Choosing books

We are living in strange times.  Times where history, or rather British and English history, is being erased. Statues are being pulled down and or defaced.  MPs, local Councils and Common Purpose police are in thrall to extreme Leftist agitators.  They are literally, on their knees in a symbol of abject surrender to these dangerous anti-democrats – or fascists as you might more properly call them. 

The ‘rent-a-mob’ Leftists are currently focused on statues of people from British history and other cultural symbols such as street names but, absent Boris Johnson’s government stepping in and supplanting mob rule with the rule of law, then it can only be a matter of time before ‘they’ come for books.

I’m making a list and I suggest that you start on yours.

Here’s how you do it.

Look along your bookshelves and identify those books that need to be first on the bonfires when they come to your street or town.

I’ve got these so far.  Please share yours.

1984 and Animal Farm – George Orwell – naturally the great caller-out of Leftist hypocrisy has to go.  These are paperback so won’t take long to be consumed.

The Strange Death of Europe – Douglas Murray – exposing the cultural suicide of Europe and the Islamification of the Continent.  Hardback so will burn well.

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand – Let’s face it, this obviously isn’t an English writer, with a name like that.  And she champions competition, creativity and human greatness – so this very thick – good burning material – book, must go.

Margaret Thatcher – 3 hardback volumes – Charles Moore . To the Left, the personification of evil.  Throw in, Churchill by Andrew Roberts, and you’ll be burning the cream of books on Conservative leaders.

Hiding the Decline – A.W. Montford and Water Melons – James Delingpole – exposure of the climate hoax, so loved by the Left, is verboten.

Arguably – Christopher Hitchens – Free thinking and very good writing is simply not allowed.

How we invented freedom and why it matters – Daniel Hannan and Magna Carta – David Starkey – important that the plebs don’t get any ideas. 

Our Island Story – H. E. Marshall – Imperialist./Colonialist  In fact, have to throw, Collected Stories by Rudyard Kipling, at the same time.

Talking of colonialism and white oppression, Scramble for Africa – Thomas Pakenham , Simon Schama’s 3 volume history of Britain, History of the World in 100 objects – Neil MacGregor’s tales of white appropriation and Paul Johnson’s various Histories of Jews, Americans and the English now make the pile, as do. Simon Jenkins’ Short History (s) of Europe and of England.

Of course fiction doesn’t get off scot-free.

All those Barchester and Palliser novels of Anthony Trollope – celebrate and glorify white privilege.

As for all those dearly loved  P G Wodehouse books – all 30 odd volumes go on the fire.  This writer has the nerve to use gay as a term to denote happiness rather than a sexual choice – such confusion cannot co-exist, in such woke times.

I’m keeping quiet about my DVDs as the Left have already started on films and TV shows, so please don’t tell anyone!

Clapping - a Confession

A confession – I ‘clapped for Carers’ for a couple of weeks.  Wasn’t really that comfortable doing so – it’s not really a thing the English do but I did it.

Another confession – I don’t ‘clap for Carers’ anymore.

I feel better having got that off of my chest.  But I feel so much better knowing that no one can accuse me of clapping for the NHS because I won’t do that.

I won’t clap for NHS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Managers (starting salary more than £58K)

I won’t clap for NHS Climate Change Managers (starting salary more than £44K)

I won’t be clapping for NHS Procurement Managers (starting salary £38K)

I won’t be clapping for the owners of private care homes.

And I won’t be clapping for Sir Simon Stevens – NHS Chief Executive (salary £190K+) or the thousands of other  highly-paid NHS ‘executives’

Indeed, I won’t be clapping for any of these people who have failed us.

And that’s what they have done.  They have failed us. 

They have failed to have sufficient PPE supplies for hospitals and care homes.  Be clear – the failures are those of the NHS ‘management’ and Care Home owners.  It is patently not the failure of the government. 

