LPUK to stand in Henley

Ian Parker-Joseph: LPUK candidate for Henley.

Although we felt that the Crewe and Nantwich contest was too soon, as has been highlighted on UK Polling Report, the Libertarian Party will be fielding a candidate, Ian Parker-Joseph, in the Henley by-election (whenever that might be).

Ian has a campaign blog, as well as his usual place; he has been an enthusiastic supporter of LPUK from the very beginning and is a thoroughly nice chap too. He has been in Henley this week, doing the rounds of the pubs and gauging opinion: apparently, "the message seems to be going down fairly well, especially with the younger crowd."

As always, we need help and support from anyone who would like to help us spread the libertarian message: we reckon that we need a minimum of £4,000 to get any kind of campaign going. Please feel free to donate to the party over the coming weeks; however, please note that we do not accept donations from companies (we are no fans of corporatism), only from individuals on the Electoral Register.

If you can donate time that would be fantastic. More importantly, we need a premises in Henley (or any of the surrounding constituencies: Buckingham, Aylesbury, Wycombe, Maidenhead, Reading East, Reading West, Newbury, Wantage, Oxford West & Abingdon, Oxford East, Banbury) that we can use as a Registered Office for an election agent (it can even be a private residence). This will save us a considerable amount of money, and you will earn undying gratitude. And, of course, if you live in Henley, please read our manifesto, talk about us and vote for us...

If anyone wants to help, please email me using the address at the top of the sidebar. It's time for all libertarians to stand up and be counted: do you believe enough to make it happen, or are you happy just to talk about it?


WHY NOT TRY FREEDOM INSTEAD?

VOTE LIBERTARIAN.

UPDATE: thanks for all of the offers of help: we now have an address! Obstacle #1 conquered...

UPDATE 2: a revised caption...


WHY NOT TRY FREEDOM INSTEAD?

VOTE LIBERTARIAN.

Paternalist twat of the week: Alex Singleton

I know that it is probably bad form to launch an attack on someone who has bought you wine, but this article by Alex Singleton, doyen of the utterly ineffectual and irrelevent Globalisation Institute, constitutes a first strike, as far as your humble Devil is concerned.

You can tell, as soon as you see the title, that it is going to be an article of quite staggering stupidity.

How Libertarians undermine liberty

Oooookaaaay; this is going to be a cracker, isn't it...?

What is it that encourages ordinarily sensible people to start niche political parties?

Well, I know that this may seem difficult for you to understand, Alex, but it may just be so that they can vote for a political party that they actually believe in. You alien-voters may be morally bankrupt, but that doesn't mean that all of us are.

I can see the merit in independent candidates fighting local elections—they can bring together communities wanting the fixing of a local problem which has escaped the view of the national parties.

What the fuck? Seriously, Alex: are you really this fucking thick?

Why the hell should someone campaigning for one, local cause have the power to change the way of life of everybody in the country? Why the fuck should they want to? Should they not lobby their local councils, or their MP? Isn't that what these bodies exist for?

But when people come up with the idea of establishing national parties to be more ideologically pure than the main ones, I roll my eyes.

That's because you are a smug, treacherous cunt.

Why didn’t their friends advice them to set up a campaign instead?

Because, you fuckhead, unlike your guy campaigning for one, local issue, we want to change the entire country, not save one cottage hospital or stop a new development being build in our nice village.

Then, rather than wasting their time on futile elections, they would have an opportunity to influence the mainstream just as groups like the Countryside Alliance, Liberty and the Taxpayers’ Alliance have done.

Oh yes, the Countryside Alliance did really well, eh? I haven't noticed the fox-hunting ban being repealed, nor your precious Tory Party pledging to do so.

What the fuck have Liberty achieved? Precisely fuck all. Every now and again, the laughably inept Shami Chakrabarti gets wheeled out to make some fatuous statement, or make an arse of herself on Have I Got News For You, and they have achieved...? Nothing.

The Taxpayers' Alliance have been rather more successful, it is true; they are hitting around four hundred media mentions a month, which is none too shabby, but ultimately they are motivating ordinary people, not politicians.

And this is the point: the TPA have motivated ordinary people, who now feel that they are paying too much tax and that the "nanny state has gone mad" but there is not one single party pledging to do anything about this. Maybe they would like to vote for a party that will?

After all, small parties do not do well in British politics, even when they have deep pockets like James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party which fought the 1997 General Election.

That is a very odd example to choose, Alex; the Referendum Party actually achieved its aim, i.e. all of the main Parties were forced to pledge a referendum on joining the Euro. And how did the Referendum Party do this? By securing enough votes to have the three Statist Parties running scared.

But generally, you are correct: small parties don't do that well. However, that is at least partly because of moronic Tories like you wailing that "a vote for what you believe in a niche party is a wasted vote". You are a cunt, Singleton; you and all your ilk.

Unfortunately, such advice does not seem to have been given to the Brits who have been to the Electoral Commission and registered the Libertarian Party.

Actually, it was, tit-face. You yourself advised me to go down the campaign route: is this article born out of sour grapes because I didn't follow your advice? I explained to you some time ago why we were going down the party route (and I shall expand on it later).

Yes, a party with the same name is the third-largest in American politics, but it has been getting nowhere:...

Apart from being the third largest party in American politics, you mean?

... its best showing in a presidential election was in 1980 when, with the financial support of its billionaire vice-presidential candidate David Koch, it secured a little over 1 per cent of the vote.

But the Presidential election is not everything; the Libertarian Party has a couple of hundred of elected local representatives and, as we all know, those representatives hold more power in the US than their rough counterparts here.

The British version of the party does not have that sort of money, relying on the support of a small number of members and a following on the blogoshere.

Quite so. Because, you see, we realised that the reason that there were so many libertarian bloggers, railing against all parties, was because they had no one to represent them. Do you see?

LPUK member locations, determined by the first part of their post code (outcode). See here for more detail.

So, why not use this new(ish) medium to start a party? And it is the reason why, despite our lack of funds, we have members all over the country, from Nothern Scotland to Northern Ireland; from Cornwall to Kent, from Wales to York. As we draw near to two hundred members, what has it cost us? Time and the price of the membership packs: nothing more.

What it will do, like the Libertarian Party has done in the United States, is to tarnish the libertarian brand, allowing the crazier aspects of libertarian thinking to come to the fore, and achieving nothing of any merit.

What, crazy libertarian ideas, you mean? Ideas like the legalisation of drugs—that that crazy Camilla Cavendish put forward in that well known crank-rag, The Times—and prostitution (both of which are also supported by those loonies at the Institute of Economic Affairs)?

Or maybe you speak of our insane pledge to abolish Income Tax—that temporary tax introduced on the very rich in order to fund the Napoleonic War—even though your old boss, Dr Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, pointed out that lower government spending over the last ten years could easily allow that abolition?

If the government sector had grown only in line with inflation, rather than far above it, taxpayers would be £200 billion better off – enough to abolish income tax, corporation tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax. Just think what that would do for our international competitiveness.

Is it those kind of lunatic policies that you mean, Alex?

Libertarian thinking is already a force in party politics, as one of the strands of thinking in both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Oh, do fuck off. The Conservatives are not, and never have been, libertarian: they are social authoritarians. Now, I know that you are interested in their keenness on economic freedom, as evinced by your Globalisation Institute, but I couldn't really care less: economic freedom without social freedom is not fucking freedom, you moron.

The trouble is that you are a typical Tory paternalist: your "libertarianism" only goes as far as tax cuts so that you, personally, will be better off.

My libertarianism (for all that readers here might disagree with it) is based on the belief that more freedom will make everyone better off. I believe that the poor are fucked over by disporportionately high taxes, that they are infantilised by the Welfare State, that children raising children is a stupid thing to encourage, that the benefits trap that keeps people on benefits is deeply immoral and unproductive (not just because it costs the economy, but because those people never have a chance to better themselves), that people who take drugs are harming no one but themselves and should therefore not be criminalised, that people should be free to live their lives without constant government surveillance or social engineering.

You, on the other hand, are an arsehole, out for nothing but his own gain; and that makes you a mirror of the majority of those in the Tory Party (and certainly of the leadership).

Further, I believe that the EU controls so much of our legislation that any party that pledges to remain in it will be unable to deliver any significant change in British policy.

So fuck you, and the Eurostar you rode in on, Singleton; fuck you and your EU supporting chums. It is you who reduce liberty.

The objective of libertarian campaigners ought to be to strengthen those strands.

Yeah? I know poeple in the Tory Party who have tried this: I know of at least one Tory MP who have turned down a front bench position, i.e. a position in which he could get anything done, because he didn't want to be forced to toe the party line. Good for him, but that is what happens to libertarians in the main parties: they never get a chance to enact their beliefs.

The lesson from American politics is that when libertarians create parties, they end up undermining liberty by diverting campaigners’ efforts way from the mainstream.

Seriously, Alex, really go fuck yourself.

No one is stopping people like you and The Dude campaigning for Libertarianism from inside the Tory Party except that... well... I don't see much campaigning going on, frankly.

And I don't see much sign of libertarianism coming from the Tories, or from the LibDims. In fact, we can see precisely the sort of libertarianism that is coming from the Tories in the actions of Cameron's creature, Boris Johnson, i.e. less freedom and more nannying.

Fuck campaigning: how best to drive the main parties towards libertarianism? Well, as the head of an economic think-tank, Alex, you will know that incentives matter, right? Good. How do we give the Big Three an incentive? We show them that people are willing to vote for libertarianism: in short, we take votes from them.

Now, you alien-voters can bitch and moan about "wasted votes" and "ensuring another term of Labour" but you know what? Fuck you.

I am sick and fucking tired of voting for a pro-EU, socially-authoritarian, corrupt bunch of bastards: I want to vote for a party that I believe in.

Perversely, the Libertarian Party in the United States has undermined liberty: if it becomes a noticeable minority party, the British equivalent will do the same.

That is a total non sequitur, Alex, and you fucking know it. This is what has dimished liberty in America.

In The Simpsons ‘Treehouse of Horror VII’, one of their annual halloween specials, one of the shorts involves two aliens from outer space. After kidnapping Homer, they learn that to conquer the Earth,all they need to do is kidnap the two presidential candidates, emulate them, and then take over the world.

On the eve of the election, both doppelgangers are stood before a crowd.

‘From the sky comes a scream, as Homer is crashing right into the
Capitol. A few footsteps later, he comes running down the stairs.

Homer: America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. They’re nothing but hideous space reptiles. [unmasks them]

[audience gasps in terror]

Kodos: It’s true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It’s a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.

[murmurs]

Man1: He’s right, this is a two-party system.

Man2: Well, I believe I’ll vote for a third-party candidate.

Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.

[Kang and Kodos laugh out loud]

[Ross Perot smashes his "Perot 96" hat]‘

It is that attitude that has dimished liberty in the US and, thanks for fuckwit alien-voters like you, it is what is diminishing liberty in this country too.

Because, fundamentally, you have three main parties: all are pro-EU, pro-state funding of parties, pro-Welfare State and pro-infantilisation and control of the population. All that they quibble about is what massive fucking proportion of your hard-earned money they should take.

If people like Alex fucking Singleton got their way, those would be your only choices, folks: does that feel like liberty to you? Because it doesn't to me.

And, do you know what, Alex? I'm not alone.

We are not the ones undermining liberty, you stupid cunt; it is people like you, Alex: Tory stooges wearing libertarian pants on the outside of your trousers, in order to disguise your lack of balls.

So, one last time, fuck you, Singleton: you are an enemy of liberty and a total tosser to boot.

UPDATE: entirely coincidentally (even though Singleton is one of the writers there) his article is quote of the day on Samizdata. I am glad to say that the actually libertarian Perry de Havilland does "disagree with Alex completely".

UPDATE 2: Harry Haddock (who is a Libertarian Party member) parodies the article rather well.

‘Why do sensible people start niche parties? For instance, in the UK we have the ‘don’t murder me’ party, when there are already non-murdering sentiments in the mainstream parties. The Tory’s only want to murder your mum, and the Fib Dems promise to think about only murdering your dad. Fringe parties such as this only tarnish the brand with crazy ideas such as ‘let’s not murder anyone’.

Nicely...

Isolationism's Time Has Come

(Note- as will become clear, I am not 'The Devil's Kitchen')

The worldview expressed by Sir Simon Jenkins is often so soggy and precious that it's tempting to have a go at the old Establishment quangocrat, but not today. This is one of those 'more in sorrow than in anger' posts, because Sir Simon seems to be watching that very cultured worldview fall to bits around his ankles.

Perhaps the very title of his piece, 'Once, 'international' sounded saintly. Now it means bureaucracy and waste' should give some idea as to where not only the poor chap's coming from, but where he's going to. 'Saintly', the adverb he deploys so casually, is hardly one suited to the doings of those most beastly and pragmatic entities, nation-states. That I do something with my fellow man for the greater good is a good thing - that I do something with a North Korean solely because I am British and he is North Korean does not necessarily make it a good thing.

Internationalism of the kind Sir Simon describes is a disease. The nation state has been the foundation of all international relations since the Peace of Westphalia. It is here to stay, and the anti-nationalism, either hatred or loathing or despair for one's own nation, which is synonymous with 'internationalism' cannot, will not, ever undermine it.

The British problem is that we have had allowed too many Sir Simons and their ilk to wring their hands about how bad Britain is, and refuse to permit any sense of common civic British identity to develop. This is the real root cause of every significant social problem we face, from the drugs to the knives to Islam. The British are the one people in the world whom you can guarantee will stab each other in the back for a penny; 30 years of multiculturalism, 40 years of religious decline and 150 years of free trade have combined to flush any sense of community out of our souls.

Everything that the British have ever been told about 'free trade' is a lie. It is not a win-win game. It does not make everyone richer. It is ideology, pure and simple. It started off with free trade in corn, and soon became free trade in sugar. All that happened was that slave-produced Cuban sugar was cheaper than that produced by emanicipated Jamaican slaves. Everyone bought the Cuban sugar, the Jamaicans' standard of living fell, and this drop in living standards was one of the main causes of the Bogle Rebellion of 1865.

It soon became free trade in dyes and ball-bearings, so that by 1914 we were importing almost all our ball-bearings, and the dyes used for naval uniforms, from the Germans; we had to draft in experts from the USA, Switzerland and Sweden to rebuild the ball bearing industry.

Oh, but tariffs are bad! Bad!

Tell that to the guys who passed the Safeguarding of Industries Act 1921, a pretty solid plank in the foundations of the country's economic recovery after The Great War.

But, hey, we abandoned it, so that in 1940 the Spitfires that won the Battle of Britain largely flew with American instrumentation.

Now, no doubt some expat libertarian will expat away about 'The Road to Serfdom'. I do not care either about Friedrich von Hayek or his 'Road to Serfdom'. I prefer history to ideology, and the history of free trade as practiced in the United Kingdom has been one of industrial decline married to stupid 'internationalist' sentiment.

Sir Simon and his pals, probably all great globalists (without being able to tell anyone what globalisation actually is), are 21st Century Jellabies. They much prefer to discuss how we must have peace with Bujumbonia through free trade, rather than break a sweat to try to clean up the mess they've helped to make in their own backyards. No more.

Let's have a period of isolation, a period when we can get the both the national head and the national act together. That means getting of Iraq, leaving NATO, stopping mass immigration, leaving the EU and erecting a 25% tariff wall. This will not result in war, calamity or catastrophe, but may result in 'import substitution' - what we can no longer import, we make ourselves; precisely what happened when Malysia refused to heed the IMF's advice during the Asian banking crisis of 1998.

Of course, there are those on both the left and the right who think that the British are either too stupid or too lazy to pull off an economic miracle. Me, I have more faith.

Their Contempt For You Is Total

Author's Note: The author of this post is not The Devil's Kitchen

New laws aimed at protecting the consumer from 31 types of scams and 'unfair practices' came into force this week; but no such protection of the taxpayer from the thieving cunts they get to choose between every four years or so looks to be forthcoming.

In fact, there exist among their number members who are so fucking brazen that, following the outcry over the scandalous abuse of expense claims (which, thanks to the tenacity of campaigners like Heather Brooke, were made public in full last week), they are calling for a £23,000 tax-free pay rise to save them having to make expense claims which would then be publicised.

Mr Eugenides' response to the announcement sums my feelings on this up exquisitely:

But I think they do realise. I think they know full well that the cork that keeps our anger in is held in place by the rustiest of wires; that the public see their taxes and cost of living rising, inexorably, like a tide of sewage, threatening to overwhelm them at any moment, while at the very same time our political class is demanding a tax-free, audit-free bung to keep their property portfolios ticking over, and people make the fucking connection, because they - we - are not stupid, and can see that we are being taken for a ride by people whose interest in themselves far outweighs their concern for us. They see this, but they go ahead and ask for the money anyway, because they don't give a flying fuck about you, your anger or your problems, and they don't even care if you know it, because their contempt for you is total.

