narcissist was unfortunately succeeded by another brutal dictator who has bullied the whole parliamentary system, the Civil Service and the country into accepting his word, thought and deed as not only law, but almost as some sort of divine and absolute truth.

We have I think been bludgeoned to the point where we now find it difficult to remember Cabinet Government where decisions and policies were reached by consensus. I am therefore of the opinion that we should stop choosing our government in a leadership “Beauty Contest” and go back to voting for a party whose policies we agree with. It should not really matter who is the leader of a party is as their job, as a “First Amongst Equals”, is really only to be a figurehead or mouthpiece.

Unfortunately with Comrade Brown this is not possible as his Stalinist tendencies mean that voting for him means that we will get exactly that, i.e. him, him, and nothing but him. Let’s hope however that with the Conservative and perhaps the Lib Dems this time aroundwe will be able to move back to policy instead of personality in government?

Winter is coming – along with the ghost of the winter of discontent

It’s been a while since I had a good old rant here. It’s not because I haven’t had anything to rant about, it’s had more to do with having the time to actually write this stuff down. Now that I have got a couple of minutes it’s difficult to know where to begin.

I want to start with what’s in the news today. The first item on my radar is that the postal unions have voted to strike. I see this as just the fist straw in a wind which heralds the onset of a coming hurricane, or in this case I fear the onset of an Arctic winter of discontent.

Those of us old enough to remember, or even those of us with enough education to read our history books, will be able to understand that our wonderful Supreme Soviet of a government is performing like any sad old centralist, ‘control-freak’ regime at the fag-end of its inevitably bloated parasitic life. The result of its “Tax and Spend” lifestyle means that the years it has spent artificially inflating the public service and stuffing the commissariat bureaucracy with inspectors, checkers, snoops and busybodies, to whom it pays artificially high salaries and generous pensions, means that the country is broke and the government’s coffers are empty.

All of these civil service employees are beginning to realize that the good times are over and their friends and mentors in Downing Street will inevitably have to shortly start a whole round of axe wielding. The Civil Service, Teaching, Health Care Workers, and Local Government unions are beginning to realize that the diabolical contract they entered into with Tony Blair and New Labour to get them into and maintain them in power is about to be spectacularly broken.

I am sure that each of these sectors wants their particular enclave to be ‘ring-fenced’ and protected from any cuts as a ‘front line’ service. When they find that this just cannot happen then the sort of action taken by the postal workers, strikes, go-slows, work to rule’s etc. will obviously follow. Welcome to another “Winter of Discontent”!

Comrade Brown and brothers Mandelson and Darling would have us believe that all of this fiscal embarrassment is entirely due to the banking crisis and the global recession. The question I ask however is “where has all the money from the good times gone”?

When a business is profitable you would expect it to take some of that profit and invest it back into the business. I suggest that you wouldn’t expect said business to hire a whole load of extra staff to sit around playing solitaire on the PC and raid the stationery cupboard while other staff are employed to spy on them. When the average person has a windfall, or is in a good well paying job, if they are sensible, they put money aside “for a rainy day”. Well here in the UK the rainy day has arrived but suddenly we don’t have any money to afford to buy an umbrella.

I don’t think that the Socialist wonders currently wielding power can lay any of this at the door of the opposition parties. Tovarich Blair and Brown inherited one of the healthiest and most robust economies in the world and were so convinced of the Conservative way they undertook to maintain the previous government’s fiscal plans for the first four years of their time in power. If you are looking for blame for the banking crisis look no further than the Iron Chancellor who set up a system of banking checks which let a group of irresponsible greedy Chavs pay themselves obscene amounts of other people’s money for gambling (and often losing) yours and my hard earned funds. All this after he had raped and pillaged our pension funds and burdened us with more taxes (stealth and overt) than any government in the whole history in the world.

So, back to those of us who are old enough to remember, or can read the history books. I fear that the cold chill specter of the ghost of Christmas Past this year may well be the haunting phantom of Jim Callaghan, back from the grave of the Winter of Discontent whispering loudly into Gordon Brown’s ear “Crisis – What crisis?”

Another Drip On The Stone

This week has, for me, seen the cult of celebrity that has invidiously pervaded our society like a rot reach a new all time low.