The NHS have wasted taxpayer money on virtue signaling jobs such as those above.  Think of a local NHS trust.  Now think what possible impact the Trust’s Climate Change Manager can have on the climate.  The Sun (the one in the sky not the newspaper) is the single most important determinant in the situation regarding our climate.  Not just most important but overwhelmingly dominant.  And yet, Trusts employ someone who will tell you to turn off the light when you leave a room or recycle your plastic water bottle!

The leadership of the NHS and Care Homes have feathered their own nests while neglecting their core responsibilities to their patients and their employees.

Ask yourself this – Are you aware of any, I repeat any, NHS Procurement or Supply Chain Manager – you remember, those whose job it is to ensure that the NHS is supplied with what it needs to do its job – anyone who has resigned at his or her failure?   The lure of those above national average salaries (plus of course, cosseted benefits) far outweighs integrity and basic decency on the scales of life, for these people.

Imagine for a moment, what would have happened if the Government had not stepped in?  Does anyone seriously believe that the NHS Executive would have been able to organize the Nightingale Hospitals?  Anyone? 

Some of the actions taken by the Government have maybe later found to be unnecessary – Nightingales being a case in point – but they were, and remain, a necessary contingency.  These though were built by the organizational skills of the British military. Mostly the British Army.  Not the army of Supply Chain and Procurement Managers and so called ‘professionals’ but the real Army.  They just did what they always do – they got on with it.  Give them a problem and they’ll fix it.  Give the same problem to the NHS and they advertise for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Managers and Climate Change Managers so as to ensure that all aspects address the requirements of the ‘woke’ commentariat.

And while your ire might be directed against this army of bureaucrats, please don’t lose sight of their ‘leaders’.  The Tax Payers’ Alliance (@the_tpa) advised, in April 2020, that 242 NHS ‘executives’ were on 6 figure salaries.  Supposedly they get these ‘film star’ wages because they know what they’re doing.  Well, their stellar performance has led us to the situation where the Government had to intervene and assume responsibility to get things done because the NHS ‘executives' were simply not up to the job. 

Post-Covid19, there will be some kind of public inquiry – I now have the ability to predict the plaintive calls of the Labour Party for one – remarkable, I know - it’s a gift .  This inquiry must examine and name and shame the NHS ‘executives’ who so roundly failed us.  Heads must roll and a complete re-organization of the NHS must be undertaken.  Clearly it is not fit for purpose. Note:  When these heads roll – no Golden Goodbyes, please.

These NHS ‘executives’ and indeed, throughout the organization, support a group-think that – you have to have been in the NHS, in order to work for it.  This dangerous policy has borne fruit in the recent crisis with the so called leaders – you remember, those people that are constantly on the news, saying that the NHS is underfunded, those ones – unable to perform a basic task like getting PPE to front-line carers in hospitals and GP surgeries. 

And the private sector is no better.  I occasionally sleep so I must have missed the moment when responsibility for the provision of PPE shifted from private sector employers to the State.  I’ve never heard of a construction company, knocking on the door of No. 10 and asking for their hard hats or safety boots.

Of course, if you accept that it IS the responsibility of the State to provide for private businesses, then you can be sure that the BBC and other media will give you a platform from which to whine – after all, if it’s anti-Government, then the BBC  or Sky is your man (or woman).

I could go on in the same vein but enough for now.

I started off by saying who I won’t clap for but please don’t think I am some kind of ingrate who can’t recognize the huge contribution made by individuals up and down the country.  I am talking about;

Hospital doctors and nurses

Shop workers

GPs and their staff

Dustbin men and women

Postmen and women

Delivery drivers

Government Ministers

Volunteers who tirelessly just help.

I would have liked to include teachers but it seems that they, and their Left-dominated unions, have decided that while it’s safe enough for others to work, they can’t let the opportunity to thwart the Government pass them by and so they won’t return to work.

EU Talks - Time to walk?

I think it’s time we end the EU transition talks and get on with life outside the EU.  Read on.

How would you define a nation? 

I guess, I’d start with ‘a land enclosed by internationally agreed borders’.  Then if it’s a coastal nation or an island, I’d extend those borders out to the agreed territorial limits.

