Brussels follow-up

What do you make of what is happening in Brussels and Paris? 

Terrorists, acting in the name of the religion of peace exploded two bombs at the airport and another one on an underground train and killed more than 30 people and injured, many very seriously, more than 270 souls.

Since these callous attacks, Belgium’s police and intelligence services have finally sprung to life.

A long held belief was that the Belgian authorities turned a blind eye to radical Islamists and in return these terrorists didn’t ‘misbehave’ in Belgium.  That ‘compact’ has been well and truly broken. 

Brussels, or Jihadi Central, as it has sometimes been called, has come to realise that when you keep a poisonous snake, you must keep it properly caged, otherwise it will attack its hosts. Or you must remove the cause of the venomous nature.

You can’t blame the snake – that’s its nature.  It’s all it knows.  It’s what it is taught, day in and day out.  It starts at it’s mother’s breast, carries on through a schooling that is  dominated by a warped and murderous  religion and then is fed daily by local communities who are constantly told, by their liberal hosts that they are entitled and special and don’t need to assimilate into their host society;-

·      that it’s okay to mistreat women – because that’s your culture

·      that it’s okay to practice ritual slaughter – because that’s your religion

·      that it’s okay to mutilate women - because they are inferior

·      that it’s okay to ignore host country law – because you have Shariah law

·      that it’s okay to impose your Shariah law on non-believers -  because their dress or following entirely legal activities, such as drinking alcohol or eating pork, offends you.

Finally, Brussels authorities are now starting to make arrests.  In the course of the last few days we have learned that many of these terrorists were ‘known’ to the authorities.  One of the bombers was deported by Turkey, who advised the Belgians that he was a dangerous militant, and yet received no punishment or surveillance upon his return to Belgium.  Another is on the USA’s terror watch list but is allowed to roam free in Brussels.

Some of this Belgian activity is spilling over into France.  Arrests have been made their, seemingly made on the basis of information that they have received from the Belgians.  This does though, call into question all of those platitudes that were mouthed after the Paris attacks in November 2015.  It also calls into question all of the prattling we hear about close cooperation between the intelligence services of European Union members.  The EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told the BBC ‘the ‘deep state’ resists and we must change this attitude.  I know it is not easy to start thinking more European, but it is a must’.   This despite the assertions by Rob Wainwright, head of Europol, that British membership of the EU was so critical to Britain’s security!

A former director of America’s CIA has said that ‘the European Union, in some ways gets in the way of security services’.  He went on to say that that the EU was ‘not a natural contributor to national security’.

Speaking of Americans, can President Obama ever become any more crass? People are killed – people including Americans – and Obama then spares a minute or two, to criticise the killers, using his trademark absence of mentioning the religion of the killers.  Then it is straight on to a baseball game, sitting alongside the totalitarian Castro and indeed, indulging in a ‘Mexican wave’ and generally enjoying himself.  Then, just in case he hadn’t offended enough, he heads off to Argentina and goes for a tango photo-op. 

American Presidents are always concerned about their ‘legacy’.  For me, the photographs of Obama doing a Mexican wave or dancing a tango will rank alongside other completely inappropriate ‘photo-ops’ to serve as his legacy – that and the racial and social division that he has promoted in America and the abandonment of America’s leading global role.

I hope that the openness we have seen and heard, in recent days continues.  That we will continue to learn of the failings of these security services.  This openness is the only way that they will learn and improve.

It is not just the security services that need to learn, though.  European societies need to learn the fundamental lesson that multi-culturalism doesn’t work.  Migrants must assimilate into their host societies.  These host societies cannot tolerate parallel communities to exist alongside their native born citizens.  They cannot allow alternative legal systems to operate – there can only be one body of law and that must be the national one.

Have a Blessed Easter and celebrate the Risen Christ

Europe fight back or die.

What do you think it will take for the elite that are running Europe into the ground, to wake-up and recognise the existential threat that they have allowed to grow, in their own countries?  How many in Paris?  How many in London?  How many in Brussels?  How many in Madrid?

Angela Merkel and those European leaders that still listen to her continue to adopt policies of appeasement.  Policies that open Europe's doors to people that will commit more and more atrocities in Europe.   The latest was to try and come to some kind of arrangement, as blackmail is now described, with Turkey.  That this deal is with the odious and undemocratic Turkish regime, is conveniently overlooked.  So is the almost certain condition that this agreement is in contravention of international law.  Such trivialities are brushed aside by the elite - nothing to see here, move along.

I was going to say 'here's a prediction' and then go on to say that the deal won't work but I was unable to keep up with events.  There are migrants in Greece who Turkey cannot or more likely will not take and so the deal has no merit, other than to try and con voters within the EU, that something is being done.

