Thursday 31 July 2008

Increasing cost of Essentials

Today that excellent guru of finance Martyn Lewis appeared on BBC news and told the truth. He has an excellent track record of telling the truth and in my opinion he should be Chancellor but that is another matter. For at least two years Martyn has made a career out of warning us all that the High Street banks could not be trusted. He took them on almost single handed and quite rightly he has made a career out of it.

Today he spelt out the obvious but the point he made was really valid. It is not the job of the people running the utility companies that heat our homes, fuel our cars and provide us with water to ensure that the taxpayer is given a good deal. Their job is to assure that their share holders gain as much profit as possible and quite clearly they are doing a fantastic job!

When successive governments sold off the utilities which we are all dependent upon they sold us all down the river. We are now in the hands of private enterprise and we are consequently all dependent on a few individuals and we must hope that they have mercy on us. Obviously that is too much to ask because human nature is such that they will screw the public until there is nothing more to screw!

This is the cost of politics. They have taken so much from the country and now apparently there is little left. Both our major parties have screwed us all to the extent that we are in the hands of a few people who will never ever stand for election. Can you imagine a world without electricity, without water, without gas or even without petrol? Just how much are you prepared to pay for the essentials? Well I predict that very soon you will be paying it because nobody is regulating the prices that we will pay.

The people (according to Martyn Lewis) who are responsible for this destruction of our democracy are our politicians. They have created a political bubble where they remain protected from the public at all costs. When did people like Brown and Blair last expose themselves to the public gaze? They act like royalty but remember they actually campaign as socialists! That is why I coined the tag of NoLab for them because the New Labour party have absolutely no Socialist policies whatsoever.

In order to provide them with the funds to politicise the Civil Service, the Police, the NHS and almost every other walk of our lives they sold off everything to the private sector. They are not now responsible for any of the aspects of our life which we believe are absolutely essential.

To deflect from this desperate state of affairs they trump up issues like climate change but this will hardly effect us if we have no electricity, gas, water or petrol or if we cannot afford any of them!

When we get another election or if we ever get another election then David Cameron should be nailed down to explain what he has planned to ensure that we can maintain a decent and affordable standard of living. We should forget the peripherals and concentrate on the essentials. When they come for your vote ask them what they intend to do about the essential utilities and don't get fobbed off!!

Wednesday 30 July 2008

Horse Racing

I have just finished watching the Panarama programme on their expose of dodgy dealings in the horse racing world. I have backed horses for the past thirty years and generally I have done quite well out of it. I am not trying to convince people that I always win but then I have a system which works for me.

I invest what I can afford to lose. When I lose then it has no real consequence because all I am doing is spending money that is actually inconsequential. I could have bought a book or some music or watched a film but I don't do that because I back horses.

Sometimes I get lucky and some days I get really lucky and on those days I feel like a king. You see I only back to win. Gone are the days when I used the bookies chums like the Patent and the Yankee because frankly finding a decent priced winner is so difficult it is folly to try and find another winner. In forty years of gambling I only ever had one fulfilled Yankee (Four horses who all win) and three Patents (three horses who win). It is brilliant when it happens but frankly it is a mugs bet.

Tonight on Panarama they exposed people who have cheated the system. In my opinion they were just scratching the surface. Horse racing is institutionally corrupt. It comes from the very top because they keep fiddling the system. I used to study form and I have Form Books which go back thirty years. Unfortunately the past two seasons form has been meaningless!

The punter has really no chance! I watch horses scoot home by a country mile one day and the very next week they run like drains. Nobody holds the trainers to account. Nobody questions that a particular horse is not running to it's full potential. We have winners of races who have never in their lives shown any ability whatsoever and yet if you look back in the record books it is quite obvious that they have been 'schooled in public' which is an offence.

Until the Racing Channels stop making excuses about their lack of success in tipping winners (they really are useless) and start challenging the ridiculous results then they will kill the sport. They are perpetuating the myth that horse racing is a clean sport when in effect it is an exciting form of gambling but the people who run it are not ensuring that the punter has a fair chance of landing a bet.

