NASA and Global Warming

From my search of its website the BBC has yet to post anything on the report of Dr Roy Spencer of NASA effectively stating that data from NASA's satellite Terra does not support the theories about global warming  promoted by climate change alarmists.  The data apparently shows that far less heat is being trapped than the alarmists would have us believe. The report goes on to say that these are very important findings. Why is the BBC being coy about reporting the NASA findings? Surely not because the findings show the BBC line on global warming to have been wrong nor because the Met Office also has egg all over its face? If ever there was a reason for a total re-think on the whole energy issue the NASA findings are it. Regrettably it is unlikely the government will see sense  yet but it surely will once further incontrovertible scientific evidence makes its way into the mainstream. This is a u-turn which will save not only this country but all other sensible nations billions and put the nasty, fascistic greens back in their box. sadly the BBC will survive so another u-turn is going to be required by the government to break it apart and allow other broadcasters to compete. only then will we have a right of centre broadcaster with as much weight as the BBC replacement has on the left.  

The F.....g Olympics

President Chirac slipped us a hospital pass when he helped London win the Olympic bid instead of Paris. We saw what happened to business as a result of the Royal Wedding bank holiday. It adversely affected our output. How is over two weeks of logistical strangulation of business during the Olympics not going to adversely affect our output again? Admittedly we are basically only talking about London and the soothsayers are projecting £750 million of extra business as a result of the Olympics but I doubt that this will be enough to boost our overall output over the period and we will have to suffer the insufferable Ed Balls asking for Plan B again. Ever since the docklands transformation to a modern city London has rebalanced itself from a town which favoured the western postal codes to a more equal place and it is possible that the Olympic buildings will assist the equilibrium. Looking though at other countries their Olympic sites have become tawdry, tacky unwholesome holes where one would be frightened of walking at night. Are we guaranteed London will not follow suit? Seems not. Apart from the sheer inconvenience of the restriction on movement for Londoners during the Games and the cost to them of setting the whole thing up and running it, which will not be shared in its entirety by the rest of the country, there is the scandal of the ticketing allocation. Londoners should have had first choice. This didn't happen, although I have to own up I had no intention of buying any tickets nor any intention of watching any part of the whole ghastly show of athletes on drugs, and to make it worse on this 14th August the whole of my part of London is to be closed down so that none of us can go anywhere. This is a trial run for the cycle race next year when to add further insult to injury the whole of my part of London will be closed down again for the day. Talk about bread and circuses but this is ridiculous and not even a mention in a reduction in the rates in compensation for the withdrawal of our local facilities.

Guido Fawkes

Will this be the year when Guido Fawkes becomes as powerful as the Sun or the News of the World used to be before the hacking scandal? Guido http://order-order.com/ is gunning for Piers Morgan and for Huhne mercilessly and relentlessly. I almost feel sorry for them. Actually that's not true because if they are guilty of the behaviour of which they stand effectively accused then I can see no reason why they both should not spend time in jail. I shall though be surprised if the CPS prosecutes either of them but even if not it is difficult to see how their careers can remain unaffected. Cameron will have to ask Huhne to go and Morgan is unlikely to find his contract with CNN renewed. Who will replace Huhne? Lord Lawson would be an excellent choice but this is unlikely. Hopefully though it will be someone who is less of a global warming sucker. Someone who will bring in an energy policy which reduces energy bills rather than increases them. Someone who refuses to vandalise our countryside with wind farms. As to Morgan does it matter who replaces him? I'm sure if he's short of a bob or two he can get a job at the Punch Bowl in Farm Street in Mayfair where his brother is the manager. However as Morgan is a bit of a leftie he will no doubt get a job at the BBC who always look after their own. Look how they protected that awful Jonathan Ross.