But a nation is about more that territory.  Fundamentally, it’s about people.  In the case of this post, it’s about the people of the United Kingdom – those in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and the land that we call home.

A nation is also about how those peoples organize their lives.  How they live together.  That doesn’t just mean about the laws that have developed over centuries, it includes how we have shared sacrifices and victories and resources, over time.  How we have developed a national identity based on shared values – values such as democracy, respect for the law and tolerance.

The common thread to all this talk about the nation that is the United Kingdom, is that we, the people of the UK have done this.  Of course, over the centuries we have taken on-board external ideas and indeed absorbed foreign refugees into our midst.  However, all the time, it is we, the people, who have decided.  Not foreign bodies or governments – we, the people of the United Kingdom.

Since 1973, the UK has been a member of what has morphed into the European Union.  Our time of membership has always been a strained relationship – the people of the UK simply don’t like being told what to do by other peoples – and in 2016, the people of the UK voted to Leave the EU.  I won’t rehash all the false arguments about Scotland and Northern Ireland didn’t vote to Leave – simply to say, we went in as a United Kingdom, we come out as a United Kingdom and today, we remain, the United Kingdom.

Following the historic June 2016 vote to Leave, apparatchiks in the UK Civil Service and politicians, who had forgotten that they represent the people of the UK, sought to thwart the declared will of the people of the UK.  They used every possible means and, frankly, some conspired with foreigners to do-down the UK.  There’s a word for that!

All that though, is now in the past, those people who sought to betray the democratic wishes of the people of the UK have mostly been consigned to the political scrapheap or the C or D list of ‘celebrities’ called upon by an anti-UK/Pro-EU media to pontificate on a train that’s left the station.

That ‘train’ left the station on January 31, 2020 when the UK finally left the EU.  We are now in a ‘transition period’ until December 31, 2020.  The transition period was designed to allow for negotiations to take place to achieve an orderly transfer from EU dominated legislation designed for member states, to legislation fitting a sovereign nation.

These transition talks have been ongoing and you’d probably be shocked to know that they really only gained any momentum after we actually left the EU, at the end of January.

That said, a lot of progress has been made and agreement reached in many areas.  I suppose that’s a strong indicator of how ‘globalist’ many areas of legislation have become.

They remaining areas of contention are what is being called LPF and fishing rights.

LPF – this means Level Playing Field – it’s a short-hand term used by EU politicians.  In brief it means that the UK would agree to be subject to EU laws, set by the EU member states and subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (sic). 

The ECJ is a political court, not a court that fits in with the traditions of the UK.  Their decisions reflect a far more interventionist role for the judiciary than, prior to the recent UK Supreme Court decisions, we are used to in the UK.  In the UK, judges don’t make law, they interpret it.  The ECJ seeks to set the pace in law making.  They may though have just met their match in the recent decision of the German Constitutional Court which places themselves and the German Constitution as paramount and the ECJ subordinate.  Since Germany now pays the bulk of the EU Budget, maybe that’ll prompt less legal militancy.  We’ll see but frankly, it’s their business now, not ours.

This LPF seeks to stop a newly freed UK from setting our own tax rates, from setting our own standards for the environment and safety at work, indeed from running our sovereign nation.

Some EU nations have benefitted hugely from former PM Edward Heath’s foolish decision to simply throw open UK territorial waters to the EU, not long after the UK joined the then EEC, back in 1973.  These waters have been plundered – there’s no other word for it.  This has resulted in an almost complete wiping-out of the once-thriving independent UK fishing industry.  I say independent because the CFP quota system has allowed large scale cartel-like organisations owned and run by EU nationals to ‘hoover-up’ quotas and take fish from UK waters, at will.

Fishing, in the UK’s rich North Sea, English Channel and Atlantic waters  is lucrative but not as important to all EU nations.  Spain, France and Netherlands are particularly benefitting from Ted Heath’s largesse.  Not sure that the EU Paymaster – Germany – will be too exercised and supportive on this issue.

