Debate comment

I managed to watch most of last night's 'Leaders debate' via Sky News.  Hmm!

Is it me or was it basically 6 against one?

We had the leader of the SNP, who isn't even standing for parliament (see here) simply stirring the pot.  She was mainly there to make sure that Red Ed Miliband knows who he will be reporting to, should he enter into any kind of alliance with the SNP.

We had the leader of the Welsh Nationalists who, given a perfect opportunity to attack Labour, over its criminally inept running of the NHS, in Wales, chose not to do so.

We also had the Greens leader, the Australian Natalie Bennett, whose nasal twang failed to hide her extreme left-wing views.  James Delingpole, writing in Watermelons, his brilliantly written expose of the environmentalist movement, called 'greens' Watermelons - green on the outside and red on the inside but Nuttalie Bennett managed to be red all the way through.  Out of politeness, no one mentioned that Brighton town council, the only one run by the Greens, in the UK, now has a worse record on environmental recycling than under the previous regime.

Nigel Farage, from UKIP managed to make every issue link back to immigration and he successfully managed to get across the point that while the UK remains in the European Union, we can do very little to curb immigration from within the EU.

Nick Clegg, until recently, sitting around the Cabinet table with Conservative leader, David Cameron, sought to distance himself from the Tories and make claims of bravery, for the good of the country, etc..

Ed Miliband  pushed his economic idiocy - spend more, borrow more but we won't tax more - and as was to be expected, wrapped himself in the NHS.  As said earlier, he wasn't punished on the shocking state of the NHS in Labour-run Wales and banged on about spending more on the NHS, again and again.  Miliband mentioned the situation where one NHS hospital was treating or assessing people in an emergency tent, erected in a car park.  My own view is that I would rather be examined in a tent in a car park than treated in the Labour run Mid Staffs hospitals where people died unnecessarily because of Labour policy.

David Cameron was located on the edge, both literally and policy-wise.  He was standing on the economic competence of the Conservatives and had a good story to present - tellingly, none of the other parties managed to attack the Tory successes.  Cameron made some good points about all of the other parties wanting to tax, borrow and spend more and, addressing Nick Clegg, his propensity to 'pick and mix' which for Coalition policies he now  professes public support.

The Guardian newspaper, according to the BBC Today programme, (I would never buy the newspaper, I much prefer Andrex) referring to the debates spoke of  UK politics being 'fractured'.  I disagree with the newspaper.  UK politics are not fractured they are split.  We have the Conservatives on one side, providing a right of centre platform and then we have the other six parties, mentioned above, all pushing a platform of more spending - that's what less austerity means - more borrowings and higher taxes.  They all know, even the looniest Green, that taxing the 'rich' will never raise enough tax to pay for all of their welfare policies, and so taxes on the middle classes will have to increase.

This General Election presents the UK with a stark choice - continue taking the Conservative economic medicine which has done much to restore the health of the UK economy or go for any one of the others which will spend , borrow and tax more and will continue to impoverish our children and grandchildren.

There is almost only one choice - vote Conservative or perhaps vote UKIP where they have a chance against Labour.

French lessons

I have been off 'air' for a while, moving jobs and countries.  While I have been otherwise engaged, the horrific attacks on Charlie Hebdo were perpetrated by Islamists who in turn were hunted down and killed by French police and security forces.  The temptation was to immediately rush onto the airwaves and rant and rave (again) about the evil being perpetrated in the name of Islam, etc..  However, I thought maybe a period of reflection might serve me better.  You judge.

Not for the first time, in the last 100 years, French Jews are under attack and being sacrificed at the hands of their fellow-countrymen.  In 2013 French Jews were killed by an Islamist in Toulouse and now we see again, with the attack on the kosher supermarket in Paris, that Jews have been specifically targeted (also at Chalie Hebdo, so it seems).  In the 1940's it was Vichy French that handed over Jews to the Nazis, to suffer at Drancy and extermination camps in the East and today it is the French who again offer-up the Jews - this time to murderous Islamists.  Just as with the Nazis, so with the Islamists, making victims of the Jews won't ultimately save the French!