Their contempt for you, us, "the electorate" is indeed total. Whether it is awarding themselves a pay rise that equates to just under the median yearly salary* of a full-time employee, or selling our sovereignty down the river against our will, or treating us like complete idiots who can't make our own decisions without Government prying on us and/or coercing us to change our behaviour all the fucking time, contempt oozes from about everything they do.

The fact that MPs voted to give themselves more money and to protect themselves from public examination of what they spent all those thousands of pounds of taxpayer's money that they manage to fucking spend above their £60,000+ wage on is no surprise. That the cunts have no fucking shame whatsoever in this regard is hardly headline news, though it is ample justification for the righteous rage the Greek one expresses.

What astounds me, what has me in absolute disbelief that anyone could be taken in so utterly, is that there are people in this crazy community we call the blogosphere that actually think that MPs deserve to be paid more. OK, the 56% on PoliticsHome voting that MPs are paid too little may be a little bit of a red herring - as Guido points out, the poll was of 'political insiders'.

Paulie: What fucking planet are you on? "Do MPs make the right decisions?" Well, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they make quite extraordinarily stupid decisions - taking us into the Iraq war, for example. More recently, the spectacular stupidity of Nadine Dorries MP has been on display for all to marvel at. You think paying MPs more would lead to fewer Nadine Dorries in the House of Commons? Give me a fucking break.

What do MPs do for their employers (the electorate, in case you've forgotten)? Not represent them, that's for sure. The Lisbon Treaty debacle puts paid to that particular myth. 88% of people in favour of a referendum, a referendum that even pro-EU commentators admitted would be lost by the Government. So what do they do? Give 88% a great big middle finger. We don't give a shit what you think, we're going to go and sign it anyway. Because we're your elected betters. Fuck off.

Their contempt for you is total. Never forget that.


* £457 * 52 = £23,764

Europe United

This video gave the normally placid Matthew Sinclair "rage blackouts".

Lipdub Europe United par les Jeunes Européens - France
by JeunesEuropeensFrance

Personally, the whole thing made me want to fucking vomit. And then it gave me rage blackouts. In the spirit of their much vaunted Europe United, I now share this video with you so that we can be united in rage.

And since everyone else is quoting this, I too shall throw it in.

"Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil."—Horatio Nelson, to a midshipman aboard the Agamemnon (1793)

Murder them all, the nauseating French bastards...*

* Not because they are French, you understand, but because they are nauseating, fucking naive federasts. I mean, what kind of stupid cunt would associate "democracy" with the European Union?

Sometimes, I wish I was a debt collector

There are times when even contemplating a particular outcome is just too, too beautiful and the possible bankrupting of not only the Labour Party itself, but also the Labour NEC, is one such thing.

Senior officials in the Labour party, including Gordon Brown, could become personally liable for millions of pounds in debt unless new donors can be found within weeks, the Guardian has learned.

The party has five weeks to find £7.45m to pay off loans to banks and wealthy donors recruited by Lord Levy, Tony Blair's former chief fundraiser, or become insolvent. A further £6.2m will have to be repaid by Christmas - making £13.65m in all. The sum amounts to two-thirds of the party's annual income from donations.

The figures are a conservative estimate as they do not include interest that will also have to be paid. A Labour source said that although the total debt was listed as £17.8m on the Electoral Commission website, the true level, with interest, was nearer to £24m.

The possibility that party officials and members of its national executive committee could become liable is being taken seriously by union leaders, and has been underlined by the decision of equity fund chairman David Pitt-Watson not to accept the post as Labour's general secretary.

Though he was Brown's candidate for the post, he declined the offer after receiving independent legal advice that he would be personally liable for repaying the loans and could be bankrupted if Labour's finances collapsed.

The advice from City solicitors Slaughter and May said unequivocally that leading party officials and members of the NEC would be " jointly and severally" responsible for the party's debt.

There are currently thirty-three members of the Labour Party NEC, which means an average possible liability of nearly £730,000 per person. Now, I know that there will probably be a bail-out—the lenders will extend the loan terms, there will be a donation drive or the party will negotiate some bank loan or somesuch—but wouldn't it be fucking amazing to see these arrogant, evil bastards slapped with a debt of nearly a million quid each? It would certainly release some much needed housing into the market, I would imagine.

Now, if the Labour Party goes bankrupt, I don't believe that it has any effect on the government. But let us contemplate, for a moment, the effect on the personal fortunes of people such as Gordon Brown, Economic Genius^TM; could the Gobblin' King stump up £730,000 at short notice, I wonder?

What if the Gobblin' King was forced to declare himself bankrupt? Does anyone know if an undischarged bankrupt is allowed to hold public office?

And—should any of this actually happen—if anyone has any experience of stitching sides back together, could they get over to my place as soon as they hear...?

Brooker on Miliband

Via Politicalog (welcome back, Allan!), I find Charlie Brooker writing his usual tripe, but contained within said excretion are a few lines of amusement. [Emphasis mine.]

According to tradition, you're supposed to get more rightwing as you grow older, as wide-eyed youthful idealism is gradually replaced with growling, frightened, fat-arsed self-interest. I say "gradually", but what worries me is the thought that such a transformation could occur with terrifying speed, a real Damascene conversion. I came close once after glimpsing David Miliband on TV: I couldn't hear what he was saying, but something about his face—just his sodding face—revolted me on a deep and primal level. It was chilling, unsettling—like watching a haunted ventriloquist's dummy slowly turn its head through 360 degrees. "Who is this grinning homunculus," I thought, "and what does he want from me?"

This either means my genes are shifting, or Miliband is a rightwing imposter. Or maybe he's simply not of this world. Perhaps I merely behaved like a farm animal reacting to an extraterrestrial intruder—howling in distress without knowing why.

Ghastly and nightmarish though Miliband may be, he's got nothing on gloomy Gordon Brown, who increasingly resembles a humourless, imposing old butler slowly creaking the mansion door open in a Frankenstein movie. Prime Minister Igor, the shuffling fun-free zone.

Strangely—although it is hinted at in the article's title: "Labour leaders are starting to revolt me as much as Tories always have. Am I becoming rightwing?"—young master Brooker makes no mention of the many rumours of Miliband challenging the Gobblin' King for the leadership of the Labour Party.

But should that day come, I look forward to Charlie's fucking head exploding...

Jackie Ashley: stupid, deluded cunt

I found this piece of shit article by the awful, awful Jackie Ashley and contemplated fisking it. I mean, there's so much to rage about in this one paragraph alone!

A perfect chancellor would have seen some of it coming sooner. Perhaps it would have been better to hold more money back for hard times. But almost nobody was against the desperately needed extra cash for schools and hospitals when Brown found it. Everybody wanted to let the good times roll. Consumers and voters of every party - we were all at it. Turning round and pointing at Brown is a little childish.

Fortunately, for I am still a busy little Devil, Prodicus has spent some time ripping Ashley to shreds.

You need to broaden your dinner-party list, Jackie. Include some of the people you patronise, you overpaid, arrogant, insulting, blinkered, out-of-touch, know-nothing-actually, socialist, collaborating, casually-vicious, pathetic, crap-scribbling producer of utter fucking arse-gravy.

Oh, and you can convey the very same sentiments to Polly, next time you two do lunch.

Rather well put, I think...

I have switched back to allowing Anonymous comments.

If the spam keeps coming in again, then I may have to switch it off yet again but I want to continue to make it as easy for people to comment as possible...

Smoking: the new paedophilia

The Flying Rodent asks a very pertinent question...

Do you think that the government could announce an anti-smoking initiative so utterly cretinous that anyone would object?

If, say, a politician suggested that shopkeepers be legally required to deny the existence of tobacco three times before they can sell a pack of cigarettes, would the resultant bill face any opposition in Parliament? I wouldn't be surprised if any politician voting against it found themselves on the front of The Sun under the words Cancer MP Wants To Kill YOUR Children.

Any politician struggling for policy ideas is on a surefire winner with a crackdown on smokers. When the previous government all but promised the country that the ban on smoking in public places would cure death, the newspapers ate it up. Hell, every smoker I know believed it and repeated it with a straight face.

Thus it is with the Scottish Government, who have ensured their popularity throughout their first year by passing practically no legislation at all... But now the pundits have started to ask where the policies are, and as surely as the bus you've spent twenty minutes waiting for follows the click of the lighter, they've coughed up some shiny new anti-smoking proposals.

And—fuck me—they are really fucking stupid bastarding proposals. Do go and read the whole thing.

And drink's next, of course...

There shall be no dissent

Trixy is suitably outraged at the continuing contempt for democracy in the European Union continues, with that odious little cunt, Richard Corbett MEP, leading the charge.

The European Union assembly’s political establishment is pushing through changes that will silence dissidents by changing the rules allowing Euro-MPs to form political groupings.

Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP, is leading the charge to cut the number of party political tendencies in the Parliament next year, a move that would dissolve UKIP’s pan-European Eurosceptic “Independence and Democracy” grouping.

Under the rule change, the largest and msot pro-EU groups would tighten their grip on the Parliament’s political agenda and keep control of lavish funding.
...

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, claimed that the move goes hand in hand with the denial of popular votes on the new EU Treaty.

”Welcome to your future. This shows an EU mindset that is arrogant, anti-democratic and frankly scary,” he said.

This is utterly unsurprising to those of us who have studied the EU grand projet for any amount of time, of course.

Even Iain Dale seems to have realised that this is a fairly fucking shitty move.

At the moment you need 20 MEPs from one fifth of member countries to form a group and thereby gain the grants. Labour MEP Richard Corbett is proposing a change to increase the threshold to 30 MEPs from a quarter of Member States.

Needless to say the EPP think this is a thoroughly good idea and will no doubt be whipping Tory MEPs to vote for it when it comes before the Parliament on 9 July.
...

To their credit, the LibDems and Greens are opposing the move. Wouldn't it be nice to think that British Conservative MEPs might also do the same?

Fat fucking chance, Iain; barring a couple of decent people—Helmer, Hannan and Heaton-Harris—the Tory MEPs are absolutely behind the EU project: they would probably still vote this through even if they were whipped to oppose. But then, David Cameron has expressed enduring enthusiasm for the EU—albeit usually couched in economically illiterate terms—so these MEPs are, after all, merely following their master.

Let me emphasise this: a vote for Labour or Tory at the Euro-elections is a vote for the EU; and a vote for the EU is a vote for losing the point of having a vote.

The EU wish to silence those parties which you elected to oppose the EU project; really, don't think that they will think twice about silencing you.

Get used to totalitarianism, people, but make sure that you take advantage of the eventual EU dominance: invest in gulags!

Oh, here we go again...

Ladies and gentlemen, as a prelude to this post, may I commend to you this video (filmed by Guido, on his mobile) of our ex-DEFRA minister and current Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, at the New Statesman New Media Awards 2006.


Batshit is, of course, quoting this post from The Kitchen and, believe you me, this was a proud moment for your humble Devil (it was at about this time that my head started to swell to its current giant proportions).

I was, of course, ridiculing Batshit's absurd idea of personal carbon points, and I thought that we had heard the last of this poisonous idea. But no, apparently the idea is rearing its ugly head again.

The government should go ahead with a system of personal "carbon credits" to meet emissions targets, MPs have said.

Fuck you, you bunch of corrupt fuckers.

The Environmental Audit Committee said the scheme would be more effective than taxes for cutting carbon emissions.

Under the scheme people would be given an annual carbon limit for fuel and energy use - which they could exceed by buying credits from those who use less.

Naturally, administering this system would entail civil servants prying into every, single aspect of our lives: everything has a carbon cost, everything. For fuck's sake, even breathing has a carbon cost, since we exhale CO₂.

Do you really want the government knowing precisely what you buy, when you buy it? Do you want them knowing where you travel, how far and when?

Or do you, like me, have the urge to use some carbon points to get to Westminster and kick the fuckers in the knackers, before hanging all of them using whatever comes to hand?

Ministers said there were practical drawbacks to the proposal...

No shit.

... but they were looking at other initiatives.

Oh, whoopee-fucking-do! Look, this idea was absolutely fucking batshit mad when Miliband proposed it and it is still absolutely batshit insane now.

Longrider comments on this piece of crap too.

Quite apart from the matter of carbon emissions being a disputed cause of the equally disputed anthropogenic climate change, the idea would have been unwieldy and unpopular – and, frankly, it is not the place of government to indulge in social engineering. A quaint idea, I appreciate, but my life is mine, not theirs, I do not report to them, they do not have the authority to decide how I should live my life.

Anyway, enough of the ranting, one of the problems with the idea of carbon trading is that the exiting schemes have already foundered due to collapsing prices. The committee acknowledges that such a scheme imposed on individuals might be unpopular with voters:

The MPs admitted members of the public were likely to be opposed to the move, but urged the government to be “courageous”.

I’m sorry, but what part of “representing constituents” do these people not understand. If their constituents don’t like it—indeed, prove to be vehemently opposed, for instance, then MPs should stop being courageous and listen to the wishes of their employers and do as they are told.

Quite. But, what's this?

Committee chairman Tim Yeo said it found that personal carbon trading had "real potential to engage the population in the fight against climate change and to achieve significant emissions reductions in a progressive way".

Ah yes, Tim Yeo. You might recall that, in January 2007, this fucking little cunt had some more green proposals for us all.

What we should be doing is tackling the domestic flights first. There is no reason at all why people should fly around the UK, fly from London to Edinburgh, London to Scotland, London to Glasgow, London to Manchester, London to Newcastle. Those flights should be knocked out. What we should do is tax domestic flights so heavily and use the money to improve the railways so that in five years time everyone is choosing to go by train within the UK.
...

I’m not saying they should be banned, but I certainly don’t think we shouldn’t be using them in anything like the volume that we are now.
...

But I honestly do believe that within ten years there should be virtually no domestic flights.

For fuck's sake, Tim, why don't you just go back to fucking people who aren't your wife and stop screwing the rest of us, you odious little turd?

Because, the thing is that we all know that no matter how expensive Yeo and his cunty mates made internal flights, they would change their habits not one iota: after all, they'd just charge it to the poor fucking taxpayer.

Similarly, you can fucking bet the last penny that Gordo has left in your pocket that MPs would be exempt from these personal carbon points because their work is so very important, you see.

[Hilary "wetter than a really wet thing"] Benn said that the report found the cost of introducing the scheme would be between £700 million and £2 billion, and would cost £1bn-£2bn a year to run.

Does anyone believe these figures? This would be even more far-reaching than those bastard ID Cards and the LSE put a figure of £18 billion on those. For fuck's sake, the government can't even sort out a bloody medical records database for less than £6 billion (and it's going to be nearer £12 billion before it actually gets working).

But what the hell? It's magic money that just falls from the sky, ain't it? You know, it isn't as though we poor bastards have to actually work for it, is it? Oh, just fucking wait a fucking minute...

Environmentalist George Monbiot applauded the scheme.

Well, if ever there were a reason to believe that the scheme is not only unworkable but also morally wrong, it's that George Monbiot—that disgusting little Champagne socialist (he was involved with Gorgeous George Galloway's Respect Party amongst other things)—believes that it's a good thing.

George Monbiot is a cunt of the very first water and he should have a stick shoved up his arse until it is coated in faeces and he should be beaten to death said shitted stick. The same goes for Tim "love child" Yeo.

Fuck, I loathe them all so very much...

The Devil rides out

Your humble Devil has been showing his face at various events recently. In April, I spoke at the Libertarian Alliance's Gold Subscribers Dinner in the private room at Shepherd's Restaurant which, despite its unremarkable exterior, is actually rather good (and co-owned by Michael Caine, I believe).

Guests included Dr Sean Gabb and Dr Tim Evans (both of the LA), Matthew Elliot of the Taxpayers' Alliance, Cara Walker of the Stockholm Network, Dr Richard Wellings of the IEA, Brian Mickelthwait and others. I gave a brief talk on the UK Libertarian Party, why we had formed and what we wanted to achieve, and we then came to a question and answer session. I always enjoy these things and it was a pleasure to be in the company of those who knew where I was coming from: indeed, it was a pleasure to be in the company of those who had heard the word "libertarian"!

"And for my next number, a song originally performed by Westlife..."

Next up was a totally different experience: taking the libertarian view point (and being the "opposer") at a Synergy Project debate on the 1968 riots. This was somewhat unusual, not only because the others onstage had actually taken part in said riots, but also because it was held in a massive club—SEOne in London Bridge—full of slightly weird events. There were bands, people making clay sculptures, a nightclub and a lot of hippy types. The debate didn't start until midnight and your humble Devil must confess that he found the whole thing slightly surreal...

