Extremism to be hit by spending cuts.

Or something.

The government is to publish an updated strategy for tackling extremism and terrorism, on Tuesday afternoon.

Good-oh, does it involve us keep our noses out of other people's business? I'm guessing not because God knows their nose spends enough time in my business.

So how do we tackle extremism?

recommendations expected include monitoring people convicted of terrorism offences on their release

Oh, do you think? We've got all this wonderful legislation to stop all of us in the streets and spy on us, just in case we wake up one morning and discover we've developed an interest in peroxide, rusty nails and trains, and yet, you haven't even had the nouse to keep an eye on the people who demonstrably do have such an interest? Isn't this all a bit arse about face? Is it not common sense to keep tabs on those who are active rather than wasting time suspecting all of us?

a renewed focus on the use of the internet, as the government considers a "national blocking list" of violent and unlawful websites.

Hmmm, that rings a warning bell, there's huge scope for mission drift there, it all sounds so reasonable, doesn't it? I'm betting all the sites declared unlawful will be nodded through with the minimum of oversight. EDF? BNP? Any others?

A final draft of the new document, to be published in Parliament on Tuesday, was reportedly seen by the Times.

It says it was "possible" Prevent funding had gone to extremist groups promoting hardline beliefs.

Hang on a moment, you mean to say that some of the money earmarked to combat extremism has been handed to the extremists? Oh, oh, that's brilliant. I look forward to submitting that as evidence the next time some grey little drone solemnly informs me that only the State can do X, Y or Z.

On Monday, Mrs May accused universities of complacency in tackling Islamist extremism - a charge denied by the vice chancellors' body, Universities UK.

She told the Daily Telegraph: "I don't think they have been sufficiently willing to recognise what can be happening on their campuses and the radicalisation that can take place. I think there is more that universities can do."

Absolutely the universities should be held to account, it is all their fault. Do you remember when the paramilitary arm of the University of Central Lancashire went into Algeria, blowing things up left, right and centre?

I'm not one to bang the anti-cuts drum, but you scale back university funding and make the students pay thousands of pounds to attend. Fair enough, but that changes the landscape, that puts the universities into direct market place competition. Are you going to spend the better part of £10k to a university only for the university to start monitoring who you are talking to, where and what about? That's business suicide.

But the new document is expected to say the government will ensure that no more cash will be given "to organisations that hold extremist views or support terrorist-related activity of any kind".

But this is revolutionary! One of the best ways to hamstring extremist groups is to starve them of funds, I'm so glad that it is as easy as stopping giving them the money from my taxes.

Previously, Mrs May has said that, as a result of the strategy's review of government support, about 20 of the organisations that received funding over the past three years would have their cash withdrawn.


According to the Times, one reason for the failings of the current policy was a lack of scrutiny of the programme to test whether money was going to legitimate groups and bringing benefits.

Because this is what happens when you hand out cash to ridiculous special interest groups, be they the Muslim Council of Britain (I've never seen an election for them, they're not self appointed, by any chance, are they?), the NSPCC or the Dunfermline Dramatic Society for Amputee Transgender Somalis. Realistically, the benefits for society are far outweighed by the cold, hard cash poured into them, and the voice of the rest of society is drowned out by the high pitched whine given by the addicts when the flow of the fiscal narcotic is stemmed.

Speaking of special interest groups:

But Azad Ali, chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum. . .

Who? The Muslim Safety Forum? What? Is this to do with making sure that hard hats are halal?

. . . and an advisor to the previous government on extremism, said the government should not attack ideologies.

You're kidding yourself mate, that's all governments do. Attacking ideologies is what governments do best, and I'm wondering how long it is until anyone who holds an opinion on any subject that is contrary to that of government is labelled as an extremist.

You've been used, buddy. Stings, doesn't it?

