Brexit - Let Battle Commence

It's started. The President of the European Parliament (how many presidents does the EU have or need?) has said that the EU Parliament will veto any deal reached between the UK and the EU negotiators, before the discussions have even started. That's EU democracy for you!

If this report is true, our PM had better send a second letter saying that
a. Any discussions have been rendered pointless  by this proposed veto and
b. The UK has no intention of wasting our Ministers' and Civil Servant's time on such pointless discussions because
c. The British public won't tolerate waiting two years for what could be done tomorrow.
d. Therefore she is formally informing them that we will be leaving the EU and reverting to WTO trading rules as soon as possible.

Just to add to the fun, the French President has demanded that we pay the "divorce bill" up front before they will be prepared to start trade talks; as we've said we won't pay it follows that there won't be any trade talks so providing yet another reason for sending a second letter as above.

Meanwhile the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has said he will take the UK to the International court of Justice at the Hague if we don't cough up! At the same time, he says that he has fears that a 'Hard' Brexit will cause a financial crash – which could have dire implications for the struggling Eurozone. Talk about "Cutting off your nose to spite your face" as my old mum would have said!

And for the last laugh, Jean-Claude Juncker has issued a jaw-dropping threat to the United States  that EU could break up the US!

All this idiocy would make a good comedy show for television were not the issues so serious.  Perhaps it's time for Boris to get involved, I'm sure that he could come up with something equally outrageous!

Brexit letter sent at long last!

It has taken nine months since the referendum on Brexit.
The letter required under Article 50 of the EU treaty has been sent; not just sent but handed over by the British Ambassador to the European Council President, Donald Tusk, in person. No chance to mess around claiming it was lost in the post or any such rubbish, it was delivered in full view of the media!

Rather strangely, the BBC web site only provides the first page of the letter, with the Prime Minister's signature apparently at the bottom of this page and you need to download a pdf to discover the fact that letter comprise six pages, with the signature at the bottom of page six. I can only assume that this is because the rest of the letter is not in accordance with BBC ideas in that it strikes me as being very firm but at the same time making it clear that we have no wish to harm the EU in any way. Somewhat different to the attitude of one of the other EU Presidents, Jean-Claude Juncker, who wishes to see us "punished" for wanting to leave.

The full letter can be viewed on the BBC site at this location.

Any way, after nine months it has happened, I was beginning to doubt whether the letter would ever be sent, especially when it wasn't dispatched the moment that Parliament gave its approval. But it's been delivered, and hopefully in two years time we will be out and free to 'do our own thing' once again.

I notice that the EU is still demanding a huge sum when we leave. If this were a divorce, as much of the media seem to think, surely the lawyers for the party receiving such a claim would immediately lodge a counter-claim and not simply ignore it. The EU has considerable assets in terms of property such as the huge number of buildings it owns in Brussels and elsewhere; surely we should get our share. There is also, one reads, one of the finest wine cellars in Europe; we should demand our share in order to celebrate the completion of Brexit in due course!

Let's hope all goes reasonably smoothly and we are able to reach suitable deals in respect of trade, fisheries, and our citizens living in the EU.

Now all we need to do is to send a similar letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Murder in Westminster

By now, no-one in this country can be unaware of the mass murder committed in London yesterday by a follower of Islam. Politicians say the attack was nothing to do with Islam and that few Muslims support such actions. If this is so, why aren't there any Muslims out on the streets protesting against this maniac committing such a horrendous crime in the name of their religion? If someone had done something similar shouting "This is in the name of Jesus", I sure there would be plenty of condemnation from Christians as well as sermons in Church on Sunday. But Islam? Not a whisper from other than other than MPs who seem to believe that the murders at Westminster had nothing to do with Islam.

On this occasion I'm fully in agreement with Katie Hopkins in the Daily Mail

Welcome to London: We can say we’re not afraid, light candles and make hearts of our hands but the truth is that we can’t go on like this.

The full piece can be read in the Mail using this link.

It's important to note that the killer was middle-aged; it's not as if he was some hot-blooded, immature guy who just got taken in by his imam. He was living in Birmingham and had apparently rented the 4x4 locally. This was not an 'impulse attack', it was clearly carefully planned by someone who already had a sting of convictions for crimes of violence.

