It seems an awfully long time since I wrote anything on this and I suppose it is. Well, I am now back in Joburg after a relatively successful - and certainly extremely enjoyable - kayaking trip. Thanks to the vagaries of officialdom, I didn't do what I had intended to do (paddle right around the lake) but I spent 6 weeks wandering through some of the remoter parts of Kariba and enjoying the solitude, scenery and wild life. I also learned a great deal about kayaking and after some 1500 kilometres in all sorts of wave and water conditions, can pssibly look on myself as an experienced kayaker now.

I didn't even have a blister!

There was the occasional moment of adrenalin-charged excitement to keep my mind active, but on the whole, it was a period of pure peace - something that is absent from so many modern lives. I can't wait to get out there again.

The trip ended somewhat traumatically and I spent a long fourteen hours in acute discomfort and feeling sure I was going to die, which will probably leave mental as well as physical scars, but I will tell all in due course. I have another 3 weeks in South Africa before returning to UK and then I will tell the story of my trip in these pages. I don't intend to write a book on this one, so my blog will be the only record of what took place. Makes it quite a special document hey?

In the meantime, I cannot get into my AOL email accounts so if anyone has sent me letters, I am sorry but I can't answer them until I arrive back in the UK. Once there, I will reply to all my mail, I promise.

Now I must conquer the cold of Johannesburg - and boy it is cold - while meeting all sorts of people, most of them in the line of duty. Ah well, I suppose I have to pay for those six wonderful weeks when my world revolved around a fourteen and a half foot plastic cocoon, adrift - well not really - in wild wild Africa.

So I will write again on my return to the UK.

After 10 days or so 'on the road,' I leave South Africa for Zimbabwe tonight and my trip can finally get under way. I spent 3 days in sunny Cape Town, took a long but fairly comfortable train journey up through the country and arrived in Johannesburg to grey skies and lots of rain. Yuk!

It is lovely to be back with my sister in Joburg, but with little to occupy my time, I am getting ever more fretful and nervous about what I am taking on over the next few weeks. The fact that I haven't been able to get a bus until this evening hasn't helped and I will be glad when I am moving once again. How I long for the solitude of my kayak and the lake.

Joburg really is a different world to most and I can't help wondering what will happen when the World Cup arrives in this country. The traffic is truly appalling and I don't think I have ever seen so many cars, even in London. I went shopping with Sister Suzy Lee last Saturday and it was a horrible experience. There were literally thousands of people in the Hyperama and I found myself genuinely scared, although of what I couldn't say. Every time I moved, I bumped into someone and once outside again, I kept gulping at the air to try and stop my senses falling over themselves. For some weird reason, I was very close to tears, so I suppose I am just not cut out for the frantic pace of this twenty first century.

Now all I have to do is get through today - I am lunching with stepson Stuart - then shut my system down for fifteen hours or so on a rickety bus, before reaching Harare - another city, but not in the same league as this one. Hopefully, it won't take long to find a lift up to Kariba where I can at last relax and get away from people and the world for a few weeks.

God only knows when I will come back to this - notice that for once I am not ranting - but I will tell you all what is happening or has happened when I can.

For anyone reading this, please spare a thought or raise the odd glass to the success of my kayaking venture over the next few weeks. I must tell you though, when I went into Canoe and Kayaking World here in Rivonia to buy a paddle, Robbie Herreveld who runs the place and with whom I have exchanged emails over the weeks, looked quite horrified when I introduced myself. He was too polite to say so, but I fear he expected someone considerably younger and fitter. My portly frame and somewhat weathered face obviously did not fill him with confidence!

Oh well, it made me smile inwardly and he did give me a discount on a very fine paddle - which still cost me R500 mind you. He reckons it will take infinite pounding though and I reckon it will get that over my weeks on the lake.

Right time to face another grey and dank day. Joburg weather has been worse than English weather over the past week or so!

This is election week over there so all you Poms reading this, please vote wisely. I am glad I am not there to make the choice though. I fear I would have to spoil my paper - again - as my little form of protest against the system and those cretins who administer it.

Cheers for now and I will 'talk' again when I can. 

24^th April 2009

I wrote the same thing last week, but at last the big day has come and this time, I think it means it. Unless something goes drastically wrong now, I should fly out of Heathrow for Cape Town at 6.30 tomorrow morning and for 3 months, you lovely people who read The Rant will have to do without my whitterings. I know you will miss me, but I will try and let folk know what I am doing from time to time.

Spare the odd thought for me please and I will tell you all about it on my return in August.

On my morning trawl through the papers, I was struck with the fact that Mandyflower and the thuggish Alastair Campbell seem to be taking major roles in Labour’s election policies. Although hailed as such, I really can’t see this as a sensible move that adds wisdom and experience to campaign strategising.

Both Mandy and Campbell are proven and unscrupulous liars. Mandyflower - who with extraordinary hypocrisy attacked newspaper smears against Clegg this week - once boasted that his job was to 'create the truth,’ while Alastair Campbell was at the heart of Tony Blair's disinformation campaign about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

So Gormless Gordon has once again sacrificed his personal integrity - and on Thursday night he paid the price for doing so when Dashing David angrily challenged him over the numerous lies peddled in Labour's campaign literature about Tory plans to cut benefits for the elderly.

GG’s only defence was pathetically to claim that, personally, he had not authorised publication of such lies. Back in the 1997 election campaign, during the one week that Labour started to wobble, Toothsome Tony, advised by the same two twisters of truth, called a press conference to warn that the Tories were planning to abolish the state pension. The claim was a total fabrication, but it galvanised the Labour vote.

Indeed, one Labour candidate (and future minister) was out canvassing the following day when she met an old lady who was so alarmed at the prospect that she burst into tears. Campbell and Mandyflower are trying to repeat this 'success' in 2010.

Surely someone can stop them? This isn’t politics, it is despicably attempting to hold on to power at any cost.

And would you believe, the Duchess of Debt is also in the news again. Sarah Ferguson is now being sued over an unpaid solicitor's bill totalling £200,000. In the Eighties, she was a fully-fledged Royal. By the Nineties, her marriage over, she ran up a £5million overdraft. To keep herself in the pages of Hello, this harridan turned herself into the ultimate victim with a variety of sob stories trotted out at regular intervals. She was a shopaholic. She was a foodaholic. She was abandoned by her mother  -  twice! And yes, she was terribly treated by the Royal Family. Today she whines that Britain rejected her when her marriage to Andrew ended. 

Nothing is ever her own fault. Her infidelities, debts, indiscretions, big bum, bad decisions, terrible hair  -  it's always someone else's fault. Yet today, Fergie must be hoping that she can make another comeback, as she did in the late Nineties.

Back then, she scored a £2million-a-year deal as an ‘ambassador’ for Weight Watchers, lucrative jobs with Wedgwood china and Avon and, without a hint of irony, highly-paid speeches on empowerment. Now HRH Profligacy is broke again, back living with the ex and milking his connections. How many millions has she gone through trying to keep herself in the style she believes she deserves?

Belt-tightening, a proper job and living within one's means are not for the Duchess of Debt. Her next venture is a Challenge Anneka-style TV show in the U.S. 'When the British threw me out,' she says, 'the Americans embraced me.'

They are surely welcome to her.

Just as a last demonstration of the trivialities involved in this general election, Samantha Cameron has had 155 mentions in the papers since April 6, compared to the Tories' top female politician, Theresa May, on 39. In the red corner, Sarah Brown got 153 mentions, beating deputy leader Harriet Harman's 87.

 

Isn’t that fascinating news? I’m glad I am out of it.

 

I’ll be back in August, tanned, super fit and considerably less bulky around the waist. Until then, go carefully and enjoy life please.


 
 

23^rd April 2010

I am almost beginning to believe that this time I might actually get away. I am still nervous that my flight might be cancelled yet again, but Brooke – the lass who rebooked for me last weekend - laughed my fears away, insisting that everything is back to normal on the airline scene.

 

I just hope she is right. I could not take another Saturday like the last one.

 

I see that the Cleggless One got himself some unexpected support yesterday – from Lord Mandyflower of all people.

Mandy was defending him against the allegations of sleaze that are erupting through the media now and in a move that fuelled talk of a Lib-Lab deal, the Business Secretary said the claims were ‘smears’ and ‘dirty tricks’ planted by the Tories.

The Liberal Democrat leader faced allegations that money from three donors was paid into his personal bank account. Clegglet said he would publish figures to defend his position, and made light of quotes published from an article he wrote in 2002 in which he criticised Britain's ‘misplaced sense of superiority’ for having defeated Hitler.

“I must be the first politician who has gone from being Churchill to being a Nazi in under a week,” he said.

Mandyflower’s intervention hours before last night's second live TV debate made plain his hope that Clegg will side with Labour in a hung parliament.

As for the debate itself, I listened to bits of it, but again switched across to Have I Got News for You. It seems from the papers today, that Dashing David probably emerged as top dog this time, with Clegglet close behind him and Gormless Gord a poor third.

But this is not politics – it is a ruddy reality show like Big Brother or that ‘Get me out of Here’ nonsense. I want to know who will be the best leader of the country and allow me to sleep safely in my bed when the invasion takes place.

Would you believe that thousands of Tube passengers recently faced major disruption after one of London's busiest stations was closed twice because staff let their toast burn. Workers across the network are now being given lessons in how to use toasters and other cooking facilities in their station mess rooms, following the two alerts at Kings Cross, St Pancras. Both sparked major fire dramas.

On each occasion, firefighters were called to the station after smoke began billowing from singed bread left unattended in a toaster — once at 8am breakfast time and the other at 6pm tea time. Each time, the station, which serves the Victoria, Piccadilly, Northern, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, and connects with mainline services as well as Eurostar had to be evacuated and closed for 20 minutes.

The Health and Safety cretins must have had a field day.

Did you hear that right old dingdong between Chris Huhne and John Humphrys on yesterday morning's Today programme on Radio Four? It was priceless.

'Nobody ever went into Lib Dem politics for an easy life and a safe seat,' said Huhne, while trying to smear Humphrys by accusing him of smearing. The spat was almost laughable, including the fact that the main issue was about Nick Clegg's political past. Until yesterday, nobody knew he even had one.

Yet Huhne somehow managed to avoid answering the question for the entire ten-minute interview, while treating Humphrys like some poacher he had caught trespassing in lower woods in the process. Many of Huhne's supporters thought this excitement marvellous, although they would have reacted with fury if David Cameron or Gordon Brown had blatantly kept dodging such an important issue in such a rude manner.

Methinks perhaps that Huhne might have been a better bet for party leader than the Cleggless One who according to the papers today, openly boasted of travelling across Europe in the chapest possible manner and claiming ‘whopping great expenses’ from the European Union, for whom he was working at the time.

I love looking at pretty women, particularly when they are amply proportioned, but there is something about Nigella Lawson that really grates on me. Now she freely admits that she has a back-up team of assistants to help her shop, cook, run her life and have her picture taken. What a surprise!

In her television programmes, she is always pretending that the terrified-looking mob around her dinner table are actually her real friends, instead of being suckers on the payroll, forced to eat her eight-egg cakes and fully loaded potato skins for take after sodding take.

That is bad enough, but we now learn from the lady herself that  she calls her assistants - who include a home economist, a tutor, several Italian nannies, a child collector and anyone who is standing around doing nothing when the mixer needs to be cleaned - Team Cupcake.

That is surely enough to make the Pope himself throw up.

Perhaps Nigella just deliberately tries to be annoying. Like dandruff or naturally occurring radioactive material, her breathy pronouncements and monstrous recipes are things that no one can help -  or stop. Not even her.

She almost puts me off womanhood - almost.

 

 

 

22^nd April 2010

I have a fancy little cell phone – inherited from my step son - and experimenting last evening on my way to the pub, I sent myself an email at Lemonfolk. It worked too, so I am now very pleased with my technological progress.

God knows what it cost me though and I don’t think I will be sending many emails on this horrible little machine.

Well, was it worth it? The six-day shutdown of most of Europe's and all Britain's airports is estimated to have cost the airline industry at least £1.2 billion. Millions of people, including me have suffered expense, inconvenience and even distress through being stranded elsewhere or having to make new arrangements for long-planned trips.

But doubt persists about whether the danger posed by Iceland's volcanic ash cloud justified the drastic response. Scientist Dr Grant Allen, of Manchester University's Centre for Atmospheric Science, uses words of evasion that are almost self-parodying: 'Analysis of these atmospheric measurements is early and still ongoing and being supplemented with new measurements all the time.'

In short, he hasn't a ruddy clue and nor has anyone else.

Extravagant responses to risk are a bane of our times. In 1988, that horrible little harridan of a health minister, Edwina Currie almost destroyed Britain's egg industry when she said that salmonella in eggs might cause a human catastrophe - only for it to be later discovered that salmonella could not get into eggs. In 1996, Britain spent £7 billion killing millions of the nation's cows in response to the alleged threat of CJD killing humans eating burgers made from cattle infected by BSE. We now know that the likelihood of this was almost infinitesimally slight.

In 2009, the government spent £1 billion on unneeded vaccines against swine flu, which we were told might kill half a million people. The SARS virus, said some 'experts,’ could prove more devastating to humanity than Aids. It was once suggested that bird flu might kill 150 million people worldwide.

Back to transport. After 9/11, many Americans were reluctant to fly, so drove to their destinations instead. One statistical analysis suggests that 2,500 extra road deaths ensued. Flying would have been much safer. The British are also grotesquely sensitive to rail accidents, though figure show that train travel is by far the safest means of going anywhere. After the Ladbroke Grove rail smash, in which 31 people died, a new Train Protection and Warning System was installed throughout the system. It has been estimated that each life thus saved has cost £15.4 million.

Even in war zones, we are in danger of emasculating the armed forces we claim to love so much, by extending Health and Safety protection to the battlefield. I have no doubt that the coroners who preside at inquests on soldiers killed in Afghanistan are compassionate men, but senior officers regard them as a menace to the Services' real interests.

Most seem not to comprehend the unique stresses and problems of combat zones, where very young men with lethal weapons are invited to make split-second decisions. Where bankers' idiocies cost mere money, mistakes in wars cost lives - as every sensible soldier recognises.

No army in the world has ever been perfectly equipped to face every situation. Unless there is clear evidence of institutional failure or genuinely culpable negligence, soldiers who make mistakes deserve the benefit of doubt - and seldom get this from British coroners.

Here in Britain, we are heading towards big trouble about the need to ration free NHS treatments. No political party in this election dares to face the issue, but it is real enough. At a price, medical science can now do amazing things to keep us all alive, but surely there has to be some measurement of cost against relative benefit to save the NHS from bankruptcy. I don’t want the state to pay for me to survive into my dribbling dotage and don’t believe that any such interference with Nature is justified.

However, much as I love doing so in most cases, I cannot blame the government for the latest nonsense. No minister - Tory, Labour or lib Dem - readily defies those who invoke the sacred principle of health and safety. We have become an almost insanely risk-averse society, demanding to be babied from cradle to grave.

The great volcanic ash air shutdown is part of the price we pay for this. Until, as a society, we learn to measure risk realistically, we shall continue to face draconian responses to even marginal threats.

It is all rather sad really.

The Clegglet is in trouble now and the Press are ganging up on him. It seems that in 2002, the passionately pro-Europe Cleggless One revealed anti British views in an article for the Guardian newspaper.

‘Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche,’ Mr Clegg wrote, before attacking Britain’s approach to the war.

‘All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.’

He was obviously right, but I fear those quotes might well have dealt a killer blow to his aspirations for power.

Here in Stroud, a former sailor called Martin Solomon is in jail for shouting and swearing at his television and radio. This was apparently in breach of numerous Asbos and now he is banged up awaiting sentence.

He probably was pretty noisy and a nuisance to his neighbours, but hasn’t this Asbo nonsense gone a bit too far? I was brought up to believe that this country was the land of free speech and an Englishman’s home is his castle.

If that is the case, Mr Solomon is surely entitled to rant as much as he likes within the walls of his home. After all, the news these days is enough to bring most of us to the point of apoplexy.

 

21^st April 2010

Well, it would seem that the flight ban is over at last and I might embark on my kayaking adventure this weekend after all. So much chaos and confusion has been caused by the ban, yet the politicians seem unrepentant about it all. That hapless clown Lord Adonis – I wonder who picked that title for him and why? – announced that ‘lessons have been learned about the effect of ash on aircraft.’

What he means is that the authorities were wrong and were climbing down before the might of the airlines.

It seems that the much maligned Willie Walsh of BA was the man who brought the aviation authorities to their knees. He directed 26 long haul jets toward Britain and demanded that they be allowed to land.

They were, nothing happened and the ban was lifted. There has to be a lesson there somewhere.

Also over would seem to be the public honeymoon with Cleggless and the Lib Dems. He was forced on to the defensive last night over his expenses and lobbying activities.

For all his pious rectitude over the past week or so, the Lib Dem leader has regularly claimed more than GG and Dashing David while charging the taxpayer for three kitchen upgrades in six months. He also billed us for foreign phone calls, napkins, cake tins and for hundreds of pounds to prune his fruit trees.

Questioned over his expenses relating to his constituency property, he hit back somewhat bizarrely saying: 'It's not my home, it's yours.'

Okay Cleggy, when can I move in?

And as the Lib Dems faced unprecedented media and public scrutiny following their extraordinary poll bounce, it emerged that the Clegglet worked as a partner of a major European lobbying firm, G-Plus, only five years ago. GPlus lobbies for major multinationals to influence European policy on their behalf. Clients include bailed- out RBS, Wal-Mart and Russia's Gazprom.

A Lib Dem spokesman said: 'GPlus was a job he did for eight and a half months for two days a week. It doesn't form a significant part of his career and that's why it isn't on his CV.'

Cleggless' claim to be a straight-talker was also undermined by his repeated refusal to indicate which party he would back if a coalition was necessary to form a government.

'I'm Nick Clegg, I'm not Nostradamus,' he said yesterday.

Sounds like typical prime ministerial material, particularly when he claims to be an ‘ordinary bloke’ with a consituency house that is a modest, pebble-dashed semi that is ‘far from palatial.’

Surely he must have known that would be checked out and last night it emerged that his Sheffield home is a four-bedroom property in one of the city's smartest streets.

The Lib Dem leader's neighbours include doctors, lawyers and dentists and houses on the street have sold for nearly £500,000. That compares with the average house price in Sheffield of just £161,418.

An ‘ordinary bloke’ indeed!

Mind you, the Tories are in just as much of a mess with Dashing David’s attempts to be modern and yet another ‘ordinary bloke’ alienating many of his core supporters. I reckon that many of them will either not vote at all, spoil their papers or vote for the Lib Dems as a form of protest.
 
 That happened in 1974. The country was in a humiliating mess, lights out at 10 and the then Conservative government plainly had no idea what to do. The face of the prime minister on television was an invitation to say, “oh God’ and two million Tories stayed away or voted — a mistake — for whatever the Liberals were called back then.

A real Conservative Party would just promise to put an end to the stupid vexations we all have to put up with nowadays. These are great and small, but the small ones mount up. Does anyone really want to live in a country where the government has the power to stop people from smoking in private clubs? Or where the perishable rubbish is collected every two weeks - in Istanbul they collect rubbish twice a day, because otherwise the cats scratch open the bags; and since we are on the subject, if an able-bodied young man started begging, he would be honour-killed and quite right, too: the begging slot is reserved for old women who deserve it.

Leaving

 Istanbul aside for I digressed, old-fashioned pubs close down here at the rate of six every day and yet gruesome, noisy clubs stay open until all hours, with the effects we all know. A Conservative Party that announced it would relax the anti-smoking stuff and bring back a more sensible version of the old licensing laws would at once collect votes in millions.

If it wants further support it could just announce that no one would have anything at all deducted from a wage packet of under £10,000. It is absurd that a young man doing some badly paid job rather than whimper in the street should lose any money at all, or that cleaning ladies have to work cash-in-hand. But there is a fat chance of such sense being talked. The party is heading for 1974, and I fear there is little hope for the Cameroons unless they change their tack.

Comedian and political activist Mark Thomas has received £1,200 compensation from the Metropolitan Police after he was unlawfully searched for looking ‘over-confident.’ The police pay-out and written apology comes after the campaigner was stopped at a rally against the arms trade in Docklands in 2007.

Thomas, who had just given a speech, had his bag and wallet searched for weapons under terrorism legislation. The police officer who conducted the search recorded on a form that Thomas looked suspicious because he had an ‘over-confident attitude.’

The Territorial Support Group constable stopped the comedian as he entered a railway station on his way home after the rally, asking if he had any weapons ‘intended for criminal damage.’

According to legal papers submitted by Thomas, the officer told the comedian he ‘appeared to know what you were talking about’ at the rally before adding: “If we only stopped and searched people who looked nervous and shifty and didn't stop the ones who looked over-confident you would be able to get one past us.”

The officer also noted on the official form that Thomas was ‘believed to be an influential individual.’

It beggars belief really, doesn’t it?

The Met has only admitted that the search was unlawful after a European court of human rights ruling in January that protesters and photographers should not be arbitrarily stopped and searched under terrorism legislation. The force will now cite the unlawful search on Thomas when training officers. The Met made the compensation payment for the comedian's ‘false imprisonment’ during the 12-minute search.

Thomas said: “£100 a minute is slightly more than my usual rate. If over-confidence is a reason for a stop and search Jonathan Ross should never leave his house.”

The officer who carried out the search was said to have received ‘formal words of advice.’

Is it any wonder that I need to drop out of this modern world from time to time? From politicians to ordinary bobbies, everyone seems to have lost their marbles.

 

20^th April 2010

I felt a huge surge of relief yesterday when it was announced that airports would be opening up today. That would mean I was only a week late in starting out and I can surely cope with that.

 

Switching on my computer this morning, the first headline to catch my eye told me that there is a ‘new’ ash cloud moving toward this soggy little island and we are in for more waiting on flights. So once again, my heart is in my boots and this uncertainty is certainly doing no good for my nerves or my blood pressure. I know that my case is one of the easier ones and it is but a question of sitting it out until the airlines and governments get their acts together, but having psyched myself up to start out last Sunday, the sense of anti climax is incredibly difficult to cope with. I literally don’t know how to cope with each day, although for the next two at least, I am being hauled back into the gardening business by Herself.

 

Yuk. I thought I had done with sweaty toil for a month or three.

 

And now of course, General Gormless has mobilised the Royal Navy to collect stranded holidaymakers. That has to be the grandest of political gestures and I’ll bet it would not have happened without an election being imminent. After all, the country is broke, there isn’t enough money to pay for more troops or equipment on the ground in Afghanistan, yet the government suddenly find the wherewithal to bail out holidaymakers. That truly beggars belief.

 

I can’t make out whether the Great British Public are being stirred into supporting the Lib Dems by last week’s episode of Britain’s Got Politics or by the media, hungry to put their own twist on the election. More and more of the opinion polls seem to be extolling the virtues of Cleggless, but apart from the financial talents of Vince Cable, the party has no more going for it than UKIP or the Monster Raving Loonie Party.

 

I listened to Cleggless on the radio yesterday and he certainly sounded more buoyant and confident that I have ever heard him sound, but surely the GBP aren’t going to be conned into voting him into power on the basis of one carefully stage-managed television show.

 

Or are they? The media are certainly all powerful in this country and would probably hail the Lib dems as a 'People's Government' if they did get in.

 

Mind you, that would only be until they made their first cockup. Then they would be cheerfully crucified.

 

Truly, politics in this country would seem to have gone mad.

 

Just going back to tourists for a moment, there was a lovely little story in the Telegraph today. The English comedienne Sara Pascoe told an audience that she once worked as a guide on Jack the Ripper tours in London. "Here," she announced one day, "is where the Ripper committed his murders, over 100 years ago. The police never caught him."

"Oh my goodness," said one American tourist, "you mean he's still out there?"

Makes you wonder why so much of PBT's money is being spent on getting them back, doesn't it?

19^th April 2010

I am still here and likely to be here for a while yet I'm afraid. I suppose it was inevitable but reaction to my postponed flight has really kicked in today. I know there are hundreds of thousands of people in far more difficult situations than  mine, but my first thought on waking today was that I should have been in Cape Town.

I fear this could be a long day so perhaps I will take my kayak out on to the canal and just wish I was elsewhere.

The newspapers were all pretty boring and dire this morning, but I did smile at Lord Mandyflower. That pompous buffoon assured us that Dashing David will lose the election if he keeps wheeling pregnant Samantha out to boost his chances.

Surely that is a bit rich. It is Sarah Brown who has been the omnipresent wife on this campaign. She was posing in her garden, whittering on about keeping bees over the weekend and it is bee-friendly-Sarah who is always at GG's side, forever looking as if she has a Fairtrade liquid cosh somewhere about her person, should her husband start acting up.

Yet perhaps Samantha Cameron was listening to Mandy. She certainly kept a low profile over the weekend, celebrating her 39th birthday quietly at home, while gently fuming about Miriam's Clegg’s peep toed shoes. Husband David apparently roasted a chicken all by himself too and with dazzling repartee, also told reporters: 'In order to keep my marriage healthy and strong, I'm going home to spend the day with my wife.'

That was after carefully posing with his parents in the garden of a Swindon pub.

Is it any wonder I feel down? I should have been away from all this nonsense by now. Mind you, Tooothsome Tony is apparently stranded in Israel, so some good has come out of the travel chaos. The Israelis are welcome to him.

 

18^th April 2010

I should have been relaxing in my window seat right now, gazing down on the chennel or parts of Europe. Instead of which, I am back at my desk, feeling awfully flat and ready for another week of my Daily Rant.

After a long discussion with a sweet girl at the Travel Agency yesterday, I postponed my flight for a week, thereby effectively missing my train connection from Cape Town and my lift from Johannesburg to Bulawayo.

However, there was little choice and at least I have time on my side. Dave and Ann Wheatley who live down the road have a daughter getting married in America next Saturday and are due to fly out on Wednesday. Needless to say, they are panicking at the prospect of missing the wedding, but there is just nothing they can do.

For the first time in 104 years, the Liberal Democrats are top of the opinion polls, but this is a General Rejection, rather than a general election. It is amazing but true that more people want a hung parliament than want any of the main parties to win.

And the enthusiasm for Tricky Nicky Clegg after Thursday night’s debate is much more a turn away from Dashing David and the Gormless One than an endorsement of Tricky Nick’s somewhat inept party. He had better be careful. If he looks as if he might win, the public will have to find a new outsider to back.

In fact, the Great British Public seem rather over-excited about Tricky Nicky after one polished performance on the idiot box. He was head and shoulders above the other two so-called leaders on the night, it is true. His ‘man-of-the-people’ manner left Dashing David looking completely out of touch. Mind you, the set looked like cheap daytime TV and a couple of times I thought the leaders had bored the audience to death, so quiet were they. I know that’s the rules but when Gormless Gord bounded off stage at the end of the show and grabbed people’s hands, I thought maybe he was checking their pulses.

It really was that bad.

Now the BBC has been criticised for using licence fee payers’ money to send staff on a course to teach them how to listen. All 23,000 employees have been offered the chance to attend the course, called Listening Skills, which promises to teach them how to listen, why listening is important and how to ask questions.

Surely these are basic skills and if someone doesn’t have them, they should not be empoyed – at our expense – by the Beeb?

A BBC spokesman said there was ‘a difference between listening and effective listening,’ and added that the course could be completed in an hour.

I still begrudge paying for it.

Nothing – especially facts and logic – seems to stop the ill-informed frenzy of rage against the Roman Catholic Church that is going on at the moment. There is even talk of arresting the Pope when he visits Britain at the end of the year.

Let me list a few salutary thoughts for those who are taken in by this feeding frenzy.

First, what do they think happened to small boys and girls in the pre-Christian world, when the molesting of the young by the old was considered normal? Haven’t they also noticed that one of the main campaigns of the sexual ­liberation front is the reduction of the age of consent? For whose benefit is this?

Anyone would think the Vatican told its priests to be paedophiles, when in truth the opposite is the case. 

Second, the gripping blog written by a social worker calling himself Winston Smith records the result of mass abuse of children by the ­liberal, secular state in ‘care homes.’ Not Catholic orphanages, you will notice.

In this case, the abuse takes the form of feeble neglect. It receives innocent children betrayed by their parents (thanks to the relaxed morals of liberal Britain) and turns them into feral monsters doomed to lives of misery, violence, drugs and crime.

Who speaks out against it? Not the Left. Not those who are so busy castigating Popey. They don’t even whimper, their energies concentrated on belittling Catholics in general and the Catholic clergy in particular.

The anti-Pope campaigners must work out what they really care about. Are they, as they claim, trying to help the children? Or is this all just a pretext to attack one of the last remaining strongholds of Christianity?

Definitely symptomatic of the times we live in is the story of a cat which was stranded for 7 days, some 100 feet up a giant redwood tree. The fire brigade were called, but their ladders couldn’t reach the moggie and the crews said it was not safe to clamber any further up the tree. Apparently, their ‘extra ladders were unsuitable.’

What nonsense! What has happened to the backbone of various branches of the security services. As a bobby, I hauled myself high into the upper branches of trees to rescue cats who didn’t really want to be rescued and it was all part of the job.

The effete nancy boys who make up today’s fire services ought to be ashamed of themselves that not one man – or woman – had the gumption to climb the extra feet and rescue the cat. They are trained for this sort of thing damnit!

In the end, a tree surgeon was called in and rapidly climbed the tree to bring the moggy down.

I know what I would have said to those firemen and it would not have been complimentary.

17th April 2010

In theory, my latest adventure begins today, but I don’t think I am going to get far. I haven’t heard the news yet this morning, but my perusal of the morning newspapers would seem to show that aircraft still aren’t flying. It shouldn’t really be a huge hassle, but it will make my connections during my first hectic week in South Africa somewhat parlous.

Oh well, there is nothing that I or anyone else can do about it and I am certainly not in as dire a predicament as many stranded travellers. All I can do is wait it out.

In Zimbabwe, the Youth Minister Saviour Kasukawere seems to be cosying up to his South African counterpart, the evil Julius Malema, but their new friendship has led to the appearance of a joke, doing the rounds via text messages in Zim.

It would seem that the Pope and the worthy Julius are on a stage in front of a huge crowd. The Pope leans towards Julius and says, "Do you know that with one wave of my hand I can make this crowd go wild with joy? Not a momentary display, like your followers, but deep in their hearts so they forever speak of this day and rejoice!?"

Malema frowns and says: "I seriously doubt that! With one wave of your hand? Show me."

So the Pope gave him a fat slap across the ear and the crowd went wild.

I know it wasn’t very funny, but it shows that despite all their problems, Zimbabweans can still laugh.

Here, that single mother who sued the army for over a million bucks and won her claim of race and sex discrimination against the Ministry of Defence was awarded £17,016 by an employment tribunal.

Even that was far too much. Tilern DeBique who was reported to have been seeking £1million in a row over childcare, had argued that she was expected to be available for duty ‘24/7, 365 days a year.’

That is what soldiers do, Lady. However, this harridan, whose daughter Tahlia is now four, had argued that she was forced to choose between a military career and her child.

Yet it now transpires that while portraying herself as a devoted single mother, she has in fact spent nearly two years apart from her daughter after dispatching her to the Caribbean to live with her sister. Tahlia was just three months old when she was handed over to her aunt Sonia. It was almost a year before Sonia took the child back to the UK to be with her mother. And less than a year after that, Tahlia was back in St Vincent.

As I said, even £17,016 was far too much.

Perhaps the word has gone out and members of these tribunals are beginning to see a bit of sense for a change. In another case, two high-flying City women say they may appeal after an employment tribunal ruled that men calling a female banker's breasts ‘honkers’ and saying women ‘belong at home cleaning floors’ was banter, not sexism.

Maureen Murphy and Anna Francis were ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the judgment. Their solicitor said: “We are considering our right of appeal.”

But why for God’s sake. Both women were high-powered banking executives, so surely they could take a few words being bandied about the office? Instead of which, they tried to claim a cool £3 million for sex and race discrimination.

It surely has to be time that particular bandwagon was brought to a shuddering halt.

It was the great philosopher, Nietzsche who said we should build our homes on the sides of volcanoes. He didn't have Eyjafjallajökull in mind though, but Vesuvius.

“The secret of realising the greatest fruitfulness and the great enjoyment of existence is to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! … Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer.”

Nietzsche may not be the best advert for volcanoes but he had a point. It's certainly makes life seem much more exciting than our boring general election does. If only I wasn’t flying to Cape Town at this particular time.

Oh well, I will return to this blog from time to time, but where I am going, access to computers will not be easy, so my rants are likely to be few and far apart over the next three months. I hope all of you enjoy yourselves and please spare the occasional thought for this wandering scribbler. As I shall spend weeks without any grog, you could also raise the odd glass in sympathy too.

I will be back with the Daily Rant on a regular basis at the beginning of August.

Take care and my best to you all.

16^th April 2010

Well, that is the last gardening job done and the last talk delivered – at least until August when I start all over again with an elephant talk two days after I return.

I would love to think that I can relax over the next two days, but of course, there is packing to struggle with and a list of chores to be done as long as the proverbial arm.

And of course, there is no guarantee that I will fly out on time anyway, as it would appear that all aircraft flying over Britain are still grounded. No doubt there is a risk of volcanic ash clogging up the jet engines of airliners, but does that justify the knee-jerk stupidity which closed every airport immediately?

Was there really an imminent danger of planes falling out of the sky like flies? Or was this just another manifestation of the 'can't be too careful' culture which seeks to erase every iota of risk from our everyday lives?

We see it everywhere. The moment a car skids on the motorway, the police close the road in both directions. It remains resolutely shut until the 'crime scene' investigators have pored over the area with their theodolites and tape measures, with no regard for the grief caused to the paying public.

The brain-dead tosspots in charge take a perverse delight in causing the maximum possible inconvenience. Reaction to any incident is blind panic. They figure if they close everything down ‘just in case,’ they can't be blamed if the worst happens. Our society is now so risk-averse that yesterday we learned that a supermarket butcher has been banned from boning meat with a sharp knife because he might cut himself.

This ludicrous mentality is sadly commonplace, as fear of being sued for compensation drives public policy.