I love horse racing but I am about to find another use for my money. I suspect by the empty betting shops that many others have aleady made that decision.

Friday 25 July 2008

Glasgow East - where now Gordon?

In recent months after every election that he has lost Gordon Brown has appeared on television and announced that 'he will get on with the job because that is what people want him to do." He sounds like a cracked record and proves that he never listens to anything that he doesn't want to hear.

People do NOT want him to get on with the job. He is an unelected imposter who has compounded his disgraceful appointment by selling us out to Europe and taxing the public on any excuse. His much vaunted reputation on financial matters now looks as tarnished as his leadership qualities. He just hasn't got it and only a man with unprecedented arrogance would continue under the current circumstances. Single handedly he is bringing down a major political party. Don't get me wrong they have deserved it because as I have said many times they reneged on socialist principles as soon as Tony Blair got his hands on the keys to Number Ten.

The problem is that, as things stand with Labour dead, there is only one party who can win the next election and that is not good for democracy. It appears that the public realise it because in Glasgow East only about 42% turned up to vote. That is ridiculous and even bearing in mind that this constituency is one of the poorest in the country it reflects how severely the public have lost confidence in our politicians. Maybe some of the Labour backbenchers should get together and challenge their cabinet under the banner of REAL LABOUR because they have little more than a year to gain some respect before oblivion.

Wednesday 23 July 2008

Glasgow East By-Election!

Tonight we are on the eve of the final decision on the Prime Minister's leadership capability. Tomorrow the voters of Glasgow East, arguably one of the poorest communities in the country and also the bedrock of NoLab support, will deliver a verdict on the 'Clunking Fist'.

I cannot believe that any of them would even consider to vote for a man who has reneged on all of the 'John Smith' Socialist principles and sold us out to Europe but they will. This is a constituency where it is almost heretic to vote for anything other than Labour. I know because my parents emanated from Motherwell and these people are almost brainwashed. My father once told me that he would be ashamed of me if I enjoyed winning (at the time) £75000 on the Football Pools!!

The mindset of the Glasgow East voter is so extraordinary that it is not out of the question that NoLab could possibly hold this seat despite the fact that the other candidates do not appear to be that charismatic! To be honest where did they find them? Alex Salmond dominates the seat but where are the NoLab leaders. Margaret Curran is the sacrificial lamb but why are the Westminster Leaders not fighting tooth amd claw to support her. The reason is that they are ashamed of their pathetic performance. If they dare to emerge from their Westminster bubble then they hear the public response to their 'vision of our future'.

Tomorrow we will discover what even these voters think but I tell you what if Gordon Brown loses Glasgow East then he really cannot defy the title that he is the worst Prime Minister in the history of our country. I wait with baited breath and I keep my fingers tightly crossed that there are enough people not dependent on the taxpayer for their income who decide to find a polling station. Yeah well don't hold your breath...!!

Friday 18 July 2008

Crime Statistics and the Truth!

Yesterday evening the BBC led their news broadcasts on the ridiculous premise that overall crime in this country is down. Other broadcasters treated this statistic with a lot more scepticism. This morning on the 'Matthew Wright' show on Channel Five a serving copper revealed that the crime stats are a farce which most of us already know.

They do not include (why not) any crime committed by kids under 16 who let's face it commit quite a lot of crime! Most of us shrug our shoulders at crime which we can cope with because the police quite frankly are just not interested. This results in so much crime not being reported. Then again car manufacturers are now protecting cars more expertly and householders are also protecting their properties regardless of personal expense. It has nothing to do with the government or the police!

Our Police Force just like our Civil Service and the BBC has been politicised to the extent that their independence and their neutrality is now deeply suspect. Everybody knows what the copper this morning confirmed that the police chiefs will touch their forelocks and comply with every demand from their political masters. If you received your dodgy promotion (with loadsa money) courtesy of NoLab then of course you will fiddle the stats!