The truth is we just can't continue to go on like this. Our MPs make me very angry when the give our money as aid to the very countries from which these evil people originate. They make claims like 'extremism is born out of poverty'. Maybe, but this man was born in Kent and as far as I'm aware, the county isn't noted for its poverty.

I do not think Theresa May responded well to the attack. Empty hollow words repeated year in and year out without any substantive action to tackle the issues which led to this tragedy.  It's all right for our MPs,  cocooned in the safety of the Houses of Parliament to feel nice and safe, but what about the rest of us? If asked, they immediately say "What about Joe Cox?" and prefer to overlook the fact that she was killed by a person with genuine mental problems who had previously been treated in hospital. Jo's killing 'proves' to them that the threat is not just from Islam.

I get angry when MPs won't adequately fund our security services so they can only manage to watch 'potentially active' terrorists, preferring to give the money as foreign aid to the very countries for which most of these terrorists, or their families, originate.

I get even more angry when they place restrictions on what our security services do in terms of monitoring the communications of suspects citing their 'Human Rights'. We need to fight this battle with all the tools at our disposal, not fight with one hand tied behind our backs.

I have not found one person amongst my friends and acquaintances who would object to their phone calls, e-mails or use of the web being monitored by the security services as long as it was only the security services and not every government department, local council or quango that feels it would like to know what we are up to. It was the misuse of RIPA by local councils that have made people oppose surveillance, but I feel that we have reached a point where something needs to be done and where electronic surveillance is probably a very cost effective thing to do.

A major problem is that, unlike when we were fighting the IRA, who had no burning wish to die for their cause, fighting suicide killers is a far more difficult task by virtue of their belief that if they die fighting for Islam, the will immediately go to paradise.

Perhaps we should learn from the Japanese. Some years back they had a spate of attacks by Muslims using knives and where the attacker was invariably killed by the police. They started to bury the bodies of the dead attackers wrapped in pigskins or doused the body in pig fat. This apparently stopped the attacks quite rapidly; what is the point of committing suicide if your enemy renders it impossible for you to go to paradise?

Finally, it goes without saying that my thoughts are with the victims and the families of those killed and injured, and I'm sure we will all pray for them at our Sunday Service at my Parish Church, as I expect they will in most churches around the country.

Martin McGuinness is Dead

IRA Terrorist-in-Chief Martin McGuinness is dead.

Good, I hope that he burns in hell.

I've been listening to all the hypocritical apologists on television trying to tell us that he was really a saint in disguise and they made me feel sick. The only person prepared to speak his mind and tell the truth was Lord Tebbit who said:

'I'm just pleased that the world is a sweeter and cleaner place now.

'He was not only a multi-murderer, he was a coward. He knew that the IRA were defeated because British intelligence had penetrated right the way up to the Army Council and that the end was coming.

'He then sought to save his own skin and he knew that it was likely he would be charged before long with several murders which he had personally committed and he decided that the only thing to do was to opt for peace.

'He was a coward who never atoned for his crimes. There can be no forgiveness without a confession of sins. I hope he'll be parked in a particularly hot and unpleasant corner of hell for the rest of eternity. My thoughts are with the many many hundreds of people murdered by McGuinness and his friends during the Troubles'.

I felt saddened that our Queen felt it was appropriate to to shake hands with this evil man when she visited Belfast in 2012 just as I feel the same sadness today reading that she has sent her condolences on his death to his widow.

Meanwhile, we still have to contend with investigations into the actions of our soldiers in Northern Ireland during the troubles 'in the interests of justice'. What justice was there for all McGuinness' victims?

Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. One down and one to go.

Brexit (Continued)

Two points from today's news.

The Daily Mail headlines reveal that Juncker is boasting that no-one else will want to leave the EU after they see how badly the UK is punished for Brexit.

The problems with making boasts like that are twofold:
Firstly, in order to 'punish' the UK it seems likely that the EU would have to do itself more harm than that which it could do to the UK. Will the other countries who sell us their goods support such a crazy idea?
Secondly, What happens if we do well without being in the EU, as I believe we will? Surely this will encourage other countries to follow us.