So we had the big march in Paris, showing solidarity with the victims of Charlie Hebdo.  The BBC, amongst many news organisations made much of this event.  Many words spoken about the right to free speech and expression, as was exemplified by the writers at Charlie Hebdo.  Then, later in the week, Charlie Hebdo released a latest issue of their magazine and lo and behold, it carried a cartoon on the cover that featured Mohammed and was sure to anger Ismalists.   True to form, the fine words spoken by the assembled mass media, just a few days earlier, didn't translate to many of them and their editors having the courage to display the cartoon in question.  I tip my hat though, to Britain's Guardian which did.  I usually hold this newspaper in contempt but here at least they let their actions match their words.  Bravo!

However, before the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo hit the news-stands, we we treated in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and at the Paris march, to speeches from politicians and world 'leaders'.  All spoke of the importance of the right of free speech and how this must be protected.  Then, with the ink not dry on the editorials which commented upon the speeches and the march, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel,  was telling the organizers of the now weekly Pergida marches in Dresden and other German cities, that it would be best if this week's marches were canceled.  I cannot be alone in seeing the complete contradiction in marching for free speech on Sunday and then advising against it, on Monday!  I lack a thesaurus but there has to be a words stronger than rank hypocrisy to describe such actions.

And think of the consequences of this.  Yet further reinforcement of the actions that have gotten us into this mess.  We mustn't offend, we must appease!

The biggest problem facing Europe, and increasingly America, Canada and Australia, is the failure of multi-culturalism.  Let's be very clear, Muslim immigrants in those countries are not assimilating.  No one is saying that they cannot practice their religion but they need to adopt certain of the host country's values.  Tolerance of other faiths, freedom of speech, the host country law being the only law, learning the language, etc..  Absent this, then these immigrants must be considered as a fifth column and a threat to the peace and stability of the host country and they must be expelled, just as you would do with any other threat.

The leftist policy of multi-culturalism has brought us to this and now we have to stand-up and say enough and then we need to do something about it and carry on doing something until multi-culturalism is consigned to the same dustbin of history where one would find Marxism and Communism.  Let's hope though that the victims that suffer during the ridding of multi-culturalism do not number anywhere near the 10's of millions that suffered and died under those other failed ideologies.

I have just re-read the above and wonder who will take-up the cudgels on this?  In Britain the main parties pay lip-service to a need for change.  The Conservatives just maybe might do something.  Labour spouts about the need to do something about immigration but them having been the ones that threw the immigration floodgates, wide open, they won't because of their need for its ethnic, client constituencies.  UKIP says it would but I really can't see them as a realistic electoral success story.

While Barack Hussein Obama is President of the USA, don't expect any push back.  This is the man that says that the Islamic State murderers are not Islamists!   Those people who are killing Yazidis and Christians, in the most barbaric fashion claim to represent Islam.  The people who carried out the attacks in Paris, and those caught-up in yesterday's shoot-outs in Belgium claim to represent Islam.  Yet still Obama shames America by claiming the contrary.  Perhaps he did the right thing by not attending the Paris march.  Though he wouldn't have been alone in sounding hypocritical with his words, his presence would have been an embarrassment.  Never forget, Obama wrote ' when the winds change and turn against Islam, I will stand with the Muslims'  So his loyalties are clearly known!

England's schools

I append a link to a sad letter written by a new teacher.  http://t.co/rWQ94M6jeP

I challenge you to read this and not be both moved and scared by the content.

Moved, because this individual is patently not someone who has led a cossetted existence and now been thrown to the wolves.  She,  I believe its a woman, is from this environment but seems to have been absent from the 'front-line'.  During her absence the whole ethos of teaching has moved.  Now it is 'child-centric'.  That is 'Guardian speak' for everything revolving around the child - as if a child knows what or how it wants to learn by some kind of osmotic process that it picks-up from its environment.  Consider that in many cases, these children are from homes where the standard of their parent's education is already low and you can see the kind of downward spiral that looms.

