The One That Is Really Underwhelmed. . .

So John Bercow is the new Speaker. You'll forgive me if I don't break out the bunting just yet, as it appears to me that the MPs have voted for someone who will look after them, rather than presiding over the changes that are so desperately needed.

Let's have a look at his record.

In 2004, while in Michael Howard's shadow cabinet, he wrote to wrote to Tony Blair praising the then prime minister's "outstanding statesmanship."

Hmmmm. Really? I always thought Blair's biggest fan on the Tory benches was David Cameron. Not a great way to endear yourself to the boss.

Last month, The Daily Telegraph disclosed that Mr Bercow “flipped” the designation of his second home between London and his constituency when he sold two houses in the space of a year, enabling him to avoid paying capital gains tax (CGT) on the profits from either sale.

Ahhh, so, that is why so many MPs voted for him, he really is one of them, isn't he?

He denied any wrongdoing but said he would pay £6,508 plus VAT to HM Revenue & Customs to cover the tax he could have been asked to pay on the sale of one of the homes.

So why pay them back? Come on man, have some courage in your convictions. If you've done nothing wrong then challenge them to take you to court. Paying cash out and then saying you're innocent just makes you look a bit of a tit.

And isn't the phrasing there lovely? Could have been asked? You can almost imagine a Revenue wonk in the style of Sgt. Wilson saying 'would you mind terribly paying some tax?' When was the last time the taxman asked? Demand is a more fitting word. And Could have asked? 'Well, we could ask you to pay it, but we've so much cash swilling about in here, we really don't see the need.' No, that seems unlikely to me.

The Tory MP for Buckingham also claimed almost £1,000 for the cost of hiring an accountant to fill in tax returns.

The Darling Manoeuvre. Tax need not be taxing. Just flip your house to avoid CGT and then get the proles to pay for your accountant to make it all pukka. Nice one.

So why the Tory dark faces last night? Are we to believe that they feel a trougher has derailed their plan to clean up the House? Can't be that. Cameroid could have scuppered Bercow's Speaker campaign in an instant by calling for a party investigation into his flipping.

Perhaps it is because whilst he is one of them, he isn't 'their' man. It's not fair, Labour have had a Speaker that did what he was told, why can't they have one?

Or is it that after the previous weeks of electoral disaster for Labour, the Tories are now unsure how to react when the person Labour wants to win an election actually goes and wins it?

Mr Bercow paid back £1,470.62 he claimed on his office expenses but it was not disclosed what the repayment was for.

But just as with everyone else, it was no doubt the result of a mistake. The only time you'll see a building holding so many people who have made so many mistakes is when you drive past the local prison. Those prisoners, in the main, will blame the system and poor choices. Although to be fair to the criminal class, some of them will admit that they done it and it was a fair cop. Not one MP has managed that yet.

Criminals - more honest than MPs.

The One That Asks. . .

. . . has there ever been a more graceless exit from public life than that which we saw from Michael Martin today? He looked furious, furious because he has been caught out, furious that he has made himself the news story, furious that the press have had the balls to buy and release expenses claims, furious that some MPs have dared to speak out against him, and furious that we the public have listened to what has been said and rested our gaze upon him.

Martin has demonstrated what I have always considered to be the worst flaw of the vocal socialist; it is all 'Brothers and Sisters! Let us struggle together against those who would seek to take that which is ours and live like parasites off our toil' up until such time as they then get their spot at the trough, when it becomes 'Guards! Arrest that peasant, he is looking at me, doesn't he know who I am?'

I understand that in the lobby before his resignation 'speech', the MPs lined up and applauded him into the chamber with a guard of honour.

How apt that those without honour should line up to guard the quality which is so sadly missing in the soon to be erstwhile Speaker.

Good riddance, Martin, fancy taking about 600 others with you?

The One That Is Ashamed. . .

If ever there were a demonstration of Parliament's contempt for the public they are supposed to be serving, it came just now as the Speaker addressed the House.

I'll gloss over the fact that he didn't seem to understand the procedure of the House and had to discuss it with the Clerk, and focus instead on the fact that during the numerous points of order he effectively denounced Douglas Carswell's early day motion as a peice of trivia.

His refusal to pass any comment on his immediate future can only lead me to suppose that it is his intention not only to see this term out, but also to stand for election at the next election. Convention has it that a serving Speaker is unopposed by the two other main parties in his consituency during an election. Bollocks to that convention, the Lib Dems and Tories should piss all over that. The status quo must not be protected.

It isn't just that the Speaker should be offered up as a sacrificial lamb for the malfeasance of the House, he isn't a scapegoat and should not be treated as one, but he is one the worst troughers out there.

By refusing to give time over to Carswell's EDM, he has refused the House the opportunity to discuss his tenure as Speaker and has dropped the hot spud squarely in the lap of Brown. Brown will do nothing. I have no doubt that a number of 'honourable' members that would vote in a motion of no confidence in Martin would do so in the hope that the House surrendering him to the mob would deflect attention away from their own avarice, but that should not detract from the decent MPs who realise that his isn't, has never been, and will never be up to the job he is supposed to be doing.

Once again the political class hold up two fingers to the public and shout a hearty 'fuck you'.

The Queen has the prerogative of dissolving Parliament whenever she sees fit, I sit here in the hope that Her Majesty uses that right sooner rather than later.

