Happy St Andrew's day and yes the Scots should have their vote ( as should the English )

Like Iain Dale this morning I think the refusal of the three other main parties in Scotland to allow the SNP's independence vote is both anti-democratic and poor strategy.

Of course England should also have a vote on the same things everyone else got to vote on - devolution, and independence.

PS Happy St Andrew's day.

We have grown used to the lies and nothing can shock us any more

I'm alarmed by the current Iraq inquiry.

Not because the emerging confirmation of what most of us believed to be true anyway - that the Iraq war was about regime claim and the WMD claims were false and that only the parlour game of denials etc from Blair and Labour prevented that getting in the open -but because I can hardly raise myself to condemn it.

NHS hospitals, rated "good", are killing their patients by the sort of neglect Florence Nightingale set out to correct. ( That that's before we get into the state sanctioned execution protocols for the elderly and weak - see Liverpool pathway. We are a society that recoils from the death penalty for the most heinous monsters, but is happy for Granny to be staved to death as long as it has the work protocol before it. )

How weary we have become of the lies, spin and deceit.

How little hope we have that anything will ever be done.

Does anyone think Blair and his cabinet (including Brown) will stand trial for Iraq ?

This is what Labour have reduced us to. A country that no longer expects honesty backed by the threat of justice or even the rule of its own laws.

A country where an unelected prime minister signs away our sovereignty without even asking us as he promised to do in the Labour manifesto.

Britain's again the sick man of Europe - and England is locked up in the cellar, and our malady has many different forms. But the cause has been the immorality of the Labour party.

Playing with Google

I've just started playing with google wave, and that sent me over to google gadgets, which show considerable potential ;-)

PS Click in the fish tank to feed them.

Where the Keynsians are leading us ...(again)

Fraser Nelson makes some key and very important point about the future of the UK if the Keynesian's as represented by Gordon Brown, Vince Cable etc are allowed to determine our future. Read his post "Turning Japanese" here.

It is some ways relates to my post earlier this weak about The age of Pussyfoot.

What is China's game on Global Warming ?

The BBC is announcing that China has set its first Climate Change targets.

Digging beyond the headline it appears they are saying they will use less fuels that result in CO2 emission as a proportion of GDP.

That means China plans on increasing its emissions massively.

We can hardly complain about the spin, its the same sort of playing with words in the hope of creating a false impression that Labour use as a government when they talk about reducing the deficit hoping no one will notice that means debt continues to rise all the time.

But I have been wondering what China's strategy in relation to climate change is ? The western preoccupation with loading costs on its manufacturing industries suits China very well. If I was producing Chinese strategy I'd want to encourage it as the "China peaceful rising" strategy continued. Its a form of controlled handover of world power.

But do they really accept AGW ? Does China have its own Climate Research Unit and what are they saying ? Do they release their source data ? Or are they playing us for our stupidity ?

Those are questions I'd be interested in the answer to...

The age of pussyfoot

This is the title of a science fiction novel by Fredrick Pohl that foresees a lot about our current culture and even technologies, written in 1969.

I read it as a teenager and I can see certain aspects that are key to our current predicament.

Fear and cowardice are becoming our greatest enemies and are becoming toxic when combined with the loss of a moral basis for society provided by the UK's Christian heritage.

Today many on the left don't believe the catastrophic financial position Brown and Labour have placed us in, and are happy to continue the political tactic of the narrative, spin lies and deceit ( witness Ed Balls). A few more on the left know full well, but are plotting the downfall of our society and this is all very good for them.

Labour are lying directly and mercilessly to peoples faces about our current state, and many of the people believe them because they are scared or ignorant ( ignorance is always Labour's best seam to mine for support ).

The question is what will the response be ? There are broadly two options (as shown on last night's Newsnight), the Danny Finkelstein (aka Ted Heath) approach which appeals to our inner coward or the John Redwood (think Thatcherite) approach which we know may lose us the election and requires bravery. If we go with Danny and the SDP then we are doomed, because our fears will overcome us. Winning the election will be a Pyrrhic victory.

In "The age of pussyfoot" due to the threat of war many people chose to put themselves into suspended animation to hide from the threat, they have too much to lose and a sort of combination of a tragedy of the commons and cowardice nearly leads to defeat.

Today people grasp at Red Toryism and the fact that every key budget that people might be frightened of a change in can be ring fenced whilst magic pixie dust of future growth will save the day. I don't believe it will.

If we are over whelmed by this crisis is will be because people are not yet brave enough to listen to what they don't want to hear. The grimmer worm-tongues of the left whisper in people ears messages about "vital services", neglecting to tell the nation how truly weak we have become, so when the real crisis arrives they can deliver us to their masters.

It might even be better to lose the next election than to win it without a clear plan and mandate to save our country.

Now even the Warmists wish they had been sceptical

It seems that the reality of what has been going on in the name of science is starting to sink in with some of the Warmists.