You can spend as much money as you like combating terrorism and extremists, but until such time as we really want to tackle the cause nothing will change. The cause is not swivel eyed preachers and websites with shouty music and footage of half arsed training camps. The cause is what makes these people susceptible to the rantings of these nutters in the first place, I'm afraid we have to look at our actions abroad, both militarily - did we really need to go into Iraq? Was there no history before 9/11? Who funded the nutters that took over Afghanistan? We did, because of our fears over the USSR. Who occupied Iran and propped up the hated and authoritarian Mohammad Reza Pahlavi? - and diplomatically - look at our support or silence over a number of regimes across the world, keeping people under the thumb, voiceless and destitute.

Is it any wonder there's a parade of angry, desperate and hopeless people? You'll always get religious nutters, the West has their fair share, but it might be an idea to stop pushing people towards them. 

Why would they do that?

Tens of thousands of Belgians have staged a march to call for national unity and demand a government after seven months of political impasse.


About 50,00 people joined the "Shame: no government, great country" march in Brussels, organisers said. Police put the number at 34,000.

I went to Belgium for the day just before Christmas. It was bloody unbelievable, they'd had months of no government, and the roads were open, trains were running, cafes and shops were open for business, the busses worked, police were patrolling, streets were clean. It was a nightmare, the whole fabric of society had come crashing down because there wasn't a bunch of grey suited men and women sitting around telling everyone what they should do.

Oh, what am I thinking? That isn't the sign of a society in meltdown because there wasn't a government, that is the sign of the fact that not having a government made absolutely no difference to the lives of the ten million or so who live in the country, a country that, some people would have you believe, is so ridden with mistrust between the Flemish and French speakers that a repeat of Yugoslavia in the 90's, but with fewer hills and more chips, is just an offensive joke away.

I am amazed that the EU didn't come in and declare Belgium to be something along the lines of the District of Columbia, or the Australian Capital Territory and place it under direct EU control. They've missed a trick there.

Here's a newsflash kids, a lack of government doesn't mean living in Somalia. Here's a few stories I've lifted at random from Google with a three word search '[name of country]', 'government' and 'criticised'. Let's see what's been going on, shall we?

Canada's government has been criticised for spending huge sums to host G8 and G20 summits at the end of June, including two million dollars on a fake lake inside the media centre. (08/06/2010)

An Australian government proposal for a mandatory web filter has been criticised by key internet players Google and Yahoo as a heavy-handed measure that could restrict access to legal information. (24/03/2010)


South Korea has been heavily criticised for burying up to one million pigs alive as it grapples with a foot and mouth disease outbreak. (07/01/2011)

A well-known Nazi hunter criticized a Latvian court Tuesday for allowing a procession to commemorate the day in 1941 when Nazi troops entered the country's capital after ejecting the Soviet Union's Red Army. (29/06/2010)

The above stories make you wonder how we cope without governments. I really feel for the Belgians, having to live without a proper government. It must be really hard for them. [/sarcasm]

My mind goes back to the election when both the Tories and Labour were warning about the disatisfaction of a coalition government. We needed, by all accounts, a strong government. That would have been best.

Best for whom? Those forming the government, without doubt. For the rest of us? Belgium would suggest it doesn't make a great deal of difference. Indeed, not having the endless initiatives, policies, back tracking, u-turns, arguments, waste and everything else that goes with a 'strong' government, looks like a marked improvement to me.

I reckon we've got enough laws to be getting on with thank-you very much. Once you've covered the biggies, the rest is farting about on the margins, and politicians are too caught up in the notion of 'legacy' for my liking.

No, not having a government didn't seem to bother the good people of Bruges one bit as far as I could see.

Compare and contrast.

I'm making no points about either event, but how does (emphasis mine):

New rules aimed at banning discrimination by employers, covering areas such as age, disability and pay, have come into force.

The Equality Act covers many workplace areas and draws nine separate pieces of legislation into a single Act.

Sit with:

The national minimum wage has risen to £5.93 an hour from £5.80 and for the first time people aged 21 will benefit from the rate.

[...]There are also corresponding increases for younger workers, with 16 and 17-year-olds seeing a rise from £3.57 an hour to £3.64.

