Is Huhne Pointless

The answer is certainly yes. With the temperature in London now at 1 degree celsius Huhne has announced 'green' energy package which is going to cost all of us an extra £500 a year for us to heat ourselves. Huhne can of course afford this nasty little stealth tax but what about the rest of us? What is particularly galling is that by ruining the country side with wind farms and solar panels, all of which are pretty useless as we know for producing electricity, he refuses to make any significant investment in other alternatives including gas, shale and nuclear. Why is this? It is almost as if there is a conspiracy amongst governments against the continued use of existing fuels. Surely to God there are those amongst our politicians who are as aware as the rest of us that global warming warnings are dubious at least. Why don't they speak up? Why, apart from Lord Lawson, is there no well respected politician out there putting the argument for a re-assessment of the 'science' of man made global warming. Of course we should preserve the environment, that has always been a Conservative tenet, but not in this extreme and unnecessarily costly way which is itself so destructive of this green and pleasant land. And what about this rubbish carbon market - words fail me.....     

Pastor Terry Jones

Should the Home Secretary ban Pastor Terry Jones, the leader of a church numbering 12 members in all, from visiting this country and speaking to members of the English Defence League? Terry Jones is the person who was going to burn the Koran on the anniversary this year of the 9/11 atrocity but who was eventually persuaded not to do so. By backing down, albeit under considerable pressure, it shows that he is not a totally unreasonable person. The fact that he backed down is not the point though and neither is his threat to burn the Koran. On what basis should the Home Secretary refuse him entry to attend and speak at a rally organised by the English Defence League?  Only if the speech contravenes our laws. In the name of free speech etc we have allowed extremist Muslim preachers into the country and done nothing when they have spouted inflammatory nonsense so why not Mr Jones, who seems a bit of a joke ayway? There were too many occasions when the Labour government refused entry to persons with awkward views for no good reason other than prejudice and their need for electoral reasons to appease extremist Muslim opinion. This must stop and so we must allow those with views we may find abhorrent to come here and make speeches even to frightening organisations like the English Defence League. It is most essential that we demonstrate that this government respects freedom of speech and all that that means and if necessary protects Mr Jones and the English Defence League from being attacked by that equally frightening organisation, the Anti Nazi League.    

Warm as Toast in Brussels

The Coalition are doing a great job trying to sort out the deficit, education, welfare, transport, the prisons, the NHS and the Armed Services amongst other things and perhaps do not have the time to concentrate on issues like Global Warming and the EU. This is a great pity as a vacuum has arisen which needs desperately to be filled by a statesman with foresight and the guts to shrug off the opprobrium his speeches would attract. Such statesman's message would be twofold - first that for the EU to survive the Euro has to be wound up and secondly that before another penny is spent on the Global Warming strategy a proper scientific investigation needs to be carried out in a transparent manner. This does not mean that this ranter has change his mind about the EU - he passionately believes we would be better off out but that the only way to exit is in an orderly manner which cannot be achieved whilst the Euro problems are the focus of the EU leaders. This does not mean either that this ranter believes in Global Warming, man made or otherwise, but is prepared to abide by the findings of a properly balanced scientific inquiry as I'm sure it will vindicate the conclusions of the scientists who do not accept the views of the warmist scientisits. By good argument and perseverance a statesman could achieve both these aims. He would have to be a Government minister perhaps or at least someone with the necessary clout and stature. But who? There's the rub. I had hopes for Hague but he seems to have lost the fire in his belly that he had when he was Leader of the Opposition. Cometh the hour cometh the man, as they say. Well I damn well hope so.     