Rant time - Is it any wonder that given, in many cases, the lack of personal discipline exercised by their parents, this isn't the cause of the unwillingness to exercise any discipline on themselves, by children/pupils/students/learners (or however these young people are called).  And yet, this 'child-centric' approach is based on the child being able to 'manage' its own interactions with society and to do so in some kind of 'adult way'.  What absolute tosh!  If a child doesn't know the difference between what is right or wrong and gets no pointers from the home environment, then from where will these values be developed?

Scared?  Well, I strongly suspect that the picture painted by the author, is all too typical of how teaching is practiced today, throughout England (maybe the rest of the UK, as well).  Teachers are not taught to teach but to act as some kind of 'baby-sitter' service.  They are members of a trade union, who having pushed this crazy (and patently failed) approach for years, must now defend it in every irrational way possible rather than admit it is wrong.

Maths without numbers?  English without reading or words or writing?  History without dates? In what sick mind could such teaching methods be considered in any way sensible?

I was educated in an Inner London comprehensive school, in the late 1960s / early 1970s.  It was at this time that student teachers were starting to leave Teacher Training Colleges, with the prevailing education methods being challenged.  I experienced some of this, with teachers telling us to 'call me Ron or Beth or whatever' but fortunately my school still had enough 'traditional' teachers to get me through.  By 'traditional' I include teachers who didn't find it necessary to push the latest left-wing ideology or communistic reading of every act that has ever occurred, down my throat.

History teachers taught history.  They didn't comment in great detail on the iniquities of slavery, they just gave the dates of abolition and details about the 'triangular trade' (look it up!) such that I was armed with sufficient information to go off and develop my own thoughts and opinions on the subject.  It was 'chalk and talk' and it was in a disciplined and respectful environment.  I have been fortunate that my children have been mostly privately educated, abroad and so not been subjected to these English education methods.  It is worth noting that in places like, South Africa, Dubai, Norway and Malaysia, the style of education that I received is still the way it is practiced there and no one gives a thought to changing it to some kind of 'child-centric' utopia.  Do you wonder why?

BBC rotten at its core

I have written here before about the liberal and left-wing bias of the BBC.  This applies to its news coverage particularly but also is reflected in it's drama and comedy and light entertainment progamming as well as that which might be described as 'documentary'.

However, that bias was frankly clear to any keen observer and I was in danger of stating 'the bloody obvious', especially to anyone with 'right' leaning political tendencies.

I don't think that any of us could have really been prepared for what is now unfolding at the BBC, relative to the Jimmy Saville cover-up.

For the uninitiated, Saville was a  (then) much admired entertainer and charity funds raiser who transitioned from being a radio DJ into an 'all around good guy' on the BBC.  All the time though, it seems, he was allegedly  sexually abusing under-age girls.  Oftentimes on BBC premises.  Sometimes in the company of other abusers. 

The revelations show that many at the BBC were aware of his sick (and let's not forget illegal) activities but chose to do or say nothing about them.

Following Saville's death, a female reporter, Liz MacKean, put together a TV programme that would expose the  activities of Saville and include first-hand accounts from his victims. 

The BBC chose not to air the segment.  Charitably you might say, because it was going to conflict with two celebrity puff pieces that the BBC was running on Saville and the BBC couldn't really laud him in these and expose him, in the other.  That is the most charitable one could be.  That the BBC didn't want to appear hypocritical!  Heaven forfend!

The less charitable view is that this reflects the view of the liberal intelligentsia and those at the top of the BBC, that the normal rules of society don't apply to them.  This 'elite' (mostly male-dominated) think that balance, fairness and above all else common decency and adherence to the law, shouldn't apply at their 'lofty' levels.  They see themselves as the shapers of opinion - leaders not followers - and well, if the 'public' haven't yet caught-up, 'don't worry, they will, if we, long enough and exclusively, feed them this line'.