So in effect, if an employer were to deny a 17 year old a promotion on the basis that they were too young, they'd be liable to prosecution under the new Equality Act. However, the government is totally at liberty to limit minimum wage payments for those under 21.

Some are obviously more equal than others. . .

Stating the bleeding obvious about stating the bleeding obvious.

Another swipe of the axe today.

The government is to get rid of 287 advertising and marketing jobs as part of its spending cuts programme.

Staff numbers at the Central Office of Information (COI) will fall by two-fifths from 737 to 450.

The move follows a government freeze on "non-essential advertising", with the COI's budget estimated to have fallen by more than half.

Chief executive Mark Lund said the operation would become "leaner", but unions said they were "disappointed".

Staff are being offered the chance to apply for voluntary redundancy, although there are expected to be compulsory lay-offs.

The usual caveat here. I am a public servant and may well hear the swoosh of the axe myself before long, but the simple facts are that we are broke, the government is too bloated and too fond of interfering. I really do sympathise with the people who are now staring down the barrel.

It is hard to think of an area where this is more true than with government advertising.

The concept is an odd one, they take our money for a service, then spend more of our money telling us about the service they've taken our money to pay for. I would suggest that if they need to tell us about it, we don't need that service too much, otherwise we'd all be demanding to know where this service is.

Look at this one:

What's the message here? Don't eat crap, don't sit on your rapidly expanding arse all day long and you won't keel over at 40 after the Japanese harpoon you whilst you're walking down the street? Really? Is this vital information?

No, of course not. It is evidence of a government that just cannot help sticking its bloody nose in and trying to micro manage every aspect of our lives. We know this, and those that haven't made a connection between the tenth slice of chocolate cake and the small objects in perpetual orbit around their wobbling bulk are so stupid that the gene pool will not miss them all that much.

Let's have another, shall we?


Whoa! Hang on just a minute, do you mean to tell me that taking money I'm not entitled to is a crime, and if I commit a crime then I may end up in the land of the stripey sunshine? Has anyone told the MPs? There's also another favourite of the government in here as well, 'we're watching you'. A message you may remember from other government adverts like the one where your car is going to be crushed, because you've not given them money to piss away on advertising campaigns or when the TV licencing man calls round, because you've not given the BBC money to piss away on political and environmental indoctrination.

One last one:

Once again, stating the bleeding obvious. You can tell us all you like, the fact is that some twats (normally only a few years past the golden haired child who will be chasing the brightly coloured ball into the road) will always drive at 40mph at maximum revs down a street like the one pictured above because they are indeed twats, and couldn't care less. Browbeating the rest of us won't change this. A responsible driver doesn't need a speed limit (although I understand why they exist) on a road like this, because they will see the conditions and think to themselves, 'hmmmm, someone might step out here, best reduce my speed to minimise the risk of a collision if they do'.

Those that don't should have their licences taken away for driving like a clot.

And once again, another favourite of the government at the bottom. Telling us to be scared. No such thing as a safe road, best keep the kiddies inside.

Of course the problem with keeping the kiddies inside is that they can't move about like nanny says in the first advert.

Goverment advertising: Disjointed, stating the bleeding obvious, nannying, scaremongering, expensive and won't be missed at all.

The One That Is Stealing. . .

That break didn't last long, did it?

This from Old Holborn, I'll be having a copy printed off and ready, just in case, when the campaigning really starts:

Just to remind us what 13 years of power can do (cut out and keep edition):

Ballot Boxes are interfered with

Voting registers go missing

The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it

The state can kill people and get away with it

You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion

You can be put in prison indefinitely on the word of a politician

The State can torture people

Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers

Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives

Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State

You do not have the right to remain silent

You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras

You may not photograph the Police

The media is controlled by the State

You do not have the right to protest peacefully

Curfews exist for entire communities

Your travel movements are logged and monitored

Who you vote for is logged and monitored

Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State

Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State

Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State

Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.

