English Pensioner

Two glasses of wine a night triples risk of mouth cancer

2012-02-05T13:23:00.000Z

Other than the snow, the main headlines seem to be that "Two glasses of wine a night triples risk of mouth cancer" and that the government is about to launch a TV advertising campaign to press home the message.
Note how statistics are manipulated to show the percentage increase in the risk, but rarely show the basic risk from which this figure has been calculated.
Clearly something went wrong at the Telegraph as the actually gave some real data in stating that
"Mouth cancer is diagnosed in more than 5,000 people a year, leading to about 1,800 deaths, while about 12 million people have high blood pressure, increasing their chances of strokes and heart attacks."
So the risk of getting mouth cancer, assuming a population of 60 million is about 1 in 12,000 and of dying from it is about 1 in 33,000, a risk that I'm quite happy to take.
When it comes to high blood pressure, it is a well known fact that one's blood pressure increases with age, and with the present ageing population, why should anyone be surprised that the figure is increasing?
Of course, the government and all the various anti-alcohol organisations never point out the good that a moderate intake of alcohol can do, something which has been highlighted in numerous reports over the years and which is carefully ignored by the medical profession.
So we are to have more ~~government~~ taxpayers' money spent on advertising to tell us half-truths. Surely it is their duty to give us all the facts so that we might weigh the advantages and disadvantages for ourselves?
Why don't they just shut up and leave us alone?
Do they really believe that a worthwhile number of people will take any notice of these adverts?
At least most of us know about the long term results of drinking alcohol, which is more than can be said about many of the drugs that our medical profession could end up prescribing as alternatives.

Useless Windmills

2012-02-04T15:01:00.000Z

Today is the coldest we've had so far in this part of the country, according to my trusty (mercury filled) max/min thermometer is was down about -5 Celsius last night and it's still below freezing at midday.
But when I went for a short walk, it didn't feel nearly as cold as it was a week or so ago because there is absolutely no wind. Never mind, the house is nice and snug as long as there is electricity to drive the central heating!
Of course when we rely on windmills for 20% of our electricity, there would probably have to be power cuts, as there is no way that any commercial organisation would have plant with 20% spare capacity available "just in case". Indeed, according to my contacts, there is virtually no spare capacity at the moment with aged equipment being pressed into use to keep the country supplied at a time of maximum demand. I'm told that what could be a relatively minor breakdown under normal circumstances could cause blackouts over large parts of the country if it occurred during this cold weather.
Just let's hope that we have an outbreak of sanity in the Department of Energy and Climate Change with the appointment of Ed Davey as the new Energy Secretary and that steps are taken to ensure that we would have electricity under the worst possible scenario.

Afghanistan needs £165 million a year from Britain after troops leave

2012-01-18T21:10:00.001Z

According to the Daily Telegraph,

"Britain will have to provide Afghanistan with £165 million a year after troops leave to ensure the country does not collapse, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute."

Why?
Why should we spend a brass farthing helping a corrupt regime stay in power?

We should withdraw our troops at once and shift a large number of them to the Falklands.We have no interests in Afghanistan, it has been the cause of a huge loss of British lives for more than 200 years and in all that period nothing has been achieved.
It is an American war. We joined, I assume, in the belief that we had a "Special Relationship" with the United States and should give them support. Obama has recently made it clear that in his view, such a relationship does not exist, and moving our troops to the Falklands would make it clear both to Obama and to Argentina that we are henceforth putting our own interests first, and that includes a group of once uninhabited islands that we settled long before Argentine was even recognised as a state.
At least, based there, our troops wouldn't get killed on a daily basis by roadside bombs.

Surprise, Surprise - Committee announces that migration is causing unemployment amongst the British

2012-01-10T19:39:00.000Z

The Mail reports today that an independent study has found that migration is killing off jobs.
Apparently this committee has discovered that 160,000 Britons have missed out on employment because work was taken by non-EU foreigners.
Do we really need a committee to tell us what is totally obvious to any one with the smallest amount of common sense?
OK, part of the problem is down to our idle youth and high unemployment pay (the bricklayer who recently did some work for me had been unable to find a British labourer), but again, do we need a committee to tell us the obvious?
I just wonder what it cost the taxpayer to be told something we knew already?
More to the point, will anything be done about it?

Scottish Independence

2012-01-09T19:23:00.002Z

David Cameron has entered the debate about Scottish Independence, and as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, of which Scotland is currently a part, I believe that he is right to do so.
At present Alex Salmond is delaying any action on calling a Scottish referendum until quite close to the next Scottish elections, although he has a parliamentary majority and could ask for the legislation at any time. Reading comments from various sources on the subject, it seems clear that the general belief is that he is doing so in order to give him time to continue with the anti-English invective and hopefully increase his support within Scotland. Personally, I respect the Scottish people more that to believe that they will fall for this line.

But before he calls a referendum, I feel that there are a large number of questions which need to be answered, the first and foremost of which is "Who will be able to vote in the referendum?"
In that it was once said that here are far more Scots living outside Scotland than within, and large numbers profess that they would return home if they could, surely they are entitled to express their views on the matter - do all the expatriate Scots want independence or are they to be totally ignored. My son-in-law and his sister were both born in Edinburgh and have a Scottish father, but all live outside Scotland in order to work in their chosen fields. My wife had a Scottish grandfather and has an indirect interest in the matter. Then what about the non-Scots living in Scotland; will they get a vote?

The next question is who will be able to have Scottish Nationality? Will all those Scots living outside Scotland be able to claim Scottish nationality and demand a Scottish passport? Or are they to have dual nationality? Will my grandson be able to apply for a Scottish passport when the time comes on the basis that although he was born in England, his father was born in Scotland?

Those are a couple of practical questions which could directly effect individuals, but then there are the political ones. Would Scotland be in a position to take on its share of the national debt? I would suggest that a proportion of the UK's debt would need to be transferred to the Independent Scottish Government on the basis of the present funding arrangements, the Barnett formula. What about the military; there is the nuclear submarine base at Faslane and the RAF at Lossimouth. Will Scotland be contributing pro-rata to a common defence or will England need to relocate these facilities? Would Scotland maintain a reasonable defence capability or become a neutral like, say, Ireland or Sweden?
The list of such practical questions is endless, but so far none have been addressed. All we get from Salmond is how Scotland would be far better of if it was independent. I think the Scottish people deserve to be told far more and be able to have more than pious hopes.

I should make my position clear. I would like to see Scottish independence, mainly for two reasons
Firstly, I am fed up with the Scottish whingers, like Salmond, whom I don't believe are typical of the Scots as a whole
Secondly, it would appear to be the only way that England will get its independence. The situation where Scotland has its own parliament and can vote in favour of something in Scotland and then the Scottish MPs can appear and vote at Westminster against the very same thing for the English is totally intolerable. The situation whereby Scottish constituencies are also smaller than English constituencies may have been justifiable before Scotland had its own parliament, but can in no way be justified now.

Personally, I would prefer some sort of federal arrangement, similar to the US, with the four countries of the Union having a large measure of independence, and with the Westminster parliament just dealing with common issues.

Finally my personal prediction. Whenever a referendum is held, I do not believe that the Scottish people will vote for independence, and certainly not before a large number of questions have been answered.

Modern Nursing

2012-01-06T18:07:00.000Z

Today the media reports that David Cameron has ordered that nurses should make hourly rounds of the hospital wards and ensure that all their patients were comfortable. (Telegraph report here).
I've just returned from an unwilling visit to Tesco, in my capacity as bag-carrier and driver, and as I'm not involved in the selection of fresh produce, I happened to notice that an employee was doing the rounds of the fresh fruit and vegetables, checking the produce and removing odds and ends to a box. At the end of the procedure he initialled a check sheet (headed "freshness check") at the end of the aisle, and wheeled away those items which didn't pass muster.
I had a vision of this happening in the modern David Cameron hospitals. A nurse wanders round the ward looking at patients, and after signing a check sheet at the end of the ward, wheels away on a trolley any patients that had failed the "freshness check".

OK, I've got a warped sense of humour, but I do wonder what happened to the good old fashioned Matron, and why Cameron feels that it necessary to instruct nurses to do what should be routine in any caring environment. Perhaps he would like to tell the police to patrol the streets and look for crime.

Thoughts on 2012

2011-12-31T20:11:00.002Z

When I think about the year ahead, I fell terribly pessimistic.
In particular, on the political front, there seems few grounds for optimism with a total lack of real leadership anywhere in the western world, and reading John Redwood's Diary this morning simply confirmed my view. He argues that politics, both here and in the US has been living through a long period of followership with policy being determined by focus groups and polls which are frequently both volatile and contradictory.
As John says,

Today we need leadership. The west needs leaders who will explain that we have to change our ways. The west is too debt soaked. The public sector needs to be transformed, to do what it needs to do for less, and to confine its actions to the those most needed. The Euro area needs to settle its intentions quickly – do they want to pay the massive bills needed to complete their union? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and wiser to cut the membership down now, before more economic damage is done?

Then I went on to read the Mail. Normally I take much of what it says with a large pinch of salt, but today, Dominic Sandbrook's comparison with what happened 80 years ago, in the thirties, rang only too true.

After the Wall Street Crash in 1929 — just as after the banking crisis of 2008 — some observers even thought that the worst was over.
But in the summer of 1931, a wave of banking panics swept across central Europe. As the German and Austrian financial houses tottered, Britain’s Labour government came under fierce market pressure to slash spending and cut benefits.

Isn't exactly the same happening now? The Euro crisis is spreading amongst all the countries involved and many informed observers believe that it will break up within the next year causing their banks to have similar problems to those of 1931.
There was weak government in this country under a coalition led by Ramsay MacDonald, and with the politicians seemingly unable to be able do do anything about the rising unemployment, many people lost faith in parliamentary democracy and looked towards Oswald Mosley's Union of British Fascists. In the United States, there were similar problems and President Herbert Hoover seemed impotent to deal with them, just as Obama is today.
One can draw numerous other parallels with the thirties, from the growing power of China (then it was Japan) to the way the dictators of the EU are trying to consolidate their power by appointing non-elected leaders in Greece and Italy.

Here in Britain we have, in my view, a similar weak coalition government to that of the thirties which is quite willing to appease the EU just as Chamberlain appeased Hitler. We are embarking on a similar pattern of disarmament (aka Defence cuts) and failing to stimulate growth. The coalition is constantly squabbling rather than looking for solutions and offers little in the way of real hope for the future.

There is however one big difference between now and the thirties. At that time both Britain and the US had potential future leaders standing in the wings. We had Churchill and the US had Roosevelt, neither of whom were universally liked. But when it came to the crunch, both were accepted as leaders capable of steering their countries to better times. At this time I can see no such potential leaders in either of our countries.

As I quoted once before, Otto von Bismark, the German statesman said
“Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.”
I just wish our politicians would have a look at the thirties and see what lessons they might learn from the events of 80 years ago.

So with these rather pessimistic thoughts, we move into the New Year.

Happy New Year!

My Proposed New-Year Message to the Archbishop of Canterbury

2011-12-26T17:46:00.000Z

I have read or listened to a number of speeches and sermons lately and, as a Christian, I have found those from outside the Church of England to be more relavent that those from within. Having heard a recording of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas sermon, I am far from impressed and feel that, as a change from my writing to politicians from time to time, I should perhaps turn some attention to our church leaders and have been thinking of writing to him along the following lines:

In your Christmas Sermon at Canterbury, you stated that
“The most pressing question we now face, we might well say, is who and where we are as a society, Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost.”
I can broadly agree with that statement, but then you went on to compare this summer’s rioters with greedy bankers, and I found it difficult to comprehend exactly what point you were trying to make. Such people represent just a small fraction of one percent of our population, and are, in my view, largely irrelevant when discussing the nation’s problems.

I personally believe that you, and indeed many of our senior Bishops and Clergy are totally out of touch with the reality of what is happening in this country, and I would, with respect, like to draw your attention to the King James Bible, Matthew 7 verse 3.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beame that is in thine own eye”

This, I believe, is the crux of the issue. Your assertion that ‘Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost.’ applies as much, if not more, to the leadership of our Christian Church in this country as elsewhere in our daily lives. Whilst you and your bishops are prepared to address various political issues, generally from a left-wing perspective, you have all singularly failed to address the matter of attacks on the Church and its adherents in this country by what I would describe as a combination of militant atheists and politically correct officialdom.

At a basic level we have Christians being hounded by their employers for wearing or displaying a crucifix; we have an employee being told not to wear a tie with the “fish” symbol as it "would be wrong to show his religious affiliation”, whilst a fellow worker was permitted to wear a turban, which presumably does not! We have a nurse being reprimanded for being willing to offer a prayer on behalf of a patient, and of course the positions of “Sister” in hospitals no longer exist, presumably because of the religious connotations derived from the old Orders of Nursing Nuns. We have a local Council being challenged in court over the centuries old practice of saying prayers prior to a meeting whilst others gave up without a fight.

At a more political level, we have the various issues relating to homosexuality; firstly there was the issue of the adoption of children by homosexual couples and now the matter of homosexual “marriage” (an oxymoron if ever there was one). I cannot recall any senior cleric addressing either issue, presumably for fear of being considered to be politically incorrect. Nor has the Church spoken out about the large number of unmarried heterosexual couples living together and raising what are, in Christian terms, illegitimate children.

In the past, such matters would not only have drawn strong condemnation from the hierarchy of the Church, they would have been addressed from virtually every pulpit in the country as they would have been seen as an attack on the Church and its beliefs. Now they seem to be ignored, with the majority of our clergy seeming unwilling to speak out on matters of real concern to their flocks. It is for these reasons, amongst others, that I believe it is the Church that has "broken the bonds and lost the trust" of many Christians, rather than the reverse.

I would suggest that it is time that the Church returned to what, in modern parlance would be described as its “core business”, that of preaching and teaching Christianity with the objectives of inspiring existing Christians, attracting converts to Christianity and defending our religion and its members against attack. To my mind this is not being done, and I therefore believe that you and your fellow bishops are failing in your duties.

Finally, I would commend to you two recent speeches
Firstly the Christmas address by Her Majesty the Queen, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, in which Her Majesty seems to see a far different world than the one seen by yourself, and which I believe to be the more realistic of the two, and
Secondly that given by our Prime Minister at Oxford a few days previously in which he said, amongst other things, that
“…… we are a Christian country. And we should not be afraid to say so”.
Unusually for a politician, he is prepared to say so, whilst many of our bishops seemingly are not!
.

Perhaps a little more polish is required, but in broad terms is summarises how I feel about the Church of England at this time.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-25T00:06:00.000Z

I've just returned home from ringing our church bells for the midnight service. We managed to muster eight ringers and produced some reasonable ringing. When the ringers arrived to ring about 40 minutes before the service, and the Parish Church was already half full. I didn't stay for the service, but when I left, the church was packed to overflowing.
I'm ringing tomorrow, so I need to leave home just after 9 o'clock to ring for the main 10 o'clock service. Then a quick visit to my younger daughter, before she leaves to go to her in-laws for lunch and then to our elder daughter for our Christmas Lunch.
It's all go!

Iraq and Afghanistan - Libya and Egypt

2011-12-22T20:58:00.000Z

Immediately the "peace keeping" troops left Iran, sectarian war broke out. Clearly this was totally unexpected by our western politicians, but to anyone who is familiar with the history of the area, it was entirely predictable. There has never ever been peace in the Arab world except where there was a strong man in control, and for all that has been said about Saddam, far more Iraqi lives appear to have been lost since he was deposed than during his tyrannical rule. Indeed the only peaceful area of Iraq is that inhabited by the Kurds, who would like to form their own independent country, but have been prevented from doing so by the West, largely at the behest of Turkey.

So moving on to Afghanistan, is there anyone who doesn't believe that exactly the same will happen there the day after the troops pull out? Why do we continue to allow our soldiers to be killed for a clearly unrealisable goal? Surely there can't be any of our politicians who are stupid enough to believe that Afghanistan will settle down to be a peaceful country with democratic rule?

