Christianophobia

I've reached the conclusion that there should be an offence of being Christianophobic.

Almost every day we read of a Christian being penalised for his beliefs when members of other religions certainly would not.

Today, the Mail records the case of a gentleman, who had served for 15 years as a magistrate, being sacked because he expressed his Christian viewpoint that he felt it wrong for a child to be adopted by gay parents and that there has been no research to determine the longer term effects on the child.  There is no suggestion that his views had in any way ever influenced any of his decisions as a magistrate, he was fired simply because of having expressed his Christian belief, an view with which many Christians, including myself, would agree.

Then to add insult to injury, the local LBGT coven complained to the Kent and Medway NHS Trust, where he was a member of the board, and as a result he was also suspended from the board as his views were 'incompatible with the Trust's values'.

If these actions were not Christianophobia, I don't know what is. They are discrimination, pure and simple, without any reason, as there is no evidence whatsoever that his beliefs have ever affected his work in any way.

Are these two authorities who sacked him saying that they have no Muslims as magistrates or as NHS Trust members? The views of most Muslims on the subject of homosexuality are far more rigid and extreme than those of most Christians who in general are reasonably tolerant towards gays, even if they don't approve of their actions. Unlike Muslims, where the majority appear to believe that they should be killed, usually by some barbaric method.

The gentleman, a Mr Richard Page issued the following statement:

'Last week, the Prime Minister distributed an Easter video in which he commended Christians, and the Church for their vital role in society, stating that we are a Christian country and should be proud of it.
'However, his Government has brought in laws which effectively silence Christians and remove them from the public square.
'It would appear no longer possible to be a Christian, to state what the Bible actually says and what the Church has believed for 2,000 years, and maintain a role in public life in today's Britain.'

I would agree with every word he said. Christianophobia is rampant in this country.

Brussels - More Emerges

Turkey has said that the Brussels bomber Ibrahim El Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands for the second time by Turkey last July as a 'foreign terrorist fighter', although it is uncertain whether Brussels was told. But if either the Dutch or the Belgians knew, they certainly didn't put the information onto the international watchlist.

It is claimed that both the El Bakraoui brothers and the mysterious 'Man in White' were on U.S. terror-watch lists and identified by American intelligence rather than by EU resources. The Telegraph also claims that the main EU anti-terrorism watchlist used by the UK Border Force contains major flaws as is that it does not identify a suspect operating under an alias by their finger prints.
Other reports suggest that there is very little co-operation between France, Germany, Belgium and their bordering countries on mainland Europe, let alone with 'outsiders' such as Britain, even though we are all in the EU. American officials have supported the comments made by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 which I wrote about yesterday

So much for this marvellous co-operation that we would no longer have if we left the EU, it seems to be pretty non-existent at best.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, in a Tweet says "My heart and prayers go out to all the victims of the terrible Brussels tragedy. This madness must be stopped and stop it I will".
Hilary Clinton, responding to a previous bombing said "Let us be clear, Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism".

Well, at least Trump has his feet firmly on the ground and believes in action rather than appeasement.

Update:
The Express reports
Retired general Michael Hayden, who has headed the CIA spy agency, warned that the EU often “gets in the way” of combating terrorism and other threats.

Brussels and the Aftermath

Following the horrific explosions in Brussels, governments of many other European countries have taken more or less the same action as the did following those in Paris. They have called for solidarity and illuminated national monuments in the colours of the Belgian flag. There have been outpouring of grief in the streets of Brussels and elsewhere with flowers being left at many public memorials.

Frankly, if I'd lost someone in these terror attacks, I would be wanting to see my country take somewhat more positive action. I'd be wanting to know how a 'Belgian Citizen' can be deported back from Turkey as being a security risk and then escape the eyes of the authorities, especially as they had been informed of his impending return by the Turks. But so far real action, at least as far as the media and public is concerned has been totally non-existent.

Reading the news today, it is apparent that the intelligence gathering on the continent is not a patch on ours. In spite of the EU, there appears to be very little co-ordination or co-operation even within the individual countries although they are undoubtedly generally  very good in terms of armed response and the like, they are very poor in intelligence.