"All your minds are belong to us." Your humble Devil performs an impromptu introduction, extolling the joys of libertarianism to Oxford students.

Finally, the LPUK leadership were in Oxford on Thursday, having been invited to speak at the Trinity College politics society. Your humble Devil had taken the whole day off work (what a treat) and spent much of the day, with the lass, sampling the pubs of Oxford. I had, in fact, forgotten that my favourite brewery, Wychwood, was in Oxfordshire and I spent quite a bit of the time being excited at the beautiful Wychwood ales, including Hobgoblin (possibly my favourite ale), that were on tap in nearly every pub. Hoorah!

As the hour of the debate drew near, Andrew, Tim and myself congregated at the gates of Trinity and made our way to the room in which thirty or so (I guess) students were gathered. Patrick was, alas, slightly delayed and we three had to make an impromptu presentation for a few minutes. Inevitably, your big-mouthed Devil decided to stand, the better to gesticulate wildly, and then our glorious leader arrived and we got properly underway.

Having a bad hair day is not compulsory in LPUK, but it helps...

Notwithstanding my earlier scorn, and ill-prepared though we were, the attendees all listened attentively (or at least politely) and the questions that they asked were sensible and intelligent. Further, there were more than a couple of googlies that were simply were not well prepared enough for; thanks for those, chaps: you have helped us to identify a few areas of policy that we need to think about a little more than we have previously. We finished up at about ten and then few of the students accompanied us to the pub afterwards, where we continued the discussions.

All in all, it was an interesting, informative debate: we learnt a lot! No, seriously. Due to the way in which the party has grown up and developed, i.e. on the web, it is rare for the leadership to all be in the same room: this was only the third time, I think, that this has happened and the first time that it has taken place in a formal environment. Personally, I got a lot out of it; although I may have railroaded the discussion somewhat, I did so in the knowledge that I had people who could take up the slack or fill in the details. I found it an immensely heartening and reassuring experience.

Thanks to Trinity for having us, and thanks to all those who attended...

The Libertarian Party's next appearance will be at a "Day of Freedom" on 23rd June at Farnborough Sixth Form College.

It will be a series of talks on the values of a Libertarian society, and I would be elated if a member of the UKLP could attend, and perhaps give a speech or field a few questions.

The gentleman who invited us runs the formal debating society and brightened my day with this part of his email...

Our motion last week was 'this House would vote UKLP' and me and my partners succeeded in securing a unanimous verdict in favour from the twenty five people in attendance.

If only it were so easy in real life!

Anyway, we—by which I mean myself, Andrew and Simon—shall be there from about half ten in the morning, taking part in various activities and debates for a few hours, I believe. As usual, I am looking forward to it...

My (now deceased) maternal grandparents lived in Farnborough and I haven't been back there in many years; I may have to visit some of my old stomping grounds...

Yet more corruption

Iain Dale has picked up yet another abuse of taxpayers' cash by those absolute fuckers in Westminster.

Imagine you are an MP and your spouse is also an MP. Imagine you get a life insurance policy worth a potential £430,000, which costs £867 per month. Each. Is your first thought...

1. to get a direct debit from your own bank account like any normal person


2. to bill the taxpayer

Alan Keen and his wife Ann took option B. The real scandal is that the House of Commons Fees Office approved this transaction. Mr & Mrs Keen will no doubt defend themselves robustly, but whatever their defence is, I suspect it won't wash with their respective electorates.

This is, as far as I am concerned, nothing less than fraud and these fuckers should be prosecuted and imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives.

The other option, of course, would be to hang the venal bastards simultaneously to ensure that neither of them get the payout.

What is so absolutely irritating about this kind of thing is that they will no doubt say that "under the rules" this was entirely legitimate. But the point is that we shouldn't have to have such rules: is it really too much to ask that those who rule us actually don't defraud the taxpayer?

These utter, utter bastards constantly lecture us on how to behave, bitch and moan about "anti-social behaviour" and about "broken societies" and all of that sort of shit; and what kind of example are they setting?

Further, these cunts waffle about how Pete Docherty and Kate Moss are role models for the young and are setting a bad example by very publically taking fuck loads of drugs and that they should think of the chiiiildren and stop. But these scum-sucking cunt-fuck MPs are also leading by example: and their example shows us that fraud and theft are perfectly fine.

I say that we should prosecute both of these cunts and the fuckers in the Fees Office who decided that the Keens' entirely private life insurance payments should be billed to the taxpayer. It is the only way that we are going to put a stop to this disgusting fraud.

This is by no means the only revelation that is going to come to light now that we are going to be able to examine all of their expenses. And no doubt people will whine about how we need to "tighten up the rules"; Iain, for instance, leads with the title, "The House of Commons Fees Office Needs Complete Reform".

No. Fuck that.

Prosecute the bastards: prosecute every single one of them, taking into account that they abused a position of trust, and then flog them through the streets of Westminster before putting them in prison for fucking years.

These people are absolutely fucking disgusting and I hope that they get painfully gang-raped and slowly murdered; they are total bastards.

It is at times like this that I wish that I was a multi-millionaire and I would spend my fortune privately prosecuting people like Alan and Ann Keen. I just don't have the words to express my hatred and disgust for these loathsome people.

I shall, I think, quote the last part of the speech that Cromwell made when dismissing the Rump Parliament, for the words are as relevant today as they were then. [Emphasis mine.]

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

"Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

"Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone!

"So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"

I would make a fantastic dictator and I would be considerably better than the venal, endemically corrupt cunts that currently rule us: I hope that they all die of cancer. And soon.

Eurovision: what a gas!

Although your humble Devil did not watch the whole painful exercise (or even part of it), I see that Russia's entry won the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.

Well, that'll keep the gas flowing for another year then...

I'm a little confused

I'm a scientist by training, so I find the economy a little hard to understand and one aspect of it is confusing me particularly at the moment.

According to Labour the economic prosperity that the country enjoyed following Labour's return to power was all down to Gordon Brown's magical tinkering, I'm not quite sure how raiding our pension funds helped but hey ho.

Now according to Labour the current economic crisis is nothing to do with Gordon and the government, it's all down to global factors that are completely out of their control.

Something does not quite add up to me here, as I say I'm a scientist ignorant of economics, but that does not mean I cannot spot big fat porkies when they're being told.

If it's sunny then it's Gordon's doing, while if it's raining it's the weather that we cannot control, maybe some people just see what they want to see.

On an unrelated topic, I just saw Alan Johnson on the BBC openly stating that polyclinics were not a national initiative, that's strange Alan when it is commonly known that all PCTs have been ordered from above to set up their Darzi polyclinics or else.

I wonder why no one trusts this government. It's raining today, I wonder what Gordon's been up to.

Although it pains me...

... to agree with any Labour minister, "Red" Dawn Primarolo's assessment of Nadine Dorries, whilst necessarily restrained, is entirely accurate.

The hon. Lady has asserted many things to be facts that are not.

In other words, Red Dawn is politely pointing out what we already know to be true: that Nadine Dorries is a fucking liar (and pig-shit thick to boot).

And if you want a comprehensive fisking of the shameful load of old bollocks that Dorries spouted during the abortion debate, I highly recommend that you hie thee over to the Ministry of Truth.

Biting at the ankles of Nadine Dorries and desperately trying to get the taste of stupidity, hypocrisy and dishonesty out of my mouth...

And now, having been utterly defeated, the lying whore-bitch for Mid-Bedfordshire has found that she just cannot stop lying: Bookdrunk reports...

As cheerfully predicted, here's the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell repeating whatever Nadine Dorries has told her without any regard for something so boring as fact-checking:

Mr Brown's whips dragooned their MPs into opposing the change and in one of the more shameful moments in the history of our democracy, Labour

MPs linked arms and formed a human barrier to stop their MPs voting for a reduction. Frank Field was one of the few Labour MPs with the guts and the decency to cross the line and vote with his conscience.

Yes, Frank Field.. and another 40-60 other MPs and junior ministers (including several Labour whips, depending on the vote).

Once more, ask yourself why only Nadine Dorries—and those gullible enough to believe her—is pushing this version of events, and that not a single, solitary other person has yet come forward to support her. On the contrary, we've heard from a pro-life MP who voted with Dorries stating that her claim of a three-line whip is "completely false." Could it be that she is some kind of liar?

Nadine? A liar? How dare you suggest that... Oh, no, wait... Ah, yes, you're right: she is a filthy, stinking, near-pathological liar.

More than that, Dorries really needs to get out more.

Almost everyone I know believes in a God. It may not be the same God as mine, they may not go to the same Church as me, but they do believe in something.

Strangely, Nadine, almost everyone that I know is a committed atheist. Ain't it odd how one tends to associate with people who share one's views...?

Although, of course, she might simply be lying.

Again.

P.S. As has been noted elsewhere, Iain Dale has taken to repeating Nadine's lies.

Now, I am sure that Nadine is a wonderful theatre-going companion, Iain, but do yourself a favour and don't believe a word that this moronic fraud utters: you're just going to end up looking silly...

Oh, very unlikely. Er...

UKIP Lord Pearson of Rannoch has attempted to insert an amending clause into the current EU legislation going through the House of Lords.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)

moved Amendment No. 129:

After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—

"Xenophobia

Notwithstanding any provision of the European Communities Act 1972 (c. 68), nothing in this Act or in the Treaty of Lisbon shall create an offence of xenophobia under which United Kingdom citizens may be prosecuted in the United Kingdom or elsewhere."

Vindico notes that not all of our noble representatives are so decent or, indeed, far-sighted.

Lord Williamson of Horton shows himself to be a despicable creature of monstrous proportions...

I recall that I made a declaration of interest at the beginning of the Committee stage. I intervene briefly on Amendment No. 129 on xenophobia. I think that I have always been very careful and courteous in my interventions during this long Committee stage, but I am inclined to say that this amendment verges a little on the bizarre. The suggestion here that an offence will be created does not seem to me among the more probable events which may result from the ratification of the treaty of Lisbon. If that is the case, as I believe it is, I think that we should abstain from inserting new clauses. We are in the period of discussion in the Committee where we insert new clauses, some of merit and some of less merit. This clause is certainly among the least probable results of the treaty process.

Yep. He thinks it is not really probable and thus we ought not to bother defending the freedoms absolutely. What a wanker.

Not only is he a total wanker, but he is also an uninformed cunt-biscuit; if only Lord Williamson bothered to read The Kitchen (or, indeed, The Telegraph), Lord Williamson might have been aware of the Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia.

So what was that again, Lord Williamson? Here's Lord Williamson...

The suggestion here that an offence will be created does not seem to me among the more probable events which may result from the ratification of the treaty of Lisbon.

... and here's the Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia [PDF].

And, once again, here's Lord Williamson...

The suggestion here that an offence will be created does not seem to me among the more probable events which may result from the ratification of the treaty of Lisbon.

... and here's the Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia [PDF].

Do you see what I did there?

Gang warfare

Apparently the odious Jacqui Smith—how is it that I find even her tits offensive?—decided that she'd try to placate the police by announcing a crack-down on gangs. Over at the ASI, Eamonn Butler identifies a few more gangs that the government might consider tackling.

Mind you, there are a number of slightly older gangs that the government could usefully tackle. Like the legal profession, for example, which succeeds in extorting vast amounts of cash from their clients, making it impossible for people to get real justice these days, unless they are very rich (or very poor and eligible for Legal Aid). By restricting the supply of lawyers, they can charge what they like. And the fact that the courts are a state monopoly doesn't help either. Sure, you can go to arbitration on contract disputes. But if someone owes you money, for example, you don't have much choice.

Doctors are another gang that should be tackled. Again, they decide how many people should qualify as doctors. So they don't go out of their way to pass too many. And again, the medical system is a state monopoly. People might not have to pay cash, but they certainly do pay in terms of reduced access, poor service, and lower recovery and survival rates than in many other advanced countries (and some non-advanced ones).

I could go on. There's the Health and Safety gang, which cancels village duck races and stops firemen from using ladders. And another shady group, known as the Quangocracy, which has all sorts of powers to regulate and fine people, without any democratic control. Not to mention the Westminster Gang itself, which is adept and robbing ordinary people in order to line the pockets of their own supporters.

Quite. Especially that last one: the state—the ultimate monopoly...

UPDATE: Martin Kelly (occasionally of this parish and who happens to be a lawyer) in not too impressed...

Breakthrough or broken

I am happy to note that Dizzy has a piece in The Times, which is very lovely.

The Government is planning to introduce a giant database that will hold the details of every phone call we have made, every e-mail we have sent and every webpage we have visited in the past 12 months. This is needed to fight crime and terrorism, the Government claims.

The Orwellian nature of this proposal cannot be overstated. However, there is one saving grace for people who fear for their civil liberties. The probability of the project ever seeing the light of day is close to zero. This proposal - like so many grandiose government IT schemes before it - is technologically unfeasible.

It's rather a pity that I should have come across it via Unity's comprehensive fisking of the piece at Ministry of Truth.

Dizzy’s article is, not to put too fine a point a on it, an embarrassment from start to finish; and I say that not just as a political blogger but as an inveterate techie who’s worked, in the past, as a system administrator for a multinational corporation.

It could, conceivably, have been a good, informative piece on the proposed Communications Data Bill, which Gordon Brown announced last week as part of the government’s draft legislative programme for 2008/9, and perhaps it would have been had Dizzy managed to do even the most basic research into the background to the bill. But, as often seems to be the case with Dale and his little coterie of party hack bloggers, concepts like doing research and backing up your arguments with evidence are of little consequence when there’s a seeming opportunity to get in a cheap shot at the government. As a result, Dizzy’s big break turn out to amount to nothing more than a by the numbers exercise in overblown rhetoric, tendentious speculation and cod science fiction which describes an ‘Orwellian’ database system that exists only his own febrile and increasingly erratic imagination.

Ouch.

The central contention that Unity puts forward is that the database, that Dizzy dismisses as "a pipedream", is far from being too complicated to implement.

Your humble Devil would, of course, never describe himself as sys admin or even a techie, and Unity may well be right that this project is, essentially, nowhere near as complicated as Dizzy makes out.

However, I'll still go with Dizzy's contention that this government would still bugger it up...

Whither now (upon the vine)...?

Gordon Brown: "I am in control. I am in control! Shut up, shut up, shut up! I AM IN CONTROL!"

It has taken ten of hours for me to stop laughing at NuLabour's absolute fucking kicking at the Crewe and Nantwich bye-election, when their turkey-necked toffee-nosed liar presided over a substantial swing to the Tories. Whilst I hold no candle for the blue-rosetted bunch of lying cunts, it has been delicious seeing NuLabour get a good un-lubed seeing-to.

But now people are speculating that Gordon Brown cannot continue and, indeed, his position looks pretty darn rocky. But let's face it, in order for the dour Scots cunt to be forced out, someone is going to have to challenge him for the leadership—and who the hell is stupid enough to do that?

NuLabour are up against it; they have spent money like a drunken sailor on ten years shore-leave and now, as the economy takes a downturn, there's nothing in the kitty. Far from "putting an end to boom and bust", the Gobblin' King has (like most previous Labour governments) bankrupted the country.

Even the sheep that make up the general British population are starting to wake up to the continual assaults on their personal freedoms—especially as the state cracks down harder on their past-times, i.e. booze and fags—and there are mutterings of rebellion even in "safe" Labour seats (as we have seen).

Challenging to lead the Labour Party at this stage would be like volunteering to eat a turd sandwich: it going to be deeply unpleasant (and possibly dangerous) at the time and afterwards you are never going to be kissed ever again.

Your humble Devil reckons that no one will challenge Brown and he will limp on until either he reaches the end of his term. No one in the Labour Party will force an early election: they know that many of them will lose their seats and those in most danger will now dedicate their remaining months in Parliament to filling their boots from taxpayer funds and lining up cosy sinecures to keep them in champagne after they are forced from office.

The whole situation would be unbelievably entertaining were it not for the fact that they will probably manage to do an awful lot of damage before they are finally beaten from their cosy Westminster Village.

Oh yes, and the shits who will replace them will be little better...

UPDATE: The Daily Mash nails the mood beautifully...

DO YOU NEED US TO CALL YOU A CAB? BRITAIN ASKS BROWN

BRITAIN last night told the prime minister it was getting really quite late while making a big fuss of cleaning up the living room.

As Gordon Brown started yet another story about meeting Bono, Britain put its hand gently on his back and laughed saying, 'well that's just great - did you have a coat, by the way?'.

But despite Britain's wife collecting the empty glasses as noisily as possible, Mr Brown continued to sip slowly at his white wine before suggesting Britain put some more music on.
...