Osborne and Sacred Cows

The UK growth figure for the last quarter of 0.02% is disappointing and despite his up beat explanation Osborne has a problem. How to promote growth in the private sector so that in another quarter or so's time UK growth is demonstrably stronger. Any cutting of red tape would help if done rapidly and extensively but would have to include cutting red tape imposed by the EU. Cutting EU red tape is presumably a no-no so that perhaps is the reason why Osborne has been hinting at tax cuts. I doubt that any tax cuts he might be thinking of would include VAT for two reasons (a) he has only just put them up and (b) that is the one cut Balls is calling for. By either good luck or design he has positioned the Labour party into asking for the VAT cut specifically and it should not be too much of a stretch for him to widen the argument to a general cut in taxation to which the Labour party can be shown to subscribe. Osborne should exclude bank bonuses from any reduction save where the bonuses relate to transactions which improve the bank's profitability. What is curious about the growth figures is that they fail to explain why the number of unemployed have been going down over the last few months. Is the number in employment a better indicator of how well the economy is doing rather than the growth figures? I do hope so for all our sakes but I also hope that Osborne can get on top of our borrowing which has  continued to grow horribly. Cutting our borrowing would help growth. It would also help growth if rather than delay the cuts to the third and fourth years of the coalition the cuts are started immediately, even if it means the slaughter of some sacred cows.  

The Time Has Come

I appreciate that it is very difficult for the Tories to demonstrate their true colours since they are in a coalition and are unable to pursue their stated aims. It is though worrying that one does not have a real idea of what the Tories would do if they were not in a coalition. Would the European Union Act have been stronger for example? Frederick Forsyth in a letter to the Telegraph today expresses concern that as the Act only comes into play if the government, advised by the Foreign Office, so decides, which he is convinced will never happen. In Frederick Forsyth's view the Act was worded in this way because Hague is in thrall to Simon Fraser, the head of the Foreign Office, and has become a passionate europhile as a result. If this is so then the Act would be worded in the same way even if the Tories were governing on their own. This concern is heightened by George Osborne's article in today's Telegraph in which he states that joining the euro would lead to fiscal integration and a resulting loss of sovereignty and it is in our interest that the euro works. This is very worrying as loss of sovereignty without any referendum by each of the eurozone countries is bound to lead to civil unrest at best in some of those countries. Such unrest will be infinitely worse for us than the orderly break up of the euro. The euro is an abomination and we should be calling for it to be dissolved right now.

Norway

I was wrong. Despite the rumour at one point that the Norwegian police were looking for a second suspect it seems that they have the only suspected perpetrator in custody. He is being questioned not only about the slaughter of the young on Utoya but also for the bombing in Oslo. I didn't think one man could kill so many in such a short space of time without using a machine gun or something similar. How mistaken I was. What a tragedy but can someone be wholly sane to commit this kind of crime? We are told he is a right wing Christian fundamentalist but as someone has reminded us one of the ten Commandments is 'thou shalt not kill'. In which case he can hardly be a Christian. Is it sure he is even right wing since Nazis are national socialists and the suspected killer is said to be an ardent nationalist. I suppose the suspect has been called right wing because those targeted were either members of the Labour government or members of the Labour party youth branch. Probably also because murderers like Mao or Stalin are always presented as less evil than Hitler who is described as right wing. Hitler was of course a national socialist and thus not right wing but few seem to be prepared to argue the point - certainly not the BBC for one. Talking about the right Charles Moore seems to have had an epiphany moment in his article this morning although I can't say I understood what he was saying 100%. What I think he was saying was that the system that evolved since Thatcher won the argument with the unions and opened up the markets that big business, the media and the politicians have combined to do down the rest of us and that the left have recognised this and are right to want to do something about it. Here I agree the state does have a role which is to ensure that competition is supported ruthlessly which means we need a plurality of players in each field of human activity. The monopoly enjoyed by the BBC should be broken up for a start.