I see exactly the same problem in Egypt and Libya The so called Arab Spring in Egypt is turning to a winter of discontent, and no doubt Libya is following not far behind.

The fact is that democracy in all these countries is still stuck in the 12th century in British terms, but unfortunately they have 21st century weapons at their disposal.

Quangos - New for Old

2011-12-21T14:31:00.000Z

One of the early announcements made by the present government was that there was to be a "Bonfire of Quangos". This has obviously been similar to my garden bonfires, produced lots of smoke, very little fire and left a majority of the rubbish untouched!
Today's news item in the Daily Mail is typical -
What bonfire? New 'super quango' has already hired 5,000 staff sacked from abolished health bodies

Whilst the Health Protection Agency, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, the ten Strategic Health Authorities and the 152 Primary Care Trusts are being wound up, the Department of Health has admitted that a ‘significant majority of staff’ will be transferred to the new organisation ‘continuing the roles they currently fulfil’.
So far the new quango "Public Health, England" has taken on some 5000 staff, although it doesn't actually formally come into being until April 2013! I expect that most of them will be collecting redundancy payments from their existing quangos, before being re-employed, no doubt at higher salaries, in this new one.

This, in fact, mirrors what happened to me back in the 1970's. I was employed by the Department of Trade and Industry as an engineer in National Air Traffic Services, and the whole department was transferred to the new Civil Aviation Authority. All staff were compulsorily transferred (without any compensation) and the government of the day trumpeted the huge reduction in civil servants, some 7000 if my memory serves me correctly. But we were still all paid for by the state, as, at that time the Authority had no income of its own. But the overall number of employees increased; the "sponsoring department", the DTI, had to have a group to oversee the activities of the CAA, and of course the CAA had to have a Chairman, Board and all the associated support staff. Since then, the Air Traffic Services, for which I worked has been privatised, but the CAA continues to have something like a 1000 regulatory staff.

I'm quite sure that this "Bonfire of Quango" will be no more than what happened to me, all the same people will be doing all the same jobs (whether they are needed or not) in a new organisation which will generate its own overheads. But the government will be able to claim that 164 quangos have been abolished. Of far more interest to me would be "How much money has been saved?".

Christmas in our Woods

2011-12-17T13:01:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, I posted a photograph taken in our local woods. The woods are popular with local dog-walkers and those, like myself, wanting a short-cut to our town..
Each year, about this time, a Christmas tree that grows near the edge of the woods is mysteriously decorated. The first time I saw it, the tree was only a couple of feet high, now the top is out of reach, and as the tree has grown, each year more decorations are required.


Woodland Christmas Tree

I don't know who decorates the tree, but I was told by one of the regular wood walkers that it is decorated by a local lady in memory of her young child who died about this time of year.

Metal Thefts

2011-12-14T14:35:00.000Z

Metal theft is costing this country millions, both in terms of the cost of the stolen metal and making necessary repairs. In addition to these basic costs, there is also the cost of lost time to businesses and individuals due to delayed trains and the like.
In the latest incident, operations at Llandough Hospital in the Vale of Glamorgan have been cancelled because someone stole the cables connecting the emergency generators to the site. This is the latest in a spate of life threatening thefts which have seen railways brought to a halt, motorway warning signs disconnected and phones cut off.

Norman Baker, the local transport minister, said last month: "This problem transcends the railway. It has affected motorways, the coastguard and the telecoms industry. The level of theft tends to follow the price of copper and other metals on world markets."There is a general concern, which I am very happy to share, that the legislation in place isn't designed for the spate of thefts we are seeing."

I'm sorry Mr Baker, but this isn't enough. The government should have brought forward legislation by now to deal with the matter. In the past, governments have rushed through (often ill considered) legislation such as the Dangerous Dogs Act in a matter of weeks They can find time to talk about banning or charging for plastic bags and discuss issues like gay "marriage" in churches, but seem incapable of tackling something that is costing a fortune and putting lives at risk.

As they, or the Civil Service, seem deviod of ideas, could I suggest a few pointers.
1. All scrap metal dealers to be licensed, the licence fee being sufficient to encourage the consolidation of the industry into a few largish companies.
2. No cash transactions, all payments to be made to a bank account.
3. A record to be kept of all purchases in an approved register, the seller to provide identity similar to that required under the money laundering legislation.
4. Substantial penalties; loss of a dealer's license for failure to keep proper records or make sufficient enquiries about the source of scrap, and mandatory imprisonment for those selling stolen metals.
5, Amend the law in such a manner that anyone involved in metal theft is not brought before a court accused of simple metal theft, but is also accused of causing losses to the value of the repair cost, transport delays, etc.

This in some respect is the greater problem, a local church had lead stolen from its roof worth less than £50, but the repair cost ran out at something over £5000. Punishment needs to be in terms of the latter value, rather than the former.

We need action now, not once people have been killed as a result of, say, a major accident on our railways due to the theft of signal cable, or the loss of life at sea because the coast guard communications had been cut.

A New Television - but No "OFF" Switch!

2011-12-12T15:27:00.000Z

We have just ordered a new Television for our Daughter and Son-in-Law as their Christmas present.
In spite of all the EU green pontificating some months ago about not leaving TVs in standby mode because of the electricity consumption, this TV does not have an "ON/OFF" switch - when plugged in, it is permanently is standby mode.
From the manufacturer's web site it appears that the standby power consumption is 0.3 watts, so if it were to be left in standby mode for a tear, the consumption would be in the order of 2.6 kWh total, roughly equivalent to around 40 hours viewing.
Not a huge amount, I agree, but I'm waiting for the "Greens" to react :-
"If every household has one (or more) of these televisions, the amount of carbon produced would be . . . . . . . . . . . . ". "They must be banned!"
It doesn't worry me, I was just somewhat surprised at the absence of the "ON/OFF" switch, surely it can't be a cost cutting measure.

Cleggiband says "Britain is Isolated"

2011-12-11T17:34:00.000Z

We have a new joint leader of the opposition, Edick Clegiband!
The phrase "Britain is now isolated" slips off its forked tongue so smoothly, along with other phrases like "We will no longer have any influence in the World", "isolated and marginalised", that it is effectively a single entity.

Perhaps we should look at the "British Veto".
What, of course, we don't know is whether any of the other EU countries would have vetoed the deal; the thing about a veto is that the first country to use it effectively brings discussions to a halt. We will never know if any of the other countries would have got around to using it, simply that we were the first.

The instant reaction of Labour (who automatically oppose the Government without thought) was that this would "Leave Britain isolated" and it was therefore a bad thing, although they gave no indication of why this should be so. Norway and Switzerland are "isolated" in Europe, but this doesn't seem to be doing them any harm. Numerous other countries, with much smaller populations than Britain, are also "isolated" in terms of not being part of a political union - Australia, New Zealand and Canada to mention but three. So isolation doesn't seem to be a bad thing; indeed one might argue that it is advantageous in that these countries can "do their on thing" without having to consult anyone.
"We will have less influence in World Affairs". We don't seem to have much now, so it's hard to see how we could have much less. Why do we want influence anyway? Again you rarely hear mention of the countries that I've listed seeking to influence world affairs and they don't seem to mind.
Of course, politicians and civil servants love to get involved - all that travel to foreign parts at the taxpayers' expense is part of the job!

The LibDems said much the same as Labour with their leader doing one of the fastest U-turns in recent political history. From reluctant acceptance of Cameron's action to outright opposition has taken less than 24 hours, this must be a record! But we are also assured that this won't lead to the break-up of the coalition. You bet it won't - if it did the LibDems would soon learn the meaning of "having no influence"!

But the Clegiband has spoken; it's now a question as to whether anybody considers it worth listening to, particularly as snap surveys apparently indicate that the majority consider that Cameron has done the right thing.

My Picture of the Week

2011-12-11T15:41:00.000Z

I think this must be my favourite picture of the week.

Photo: Telegraph: Stuart McMahon

The futility of windpower !
This is just one of the 1500 reportable accidents/incidents which have occurred on wind farms in the past 5 years, almost one a day. These included 4 deaths to workers and some 300 injuries.

We are told that last week's incidents were caused by "freak weather", when in fact such weather must be expected as part of Britain's ever changeable weather patterns. In fact the only "freak" weather we might expect in Britain is if the wind blew steadily at around 40mph for a continuous period of more than 24 hours actually allowing electricity to be generated

If this had been a fire in the Generator Hall of a Nuclear Power Station (which is remote from the reactor), or if the Nuclear Industry had had the number of incidents as mentioned above, I'm sure that all hell would have been let loose by now!

The EU - Status Quo prevails

2011-12-09T09:50:00.000Z

The media today seems to believe that Cameron has had a great victory by standing firm at the EU summit and not conceding any treaty changes. I fact it was not even a good defence as all he has done is to say "No" to any further EU financial powers which might affect this country, and in doing so has upset Sarkozy, and of course avoided any immediate pressure to call a referendum.
In medieval terms, when you are under siege in your castle, it is not a victory to have merely repulsed the attackers and shouted a few nasty words at their leaders; victory comes only when you have totally removed them and their influence from your territory.

But meanwhile, the EU bureaucrats in Brussels continue regardless.
According to the Telegraph

The European Commission is considering introducing rules that will make the UK's 6,850 companies with final salary pension schemes pump billions of pounds into the schemes to reduce their deficits. The rules are designed to make pension schemes in EU member states more financially robust.

So regardless of what happens at the summit, bureaucrats are still trying to make financial rules and Cameron is pretending it is not happening. There has been no great victory, as the BBC would have us believe. Not one single regulation has been repatriated to this country, the status quo prevails.

Meanwhile, the remaining EU countries seem to be continuing their meeting without Britain and Hungary (the only country to take our viewpoint), no doubt with the objective of finding ways to impose their will on us without our consent, just as they appointed unelected Prime Ministers in Greece and Italy without the consent of the people.

The Euro Crisis - Lack of UK leadership

2011-12-08T10:42:00.001Z

The Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister is again under pressure, this time from some senior Tories, to hold a referendum on the EU as they are particularly concerned that Britain could be adversely affected by the proposed fiscal union being proposed by the Eurozone members as the provisions would extend to all EU members my means of the EU treaty.

What I find disturbing is the last couple of paragraphs in the report:

"In a tactic designed to isolate Britain and split the 10 non-eurozone EU members, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday invited the 23 members of a “Euro Plus” economic pact to monthly summits.

The move, which splits non-euro countries such as Poland, Sweden and Denmark away from Britain, will lead to decisions on broader economic policy being taken without British involvement.".

This is a typical "Divide and Rule" tactic which has been used over the centuries, but it seems that our government has accepted it without murmur, which is perhaps not surprising seeing that most of our representatives in Europe are Gordon Brown's failed EU advisors.

Just as Germany and France have appointed themselves as the de-facto leaders of the Eurozone countries, I am sure that any previous British Prime Minister worthy of the name, would have done something similar and called a meeting of the non-Eurozone EU members in London to discuss the issues involved, and in doing so making Britain effectively the leader of these countries rather than allowing Merkosy to take the initiative. But no, whereas once we invariably took the lead in any discussions, Cameron is now allowing us to be being led by the nose.
I would suggest Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farrage as joint Chairmen for such a summit, together I would suggest, they would represent some 75% or more of public opining in this country!

Motorway sped linits - Dutch Style

2011-12-04T13:58:00.000Z

I'm rather intrigued by this item from DutchNews

"New 130 kph speed limit will raise millions in petrol taxes

"Thursday 01 December 2011
"An increase in the national speed limit on most roads to 130 kph (81 mph) will generate an extra €50m to €100m in petrol taxes, the government’s environmental assessment agency is quoted as saying in the AD.The agency says the higher speed limit will encourage motorists to drive faster and so spend more on petrol.Transport minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen is planning to spend €130m increasing the speed limit on 60% of the nation’s motorways from next September."

A novel way to increase taxation income, I wonder what the Greens think about it?
Perhaps Osborne is hoping for the same results by increasing our motorway limit to 80 mph.

Jeremy Clarkson

2011-12-01T17:15:00.000Z

I don't usually watch "To Gear" or indeed many other BBC programmes, so unlike most, up to now, I've had no particular views on Jeremy Clarkson.
But it seems that yesterday, he made some remark on another BBC show that I don't watch about "shooting the Civil Service strikers", which to me seems to be a pretty harmless thing to say, and something that I have said myself in the past about groups of people that I detest.
He was forced to apologise by the BBC, as did the presenter of the programme, et al.

Now was this offensive? Not in my terms. Certainly in no way as offensive as the attack on Andrew Sachs by two so-called comedians or the attack on the disabled by another immature so-called comedian. Neither were condemned by the BBC who described it a "edgy humour", whatever that is and defended the remarks to the limit.
So as far as the BBC is concerned you can say almost what you like about anyone, however crude you care to be, as long as you don't say anything against a left-wing BBC supported cause.

But the BBC isn't the only organisation to come out of this looking ridiculous in the eyes of the majority of the non-state employed working population, for example

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: "Clarkson's comments on the One Show were totally outrageous, and they cannot be tolerated". "We are seeking urgent legal advice about what further action we can take against him and the BBC, and whether or not his comments should be referred to the police."
What an idiot!

And then the Prime Minister, "That’s obviously a silly thing to say and I’m sure he didn’t mean that. I didn’t see the remark but I’m sure it’s a silly thing to say".
No Prime Minister, what you said is silly; can you imagine any of our Great Prime Ministers even condescending to mention the matter? You should stand aloof from such trivia, and by commenting you degrade the office that you hold.

Now doubt there are numerous other useful idiots out there all feigning outrage for the benefit of the media, but I just can't be bothered with them.

Viva Jeremy Clarkson!

The Bleeding Obvious!

2011-12-01T09:52:00.000Z

The BBC informs us that:

"The drought that has affected parts of England since June will last into next summer if there is insufficient winter rain, the Environment Agency has said."

So if it doesn't rain, we will have a drought, now who would have thought that?

Or is our standard of education now so poor that there is no connection in people's minds between rainy weather and water coming out of their taps?

Privatising Air-Sea Rescue Services.

2011-11-29T12:28:00.000Z

One of the most idiotic decisions that has been made by this government is, in my view, the decision to privatise the air-sea helicopter rescue service which is at present provided by the R.A.F and the R.N.
See the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
What possible logic can there be or this decision? How can it possibly be in the best interests of this country?
It would seem that for some reason, the responsibility for such rescue work comes under the Ministry of Transport, and no doubt some bureaucrat has worked out that it will be cheaper, at least in so far as his budget is concerned, to privatise the activity. No doubt each flight will require authorisation, thus providing more work for administrative staff (Mon-Fri 9am-4pm only!). Of course, such narrow-minded officials never consider the "overall picture" or the overall cost, just their own budget.
Now, I'm not suggesting that the decision is wrong just because Prince William says so, although I think he is right.
If one looks at the situation from a Military viewpoint, it is clear that our Services need an increased helicopter capacity for the various roles that they may have to undertake in the coming years. One of these roles is search and rescue, whether it is a seaman who has fallen overboard from a ship, or a soldier on the battlefield, with numerous other scenarios in between. You can neither acquire the helicopters to carry out such work in five minutes, nor can you instantly train the crew, and thus, if we are to continue to be a military power, we must be prepared to have such men and equipment available for instant deployment. We all should be aware of the time that it takes to train a rescue helicopter pilot from the snippets of news about Prince William's training which have appeared in the media.
So how do you train such crew, and more importantly, keep them fully trained?
When a country is nominally at a state of peace, military training is carried out by various exercises, which by their very nature, can never be true to life, as clearly under such circumstances no one wants to take any unnecessary risks. Such exercises are also very expensive and there is no visible result at the end of the day.
Presumably, for the rescue helicopter crews, exercises would involve picking up dummies and shifting them elsewhere. Even so, the cost of keeping the helicopter in the air is no less, it still has to be serviced and requires fuelling, etc. All that will probably be different, is that the military helicopters, which will still be required, will have a few less "Hours on the clock", and our military pilots.and less training for vital military roles.