Yet despite the mass panic and draconian prevention measures taken yesterday,  TV news was showing film taken within the ash clouds over Scandinavia. You could see the wings of the plane the footage was shot from. Why was it safe for that reconnaissance aircraft to fly into the eye of the storm and not safe for the 11.15 from Gatwick to take off for Madrid?

Since the volcanic nimbus was not visible from the ground, wouldn't it have been possible for planes to fly beneath the clouds? Surely modern airliners are well equipped to cope with what would seem to be fairly straightforward manifestations of Nature.

I am sure that the risk was genuine, but I refuse to believe that there was no alternative other than complete lockdown. If our modern health and safety industry had existed during World War II, the Battle of Britain would have been a walkover for the Luftwaffe and 633 Squadron would never have got off the ground.

I still don’t know whether I will fly out on time though and that worries me.

Would you believe that a backlog of prisoners waiting for execution has built up in Zimbabwe after the sudden retirement of the official hangman. The man quit his job after he was said to be struggling with his conscience and now the government is desperately searching for a replacement. About 50 inmates are waiting on death row at Chikurubi maximum security prison outside Harare.

Zimbabwe's last hangman, said to have been an unnamed former Zambian police officer, left after his contract with the prisons service and justice ministry expired. A former top prison officer said that the executioner was always extremely remorseful about his job.

The government has prepared notices and an advertisement offering employment for a part-time hangman, which have yet to be published, said Edson Chiota, of the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender.

I wonder if they name these august bodies to fit in with the more commonly used acronym. ZACPRO sounds quite good really, but I digress. It would appear that the hangman’s job requires only a high school education, but extra training would seem in order since studies have shown execution by hanging involves knowledge of body weight, human physiology, ropes, knots and basic mechanics.

Perhaps I missed my vocation, but I could do that.

I watched bits of the ‘leaders’ debate’ on the idiot box last night, but it was bland and totally boring. Tricky Nick would seem to have gained most plaudits for his performance in todays newspapers but he hardly inspired confidence as a future prime minister.

Gormless Gord kept trying to claim that Tricky Nick agreed with him, but TN said he did not agree. Dashing David did more smiling and laughing than the other two and at the end of it all, GG leapt off the stage to start shaking hands with all and sundry.

At which point the great vortex of spinning began. Labour's tactic was to praise the Tricky One. I wonder why? When asked what he thought,  Paddy Ashdown narrowed his eyes and asserted that Tricky Nick 'walked away with it.’

Well he woyuld say that, wouyldn’t he?

George Osborne said he was delighted. Alastair Campbell said he was 'surprised Cameron didn't do better.’ All so very predictable, but entertainment it was not.

So far in this election there has been a complete absence of anything relating to the issues which affect people where they live. Take Melvyn and Michelle Sylvester, from Andover, who were surprised to find their recycling had not been collected because there was 'food' in it.

Dustmen refused to empty the bin after discovering it contained six fruit pips on top of an empty pizza box. They said the load was contaminated. This, of course, has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with showing us who's boss. At every turn, the relationship between taxpayers and those we employ to provide our public services has been turned upon its head.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the lunatic refuse collection regimes brought in at the Government's behest in order to meet EU directives, complete with an exciting range of punishments. Criminalising householders who accidentally put the 'wrong' kind of waste in their dustbins is monstrous and ample illustration of a state rampantly out of control. It should have even the mildest-mannered among us reaching for the baseball bat, but none of the political leaders has bothered to mention it.

I don’t think I have ever seen Kate Winslet perform and wouldn’t know her if I passed her on the street, but I do know she is a film star who lives in America. Whether she is actually American or not, I don’t know but I see that she has appealed to some of Britain's leading chefs to ban foie gras from their menus. What has it got to do with her?

Is she merely trying to boost her own image by adopting a cause from the achingly fashionable zealots at Peta, the animal rights organisation?

I like foie gras I’m afraid and besides, if I want to stuff my face with roast puppy or dormice stuffed with quinces, then I jolly well will, no matter how much some jumped up actress disapproves.

In fact I am becoming heartily sick of being told what to do by celebrities with a pet peeve. Industrial farming, the mass production of cheap poultry; cheap eggs, bad beef - all this is far, far worse, yet these overblown prima donnas say nothing about such practices.

However, foie gras is an easy, headline-grabbing target for Miss W to adopt. Sarah Brown refused to eat it at a Nato summit last year – now others are following suit.

Why don’t they leave us alone damnit!

Primark has come in for criticism for selling bikinis for seven-year-old girls, complete with padded bra tops. In its defence, the High Street chain released a cringing statement which claimed that 'every girl wants to look her best and at Primark we make no exception for the younger ladies.’

I don't know which was worse - the inappropriate garments or the inappropriate justification, couched in the language of the pervy uncle making creepy excuses for himself.

Primark later removed the offending items from the shelves and donated the profits made from any bikinis sold to a charity. This only underlines the depressing fact that parents were actually buying them.

What saddens me most is not the assertion that these padded tops would 'attract' paedophiles, as many commentators claimed. They would not have helped, but paedophiles are pruriently interested in children, not what they wear.

And it is not just that the tops are padded, even if it is a hideous detail that says much about our casually sexualized society. The worst thing is why have bikini tops for little girls in the first place? 

It is a typical example of how children are no longer allowed to be children.

Is it any wonder I prefer my elephants?

 
 

15^th April 2010

I am late this morning but the most amazing thing happened – I actually slept right through the night, only waking up at ten past seven this morning. And that after a two hour sleep in the afternoon too. I think I must have been tired.

Anyway, with the completion of yesterdays job at Slad, that is gardening over for the next few months and after my elephant talk to the good ladies of Hugglecote later on this morning, my talks will be done too and I can get on with packing and preparing for my trip.

Only two days to go now and I can feel the very slightest stirring of excitement in my tummy.

Mind you that is two more days of listening to the interminable twaddle, spoken by the politicians in the run up to this idiotic election.. Labour is using very patronising language in its attempts to inspire terror over the prospect of a Conservative government. Lord Mandyflower for instance has been warning voters that the Tories are planning to ‘abandon’ families who would be ‘left to fend for themselves.’  Isn’t that that what grown-ups were once expected to do, except in dire, exceptional circumstances when the community, or even the country, would provide support to help them get back on their feet until they could once again ‘fend for themselves?’ I thought that fending for yourself was pretty much the point of adult life.

Gormless Giord also got in on the act, making this statement in response to the Tory manifesto a couple of days ago: “They (the Conservatives) are leaving you on your own.” So what? We aren’t children, afraid of the dark. Is this really the way Labour sees the population of Britain? Does it think that the British – whose twentieth century history marked them as one of the most courageous and resourceful peoples in the world – are really so infantile and timid that they will quake at the thought of being ‘abandoned’ by an all-powerful central government?

And I don’t think I am the only one who is fed up with this idiotic blethering already. A Populus poll yesterday revealed extreme disenchantment with the campaign, as well as much scepticism about manifesto pledges and the trustworthiness of the parties. Sensing the mood, Dashing David immediately opined that 'politicians have been treating the public like mugs for about 40 years, pretending that we the politicians have all the answers.’

The Tory leader was trying to suggest that somehow he is different. In fact, in the timeworn business of treating us like mugs, there is little to differentiate him from GG, Tricky Nick or the rest of them. This is the phoniest election in modern times, and it is phoney because all of them, Mr Cameron included, have deliberately made it so.

They do not, as politicians once did, address huge gatherings that might include political opponents, some of whom would heckle or even throw the odd rotten tomato. The whole bogus process is stage-managed by flunkeys to eliminate the possibility of their leaders meeting ordinary and possibly disgruntled people.

Individuals masquerading as members of the public are hand-picked, and are almost inevitably party loyalists. GG is photographed entering a supposedly ordinary home, but you can bet your half full piggy bank that his visit is painstakingly choreographed, and the chances of someone asking a hostile question, far less tossing a cream bun in his direction, are precisely nil.

We know it is all a load of old baloney because we can see that it is. Dashing David launches the Conservative manifesto against a backdrop of people more carefully selected than England's World Cup football team. There are obligatory quotas of non whites, attractive young women and men of youthful appearance whose collective presence is calculated to convey the modern Tory Party. If like me, you are over 60, or not particularly pleasing in appearance, forget it. You won’t be asked.

And the launch had to take place in a derelict power station (Britain is derelict, but we can fix it) even though it has been in this condition since Margaret Thatcher strutted her stuff. Similarly, Labour chose to launch its manifesto in a brand new Birmingham hospital (Haven't we built a lot of those, we clever Labour fellows!?)

As for the wives! Doubtless the Media are to blame for dwelling on every detail of their attire, but perhaps this is because political dispute and controversy have been removed from modern elections, so journalists and other political hacks find themselves discussing the footwear of the leaders' compliant wives, or their nail varnish – or even the size of Samantha Cameron’s ‘bump.’

And wasn’t that carefully stage managed? From the size of her tummy, she has been pregnant for a fair few months, but it was only announced shortly before campaigning began. Do these people really take us all for mugs? Yes, I’m afraid they do.

What a load of tosh it all is. Roll on Saturday when I can get out of the world for a while.

I am not a follower of Eastenders, although my grand daughter watches it with religious fervour. Now we learn that slapping has been stamped out on the programme after years of its stars giving each other authentic wallops.

BBC health and safety chiefs have now banned slapping altogether, obviously fearing it's not good to have their stars smacking each other. Perhaps one of them might actually be hurt.

Yet many of the famous Albert Square punch ups have been done for real to boost authenticity and this has led to a certain charm in what would otherwise be a somewhat vacuous peep into what purports to be real life..

Actor John Partridge, who plays Christian Clarke, yesterday revealed: "We want to do real slaps but health and safety won't let us. It has all got to be staged. We now have to employ stunt co-ordinators for any slapping scenes.”

Says it all really. What a namby pamby society this has become.

 

14^th April 2010

As if this country hasn’t suffered enough with the winter just passed, I read this morning that next week, the temperature will drop to zero ish again and many places will have yet more snow.

Thank God I will be back in Africa.

I gave an excellent elephant talk last evening to the ladies of Twyning W.I on the other side of the County. When I arrived, the chairlady expressed disappointment that I hadn’t brought any slides. I assured her that I would be entertainment enough, so had to live up to that. For once, I was on form and one of the compliments paid later was that it had been a ‘wonderful evening.’

That was nice now, wasn’t it?

This government has put so many ruddy criminal record checks in place over the years, that it is now difficult to get a job as a garden boy without having your dabs checked to see if you have been a naughty boy in the past.

The trouble is that  all this escalating bureaucracy is proving too much for officialdom to cope with. Over the past six years, the Criminal Records Bureau has been forced to admit making mistakes in almost 15,000 cases. It is now paying compensation at a rate of £290,000 a year.

Last night campaigners said the scale of the errors was typical of the 'lackadaisical' approach ministers have to personal data. Of course it is and things will only worsen when the new and controversial Independent Safeguarding Authority begins vetting up to nine million people who come into contact with children, including parents who want to help out at schools, sports clubs or youth groups.

The scale of the controversy emerged yesterday following a Freedom of Information request to the CRB. This revealed that during the financial year 2008/09, 2,522 disputes handled by the agency were upheld. These related to claims that the information passed on by the CRB was either inaccurate or intended for someone else.

The CRB, an arm of the Home Office, also admitted paying £290,124 during 2008/09 in 'apology payments.’ Over the previous five years, more than 12,000 disputed cases were upheld.

Some of the blunders are due to errors made by staff at the CRB but others are caused by law enforcement agencies such as the police releasing details that have been recorded inaccurately. The sad thing is that many victims of these vetting errors will never even know that a mistake has been made. A job applicant may be turned down without being aware that the employer's rejection was based on an inaccurate CRB check.

The CRB said it issued 3,855,881 'certificates' in 2008/09. Its checks provide access to a range of information taken from the Police National Computer, including convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings

A spokesman said: 'The CRB does not pay compensation, but makes ex-gratia payments to reinforce the sincerity of an apology.'

Gobbledygook I’m afraid and apologies do not help those whose lives might be ruined by pure, bungling incompetence.

When Christopher Hemsley tucked into a crayfish, he had caught during a trip to the Lake District, he thought he was doing his bit for the environment as well as enjoying a good meal.

After all, the lobster-like American signal crayfish pose such a threat to native wildlife that they are high on the Environment Agency's list of most wanted foreign species.

But yesterday Hemsley’s fishing trip landed the 'active environmentalist' with a fine of £4000 after it emerged that he had instead caught and cooked one of Britain's rarest crustaceans.

PC John Shaw, a wildlife officer from Cumbria Constabulary, said: 'This case demonstrates how seriously police and the criminal justice system takes the issue of wildlife crime. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful county with precious, natural habitats and will deal robustly with anyone who decides to try and spoil it.'

I wonder does that pious statement cover the rapists, burglars and muggers who get away with slaps on the wrist – or can the cops only catch those who mistakenly break the law?

I received sad and sobering news from Kariba yesterday. A young diver was repairing an underwater pump belonging to the crocodile farm when his arm was caught up in the machinery and ripped off. He died pretty quickly and in what must have been horrible circumstances. Yes, he should have had someone with  him as back up – Never Dive Alone is the golden rule of underwater work – but these common sense rules don’t seem to apply in countries like Zimbabwe and we have all been guilty of going down on our own from time to time.

Travis Dally died horribly and for me, it is a warning that Lake Kariba is a hugely dangerous piece of water and has to be respected at all times.

I certainly won’t be treating her with contemptuous indifference when I paddle next month. I know the lake and her moods only too well and will be very careful and hugely respectful.

Kariba is like a very beautiful woman – wonderful to look at and be part of, but subject to moods that are horribly dangerous.

 

No wonder I love her so.

 
 

13^th April 2010 

With but 4 days to go, I am well and truly on the last lap and I still can’t find my ruddy dictaphone. Why is there always one little item that manages to disappear at the very final hour?

 

Everything else seems to be coming together though and I leave Cirencester on the 3 o’clock coach on Saturday.

 

Going back to talent shows, I have to admit that I have never heard Susan Boyle sing, but a year ago, we were all feeling sorry for her as being a shy, put-upon young lady without a great deal going for her apart from her voice. Now she has enjoyed a bit of public adulation and a big wad of money, she would seem to have metamorphosed into a virago of note.

 

Not for the first time, she has been ranting and raving with a sackful of expletives in public - this time on a flight from Japan. What is it about human beings that makes them change so radically when they find themselves in the public eye after a lifetime in the shadows? It really is no wonder I prefer elephants and to be honest, I don’t think I want to hear Miss Boyle sing.

What sort of a nation is this when army chiefs now face the nightmare prospect of having to consider their soldiers' childcare problems before giving them orders. This devastating blow follows a successful sex discrimination claim brought by a single mother.

Tilern DeBique says she was forced to leave the Army because she was expected to be available for duty around the clock. She was a soldier for God’s sake!

Miss deBique was formally disciplined when she failed to appear on parade because she had to look after her daughter. She was told the Army was a 'war-fighting machine' and 'unsuitable for a single mother who couldn't sort out her childcare arrangements.’

Now she is in line for a payout of at least £100,000 for loss of earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages.

How many more recruits will now climb on the bandwaggon and argue that their childcare rights must be considered.

Where are the Nation’s leaders damnit?!

I suppose the answer to that could be that they were in Birmingham yesterday at the launch of the Labour Party manifesto. What a farce that was. There was Gormless Gordon standing in a computer-generated cornfield, answering prepared questions from a carefully vetted audience of nodding dogs. It was about as real as a Tom and Jerry Cartoon.

The image consultants had put GG in a pink tie, a colour he surely wouldn't have chosen for himself, and made him go to bed with a coat-hanger in his mouth so that he is forced to smile more. Anyway, it was all for show. Gormless Gord has never made a manifesto commitment he isn't prepared to break, otherwise we'd have had a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and no increase in the top rate of income tax.

They had an area reserved for Cabinet Ministers at the ‘show’ yesterday and they arrived in small bursts, each little group being greeted by applause from the 300 or so activists who crowded into the atrium foyer.

Peter Hain and Lady Scotland were at the back of the VIP enclosure. Poor old Peter. How he must have longed for those far off days when as an anti apartheid agitator, he could command headlines. He is still so obviously determined to be taken seriously, yet so doomed to be marginal. Even Sadiq Khan and Rosie Winterton were nearer the stage than him. Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls were up the front, near Lord Mandyflower. Yvette in her bolshy black boots. Mr Balls, hair cut short in the manner of a Chicago cop, shone like a round red apple.

Gormless Gord entered with Sarah on his arm, that bucket jaw, working overtime, like a Pac-man gobbling tokens as he greeted the activists. The Browns sat down and the audience were then treated to a two-minute cartoon of characters called Jack, James and Jill. This brief film had to be the most puerile thing ever seen on an election trail.

It had finger-shaped characters holding placards such as 'Support the Hedgehog' and 'Ban Artichokes'. An actor put on a moronic voice and asked the question: 'Does my opinion really count?' To which a patronising voice said: 'Yes!'

That of course was the cue for Horrible Harriet to speak. She talked of  Labour’s achievements, among them the number of people 'trained as teachers and Nazis.’ Well, it should have been Nazis, but she probably meant nurses.

When Mr Brown’s turn finally came, it was less about the detail of the manifesto than a general stump speech. Mundane to a surprising degree, even for him. He noted the splendours of the hospital in which the audience were by now all shivering and said: 'We didn’t just fix the roof, we built the entire hospital.' Yes, but what about the central heating? Those poor folk were quite obviously freezing.

Then it was time for questions. The BBC’s Nick Robinson was jeered by the activists and a man from the pro-Tory Sun was hissed and booed. 

The Gormless One clipped on that plastic smile we saw during his infamous You Tube video. Someone must have told him to look upbeat about it all although with his record that has to be an impossibility. From time to time he invited a minister to come and stand near him to cough up an answer. Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, cried: 'I don’t think I can improve on your perfect answer, Prime Minister.' He will obviously go places, but how sickeningly servile.

It all looked horribly cramped and underplanned. Mandyflower wisely declined an offer to address the hall. Mrs Brown looked elegantly tired. Yvette scowled. Ed Miliband blinked and yawned. Ed Balls did keep clapping, though. He is obviously the last of the true believers – or perhaps h has an eye on higher things.

Oh what a disastrous start to Labour’s election campaign that was. I wonder what the Tories will produce today? Surely it can’t be worse – or can it?

Don’t you love these committees of learned experts who come up with such surprising findings about the state of our lives? From the same government department that must have been set up to investigate what bears do in the woods, comes news that grammar schools offer gifted children from poor families the best prospect of advancement.

Next week, they will be telling us that Roman Catholics make the best Popes.

 I did like the headline on yesterday’s Times. It read, 'Labour will force foreign workers to speak English.'

 

I’ll bet they won’t. After all, that might well be  against their human rights.

And now we learn that Quenton Morley and the other thieving MPs who are appearing in Court for their expenses fiddling, are being granted legal aid. That means that not only is it our money that these twisters have stolen, but they are using our money to try and wriggle out of it.

I suppose they will call it justice, but I can't see that I'm afraid.

 

12^th April 2010

Five days to go and at last things seem to be coming together. One of my biggest worries has been the long wait that I have to endure at Heathrow before my flight – which leaves at 6.30 on Sunday morning. Yesterday, my daughter persuaded me to ring nephew Paul who lives nearby and – despite having to run a marathon the following morning – he was enthusiastic. I shall have to fight to make him drop me off at elevenish, rather than three in the morning, but at least  that takes care of some of those long, waiting hours.

In the real world, life plods on. As election fever and speculation mounts, I can only wonder how the present Parliament will be looked on by history. The Rotten Parliament perhaps? The Duckpond Parliament - the Flipping Parliament? It will certainly have been a very long Parliament: when it is dissolved on Monday, one month short of its absolute, five-year maximum. In fact, it will have outlasted any since the Second World War. For its MPs – both those hoping to return and those leaving, either voluntarily or following defeat at the polls, the final year has been a traumatic experience. But notwithstanding the calamity that it brought upon itself, this was not a Parliament that achieved a great deal beyond further restricting the freedoms of the people that elected it, by failing to stand up to an over-mighty executive.

What great and lasting reforms will the parliamentarians of 2005-10 be able to point to with pride? The ban on smoking in public places, perhaps, or the introduction of identity-card legislation for the first time since 1952? More restrictions on free speech and the further erosion of personal responsibility, while more national power drained away to Europe. It is hardly a Parliament that historians would consider worthy of study were it not for one factor that will mark it out from all others - the great expenses scandal of 2009, whose consequences have been, and will continue to be, far-reaching. Not only did it lead to the first removal of a Speaker in more than 300 years, it has also subjected the body that makes the law to outside scrutiny for the first time since the Glorious Revolution, because the public can no longer trust its elected representatives to behave in a proper way. As legacies go, that is a pretty shameful one.

It had been envisaged that this general election, long overdue, would act as a purgation, cleansing the next Parliament of the taint of its predecessor. However, there are a number of MPs standing again who remain under investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, and whose cases have not been resolved. Mr Lyon has refused to say who they are, or even how many there are. This information should be made available by the parties or the candidates themselves. On this matter, the public expects and demands total transparency. If the new Parliament is not to be stalked by the ignominy of its predecessor, this election must draw a line under the expenses scandal; yet how will this be achieved if some candidates are re-elected, only for voters to discover subsequently that they have been guilty of abusing the system? To this end, the idea of a recall mechanism whereby MPs, subject to safeguards to prevent vexatious campaigns, can be required to submit to a by-election is a reform worth pursuing. As we bid a less than fond farewell to this Parliament, it is of vital importance to the health of our democracy that its successor comes to be remembered for the right reasons.

Or it would be in an ideal world.

Meanwhile the shenanigans between party leaders go on. I got quite hot under the collar when I read that Gormless Gordon has blocked an attempt by Dashing David  to make Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, a Tory peer.

The move will widely be seen as pay-back for criticisms Dannatt made of government policy while a serving officer. GG was also furious that Dannatt took a job advising the Conservatives on defence last year while technically still a member of the army, which bans political activity.

But was that really the case? DD announced last year that he planned to nominate Dannatt for the Lords ‘so he could serve in a future Conservative government.’ The move, less than a year after the general had retired, provoked criticism from senior military figures and within Whitehall. They warned it could threaten the political impartiality of the military and set a precedent.

Even Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, inadvertently called Dannatt’s proposed appointment to the Lords a gimmick and that surely is exactly what it is.

The man was probably a fine soldier and was not afraid to speak his mind, but what experience can he possibly have of government? DD is merely trying to score points and show the Prime Minister up as ‘anti forces’ yet again.

Do you ever think back to the demise of the Roiman Empire and compare it with what is happening now in modern Britain? I certainly do and the parallels are quite startling. The Romans had their ‘games’ with massive crowds baying for more and more blood. Modern Britain has the same thing in a different format.

A man with learning difficulties dies of a heart attack in his front garden after a confrontation with youths who have been persecuting him. A mother kills herself and her handicapped daughter after years of local mockery. Parents worry as vulnerable children find themselves being tormented when they log on to Facebook.

Doesn’t sound too much like Christians being torn to pieces in front of a slavering mob does it, but this weekend sees the return of TV's Britain's Got Talent, that institutionalised form of mass humiliation where the studio audience is encouraged to laugh at the talentless and delusional.

Is there a connection? In the wider sense, I think there might be. I'm not saying television producers are in any way responsible for the deaths of those who because of their ill-health or ill-fortune just didn't fit in, any more than it's TV's fault that some children use Facebook against others as a weapon.

But for some reason there is now a growing culture of humiliation in this country, by which we laugh at people simply because they are different. and we are blind if we do not see that among the cheerleaders for this behaviour are the popular reality TV shows that millions of people enjoy watching.

We've all seen that smirk on Simon Cowell's face as he dismisses the dismally untalented with a few tart words, but how often do we stop to think that the only reason these victims to his barbs are on the show is so that we can laugh at them - in other words, so that we, at a distance and in the anonymity of our homes, can become part of the baying mob.

I imagine Cowell and the producers of Big Brother, The X Factor, The Apprentice, and all those other programmes where people end up being humiliated would claim that they are in the business of discovering new stars or entrepreneurs, and that they are simply sorting the talented wheat from the useless chaff in an entertaining fashion.

But finding the stars is only a part of this TV formula. an equally important ingredient is the inclusion - for the purposes of mockery - of the truly untalented.

And we think we are more civilised than the Romans?

11^th April 2010

Into my last week now and the round of farewells has started. I had a cool drink – would you believe Sainsburys had run out of ice? – yesterday with lovely Dianne Targett and then went across the road for tea with the equally lovely Giulia Boden yesterday. I don’t see either of them very often apart from enthusiastic waving to Giulia from time to time, but it is touching to know that they will occasionally be thinking of me and wondering how I am faring over the next three months or so.

Today it will be the Brats and Bratlets, which will be somewhat more difficult. I am not afraid of dying, but I do want to see my Bratlets grow up.

I didn’t watch the Masterchef nonsense on the idiot box, but one thing that seems to have niggled at a number of commentators is the way BBC bosses insisted on describing finalist Tim Kinnaird as a ‘children’s doctor.’

I can only agree - when did you last hear anyone referred to as an ‘adults' doctor’ for God’s sake? And what is wrong with the word paediatrician?

I can only assume the word was regarded as too toxic to utter on screen because of its similarity to another dread p-word — paedophile. Over the past few years, there has been a spate of attacks by moronic ‘vigilantes’ on paediatricians in the mistaken belief they are paedophiles, so this would have been the perfect opportunity for the BBC to educate the Great Unwashed. Instead it missed a trick in its frantic efforts to avoid being politically incorrect.

Hell, we should celebrate paediatricians, not be coy about them. A spade is a spade, a paediatrician is a paediatrician and a paedophile is a ruddy pederast, no matter what the uneducated world might say.

The next honours list will not come as a great surprise to anyone and is yet another slap in the face for the Public. Many of those who lied and cheated their way through the expenses scandal will be elevated to the Lords and nobody will turn a hair.

Can you imagine Lord ruddy Prescott for instance? The House of Lords is the last place he should be going. Quite apart from his hopeless record in office, he is the world’s leading class warrior with a chip on his shoulder so big it requires planning permission. Besides, what about his blatant assault on a Member of the Public a few years ago? Is this the behavious required of a so called Lord?

Ruth Kelly, a failed Blair Babe, Michael Ancram, a conservative crook, John Reid, a former communist bruiser are also in line for peerages and so the list goes on.

And this lot wonder why the Public hold them in contempt.

And it seems that many shamed MPs  embroiled in the second-home expenses row are in line for an astonishing £180,000 windfall. Nearly 80 of them paid back large sums of money when the scandal over abusing parliamentary allowances broke last year.

Now, in a bizarre turn of events, more than 50 – including some of the most notorious expenses cheats – have been secretly told by Commons officials they can have the cash back after repaying too much. But they must wait until after the Election to make their claim – meaning voters will not know who is planning to take up the offer.

Top of the rebate league is Health Minister Phil Hope, who stands to get about £38,000 of the £42,000 accommodation allowances that he returned last May. Bottom are husband-and-wife Cabinet couple Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, who are each owed the princely sum of 27p.

Gormless Gord could receive about £835 while Dashing David overpaid by £728.

I was always taught that crime doesn’t pay but I no longer believe it.

Meanwhile the election brou-ha-ha gathers pace with Mandyflower taking on the role of chief election strategist for Labour, much to the chagrin of Horrible Harriet. She is reported to be livid that, despite technically holding a more senior role in the party, she has been ousted by Mandyflower and a couple of his trusted – male – colleagues.

To add to her fury, Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper is being lined up for a more visible campaign role. ‘Mandelson is clearly in the driving seat,’ said a senior Labour MP. ‘Harman’s been sent to the gulag. He’s limiting her television appearances and slots at the main daily Press conferences.

‘He thinks her tone can seem a bit hectoring and that if she’s on television people prefer to put the kettle on.’

That is certainly true enough, but when Mandyflower is on, most people prefer to switch the idiot box right off.

What sort of a society is this that personal jokes in the work place can lead to the death of a good man? Roy Amor suddenly found himself facing a disciplinary investigation after suggesting to a black colleague that he ‘better hide’ when they noticed immigration officers outside their clinic.

The man was a close friend of Mr Amor and was not offended. However, the joke was overheard by someone else who lodged a formal complaint.

Mr Amor was immediately suspended and five days later, received an email about the incident from his employers, Opcare, a private company that provides prosthetic and orthotic services to the NHS.

Fearful about losing his job in disgrace, he shot himself outside his home. The black friend was devastated and I hope the cretin who reported the banter between friends as racist is haunted for the rest of his or her life.

To me, this case is a sad reflection on modern society. Mankind really has lost his way in the world.

Now we have a new scheme to save time, trees and carbon emissions in Finland. In future, the authorities there will open every letter, scan it and email it to the intended recipient.

What a completely ridiculous idea! I can only imagine that the poor person entrusted with scanning my bank statements would go pale and fall over. Who cares if letters need postmen and trees? I like receiving letters and if they come in brown envelopes or are appeals for funds by some daft charity, I can toss them into the wood-burner for some much-needed warmth and comfort.

Besides, in rural areas, the postman is the only person many old people get to chat to each day – they are all-seeing and all-knowing. And how on earth can anyone place a ‘virtual card’ on their mantelpiece on special days?

Mind you, the Scandawegians never did possess souls.

 

10^th April 2010

It is the start of my last full week before my odyssey begins and the nerves are fluttering somewhat now. The floor of my office is awash with little bits of kit and equipment that make me wonder where I am going to put them all once I am really under way.

Oh well, it will doubtless work itself out in due course and it is too late to worry now.

In Zimbabwe, the worthy Bishop Abel Muzorewa has turned his toes up after a battle with cancer. A tiny little man with a big ego, he might have been the saviour of white Rhodesians, but he allowed himself to be persuaded to stand down by that odious Lord Carrington and the rest was history. Comrade Bob was elected at the barrel of a gun and look where my poor country is now.

South Africa is in an even more parlous state at the moment, Eugene Terreblanche was buried yesterday and while the British media played the event down, it is very possible that that the killing will strengthen the hand of a new, hardened right wing in South Africa. In life, TerreBlanche attracted a small, uninfluential, and extremist following. He will not be mourned for what he stood for but in death, he might yet still play a part in the future of South Africa.

He may come to represent the experiences of scores of minority groups in the country who perceive themselves as being on the receiving end of racist and now also violent abuse from the ANC. In effect therefore Mr TerreBlanche may be seen as having been martyred for a minority cause in the country.

It is unlikely that a new right wing will take the form of camouflage-clad henchmen on horses, but it could well be a force to be reckoned with. The ANC has often, wrongly identified harmless groups such as the political opposition, Afriforum, as ‘the right wing,’ but this ‘red under every bed’ attitude has seen it lose the trust of many civil society and political groups.

However, in their perceived (by themselves) wisdom, the ANC have belittled and undermined anyone who has dared to speak out against their policies. It has also undermined parliament, the national prosecution service, and the various human rights and other organisations that were established under the Constitution. It may yet usurp the independence of the courts and the judiciary. This has already resulted in a shutting down of many of the democratic channels that were created for citizens in the country to make the Government aware of their concerns and circumstances.

The resurgence of a new political consciousness among minorities could drive an altogether different political force. Such a movement will draw its strength chiefly from hardening attitudes in the white community but perhaps also in the Indian and coloured communities and the end result will be total chaos – the same chaos that currently exists just North of the great, grey, green, greasy Limpopo River.

Here in soggy Britain, we now have managers who have never been teachers being allowed to take up heads' positions under a new fast-track programme. Classroom experience is not a prerequisite for participants in the course which has been launched by the National College for Leadership of Schools.

The scheme, ‘Tomorrow's Heads’ is set to cost £11million a year and lead to 170 people being trained annually. It really does not make a great deal of sense and I can only wonder whether the pratwinkles who run this country ever learn by experience.

The police – once respected throughout the world – are now a laughing stock, mainly due to their fast track promotion programme. The NHS is in serious trouble and costing us all millions, due to the appointment of outside ‘managers’ and now they want to do the same to an already ailing education system.

It truly beggars belief but National College bosses claim that recruiting non-teachers will solve difficulties finding heads to lead primary and special schools in particular.

They really must have their heads in the clouds.

On the subject of education, the head of a girls’ grammar school has quit before she even started, in the face of a malicious Facebook campaign by pupils angry at her appointment. Sally Jarrett was selected ahead of 11 other candidates by governors of Beaconsfield High, who praised her ‘vision, drive and enthusiasm.’

Pupils were also involved in the selection process, and representatives from the student council interviewed the teachers shortlisted for the appointment which begins in September. That in itself is bad enough, but when the pupils did not get the candidate they wanted, they began their Facebook campaign and forced Mrs Jarrett to resign before she even started.

That surely cannot be right and is yet another sad indictment of the education system.

Baroness Scotland is adamant that her cleaner Loloahi Tapui showed her a passport before she employed her. Ms Tapui, from Tonga, is equally certain she did not. Greater even than the mystery over who lied - the cleaner or the Attorney General - is why a woman who has been living in Britain illegally for four years is still here to attend court in the first place. Do they ever send these illegal immigrants home?

The Today programme on Radio 4 is probably the flagship news programme of the BBC, but it is definitely losing its character. In their drive for impartiality, the Beeb promoted the openly homosexual and very bejewelled Evan Davis to the ranks of the Today  presenters, but the poor little man is out of his depth. Listening to him attempt to give Dashing David a verbal mauling over jobs lost to his National Insurance policy was pathetic. For DD it must have been like being chewed by a lady pensioner without her teeth in.

The prospect of a few weeks right out of the twenty first century becomes ever more appealing.

 

 
 
 

9^th April 2010

As I have mentioned before in these pages, I am glad that for once I will be spared at least two weeks of this ridiculous election campaign. Why are we, the poor innocent public subjected to it anyway? The arguments produced by all three parties have been repeated ad infinitum over the past couple of years, so the politicians hardly need a few extra weeks to 'get their message across' to the people. We live in an age of instant communication, of 24-hour rolling news channels for God’s sake. We have heard it all before.