- £22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain

- 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all

- The longest national tax code in the world

- 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds

- Gun crime up 57%

- Violent crime up 70%

- The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe

- The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000

- The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world

- The only G7 country with no growth this year

- One in six young people neither earning nor learning

- 5 million people on out-of-work benefits

- Missing the target of halving child poverty...

- Child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead

- Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe

- Hospital-acquired infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on the roads

- Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league

- Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths

- Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy

- The police spending more time on paperwork than on the beat

- Fatal stabbings at an all-time high

- Prisoners released without serving their sentences

- Foreign prisoners released and never deported

- 7 million people without an NHS dentist

- Small business taxes going up

- Business taxes raised from among the lowest to among the highest in Europe

- Tax rises for working people set for after the election

- The 10p tax rate abolished

- The ludicrous promise to have ended boom and bust

- Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth

- Our armed forces overstretched and under-supplied

- Profitable post offices closed against their will

- One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe

- The ‘Golden Rule’ on borrowing abandoned because it didn’t fit

- Police inspectors in 10 Downing Street

- Dossiers that were dodgy

- Mandelson resigning the first time

- Mandelson resigning the second time

- Mandelson coming back for a third time

- Bad news buried

- Personal details lost

- An election bottled

- A referendum denied

- The removal of the right to trial by jury

Apparently the Labour slogan for the coming election will be 'a future fair for all'. Well, you've had thirteen fucking years, you arsewipes. Now, despite the litany above, you want more time?

Here's Snowolf's election slogans:

BECAUSE YOU'RE STUPID AND NEED TELLING WHAT TO DO.

BECAUSE WE'RE NOT LABOUR AND IT'S OUR BLOODY TURN.

BECAUSE THE LOOK OF SHEER PANIC IN OUR EYES IF WE GOT THE GIG WOULD BE OFFSET BY OUR COMPLETE CAPITULATION TO BRUSSELS.


BECAUSE WE BELEIVE IN PERSONAL FREEDOM AND SMALL GOVERNMENT, UNLESS IT'S OUR GOVERNMENT.

BECAUSE YOU'VE NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN.

BECAUSE YOU NEED TO BE GUILT RIDDEN, LIVING IN A TREE. BUT WE WON'T BE, WE'VE IMPORTANT WORK TO DO.

The One That Wants Him To Hang On Just One Damn Minute. . .

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has set out eight 'Benchmarks for Britain' by which he says the success of a Conservative government's economic plans should be judged.

They haven't got in yet and I hate them already. Burbling on about environmnetally sustainable economic recovery. Oh God, give me strength.

Look, George, I'll judge your government record, if it happens, by my own criteria, got it?

You don't get to decide how we judge you, I don't accept your criteria, I don't accept your right to set those criteria, I don't want to hear you banging on about these criteria for the next 5 years as if it is the only benchmark by which you can be judged.

Here's Snowolf's eight criteria for judging a Conservative government.

1- I'll make the first one easy, shall I? Call in the civil service heads of department and find out what they actually know about the areas they are responsible for. If they 'errrrm', 'arrrrrr', 'get back to you on that' or 'don't know' then get rid of them. Then get rid of the layer below them, and probably the next 2 layers below that. I know for a fact that higher/middle senior civil service management keep their very high management in the dark, lest they find out the awful truth. The senior managers haven't figured this out yet. Get shot of the lot of them.

2- Destroy the quango's. Lay waste to them. There's a huge saving right there, you needn't touch the police, schools or hospitals and still save shitloads.

3- But do touch the police, schools or hospitals. Waste is endemic. Make them account for every single penny if they value their continued employment. Make them feel that every penny is coming out of their own personal pocket. Forbid them from cutting front line services. In fact, make them expand front line services. If they fail, no pay-off, no pension, just the sack. Make the police arrest proper bad people, no more community this, and outreach that. The police are for catching criminals. Make schools teach pupils, no more social work or community engineering, forget these endless tests, most teachers aren't idiots and know which pupils are outstanding, which pupils aren't so hot and which pupils need a kick up the arse to perform. Let headteachers discipline badly behaved kids, the rights of the kids that want to learn trump those of kids who don't. Let doctors make people better, no smoking or drinking questioning, if they're ill, then cure it. Give Matron control over blocks of four to six wards, make her responsible for the cleaning and bed/theatre management. Matron rocks and knows much better than the Health Secretary, she certainly knows better than the doctors. Give her the staff and authority.