1. Norway, 2. The Euro

I knew that Sweden had problems with its muslim immigrants but had no idea that things had got so bad in Norway that its local Al Qaeda branch was so active or brutally inclined, that is if today's bomb and shootings were the responsibility of Al Qaeda. There was a 19 year old girl interviewed on Sky this evening who said she heard shots coming from different directions. The Sky presenter failed to pick up on this but it explains the later news that the death toll on  Utoya Island was said to be 30. This number may be an exaggeration as later the number was said to have been 9. It would have been possible for a single gunman to have killed 9 but not 30. We can hope the number is smaller. Why do these people do these things? At least it seems they have the gunman in custody and will find out what motivated him to do this atrocious act. He is said to be a blonde who speaks Norwegian and so throws doubt on the Al Qaeda theory.
As to the euro the compromise reached yesterday is yet another demonstration of stupidity of the highest order. It would be risible if the consequences weren't so serious for us all. How can we save ourselves from  those who can never admit mistakes? Both the EU and the climate warmists will cost us our very shirts before long. If only Huhne is found to have got his wife to pretend she was driving that fateful night his car was caught speeding. He would have to resign, a new minister would have to be appointed and we could hope the new minister was full of common sense and lived in the real world.  

Cameron's Win

Cameron did impressively well in the Commons yesterday afternoon in dealing with the whole hacking affair. Of course there remain unanswered questions, in particular the ones relating to conversations with Rebekah Brooks about BSkyB. What is an inappropriate conversation but what is an appropriate one? I assume in this instance an inappropriate one is one which compromises one of the participants to the conversation and one that does not compromise any participant is thus an appropriate conversation - not knowing what was said makes it impossible to say whether the conversation was or was not appropriate. Hopefully though the whole hacking scandal will now slowly melt away and we can concentrate on the more important things going on in the world like the euro crisis. The whole euro project was based on a false premise and if the eurocrats had any humility they would come clean and set about dismantling it in an orderly fashion today. They will be forced to do this in the end even if as seems likely they are not prepared to admit defeat now. How can self declared geniuses be wrong after all. Putting off the inevitable may save the faces of the eurocrats pro tem but will cost each EU taxpayer more than it would cost to commence the wind down today. Surely the idea of throwing good money after bad is a concept that only the British know about?  

The Select Committee

I missed the first hour of the Murdoch grilling but watched the rest of the show including the Rebekah Brooks souffle. It will not have done any of them any harm even though there will be many like Mr Farrelly MP (one of the inquisitors) who will not believe that Rebekah didn't know what was going on in the newsroom of the papers of which she was editor. I have no knowledge of how a newsroom works so as far as I'm concerned I found not only the Murdochs but also Mrs Brooks believable. Not only as I've said did the hearing do none of them any harm I think it has done them some good. At least now when further wild claims are made people will hesitate before swallowing them. The hearing will help Cameron and as he will be appearing tomorrow in a different and more aggressive forum he can afford to be a little less humble and more confrontational. He should though admit that his choice of communications director did not turn out to be the best and he's embarrassed about it and about the fact Neil Wallis helped out at the election even though he did not know about it but that if that is the worst mistake he makes as Prime Minister he will be mighty pleased. He should also add that although one can choose one's friends one can't always choose their backgrounds and anyway everyone is innocent until the contrary is proved.        

Cameron

There is some hysteria going the rounds about the failure of Tory ministers and MPs getting on to the media and making arguments in support of Cameron. It is true though that the only defence of Cameron I have heard today was that of Toby Young of the Telegraph on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 this morning. The suggestion commentators are trying to promote is is that Cameron is deeply unpopular with his own side. I think this is fanciful. For a start what Boris said was surely not meant to be disloyal but  a reprimand of Michael Crick. Boris was telling Crick to stick to the point i.e. the resignation of Yates and nothing else. If I am wrong and support for Cameron is being withheld by his party one has to wonder why. Do the Tories think that this is an opportunity to see that Cameron gets back on track with e.g. the EU, Climate Change, the NHS, Law and Order, Immigration and the like? Is it more basic than that and that they want him to go? As I said I find this fanciful and feel sure the the Tory big beasts like Hague and Osborne will come out with full supportive comments before the day is out.

