Is A Victorian Attitude A Bad Thing?

The Victorians
When people talk about “The Victorians” most of the time the term is used in a negative and derogatory manner. People talk about “Victorian Values”, when they want to describe people who are sexually repressed, or have a harsh, unyielding or draconian attitude. The Victorians however were far from the rigid, inflexible, rule obsessed, intellectual inbreeds some people portray them as.

The Victorians were the architects of our modern world, who laid down the foundations of our current business and information society. Instead of shying away from “Victorian Values” we should be embracing them with the fervour and passion which they had.

The Victorians had the gift of believing that anything was possible. No mountain was too high, no valley too low; no river was too wide and no continent was too vast that it couldn't be climbed, spanned, crossed or conquered. Their ideas and their ambition were limitless and challenges and difficulties were things to be overcome not insurmountable obstacles to dishearten them and make them give up.

The Victorian attitude was to relentlessly press forward to their goal, regardless of whatever fate, nature, or even other men threw in their way to stop them. They did this by the simple application of four simple but vital premises: Information, Investigation, Innovation, and Implementation.

Having identified a problem they wanted to solve, or an obstacle the wanted to overcome, they gathered as much information about the problem as they could and clearly defined it. They would then investigate the implications of the problem, find out what resources were required or available to be brought to bear to bring about the solution that was required. If the required resources, systems, process, or procedures weren't in place or didn't exist they would innovate to create something new, vigorous, and exciting, to make sure that they could implement their solution and move forward.

If we compare that with what happens today we see that our own information and investigation stages are hampered and mired in concerns such as Health & Safety, Government Rules and Regulations, our P.R. profiles, or the fear of bad publicity. Our ability to innovate, or even in many cases our desire for innovation itself, has been suppressed or killed off by the fear of change or the fear of ridicule, as people tell us “it can't be done” or “you mustn't do it like that”. All this of course means that we seldom actually implement a timely or appropriate solution.

I believe that our Victorian forefathers would not have hesitated to build an island in the Thames to house a new multi-runway international airport, or the transport infrastructure to support it. The shades of Thomas Telford, Richard Trevithick, and Robert Stephenson, not to mention Isambard Kingdom Brunel, et al must be turning in their graves and railing at the shackles the politically correct planners and the loony lefty Greens are imposing on our entrepreneurial and engineering spirit.

In spite of all this there are still some entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers out there in the world of business and science. Men, and women, who embraced the true Victorian ideals of Information, Investigation, Innovation, and Implementation. Businessmen such as Richard Branson; Jack Cohen, who founded the Tesco supermarket chain; and Jeffery P Bezos, the founder of Amazon. These men have investigated and then changed the way we shop. Men of science like, Tim Berners Lee, Trevor Baylis, the inventor of the clockwork radio, Bill Gates and Steve Jobbs, whose innovations have impacted our way of communicating ideas. And men of ideas and new social constructs such as, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King who have all implemented changes which have bettered the way we think about each other.

I believe that we should all re-embrace the spirit of the real Victorians. I’m sure that those Victorian gentlemen who’s Information, Investigation, Innovation, and Implementation was originally responsible for creating all that is good about Britain would be well pleased to see us returning to the true Victorian tradition and contributing to helping us build a better Britain.

We’re All Entitled To An Opinion–Here’s Charlie Brookers–And Mine

Charlie Brooker is a smug self-opinionated champagne socialist with all the apparent wit, grace and charm of a flatulent boorish water buffalo with personal hygiene issues. Lacking the erudition of the truly well-read, well-mannered or well-educated he seeks to make up in arrogance and self-opinionated offence what he so obviously lacks in knowledge or social grace. Here is another of the luvie, lefty, literati who, feted by the BBC, are happy to take the capitalist shilling.

I Support Social Services

I support public service but I also support the reduction of the bloated blood-sucking parasitic entity the previous Socialist mal-administration made. Packing local councils, social care, the NHS and the civil service with make-work, self-opinionated jobsworths was merely a thinly disguised means of buying votes for a Socialist (nay Soviet, Marxist) regime hell bent on performing blatant attempts at social engineering with the country’s money. When the surplus the last Conservative government had built up was all gone, Blair, Brown, Balls, Miliband and co. then proceeded to attempt to prop up the whole inflated edifice with borrowed money which we couldn't afford to pay back.

Now that the bills are due the Socialist “Brothers and Comrades” are happy to man (and women, must be politically correct lest we offend their already tender sensibilities) the barricades, suggesting the all the Tories want is to cut care, social welfare and benefit support. I believe that what the government really ought to do is to go back to us having a country that lives within its means. Let’s have no more cushy jobs for the Brothers and Comrades and no more free hand-outs for the work-shy and idle. Support public services by all means but don’t let Leninist Marxist dogma stop anyone from working out how you are going to fund and support it.

Oh, and by the way, Keynesian economics has already been shown to have failed to solve the recession. A recession caused by Blair, Brown and the like de-regulating the banks and financial markets and effectively causing the crash of 2008. Governments can’t borrow money from failed institutions to finance infrastructure projects (and huge social services budgets) to stimulate demand. Tight fiscal policies and an overall reduction of the tax burden, together with the dismantling of the red-tape and restrictions imposed by the previous administration’s Commissariat law makers are, in reality, what is needed.

Just How Crazy Can The Eurozone Get?