Britain has now spent the last two hours looking at its watch and pointing out that it has to be up at 6.30.

A guest who stays too long at a party? Yep, that sounds like Brown...

Iz not the teechaz folt. Itz de langwage.

I can't seem to find it online, but The London Paper carried a story yesterday on the inbility of Britons to spell common words, such as "embarrassed", "liaison", "separate" and "friend".

Half of all Britons can't even spel [sic]

... screamed the headline, wittily.

Naturally, the usual suspects—such as computer spell-checkers—were held up for blame, but the really stupid fucking comment came from John Gledhill of the Spelling Society (of which, more later).

"It's not the fault of the teachers, nor of the students, but of the archaic spelling system which they have to learn," he said.

"In effect, we are still using 16th-century spelling for a 21st-century language."

John Gledhill is a stupid fucking cunt; of course it is the fault of the teachers and of the students that they are unable to spell their own language: in fact, it's a fucking disgrace.

Amongst other things, Samuel Johnson published the first English Dictionary—in an attempt to standardise spelling—on 15 April 1755, so, whilst there may have been some changes, it isn't as though the students are being caught out by a mutable standard, is it?

So, yes, it is the fault of teachers and students.

However, all is not as it seems. You see, I thought that John Gledhill might simply be a disingenuous prick, frightened of annoying the teaching lobby. But no, John Gledhill has an agenda.

"How so?" I hear you ask. After all, from its monicker, surely one would assume that the Spelling Society is dedicated to ensuring the correct construction of the English language?

Um, no. For the Spelling Society is not quite what it seems.

The Spelling Society started in 1908 (as the Simplified Spelling Society), and has the aim of raising awareness of the problems caused by the irregularity of English spelling and to promote remedies to improve literacy, including spelling reform. The Spelling Society publishes leaflets, newsletters, journals, books and bulletins to promote spelling reform of the English language.

Or, to put it another way, the Spelling Society is an organisation with a vested interest in "proving" that the people of Britain cannot spell their own language.

I am pretty sure that many of them cannot, but this is a failure of our education system, not of our language. Further, your humble Devil does not support imposed systems of language any more than he does of government; the near-infinite subtlety of the English language is, in part, derived from the roots that influence the spelling of words.

The Spelling Society argues that, without our somewhat idiosyncratic constructions, children (won't somebody think of the children?)—especially those who are dyslexic (won't somebody think of the disabled children? If only our spelling was different, maybe Tiny Tim could be saved...)—would no longer have to be taught spelling (why?) and they could do more constructive things instead.

Thus, the SS argue for a simplification of the language. But, on the flipside, I have not needed to spend my precious time expanding my vocabulary by rote, for my knowledge of Latin and Greek allow me to ascertain the likely meaning of complicated words without actually having to sit down and learn them. Hence, our spelling system has saved me time.

Thus, I believe that the fulfillment of the Spelling Society's aims would, in fact, directly lead to a debasement and contraction of the English language and thus conjure a far duller world described with a paucity of linguistic allure.

And, at any rate, the SS should certainly be declaring their interest in an article such as that which appeared yesterday, rather than using a name that deliberately gives the impression that their perceived aims are the very opposite of the actuality. So fuck you John Gledhill, and fuck the Spelling Society.

Oh, and teachers?—don't think that you are off the hook, you useless fuckers...

Achmed The Dead Terrorist

This is deeply, deeply wrong but also very funny...


"Silence! I keell you!"

There's a lot of spam around at the moment, so I am temporarily disabling Anonymous comments. Apologies to commenters: I shall reinstitute open access when things have calmed down slightly.

Libertarianism 101

Falco lays out the principles of Libertarianism very clearly. Like your humble Devil, he tends to concentrate on the Consequentialist argument, rather than the Rights Theorist argument.

Libertarianism is grounded in the belief that Negative Liberty is paramount. You are free to do as you wish, use and dispose of your property as you wish, (including your body), provided that you do not interfere with the Liberties of others in the process.

The result of this is that you are both free to act and responsible for those actions. You are free to get drunk for instance but if you hit someone while inebriated you are just as guilty as if you had done so while sober.

Libertarianism, almost by definition, requires a small government. Large enough to enforce justice and defend against those who would interfere with your rights but not so large as to spend its time interfering itself.

Do go and read the whole pithy post...

Food for a foolish thought

What the hell? Are these people moronic idiots or total fucking chimps? In other words, are they fucking thick or fucking thick?

They observe that "petrol tanks and stomachs were competing well before biofuels were proposed to tackle climate change," since transportation and industrial agriculture are both premised on cheap fossil fuel.

Well, yes. So far, so good. But the following is quite simply so staggeringly ignorant that it's bordering on the insane...

One way to tackle the competition for a scarce resource is to change transport policy—a shift towards walking and cycling would reduce both the demand for fossil fuel, and secondarily mean that there were fewer overweight people, thus driving down the need for food.

Um... No.

Look, the body is a machine: like any machine, if the body needs to do more work—walking, cycling, juggling puppies whilst riding a unicycle up a slight incline, or whatever—then it is going to need more fuel in order to power the machine to do said work.

Now, one might argue that obese people could use their greater reserves of stored energy to power that work—although, actually, one has to ensure that they are doing the right sort of work in order to utilise energy through the desired metabolic pathway—but the chances are that they will not (or not to a greater degree than before).

However, unless one targets only fat people—by banning them from driving or taking the bus or something equally illiberal, unworkable and generally fantastical—you are also going to be encouraging—or, knowing this bunch of fuckers, forcing—those who are not obese (still the majority of the population, believe it or not) to do more work and they will need more food in order to fuel the increased level of work.

Given the current conflicts between food-growing space and that turned over to biofuels, in practice, this actually means more starving Africans. Further, it also means yet more environmental damage (if you are a climate change alarmist).

In fact, there’s been one researcher who claims that using your car to go to the shop is "more efficient" than walking, as the calories you need for the walk take more emissions to create than the petrol gives off.

So I’m a little confused here. My understanding is that farming plus the inefficiencies of human conversion of food into energy mean that exercising, that walking and cycling, will increase food demand, not reduce it. If that’s correct, then what are these people talking about?

Well, quite. Morons.

Tube philosophy

Here's a photo, taken by John Band, at King's Cross St Pancras.


As John says, I'm not sure that Boris would approve. Mind you, none of our politicians would...

Why don't you voluntarily fuck off?

I'm a bit late on this but it seems that this kind of bullshit just won't go away.

A voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and internet commentators is supported by almost half of all internet users, a survey has claimed.

The researchers said 46 per cent of web users believe bloggers should agree to a set of guidelines which reflected the laws on defamation, intellectual property rights and incitement.

Four per cent strongly opposed the suggestion and 15 per cent had no opinion.

Well, fuck me ragged: a whole bunch of people who use the internet think that gagging free speech is a good thing.

Well, you can count me—like The Englishman and Longrider (both of whom are worth reading)—amongst the 4% who strenuously fucking object to this. I cannot make this any clearer than I did last time, so I'll spell it out.

Fuck. Off.

Quite apart from the survey's suspect provenance—it was funded by a law firm, surprise sur-fucking-prise—we don't need a "voluntary code" that reflects "the laws on defamation, intellectual property rights and incitement" because, you see, we already have an involuntary code: it's called "The Law" and we are subject to it as much as any other publishers are.

As we all know, British libel law is a fucking joke anyway; Britain has now become a haven for "libel tourists" and, as many people have pointed out, we have no Constitution protecting our right to free speech in this country (meaning, of course, that we don't have that right at all).

Plus, naturally, the media have presented this report in a thoroughly disingenuous way: head over to Ministry of Truth for the full evisceration...

QUANGOs: invisible government

Now, this is a report that I've been waiting for for a very long time: the Taxpayer's Alliance Assessment of UK QUANGOs [PDF]: here are the main findings.

• There are 1,162 quangos in the UK, running at a total cost to the taxpayer of £64 billion, equivalent to £2,550 per household.


• Even under the Cabinet Office’s restrictive definition of quangos, the cost of these bodies has risen 50% in the last ten years.


• UK quangos now employ an army of almost 700,000 bureaucrats.


• Even the Government itself does not know the full extent of the unaccountable quango industry, which range from the massive e.g. Job Centre Plus (Staff: 70,042, Cost: £3.5 billion) and the Courts Service (Staff: 19,986, Cost: £704.8 million); to the bizarre e.g. the British Potato Council (Staff: 49); or the West Northants Development Corporation (Staff: 34, Cost: £15.3 million).


• When the total number of quangos is added to the other government subsidiaries such as local authorities and NHS trusts, the total number of organisations controlled by the UK Government rises to 2,063, costing the taxpayer £257 billion and employing over 5.1 million people.

Obviously, when Libertarian Party UK were looking at the best way in which we might slice away state spending in order to present our Income Tax Abolition policy plausibly, we (somewhat flippantly) looked to QUANGOs as we reasoned that there were considerable savings to be made in this department.

Furthermore, we also dislike QUANGOs—even were levels of spending much lower—because they are not directly accountable to the electorate: whilst we can vote MPs out, there is no way in which we can directly affect QUANGO budgets or the people who administer and spend said budgets (indeed, it is for this reason that LPUK policy is to dissolve them).

The figures that the TPA have unearthed are, quite frankly, staggering: LPUK shall be trawling through the report with a fine toothcomb (when I get some time) and establishing which QUANGOs can be abolished outright—yes, Potato Council: I'm looking at you and your International Year of the Potato—and which could be drastically scaled back within a short timeframe.

Just remember that the total spent by QUANGOs and organisations that are QUANGOs in all but name is £257 billion: by contrast, income tax raises a little less £150 billion...

Nadine Dorries: not only a liar, but a self-pitying waste of space

If you are one of the evil "Hounds of Hell" pursuing Nadine Dorries, why not display this badge of pride shame on your blog?

Both Tim Ireland and , in particular, Unity have pulled apart the latest whining load of old bollocks from proven liar, general thicko and all-round nasty piece of work, Nadine Dorries (do you think that her daughters are ashamed yet?); since her pathetic excuse for a blog doesn't have proper deep linking, here is the latest bullshit in full.

Hounds of Hell
Posted Wednesday, 14 May 2008 at 11:07

The Hounds of Hell are chasing me.

We received another unpleasant parcel in the post today. Nasty web sites set up...

Really, Nadine? Show me the money! Or, rather, a link.

...email account and post bag bombarded...

How unusual for an MP, eh?

people crawling all over my expenses, which they are entitled and I am very very happy for them to do...

Yes, because the word "crawling" has such positive connotations in this context, does it not?

Scary, threatening angry and downright nasty phone calls.

What? Like, "Nadine: this is the truth calling. I'd just like to..." [Nadine slams down the receiver.]

A message smeared on my window.

Was it "clean me"?

This is all meant to destabilise or distract me.

Or, alternatively, drive you to suicide, which would be a far more satisfying outcome.

Mind you, I should point out that I have not been doing nasty things; I did consider sending her a turd a box, but I decided that she simply wasn't worth the effort.

I have a very clear message to those who are attempting to do this—back off. You will not stop me, you will not undermine me, you do not scare me. In fact, you make me much more determined than I ever was before. You give me strength.

And you give me strength, Nad. Well, not you precisely; it's just that every time that I read your crap, I end up yelling, "god! Give me strength!"

I received a lovely email today from the photographer who took the picture of Samuels’s hand reaching through his mother’s womb during the operation when he was 21 weeks gestation.

The picture below is of Samuel giving evidence to the US congress five years later.

God! Give me strength! We've already been through this, Nad; Samuel did not reach through the womb because the fucker was anaesthetised! Through placental transfer! The surgeon in charge who was performing the damn operation has denied that anything of the sort happened! You stupid fucking bitch!

The email reads:

"Dear Ms Dorries,

I can’t tell you how honoured I was to hear that you had posted the picture of Samuel reaching from his mother’s womb on your blog in an attempt to lower the age abortions can be performed……

I have been on pins and needles trying to keep up with the vote there in the UK….I would love to know if the attempt is successful…"

Michael Clancy

I think that it was very nice of Michael to feel "honoured" rather than insisting that Nad had infringed his copyright.

Further, I must admit to doing Michael Clancy an injustice when I last wrote about this issue: I implied that he was just in it for the money but now it appears that he was lying like a Dorries not only for the money but also because he himself supports curbs on abortion.

Anyway, back to the main attraction.

I will Michael if I survive long enough!!!

Well, I think that the obvious answer to this is that we hope that you don't but fear that you will. Oh well, one can't have everything. Although, I wonder how much it would cost to send Nadine a stout hempen noose through the post...

As a final aside, one should note that Nadine Dorries maintains that she only supports a reduction to 20 weeks. This, too, is a lie.

Via Unity posting at Liberal Conspiracy, I notice that Nadine Dorries—campaigning vigorously for 20 weeks because of all of that compelling research which says 20 is juuuuust right—has also signed up to support an amendment for 16 weeks.

Perhaps someone would like to ask her which bit of her own argument for 20 weeks which was so unconvincing.

Quite. But it also seems that even 16 weeks is too much for Nadine.

Then here's Dorries from last October (via Unity).

You are right about one thing, I do want to go lower than 20 weeks—I would settle for the European average of 13 weeks, but would prefer 9.

It's also helpful to remember that she allies herself with those who oppose all abortion on principle - and that she's made no attempt to distance herself from those hardline views. Oh, and there's also a post at Conservative Home, arguing for "20 weeks not 22 weeks" which conveniently omits to mention that she's signed up to support 16 weeks but would prefer something much, much lower. Pick a number, any number?

Is there absolutely anyone out there who can possibly believe that Dorries is in any way sincere, consistent or believable when she talks about her beliefs about abortion?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller...?

Oh! what a tangled web we weave...

One of us? If you mean, despite the fact that she's not even got into Parliament, she's already lying her face off then, yes, she is one of you.

Iain Dale carries a story about Labour's representative in Crewe and Nantwich, in which the fragrant Tamsin Dunwoody makes the following claim.

Tamsin told me that she had never met Gordon Brown but had had a very long phone conversation with him earlier that day (Saturday) and that apparently Mr Brown liked regular, personal updates via the phone direct from Tamsin.

Tamsin has never met the Gobblin' King—really? Via Guido, here's a picture that rather... um... well, proves that Tamsin is a filthy fucking liar.


It's odd really: with a fucking horse-face like Tamsin's, one would rather imagine she'd be standing for the Tories...

Daily amusements...

Your humble Devil's life continues to be very busy but, equally, very enjoyable and so I can only apologise for leaving you all alone for so long but—sorry—I was having fun.

I have some time tonight to entertain you but, while I get warmed up, here's Mr Angry on Google and on form.

A computer is a very personal thing. It is a bit like a car, or a girlfriend, in that it can be quite an uncomfortable experience letting some else have a go in it. Especially if you really really like the car.

Computers can be similar in that they are generally only used by yourself, and over time they learn your habits and idiosyncrasies. It can be as hard to navigate your way round someone else’s computer as it is to find the G Spot on someone else’s girlfriend.

The thing about computers though, is that they don’t immediately recognise they are being used by someone else, which is sort of the where the girlfriend analogy falls down a bit, unless you are using Rohypnol.

I chuckled...

Master Weasel

Author's Note: The author of this post is not The Devil's Kitchen

A timely reminder that a politician with blonde floppy hair and a semblance of a sense of humour is still a politician.

Boris Johnson's supporters justified the piece of illiberal fuckwittery that is the banning of the drinking of alcohol on public transport, saying "he is carrying out a key manifesto commitment".

Remind me. What was the key-est of all of Boris' manifesto commitments? The flagship policy, if you like? Was it perhaps:

• The bendy bus is unsuitable for London's streets, they are twice as dangerous as non-articulated buses and have almost three times the rate of fare evasion. I will phase out bendy buses and run a new competition to find a 21st century Routemaster that has full disabled access, runs on clean fuel and has conductors.

Are, we, after less than two weeks, starting to see the Boris Team weaselling out of this particular manifesto commitment? Er...

The Mayor's plans for a new generation Routemaster may not happen, his new transport boss admitted today.

Kulveer Ranger, Boris Johnson's director of transport policy, said that a design competition would be launched - but if no bid was good enough they would look again at the pledge. He added that although Mr Johnson is very keen to bring in a new-style bus in place of bendy buses, they would not press ahead with the idea for the sake of it.

...

But in a departure from Mr Johnson's policies, Mr Ranger said the new design would not necessarily be "hopon, hop-off" with a conductor, as on the old Routemasters.

He said: "Whether or not we have a conductor depends on the design of the bus. We want people to be creative...If we find there are initially no suitable bids we will review [the policy]."

So, to translate: There's a good chance there will be no new bus and, even if there is, it is very unlikely that it will be one that could reasonably be described as a 'Routemaster'.