Sir Paul Stephenson

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner's decision to retire is the right one. Under any circumstances he was naive when he accepted free accommodation at a health spa of which his friend was the big cheese. Apparently the stay at the health spa to help him recover from an operation on his leg would have cost the ordinary punter £12,000. Although Sir Paul was unaware of it at the time it is unfortunate that the PR consultant to the health spa was a former senior executive of News International. This is the same individual, Neil Wallis, who was a consultant until last September to the Met and who was arrested in relation to the News International scandal last Thursday. Without the free health spa stay and its connection to Mr Wallis Sir Paul could probably have survived the arrest of the latter since he had thought, when the original police investigation into hacking by the News of the World had concluded, that all the hacking criminality had been rooted out and dealt with. He was wrong but his reaction to the re-opening of enquiries was spot on. Andy Coulson has always denied he knew anything about hacking as I know from an ex-colleague of his. If he had been asked I'm sure Coulson would have given the same answer to Cameron who would quite reasonably have accepted what he was told. With hindsight it is possible to say that employing Coulson was a risk but without hindsight it is not so evident. In any event it is not a resigning issue and the mosquito attack of Yvette Cooper should be easily swatted away.        

Golf and Other Things

Congratulations to Darren Clarke for winning the Open. Anyone who has played golf knows the pressure you put yourself under when taking part in a competition. There are those who thrive on that kind of thing but no one will forget the misery McIlroy went through when the demons hit him in the last round of this year's Masters, which he would most likely have won if he'd been able to keep his nerve. His slow disintegration was too awful to watch. Golf is a very humbling game. How are we going to react then to the Murdochs when they appear before the Select Committee this Tuesday? Are we likely to see a slow and painful disintegration that will be too awful to watch or will we see dignity and a fight back - with our respect re-earned? News International have reported that there are further shocking revelations to come. Will these be announced during the Select Committee hearing, will they have been made known beforehand or will they be dribbled out later? In a way it would make sense to come clean now about everything so that it is all out in the open. However bad the further revelations are they are not going to add force to any condemnation coming from the BBC, the Guardian and the rest of the left. This lot have pretty well used up all the invective they can use already, any more will look like overkill. Any more will make one think 'they doth protest too much.'    

Miliband

It is said by those who know a lot more about these things than I do that Miliband has had a good couple of weeks over the News of the World scandal. He may have done but Cameron has come back positively and I doubt whether in three or four weeks time many will remember how good or bad Miliband has been since I have to say I do not rate him as a winner. There is something about his persona which is not exactly unattractive in the way Kinnock was unattractive but is unattractive nonetheless. There is that air of superiority and weakness about him which is off-putting. He also comes across as two faced. He must have known whilst he was a Minister that Brown was as nutty as a fruit cake and yet he was prepared to support him and the awful people such as McBride and Whelan that Brown had gathered around him. He complains about Coulson and yet has appointed Tom Baldwin as his communications director who, like Coulson, comes from the Murdoch stable. Baldwin is a nasty piece of work being instrumental in the effort of the Times to discredit Lord Ashcroft. I feel sure that more about Baldwin and also about Miliband is going to come to light and that it will be of a much more embarrassing nature than the fact that Cameron invited Coulson to Chequers two months after Coulson had resigned. The BBC and the Guardian are trying to kick up a storm about this but they should be careful - it will rebound on them and when it does those of us who have been appalled by their behaviour will have the last laugh.        

Lagarde

I hear that Lagarde has a long way to go before those watching her performance as the new managing director of the IMF will accept that she is not totally out of her depth. She is after all a lawyer and as we all know lawyers can't count. Perhaps it is unnecessary for the managing director of the IMF to be able to count as no doubt there are others within the organisation who can do this task for her but it is always useful to have a feel for when the bean counters have made a miscalculation. What though of her knowledge of economics? Again I imagine it is not absolutely necessary for the managing director to be an expert but it would be a comfort to know that Lagarde had an idea of whether she is a keynesian or a hayekian for example. Margaret Thatcher had an idea about which way she lent philosophically on economics but it seems Lagarde doesn't have that feel. A pity since with the euro going south it would be comforting to have someone in Lagarde's position who not only had a point of view but who was prepared to argue strongly for its implementation and who did not see the role of the IMF to save the euro. The euro is a mess and despite the will of the eurocrats to try and save it in its present form by introducing a fiscal union we can only hope that it is destroyed and the eurocrats with it. That is the only way we are likely to get what we should always have aimed for i.e. a group of independent states trading amongst themselves in a free trade area.