Democracy is the only loser!

Education - 'I don't believe it'!

What will it take to get the English people really angry? Our children are being let down by the Educationalists for decades but nothing like the situation that exists today under this utterly incompetent government. We have already had examples of the marking by educational superstar Peter Buckroyd who awarded marks to the idiot who scrawled f*** Off on his exam paper and then attempted to justify his arrogance.

Now the nonsense has reached levels which would only be tolerated in this country. The SATS tests have not been marked on time, there is real concern about the standard of marking and there are even administrative problems. The company which has been awarded the contract (ETS) is apparently American so it is hardly surprising that they are struggling with a foreign education system. What has happened to our traditional marking system? Why are we contracting it out? Our teachers used to mark the papers from other schools. How has the system of marking in this country crumbled to such an extent that it is chaotic. Who is in charge?

Now I may be wrong but I always thought that the Minister for Education had ultimate responsibility for the Education of our children. However, in the la-la world of NoLab it appears that this is not the case. Our Education Minister is appropriately entitled Balls which gives license for so many jokes but this is no joke. When questioned about the fiasco he just smiled and denied any responsibility. When is Ed Balls going to earn the immense sum of money that he and his partner (Yvette Cooper) take out of the public purse?

The education of our children is the bedrock of any democracy. Our education has been destroyed and it has been done systematically decade after decade until we get to Peter Buckroyd and his appreciation of the 'F' word and that can be seen on every street corner of England today.

Whenever Gordon Brown appears on television ask yourself why he never addresses the problem of education? You will hear all kinds of rubbish about climate change, food wastage and problems in Africa but he never mentions that the education of our children has been let down by his government. Ed Balls is a prat. Every sane person can see that his position is purely down to his slavish devotion to the Gordon Brown campaign.

It is now all unravelling as is democracy in this country. David Cameron has a real problem on his hands because when he wins the next election he must bring back sanity to the system which educates our children. I kind of suspect that it is twenty years too late.

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Low Paid Workers

So it has at long last come to the point where the only people who support NoLab are actually demanding action from them. The very people who have need of government support because their wages (I hesitate to call it salaries) are being reduced year after year have finally gone on strike.

They are striking because the government refuses to publish accurate inflation figures which means that the value of the meagre incomes of the lowest paid workers has diminished. These are some of the poorest paid workers in the country. These are the people who pay the contributions which eventually arrive into NoLab coffers. They are the only people left who support this bunch of charlatans.

NoLab has found billions to fund the idiots who over committed their bank at Northern Roc and also to rescue their faux pas over the 10p tax rate prior to their latest disastrous By-Election result. They refuse to help the only people who support them. Is it not about time that the Unions withdraw their support, consign these idiots to the dustbin of failed policies, possibly rediscover 'Old Labour' or blackmail Gordon into recognizing that he 'needs' the poor people!

PM's Question Time

I watch this farce week after week but I have rarely seen democracy destroyed as it was today. Gordon Brown deliberately refused to answer questions from his opposite number David Cameron. This ridiculous event is entitled Prime Minister's Question Time whereby the PM should at least try to answer the questions.

The traditional epitome of democracy is supposedly encompassed by our parliament and its procedures. These procedures have guarded the democratic principles of the western nations for centuries and yet week on week out we see NoLab evading any attempt to question their incompetence.

No question posed to them is met with an honest or any type of answer. It has become an unedifying farce where this twerp who poses as a Prime Minister is exposed every Wednesday as a complete idiot. Does he really believe that the electorate cannot see through this charade.

This week we have had ridiculous media driven suggestions by a hopeless Home Secretary, a hopeless Chancellor of the Exchequer and a hopeless PM. They are completely clueless in how to tackle the social breakdown that they have caused.