The economy is not just stagnant but actually in decline, while, in spite of our ‘Central Committee’ of a so called government languishing in a state of denial, we are all struggling under a mountain of debt unprecedented in any of our lifetimes. The said government is in an apparent total meltdown with disgraced ministers either resigning, (jumping before they are pushed) or announcing that they won’t stand at the next election. The protectionist German government is busy buying General Motors jobs, luring Fiat or the Canadian company Magna away from Vauxhall with loan guarantees.Meanwhile a diminutive French ego maniac is seeking to revise our history by claiming that the 65th anniversary of the Normandy D-Day landings were only important enough to warrant the invitation of the ‘cool’ American president and his wife, while the Queen, and Britain in general was supernumerary . And that was only on the Monday of this week.

While all this is happening what is our great leader doing? Is he marshalling all of our resources to skilfully guide us through these turbulent times? Is he using all of our accumulated skills as a nation to work through these crises toward a solution?

The answer is he is seeking to gain a cheap headline and stay in the good books of the great British unwashed by phoning the producers of Britain’s Got Talent to enquire about the mental state of the loosing contestant.

Can we assume that because she is Scottish Gordo now realises that every vote is precious and she might be the feather that will tip the balance of the election he is too scared to call? Maybe he thinks that his fellow Picts  are the only ones who will continue to support the Westminster subsidy he has maintained, at the expense of the English who pay the bulk of the taxes to the United Kingdom treasury. Or, perhaps he realises that the mass of the Mirror, Sun and Daily Star readers don’t recognise the news stories I spoke of earlier and so wants them to believe that by submitting to the lowest common denominator of celebrity he is in fact the leader we all want? Is it just possible that if I therefore express myself in the language of masses he might just understand? If so then my messages is:

“Push off you one eyed Scottish idiot. You’ve done a crap job and we want  the chance to vote for somebody else”.

They Just Don’t Get It Do They?

There are many things wrong with our current Central Soviet. In fact their faults and failings are legion and too numerous to mention here. Their chief crime however appears to be deafness.

It may be that all Labour governments are cursed with a congenital condition which renders them incapable of hearing the electorate? Therefore, in these days of political correctness, it could be that we are all too polite to mention or draw attention to it, or it could be that this lot are so imbued with arrogance, hubris, and possibly ennui, that listening to those who elected them is just not an option?

We all told them we didn’t want a war with Iraq, a million people took to the streets to say that its ban on hunting with dogs was not wanted, the whole nation, the courts, as well as both the opposition parties, have clearly said that the Ghurkhas should have a right to live here and now the Judiciary have ruled that the DNA of innocent people should not be kept on file. All of these democratically expressed views have been blatantly and wilfully ignored by a government which is obsessed with its own sense of its own right. I don’t believe in government by plebiscite or referendum, however when the obvious view of the majority is ignored by a control freak ‘Nanny State’ then surely it’s time for a change.

Comrade Gordon, and the rest of us, may have to wait until May of next year, but I believe that there will then be a public declaration of disapproval that even this arrogant, ignorant excuse for a government will not be able to ignore.

Swine Flu – A Global Pandemic Not Many Dead

I don’t think that I am given to ostrich like tendencies and burying my head in the sand is not my usual adopted position. However I can’t get excited about the current outbreak of Swine Flu. The media would have us believe that millions of us are all about to catch this dreaded lurgy and hundreds and thousands of us will be dying in the streets. RUBBISH!!

The truth, as far as I can see, is that some several hundreds of people in this country will suffer a varying degree of flu like symptoms. Some, the very young, the very old, the weak and the infirm may die (or may have their demise hastened by this additional complication). Why then are we being subjected to this mass propaganda campaign? Could it just be that the newspapers and broadcast media have decided that we are tired of hearing about the economy and they now need a new story to try and capture our attention?

Cyclists – Just A Whining Nuisance

This blog is not actually about cyclists. That particular bunch of the “don’t pay as you go” lobby still annoy the hell out of me and do, as it happens, fall into the group I want to rant at today.