4- Once you've cut the spending, cut the taxes. Bring back the lower band for lower earners. Give people coming off benefits one year tax free to establish themselves. Get them out of that trap. Reward them for getting off their arses, don't reward them for wandering into the labyrinth.

5- Reduce the duty on petrol. It's a fucking joke. You're crippling workers and businesses. Outside the cities, public transport is not up to the job of people moving around. It can get better, but in the short term people need help. This amounts to a tax on going to work. It sucks.

6- Give us the referendum on the Lisbon treaty like you promised. At least. Better still, give us the big one. If the majority of people want to come out of Europe, then accept it. You will be there to represent our wishes, not to impose yours on us. Remember that.

7- If our military really have to play silly buggers over the world. Then give them the kit to do the job. Give them proper healthcare and proper housing. Exempt them from tax. Give them the support to shoot back at people who shoot at them until they are all dead. Give them the power to sink pirates' boats, if the pirates are on those boats at the time, all the better. If they are aboard our boats, then maroon them. Act like a pirate, die like a pirate. Engage in piracy or attack our troops, then it's all good.

8- Get your noses out of our lives. Stop measuring, watching, tracking, investigating, following, recording, monitoring and nannying us. It pisses us off and we've done nothing wrong.

If these 8 benchmarks are not met, I'll consider you a failure.

Please feel free to set your own, by the way. It's your vote, so it's your criteria, never forget that. You set out the rules by which you judge your government, not them.

The One That Wonders What The Court System Is For. . .

Yet another blow for the judicial system which has served us fairly well since 1215, Al-Beeb reports that the government has decided that absentee parents who do not pay their child support bills can have their passports and driving licences seized by the Department of Work and Pensions.

Odd that, I wonder if the DVLA can seize the pension payments of motorists who don't pay parking fines. or if the Identity and Passport Service can intercept your wages if you don't play ball with the government over their ID card scheme?

But that's not the best bit, the DWP can take these documents from you without a court order. So the only assumption is that an agent of the state will be able to come round to your house and enter your property without a warrant issued by a magistrate and rifle through your belongings until they find your passport and driving licence, which they can then take away.

Here's a scenario: Bob is a lorry driver and has a bit of a fling with Doris, Bob is sensible and always bags up. After a couple of weeks, Bob discovers Doris is a very friendly young lady who has showered other men in her town with affection whilst he's been picking up widgets from the factory in Bratislava for delivery to a plant in Coventry. Bob does not appreciate this lack of exclusivity and dumps Doris in a humiliating fashion.

Nine months later, Doris gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. Despite Bob's rule about using condoms, Doris wants him to be the father of the boy so names him on the birth certificate and chases him for support payments.

The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission come calling and demand he support his child. 'Hang on a bloody minute,' says Bob 'what sprog? There's no way in the world this is mine, I always used a condom when I screwed the bitch.' He reasonably demands a DNA test. Doris, so keen for the truth to remain hidden, obstructs this with objections and ooman rights allegations so the case file gets sent to the 'It's not my bloody kid' team where it is lost in short order in a chaotic filing system buried under doughnut boxes.

After a spell of nothing happening at the CMEC, Doris kicks up a stink about her lack of cash, the CMEC take details of Bob, because they can't find the file, and send an agent round to get his passport and driving licence, whilst the office is turned up-side down looking for the file.

Bob then has to explain to his boss that he is unable to go to Bratislava to pick up this week's shipments of widgets as some crazy bitch has relieved him of his passport and driving licence. Bob's boss, Keith is sympathetic, but they rely on the widget contract, and he has no option but to let Bob go.