So who do I mean, when I say 'liberal intelligentsia'?   The journalists, the editors, the presenters, the governors on the BBC trust - all of these at the BBC.  Look then at media outlets like The Guardian and The Observer which push every 'right-on' cause, simply because, yes simply because, it is 'right-on'.  The same can be said of our 'arts establishment' - those that push cows in formaldehyde or piles of bricks and say it's 'art' and, what's more, the tax payer should fund it!

Politicians and union leaders are not exempt either.  They too look down on 'Joe Public' as just someone to be abused and 'fiscally raped' at every opportunity.

So, what to do?

How about starting with the sacking of the board of governors of the BBC Trust?  Don't let a token resign in a fit of suddenly being overcome with rightful shame - sack the lot - all of them.  Don't replace them with those that are media or politically qualified - that's just fishing in the same polluted pool. 

Move on for a cull of anyone event remotely tainted with the Saville affair.  Yes, that might not be fair but since when has fairness ever meant anything to the BBC?

Then end the BBC TV tax - AKA the TV License Fee - Maybe, just maybe, when the organization is subject to the colder winds of commercialism then the BBC just might be less concerned about constantly sniping at and ridiculing those that pursue the profit motive and favouring those parasites whose only goal in life is to look down on 'Joe Public' and the great unwashed.

Don't for one minute, expect resignations - Peter Rippon, the Newsnight editor responsible for 'spiking' the story, hasn't resigned, he has just stepped back, while the 'investigations' plod on - no, resigning requires a sense of moral duty, of knowing what's right and wrong.  The BBC, as with so many public institutions, don't hire people with that!

If I think back over resignations from senior public roles, the only one that comes to mind, where true integrity was displayed, was that of Lord Carrington.  He was Minister of Defence at the time of the Falklands invasion.  He resigned, not because it was his fault but because he felt his department was at fault and so the honourable thing to do was to quit.

Oh, and don't worry about or believe all of the rubbish about a 'great British institution' - that is just part of the myth - the BBC is just a media company - it has no higher role nor is it independent, save in that it is independent of the people that fund it! 

To those who chunter on about great British institutions, such as the BBC and the 'blessed' NHS and the 'mother of all parliaments' take a look at this sorry and shaming tale.  Still proud of the BBC?  Think back to the MP expenses saga, think of Stafford Hospital and Bristol - Still think these are wonderful?

I am ranting because I am angry!  The 'powers that be' will do nothing, as usual.  A few tokens will be sacrificed and then the gravy train will rumble on but my spleen is a little easier now!

Money raising idea for the Treasury and The Justice Ministry

Thinking about how relatively easy it has been to raise £250K in the Julian Assange bail money situation, prompts me to wonder.  The over-burdened British taxpayer hasn't had to stump up this just those foolish enough to believe in Assange's integrity.

Since it is always those on the left that manage to get their right-on friends to finance their bail and write indignant letters to The Guardian couldn't we have a different way of financing the Ministry of Justice?

How about we arrest leading 'lefties' and then allow them to be bailed and then drop them off outside the Ecuadorean embassy, when they are released?  I have nothing against Ecuador or it's people but since you have Jules it would be 'cruel and inhumane' to not give him some playmates.

So, who to arrest?

I thought about Gordon Brown - crimes against the British people - tons of gold sold for a song - economic mis-management on an epic scale - that funny glottal thing he does when he speaks (must be a crime against the English language - but then I thought who would put up his bail?  No, I couldn't think of anyone, either.