It's not as if the average voter has no access to politics. Quite the opposite. There's no escape from it. The days when party leaders had to address mass meetings in Town Halls and at factory gates are long gone.

Modern 'meet the people' tours are cynical, stage-managed set-pieces. They are about as real as the Oxo adverts. Take those visits to 'ordinary' families. The politicians are in and out quicker than the SAS and the families involved are always carefully rehearsed.

For example,Gormless Gordon gate-crashed a Morrisons supermarket in Kent this week, glad-handing unsuspecting shoppers and barging aside bewildered old ladies at the checkout. This was supposed to illustrate him connecting with down-to-earth, middle-class folk, just like him, but what he wasn't so keen for us all to find out was that he only turned up at Morrisons because Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury's told him to get lost.

By the same token, do we really want to see Dashing David doing his Barack Obama act, rolling up his sleeves in front of a carefully-vetted, ethnically-representative, sexually-balanced, improbably young audience straight from central casting.

Yes, DD, we know business is on your side over National Insurance. We don't need yet another 30 captains of industry to tell us Labour's tax plans will destroy jobs. At this rate, the Tories won't be happy until everyone from Donald Trump to the proprietor of Patel's Multimart has signed a letter condemning Gordon Brown.

Then of course there was Yellow Cleggy staring earnestly at a lathe, or some weird piece of machinery in what looked like one of Britain's last remaining metal-bashing factories.

There's surely nothing more ridiculous than a professional politician in a shirt and colour-co-ordinated tie together with hard-hat trying to pretend he understands life on the shop floor. Far from demonstrating how in touch they are with real people, these carefully-confected PR stunts serve to prove only that politicians inhabit a different planet.

None of this will shift more than a few votes either way at the margins in any case.

What all these pratwinkles hope is that somewhere along the campaign trail one of their opponents will make a 'gaffe' - what the rest of us call 'telling the truth.’

The truth is that the truth is going to be in short supply over the next four weeks. None of them, not even (perhaps especially) the Conservatives, will come clean about the scale of the task and the sacrifices we are all going to have to make to clean up the toxic economic wasteland GG and his cronies have created over the past 13 years.

And now our cretinous prime minister wants to lower the voting age to 16. Why for God’s sake should he wish to give the vote to 1.5 million teenagers who lack any experience of life - the majority of whom have not the slightest interest in politics, while most of the rest spout half-baked views in the hope of annoying their parents?

One possibility is that he's been misled by all those intelligent questions he's been asked during his stage-managed school visits. Another is that he's casting his mind back to his own youth - he was just 16, remember when he won a place at Edinburgh University. Maybe he thinks all 16-year-olds are as precocious as he was. But surely not. He's quite bright enough to realise he was a freak.

Hasn’t changed much either.

My favourite story of the week was about the two women who tried to smuggle a dead body aboard a plane at Liverpool airport.

The widow and stepdaughter of 91-year-old Curt Willi Jarant were arrested after they put his corpse in a wheelchair, kitted him out in sunglasses and a hat, and tried to push him on board a flight to Berlin. It's not clear whether he died at the airport or was already dead.

Given the over-the-top security at check-in these days, he probably passed away while queueing for a full-body scan. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they still made him take off his shoes and confiscated his bottle of after-shave, even though he was technically dead.

I've heard of people going abroad to die with dignity in foreign clinics. What's new about this is that even though he was already dead, his relatives still tried to get him out of the country.

Millions have already moved abroad because they don't want to live in Gormless Gordon's Britain. Here we have a case of someone who didn't even want to be seen dead here.

Do you remember that television comedy show, Porridge which starred the Tubby Ronnie as Norman Fletcher, an inmate at Slade Prison. In one episode, after Mr Mackay had been to have his piles fixed on the NHS, the infamous but extremely funny ‘Fletch’ was boasting that he now belonged to PPP, the Private Prisoners' Plan, which guaranteed inmates priority health care.

It was supposed to be a joke.

This week, it was reported that prisoners at Full Sutton, near York, are receiving medical treatment far better than they could expect on the NHS. The prisons' watchdog said inmates, who include convicted terrorists had 'come to expect a particularly gold-plated standard of health care.’

Beggars belief really.

And now they want to allow ordinary names into Scrabble. Surely this is going a little too far, even by twenty first century standards. If we start dumbing down board games, then civilisation as we know it really is all over. And it makes a mockery or every game fought over in the past.

Look at it this way. If proper Scrabble is too taxing for some, then let the dimwits of politically correct and totally inept British society play Snakes & Ladders instead. Or Ladders & Ladders, if even that proves too much for the poor boobies.

For God’s sake, let a few people continue to use their brains.

The Army was accused of gross insensitivity yesterday for putting up seven mosque-like structures on a firing range. Muslim leaders said the replicas were used as symbols of danger and reinforced negative stereotypes of Islam.

The fake buildings - complete with green-domed roofs - were installed on the Black Beck range at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire. During training exercises, soldiers are instructed to fire at wooden targets mounted on rails which emerge from behind the 'mosques.’

Last night, the Ministry of Defence apologised and said it had 'no intention of offending religious sensibilities.’ But a spokesman said it was crucial that the 'generic Eastern buildings' were put up to replicate conditions in Afghanistan ahead of future deployments.

The Bradford Council for Mosques demanded the structures be taken down immediately. Who do they really think they are?

That particular training area began life as a German village in 1942 and has since been 'Northern Ireland' and 'Bosnia.’

It is surely time that chips were removed from shoulders in the Islamic community. They are becoming far too big for anyone to handle.

And why should anyone apologise for preparing soldiers to fight a war?

 

 


 

 

 
 
 

8^th April 2010

I can never understand why so many people appear to enjoy mowing their lawns. I did five long hours of mowing for the Lovely Dragon yesterday and as this was my first major grass cutting job this year, it brought home to me, the mind-numbing boredom of it all.

To make matters infinitely worse, I ache abominably today and have to see the ruddy accountant about winding up our gardening business. The irony of it is that I started my working life in the accounts business and now as a general labourer, am forced to pay someone else to do the books.

Life can be strange at times.

With the general election campaign beginning to roll, the contrast between the two main party leaders is startling. Gormless Gordon presents himself to the electorate as part of a team, perhaps because he is too weak and unpopular to offer himself as a hero in his own right.

Dashing David on the other hand, is pictured everywhere in solitary splendour. Is he perchance the Conservative Party in its entirety? Doesn’t he have colleagues or does he feel he can rule this country on his own?

Speaking as a voter (even though I’ll miss this election) I do not want to elect just Dashing David, but a government, and I hope to be convinced that not only the Tory leader but also his senior colleagues have done some serious thinking and have made plans for the future.

After all, the last person to try this ‘look at me, I’m the greatest’ stunt was Toothsome Tony himself – and look at where that landed the country!

And as the Toothsome One discovered to his cost with his all-women shortlists and the record number of hapless female MPs he got elected in 1997 (most of whom have sunk without trace), politics is a hard business.

DD is now concentrating on producing all sorts of cuddly looking lasses to grace the Tory ranks and it won’t work. These ladies have been chosen because they are women, but they know little about politics. They are DD's ingenues (Cameron’s Cuties to the Media) who he believes, will bring a breath of fresh air into the stuffy corridors of Westminster.

But there are qualities that count more than your gender in politics and they are courage and character. Laudable though it is that a full-time mother of three wants to make a difference, I doubt 28-year-old Keely Huxtable has any idea what lies ahead of her as a backbench MP.

Her last job, working for a haulage company, hardly qualifies her for running the country. A successful MP also needs the hide of a rhinoceros and to be experienced in the day-to-day battle of Parliament.

These women say they have a dream. Haven't we all? Mine is for a government of whichever party that is able to steer this country through the troubled times ahead, stacked full of able and committed politicians who have handled major problems in the past, and can run the country, whatever their sex, sexuality or colour.

Is that too much to ask for I wonder?

While young couples all over the land are struggling to buy their own houses, Travellers in Somerset are being offered interest-free loans, funded by the taxpayer to buy their own land. The new project will give groups of travellers 'mortgages' of up to £50,000 to buy acres of fields on which to settle.

They will then repay the loans over a timespan of their own choosing, without paying a penny in interest. Mendip Council insists this policy will solve the problem of finding suitable sites for official gipsy pitches. A council leaflet encourages travellers to choose sites in built-up areas near schools, transport links and shops.

This is surely a slap in the face for hard working young couples who pay their taxes and save for that precious first home, which usually takes them many years to achieve. Few of the travelling fraternity ever pay tax of any sort, nor do they abide by planning regulations, preferring to squat where they can until they are eventually and at great cost moved on.

If I was paying Council Tax in Mendip, I don’t think I would be pleased.

I have never had much time for the Big O, but at least, Obama has had the courage to openly command the CIA to kill or capture Al Quaeda big wig, Anwar al Awlaki. The man has been a thorn in the side of US authorities for many years and been linked to a number of atrocities there. Now he is based in Yemen and I hope it won’t be long before the CIA operatives find and dispose of him.

But I do admire the Big O for being totally open about it. Contrast that with the mealy mouthed hypocrisy of British politicians when there is even a hint that soldiers or more shadowy operatives might have been guilty of obscure violence.

There is a war against terrorism going on – or so we are told – and in any war, it is a case of kill or be killed. Awlaki knows that; we all know it damnit, but let’s be open about it and not try to hide behind this thin veneer of so called ‘civilisation.’

Here, patients have died because ministers failed to ensure that foreign doctors working out-of-hours shifts can speak English properly. What a surprise!

It is wrong that Britain is sticking rigidly to EU rules which outlaw checks on overseas GPs' language skills - while France happily ignores them - said the Commons Health Select Committee in a damning report.

The committee also poured scorn on the Government for agreeing to GPs' demands for a lucrative contract which makes it too easy for them to opt out of responsibility for out-of-hours care.

This has forced the NHS to bring in doctors from abroad and perpetuates the problem. Surely, it doesn’t take intellect or a high IQ to realise that if these people cannot speak or understand the language of their patients, there will be disasters aplenty and people will die.

Or is that too simple a concept for the cretins who govern this country?

 
 
 
 

7^th April 2010

I gave an elephant talk to a strangely unresponsive audience yesterday and it was a phenomenon I have not encountered before. I have had people fall asleep while I whitter on and that is difficult to cope with, but I can normally raise a few laughs or smiles as I go along. Yesterday, they all sat completely po faced and although they seemed very appreciative afterwards, it was difficult to keep going at times. I must dig out some elephant jokes – preferably dirty ones – in case it happens again.

And of course, yesterday marked the official start of the election campaign and Gormless Gordon scored the first leaders' own goal when he likened the ailing economy to injured footballer Wayne Rooney's ankle.

In a bid to explain why he would not immediately cut spending, the PM said the economy, like Rooney's foot, needed time to recover from injury. GG and his team of political advisers were chuffed to bits with their populist analogy, but by yesterday the ploy had began to unravel.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, a Labour Party donor indicated his star player had made such a speedy recovery that he could be back on the pitch by Sunday.

The same, alas, cannot be said for the economy. Come on GG, you can surely do better than that. Stop trying so obviously to be a man of the People.

But according to his spokesman, the PM's last Cabinet meeting was a jovial affair, with the Gormless One recalling his bungled attempts to woo Sarah. At his bachelor house in Westminster, the then Shadow Chancellor had carefully laid the table in a bid to show off his domestic credentials.

It was only as the future Mrs Brown arrived that he realised his mistake. He had put a duvet cover, and not a tablecloth, on the table.

I trust he didn't make the converse mistake on their honeymoon night.

I don’t know about protocol, but I would have thought that GG’s decision to call an election yesterday was inconvenient for the Queen. She is residing at Windsor Castle for Easter Court and had to return to London by helicopter in order to meet him.

Seeing as it was her permission the Prime Minister needed to dissolve parliament, should it not have been the other way around? The drive to Windsor with a police escort would have taken GG less than half an hour, so surely he could have made the effort..

Speaking of the Queen, Sally Bercow, wife of the Conservative Squeaker but a Labour candidate in the Westminster Council elections, was busy making lame jokes at the Tories' expense yesterday.

'If David Cameron popped round to see the Queen, she'd pretend she was out. And hide behind the curtains,' she Tweeted.

Huh! I reckon if poor old Her Maj learned the Bercows were coming to tea at the palace, she'd probably abdicate and run away to India.

Would you believe that robbers and muggers are walking away from court with lower fines than those given to motorists caught speeding or parking without a ticket.

In one year, the average fine handed to muggers by magistrates was only £47, while a minor parking infringement earns a £120 ticket in London, or £70 outside the capital. Speeding carries a £60 penalty. The trouble is that Magistrates are bound by rules which link the level of court fines with the criminal's ability to pay.

This means offenders with no income except for state benefits, and who often have severe addictions to drink or drugs, receive lower fines. Critics often point to the relatively lenient fines given to many who have carried out serious crimes, while those with steady incomes who commit minor offences are heavily penalised.

It is all palpably unfair, but as Members of Parliament have repeatedly pointed out when referring to their own transgressions over the past months, it is all within the rules. The entire system is up the creek. If people cannot pay the requisite fine, they should be banged up immediately.

I have always thought that the Tories' Ann Widdecombe is a very sensible woman, but there are times when she doesn’t think about what she is saying or how it might be interpreted. When whittering on about MPs travelling in first class compartments, she recently said that it was much easier to work in first-class and that she doesn't have to break off from her toils to queue up with the hoi polloi for a cup of tea at the bar.

You get table service in first-class, she says.

Whatever the merits of that argument - and I would say they are pretty slim - she also says, foolishly thinking she is reinforcing her point, that she has written two novels while travelling first-class.

I hope that when she did this, she was paying her own first-class fare. If not, we must all be entitled to a share of her royalties.

 

 

 

6^th April 2010

After a particularly disappointing holiday weekend, the penultimate week before my trip begins with the news that Geoff Blyth, whose house I intended to use as the start/finish post for my adventure, has been offered a job in Zambia and so is unlikely to be there. Yet another disastrous tuck to my plans and at this late stage, I will probably struggle to find a suitable alternative.

I was informed this morning that ‘The Universe’ is trying to dissuade me from undertaking the trip, but if that is the case, it merely makes me more determined to prove the ruddy Universe wrong.

Is it any wonder that Britain is in a mess when the education system is so terribly flawed. Now we learn that under the government’s ‘Student Voice’ scheme, schoolchildren are having an increasingly influential say in the appointing of teachers and in some schools, are even being invited to report on their performances.

This is surely an abuse of the entire concept of education, where we are drastically confusing the respective roles of teacher and pupil. Student Voice is based on the premise that children are entitled to a role in the management and delivery of their own education, but that is surely the role of the teachers, who are in loco parentis.

The idea is as absurd as saying that children are entitled to arbitrate on their own parenting. Yet having set this hare running, the Government now tries to pretend that it is not responsible for the consequences.

In a piece of typical gobbledegook, the Department for Children, Schools and Families says pupils were not meant to have an ‘input on the performance management of teachers.’ Yet, at the same time, pupils could be involved in ‘developing engaging lessons,’ it says, ‘by providing feedback on teaching style in a structured way.’

Schools Secretary Ed Balls admitted the approach used by some schools was 'completely wrong', 'absurd' and 'ridiculous.’

“The people who are in charge are the head teachers, the governors and the teachers,” he said. “They are in charge, and as a parent myself, I wouldn't want it any other way.

'The idea that you would give out iPhones to secretly spy on teachers, that would be in my view, completely wrong. Any head teacher doing that, I think needs to look hard at themselves and consider the way in which they are doing things.”

But far from dismissing the practice, he added: “Some schools do ask teachers to get a report from the children about how lessons are going.”

 As Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said, children are not adults and treating them as such strips teachers of their professional dignity. Amen to that. But it’s a bit late now for Ms Keates to discover these essential truths.

For this is not a situation just of the Government’s making. Teachers themselves have been party to the assumption behind this scheme that pupils are quasi-adults responsible for their own education. Indeed, at the weekend, educationist Stephen Heppell from Bournemouth told Radio 4’s Today programme that Student Voice had resulted in ‘a better quality of learning.’

The absurdity of that fatuous bit of blether was illustrated some three years ago when one trendy London primary school head teacher relabelled himself ‘lead learner.’

Not surprisingly, this loss of belief in the core function of education meant that many pupils were effectively abandoned to stumble through the world. The result was that, unable to read or master the basics of knowledge, more children switched off from school and disorder rose. And the more that happened, the more demoralised teachers became and loaded yet more onto ‘learners’ — leading to the lunacy of ‘learnacy,’ the nonsensical doctrine that a child should ‘manage its own learning’ because there was no point in teaching anything at all.

Thank God I never followed my initial instincts and became a teacher. I would either be in jail now or even more disillusioned with the world than I am.

Now we learn that a company is selling dissertations to students with a cashback guarantee if they are not up to a 2:1 standard. The work costs £700, but for £2,100, UKEssays.com can produce a ghost-written first class version, while £15,000 will pay for an MA dissertation.

The essays are officially offered to students as a ‘resource’ and are not intended to be handed in, say the firm who insists it is not encouraging dishonesty. The tailor-made service is becoming increasingly popular with students as universities become more efficient at detecting direct plagiarism from the internet.

Most universities now scan submitted work using anti-plagiarism software, but UKEssays promise to test-scan their own copy to ensure it cannot be detected.

Managing director Tony Eynon described his cashback guarantee as ‘a real breakthrough in contemporary academia.’

 

Basically though, it is a real breakthrough in cheating techniques and makes yet another mockery of education.

 

The cops are in trouble again up in Humberside. When two thieves stole from his store and made off on foot, shopkeeper Graham Taylor gave chase. As he pursued the thieves he encountered a policeman, sitting in a patrol car and asked for his help.

But he was angered and bemused when the officer told him: 'You had better call the police.’

And when Taylor did call the police, the officers who were assigned to deal with the theft missed the radio call - because they were celebrating at a colleague's retirement party.

 

Perhaps those cops had been subjected to the Student Voice plan themselves and taught to avoid any semblance of responsibility.

I have often argued in these ranting pages that those who force 'tolerance' down our throats are among the most intolerant bullies on Earth. They only tolerate opinions which chime with their own views. Anyone who dissents must be howled down and punished. They enforce their beliefs with totalitarian ruthlessness and, under New Labour, often with the full support of the law.

Thus, old age pensioners who protest at a gay Pride rally find themselves arrested. Scottish firemen who refused orders to attend a similar event because homosexuality offends their religious devotion are fined and suspended from work.

Those who speak out against the fashionable Leftist agenda are not merely wrong, they are denounced as inherently evil.

Until the election campaign loomed, anyone who expressed even the mildest reservations about the uncontrolled level of immigration was trashed as 'BNP,’ 'Little Englander' or 'racist' - the looney let’s favourite term of abuse.

Along with many of our other traditional liberties, New Labour has mounted a sustained assault on freedom of speech. The old idea of 'I abhor what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it' has been buried alive.

Even Conservative politicians are now frightened of their own shadow, scared of uttering any criticism of the modern consensus around 'diversity' lest they be cast into the outer darkness.

How long can it possibly go on before this crazily mixed up society finally sees sense?

Meanwhile, the fad for renaming mundane job titles shows no sign of abating. A man who went for a job as a lifeguard in Wales found the post advertised as a 'wet leisure assistant.’

As if that isn’t bad enough, NHS ward sisters have been redesignated as 'modality managers.’ These days, Trigger, the roadsweeper from Only Fools And Horses, would find himself described as an 'Environmental Protection Operative.’

This craze for euphemism goes hand in hand with the high-viz jacket obsession. Everywhere you look there are vacuous ‘workers’ kitted out in luminous yellow jerkins, zealously enforcing health and safety rules. At Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, the first-aiders wear high-viz outfits with 'Pitch Rescue' emblazoned on the back. Makes them sound like ruddy Thunderbirds.

And at Spurs last week, one injured player was escorted from the pitch by about a dozen 'rescuers' equipped with what looked like a mobile army hospital. It was like something from that old American comedy programme, MASH.

Whatever happened to the bloke with the bucket and the magic sponge?

 

5^th April 2010

I ranted somewhat about that hideous ‘monument’ to the 2010 Olympics, but why on earth does Britain want to hold the Olympics at all. Don’t the cretins at the top realise that this overstressed nation can’t afford it?

Tessa Jowell and company assure us that the games will result in increased revenue from tourism, but she must know that is nonsense. A recent report from the Trade Association Forum concluded somewhat bleakly that ‘the risk to London is that the relatively small number of visitors attending the Olympics will deter the large number of usual visitors, resulting in a downturn in tourism revenue during 2012 which may take a number of years to recover.’

And of course they are right. Who would want to visit London when all the razzmatazz is on? Who would want to watch bloated IOC officials being whisked in their chauffeured limousines along special lanes barred to the ordinary London taxpayers, who are footing the bill for this increasingly absurd and meaningless festival of drug-enhanced sporting extremes. Who would want to be continually stopped and searched by one of the thousands of extra police, obliged to think you might be an Islamist terrorist determined to sabotage the great shindig.

Apart from Ms Jowell, Sebastian Coe would appear to be the main guiding light behind the Olympics and in a desperate effort to quash his ever more vociferous critics, he has in effect accused them of conniving in a conspiracy to kill off deprived Londoners. He tells us ominously that ‘many east Londoners . . . live an average of seven years less than residents of, say, Westminster’ and that the ‘new sports venues for the Games help to tackle serious lifestyle-related conditions such as childhood obesity, heart disease and diabetes.’

Okay, participation in sport is certainly good for the health, but while billions are being spent on stadiums that will be mothballed in the years following the 17 days of the Olympics, more than 50 state-school sports fields have been sold off, with ministerial approval, in the few years since the government won the right to stage the Games. They would have cost a fraction of Coe’s £10 billion Olympic budget to preserve.

Somebody somewhere is trying to convince us that black is white and vice versa.

As the election ‘war’ hots up, Lord Mandyflower told The Times, that the choice of leaders will be between ‘granite and plastic.’ It will undoubtedly be a brutally personal election, not least because the leaders' TV debates will be the visual punctuation marks of the campaign. No election in Britain’s history has been so openly presidential, with everything resting on the respective shoulders of two men – and of course their respective spouses, although this is being hotly denied. Vote for change, optimism and a fresh start, say the Tories. Don't take a chance, says Labour. Stick with the incumbent who knows what he is doing.

But therein lies the problem - that incumbent is Gormless Gordon. I am not sure his own party, let alone the country, wants five more years of him. Describing his prospective re-election, Mandyflower toyed with the idea that GG might not serve a full term next time around. "He might go five more years or four or three or however many it is with the government we know.” He blethered. “It is really not my position to tell people when they should or should not cease to be Prime Minister. Tony made his decision, Gordon will make his."

Methinks we have heard all this before. Granite is better than plastic, he seemed to be saying – but even a block of granite can be moved. That's the first question that should be asked of GG at the first press conference of the official campaign - if you win, will you stay in Number 10 till the very end of the next Parliament?

We surely have a right to know that before sticking our Xs in the relevant box.

Mind you, there are solutions to our problems with those we have so foolishly put in power above us, had we but the gumption to take them. We need look no further for inspiration than the bloke I mentioned yesterday, Kim Jong-il, of North Korea. He has just got rid of his finance chief for making a mess of things. He had him executed by firing squad. Drastic, you may say, but that sort of approach would certainly keep the Governor of the Bank of England on his toes!

The murder of Eugene Terreblanche is South Africa is being linked with Julius Malema’s racist rhetoric. Malema is the ANC youth leader and has recently been censored by the High Court for openly singing an ANC song, calling for farmers to be shot.

No wonder Andre Visage, an AWB comrade, ambiguously called upon the volk to 'stay calm' while the organisation settled upon 'the action we are going to take to avenge Mr Terreblanche's death.'

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's absurdly incompetent leader, simply called for calm, invariably a sign in Africa of trouble ahead.

On the weekend Terreblanche was murdered, Malema was in Harare, vowing to ensure that Zimbabwe-style policies of confiscating farmland from the whites would be enforced south of the Limpopo river. He was greeted by a crowd carrying placards and singing songs that said ‘shoot the boere.’

Am I suggesting that those two events are directly or specifically related? Not directly perhaps, but when members of South Africa's ruling coalition are making incendiary speeches undermining the rights and safety of all landowners, it is no wonder crime is rampant, and that many whites now regard their homeland as a failed experiment in racial harmony.

Whatever the reasons for it, the awful truth about the brutal murder of Terreblanche this is that more and more South Africans will now be concluding that in his dark warnings about black majority rule, the man was right after all.

Three thousand farmers have been murdered over the past few years, yet friends in Britain ask me why there has been no publicity about these deaths in the British media.

Huh! South Africa has always been trumpeted as a success story in the West and leaders of the so called First World don’t want the people to see that yet again, they have been completely wrong in their liberal attitudes to Africa. What happened in Rhodesia, was inevitably followed in South Africa and what has happened in Zimbabwe will just as inevitably happen in South Africa, although on a vastly more extensive scale.

And Western leaders will stand by, wring their hands and utter platitudes.

Here though, we have weightier things on our ruling minds. A Labour minister has called for all zoos to be banned, describing them as cruel 'relics of the Victorian era.’ Charities minister Angela Smith said it was wrong to keep animals in captivity and called for a debate on whether the Government should close all Britain's 400 zoos.

But last night colleagues slapped her down, saying her views were personal and not those of the Government.

I do instinctively agree with Mrs Smith because I hate to see anything confined, but surely there are more important problems that need to be debated?

 
 
 

4^th April 2010

Easter Sunday and it always brings back fond memories for me of sharing Ruzi Island on the Lwizilukulu River with a large elephant. I was doing the second half of my rowing trip at the time and for the purposes of literary flow, I made the elephant into a lady, but in fact ‘she’ was a solitary bull.

I also managed to get myself bitten on the foot by a night adder or possibly an ‘mpandu’ – whatever that may be – on the island, but the pain of that incident is now part of the dimly remembered past, while I can still picture the spectacular beauty of Ruzi with startling clarity.

I watched a wonderful little programme on the idiot box yesterday. It commemorated Harry Carpenter, the boxing broadcaster who died a couple of weeks ago, but much of it dealt with Carpenter’s relationship with Muhammed Ali – certainly the greatest sporting colossus of my time. Just to see the man prance around the ring brings a tingle to my spine, even now. He truly was The Greatest and I doubt that his like will ever be seen again in any sport.

In South Africa, Eugene Terreblanche, the rabidly nationalist leader of  the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Party (AWB) has been hacked to death by two of his workers. In the Rainbow Nation’s already somewhat parlous state, that could lead to a great deal of trouble as reprisals against black South Africans are very likely, particularly in the Western Transvaal.

I had no particular time for Terreblanche, but he was an alarmingly powerful orator and driving through his home town, Ventersdorp some years ago, I was immediately struck by the fact that it was probably the only town in South Africa where properties were not surrounded by walls, barbed wire or both. It was an old fashioned South African town, due entirely to the fact that Terreblanche and his men were in total power locally and so – unlike the rest of the country - there was no crime.

What is it with Britain’s political leaders that makes them want to look like unlikely teenagers? Dashing David’s strange appearance in 'casual' gear last week made him look as if he had been dressed by a committee, perhaps of his enemies, perhaps of people who are not very bright.

What were they hoping for? That these clothes would further infuriate the remaining conservatives daft enough to support this liberal in biker's clothing? That he would get the votes of ageing women who still hanker after the young Marlon Brando?

As it happens, he ended up looking faintly like North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, who also seems to have consulted the wrong style advisers in a bid to appear to be something other than he is. Perhaps DD should be renamed Cam Jong Il.

Then yesterday, just a week after Dashing Dave’s eccentric promenade with Dear Samantha, we had Gormless Gord doing exactly the same thing with Sarah Dear and appearing quite ridiculous. Gone was the sober suit and tie, to be replaced with some sort of a windcheater and casual trousers. He was even trying to smile damnit!

Would you believe that both of these nancyprats admitted that their clothing was chosen by their spouses. If they can’t be trusted to pick their own shirts for the day, how on earth can either of them be trusted with affairs of state?

I mentioned it the other day, but surely only a nation on its way down and one whose culture is dominated by phonies and jokers, could allow the building of the stupid and ugly tower planned to adorn London's Olympic Park.

I suppose that, since it looks like part of a collapsed steelworks, it might symbolise this country’s lost industrial greatness. Compare this, and the vast, tatty zero of the London Eye with the things that used to be built in London  -  St Paul's Cathedral, now hemmed in by brutalist concrete, Big Ben, a soaring stone hymn to Victorian self confidence, and even the lost twin towers of Wembley.

Now all we propose is a futile tangle of metal that will look as if it has fallen down when it is up.

As I predicted, dealers are now stockpiling mephedrone and similar drugs and are already flooding the market. You see, not even this authoritarian government can ban entire molecular groups, much as they would like to.

Scare stories read as little more than salivating adverts to the kids. Mephedrone is almost on it way out anyway – the new drug on the market is NRG-1. It costs less than a bag of crisps and doubtless the morons who run this country will quickly ban it and that will allow those sinister Asian chemists to come up with a new legal synthetic drug. Which they will.

And people will take it and dance all night and have unsuitable sex because people ruddy well DO. A few will have a terrible time and a handful might actually die but they will find that there is little help to be had, because the politicians are off their heads themselves, dancing alone in some strange fantasy world, where they can feel that they are actually in charge. No one can reach them any more. They won’t even listen to their own advisers, who are deserting them in droves. It’s a huge price we, the poor downtrodden public pay for this.

The cheaper, safer and healthier option is to start from the basis that many people will take drugs for a period in their lives. And mostly be fine.

Such honesty, though, is deemed heretical and thus the gulf between real life and the fantasy lives of our rulers grows ever deeper.

 
 

3^rd April 2010

Rupert Brooke once wrote ‘Oh to be in England now that April’s here’ but he would not be waxing quite so lyrical if he was alive today. We are well into April and the weather is still desperately cold, dank and bleak. With only two weeks before I set out for Cape Town and Kariba, I am still very unfit and know nothing about handling a kayak. It is just too damned cold to practice anything.

 

Not to worry though; Gormless Gordon has it all under control. Yesterday, he hailed Christian churches as ‘the conscience of our country’ in an Easter greeting posted on the Downing Street website.

The Prime Minister's Good Friday missive hailed the ‘redeeming power of faith’ and said the forthcoming official visit of Pope Benedict would make this a special year for the UK.

At the same time, a study of 1000 six to 10-year-olds by British Lion eggs revealed that 53% of them were unaware of the religious significance of Easter. Almost 30% thought it was to celebrate the Easter Bunny's birthday, while one in 20 thought it was to mark the birth of Jesus. Perhaps if he feels so strongly, it is time Gormless Gord did something about Christian education in schools.

GG blethered on about Easter being ‘the most important date in the Christian calendar,’ but I wonder if he can convince the twenty million people who were creeping along the motorways in torrential rain for much of yesterday. I’ll bet few of them were thinking on matters religious.

I sometimes wonder whether politicians live in Never Never Land.

Take Dashing David for example. Yesterday he hit the campaign trail and almost inevitably I suppose, he took his pregnant wife along as a fashion accessory.

The Conservative leader chose to deploy his ‘secret weapon’ when he visited a youth centre in east London, having said that Samantha wanted to ‘get out there’ and do what she could.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe it. Far more likely it is that DD’s public relations advisers have told him that having a fashionably dressed and well groomed wife on his arm – particularly a pregnant one -  will make him infinitely more electable. Such is the mentality of the Masses that the gurus are probably right.

I’m afraid it doesn’t wash with me though. Were I to be here on Election Day, I would be voting for the politician, not his or her spouse.

HE is not known as the Prince of Darkness for nothing. Lord Mandyflower has got his preferred candidate, an historian called Tristram Hunt shortlisted for the safe Labour seat of Stoke-on-Trent.

 

The four-strong shortlist, announced last night and decided by Labour’s NEC Special Selections Panel, is remarkable more for who isn’t on the list. There are no women or local candidates, while the favourite, Byron Taylor, who is the national officer of the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation didn’t even make the cut.

 

In other words, it was all a squalid little fix. He might be just an unelected peer, but Mandyflower is choosing the candidate for Stoke, showing contempt for the Labour Party and treating the city as his own rotten borough. This is political corruption of the highest order and ought to be a gift to the BNP. GG and his mates need to keep a close watch on things or Mandyflower will ensure that all his own cronies are in government.

 

Then Britain will be all his.

 

Meanwhile, Conservative home affairs spokesman Chris Grayling has said that he wants to introduce a 'healthy dose of common sense in policing, and not the rule-driven political correctness we have at present.’

 

Fine words and a noble sentiment. I just hope he sticks to that should his lot win the election. I don’t hold any high hopes of that though. All these politicians are the same.

 

A week or so ago, I warned that the immediate banning of the drug Mephedrone by government was not a good idea. It can only lead to increased demands among the young and the whole situation must be carefully considered before precipitate action is taken.

 

Of course, the government ignored my warnings and Alan Johnson almost immediately announced a ban on the drug. It seems though that others share my doubts and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs – ACMP would you believe – is falling apart as more and more of its members resign in protest.

 

Eric Carlin, the latest to go, says he is doing it as a protest at the way in which mephedrone has been so suddenly criminalised. He reckoned the decision taken earlier this week to make it a Class B drug was ‘unduly based on media and political pressure’ and he was quite obviously correct.

Mr Carlin, speaking from Brussels, said he believed the decision to rush through the ban had been politically motivated in order for the Government to look tough prior to the election. He tendered his letter of resignation to the Home Secretary on Thursday.

It read, ‘We had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people's behaviour. Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure.’

A Home Office spokesman said: "The resignation today was regrettable. However it does not impact on our plans to ban mephedrone and the other substances as soon as parliamentary times allows."

In other words, the politicians might have a legion of high-powered advisers to show them the correct course of action, but they ignore the advice they are given in order to demonstrate how electable they are. Thirty three thousand people a year die through alcohol, so why is that not banned? I would cause a revolution, but there have been 25 deaths through Mephedrone, so there won’t be enough people directly affected to cause a problem.

I hold no flag for drugs of any sort, but I just wish those in government would show a bit of common sense instead of trying to do everything and anything that might win them the next election.