This is an absolute disgrace from a legislature who do nothing but look out for their own personal, financial interests. The sooner we can kick out the whole sorry lot of them, the better.

The One That Is Deeply, Deeply Ashamed. . .

This is Colour Sergeant Dura from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles. He died on active service in the 'stan on November 15th.

I've blogged a couple of times about the Gurkhas and the boundless respect and admiration I have for them having encountered serving and former soldiers on an almost daily basis. If the population of this country could absorb the qualities of these dignified men then we'd be in much better shape.

The story has been covered all over the blogosphere, with Obo, DK, The Refuser and countless others. The Real Machiavelli puts it very well indeed, the crux being:

C. Sgt Dura, 36, leaves two daughters and a wife. He had served in the British Army since 1992.

But the purpose of this article is not to recount his years of selfless service, nor to sing the praises of his heroism in Afghanistan. It is to draw attention to the most appallingly callous, bureaucratically pig-headed mindset Machiavelli has so far encountered. Because the Home Office is currently threatening to deport the wife and two little children of C. Sgt Dura.

Machiavelli is disgusted to learn that this Government thinks so little of C. Sgt Dura's sacrifice that their first instinct is to weild the full weight of the immigration system against his wife and children.

Colour Sergeant Dura lived in Canterbury, my home town. The Regiment are based at Shorncliffe, only about 15 miles from Canterbury and there are many Gurkhas in the town. My MP, Julian Brazier has spoken out about this, but for all the good it will do I'll be dropping him a line to give him my thoughts on this peverse and offensive situation.

Offensive, like 'hero' are words that are banded about with all too much regularity these days here they are used in their proper sense. It makes me deeply, deeply ashamed of my country.

The One That Thinks It Is A Bloody Shame. . .

So the jury at the De Menezes Coroner's inquest has returned an open verdict.

They really had very little choice given that the Coroner prohibited them from returning a verdict that they may have wanted to. It appears the Coroner was under a good deal of pressure from the legal teams representing the police to disallow a verdict of unlawful killing.

I wasn't in the courtroom, I don't have all the facts, but it seems outrageous to me that an independent figure is either pressured into or makes the decision off their own back to make this ruling. It kind of makes the whole exercise a pointless one. Given the information that has come out it would seem reasonable to suggest that the jury would have returned that very verdict they were forbidden from passing.

So the list gets a little longer:

Arrest of opposition MPs
Collection of communications data for all
Entry of all citizens onto a DNA database
The right of entry without a warrant
Systematic and obtrusive surveillance
The right of long-term detention without charge
The right to arrest and detain without detailing the evidence against the individual
The right to stop and search for no apparent reason
The right to imprison those who cannot/will not provide ID on request
The removal of habeas corpus
The extradition of citizens to a third country without prima facie evidence
The removal of the right to trial by jury
The gagging of juries where they exist
The removal of the right to protest outside Parliament
The arrest of dissenters at political rallies under anti-terror laws

And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.

The One That Doesn't See The Problem . . .

I was genuinely shocked by the tone of the report on the BBC/ZNL evening propaganda broadcast on the Ten O'Clock News last night.

Now, I don't normally hold with the view that the BBC news is overt in its support for the political views of the Government. I do accept that they quite subtly push the agenda, but the constant trotting out of the Gorgon phrase 'hard working families' aside, I don't think it is too in your face.

However, the story that Barclays have decided to secure funding from someone other than the taxpayer was met with near screams of protest from the financial correspondent with the odd diction (his name escapes me). The line was that Barclays - 'that most quintessential of British banks' had taken mid-east cash to avoid government dictation of how they should run their affairs. It was, the Beeb claimed, so they could continue to pay their directors huge bonuses.

I am of the opinion that as Barclays is an independent and private enterprise, what they pay their employees is a matter for them. If the shareholders don't like it, then they can do something about it. Why the hell is the BBC lambasting them for daring to strike out by themselves? As a tax-payer I'm quite happy about it. I don't especially want my cash to be pumped into banks. If it goes wrong and the bank looks like it is going to collapse, the government should turn round and say 'Sorry, that was a one time offer.'

But for the BBC to turn around on the news and effectively criticise them for taking cash from some Arab investigators rather than from the government, and for deciding to run their own affairs rather than to be under the control of Brown and his chums is a shocking state of affairs.

The One That Says 'About Bloody Time Too. . .'

Sometimes, just somtimes, the establishment gets things right. Too often I moan that the courts uphold the 'rights' of the scummiest little turds in direct opposition to the Rights (note capital letter) and interests of the majority.

Today however, they got it right.

A group of retired Gurkhas have won their test case to earn the right to live in the UK.

There are nine living holders of the VC, and three of them are Gurkhas. Does anything more need to be said about the calibre of these people? Of course I will say a little more, the fact that they have fought this battle, as they fight all battles, with dignity, honour and not a peep of a whinge just goes to reinforce this. For them to serve this country, to be one of the finest body of men in the world and then to be ignored by this country is nothing short of a disgrace. I hope the Home Office is suitably shame-faced and will not appeal the case.

They will appeal it, of course, because senior civil servants and politicians hate nothing more than a loss of face. So they'll drag it out in the hope that a few more pop their clogs during the wait.

Meanwhile British passports will be handed out like golf sale flyers to any Albanian gangster who cares to extort, murder and pimp his way around our green and pleasant land.
The Refuser makes some interesting comments on a not unrelated point.