Parliament

We have been told that the Select Committee overlooking the media cannot compel non citizens to appear before it. This surely cannot be correct where the non citizen is here in the UK. Parliament is after all the highest court in the London and it can demand attendance. Whether or not Parliament has the power to demand non citizens to attend a Select Committee hearing the Murdochs were ill advised to have refused to do so. It made them look evasive and frightened. I am glad that they changed their mind although the change makes them look weak. It is certain that at the Committee hearing they will be asked questions they cannot answer for the perfectly respectable reason that to do so will prejudice likely court cases in which News International will be involved. The Committee members should understand this and it is hoped that all Committee members will resist the temptation to 'grandstand' for the exercise of its muscle in a responsible way to bring about the Murdochs appearance before them has been impressive and to spoil that by low behaviour will only bring Parliament back into the contempt it so richly deserved as a result of the expenses scandal. Whilst talking about low behaviour the witch hunt of the Murdochs from the left, including the Labour party, the Guardian and the BBC has been most unedifying. Their lack of humility will rebound against them in due course.        

And still it goes on

More hypocrisy from the Labour benches today - they are unctuously concerned about the hacking of  phones of the non elite. How condescending of them. Never believe a politician who expresses concern for the lower orders. I should say their concern is rather more for good headlines than anything else. I wonder what kind of headlines their previous leader will be getting after his performance in the Commons today. He seems to me from the nonsense he was spouting to be getting battier and battier. Someone should really put him out of his misery and put us out of our misery too. Having said that it was refreshing to listen to Terry Smith of FundSmith on Jeff Randall Live this evening when he pointed out that News Corp. had under-performed for the last 15 years and made two disastrous acquisitions - one of Dow Jones, which cost about $5 billion but resulted in roughly half that sum having to be written off, and the other of MySpace which cost $500 million but which was sold recently for $35 million. As a result Mr Smith does not think much of Rupert Murdoch's management skills and believes that the shareholders would vote him out of office if the voting structure allowed one vote for each share. Apparently the Murdochs only own 13% of News Corp. but in light of the numerous non voting shares in issue they have 40% of the vote. This is no doubt known to you all but having only learnt this today I have to say it has changed my view of Murdoch. I had thought he was a wily old bird but now wonder if he isn't a headless chicken who should have retired gracefully years ago.

Gordon Brown's Mawkish Performance

Gordon Brown is reported to have told Murdoch when the Sun changed its pro Labour stance to a pro Tory one - "I will destroy you". I assume that his interview today on the BBC is part of his plan to do just that. In the interview Brown complains about New International's abuse of power, about News International's political agenda and about News International's commercial aims. Brown did not admit that Labour courted News International nor would he answer questions about why if he felt aggrieved with the way News International had treated him he did not call in the police and why he attended parties given by News International after the events he is now complaining of. It appeared to me that he thought the Sun got hold of the medical records of his son by foul means but the Sun deny this and state that they were told of Fraser Brown's cystic fibrosis by a Brown friend. As I know the Sun journalist who wrote the story I have to say I believe his version rather than Brown's as I found Brown's answers to the interview distinctly unsatisfactory and self serving. News International newspapers obviously have their political views but they wouldn't be newspapers if they didn't. Newspapers though do not have power so how can they abuse it? Brown accused those newspapers of manipulating the news against Labour, if only that had been true whilst Major was Prime Minister. As for news manipulation Brown should look at the BBC which has been massaging the news as far back as I can remember in order to present it with a left of centre bias. News International has nothing on the BBC, indeed I would go further and say there is far less bias on Sky. If there was any doubt about Brown's connection to the real world he has now clearly demonstrated he lives in cloud cuckoo land. He obviously has no idea that any commercial enterprise will pursue its best commercial interest - indeed it has a duty to its shareholders to do so. Thank God Brown s no longer in Government.      