Did you hear that Jonathan Ross went out to shoplift a kitchen utensil from Tesco. He thought it was a whisk worth taking.

 

Sorry, but it made me smile.

2^nd April 2010

I unwittingly made a grave mistake yesterday. Having to be in town during the afternoon, I volunteered to pick up peas and potatoes from the supermarket. Of course, I had forgotten that this was the eve of a double holiday weekend and although I went into the slightly more upmarket Waitrose, the place was heaving with seemingly frantic shoppers.

It took me ages to reach a till with my meagre puirchases and feeling somewhat bemused, I asked the check out lady whether they were closing down for the entire weekend. They weren’t. They close on Easter Sunday, but otherwise it is business as usual, yet you would think these people were preparing for a lengthy siege.

I wonder what elephants, dolphins and other intelligent species think of us?

You know, even though we are deep into a full-scale election campaign, we still don't know when the actual voting will take place, though everyone assumes it will be on May 6.

Gormless Gord has been playing silly buggers with the electorate ever since he inherited the job in 2007. Remember the fiasco of the election-that-never-was? If Dashing David has an iota of common sense – which is by no means clear as yet – he will announce that the first measure he will introduce, should he become Prime Minister is a Bill requiring fixed-term, four-year Parliaments. Why should the date of an election be cynically manipulated for party political advantage?

He should also reform Parliament so that every single member of the Cabinet will have to be elected to the house of Commons. It seems incredible that under Labour, the unelected and twice damned Lord Mandyflower sits as the second most important minister in the country.

Worse than that, it reflects terribly on the probity of Parliament. We are supposed to look up to these corrupt cretins damnit!

To say that I was surprised when I saw pictures of the new ‘monument’ to commemorate the London Olympics is an understatement. I was horrifyingly flabbergasted. It seems that more than 120 years after Gustave Eiffel built the steel lattice that came to symbolise Paris, London is taking on the City of Light with the Colossus of Stratford — at least, that is one of the names Boris Johnson has in mind.

The Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell sees Anish Kapoor’s work as a way of making the site of the 2012 Games stand out. East London will have the largest and most ambitious artwork in the country: a startling red tower that looks like a mangled rollercoaster.

It is too early to tell what the world will call this £19.1 million, 115m-tall  feat of technological and industrial wizardry, but another of the mayor Boris Johnson’s favourite titles is The Hubble-Bubble.

Officially the structure, which will be 22m taller than the Statue of Liberty and more than twice the height of Nelson’s Column, is called the ArcelorMittal Orbit. It is named after the steel company owned by Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in Britain, who is paying most of the cost — and planting a giant advert in the Olympic site. However Mr Johnson immediately bombarded his new landmark with a fusillade of alternative names.

“Some may choose to think of it as the Colossus of Stratford,” he said. “Some eyes may detect a helter-skelter or a supersized mutant trombone. Some may even see the world’s biggest ever representation of a shisha pipe and call it The Hubble-Bubble, but I know that it is the ArcelorMittal Orbit. It represents the dynamism of a city coming out of recession and the embodiment of the cross-fertilisation of cultures and styles that makes London the world capital of arts, the cultural and creative industries.”

What twaddle! All I can say is that I am glad I am not paying for this monstrosity – although of course, indirectly, I am. It brings back all too recent memories of that awful and expensive Millenium Dome. Don’t these Londoners ever learn.

A teachers' union has claimed that schoolchildren are being given iPhones in order to spy on teachers in their lessons. An unnamed school in Kent apparently gave children the gadgets so they could monitor their teachers' performance and pass on judgements to senior school staff.

This was apparently part of a ‘quality assurance’ programme, set up to see whether the school was working effectively. If the report is true, the programme by whatever name it is called is disgracefully symptomatic of the mess this country is in. There can never be discipline in schools while the pupils have any power whatsoever over the teachers.

Do you remember David Shayler, the portly young MI5 agent who hit the headlines a few years ago when he wrote a book castigating his bosses in the security services? Well, he is back in the news. He has now turned up at the Kew Bridge ‘eco village,’ where so called activists have taken up residence on derelict land and formed their own community of nutcases.

Shayler, Britain’s best-known renegade former spy hit the headlines again last year when it was revealed that he was squatting on a farm in Surrey. He also seems to believe he is the reincarnation of Jesus — who he claims was a transvestite — and has now taken up residence in the eco-village under the guise of his alter ego — the mini-skirted saucepot, Delores Kane.

 

Shayler has joined forty other environmental activists who took over the one-acre riverside site last summer as a protest against the misuse of urban land and the lack of affordable housing. Let’s just hope he doesn’t keep banging on about the world ending in 2012. That’s quite soon, Dave Old Chap. Perhaps your bosses had it right and fired you because you were a danger to your profession.

 

Like many of us, Sir Trevor McDonald has a low opinion of Piers Morgan’s interview technique, which is probably best illustrated by this weeks edition of GQ magazine. The magazine carries an interview with Alistair Darling by the witless but very successful Morgan.

 

 “Are you good in bed?”asks PM.

 

 “Er, you’d have to ask Margaret,” responds the Chancellor, referring to his wife.

 

“How many women have you slept with?” persists PM.

 

 “A gentleman wouldn’t say,” says Darling.

 

“Can you have a good sex life and be a member of the Cabinet?” asks Morgan. “I don’t know,” says Darling.

 

Wouldn’t it be fun if Piers Morgan interviewed Sir Trevor McDonald for the next issue? What a world this is becoming when a ‘journalist’ like Morgan can reach the top of his profession – as he did – with that sort of journalistic style.

While I am talking about remembering people, I read that toothy Esther Rantzen – she of the shimmering gnashers and horrible voice – is standing in the next election as the Independent candidate for Luton South. When asked on the idiot box by Andrew Neil whether she would collect her full MP’s salary and allowances if elected, she told him “Yes, but there will be no second homes stuff.”

That won’t be much of a sacrifice though, given that Luton is half an hour by train from London and does not qualify for ‘second-home stuff’ under the new rules. So life in Parliament could be a challenge for the woman whom Richard Ingrams once called the ‘world’s greatest expert on expenses and freebies.’

 

When asked if she would waive some of her salary, Rantzen was rattled. “But I’m a pensioner!” she wailed.

 

Why then is she standing for Parliament? She has to be too old.

It seems that plans for a floating restaurant on a barge moored at a beauty spot on the River Nene may run aground. Northamptonshire Police have told the borough council that the dining room would overlook a local 'cruising and cottaging' site, known as Midsummer Meadows where people gather for open-air sex.

The Northamptonshire Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance immediately complained that 'A commercial activity will harm the openness, the semi-natural character of the meadows and the freedom of the area.'

They note that Midsummer Meadows is a popular venue for ' post dusk social networking.’ The council will make a decision on the floating restaurant application next week, after giving the objections all due consideration.

I did like that description though -'post dusk social networking.’ I've never heard it called that before.

1^st April 2010

April Fools’ Day and Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al Megrahi will be celebrating making total fools out of the Scottish government. The Lockerbie Bomber will be celebrating his birthday in a Libyan mansion, eight months after being released from prison because he was ‘dying.’

Members of the ruling Gaddafi family were said to be 'certain to send their best wishes' to Al-Megrahi.’

This is surely a kick in the teeth for relatives of the 270 people killed when Al-Megrahi helped blow up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. He was handed a minimum term of 27 years for that attack, but served less than seven and a half because he was allegedly on the brink of death.

Megrahi is viewed as a national hero by Libyans and some 30,000 well-wishers are said to have visited him since August. Many have also sent birthday wishes, as well as presents ranging from books to food. Queues of pilgrims still form outside his home.
His brother, Mohammed Ali, said: 'He is greatly loved by Libyans. If God wills it he will remain with his people.'

Which is more than can be said for his 270 victims.

This next bit sounds like an April Fool story, but isn’t. In Sale, Joan Higgins who owns a pet shop sold a goldfish to a 6 foot, 14 year old who had been sent in by Trading Standards gestapo.

This is against a four year old law which forbids selling pets to under sixteens and when she was hauled before the Court, Mrs Higgins readily pleaded guilty. At most she might have expected a slap on the wrist for breaking these new animal welfare laws, but she was fined £1,000, placed under curfew - and ordered to wear an electronic tag for two months.

That sort of punishment is normally handed out to violent thugs and repeat offenders, so why on earth should a great grandmother be tagged like a common criminal?

The prosecution of Mrs Higgins and her son Mark is estimated to have cost taxpayers £20,000 and has left her with a criminal record. Mark was also fined and ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Mrs Higgins - who has run the pet shop for 28 years - said the family's eight-month ordeal had left them traumatised. I’ll bet it has! What danger is this elderly woman that she has to wear an electronic tag for God’s sake?

The seven-week curfew imposed by the court means she is unable to babysit her great-grandson at his home or go to bingo sessions with her sister, and will be unable to attend a Rod Stewart concert after tickets were bought for her by her nephew, actor Will Mellor.

So why was she subjected to the same kind of treatment as a hardened criminal? Ankle bracelets are normally fitted to thugs likely to terrorise local communities, and prisoners out on licence under the early release scheme. What did they think Mrs Higgins was going to do — hang around youth clubs and playgrounds peddling goldfish from a suitcase to under-age glue-sniffers?

The sentence speaks volumes about the mentality of  Trading Standards officers and the kind of people who are appointed magistrates these days. You can’t become a JP unless you subscribe to the entire, warped New Labour agenda which is a deliberate assault on natural justice and common sense.

For instance, it is now a criminal offence to sell a squirrel door-to-door. When was the last time anyone offered to sell you a squirrel? Most of us pay exterminators to get rid of squirrels, not buy one as a pet.

We have a control-freak government which hires hundreds of thousands of people with nothing better to do than dream up exciting new ways of meddling in our lives in order to justify their own pathetic existence.

We now live in a country where a 66-year- old great-grandmother can be threatened with jail, tagged, fined £1,000 and subjected to a curfew simply for selling a goldfish to a schoolboy.

This is what Labour meant when it promised to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

Did you know for instance that riding a bicycle without a bell carries a fine of £2,500 and up to two years in jail? My bike does have a rusty old bell attached, but I don’t think it works and when did you last hear anyone using such an implement anyway. With the constant thunder of modern traffic, nobdy could possibly hear the ruddy thing, no matter how hard the rider tinkled the switch.

As mad ideas go, they don’t get much pottier than the pothole solution proposed by the leader of Ashford Borough Council in Kent. Fed up with that crater in the road outside your house? Tired of waiting for the council to mend it? Pay for it yourself, suggests Councillor Paul Clokie and use it as a memorial for a pet.

Is he serious? Apparently. He points out that a scheme is already under way in the German village of Niederzimmern, near Leipzig, where for a mere €50 you can sponsor your local pothole, ensuring not only that it is filled in but that your name, or your company name is etched into the asphalt.

In the wake of the harshest winter for three decades, Kent County Council, the body responsible for mending the potholes, has filled in 45,300 of them this year but has yet to dedicate any of them to deceased dogs or cats. “Councillor Clokie has been saying this for a while,” said a spokesman yesterday, who sounded as though the county wished the Ashford leader would stop.

Last year the same suggestion was put forward by the cash-strapped Oxford City Council, but it was shelved after local people showed a singular lack of enthusiasm for investing in repairs for which they had already paid through road tax and council tax.

Come on GG; produce the cash for road repairs and stop handing it out to African relief agencies or building that weirdly designed ‘monument’ to the 2012 Olympics. After all, with $19 million – most of the pot holes in Britain could be filled in.

You know, it is probably the first time in the history of our species that this has happened, but today we are frightened of our children. Over 65,000 children are expelled annually for violence alone and our children regularly kill each other. This is not the fault of the children and this did not happen by accident.

When Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary in the mid 1960s he lurched away from the evidence- based principles of Nature itself and, driven only by an emotional dislike of physical pain, he banned the use of corporal punishment in the prison system. This knee jerk reaction is one of the main reasons we find ourselves in our current sorry situation. After his ban, the cane began to be used less in schools (how could it be right to cane schoolboys when it was not right for criminals?) although it was only banned in schools in 1986 by a Commons vote of 231 to 230 – with several pro caning MPs reportedly held up in a Westminster traffic jam caused by a Buckingham Palace garden party.

Every teen murderer now mouldering in prison had a history of school expulsion and I have no doubt that had corporal punishment continued to exist in schools, many lives, probably all, would have been saved. As for children threatening adults with physical violence – the thought would simply never have occurred to them.

Just as the thought in a child’s mind that being caned was violence, never occurred to them. It was all perfectly natural and kept the lid on Society.

Then the loonie left came along!

 

 

 

31^st March 2010

I really do think the world is going mad. ‘Look Who Is Back’ screams one headline this morning, but why should anyone be surprised? Of course, the one who is ‘back’ is good old Toothsome Tony himself, complete with suntan and ivory filled grin. Plus of course a bucketload of venom-filled rhetoric about the Tories.

Yet, it is a given fact that the Blair years in government were synonymous with a shocking collapse in morality and standards in the heart of the British state. The process is well-documented — the sale of government policies for hard cash, the sale of peerages, the debauching of the House of Commons through the expenses scandal, the use of 10 Downing Street for the purposes of personal enrichment, and the degradation of the civil service and other government institutions.

To my mind, Gormless Gordon’t mistake – and I believe it is - in bringing back TT can be compared with Dashing David’s error in linking his own fate with the billionaire tycoon Michael Ashcroft. To be fair, no one has ever proven that Ashcroft or Blair has broken any law. Yet a filthy stink now accompanies both men wherever they go.

Their financial affairs are mired in secrecy, and they go to great lengths to conceal their sources of income. Nor does the comparison end there. There are numerous unanswered questions concerning the business dealings of both men — and yet they prefer to lurk in the shadows.

No questions from the media were permitted yesterday after TT’s speech at Sedgefield, while Ashcroft has long been famous for the economy and the opaqueness of his answers when questioned.

And of course, there is a very troubling confusion between TT’s financial interests and his duties as envoy to the Middle East. It is this conflict of interest which makes it so very disturbing that he has fought like a tiger to keep secret the identities of so many of his wealthiest clients.

We now know that TT is paid for his work advising an investment consortium led by the South Korean oil company UI Energy, which has extensive oil interests in Iraq. He also went to great lengths to hide his involvement in a £1 million deal advising the Kuwaiti ruling family. Deals like these open the former prime minister to charges that he is using his role as a Middle East envoy for personal financial gain.

More than that, it appears as if TT is profiting from the Iraq War, which cost the blood of so many thousands, including British soldiers.

Early this month, and quite rightly so, Gormless Gord and the Labour Party demanded that the Tories told the full truth about Michael Ashcroft’s role as Tory Party financier, but now that GG has produced the Toothsome One as a cheerleader for Labour’s election campaign, the British public is surely entitled to know the truth about the financial dealings of Britain’s former boss.

The man might be a plausible orator, but he is a very dodgy figure to star in an election campaign.

Margate Pleasure Gardens are in serious trouble and I don’t mean financially. Their afternoon show starred two acts that offended the powers that be. One of these was the musical group 4 Poofs and a Piano and the other was – believe it or not – Sooty in Space.

4 Poofs And A Piano were refused permission to register their name as a Trademark because the authorities said, someone could find the name offensive. The 4 Poofs protested that, given they were the poofs in question, no one could possibly take offence. If that's what they chose to call themselves, what was the problem?

None of this cut any ice with the Trademark Taliban, who continued to insist that 'poofs' was intrinsically insulting and therefore could not receive official endorsement.

As for Sooty In Space, the possibilities for prosecution were twofold, both racist and homophobic. Not only is 'Sooty' considered to be an outrageous racial slur, but Sooty himself spends the entire show with someone's hand up his backside.

One phone call to the cops from the Margate branch of Stonewall and you could bet your life, the Boys in Blue would arrive in force. The only difficulty would be knowing which branch of Kent Police to complain to. Log on to their website and click ‘diversity’ for example. You're immediately spoiled for choice.

There's the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Action Group, which gives lesbians, gays and bisexuals an 'influential voice that will be listened to' and guarantees 'a dynamic forum for positive action.’ This isn't to be confused with either the Gay and Transgender Action Group or the Kent Police Gay and Lesbian Support Group.

If they don't take your complaint seriously, you could always ring the freefone number for the Kent Homophobic and Transphobic Reporting Line. Then there's always the Hate Crime Action Group, the Minority Ethnic Action Group and the Fairness Action Group, all of which come under the umbrella of the Diversity and Fairness Strategy Board, part of the new Citizen Focus Performance Gold Group, chaired by a deputy chief constable.

They all have to justify their existence somehow. Which is why they are urging you to report any potential 'hate crime,’ however trivial.

Between them, they should be able to cobble together some kind of charge that will stick and ensure that Sooty and the 4 Poofs are banged up in Maidstone nick for the next ten years.

Mind you, Sooty may have got away with it for now, but Basil Brush wasn't so lucky way back in 2008. He found himself being investigated after being put in the frame by someone called Joseph Jones, who styles himself vice-chairman of the Southern England Romany Gipsy & Irish Traveller Network.

This pratwinkle – let’s call him Jojo - took offence at the 'racist and offensive' nature of an episode broadcast on the children's digital channel CBBC in which Basil's neighbour, Dame Rosie Fortune, tries to sell him pegs and lucky heather and offers to read his palm.

Basil's having none of it. He says: 'I went to a fortune-teller once and he said I was going on a long journey. He stole my wallet and I had to walk all the way home.'

Jojo complained about such 'stereotypical comments'. Police officers were said to be studying the offending episode for evidence. You can imagine the scene, can’t you? There they are, a team of big strong bobbies clustered around a television set, studying the video of a ruddy glove puppet to see whether they can bring a charge of 'racism' against it.

Remember that image the next time some chief constable complains about 'lack of resources' and says he can't afford to put bobbies on the beat or investigate domestic burglaries.

And it gets worse! Residents in Sale who asked their local council to remove a dumped mattress from an embankment were shocked to be told it could take a week - because a JCB would be required.

And the reason for the long delay? Health and ruddy safety, of course.

The mouldy mattress was disfiguring a grassy bank in Bolton, along with other fly-tipped refuse. Local councillor Sean Hornby rang the waste disposal office to report it, but instead of a team of workmen turning up and lugging the thing away, an official in a suit arrived to conduct a 'risk assessment.’

Once his report was filed, the verdict was that it would not be safe to shift it without a JCB, and that could take up to a week to arrange. So instead, Mr Hornby and local cafe owner Paul Richardson rolled up their sleeves and dragged it to the nearest road for it to be collected by a refuse truck.

It took them a few minutes and neither man was injured!

It happens every day and we are allowing it to continue. The only problem is that Dashing David and his true blue Tories are as fatuous and ineffectual as that screaming bunch of nincompoops in government.

I don’t know about the world going mad, but Britain certainly is.

 

30th March 2010

I was the official photographer for daughter Deborah’s ‘make up’ examination last evening. The models were grand daughter Zara – with much protest – and a little girl called Emma who was made up as Cleopatra, complete with sweeping black wig and ‘golden’ accoutrements.

It was all rather fun and my photographs were of course, brilliant!

In Zambia, Protea Hotels are planning to build an ultra modern, 144-bedroom hotel on the banks of the Zambezi River right opposite the world-renowned Mana Pools National Park and World Heritage Site. The proposal to build the hotel in the Chiawa Game Management Area on the Zambian side of the river, has shocked tour operators and conservationists in the region, and has been slammed as 'totally inappropriate' for the area.

It will completely ruin what is surely once of the most uniquely beautiful pieces of the world, but when money raises its evil head, they call this sort of thing ‘progress.’

I am just grateful that I have seen Mana at its exotically beautiful best.

Talking about money, the Labour Party are bringing their biggest gun into battle today with Toothsome Tony addressing some of the faithful in Sedgefield, his old constituency.

National media have of course been banned from TT's speech in which he will attack Dashing David for failing to reform the Conservative Party fully in the way that New Labour was built from the ashes of the Labour Party.

Some Labour aides seem to believe that the Toothsome One’s appearance will reassure voters who backed New Labour in 1997 that the party has not lost its way under Gordon Brown, but to me it seems a policy that is quite likely to backfire. Few people can have forgotten the war in Iraq, while TT’s shameless profiteering from his position as prime minister and his coterie of well-heeled friends with whom he loved to swan around, even when he was PM are enough to put off all but the most celebrity conscious or blindly sycophantic of voters.

The Tories are obviously pleased by TT's intervention. Sinister looking John Redwood gleefully said, 'The more reminders we can have of the deceits and the wars of the Blair era, the better from the Conservative point of view. Long may he intervene.'

I think he has a point somehow.

There were howls of protest a few weeks ago when Dashing David referred to Britain as a ‘broken’ society. He was right though and the stabbing of a youth in Victoria station this week bears this out. Most teenagers are complete idiots. That's why they don't get the vote. They are, by and large, manically self-obsessed, riddled with social and sexual insecurity, accustomed to dealing with their peers according to a system of Hobbesian viciousness, and even when well-intentioned, have a crazily skewed view of the world.

But idiocy and testosterone and ‘respec’ notwithstanding, three dozen children travelling to a prearranged place in order to stab each other up suggests more than a lark: it suggests something desperate in the culture. That many children? Did none of their parents wonder what they were up to? Did none of those parents even care?

The established facts seem to say something too, about exactly how worried the perpetrators were that they'd get in trouble. They knew they would be alright. This was Victoria station in the rush hour, not a back street in the small hours of the morning. If it did occur to them that mainline stations frequently contain police officers - pretty often, for better or for worse, armed ones - it didn't enter their calculations. The cops wouldn’t do anything.

They evidently anticipated also, that hundreds of homebound commuters would, out of fear or self-absorption, walk right on by. Imagine if you can, the thoughts of those commuters. ‘Tut tut children, if you will stab each other dead in the ticket hall, would you at least have the good manners not to do so in front of the ticket gates; I'm late enough as it is.’ 

But why shouldn't they take that view? They were right. They'd had a version of the same fight only the night before; and, according to one shopkeeper in the arcade, had been rioting for weeks without interruption or inconvenience.

Now a 15-year-old boy lies dead. Children failed, parents failed, police failed, passers-by failed. I am no great admirer of Dashing Dave, but ‘broken’ does just about sum it all up.

One of the weirdest stories of the week was that of a woman prisoner doing life for killing her baby and suing prison authorities for refusing to let her have a Native American drum, so she could talk to dead animals.

After she was sentenced, the woman, who hails from Birmingham announced that she was a Red Indian. Perhaps she came from that Cherokee encampment under Spaghetti Junction or one of those tepees that must surely abound beside the football ground at Villa Park!

Anyway, this madwoman now styled herself Chaha Oh-Niyol Kai-Whitewind and claimed, inevitably that her human rights were being violated unless she got a drum, potions, spell books and a peace pipe to allow her to practise her religion.

She wrote to the governor stating: 'I do not believe in violence. I have respect for all life and individuality'  -  though this hadn't extended to her 12-week-old son, whom she strangled for refusing to breastfeed properly.

She got her drum and if you think this is a bit farfetched, it was also reported that the Home Office is considering building special prisons for Muslims so that convicted terrorists don't have to mix with filthy infidels.

Why stop there for God’s sake? Why not separate nicks for Rastafarians too, complete with steel drums, complimentary ganja and a drive-by shooting range? Or even jails where traditional East End gangsters can celebrate their culture, sipping wallop around the old piano, singing Knees Up Muvva Brahn, sawing the barrels off a pair of matching Purdeys in the workshop and feeding each other to the pigs on the prison farm?

Yes, I think ‘broken’ is definitely the right word.

 

 

 

 

29^th March 2010

Here we go for another week and would you believe, it is raining. Once again, my chances of practicing my kayaking have been hit by the weather. Yes I know I could paddle in the rain, but at my age, the cold is likely to kill me far more easily than crocodiles or other natural dangers.

Oh well, I will just have to become fitter and more proficient as I go along. It has always worked in the past.

The bratlets put in a wonderful performance on the rugby field yesterday. Everything seemed to click and they ran in seven tries to beat a very strong team by a good country mile. It is only a shame that they didn’t play like that in the games that really mattered.

Gormless Gordon has delivered a final humiliation to the armed forces by ordering admirals, generals and air chief marshals to travel second class to help cut costs. All armed forces personnel must now sit in standard class on trains and planes, whatever their rank, under a new rule that has provoked anger across the political parties.

Surely there are limits to how much humiliation we impose on senior officers, particularly in a time of war? After all, those horribly inept and corrupt MPs are entitled to first class travel and they have done nothing to deserve it. At least a senior officer in the military has earned his stripes.

Meanwhile, staff at Britain's largest ambulance service have been encouraged to maximise the organisation's income, by securing payments for diverting patients to telephone help lines. These bonuses are among dozens of schemes being tried out by ambulance trusts across the country as they attempt to improve their emergency response times and help A&E departments meet controversial targets to treat all patients within four hours of arrival.

Another plan uncovered would see thousands of 999 calls currently classed as urgent, downgraded so that callers receive telephone advice instead of an ambulance response.

The changes were due to be introduced across the country this week, but the Government committee governing ambulances has delayed its decision amid safety concerns.

This is surely a sick experiment (pardon the unintentional pun) being played out on the public, at a cost to people's lives. These incentives are not just deeply unethical, but clearly dangerous to many a patient. Why on earth do we allow it to happen.

Although he is probably Britain’s most famous class warrior and admits he has had a chip on his shoulder for 70 years, John Prescott could be about to join the ranks of the titled and privileged by accepting a seat in the House of Lords, following pressure from his wife. The curmudgeonly former deputy prime minister is being coaxed by the lovely Pauline to join the ermine-clad peers when he quits the Commons next month, despite his long-standing antipathy to what he calls ‘flunkery and titles.’

Lord Two Jags perhaps?

 

When I was a working man, the private sector was where one earned money and the public sector was left to mugs like me. Now all has changed. If there isn’t a job in the public sector, the local council will make one to suit political correctness and the latest scare or fashion.

Newly invented ‘non-jobs’ include a £41,000-a-year 'promoting healthy weight' adviser in Lewisham and a £19,000-a-year 'temporary mass participation' worker in Bromsgrove. Mid-Suffolk has recruited a development officer to teach juggling to youngsters. Fife has a cheerleader and a 'teen funk' instructor.

And of course there is the global warming scam. This  entails the hiring of legions of eco-warriors and enviro-crime fighters on salaries commensurate with their self-righteousness. More than 5,000 new jobs have been created by local authorities to cash in on the global warming hysteria and £30 000 a year seems to be about the going rate.

In the People's Republic of Islington for example, the council advertised for a 'carbon reduction adviser' on thirty grand a year. The advert read: 'Islington Council is leading the way in tackling climate change.'

Really? Islington may be leading the way in vindictive parking enforcement, stabbing, street crime, graffiti and child molestation in council care homes. But saving the planet is an unlikely claim for one of the most notorious councils in Britain.

Meanwhile, in Tower Hamlets, the poorest borough in London and arguably the most deprived in Britain, 58 employees have job titles which contain the words 'climate change' or 'global warming.’

When Bedford Borough Council advertised for a climate change officer the perks included an 'essential car user allowance.’

Yet when floods swept many parts of the country a couple of summers ago, all these climate champions proved to be utterly, hopelessly, bloody useless. When the heavens opened, it was the same old story, just as it is when it snows in the winter. No evacuation plans, no flood defences, simply the usual headless-chicken incompetence.

While we're worrying ourselves sick about 'global warming,’ we still haven't got a clue what to do about the weather.

Once upon a time, you got on a train and your ticket was checked by a guard - now you endure interminable announcements from the 'onboard catering team' led by their 'customer service manager.’

What sort of gobbledygook is this damnit? According to one man who specialises in expensive holidays, travel agents have become 'experiential travel providers' offering something called 'bleisure.’

What in the name of all that is holy is 'experiential?’ Apparently it's trendy shorthand for holidays that offer more than just luxury hotels and lying on a beach, as companies compete to offer challenging 'experiences' in far flung parts of the world.

Bleisure, on the other hand, is just a bed in a swanky hotel with a spa and a gym - the ideal break for people who don't want to struggle through the jungle to look at rare squirrels.

None of it makes sense to me.

 

28^th  March 2010

I am sorry that I missed my Daily Rant yesterday but it turned out to be ‘one of those mornings.’ The news was all uniformly dire and to distract myself from its tedium, I tried to buy a collapsible fishing rod and a set of dry bags on Ebay. With my technological incompetence, that led to panic-stricken confusion and although I know the rod has been ordered and will be coming, I have little idea what the situation is with the dry bags.

One of these days, I will learn more about computerology, but at the moment, the twenty first century and I are definitely not compatible.

Would you believe that up to a dozen Labour MPs are threatening to quit this week in a bid to cash in on a £65,000 golden handshake before it is scrapped in a crackdown on politicians’ perks. They plan to exploit a loophole which means MPs who give up their seats now can make more money than those who are elected to the next Parliament.

This incredibly devious bit of legislation is likely to spark a fresh round of horsetrading, with MPs demanding peerages to give up their seats to make way for Gormless Gord’s own favoured candidates.

One nameless Labour MP who is considering resigning his safe seat said: ‘If you get £65,000 in redundancy, you don’t pay a penny in tax if you don’t work. It would take about a year and a half to earn that much in take-home pay as an MP. If there are two Elections in a year, you can make more money by standing down now and doing nothing. It is crazy but the people proposing these changes are to blame, not us. Why shouldn’t we take what is on offer?’

And that is our money they are batting around!

One of GG’s favoured candidates is Gloria de Piero, who is being catapulted in to a safe seat from an all woman short list. She is pictured today in many of the papers, beaming beside a sinisterly smiling GG and scowling Horrible Harriet.

 

She also turns out to have posed topless for a photgraphic agency when she was just fifteen and while I agree that this has nothing to do with her possible parliamentary talents, I wonder what Horrible Harriet – who railed against nude calendars in offices not so long ago – thinks about it.

 

Perhaps that is why she was scowling – or perhaps she felt rather dowdy beside the very lovely de Piero.

 

And whatever happens, the next parliament will be a glamorous one – at least to look at. Both GG and his opposite number seem busy filling their ranks with pulchritude, but whether this will lead to more efficient governance or is designed to make star-struck young people vote for glamour, I really don’t know.

 

Professor David Nutt, that tomato-brained menace to the nation’s young people, is now advocating state-regulated handouts of mephedrone and ecstasy in nightclubs, on the grounds that this would be safer than a legal ban. It is a reflection of the state of our education system that people like Professor Nutt are chosen to advise the Government on drugs policy.

These substances can never be safe. The young need a good reason to resist peer pressure to take them. Their parents need all the help they can get, as they plead with their children to stay away from the horrible risks of drugs.

I do hope that, long before the end of his smug and well paid life, Professor Nutt wakes up one night in a cold sweat and realises what it is that he has done, and is still helping to do.

But I doubt it. Professor or not, David Nutt is too stupid and self-satisfied to realise that what he is advocating is evil.

She was described as the ‘Interviewer of the Year,’ but surely Camilla Long was way out of line when she interviewed the former leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage.

During the interview, she spent a great deal of energy on the fact that Mr Farage once suffered from cancer and had a testicle removed as a result. She even rang him up afterwards to ask which one it was. He took this in good part. But should we?

Can you imagine what would happen to a male journalist who interviewed a liberal female politician who had lost a breast to cancer, made that the jokey theme of the resulting article, and rang her up afterwards to ask which breast it was?

Can you picture the outrage of the cancer charities, the wild storm of fury on Twitter, the pink-ribboned crowds gathering outside the newspaper’s office? But because Mr Farage is male and his cause is ‘right-wing’, this woman gets away with it.

Where was Horrible Harriet with her ‘equality’ theme?

But hypocrisy isn’t entirely confined to the political or journalistic classes. We now have climate change activists, allegedly bitterly opposed to air travel but travelling to a conference in South America by plane.

Campaigners from Climate Camp - who helped blockade Heathrow at the height of the summer holidays in 2007 - have decided to send two members to an international meeting in Bolivia to discuss ‘transnational protests’ against climate change.

The 12,000-mile round trip to the Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights conference next month involves changing planes at least twice.The flights will generate about eight tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases.The money for their tickets - at least £1,200 for an economy fare - is being paid for by donations to Climate Camp from people opposed to flying and airport expansion.

It really does beggar belief!

The alleged poet, Sir Andrew Motion (can anyone quote a single line of his work from memory?) claims, amid huge publicity to be writing a sequel to that great book Treasure Island. I doubt it very much.

It will be for readers to decide if Sir Andrew’s work is a ‘sequel’ or just an attempt to follow a great writer and cash in on his deserved fame. I shall be interested to see just how politically correct this new work is, as almost all children’s books published these days are – and as Treasure Island is certainly not.

Why can’t the man think for himself I wonder. As a former Poet Laureate, he must have some semblance of a brain.

 

26^th March 2010

My police talk went reasonably well, although I had some difficulty in convincing the audience that Our Policemen Really Are Wonderful. In fact, the exercise left me feeling profoundly depressed at all that has happened to this country over the past couple of decades.

Take the politicians for example. We have just had a totally pointless budget intended to ‘soak the rich’ according to the critics. One unfortunate result of this exercise in cynicism is that we have had that unctuous crook Lord Mandyflower oozing malevolence on most television screens during the week.

Highlight of the week was when Mandyflower was asked on the BBC about Hoon, Byers and Hewitt selling themselves to the highest bidders. Putting on his pious vicar voice, which always has me reaching for the sickbag, Mandyflower pronounced the whole affair 'rather grubby' and the interviewer didn't challenge him, or even laugh out loud.

What short memories some people have, especially those sections of the media stuck inside the Westminster bubble, who now treat the unelected and unrepentant Mandyflower like a living saint. The man is a proven crook for God’s sake and in any civilised country would be languishing in a prison cell.

We're told that the election hinges on the next six weeks and that the real story is the Tories' failing to convince anyone that they could do better on the economy. Who knows? Maybe they can, maybe they can't. But one thing is for certain, they can't do any worse and Labour has surely forfeited the right to govern. Forget the Budget and the next few weeks and look at the past 13 years. What sort of a society has this country become in that time? Thousands of new laws introduced, an overall surveillance culture, the ghastly health and safety industry, overall blame for the  victim not the criminal, the transformation of  cities by deliberately uncontrolled immigration, the 'world-class front-line services' which have taken police off the streets, turned us all into potential criminals and won't even empty our dustbins once a week.