The Telegraph states that the Minister's view is that the changes will provide a modern fleet of “fast, reliable helicopters” that would lead to “major improvements in the capability available from the present mix of helicopters”. The minister said. It would also provide “a more reliable service”.

On the other hand, one might deduce that Ministers don't consider that the R.A.F. and the R.N. require a "modern fleet of fast, reliable helicopters” and that they will have to carry out their Military duties, as usual, with out-of-date equipment and minimal training.

Incidentally, the funding for one of the proposed bids will come from a consortium which includes the Royal Bank of Scotland. As RBS went broke and is now owned by the government, how comes it that it has the funds to provide this "modern fleet of fast, reliable helicopters”? Wouldn't it be better for the government to simply go out and buy them without using an intermediary?

To me the whole deal stinks, we are letting our Services down by using financial slight of hand to make it appear that spending has been cut, and then funding the helicopters by the back door. The main difference is that if the military purchased them, they would be available for general Service use should the need arise. As it is the country will own nothing, just as with our schools and hospitals bought under PFI agreements. Presumably it will also allow the RBS to appear to make a profit on the loan that it will be providing to fund the helicopters, which in turn will allow the government to return it to private ownership.

As I said, the deal stinks, and I'm not smelling AvGas or Jet Fuel!

The Builders Part 6

2011-11-24T21:21:00.000Z

The Builders had a week off last week, because the boss-man, Billy, was at the Ideal Home Exhibition. However work has resumed in earnest this week.
The framework has been erected and the roof structure installed on Monday, but I didn't realised that it would take so long to put in the glass. All the window and door glass is now in place and work has started on the roof, and the first significant snag has been encountered. Two of the angled panes of glass for the complex roof structure are the wrong size, and these need to go in before the panels higher up the roof.. No clue at the moment how long they will take to arrive. While this has been going on, the plumber has prepared the pipes for the radiators, and the electrician has been installing the wiring for the lights and power sockets.
Mrs EP has done the rounds of lighting showrooms - one problem is that numerous types of light bulbs are now being phased out (blame the EU), and of course for a glass roofed structure, one needs lamps that direct the light downward and don't attempt to illuminate the night sky!
What I did discover is that you can now get an equivalent of a standard 60 watt bulb comprising a small halogen lamp inside a standard 60 watt sized envelope with a bayonet cap. For the same light output it consumes a little less than the old bulb, but can hardly be considered "energy saving" in view of the extra materials and energy used in its manufacture, but it does escape the EU ban on standard tungsten 60 watt bulbs. Useful knowledge for when my stock of 60 watt bulbs runs out as we have about 15 currently in use around the house.

The "Strong" German Economy

2011-11-24T09:17:00.000Z

Over the past months with the Euro crisis looming, everyone has believed that the German economy is strong and that Germany would be able to (or have to) support the Euro in order to prevent its collapse. One got the impression that the Bundesbank was stuffed so full of money that nothing could go wrong, at least as far as Germany is concerned.

But is this true?

The German government debt as a percentage of GDP is in excess of 80%, not significantly less than that of Spain. The prime minister of Luxembourg, where the ratio is a mere 20%, has said that he thinks that the level of German debt is troubling.

Yesterday, the German Government tried to sell €6 billion of government bonds but were left with some €2.35 billion unsold. Whether this was because investors were not prepared to buy them, or Germany was not prepared to pay higher interest rates is unclear, but what does seem to be clear is that investors are steering clear of the Euro. It has also become apparent that, far from the Bundesbank being stuffed with money, Germany is also borrowing billions to make ends meet. In cash terms, rather than as a percentage of GDP, Germany's indebtedness is probably the highest in the Eurozone.

Details are here (Der Spiegel):

Sovereign Bond Auction Fizzles in Germany

Germany's Finances Not as Sound as Believed

Or if you hold any Euro banknotes, perhaps you should consider this, from today's Telegraph

X-rated bond crisis in Berlin and a bridge too far

95% Mortgages

2011-11-21T17:07:00.001Z

Remind me!
I thought that it was the reckless lending of the banks and other financial institutions which lead to the banking crisis and the Northern Rock and a number of other lenders going broke, both here and in Ireland. The institutions concerned were rightly castigated by the government for being insufficiently prudent in their lending. Don't we now have a state owned "Bad Bank" containing all the failed loans from the Northern Rock?
But it seems that this isn't enough, our government is now proposing to encourage such loans by underwriting 95% mortgages for those who can't save any more! The stated objective is to encourage the housing market and enable first time buyers to get on the housing ladder.
Whilst the objective might be laudable, I cannot believe that a person who can only manage to find 5% of the property price should be taking on a mortgage. Without even thinking of the interest, if the person has had difficulty in finding 5%, how on earth is he going to find this amount, year on year, for a further 19 years?
Looking back some thirty plus years ago, mortgages were then in short supply, and most building societies at the time insisted that you had a significant amount of money in an account with them for six months or more before they would even consider putting you on their waiting list. Others wanted you to demonstrate that you were capable of making the estimated monthly payments by putting that sum into a regular savings account for an acceptable period, this frequently being a quite difficult requirement for anyone who was paying rent on existing accommodation. A 5% deposit, you're joking, 20% minimum maybe more!
Another point is that making mortgages more readily available is likely to inflate house prices, bringing us back to square one.
Again, before buying our present house, we had agreed the details and selling price of our previous one with a local estate agent and I was to go in Saturday morning and sign the agreement. On the Thursday the Bank of England reduced the bank rate by quite a bit, and when I went in, the agent said that he'd increased the asking price because buyers would be able to afford a bit more and more buyers could be entering the market.
In other terms, a house has no absolute value, it is merely the amount that someone wanting to buy a property of that type can manage to borrow. Make it easier to borrow, and up goes the price.

So what will the government achieve? It's proposed action seems unlikely to genuinely help first-time buyers as more people will be able to enter the market. At the same time it could leave the taxpayer with a load of bad debts.

Why Socialism will never work!

2011-11-20T22:41:00.000Z

I was rather taken with this article from "The Commentator"
It explains the flaws of equality in terms that the simplest students might understand!

The Newspapers

2011-11-20T11:19:00.000Z

I gave up buying a newspaper on a regular basis some while ago when my subscription to the Telegraph ran out and I decided to read the news on-line for a while and see how this compared with the real thing. Now I must make it clear, my interests do not extend to the so-called "celebs", to pop stars or to reality TV shows. Nor do I have that much interest in sport and none in all the sporting scandals. I have been to one football match in my life, in Sweden, because my business host at the time thought it appropriate for an English guest!
The advantage of reading the news on line is that I have set up RSS feeds from those papers that I prefer to read, and can then scan down the headings to see if there is anything of interest. I don't feel that I have to read it all from cover to cover because I've paid good money for the paper and must get my value out of it! I tend to miss the crosswords and Mrs EP misses the Sudoko, but as a book of these costs about the same as a daily paper, there is no problem. So now, I just buy one of the Saturday papers which has a TV supplement for the week, and so save a few hundred pounds a year!

Reading the news on-line also has the advantage that if something happens in another country and you have an interest in the matter, you can invariably find a local English language paper to provide more details. With Germany and the EU being in the news at the moment, one can read various German viewpoints in Der Spiegel which produces an on-line version in English.

Would I go back to buying a Newspaper on a regular basis? It seems unlikely unless one should revert to being just that, a newspaper. It would need to contain real factual, hopefully unbiased, news from around the world and confine issues such as the winner of "Big Brother" to not more than a small paragraph at the bottom of page five.

And as I've mentioned Der Spiegel, I thought that I should quote this from yesterday's on line edition
"The German statesman Otto von Bismarck once said that only fools learned from their own mistakes -- he preferred to learn from the mistakes of others. At the moment, no politician or adviser in Europe has bothered to learn the lessons of the Argentine or Asian debt crises. Indeed, in Europe, they aren't even learning from their own mistakes."

Bismark had something there!

Autumn in the Woods

2011-11-19T20:31:00.000Z

I went for a walk through our small wood this morning on the way to get my morning newspaper; a lovely day for walking, the temperature was just right and there was just a gentle breeze.
I thought I'd try out the camera on my newly acquired iPod, these are my first attempts.

I don't think the camera (or is it the display) does justice to the colours, but except for the evergreens, most of the leaves have now fallen and the muddy path is well hidden. You could be in the depths of a great forest. were it not for the noise of the motorway traffic in the distance!

Neville Chamberlain or Winston Churchill?

2011-11-18T14:23:00.002Z

David Cameron has gone off to Berlin today for talks about the EU and its finances with Angela Merkel.
I wonder if he is using Neville Chamberlain or Winston Churchill as his role model?

Will he decide to appease the Germans, and come back having acceded to their wishes waving the equivalent of Chamberlain's piece of paper, "Peace in our Time"?
Or is this the point when he decides that "enough is enough" and decides to emulate Churchill and make it clear exactly what he wants - unconditional surrender.

Today's papers seem to make Germany's position quite clear.
The Telegraph headlines "German attempt to derail UK poll" seems clear enough, with the on-line Telegraph giving details here.

The current on-line headline is "German finance minister predicts end of pound as PM meets Merkel".
Wolfgang Schäuble says all of EU will have a common currency "sooner than people in the British Isles believe", as David Cameron arrives in Berlin for tense talks with Angela Merkel.
This is also reported in the Mail

Elsewhere the Telegraph reveals that, according to a leaked German government document. the Germans want "An intrusive European body with the power to take over the economies of struggling nations should be set up to tackle the eurozone crisis."
As in 1939, many of the other countries in the EU seem to have surrendered or are on the point of capitulation. I wonder how the people of the erstwhile eastern bloc countries are feeling, having rid themselves of their most recent oppressor only to find that their previous invader is now in charge? I wonder how the Danes and the Dutch feel about all this? One might expect Sweden to remain neutral as before and make a substantial profit out of the situation, and France will in due course get a new Vichy style government. Ireland, Spain and Portugal will continue to sit on their fences.

I hope that it will be the equivalent of this picture we see after Cameron's talks

But I fear that it will be the one at the top of the page.

World War One and my Father

2011-11-13T20:10:00.001Z

Every Remembrance Sunday, my thoughts always turn towards the First World War rather than more recent wars. There were of course more British fatalities in this war than there have been in all the subsequent conflicts, and it was after this war that the tradition of the Remembrance Sunday
was borrn. Then my thoughts always seem to turn to my father, born in 1899, who served in the closing stages of the war. He never spoke about his experiences, all I know was that he was in the Machine Gun Corps and for a period in the trenches he was attached to a regiment of Australians for whom he had great respect.

After the war, he qualified as a accountant and, presumably because he spoke German as his father was Swiss, he secured a job with the Bayer Products, the British subsidiary of the giant Bayer chemical company. He, and my mother, went to Germany numerous times in the late twenties and thirties and on one occasion he visited Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden, I don't know if he actually met Hitler!

What he did do during this period was to develop a deep contempt for all our politicians and particularly the pacifists who were pushing disarmament. The only exception was Churchill, who at that time was "out in the cold" for advocating rearmament. As my father frequently told me, in his later years, if you had travelled around Germany at that time as he did, you would have seen all the signs of a country preparing for war. They were devoting massive amounts of effort and money into building the autobahns, far more than could possibly be justified by the number of vehicles using them.
But it seems that most of our politicians of that time were totally blind to what the didn't want to see; Churchill was the main exception and because of this was branded a warmonger. In his memoirs, Churchill frequently refers to "information that I have received from Germany" and similar phrases. I like to think that my father was possibly one of those supplying information, although it seems unlikely.
I do know, at the start of the war when the government asked anyone who had any recent photographs taken in Germany to forward them to the War Office, my father supplied a considerable number. I don't know if this was amongst them, my parents are in the second row, just behind the arrowed girl in the white dress.

BAD NEUENAHR, GERMANY 17.7.35

What would my father think of our politicians today?
Like those of the thirties, most of them seem to prefer to ignore reality. They have taken us into an unwinnable war in Afghanistan and prefer to ignore the realities of what is happening in Europe. They have reduced our military to such an extent that they couldn't possibly defend the Falklands, let alone this country. They refuse to accept that we now have an enemy within due to mass immigration or that Germany remains a threat to Europe, using money this time rather than tanks. And more to the point, if they turn out to be wrong, like Chamberlain, where is the latter day "Churchill" to take over?
Is it any surprise that I, like my father before me, hold the majority of our politicians of all parties in total contempt?

- - o o O o o - -

As a side issue, if there is anyone reading this who has any contacts in Switzerland who might be able to help me find more about my grandfather, Johan Schütz, whom according to the 1911 census was born in Fribourg, Switzerland around 1865, please contact me.

Remembrance Sunday

2011-11-13T15:03:00.001Z

I have just returned from the Remembrance Sunday services at our War Memorial and afterwards in the Parish Church. We rang the half-muffled bells for about twenty minutes before the service started outside at the War Memorial. A small military contingent was present from the Defence School of Languages - all officers with a much decorated NCO to parade them. The Royal British Legion provided a small band and veterans wearing their medals along with the local cadets, scouts and guides provided an impressive turnout. This year the crowds there seemed bigger than ever, and the church was packed afterwards. We sung the hymns that I had learnt and sung at school assembly almost every day of my childhood during the war years. The whole ceremony was very impressive, the more so because of the numbers present.

Returning home, I read John Redwood's daily blog.
He writes about the futility of the first World War and asks why it was fought. It was in no way a "necessary and worthwhile war", there was no ideological reason for our involvement, it was a Balkans war which developed into a Franco-German war and nothing to do with us; we were safe on our side of the English Channel and had no reason to get involved. There was no imperative as with the Second World War; when we had to fight to preserve our independence.

Today, I fully agree with every word that John Redwood says. What he does not say is that to many people in this country the war in Afghanistan is as futile as the First World War, and lives are being needlessly lost for no discernible purpose. There is no idealogical reason (unless you regard it as a war against Islam, and if so why start there?), and it lacks the imperative of being a "necessary and worthwhile war". On this day, more than ever, I ask why our military forces are there.

    They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
    We will remember them.

Border Controls - Traitorous Officials

2011-11-11T08:53:00.000Z

The other day I suggested that our borders were being compromised not so much by Mrs May or indeed by the Head of the Borders Agency, but by officials who owed no loyalty to this country.

Today, the Telegraph reports that an official who wrongfully issued "scores" of visas in exchange "tens of thousands of pounds" faces prison after being found guilty of "misconduct in a public office". Samuel Shoyeju, 53, who is of African descent was a senior border official at the agency’s head office in Croydon, where he vetted African applicants for British passports,
Presumably he is a British Citizen; in my view we should re-think our Treason Laws and charge such people with treason for acting against the interests of this country rather than the minor charge of "misconduct in a public office".

And how many more are there like him, still in their jobs?

The Euro Crisis.

2011-11-10T23:26:00.000Z

I have a great idea for solving the Euro Crisis!
Instead of Greece dropping out the Eurozone, followed in due course bty Italy, then Portugal, Spain and Ireland, why don't France and Germany form a new currency, the "FrancMatk" and leave the Eurozone themselves?
The Euro could then be allowed to fall in value, just as the Drachma and the Lira did in the good old days, allowing the countries' debts to decrease in value as they did in the past, solving all their problems and at the same time providing cheap holidays for us British.
Better for Germany and France to leave in a planned orderly manner, than the others to leave one by one in chaos.
Stable countries like Holland and Sweden would be able to decide which group to stay with, or even perhaps join the Sterling Zone.

Just a (late night) thought!

Brussels - Just like Moscow in the old days.

2011-11-09T11:47:00.000Z

Surely I'm not the only person to see the great similarity between the actions of Moscow before the iron curtain was finally demolished and the actions of Brussels now.

According to Mary Ellen Synon, in her blog in the Daily Mail, Brussels believes that it is perfectly in order for them to demand "Governments of National Unity" in countries taking the bailouts. Governments of National Unity, are, of course where they have a coalition, regardless of the wishes of the people, and where there is no effective opposition in their Parliaments.