I posted here in the aftermath of the November, Paris attacks.  In the intervening period, nothing much has changed.  The sale of French national flags and now those of Belgium have increased.  Same applies to candles and the jars in which they are placed.  No doubt flowers and cuddly toys have also seen sustained sales growth.  However, substantive change?  Nothing.

Don't believe me?  Consider the following.

One of the Paris killers had been living in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek prior to the November 13, attacks.  After the attacks, there were very strong indications that  Salah Abdesalam had returned to Brussels.  Cue a flurry of activity and then .... nothing.  Maybe that lack of success was due to the Belgian police not being able to carry out  raids between 9.00 pm and 5.00 am.  Certainly that would have contributed to the failure exhibited by the Brussels police but they were also very reluctant to upset the local residents of the suburb, which has become a largely immigrant ghetto.

Eventually Abdesalam was apprehended, last week.  Good news, until you consider that he was caught within a kilometre or two of his previous address.  Oh, and it took Belgium 4 months to find him!

When he was arrested, some members of the ghetto population came onto the streets to protest and berate the police.  Next time someone tells you that 'murderers like Abdesalam are not representative of mainstream Muslims' ask them about this.  Clearly, the Muslim community in Molenbeek were sheltering and protecting him.  Why else would they do this unless they shared in his murderous philosophy?

Belgium has a large problem with Muslims.  For many years, Brussels was seen as a safe haven for Islamic terrorists - many speculated that there was an unwritten compact between Belgian authorities and these killers.  The former wouldn't actively pursue the latter and the terrorists wouldn't visit their trademark killings on the streets of Belgium.  That has changed with the advent of Daesh.  Belgium has the highest per capita contribution of fighters that have gone to Syria and Iraq to join Daesh.  Some of these murderers have returned 'home' and now want to visit their jihad on their host countries.  They will be aided in this by those Daesh that are flooding into Europe at the invitation of Angela Merkel, certain other European leaders and various celebrities and other 'useful fools'.

Consider some numbers.  Reasonable estimates are that last year, Europe was invaded by more than a million migrants.  At least he same number is expected, this year. Let's stay with last year though. What percentage might be Daesh?  5% would get you 50,000.  1/2% would get you 5,000.  Let's go with 0.0005% - that will get you 500 killers.  500 men and women who are experienced in killing, trained in bombing and firmly believe that they will defeat and conquer the soft, decadent and corrupt Europeans.  Think the 500 number is too high?  Consider, the UK has, last year, allowed back 800 of its citizens who had previously left the UK and gone to fight for Daesh.

I really don't think the 500 is high, much more likely a great understatement.

Point is that keeping Europe's doors open will only serve to increase the number of Daesh, in our midst and add to the frequency of attacks and the number of victims.

Here is a challenge for you.  You almost certainly use Twitter and probably other social media.  What is/are the religion (s) of those people you have seen, beheading other people? Same question for where you have seen people being thrown off of buildings or executed by a bullet to the head or set on fire or drowned in a cage.  Now see if you can square the answer with the claim that this religion is the religion of peace.  See if you can figure out how so called 'moderates' allow these killers to live in their midst, indeed to actually sustain them.

Here is another challenge for you.  Ask your political representatives how many migrants Europe is supposed to be able to absorb?  What will be a number at which, once reached, the European elite will say 'OK, that's enough now'.  1 million last year, another million this year, enough or do we keep on inviting them in?  Then ask your representative how are these to be accommodated?  Who will build and pay for the extra housing, schools and hospitals that will be needed? Where, in a stagnant economy, will these migrants find jobs?

The European Union (EU) must close its borders to all migrants and do so immediately.  The EU must man those borders with the military and must build fences and walls to keep out those who would bring death to Europeans and our culture.  The EU navies must turn back all of the vessels that are being used by these migrants.  Infringe the territorial waters of Turkey or Libya?   Absolutely.  So what.  Just do it.  Libya is a failed state and can do nothing and Turkey must be brought into line.  Turkey must understand that their facilitation of the invasion of Europe, must cease.