Read the high priest of global warming ( at least in the UK ) George Monbiot here. You have to give him some credit for recognising what the CRU hack really means. I imagine the Warmists will get a grip of themselves and create a narrative that lets them ignore all this in time, but right now they are a bit at sea.

Also note the BBC is now known to have had those emails for a month ( perhaps why they were willing to go with the sceptic interviewee on Newsnight last night ).

It should no be clear the science is not settled and that that line has been used to silence debate and scientific enquiry. This would be a minor issue if we were talking about research in to some lesser spotted sea snail, but we are not. Gordon Brown and other governments will soon be competing with each other to spend the most tax payers money on reducing CO2 emissions, just when we learn that they had not properly reviewed the science and that it is suspect.

Remember we are talking about billions upon billions here. Cancer patients will die as we can't afford their medicine, children will go under educated and supported and our military will be left vulnerable as we chose to spend out money on windmills. That's not acceptable when the science is highly questionable.

PS This also shows why the badge of scepticism should be seen as one of honour in many fields. Its not cynicism but a desire to see things proven and done properly and a number of the more honest "environmental campaigners" will be wishing they had been more sceptical this week.

My view point is explained in my previous post. I have strong doubts about AWG, and think the best way to proceed is open science. Not in the closed world of academia, but open on the Internet where everyone can see. It could be the Internet's finest hour.

Given how much is claimed to rely of "fighting global warming" why isn't the evidence and its supporting arguments made in the open ?

The political line being spun by Labour right now is that we can't stop destroying our economic future right now by maxing up on debt because that would put the recovery in jeopardy.

However Brown and co are happy to campaign for the economic lobotomy that they claim their approach to "fighting global warming climate change" requires.

But the leaks from the CRU hack show us there is considerable uncertainty about what we have been told. Moves have been made to deny freedom of information requests to get at the base data. You also need the code used made available to check what is going on.

Now there are often arguments against releasing data and code, but given the claimed mass life and death cataclysms we are threatened with on the media every week by them and the economic sacrifice the Warmists demand we make, is it not time to get all the facts and arguments out in the open ?

This blog recommends that an incoming Conservative government makes a policy decision only to have its actions influenced by climate advice that comes from 100% open data and computer code sets. It may amaze you that this isn't currently the case !

Anything less will always be assumed to be a conspiracy, and may very well be the most costly error this country has ever made ( except perhaps electing Labour and having Gordon Brown in charge of the nation finances which is the biggest peace time disaster ever ).

Its time to come clean on climate change.

PS If you think this is a bit paranoid then you should nip over to Watt's up with That and look at some of the alleged CRU emails etc ( here's a good start point ) , and also research how government has been using propaganda to avoid even having a debate and to manipulate school children ( I'll be coming back to that latter in the week ).

Update: Lord Lawson is making the first step along the road to opening up the climate modelling debate by calling for an inquiry into the CRU data manipulation. See report in the Daily Telegraph here.

Also I recommend DK's skip through some of the controversy on the code comments here.

I have personally worked in a University software environment and moved into professional software engineering and what amazes me is that anyone ever thought that the scientists would be doing a better job than this. I suspect part of the problem is we don't have enough post graduate level engineers and scientists in politics.

Its easy to produce great looking graphics and startling predictions - much harder to question them and hold them to account and that needs to be done at a political level as well as scientific level ( the short comings about which are made all too obvious right now).

Further: There are growing demands for all the data and meta data and code to be placed in the open, see here.

Man made #climategate scandal warming up !

Apparently the Climate Research Unit has recently been hacked and data from emails etc is now swarming over the internet in a way that police states find very annoyingly hard to control.

The user friendly summary starts here from James Delingpole, who sees this on a par with the recent UK scandal on MPs expenses.

A summary blog post is available from The Reference Frame blog here, who has a list of MSM outlets carrying the story, blogs and other sites addressing it and even links to the original data. Looks like a good starting point for some research if your interested.

What's up with That are of course on it also.

( How long before it turns up on Wikileaks  ).

The damage limitation squad is out in force.

Lest convincing attempt at this is the refusal to confirm content by the Climate Research Unit (CRU ).
As you become more political the denials get more absolutist with govt advisers and officers starting the all science agree's man made climate change a fact ManBearPig rant.

The best counter strike I've seen is from Green Peace who have a real go at the "Nothing happening here" "move along now " ploy by suggesting its all internet obsessive stuff and even David Icke drives web traffic ( a nice touch Greeno's you get spin of the day award).

A more sane, by which I mean appealing to reason, pro-Warmist commentary is available at Real Climate here.

No doubt there will be some serious analysis and cross referencing of the data going on right now so it will be interesting to see where this story leads.

Expect a lot of smoke and spin from the Warmist religious cult, but they could really have been caught out this time. Or alternatively a closer inspection of the arguments by making everything more open could convince sceptics.