They have caused a climate of indecision whereby no matter what is suggested they will cave in to the first person who attempts to destroy the argument. We need courage. We need leadership. We need a complete change of direction and yet we have Gordon Brown and his cabinet mates. None of them has ever proven anything but their utter lack of fitness for the positions that they hold but we could be stuck with them for another two years. In every By-Election held in recent times they have been destroyed. Nobody believes anything that Gordon Brown says anymore but still he clings on to his unearned power.

Only the people in England would not march on 10 Downing Street and physically throw him out. The damage this man could cause in the next two years is incalculable. We have never had a worse cabinet. This PM could not even be bothered to turn up for the debate on the 'John Lewis List'. He is frankly scared of his own shadow. Cherie Blair must be ecstatic!!

Sunday 13 July 2008

Friends!

As I get older I begin to realise that one of the most important aspects of life is friendship. I am a lucky old man because I have a local set of friends at my bowls club who mean such a lot to me. Every Friday evening we meet and although it is so understated we mean such a lot to each other.

We all have ailments because old age is not for cissies but we battle on and support each other. I am further blessed because I have another set of friends who have a much deeper value as they go back to my youth. You see my new friends generally have all known each other for their entire lives. They know who is married to whom and who was involved with who forty/fifty years ago. I do not have that knowledge but I have another set of friends who remember my youth.

On Monday my longest standing friend is arriving in Loughborough and I am so looking forward to his visit. We first met in 1973 and we have shared so many personal experiences that we are soul mates. He now lives in Granada, Spain but previously he had a house in Sarasota Florida and I was privileged to visit him there with both my wife and son. Prior to that my wife and I visited him in Cyprus when he was a Major in the army.

No doubt we will once again drink too much but we will raise a glass to absent friends and I know that Mick (in particular) Dennis and all our old comrades will be remembered with much affection.

Meantime my new friends are all on a county bowls tour destined for the Isle of Wight and I know they will love it. They will love it because they are all with people that they love and good luck to them! Friendship is so important.

Knife Crime (again!)

I apologise for revisiting this sphere of crime so soon but the response of the government is so utterly inadequate it is derisory. The Home Secretary has had the brilliant idea that if they make some of the aggressors meet the victims of knife crime then all will be well again!

By this very suggestion she demonstrates totally that she does not want to halt the slaughter on our streets. How can she truly believe that the thugs who are sticking knives in people care a tuppenny damn about the results of their actions? This is ridiculous but then I suppose any old soundbite will do to appease the public but for God's sake don't advocate punishment for these people.

I have suggested previously that I believe this breakdown of our society is being orchestrated by our political class. We vote but our vote means nothing. None of the accepted political parties have any intention of introducing anything that the voters want or need. Even in court it has been advocated that an election pledge (on the referendum on Europe for example) is not a promise! That means that they can tell you any old shit and after you cast your vote then it is back to normal.

Look how evasive David Cameron is if faced with a direct question. The differnece between him and Gordon Brown is that Gordon is inept but Cameron is devious. Every time I look at Cameron I think Tony Blair!!

This government does not wish to halt knife crime because it is yet another stage towards total anarchy when we will all have to depend on the government for our salvation. Yes I know... the crazy man has once again attacked the political class...so he must be a lunatic because nobody could believe that anyone would do such a thing! Wake up guys and girls it is happening!

Saturday 12 July 2008

Knife Crime

It continues unabated and yet still this government cannot find a policy which will deter the anarchy on the streets. Nothing of substance is emanating from 10 Downing Street. There is slaughter on the streets of our country. Knife crime is unprecedented and our leader tells us to stop wasting food!!

Why, why, why can't someone on high recognise that we must get REALLY tough in order to reverse the trend. You cannot respect the Human Rights of a person who is prepared to stick a blade into someone for no reason. Even the non-existent police force cannot deal with this.

I am sick of seeing thugs leaving court with a smile on their face! I want to hear the first wail of recognition that they are actually going to be punished for their crime. I want to see someone screaming that justice is unfair, that they don't deserve their sentence. I want to see fear in the criminal community...but then if your aim is anarchy on the streets then it will never happen.