The foregoing only addresses the growing external threat.  In terms of the internal threat, strong measures need to be undertaken.  There can be no 'no go' areas or ghettos in Europe's cities.  The police, supported if required by the military, must re-establish the rule of law - and I do not mean Shariah law - in these areas.  They must search and find all illegal aliens and then deport them.  The so called Human Rights laws need to be suspended for these people.  They have zero regard for the human rights of others.  Yesterday they took away, forever, the human rights of 34 people.  In Paris they did the same for 130 people.  We simply cannot allow this cancer to exist in our midst.  Radical surgery is called for.  Do you think that Daesh consider 'political correctness'?  If they do, it is only to know how useful it is, to them in 'guilting' Europeans.  Anyone that says anything honest or slightly negative or questioning about Islam is automatically a racist.  Say that and the Left and the media and all those well meaning liberals get on your case and perform a hatchet job on you.  Of course, being a figurative hatchet job, it's not as good as what Daesh can do themselves but it does have the effect of silencing people.  Every time I hear these liberals and Lefties supporting Daesh, I am reminded of the quote attributed to Lenin, which talks of the 'bankers selling the Communists, the very rope with which the bankers would be hanged'

In closing, a request.  Don't put flowers or lighted-candles on street corners.   Don't post Je Suis.... on social media.  Instead use that energy to tell your elected representatives.  Enough!

Oh, and as for me.  If I wasn't convinced before, Brussels confirms that the only choice for the UK is Brexit.

Football's greed - the FA, this time.

How much money do you think that the English Football needs?

In 2015, the FA had a turnover of £318 million and a pre-tax profit of £5.4 million.  That is after financing costs for the new Wembley Stadium.  This suggests that the finances of the English FA are healthy and robust.

How moronic is it to schedule an international break as we come to the end of a competitive Premier League season?

Okay, I will answer the last one.  Very.

The English FA along with other international FAs have scheduled football matches starting tomorrow and ending next Tuesday 29 March. Teams will play 2 friendly games in this period.  Why on earth is this happening?

Picture yourself as an English Premier League Manager for a moment.  Put aside any fears for your precarious job security and focus instead on a call-up for one of your international players.  Say you are Claudio Ranieri, would you allow Jamie Vardy to play for England?  If you were Mauricio Pochettino, would you risk Harry Kane?  Or would you pull your players out of contention as Pellegrino did with Joe Hart and Raheem Sterling, because they are 'injured'?

Surely any responsible manager would do as Pellegrino has done and retain the fitness of his players for their club.

Remember too, that because of these additional fixtures, the remaining EPL games then have to be squeezed into a shorter time-frame.

Football pundits are regularly telling us that there should be a mid-season break so that footballers can rest.  The 38 PL games that they play, coupled with FA Cup games and, for some, European games, are too tiring and straining for them.

Now, I disagree with the pundits and those who would mess around with English football, in such a way.  Footballers are supposed to be athletes.  Training does not require them putting in a daily 8 hour shift, as most all of the people that pay their exorbitant salaries, have to.  Match day requires them putting in a session of less than 2 hours.  That shouldn't be beyond them.  Heavens!  They would still even have time to attend night-clubs, visit prostitutes and other events as they currently do.

All that said, footballers do get injured and it is incredibly stupid that, at the tail-end of the football season, the risk is increased by having footballers play unnecessary fixtures.  It is not as though the FA need the money.

The solution is in the hands of football managers - not allowing players to be available for international duty - and in the hands of genuine football supporters - by boycotting such unnecessary and meaningless friendly games.

Do your bit!  Tweet or otherwise get in touch with your club and tell them to not make players available for the national teams.  Football, and particularly the English Premier League, need it.

Scottish life expectancy

What do you think is the life expectancy for a 21st century Scot?  According to official statistics,  the latest averages are 77.1 years for a man and 81.1 years for a woman.


What about a 'generation'.  How many years do you think that might be?  I reckon somewhere between 25 to 30 years.

The reason for these questions is that I am trying to understand why you or I might understand what a 'lifetime' or a 'generation' means and yet this can so escape the mind of Nicola Sturgeon - First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party and indeed, of all those SNP delegates at a conference, last Saturday, who rose as one to applaud Sturgeon's speech.

Sturgeon has said that later this Summer, presumably after the Euro Referendum, the Scots will undertake an exercise to kick-off a process which would lead to another Scottish 'independence' referendum being held.

What are we to make of this?

When the last referendum was held, the people of Scotland voted by 55% to 45% to remain part of the United Kingdom.  During that referendum campaign and in the aftermath of the result, politicians of all hues and persuasion,  including Nicola Sturgeon and her predecessor, Alex Salmond made clear that this was a 'once in a lifetime opportunity'.

The referendum was held in September 2014, as in 18 months ago.  On what possible measurement can such a short period be considered a 'lifetime' or even a 'generation'?