Personally I'm very sceptical. The geological records seem to argue against man made global warming, and as for computer modelling - its what I do for a living and I have near zero confidence in scientists capabilities of getting this anywhere near right. (Interesting and a few fun papers and conferences somewhere warm and nice - yes - reliable no. )

Update: There are allegations about illegal purging of data to avoid freedom of information requests being made, reported on Rush Limbaugh's site. If proven this would be very, very serious indeed.

Further update: This story kicked of at The Air Vent blog here - who was contacted by the hacker(s) with a link to the original Russian ftp site where a selection of the hacked data was uploaded. ( Its perhaps interesting to speculate why the other data has been kept back - to verify the information perhaps, or to use as a counter to spin operations to try to cover this up perhaps ?)

Policing is political because Labour and the chief constables have made it so

I have no time for the whining of Sir Hugh Orde about having to answer to the public for the service they pay for and require him to carry out.

The police have been massively politicised by New Labour and infiltrated by equality groups and more sinister organisations like Common Purpose.

The constabulary are now the shock troops who knock on old ladies door to accuse them of hate crimes for writing letters to the council complaining about the morality of some public displays certain lobbies insist in rubbing everyone's noses in.

Labour have politicised the police with their targets and reporting. The Diversity industry is also a political project.

Like many people I cheered as Boris saw off Sir Iain Blair (Labour's favourite policeman with very string of New Labour links ) and would like to see the police respond to the public, not the jumped up student politicians who have spent their lives creating artificial crimes to oppress and avenge themselves on the middle classes with. ( Which in most of their cases is really a case of self hatred which they should get psychiatric help with. )

In many ways the fact Sit Hugh Orde doesn't like Conservative plans for elected sheriffs shows what a great idea they are. If loads of Chief Constables want to resign like Sir Iain Blair did - then I think there will be far more cheering from the public than any other reaction.

Brown and Labour's Canutist fallacy

Labour have, yesterday with the Queens speech, confirmed their intention of campaigning for themselves and not governing up to the general election.

Amongst the most obscene tricks they are trying to pull off are the raft of "Canute Laws", which command reality to behave as they wish it to in the future.

• A Law can guarantee cancer treatment in a short period of time, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law can abolish child poverty, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law will reduce green house gas emissions, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law can guarantee a good education, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law can guarantee a reduced deficit, when 12 years of a Labour government couldn't.
  

Now I have to agree with Labour that they have failed on all these points, but the way they are desperately trying to put them right reveals the reason for their failure.

Labour believes in the narrative. They think if they say so then it is so. ( And attitude that helps explain the gutless kowtowing of their membership and MPs to "the right thing to do" edicts from their unelected leadership cabal).

This worked well for them as an opposition and when they were trying to just campaign not govern in the early Blair years. But its now a handicap as reality can no longer be ignore, spun or bullied into silence.

Reality is just a mystery to them. They don't understand why things haven't got better because their delusions refuse to allow them to consider the reasons.

This would all be a cause for pity if they weren't hurting and ruining so many peoples lives due to their dysfunctions.

Canute couldn't stop the tide because he commanded it and Labour can't change the country because they command it to.

The difference is that Canute was trying to make this point, and Labour never learnt it.

PS I'm not saying these things can't be done. But because Labour refuse to accept the nature of reality they are unable to find the ways to do them, which is why we need a Conservative government.

Update: Jeff Randall on a similar theme for the Fiscal Responsibility act. ( Jeff I suspect the reason fro Brown's act is to try to copy the Conservatives Fiscal Responsibility office idea and to make sure it doesn't sound radical in the coming election. )

Remember in 1997 when Labour wondered if the Queen should be allowed to open parliament ?

Remember the modernising musings of 1997 when Blair and Co wondered via the media if the Queen should even open parliament ? Blair and Cherie walking to the state opening, to help show up the monarch and milk political advantage from it.

What a difference 12 years makes. She's the sole representative of the state from prime minister, through governing party and even the former speaker to emerge with any integrity and honour at all. She is popular and respected, Labour is tired and rejected.

That's why the monarch opens Parliament as the embodiment of our nation, and why our Queen does it so well.

Dear World Leader

You are cordially invited to drinks and canapes by No 10 Downing Street to provide a photo opportunity for Gordon Brown. ( Subject Afghanistan/Climate change/Evil bankers/G20 etc etc - we'll let you know nearer the election time. )

This will help with the "re-elect Gordon and destroy Britain" campaign that is currently being masterminded by the former European Commissioner Lord Mandelson. Think of how you financial industries could prosper once Gordon has driven them away from London and you Universities profit for lucrative foreign students once Gordon has destroyed the UK education system by debasing standards and waging class war against the middle classes. And we all know that once the UK has been reduced to its knees by record personal, private, company and government debt the full and final take over of Britain by the EU will even be welcomed by its notoriously hard to enslave people.