The reason for my ire is simply that; post an opinion that cyclist, by slowing down traffic and refusing to pay for the infrastructure they demand to use, are selfish parasites, and up they spring to defend themselves. Point out, on the other hand, that many of our fundamental rights to law and liberty have been stealthily stolen by the Central Soviet you call a government and NOTHING, Nada, Zilch, Zero, happens!

Where are the commentators who want to discuss issues of import rather than bloody bicycles for God’s sake? Jade Goody, Amy Winehouse, Footballers who can’t keep it in their pants or dowdy spinsters who can sing a bit, all manage to arouse fervour and passion from the Great “actually we once used to be, but aren’t any more so deal with it” British Public. Is the whole country so ego centric and self absorbed that the only things we now hold dear are those things which, quite frankly, only amount to navel gazing?

And talking of human rights; how can this excuse for a government possibly justify its treatment of the Ghurkha ex-servicemen? Having lost out to a High Court judgement they have set about a shameful, mean and beggarly so called compliance, which will deny these brave warriors who served to support the freedoms (and expenses) they all so lavishly claim, the right to a dignified retirement in the country they fought for.

I have always believed that “with rights, come responsibilities”. In the case of the Ghurkhas I believe that they have faced up to and faithfully discharged their responsibilities, now they deserve the rights they have, in many cases, fought and died for.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who Will Watch The Watchers?)

As anyone who knows me, or has read any of my blogs, will attest, I could hardly be described as a ‘bleeding heart liberal’. In fact the phrase “well to the right of Genghis Kahn” I take as a compliment. I am however increasingly worried by the continuing erosion of fundamental elements of our civil liberties, which we all used to believe were our inalienable right.

Today all 12 suspects arrested in a security operation intended to thwart what the Prime Minister said was “a very big terrorist plot” have been released without charge. These arrests were, you may remember, precipitated by Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism's accidental disclosure of details of proposed raids, by exposing a secret and confidential dossier.

This is not the first time that so called terrorists have been spectacularly arrested only to be later released, much more quietly. It seems that in the name of “The War On Terror” the age old adage of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” has been replaced by “Innocent Until Proven Pakistani”. The sacrificing of our rights to the god of the war on terror is, sadly, only the tip of what I believe to be a disturbing murky iceberg.

I believe that this Socialist, Central Soviet, government, formally of comrade Blair (or B. Liar as he should more accurately be known) and currently headed (I can’t bring myself to say “lead”) by  tovarich Brown, has steadily steered us down a path toward a Stalinist police state.

Presumably fuelled by its insatiable desire to control every aspect of every individual’s life (and thought processes if they believed that they could get away with it), rights and freedoms we have enjoyed for almost a thousand years have quietly disappeared from the statute book.

Gone are the days when you had the right to remain silent. When you did stay ‘schtum’ British law was very clear that just because you did not say anything your silence could not be construed as guilt. This was because the burden of proof was always on the prosecution; so I did not have to prove my innocence, it was always assumed. Today judges can direct a jury to assume exactly the opposite and a failure to testify can be assumed as guilt. There used also to be the right of Habeaus Corpus. Now the police can kick your door down at 4:00am and hold you without charge for 28 days (remember the government wanted this to be 56 days). It appears that no needs any actual hard evidence to do this as you can be released, after this period, without charge, as in today’s case. When you are released the police don’t even have to say they're sorry, nor apparently do they have to justify locking you up in the first place, beyond saying that it “was in the interest of national security”.

If the police did have a valid reason for arresting these young men why, now that they have been released, can we not see it? Whatever happened to the concept of “wrongful arrest” (itself a crime)?

It is becoming clear to me that the police are increasingly acting as an arm of the government, who are arming them with powers to ride roughshod over the rights of the individual. Even opposition shadow cabinet ministers are not exempt. Armed with such powers the police themselves seem to be taking a stance of not being our guardians but our warders. Flushed with their seemingly limitless power, and the fact they are divorced from any consequences, they appear to be operating from the view that “everyone is guilty and we will catch you eventually”. They also feel empowered to physically attack protestors, or anyone else for that matter, willy-nilly, again without consequence.

When servants become masters in this way I suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society. I believe that people should not be afraid of their government, or their police force, the government, or the police, should always be afraid of their people. Our rights and freedoms give us the ability to exercise our power over our government and police force and we should all be afraid when they are, taken away from us.