Wags now dub this the 'neverendum'.  Sturgeon and the SNP have learnt well the lessons of European referendums. If you don't get the answer you want, ask again and keep asking until you do get the answer you want.  Yes it is a very warped version of representative democracy but it really is all of one with socialist politicking.  It is the political elite that knows best.  Those privy to the mind and musings of the leader and her cabal, must be right.

Consider though, what has transpired since that September 2014 referendum.  The SNP made so very much of the very positive impact that 'Scottish oil' would have on the Scottish economy.  At the time, Brent Crude was trading just north of $100 a barrel.  Since that time, oil prices have plummeted and, even though they have recently recovered a bit, now sit around $40 a barrel.  To say that this blows a hole in the sustainability of the finances of an independent Scotland would be an understatement of titanic proportions.

I don't want to bore you with statistics but consider the following:

                                                     £BN           % of UK GDP

Public Revenues                          51.6                 8.0

Public Revenue incl. Oil             53.4                 8.2

Public Expenditure                     68.4                 9.3
               
Deficit                                         13.7                 9.8

Deficit incl. Oil                           11.9                 7.8

The overall UK deficit was 3.3% of GDP

(source GERS 2016)

These figures show one of the greatest benefits of the Union.  Public spending in Scotland, at the above levels, was made possible because people in other parts of the United Kingdom, financed it. Remember too, that these Scottish Public Expenditure figures do not include any allocation of the financing costs for the UK's debt mountain.

The people of Scotland voted, in 2014, to remain part of the United Kingdom.  I believe that the economic uncertainty was a very large influencing factor.  In addition to the precarious nature of 'leaping into the dark' largely based on a single commodity, the other major factor was the post-independence currency.  The UK government had made clear that an independent Scotland could not expect to enjoy a currency union and the SNP could not answer what currency they would use.  There was undoubted fear among the Scottish electorate, that the only choice would be for an independent Scotland to join the Euro.  Sensible Scots had seen, time after time, the failings of this flawed currency and chose to have no part of it.

Nothing about this currency question has changed.

Any future independence referendum, in Scotland, requires an Act of Parliament, passed by the UK parliament.  The one at Westminster.  Nicola Sturgeon and many of those in the SNP, know this. They know that even their 50 Westminster MPs cannot force another referendum through Westminster.  If there was any residual sympathy for another referendum, then this will surely have been discarded when the recent activity of the SNP, at Westminster, has been considered.

I refer to the changes that were proposed to Sunday Trading laws.  These would only affect England and Wales.  They would bring the Sunday Trading laws, in England and Wales, into line that already prevail in Scotland.  Yet, the SNP decided to join with the Labour Party and others, including some Conservative dissenters and so voted out the opportunity.  They came up with the most spurious claim to defend their action but, at the end of the day, they voted on matters that, being an issue that is devolved to the Holyrood parliament, would have absolutely no impact in Scotland.  This was bare-faced political opportunism.

For me the position is crystal clear.  David Cameron should use the next available occasion (Wednesday's Prime Minister's questions?) to make clear that we will not allow a new Scottish  referendum to be on the legislative agenda during the lifetime of this parliament - so not before 2020 -  and that if the Conservatives are re-elected, in 2020, then it would not appear on future legislative programmes.

Knowing that Cameron and Osborne are highly political animals, I think this is a win-win for the Conservatives.  They take this issue off of the table for the immediate future and, more importantly, it will force Scottish electors to focus instead on the appallingly inept management of Scotland that the SNP exercise. The SNP, at Holyrood are failing the Scottish people.  They are failing on health, failing on education, failing on social care and failing the poor and the disadvantaged.

It doesn't take a cynic to suggest that this renewed enthusiasm for a referendum is a classic exercise in deflection.  The SNP don't want the Scots to look at their appalling record in Holyrood because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.   The SNP want the Scots to go off on some kind of 'Braveheart' fantasy and ignore the wasted last 5 years.

Over to David Cameron.

Oh, and to the people of Scotland, so that they can give Sturgeon and her SNP bigots a very bloody nose.

I have faith in the UK - do you?

This isn't a blog on religious belief.  I am sure it wouldn't deter some readers, if it were but some don't follow.

No, this is about having faith in something a bit more tangible - the United Kingdom.

I have lost track of the number of times, I have heard the 'Remainians' (the name given to those who want Britain to remain in the EU) say that a vote for Britain to regain its independence would be a 'leap in the dark'.  If I think of such an important vote as a leap, I prefer to consider it as a leap of faith.

I have faith in the United Kingdom.

I have faith that the UK can regain control of its democracy, which for many years has been constantly undermined by membership of the European Union.  For many European countries, democracy is a relatively new phenomenon but not for the UK.  The largest constituent of the UK, England, has enjoyed differing levels of representative democracy for more than a thousand years.  It is a system, from which other countries have also benefited, particularly those in the so called, Anglosphere.  Countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland and India, for example.