Because Cyprus is part of the Euro it has no control over its exchange rate. Isn't its decision to levy a 10% tax on bank deposits the only way it can effectively devalue? Doesn't this 10% levy mean that effectively the Euro in Cyprus is worth 10% less than anywhere else?

Now that the central dictatorship has forced the Cypriot government into a tax and a raid on savings they have again demonstrated that democracy and individual freedom are no longer an option in the federalist dystopia being unwillingly forced on Europe. If the economists, bankers and federalists who are now in charge were wearing military uniforms, the way they have usurped power in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and now Cyprus would be call an outrage.

Apparently because they are wearing business suits, ruling without a democratic mandate is perfectly Okay. The sooner the madness that is the Eurozone is over the better the world will be.

On a related topic - If we want economic growth I believe we should be looking to Freidrich Hayek rather than John Maynard Keynes. Everyone from doctors to local bureaucrats; from bankers to politicians, have been seduced by the false hope of "Intervention". Let's just call it what it is i.e. "Meddling for personal profit, gain, personal satisfaction, or power".

Advice For Those Who Face A Benefit Cut – Get A Job!

The ousted and disgraced Soviet committee that was our last government are, under command from their Trotskyist Union masters, leading a lament worthy of a classical Greek chorus, about the coalition’s necessary benefit cuts. As a counterpoint to the drone of the chorus are a procession of pathetic tattered waifs strays paraded like the Victorian poor by the leftie BBC, whining that they may have to leave their house (which few of us honest working folk could afford) or, God forbid, actually have to tighten their belts in this time of national austerity.

One of the arguments for maintaining this army of paid for by the state Labour voters, has been that by getting a job they would be losing their hand-outs and so be worse off. Well poor them! Hopefully now that their benefit has been cut they will find that they will now be better off working. Making the benefit side of the scale lighter should tip it in favour of actually working for the money rather than just being handed it as a prize for indolence.

Why too do we reward profligate and irresponsible fecundity? Want an all-expenses paid place to live? Easy – get pregnant. Want a bigger place in a better part of town? Just have more kids. Have you spotted what’s wrong with this argument yet? Thankfully the coalition has and has begun addressing it. And while we are talking about housing why has no one mentioned that one of the biggest flaws in housing benefit policy has been to let private landlords charge unchecked rents to benefit claimants?

I’m sure that much of the housing boom was fuelled by people buying “Buy-To-Let” properties which were paid for by the government doling out inflated rents through housing benefit. This misguided policy by our former Soviet masters has also meant that those looking for rented accommodation in the private sector have been priced out of the market. It also means that property prices have been artificially inflated keeping first time buyers off the property ladder. We rightly decry the Edwardian slum landlord and the Victorian mill owner who kept their workers in run down back-to-back hovels but let Teflon Tony and Bully Baron Brown fund a similar culture with public money the country could not afford.

Benefit reform is long overdue and, as a country, we must get back to living within our means. The problem is that because the last government blew all the money on their misguided attempts at social engineering our means are much more straightened that they used to be. Of course if you have a job, and I mean a real job not just a “make-work” local authority skive, benefit cuts are not a problem to be feared but a solution to be welcomed.

Paxman and top BBC journalists warn against strike during Tory conference | Media | guardian.co.uk

Paxman and top BBC journalists warn against strike during Tory conference | Media | guardian.co.uk

And so it begins….

As I pointed out yesterday the left wing, Marxist unions appear to be hell bent on damaging our democratically elected government and ultimately bringing it down.

Amazingly they expect us to naively believe that the targeting of the Conservative Party Conference and the Prime Minister’s and Chancellor’s speeches are merely coincidence and indeed it’s the Conservative own fault because of their so called “Anti-strike” legislation.

My own view is that this is a blatant attempt to extend the abhorrent media manipulation of the likes of Alistair Campbell or Peter Mandelson  by an act which is purely politically motivated. Well done the voice of reason and well done responsible journalists who are not against strike action but who appear to be against having a strike used as a crude political, propaganda bludgeon.

Watch out, there’s more to come, mark my words…..

BBC News - 'We've got our party back,' says Lord Kinnock

BBC News - 'We've got our party back,' says Lord Kinnock

The interesting thing about this quote is that it is not from Neil Kinnock but from an un-named union delegate who Lord Kinnock reported “leaned over and said 'Neil, we've got our party back'”. Lord Kinnock said that he “thought that was so accurate as an instantaneous response to the leader's speech”.

Is it only me who sees this as truly ominous? It seems obvious to me that the “we” the delegate was referring to was not the rank and file Labour party members but the unions. These unions now feel that they are back in charge and they will, in short order, be calling in their markers to dictate Ed Miliband’s policy.

The trade unions, led by Charlie Whelan who proudly boasted that he had persuaded six MPs to switch second preference to Ed Miliband, appear determined to reproduce a “Winter of Discontent” over impending government cuts to public spending. I would argue that the unions are not fighting for people’s jobs or the maintenance of public services, their aim is to usurp the democratic process as they challenge the election result. In my view their aim is to return us to a centralist Marxist state where they, along with the Labour party will urge us to “Stay In Doors”, “Listen to The Government Broadcasts” and “Continue To Obey All The Rules”.

Under the last Labour government the unions were content to grow fat sucking off the body politic and public like bloated parasites. Now their endless free food supply is in danger of drying up they want us all to keep paying for them by preserving unnecessary public sector jobs with money we don’t have and have to borrow. I think these bloated union bosses are as bad as bankers.