For all these benefits all you need to do is attend a summit near a Labour marginal constituency and listen to a rectal recital of the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath telephone book delivered by our dear leader without falling asleep or attempting to chew your leg off ( in front of camera only of course).

Think of the rewards ! Britain destroyed for ever ! That seat on the security council you've always wanted becoming vacant as Britain becomes too weak under Brown. The Euro replacing the pound. A common European Army - once Brown has bleed the British one to death and destroyed the RAF and Royal Navy.

The only thing stopping these wonderful rewards being your is the growing realisation amongst the British public of what is going on. This is why you need to attend the "Save Gordon Rally for No UK tomorrows" rally soon - your invite will be broadcast on the media with no prior consultation shortly (making it hard for you to snub us).

Yours faithfully,

Peter.

PS Every attendee will get a signed copy of Gordon's book on Courage ! Sorry unlike Gaddafi we can't afford to pay anyone to attend (otherwise we'd be inviting good looking people rather than you), and the company may be less entertaining - but think of the future rewards !

Update - Don't just take my word for it ... see Guido

WW III perhaps sooner than you think

There is some discussion about when World Wars started, suggesting that the battle between the British and French across the globe was really the first. But the Great War certainly fitted the bill, before we realised there were going to be sequels.

Well there is something worrying happening between Venezuela and Columbia and it may indicate a widening world conflict.

Iran has close and tightening links with Venezuela. Iran can make trouble in the West Bank and in Lebanon at the touch of a button. Iran can make life very unpleasant in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran can probably choke the world's wind pipe in the straights of Hormuz, at least for a while.

And Iran is very clearly moving to develop complex nuclear weapons and ICBM delivery capabilities.

Looks like the excuse and means for WW III to me.

As the US slowly weakens from in fiscal imbalances and over commitment - a process that Russia and China help with, Iran prepares itself to cause trouble for the US across the globe.

Will Obama's Presidency end the way of Carter's with humiliation at the hands of Iran ?

It would never have happened to Bush, or perhaps even Clinton. But the US is adrift right now with no direction slowly bleeding to death and its enemies just seem to be waiting for their moment ....

This is a recipe for global conflict.

In place of government ....desperation and selfishness

Brown and Darling have accepted defeat. What they are now about is vengeance.

Like the Nazi's as German faced the inevitable they are determined to destroy everyone and everything that has let them down, and that's the British people right now.

So the naked bone headed electioneering that is going to be in the new financial regulation bill will just do the country vast damage.

Why ?

Because its an incomes policy ( head back to the last major Labour failure in the 70's for a review of that ). We know that once a power is on the books Labour will want to expand it and use it for other purposes ( and international companies will assume the same and locate else where ).

Because we need the taxes that these people and their companies pay. A friend of mine works for a company of lawyers who help businesses relocate away from the UK ( mostly to Switzerland right now apparently due to recent changes in legislation ) - she's very very busy and this will make things far worse. This is very good news for the citizens of Switzerland but disastrous news for the vulnerable in the UK. ( Which shows you how nakedly selfish and spiteful Labour have now become ).

Its another example of gesture politics to grab headlines and hurt the country at the expense of actually doing something helpful.

Labour have now become all about the careers and benefits of its elected members and vengeance upon the country they now fear will reject them.

Update See a similar line taken in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday 17th Nov 09

And so it begins

The RAF are poised to announce savage cuts shortly, in an attempt to pre-empt other cuts to follow.

The cuts they are probably aiming for may well help kill the Fleet Air Arms fast jet capability (by wiping out the Harrier squadrons), and also are a tacit acceptance that the UK will be unable to undertake any large offensive operations in the near future and perhaps also unable to defend itself for any period of time ( the cut in airborne early warning aircraft show this).

Inside government, below the level of ministerial denial and lies to the public things are clearly very desperate indeed.

This is just the beginning. What follows will be painful and humiliating and it is all the fault of Gordon Brown and his arrogance and wilful destruction of one of the worlds most successful countries and economies.

Isn't nursing a vocation rather than an academic discipline ?

My wife works in one of the professions allied to the health industry. She's furious with her professional organisation that has got into bed with the government to try and promote it professional standing and go for a turf war with the other professions. Especially as what it means is vastly inflated fees and a tread mill of box ticking continuing professional development that only benefits those who deliver such material.

On the same theme today we discover that nursing is now to be a degree only profession. Of course a new level below nursing will appear as nurses will be too expensive as they will have all that debt to repay and such a move will further reduce the supply of nurses ( if Labour cut of the mass immigration of nurses and mass emigration of our own home grown nurses ).

I think the big risk here is the further loss of empathy and vocational commitment.

A University education is usually great fun. Another three years in the mono culture of people your own age group, perhaps even your own sex for some subjects, where you are the centre of attention combined with the new hedonistic religion of self fulfilment and life long debt which you can never pay off can be a great time. But one thing it doesn't do is build empathy for the whole of society, especially the sick part - if you ignore the superficial rich guilt that leads so many otherwise intelligent people into the arms of socialism.