Can these people really be proud of all that? Perhaps more importantly, can the Tories reverse it? God knows. But things can only get worse under this rotten, clapped-out bunch of Labour crooks. And it's decent, hard-working people on modest incomes who will suffer most and pay the price, not so-called 'fat cats' in £1million houses.

And as for manners – what chance have our young folk got when they look to their leaders? As Dashing Dave responded to the budget speech this week, Gormless Gordon displayed his usual pig-ignorance and chatted away to the Darling Boy. Other members of the Labour front bench played with their BlackBerries and pretended not to listen.

They thought they were being clever, but they weren't just insulting the Tory leader, they were insulting all of us. Budget Day is supposed to be an important event in the political calendar. They were at work, on our behalf, and shouldn't behave like spotty schoolkids on the back of a bus. Yet another reason they are not fit to be in government.

But I do so wish there was a viable alternative.

If you run a boarding house in 2010, at some stage you must expect a same-sex couple to check in for the night. So Susanne Wilkinson was wrong to turn away John Morgan and Michael Black from her B&B in Wokingham merely because homosexuality offends her devout Christian beliefs.

After all, it's not very Christian telling travellers there's no room at the inn.

Perhaps if her advert had emphasised 'run by devout Christian' (Rule one, No Poofters), John and Michael may have taken the hint and booked in somewhere else. I certainly wouldn't check into a temperance hotel for example. But this is where it gets out of hand. The police are now investigating Mrs Wilkinson and she's been deluged with hate mail from homosexual fundamentalists.

Mrs Wilkinson was in the wrong. She's probably in the wrong business, but prosecuting someone for holding sincere Christian convictions and making violent threats against her proves yet again that in modern Britain, tolerance is a one-way street.

Is it any wonder that our policemen are no longer wonderful at all?

 

25^th March 2010

I have been dreading today for many weeks. This afternoon I have to address the Eagle Star pensioners in Cheltenham and the subject of my talk is ‘Aren’t Our Policemen Wonderful.’ Eek! When I first devised the talk, I believed that they were, but my faith in the forces of law have been sadly shaken over the past few years so I will have to ‘perform’ at my best this afternoon if I am to sound in any way credible.

 

Kayaking among crocodiles seems an infinitely preferable way to go.

 

British Airways staff were angry yesterday after the airline told cabin crew who went on strike for three days that they would lose their travel perks. Staff receive discounts on travel, depending on length of service, and were warned by BA's chief executive Willie Walsh that the perks would be withdrawn if they joined the strike.

 

Sounds fair enough to me, but the bumptious cretins who run the union, UNITE waxed all indignant about it.

A spokesman said: “This is the clearest possible example of BA's bullying and contemptuous approach to its employees. Cabin crew showed last weekend that they will not be intimidated. Unite will challenge this vindictive move in whatever way seems appropriate.”

Well, I've only ever flown a couple of times with BA and they were nothing to write home about. In fact, even Air Zimbabwe offered better service. The cabin crew need to realise they're operating in an industry which is struggling to survive and strikes will only hasten its demise.

 

UNITE would appear to be the main benefactors behind Gormless Gordon’s Labour Party, so perhaps they ought to stick to politics and let BA sort things out with their staff. When will someone think about the hapless passengers?

 

Now, twenty of Britain’s most senior doctors have called for a ban on smoking in cars as part of a sweeping expansion of laws to protect children against the effects of inhaling smoke. Why stop there? Will there be a ban on smoking in homes next? When one of the doctors was asked this question he said that would be a bit too extreme because it could not be policed. In other words, he had no objection to the state’s invasion of private property, merely that it would be a difficult law to uphold.

This has surely gone too far. The current smoking ban has already exposed more children to tobacco than before. This is because parents who smoke are more likely to do so at home now than they used to because they can no longer indulge their habit in the pub. Also, smokers have been forced onto the streets thereby spreading the fumes around and being more visible than they were. How has that worked to the benefit of children?

And why stop at smoking? Since it is clear that children are fatter than they were and obesity is a national problem, why not prohibit parents from taking children under 16 to a burger bar; or being sold crisps, or….

How far can this go before we put a stop to it? Once upon a time doctors presented themselves as people who might, if we were lucky, cure or mitigate our ailments. Now they increasingly tell us what we may and may not do in order that at least some of these ailments may not develop in the first place.

In the past month alone, the government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson he of swine flu fame - has instructed us to eat less meat. He has inveighed, as he often does, against alcohol consumption, not drawing any distinction between the drunken yob who may go on the rampage in a city centre and the law-abiding citizen who chooses to drink half a bottle of wine at home.

As recently as last week, Sir Liam announced that parents of children deemed unfit will be sent warning letters by schools, and secondary school pupils be forced to take an annual fitness test. he claimed - how these pratwinkles like to chuck about wild statistics! - that lack of exercise was costing the economy £8.3 billion a year.

To which the obvious response is that, instead of chastising parents for allegedly stuffing their offspring with Turkey Twizzlers, the government should have ensured that thousands of school playing fields were not sold. When will this lot realise our lives belong to ourselves, not to the State or to the chief medical officer or to eminent doctors, and within reasonable bounds it should be left to us to decide what is best for ourselves and our children.

In Wiltshire, a boy of five was left stranded in a tree at school because of a bizarre health and safety policy - which banned teachers from helping him down.

The mischievous pupil climbed the 20ft tree at the end of morning break and refused to come down. But instead of helping him, staff followed guidelines and retreated inside the school building to ‘observe from a distance’ so the child would not get ‘distracted and fall.’

The boy was only rescued after 45 minutes in the tree when passer-by Kim Barrett, noticed the child and helped him down herself. The story doesn’t end there though. Instead of being thanked for her actions by the head teacher of the Manor School in Melksham, Miss Barrett was reported to the police for trespassing.

Later that evening a letter from head teacher Beverley Martin was posted through her  door, explaining that the school had contacted police about the incident.

The next morning she was visited by a ‘plastic copper’ who told her she had committed a trespassing offence by helping the young schoolboy down from the tree.

Truly, the world has lost its collective marbles!

 
 
 

24^th March 2010

The weather is back to its awful worst yet again. Cold drizzle through much of yesterday ate deep into my bones and made me long for the sunshine of Kariba and my beloved Zambezi Valley. Oh well, I will be there soon and will doubtless feel nostalgic for grey skies and cold drizzle when I am being chewed up my mosquitoes, tsetse flies and the rest.

We humans are an odd lot really.

Only a generation ago, Britain was rightly famed throughout the world for the high standards of integrity, decency and probity in public life. British civil servants did not take bribes - in sharp contrast to the deplorable conduct of officials across most of Europe, Africa and beyond.

And British politicians were keenly conscious of the distinction between public service and private greed. They did not go into government to make a fortune. On the contrary, with a few benighted exceptions - such as Conservative Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, who was jailed for perjury - they were driven by a fierce belief in public duty.

But over the past 13 years, British public life has undergone a terrible deterioration. As the Commons expenses scandal so graphically demonstrates, MPs today think nothing of extorting money from the taxpayer. Meanwhile, former ministers shamelessly profit from office by making ruthless use of their contacts.

And the office of Prime Minister, instead of being the ultimate ambition for every aspiring MP, is now seen as a stepping stone for joining the super-rich.

Geoff Hoon is a prime example of the moral deterioration in politics. He told a Channel 4 reporter posing as a lobbyist that he was happy to talk 'in strategic terms’ about the relationship between Nato at the higher level and national defence policy.

This kind of offer from a former British Defence Secretary smacks of more than mere corruption. It is surely treason and should be dealt with accordingly. British public life has not been so corrupt since the days of rotten boroughs, when Parliamentary seats were in the pockets of patrons, before being abolished as part of the 1832 Reform Act.

And if Hoon and his mate, Stephen Byers have been suspended from the Labour Party because of their lobbying activities, where does that leave Toothsome Tony - the man under whose aegis this degradation of our democracy occurred? For the moment there are plans for TT - if he can get his snout of the trough - to play a prominent role in Labour's election campaign. If he is to be consistent, Gormless Gordon must tell his former boss that he is no longer welcome in the Labour Party.

But he won’t. TT has charisma and is the one hope Labour have of being re elected. Who does not say much about the common sense of the British people.

Folk in Zimbabwe contiunually tell me how lucky I am to live in a country with free health services. That is rubbish and the NHS would seem to be becoming less efficient by the day.It is true that hospital waiting lists are down for non-essential surgery. Heart and cancer treatments have improved, though not by much. But hospital productivity is falling and the GP service is incomparably worse.

There are few home visits, poor and dangerous out-of-hours cover and a three-week wait to see your doctor while large practices offer what amounts to a locum to meet the ‘two-day wait’ target. This is from a service that claims to employ 28 per cent more doctors than 10 years ago.

This may explain how £10 billion could be spent on health for the under-fives over 10 years, financing 27 separate policy initiatives. According to the Audit Commission, the money yielded worse outcomes on everything from obesity to child mortality. The child mental health service, as the BBC reported at the weekend, is now a national disgrace.

Meanwhile, out-of-their-depth health secretaries such as Patricia Hewitt, Alan Johnson and Andy Burnham have simply capitulated to high-pressure salesmanship on a £12 billion NHS computer, for which no sane person has a good word. Everyone's health record will be hacked and available to every credit and insurance company within days. Experts from the Audit Commission to Computer Weekly have howled warnings but nobody in government takes notice. The money is too good.

The NHS has become exhibit A for all that is wrong with an over-centralised national service. Its headquarters are awash in initiatives, expensive conferences, management consultants and politically correct quangos. It has far too much money and an obsession with targetry at the expense of local service. No one is in control.

Almost every year there is another bright idea for yet another NHS reorganisation. To those working in it, the pain of constantly impending upheaval is intense. Yet the question is never asked, what does the public want — or at least the answer is not heeded. It wants a known local doctor to call one's own and a clean hospital with an emergency service within a decent travelling distance of home.

Fat chance of that I’m afraid. They are all too busy making money.

There was an unforgettable TV faux pas way back in 1973. Handing over from the studio, presenter Frank Bough said: 'Harry Commentator is your carpenter.'

For those of us who grew up with that legendary voice, croaky with excitement during a great boxing match or crinkled with a suppressed chuckle during yet another day of Wimbledon rain, Harry Carpenter was and will remain Harry Commentator. Great commentators are people so steeped in their subject that it comes out of their pores. That is why they never have to say too much.

The recent BBC coverage of the Winter Olympics showed us what sport is like when there isn't the right person on hand to guide you through - a white noise of excitement, with speculation crashing into facts. It was easier in Harry's day. One man could make a game his own: Dan Maskell on tennis, John Arlott or Brian Johnston on cricket, and Carpenter on boxing. Nowadays, sporting events are split between scores of different media; with that racket going on, how can anyone become the voice of sport?

While the voices lasted, however, they soothed and excited us, saying what we might have thought, too, if only we had been there watching Muhammad Ali.

Harry Carpenter was one in a million, but the million felt that he was one of them. Truly he was the Voice of Boxing and he will be sadly missed.

Michael Campbell was working the night-shift in a call centre when he helped himself to a couple of biscuits from a desk. The next day, his colleague Pamela Harrison noticed someone had swiped a shortbread or two from her £7 M&S selection box.

Now, there was a time when Ms Harrison would simply have shouted: 'Oi, what cheeky beggar's had his hands in my custard creams?' And left it there. No longer. CCTV footage was examined and the 27-year-old technical support worker was arrested.

Mr Campbell was sacked by the Convergys call centre and magistrates have ordered him to repay the cost of the biscuits, plus £150 court costs. The truly gob-smacking part is that Ms Harrison said in a statement that taking the biscuits from her desk had 'invaded her privacy.’ 

She was 'disappointed' that a colleague could 'take items which, though of low value, can make someone feel insecure.’ 

I wonder if the poor darling lives in the same world as I do.

23^rd March 2010

Last night’s Channel 4 programme on lobbying MPs made compulsive viewing. There they were, bold as brass and wallowing in their own assumed importance while the dollar signs flashed in front of their eyes.

Four of them were immediately suspended by the Labour Party, but I fear the damage has been done. Admittedly, one Conservative also featured on the programme, but he was a little known prat who could never aspire to anything anyway and didn’t look as though he ever would.

I am not sure that Gormless Gordon and his merry men can possibly survive this latest blow and if they do, then the Great British Public will have only themselves to blame.

The undoubted star of last night’s show was Stephen Byers, the former Transport Secretary and the programme reminded me of his previous most embarrassing Sunday outing.

The News of the World (who else could do it so well?) ran a classic story about 8 years ago, detailing how Byers cheated on his long-term partner by having a one-night stand with a blonde Labour councillor. This happened at a local government conference in Cardiff and who could forget this account from the woman in question, Barbara Cornish.

"I must have been groaning too loudly because he put his hand over my mouth so the people in the next rooms wouldn't hear. Then, in his throes of passion, the things he began saying got stronger. Some women might like their men to talk dirty but this was obscene filth. He was, in effect, calling me a tart and getting a kick out of it. He said that he wondered how many other men I had been with and that's what he was getting off on.

‘It wasn't just what he said or what he was implying but it was the language he used to express it. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever had a man say to me in my life.

‘I had to stop straight away. It just killed all the passion dead. "He asked, ‘What? What did I do?' He had no idea how cruel he'd been. "I said "What do you think I am? A prostitute or something?' "

Maybe we all got it wrong. Maybe Ms Cornish was so appalled because Byers had been yelling his going rate: "Three to five grand, that's what I charge!"

Only a cynic, of course, would suggest that Byers is the one who now looks like a 'tart.’

Mind you, nothing has changed and it seems that even the metaphors remain the same.

In the ‘cash for questions’ scandal of the mid-Nineties, Mahomed Fayed was famously told that you ‘rent an MP like you rent a London taxi.’ A decade and a half later, Byers told us all that he was ‘a bit like a sort of cab for hire.’

A journey in Byers Radio Cabs, it turned out, would cost Anderson Perry, a fictitious communications firm, between £3,000 and £5,000 a day. On the menu was the MP for North Tyneside's access to Lord Mandelson, meetings with Toothsome Tony and his supposed ability to get advantageous deals done for clients behind the scenes — as he had allegedly done for National Express when it wanted to escape its costly rail franchise on the East Coast main line.

Patricia Hewitt, the former health secretary, and Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, also offered access to ministers or Government advisory bodies — in return, of course, for a hefty fee. Mr Hoon was shamelessly candid: he wanted to translate his knowledge and contacts into ‘something that frankly makes money.’

It was putrid stuff but I watched it all with gathering horror and disgust. How can these pathetically greedy people lead a country?

Now, the Government has announced £4million aid for country pubs, which are reported to be closing at the rate of 40 a week.

Oh come off it! This is just a pre election stunt and is surely a bit rich coming from a government which has consistently raised the tax on booze, more than doubled business rates and brought in a draconian smoking ban which has slaughtered the licensed trade.

To make matters infinitely worse, that puritanical despot, Hilary ‘Veggie’ Benn wants to slash the sensible drink-drive limit, which already works effectively and delivers the safest roads in Europe.

This would ruin even more rural pubs and do nothing about hardcore drink-drivers, who wouldn't take any notice of the limit even if it was cut to half a pint of milk.

Yes, we surely get the government we deserve.

22^nd March 2010

Here we go for another week and they seem to be shooting by as the date for my departure and subsequent kayaking venture get closer. I have to confess that my nerves are beginning to jangle now, but I will be okay once all is under way.

I think I will at any rate.

In Doha, CITES (the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) have turned down proposals to ban trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears, while plans for a 20 year moratorium on the ivory trade are also likely to fail. Britain and other EU countries, always so vociferous when it comes to animals are refusing to support the proposed moratorium. Delegates are instead expected to approve a weak compromise, which would encourage poaching by allowing the sale of ivory being stored by several African nations.

This has been tried before and while my own views on the ivory ban are somewhat radical, I just do not understand the liberal wriggling of these so-called conservationists. International trade in ivory was banned in 1989, but since then Cites has agreed several ‘one-off sales’ of stockpiled ivory on condition that the proceeds were spent on elephant conservation. Which if course, they never are and these overpaid pratwinkles know that. Britain supported a one-off sale of 105 tonnes in 2008, arguing that it would reduce poaching by satisfying demand. But that and other sales have expanded the market in China and Japan for ivory ornaments, and that this in turn has encouraged poaching. Asian-run crime syndicates are able to pass off illegal ivory as coming from stockpiles sold with Cites approval.

Nobody proposes stockpiling seized heroin or other drugs and then selling them off to help in the anti drugs war. Why then do they shilly shally so with ivory. Either ban it completely or allow trade to continue. The elephants are rapidly disappearing while these bureaucrats argue in luxurious surroundings, but none of them seem to care about that.

THE Foreign Office, which is so cash-strapped that it struggled to pay its bills this month, has lavished £27m on a new embassy in Zimbabwe that was more than 50% over budget. A report by MPs reveals the department had to beg the Treasury for a £90m cash advance to pay suppliers, despite spending tens of millions of pounds on new missions in exotic locations.

Money has been so tight at its Whitehall offices that the Earful Mincyband had to go cap in hand to the Darling Boy to keep creditors at bay, according to the report by the Commons foreign affairs committee.

The falling value of the pound has led diplomats to implement humiliating cost-cutting measures abroad, including the hiring of cheap local staff, which brings spying risks. While mandarins try to make ends meet, however, the Foreign Office’s spending on some embassies appears to have soared.

Among the most extraordinary decisions taken by managers was to spend £27m on a new building in Harare, where British diplomatic efforts have failed to loosen the grip of Comrade Bob or to protect white farmers with British connections from his murderous militias. The embassy, which opened in March 2009, cost almost £10m more than originally projected.

The Foreign Office blamed the amount spent on the Zimbabwe embassy on ‘difficult local conditions,’ saying construction began during a period of political upheaval and collapse. The cost overrun is being investigated.

Twenty seven million would pay for a couple of new hospitals or perhaps put a few more cops on the beat and they had a perfectly adequate embassy in Harare in any case.

Here though, a town hall chief who stands to pocket £1million of public money in only three years claims that he is worth it.John Foster said he was ‘a very successful chief executive’ and didn’t feel the need to justify the amount of taxpayers’ cash he is receiving.

He picked up a £545,000 pay-off when he stopped working for Wakefield council in Yorkshire in 2008. The same year he took a three-year contract as chief executive of Islington council in north London, where he is now on £210,000 a year.

By the time the contract ends in June 2011, Mr Foster will have been paid more than £1million from the public purse over three years.

He said he had been paid to leave Wakefield, where he was also chief executive, because of a political decision by council leaders.

No Sir, you left because it made you a very wealthy man.

Now I must face my week.

 

 

 

21^st. March 2010

Poor old BBC are in real trouble this morning. Quite apart from sending Anne Robinson to Glasgow and putting her in a £1500 per night room for 5 weeks so that she can record the Weakest Link up there, they saturated the air waves with sport yesterday. Ms Robinson’t luxurious sojourn is part of their ‘regionalisation’ policy and a complete waste of licence payers money, but 13 hours of rugby and football on a single day is rather going over the top. I watched parts of all three rugby matches and have to admit that even though the game is one of my passions, I was bored witless at the end of the third one.

I sometimes find it diffcult to comprehend quite how those dullards in charge actually think and if I as a rugby man was bored, how much worse must it have been for those who regard the game as pointlessly puerile?! Taking it from a gender point of view, I know there are women who genuinely enthuse about rugby, but how would we men feel if we were forced into watching 13 hours of shopping or flower aranging programmes?

In Hackney, a children's centre set up by Labour to provide care for local youngsters has been forced to close. Why you might ask? Mainly because the families using it were judged too middle-class.

Paint Pots Arts Club was established in 2000 under the Government’s flagship £7billion Sure Start scheme, with the aim of teaching under-fives to paint, draw and sing. It is one of the busiest of Britain’s 3,500 Sure Start centres and caters for 500 children of all backgrounds who live within a two-mile radius. But despite its popularity, council bosses withdrew the club’s funding after deciding its users were too affluent.

Just last week Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended Sure Start, claiming that the
Conservatives planned to slash £200million from the service, and declared that the scheme meant that ‘every parent of a young child will get help and advice on parenting, childcare, health and employment.’

However the education department of Labour-controlled Hackney Council – known as The Learning Trust – was concerned the Paint Pots Art Club was not being used by enough poor people and pulled the plug on it.

Kids are kids for God’s sake and if these politically correct imbeciles have chips on their shoulders about misplaced wealth or ethnicity, they should be fired forthwith. No wonder this country is on the skids.

The usually ineffectual Advertising Standards Authority has managed to condemn some alarmist and political newspaper advertisements put out by the government, warning of global warming doom. These pathetic propaganda efforts – cynically aimed at children – used nursery rhymes to claim that man-made global warming was bound to lead to drought and storms.

There were 939 complaints, a very large number, and there would have been more if the ASA hadn’t announced they had enough to act on. Now, if the ASA condemns an advertisement, you can be sure it is really, really bad. But what did the BBC, whose Charter obliges it to be impartial, make of this latest blow to the Warmist movement?

The fast-fading Today programme, whose feeble new presenters have blunted its edge so much that it is rapidly ceasing to be a flagship, and becoming a politically correct festival of boredom, aired the following exchange.

Presenter Justin Webb was talking to media correspondent Torin Douglas. Mr Webb was plainly peeved by the ASA decision. He opined that the controversy pivoted on ‘just one word,’ as if that meant that the difference between certainty and speculation was insignificant. ‘This is a sort of score draw between the government and those who complained,’ Mr Webb editorialised.

‘Some of the advertisements passed and a couple, on almost a technicality, not.’
Mr Douglas replied: ‘I think you are right.’

Well, I think he is wrong, and if the BBC had any real concern for impartiality, it would tell them both so. It would also put some bite back into the Today programme, which seems to have gone all soft and woolly.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the Tories seemed keen on being part of the Toothsome Tony legacy and Shadow Schools Secretary, Michael Gove certainly confirms this.

‘At its best, New Labour was a recognition that the values of enterprise and aspiration could be fused with a commitment to social justice and fairness.’ He bleated a couple of days ago. ‘And the party that best exemplifies that view now is David Cameron’s Conservative Party.’

It makes me ever more worried about the Conservatives I’m afraid. Toothsome Tony was a total disaster for this country.

And now we have the government promising to ban ‘miaow miaow,’ the new not-illegal drug of choice among youngsters. Why? What is that likely to prove?

I have never understood all these government ‘knife amnesties’ and measures to stop young people being able to buy knives in shops. Surely, if a boy wants a knife, he would just grab one from the kitchen?

Similarly, there is no point banning mephedrone. Doing so will make it more desirable and, anyway, teenagers would just swiftly move on to the next big thing.

From the ivory trade to heroin, banning things just does not work. Surely these cretins in power can see that. Mind you, few of them have actually lived or worked in the real worlld, so perhaps not.

Rather than more pointless bans, let’s try to find a way to empower young people, engage them, understand them for a change.

 

What is poor old Gormless Gord going to do if he does lose the election and is forced into that very same real world I mentioned? Think about how life is these days. Think about how it has become, since he got walled up in 1997. Can you honestly imagine GG on hold with his insurance company or the Gas Board - arguing with a traffic warden - trying to get a last-minute doctor’s appointmentor interacting, in any sort of way with Ryanair? Just picture that last one. GG brazenly pretending that his hand luggage does actually weigh under 10kg. Screaming it, while everybody pretends not to notice and the airport police approach.

Obviously, he won’t leave office quietly. You can easily imagine him the day after the election, furiously swiping his pass, denying everything. But eventually, he’ll have to go. And, as it all slowly sinks in, he’ll be out there, an operating human, in this grotesque computer-says-no world that he built for us. Was ever a man more ill suited to it? Without Sarah Brown to guide him along life’s narrow pathways, I genuinely suspect he might starve to death.

He really is that much of a plonker.

 

 

 

 

20^th March 2010

Another weekend and the weather has broken so that it is hammering down with rain. All very well, but it means that I won’t be out on the canal in my kayak and I do need to practice. Yes I know it is only water and kayaking is a wet sport in any case, but it takes me hours – quite literally – to warm up again afterward and I am not prepared to put myself through that misery again.

By the time thiswinter finaslly disappears, I will be gone – and to another winter!

Toothsome Tony has always told us how he prides himself on his moral compass, and further claims that his ‘profound faith’ has guided all the important decisions in his life.

What absolute tommyrot! His conscience apparently gave no peep of protest as he set about filling his pockets with Iraqi oil money. The news that our former Prime Minister took hundreds of thousands of pounds from multinational oil giant UI Energy Corporation is shocking enough - but even worse is the fact that he spent two years trying to conceal it, dubiously citing commercial confidentiality.

The first fact merely tells us that this smiling swindler is driven by a desperate desire to feather his nest, while the second shows that he must have known such a deal was wrong. Legally, of course, his oil fortune is above board. But morally it is unconscionable.

This is the man who took the deeply unpopular decision to join forces with the Americans and topple Saddam. This is the man who rode roughshod over any objections with terrifying claims about 'weapons of mass destruction.’ This is the man who said it wasn't about the oil.

And in the years since, as we've learned about the dodgy dossiers and the secret meetings and the spurious reasoning, there was still one consolation - that whatever the dubious means he used to take us to war, at least Tony Blair was doing what he thought was right. That was what he told the Chilcot enquiry at any rate.

How he must have laughed and still be laughing at the gullibility of the British people.

Meanwhile in Ireland, he beleaguered leader of the Roman Catholic church Cardinal Sean Brady, says he will use the Easter break to decide whether he should step down after helping to cover up the crime of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth, who admitted 74 charges of child sexual abuse.

Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland's deputy First Minister and a former terrorist, insists the Cardinal considers his position. Nice to see the IRA man getting comfy up there on the moral high ground. Just remind me how many children were murdered in the Warrington bombings?

He and TT should get together in their pious hypocrisy. They both lie through their teeth and expect us to believe in their goodness.

The Thought Police are out to get us. Musician Tom Shaw was questioned by ‘suspicious staff’ and asked to leave a South West Trains service because he wrote a set list on his notepad, which included the band name ‘The Killers.’ He had written the word ‘killers’ rather than write out the title of one of their songs.

This story would be funny if it wasn't so serious. The overtones are positively Orwellian. What on earth were the security staff looking over his shoulder for anyway.

Facebook has eclipsed Google as the most visited site in the United States. It toppled the US search giant after accounting for 7.07 per cent of all traffic compared with 7.03 per cent. People want information from friends they trust rather than from an anonymous search engine, so the story goes. But should we necessarily rely on information from friends? The story about Jon Venables being poor old David Calvert originated on Facebook and ruined a young man’s life.

I have always felt that Facebook and other chat sites like it are a snooper's and a stalker's charter. But to confuse it with an oracle of truth is as deluded as thinking England can win the World Cup or beat anyone other than Bangladesh at cricket.

On the sporting theme, it was only football, but Fulham’s win over mighty Juventus this week was a wonderful moment for sporting endeavour. Their owner Mohamed Fayed, who is so maligned in everyday life, showed the world that by remaining true to one’s standards, it is possible to win, even against apparently insuperable odds.

The result was a tonic for those who need their belief in human nature restored. It showed that life is not the domain of greed and money and cynicism. And, in one short passage of play, it was about the power of genius.

That was when Clint Dempsey, an American who would be consigned to the reserves if he was lucky at any of the grander clubs, produced a stroke of unutterable beauty. A brief look-up at the goal and he didn't lash the ball but sent it on a slow parabola into the top corner. It was audacious and brilliant.

At the end where Dempsey scored is a black-and-white poster of the great Johnny Haynes. Fulham, England but always understated, he would have signalled his approval. At the other, the scoreboard changed — Fulham 4 Juventus 1 — and the cameras flashed away, capturing a famous, never-to-be-forgotten victory.

A rare victory for sport in these cynical, money-mad days.

 

 

 

 

19^th March 2010

I spent much of yesterday morning searching for my telephone, only to find it in the door of the fridge at lunch time. That in itself would have been terrifying – Alzheimers here I come – had I not after much brain wracking remembered that when making my morning coffee, I somehow found my hands full when it came to the cream. I can remember placing the phone in the fridge for balance and then I must have replaced the cream across it.

Oh well, that is my story anyway. Let’s hope I don’t get too many more strange events in my life before heading off on my kayak.

Here, Ministers were quick to trumpet the drop in the jobless total by 33,000. It was a better result than had been expected. “The fall in unemployment for the third month in a row is very welcome,” said Yvette Cooper, the work and pensions secretary. “We're not out of the woods yet and we are still determined to do more to support jobs and help the unemployed this year.”

And so on and so forth!

What this prattling harridan did not mention was the 21.5 per cent of the working-age population who have given up on work altogether, in other words the ‘economically inactive’ band. What she also failed to dwell upon was the jump in the number of students by 98,000 to 2.31 million, another all-time high.

They really do cook the figures, these people.

And would you believe that the cops ran up a bill of £273,000 to protect Toothsome Tony when he attended the Chilcot enquiry? Hundreds of officers were stationed outside the conference centre as TT faced a furious backlash from protesters.

The Metropolitan Police said the total cost of enforcing a ring of steel around the centre was £273,000 and could yet run higher. The man himself provoked outrage by slipping into the building at 7.15am before the vast majority of protesters arrived and leaving by a side entrance.

At the end of his session one member of the audience shouted: "What, no regrets? Come on," while others heckled "You are a liar," "And a murderer."

This information about the cost of protecting a complete charlatan has come on a day when universities are having their budgets slashed and we learn that TT has been paid by a South Korean oil company with interests in Iraq. With all his other interests, he has amassed a cool £20 million since retiring so why does PBT have to pay for his protection?

Particularly as we now learn that police spend only a third of their time on the beat.

A report into value for money for taxpayers also found that just 13 per cent of their time is dedicated to investigating crime. The figures compiled by 43 police forces around the UK show that frontline duties like policing roads, intelligence gathering, seizing dangerous dogs and firearms take up only 4 per cent of their day. 

Meanwhile, back office work such as human resources, IT, finance and planning consumes a fifth of their time, and helping the public takes up half.

Bo wonder we never see them in the villages. I wonder where they took that ‘helping the public’ figure from?

Going back to Toothsome Tony for a moment, I cannot understand why the Tories seem so keen to regard themselves as 'the heirs to Blair?’

TT was duplicitous and in love with wealth and wealthy men. He involved Britain in questionable foreign entanglements. Domestically he achieved only a fraction of what he had set out to do in 1997.

Yet that many Tories greatly admire him immensely, there can be no doubt. Michael Gove, the shadow spokesman on schools, declared on Tuesday that his party now represented Blairite values at their best. In rightly condemning Labour's lurch to the Left, he wrongly championed its flawed ex-leader. And he was only repeating what Dashing Dave told newspaper executives at a private dinner in October 2005, shortly before he was elected leader of the Conservative Party.

He surprised his audience by declaring that he was 'the heir to Blair.’

And what, in the end, did Blairism amount to? Certainly he was a master of presentation, beguiling the media and the public for many years until he over-reached himself by exaggerating the dangers posed to this country by Saddam Hussein.

He also ruthlessly re-fashioned his party to make it electable, and one can see why this example should have inspired DD when he took over a thrice-defeated Tory party which did stand in need of some modernising.

Yet Mr Blair should not be judged by his tactical gifts but by his actual achievements. What on earth is there here for the Tories to emulate and if they do, can we possibly trust them?

Sian Williams, who is apparently a breakfast news reader for the BBC now tells the world that she will read the news naked if necessary. A nice thought for we lecherous oldies perhaps, but what is she fussing about?  She says that wearing the same clothes repeatedly could cause her to lose her job, therefore her personal maintenance bill - which includes £975 on haircare,  £3,200 on clothing and £325 on laundry - should qualify for tax relief.

Her representative told the tax tribunal it was an 'implied term' of Miss Williams' contract that 'she must not wear the same clothes more than twice or three times a month.’

Implied by whom I wonder? Picture if you like, the director general, Mark Thompson rifling through her drawers, counting up the number of pastel blouses and frilly knickers therein? It doesn’t ring true, does it?

Anyway, I reckon Huw Edwards has worn the same grey suit and 17th century style powdered wig for more than a century and no one has batted an eye about him. Perhaps Ms Williams should realise that nobody really cares what she wears. People watch the news to watch the news, not to wonder how many times Sian will wear that easy iron number from the Hot Flush boutique. I reckon she has her wires crossed somewhere – or perhaps she is another one out to make easy money.

Tory MP Tim Loughton is the Tory ‘Children’s Spokesman’ and unluckily for Conservative prospects in the forthcoming election, he has turned his attention to teenage mothers.

'It is against the law to get pregnant at 14. How many kids get prosecuted for having under-age sex? Virtually none,' he thundered this week, raising the prospect of criminalising teenage mothers.

Oh yes, that will really help.

Everyone knows that there is a worrying rise in teenage pregnancies among very young girls, but flinging them in jail is hardly a solution. Surely even this dimwit can see that.

It does make one tremble at the thought of this Tory lot ever gaining power.

First we had the glass slipper. Then it was the glass ceiling. Now it is the glass cliff. As both major political parties continue to insist on pushing through women-only short lists - except when Mr Harriet Harman is applying for a safe seat, of course - another puff of bad news wafts from the workplace.

This week, some senior policewomen have claimed that female officers are deliberately promoted into positions they 'cannot succeed in,’ so that they will make a hash of things and get sacked. Pushed off the glass cliff, in other words.

Can this possibly be true? Look at the Met's high-ranking Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick. She was the officer in command of the operation to arrest Jean Charles de Menezes back in 2005, and we all know what happened there.

Yet these officers insist women are being pushed into challenging jobs where it is very difficult to succeed, but surely that is why they are challenging in the first place?

The policewomen say they are encouraged to go for promotions, even though they feel they may not have the necessary experience. Yet they are continually pressured from afar by the Government who want to see an increase in the number of female officers at a senior level.