But we could look at:

• Ed Balls - criminal lack of apology for his part in the economic mess - criminal lack of economic sense or a coherent policy, other than 'look if we keep digging we will all have a nice big hole'!
• Ed Miliband - same as Ed Balls but with the added crimes of near fratricide and also that weirdly adenoidal speech (what is it with Labour and speaking strangely?)
• Harriet Harman - criminally culpable for being Harriet Harman and for assaulting the rights of all women by assuming that need her interference and that of her government of nanny-staters to promote women's rights rather than letting women claim their elevation in any organisation is theirs by right and merit rather than because of some 'tokenism'.
• Will Self and Owen Jones - So right-on and up themselves that their own self-importance and certitude would ensure that The Guardianistas would be frothing at the mouth as they sign their surety cheques.
• Polly - don't even need to say the surname but the crimes are numerous and all involve self-righteous stupidity at the core - mind you, if there was the opportunity for a counter to bail, putting up money to keep her in solitary and us from her rants, that might raise more money.
• Lord Leveson and that Jay fellow - All of those leftie QCs would put up the bail since they can see he will be a godsend for their 'profession' .
• George Galloway - Surely his freedom would be worth something amongst the radicals that form his core support.
• David Dimbleby - criminally bad taste in ties on QT plus constant interruption of his limited range of guests and thinking that people tune it to listen to his opinion.
• Alex Salmond - deceiving the Scottish people for personal aggrandisement - an especially high bail to be set so as to see if we can prise some money from all those mouthy expat Scots who speak of independence but chose not to live in Scotland -  a kind of hypocrite tax..
• Nick Griffin - bail to be set astronomically high - we wouldn't want him to get out.  Crime - too many to mention but maybe 'just for balance would do?

 Feel free to suggest others but if this is taken up as an economy measure, I expect a share of the proceeds.
  
One worry though, who would the BBC get to run Britain down, if not the above? 

Julian Assange

Reading some of the, often mindless, comments about this case they seem to breakdown into the following:

It's all an American plot - this posits that the USA and it's 'intelligence' community set-up the rape charges and they plan to seek Assange's extradition from Sweden once he is there.  Not entirely sure I understand why the US doesn't just seek his extradition from the UK, if they are that keen on getting hold of him - any ideas?

Because Assange is serving the greater good of humanity, he should not face these charges.  Assange's selective leaking (he decides what is published and what isn't and, as far as we can tell, only those that promote his political agenda are 'leaked') somehow give him the freedom to be above the law?  Really?

The gullible 'Leftie' fools and their Guardianista follows are getting their come-uppance.  This one  says that the people who put up the money for his bail are now claiming they don't have to pay as he is either still on British soil (not sure what the Ecuadoreans think about that) or, because the police know where he is, bail hasn't been broken.  'Fools' is right.  He isn't where he is supposed to be and so the bail conditions have been broken.  End of story.  Don't pass Go, do pay 240K please and do please remove egg from face.

He hasn't been charged with Rape - he is wanted for questioning.  This is exactly the point.  Is anyone seriously contending that somehow, the Swedish courts and police service will suddenly turn from its Western liberal traditions, forgo a charge and criminal case and then publicly flay the skin from his body, just because the Americans are upset?  Or would we expect such a high profile (at least in his eyes) figure to be treated with the most softest of kid gloves?  Wouldn't we expect the Swedish equivalent of The Guardian to be pushing their 'right on' views and protesting his innocence (assuming he is even ever charged!).

What I don't see too much of, is any consideration for the alleged rape victims.  They are simply ignored and it is to the eternal shame of The Guardian, Pilger, Loach and company that their story is not being allowed to be heard.  Maybe the view from those Tuscan villas is the clearest of blue skies but can these people not see the rank hypocrisy of ignoring the 'voiceless victims' and doing so, simply because Assange has managed to get up the nose of the 'great Satan' aka USA and so he has a free pass?

We will find out, later today, what the Ecuadoreans decide.  If they refuse, I hope that Assange is then taken straight from the Embassy to the airport and put on a plane.  Frankly his abuse of the British and European justice system means that he has forfeited the right for any further appeals against the extradition.

Don't be surprised though if he is used as a pawn by the Ecuadoreans to snub the Americans and, as a gesture of solidarity with their Argentinian 'brothers', give a poke in the eye for the UK, and his request is granted.

Also don't be surprised if we then start to see more leaks which are damaging to US and UK interests and maybe put people's lives at risk.  It won't matter though, because those people won't be a 'sainted' Aussie who really believes that he is above the law.