She says (slightly edited) that
According to both Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, and head of the eurogroup, and Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner in charge of the bail-outs, it is not at least out of order. Rehn claims that, all the eurozone member states in the 'programmes' -- that is, taking the bail-outs and submitting to control by EU/ECB/IMF bureaucrats, and those are Ireland, Portugal and Greece so far (stand by for the big one, Italy) -- have governments of national unity.
She also notes that
Juncker and Rehn insisted last night that the new government of national unity, the moment it is formed, must sign a letter promising to accept the entire rescue (some rescue) deal agreed last month at the summit, otherwise no money will be paid over, not even the amounts already agreed under the earlier, second bailout.

Well doesn't this seem to be exactly the same as the old Soviet bloc?
Romania had a "government of national unity" under Nicolae Ceausescu and East Germany had one under Erich Honecker., who only held their posts courtesy of Moscow.

Now it seems that Greece is going to have a similar type of government where, to put it in perspective, we just need to substitute the word "Brussels" for "Moscow". Prospective Greek dictators should perhaps just bear in mind that Ceausescu was executed when the people decided that they'd had enough of him, and that the Greek people have never been slow to get out onto the streets and show their feelings!

Clearly the only difference is that Moscow used tanks to enforce its will, whilst Brussels uses money, much of it coming from unwilling British taxpayers

Nicolas Sarkozy calls Benjamin Netanyahu a 'liar'

2011-11-09T08:55:00.000Z

This of course has been reported in all media, I merely take my headline from the Telegraph.

So What? - I thought all politicians without exception were liars!
I'd much rather read "Politician tells the Truth"!
But if this ever happens, it will only be a backbencher, never a Minister.

I also see Sarkozy's remark as illustrating the on-going French anti-Semitism Unlike the German nation which has admitted what happened during WW2 and which has done its best to try to make amends ever since, the French have never recognised the extent of their involvement or made any amends.

Immigration Controls

2011-11-08T11:20:00.000Z

I've been reading the various reports on the "easing" of immigration controls, and my instinct is to suggest that the critics are aiming at the wrong target.

When I have returned home through Heathrow or Gatwick during the past five years or so, I cannot recall one occasion when my passport was inspected by someone whom I would describe of ethnic British descent. I recall the first occasion very clearly, many years ago, when it was examined by a woman wearing sari, who in spite of my British Passport asked me if I was normally resident in the UK. Frankly, I was quite shocked at the time.

Now I don't doubt the loyalty of 99% or more of our immigration and passport control officers, but it only needs one individual whose loyalties lie elsewhere, to let in an unknown number of unwanted undesirables. At Heathrow this would be particularly easy, an officer could advise an immigrant when he was on duty, it would be quite easy for someone to hang around in the transit lounge until the appropriate time, and then choose the queue where the contact is inspecting passports.
We have already had cases of visas being wrongfully issued, I believe someone of Nigerian descent was involved in a recent case, and before that, an employee at our Embassy in Delhi.
Some countries (amongst them Switzerland, so I am informed) require all border control personnel to have been born in the country of parents who were also born there.

Some unwanted immigrants may have got into the country whilst controls were relaxed (but they would have needed to know that this was happening), but I am far more concerned about those being let in by corrupt or disloyal officers in the Border Control Agency and other immigration services.

The Builders - Part 5

2011-11-08T10:38:00.000Z

The on-going conservatory building has been hit by the weather, but they are here in force this morning, although it is still drizzling outside. The parapet of our flat roofed single story lounge has to be modified and raised to accommodate the pitched roof of the conservatory, which requires work on the roofing felt. The remains of the old patio is being cleared ready for the new block paving to match that at the side and front of the house and the brickie is continuing with the dwarf wall for the new structure.
I'm videoing the work as it proceeds, I'm going to try my hand at a mini-documentary!

I'm not to happy with my newly acquired iPod. I wanted it mainly as a personal organiser, but so far I can't manage to import my address book and appointments. Seems that Windows and Apple don't talk to each other!

Today's News - Instant thoughts

2011-11-05T14:25:00.000Z

1. Major Road Accident on the M3
All those who are opposing the increase in the motorway speed limit are out in force filling the newspaper comments space with "See, we told you so" before it has even been changed. So far evidence suggests that it was probably caused by a heavy mist and vehicles suddenly braking on a wet road causing jack-knifed lorries. Speed may have been excessive for the conditions, but was unlikely to be more than the speed limit. But then facts don't matter if you are opposed to something.

2. Head of the UK Borders Agency suspended along with two senior staff for unauthorised reductions in the level of passport control.
According to the Mail he has "Previous" both with UKBA and when Governor of Whitemoor maximum security prison when some IRA men obtained guns and escaped.
Likely outcome? Rather than face investigation and embarrassing enquiries, he will probably be allowed to retire "voluntarily" with a lump sum, probably three times his annual salary of £135,000. Within three months he will be working elsewhere, probably for an NHS Trust. Ditto the other two senior staff.

3. Greek Prime Minister wins confidence vote and will try to form a government of National Unity.
What changes? No referendum and a government that is unlikely to be able to push through any austerity measures without riots. Market uncertainty continues.

4. George Osborne says Britain 'will not contribute disproportionately' to bolstered IMF fighting fund.
That means that we WILL contribute proportionately. And proportionately to what? Last time we paid more than our fair share "to maintain our status and influence" This failed and we certainly have no influence and our status is probably that of "Mugs".
Somewhat different from what Cameron said the previous day; it now seems that there is unlikely to be a parliamentary vote on the increased contribution as Cameron is claiming that it was covered by the previous one. Not surprising as Labour would vote against, as, one might assume, would the 81 Tory euro-rebels.

Vince Cable and Confidential Information

2011-11-04T13:21:00.000Z

The Telegraph reports that Vince Cable has left confidential information in bins outside his constituency office.
Seems that he just doesn't live in the real world. For years the public have been told to shred any confidential documents because of the problems of identity theft and most people that I know are doing so. Shredders are available quite cheaply now, but in any case he would probably be able to charge the cost of one to expenses.
One can only conclude that he is just plain stupid. and I hope that the Information Commissioner's Office finds that he has breached data protection laws and fines him appropriately as he will hardly be able to charge that to expenses!

The Builders, Part 4

2011-11-04T08:56:00.000Z

Good progress was made yesterday, The full height end wall was built, and the dwarf wall for the rest was built to damp course level. They were hoping to finish the brickwork today, but the rain is simply tipping down, and the forecast is not encouraging. I can't blame the builders for this delay!
Next week doesn't look much better.

The Builders, Part 3

2011-11-02T15:19:00.000Z

They have been and gone for today.
Yesterday they demolished the remains of the dwarf wall, broke up the old concrete floor with Kango hammers (hence the noise), and started digging. Today, they finished the foundation trench and had filled it with cement by lunchtime, so no more can be done until it is firm enough to start bricklaying, tomorrow, hopefully, if the weather is OK.
It's nice and peaceful now. Mrs EP has decided to go shopping at M&S, using her pensioner's bus pass (she won't park the car in a multi-story park, I'm not needed, hence the bus).
So I've ordered myself an iPod Touch from Amazon to replace my ancient HP iPaq organiser, it'll probably cost less than the shopping expedition!

Greece

2011-11-02T14:58:00.000Z

So Greece is to have a referendum early next year to find out whether the country should accept the EU austerity measures. Whoops, that's really upset the apple cart! The EU doesn't "do" referenda, that's for democratic countries, not those under the Brussels dictatorship.
To an outsider it would seem virtually certain that the people will vote against the EU proposals, the more so because they are German inspired, I've never been to mainland Greece, but have visited the islands for a couple of holidays, and even there, where they rely on tourists, the anti-German sentiment still appeared quite strong, in spite of it now being some 65 years since the end of the war. Yesterday, posters, in German, parodying the Nazi slogan "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer" were displayed in some towns. Meanwhile, top Military leaders in Greece have been replaced by the government, but we are assured that this is NOT because of a potential Military coup.

The Daily Mail lists what will be expected of the Greeks as a result of the deal

Income tax threshold would be lowered from €12,000 (£10,300) to €5,000 (£4,300)
Retirement age would be raised from 61 to 65
VAT would rise from 19 to 23 per cent
Higher property taxes
Monthly pensions above €1,000 (£860) would be cut by 20 per cent
Excise on fuel, cigarettes and alcohol would rise by a third
To qualify for a full pension people would be required to complete 40 years work
Retirees aged under 55 would lose 40 per cent of their pensions over €1,000 (£860)
Public sector wages would be cut by 20 per cent
Employees of state-owned enterprises would have their wages cut by 30 per cent
A cap would be introduced on wages and bonuses
30,000 civil servants would be suspended on partial pay
All temporary contracts for public sector workers would be terminated.
Just one in 10 civil servants retiring this year would be replaced
New levies on household incomes of between one and five per cent

The observant readers will note that there is nothing in the list about Greeks actually paying their income tax! Apparently there are few people who declare having an income of greater that 30,000 euros,and yet there are more Porches per capita in Greece than in Germany!

Meanwhile, back in Germany their Foreign Minister says "[What] we just agreed last week cannot be placed back on the table,", which in itself says a lot about the EU's concept of Democracy. I always believed that when heads of Government met and reached agreements, these were always, in a democracy, subject to Parliamentary approval in each country concerned. Apparently not in German style democracy, once your Fuhrer has decided, you will do what he says whether you like it or not !

I wouldn't pretend to understand international high finance, but it seems that the Eurozone governments have two choices
Firstly, to give Greece billions more money and write off their debts in order to fund their profligacy. What would be the likely costs? Germany suggests that the agreements reached last week will solve the problem albeit at a cost of billions to the Eurozone and to the IMF, an organisation to which the UK contributes.
Secondly, to allow Greece to default and drop out of the Euro. There are those who say that Greece could default and stay in the Euro, but I haven't seen anyone explain how this might be achieved. The cost here will be that the governments concerned will have to write of all the loans given so far, as will a large number of banks.
I favour the second solution; Greece is blackmailing the Eurozone. Of the Daily Mail list, only the increase in VAT will actually bring in more money in the short term, all the others are potential savings in expenditure if they actually take place. Anyway blackmailers always come back for more!
Allowing or forcing Greece to leave the Euro with Greece presumably bringing in the "New Drachma" will cause enormous losses to governments and banks, but at least it would be a one time event which will be quantifiable and not recurring, unless, of course one of the other southern European countries follows the same course.

The Builders, Part 2

2011-11-01T10:11:00.000Z

On schedule so far. the old conservatory was down in half a day. The foundation squad arrived today at 7.30! The dwarf brick wall has been knocked down and we now know it had no real foundations! The floor now being dug up, and there was no proper damp course.
It's a good job I didn't accept the quotation which merely proposed to extend the existing dwarf wall and then level up the floor by flooding cement over the whole area. No doubt the cost of putting in proper foundations would have been "extra".

The noise makes it hard to think! It's even hard to read and comprehend the news so any serious blogging is out of the question!

The Builders have arrived

2011-10-31T11:37:00.001Z

We are having an all glass conservatory built on the back of the house, in direct contradiction to those who claim we should be downsizing at our age. The existing wooden structure, which was there when we bought the house twenty or more years ago, had reached the end of its useful life and was not worth repairing. The new one will be about twice the size, extending along the rear of both the lounge and dining room, and hopefully will look quite nice.
The builder has arrived and demolition is in progress; he says that it will all be gone by this evening and that the foundation diggers will arrive tomorrow or Wednesday. This particular builder constructed a conservatory for a friend, I liked what he did and it seems that, weather permitting, he keeps his promises on time-scales. He also quoted a price for the overall job and detailed what would NOT be included - the flooring and light fittings, which we will get and he will install. All the other quotes were for a very basic conservatory, and whatever you mentioned seemed to be some undefined extra amount. Our friend had no problems with the deal, so I hopeful that this project won't double in cost line in the manner of all too many building contracts.

The building will cost a large part of our savings, and we have thought long and hard about it. However, with our savings decreasing in value by more than 5% p.a. and the likelihood that we will no longer be able to get travel/medical insurance to go on expensive worldwide holiday trips, it seems a good investment. House prices may not be rising, but in this area they are steady. The old structure would have perhaps discouraged a buyer at some future date whilst the new one will add its value to our home. Meanwhile, we will get the pleasure of being able to use it throughout more of the year than at present, knowing that its value, if not appreciating, is certainly not declining at over 5% p.a. like the money in the bank. Short of some major medical emergency requiring private treatment or my erstwhile employer's pension fund going broke, we should be all right and I'll still be able to buy the odd electronic gadget from time to time.

Time will tell whether we are right.

Gold Reserves

2011-10-29T20:49:00.000+01:00

Earlier this year, the Daily Telegraph listed the ten countries with the largest gold reserves. Needless to say Britain wasn't on the list as Gordon Brown sold over half our reserves at rock bottom prices, leaving us at No 17 in the list.
OK, Gordon was right in saying that you can't actually do anything with gold, but as long as others value it, gold is a very good investment, particularly in troubled financial times like the present.
As might be expected, USA is the biggest holder of gold with over 8000 tonnes. But rather surprisingly, Germany came second with 3400 tonnes, somewhat more than the IMF with some 2800 tons. So in terms of actual recognisable wealth, as distinct from fiat money such as the Euro, Germany has more wealth than the IMF.
Again, somewhat surprisingly, Italy came next with around 2450 tonnes, closely followed by France with some 2435 tonnes.
The point that I am making is that the IMF is asking for more money in order support the southern European Countries, and it is likely that we are will be expected to contribute far more than those countries with these large gold reserves. For some reason, last time the IMF wanted more funds, we apparently contributed more than these other countries in order to "maintain our standing" within the IMF, and it seems likely that this will happen again.

So exactly what is our "Standing" within the IMF ? Precisely zero, as far as I can ascertain. The Head is a Frenchwoman with a proven track record of being an enthusiastic supporter of the Euro. Why we supported her, rather than the Australian candidate is beyond my comprehension; someone from a country which has managed to avoid the worst of the recession would have seemed an ideal choice. Not only does this show how pro-Europe this government is, but it also demonstrated that we support IMF funds being used to prop up the Euro.

The stated objective of the IMF is to support individual countries, not currencies, and support is only given to countries who are prepared to take appropriate steps to rectify their economic shortcomings. Support for the Euro, and Greece in particular, should thus be refused on both counts.
As has been said by others, the IMF would not support, say, California which is virtually broke, as it is the responsibility of those issuing the fiat currency, in this case the US Treasury. Why then does it support Greece, which is part of another fiat currency which in itself has no problems as it is still retaining its value against both the Pound and the Dollar.
So much for our "Standing" in the IMF; it appears to be breaking its own rules and we can do nothing about it - indeed we seem to be aiding and abetting in the matter.

Oh, and our Gold reserves? A mere 310 tons last February!

Cyclists

2011-10-27T13:55:00.001+01:00

I am in a bloody minded mood today, so am following my motto (see heading).

I was almost run down by a cyclist whilst walking along the pavement in our local shopping centre, which was followed with verbal abuse "for being in his way". I am not happy!
Two nights ago, whilst driving home from bell ringing practice along a well used, wooded, but unlit lane, I was nearly in collision with another cyclist who appeared to be wearing camouflage clothing whilst riding his bicycle without lights. I only noticed the minuscule reflectors on the pedals at the last moment. Perhaps he has a suicide wish!
As I can't work off my temper on them, I've decided to make a Freedom of Information request to the Thames Valley Police, as follows

"I would like to make a request under the Freedom of Information legislation as to the number of pedal cyclists who have been prosecuted by the Thames Valley Police (or the Crown Prosecution Service on their behalf) during the most recent twelve month period for which statistics are available.

If possible, in addition to the total numbers, I would like to know the numbers of those who have been prosecuted for offences relating to

a. Riding their bicycle on the pavement,

b. Riding their bicycle during the hours of darkness without the necessary lights.