And one complaint that occurs again and again about modern nursing is that the nurses are more intrested in each other and their social life than the patients. Especially unattractive patients who are demanding, smelly and unpleasant.

Now I admit I may have this wrong - but it seems to me that an undergraduate degree will reduce the effectiveness of nursing as nurses will only learn about empathy in lecture theatres rather than practice it.

Surely further education would be better spread thought the career of a nurse after they have been placed into the right culture by an apprenticeship in a hospital of the type that was traditionally the route to qualification.

It sometimes seems that the governments aim is to create dysfunction in society, and this looks like an example.

Brown does not seem sincere on immigration

I heard some of Gordon Brown's speech on Immigration and frankly I wasn't buying it.

My guess is that internal polling from the Labour East bye-election showed Brown the BNP was making a break through and he decided to try to shore things up a bit.

I keep banging on about Labour's smears from the 2005 general election , but its worth remembering them again. They were:

1) A Conservative govt would fire every Nurse and Doctor and Teacher because the evil kitten drowning Tories would CUT CUT CUT 'investment' in public services.
2) Its a bit racist to talk about immigration - so the Tories must be "Same old Tories" who are racists for talking about having a single boarder police force and upper limit on immigration.

We now know that reducing the rate of increase in public spending in 2005 was "the right thing to do" ( as Brown would prefix any of his assertions, usually without justification ). The country would be in a far better place had this Conservative plan been followed, but instead Brown had is "dividing lines" and personal career to advance and if that meant bankrupting the country then it was a small price to pay for his ego.

Point 2 Brown is now trying to back away from. He introduced a new set of uniforms to create a half hearted Border Protection agency and is now trying to argue that his old smear doesn't count when he talk about racism. ( The Conservatives are so stung by the racist smear technique that even now some think Labour raising the issue is just an attempt to tempt the Tories back into talking about Immigration so they can play the same smear game again ).

We were told at the time that these were Brown's master strokes running the campaign, when Tony "soon to be stabbed in the back by Brown's friends" Blair was out campaigning.

Now Brown wants to tell us he's changed, just when his plan has started losing him votes. We know know the truth was that Labour opened the flood gates of immigration for political purposes to kill English culture and replace it with their multi-cultural dream and left wing voting clients ( another plan that has misfired spectacularly by the way ).

Brown doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt on this - he represents the worse of a politics, spin and straight lies in UK politics.

As forseen a few months ago

See here to see first use of this prophetic picture.

Ofcom lined up in the cross hairs of any new Cameron govt

This is the sort of thing that's going to have to happen to weed out the roots of the New Labour kickback state and unelected quangocracy.

The Register reports plans to "kneecap Ofcom", sounds good to me.

How about the BBC as well ?

Of course Labour may well have prepared for this by issuing long contracts with large compensation packages that they will expect the tax payer to fund. An incoming Conservative govt should rewrite these contracts, passing new laws if necessary, to put the Labour Quango elite on the same legal basis as the rest of us, so we can fire them all.

Labour must by now be entering coffin corner

Tempus Fugit.

By now surely the Labour leaders have to chose their election date. So much has to be planned around governing early next year. We have the pre-budget statement soon and the real thing in April ( the pre-budget statement was a Brown invention to get two goes and the same announcements and free publicity - when you have good news to impart. )

If Brown were to stop being PM then would there be time for Labour to go to the country with anyone else than Harriet Harman as PM ? Time must be running out.

Whilst the Conservative leadership contest improved the party's popularity, a Labour one might do the opposite. Campaigning for votes with the trade unions and those party members still left will be a left wing envy driven affair. Lots of hints about further crushing the middle classes will be made - indeed they have already started.

Maybe the core vote might hold up - but then the betrayals on Afghanistan and Immigration are most keenly felt by the same people so they can't rely on that.

Labour have entered that corner of the electoral envelope that's like the maximum cruising heigh for an airliner. Any slower and it will stall, any faster and shock waves will form. Its coffin corner, and I always thought that after seeing Jim Callaghan back himself into it in 1979 that Labour would know better.

Surely it is now too late to replace Brown ?

The final sign that Cameron agrees will be when he starts landing hard punches in PMQs. I suspect he'll wait till after Christmas when the brutal nature of the new year has to be faced up to.

The EU will be after something if it appoints David Miliband as special representative

Labour are on the verge of an electoral wipe out and the foreign policy over the last few years has been pretty poor and embarrassing for the UK.

So its not talent the EU is after if they appoint the boy Miliband.

They will want something else.

My guess is the permanent UK seat on the security council. Which they might imagine will be easier to steal with a Brit appearing to still be at the top of the EU foreign mission.

Lisbon has plenty of unfinished business to achieve. All those new powers and majority voting need to be exploited and the UK bullied and humiliated into further surrenders.

Well that's just my guess.