Nothing Changes

Listening to the leftie students trying to justify the violence at their demonstration against the increase in tuition fees was like a walk down memory lane. Every time the Conservatives are in government it is always their policies, according to the left, which are to blame for violent demonstrations and not those thugs amongst the protesters with their own agenda who set out to damage to people and property. The leftie logic or excuse is that these thugs are not responsible for their own actions. If so then the thugs are all lunatics and should be dealt with as such. Why is it that when in opposition the Conservatives only protest by democratic means against measures brought in by Socialist governments? It is of course because Conservatives are true democrats and believe in the rule of law whilst many on the left are still believers in the communist - as we saw or heard from the pathetic mutterings of those representatives of the National Union of Students yesterday. By their language it seemed that they were condoning violence. One wonders whether they knew there was going to be violence in advance and even encouraged it. Will the new leader of the Unite Union be following where the students have led? His curious remarks about resistance could be construed that way. As Eisenhower said 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilance' and I trust the Coalition appreciate that. Many had thought that with the passing of the Communist regimes we could relax our guard against the extreme left but it seems the gene pool lives on. How disappointing.   

Boring Students and Other Things

What a pack of spoilt brats the students are. It is frankly staggering that so many of them can take off so much time for purely selfish reasons i.e. in order to save having to pay for something that is of considerable benefit to them. I have run out of patience and any sympathy I might have had for them to begin with has long since dissipated. Anyone would think that the whole tuition fee issue was a matter of life and death whereas it is only of peripheral importance in the great scale of things.  The LibDem to-ing and fro-ing on this issue has been nothing but extraordinary and humiliating, mercifully resolved to a degree with their ministers quite rightly deciding to vote in favour of the changes. Why though are David Davis and other Tories going to vote against the proposals? They hint they are being altruistic but I for one am against having to spend more on student education when so much of it seems to go to so called Universities for gormless courses. Enough is enough. Much, much more important is the economic disaster that the clowns who believe in global warming want to bring down on us by saddling us with £20 billion of extra costs each year to tilt against a non-existent problem. Much, much more important is to escape from the bonds which tie us to Europe. Once we had a global view but now our horizons are restricted to a European perspective for the first time in our lives. Shame on us. Shame on us for not promoting our view of life and protecting ourselves against the Napoleonic and Sharia notions of civilisation and the rule of law, the pettiness and constrictions of which I reject as a free born Englishman. 

Julian Assange

Scotland Yard has announced that it has the appropriate papers to enable them to hold Julian Assange of  Wikileaks and bring extradition proceedings against him at the request of the Swedes. If the form of extradition proceedings follow the old format  a case to answer will have to be proved before Assange can be extradited. During the process the wikileaks will presumably continue to appear as they will no doubt afterwards, whether Assange is extradited or not, as it seems there is no way in which these leaks can be stopped. It appears the leaks have caused real upset amongst a number of those named in them and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is having her work cut out apologising to foreign dignitaries. One wonders why these leaks have been made. Money, revenge or a hatred of the USA must surely come into it somewhere and possibly all of them for one or more of the 'leakers'. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could think they were being altruistic in making the leaks. Why for a start do the public need to know what is being revealed? I for one feel somewhat guilty reading the leaks - it feels like prying into someone else's diary one has accidentally picked up and finding out all sorts of things that are interesting but that one really shouldn't know. We know, because we were told so as children, that eavesdroppers only hear bad things about themselves. In our case that we are 'paranoid' about the special relationship.      

Tax Protesters

So protesters closed down Topshop for an hour yesterday because they don't like people making money and so arranging their tax affairs that they pay the minimum. I wonder what contribution to the general tax take these protestors make. Polly Toynbee, who was present at the protest, makes some contribution but I do not get the feeling that she wishes to pay over the odds, owning I believe more than one house. 
The protest was to draw attention to the £1.2 billion dividend paid to Lady Green by Arcadia, the owners of Topshop, which the protesters say should have been subject to UK tax but which wasn't because Lady Green is a resident of Monaco. However if the protesters are interested in increasing the UK's tax revenues why did they stop Topshop trading, thus making more profit and thus paying more tax? Curious logic. The logic of jealousy and spite.