I have faith that the UK will be able to enjoy a thriving economy.  The UK has always been a trading nation and we continue to be so.  As the economies of the EU, and particularly the Euro-zone, have stuttered and stagnated over recent years, Britain has been slowly re-connecting with the rest of the world outside the EU.   The Remainians  emphasise that the EU is a market place of 500 million people.  No doubt that is true.  Remember though that there are 6.5 billion people outside of the EU. To save you doing the maths, that is 13 times more people outside the EU, than are in it.

Not that we would automatically lose access to the EU, were the British to leave.

Forget Project Fear with their talk about '3 million UK jobs are dependent on the EU'.  The number of 3 million has been found to be a highly dubious extrapolation from old data but mainly remember that whatever the number of jobs, these are dependent on trade with the EU, not the EU itself.  There is no logical reason why trade between a free UK and the EU, should be reduced.  Yes Britain would need to conclude a trade treaty with the EU and of course this could very easily be concluded within a very short space of time.  The template for this already exists.  It is the way that trade is already conducted between the UK and its EU partners.  All that is needed is for that to be converted into legislation.  However, also don't forget that failing that, the tariff rates that would otherwise prevail would be those from the World Trade Organisation.  These WTO rates are in the range of 2-4% - so hardly likely to lead to a massive change in trade relationships.  I also have faith that EU businessmen will pressure their own political leaders to quickly conclude a trade treaty with a now free United Kingdom.  Given that the rest of the EU enjoys a significant trade surplus with the UK, does anyone seriously believe that these countries would not treat with a free UK so as to retain such a beneficial commercial relationship?

I have faith that those in power in a free UK and those in the EU and in the rest of Europe, will continue to see the benefits of cooperation on security issues.  In this interconnected world, all governments need to cooperate and share information on security issues.  It defies logic and common sense to think that a vote for Brexit, would then mean that Britain doesn't share information that it gathers from GCHQ or other assets, with other members of Europol.  The same applies reciprocally to the security services of other European countries.

I have faith that freed from making a net contribution of at least £10 billion a year to the EU budget (the amount is sometimes quoted as more than £20 billion but I have taken the lowest number, on which there seems to be no dispute), the money can be better and more efficiently spent in the UK.  I am certainly right to have faith that the funds, when they remain in the UK, will be properly accounted for.  The same can never be said of the EU.  To me, the fact that the accounts of the EU have not been signed-off by auditors for the last 19 years speaks to at best, an extremely inefficient organisation and at worst, an organisation that is riven through with corruption and mis-spending.

I have faith that freed from the protectionist policies of the EU, the UK will be able to support developing country economies by buying their agricultural products.  The EU Common Agricultural Policy has a terrible effect on the economies of these developing countries.  One has to wonder just how many of the economic migrants from Africa now flooding into Europe are doing so because they cannot make a living at home, as a result of the trade barriers that the EU puts in front of the exports from their home countries.  This isn't fiction, just because it sounds like it, the  EU imposes trade barriers on agricultural imports from third world countries and then turns around gives aid to those very countries.   Sounds like economic colonialism to me but we hear not a peep from the 'Left' in the EU.

A British actress was recently quoted describing Great Britain as a 'cake-filled, misery laden, grey old island'.  Since I am not a 'lefty' I don't subscribe to the self-loathing to which socialists and communists are prone.  Cake-filled?  Really don't understand that - certainly don't understand how Britain is any more 'cake-filled' than say Austria with its delicious sachertorte or a tredlnik from the Czech republic - such a strange, weird statement.  Misery laden?  Hmm, the actress was speaking in Germany, which ranked at 26th place, according to the 2015 Happiness Index, ranks behind the UK which is in 21st place.  Grey? Maybe she should get out of her tinted-windows limousine and see the colours of Britain.  There are some grim colourless parts of the UK, just as there are, in so many other countries, around the world but look at the variety of colour that extends across the British countryside and call that grey!  Old island - yes, she is right on this.  We are an old island and an old democracy as well but that hasn't stopped our country turning out giants of industry, letters and arts, science and philosophy and politics.  I have faith that we will continue to do so.

It is probably old fashioned to say this but I share my faith in the United Kingdom, with previous leaders of this country.  I share it with Winston Churchill who, in 1940, when Britain stood alone against the Nazis, had faith in the British people and had faith that our British values of decency and democracy would prevail against the evil National Socialism of Hitler.
  
Join me, take a leap and have faith in Britain - Vote Leave!