The One That Says 'Mind Your Own Bloody Business'. . .

The latest in health and lifestyle choice advice centres, earlier today.

Some people I could quite happily hit in the face with a frying pan, in a 'Bottom' style. The repeated clang and manic Ade Edmonson grin would be most theraputic.

Pravda South East was leading with this story tonight:

Caroline Williams was 23 weeks pregnant with her second child when she was asked to leave the Sussex Cricketers pub in Hove, East Sussex last Saturday.

The 26-year-old hairdresser said she felt humiliated and accused the pub staff of acting like "drink police."

"I was on a rare night out with some friends. I had a pint of lager and a friend offered to get me another half – that was going to be my limit.

"He was refused service because it was for me. When I later took a sip from another friend's glass, the assistant manageress asked me and my friends to leave.

It is perhaps not surprising that the assistant manager stands by her decision, she obviously knows what is best for everyone else, and her beliefs must take precedence over those of all others.

A pub spokeswoman said Mrs Williams, "a heavily pregnant lady who was drinking alcohol", and her friends had been asked to leave because the assistant manager was concerned.

Ahhh, ain't that nice? You go out for a drink and the people you pay to serve you beer take such a concern for your wellbeing that they then tell you to do one.

Liberties, as spoken of yesterday; The proprietors are well within their rights to decide who may and may not patronise their establishment. Those patrons are well within their rights to walk right past this pub in Hove, and to go and spend their money somewhere else.

With so many pubs closing each week, you'd have thought that the managers of The Sussex Cricketer would have been keen to have held on to as many customers as possible.

When the Righteous are in official positions it is difficult to do much about them, directly. When they are in private enterprise, you just take your cash elsewhere. I hope this party and many others do.

What a lackwit this manager is, not only sanctimonious and hectoring, but also lacking any business acumen. Their future doesn't look great, does it?

The One That Was Genuinely Sad. . .

It's not too often I praise the BBC, but I believe that credit is due where it is due and so I will take the unusual step of saying how impressed I was with the last two episodes (I missed those that preceded them) of 'The Lost World of Communism'. The last two editions featuring the artistic, well, Bohemian and dignified disobedience of Vaclav Havel and his mates in the former Czechoslovakia and latterly the family run business of the Ceaucescus in Romania.

Something Leg Iron has posted tonight about the over 40's being 'invited' to go for a health 'MOT' prodded at a point that I found most disturbing when watching the show last night.

I fail to understand why people attach themselves to Socialism, there will always be the situation in Socialism where the rights, views and ideals of person A trumps the rights, views and ideals of person B. I do not believe that anyone's rights (and I prefer the word Liberties) can be more important than anyone else's. When one person's needs are overriding someone else's then the only outcome will be resentment, and we're seeing the consequences of that ourselves.

Socialism is not Communism, it is embryonic Communism. As far as I'm concerned, being a Socialist is akin to only being racist against Chinese people. Only a little bit racist. But that undesirable aspect is still there.

The BBC show portrayed, without amplification and without sympathy, the soul crushing misery that a collective system like Communism produces. It wasn't the imprisonment for daring to criticise or lampoon the authorities, the restrictions on travel, having your house bulldozed in front of your eyes and being moved into a freshly built hovel with no windows, doors, heating or water, it wasn't the big things that filled me with despair for the people who had to exist in those conditions, for that is what it was, an existence rather than a life. It was the little things that made me feel so very, very angry; grandparents being forced to queue for 14 hours for half a pat of butter for their grandchild, having your ID confiscated by the police because you were male and had long hair, having to hold a Christening for your child in secret, lest the Securitate find out. To subject people to such inhuman indignity is unspeakable.

Leg-Iron's tirade against the 'health MOT' reminded me of the monthly intimate inspections visited upon women of childbearing age in Communist Romania, to check they had not had an abortion. In the world of State ownership, not even a women's uterus is her own.

A 'health MOT' and an intimate monthly inspection are not the same things, but they are of the same essence. The difference between the two is the same as the difference between a burger and a filet mignon, but the similarity is that they are both beef.

Socialists and Communists in the UK would maintain that what happened in Romania could never happen here, but I think they are naive. I don't hate them, I would never embark on some McCarthyist campaign, but to look at the list, China, North Korea, USSR, Cuba, Poland, Romania, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Cambodia, good God, Cambodia, anyone who thinks that a British Socialist utopia would be different is living in a dream world.