'We fought for years to be considered, now we are fighting not to be considered,' they say. Hell! I reckon you would need a pair of glass eyes not to cry until Christmas at the pathetic muddle of it all. From both sides.

I'm not even sure I believe in the glass cliff in the first place. If it exists, why is Horrible Harriet still in a job?

 

 

 

 

18^th March 2010

One of the good things about my performance in my Taste of Africa evening last Friday was that I set out to make the audience laugh and laugh they certainly did. One person who attended, told me that she and the lady beside her had almost left the room because they were crying with laughter. Perhaps I should try and write a humorous book, because by golly there are few of those around these days.

Novels, films, almost any form of entertainment now is designed to make you think on weighty matters like rape, incest, family breakdowns etcetera. Look at the prize winning books – most of them are portentiously bleak and uninteresting but because the so called literati want to appear incredibly learned, they sweep all before them. This is not sour grapes on my part but I do feel that the Emperor’s New Clothes is an ever more apt parable for modern society.

Perhaps it is time I wrote a comedy.

Why on earth are the Conservatives trying to be ‘Blair’s Heirs’ – and that is a direct quote. The man was a charming charlatan who led Britain into ruin and caused the deaths of many thousands of innocents. Now they want to carry on where he left off. I know Gormless Gordon is  a pretty dire sort of prime minister, but I have ever increasing doubts about his opposite number. I am so glad I am going to miss this election because I really would not know whom to vote for.

Would you believe that I have lost my telephone? Senility really is hitting home now and I have tried ringing my number, but all I get is my own voice. I have backtracked on all the steps I have taken this morning but still theree is no sign of the ruddy thing.

Why does this techonological age provide us with so many hassles? Life was so much easier when one didn’t need the joys of a cell phone at hand all the time.

I had better try and find it I suppose.

 

 

 

 

17^th March 2010

What is it about St Patrick’s Day that makes the English celebrate it with far more enthusiasm than they celebrate St George’s Day? For me, it was always the birthday of my lovely friend Janet Kennedy and for 30 years or more, I sent her a card from wherever I happened to be in the world. She kept them too and now that she has turned her toes up, I wonder what happened to them all.

Oh well, wherever you may be Jenny Dear, rest well. If ever anyone deserved peace, it was Janet Kennedy Fotheringham Robertson Gardiner.

Still the expenses scandal among MPs goes on. Figures revealed by the Commons authorities on Monday show that more than 230 of these shysters have 'flipped' the second home on which they claim expenses. This has prompted claims that many MPs have used their expenses to pursue lucrative sidelines in property development.

The practice became notorious last year when it emerged that some MPs had repeatedly changed the designation of their second home in order to maximise the expenses they could claim from the taxpayer. A total of 232 MPs have changed the designation of their second home in the last five years - equal to more than one third of all MPs.

Those involved, include Gormless Gordon himself and ten Cabinet ministers, among them Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, and Alistair Darling, who changed his twice. Seven members of the Shadow Cabinet also switched the address of their second home, including William Hague and schools spokesman Michael Gove. A total of 45 MPs changed the designation of their second home at least twice, with millionaire, Tory climate change spokesman Greg Barker switching his an astonishing five times in five years. This should surely be completely illegal damnit. They didn’t switch homes for fun. They made huge profits out of all these changes.

Bear in mind that much of this took place during the biggest property boom in British history. We, the PBT have paid for these horrible swindlers to make themselves rich. Believe it or not, the practice has continued even in the wake of the expenses scandal, with 25 MPs changing the designation of their second home within the last 12 months, including the Home Secretary Alan Johnson and the Commons Speaker John Bercow.

To hell with an election. Let’s just fire the lot of them and start again from scratch with new people and new rules.

A violent psychopath who stabbed a young father to death four months after walking free from court over another brutal attack has been jailed for life – well sort of.

Colin Welsh was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison yesterday as a judge described him as 'clearly dangerous.’ After 20 years of smoking powerful cannabis the paranoid schizophrenic believed a 'transmitting device' had been implanted inside his inner ear by criminals to send him mad.

Welsh was fined £200 in March 2008 for beating a fellow student at St Andrews University so badly that he needed facial reconstruction surgery. He was left free to stab cabinet maker Elliot Guy in the neck at a party in Tufnell Park, north London, in July 2008, the Old Bailey heard.

Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, said the decision not to send him to jail over the earlier attack was 'merciful.'

It is time for justice, not mercy. He showed no mercy to Mr Guy. When will these allegedly learned judges worry about the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators?

Labour dropped its plan to make dog owners buy compulsory insurance yesterday  -  just a week after putting up the idea. This lightning U-turn followed complaints from pressure groups that responsible pet owners would be made to pay for the behaviour of a minority. 

The plan for compulsory third party insurance, costing owners between £80 and £100 a year, was floated by ministers in a consultation paper last week and condemned by critics as a 'dog tax’ – a charge that various spokesmen vehemently denied. 

And yesterday, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said that compulsory insurance was 'ruled out.’ He blamed opposition politicians for misconstruing the consultation paper, saying: 'Any suggestion that we will put a tax on all dog owners is simply untrue  -  yet another example of desperate Tory scaremongering.'

It had nothing whatsoever to do with the Tories damnit. The government just got scared at the anger it had aroused among ordinary people.

These cretins in power don’t even have the courage of their own convictions.

16^th March 2010

I was paid an oblique compliment last evening when a friend rang me to say that he had tried to read The Rant from his office computer, only to be told by said computer that this site contains ‘unsuitable’ material.

I wonder who I have offended?

Do you realise that the freezing winter has left a legacy of over two million potholes across Britain. Must be something to do with global warming I suppose, but unfortunately, we may have to put up with them for some time. Councils can't agree on what constitutes a pothole.

In Gloucestershire, for instance, it must be the depth of a 'golf ball' and the width of a 'dinner plate' before it qualifies. Other local authorities have different criteria. Herefordshire has promised to repair each and every hole, regardless of its size, but in Suffolk it will be filled in only if it is the size of a dustbin lid.

Not exactly a precise science, is it? Can you imagine the head-scratching and pencil-sucking there would be among council surveyors? The problem is – at least in Gloucestershire – that all too often, holes are merely patched up with temporary filling, that disintegrates from traffic usage and the hole re emerges, larger and more dangerous than it was before.

I have seen bigger potholes around here than I have in Harare.

The Director of Public Prosecutions now says he can't bring charges against Baroness Uddin, who claimed £100,000 in expenses by pretending that an empty flat was her main home.

Since the Lords changed the rules halfway through the police investigation, the DPP argues that securing a conviction would be impossible. it would be too difficult to prove she hadn't visited the flat in question for months. That does not make a lot of sense I’m afraid. Neighbours told the newspapers they'd never seen her there. I'm sure they'd be prepared to give the same evidence in court.

Baroness Uddin is a lying crook who stole from her employer, the British taxpayer and the rules of Parliament shouldn't be allowed to over-ride the laws of the land.

She should be put in the dock and asked under oath, for the dates she claims to have slept in this ghost flat in Maidstone. She can either tell the truth, in which case she's guilty of fraud, or she can commit perjury. Either way, she should go to jail and the DPP must surely know that.

Or is he worried about losing his job through political pressure?

It seems that with faith in the police force waning, more and more areas are forming their own crime prevention units, some of which seem suspiciously like vigilante patrols. The trouble is that nobody knows any more whether it is safe to attempt a citizen’s arrest. The definition of ‘reasonable force’ rarely comes down on the side of the arrester and even a harsh word spoken in heat can make you fall foul of hate-crime laws. The police hate citizen intervention, partly because it can provoke a more serious crime as the villain fights back, and partly because they say we’re just not trained.

In the can-do culture of the United States, they formed the Guardian Angels. They are identifiable in red berets, unarmed but adept in martial arts, with their own screening and training schemes. At first they were widely condemned by the authorities, but Mayor Koch reversed his judgment and successive New York mayors backed them. But they never caught on here: possibly because their very existence feels like an admission that the police can’t keep the peace.

But if they can’t — and if senior policemen are going to patronise our ‘over-reliance’ — we need to consider a degree of rebalancing, and more benefit of the doubt for individuals who verbally or physically defend the peace. Public authority can’t have it both ways: either you insist on the police keeping things calm, or you share the burden.

The irony is that in other matters, the State is ever keener to devolve powers of interference to companies and minor arms of its own. We have private prisons, including one for under-18s; commercial entities enforce congestion charges. The DVLA still sells personal address details of drivers for £2.50 a head to parking companies — some with criminal records — which then set ludicrous fines at will.

Meanwhile, a freedom of information request has revealed, thousands of town hall workers have been given powers of search and entry to private homes without a warrant, looking for everything from illegal hypnotists to prohibited pot-plants (though obviously, if you have an aggressive boyfriend, they won’t get to the back bedroom where the beaten child is lying.)

It all seems terribly cockeyed to me. We used to have a wonderful police force that could be relied upon, but we don’t any more so perhaps it is time for the vigilantes to take over.

And coming from an ex cop, that is quite an admission.

 

 

15^th March 2010

Yesterday was a sad one in my bratlet rugby circles. In the quarterfinals of the County Plate, they lost to a breakaway try in the dying seconds. Our full back – a young man who is one of the bravest rugby players I have seen – was in tears after the game as he missed the vital tackle.

Ah well, for all the boys it was a lesson in life and one that will stand them in good stead later on. They have played wonderfully well this season and after their own initial disappointment, I know that all the parents will be proud of them.

Last night, Samantha Cameron was unveiled to the nation as Dashing David's not-so-secret electoral weapon. In a TV interview, she revealed such gems as how she fell in love with 'Dave the politician' on holiday, that he never picks up his clothes and makes a terrible mess in the kitchen, but that he has 'never let her down.’ This really was tacky, vomit-inducing stuff.

Nor does it stop at political wives. For also appearing in last night's documentary about DD was none other than his mother, who informed the nation of such vital matters as how little David had sought to gain attention when he was in short trousers. He obviously hasn’t changed much over the years, but it surely gives a whole new meaning to the old joke that a politician will sell his grandmother to achieve power. Dashing David is selling his mother and wife - in order to sell himself. How many more relatives, one wonders, are lurking in the Cameron repertory support company?

And of course we have Sarah Brown already simpering and cooing over the Gormless One and are promised that Tricky Nicky’s wife will be the next one in line to coyly reveal family secrets about her husband. This really is tawdry and utterly demeaning to the women themselves, let alone the spineless spouses they are attempting to bolster.

In fact, it is all utterly deplorable really. Not because leaders' wives should be looked down upon as mere decoration, but because it muddles up the public and the private spheres - which should be kept apart - and in the process demeans the whole business of politics.

Come back Screaming Lord Such!

I am all for equality in certain fields between the genders, but the latest female planning to combine full-time work — very long hours and a constituency — with producing a baby is Joanne Cash, the prospective Tory parliamentary candidate for Westminster. If she gets into parliament, her first baby will be born only weeks after she takes her seat this summer.

I suspect that most mothers, remembering the arrival of their own babies, will regard this as daft. Even if things go smoothly, the demands of motherhood are such that Cash will be forced either to neglect the baby or to neglect the job.

So why is it even contemplated. She knew she was going to run for Parliament. Surely therefore she can arrange things accordingly. If she couldn’t, then how good will she be at arranging parliamentary matters?

You know, if there is one public figure who embodies all the arrogance, incompetence, dogmatism and greed of the Labour elite it is Baroness Ashton, recently appointed the new foreign Minister of the European Union.

Only through a typical Brussels stitch-up last November did this socialist apparatchik achieve her exalted and lucrative position in charge of the EU’s foreign policy and in the 100 days since she took up her post she has lived down to all the lowest expectations.  

Her performance has been dismal, her authority non-existent. Unable to speak any foreign language, devoid of experience in international affairs, she has not only been manipulated by officials but has made a string of silly errors. She even managed to outrage most of her colleagues by failing to visit Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, despite the huge levels of EU support provided to that stricken country.

But Ashton’s response to the sense of crisis that has gripped her office is all too typical of the parasitical EU bureaucracy which now controls our lives. Her office, who must surely be reflecting her own views now says that what she really needs to do her job properly is a private jet.

Yes, that’s right - it’s now being suggested that this left-wing champion of the people, friend of the downtrodden and crusader against climate change deserves to be flown around the globe in her own personal aircraft, paid for of course by the PBT. But what has she done to deserve it I wonder.

The answer to that is fairly simple – absolutely nothing. Ashton is just like one of the slab-faced plutocrats of the old Soviet Union, lecturing the public about duty and sacrifice while leading a life of extreme privilege. The European Commission already has a travel budget of almost £4 million but that’s not good enough for her.  

Where do they find these people?

Businessman Keith Owen, who made £3million by flooding supermarkets with battery eggs falsely labelled 'organic' or 'free range,' was ordered to repay the money, and £250,000 costs, before being sent down for three years and banned from being a company director for seven years.

All very right and proper, but isn't it sad, and rather curious, that not one of the bankers who helped bring the world to the brink of another Great Depression has ended up inside? They are just as criminal and have adversely affected the lives of far more people that the swindling Mr Owen.

The Government isn't frightened of dodgy businessmen who sell us counterfeit goods, but it is terrified of the bankers who sell worthless pieces of paper designed to appear valuable.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis (What made him choose that totally inappropriate name I wonder) says a toughening of the drink-drive laws, making it illegal to have more than a pint of beer or a glass of wine, is among 'a set of ideas being kicked around.’

Who asked him to kick them around? Must have been road safety campaigners, I suppose, because I certainly didn’t. You can pass any law in this country if its object is to restrict people from driving. If the bans and fines targeting motorists were applied to drunk or rowdy pedestrians, our streets would be safer but we'd have a revolution on our hands.

But as that wonderful Irish comedian Dave Allen once commented, "Twenty percent of road accidents are caused by people who drink and drive, which means that eighty of accidents are caused by people driving while they are sober. All you sober people need to get off the road and let us drunks drive in safety."

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

14^th March 2010

Mothering Sunday and the world – or this little part of it – is climbing on the profiteering bandwagon. Knowing nothing about the day itself, I wandered into Stroud yesterday in search of a bunch of flowers for Landlady Jane and her young ladies, who had done so much to make my Taste of Africa evening a success. Appalled by the prices, I asked a flower seller why they were so high and he blithely admitted that it was because this was ‘Mother’s Day Weekend.’

And I was naïve enough to think that profiteering is illegal! Jane and the girls had to be content with supermarket flowers.

Aid agencies in Zimbabwe are appealing to donors to support the $378 million appeal launched last December to support humanitarian and early recovery efforts in the country.

"Lack of funding at this crucial time could derail progress made between the latter part of 2009 and now," warned the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which noted that the 2010 Consolidated Appeal is just over 2 per cent funded.

What progress are they referring to I wonder? Good old Morgan told a symposium on public and private partnerships this week that the indigenisation program aims to promote broader-based economic participation, not discourage investment.

"Sometimes investors get alarmed when a policy is announced without clarification, but I want to assure you that the policy is in the best interests of the people of Zimbabwe," MT said happily. This is in total contrast to his previous statements that the indigenisation process was bound to deter investors.

The man has been totally corrupted by power I am afraid.

Meanwhile the Zim government appears confused over the assessment of the country's food security situation. Following a tour of the countryside a few weeks ago, MT declared the situation catastrophic. But Agriculture Minister, Joseph Made says it is too early to conclude that the harvest has failed, as the farming season is not yet over. He blames western sanctions for the collapse of irrigation infrastructure on small-scale farms.

"Those communities where the British and Americans have pretended that the sanctions have no impact, that is where the sanctions have an impact and indeed when the prime minister was visiting around he saw the state of irrigation schemes and they are only in that state because of the sanctions," says Made.

His grasp of English syntax is matched only by his grasp of reality.

Here, a wealthy Conservative MP has been criticised for claiming 13p for Tipp-Ex on his parliamentary expenses. Andrew Mitchell, the Shadow Secretary for International Development, also submitted a 45p invoice for a stick of glue.

The former investment banker is one of the richest MPs at Westminster. A descendant of the founders of the El Vino wine merchants, he lives in a £2million house in Islington, North London so he is not short of a bob or two.

Mr Mitchell, who has been the MP for Sutton Coldfield since 2001, has come under scrutiny for previous expense claims. Last year it was revealed he claimed £19,000 for furnishing and decorating his £400,000 constituency home. In 2004, he also demanded the Commons fees office pay him £2,000 from his second home allowance 'until it is exhausted.’

As well as his MP's salary of £64,700, Mr Mitchell is paid £40,000 a year in his role as an adviser to consultancy group Accenture. According to the Register of Members' Interests, he is also a paid director of six subsidiaries of investment bank Lazard & Co. In 2002 Mr Mitchell received a £630,000 windfall when he sold his stake in El Vino.

Responding to criticism over the Tippex claim, he said: 'This is a perfectly normal office expense, the likes of which any office up and down the country might use.'

I fear that Joseph Made is not the only one out of touch with reality.

With violent crime and yobbery on the increase, an auctioneer who tried to sell a chest of drawers containing 100-year-old birds eggs has been charged under laws designed to protect wildlife.

Jim Railton believed the Edwardian oak cabinet, which had been found in a garage, was just another piece of furniture that could be put up for auction.But instead he was arrested and driven to a police station where his fingerprints were taken and his mouth swabbed for a sample of his DNA. If found guilty, Railton, who has been in the antiques trade for more than 30 years, could face a maximum £5,000 fine and up to six months’ imprisonment because under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, it is illegal to offer wild birds’ eggs for sale, regardless of their age.

He would surely have done better to take up a career as a burglar or swindler. Honesty in this country is coming to be frowned upon.

Take the bankers for example. Still there is no inquiry. Still we have no answers. A trillion pounds has been devoted over the past 18 months to protect Britain's financial system from alleged Armageddon, with not a murmur of value for money. This stupefying sum is more than has ever been spent on any project by any government in British history.

We know where the money came from but we do not know if it was necessary, nor who now has it. We know only that, a year on, Britain is experiencing a worse recession than any comparable country. The lack of accountability, the sheer lack of curiosity from the political community, is amazing.

Faced with a global asset bubble of some $290 trillion about to burst, a frantic Darling Boy started throwing millions, then billions, then a trillion at underpinning the banks' near worthless ‘casino’ debts. Why? He never spent such money on indebted homeowners or indebted manufacturers or indebted African states. He did it to banks because they told him they were too big to fail. Advised by bankers, surrounded by bankers, obsessed with bankers, DB gave them our money.

I would like to know why. Ask those involved and they go wide-eyed and mutter ‘Armageddon,’ rather like Toothsome Tony explaining the Iraq invasion. To these people, not letting banks fail was not an option but a creed. They cannot explain what is wrong with taking hold of a reckless bank in trouble, guaranteeing its deposits and continuing to lend against a Treasury guarantee, while dumping the casino activities into administration. Shareholders lose out, but that's capitalism. Talk of bank doors closing is rubbish.

Why were RBS and Lloyds/HBOS not fully nationalised, rather than given unconditional largesse? Speaking at this year's Spectator lunch, Darling boasted that "I own four banks.” Does he hell! They own him. They assured him they would use our money to lend to businesses and homeowners to avert recession. They lied and Darling knew it. He knew his money would disappear into underwriting the banks' casino debts and overheating the stock market.

Somewhere in all this financial chicanery, there has to be an answer and surely someone, somewhere in the corridors of power has the gumption to hold these swindling bankers to account.

Or will PBT be paying again when the next crisis unfolds?

 

 

 

13^th March 2010

After all my worry and fretting about last night’s Taste of Africa evening, it all went off like clockwork. The digital projector wasn’t delivered until lunchtime so poor Jane at the pub was beginning to panic – thank God I didn’t know or I would have been hospitalised! – but once we had it all going, there wasn’t a problem.

The ‘lecture room’ was packed and my audience laughed a lot and certainly seemed to enjoy themselves, while at a quick count, I reckon I will have made in excess of £200. My eyes scratch this morning – I didn’t poddle off to bed until well after one – and I feel totally drained, but at the same time, I was very pleased with the evening.

An article in the Daily Mail made me cross yesterday. In order to illustrate how people are starving in Zimbabwe, they showed a series of photographs of a dead elephant in the Gona re Zhou (Place of the elephants) National Park. The carcass was quickly cut up by hordes of local villagers who transported the meat to their kraals, because ‘they were starving and would eat anything.’

Rubbish! What sick reporting that is. Elephant meat is prized by rural Zimbabweans and any carcass found in the bush will attract the crowds, whether they are hungry or not. This has gone on since time began and the political or economic situation in the country has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Here, a restaurant owner in Sussex, Sal Miah chased two yobs who were raiding his beer cellar and held them while his staff dialled 999. I suppose, it was inevitable that when the coppers arrived they arrested Mr Miah and not the actual criminals. He was held in a cell for 5 hours and had his DNA, fingerprints and mug shot taken like any ordinary villain.He was finally released at four in the morning after receiving a caution for assault and battery which will remain on his record for 5 years.

Sussex police said he should have 'observed from a safe distance' before dialling 999. A spokesman said: 'On no account should any attempt at aggression be made as this could easily escalate into violence.'

I am supposed to defend these pusillanimous uniform carriers in a talk the week after next! I have to confess that if I were in Mr Miah’s shoes, I would have done exactly the same thing and he should be congratulated for his public  spirited courage, not cautioned.

Truly, the law in Britain is a total ass.

It seems that the House of Lords is even more riddled with corruption that Parliament itself. At least a dozen of these pratwinkles – and probably a lot more - should be in the dock with the four sacrificial lambs trotted out last week to appease public fury.

But not a bit of it. When the Attorney General stepped in to enquire as to their ill gotten loot, they merely changed the rules. Over the years, Lords and Ladies with homes in London have variously claimed their main address is a Welsh or Cornish holiday home, a rarely used flat in Bath, a property in Normandy, converted stables or a parent's house.

But it has emerged that there was no definition of 'main address' in any of the guidance to peers  -  meaning they were free to nominate any property they like.

Then, in guidance produced only last month, the Clerk of the Parliament, Michael Pownall, suggested that visiting a property once a month was enough to qualify.

Even the AG was angry and he is another one of Gormless Gordon’s performing hamsters. Have these people no idea what honesty means?

The security industry has been raising the spectre of white Western women suicide bombers to justify over-the-top screening at airports, so the arrest in Ireland of 'Jihad Jane,’ the white American Muslim convert is a real result for them. She is accused of plotting to kill the Danish artist at the centre of the cartoons of the Prophet controversy.

Millions of innocent women will now have to suffer the indignity of electronic stripsearching before they board a plane, on the off- chance they might turn out to be 'Jihad Judy' or 'Jihad Jill.’

In the same way, millions of responsible dog owners are being forced to buy insurance and microchip their pets, simply because a handful of tattooed yobs can't be bothered to control their 'devil dogs.’

And all on the grounds that 'if it saves one life….’ In the name of 'safety', everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator.

What kind of 'freedom' are we supposed to be defending?

Burglars should not be jailed unless they cause damage or hurt someone when committing their crime, Government advisers said this week. The Sentencing Advisory Panel called for judges and magistrates not to hand down prison sentences to ordinary burglars who were responsible for 'minimal loss or damage.’

Why not just give them a bonus for every house they burgle where they don’t hurt anyone or break any crockery?

I have doubtless said it before in these pages, but the world in general – and Britain in particular -  is rapidly losing its collective marbles.

 

12^th March 2010

I had a good talk yesterday, although at times I thought I had lost my audience. A number of them had their eyes closed, which makes life for any speaker very difficult. I ploughed on however and at the end, they were all enthisiastic in their praise for the talk, so it can’t have been bad.

Tonight, I have my Taste of Africa show and that will be the real test. I have a number of excellent slides to show, but will have to woffle for close on two hours in order to give the audience value for their £5 entrance money.

Oh well, I will doubtless survive although I might need a beer or three beforehand to bolster my nerve.

The parliamentary fees nonsense is alive and well again thanks to 3 MPs and a lord appearing in Court for a preliminary hearing yesterday.

What worries and disturbs me though is that there has been wholesale theft of taxpayers' money by hundreds of these 'honourable' members, yet only four have been charged with a crime.

If there was any justice they'd all be rounded up and stuck in one of those giant cages at the Old Bailey, like Mafia bosses on trial in Italy. I know that sounds extreme, but the party leaders act as if it's business as usual and we should all just 'move on.’

I am sorry, but a handful of human sacrifices simply isn't good enough.

Take for instance, the Labour couple who are branded Mr and Mrs Expenses by their own colleagues and were condemned for abusing the Commons gravy train. Then they were let off with a slap on the wrist.

A sleaze inquiry ordered MPs Ann and Alan Keen to repay just £1,500 after they claimed thousands for a second home where they were actually living full-time.The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, had already found them guilty of a 'serious' breach of the rules, but a Labour dominated panel of MPs overruled him and said the Keens had to pay back only a tiny fraction of the money they owed.

 If the couple had been forced to repay everything they claimed while they were absent from their main home, the bill would have been in excess of £17,000, but the committee - five Labour MPs, one Liberal Democrat and new Tory chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind - said the offence was 'significantly mitigated' by the fact that the Keens had the approval of the discredited House of Commons Fees Office for their arrangements.

The MPs also said the couple had suffered a 'long run of bad luck' which 'must have been very stressful for them'.

Shame – poor misguided people. None of us would get away with that sort of excuse in a court of law. I am sorry, but this is basic corruption at its worst.

And of course, with the death of that poor persecuted man, David Askey after years of abuse from feral children, yobbery is back in the headlines. Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary warned yesterday that police are failing to visit tens of thousands of families whose lives are made a misery by louts.

Chief HMI, Denis O'Connor (I wonder why he isn’t a ‘Sir?’) added that half of forces may also fail to spot a Fiona Pilkington-style tragedy developing. Miss Pilkington if you remember, killed herself and her disabled daughter after a gang taunted them for ten years despite a series of desperate calls to the police. In a blistering analysis, Mr O'Connor revealed officers do not visit 23 per cent of victims who complain about anti-social behaviour.

That is almost a quarter for God’s sake! The police are supposed to be the protectors of Society, but I genuinely believe, that the modern copper is scared of doing his or her job in case they get hurt. I was scared on a number of occasions during my police career, but in those days, we had no choice. If the call came in and someone was in trouble, we attended, whatever the dangers involved.

The David Askey story broke coincidentally with the release of an explosive Home Office-backed report suggesting that thousands of police jobs could be axed to save money. Trained coppers would be replaced with civilian staff such as controversial community support officers and one internal paper has suggested the number of police to be axed could be as high as 28,000.

So we can only wait for the next unfortunate person who is beaten to death or even tormented to death by the scum of society who bleat on and on about their human rights.

Yet while the police are under fire yet again, the Surrey force  has admitted spending £120 on 'refreshments' for men cruising a well-known 'dogging' spot for casual sex. This is part of an initiative drawn up by ACPO, the police chiefs' association, to 'reach out' to people 'using public sex locations.’

Handing out tea and biscuits to men going at it like rabbits in the bushes and the back of cars is supposed to 'encourage trust’ and the cops want 'doggers' to feel free to report 'hate crime' against them. There was a time when being caught having al fresco sex in a public place was grounds for prosecution for gross indecency, not a tray of tea and biscuits from wandering coppers. They should be turning the fire hoses on them, not making them a nice cup of tea.

A fifty seven year old man who for some reason cannot be named has been given twenty five life sentences at Sheffield Crown Court. His crime was having repeated sex with his daughters, starting when they were but little girls. He impregnated the girls no fewer than eighteen times , but for decades he ran rings around authorities by moving from house to house.

The failures of social workers, police officers, housing officers and others who knew what was going on and did nothing seem too gross to be even believed. They were surely complicit in the crimes against these girls, yet none of them has even been disciplined, let alone lost their job.

Hitherto, the Austrian abuser Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned, raped and impregnated his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years, was the ultimate evil patriarch. But he kept his victim hidden and his crimes went unknown for decades. The villainous British father in this case was known. Teachers, ambulance workers and family members all approached the authorities to share concerns. So conferences were held, bureaucratic culs-de-sac led nowhere. The girls were on the child protection register for a decade. Exemplary book keeping was kept up.

Perhaps that was all that mattered. To hear these so-called care professionals' fulsome apologies and the usual promises of lessons learnt and moving forward makes me sick. Tricky Nicky, the Lib Dem leader in whose constituency this horror took place, says such 'an unimaginable horror' must never happen again. But it will, again and again, and there will be sombre reports and meaningless contrition after each episode.

That is part of modern life in a supposedly civilised society I’m afraid. In rural Africa or any other sensible place, the offender would long since have been disposed of.

While Gormless Gordon – or at any rate, his henchman Lord Adonis – gleefully announces the establishment of a 250 miles per hour railway, life in modern Britain is somewhat slower for some folk.

Partially blind, eighty nine year old Nancy Underwood lives in a village with no pedestrian crossing so has to take a fourteen mile bus trip just to cross the road. The poor lass walks with a Zimmer frame and can’t get across the road outside her house because of the volume of traffic.

If she wants to visit the Post Office or shop in Chideock, Dorset, she has to catch the Number 31 bus to Bridport three miles away before using a pedestrian crossing. Then she boards a return journey bus and stops off in Chideock on the opposite side of the road to her house, where she can safely visit the shop.

Once done, she hops onto the next Number 31 bus and travels four miles to the village of Charmouth, where there is also a pedestrian crossing. After crossing the road, she completes the final leg of her journey on her fourth bus of the day, which takes her back to Chideock and completes the 90minute round trip.

British life in the twenty first century – it really does make me shake my head in bewildered wonderment at times.

 
 

11^th March 2010

Well, it is the start of a busy two days for this crumpled scribbler. Today, I speak on the fact that one is Never Too Old for Adventure to the Minchinhampton Probus people and tomorrow, I have my Taste of Africa show at the Butcher’s Arms in Oakridge. I was aiming at 50 people in the audience, but politics at the pub – and it is a long story – has cost me at least 8 bums on seats and might well end up costing me even more. Oh well, I will make the evening a success, even if we don’t raise much money for elephants.

First though, I must get through my Probus appearance.

I smiled when I read that growing numbers of British school-leavers have 'attitude problems' and believe the world 'owes them a living.' Lucy Neville-Rolfe, director of corporate and legal affairs at Tesco said this in a speech yesterday and went on to mention that youngsters too often turn up late for work and interviews and fail to see the importance of dressing neatly and working with others. Many also struggle with basic maths and English as exams become easier and schools fail to properly enforce discipline.

She said shortcomings among school-leavers were 'perhaps not a surprise' because of 'well-publicised problems in some schools, including 380,000 suspensions a year, and nearly a quarter of a million persistent truants.

“If children aren't learning the importance of discipline at school - or, dare I say it, in the family - how can we expect them magically to have learned it by the time they turn up looking for work?” she said.

Quite so, but I read in the same newspaper that teenagers who complete two weeks' work experience at a McDonald's restaurant will now be awarded a qualification worth up to a B grade at GCSE. Youngsters will be offered the 'certificate in work skills' for completing a ten-day programme which includes flipping burgers, serving customers at the tills and cleaning the dining area.

Teenagers who complete the placement at McDonald's will earn a BTEC Level 2 certificate in Work Skills, accredited by the exam board Edexcel. This certificate will be worth a B or C grade at GCSE and schools will be able to count the qualification towards their ranking in GCSE league tables. Is it any wonder that the youth of today have so many problems? I know I sound like a typical old fogey, but for 14 years as an invigilator in Stroud College, I watched examination standards slipping until I gave up in disgust.

Two weeks working at McDonalds for a GCE does seem a wee bit ridiculous though, even in this crazy age.

It was International Women’s Day this week, but why can we not have one for men? Ordinary, white, heterosexual males are in trouble you know. They don't see the advantages they are supposed to have inherited from their forefathers. They see a workplace that increasingly values feminised skills. They see Horrible Harriet's proposed Equality Bill promising that even if they are as well qualified for a job as a woman candidate, she will be given preference.

And as for role models for todays’s young men – there aren’t any. Where are this generation's Paul Newmans, the handsome, smart, philanthropic, manly men of yesterday? Long gone, I’m afraid and in their place, we have Tiger Woods, John Terry, Alastair Campbell, Gormless Gordon – all of whom seem to be men in crisis.
If they're not weeping on television and saying sorry for their transgressions, they're raging and hurling things at underlings in  toddler-like fits of temper.

Can you imagine the late explorer and mountaineer Edmund Hillary worrying about whether to have Botox or making his face up for a television interview? I will be speaking about some of the true adventurers of my youth this morning and you know, I just cannot think of their modern counterparts. Men have had the stuffing knocked out of them so it is time we bolstered their flagging egos a little more.

An International Men’s Day might help we poor fellows feel that we really are valued.

As if Dashing Dave wasn’t punishment enough for the average television viewer, we are now to have more of his wife, Samantha. Mrs Cameron will make her first television appearance when she is interviewed by Sir Trevor McDonald this Sunday.

And there will be more – and more. According to Tory sources, she will make up to two public appearances a week during the election campaign - one with her husband and one on her own.

Spare us please. It was excruciating enough watching DD being interviewed by Alan Titchmarsh yesterday.

The Dashing One duly set out to present himself as a reassuringly homely sort of chap. He told us that he was going home immediately after the show to make pancakes for his little ones. He suggested that Mr and Mrs Ashley Cole should remain in holy wedlock. And he disclosed that he had a mortgage.

Huh! I’ll bet the PBT pays a goodly portion of that, but I digress.

Modern politics being what it is, there was no chewing down hard on matters of budgetary planning. We did not hear of his intentions regarding the Middle East question. Of judicial policy there was not a teatime sausage.

Instead he faced a quick volley of lifestyle questions. Did he prefer curry or fish and chips (the answer was curry)? Did he shop at Marks & Spencer or Primark (Marks and Sparks)? He added that when he went to the shops he tended to have his clothes chosen for him by Samantha, who passed them under the changing room door.

He was soon gushing about 'the family I adore'. The whole thing was like a script for an old Oxo advert. Sure enough, he even told us that he is ‘ace’ at cooking slow-roast lamb. Nice and tender - just like garden gnome  Titchmarsh's questions.