It's the oldest trick in the book of representative democracy. Wait until you're elected, then tell the people who elected you that your policy is unworkable, despite the fact that you've been aware of this all along. Not a whole lot the voters can do about it now, is there?

Boris Johnson: Disingenuous cunt.

More: Boris Watch

Paulie Translated

Author's Note: The author of this post is not The Devil's Kitchen

Paulie (of Never Trust a Hippy) is clearly too daft to know when he's well beaten.

That's the only explanation I can think of as to why he has chosen to reignite the whole 'bloggertarians' brouhaha on his blog this week.

I think it's fair to say that the "bloggertarians" won that particular skirmish. Perhaps that's because Paulie's side consists of himself, 3 other Eustonites and 1 "demented ranting wreck" (far-left blogger Voltaire's Priest's words, not mine or DK's!). Or perhaps it's because Paulie is not just wrong, he's thoroughly disingenuous to boot.

To explain just what I mean by that, I give you Paulie Translated: What Paulie says, and what he really means.

OK. First off, from his latest poke at libertarian bloggers, entitled 'Memebots':

"Other examples [of 'memebots'] are, of course, our friends the bloggertarians. Raise a question - any question - and the answer is always 'sack public employees' / 'school vouchers' / 'government can't work' etc. The thick shitheads...In future, I may just delete commenters on the grounds that they are memebots. A one word explanation."

Translation:

People who make propositions that I don't agree with are like robots, and it is beneath me to debate with them

First of all, if I've ever seen anyone in this crazy world we call the blogosphere more deserving of the label memebot it's Paulie's mate, the "pet bottle of cyanide" - Will Rubbish. If ever there was a wanker. Its blog* consists of little other than Youtube embeds and links to/excerpts from Christopher Hitchens' articles. His other favourite pastime is surveying the comments at his group blog, deleting the comments of anyone who isn't in his little Trot club.

But getting back to the point, the examples Paulie uses in the above quote are bizarre. Two are extremely wide-ranging statements that require a significant degree of qualification to be at all meaningful (e.g. "sack incompetent public employees", or "government can't work when hamstrung by having to legislate on the basis of EU directives" are two sensible and accurate statements).

On the other hand, the third ('school vouchers', in case any Eustonites are confused by now) is a summation of a policy that many libertarians support and has been successfully applied elsewhere in the world. Surely you know this, Paulie (after all, it was debated in a thread that you contributed to at your group blog, Drink Soaked Trots). It is also a draft policy of the UK Libertarian Party.


That brings me onto the next translation, this time from the comments thread at Chicken Yoghurt's place. McKeating and I have our disagreements, but this comments thread aptly illustrates the difference between someone who one doesn't quite see eye to eye with, and a complete and utter fuckwit.

"Remind me again, are you for or against representative democracy? Last time we exchanged on this, you thought it was rude of me to suggest that you weren’t keen on democracy, but you seem to be doing it again."

Translation:

Anyone who opposes the (lack of) choice British voters currently have is against democracy (unless of course they're a Marxist social democrat like me).

This one doesn't just take the biscuit, it takes the whole fucking packet and then some more.

Paulie, while clearly not in favour of everything Labour are doing (and, like all good Marxists, considering the Conservatives to be the enemy), has nothing but contempt for someone like DK who actually gets off their backside and sets up a new political party to, yes, advance new policies that are compatible with libertarian ideology and challenge the political mainstream.

Paulie is well aware of this. However, has Paulie, who posted several times before the formation of LPUK that 'bloggertarians' are "just right-wing negativists" and are "'objective allies' of the Tories"** acknowledged this? Of course not. Instead, he goes on to this day with the same old stupid "negativist", "bloggertarian" shit.


Finally, how about a bit of insight into how Paulie thinks (or doesn't)? This time from a related comments thread on his own blog:

"My loose understanding of Will's position is that there is no point in debating patiently with people who don't acknowledge the way that social forces work. It's a position that I'm more sympathetic to now than I was a few weeks ago"

Translation:

If you aren't a Marxist, it is beneath me to talk to you.

Says it all, really. Will, you may recall, is the wanker I bashed earlier, who deletes the comments of anyone who doesn't share his particular worldview.

Well, Will and Paulie, enjoy the fucking shithole you call a blog. But if you think you're going to drag the rest of us down with you, you're very much mistaken.

Unlike your friend, Paulie, over here we don't believe in shutting the other side out of the argument. But if you think you're convincing anyone other than your pathetic, shrinking Eustonite clique you can think again.


* No, I'm not giving this particular prick the pleasure of an in-link from here. Go and Google it if you're really curious, but it's not worth it. Honestly.
** This one is mind-blowingly stupid. Did Paulie not notice the attacks on the Conservative Party here at DK's and over at Longrider's blogs, or does he have some kind of selective post-blindness? (If you follow the link associated with this, you might notice that my attitude to Paulie was a bit different back then. Really, this level of venom is not like me, but sometimes you have to call a cunt a cunt.)

How to tell if your country is fucked...

... from The Nation of Shopkeepers, with assistance from Vindico.

Simple. You look around to see if there are state agencies using draconian legislation to spy on and otherwise harass civilians, while introducing ever more authoritarian laws. You check to see if, despite large amounts of job losses, your EU masters are preparing to fuck over the city in an act of pure jealousy. Noticing increasing inflation and unemployment, your government attempts to bribe the population ahead of a by-election.

Boxes all ticked: we're fucked...

Help needed

I know that there have been a number of court cases in the last year or so, centred around the liability of those running internet forums; for instance, was there not a case in which the owner of a forum was forced to find and reveal the real names of a couple of people posting on his forum?

I need to find some accounts of these and forward them onto my new boss, so I would be very grateful—yes, even to the extent of buying beers—to anyone who can help me find documents relating to these judgements.

Anyone...?

Mad about the money

Dorries and a foetus, yesterday: one has an underdeveloped nervous system, cannot live independently, is unable to argue coherently, is somewhat slimy, is unfamiliar with the concept of shame and possesses an almost non-existant IQ, and the other is a foetus.

Continuing the delightfully fun kicking of Mad Nad Dorries—after all, it's so damn easy because she is, let's face it, as thick as pigshit—is Liberal Conspiracy: they are asking, who is funding Nadine's Campaign, eh?

A week ago Nadine Dorries launched the 20 weeks Campaign through the Daily Mail, which wrote up this glowing story and dedicated its editorial comment strip to supporting it. The 20 Weeks website has Nadine Dorries MP’s picture on every page and she has promoted it relentlessly through her blog. So we can reasonably assume it is her campaign.

Indeed,, and this is, of course, relevant from a funding point of view.

But who is behind this campaign? Is it just Ms Dorries? The website doesn’t say. On the Q&A page however it does have this question: Is this a religious campaign?. Answer: “No. There are people of all faiths and of no faith who support this campaign.”

But that’s about it. Shouldn’t we be told who is running a campaign fronted by a Conservative MP?

Yup. And can you guess who it might be? Well, yes, obviously it's religious nutjobs; but which ones, eh?

I say this because thanks to Unity we can provide the answer. A search on the domain name reveals that it was registered by David Clark. Email address: david@ccfon.org.

That email address is a give-away because David Clark is in fact one of the founding members of Christian Concern for our Nation.

In other words, Nadine Dorries is fronting and representing campaign without declaring that is in fact being run by a religious group that: “exists to serve the Church by providing information to enable Christians to publicly stand up against a tide of unchristian legal and political changes in the United Kingdom.”

CCFON launched its own anti-abortion website recently called Alive and Kicking. AaK is linked to from the 20 weeks website in numerous places.

Let's not be too hard on Dorries though; not only is she so thick that the true extent of her stupidity is almost beyond comprehension, but she's pig-ignorant too. Although, come to think of it, that was an inappropriate phrase to use: they're very intelligent animals, pigs, and they are a fuck sight more useful than Dorries too.

Still, CCFON are not the only sky-fairy-driven loons involved in Nadine's campaign, oh no.

CCFON is close to the Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF), which was co-founded by Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome and includes Caroline Spelman MP as one of its members. The website says that: “For many years the CCF has been hosted within Conservative Campaign Headquarters.” Sweet.

Well, isn't this cosy? Because I keep hearing rumours that Tim Montgomerie and Nadine Dorries are very, very good good friends. I couldn't possibly comment on whether or not they are actually fucking, because I don't know, but there's no smoke without fire. Although, to be fair, most of that smoke is probably coming from Nadine's burning underpants.

So, let us sum up Nadine Dorries, shall we?—financial obfuscation, shadowy undeclared backers, misappropriation of taxpayers' money, a quite embarrassing penchant for self-publicity, rumours of sexual shenanigans, misrepresentation of testimonials, total disregard for the rules that everyone else must obey, rampant hypocrisy, an inability to accept and digest established facts, a propensity simply to smear those with whom she disagrees, a near pathological inability to construct or sustain a cogent argument, a staggering combination of stupidity and ignorance and a quite fantastic inability to open her mouth or touch a keyboard without lying.

She's the perfect MP really, eh?

Cunt of the Week: Sir Robert Atkins

Sir Robert Atkins says, "you proles are all stupid bastards."

From the second News Of The World MEPs' expenses story, here's the wise words of Tory MEP, Sir Robert Atkins. [Emphasis mine.]

Tory toff North West MEP Sir Robert Atkins has admitted paying his pensioner wife Lady Dulcie Mary Atkins over £30,000 a year as his secretary.

She squeezes this role in alongside her work as a busy member of Wyre Borough Council, and Garstang Town Council, as well as holding down a string of community and charitable commitments.

But Sir Robert is generous with public funds—our records show that back in 2002 HIS SON James was also on the payroll at £2,513.23 a month.
...

Last night when we asked Sir Robert Atkins about the staffing allowance he insisted it was all above board and added: "It's very complicated and I don't suppose any of your readers would understand it."

No, Robert (and Right Honourable you absolutely aren't, you cunt), it is not very complicated at all. Au contraire, sunshine, it is actually extraordinarily simple: you are a devious, perfidious, supercilious, corrupt fucking cunt with all of the charm of watching a big black dog lay a fat, steaming turd in a children's playground and you have been enriching yourself at the expense of the taxpayer in the most egregious and bare-faced manner.

You are a total and utter bastard without an honourable or honest bone in your body; I hope that you fall into an industrial threshing machine. Feet first, you cunt.

Fuck you and all of your colleagues: you are all vomitous masses of venality and treachery. For fuck's sake, I'm the Devil and I think that you are evil: may you burn in hell.

Gordon Brown: see the cunt suffer

Gordon Brown's colleagues say that "there may well be a fuck load of skeletons in his closet but there's sure as hell no magic, ageing picture in his attic. I mean, just look at the cunt!"

The Nameless One has a quite glorious post up, reminding us all that we should never feel sorry for Gordon Brown.

Sometimes I feel sorry for Gordon Brown. No, really, I do. He is such an easy target these days - a lumbering, injured buffalo of a politician - just waiting for someone to fire the fatal shot, and hating every moment of his miserable existence until someone finally does. Kicking Gordon Brown sometimes seems a little like kicking someone in a coma - fucking easy, but ethically wrong. Hell, even Ming Campbell could probably kick Gordo's sorry ass in this day and age.

Of course, those moments are moments of embarrassing weakness, and they soon pass. Just as soon as I remember just some of the mountains of reasons that exist to justify despising Gordon Brown. Because everything, everything about him screams that here, in this dour, grey form, we have a man utterly deserving of hate and angry contempt. John Prescott—a lard mountain in human form—describes Brown as irritating, and you believe him. John Prescott claims Blair was frightened of Brown, and you believe him. Frank Field talks of Brown's rages, his unreasonable behaviour, and you believe him. There is something about Brown that demands you believe the worst of him. He looks haggard, he looks bitter, he looks unhealthy. Frankly, a piss stained drunk looks marginally more healthy—and certainly more in love with life—than our PM. And then there is his behaviour. He seems to revel in the misfortune of others, at the same time as hating the world every time when even the most minor calamity befalls him. He is like a sulky teenager, without the redeeming quality of being able to grow out of it.
...

Perhaps it is something in the British psyche—that we feel guilty for laughing at those who have fallen on hard times, even if it is their own fault. But if you feel that way about Gordon—don't. Because—and you'll have to trust me on this, but deep down you know it already—he'd laugh at you if you fucked up and ruined your big chance. Hell, it is that sort of moment that probably represents the only occasions when his sour, grey, creased and ill-looking face is cracked up by a smile.

Quite; I recommend that you read the whole thing, for TNO is in his element. However, your humble Devil would like to express some disquiet about Brown's calamitous and, admittedly, hilarious fall.

No, it isn't the fact of it, but the manner. I'd always hoped that maybe I would be the one to bring him down: instead, the Gobblin' King has utterly fucked up his career all by himself. I consider myself cheated, frankly.

However, a glimmer of hope remains for, whilst he is definitely on the ropes, Gordo is not down yet.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I could be the one—to steal TNO's coma analogy—who delivers the swift kick to the throat that knocks out the ventilator tube and who leaps for joy as—in the grey, dank, dirty hospital room—the machine that has recorded the last moments of this great, fat, joyless tosser's life emits its final beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep before lapsing into a final, remorseless silence.

Let's see the cunt laugh that off...

The triumvirate is broken

Another blogger bites the dust, and this time it is one of those from the glory days of the Scottish swearblogging triumvirate.

As you'll have noted, my blogging has, over the last few months, become less and less frequent. This is partly due to an increase in work but partly due to general lethargy when it comes to blogging - I've found it increasingly difficult to write ''good'' posts, find interesting things to post about and I've found, sadly, the blog annoying - something I was doing because I thought I should keep posting and not something that I was doing because I enjoyed it.

Unlike others, I shall not be fighting for you to stay: I understand your reasons for leaving.

Fare ye well, o Snob; you shall be remembered—if only for the palpable (surprise) hit that was the Ban Darling campaign.

No doubt I shall be back in the 'Burgh sometime soon and you, I and the poor little Greek boy shall repair to Whigham's to enjoy fine wines and ludicrously strong passionfruit margheritas.

Vale, va bene.

XP is the new Vista. Or something

XP is Vista: Vista is XP.
Image shamelessly pinched from John Carmichaels.

Fake Steve Jobs draws my attention to the continuing hilarity that is Microsoft's upgrade patches.

Owners of some AMD-based computers are finding that the move to Windows XP Service Pack 3 has sent their systems into an endless reboot cycle.

"While the root cause of this issue is complex, it results from OEMs improperly placing a Windows XP image created for an for Intel-based computer onto machines with non-Intel chipsets," Microsoft said in a statement. "Microsoft issued guidance to OEMs advising them to only load Windows XP images onto like hardware in 2004."
...

The reboot cycle glitch is the latest hiccup for Microsoft with the service pack update. The company had to delay the release of the XP update after discovering at the 11th hour an incompatibility with one of its own programs.

With that issue, customers running Microsoft's Dynamics Retail Management System could face data loss if they run that program in conjunction with SP3.

I would like to make a serious comment on this but I just can't.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha! Haha! Aaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha! Haha! Ha! Ha!

Right, I think that I'm OK now. I... oh no... Aaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!

Hahaha! Ha! Whooohoohoo, hahaha, haha!

Stop! Stop! I can't catch my breath...

DISCLAIMER: I own one or two Apple shares, currently standing at $190 and up from a March low of $118.

Burning 50% more of our money

The estimable Wat Tyler has compiled a large report [PDF] for the Taxpayer's Alliance which shows some scandalous tax facts. Here are the salient points from The Great British Taxpayer Ripoff...

In a new report, the TaxPayers’ Alliance outlines the way that over the last decade British taxpayers have faced a huge increase in their tax bills, but at the same time, they’ve been made to pay additional fees and charges for what used to be “free” public services. To cap it all, service levels have suffered widespread cuts. Faced by a rising cost of living, these taxes and charges are adding a sizeable burden to ordinary households.

It all adds up to the Great British Taxpayer Rip-Off.

Key Findings:
Rising taxes

1. The tax bill has soared, increasing over 50% in ten years even taking inflation into account. Through vast increases in a range of up-front taxes, stealth taxes and cunning measures such as fiscal drag, the average household tax bill has grown to £20,700.


2. The total Stamp Duty collected has increased a staggering 314% in the last ten years. Together, the nine fastest growing taxes, which are detailed in the report, make up three quarters of tax revenue.


3. Fiscal drag, by which the Government catches millions of people in higher tax bands by raising thresholds slower than inflation, has raised £80 billion in the last ten years, including £14 billion in the last year alone.

Higher Charges

1. The total cost of NHS, local authority and quango charges is now over £17 billion per annum, nearly £700 per household.