The problem with a system where there is no accountability will always end up with one person sitting at the top imposing their own beliefs on everybody else. It is a sad fact of life that politics and especially high office, attract people who are convinced of their own infallibility, their mission from God or their quest to change the world into something in their own image. It will be done for our own good, if we disagree we are either mad or idiots, either way we are not worthy of listening to. Where this kind of person takes indefinite charge of a country, misery is the only outcome, it is human nature and a lack of recognition of human nature has always been Communism's biggest failing both in the governing and the governed.

Examine Brown's reaction to the attack on him in the Dan Hannan video, he sits there grinning away. He isn't grinning because if he doesn't he'll be scowling on the front page of every paper, he's grinning because he really, honestly thinks that most people share his thoughts during the speech. 'Jeez, listen to this guy, he's absolutely barking, he thinks I'm screwing it up! Boy is he going to look silly on the news tonight.' Brown thinks he's winning and that the moonbat will be held up as the nutter's nutter.

In the case of Communism, there must be conformity, there must be a working towards the common purpose, the easiest way to ensure conformity is to stifle and remove dissent.

When I look at what we have here in the UK, and perhaps more importantly, in the EU, I see shades of that Communism, of that obligation to conform, to do as I am told for my own good. I see a burger, but as I look down the table I see that fillet steak and realise it's made of the same stuff as the patty in front of me.

The One That Is Pleased They Got It Right. . .

A few days ago, I reproduced a very eloquently written account of why the RNLI are one of the good charities, and one that I support wholeheartedly. This doesn't mean they are always right and in the case of Bilbo, the inappropriately named 90kg Newfoundland, they got it wrong.

Newfies are just amazing animals, the size of a bear and with a temprament as gentle as it is big, this dog is made for water and it is all owners can do to prevent them from jumping into rivers, pools, the sea, any body of water to rescue people who are out for a swim, whether they need rescuing or not.

Bilbo has been working the beat as a lifeguard on the beach at Sennen in Cornwall for a while now, but the RNLI banned him from working on H&S grounds. I would imagine that if you are becoming exhausted as you try to swim against a rip tide, the last thing on your mind as a mountainous rescue dog languidly paddles his way out to you is going to be, 'I hope I don't have an allergic reaction to this dog's fur' or 'His owner had better clean up after him when he craps on the beach.'

Thankfully common sense has prevailed and the RNLI have agreed that Bilbo can work the beach. Everyone seems very happy about it, and he's a great tool for educating the kids about how to look after yourself in the wet stuff, I think every swimming beach should have a Bilbo. They're cheap, don't spend all day checking out the passing talent when they should be keeping an eye on the shoreline and don't need to go on expensive diversity courses.

Speaking of which, how long before some arseclown starts complaining that a drowning Muslim would find being rescued by dog offensive?

The One That Wonders Why It Didn't Kick Off. . .

Amazing scenes in news rooms up and down the country today as editors wandered around with shell-shocked looks on their faces, as reporters emailed in copy and beamed in TV reports that showed today's demonstrations in London which spectacularly failed to 'kick-off'.

Brown must be crapping himself, if it doesn't kick off during the G20 meeting, or at any point between now and May next year, he'll have to go the polls, and won't be able to postpone it with the Civil Contingencies Act.

Somewhere there's a shabbily dressed, one-eyed Scot with a quivering arsehole. Why can't the proles be trusted to rise up when provoked? Perhaps it was because the weather was so shitty today. . .

The One That Says 'Ooooh, They've Done It Now'. . .

I can't work out if this government is actually barking mad or really wants to lose the next election. Such is the rate at which things designed to piss people off are trotted out, that I'm starting to think it is the latter, there must be something big and very very bad 18 months down the road, so bad that not even Labour with their sociopathic desire for power want to be a part of it.

It really is the only conclusion to draw. Can they really be so divorced from reality that they think telling people that their Facebook, Bebo and MySpace activities must be monitored will win them support? The anti-crime and anti-terror excuse is pathetic. 'Osama Bin Laden is planning a fiery death for the infidel, lol' 'Fingers Freddie is turning over the NatWest tonight! OMFG!' No, I don't think so.