More telling are the comments made by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, now freed from political restraints, who likened the EU's various intelligence bodies to the 'leakiest ships of state' and colanders riddled with holes. He also added that "Britain is Europe's leader in intelligence and security matters and gives much more than it gets in return". He confirmed his view that Britain would be safer and more secure outside the EU, and that there should be no loss of intelligence from the EU as it was a moral issue not a political matter.

At the same time Defence Minister Penny Mordaunt today claimed Brexit would make Britain safer although her boss disagreed. She took the view that: "We need accountability. And we need our sovereignty back."  "All that is at stake. It's not just that freedom, but our ability also to defend it, which a subject very close to my heart." You certainly can't accuse her of not 'putting her money where her mouth is' as she is a member of the Royal Naval Reserve.

Yesterday, a van load of twenty or more illegal immigrants was stopped on one of the motorways; I should suppose we mast be grateful that they were not fully armed jihadis who had been let through Dover by our virtually non-existent border security. More worrying is that no-one seemed particularly concerned!

Meanwhile, just when one would expect the Prime Minister to be harrying the various departments of state and demanding action, he has decided to chillax in Lanzarote because he needs 'time to think'.

We are fortunate enough to live on an island surrounded by a stretch of water which has always protected us from the actions of those on the Continent. Let us make the most of it

EU funding - More 'Project Fear'

Cameron’s latest bid to scare the British people into voting to remain within the European Union was delivered to farmers when he warned that withdrawing from the EU would cost the British farming industry £330 million.

What is he saying? The implication of this statement is that he has decided that if we withdrew from the EU and he remained Prime Minister, the government of the day would no longer pay this sum to our farmers in spite of the fact that at present we pay about ten times that sum to subsidise EU agriculture as a whole, a sum which we would no longer have to pay.

The same argument seems to apply to every other group receiving EU grants. This week, Stephen Hawking and 150 other distinguished scientists – all fellows of the Royal Society – wrote a letter to the Times saying that if Britain leaves the European Union it would be a “disaster for UK science.” Why should it? I'm sure that any government would be happy to pay the same grants simply on the basis that it would cost them a fraction of what it does to pay the money to the EU, who 'cream off' a huge chunk before paying the grants. The government of the day would even be able to increase the grants and still be in pocket.

I heard something similar from another Professor whom I know; He couldn't understand my argument that that no sensible government would discontinue the funding.

Indeed, almost every person or organisation (except pro-EU charities who are keeping very quiet) seems to have been enrolled in project fear to try to convince us that all such subsidies will stop dead the moment we are outside the EU.

Boris could put a stop to such nonsense at once. All he needs to say that if he were PM in a government outside the EU, he would continue the grants at their present levels. The exchequer could easily afford that, and we would still be billions better off as we would no longer be paying huge sums to the EU, only to get a fraction back. I'm sure any Chancellor, offered this choice would jump at the opportunity, he would still save enough to reduce our deficit to zero as well as being able to start paying off the country's debts.

Migration - Turkey is taking the EU for a ride! (Part2)

Just a brief observation that since I wrote last night's instalment, the BBC have reported that Turkey is now demanding Six Billion Euros, rather than the Three Billion previously reported. The sum has doubled overnight! I wonder if it is a "one off" payment or an annual payment? The reports are unclear.

No doubt whilst we are in  the EU, we will be expected to pay a significant part of this sum.

This is blackmail by Turkey, pure and simple.

The Australian approach to similar boat people trying to get to Australia illegally was quite simple; they took them back to where they had sailed from and put them ashore. The problem ended within six months.

The EU should do exactly the same, dump all migrants ashore in the country were they came from. If the EU hasn't the resources to prevent migrants landing on the relatively short Greek coastline, certainly Turkey wouldn't have the resources to prevent this along their much longer coast line. Isn't that what landing craft are designed to do!

Migration - Turkey is taking the EU for a ride!

According to the latest news, the EU has provisionally come to an agreement with Turkey about the migration which is taking place across the Aegean Sea.