The News of the World - again - and other rants

So there is nothing else to talk about save the News of the World scandal. Frankly the only immoral/illegal issues which I get excited about are the phone hacking of murdered children and of the killed or wounded  soldiers and their families. Whether Prescott's phone was hacked or not I could care less. People who live by newspaper coverage can die by it. It is easy to imagine that the police did not look into the phone hacking stories seriously because they took the same view as myself. The current investigation though should also cover whether the failure to find payments to coppers for information on the contact details of the Royal Family and the antics of celebrities was deliberate, sloppy or because the News International stable hid the evidence. The hypocrisy of the BBC, the Guardian and the Labour party is nauseating to see as is the complaint by Sarah Brown about her child. From what I've heard about her she is a loathsome person whose every bone is full of foul politics. J K Rowling and Sarah Brown deserve each other. It is extraordinary that with the emergence of the awful economic problems now besieging Italy, the inevitable default of Greece and our own economic plight no one is discussing the likely consequences, particularly for this country - it's as if they don't exist. I am of the view that Osborne must soon do something to encourage growth in the private sector by reducing taxes and bringing in a bonfire of the regulations including and particularly EU ones and to hell with the treaties we've signed up to. It is about time we looked after ourselves and if the EU doesn't like it then -tough - we will have to change the treaties. We must get rid of the awful Huhne and change energy tactics as we cannot afford expensive, landscape blotting, useless wind farms.

The Press

Hard cases make bad law and so it is to be fervently hoped that the mess in which the press finds itself does not lead to its regulation that in any way restricts its freedom to investigate and report. That such right to do so should be carried out within the law as it stands is fine since both hacking people's phones and paying bribes to the police or anyone else for that matter are already illegal activities. Any new regulation should be limited so that anyone writing for or distributing a story to the public should be deemed to have made a declaration that the story has not been obtained as a result of an illegal activity. As for stories which are made up it seems to me that the laws of libel provide sufficient redress although for those who do not wish to take proceedings they should instead have the ability to make a complaint to an independent body paid for by the media that can review the complaint and decide whether or not its main thrust is true and impose a fine both on the journalist that wrote it and the newspaper that published it if they decide it is not. Of course when I refer to newspapers I also mean other forms of media such as television, radio, reports issued by quangos and other bodies and even blogs. Thus my proposal would even cover reports by bodies like the IPPC and other single issue organisations. The independent complaints body would have a duty to ensure that all points of view were heard in coming to its conclusion with the usual right of appeal to the courts.  

Sun on Sunday

News International have taken dramatic action by closing down the News of the World, the newspaper I remember my father loved to read alongside the Sunday Times and the Observer. This was a long time before Murdoch bought the News of the World since until that time it had been owned by the Carr family which also owned Walton Heath Golf Club. One feels sorry for those working for the News of the World who have done nothing wrong although I imagine that they will be re-employed by the Sun on Sunday, at least I hope so. The other drama thought to be about to unfold, although at the moment it is said to be only a rumour, is that Andy Coulson is to be arrested later today - presumably for authorising payments to coppers for feeding information about arrests and the like. I doubt that the News of the World were alone in making these kinds of payments since it seemed to be an open secret that this kind of thing went on generally throughout Fleet Street. I hope this practice will now stop but I would not like to bet it will. The action of News International will no doubt take the pressure off David Cameron whose relationship with Murdoch and his senior staff has been roundly criticised by Peter Oborne in the Telegraph today although I suspect Cameron is going to have to explain in some detail about his relationship and if appropriate to apologise for his misjudgment in putting faith in those who have proved to be less than honest. Despite the fact that the proposed bid for BSkyB is a different issue from the News of the World scandal it is no doubt right from a political viewpoint to postpone until September a decision on whether or not to allow the bid. Cameron has the opportunity to change the way he operates from now on and I hope he takes it. He needs to concentrate on what his supporters want which means all those issues like the EU and the reform of the welfare state, the NHS, schools and the like.  

