In typical fashion, Not so Flash Gordon saw the resignation of David Davis as another opportunity to land a blow from his great clunking fist on the opposition. Yet again of course, this man that the political sycophants have always characterised as the consummate politician, has miscalulated. As usual, he took his soundings not from the people who really matter - the electorate - but from the coterie of advisers and clingers-on that pass for his policy advisors. They, crippled by the same kind of narrow perspective as their master, saw in Davis a man who was going against the wishes of his political masters and, incredulously, was willing to sacrifice a high-flying political career on a matter of principle. Of course, to the party of Mandelson, Prescott and Blair, this was such an alien concept that they, gleefully, concluded that he must have lost his marbles.
Accordingly, Brown started an immediate tour of his media lackeys to opine long and loudly that Davis's resignation was not a statement of intent, a stand against the sovietising of our country, but a symptom of the deep divisions in the Conservative Party. Incredibly, the man who had just spent an estimated £1.2 billion of our money to bribe Ian Paisley's motley crew and various dissenting Labour die-hards into backing 42 days detention without trial, labelled Davis's resignation a mere stunt.
From a brief trawl through the weekend's papers, it is already obvious that Brown has backed the wrong horse once again. In fact, not just backed the wrong horse but entered it into the wrong race. The Davis resignation has already achieved one thing that Brown didn't want. It has brought the whole subject of the State, unchecked bureaucracy and our crumbling democracy to the forefront of the political debate. Brown - miscalculating again - then made a snap decision on the Irish Electorate's emphatic rejection of the Lisbon Treaty; namely that it would not alter his mind one iota. Coming hard on the heels of mocking Davis for standing up for our civil liberties and democracy, it only served to highlight NSF Gordon's inherent contempt for the British People and our democratic traditions. He will be gone before long.
If Brown himself were not bad enough, most of the other occupants of the Westminster Asylum - including the media pack that feeds off the offal the politicians choose to throw them - were not far behind; snarling their disbelief at what Davis had done. Their protestations that he is undermining Parliament sound particularly lame coming from a group of MPs who are happy to have most of our rules invented in Brussels and have just voted to hand over what little power remains at the earliest opportunity.
What really scared them of course was not that he had resigned, but the fact that he, apparently, did so as a matter of principle. Good Lord what sort of world are we living in when a man with his snout just a whisker's breath away from the trough of Government and all the perks, prestige and priviledge that entails, willingly gives it all up on a point of PRINCIPLE? What sort of precedent could he be setting? What sort of ideas might it give the constituents of other MPs; next thing you know, they might all start wanting their Member of Parliament to act like the Honourable Member that he or she is supposed to be.
And that would never do, Would it?
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Monday, 9 June 2008
The 42 day smokescreen
People who represent a clear and present danger to the security of our country should be locked up for 42 days without trial. That is the message that Jacqui Smith has been peddling so assiduously for the last month or so.
Why 42 days ? Who has actually analysed previous security breaches in such detail that they have been able to calculate the precise number of days the authorities would need to be certain of gaining a conviction in the future? 42 is such an exact number. Why not 50; or 60 days? After all they are equally nice, equally rounded numbers.
The answer, of course, is that the number of days is neither here nor there. It could just as easily be 102 or 12.
The only true purpose of the 42 day detention debate has been to create a smoke screen. Think about it. What is currently wending its way through the entrails of the British parliamentary system that will have a far more dramatic and long-term effect on democracy in this country than any 42 day detention policy?
Identity Cards, perhaps?
No, this is even more serious than Nu Labour's plan to turn each of us into a human bar code.
Then it must be the Police database containing the DNA of over a million innocent people, right?Close, but no cigar.
It's the Lisbon Treaty, stupid.
While Jacqui and Gordon - who would surely have been a white crimplene suited Seventies cabaret act in another life - have been insisting on the need to imprison anyone they want for 42 days without trial, the bill to enable the Lisbon Teaty is about to be debated in the House of Lords having been rammed through the Commons by the battering ram of vested interests known as the Europhile tendency.
It is a strange creature, Europe. Poll after poll demonstrates that the British people are heartily sick of being sucked any further into its web. More people than ever are calling not just for the ties to be loosened but severed completely. Yet, our political elite conspires to bind us ever closer, mocking our protests while denying that we have anything to protest about in the first place.
That elite includes not just the current crop of party leaders but all of their predecessors from the Seventies onwards; including Maggie Thatcher. She, like the rest, knew precisely the nature of our relationship with Europe. She and they have accepted for many years that the eventual aim was a United States of Europe in which Great Britain would become a province with slightly fewer powers than, say, Georgia currently does in relation to the federal government of the USA.
Peter Lilley made this plain in the Commons last week. As he said, over 80% of all the laws and regulations to which we now have to adhere start their life inside the EU Commission. Our Government Ministers like to claim these bits of legislation as their own. But only to maintain the fiction that anything they or anyone else at Westminster does, has any real effect on life in modern Britain.