Apparently Turkey will take back any migrants of non-Syrian origin in exchange for the EU taking an equivalent number of Syrian refugees provided they are given a payment of some Three Billion Euros and Turkish citizens being allowed into the EU without visas.

The EU has also agreed to expedite the accession of Turkey to the EU, in spite of it previously having been rejected because of human rights issues, something which has just got worse with Turkey's closure of the only opposition newspaper.

Clearly, not only has this has demonstrated not only that the EU would be incapable of negotiating its way out of the proverbial paper bag, but it has also shown, once again, how feeble Cameron must have been in his negotiations with the EU if he couldn't beat them hands down.

Of course, Cameron has insisted that the UK's opt-out from the passport-free Schengen agreement means that there could be no question of Britain joining any new EU asylum quota process, but it seems quite clear that he hasn't yet received his order from Fuhrer Merkel telling him to accept both the illegal migrants and a few million Turkish citizens.

As every day passes, there is yet another reason  for voting to get out of the EU.

What the BBC (and most newspapers) don't tell us.

I was reading Breitbart for the news that we don't read elsewhere and read this headline:

Massive Sweden Bound Haul Of Grenades And Automatic Weapons Seized

When I read this piece, it wasn't this attempt at smuggling that took me by surprise but this part of the report:

Grenade attacks linked to migrant gang warfare have become a familiar occurrence in parts of Nordic nation. There were 30 grenade explosion in Malmö in the first half of 2015, and 25 explosions in the city in 2014.

This link above led me to this:

Grenade attacks in multicultural paradise Malmö are now so commonplace the English-speaking media has all but stopped bothering to report them. Compounding the apparent disinterest in the descent of beautiful, historic Malmö into a third-world ghetto where native Swedes are very nearly in the minority, is a striking dearth of facts about what is actually going on there.

And then to this:

We know the grenade attacks are a regular occurrence – there have been four this past week and at least ten since April. They come in addition to the regular shootings, stabbings, and arson attacks that are apparently so commonplace they don’t make the English papers at all.

Which, of course leads me to the obvious question - 'When is this sort of thing likely to start happening in Britain?'

Project Fear - The ony reason for staying in the EU

The latest statement by the 'Remainers' is that if we leave the EU, we will no longer be able to travel freely around the EU, but as usual, they give no reason as to why this should be so.

Indeed, why should it be more difficult that at present, unless any of the EU countries decide to be bloody minded, which I very much doubt. Is it difficult for, say, Americans or Australians to travel to European countries because they're not in the EU? Of course not!

We went to Spain for our honeymoon, far more years ago than I care to remember. We had good old-fashioned blue passports, not the horrible modern EU style paperbacks. The only problem or hold-up was on our return when the BEA Trident blew its centre engine at the end of the runway and we had to wait for a replacement aircraft.

Since then on numerous occasions we toured Europe by car, with the children, finding B&B as we went. There were never any problems, we just had to show our passports and the car's documentation at some of the borders. Hardly any additional great hardship. We've also travelled quite widely outside Europe; Australia, the US and Russian required visas, so what, they still do and this presents no great impediment to travel.

The only reason that I would no longer want to travel to the EU, in general, is that with the plague of migrants, I would be concerned about our safety and it would seem that I'm not alone in this respect. The Austrian media have apparently been reporting concerns at the huge drop in holiday bookings for this summer. Vienna is one of the few European capitals that I've not visited, and it now looks as if I will never get the chance. This situation is unlikely to change whether we are in or out of the EU.

So this year, if we go touring, it is likely to be the Irish republic which seems quite safe if one avoids the rival gangs' gunfire in Dublin. But even here you need a passport so that you can prove you are British, both when entering Ireland and returning home.

Otherwise, it looks like a cruise, but it has to start in the UK as Mrs EP has ear problems and no wish to fly (otherwise we might head off to visit friends in Australia!). But certainly not a cruise to the Mediterranean, would it be safe to walk around the various places that the cruise would visit? Judging by the constant advertising of Mediterranean cruises for the coming summer, I would suspect that I'm not alone in my concerns.

So the only remaining problem now is whether we can get some affordable Holiday Insurance, and that's nothing to do with the EU!