News of the World

Those, mostly of the left but not entirely, who believe News International should not be allowed to make a bid for BSkyB are using the News of the World Scandal as cover for their wish to stop the bid. In truth the News of the World scandal has nothing to do with the bid - they are two separate issues. Those who would stop the bid include the Guardian and of course the BBC. The Guardian wants the media playing field to continue being slanted in favour of the left which it is afraid will be upset if the BSkyB bid goes ahead. The BBC stands in the same corner as the Guardian but how it can claim that if News International wins its bid for BSkyB that plurality of provider will be impaired is a bit rich coming from a virtual monopoly provider. If the Government were concerned about plurality it would split the BBC into various private companies first. There could then be no question of the BSkyB bid affecting plurality. If there is to be a delay in allowing the bid to proceed because of the News of the World scandal I hope the Government looks carefully at the BBC's monopoly status. I also hope the Government investigates the Guardian to ensure that its arrangements to minimise the tax it pays are in accordance with the law so that we can all be happy that they are as moral as they say they are.

Bombardier

Reading between the lines it seems that what we had always suspected is in fact the case. We play by the rules laid down by Brussels in selecting contractors to carry out projects in this country whereas other countries in the EU cheat and appoint their own. How is it possible with the pound sterling at such a low exchange rate against the euro that Siemens can make an offer which beats that of Bombardier. It is hardly credible particularly as Bombardier are such specialists in their field. It really is about time that we either got out of the EU or we adopted the same cheating ways as the Germans and French. In the meantime they are waging a war against us of which we are totally oblivious and as a result are losing. If we don't wake up and engage, whether we stay in the EU or get out, then we will lose altogether and our manufacturing base will be completely emasculated over the next few years. Clearly we will be much better out of the EU with far greater freedom of manoeuvre. So far we have retained a lead in banking and insurance but the EU again is trying to introduce regulation which will ensure we have to perform with one hand tied behind our back in order that the clunky German and French competition can catch up. The EU wants the UK neutered. They hate us because we remind them of the way they behaved in the last World War. There is no reasoning with people like that. We have to walk away.  I had high hopes for this government but am beginning to worry that they do not have the guts to stand up for us. Another example of their somewhat pathetic behaviour is the way the Government seem intent on making a £9.3 billion additional subscription to the IMF whereas something half that size would reflect our shareholding in that institution. Why are we being so generous?

Article 8

The Human Rights Act was seen by many as not only unnecessary but also something foreign to our way of doing things and likely to lead to problems. Those who were against its introduction have been proved right. It has given rise to all sorts of problems, not least to our ability to protect ourselves against those who would abuse our hospitality. The judges are being unfairly blamed for their interpretation of the Human Rights Act but it is the wording of the Act which is at fault and Parliament must  correct its own mistakes. Article 8 says everyone has the right to a family life without exception which of course in one instance has been interpreted to mean that anybody who lives here has the right to bring their family members into the country. Whoever was responsible for the wording of the Act should be named, shamed and sacked as should the person or persons who lost the files of 160,000 asylum seekers. I would have thought it impossible to lose that many files so to me it feels like sabotage. When a doctor or other professional is negligent he can be sued and in the worst cases he can lose his livelihood by being struck off. The same result should apply to those who introduce legislation which fails to work as intended. With this threat in the background perhaps those responsible for legislation will take a little more care in their drafting which might have the advantage of less legislation. Why do we need 90% of the Acts of Parliament passed each year anyway? We know that a substantial number of Blairite Acts were only passed to demonstrate New Labour's virility for all the use they have been.    

The Olympics

Not satisfied with ripping off the taxpayers to pay for all sorts of things we do not need such as Community Support Officers, Diversity Managers and Equality Directors and failing to provide essential basic services like weekly or even twice weekly rubbish collections we now learn that various local authorities have been spending taxpayers money on tickets for the Olympics. Have these Councils gone mad? It is not even a question of inappropriateness in these economic times it is just simply inappropriate full stop for the Government or any local government to spend taxpayers' money on employee junkets of any kind. If the employees want a junket they can pay for it themselves. We taxpayers, and particularly those of us who live in London, have paid for the whole thing but instead of being given tickets at a discount and first choice in recognition of our support we have been subjected to a rationing system that has disadvantaged us. It leaves me profoundly unhappy and totally opposed to the travel and other restrictions to be imposed on ordinary Londoners whilst the Games are on.