2. Full details of the range of charges are given in the report, but some examples include: school dinners charges have risen 50% in ten years to £1 billion per annum; parking charges and fines have risen to over £1 billion; Hospital car parks raise over £100m in England alone.

The full report provides the most comprehensive analysis of the rise in taxes, stealth taxes and charges that has ever been compiled, illustrating the burden borne by ordinary families across the country. A PDF of the report is attached to this email.

Mike Denham, the former Treasury Economist who authored the report, said:

“The Government has used every trick in the book to drive up the tax burden, and ordinary families are paying a heavy price. People are increasingly beset by record levels of taxation and growing service charges, but there has been no improvement in services in return. We find ourselves paying more and more for less and less. With rocky economic times ahead, this rate of taxation simply cannot be sustained.”

Aren't you all grateful? Gordon Brown, economic genius, has raised enormous amounts of cash and pissed an awful lot of it up the wall. Hoorah!

Thank you so much, NuLabour!

Starting young

Shane Greer found this great story yesterday.

A 13 year old from Texas who stole his Dad's credit card and ordered two hookers from an escort agency, has today been convicted of fraud and given a three year community order.

Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old from Newark, Texas confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his father's existing credit card company, and took his friends on a $30,000 spending spree, culminating in playing "Halo" on an Xbox with a couple of hookers in a Texas motel.

Can anyone guess what this corrupt, thieving little bastard, who was entirely happy to steal from his closest family, wants to be when he grows up?

Ralph's ambition is to one day become a politician.

Still, good to see them starting young, eh?

I imagine that he'll go far...

Define rational

My colleague has written another fine post, in which he appraises the Social Market Foundation report. Ian writes:

Much of the detail of the report is taken up by the advancement of the idea that people aren't 'rational' enough to make the sorts of decisions the Government wants them to make. I guess the people who make up the Government are, however, rational enough to make them for us?

... and is quite correct to pour scorn on the idea that those who occupy the Houses of Parliament.

After all, our Deputy fucking Prime Minister was so rational that he used to binge on food and then throw it all up, before stuffing his face again.

Are these the actions of a rational person?

No, these were the actions of a fat, greedy, avaricious turd with a tenuous grip on reality who was unable to do his job effectively (or, even, ineffectively) without, basically, suffering a mental breakdown..

Bulimia is related to deep psychological issues and feelings of lack of control. Sufferers often use the destructive eating pattern to feel in control over their lives.

Well, what a pity, how sad. My only regret is that he wasn't miserable enough to hang himself (if he could have found a rope capable of taking his whale-like weight).

This greasy, sweaty, unpleasant sack of shit had a good deal of control over our lives and the Social Market Foundation advises that Prescott and his ilk take yet more control over us because apparently we aren't "rational" enough.

Oh, and the least said about our "psychologically flawed" Prime Minister, and the pathological liar who preceded him, the better...

The Art of Authoritarianism

Author's Note: The author of this post is not The Devil's Kitchen

Via a round-up post at Liberal Conspiracy, I stumbled upon this (PDF) document, produced by the think tank Social Market Foundation.

The major thrust of this report, bearing the rather sinister subtitle 'The Art of Behavioural Change', is that people cannot be trusted to take charge of their own lives, and need big Daddy Government to do it for them!

"Government needs to adapt its learned behaviours if it is to be an active actor in helping individuals make the necessary changes. It needs to rely less heavily on the idea of the citizen as rational economic actor and absorb the lessons that behavioural economics has to offer." - Pg6

Later in the executive summary, the authors lament the objections of 'liberals' to Government interventions that they consider to be "clearly legitimate", using New Labour's smoking ban as an example. Never mind that there was significant opposition to the ban, nor that it has been to the detriment of pubs and bars.

They go on to make two still more astonishing suggestions in the space of one paragraph: That the British public has in effect endorsed this paternalistic interventionism by re-electing New Labour, and indeed that interventionism is a specific 'agenda' of our Government

"A number of significant developments have occurred in recent times to make government interventions that influence individual behaviours more palatable...We repeatedly voted in a government with an agenda that seeks to inform us about what is good for us and has adopted policies which seek to change the way we behave – parenting classes being a prominent example." - Pg9

As if the blue-rosetted alternative has anything even approaching an anti-interventionist 'agenda'? The shower of shits who gave us this dismal document themselves claim that they "work with all of the UK's main political parties". Doesn't that tell you something?

Much of the detail of the report is taken up by the advancement of the idea that people aren't 'rational' enough to make the sorts of decisions the Government wants them to make. I guess the people who make up the Government are, however, rational enough to make them for us?

This whole document is thoroughly symptomatic of just what is wrong with the diseased New Labour project. The SMF act like someone who has a hammer - intervention, either direct or by manipulation - and see everything as a nail to be beaten down by it. The idea that Government could step back and let individuals run their own lives as they see fit doesn't, predictably enough, get a look in.

Enough of the 'Art of Behavioural Change', already. If the Government continue the seemingly inexorable trend towards authoritarianism, with the implementation of the types of policies called for here, they might just find themselves confronted with a behavioural change decidedly un-anticipated by the likes of the SMF - A vote for liberty. Now, that's what I would call a 'rational' response.

It's good to see...

The poster put about by a bunch of Swedish liars the Swedish trade union of Service and Communication Employees.

... that the UK authorities do not have a monopoly on bare-faced lies, as Jon Worth reports.

So private train companies cause more crashes do they? That’s the message being put out by SEKO, the Swedish trade union of Service and Communication Employees. They use the image above, with the slogan ‘Mer konkurrens?’ (shown as a small version in the image here to the right), making people think that privatisation and competition on the Swedish rail network is going to cause accidents.

But hold on a moment. As I’m a bit of a fan of rail travel, I know the trains in that image are not Swedish but Dutch—Plan V or Plan T according to Wikipedia. Google is also a great tool—it has allowed me to find this post on a Dutch blog that shows the original image used by SEKO and—surprise, surprise—the blue train in their image is actually a crude Photoshop job. Both trains in the picture were actually owned and run by Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the Dutch state owned rail company. So I reckon the image is rather deceptive. Plus have a look at this list of rail accidents from Wikipedia—a fair few of those are on state-run railways!

The image is rather deceptive? I think, Jon, that you are being more than a little generous there: I would call it a great big stinking lie.

Anyway, one must admit that it's fine detective work by Jon (you train-spotter, you!): go and read the rest to see what his his wider point is.

Not very Wise...

The News of the World has an exposé of MEPs' scams in general and those of Tom Wise in particular.

THE News of the World can name and expose the British politicians milking a fortune from our taxes. For years, we have all suspected the European Parliament is a money-pit. But no one could prove the grotesque extent of MEPs' excesses... until now.

In a two-month investigation deep within the Brussels and Strasbourg corridors of power our undercover team found British MEPs pocketing as much cash as they can lay hands on.

And the amounts run into many millions. Many pay their wives, children and lovers up to £60,000 a year from public funds. They fill their boots on expenses at top restaurants and rake off thousands by flying on budget tickets and trousering full fare from the taxpayer.

Our dossier of shame will shock all Europe. And it must at last force Gordon Brown and David Cameron to bring these greedy fatcats to heel.

Well, that will be a little difficult since all political parties here are, themselves, up to the eyeballs in corruption, but the sentiment is sound, for sure. And there are further revelations of the scams of various MEPs of Tory and other persuasions in this article.

OFFICIAL documents obtained by the News of the World reveal TWENTY British Euro MPs are milking taxpayers' cash to bankroll wives and family as highly-paid "assistants".

However, a certain reliable source sends me this little missive.

Tom Wise left the Ind Dem group yesterday, amongst the reasons for his leaving being:

"Lastly, is the summary dismissal, for no good reason, of two highly effective members of the research staff, one of whom was seconded to work for me. Not only was no attempt made to seek my views or involve me in the process; the individuals were told of this action by a cursory letter!

"In Britain this would be a gross breach of employment law and would represent the worst of employment practice. In political terms it is the sort of thing one would expect from an extremist organisation or people with totalitarian instincts.

"For these reasons I can no longer associate myself with those who blatantly violate the very principles on which I was elected and I therefore have resigned from the Ind/Dem Group. I of course remain a UKIP MEP, a member of UKIP and will continue to campaign and work for Britain to leave the EU."

These members of staff were employed by the Ind Dem group and instead of working to highlight what the EU were really doing they were trying to damage UKIP. They were nasty bullies who spent their time having coffee breaks, not working and trying to get Nigel [Farage] overthrown as leader of UKIP.

They also went through the e-mail accounts of MEPs and staff and sold stories to the national newspapers. So unlike being a totalitarian state, we would rather people do the jobs they were paid to do. They were fired for breach of trust which, in the circumstances, rings true.

As a quick aside, I was tangentially involved in gaining evidence for said assertions and can tell you that they are substantiated. Breach of trust aside, bringing your employer into disrepute is normally a straight sacking offence anyway.

Tom Wise still says he's a UKIP MEP but he's not. He's using taxpayers' money to pay for lawyers to threaten and bully UKIP senior figures who are, unlike him, trying to do the job they were elected to do. It costs Nigel Farage huge amounts of money to do his work but he does it for the cause.

And that, too, is true.

Timmy has a little more information.

Here for a right old bashing of Tom Wise (I’m told by those in the know that at least one of the reasons he left UKIP was so that he might continue to avail himself of some of these possibilities).
...

I also hear from those in the know that the NOTW team couldn’t find any UKIP MEPs abusing the system in the same way. I know very well, for example, that the airline ticket scam is not allowed for those in the party.

Not that all of this is all that new of course. The Social Affairs Unit published a guide to how to work the system just after the last elections.

There is of course only one thing left of interest: who helped the NOTW girl to get that job in Brussels in the first place?

Beats me for sure.

Oh, absolutely; I can't imagine...

Competition in the EU

Commenters often point out that, surely, as a free-marketeer, I must be absolutely in favour of the EU's destruction of national monopolies. I have usually been pretty equivocable, frankly, and EU Referendum sums up, very neatly, why this is so.

The trouble with Randall and his ilk is that, although they are basically "on side", they have never really got to grips with the nature of the EU and its true (and only) agenda—political integration.

In that context, the postal services directives have exactly the same agenda as all the other so-called "liberalising" instruments, whether they are dealing with energy (see here), rail services, telecommunications, or whatever. The intent is to break up national monopolies, not for the sake of it, but in order to recreate then on a European level, under the direct control of the EU commission.

Thus, the attack on national monopolies is not an attack on the monopolies, per se but an attack on nationalism—it is an attack on the nation state, an attempt to reduce the power and influence of the member states. As such, the EU has no rooted objection to monopolies – it is, after all, itself a monopoly. Its apparent enthusiasm for "competition" is simply a smokescreen to gull free-market liberals into supporting its deeper agenda.

However, the great genius of the commission—as I have been wont to observe—is its realisation that it is no longer necessary to nationalise something in order to own it. Basically, it has developed a system of nationalisation by regulation. It you have complete control over an industry, you get all the benefits of ownership without needing the title deeds.
...

Before it can build its European dream the EU must first destroy what exists. We are in the destruction phase. For sure, we must not allow it to happen, but "we" are no longer in control.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: the reason why I am not in favour of the EU's forced "liberalisation".

It is also interesting to note that the "destroy in order to create" mantra was always a big favourite of Communists and other hard-left factions. But, actually, it is fascism that the EU's approach more closely resembles: a totalitarian government using large corporations—state-sponsored corporatism, in other words—in order to carry out its missions is very much a mark of fascist regimes.

Nadine Dorries: still a corrupt liar

Has anyone noticed the uncanny resemblance between Nadine Dorries—a barking mad, out-of-touch-with-reality, lying cow in the UK Parliament—and Margot Wallstrom—a barking mad, out-of-touch-with-reality, lying cow in the European Union Commission? Are they in any way related? I think we should be told...

Now, as we all know, Nadine Dorries is a horrible, stinking liar who must be perpetually having to change the charred remains of her knickers (assuming that she wears any, of course). One can only hope that her children are so ashamed of their mother that her behaviour will act as a deterrent and they will become the sanest, most honest people on the planet.

Still, the saga rolls on. The Ministry of Truth has become rather adept at tracking down her lies and deceit; for instance, Marie Stopes International does not—contrary to assertions made by Dorries—support a lowering of the abortion age limit.

Further, it seems that Nadine may not have got her seat entirely on merit (not that this will come as a surprise: even for an MP she is outstandingly useless and dishonest).

“Nadine Dorries, the new Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, was parachuted into the constituency at the last minute by Conservative Central Office, just as she was parachuted into Hazel Grove (to the fury of local Tories) shortly before the 2001 election.

Why, we asked, is she always first choice for the parachute jump when Tory HQ in London decides to despatch its own candidate?

Nadine Dorries’s children were until recently classmates at Ampleforth College (one of the leading Catholic schools in the country, recently embarassed by a sexually deviant teacher!) with the children of one Trish Morris. As fellow parents Trish and Nadine got to know each other rather well.

And who is Trish?

Under her more formal moniker of Baroness Morris, she is vice-chairman of the Conservative party in charge of candidate selection!

Furthermore, you simply must read this Unity article, which corrals a whole selection of Nadine's lies, including the fact that Nadine lied about her age whilst campaigning.

Tim Ireland is now onto the evil, lying cow too—he maintains (with a fair degree of justification) that she is abusing her Parliamentary expenses.

I should make it clear that as far as I can tell, Nadine's website was and is - as stated on her website - funded from the Incidental Expenses Provision and not the new Communications Allowance, but I would advise any MP who is confused/concerned about such things to read The Communications Allowance and the use of House stationery (2.31MB PDF) because, until the Green Book is revised, it offers the most comprehensive guide available on websites paid for with the public's money.

But in Nadine's case the misuse of taxpayer's money is clear and unarguable, so in this post we do not need to go any further than these extracts from Teh Green Book (870Kb PDF)

5.1.1. Scope of the allowance
The Incidental Expenses Provision (IEP) is available to meet costs incurred on Members' Parliamentary duties. It cannot be used to meet personal costs, or the costs of party political activities or campaigning.

5.13.4. Communications and travel
Allowable expenditure:
—Printing and sending newsletters, establishing and maintaining websites.

Expenditure not allowable:
—Campaigning on behalf of a political party or cause
—Communications or travel on personal or party political matters

There are so many examples of Nadine breaking these clear-cut rules on her website - particularly in that section she laughingly describes as a 'blog' - that it's hard to know where to start (or end) but I think a good example is her recent targeting of four Labour MPs over the abortion issue, as it ticks all the boxes; it's personal in nature (though most of the purely personal entries on her blog are more vindictive than this) , it's party-political (look at who she targets), and it's done in support of a cause.

Tim also highlights ten... er... nine reasons not to trust Mad Nad, including the fact that she is not only incompetent but a self-confessed liar.

3. She has no bloody idea what she's doing most of the time:
   The above incident showed that Dorries is ignorant of parliamentary procedure, but there's an even more recent example of her ignorance; this week, Nadine staged her first ever press conference (bless!) but was surprised to learn that in most cases filming is not allowed in the Palace of Westminster without permission (note: in most cases). And, as with the Goldacre matter, she went on the offensive and had a full-on rant over an issue she knows sweet bugger all about. Because she's as vindictive as she is ignorant.


4. She's a liar:
   And, when she was forced to relocate her press conference to College Green, she was shocked to discover that she needed a permit there, too (and permission under SOCPA). To get her way and get her face on camera, she lied... outright and without shame:
   

   "As it was we de-camped onto College Green. Within seconds another security guard arrived. He asked me did I have a permit? I said yes. I lied, we began. Perhaps someone would now like to report me to the standards committee?"—Nadine Dorries (07 May)

   
   I've used this rather benign example because (a) here she admits it and (b) all of the other times she might be called a liar (example), one cannot rule out her instead being understandably mistaken because she is so impossibly stupid.

Although, it should be ten as Tim actually misses out one very obvious reason not to trust her, i.e. because she's quite obviously insane.

Rhetorically Speaking's Bookdrunk has also been doing sterling work in exposing Nadine Dorries' near-pathological, constant, fucking lying.

A few weeks ago, Nadine Dorries claimed that no NHS hospital would perform an abortion after 16 weeks, unless out of dire need.

She went on radio to repeat this claim, and accused someone who contradicted her of being a liar.

Dorries announced that she was tabling a written question on the subject.

Well, Dorries did indeed lodge such a question, for which there is now a formal written answer - one that proves that NHS hospitals routinely perform abortions after 16 weeks. In other words, she's entirely, irrefutably wrong. In fact, roughly a third of procedures take place in NHS hospitals.
...

(Incidentally, the parliamentary answer given quotes figures almost identical to those found by Unity in reaching the same conclusion, i.e. that Nadine Dorries is a liar. Huh. Turns out information really is king.)