PS Note to Tim Montgomerie - EUSSR does conveys what we are up against quite nicely. Who knows with the federalist projects many name changes and socialist and corporatist tendencies who is to say that's not what it won't end up being called anyway ?

Update: Despite BBC reports to the contrary rumours are still circulating about David Miliband with the Germans being suggested as being ready to nominate him. (It is perhaps a plan by the Germans to try to weaken the next British government by putting a ideological opponent into high office in the EU. )

More reviews - more spin - more Labour

Jack Straw is trying the "nothing to do with us" ploy on the plan to imprison less rapists and thugs by just giving them a telling off and sitting them on the local police naughty step for 5 mins - and save the government a great deal of money. ( It will also improve crime detection rates - as the police will become very familiar with who's doing all the criminal activity as they've just told them of last week ).

Jack says that, given there's going to be a TV programme about it, he'll set up a review (copyright (C) Gordon Brown and do nothing associates 2007 ).

The review ploy is being rolled out to increase student fees for Tory voters (that's what this means when you add in all the guff about social inclusion etc). The review is to be carried out by that good mate of Lord Mandelson who had to resign from BP. I wonder what conclusion he'll come to ?

The reviews serve the same purpose - to help with media management and to deceive the voters from true intentions.

A sign that Labour have given up on the country - for now

Labour are now discussing policies that are electorally suicidal openly before a general election. Clearly they have given up on winning this time.

Specifically forms of wealth tax lead by she of the private education and selective education for her children Harriet Harman ( who tried to blame it on her family vote - neglecting to remind people her husband is a well know trade unionist who was treasurer of the Labour party ).

These are just the sort of policies that would have Project Blair spinning round in fury. They understand what Mondeo man thinks of them.

But Labour no longer cares.

The new policy is to hurt the people as much as possible and lie to them and hope that the blame for the remedy will hurt the Tories too and limit them to one term in government.

In the mean time there's the few Labour activists left to be pandered to with the hate and envy that makes up for the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of socialism. You'll notice this is a pattern - Labour supporters when presented with over whelming evidence of the evil results of their creed gather together to put their fingers in their ears - hum real loud and remind each other why they hate the Tories ( as the lives of millions are ruined by their policies ).

The truth has been unavoidable since the fall of socialism in 1989 in Berlin. Socialism is a selfish creed whose adherents know they are wrong, but prefer to delude themselves and hurt others for the power of ordering people around and having their own way.

That's why John Major was right to call Socialism "the ideology that dare not speak its name" after the fall of the iron curtain. But it was also advice they used to invent the raft of stealth policies that Labour have now implemented - mass immigration, destroying educational standards to justify social engineering, destroying the military, using human rights to destroy the old structures of society, using the tax and benefit system to punish marriage, using the law to make orthodox Christian views a crime if you admit them in the name of other rights and setting up an oppression system that will b very useful for them latter on.

But our socialists who have hidden and deceived their way back into power continue their project by stealth using climate change, diversity, equality and social mobility as their excuses.

The results are only too evident as the Brown/Blair project decays in front of our eyes and their bloody minded selfishness refuses to allow a government that could help the country until the last possible moment.

Update: Also see Melanie Phillips on "We were fools to think the fall of the Berlin Wall had killed off the far Left. They're back - and attacking us from within" - as ever she makes the point much better than I can.

Further: Apparently Labour's private polling is suggesting they could be reduced to 120 seats. This confirms the sudden panic to shore up core vote.

Poppies grow for another year in Flanders fields

This morning I attended our local Remembrance day service, as I have almost every year since with moved to this town.

The man with all the medals who only ever comes to church this one Sunday every year looks tired and much older, and that's because he is. The Lad with the trumpet has got much better and the Cubs, Brownies, Guides and Scouts seem to pay more attention this year because it doesn't take so much effort to remember the sacrifice and loss of our armed services. You just need to remember the last day's news.

Another years crop of remembrance poppies is about to fall.

Our political media and politicians try to make their points with remembrance day. I heard someone from a liberal religious think tank on the radio this morning trying to turn the event for his own purposes. And yet remembrance day stands for what was lost, what never was and what has been possible due to that loss.

But remembrance day isn't easy to manipulate as it functions on a very personal level. We see people who knew the fallen honouring their memory and keeping faith for another year. Many of us consider ourselves lucky we have not been put through the same trials, and recognise the debt that we owe those who did on our behalf.

Veterans day or the military day that New Labour have tried to conjure up and import from abroad just don't have the same hold or resonance.

It is always sobering to read down that list of names on the war memorial and realise many died young and most likely in terrifying conditions. But whilst the recent dead and the long lost dead are remembered, we no longer share the understanding of experience of the circumstances of war.

In modern times war has become subcontracted to the willing brave, very few of whom are present in the ranks of those who deem these wars necessary or who read out lists of this weeks dead and declare their sacrifices not to be in vain.