I don't know who is pulling Gordon Brown's strings but they are doing a great job of destroying England as a country. Somewhere along the line the European connection is enjoying the problems here because they are ignoring it.

Someone,somewhere wants our children to kill one another because nobody is doing anything to stop it! Is this yet another legacy of the mass immigration policy because most of the crimes appear to involve those who perceive themselves as socially disadvantaged.

Yes I know that I am being non PC but until we face facts then one day it will be your son or your daughter! I predict that nothing will be done because what is happening is all part of the plan to destroy the home of democracy. Let them prove me wrong and I will be ecstatic to be proved wrong!!

New Labour and the Armed Forces

Throughout my service in the army and even more it recent times it has been generally acknowledged in military circles that Gordon Brown and his cohorts have little time for the Armed Services. They have cut back everything that they could cut back and yet they still manage to involve us in wars which I still find difficulty in supporting.

I sometimes retain sufficient scepticism to think that behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may even be a ploy to keep the Armed Forces so stretched that they will not be able to support any organised attempt to overthrow this tainted government. I know that we are not yet a banana republic and we don't overthrow governments in this country but sometimes I dream that it might not be such a bad idea. A guy can dream can't he?

Anyway it has recently been reported that up to 50% of the army are about to throw in the towel and leave at the earliest available opportunity. That is unprecedented but can we blame them? We are shipping meaningful casualties now and the PM still will not spend the money to keep them safe. It is a crime that they are travelling around a warzone in Land Rovers which do not have the capability to withstand roadside bombs.

During recent times the army has had General Sir Richard Dannatt leading them and he has consistantly lobbied the government to come up with the money to support their unjust wars. NoLab and Gordon Brown in particular hate any form of opposition. They have politicised almost everything to the extent that nobody has the guts to say 'No' because they will be punished like they would be in the old Soviet Union. True to form General Dannatt has been passed over for the role of Chief of the General Staff and so have the heads of the Navy and the RAF because they agreed with General Dannatt.

I now await the muppet, sorry puppet, who will jump into the job which he does not merit or deserve. Whoever is appointed will demonstrate his utter lack of integrity and is not fit to lead the brave lads and lasses on the front line. It is despicable to treat men of principle in this way but it is the NoLab/Brown way and the electorate know it. That is why they are cooked and I personally will watch their abject humiliating rejection by the public with more than a little glee. What a shame that it will take so long for them to be demolished as a party and what damage they will do before they go.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

The Absent Prime Minister

I see that most of our political leaders are now honing in on Glasgow East but what about our Prime Minister? This Scottish individual has apparently written a book about men with courage and yet when did he last appear in public? When did he, even with police protection, place one delicate foot into the public domain?

He is displaying all the symptoms of the archetypal coward. He has 'bottled' all the recent major decisions. He didn't vote in the expenses debate despite reports that he paid his SKY subscription from the public purse so that tells us everything about where his sympathies lie.

He lectures about the waste of food when our country is suffering from an economic downturn ten years after NoLab came to power which eventually could lead to recession. No ideas about mass immigration, the rise of knife crime, the plight of the farmers or the transport industry, nothing about more prisons, more police on the streets, challenging the edicts from Europe or why council tax is rising but services are diminishing. In fact nothing for the general public but lots more for the PM who travels everywhere by special planes/helicopters/limosines but continues to preach that the rest of us plebs should listen to the nanny state. Did you see the menu for the G8 summit?

The BLOGs are humming that Harriet Harman is about to mount a challenge to his leadership. Gawd help us but he is really useless and NoLab are dead in the water so what does it matter?!

Saturday 5 July 2008

Glasgow East By-Election

You really couldn't make it up could you? As I understand it the government has called a by-election in Glasgow East following the resignation of the NoLab MP for 'health reasons'. This constituency is a red hot Labour seat as are so many in this neck of the woods with a 13,000 plus majority.