In order not to place a undue burden on your office and incur unnecessary costs, figures within, say, plus or minus 5% would be acceptable for my research.

An e-mailed reply will be perfectly acceptable."

I think that the figures in all categories will be zero, but time will tell.
If any one reading this would like to make a similar request in their own area, I would appreciate being informed of the results.

"New self defence powers"

2011-10-27T00:20:00.000+01:00

According to the Telegraph,
"Householders are to be given tough new self defence powers to confront burglars without the risk of being prosecuted".

I'm sure this is a good thing, particularly for the reasonably young and fit. But what can someone who is not so young and fit? Will it become legal to deliberately have a suitable weapon in, say, your bedroom in case you get a burglar whilst you are in bed? At present, if I keep a kitchen knife in the bedroom for such an emergency, it would be counted against me if I used it to kill or injure a burglar on the basis that my action was pre-meditated. If I kept a baseball or cricket bat in the bedroom, this too would seem out of order as I play neither game. What about pepper sprays and the like? If it's legal for the police to use them in self-defence, why not the householder? The best I can think of at the moment are some of the kitchen cleaning aerosols; I suspect that directed at someone's eyes, they would do more harm than pepper.

Apparently Kenneth Clarke said :“We will ensure that if you do react instinctively to repel an intruder you will not be punished for it – as long as you used reasonable force.” In the case of pensioners we must be allowed something to use in our instinctive reaction, otherwise as far as we are concerned there is no change in the real situation.I see no reason why it should not be made legal to own and use a pepper spray, mace or some similar repellent within the confines of ones own property.

EU Referendum

2011-10-24T23:03:00.002+01:00

We now know how many of our MPs actually believe in Democracy.
Exactly one hundred and eleven.
The rest obviously believe they know better than the electorate and believe in a Party Dictatorship where the electorate is merely able to choose a party.

A referendum is the ultimate expression of democracy, and the only possible reasons for not having one are if
a. There is no clear demand from the public for one, which is clearly not so in this case
b. The cost. But the government was prepared to find the money for one on AV, in which few had any interest, so they can hardly claim that would be a problem.

It is no excuse to argue that it is the wrong time or that it would be a distraction from more important issues, in politicians eyes it will always be the wrong time, and they will always believe that there are more important issues. That will never change.

It is quite simple,
THOSE MPs WHO VOTED AGAINST A REFERENDUM DO NOT BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY.

MoD - Will Hammond be any better?

2011-10-24T09:40:00.000+01:00

Both the Telegraph and the BBC have reported that Hammond has said he would like to see an investigation into the death of Gaddafi, who was captured alive during the fall of his home town Sirte on Thursday. What on earth would this achieve?
The rebel movement in Libya is a series of largely tribal militias who own no allegiance to anyone but their own tribe. They certainly are unlikely to have heard of the Geneva Convention or of Human Rights, having for so long been deprived of any rights themselves.
Nevertheless, Hammond feels that "The fledgling Libyan government will understand that its reputation in the international community is a little bit stained by what happened," Perhaps he is right about the "International Community" if he means all those politicians and officials who make a living out of attending international meetings. But if he'd said "Real People", you'd be hard pressed to find enough concerned people in Britain to fill a double decker bus!

In any event, such issues are foreign policy, and Hammond is the Minister of Defence who should have more than enough work to do in his own territory. I'm sure that William Hague, having seen the resignation of one wannabe Foreign Secretary at MoD will hardly welcome another contender.

If Hammond wants an enquiry, why not have one within his specific area of responsibility, where he has the authority to order a enquiry? Such an enquiry should encompass not only the activities of Fox and Werritty, but also the actions (or actually the inaction) of our security services with regards to Werritty. Such an enquiry should not be carried out internally, but by the police.

And if our new wannabe Foreign Secretary wants an enquiry by the "International Community", what about pressing for one into the deaths of the 23 Coptic Christians in Egypt, who were killed, not be a disorganised rabble, but by the well disciplined Egyptian Army?

Libya - Islamic Law

2011-10-23T23:33:00.000+01:00

Late night thought:

The Telegraph reports that:

"Libya's interim leader outlined more radical plans to introduce Islamic law than expected as he declared the official liberation of the country."

"More radical than expected" - than expected by whom?
Certainly not unexpected by me,, nor by most bloggers that I read!

MoD - More Werritty

2011-10-23T17:53:00.001+01:00

Both the Telegraph and the Mail report that MI6 was very concerned about the activities of Werritty as far back as February this year because of the possibility that his actions could prejudice the Foreign Office's position on Iran. William Hague apparently discussed the issue with Fox but it seems that, in spite of this, Werritty continued to attend sensitive meetings, including one with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and others with Matthew Gould, our Israeli Ambassador. At the same time, he was also having meetings with Iranian dissidents both here and in the States, seemingly encouraging them to believe that they would get Britain's support if push came to shove. It almost seems as if Fox was trying to run a separate foreign policy, by proxy.

At the time of his resignation, Fox insisted that national security had not been undermined by the meetings, which in the narrow context might even possibly be true, but nothing was said about our foreign policy, where is would appear that it certainly was being undermined, much to the concern of William Hague.

The piece in the Mail also stated that "City of London Police last night confirmed that its officers were considering investigating Mr Werritty for fraud."
Personally, I think that he (and possibly Fox) should be investigated under the Official Secrets Act.

Finally, I continue to be intrigued by the continued description of Werritty in the media as "Fox's best man", a description which can clearly be interpreted in more ways than one. I wonder if it was his second best man who was at Fox's flat when it was burgled?

MoD - The Worms start to come out of the Woodwork!

2011-10-23T09:13:00.000+01:00

Firstly, the Telegraph, reveals, under the heading
"Inside the corporate intelligence company which bankrolled Liam Fox" that "A South African intelligence expert made payments of as much as £60,000 through his security company for an unregistered charity linked to Dr Liam Fox." It continues to say "that [the company's] main source of income is providing intelligence for big business.".
It is worth reading the full article if only to appreciate the number of "big names" who are or have been involved with the company, from the Duke of Westminster downward.

Secondly, under the heading
"Second Defence Minister faces questions over links with Liam Fox’s best man", they claim that Lord Astor of Hever, the Under Secretary of State for Defence, has had closer links with Adam Werritty than previously realised. The Telegraph says that Lord Astor was actually a trustee of the "charity", Atlantic Bridge, which employed Mr Werritty and paid for him to travel the world alongside Dr Fox. "Mr Werritty had been Atlantic Bridge’s only employee and it paid him more than £90,000 in wages and expenses.".

A Labour MP is demanding an enquiry into the whole matter, claiming that “There is a basic lack of transparency here and the official investigation needs to be broadened to get to the bottom of what was really going on.”. For once I must say I must agree with Labour. Yes, the worms are truly starting to come out of the woodwork!

** "Atlantic Bridge" called itself a charity, but was not registered with the Charity Commission, and is now being wound up.

Alex Salmond: Scotland is in the driving seat

2011-10-22T21:34:00.001+01:00

The Telegraph headlines a news item as above, with Alex Salmond telling the Prime Minister that
"The days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over. The Scottish people will set the agenda for the future."
Good, I have no objection to that concept, but whilst Scotland is in the EU, Brussels will be telling the Scots what to do far more frequently than Westminster ever did. Perhaps Salmond should be making it clear to the Scottish people whether he intends to leave the EU as well as the United Kingdom.

David Camerons reply should surely be:
"The days of Scottish MPs coming to Westminster and voting on purely English matters and determining the political composition of the British Government are also over. The English, in future will determine their own destiny."

He has nothing to loose from such a stance, there are no Tory MPs elected in Scotland so it would not affect the Conservative Party's position in a future government.

UN Demands an Enguiry into Gaddafi's Death

2011-10-21T14:26:00.000+01:00

Just what do they expect this to achieve (other than wasting money on, presumably, jollies to Libya)?

It would be more to the point if they demanded an enquiry into, say, the deaths of 26 Coptic Christians in Egypt and the destruction of their churches.

Referendum on the EU

2011-10-21T09:55:00.000+01:00

As Danniel Hannan points out in The Telegraph today, at the last general election the LibDems were calling for a referendum on the EU both in leaflets and on their web site.
The page on the web site has recently been removed, but the Telegraph provides a copy of the leaflet.

As this is hard to read, the Telegraph kindly provides this link to the Google Archive

Once again we are given a good reason for not believing a word that politicians say, and particularly for not believing anything that a LibDem says.

Gaddafi Killed - Does it matter how?

2011-10-20T22:32:00.000+01:00

Gaddafi has been shot dead, allegedly after he was captured. The human rights fanatics are working themselves up into a frenzy.. "It looks as if it was extra-judicial murder" claim the BBC.

So what? He had many thousands killed without trial, cosigning bodies to mass graves. Why should anyone be concerned that he was killed in the same manner?

Whilst he remained alive, there was always some hope for his supporters. They could mount attacks or terrorist operations in an attempt to secure his release; now they are without a cause.
The only loss will be to lawyers, media and the like; A trial in Libya or at The Hague would keep lots of lawyers busy (no doubt at our expense) and the media would have a field day, but to what end?
I suspect a lot of people in high places (such as Blair) will privately be glad he was killed; a trial might reveal things that they would rather not be said.

Personally, I hope, and believe, he will burn in Hell

A Debate on a Referendum

2011-10-20T12:06:00.000+01:00

So at long last, Parliament is going to have a debate about having a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU!

But the general consensus of the media seems to be that the debate will be lost because the Tories will be whipped to vote against it, or possibly some government stooge will table a "Spoiler" motion or amendment as has happened in the past with other issues.

I take the view that any MP, whether pro or anti the EU should vote for a referendum if he/she believes in democracy. A referendum is the ultimate expression of the wishes of the electorate, and any MP who votes against one is effectively saying to the electorate that he knows better, or, more succinctly, "drop dead"! Even the LibDems should support a referendum, if they are right in their beliefs that the public want be in the EU, the referendum will confirm this and put the argument to rest for a good few years. Surely they are not so dishonourable as to be taking the position "We believe in the EU, and whether you believe or not, you are not going to have a say in the matter". This was the view of the Medieval Church - perhaps the LibDems see the EU as the new religion!

But what will happen if we are allowed a referendum?
I suspect that Brussels officials will do their best to ensure that there is a "No" vote to leaving the EU. I anticipate that they will spend billions of our money on campaigning and producing scare stories about how withdrawal will wreck our economy, the environment and anything else that they can think of.

The problem doesn't stop with getting a referendum, the bigger problem will be how to get a fair referendum and hopefully this will be properly addressed in due course.

The Foxy Affair

2011-10-11T10:18:00.000+01:00

No, not Foxy Knoxy, but Foxy Liam.

Today the Telegraph reports that Whitehall Officials have no idea whatsoever as to where Werritty gets his money or what he does for a living.
Officials have no information about a man who has been allowed into high level meetings at the MoD which would normally require full security clearance!
I remember visiting the MoD many years ago at a time when I had security clearance to "Secret" level, but in spite of this, I couldn't get past the lobby without a escort, even though I knew exactly where I was going. Yet this man appears to come and go at will without any security checks and more to the point, they have no information as to his sources of income. For all they know, he could be a Russian spy, or perhaps worse, an American spy! They simply have no idea!

I don't intend to comment on the possible relationship between Fox and Werritty, but if I discovered that a "friend" of mine was making arrangements for people to meet me and apparently charging £10,000 a time, (as reported elsewhere) he would very quickly cease to be my friend! But then I was brought up in a different era, and the standards that I would set myself no longer seem to apply.

Tesco - Sales down, Profits up

2011-10-05T18:35:00.001+01:00

The Telegraph reports today on Tesdo
"Like-for-like sales at British stores - those open for more that a year - fell 0.7pc year-on-year in the second quarter"
"Pre-tax profits increased 12pc to £1.88bn in the six months to August 27"
OK, they claim that the profits came from Europe and Asia not the UK, but I am certainly not surprised that UK sales fell; couples like Mrs EP and myself are getting fed up with their "offers".

Today Mrs EP wanted a savoy cabbage; 78p or two for a Pound. What would we do with two cabbages? Even one is probably too much for the two of us. So we would have to pay 28p more that what is still a profitable price for the privilege of only having one.
I like doughnuts; over the past year they've gone up from 12 or so pence to 25 pence when bought individually. But a bag of five doughnuts costs 55 pence or two for a pound, so they could in fact still sell them at ten pence each and presumably make a profit. As we normally buy just two doughnuts, an experiment is now in place to ascertain the "freezability" of doughnuts. Will a warm microwaved doughnut with my elevensies be as good as one straight from the shop?
Yes, in most businesses you can negotiate a discount for quantity, but you would have to buy far lager numbers and you might get a 5-10% discount, and what Tesco is doing, as far as I am concerned is totally unacceptable - a 36% discount for buying two cabbages or a 48% discount for buying 5 doughnuts (if my maths is correct!)
For perishable goods, in many cases it is cheaper for us to buy one for the price of one at Waitrose, and as we can walk there, we also save the cost of petrol.

An afterthought: I did get two four packs of "Speckled Hen" for £8, so they're not all bad!

Conservative Conference - The NHS

2011-10-03T23:16:00.000+01:00

Up to now all that has been said by speakers at the Conservative Party Conference has been said before. Osborne, in particular had nothing worth saying, other than "no-change".

But Andrew Lansley talking about the NHS said that "The NHS will introduce mandatory language tests for doctors moving to Britain after training elsewhere in the European Union.".
An interesting statement, but will the EU allow it? Up to now the line has been "We're terribly sorry, but the EU insists on qualified doctors being allowed to work anywhere within the EU". Obviously we will need to wait and see. It is perhaps also worth noting that nothing was said about nurses, with whom the average patient probably has more contact.
He also said “And all that is why, since the election, we now have 1,500 more doctors and 5,000 fewer managers in the NHS.”
This may be true in terms of numbers, but as has been pointed out to me by a female consultant that I know, the medical schools are now turning out more female doctors than ever before, but many of these, once fully qualified, only work part time, and in her view the "full-time equivalent" of doctors in the NHS has actually fallen . This has been confirmed as far as I am concerned by what has happened following the retirement of my full-time (male) GP. I have been allocated to a new female doctor, but informed that she will only be working three days a week. "You are of course free to see any of the other doctors on days when she is not available should you wish". Assuming, of course that I am able to get an appointment from the reduced "doctor-hours" now available at the surgery.
If this is typical, I suspect that the 1500 extra doctors are needed merely because more doctors are working part time.

PS Does anyone know how many hospitals there are in the UK? The loss of 5000 administrators doesn't seem to be many when averaged over all our hospitals, one or two per hospital maybe; not much of an achievement!

Cameron at the LABOUR Party Conference

2011-10-02T16:23:00.000+01:00

Is it Cameron or the Telegraph who doesn't know where he is?

But then I've never believed Cameron was a Conservative!

How much do foreign Languages cost this country?

2011-10-02T14:36:00.002+01:00

The de facto official language of this country is English and there are six recognised regional languages, the main one being Welsh of which there are said to be some 600,000 who speak the language. Most of those who speak the recognised regional languages also speak English, albeit rather reluctantly in parts of Wales.
But what I want to address is the multitude of other languages that are spoken in this country by immigrants, and what they cost the country each year, particularly in view of Friday's ruling by the High Court that the rights of a banned extremist were infringed because immigration officials could not speak his language and explain to him why he had been banned from entry. (here).

This ruling is totally ludicrous, and is typical of the extremely liberal interpretation of the Human Rights Laws by our judges. But the implications are horrendous; are we to have immigration officers available at all our international airports and sea ports who are capable of speaking every language of the world in order that they might inform potential unwanted immigrants of their rights in their own language? According to Wikipedia, there are ten languages which are spoken by more than 100 million people and a further 75 which are spoken by more than 10 million people. Are we expected to keep interpreters available who are capable of speaking all these languages?

But I wasn't just thinking of this requirement, but of the on-going use of interpreters and translators in the daily life of our Government, Local Councils and businesses.