So, Fishing and LPF are the barriers to achieving a Free Trade Agreement.

On LPF we simply cannot concede – the UK must return to being a free sovereign nation.  We, through elections to the parliament in Westminster, must decide on the laws that govern our lives.  We/Westminster must set our own rates of tax on individuals and companies.  We/Westminster must decide on our environmental laws and our working regulations.

We’ve been setting our own laws for more than 1,000 years, far, far longer than many of these countries, who would seek to rule over us, have ever existed! 

And fishing?  What I said at the outset still applies – the waters that surround our country are part of the territory of the sovereign nation of the United Kingdom. – we decide who exploits them – we, the United Kingdom

Time then, since these issues are so fundamental to the interests of the UK, to put an offer to the EU.

M. Barnier

“We won’t be conceding on LPF or giving up our territorial waters so if you want a Free Trade Agreement, similar to those you have with other ‘third’ countries, then let’s proceed.  If you instead, seek a different arrangement, and want to impose some kind of anti-democratic strait-jacket on the sovereign UK, then that’s fine, we’ll move to WTO regulations.  Frankly, that will disadvantage Covid19-hit EU economies far, far harder than the UK but, that’s your choice.  Maybe though, have a word with Angela, first.

Do get back to us, soonest, as we are out, one way or another, FTA or WTO, by December 31, 2020”

 Oh, and Happy Syttende Mai to all in Norway!  Gratulerer med dagen!

Covid-19 Heroes and Villains

It’s been a while.  I last posted a blog here, back in June 2018 and since then have managed to contain my utterings to 120 and then 240 characters but..  That just isn’t enough.

What follows mostly applies to the UK but I suppose some will resonate in other countries.

Like so many other people, I have been in ‘lockdown’ since the middle of March.  I am a Type 2 diabetic (my own fault) and so have been at home since March 17.  If the sometimes ‘echo chamber’ that is Twitter, is anything to go by, then most people in the UK, outside of London and certain communities and self-imposed ghettos, have observed the rules on social distancing. 

Our police have sometimes been over-zealous in interpreting the laws and thereby opening themselves to ridicule – exactly what is wrong with going for a walk in the wide-open spaces of a National Park?  There continues to be a danger that support for the restrictions will diminish, when people see Londoners gathering en-masse, along with police and other emergency services personnel on Westminster Bridge, sometimes accompanied by the Met Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick (a Common Purpose appointment) or when they see churches and temples following the closure rules but mosques not. 

We’ll see how this pans out as we likely continue in some kind of lockdown for a while longer.  I sense that outside of London, people will follow the rules not because they’re a government diktat but simply because family and community mean so much more in the less metropolitan towns and villages.

Likewise I expect the weekly ‘clap for carers’ will continue as people genuinely want to show appreciation for ALL those who serve our local communities – be they nurses, doctors, police, fire fighters, refuse collectors, military personnel, shop workers or delivery drivers. 

I do wish though, that there was a way for this exercise to not be a ‘clap for the NHS’.  I certainly don’t clap for that organization. 

If you’re an NHS Procurement ‘Manager’ or Supply Chain executive – resign now.  If you’re an NHS trustee or Executive manager or director, resign now.  I certainly do NOT clap for you.  You have failed. 

There’s lots of ways to say that but that’s what it boils down to – complete and utter failure.  You haven’t done your job.  You have left us exposed to empty storerooms and warehouses and supply chains that simply don’t work.  You have exposed us to a supply situation where we depend upon throwaway PPE – I have absolutely no doubt that every one of these PC clowns will also be signed-up members of the Green lobby and regularly try to lecture the general public on the need to protect the planet by paying extra taxes and going back to a pre-industrial existence!

NHS Executives have failed in their duty.  They have been bailed out by the Government and the military but these Executives failed – they must resign or be fired.  Oh, and no special ‘Golden handshakes’, no pensions fully paid-up and sweet-heart redundancy-type severance payments.  They should just simply go.  I’ve said they should resign and if they had any sense of dignity, they would but, if they don’t, they should ALL be fired.  They have failed and must go.