We have weeks of this sort of guff to look forward to. GG was praising himself as a safe pair of hands yesterday and no doubt, the lovely Sarah Brown will soon be wheeled out to counter Mrs C.

What happened to the nitty gritty of politics. I don’t want to know whether DD can cook. I want to know whether he can govern.

Fat chance of that. Perhaps I’ll ask McDonalds for a job so that I can get myself a qualification and become a politician.
 

 
 
 
 
 

10^th March 2010

Truly this Facebook is a monstrous organisation. Yesterday I received a text from soimeone close, informing me that Bulger killer, Jon Venables is now living as David Calvert in Fleetwood and has been re arrested for raping a 19 year old. The text emanated from a Facebook page or whatever they call them and is quoted verbatim in most of todays newspapers.

It turns out that there is a David Calvert in Fleetwood, he is the same age as Venables and has been forced to flee his home with his family for fear of being lynched by an angry mob.

And this is supposed to be a civilised society? I am sorry; I might be a dodo, but it is high time these networking sites were shut down. They might give people a lot of fun, but uncontrolled as they are, they are leading to ever more tragedies.

Funny how the one piece of military equipment there's always enough money for is that padded vest Gormless Gordon wears on his visits to the troops in Afghanistan. It makes him look like the first Scottish suicide bomber, but he was visiting ‘the men’ again this week. Would that have been because a general election looms I wonder?.

And despite what the Prime Minister told the Chilcot Inquiry, British troops have been starved of decent equipment and many have paid the ultimate price. A coroner declared yesterday that Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first woman to be killed in Afghanistan, died with three SAS reservists because they were ill equipped and their flimsy land rover was hit by a roadside bomb. The verdict was 'unlawful killing.’

Lord Guthrie, the former defence chief, said last week that senior ministers have misled the public and fought the war in a ' pennypinching way.’ So that meant it was time for GG to jet off to Camp Bastion for another of his astonishingly cynical, 'Look, I'm a He-Man, Me' photo opportunities. Is it any wonder that the military despise the Prime Minister?

There are rumours doing the rounds of a tense encounter between Gormless Gord and General Guthrie at a reception. The PM walked up to the General and complained: 'I hear you've been telling people I'm not interested in defence.'

'No, Prime Minister,' replied the General coolly. 'I have not been telling people you are not interested in defence. I have been telling people you are not f***ing interested in defence.'

Generals in general, are the most courteous of men. It takes a lot to make a senior soldier lose his rag. But GG has made some of our most distinguished top brass lose it good and proper.

Of course, scurrilous as it is, that little story could be merely a rumour. It all seems to fit though.

And why on earth should the Press be banned from the front line during the run up to the forthcoming election? I know that many soldiers are understandably bitter about the war and the lack of equipment, but it seems wrong that the Ministry of Defence should deem it acceptable to deny frontline access to the media ahead of polling day, lest reporters discover things that further damage the government.

Wars are invariably started by politicians, but they should surely have the force of character to accept any criticisms that might emanate from those wars, whether there is an election on the go or not.

Michael Gove, shadow Education Minister promises that under a Tory government, children will once again learn poetry by heart and will be taught the kings and queens of England. Now that must have upset the educational establishment. I can picture the mandarins throwing up their hands in horror. Kids, they cry, must be prepared for the future, not the past!

That is exactly the philosophy which has left so many of our young people knowing absolutely nothing about the history or literature of Britain. I can't think of another country on Earth which so crassly neglects to pass on its most beautiful words and greatest stories to its young.

Believe it or not, children spend many hours in their classrooms learning ‘thinking skills.’ What sort of nonsense is this? The poor little brutes aren’t taught enough to think about in the first place.
 
Would you believe that the BBC is sending at least 122 staff to cover the World Cup in South Africa - more than five times the number of England football players. This little jamboree will cost more than TWO MILLION pounds of our money. Presenters, commentators – they used to be the same thing – pundits and programme makers will be living in the lap of luxury on the licence fee payer. Then of course there are the technicians and freelancers who will go along and before we know which way is up, the costs will have risen even more and the total of staff adorning South African tourist spots will be well in excess of 180.

All to watch a squad of 23. Methinks there is something a wee bit amiss somewhere.

Now we have the thorny issue of dangerous dogs rearing its ugly head once again. The latest government crackdown can only backfire by penalising law-abiding families, while doing nothing to tackle the problem.

A vast bureaucracy of enforcement officers, scanners to check for microchips, pounds for seized animals and a database of every dog in the country will have to be funded by innocent owners. The costs of policing the new laws come on top of families having to buy insurance and equip their dog with an identifying microchip - both to be required of every owner in the country and likely to cost them £100 a year. The number of strays will also soar as people, unable to afford the new costs abandon their pets.

Believe it or not, there will be a 'dog MOT' with annual checks by officials on every family dog to make sure it complies with the law. How many people will they need to enforce that one for God’s sake?

Why don’t they just insist that every dog in a public place is kept on a lead? That would sort out the problem at a fraction of the cost.

Or is this another ‘jobs for the boys’ scheme by this ruinous government?

 
 
 

9^th March 2010

Four days to go and suddenly tickets for my Taste of Africa show on Friday are going with a rush. I don’t know why I fret so much about these things because it is always the same – a long period of seeming indifference and then everyone wants tickets at once.

Now of course I have to worry about selling too many. I don’t think I was cut out for this.

In South Africa, the unlovely Winnie Mandela is ranting away about her former husband, the venerable Nelson. I am no supporter of Mandela himself – he is after all, a convicted terrorist – but Winnie is the lass who not only advocated the necklacing of political opponents, but still feels and says that it was right.

Yesterday she announced, “This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died. Mandela went to prison and he went in there as a young revolutionary but look what came out. Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically we are still on the outside. The economy is very much white.”

Winnie, bless her also criticised her country's Truth and Reconciliation Committee - which she appeared before in 1997 and which implicated her in gross violations of human rights.

She said, “What good does the truth do? How does it help to anyone to know where and how their loved ones are killed or buried? That cretinous Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a religious circus came here. He had a cheek to tell me to appear.”

I wonder if she is angling to be Mrs Zuma number six. God help South Africa if she is allowed any semblance of power.

Here, the wheels continue to wobble rather drastically. All over Britain, Town Halls have set up special units to save the planet, most of which involves an exciting new range of taxes and heavy fines for leaving your dustbin lid open half an inch.

When it comes to 'climate change,’ politicians and bureaucrats have lost all touch with reality some time ago. In one of the most implausible developments yet, Birmingham City Council has just advised residents to arm themselves with a hurricane survival kit. Families are being told to invest in sleeping bags, waterproof clothing, rubber gloves, wellington boots, a battery-powered radio, spare batteries, candles, long-life food, bottled water, a first aid box, camping stove and a hurricane lamp.

A spokesman for the council said: 'Birmingham was hit by a tornado five years ago and when homes were flooded these kind of items would have been very useful.

Yes, well…..!

Trevor McDonald says he would have been horrified if ITV had asked him to chair one of the televised election debates. Now aged 70, he dismisses suspicions that age played any part in ITV's decision to choose boyish matinee idol Alastair Stewart.

Good for Trevor, who unlike other newsreaders, doesn't automatically blame 'ageism' for being overlooked in favour of a younger model. Mind you, he does get to interview Dashing Dave as a consolation prize.

What on earth did he do to deserve that? 

Now we hear that vegans, teetotallers, pacifists and atheists are to be given protection against 'discrimination' under Horrible Harriet’s crazy new equality laws.

They join Muslims, gays and pagans on the protected species list. I don't suppose there's any danger of similar consideration being extended to Christians, practising heterosexuals and the occasional boozist like me.  

Gormless Gordon was last night facing demands that he reappear at the Iraq Inquiry after his top defence official flatly contradicted the Prime Minister's claims to have always supported troops.

Sir Bill Jeffrey, the senior mandarin at the Ministry of Defence, said that GG forced the military to make cuts and left them 'very stretched indeed' because he did not give them enough money.

This is a grave new embarrassment for our revered leader because it undermines his claims last week that he had always fully funded British troops. In fact either he or Sir Bill was lying. The Tories have now written to Sir John Chilcot asking him to recall Gormless Gord to explain the discrepancies between his evidence and that of a succession of senior defence officials.

Embarrassing perhaps, but what good will it do. Both GG and the Toothsome One have lied through their teeth to this enquiry, but the enquiry itself has no power to do anything about it.

And would you believe, the latest scientific research tells us in all seriousness that fruit can make us fat. What happened to the 5 a day nonsense? Next thing we know, they will be telling us that vegetables are bad for us. Hooray, we can go back to a sensible diet of meat and potatoes.

 
 

 
 
 

8^th March 2010

Well, the bratlets lost yesterday and were therefore bundled out of the County Cup by Dursley. They played hard, but were throughly outplayed by a team they should have beaten. I had a lunch date so wasn’t able to stay for the after match beer or three, but I am sure the parents – and the odd grandparent – would have been even more upset by it all than the boys.

But that is merely the nature of sport and the youngsters will learn from the experience.

Would you believe that today is International Women's Day, and 40 years since the birth of Women's Lib? Have female roles in life increased or improved? In a way they have but many young women today have pretty dubious role models - pop stars and models who celebrate conspicuous consumption and go on to consume ever more of the same.

Worrying new statistics show a generation of young mums with no jobs, no money and no partners. Men have become redundant in these mums' lives  -  few work and the majority live on benefits. The number of single mums whose mothers were single parents too, has risen from 48 per cent to 53 per cent over ten years.

They seem to be following a pattern laid down by their own mums, and even their grandmothers. So much for progress.

In business, less than one in ten board members of the top 350 companies in the UK are female, and less than one in five are MPs  -  ranking Britain 66th in the world for women in political life, behind Afghanistan.

I don’t think I would be celebrating the day, even if I was a rabid feminist – which of course I am not.

Truly the modern scientist is becoming ever more of a buffoon like character. Last week, a group of these demented nannies announced that it might be necessary to ban cars from London during the 2012 Olympics to help athletes breathe properly during the height of summer. This is clearly thermomania at work again. It amazes me how cricketers survive at Lord’s or the Oval during hot weather without keeling over.

What is the matter with these people? Do they have an inbuilt urge to frighten the public and what do they get out of it?

Truly I find it all very bewildering. They can’t really feel that the GBP will actually believe their alarmist nonsense – or can they?

The BBC newsreader Kate Silverton, part of a group climbing Ben Nevis for charity, had to give up 300ft from the summit because of fierce weather conditions and fading light. The team made the five-hour descent in darkness and Kate told the media, “It was a braver decision to turn back than to go on.”

How so? What was brave about it for God’s sake? It might have taken another hour and a half to get to the top, where conditions are likely to have been worse. And the trek down would have taken even longer. So, it was a sensible decision to turn back, not a braver one.

A really brave decision by newsreaders might be to do their job without taking part in publicity stunts involving dancing and skating contests - or climbing Ben Nevis.

They give genuine mountaineers a bad name.

‘Cashcroft’ rolls on and how seedy it all is. Not actually illegal as we keep being told, but a little wicked surely.

‘Systematic tax avoidance,’ as Vince Cable called it, is hardly patriotic or civil-minded. It is a sign of a disenchanted electorate that we are no longer surprised that political parties take any money they can, but this blatant case of cash for a peerage and real status within the party is very much below the belt, even by todays standards.

And as for Dashing Dave and William Hague claiming that they didn’t know about Ashcroft’s ‘arrangements,’ that is surely risible.

Money makes fools of clever men. They should know better. We deserve better.

Mind you, it works both ways and Labour was accused of 'rank hypocrisy' last night after Horrible Harriet refused to answer questions about her party's major donors. The deputy leader refused to say whether some of Labour's biggest backers paid all their taxes in the UK, insisting it was a 'private matter.’

How can it possibly be? Her refusal to come clean follows criticism from a string of ministers over the tax status of Lord Ashcroft. Business Secretary Lord Mandyflower piously insisted that Labour should be 'clear and up front' about whether its backers were full British taxpayers.

But that has to be merely spin of the worst kind as Mandyflower’s party is estimated to have taken more than £10million since 2001 from non-doms  -  those who legally avoid paying tax on their overseas earnings  -  including Lord Paul, Sir Ronald Cohen and William Bollinger.

But in an interview with BBC1's Andrew Marr Show, Horrible Harriet repeatedly refused to discuss their tax status, insisting she did not know whether they were non-doms.

What an appalling insult the woman is to the Great British Public who pay her salary.

As for Gormless Gordon – he was accused over the weekend  of ‘breathtaking cynicism’ after appearing to exploit the murder of a shopkeeper to drum up support for Labour. The Prime Minister named Gurmail Singh in an article under his name, published in the murdered man’s local paper, which promised that the Government would ‘continue’ to cut crime.

In his letter to the Huddersfield Examiner, GG wrote a short tribute to Mr Singh and the towns reaction to the murder, before switching to what appears to be a standard election mantra attacking the Tories.

Friends of Mr Singh and local residents said the father of two, who was bludgeoned to death, should not have been used by Gormless Gord in such blatant electioneering.

I don’t care whether he is the prime minister of a sovereign state, the man is a crass poltroon and unworthy of any high office. Mind you, in that he is but typical of this worthless band of politicians occupying the plush seats of Westminster at the moment.

Come back Screaming Lord Such. We need your honesty damnit.

 

7^th March 2010

There was a nice write up on David Lemon by David Lemon in the Western Daily Press yesterday. Let's hope it leads to more book sales, even though the headline was somewhat ridiculous - and not of my doing.

The problem with kayaking at this time of year is that one must inevitably get wet and with the wet comes cold. I was alright on the water yesterday, but struggled to warm up until well into the evening. It was a deep, bone aching cold too.

There is also the problem that although I have been walking with a heavy pack on my back in order to strengthen my shoulders, said shoulders ache abominably after kayaking sessions. I fear I will have to ‘air paddle’ for a while each day, just to save myself a little bit of pain when I start out on my kayaking trip.

Poor old Zumbu Zulu was met by protesters shouting ‘shame on you’ on his last day in London. It didn’t appear to worry him overly much, particularly as he had earlier held talks with Prince Charles at Clarence House on climate change, youth opportunities and the environment – matters of which he doubtless knows a great deal! During his three-day state visit, the South African leader suggested sanctions should be eased to help Zimbabwe ‘move forward,’ but the campaigners accused him of appeasing Comrade Bob and believe he should be doing more to ensure fresh elections are called in the country.

Of course he should, but he won’t. African leaders stick together and no amount of protest will change that. I found it interesting though that this has been the third state visit with all the trimmings by a South African leader since 1994. Could this be guilt at Britain’s colonial legacy perhaps?

Giving evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry last Friday, Gormless Gordon insisted: "Every request that military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down."

But Admiral Lord Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff up to the start of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, challenged Mr Brown's claim.

"He's dissembling, he's being disingenuous," The admiral stated bluntly. "It's just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed. There may have been a 1.5% increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds."

I know which one I believe!

Gormless Gord began and ended his four hours of testimony by paying hypocritical tribute to the 179 British servicemen and women who lost their lives in the conflict, while acknowledging the huge death toll among Iraqi civilians. It was all rather sickening, particularly as he accepted no blame whatsoever for the whole rotten exercise.

Again and again he blamed other people: the chaos in the aftermath of the invasion was all America’s fault, apparently. I also found the way he spoke about the Iraqis to be extraordinarily patronising. Apparently, they have to be made to realise how important stability is to their future prosperity, but I’m sure even an Iraqi fieldmouse would realise that.

Whatever else he might or might not be, Gormless Gordon is a long way from being any sort of a leader. However, Britain is stuck with him for the moment and the alternative is nearly as frightening.

Dashing Dave has just brought out a list of 20 openly gay candidates who will be standing at the next election. Why? Surely we vote for the candidate with the best credentials and the one we feel will do the most for us, the voters? Or am I being naïve when I say that the candidate’s sexual preferences should have nothing to do with his or her suitability for office.

DD also tell us that he likes Britain as it is rather than as it was. He also tells us that it is a broken society. One or the other please. I tend to agree with the second premise anyway. Britain was broken by the so-called cultural revolution which swept away stable marriage and respect for the law, and encouraged the spread of drug-taking and drunkenness? While he has never actually condoned these practices, DD hasn’t spoken out against them either.

He favours the selection of women and ethnic minority members as candidates and has toyed with the idea of women-only shortlists. Does he therefore believe that women can only be properly represented by women and members of ethnic minorities can only be properly represented by members of the same minorities? In which case how can he speak for the women and ethnic minorities of his seat in Whitney?

The man is too politically correct and too eager to keep everyone happy to be a leader. So we have GG or DD to choose between. Heaven help the Brits. I just hope I am out in my kayak on election day so that I don’t have to make a choice.

Horrible Harriet will love this. Fourteen undergraduates have been suspended from their Oxford college amid an investigation into claims they sent sexist emails.

The male students, members of the drinking society the Penguin Club at Hertford College, are alleged to have drawn up a grading list of female students. The emails, containing derogatory descriptions,’ were posted around the college at night by an unknown whistleblower.

A university spokesman said: "We take these allegations, and that's all they are at this stage, very seriously and the matter is currently under investigation. The students have been temporarily suspended as part of that process but that is not to say that it is a punishment or a judgment against them at this stage. It's part of the process of the investigation. We are still trying to get to the bottom of it all."

These are young men going through the absurd ritual of further education. Men will always grade women for looks as well as sexuality, as I am sure women do with men. Why not leave them alone and let them be normal human beings.

 

Let me finish with some bad news from Bournemouth where the council spent £3m building an artificial reef off one of its beaches to create exciting waves and thus attract surfers to the town. I fear that there have been no waves and coincidentally perhaps, there have been no surfers.

 

Bournemouth desperately wanted to shed its image as a sort of giant alfresco hospice, but these rebranding exercises just don’t work. Blackpool was rebranded last year as a sort of Le Touquet with pies. Will rich Parisian playboys flock there this year? If so, will they get their heads kicked in by very drunk Glaswegians? I wonder if they will try to rebrand Stroud?

 

 

6^th March 2010

It was nice to read that that kidnapped yachties, Paul and Rachel Chandler might well be close to release from their ordeal. No doubt, GG and his mates will claim the credit, but I honestly don’t believe they have lifted a finger to help this unfortunate couple. Since they were abducted, it has emerged that the crew of a Royal Navy vessel was forced to watch the whole affair, but military officials have insisted that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary replenishment tanker Wave Knight, carrying 75 merchant seamen and 25 Royal Navy sailors, could not have acted without endangering the lives of the couple.

Are we really expected to accept that? These were trained soldiers damnit. Surely they could have climbed in there to rescue the couple.

Ever eager to criticize the sitting British government, Comrade Bob chimed in yesterday with an endorsement of Dashing Dave. This is, to be sure, more of an indictment of Gormless Gordon than a boost for the Tories.

"Conservatives are bold, Blair and Brown run away when they see me, but not these fools, they know how to relate to others," The Great Comrade claimed this week.

I was already worried about Conservative chances in the forthcoming election, but if they have Comrade Bob on their side, heaven help us all.

Police are failing to tackle middle-class cocaine abuse, say MPs. A report on the cocaine trade by the Commons home affairs committee warns that snorting cocaine has become socially acceptable and that the view that it is a safe middle-class drug needs to be tackled.

Talk about stones and glass houses. Surely the police have better things to do with their time? Like tackling parliamentary expense abuses and the view that being an MP is a safe middle-class job which can guarantee you immunity from prosecution.

Toothsome Tony’s memoirs, for which he got a £5 million advance, will be published in September. He says: “I want readers to have as much pleasure reading it as I had writing it.”

 

Huh! Unless he's giving away a hefty dollop of cash with every copy, there's fat chance of that.

 

Even without Comrade Bob on his side, Dashing Dave has turned down a chance to appear on Piers Morgan's chat show, preferring an interview with veteran broadcaster Trevor McDonald.

“I'm not a great fan of the Piers Morgan format,” he said. 'I'd rather do something a bit more substantial.”

 

His bid for the intellectual high ground would be marginally more credible if he hadn't given a recent interview to Absolute Radio's Christian O'Connell, where he made a prize ass of himself by swearing on air in a bid to 'get down with the kids.’

 

Truly, these politicians take us all for prize prats.

 

I surely can't be the only one sick to death of Sarah Brown having herself photographed with yet another celebrity in a bid to boost her husband's popularity. Her latest showbiz pal is the Come Dancing lady, Tess Daly, fresh from her sex-text traumas over husband Vernon Kay's wandering thumbs.

Tess is the perfect photo opportunity for Celebrity Sarah. She's famous, female and front-page fodder. What next  -  the first picture of Sarah helping Cheryl Cole through her marital shenanigans? I was naïve enough to think that the best thing about Gormless Gordon was his spouse, but her somewhat cynical manoevering among the celebrities really is beginning to pall.

Another cynical lass about town is publisher and author Kimberly Quinn, who says of her long affair with former Home Secretary David Blunkett, 'My husband cannot forgive me.'

Shame poor lass, but  it is hardly surprising, since she was cheating on him while they were undergoing IVF treatment for a much longed-for child  -  a baby who ended up being fathered by Blunkett. But now she she talks of her remorse and praises husband Stephen as a dignified and private man.

So why has she undermined that dignity and privacy by airing her dirty laundry in public? Answer: because she's got a new book to flog.

Scary isn’t it, the length people will go to for money.

More than 1,000 lifestyle coaches are now being recruited to give 'couch potato' primary school children lessons in yoga and cheerleading. Pupils as young as four will have extra-curricular classes in free running, (whatever that might be) breakdancing and Brazilian martial arts.

Up to 20,000 youngsters judged to be too inactive will be given additional activities at lunchtime or after school  -  times when previous generations would simply have played games among themselves or competed in sports.

Why won’t this benighted government just leave children to be children. If they are fat, so be it. If they are thin, likewise. Let them enjoy their childhood damnit! All too soon they will have the real world to face.

 

 

5^th March 2010

I was a little surprised to find myself addressing a WI group in Warwickshire last evening. As far as I know, my details only appear in the Gloucestershire WI book of words, so perhaps my reputation for interesting talks is spreading. It was all quite fun and even though I was asked to speak for a mere 40 minutes and therefore had to cut chunks out of my talk, it went down very well and I got back here earlier than usual.

Did you know that Britain has set a new landmark by holding the official bank rate (the cost at which banks can borrow from the Bank of England) at 0.5 per cent for a whole year. Never in modern economic history have interest rates in the UK been held so low for so long.

It sounds good but in reality it means that the nation's silent army of prudent savers have seen the returns on their cash decimated. The Great British Public are not benefitting from the historically low interest rates, but the rapacious High Street banks, which have been coining it in at the expense of their customers certainly are.

Banks can borrow money from the markets at just 1 per cent, yet it is not uncommon for them to charge their business customers an interest rate of 6 per cent on loans. What makes this situation even more offensive is that the banks are profiteering at the taxpayers' expense, since two of the largest - the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group - might not have survived at all without the government bailout, using our money.

So how have we, the GBP been repaid for this largesse? We have been treated with the same utter contempt that has been a long-term feature of the banks' behaviour for years.

 The authorities, the Bank of England and the Treasury, seem to have accepted the idea that rebuilding the security of the banks - by restoring their profitability and the capital on which they lend - is more important than the needs of the ordinary consumer. In effect, we are supporting the banks twice over - first through the higher taxes we all face to help repay the billions handed to banks in the great bailout, and secondly as customers being fleeced on our mortgages, loans and savings.

Government silence over this appalling behaviour has been deafening. The only voice in the wilderness has been that of the Bank of England Governor Mervyn King who believes it is time to dismantle Britain's superbanks and create a new breed of 'utility banks' who would put the needs of their customers before the voracious greed of their executives.

Sounds a good idea to me, but I can’t see that happening. Mr King will merely be sent to the House of Lords and told to shut up.

The BBC does love it’s celebrities, doesn’t it? Last year, they dished out 275 free tickets to top sporting events to already wealthy stars of this, that and the other. The list included 151 for Wimbledon, 52 for top rugby games and 36 for England cricket matches. TV presenter Adrian Chiles and funnyman Michael McIntyre were among famous faces treated to the tennis. Millionaire singer Lily Allen and Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe both got passes to watch England's cricket team play Australia. Marks & Spencer chief executive Sir Stuart Rose - who has an annual salary of £1,130,000 damnit!- got two tickets for a Test between England and the West Indies in May and another two for England v Australia in July.

Some of the Wimbledon tickets went to stars of other sports, including former footballer Lee Dixon, ex-rugby star Lawrence Dallaglio, retired racing drivers David Coulthard and Martin Brundle and heavyweight boxing champ David Haye. The Beeb handed out 26 Six Nations rugby tournament tickets and 13 pairs for Anglo-Welsh cup games.

I am sure they all enjoyed themselves, but those tickets could have ensured far more gain for the actual sport, had they gone to genuine supporters and the ‘stars’ had been made to pay their way.

You have to hand it to the Germans. They could teach this country a thing or two about day to day ingenuity. A cash-strapped village in eastern Germany has put its many potholes up for sale in a novel effort to finance the repair of its crumbling roads.

People can buy a hole in Niederzimmern near Leipzig for fifty euros and in return the authorities will repair it - and put a personal message on top.

Must be fun to own a hole in the road, particularly if one can adorn it with a succinct message to the authorities who are supposed to repair the ruddy things.

What an odious sight it was to see Gormless Gordon lavishing praise on the fat Zulu yesterday. GG spoke of  Zumbu Zed’s ‘eloquence' at the state banquet and noted the 'great distinction' he had brought to the South African presidency.

Surely he could not have believed in what he was saying. If he did, then the sooner he is booted from office, the better. Even with one eye, he must surely see ZZ for the charlatan that he is.

Well, they have done it. Our Lords and Masters at Westminster have given in to Horrible Harriet and her campaign for politically correct equality. Parliament has banished the word 'chairman' from its proceedings for being too sexist.

MPs voted by 206 to 90 to replace it with the gender neutral 'chair' as part of sweeping reforms in the Commons.

What a complete nonsense it is. MPs should be getting on with the more substantive reforms in the Commons rather than dealing with this politically correct frippery.

The country is in crisis for God’s sake! The worst recession in decades, an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, unemployment figures rising through the roof and this bunch of overpaid fatwillies can only whitter on about the word ‘chairman.’

Says it all really.

 

 

4^th March 2010

Although the temperature yesterday was probably well up on those experienced in recent weeks, the wind seemed to eat deep into my bones and this morning, it feels even colder. When will this long winter end I wonder. I have certainly never experienced one quite so dire.

In Zimbabwe, the release of six rhino poachers from custody two weeks before a major CITES meeting is surely emblematic of the chronic lack of political will to save this endangered species. A Zimbabwean court last week granted bail to six men arrested at Bubye Valley Conservancy, home to Zimbabwe's largest remaining rhino population. The men faced multiple poaching charges including illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of a rhino horn. That should have been enough to ensure that they spent the next few years behind bars, but not a bit of it. They are free and will doubtless disappear into the wide blue yonder while the besuited executives of CITES sit around collective tables and woffle as to how best to sort out the problems faced by poor old Chipembere.

"Zimbabwe's failure to live up to its obligations to CITES is unacceptable and has caused its already endangered rhino population to decline," said Colman O'Criodain, a Wildlife Trade Analyst, (whatever that may mean!) from WWF International. "The time has come for the CITES parties collectively to decide how to address this failure."

A decision from that august body to actively do anything is as unlikely as me running a ten second hundred metres!

Once upon a time when the colonial racists ruled the roost, Zimbabwe had one of the highest – if not THE highest – literacy rates in Africa. Now all has changed. The number of children attending school in Zim dropped from 85 per cent in 2007 to below 20 per cent in 2009, a decline mostly attributed to unaffordable school fees and a shortage of teachers. Picture the scene. It is the first day of term, and 1,115 children line up in front of the half-finished brick building that passes for a school in rural Zimbabwe. Only 100 of the children have paid their school fees, which have already been reduced from $10 to $2 a term in order to help struggling parents. Even this is too much for most people; the average wage in Zimbabwe is estimated to be $1 a day, while more than 80 per cent of Zimbabweans are unemployed. Those who haven't paid are granted five days to find the money, but to no avail. A week later, the school accountant sends 889 children home for non-payment of fees.

I can’t blame the ‘accountants’ as such, but the system is an appalling one, particularly when millions of precious dollars are paid out for an 86 year old despot’s birthday parties. What possible future can there be for ordinary Zimbabweans?

And here, another African plutocrat is feted by the Queen and government ministers. Jacob Zuma may not yet have matched the grotesque misrule of  Comrade Bob, who was welcomed to the Palace in 1994, but he tends to side with the mobs who have invaded the white-owned, productive farms rather than those who used to produce the country's food. 

After slating the British and their ‘colonial practices’ yesterday, he was still allowed to travel with Her Maj in the state carriage and doubtless wined and dined himself extravagantly at the State Banquet last evening.

Yet he makes no bones about his feelings toward Comrade Bob and Zimbabweans. He told the media that “Europeans often ignore the fact that Mugabe is very popular among Africans. In their eyes, he has given blacks their country back after centuries of colonialism. The people love him, so how can we condemn him?”

No wonder that affluent South Africans, black and white, are now concerned by the course their is taking under Zuma, and fearful they are on a trajectory towards becoming the continent's next basket case. It seems utterly misguided to have invited this fool to Britain in a state visit with all the trimmings at a time when it is becoming ever more evident that South Africa is being turned into an organised kleptocracy.

To make the whole thing even more smelly, the British government this month announced a deal with British Aerospace to end investigations into whether bribes were paid in several recent contracts. Nothing to do with Zuma’s forthcoming visit I am sure, but the timing was deeply suspicious. Jacob Boy was deeply implicated in the bribes paid by European defence contractors, including British Aerospace, over a gigantic 1998 South African arms deal.

Schabir Shaik, his personal financial adviser, was one of the few men to stand trial for corruption as Thabo Mbeki's government kicked over the traces of the arms deal and other corruption scandals. Shaik was convicted of making several illegal payments to Zuma, and in effect underwriting the cost of his substantial private home to accommodate his various wives and children.

The truth is that corruption is now so prevalent in that benighted country that South Africans have lost their capacity to be shocked by it, yet the main man is feted as a statesman by Gormless Gordon and his poodles. I shuddered over the simpering grins depicted in todays newspapers and can only wonder whether GG, Mincyband and Allan Johnson – the three most photographed – were aware of just who they were mixing with.

I don’t give a damn about the man’s wives or his flamboyant sex life, but he is an out and out crook and will bring the so-called Rainbow Nation to its knees.

No wonder he is on Comrade Bob’s side.

I must admit to a twinge or two of admiration for the England football manager Fabio Capello. He said what others have never dared to say and described footballers as ‘overpaid.’ Capello is himself a former international footballer and he is paid a great deal of money, but none of this seems to have spoiled him or reduced him to the yobbishness of so many players.

In his private life and his work he evinces those qualities of rectitude and discipline and restraint which are so lacking in many of the young heroes he manages. He has the courage to insist on his values. I wonder whether after the World Cup he might be prevailed upon to take over from Mark Thompson at the BBC – another bunch of overpaid nonentities.

Now there’s a thought.

And now children as young as five are to be put on a government database over everyday playground insults. These ‘hate registers’ are to be mandatory in all schools.  Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on the database until the pupil leaves secondary school.

Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough. Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of 'hate' bullying.

The databases will held by councils and made available to Whitehall and ministers to help them devise future anti-bullying campaigns. One report last year by the Manifesto Club civil liberties think-tank said that 40,000 children each year are having racist charges added to their school records and this can only get worse.

Rules for heads say that using language such as 'gay'  -  which has had near-universal usage among British schoolchildren in recent years to denote something as inferior  -  counts as homophobic bullying, even if pupils do not have any homophobic intention in mind when using the word.

How ruddy ridiculous it is all becoming. After ‘gay,’ what will be next? Fat perhaps – or freckled or cack handed?

I fear for future generations in this country, I really do. At least future generations of Zimbabweans will know how to fight for their survival. The Brits will be a nation of bullying and bullied people who will be too scared to open their mouths.

 
 
 
 

 

3^rd March 2010

It seems that my ‘Horse Whisperer,’ Adrian Pengelly is in trouble again. He is to be prosecuted by Herefordshire trading standards people for claims made on his web site that he has cured people of cancer. Even though the claims were made by the people themselves, it seems that this is an offence against the Cancer Act – I didn’t know there was one – and Adrian could face three months inside.

The Daily Mail ran a piece on this a couple of days ago and when I first read it, I was moved to comment, so wrote my bit and submitted it. I then had to register – even though I have done this before – and when I did, my comment was not allowed to go through. In fact, later in the day I went back to the article and all space for comment had been removed.

All I can say is that wherever his strange powers come from, Pengelly cured me of a condition that the medical profession had struggled with for eight months. I have never been a believer in alternative medicine, but this worked for me and has for many hundreds of other people. The man is doing good and there are few people who can claim that in this topsy turvy world.

Those Trading Standards officials must surely have better things to do than prosecute the Horse Whisperer.

Mind you, they are fairly symptomatic of the petty officialdom stalking the streets of Britain at the moment. If it wasn’t so ridiculous, the story about parking tickets being placed on flooded cars in York city centre would have been hilarious. What sort of a nation is evolving in this soggy little island I wonder.

There is much talk about ‘history being made’ with the televised electioneering ‘debates’ between the three party leaders, but what a farce it is turning out to be. The ‘debates’ will take place in near silence after the broadcasters were forced to agree to a ban on clapping.

The ban on applause is supposedly to allow time for more questions. But it is understood that the parties were nervous that studio audience reaction could influence TV viewers. Surely that is what they were intended to do damnit? The debates are likely to become the centrepiece of the election campaign, but the rigid format will fuel fears that they could be so dull they could alienate voters.

All three party leaders last night welcomed the SEVENTY SIX CLAUSE agreement, which is the result of months of behind-the-scenes negotiations. What are these idiotic politicians so afraid of I wonder.

Yorkshire ripper Peter Sutcliffe is claiming that he should be released from Broadmoor and his claim is backed by various psychiatrists and prison officials. It seems incredible that the man who conducted a six-year killing spree could possibly be portrayed as a victim, but this is the stage we have now reached.