Every time I receive a document from our local council, such as my rates demand or their quarterly "newsletter", somewhere there is an indication that if I am unable to understand the document, I can apply for a copy in any of a wide range of languages listed. Of course, if I couldn't read English, the information that I can have the document in another language would completely escape my attention!
I'm staggered by the wide range of languages that the Council feels that it is necessary to have available which presumably reflects the diversity of those living in this area; Incidentally, Welsh is not amongst the languages listed.
But its not only our local councils, it is everywhere; any government department, the NHS or other quango which produces any piece of paper for public consumption seems to have it available in a multitude of languages.

But apart from the cost of translation, there is the cost of interpreters.
Again the local councils seem to be in the forefront; benefits offices apparently need to be able to explain to claimants in their own languages how to be able to complete their forms and live off the taxpayers. Someone's human rights might be infringed if the benefits officer didn't explain to a claimant that he could not claim for three wives in this country.
Then there is the Courts. Every defendant apparently has the right to have an interpreter if English is not his primary language. All court papers have to be provided in his own language, even if he has an acceptable command of our language.
The police also have to be able to call on interpreters at any time of day or night; anyone arrested must be informed of his rights and cautioned; I wonder how many allegedly non-English speaking criminals escape because the police are unable to caution them and inform them of their rights?
And let's not forget the NHS; I gather that our local hospital employs permanent interpreters speaking three Asian languages, and many of the notices are in unknown (to me) languages. I wonder what my rights are, were I to be admitted to to hospital and faced with a non-English speaking nurse or doctor.

I'm sure that I've only just skimmed the surface of the subject and that others could produce many more examples of the cost of our pandering to non-English speaking immigrants in this country.

I'm tempted to write to my District and County Councils, under the Freedom of Information Act, asking how much they spend on translation and interpretation services each year, but my problem at the moment is how I should phrase the question in order that the Councils don't manage to dodge the question.

Human Rights

2011-10-01T22:36:00.000+01:00

The Telegraph reports that the Home Secretary, Theresa May, is calling for the scrapping of the Human Rights Act.
But more is needed than the simple scrapping of the act, our judges seem to have got into a rut of accepting the general idea of individuals rights over those of the community.
Not only does the act need to be abolished, but replacement legislation is needed that requires our Judges to consider the rights, needs and safety of the population at large when making any decision. At present, we can hold a paedophile in secure accommodation if he is considered a danger, but we cannot deport a murderer on grounds of his rights.
A new bill should list all the things that the government and authorities are not obliged to do.
The first is clearly that there should be no obligation on them to speak other than this country's language, English, and perhaps in Wales, Welsh. When you get news like this "A banned extremist is now likely to pocket £5,000 in compensation because immigration officials could not speak his language.", the country has clearly gone mad!
Following on from this, there should be no requirement for the provision of legal aid or interpreters at our expense. We should never, under any circumstances, supply any more than a British Citizen would receive from the authorities in the country of origin of an individual demanding such a service here.
Councils should be banned from printing leaflets and the like in other than our national languages, and made to charge for the services if an interpreter is required.
The "Right to family Life" invoked by many criminals who have managed to get into an association with a British woman, should be replaced by the requirement that they take their wife and family with them when deported.
I'm sure that changes like this would be applauded by the majority of the electorate and seen as a boost for their human rights which have been totally ignored.

Liberal Democrats

2011-09-30T19:37:00.000+01:00

I've always wondered about the Liberal in Liberal Democrats.

Dictionaries offer the following meanings:
Believing in the concept of maximum individual freedom possible
Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes
Tending to give freely

Certainly these apply to two of our present Liberal Democrat MP in their personal lives.
First, of course we have Chris Huhne, whose wife and mistress both turned up at the LibDem Conference. He left his wife of 26 years and their children in favour of his allegedly bisexual lover (who left her female partner) Very Liberal indeed!
Now we have John Hemming who has has a (cat stealing) wife and a long term mistress, and considers the present financial crisis far more worth of discussion than his liberal private life.

Of course it all started with 'Paddy Pantsdown' back in 1992, but considering the total number of LibDem MPs (57) in the present parliament compared with the Conservatives (306), they do appear to have more than their fair share of mistresses. But that presumably is what Liberalism is all about.

Legal Aid

2011-09-27T13:24:00.000+01:00

Today, in the Daily Telegraph, I noticed that Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, (who happens to be my MP), is concerned that the reductions in legal aid will lead to more people representing themselves in court. The cynic would of course say that, as the leader of the Bar, he is concerned that lawyers might not be getting so much work. But without proper representation in court there must be real concern that people could be wrongfully convicted of criminal offences, which does of course include motoring offences.
Only the other day did I notice that the government had decided that it was no longer going to pay the defence costs of motorists who fight a motoring offence in court and are acquitted. This must be wrong; it has always been a principle of British Justice that if someone accuses you of something and that you are found innocent, you are able to recover your costs from the accuser.

Then continuing my reading of the Telegraph (I use an RSS feed) I found this!
"A convicted terrorist who aided the July 21 suicide bomb plotters is being given taxpayer-funded legal advice to fight deportation to Eritrea. "
Why on earth do we do this? I cannot see that we have any obligation, moral or otherwise, to provide legal aid in a case like this. He is a criminal, he is not a British Citizen, and he should have been taken straight from prison to an aircraft on completion of his sentence. This would happen in any other country, why not here?

So far he has apparently cost the taxpayers £30,000 as he is on bail receiving all the usual handouts..
But, even worse, he is not the only person in this position, it seems that there are quite a few more also fighting against deportation at our expense, and to the detriment of British Citizens who are being refused legal aid. I can think of no other country in the World which would provide free legal aid to non-citizens, along with free interpreters, and anything else necessary to meet their "Human Rights".

Surely Legal Aid should be restricted to British Citizens only, and should be available for all criminal cases. Whether it should be possible to get legal aid in other areas such as challenging the government and asking for judicial reviews is arguable, but such money as is available must be used to ensure that all British Citizens get justice in the Criminal Courts.

If the do-gooders think foreign terrorists should have legal advice, perhaps they should form a charity "Legal advice for Foreign Terrorists in the UK" and see how much money they can collect.

Falling Satellite

2011-09-20T10:15:00.000+01:00

According to the Telegraph, a NASA satellite is due to fall to earth sometime within the next few days and up to 26 fragments of various sizes are likely to hit the earth. They quote NASA as stating that the odds of someone being hit by a fragment as one in 3,200!
This is a total ludicrous figure! If it were true it would be totally unacceptable.

If we look at the maths, the total surface are of the earth is about 198 million square miles and thus the chance of a piece falling in any particular square mile is 198,000,000 to one, or allowing for 26 pieces, about 7.6 million to one. But a square mile is still quite a big space and you'd have to be pretty unlucky to be hit by a bit even if you were in that particular square mile.

Looking at it another way, the earth's population is stated to be approximately 7 billion, and if 26 fragments all hit someone, the chances of being hit are around 270 million to one. But of course, as only 30% of the earth is land, the probability is that roughly 2 out of three of the falling bits will end up in the world's oceans, so only nine bits are likely to land on solid ground.
.
I wonder who put the decimal point in the wrong place when quoting 3200 to one?

2000 More Tax Inspectors

2011-09-18T11:54:00.003+01:00

The LibDems have announced at their conference that we are to have 2000 more tax inspectors to crack down on tax evasion by the rich. Surely such an announcement should be made in Parliament where MPs would have the right to ask questions, or is this yet further confirmation that Parliament no longer serves any real purpose with Ministers now making important announcements via the media.

Two Thousand Tax Inspectors to catch the rich!
What are they likely to cost? I'm out of touch with current salaries, but if they are to get what is likely to be the lowest possible salary of, say, £25,000, their salaries alone will amount to a cool £50 million. I'm told that the overheads (accommodation, pension, National Insurance, computers, photocopiers, etc.) will at least be equal to the cost of salaries.so there's another £50 million.
But these will not be ordinary Tax Inspectors, they will need to be highly qualified accountants and lawyers who are capable of understanding the (legal) tax avoidance schemes dreamed up by even more highly paid city tax lawyers and accountants. So it would seem, if they are to achieve anything, these tax inspectors will need to be of the calibre requiring salaries in excess of probably £100,000 plus bonuses, which of course would add up to some £200 million plus bonuses and overheads.

Do the LibDems seriously believe that they are going to recover this sort of money in taxation?

What the LibDems (and many others) fail to understand is that these rich "tax avoiders" work with their brains not with their hands. Whilst it is difficult to move, say, a factory abroad at short notice (although it has been done), it is quite easy for someone with money to move elsewhere within a few days and carry on with his work as normal. All that is required is a well equipped office with modern communications, it can be anywhere in the world using the latest satellite technology. We have seen dealing rooms on TV lately (because of the UBS fraud), but looking at them, they could be anywhere; just computer screens and telephones. The only reason they are in Britain is that our tax and regulation regime is more favourable, change this and they're gone!

If we add to this the LibDem proposal for a "Mansion Tax" on properties valued at over £2 million it becomes clear that their proposals are not intended to raise money, but are being introduced merely as part of the politics of jealousy which have become a LibDem speciality. Strangely Labour have been rather quiet on these matters, I wonder why?

What I don't understand is why Cameron is allowing the LibDems to behave in the way they are. He should insist that every LibDem in government supports the agreed coalition policy and if the don't they should be fired. If that means a General Election, so be it, but I very much doubt that the LibDems would force the situation with their present poll ratings.

9/11 - It's a Muslim Protest, so it's OK

2011-09-11T19:37:00.000+01:00

The Telegraph reports that
"Muslim protesters burn US flag outside embassy in London"
They add that the protesters from "Muslims Against Crusades" burnt the flag and shouted "USA terrorists" during the silence.
OK, this is to be expected, there are always extremists around, but when you read further on that members of the English Defence League, who had gathered in response to the demonstration, were ordered to move on to accommodate the MAC supporters, you begin to wonder what the police are doing.
At one time there was an offence of "Action likely to lead to a Breach of the Peace", and the police would have moved on these Muslim Fanatics. Presumably, this law has been repealed, and changed to one requiring that the police assist those wishing to cause a breach of the peace.
In view of the fact that the police cleared a space adjacent to the ceremony so that the MAC could protest, can we assume that, in the interests of even-handedness, they will clear a space within loud-hailer range for when the EDL (or anyone else) decides that they wish to protest at a Muslim ceremony?

E-Petition: Review the Smoking Ban

2011-08-24T22:11:00.000+01:00

I have just signed the e-petition calling for a review of the smoking ban and the question my friends will obviously be asking is why I, as a lifelong non-smoker, should support this petition.

The reasons are numerous, but mainly linked to my belief of "Live and Let Live". I don't believe all the claims about second hand smoke and am quite happy being in a room with considerate smokers. Certainly I never felt offended by smokers in any of the pubs I visited and I tend to take the view that if a pub is too thick with smoke for my liking, I'd be quite happy to go elsewhere.

My main reasons are
1. The hypocrisy of the politicians. If smoking is as bad as they claim they should ban it entirely and prohibit the manufacture and sale of cigarettes. They won't because they would loose the next election and because it would decimate their tax revenues.
2. "Smokers are a drain on the NHS". I doubt it, most of us spend some time in hospital or receiving lengthy treatment before we die. Smokers, it is claimed, receive considerable hospital treatment before they die, at huge expense to the nation. But, we are also told they die a lot sooner! Non-smokers live longer, also eventually require hospital treatment, albeit for something different, but in the meanwhile need constant "care and maintenance" from our doctors. Personally I suspect that the "prior to death" cost to the NHS of a smoker is far less than that of a non-smoker. Non-smokers who insist on living to a ripe old age also incur extra costs to the government in terms of pensions, bus-passes, day-centres, home care, etc. In practice, the longer one lives past pensionable age, the bigger drain one becomes on public funds.
3. The ban is likely to cause my favourite pub to close (which is a good enough reason in itself). Since the ban, drink prices have been increased to the maximum that the market will stand locally in order to compensate for the loss of business, yet still the publican is hardly making a living.
4. There is some evidence that the ban has increased drug taking amongst the younger generation. Whilst you can't smoke in a pub or night-club, no one will notice if you "pop a pill". Although he has not seen this, my publican friend feels that there is reason to believe that the behaviour of some of the youngsters cannot be attributed to the amount of alcohol that they have drunk.
5. Smokers assure me that cigarettes help relieve stress; I just wonder how many ex-smokers are taking NHS pills instead! Cigarettes also seem to keep you slim which I would have thought should be encouraged in these days of increasing obesity.
6. Once the zealots get their way and smoking becomes effectively illegal, they will no doubt turn their attention to the demon alcohol; indeed they already have started ranting about the cost to the police and councils of drunks and the cost to the NHS, not only in A&E, but in terms of alcohol related illnesses. Now that is likely to make me very angry

I believe that these are very good reasons for signing the petition.
It can be accessed by CLICKING HERE.

To me, it is very reasonable in its request

"We petition the Government to review the impact of the smoking ban on pubs and clubs and consider an amendment that would give licensees the option of separate well-ventilated smoking rooms."

Its not a request to abandon the overall no smoking policy, just a simple request that licensees might have separate smoking rooms if they so wish. As a non-smoker, I can see no logical objection whatsoever to what is proposed, and it would certainly save my local as it has two bars, one of which, in the old days, was tacitly accepted by all the locals as the smokers' bar.

Thanks to Dick Puddlecote for drawing my attention to this petition.

The Green Thing

2011-08-21T23:39:00.000+01:00

I came across this on Jo Nova's blog; The Green Thing: the old and wise fight back
If you are of my generation, it is well worth reading.

In particular, all greens should read the conclusion

"Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person. Remember: Don’t make old people mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off."

Police Leaks and the Guardian

2011-08-20T16:00:00.000+01:00

The Daily Telegraph reports today that

"The phone hacking scandal took yet another twist yesterday when a Scotland Yard detective was arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential information about the inquiry to The Guardian.

It is thought that the arrest follows a series of online articles in The Guardian which disclosed the identities of people who were about to be or had just been arrested. The identity of the 51-year old detective constable has not been disclosed. He was arrested on Thursday by the anti-corruption unit of Scotland Yard and bailed to return next month."

The Guardian is, of course, the paper which has taken the high moral ground over phone hacking, but it seems that its integrity does not extend to the receipt of confidential information from the police, which could, by its very nature, impede the police investigations.

Presumably, the Guardian will be added the on-going investigation into the alleged bribery of police by News International, as only an idiot will believe the policeman did it for altruistic reasons.

A Police Reserve

2011-08-12T23:16:00.000+01:00

The MP for Bury St Edmunds, David Ruffley, puts forward strong arguments in the Daily Telegraph for a Police Reserve, a concept that I would fully support. He points out that it could mirror the retained firefighters or the Territorial army, whereby volunteers would be paid a retainer, expected to attend for training at regular intervals and be paid a sensible rate when called to duty.
He suggests that "they could mirror the retained firefighters, most of whom receive up to £2,821 a year, and an additional call-out fee of up to £12.88 per hour. Last year, the country employed 29,735 full-time firefighters and 11,899 auxiliaries – yet the auxiliaries cost only £130 million, out of a total cost of £1.64 billion" .Good value indeed!

We are clearly going to need a Police reserve. So called "Flash Mobs" demonstrated the possibility of getting large numbers of people to a venue without any warning, and in some respects the ability of the looters to chose a new, unexpected, location is merely an extension of this. Like fires, such looting can now break out anywhere at any time. As with the fire brigades, extra assistance is needed when there are major incidents, or if more than one incident occurs at the same time, and local reservists are a practical solution.If it works for the fire brigades, why shouldn't it work for the police?

Incidentally, David Ruffley is the first MP that I am aware of who has put forward a sensible, cost-effective, proposal for future policing. That means, of course, that it will be totally ignored!