In the grand scheme of things this is a tiny issue, especially when records of all our phone calls, emails and browsing history will be kept, just in case we do something wrong, even if that something wrong is perfectly legal now. However what hasn't happened thus far is any real coverage in the MSM, there's been a couple of flickers (or should that be flickr? Sorry) but nothing to really suggest that this might, you know, be a bad thing.

Well, look at the comments on the Pravda article about this story, as I write this there's only one comment which doesn't have a problem with this. We'll see how Pravda's moderation policy balances this out.

Have Labour learned nothing from the last few months? A very large number of the votes picked up by Obama in the American election were won in the blogosphere and on social networking sites. As each General Election here becomes more like a Presidential election you'd have thought that the Labour spin doctors would have realised that cyberspace is the new battleground, not against terrorism but for votes.

How many people between 18-30 turn out to vote? How many from that same age range use social networking, blogging and email as one of their primary methods of communication? The internet has always been about liberty, it empowers the media consumer and gives the individual a voice. In the case of this blog, it may only be that 20 or so people a day hear my voice, but if every one of those 20 people speak to 20 more people themselves and so forth, that is a huge number of people.

Recently the outcry amongst social networking site users about the rights to uploaded photographs caused these sites to back down. Internet users have real power, perhaps that is what really scares the government, there's no boozy paper editor with a skeleton or two in the cupboard that can be leant on or manipulated, instead there is a large collection of individuals who will say and write what they want, not what they are told.

I'll tell you this, you can piss around with recording people's itinerary when they go abroad, put chips in their bin and so on, but piss around with their Facebook and they'll mobilise in their tens of thousands; you're screwed.

Labour, you are so screwed. But please, tell me, why are you doing it on purpose?

The One That Says They've Got It Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. . .

The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has released a document about the 'database state'. The report opens with a preamble detailing the loss of data by HMRC and goes on to make the claim that many of these Government databases are illegal.

You'll get no argument from me on that point.

What is disappointing is the way that these charities always have to have an angle. I don't know much about the Joseph Rowntree Trust as a whole, other than the fact that they have many strings to their bow, I know nothing of their funding nor their political affiliations or leanings.

It is heartening to see that they have decided to speak out against this mania for measuring, recording and controlling every facet of our lives, but they haven't half gone about it in a half-arsed way.

They've spoken about how these databases present a danger to young black men, single parents and children. Well, yes. That's correct, but why pick on the dog-whistle groups? These databases and the appalling security record of the public sector in the field of data security pose a danger to every single one of us.

Come on, use your brain, this paternalistic and patronising attitude has to stop if there is to be any credibility about your report. Don't fall into the Righteous trap, speak out for all of us, not just those who you feel are incapable of speaking out for themselves. I am neither black, a child, nor a parent, single or otherwise. Were it not for my civil liberties interest, I would have looked at these headlines and decided 'Doesn't apply to me, not interested, next.'

If the headlines said that this poses a threat to you, no matter who you are, you'd find interest was much higher.

Perhaps if we spent more time focusing on what binds us together rather than that which seperates us, we'd have a much more cohesive voice. It is in the interests of the status quo for our differences to be pointed out and amplified at every turn.

Must do better.

The One That Hates To Agree With Them . . .

The BNP really are starting to emerge (as one correspondent, I think at OH's place, put it) from being a big little party, to a little big party. It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I shall resist the dog whistle reaction and attempt to address the issue in an emotionally detached manner.

In one respect, that being our departure from the EU, I agree with the BNP. I do not think I agree with them on any other subject.

Pravda report that there is an anti-BNP rally being planned in the delightful Kentish town of Chatham, it seems to be an attempt to shame people into not voting BNP. That is bad campaigning, I want to know why I should vote for a party, not that party saying why I shouldn't vote for their competitors.

A BNP spokesman said the rally was run by "Labour front" groups trying to "pull the wool over people's eyes". And it's hard not to agree with him. I had a conversation on this subject with a young lady this afternoon. She reacted with horror when I said I wanted us to leave the EU. In her mind, I was shutting the doors to the world, no trade in, no trade out, no-one moving between the UK and anywhere else.

That simply isn't the case, but the big 3 and MSM condition you to think that if you aren't pro-EU you are a rabid racist/isolationist.