Bookdrunk then sums up with a couple of lines that made me laugh out loud...

Would Nadine Dorries now like to retract her previous claims, and apologise for calling her opponents liars? Or would you perhaps instead like to go to the moon on my pig-rocket?

I have no idea what a pig-rocket is but, yes, I would love to go to the moon on yours, Bookdrunk. Because Mad Nad is not going to admit that she tells lies. Oh, unless those lies are told to Palace of Westminster officers, of course.

But never mind, at least her lies are so brazen that they keep us all entertained. Here's Bookdrunk again and, unlike Dorries, he has actually read the report that he's writing about (an awful lot of us bloggers do that: I wonder why...).

From her "blog," expressing disbelief in research showing no change in premature birth survival rates before 24 weeks discussed earlier today:

I think this report insults the intelligence of the public and MPs alike.

No improvement in neo-natal care in twelve years? Really? So where has all the money that has been pumped into neo-natal services gone then?

A baby born at 23 weeks today stands no better a chance of living than it did in 1996?

You'd never guess, but this is a selective and obvious distortion of the report's findings.

The report actually looks at births up until 2005—and does indeed show significant improvements in the survival of babies... but only amongst those born at 24 and 25 weeks. Of 497 babies admitted to intensive care in 2000–05, 236 (47 per cent) survived to discharge compared with 174 of 490 (36 per cent) in 1994–95.

In other words, not only does the report show what she claims it doesn't, but it provides evidence further that her position is full of crap.

And so it continues and this is going to run and run. I am utterly sure that there will be more to come but, via Tim Ireland, let's sum up with an old quote from SepticIsle.

Out of all the MPs that this blog has covered over the last few years, it's safe to say that none has been as underhand, as genuinely unpleasant, manipulative, vindictive and dishonest as both Dorries has been and apparently is. She is both a disgrace to politics as a whole and a liability to the Conservative party.

I have little more to add, except to point out that Nadine Dorries is still a shameless, shameful fucking liar who should never be in any position of authority.

Oh, and can someone, please, go and give her her lithium...?

Quote of the day...

... comes from the always-readable though sadly irregular Nosemonkey.

If the left/Labour can’t get over the snide remarks, personal attacks and class prejudice that seems to imbue every aspect of their relationship with the Conservative Party - and, ideally, come up with some practical left-wing policies rather than populist and ill-considered appeals to the middle-classes and big business - they are going to continue to slide in the polls to the point of embarrassing defeat.

Well, let's hope so. Much as I loathe the Tories, I do tend towards the idea that they will probably not be as abysmal as NuLabour. Or they at least deserve a chance to show that they won't be (although, personally, I suspect that we will barely be able to tell the difference).

Anyway, the above comes from an excellent and balanced article on Boris: do wander over and read the whole thing...

Cameron: still a lackwit, know-nothing arsehole

Via Vindico, here's the odious Richard Corbett MEP quoting a speech by Cameron (Corbett doesn't link to the original article, alas, because he's a horrible little turd).

"I don’t want to leave the European Union and I'll tell you why. This is a trading nation. Yorkshire relies on traded goods and on businesses which can trade all over the world and particularly in Europe. We export more per head of the population than America, Japan or other countries. We are a trading nation and Europe is a very important market for us. If we are not in the European Union, we would not be able to have a say over what the rules of the single market are. That is the primary reason for being a member of the European Union."

OK, let's have a look, shall we?

First off, exports to the EU are not anywhere near as important as they are made out to be.

Exports of goods and services only account for 21 per cent of ‘final demand’. If exports of goods and services to the EU account for 48 per cent of total exports, then ten per cent of GDP is currently the result of exports of goods and services to other EU members. In other words, about 79 per cent of our economy is the result of domestic activity, involving buying from and selling to each other, and exports of goods and services to the rest of the world account for another 11 per cent.

That does not alter the fact that the EU is an important market, of course, but then Cameron is making the classic mercantilist mistake.

He’s committing the mercantilist fallacy, that exports are either the point of trade or that they make us rich. No, it is imports that make us rich, exports being merely the shite we ship abroad to pay for them. We don’t actually care what the rules of the single market are, as long as we can buy what we wish from there. However, we do care very much about the fact that membership of that single market means that we are not allowed to buy what we wish from other countries around the world… something which makes us poorer.

Quite so. Still, at least Cameron does not commit the fallacy of claiming that we would no longer be able to trade with the EU, but instead confines himself to whining about how we would not be able to control the rules of the Single Market (in even the minimal way that we currently do).

However, that nice Mr Cameron misses a very important point, though whether it's through ignorance or deceit, I couldn't possibly say (it's deceit). The simple fact is this: at this point in time, whilst we are members of the EU, 100%—I'll repeat that: ONE HUNDRED PER CENT—of businesses in this country have to comply with EU trade rules. And the costs of compliance are very high.

Were we to leave the EU, I sincerely doubt that the rules or direction of the Single Market would change significantly, i.e. they won't become anything except more draconian and more expensive.

Were we to leave the EU, only those companies (and sections of companies) that deal with the export of that 10% trade that we do with EU countries need be crippled with the costs of said compliance.

The EU costs this country money, through direct charges, through the various levies, through red tape and compliance costs that stifle growth and in a massive democratic deficit. That Cameron supports our membership shows him to be merely another pointless would-be local government lackey of the EU.

Fuck Cameron and fuck his massive forehead: he's a cunt leading a party of cunts and those of you welcoming him as some sort of saviour simply because the present incumbents are slightly more cunty should be ashamed of yourselves.

UPDATE: Raedwald has the original question and Cameron's answer in full. I don't think that it negates any of the points that I have made, and there are other weasel words in there too: read it really carefully...

Normblog profile: Tim Newman

Via Timmy, the subject of today's Normblog profile is Tim Newman, who writes at White Sun of the Desert (it was appropriate when he worked in the Middle East. For Sakhalin, less so!).

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > I used to be a traditional conservative, but have since become an avid libertarian, meaning I've changed my mind about so much. There was a time when I would have opposed homosexual relationships in certain circumstances; nowadays I couldn't care less.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > The state is not your friend.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > Statism in its many forms.
...

If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > Drastically reduce the areas in which government is involved, most importantly in the provision of health and education services.

If you could choose anyone, from any walk of life, to be Prime Minister, who would you choose? > Perry de Havilland.

What would you do with the UN? > Remove all members in whose country you cannot drink the tap water.

What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > The exerting of excessive political control over the lives of individuals, be it the imposition of Islamic law, adoption of communism, or formation of an EU superstate.

Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > The best is yet to come.

I would say that Tim gets full marks, no? I certainly agree with every word of the above.

I would certainly add Tim's blog to my feeds, had I not been reading him for years anyway...

Currently showing...

... in the Crewe and Nantwich area, through MessageSpace, is a very hastily thrown together advert (deadlines, deadlines!).


We aren't standing there, but it is, if you like, a teaser trailer. I think that it gets the general message across...

A peaceful protest

I really like this idea from The Nameless One.

Fuck the lot of them. Before any ban comes into place, I think there should be a protest of people who drink on public transport but don't behave like utter cunts.

Imagine, a few hundred people, all having a bottle of beer on the tube, before calmly and quietly getting off at their destination without any fuss or bother whatsoever.

A clear example to Boris and those Nu Labour bastards that there is no need to curtail our freedom further.

Anyone up for it? We have about twenty-two days to organise...

As sure as night follows day...

... when one fuckwitted authoritarian cunt decides to implement an illiberal piece-of-shit policy, NuLabour will follow suit.

Travellers face a ban on drinking alcohol on trains, buses and trams across the country, it was revealed last night.

The drastic plan to cut loutish behaviour will be considered as part of a Government review aimed at making public transport safer.

Fucking hell, frankly. Why the cunting fuck does Jacqui Smith (or any of the rest of you) think that alcohol makes people into louts? Some people are simply louts and any alcohol merely emphasises that fact. You want to cut loutish behaviour on public transport?—ban louts from travelling on it (oh, and do please tell me how you'd enforce that).

And if you think that banning certain people from public transport is wrong, then may I suggest that you shut the fuck up on the issue of alcohol? I may? Then do.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the Tories were delighted their ideas...

See? The Tories are going to be just as big a bunch of authoritarian cunts as NuLabour.

... were being copied by the Government, but added that the devil would be in the detail. He said: "Even when this Government looks like it is getting it right, it often ends up getting it wrong."

Police already have powers to designate trains and coaches going to and from sporting events as "dry", but a wider ban would prove controversial.

Critics warn that it could fail to curb violence as troublemakers have usually been bingeing in pubs and clubs.

Well, exactly. And that is precisely the same for public transport in London. You fuckwit, Boris.

It would also stop law-abiding travellers enjoying a glass of wine with a meal on an inter-city journey.

Well, as we've seen from the last couple of comment threads, most people don't care. That's right, isn't it? Guys?

It could even raise the farcical prospect of passengers on Eurostar trains being made to drink up before entering England.

Farcical indeed. But it's all for the greater good, isn't it? Guys? Commenters? Hello...?

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said: "A drinks ban on all public transport including long-distance rail would be completely over the top, widely ignored and impossible to enforce.

"This would be the nanny state gone mad. Ordinary passengers should not be punished for the misbehaviour of a minority."

But they are. And, as all too many of The Kitchen's commenters have shown, a lot of people are in favour of punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty. Ain't that right, guys?

As ever, Falco brings another take to this.

It really is a mutual spiral of fuckwittery lead authoritarianism. The thing is that if you accept the principle behind the no drinking on the tube idea then how can you object to this:

No Muslims on the tube.

Boris today explained that while he accepted that most Muslims were no trouble on the tube at all, those few who were caused such serious trouble, (far more than any drunk), that it would be best to "send a message" to crack down on tube explosions.

or

No Blacks on the tube:

Boris launched his new policy of a "Darkie free tube" today. He explained to the baying mob that just because most blacks were law abiding did not excuse the increased incidence of theft by this ethnic community. The best way to send a strong message on crime was to ban the lot of them. When asked what would be the situation if you had mixed parentage Boris replied, "We are making the tube a safer, better place. So frankly I wouldn't show up if you've got even a bit of a tan."

Would anyone like to pipe up in favour of the above? No.

Well, what a fucking surprise.

A blow to belief

A few days ago, the ever-excellent Daily Mash satirised Boris's alcohol ban.

BORIS Johnson is to ban Scotsmen from the London Underground in a bid to make the Tube more bearable for everyone else.

The London mayor said a Scots-free Tube would be less intimidating for ordinary travellers, and would not smell so badly of chips, blood, spilt lager and urine.

He said: "As we all know the Scot is incapable of sitting on anything with wheels attached unless already drunk, or carrying enough booze to knock out an Irish bank manager and his wife for a weekend."

Most amusing, I must say. What has not been amusing is the reaction to my post of yesterday, protesting against the alcohol ban.

You see, I had rather naively imagined that the majority of people actually understood the concept of liberty; I certainly thought that readers of The Kitchen might get it. It seems that, in a large number of cases, I was entirely wrong.

To say that this is disappointing is a massive understatement.

The attitude of many of the commenters does remind me of a comment that I saw on a forum some years ago, which was along these lines.

That's the British for you. They love to talk about liberty, but they become fascists when confronted with things that they personally dislike.

That has pretty much been the attitude of many of the commenters, and it is the same deeply illiberal attitude that has allowed the cunt politicians to rape our freedoms.

Boris Johnson: still a totalitarian cunt. Just like many of my commenters.

The arguments, such as they are, appear to have two prongs. The first is the most lame and essentially goes like this:

I would never have a drink on the Tube, so who cares?

I don't think that I can possibly make a more eloquent argument against this attitude than did Pastor Niemoller, frankly.

The second argument is no less facile, but let's have a look anyway, shall we? This second prong can essentially be summed up in this hastily-constructed syllogism:

If people drink too much alcohol then they will get drunk.
Some drunk people make trouble on public transport.
Therefore we should ban everyone from drinking alcohol on public transport.

It is a completely stupid fucking argument, really, and is born of the pusillanimous and totalitarian tendences inherent in the average Daily Mail reader.

First, not everyone who drinks is drunk. I gave the example of consuming one beer on the way home; it was very pleasant, since from Southfields to Earl's Court is, like 55% of the Tube, not actually underground. The sun was streaming through the windows, the carriage was about only about half full, my Private Eye was interesting, and the gentle rocking of the train was complemented by my lovely bottle of cool ale.

The ale was all the more welcome since my colleague, who gives me a lift from Ockham to Southfields, needed to drop into the supermarket (where I had bought my beer) to buy his week's supplies and I didn't even get onto the Tube until nearly seven in the evening. With an hour on the Tube ahead of me, the beer really appealed.

The general tone of the comments was, first, "well, couldn't you have had a few pints before going home" (no. Have you been to Ockham recently?) and, "well, couldn't you have waited." Yes, yes, I could have waited, but why should I? Just because you wouldn't drink on the Tube does not mean that I should not be allowed to do so.

Was I drunk? No. As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, when this policy was announced, how many people actually get drunk on public transport? Very few.

Have I been drunk on the Tube? Certainly I have. But not all drunk people cause trouble on public transport. I have never abused anyone, never shouted at anyone, never acted in a threatening way to anyone, never vomited on anyone, never... Well, you get the picture. I did once fall asleep on the Victoria Line and go to Brixton to Seven Sisters and back again, but I wasn't leaning or dribbling on anyone and I was more tired than drunk (I hadn't slept all night).

Have I been the subject of threatening behaviour on the Tube? No, but in Edinburgh I was once beaten up by a drunk guy, for no reason whatsoever. But because I am not a totalitarian cunt, I did not call for alcohol to be banned. Do you see?

So, so far we have established that drinking on the public transport does not automatically cause a nuisance, and that being drunk on public transport does not automatically cause a nuisance. OK?

So what is the issue? The problem is loud and threatening behaviour by certain people; sometimes these people are drunk. Sometimes they are sober.

A number of commenters think that, because these people are sometimes drunk, that we should ban drinking on public transport.

But sometimes people are cunts when they are sober; thus, the logical extension of this is that we should ban sobriety on public transport.

Because we pride ourselves on being a liberal society, we have framed our laws to deal with this problem. What we have done is only to legislate against the threatening behaviour, whether it is committed by someone drunk or sober.

This is only right; we recognise that neither being drunk nor drinking is actually a crime; it harms no one but the person consuming the alcohol.

In short, the problem is that the laws against threatening behaviour are not being upheld (nor, indeed, are the drunk and disorderly laws). That is a failure of policing, not a reason for more bans. The simple fact is that it doesn't matter how many laws you pass: if they aren't being enforced, then they are utterly pointless.

But those who commented on my last post would ban drinking on the Tube because it might lead to a crime. Do I have to spell out the logical conclusion of this position?

Oh, OK then.

Ultimately, being alive might lead to someone committing a crime so we should actually ensure that no one is born. We should sterilise everyone and then, eventually, we will have a crime-free society. When everyone is dead.

The commenters who are in favour of this ban are entitled to their opinions, of course; but don't you ever dare call yourself libertarian, or even liberal. You are nasty, totalitarian, little cunts and you personify everything that is wrong with this country.

I despise you.

UPDATE: some people still don't get it. Showing a quite astonishing level of delusion and wishful thnking is commenter Zorro.

Why do you think it would be acceptable for him NOT to do this when he pledged to do so?

He should never have pledged to do so in the first place. Boris has, himself, styled himself as a libertarian; we can now see that this is absolute horseshit.

But the really weird bit is this next paragraph. [Emphasis mine.]

Obviously not everything Boris or the coming Tory govt of 2009/2010 will do some things we don't like. Obviously, evert bastard govt does. But they will be less corrupt, less authoritarian (a little), less stupid, less spendy, in the end, less government. Which is good and the best outcome we can reasonably hope for.

So, the Tories are going to be "less authoritarian" and deliver "less government"? How can you possibly think this?

Boris, as The Nameless One points out, is now the most powerful Tory in the country and his policies are going to give some indication of what a Tory government might be like.

And Boris's very first act is to implement a policy that is more authoritarian than that of NuLabour's representative. It is a policy that involves more government interference in our daily lives (and if you think that this is the end of such policies then you are even more stupid than I thought).

Seriously, Zorro, what kind of weird, parallel universe are you living in?

Boris Johnson: illiberal cunt

No, Bruce, he's really not a libertarian.

So, our tousle-haired new Mayor has decided that, from the first of June, drinking alcohol will be banned on public transport. As a result, I would like to be the first to call Boris Johnson a despicable fucking cunt.