The truth is, of course, that our feeble, mediocre Parliament is an anachronism. Its members are as relevant as a sail in a submarine; as powerless as the Queen has been for the last fifty years. But, still they go on posturing, posing and conniving in dark corners as if it matters a jot which of them ends up as Party leader or deputy leader. Occasionally, in a moment of lucidity or honesty, one of their number spills the beans. This time it is Peter Lilley. In the past, William Hague has come close to admitting the same thing; that the House of Commons is to Brussels what your local Town Hall used to be to Westminster.
Nobody takes very much notice for the simple reason that every effort is made to divert our attention. Every time a major European story is about to grab the headlines, the media are chucked another, more juicy bone to get their collective teeths into. It's been Nu labour's way of manipulating the news since its very first days in office. The lickspittles otherwise known as political journalists play along happily with the charade; willingly recycling rumours and briefings to keep the pot boiling and everyone's attention from the debate that really matters; what is happening to our democracy as the tentacles of Europa wrap themselves ever tighter around us.
This time is no different. We have been told in no uncertain terms that there will be no referendum. The elite has closed ranks. Doubters have, as usual, been branded Eurosceptics and Little Englanders. Meanwhile, Gordon and Jacqui, abetted by their media chums, continue to do their bit; puffing out billows of chaff about 42 days detention to keep the European question firmly off the radar.
Once the Lisbon Treaty passes the Lords, the fog will clear and we will all be sailing full-steam for the sunlit uplands of Europe. (Unless the Irish chuck a large Celtic spanner in the works of course and chuck the whole idea of the Lisbon Treaty out on its ear. ) Either way, with Lisbon resolved, just watch how quickly Gordon caves in to back-bench demands for a fresh debate on the whole question of detention without trial.
Why 42 days ? Who has actually analysed previous security breaches in such detail that they have been able to calculate the precise number of days the authorities would need to be certain of gaining a conviction in the future? 42 is such an exact number. Why not 50; or 60 days? After all they are equally nice, equally rounded numbers.
The answer, of course, is that the number of days is neither here nor there. It could just as easily be 102 or 12.
The only true purpose of the 42 day detention debate has been to create a smoke screen. Think about it. What is currently wending its way through the entrails of the British parliamentary system that will have a far more dramatic and long-term effect on democracy in this country than any 42 day detention policy?
Identity Cards, perhaps?
No, this is even more serious than Nu Labour's plan to turn each of us into a human bar code.
Then it must be the Police database containing the DNA of over a million innocent people, right?Close, but no cigar.
It's the Lisbon Treaty, stupid.
While Jacqui and Gordon - who would surely have been a white crimplene suited Seventies cabaret act in another life - have been insisting on the need to imprison anyone they want for 42 days without trial, the bill to enable the Lisbon Teaty is about to be debated in the House of Lords having been rammed through the Commons by the battering ram of vested interests known as the Europhile tendency.
It is a strange creature, Europe. Poll after poll demonstrates that the British people are heartily sick of being sucked any further into its web. More people than ever are calling not just for the ties to be loosened but severed completely. Yet, our political elite conspires to bind us ever closer, mocking our protests while denying that we have anything to protest about in the first place.
That elite includes not just the current crop of party leaders but all of their predecessors from the Seventies onwards; including Maggie Thatcher. She, like the rest, knew precisely the nature of our relationship with Europe. She and they have accepted for many years that the eventual aim was a United States of Europe in which Great Britain would become a province with slightly fewer powers than, say, Georgia currently does in relation to the federal government of the USA.
Peter Lilley made this plain in the Commons last week. As he said, over 80% of all the laws and regulations to which we now have to adhere start their life inside the EU Commission. Our Government Ministers like to claim these bits of legislation as their own. But only to maintain the fiction that anything they or anyone else at Westminster does, has any real effect on life in modern Britain.
The truth is, of course, that our feeble, mediocre Parliament is an anachronism. Its members are as relevant as a sail in a submarine; as powerless as the Queen has been for the last fifty years. But, still they go on posturing, posing and conniving in dark corners as if it matters a jot which of them ends up as Party leader or deputy leader. Occasionally, in a moment of lucidity or honesty, one of their number spills the beans. This time it is Peter Lilley. In the past, William Hague has come close to admitting the same thing; that the House of Commons is to Brussels what your local Town Hall used to be to Westminster.
Nobody takes very much notice for the simple reason that every effort is made to divert our attention. Every time a major European story is about to grab the headlines, the media are chucked another, more juicy bone to get their collective teeths into. It's been Nu labour's way of manipulating the news since its very first days in office. The lickspittles otherwise known as political journalists play along happily with the charade; willingly recycling rumours and briefings to keep the pot boiling and everyone's attention from the debate that really matters; what is happening to our democracy as the tentacles of Europa wrap themselves ever tighter around us.
This time is no different. We have been told in no uncertain terms that there will be no referendum. The elite has closed ranks. Doubters have, as usual, been branded Eurosceptics and Little Englanders. Meanwhile, Gordon and Jacqui, abetted by their media chums, continue to do their bit; puffing out billows of chaff about 42 days detention to keep the European question firmly off the radar.