This is a worrying imbalance, especially in some political parties who should try harder to recruit those with actual field experience. ( Surely this is more important than pursuing false equality agendas and other reforms of tokenism. ) The feedback loop of experience and emotional cost with those who govern is growing weak in this country and that should be a cause of concern.

So another year goes by and I remember what I can of my old school friend and great Uncle, bear witness to the debt owed to those I will never know, and I hope we are worthy of the peace and freedom they paid for.

Just how desperate is Brown now getting ?

Gordon brown's last minute gate crashing of the G20 Finance Minister meeting (and you have to feel sorry for Alistair Darling at this point) has shown how badly he's really regarded in the world.

But I wonder what sort of advice he's getting. Surely you sound out an idea privately before standing up and inviting yourself to an international meeting then giving a speech to suggest an idea ? Did no civil servants check out the likely US or other major nations response ? Or was the advice ignored or perhaps more likely never sought as Brown no longer cares how about our country's reputation as long as he gets his few minutes in the news ?

I suspect the truth is Brown has given up on running the country for its own good ( and I'm not the only one ) and is now just desperate for any sort of publicity that associates himself with his G20 saving the world meme he tried to get going a few months ago before that embarrassing slip of the tongue in the commons.

There are rumours that Labour will now have to go to the country before the next budget as the actual figures and plans will be too awful to fight an election on - as they have to make the cuts they have been borrowing mind blowingly large sums of money to avoid making for a few months.

It looks to me like the government is now becoming unable to function. Things are getting very serious. The time may be coming when individual Labour MPs and even civil servants will need to put the country before their careers to stop the wrecking and chaos of the last days of the Gordon Brown regime.

Remember we all have to live in the country after June - except perhaps Blair and Miliband.

Testing

A few tests going on right now. If things look odd - thats why.....

Brown prepares the wriggle room for a UK withdrawal from Afghanistan

The BBC reports:

Gordon Brown has told Afghan President Hamid Karzai he will not put UK troops "in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption".

That sounds a lot like he's getting ready for his favourite ploy of blaming someone else for a reality he helped create, and is preparing the ground to announce a withdrawal.

I just feel very sorry for those who have lost out in Labour underfunded war. All the brave words and grand statements - the Cherie Blair announcements about Burka's - the posturing and the Department for over seas development videos of Blue Planet to bemused Afghans are not adding up to a hill of beans.

I suspect Paddy Ashdown is wrong with his domino theory of Afghanistan if we withdraw. Much of the resistance is generated by our presence and the Afghans will get on with being nasty to each other instead of us once we leave.

All this has been allowed to come about because the ministers in the Labour government are just not up to the job. Its not a political policy thing - though some of the bleeding the military dry might be - its just competence, and they don't have any.

It just makes you want to weep.

PS In the mean time the Iranians play with ICBM technology and high tech nuclear warhead designs. Does anybody else think we're fighting the wrong war ?

Labour prepare the ground for their relationship views to be complusory in primary schools

There's an interesting move by Ed Balls to remove the right of parents to excuse their children from the states propaganda machine on sexual education.

Balls says it doesn't matter as virtually no parents use the right anyway. But then what harm is it doing ? Very little.

So what's he really up to ?

Well my guess is preparing the ground for things parents will object to, but will suddenly find they can't opt out from.

There are some nasty pressure groups which seek to corrupt children in primary schools and they will soon be pushing to use the Orwellian sounding Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) subject Labour invented to get access to these young children directly or with their ideas.

Just wait.

PS This is another reason why Labour must be forced from office. They are the enemies of parental care and responsibility.

Update: I missed the fact that compulsion will start at 15. However I still think you will find Labour starting to push its diversity lifestyles agenda throughout the curriculum.

RP: Politeia: Financial Journalists in Crisis: Did We Fail?

Politeia: Financial Journalists in Crisis: Did We Fail?

This is an interesting point ( go check the post ). I've seen indications that some people knew we were in toruble a long time before they reported it.

If the 4th estate doesn't work ( or gets fixed by the likes of New Labour ) then democracy lacks the oxygen of information and chokes.

Instead of pushing the capitalism failed meme perhaps we should pay more attention to why the dogs didn't bark ?

Update: See this from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Japan's coming financial apocalypse ( and remember this is the model Labour are following ).

He quotes Carl Weinberg from High Frequency Economics as saying "It is criminally negligent that rating agencies are not blowing the whistle on this."

So the credit agencies not functioning again - there's a pattern developing here ...., though journalists are perhaps doing better.

Remeber this is the path Labour are driving us down and why we must defeat them and sort the arguments about Europe out latter.

RP: The United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill (2010) - solution to the Lisbon ratified issue

Man in a Shed: The United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill (2010) - solution to the Lisbon ratified issue

Just heard David Cameron's announcement at 4pm and there's a lot I like there, and even the UK Sovereignty Bill like the one I suggested a month ago. ( OK its probably coincidence - but still ... ).