The other matter reported today is that Theresa May has chosen March 29 as the day she will trigger Article 50 to start leaving the EU.
My only concern is about what appears to be even more delay; why give some Remoaner time to find an excuse to go to the courts and get an injunction for some spurious reason. If Churchill had fought WW2 with all the delays of the present government, the war would probably still be in progress!

Brexit

One of the more interesting items of news this week was the comments by Mervyn King, the previous Governor of the Bank of England, on Brexit. These don't seem to have been widely reported and certainly I didn't hear them on the BBC news.

In essence he said that  
"We don't need to negotiate over Brexit, but that the EU needs to negotiate with us".
This is what many of us have been saying for years, that the EU has far more to lose than Britain if no agreement is reached, but up to now, few of those in positions of power have actually said so. Coming from Lord King, it is all the more important as he is an economist, has his place in the Lords and is not beholden to the EU for a pension or anything else.

In a situation where the EU has some three million citizens in the UK as against around one and a half million British citizens in the EU, any threats against our citizens abroad would be rather foolish. Even those living on pensions contribute considerable sums to various countries with their expenditure on goods and services. In terms of the balance of trade, this expenditure is the equivalent of exports to that value as the money is coming in from abroad. I suspect there are very few UK citizens within the EU who are claiming benefits, unlike a large number of EU citizens in the UK. Why the House of Lords is so keen on protecting EU citizens in this country without having any concerns about our citizens in the EU is a complete mystery to me, and I personally take the view that many might regard it as treason!

There is also the matter of trade. At present they sell us more than we sell them which is not in our best interests and they need to realise that when we have free trade, we could source many of the goods that they sell us from elsewhere. (Personally, I enjoy a good Australian red wine far more than bottle of French wine costing the same!)

We also, as a country, should be able to save money by no longer having to obey all the various EU regulations which are quite expensive to implement and enforce.

As Lord King is reported to have said "We don't need to negotiate over Brexit - but YOU do".

The Daily Mail report can be read HERE.

Money and the NHS

We are forever being told that the NHS needs more money to cope with its ever increasing workload and that all possible economies have been made.

Is this true? Economies may have been made, but the waste appears to continue.

A typical response to any comment about the high salaries of senior administrative staff is that they have to be paid to attract the necessary talents. But is this so? This report from yesterday's Daily Mail surely says it all.

A builder who built his life on 'staggering lies' has been jailed for two years after making more than £1 million over the course of a decade by pretending to have a PhD to become chairman of two NHS Trusts.

Read the full story at "'Walter Mitty' former builder is jailed for two years"

The Walter Mitty style health chief fudged his CV in 2004, adding a doctorate which he did not have, and became the chief executive of St Margaret's Hospice in Taunton, earning nearly £100,000 a year.

He chaired the Torbay NHS Care Trust for nearly ten years, from 2007 to 2015, before becoming the chairman of the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust in April 2015. 

But more interesting is the statement that he was said  to have beaten "117 rivals to become chair of Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust."

Surely all this demonstrates the poor quality of the people at the top. With 117 candidates for the post, he was deemed to be the best by the selection committee! Surely this says as much about those who chose him than the man himself. Then perhaps we should also ask about the qualifications of the staff working under him; if he is the best (as no doubt some of the senior staff would have applied for the posts), how good are they?

There are some 200 or more NHS Trusts in the UK, it would be interesting to know about the qualifications of those holding the senior management posts in all of these. How many more totally unqualified people are at the top of some of these trusts? How many got their jobs because of "The Old Pals Act"? How many more hold the posts because they submitted a false CV, or were promoted to a post for which they were not qualified?

I suppose of more concern from a prospective patient's point of view, a relevant question is "How many doctors within the NHS are not really doctors and totally unqualified to treat patients?" If a trust can't be bothered to check up on  a candidate for appointment as chairman, how well does it check candidates for medical roles?

Surely a wide-ranging enquiry is called for into the NHS recruitment procedures and their effectiveness.