Police Budget Cuts and Benefits

2011-08-11T10:17:00.000+01:00

I think that the Government should do a U-turn.
It should announce that it will not cut the police budget by 20%, but will instead cut the benefits budget by a similar amount.

At present, everybody appears to have the same benefit entitlement whether they have contributed to society or not, which is clearly wrong. There is a big difference in the position of someone who has worked for many years, paid taxes and National Insurance and then finds himself unemployed compared with that of someone who has never worked and in many cases has no intention of working. Under my scheme, the first person would continue to get benefits at the present level, the second would get half that amount.

We also need to further cut the benefits of those who go straight from school onto benefits, particularly where they are leaving school without any qualifications. All these "deprived" youngsters have had the opportunity of an education which they have failed to take and, by causing trouble in the schools, have often prevented the education of others. All those leaving school without a certain minimum standard of education (basic GCSEs) should have any benefit cut still further.

There is absolutely no reason why this country should provide other than a minimum subsistence level of living for the deliberately uneducated who have no desire to work.

Police Numbers

2011-08-10T22:09:00.000+01:00

I get very annoyed when people complain that the Metropolitan Police have some 30,000 or so Police Officers, but only about 6000 can be mustered for duty at one time.
Now I worked as an engineer in the aviation industry for many years and for ten or so I was a shift engineer working shifts in order to provide 24/7 cover 365 days a year. We worked a five shift system of eight hour shifts with about half an hour overlap. For those who haven't done the maths, 24/7 equates to 168 hours a week whilst 5 shifts provide 200 hours on the basis of a 40 hour week. The difference doesn't provide much leeway for overlaps, management activities, training etc. Of course, many paper pushers also do a nominal 40 hour week, (9 to 5 or equivalent) but they take an hour for lunch as well as morning and afternoon tea breaks and thus really work less than 35 hours at their desks. Like the police, my staff had to be available to take action any time during their shift and were lucky if they ever got a proper meal break.
Of course the usual personnel administrative types were for ever wanting to know why it took five staff to cover one post and seemed unable to accept simple maths, and it seems that large parts of the media have the same problem.
The fact is that Police Officers, like most other employees, expect to work a 40 hour week and to have holidays. And quite reasonably, if they are obliged to work longer hours because of a crisis, they expect to be paid accordingly.
Looking at the figures, if the Met has a strength of about 30,000, it is doing quite well to get 6000 on active duty at one time, as my calculations above make no allowances for leave, training or sickness.

Local Police Commissioners

2011-08-09T19:33:00.000+01:00

There are many who argue that policing should be under local control, with elected police commissioners or sheriffs as in America. I am one of those who support this concept, but those against argue that this would lead to the politicisation of the Police, with various dire consequences.
Perhaps one of those who oppose the idea would explain to me why it is that those very same people who have been opposing political interference in our police forces by local police commissioners, are demanding that our senior politicians must return home from their holidays immediately in order to take charge of actions against the current wave of rioters and looters. Surely this is the very thing that last week was totally wrong, politicians taking charge of operational policing!
I'm glad they've come around to my way of thinking!

Snouts in the Trough

2011-08-04T16:09:00.000+01:00

MP's rightly got a lot of flack for abusing their expenses, but regrettably they aren't alone in this, the practice seems to be quite common these days throughout the higher levels of our public services. Now it is not as if people at these levels are not well paid, salaries in the higher echelons of public services have risen far faster, percentage-wise, that at any any other level over the past ten years. So what is going wrong?
One thing seems to be that many of those concerned don't seem to appreciate that they are doing wrong. Sir Paul Stephenson, for example, apparently considered it perfectly in order to accept free hospitality at a convalescent home, and even when resigning firmly insisted that he'd done nothing wrong.
Andrea Hill, the Chief Executive of the Suffolk County Council saw nothing wrong with accepting hospitality from various companies in spite of receiving a salary of £216,000 pa. Does she get fired for abuse of her office - no, she "resigns" and gets another year's salary.
Inspector Gadget points out that two of Wales’ police forces spent more than £1.1m on top-of -the-range cars in the past four years for the personal use of senior officers and their partners. Chief Officers at Dyfed-Powys Police and South Wales Police were given cars worth up to £45,000 each on top of their annual salaries.
And of course, the latest is that Cleveland Police’s chief constable and his deputy have been arrested in an investigation into allegations of fraud and corruption.

The problem with any form of indiscreet behaviour at the top is that it becomes endemic throughout the organisation If the Police Chief can accept a fortnight's hospitality, why shouldn't the copper on the beat accept a bottle from the local publican? Both might be perfectly innocent events without strings attached, but that is not how the public sees it. Was the provision of cars for personal use part of the salary package for the post or an extra sneaked in afterwards, as they can hardly be regarded as essential to the job where no doubt they would use a police vehicle and driver. (I wonder if the Tax Man is aware of the situation?) If its OK for a Council Chief executive to "discuss business" in exotic locations at someone else's expense, well why shouldn't a planning officer discuss the details of a proposed extension at our local ~~bribing~~ dining place.

Fortunately we have not yet reached the situation that a friend found in Brussels, where he had to pay a pourboire in addition to the fee in order to get his residential parking permit stamped at the Marie. But I just wonder how long it will be before this sort of thing becomes the norm and we accept it without question.

Of course I haven't mentioned the NHS which seems to provide a never-ending benefit package for incompetent administrators who take a pay-off from one NHS trust, only to move on to another one near-by. That would provide a whole blog in itself were I were able to find time for the necessary research!

Government Recruitment out of Control

2011-08-03T19:58:00.000+01:00

Today, the Daily Mail reports that thousands of new staff have been recruited by quangos since this government came to power, in spite of a promise to "have a bonfire of quangos".
What is it about governments that makes them unable to reduce the size of the Civil Service and Quangos? Companies manage to do so, Only yesterday Barclays announced a large number of job cuts, following in the footsteps of a number of other public companies over the last few weeks.

Last year the company for which my daughter works merged with another company and the board immediately instituted a virtual ban on all new recruitment. All requests for new staff had to be referred to the board and had to include a job description of the post, and an explanation of why the job was required and why it couldn't be shared amongst existing staff, etc. These papers had to be agreed and countersigned by the appropriate managers. The board made it clear that they would investigate the veracity of the various statements, and anyone found to have provided misleading information could quite easily find themselves on the redundancy list.

It seems that very few of the management staff were prepared to put forward any applications and my daughter noticed, perhaps not surprisingly, that a number of tasks were suddenly deemed no longer essential by managers. Staff reductions have been achieved by natural wastage and everybody seems happy from the board down to the lowest members of staff who feel that there jobs are now more secure.

Now why can't the Government do something like this. Every department should be told that they are absolutely banned from taking on staff unless each individual post has been approved by the Departmental Select Committee, and that staff of all levels could be called before them to explain and justify the post. This sort of approach works in the Private Sector, why should it not work in the Civil Service and Quangos?

Cameron - No longer in control

2011-07-27T21:49:00.000+01:00

In his blog today, Raedwald argues that Cameron has "gone native" and claims that "He's always been a lazy man, only motivated to reaction at the last moment, and appears to have allowed Whitehall to run the roost in exchange for an easy life ".

Whilst I agree with Raedwald's excellent listing of the symptoms, I must disagree with his diagnosis. He believes that there was once a "Cameron of brave words and loud principles would not allow the civil servants at the MOD to spend £1bn on credit cards and then refuse to disclose what they had spent it on. That Cameron would not spinelessly give way to senior police officers - themselves mired in an endemic and institutional corruption - on matters of civil liberty.", whereas I would assert that such a person has never ever existed.

My belief is that he is a "Blair Clone", and his whole image has been designed by Conservative Central Office PR experts to meet the public's expectation of a charismatic Prime Minister as, in their view, none of the other candidates standing for leadership had what they would consider to be the necessary qualities. Nevertheless, I would suggest that any one of them would have made a far better Prime Minister.
I don't believe Cameron has ever had any ideas of his own, his every action has been carefully choreographed by experts in reaction to the latest public opinion polls. Unfortunately, all the PR experts in the world are no match for the Whitehall machine, and having no idea how to cope with determined opposition to change, he quietly gives in to the Mandarins.

Cameron has shown himself incapable of handling what Harold Macmillan considered to be the greatest challenge for a statesman, 'Events, my dear boy, events'. Over the past few weeks there have been quite a few events which had not been included in the carefully pre-arranged choreography. Each event has shown him to be totally inadequate, particularly when you compare him with some of the great Conservative leaders of the past. His reactions to the various events Coulson / News International / Phone hacking / Police resignations / Norway shootings have, in my view, bordered on panic and clearly show that he is totally incapable of coping with the unexpected.

Raedwald might be correct in concluding that Cameron has always been lazy; that wouldn't be too bad in itself if he had appointed competent Cabinet Members and then allowed them to get on with the job; the problem is that they weren't appointed on the basis of competency but political expediency. My conclusion is that Cameron is simply a wimp; he is unwilling to stamp his mark on anything in case his judgement is wrong, the more so since Coulson, and all we can expect is that things will drift along until the next General Elections, with the government merely responding to events rather than causing them. Let us pray that we don't have a crisis demanding real leadership

"Extreme Right Wing"

2011-07-26T23:19:00.000+01:00

According to the criteria used by the BBC (and the Guardian), it would seem that I am "Far Right Wing".- possibly even "Extreme Right Wing".
Why?
Well I'm strongly opposed to the EU and I support UKIP, and if that is not enough, I agree with the aims of the EDL. I am opposed to mass permanent immigration into this country from anywhere in the world, whilst welcoming longer term visitors who have something to offer this country or whom wish to gain experience here and learn our language. I also support greater independence for England within the Union, and an English Parliament with broadly the same functions as that in Edinburgh.
All of the organisations that I have mentioned and all of my beliefs that I have listed have, at one time or another, been described by the BBC as either "Far Right" or "Extreme Right".

The BBC, when referring to UKIP, invariably manages to include the BNP in the same sentence and describe them as "Far Right organisations". Similarly, when referring to the EDL, it somehow manages to refer to the "Violence of these extreme right-wing organisations", when all evidence suggests that the EDL has never been associated with any violence except when attacked by "Far Left-Wing Extremists" (They've managed to get me at it now! ).
I am also a Christian (although not necessarily a very good one), this would mean that the BBC would be able to describe me as a Right-Wing Christian Fundamentalist should I ever have the misfortune to come to their attention.

So, following the Norwegian massacre and the claims made by the perpetrator, it seems that our security services will now be wasting their time in having a blitz on "Extreme Right Wing" organisations and those who might have had any involvement with such organisations.
As I clearly meet the BBC criteria, for being such an individual, presumably I will be getting a visit in due course.
I just hope that whilst they're busy looking for all these right-wing extremists, they don't overlook that there are infinitely more left wing Islamic extremists in this country who are just waiting for a suitable opportunity.

US Debt Ceiling

2011-07-24T23:55:00.000+01:00

Does Vince Cable know what he's talking about? I ask because (according to the BBC web site) in the Andrew Marr show, Vince Cable attacked leading US Republican politicians as "nutters" who were "holding up a deal to reduce US government debt".
However, everywhere that I have read about the "US debt crisis" I am told that the problem is that Obama wants to raise the debt ceiling to enable the country to borrow more.
Perhaps Saint Vincent would like to explain to me how increasing the amount that you borrow can reduce your debt.
Which is why I no longer bother to watch the Andrew Marr show as he is apparently unwilling to challenge such ludicrous contradictory statements.

And as for the BBC's line that the US will be unable to pay any employees or pensioners if an agreement is not reached perhaps they would like to explain why? Taxation revenue will continue to come in as usual, all it means is that the US government will not be able to increase its expenditure.

I just wish we had a similar arrangement in Britain, with a cap on government borrowing. Perhaps if we'd had such an arrangement when Brown was in financial control, we might not be in the mess we are today.

Discretion in Public Life

2011-07-18T22:54:00.000+01:00

I read once that a newly elected MP once asked the advice of a very highly respected backbencher whether it would be wise for him to take a particular course of action. The response was that he, the senior backbencher, was not prepared to give advise on particular issues, but a good principle to follow would be to ask yourself whether you would be happy if your action was reported in large headlines in next Sunday's News of the World.
The News of the World has gone, but the principle still applies; Unfortunately too many people in public life seem to have forgotten it.
This is the problem with public life today; people in power seem to have forgotten that it is not what you do that matters, but what the public perceives that you might have done. Too many seem to have forgotten that once you enter public life that you need to exercise great discretion in everything you do. Long time friends might have to be discretely avoided because their interests and yours might conflict; if they are real friends they will fully understand the situation, and indeed should feel the same need for discretion. I think it was Norman Tebbit who said that people in public life no longer seem to consider the "what ifs". To me this failure means that these people are either terribly naive, or simply don't live in the real world - either way they are unfit for high offices of state.
They need to remember that in these days of instant communications such as twitter, mountains can be rapidly made out of molehills and news of any indiscretion can be spread literally at the speed of light!

"No Smoking" - Let's take drugs instead!

2011-07-18T10:31:00.000+01:00

The Daily Mail today reports that in spite of it having been made illegal, mephedrone or "Meow Meow" is still the "drug of choice" for the younger generation.

I just wonder if this increase in drug taking has any connection with the smoking ban. You can no longer smoke in Pubs or Nightclubs and will get thrown out if you do so. But when was someone last thrown out for taking drugs? Its unlikely anyone would notice and even if they did, would they say anything?

I don't smoke, but I still think that the non-smoking fanatics have done far more harm than good, increased drug taking being yet one more of the unexpected consequences of the ban.

Politicians Covering Their Backs!

2011-07-17T10:44:00.000+01:00

Politicians of the Defence Select Committee are busy covering their backs over the war in Afghanistan by deciding that the Ministry of Defence didn't give them enough information about what was going on and criticising it for failing to warn ministers of the dangers facing troops. This may, or may not be true, but don't MPs read newspapers, listen to the BBC or even listen to the relatives of those soldiers killed in Afghanistan? On the basis of what these MPs claim that the knew, it would seem that the average member of the public was better informed than the Select Committee! The shortage of helicopters, for example, received considerable publicity when we had to borrow from the Americans, yet the MPs were "unaware" of this.
The members of this select committee are doing nothing more than trying to ensure that the blame for the many shortcomings can be placed elsewhere prior to the next General Election. Personally I don't find the excuse "We weren't told" a valid excuse for a committee whose purpose is to ask questions and to seek answers.

News International

2011-07-16T22:11:00.000+01:00

I am far more interested in the fall out from the phone hacking scandal than the phone hacking itself. In practice, it is not phone hacking in the strict sense, but voice-mail hacking. From what my friendly experts tell me, it is very difficult to know whether your voice-mail has been hacked, and the fact that NotW reporters had someone's phone number, even their ex-directory phone number, is no proof that they have hacked your phone. Personally, I suspect that a lot of people are making these claims in the hope of either getting publicity or compensation.

To me, the most important issue is the involvement of the Metropolitan Police at all levels. Since my childhood, I always believed that the Met was totally incorruptible and could be held up as an example to police forces all over the world. Yes, like all organisations, you might have the odd "Bad egg", but generally they were found and removed before they could do any harm. Officers at Commissioner and Commander level would be totally beyond reproach, not only in their work, but in any activities outside work. To my immense sorrow, such days seem to have long gone, and it is now very hard to find anyone in the top echelon whom one can believe would meet the standards set some thirty or more years ago. It is not that I think they are corrupt, it is that they do not seem to have the common sense to avoid situations which might lead people to thinking that they are corrupt. Like our Prime Minister with Andy Coulson, they do not seem to have looked ahead; they do not seem to have asked the "what if" question; they have not acted with the discretion that the public have the right to expect from someone in their positions.

To me the other issue is the future of News International and in particular Rupert Murdoch.
According to the Daily Mail, Rebekah Brooks is in line for a 3.5million pound pay-off in exchange for a gagging clause. Normally when one resigns, one would not expect any pay-off, especially when one has made a hash of the job. One wonders what she knows about News International for Murdoch to be paying such a sum!