Mr Johnson said: "I'm determined to improve the safety and security of public transport in London and create a better environment for the millions of Londoners who rely on it. I firmly believe that if we drive out so called minor crime then we will be able to get a firm grip on more serious crime. That's why from June 1 the drinking of alcohol will be banned from the Tube, tram, bus, and Docklands Light Railway.

You stupid little tit, you don't stamp out smaller crimes by introducing more misdemeanors to the statute books! Why don't you try policing the laws that we already have—you know, the ones that criminalise being drunk and disorderly, or harrassment, or threatening behaviour?

Oh and, as PigDogFucker observes, being drunk is not threatening behaviour.

If you find any of the following “intimidating”, “threatening”, or whatever pathetic term-of-the-day gets used to mean “oooh, I don’t like it, help me mummy”:

1. people drinking


2. people being drunk


3. people being drunk and loud

...then you are a worthless cunt who doesn’t deserve to live.

Yes, if people start actually threatening you (which means “saying they’re going to do bad things to you”, not “being loud and common within your earshot”), that’s a bad thing and they should be arrested. But as long as they don’t, then either shut the fuck up or (preferably) kill yourself and everyone who shares your DNA.

As Timmy points out, coupled with the utterly unjustified reclassifying of cannabis, this seems to indicate a distinct trend.

In both cases we have millions of people being told what they may not do, both profoundly illiberal moves, on the spurious grounds of their possible effects on others. We already have rules agains being drunk and disorderly, we already have rules against bothering other passengers, we already have rules against any of the effects of either drugs or alcohol on other people.

But let’s ban them just to be sure, eh?

A good many commenters are saying that Boris will be a taste, the vanguard, of how the Tories might govern this country. For all our sakes, I hope that that is not the case.

But I fear that it is: we will merely swap one load of corrupt, incompetent, soft-Left, bansturbating cunts for another.

Politicians: hang them all.

UPDATE: some people really don't seem to be getting the point of this, so let's try this explanation from Banditry, shall we?

If we ban harmless things, then harmful things will magically disappear

It ought to be pretty obvious that banning drinking in a place is completely different from banning drunken louts from a place.

If you ban drinking in a place, it prevents people who aren’t louts but fancy a beer from having one, while doing absolutely nothing to prevent louts who are drunk from causing a nuisance (even if the drinking legislation were actually enforced against groups of rowdy chavs, which it won’t be).

If you actually want to stop drunken loutery, then you need to ensure that drunken louts are arrested, under the existing laws that provide a perfectly good arsenal of charges and punishments against rowdies, harrassers, disorderly conductors and affrayists. You don’t impose a new measure to punish the law-abiding.

It really cannot be made plainer than that, seriously. Oh, and just to finish up...

Side note: the ban appears to advertised as “making everyone’s journey more pleasant”. Since it will very clearly make journeys less pleasant for those who enjoy drinking while on a journey, this is clearly false advertising, and I’d urge everyone who sees such a poster to report it to the ASA.

Nice job, Boris, you fucking chump. Oh, and anyone who argues for this ban is still a worthless cunt. The next thing to go might be something that you enjoy perfectly harmlessly...

It's madness, I tell 'ee!

Many of us feel that—whilst science may be able to achieve almost anything, given the fullness of time—there are just some things that these Frankenstein loonies should never attempt.

If someone were to produce a mash-up of [Maureen] Dowd and Polly Toynbee, leavened with a dollop of George Monbiot we might have the world's most compellingly-appalling columnist.

For the love of all that's unholy, just say, "no! For fuck's sake, no!"

Medical hypocrisy

I have a few questions about this story, in which MPs lay into professional idiot, Sir Liam Donaldson, over MTAS and MMC.

And Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, added: "This is a damning indictment of the government's failure to listen.

"We completely endorse the basic analysis that there was a massive systems failure and a complete lack of clear and effective leadership within the Department of Health."

Well, thank you for that, Dr Meldrum; however, is it not the case that you are now head of the BMA only because your predecessor had to resign?

And is it not true that the main reason for said resignation was because of the BMA's unquestioning support for the government's position?

And is it not also true that, so egregious was your support for government policy on MTAS and MMC, doctors set up a new organisation—Remedy UK—to represent their interests?

Further, is it not true that the BMA supported the government to such an extent that it even testified on behalf of the government against Remedy UK?

And, finally, do you think that—just maybe—all of this might fairly be described as "a damning indictment" of the BMA's "failure to listen" and, as such, that you should shut your fucking face, you fucking hypocrite?

A humble suggestion

Yet more grinding of pointed teeth occurred when your humble Devil saw another article about MPs' expenses in his morning Metro...

Forcing MPs to publish their exp­enses is a 'substantial intrusion' into their private lives, the High Court heard.

Disclosing a detailed breakdown of their claims for running a second home, including addresses, might attract 'the mad and the bad', Nigel Griffin QC said.

'They might simply not want the world to know the details of how they were furnishing their home in some particular respect,' he added.

Well, might I humbly suggest that—if this is the case—that MPs do not use taxpayers' fucking cash to buy their furnishings?

Look, you thieving cunts, if you don't want to reveal details about your second homes and your various other scams expenses then might I suggest that you do not maintain and furnish them with our. Fucking. Money.

If, however, you are spending an average of more than twice your salary on expenses then I think that the public has a right to know what the fucking hell you have bought with those expenses.

And here's a cracker of a sentence from the BBC.

The Commons authorities argued in court earlier that MPs had a reasonable expectation that there would not be full disclosure of expenses—only their total expenses.

Well, I'm afraid that, as far as I am concerned, that's tough titties, sunshine. After all, if the promises that you bastards make to us in order to get yourselves elected are "not subject to legitimate expectation" then what makes you think that anything else is? You know what they say: "live by the sword, die by the sword".

Or rather—in the case of you corrupt fuckers—"live by the sword, die by the rope"; traditionally, sword-death is only for the highborn: you bastards should be hanged like the common criminals that you are.

Errata

As tedious as it might be to issue a gentle correction to one of one's contributors, after Martin's post of this evening, in which he said...

... (yesterday, a little iron(y) entered the soul upon seeing George W. Bush preaching to the Burmese about, of all things, disaster relief)...

... but I feel that I must re-emphasise the point that the most amount of damage done to New Orleans (by anything or anyone other than Katrina) was done by the (Democratic) Governor Blanco (she blocked the arrival of troops and refused to declare a state of emergency) and the (Democratic) Mayor, Ralph Nagin (who failed to realise, should you corral large numbers of people into a sports stadium, that they might actually need food and (ironically) water).

But then, we're all rather used to the childish level of argument where Bush is concerned, are we not...?

Corpses In Sarongs

(Author's Note - as ever, I am not 'The Devil's Kitchen')

DK must rue the day he granted access to an Irish Catholic Glaswegian prone to all his adjectives' foibles - however, it was difficult to watch tonight's 'Channel 4 News' without wishing to headbutt the TV and then pray for forgiveness.

Its coverage of the Burmese cyclone disaster seems to be as heavily weighted towards critique of the Burmese regime as towards reporting the terrible human scale of this entirely natural catastrophe. That Burma is led by a shower of nasty old tossers is not in question; that they have cocked up the relief effort probably goes without saying (yesterday, a little iron(y) entered the soul upon seeing George W. Bush preaching to the Burmese about, of all things, disaster relief) - yet Channel 4's focus on them, as opposed to the victims, makes one wonder whether its editors think the victims are just convenient stiffs, bodies conveniently dead for the making of political points, specifically that one's own ideology and form of government are superior to those of others; perhaps proving that as far as Channel 4's concerned, the victims are nothing more than corpses in sarongs.

One might have thought that Channel 4 might have been a little deeper into the whole brotherhood of man thang than other broadcasters; but as we say in Glasgow, see what thought did.

Polly's Big Norse Warrior fails to deliver...

... and it's just wonderful to see her bitterness. I would write something poetic and vivid but the poor little Greek boy has already written a screed of awesome beauty.

As for poor Pol, where to start? Imagine the despair, so raw you can almost taste it. Imagine the sense of crushing disappointment. For years now, she has waited for her prince to come—her dashing Norse warrior, who will sweep away all the effete detritus of the Blair years and unload a torrent of resources into child poverty and public services. Night after night she has left the red light on for him; lying in the bed in her Agent Provocateur lingerie, maybe some crotchless pants and a peephole bra, striking an uncomfortable pose lest he come charging through the door at any moment to sweep her up in his powerful arms.

And then, after what seemed like years, suddenly there he is; his chunky body framed by the doorwell, his Presbyterian profile silhouetted in the crimson glow. Here, she thinks, is her Viking! Quickly, silently, she enfolds him, gorging on his lengthy pledges, swallowing his promises, almost gagging on the heady, musky scent of true, bestial socialism unleashed after so long under wraps. There doesn't seem to be quite as much as he had promised, sure, but no matter; isn't there plenty of goodness in those heavy, swinging sacs of his, so engorged with cash that they seem about to burst? It's not all about presentation, you know. Never mind the quality; feel the width.

And now, at last, her hero is ready to spend, and spend big...

Do go and read the whole thing; it is quite, quite wonderful (even if the conjured images are more than slightly distasteful)...

Brute Anderson: twat

Bruce Anderson has written a thinly-veiled hatchet-job on Boris; I'm sure that Brute knows Boris better than I, for—as Iain Dale points out—Boris did sack Brute as the Political Editor of The Spectator.

Brute's article is titled...

Bruce Anderson: Boris Johnson is a libertarian, but he is not a Tory - and he's unlikely to last the course

... and he asserts that Boris is a libertarian within the main body of the text too.

He is a libertarian and a hedonist; he is in favour of everyone having a good time, especially himself.

However, Anderson also maintains that Boris...

... is a man without core belief: without a political and intellectual compass.

Then, Bruce, Boris is not a libertarian: I assure you, we libertarians have a very strong "core belief" and a highly developed "political and intellectual compass". You twat.

Perhaps you meant to call him a libertine?

By the by...

George Monbiot can take his wind power, and his fucking airships (yes, they are cool but only for a hobby), and stuff the lot up his arse.

If he and his Green maniac friends really do like gadgets, let's see what they make of this little beauty.

Can anyone tell me what it is?

The answer to be provided later on today...

UPDATE: well, that didn't take long. Yes, this is the electron grid, the plasma confinement chamber of the 2005 WB6 Polywell fusion reactor. Developed by Robert Bussard, it is the future of energy generation and is currently being developed by the not-for-profit EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation (having been massively funded by the US military).

EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation has been formed as a charitable research
and development organization in frontier energy technologies with emphasis on fusion.

Fusion R&D Phase 1—Validate and review WB-6 results:
1.5–2 years / $3–5M

Fusion R&D Phase 2—Design, build and test full scale 100 MW Fusion System:
5 years / $200M

Successful Phase 2 marks the end of fossil fuels

Well, the beginning of the end of fossil fuels used for the generation of electricity, certainly. For people concerned about such things, it also ends the importance of, and our pandering to, the Middle East oil states.

Go, go, Gadget Fusion Reactor!

Vote Gordon out...

Thanks to the email commenter who pointed me in the direction of this Madame Tussaud's web vote.

When Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair last year, for the first time in a 150 year history, Madame Tussauds took the decision not to immediately create a figure of the current Prime Minister.

Instead we chose to wait for a General Election to confirm Gordon Brown’s status. Ten months later there is still no sign that Mr Brown intends to go to the polls—so Madame Tussauds is holding its own election to let YOU decide the question: Gordon Brown—in or out?

Go on, have a vote! After all, it's the only one that you are likely to have on The Gobblin' King for some time...

George Monbiot: disingenuous tit

The delightfully deranged George Monbiot is banging on about airships, or some such crap. You've got to love his opening paragraph though. [Emphasis mine.]

Of all the charges levelled against environmentalists, perhaps the most unfair is the accusation that we are opposed to technological change. Most of the greens I know are fascinated by gadgets (sometimes to the exclusion of better solutions), while some of the people we confront seem terrified by new technologies, and react to them—witness the campaigns against windfarms—with irrational hostility.

No, George, you moron; the reason that we are hostile to wind farms is because they don't fucking work. Being a fan of "gadgets" is all very well, George, but when said device actually needs to fulfill a particular function—like providing enough constant power to ensure that the lights stay on, for instance—and fails to do so, it becomes, not a gadget, but a "white elephant".

Windfarms, for instance, are a massive white elephant...

Post haste

Apparently, the opening up of competition in postal services has not been particularly beneficial.

The liberalisation of the UK postal service has produced "no significant benefits" for either households or small businesses, a report has said.

That is the initial finding of an independent review of the UK postal sector commissioned by the government.

It warned there was now a threat to the Royal Mail's financial stability.

The Royal Mail's 350-year monopoly ended at the start of 2006, when other licensed operators were given the right to collect and deliver mail.

And yet again the BBC publishes an entire article on this subject and mentions the EU... No, wait, guess how many times?

That's right: none. Not one, single mention.

And all of this is only possible because of the unique way that the BBC is funded, i.e. by a government-sponsored tax and tens of millions of pounds worth of cheap loans from the EU.

UPDATE: Trixy has a rather lovely little rant on this subject.

I had the enjoyable task of trawling through the Post Office review today and, as I have been saying for over a year now, the dramatic changes in the postal market have been brought about because of EU legislation.

In 2006 the UK's postal market was fully open to competition and in 2006/07 Royal Mail reported their first losses of £29 million in 350 years.

The report said that small businesses and domestic consumers haven't benefited but they weren't likely to as those areas of the market are costly. Businesses come in and cream off the profitable business post, leaving Royal Mail to fulfill the Universal Service Obligation of post box collection and door to door delivery a minimum of six days a week.
...

And the media? Well, they're none too keen on even mentioning the EU angle. A journalist at the BBC told me that the EU directive wasn't mentioned in the report. How they can possibly say that when I had the report in front of me and it repeatedly mentioned it is quite astonishing. I suspect they just don't like to admit that the Parliament they are monitoring and the politicians they know don't have the power they think they have. It's easier to ignore it than find out how laws in this country are really made. Just think if they had to monitor the work of the European Parliament, or if they covered the number of new laws the European Commission makes every week!

Much easier to just pretend it isn't there. So we don't get to find out the real reason behind so many decisions made in this country. And it makes me sick, it really does.

Quite. Go and read the whole thing...

UPDATE 2: Timmy points out that neither the Guardian nor the Times mention the EU either.

Guess what, that doesn’t mention the European Union either, the reason that we have the liberalisation of the Royal Mail.

I wonder why they don’t mention it? Or the fact that there’s not a great deal we can do about it?

Well, who would have thunk it?

You know how EUphiles often say that the EU simply doesn't matter to The People, that it is always a low priority compared to immigration, or crime, or rubbish collection, or Post Offices?

Does anyone not think that if people were actually told the fucking truth about where this legislation is coming from that people might actually rate the EU rather higher as an issue?

And does anyone not think that that is why our poiticians are so utterly fucking desperate not to draw people's attention to these areas?

Because, you see, the EU project is the right thing for the people and they must be coerced or conned into it whether they like it or not...

UPDATE 3: well, that's pretty much a full house, don'cha think?

So, that’s the Times, The Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Sun, Mirror, Mail and Express.

All of them carried the story about the liberalisation of the Royal Mail.

Not one of them mentioned that it’s all due to an EU Directive. Not a single sausage from any of them.

Do these people actually read the reports they report upon?

I wouldn't have thought so, no. The only other explanation, of course, is that there is a conspiracy of silence.

So, what is it—ignorance or deceit?

The grass is no greener on the other side...

Twenty Major on the concept of the carbon footprint.

Carbon footprints are fucking stupid and while today is Bertie’s day of resignation, and you know how much I hate that little fucker, I hate the sandal wearing Green Party cunts even more.

I hope they all die in a barn fire, their noxious, wheat filled bodies sizzling and crackling and producing the kinds of emissions that a 20 year old Cortina would make. That’d be fucking sweet.

Hey, Twenty, I'll donate a few Euros towards a large can of nice, pure petrol if you will. You know, just to get something going until the barn catches properly...

A Dear John letter...

Oh well, will you look at this—MPs realise precisely how much the cost of living has risen and, as usual, are aiming to ensure that they bear none of the costs of their shitty, fucking policies.

MPs are demanding a pay rise of up to £15,000 in return for ending their long-standing but controversial power to set their own salaries and pensions.

Earlier this year, Gordon Brown appointed the former chair of the Senior Salaries Review Board (SSRB), Sir John Baker, to review the level of Parliamentary remuneration amid growing public concern about the potential for MPs to abuse the system.

The Daily Telegraph understands that members of the House of Commons Commission, who have been considering the matter on behalf of MPs, will submit a suggested pay rise soon to Sir John of between £10,000 and £15,000.

It beggars belief, quite frankly.