Europe - part 2

So the news is just in, Vaclav Claus has signed the EU constitution and the conspirators of the European Union have pulled of the greatest anti-democratic coup since Hitler had the Reichestag burnt down.

We have been cynically sold out by Labour who lied on their election manifesto and have insulted peoples intelligence with the weasel words on the Lisbon Treaty being something different. And let us never forget this treachery and the traitors ( specifically Miliband and Brown who sold England out for their own personal reasons ).

Those who voted Lib Dem have been betrayed as Nick Clegg found a formula that allowed him to do what he wanted to do anyway, just without his party telling people they would do it in 2005.

So finally its time to see David Cameron's hand. ( And lets pause for a moment to consider what our democracy has come to when the views of any political leader count more than the principles of their party or the manifestos they stood on. Are we really a functioning democracy at all ? )

The hints and leaks are that David Cameron will announce that there will be no referendum on the Lisbon Treaty but that there will be a manifesto commitment to repatriate some powers.


So what to think and what to do ?


I've mentioned in comments elsewhere that in my nightmares Peter Hitchens is right and the current Conservative party and especially its leader are not really Conservatives at all. What's coming up is one of those litmus tests of this concern.

But I'm not quite ready to let it dominate my waking hours yet, although I have to acknowledge the possibility it may be the case.

Like many Conservatives the thought of sending the party card in cut up pieces back to CCHQ has crossed my mind today - and I know from conversations that I'm not the only one.

But there is a fundamental calculation that has to be made. Does the next election matter more than starting down the long road to a greater change in our political system by embracing a minor party that is Eurosceptic, knowing that in the short term this will just help Gordon Brown and if we do too much of that then there will be no long term UK future.

Such a course of action is a project in terms of decades, during which time we will be vacating political ground to the left ( unless AV PR comes in ).

Add to that the utter desperation of the current financial status of our country and the accelerating attempts to put the jack boot of authoritarian socialism on the country's wind pipe by the likes of Brown, Balls & Mandelson ( and the stiletto of Harman ) and its time to start thinking of getting your ducks in a row.

I would therefore suggest the appropriate plan of action for those not committed to the surrender of their country to a foreign power or its economic destruction and enslavement by socialism is as follows:

1) Defeat Labour at the next election, and if necessary pipe down to ensure it happens.
2) Hold Cameron and Hague's feet to the fire of ensuring the UK's survival as a sovereign state over the next 5 years.
3) Rebellion and insurrection as necessary if 2 fails, but only after 1 has been dealt with.

David Cameron is announcing the new line at 4pm tomorrow today. I guess he didn't want to have it played over in PMQs. David Cameron has turned our party around as a political force ( though perhaps Michael Howard started the process ), and has delivered on the EPP - the the fury of the Euro Imperialists - so all hope is not lost.

And if hope fails - then will come rebellion.

Europe - part 1

I've been looking for the Youtube clip below for a day or two. Yes its at our expense, but that doesn't mean its not funny. And things that are funny tend to refer to a painful truth.



I'll be back to blog on the subject latter ( when I've got some work done ).

PS For anyone who thinks I shouldn't put up stuff that pokes fun at my party - you're going to need considerably thicker skins shortly. All those left wing comedians and BBC political comedy commissioning managers (with the honourable exception of "The thick of it" team ) have almost been unemployed for 12 years - it will all change very quickly if we win office.

Why all women short lists are a bad idea

I was firing tweets back and forth on this a few days ago, and promised a post on it. I know I'm a few days behind the wave on interest on this, but here goes anyway:

Why all woman short lists are a bad idea:

1. The are patronising.
2. They destroy the principle of advancement based on merit, and once you conceded it here you'll be unable to refuse it for every other group that can muster the political organisation to demand special victim status.
3. All those appointed on the basis of such social engineering will owe allegiance to the system that put them in place, entrenching an anti-meritocratic victim based system. When that system is threatened they will protect it ( this is why the left love such Faustian pacts so much, ).
   
4. What about all the other categories of people 'represented' and under represented. EG Stupid people ( though they do have the Labour party), old people, left handed people, those who didn't attend Oxford and study PPE etc ad infinitum.
5. MPs are meant to represent their constituents - not be them. In any consistency there will be few people who are exactly like the sitting MP in terms of education, race, gender etc yet that MP - and not another in another constituency - represents all of them ( even those who didn't vote for them ! ).
6. There is no demand for this outside of the chattering classes whose agenda this suits - many of them for reason of personal advancement.
7. If the voice of women was really the concern why does no one ever suggest guaranteeing women 50% of the vote at selection meetings ?

Of all these 2 worries me the most. Once you start controlling advancement based on political categories ( the first of which will always be the easiest to justify ) there will be no end to this. Once the mechanism is established there will continually be further requests to use it. People will seek advancement by identifying themselves in groups that deserve advancement rather than earning it themselves. Merit and freedom will suffer, mediocrity, a victim culture, political favours and corruption will flourish .