I await developments with interest

Independent Press Regulation

2011-07-09T11:32:00.000+01:00

I think everyone will now agree that self-regulation of the press has failed and that some form of external independent regulation is highly desireable.
But how is this to be achieved? Certainly putting regulation in the hands of politicians would be a total disaster; as in France, it could totally emasculate the press to such an extent that the misdeeds of politicians would never be revealed. It is also worth looking at Raedwald for an explanation of how the ruling party in Hungary has total control, and effective censorship of the media.

If you look at the so-called independent regulators, one has to ask "how independent are they?"
How independent is the Bank of England? The Governor and Board are appointed by politicians, and at least at the time of their appointment will be of the same economic, if not political, persuasion as the government. The "Independent" Charities Commission was Labour appointed, and is clearly following left-wing principles in their hounding of independent schools, whilst allowing so-called "fake charities" to prosper. We even seem to have a new breed of professional regulators and Quango apparatchiks whose names appear with sickening frequency.

So, how does one get a genuinely independent body of regulators?
I would suggest that the only way is by some form of lottery or draw, as with jury service.
There would need to be a a number of differences, as a start I would suggest that those selected would need to be volunteers, not pressed as in the case of jury service. And unlike jury service, where over-70s are no longer eligible, I would suggest that any volunteers should be retired and over 60 thus ensuring that they have had some experience in the world and hopefully capable of distinguishing between "Public Interest" and "Interest by the Public". Clearly one would need a minimum standard of education, and hopefully volunteers would have worked at a reasonable level of responsibility.
I would like to see the government calling for suitably qualified volunteers and then selecting an appropriate number of names at random with total disregard their for sex, sexual orientation, ethnic origin or any of the current politically correct criteria.. There would be no pay, just reasonable expenses, a maximum of, say, a three year term, and any necessary staff would be seconded from the civil service for a limited period.

Can anyone think of a better approach to having an independent regulator?

News of the Word !

2011-07-08T15:39:00.001+01:00

Is there a vacancy for a Proof Reader?

I assume one of them will be into this headline!

Phone Hacking

2011-07-06T21:06:00.000+01:00

With phone hacking taking over virtually all of the news programmes, I was idly wondering if the rest of the world has come to a standstill.
However my interest, as a retired electronics/computer engineer, is in the mechanism of phone hacking and how one can know whether one's phone has been hacked.
Firstly, this phone hacking has to be distinguished from phone tapping, which is where someone listens to an actual conversation as it takes place, and their seem to be no allegations that this has happened, mainly, I assume, due to the difficulty of intercepting the digital mobile phone signals.
In fact the phone hacking seems to be a matter of access to the victim's voice mail. With a mobile phone, as I understand the situation, this is held as some form of digital recording by the phone company, and is accessed via a phone using one's password. I have never used this facility (and rarely use a mobile phone) but I note that messages on my "answerphone" at home can be accessed remotely if I should want. As I haven't set it up, and people leave us occasional messages, I assume anyone could access it remotely should they so wish. This would, of course, really be my own fault as I haven't set any password, but then who'd be interested to know that our daughter rang, and she'll ring again later.
What does interest me however, is how all these victims of hacking know that their voice mail has been accessed. There is no counter which might indicate the number of times a message has been accessed, and it would seem that the only way of knowing is in the event that someone has left you a confidential message which has become known to a third party. But this relies absolutely on the fact that the person leaving the message can be 100% certain that he/she has not mentioned it to anyone else, a rather dubious assumption in my view..
So How can anyone be certain that their Voice-Mail has been accessed?

Another strange aspect is that there has been no suggestions of hacking into e-mails.
Depending on the settings of one's e-mail client, these can be deleted from the ISP's server immediately they have been transferred to one's computer, although some users, myself included, tend to leave them there for a while. Either way, until they are deleted, they can usually be accessed as web-mail if the password is known. As the e-mail address of a potential victim is known, and complex passwords are rarely used (mine is limited to 10 characters), I would have thought it a reasonably simple task to work ones way through a list of potential passwords. A competent programmer could probably automate the whole affair.
And of course this gives rise to the same question as above,
How can anyone know if their E-mail has been accessed?

To me, answers to these questions would be far more interesting than the knowledge that various people believe that their phones have been hacked!

Australia and the Burka

2011-07-05T23:29:00.002+01:00

A case that has hit the headlines in Sydney recently concerns a burka wearing woman who was stopped for a traffic offence, and subsequently accused the police officer concerned of assaulting her. This was proved to be untrue because the incident was recorded on a video camera attached to the police car. As a result, she was charged with falsely accusing the police of assault and found guilty. On appeal, her lawyer claimed that it was not his client who had made the complaint, and the judge cleared her on the basis that the police were unable to make a positive identification.
As a result of this, within days, the New South Wales Government has changed the law and as a result any person who refuses to remove a head covering for police will face up to a year in jail or a $A5,500 (£3,600) fine.The other states are now considering similar legislation.

I'm just wondering what the situation is in this country. Can the police ask for a burka to be removed for the purpose of identification? If not, how do our police carry out their duties?
For reports see Sydney Daily Telegraph and Daily Telegraph

Another question which I would consider to be relevant is whether it is safe for a female to drive whilst wearing a burka which must restrict her field of vision?

But the main thing to notice here is that government acts in Australia and that it acts quickly.
Our government is still talking of emergency legislation concerning the issue of Police Bail which has had wide reaching effects; I prefer Australian action to British talk!

Smoking and Heart Disease

2011-07-05T18:39:00.000+01:00

According to the British Heart Foundation, amongst others, smoking causes heart disease. I don't think even the most rabid smokers would disagree with this statement, but my short search of the internet failed to reveal any actual figures, although no doubt they exist. This does tend to suggest to me that they are actually quite low, so it is perhaps better not to actually mention them!
But this figure in today's Daily Mail is worth noting
Chantix, the No.1 anti-smoking drug in America, 'increases risk of heart disease by 72 per cent'
The drug is also associated with other reported side effect such as people trying to kill themselves, depression and unprovoked attacks on others.
So if you can't give up smoking without any chemical aids, it would seem that your best bet is simply to continue smoking, as I'm quite sure that smoking does not increase the risk of heart disease by anything like 72%.
I don't smoke, but I do object to the constant harassment of individuals whether they are smokers or drinkers by people who want to "improve their life". Sorry, my life would not be improved without my glass of beer or drop of Scotch, and I assume that smokers feel exactly the same about their cigarettes. We are aware of the risks, and it is our lives which are at risk; just leave us alone.

Someone is responsible.

2011-07-02T20:56:00.000+01:00

According to the "No Win - No Fee" lawyers, whatever happens, someone must be responsible; which, I suppose is generally true if you discount so-called "Acts of God" such a lightening strikes and thunderbolts.
Why then, is no-one apparently responsible when, as reported in the Daily Mail today, a child of three is caught vandalising a number of cars? Indeed why is no-one responsible for some 3000 recorded crimes by children under the age of ten and thus below the age of criminal responsibility?
Surely if the child is too young to assume responsibility for his/her actions, then one must assume that the child should be in the care of an adult and in this case surely it is the adult who should be held responsible. Whilst it might be more difficult to maintain a constant watch over, say, eight or nine year olds, surely a three year old should not be out in the street without an adult.
Why were the child's parents not prosecuted for neglect or their failure to safeguard the child?

The actual number of crimes committed by the under 10's is unknown, but it is believed to be many times the actual recorded figure as some police forces don't record them.
Surely it is time for the law to be changed so that "Someone is responsible" and by default this somebody should be the child's parents or legal guardian. By their act of permitting a child to commit a crime, they should be held responsible for the crime and charged as if they had committed it, and, if guilty, suffer appropriate penalties.

Scottish By-election.

2011-07-01T10:32:00.000+01:00

I don't really care who wins a by-election in Scotland, but what I did notice was that it takes far less votes to elect an MP is Scotland than in my part of the country.
Working on the figures provided by the BBC news report, it would seem that Inverclyde constituency has an electorate of about 60,000. whilst where I live, the electorate for my constituency is just over 75,000.
If this difference is typical, and to simplify the maths, if one takes an area of Scotland with a electorate of, say, 300,000, it would get five MPs, whilst a similar electorate in England would get only four.
This is gerrymandering of the worst kind, particularly as Scotland now has its own parliament and there is no excuse whatsoever for enhanced representation in Westminster.
Yet for some reason any thought of boundary changes to remedy this situation seems to have been lost in the debacle over AV.

Perhaps we should have a campaign for "One man, one vote" rather than "one man one vote" in Scotland, and "One man, four-fifths of a vote" in England.

It's OK for Pensioners to Carry on Drinking

2011-06-28T13:33:00.000+01:00

The recent report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists suggesting that us oldies should cut down on our alcohol consumption has been (politely) rubbished by the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research, based at Boston University's Medical Center, which suggests that there is a strong case for us drinking more rather than less.
A blogged summery of the report can be read at The Register, or the formal version can be read on the Boston University site.
Boston University points out that
"Epidemiological studies have suggested that moderate alcohol consumption, may reduce the incidence of certain age-related neurological disorders including Alzheimer's disease."
and that
"Scientific data are consistent in demonstrating that quality of life is better and total mortality is lower among moderate drinkers than among abstainers."

The key point is in the conclusion
"For healthy moderate and responsible drinkers, advice to reduce or stop all alcoholic beverage intake would not be in the best health interests of such individuals."

But I did say previously that I didn't consider Psychiatrists to be real doctors!

Muslim Harassment of Funerals.

2011-06-27T19:45:00.000+01:00

It hasn't happened so far in Britain (or if it has, it hasn't been reported in the media), but in Holland, their latest problem is the harassment of non-Muslim funeral by Muslim youths.
Klein Verzet reports that Muslim youths approach a funeral and if they discover that the deceased is a non-Muslim, they bang on the vehicles of the cortège shouting slogans like "Another dead dog", and them harass the vehicles all the way on their bikes. The Dutch MSM apparently plays down the matter, but it is happening with increasing frequency, and for some reason the police fail to take any action.

I just wonder how soon before this starts to happen in Britain, and whether our police will be equally inactive. My reaction is that they will probably arrest someone from the EDL for trying to prevent a "legitimate gathering".

E. coli - is Organic farming the cause?

2011-06-26T20:15:00.000+01:00

The e-coli outbreak in Germany was initially blamed by the German authorities on Spanish cucumbers, and only subsequently was it admitted that cause was bean sprouts, and most likely those being grown on an organic farm in Bienenbüttel south of Hamburg. (See report)
Now the French have a similar problem, except that in this case they are trying to blame seeds from a British supplier.. However the company says that they have supplied hundreds of thousands of packets of these seeds throughout France, and this outbreak is more likely caused by local contamination. In any case, the seeds came from Italy!
This view is confirmed by Professor Hugh Pennington, a microbiologist from Aberdeen University,who said contaminated sprouted seeds tended to cause an outbreak of E. coli every year. "The seeds, the beans are contaminated when they're being grown - perhaps they get some animal urine on them,"

I would argue that one possible cause could be organic farming, and in particular organic fertiliser. I have always tended to be suspicious of the claims that organic fertiliser is better than chemical fertilisers, and I have never managed to taste any significant difference between organic and non-organic food which couldn't have been attributed to the freshness of the product.

So what is organic fertiliser? In my youth it was the droppings from the milkman's or greengrocer's horses; if it happened outside your house you rushed out with bucket and shovel to collect it for the vegetable plot. These days, my understanding is that some comes from sewage plants; certainly before I retired, I frequently saw tankers from the Thames Water sewage facility adjacent to Heathrow spraying the fields of nearby farms. Now Professor Pennington claims that e-coli could come from animal urine, I just wonder what might come from organic fertiliser.

Incidentally, it seems that the EU (including Britain) is to pay Spain compensation for their losses resulting from the initial German claim; I wonder what will happen if, as I suspect, the French claim is also wrong.

Should we trust drug research?

2011-06-25T22:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, there was extensive cover in the media of a report that common prescription and over-the-counter medications could give rise to various problems if taken in combination. There was no indication as to which combinations could cause problems as it is clearly not practical to test every possible combination. This report was clearly of concern to Mrs EP, in that she takes two of the prescription drugs mentioned. Obviously a visit to our GP is now in order. Add to this the fact that she has been told to avoid grapefruit as it is known to "strengthen" the drugs leading to the possibility of the equivalent of an overdose, it becomes clear that our knowledge of how drugs work in combination with not only other drugs, but with common foods, is very limited.
Today it is reported that Britain has been hit by a five-fold rise in cases of measles. Could this be because the measles vaccination is only offered as part of the triple MMR vaccination? Although Andrew Wakefield's research has been rubbished by the UK medical authorities, the main complaint against him seems to have been the manner in which he got blood samples for his research, rather than his actual findings, and it is clear that many people are still very wary of the triple vaccine.
This latest report concerning combinations of drug will only add to the concerns in the eyes of the general public Should one have vaccinations (of any kind) if one is taking medication? What real research has been carried out into combinations of vaccines?
Fortunately, the problem doesn't concern me personally at the moment; I've managed to reduce my regular medication to just 3-4 units of alcohol per day!

Nationwide Building Society

2011-06-23T15:30:00.000+01:00

I have some money, laughing called "invested" in the Nationwide Building Society. So, as usual at this time of year, I have received the usual bumf about their AGM, and have the opportunity to vote for the directors, their pay, etc.
Now I know they are required by law to send this to all their members, but what I don't understand is why they feel it is necessary to have incentives to encourage me to vote. As there is no choice of directors, the board recommending that one votes for all the candidates (well they would, wouldn't they), I can't see much difference between the vote for Nationwide directors and elections in the old USSR, except that I won't be sent to Siberia if I don't vote.
Perhaps I should vote against the Remuneration report; to me £650K for the Chief Executive of a Building Society seems a bit OTT, but this would simply be a waste of time as the Society encourages their members to put one big cross in a single box at the top of the form to indicate that they are in favour of everything, and I suspect that this is what most voters will do.
Meanwhile their claim that "With no shareholders our only focus is on you" seemed a bit hollow when I discovered that my ex-TESSA investment was paying a mere 0.5% interest. No, like all other financial institutions they focus on giving a good starting rate and then decreasing it as fast as possible and hoping that the investor doesn't notice. I foolishly didn't, and have now invested the money elsewhere.
Perhaps, if anyone at the Nationwide reads this, they might care to point out which of their investments cannot be bettered by someone going to a bank or other financial institution which has shareholders.

View from the Kitchen Window

2011-06-21T13:22:00.000+01:00

Mrs EP took this photo through the kitchen window a couple of days ago.

We've never seen two woodpeckers at the same time before.

Another loosing battle!

2011-06-21T09:41:00.000+01:00

According to today's Daily Telegraph,

Asked whether Britain could afford to help the[Greek] bailout, Mr Cameron said: "I absolutely don't believe we should. "I don't believe that we will and I shall be fighting very hard to achieve that at the European Council this week."

As Cameron has never won any of his fights with the EU, I can't see him winning this one.

Alcohol Zealots

2011-06-18T22:14:00.001+01:00

The Daily Mail today

Unfortunately we don't only need to be worried about religious extremists!

Let's Tell the World!

2011-06-13T15:44:00.000+01:00

As I remarked in my previous blog, I've just returned from a couple of week's holiday. As usual, we only told people who had a "need to know" that we would be away.

Going for my daily stroll in the nearby woods, I met an acquaintance who lives a couple of streets away, and who, by co-incidence, had also just returned from a holiday. The difference was that he returned home to find that both his and his neighbour's houses had been burgled in their absence.
It seems that his teenage daughter had used Facebook, or something similar, to tell all her "friends" that she was going for two weeks holiday abroad and that she'd just been with mum to take the cat to the cattery as the neighbour who usually fed her would also be away at the same time! Even so, he seemed very reluctant to accept that this could be the reason why the burglar chose these two particular houses.

It seems that Common Sense is a commodity that is in short supply these days, and not only amongst teenagers.