Covid-19 has not all been about villains though. 

What’s that saying about ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’?  Well in the UK, we have had such men. 

Of course there’s Boris Johnson, our PM.  That Monday night, when it was announced he had been taken into intensive care – I can’t explain why but it felt so personal and like it was affecting a close member of my family.  Seeing him now on the road to recovery is like an analogy for the UK – we are starting to come out of this.  It is a journey and we don’t know how long it will take and we do know that there will be bumps long the way (2^nd and 3^rd wave, etc.) but we have turned the corner.

Matt Hancock (apparently connected to the Eyam Hancock’s – look it up!) our Health Secretary and Rishi Sunak, our Chancellor have stepped-up and performed well.  By this I mean, they’ve considered what the country needs and delivered it.  They haven’t gone about pointing fingers and laying blame – they’ve just got on and done their best.  As have their teams and many other Government ministers.

It’s hardly worth mentioning the military – for them it was ‘just another day at the office’.  Every day, in every way they serve.  “Need a Nightingale Hospital built in days?  Okay step aside, give us a few electricians and plumbers and we’ll get it done” No fuss, no histrionics, just delivery – pure and simple.  And yet….  We’d have been in grave danger had they not stepped up and did their job – I am in no doubt that their work in logistics is what has led to PPE supplies getting delivered.  I hope that doesn’t sound like I take the military for granted.  I take every opportunity to thank them for their service and I recommend you do too.

Back to villains though – the media!  With a couple of exceptions, what an absolute shower.  If the daily press briefings ended after the official statements, I would have all I need.  The inane questions, the search for a ‘gotcha’ moment has exposed the absolute weakness and anti-Government and anti-British sentiments of the media.  I appreciate that as we exit the worst of the Covid-19 crisis, the Government will have its hands full, but the ending of the TV Tax has to be very high on the agenda.  There is no way, people should be forced to pay for such Leftist bile, day in, day out. 

I’m not going to give the media villains the ‘oxygen of publicity’.  You know who they are!  Basic integrity and decency would oblige them to resign and enter a period of deep self-reflection but since when have ‘journalists’ had either integrity or decency?

The Labour Party are a mixture of heroes and villains.  Jon Ashworth the Shadow Health Secretary has performed well, on the whole, focusing on solutions rather than picking holes and pointing fingers.  The new Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t done so well.  On the surface slightly supportive but then attacks the lockdown strategy and wants to know what the exit strategy is, and all the while brings forward nothing constructive to say or offer.

This place probably isn’t the best place to say what I think about the SNP.  However, if there was a political villain in chief, then Nicola Sturgeon would get the prize.  She attends secret COBRA meetings and then immediately blabs about the outcome – I shouldn’t be surprised, she has a habit of breaking confidences.  She has constantly sought to make political capital out of the crisis and to seek to differentiate the response in Scotland from that of England. 

Unfortunately, this has back-fired as the response of NHS Scotland, for which the Scottish Executive is responsible, has been woefully inadequate – even worse than that of NHS England.  I say unfortunate not out of any love for the SNP, but because the victims of their incompetence are the people of Scotland, especially those in care homes. 

The SNP have also failed to share out the funds sent from England in support of businesses and communities.  They have ‘form’ on this and so maybe it’s time for Westminster to bypass the Holyrood farce and manage these help programmes, directly.

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There are of course, other heroes.  People like Captain Tom Moore, who has raised more than £33 million and all those individuals up and down the country who are doing their bit, in their local communities, including the more than 750,000 volunteers in England who signed-up to help in just two or three days. 

At the end of the day, the real heroes have been the British people – not all of them, but the overwhelming majority – who have looked at the situation, listened to the experts and decided, we’re going to get through this.  We’ve faced adversity before and we have overcome.

As a great man said.  Tomorrow will be a good day.

Stay Home, save lives.