I would have thought that local NoLab councillors would have been tripping over themselves to grab the money that the MPs vote for themselves but suddenly nobody wants to admit to being NoLab. All the other candidates are in place and the other parties are gearing up for the fight but NoLab hasn't announced their man/woman yet. What can the problem be? Have the wheels finally come right off the trolley and if so is it not about time that the PM realised that the game is up?

Let's face it nothing works anymore. They can't even get the results of the kids exams out on time. NoLab have subverted all aspects of public life and the upshot is that nothing works and nobody is happy apart from the few who have their snouts in the trough filled with public money.

If even the die hard, hard nosed, Scottish Labour disciples are giving up the ghost then there is really no hope. These heartland voters are the very core of the Socialist support. I know because I was brought up in a socialist household by Scottish parents where the very word 'Conservative' was regarded as bad language.

The trouble is that NoLab have reneged on their socialist principles and have proven time and time again that they don't give a tuppenny damn about the working man. This will have gone down very badly in places like Glasgow East and I predict that they will kick Gordon's backside!

The other aspect of the by-election is that under Alex Salmond the Scots feel so much better off than the English which will lift their spirits. When they look south at the antics of the Westminster parliament they must love the fact that generally only the English are suffering under a government which is choc full of Scots. It is the Bannockburn factor.

They have also recently lost wee Wendy Alexander (Scottish leader of NoLab) on sleaze charges and so the stock of NoLab could not be lower. The fact remains however, that if NoLab lose Glasgow East then they are finished as a credible political force and Gordon Brown has no mandate to continue to ruin our country.

Thursday 3 July 2008

Knife Crime!

I cannot believe that the establishment are continually debating the cause of knife crime. It would be so simple to stop all this nonsense but for the life of me I cannot understand why no political spokesperson will address this problem in a sensible manner.

If people carry knives then they intend to use them. Therefore when a knife carrying person is detected then they should be punished. The problem appears to be what type of punishment should be handed out?

How about a punishment that will deter the carrying of knives? Five years... ten years... the problem is that the people who we rely upon to solve the crime on our streets are impotent. They will not or dare not face the facts that their policies have created the climate of fear that exists in our society today.

We must find a deterrent which the criminal will respect and fear. If we cannot find that deterrent then we may as well accept that the knife wielding criminal will continue to prosper. So the next time that someone is stabbed to death please do not wring your hands and blame incompetent parents because in reality it is the imcompetent politicians who have led to the situation we have in our society today.

Wednesday 2 July 2008

Education, Education, Education!

I can just imagine my brother opening the morning paper today and screeching 'I don't believe it'! Any of us who are old enough to remember when examinations tested us thoroughly and as a result we left school with a foundation for employment have despaired over the past 40 years as British comprehensive education has been reduced to an embarrassing level of inadequacy.

Behind this dumbing down of education have been a group of educational theorists who have systematically destroyed English education and ruined the young lives of at least two generations of children. The problem is that they are very astute and rarely raise their heads above the parapet. Every now and then however, one of them breaks cover and today Peter Buckroyd has at long last identified himself as a total idiot. The problem is that if you 'Google' Peter Buckroyd you discover that he is a paragon of the educational establishment. He is an author many times over, an expert on the English language and the Chief Examiner for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance! So why has he caught the attention of the columnists and bloggers?

Well he recently awarded marks to a student who had written 'F**k off' on his examination paper. Not only did the prat award marks for this profanity he then attempted to justify his actions. He actually seems quite proud of what he did because he has instructed other examiners to follow his lead.

This raises so many questions about this man's suitability for the job. Obviously he should be sacked immediately and carted off to the nearest establishment for balmy educationalists but then if there were such places they would have been packed full years ago.

There is absolutely no justification for this idiocy. The paper should not have been submitted for marking in the first place but Buckroyd's obvious delight in the controversy should identify him as utterly unsuitable for the position he holds but of course it won't. It will only become yet another nail in the coffin of English education.