Once the Lisbon Treaty passes the Lords, the fog will clear and we will all be sailing full-steam for the sunlit uplands of Europe. (Unless the Irish chuck a large Celtic spanner in the works of course and chuck the whole idea of the Lisbon Treaty out on its ear. ) Either way, with Lisbon resolved, just watch how quickly Gordon caves in to back-bench demands for a fresh debate on the whole question of detention without trial.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Long term chaos
Not so flash Gordon has been making the rounds of the TV and Radio studios recently to try out his latest mantra: "busy making the right long-term decisions". You needn't ask what long-term decisions he's referring to. You see, busy making etc is one of those catchall phrases carefully tailored by Gordon's script writers to cover virtually any eventuality. Worried about the state of the economy? Well, stop worrying. Big Gordy is busy making the right long term decisions about the economy that will see this country through the global downturn that is currently affecting not just us but everyone else in the world, too.
Just as worried about violent crime, especially knive crimes involving teenagers? Well, guess what, our Gordon is busy making the right long term decisions to reduce violent crime in our country, as well. Ditto the problems facing the education system, the NHS, the Forces, untramelled immigration and just about anything else people worry themselves sick about.
Now, NSF Gordon is nothing if not steadfast and determined. In fact, according to every Brown profile , those have been two of his defining characteristics since he was a schoolboy in Fife. During the 10 years he spent as Blair's Number 2, his constant refrain was that he was the real power behind the throne. His was the clunking fist on the tiller guiding the great ship of state through choppy economic waters; his vast intellectual power that was brought to bear on such thorny subjects as whether or notto join the Euro. It was his vision of a fairer, more prosperous Britain that Tony Blair played the front man for between 1997 and 2007, before Gordon finally elbowed him out of the way and became the official resident of Number 10 .
Leopards, as they say, do not change their spots. The Gordon of 1997 was the same anal-retentive obsessive that we have to suffer today. So now, 10 years further down the line, the country we live in is almost certainly the product of Gordon's long-term thinking. The pension system for everybody but a select few is knackered; destroyed by class-warrior Brown in one of his first acts of fiscal incontinence. Pensioners are so poor they are having to choose between eating and staying warm in winter. Almost 500,000 of them are eligible for additional credits but find the system of claiming them either so confusing or demeaning - or a mixture of both - that they choose to go without. Meanwhile, with British pensioners on the bread line, we are exporting over £30 million in child benefits to Poland and other east European countries - even though the officials administering the scheme admit they have no way of checking that the kids being claimed for actually live abroad, belong to the parents making the claim - or even exist.
The Jesuits have a saying: "Give me the boy at seven and I will give you the man." Whether you live in a city, small town or village look at the teenagers you see around you. They are ill-educated, over-indulged, undisciplined and, frequently, pissed out of their brains; girls just as frequently as boys.
Eighteen years old now, they were seven when Noo Labour first came into power. Their values, their outlook, their violence, their ignorance and lack of education are a direct result of the social engineering pursued by Labour from their first day in office. They are, in every sense, Brown's children.
Doesn't exactly fill one with confidence, for the long term,does it?
Just as worried about violent crime, especially knive crimes involving teenagers? Well, guess what, our Gordon is busy making the right long term decisions to reduce violent crime in our country, as well. Ditto the problems facing the education system, the NHS, the Forces, untramelled immigration and just about anything else people worry themselves sick about.
Now, NSF Gordon is nothing if not steadfast and determined. In fact, according to every Brown profile , those have been two of his defining characteristics since he was a schoolboy in Fife. During the 10 years he spent as Blair's Number 2, his constant refrain was that he was the real power behind the throne. His was the clunking fist on the tiller guiding the great ship of state through choppy economic waters; his vast intellectual power that was brought to bear on such thorny subjects as whether or notto join the Euro. It was his vision of a fairer, more prosperous Britain that Tony Blair played the front man for between 1997 and 2007, before Gordon finally elbowed him out of the way and became the official resident of Number 10 .
Leopards, as they say, do not change their spots. The Gordon of 1997 was the same anal-retentive obsessive that we have to suffer today. So now, 10 years further down the line, the country we live in is almost certainly the product of Gordon's long-term thinking. The pension system for everybody but a select few is knackered; destroyed by class-warrior Brown in one of his first acts of fiscal incontinence. Pensioners are so poor they are having to choose between eating and staying warm in winter. Almost 500,000 of them are eligible for additional credits but find the system of claiming them either so confusing or demeaning - or a mixture of both - that they choose to go without. Meanwhile, with British pensioners on the bread line, we are exporting over £30 million in child benefits to Poland and other east European countries - even though the officials administering the scheme admit they have no way of checking that the kids being claimed for actually live abroad, belong to the parents making the claim - or even exist.
The Jesuits have a saying: "Give me the boy at seven and I will give you the man." Whether you live in a city, small town or village look at the teenagers you see around you. They are ill-educated, over-indulged, undisciplined and, frequently, pissed out of their brains; girls just as frequently as boys.
Eighteen years old now, they were seven when Noo Labour first came into power. Their values, their outlook, their violence, their ignorance and lack of education are a direct result of the social engineering pursued by Labour from their first day in office. They are, in every sense, Brown's children.
Doesn't exactly fill one with confidence, for the long term,does it?
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