I put my point of view in fairly simplistic, but effective terms. Knowing she doesn't drink it, I offered the young lady a cup of coffee. She said she didn't want a cup of coffee. I them immediately set about brow-beating her for being a drunkard, drinking nothing but vodka and getting pissed up all the time.

She quite reasonably pointed out that she'd like a cup of tea. Of course it doesn't follow that if you don't like coffee you drink your weight in vodka every day, there are alternatives. Well, the EU is that cup of coffee I don't want. I'll settle for a cup of tea as well.

Pravda also report that Merseyside PC, Steve Bettley has been given the gooner following his name being discovered on the infamous BNP member list that was leaked a little while ago. I disagree with police officers being prohibited from membership of any party, but believe that all police officers should check their political affiliations at the door when they walk into the station. It's a shame that senior officers can't do this. But it was ever thus, one rule for us, one for them.

Bettley has denied being a member (well, he would, wouldn't he?), and the BNP has waded in, with spokesman Simon Darby saying 'We are well on the way to being a totalitarian state.'

Well, yes. Labour, Tories, LibDems are bad. Think the BNP would be any different? Not for one moment.

The One That Is Shocked To See This Example Set. . .

. . . by a politician, and a socialist one, no-less.

Pravda (who have provided rich pickings this evening) report that the Hungarian PM has stood down after telling his party's congress that:

'I hear that I am the obstacle to the co-operation required for changes, for a stable governing majority. . . I hope it is this way, that it is only me that is the obstacle, because if so, then I am eliminating this obstacle now. I propose that we form a new government under a new prime minister.'

Do any of you have any suggestions for a 'leader' that could make the same speech without a whisper of dissent being heard?

Let me think. . .

The One That Fails To See The Logic. . .

Welcome to the UK.

Now give us your money.

You'll already be taxed for landing at or taking off from a UK airport, one can only wonder how long it will be before the same is extended to British sea-ports and the Eurostar stations. People coming to the UK for tourism and business already pay the government for the privilege of landing here.

So people that are coming here to spend money have their wallets prised open before they even make it to the baggage reclaim area. Nice.

Now those who come here to pay through the nose for our services, or to work and pay tax are to be relieved of £50 at the stage where they apply for their visas (any non-EU national must have a visa to enter the UK for a period longer than 6 months).

Pravda reports that:

People from outside the EU moving to the UK to work or study will have to pay £50 extra for visas to help areas struggling to cope with immigration.

The £70m raised by the two-year scheme, announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, will help fund more police support and translators.

Right let us set aside that this has been announced by Hazel Blears, a creature who is living on borrowed time as far as I'm concerned.

Let us set aside the fact that we don't need more police, we just need them to be left alone to get on with their jobs rather than filling in forms and attending endless political indoctrination courses. Let us set aside the fact that people who come here to study and work are unlikely to need translators as they'll probably speak English anyway.

Let us concentrate instead on the fact that these people who are coming here to make something of themselves, and through the money they pay for their studies and the tax they pay on their earnings, are being pickpocketed to pay for those who arrive on false passports, in the backs of lorries or in the boots of cars.

Labour have fallen into the BNP trap again. They've decided that all immigrants are bad, and must be punished. So much for social justice.

Make no mistake about it, the clandestine entrants to the UK are economic migrants (believe me, I know more than the average bear on the subject of immigration), they queue up outside the ports of Calais, Dunkerque and Coquelles and cast envious glances at the departing trains and ferries. For the (admittedly falling) number who make it across the water without being discovered by the French Police, private security firms and British immigration who now work in France, the first question they ask is 'When do I get my house?' this is normally followed up by 'When do you give me money?'

You see international law states that those seeking political asylum (and that's the only sort) must claim their rights under the 1951 UN Convention in the first safe country they arrive in. If you're coming from Iran, I'll accept Iraq isn't safe. Ditto for Afghans going into Pakistan or Eritreans going into Ethiopia, but when you are in France, and many of the countries en route, you're safe. The EU and UN agree and have certified it as a safe country. The Taliban and Iranian extremists are a rare sight on the beaches of Cannes and the vineyards of Burgundy.