Of course the politicians and senior managers would say this could never happen. But, dear reader, you forget I am a civil servant. I know how an office which is populated by demotivated staff and subject to budget cuts whilst the budget for diversity training and Panglossian glossy in-house magazines goes through the roof, runs. It will happen. The pressure on middle managers from their senior counterparts to meet ever increasing targets means the front line staff are encouraged to cut corners, they are told 'just do it.' Then we get to lessons learned', blah blah.

You cannot deprive people of their liberty without the say so of the courts. This has been the case for 800 years now. It isn't about making the system 'faster, simpler and easier for the taxpayer', it is about propriety, accuracy and proportionality.

Yes, of course it should be an offence to father/mother a child and then bugger off leaving the other half to bring the kid up by themselves. I should imagine it is also an offence to make an application to the CMEC and wilfully claiming that an innocent party is the father. This is what courts are for, and the main duty of government agencies are to ensure that the decisions made and actions taken are the correct ones, not the cheapest ones.

Believe me people, the goverment does not know best. They are not best placed to make decisions in cases regarding parentage and their financial means. 'The Government' is not an expert organisation, it is staffed by normal, flawed human beings, under pressure to make things run in the face of a system that must make savings, but not in areas of Righteous control.

It can only end in tears.

The One That Wants To Know How. . .

A senior political advisor, earlier today.

It seems to be death by a thousand cuts, doesn't it?

First there was the knife crime figures, released with indecent haste, and even by the standards of this government's tractor production figures, laughable. Apology from the floor of the House.

Then, and this is a real doozy, somehow this bunch of elected and appointed fucktards managed to embark on an efficiency drive that ended up spunking £81million up the wall, when it was meant to cut spending by £57million.

I would absolutely love to know the details of that one. How on Earth do you set out to save tens of millions of pounds, but then end up spending almost twice that in the process? It really does beggar belief. Heads should roll. They won't, because no-one has the decency to hold their hands up anymore (certainly not in the public sector, I work there and see it every day) and fall on their swords, and they won't get sacked because the halfwit minister that appointed them would be expected to follow them out of the door. I love the faux-hubristic bluster and fingerpointing across the floor of the House when anyone has the temerity to suggest they should go. How fucking dare they?

And then, and this is the real killer, despite us having the largest prison population in the EU, the largest DNA database in the world and more people inside now than at any other point in our history, there are a 'substantial' amount of prisoners who have yet to be put on the database. These are the people that should be on the database. How? How in the name of holy fuck can anyone be that incompetent? It isn't as if they are difficult to track down, is it?

My feelings regarding this government and the machinery they operate swings from abject terror to incontinence inducing mirth and there is a line that connects the two.

Firstly, the politicians have an attention span akin to that of a four year old dosed up on skittles, they must run around the table at cabinet meetings whooping and shouting as they try to get through the latest 'ideas' as quickly as possible. They are playing at government and are as effective as a paper condom.

Secondly, and with deepest regret, I must announce the death of Sir Humphrey. He doesn't exist anymore. In his place we have:
- A collection of absolutely batshit mental psychopaths who think that the film Wall Street is a modern management manual, who then destroy staff morale and wipe out goodwill.
- Those who have managed to persuade the civil service that in order to get the best they must pay private sector wages, but can't obviously match the bonuses and share options handed out. It doesn't attract the best, just those who think they are the best.
- The Righteous who see it as a mission from God to be ZNL's 'fixers'.
- Those who have been promoted way above their abilities, but have got there by vigourously following the civil service's ridiculous box ticking diversity and equality agenda. This will be implemented, whatever the cost to practical and operational matters.

The result? Make no mistake about it, we have a cross between Stalin, Mr. Bean and Darth Vader at the top, but his generals are all morons, his stormtroopers are armed with spud guns and all the spuds are ten miles behind the lines. The potential is frightening, the reality is like watching the Keystone Kops rolling across the Polish border in leased, poorly maintained Panzers.

Leg-Iron is quite right when he says the Righteous will never agree, it is all about personal glory coupled with insane arse-covering. They are doomed to failure, unfortunately as they self-destruct they will take an awful lot of bystanders with them.