So I'm not going to entertain the idea that those in Calais are fleeing for their life. Persecution in Calais doesn't seem to go much beyond punchups between different ethnic groups. Hardly the state sponsored persecution you must prove to qualify for refugee status.

These people have made a lifestyle choice to get to the UK and live on the freebies from the public purse. Those coming here to contribute will have to foot the bill for them, even though they've nothing to do with them.

Don't worry Japanese students, Indian chemists, American lecturers, South African geologists and Pakistani doctors - you've just been assimilated. You are just like us.

You see, I have nothing to do with the British who choose not to work, who choose to squeeze out kids like a queen bee spits out eggs and who choose to sit back and let the State support them. I've nothing to do with them or their lifestyle at all, and yet I still have to foot the bill, to the detriment of my lifestyle.

Doesn't really seem fair, does it?

The One That Makes No Apology. . .

. . . for posting this in its entirety from Old Holborn's place. If only we had people of this calibre at the helm of our country.

By Ronald Neil, formerly of the BBC (extract)The Pentland Firth is one of
the most dangerous stretches of water in the world. Powerful currents and tidal
races compete with each other and when whipped up by a driving gale the seas can
be awesome.And on the winter’s night of March 18 1969 the eight-mile wide strait
separating the Orkney Islands from the Scottish mainland was at her most
treacherous.

A Force 9 south-east gale had been blowing for three days. It was snowing.
Visibility was virtually zero, and the tidal races were running at 10 knots
against the wind.It was into this fearsome mountain of sea that coxswain Dan
Kirkpatrick launched the Longhope lifeboat TGB in a bid to rescue the crew of a
stricken tanker, Irene.The situation was a deadly one. An immense flood tide
running like a millrace south-east out of the firth and meeting the seas pouring
down the east side of South Ronaldsay … both of them opposed by the south-east
gale. One Orcadian commented afterwards: “It was the way into Death’s dark vale
if ever there was one.”

In trying to convey to viewers in the comfort of their own homes some sense
of the scale of the storm that night, I said in a report for BBC News that the
waves the Longhope crew faced were the height of four double-decker buses,
stacked one on top of the other… upwards of 60 feet.In fact the freak wave that
took her was said to be all of 100 feet high. It is reckoned that the lifeboat
climbed this mountainous lump of sea, and then toppled over backwards.

Wick radio reports only silence

By 10 o’clock that night Wick radio could get no reply from the TGB … there
was only silence. When I arrived on the Orkney island of Hoy with a news camera
team the next day, the community was already fearing the worst.The RNLI honorary
secretary on the island, Jackie Groat, agreed to an interview. His comment at
that time was remarkable. If the lifeboat was lost then they must have a new
one, for it had been their task down the generations to police the seas of the
Pentland Firth.

We flew back with the film to Aberdeen for insert into the national news.
As the plane bucked and slewed a few hundred feet above the Pentland Firth we
spotted below us the most awful sight of all… the TGB floating upside down,
being tossed and thrown by the unforgiving seas.That was the image that 10
million BBC viewers saw on their teatime news that night.

Behind us we had left an island community devastated by the disaster. All
but one of the lifeboat crew were found in the upturned hull. Coxswain Dan
Kirkpatrick was still at the helm. Not one had survived.The community was to
learn that the crew of the Irene had not required the lifeboat after all. They
had all been safely taken ashore by breeches buoy.

Amazingly, when the RNLI inspector called at each home to break the
terrible news, one of the first questions he was asked by every one of the
Longhope widows was about the crew of the Irene. Without exception they all said
their husbands would have been so pleased to have known they were safe…….

No official ceremonies of remembrance were held today, with victims'
families preferring to mark the occasion privately.Tony Trickett, operations
manager of the Longhope lifeboat, said islanders would remember the tragedy in
their "own quiet way".

He said: "There are still some widows on the island and they decided they
would rather not do anything specific today - they live within sight of the
lifeboat shed and see it every day."We will commemorate the tragedy in our own
quiet way as we have done for many years.
"We in the lifeboat service will always remember this and my own flag is
flying at half mast today."It was the most dreadful of tragedies and is still
very much in people's minds."But support for the lifeboat remains - we are a
lifeboat community and have been since 1874."

There is a website, www.fakecharities.org which is administered by DK, if ever there was an example of a real charity, the RNLI is it.