But – and it is a big but - if Sutcliffe's doctors have successfully treated his claimed mental sickness as they seem to suggest, I can't work out why he has not been sent back to serve his sentence in a maximum-security prison. If he is no longer mentally ill and is taking whatever medication he has been prescribed, why has he not been returned to jail? On what legal grounds is he being held in Broadmoor? 

And has anyone thought about the families of his victims? I doubt it. They will have become mere statistics while this monster of a man is supported by medical minds almost as twisted as his own.

We have become used to stories of the undeserving rich, so the £56 million Lottery couple, Nigel Page and Justine Laycock, are a shining advertisement for virtuous wealth. Firstly, they look pleasant and have no criminal record. After winning all that lolly, they moved into a carbon neutral eco-home in their own neighbourhood, rather than shipping out to live somewhere sunny such as Monaco or the Costa Whatever. Finally, they give their old home and car to their loyal cleaner.

You can judge a person by their treatment of staff, as Gormless Gordon has awkwardly discovered. I hope poor old Pauline North, the No 11 housekeeper sacked after 30 years' service at the Treasury, can find employment with the Lottery couple instead of the government. At least they appear to have souls.

I did like the one sent to me yesterday following my comment on Jacob Zuma. It seems that a survey was carried out among the women of Soweto, in which they were asked whether they would be willing to sleep with the South African president.

Three percent agreed that they would, but ninety seven percent said, ‘No, not again.’

 I hope Her Maj enjoys his company at dinner this evening.

2^nd March 2010

Well I was back to my smoothly asssured best last night and thoroughly entertained about 50 ladies of the Marle Hill WI. Without the suddenly very real danger of dropping my slide tray again, I just burbled away and – I think – gave them a very polished performance. My only complaint was that my allotted time was 45 minutes, which isn’t nearly enough time to tell them all about elephants.

Still, it was nice to feel back on form.

Is it any wonder that the military in this country feel undervalued? During the Rhodesian war – my only experience of conflict – every single serviceman or women was made to feel very special. In Britain, they are made to feel like second class citizens. Take the case of a former Royal Marine who was told to cover-up a tattoo of his regimental badge by security staff at Heathrow Airport, because it was 'offensive' to other passengers.

Paul Fairclough, a former medic with 539 Assault Squadron  served in Kosovo and Iraq so was understandably somewhat peeved to be told off by a female security officer.

Spotting the tattooed dagger on his arm, this uniformed virago said, “That tattoo is offensive. You will have to cover it up.”

Mr Fairclough said: “I tried to explain that it was the insignia of my old regiment, the Royal Marines and she told me she knew exactly what it was but that it made no difference. They had a policy that tattoos showing offensive weapons of any kind must not be on show.

‘I was left feeling insulted, angry and incensed. I served my country and lost mates who were blown-up in Iraq. I am proud of my service with the Royal Marines and this left a bitter taste in my mouth.”

It ought to leave a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. Another soldier died in Afghanistan yesterday, yet petty officials with fancy uniforms are allowed to ride roughshod over those who face or have faced genuine danger on behalf of the people of this country.

I did smile to read that the Big O has been told that he should not only try harder to kick his smoking habit but should also moderate his alcohol intake. It would seem the pressures of the U.S. presidency - all those White House receptions might also have something to do with it  - are taking their toll after the 48-year-old's first medical checkup since winning the race to the White House.

The chief executive, who has endured an exhausting first year in the White House and year-long battles with congressional Republicans, should also eat better to lower his cholesterol, but was otherwise declared in excellent health and fit for duty.

I am not a follower of Obama, but he handles an extremely difficult job with far more aplomb than most recent presidents and if he can’t eat and drink what he likes – and smoke if he feels like it - as the most powerful man in the world, what hope is there for the rest of us.

Talkking about presidents, tomorrow night will be fun at Buck House. They are staging an official dinner for Jacob Zuma. At these state banquets it is traditional to invite leaders of the 'arts community' to break up the stodgy ranks of diplomats and establishment bigwigs who tend to get the bulk of the invitations.

But will theatrical greats such as Sir Ian McKellen be comfortable breaking bread with a man who has described same-sex marriage as 'a disgrace to the nation and to God,’ and who boasted that when he was a young man, any sensible homosexual would have got out of his way because: 'I would have knocked him out.' 

Will the bishops want to nibble canapes with a man who won the South African election last year by appearing at rallies and singing the old ANC guerilla war song, 'Bring Me My Machine Gun?’ Even then, this was interpreted by many South Africans as a grotesque disavowal of Mandela's exhortation to his supporters to throw their weapons into the sea, but the fat man certainly didn’t care what anyone felt.

And for that matter, will horrible Harriet, assiduously promoting her equality agenda as the General Election nears, wish to discuss gender issues with a man who, when charged with rape in 2005, protested in court that the alleged victim was wearing an extremely short skirt. He also claimed that the only real protection from HIV/AIDS is to have a shower after sex.

Oh I do hope that Horrible Harriet will be seated next to the president and would dearly love to be a fly on the wall.

 
 
 
 

1^st March 2010

The start of another week and another month. What will it hold for us all I wonder? More cold weather perhaps or could we possibly have a hint of Spring before I set off for my African winter? Who knows, but the weather does at least keep people talking to each other.

The Bratlets drew their game 5 all yesterday with the result that both Cheltenham Under 14 sides advance into the next stage of the County Cup – a monumental achievement and great for the Boys. I didn’t watch the game, being ensconced in my office trying to sort out pics and words for my Taste of Africa evening  at the Butcher’s Arms, Oakridge on 12^th March. It should be a fun evening, so if any of you are in this area, tickets are £5 (which includes bread and cheese) and seating is restricted to 50, so book early please. Give me a call and I will keep tickets aside for you.

Andrew Rawnsley, whose book is providing so much angst for Gormless Gordon and his sorry bunch now turns his attention to the Toothsome One himself, saying that the then Prime Minister was profoundly depressed after the Iraq War.

TT apparently 'spaced out' – whatever that may mean -  during Prime Minister's Questions. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck in the middle of the night. He was haunted by the Iraq bloodshed and the warfare being waged against him by GG, desperate to the point of insanity to take his job.

I don't think we're ready to feel sympathy for Toothsome Tony though. He got us into Iraq, arguably for self-aggrandising reasons. He should have had the strength to sack his tame nutcase too,  instead of handing over his own job to the man. However, he never screwed up enough courage to do so.

Truly, public life at the top in this country is becoming sordid in the extreme.We give these pratwinkles far too much power without checks and balances. No prime minister should ever be able to anoint himself, as Gormless Gordon did. Neither should they ever take us to war on a false premise without risking impeachment.

Yet we allow them to pose and preen before us, while screwing us like welfare cheats over allowances and expenses, guarding themselves night and day while making decisions which expose the rest of us to terrorist revenge, and giving themselves and their spouses fancy titles.

Afterwards, they take their contacts books, inside knowledge of government and deceitful hearts into the private sector and make themselves rich.

And their name for this is public service. All I can muster is a hollow laugh.

Meanwhile the Conservatives are rabbitting on with increasingly confused messages about family values. The main drivers of family breakdown in this country are cultural, not economic. They emanate moreover, from the intelligentsia at the very top of society even though their worst victims are at the very bottom. It is those limousine liberals who developed the core idea behind the recalibration of women's interests - that equality meant women should behave in exactly the same way as men.

This would have appalled the earliest feminists, who fought for votes for women on the basis that women stood for moral constraints that would civilise the public sphere, not that women could do anything a man can do. That is an invention of latter day feminists like Horrible Harriet.

The irony is that, as a result of modern notions of gender equality, it is men who now need special help to restore the sexual bargain that will not just benefit the male sex but stop the degradation of women and family life that so threatens us all.

Come on DD – surely you can see that. It doesn’t need injections of money, it needs a cultural change – again.

In Zim, Comrade bob has just enjoyed another lavish bash for his 86^th birthday. Held in Bulawayo, this one cost a mere US$500 000 to stage, and the more than 5000 guests who thronged the Trade Fair grounds were treated to impressive international cuisine at all the local hotels. No mere sadza and gravy for these party hedonists.

The birthday boy told the audience – mostly schoolchildren - that he owed his long life to God and the security forces.

"Along the way to this day, there have been attempts on my life," Bob said grandly. "Several people wanted my life. They tried the use of parcel bombs and other means, but they all missed me. I had vigilant people around me, the security forces, the Chimurenga allies and many others ensured my safety."

We certainly missed a lot of chances, but it was bungling rather than vigilance that kept Bob alive.

 Zanu PF has defended the extravagant parties it organises annually for Mugabe saying it is time to reflect on the contributions made by its long-serving leader. Mind you, the birthday gala at the ZITF was turned into a flesh-peddling market by sex workers. The women said the bash had given them an opportunity to make ‘a killing.’

At least some folk benefited. I wonder what ordinary Zimbabweans felt about it all.

Meanwhile South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma will be accompanied by wife No 3, Thobeka when he stays with Her Maj at Buckingham Palace this week.

Technically though, Thobeka is wife No 5, since one Zuma spouse killed herself and the other divorced him. They have a one-year-old daughter despite having been married for only a month while he recently fathered a child by the daughter of a political ally.

Thobeka and wife No 2, Nompumelelo Ntuli scuffled for pole position during Jacob's state-of-the-nation speech last year. One can only imagine the arguments that went on prior to this trip. I wonder what Prince Phillip will have to say if the Zuma’s domestic arrangements come up at the dinner table. No doubt, he will be characteristically discreet.

Are we to be subjected to an epidemic of men in the public eye breaking down in tears? I hope not, but now we have had the unedifying spectacle of the X Factor's Simon Cowell welling up under questioning by Piers Morgan about his late father's death. Oh come on fellows – there is nothing wrong with private grief and I have been known to blub myself, but all this public bawling is taking it a bit far.

I am sure it was a 'horrible, horrible, horrible time' Mr Cowell, but your grief must surely have been assuaged somewhat by the price you were paid for performing in front of Piers Morgan.

I fear though that unlike Gormless Gordon, you are unlikely to garner much sympathy by your tearful performance. You have publicly slated too many people for that.

28^th February 2010

The weather forecast predicts a day of monsoon like rain with high winds, so it could be interesting. I wonder if bratlet rugby will still take place? After all the snow and ice, they boys have had a very fractured season, but postponed fixtures are piling up now. Oh well, there is nothing anyone can do about the weather – no matter what the climate change people tell us.

 

One of the most difficult things in life is being in the middle when friends fall out. At the moment, two people I like very much are at loggerheads and having heard both sides of the argument, I would like nothing better than to sit down with them both and get them to calmly see sense and patch up their differences. However, they are both responsible adults and I can only watch from a distance and hope it all blows over, because in reality, they each need the other, although I don’t think either would admit that.

 

Sad really, but I suppose it is part of life and the human condition.

 

Talking about humans, I read today that dog owners will have to take a costly ‘competence test’ to prove they can handle their pets, under new Government proposals designed to curb dangerous dogs.

What a load of baloney! No British government would dare impose such a measure. Only the day before yesterday, I was walking when I was surrounded by three large, lolloping dogs. They meant me no harm, but were very much in my way, so I told them to ‘voetsak’ in no uncertain terms. Their owners, who were some way behind, looked somewhat quizzically at me, so I curtly explained that I don’t like dogs. I do, but only those that are well behaved and under control. However, had I said that I was a raging paedophile of perverted bent, I could not have provoked more horror on three separate faces.

 

No, I think I would eat a pair of dirty socks if any political party dared to impose anything so drastic on the British public and their mutts. Surely, they could obviate most of the problems though by enforcing the rule that dogs in public should be on a lead at all times.

 

Or is that too simplistic?

 

Stuart Wheeler, once the largest donor to the Tory Party, has been cast into the political darkness for supporting UKIP instead. I might have empathised with that, had I not watched this week’s Question Time yesterday and listened to Nigel Farage.

The man is obviously a character in search of an audience, but he carries this to almost manic extremes. There's almost nothing the ex-Ukip leader (and still the party's most prominent figurehead) wouldn't do at the moment to get himself noticed and talked about. This week alone he made a well -and in my opinion, rather softly - reported attack on the European council president Herman Van Rompuy, then managed to create so much of a stir on Question Time by being rude about Belgium itself that he managed to unite everyone else on the panel and quite a lot of the audience against him.

Why is he doing this? Partly because he can. Partly because being rude about foreigners is what comes naturally to his ilk. Mainly however, it's because Farage is running for parliament and has decided to take on Squeaker Bercow for his Buckingham seat.

So he is engaged in a campaign to get noticed. Perhaps he hopes to emulate the anti-European Tory MEP Daniel Hannan whose denunciation of Gormless Gordon in the European parliament became a U tube favourite for a while. I think what he really wants is to get on the idiot box as much as possible so that we all know exactly who he is. Nothing would please him more than to be suspended from the European parliament by its president Jerzy Buzek, who has summoned Farage for a stern talk about his behaviour.

I have to confess that watching this poser yesterday, I found myself appalled, not only at his gratuitous rudeness, but also at the way he shrugged off all criticism with a somewhat oily smirk. I am no great fan of the Squeaker, but I think I would prefer him as my MP to the worthy Mr Farage.

On the other hand, a vote for UKIP would be a protest vote and it is surely time that the entire British public registered some sort of protest at the shambles that goes for government these days. It could backfire though and we could be lumbeed with more like the unctuous Mr Farage.

And still the furore over Gormless Gordon’s temper rumbles on. Surely the problem with GG is not his character, his temper or his manners. It is his politics. If he were a good Prime Minister, we would forgive him his personal failings.

Which is why it was silly for Dashing Dave to call grandiosely for an inquiry into gossip about the prime minister’s treatment of subordinates. This is not proper politics, and it demeans us all with its childishness.

And of course, it immediately backfired. A Tory staffer slunk out from under the woodwork to tell the world,

“I’ve seen him go nuclear,” He was referring to DD. “It was the ferocity of the language that surprised people.’

So it would seem to be yet another pots and kettles situation in the toddler war of tears and temper tantrums that has become our fevered Election coverage. For all his choirboy looks and ‘man of the people’ image, it seems that Dashing Dave may not be such a goody two shoes after all.

I just wish these pratwinkles would get back to governing the country rather than carping on each other’s failings.

I did read one encouraging report today, although the details made me want to spit fire at all politicians. It seems that expenses paid to MPs on European junkets are to be slashed by a third after two Labour politicians staged a champagne drinking contest in Paris, which led to one being violently ill at an official reception.

MPs will also be forced to produce receipts after it was revealed that some have made thousands of pounds in profits from the current system whereby cash is paid into their bank accounts – with no questions asked.

The crackdown follows a discovery that several MPs have made huge sums by staying in cheap hotels, getting free food and drink from official receptions and banquets and sharing taxis.

Now the daily £236 allowance paid to MPs and peers will be cut to about £160. They will also have to produce receipts like the rest of us. Until now, the money – for hotels and food – has been paid on trust with rail and air fares pre-paid.

It is a very small step, but it is at least a step in the right direction. Now let’s cut Parliament down to a reasonable size and get rid of all the hangers on who are taking us for  such a ride. It is surely time to start again.

Another lot who have lost some of their ill used funding is the police. Forces across the country have had millions of pounds of counter-terrorism funding cut after a secret audit revealed they were spending the cash on other things.

In one instance, the City of London Police was receiving £3.7million for a so-called ‘ring of steel’ that no longer exists. Kent Police has also lost a huge sum allocated for anti-terror work that it was using to pay for community support officers.

It was only last week – I think – that I wrote how the Met were using their anti terrorism cash to buy luxury London apartments for senior officers. I wonder what other misuses of these funds were uncovered by the audit. This money is supposed to be used for equipment and specialist staff to combat the threat of terrorism and allow us to sleep safely in our beds.

If we can’t trust the cops not to cook the books, who can we trust I wonder?

I am sure elephants don’t have these problems in their society. I have seen elephants that were naughty, mischievous and on occasion, downright cocky, but at least they are always honest..

 
 
 

 

27^th February 2010

I was feeling more than a little down yesterday as doubts swirled about my head over the kayak I have been offered. So I went to the pub and while chatting to my lop-sided friend, she noticed my morbs and commented on them. I half explained my doubts and she told me that if I wasn’t fully confident, I shouldn’t try the trip. ‘Nobody will think any the less of you if you back out,’ she opined but I pointed out that I would. Having said I will paddle around that ruddy lake, I will paddle around that ruddy lake. If I come to grief along the way, then so be it, but I could never live with myself if I pulled out now.

 

Coincidentally, I received the following quotation from General Douglas Macarthur

in my postbox this morning.

 

‘Age wrinkles the body, but quitting wrinkles the soul. Be relentless in the pursuit of your dream!’

 

That could not have been better timed, Tony.

 

In Zimbabwe, the political farce that is Roy Bennet’s trial continues. Disillusioned by the performance of an allegedly expert witness, he had called to testify against Bonnet, Attorney General Johannes Tomana now intends to call yet another expert, a move the defence team is vehemently opposing. Beatrice Mtetwa who is representing Bennett said the move was no longer part of ‘prosecution’ but was tantamount to ‘persecution.’ On Tuesday, Tomana called in Perekai Mutsetse to buttress the state's assertion that emails, allegedly printed from the computer of Mutare arms dealer Peter Hitschman that implicate Bennett in a plot to assassinate Comrade Bob were authentic. However, under cross-examination from Mtetwa, Mutsetse, who claimed he is a provincial engineer for Africom and therefore an expert, stunned the court when he said he had never heard about computer hackers, leading the defence to tell him that he was not a computer expert at all, but a cable layer at Africom – a charge he did not deny.

 

Even Tomana must know that he can’t keep producing these ludicrously febrile liars in what is a major case. Or does he? Perhaps the circus will go on until they manufacture some underhand way to find Bennet guilty.

 

Here, a father was accused of being a paedophile and even threatened with arrest after taking an innocent photograph of his own son. When Kevin Geraghty-Shewan took his four-year-old son Ben out on a shopping trip to Sunderland's Bridges Shopping Centre to spend his pocket money, they were hoping for an enjoyable family day out.

Instead of which, the day turned sour when Mr Geraghty-Shewan was approached by a security guard.

"Ben spotted a children's ride which had a train on it and wanted to have a go because he's obsessed with trains. When he got on my wife suggested we take a picture of him." Mr Geraghty-Shewan told Sky News.

"I took the picture on my phone and suddenly this security guard came up and told me it wasn't allowed because I could be a paedophile.”

Despite protesting that Ben was his own son, the security guard insisted that he couldn't prove it.

The argument escalated when shortly afterward Mr Geraghty-Shewan was approached by a policeman. "He said he'd received a complaint a man matching my description was taking pictures of children and wanted my name and address.

‘I told him it was ridiculous because it was my own son. He then started asking me what I was doing in Sunderland, asked for my name and address and told me he had the right to delete my pictures."

After this, the argument became more heated and Mr Geraghty-Shewan was threatened with arrest for breach of the peace.

What on earth is this country coming to?

Bridges Shopping Centre issued a statement saying: "We take the safety at all our shopping centres very seriously. We do ask our security guards across the estate to be diligent in implementing our security measures, which includes monitoring photography in our centres."

 

This nonsense all seems to stem from the time Britain joined the Common Market. Ordinary Britons are allowing unelected fools to dictate what they can or cant do. Europe is turning this country into a laughing stock, and we the voters allow it to happen. It is time the people of Britain took a stand..

Mind you, we should all take a stand against Horrible Harriet’s drive to decimate any pride anyone might have left about being British. Her latest Equality Commission document highlights as an example of 'good practice,’ the real-life case of 'a young transperson born female attending a mixed-sex primary school.’

On the advice of a 'gender identity clinic' in London and the local 'lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth service,’ the school apparently transformed its procedures to accommodate this one young child who had been 'identified as transgender' by a psychologist.

The changes including a 'gender neutral uniform' (whatever that might be) and 'a new system of lining up for class by mixed-sex group labelled using basic shapes (such as Triangles, Circles and Rectangles) rather than by gender.'

Teachers were also encouraged to use the changes as a way of 'exploring gender stereotypes.’ Most parents would prefer that primary schools just teach their pupils to read and write properly rather than embarking on journeys of sexual exploration.

And it gets worse. The Equality Commission guidance is riddled with this kind of bizarre nonsense. Public facilities are urged to install unisex toilets which are 'more welcoming' for transgender people. Leisure centres are encouraged to hold sessions where transgender people have 'sole use of the swimming pool, gym, sauna and badminton courts for an evening.’

Surely that is discriminatory against ordinary people who are not at all worried about their gender?

But there are two particularly odious aspects to the Equality Bill. One is the introduction, for the first time in British law of positive discrimination, whereby employers in recruitment will be required to favour ethnic minorities and women, making a nonsense of the very term equality.

Second, no business will be allowed to bid for the supply of goods and services in the public sector unless it has demonstrated its commitment to multi-cultural diversity.

Given that the state sector's market is estimated to be worth more than £175billion, this rule again gives enormous power to the bureaucrats of the Commission who will check for compliance.

And we think Comrade Bob is corrupt! This nonsense is basic corruption at its worst. In a saner society, Horrible Harriet, the Instigator in Chief would be shot or at least locked away for the rest of her life in a place where she can do no more harm.

And now the Food Standars Agency wants popcorn banned from cinemas. I haven’t been to a cinema in years, but surely popcorn is one of the things that make cinema visits fun for all concerned?

Mind you, this benighted country doesn’t do ‘fun’ any more, does it? Popcorn might make us all fat and that is too dangerous to allow.

26^th February 2010

Well, it is possible that I have finally managed to solve – for want of a better word – the problem that has taken over my life and led to sleepless night after sleepless night over recent weeks – finding a kayak that might take me around the perimeter of Lake Kariba.

Dylan – and I know now more than that – in Buluwayo has a sea kayak for sale. I have pored over pics and it looks good, although the length – or lack of it – at 4.5 metres is a little worrying, as is the open cockpit. However, it fulfills all the other necessary criteria so I will have it inspected and make up my mind. Then all I need to do is find the money to pay for it. Hell!

Mind you, at least I might be able to sleep a little better and get on with my other preparations.

It has been quite a demonstrative week for our normally granite-faced prime minister. Poor old Gormless Gordon has been required to publicly emote to order, like some simpering X Factor contestant making a bid for the big time.

In the House of Commons this week, he and his hated Chancellor smooched together like a pair of viagra-stoked lovebirds up a gum tree. Elsewhere he had to smile as if nothing was wrong, while inside he was crashing around his own emotional undergrowth like the proverbial bull in the Dresden factory.

For me, his most pungent performance was when apologising for Britain's role in sending thousands of children to Australia as part of the Child Migrants Programme. That ended 40 years ago and had nothing to do with him, but GG really went for it - he was ‘sorry, sorry, truly sorry.’ Yet it is just too easy and glib to keep apologising for historical injustices like this, for there is no going back on history. Everyone involved might feel a little better about themselves, but it is essentially meaningless, not to mention phoney, patronising and glib.

Whaling, slavery, that nasty business over the Suez Canal, Naomi Campbell, Piers Morgan or that horrible Katie Price - if we start saying sorry to the world for our misdeeds, when do we stop?

I think we would all rather that GG and his Government be responsible for the here and now, not grandstanding like big hams about yesterday's mistakes.

I have always held strict views about not negotiating with terrorists or hostage takers, but the plight of the Chandlers, being held in Somalia seems somehow different. Because they are not rich, famous nor powerful, no one in authority seems to  care and there is no family money to buy their freedom. Nor is there anyone willing to fight their cause, as has been evident from the moment of kidnap when a Royal Navy ship watched it happen from 50ft away without intervening. ‘International laws to follow, chaps. Might have endangered the hostages. Could even have got our uniforms wet.’ All such excuses have been made. Now, however, the pirates obviously realise they captured the wrong people and are looking for a face-saving way out that will cover their costs.

If the Foreign and Commonwealth Office can’t act for the Chandlers and their like — ie, most of us — then what on earth is it there for? And why do I have the dispiriting suspicion that if any ten astute people picked at random got together in a room they would be able to sort this mess out faster and more efficiently than our diplomats have done? Diplomats who we pay to be expert.

By my reckoning, £1.3 million is peanuts in terms of public spending. It’s probably what they spend on paper clips in the FCO or the cost of repairing the upholstery in Gormless Gord’s limousines. In fact, I’d bet a pound to a pinch of the proverbial that the eventual cost of paying off those responsible for the appalling Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust scandal was far more.

Sometimes comparisons on how we spend public money are neither unfair nor inappropriate, but educative. In 2009 three quarters of FCO staff were given bonuses. And the ministry was criticised this month by the National Audit Office, which found that, since 2002, building projects on embassies had run over budget by nearly £57 million. All that marble, doubtless.

Yet ask the FCO with its annual expenditure of £2.1 billion, to spare a little to save two lives, and it adopts the posture of one who has a very bad smell under one’s nose. Because, of course, this is not about what we can afford; this is about principle you know. And we FCO mandarins are best at principles.

Saving this couple would be the kind of humanitarian action that matters far more than any theoretical future threat — so the FCO’s argument goes — that by paying one ransom, the lives of all Britons abroad will be put in greater danger. Not that I’m cynical, but it strikes me that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has already done for all Brits on that score.

No, something has to be done and it has to be done fast. Rachel Chandler was enormously impressive in the video clips, courteous and dignified, but she was evidently under fearful mental and physical pressure.She looked sick, anxious and disorientated and who wouldn’t in those circumstances. Delay could end in the most tragic way and if it does, the Government should be under absolutely no illusions how outraged the British public will be.

I must admit, I would rather spend £30m of taxpayer money sending in the SAS and a Navy Frigate to destroy the pirates infrastructure, but surely this inept bunch of nincompoops in power can raise enough to free a helpless couple who have done nothing wrong except try to enjoy their retirement?

But no; I fear they will hide behind their ‘principles’ and the Chandlers will be left to a horrible death.

There has been any number of public complaint of late that there are no unskilled jobs around and that those that are available have been taken by migrant workers – many of them from Eastern Europe.

I don’t think I believe this. The unskilled jobs exist, it is just that the British can’t or don’t want to do them at the rates offered. Eastern Europeans will and will work hard at those jobs, no matter how menial or demanding they may be.

I think the government’s immigration policy is totally obscene, but  immigrants have not all stolen their jobs from the British. They’ve made more economic activity on these shores viable than would be the case in their absence. As the employers in the programme explain, if the immigrants were to leave, their jobs would not go to the local unemployed, many of them would simply go altogether.

I was sorry for Dawn Brancheau, the wild life ‘trainer’ mauled to death by a killer whale this week, but sorrier still for the whale itself. These are creatures which normally have entire oceans to swim in, not tiny blue-tiled pools.

Like elephants, they are extraordinarily social creatures; like human beings they need company. You normally find them swimming in close knit family groups - they talk to each other, mothers pass on vital life lessons to their calves and, of course, they hunt together; often as a pack.

Take away that that vital social network - either by capturing a wild killer whale, as they used to until the mid-nineties, or raising one bred in captivity - and you're taking away one of the absolute cornerstones of a killer whale's life. It's like placing a human being in solitary confinement - for life. It probably has the same consequences, too.

So I'm pretty sure that Mrs Brancheau knew she was taking a calculated risk working with killer whales. Only once have I been to one of these Sea World-style parks and the experience sickened me - but they justify their existence by arguing that they educate as well as entertain.

Rubbish – they are there purely to make money and we the gullible public encourage them to do so and thereby lead to tragic accidents like Dawn Brancheau’s. Whether they are killer whales, dolphins, big cats or elephants, these creatures are as entitled to be free as are human beings.

I won’t get on to my conservationist soap box, but as I said, my sylpathies lie entirely with the killer whale.

Do you like the Government's new slogan, A Future Fair For All? No, me neither. We all know that life isn't fair and it's not fair to pretend that it is.

25^th February 2010

Ever since I started this public speaking lark, I have worried that the day would come when I would dry up, freeze or completely lose my thread. That didn’t quite happen last evening, but what did, was almost as bad.

I was addressing the Cheltenham Townswoman’s Guild in a small library room, packed with 40 odd ladies. There was little space to set up my equipment and while I was doing so, I was interrupted by the arrival of Dave Cresswell, who was in the police with me and played cricket with me forty odd years ago. He invited me back to his house for coffee after the talk and whether that was on my mind or not, I don’t know but I suddenly dropped my slide tray, scattering elephant pics around the floor. It is the second time I have done that – not bad in 5 years -  so sat on the floor, surrounded by women, carefully collecting them together and putting them back in the correct order.

I have to admit to being flustered though and after my opening spiel of 20 minutes or so, I had the lights switched off, focussed the projector and pressed the button for the first slide.

Bang – the slides were scattered over the floor again because I had neglected to put the switch on to forward, so the tray had gone backwards, slid off the chair on which the projector sat and scattered its contents far and wide. We took a break and eventually I got going again although what I said for the next 40 odd minutes, I really have no idea. They seemed to enjoy it though and I was bombarded with questions afterwards.

Hopefully, that is my last speaking disaster for another 5 years!

When Burbling Boris stepped down as chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, it raised questions about the direction of the Met under his leadership. BB, having effectively dispensed with the previous Commissioner, seems to have little wish for hands-on engagement with policing himself — despite this being one of the few areas over which he does have full authority.

His successor, Kit Malthouse, has now taken over as chairman of the Authority, yet this pratwinkle has not attended any meetings of M.P.A committees for the past 18 months, including one dealing with neighbourhood policing and terrorism. His aides say that any crucial matters will come up before the full meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority, yet it should surely be essential for Malthouse to engage with the important issues that the committees handle.

The policing of London is an issue that must have a real impact on people's lives and it was a crucial element of Burbling Boris’ election campaign. Having made the policing of the capital a political matter by replacing Ian Blair, he must surely ensure that his successor actually takes a bit of interest in his role of chairing the MPA.

Or does he have more important things to do?

With typical fanfare, Toothsome Tony announced in 1999 that his government had set a target to slash in half the number of teen pregnancies by 2012. New figures released yesterday exposed Labour’s disastrous lack of success in meeting this goal.

A staggering 40,000 — or 40 per 1,000 — under-18s still fall pregnant in Britain each year, a pitiful improvement on 1998, when the figure was 46.6 per 1,000. What makes these statistics most depressing however, is the staggering amount of energy and taxpayers’ money that ministers have squandered on their teenage pregnancy programme. More than £280million has been spent on contraception and sex education — and this has barely made a dent in the problem.

I think it was Einstein who once said that the definition of insanity was ‘doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results.’ This surely applies to the government sex education policy. Despite dismal outcomes over the past decade, New Labour’s belief in the condom-and- classes routine is still utterly unshakeable. Indeed, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls is currently pushing legislation through Parliament which will make sex education compulsory in every school, including those faith establishments which were previously exempt.

Why for God’s sake? There is no evidence that sex education reduces the number of teenage pregnancies. In fact, just the opposite could be the case. For authoritative research has found that the more sex education children receive in schools, the greater their involvement in early sexual activity. Far from promoting restraint or commitment, the entire emphasis of this politically correct system is on the so- called ‘sexual rights’ of young people.

Sexual rights be blowed. The consequences are there for all to see in rising rates of both teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

When will these politically correct cretins realise that common sense is a very necessary part of human make up? Silly question I suppose. They are mired in a slippery mess of their own making and determined to take us all down with them.

Step aside Miss Marple, Lord Peter Whimsey and Sherlock Holmes – your place is being taken by real life amateur sleuths. West Yorkshire Police are actually advertising for would-be Miss Marples to help its murder squad. The unpaid detectives will make door-to-door inquiries, read documents in search of clues, check statements and transport evidence from crime scenes.

They want up to 60 members of the public to join the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, which deals with murders, rapes and armed robberies.

What on earth is happening to what was once one of the finest and proudest police forces in the world? We, the poor downtrodden British public need professional coppers please. With the best will in the world, amateurs might work in fiction, but we are living in the real world.

Mind you, even the real cops seem to be rapidly losing touch with reality. Schoolboy Dylan Keetley was mortified when he accidently broke a classmate's arm during a playground 'rough and tumble.' But that was nothing to how he felt when he was later arrested by police on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. Despite the school insisting the injury had been caused in an unfortunate accident the schoolboy was questioned at a police station for three hours.

Police also wanted to take his fingerprints, photo and DNA as part of the investigation but were refused permission. A police insider said: “We used to deal with these complaints more informally, but these days we have to follow new guidelines which force us to investigate every report of a crime.

'We have tried to be as sensitive as we can in this instance but we have to arrest someone so we can question them under caution. We have to follow these protocols but we try to do it as sensitively as possible.”

Can it get even more ridiculous and shameful? You bet it can. Here in darkest Gloucestershire, the cops  have refused to recover a stolen vehicle from a travellers' camp because of the danger to officers.

When Christopher Sims had his white van stolen from outside his house in Cheltenham, officers told him they had an idea who might have taken it. Now Gloucestershire Police insist they can not take any action as it would be ill-advised to visit the site where the van is being kept because of the strong criminal element who live there.

Mr Sims said: “They were sympathetic but couldn't risk putting officers' lives at risk. They knew where the van was, but they weren't prepared to go in and find it.”

A policewoman told Sims that the van was on on a well-known travellers' site, The Willows, near Gloucester and to retrieve it, the cops would have to mount a huge operation with armed officers, dogs and helicopters and it would never be authorised by senior officers for the sake of a van worth £1,000.

Makes me feel sick to my stomach I’m afraid. I was always proud of my service with the Goucestershire Constabulary, but I am truly relieved that I am no longer part of them. And it is only a couple of weeks until I have to say nice things about them in my talk, ‘Aren’t Our Policemen Wonderful.’

All I can say is that they were, but they aren’t any longer. They are truly a disgrace to a proud uniform.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

24^th February 2010

Well, life goes back to normal today – providing it doesn’t snow or rain too hard. I am back to my garden boy duties this morning then talking about elephants to the Cheltenham Townswomen’s Guild this evening. Hopefully I can put my funeral suit away for a while.

Out in the so called real world, the Ministry of Defence has been criticised after thousands of battlefield radios went missing - raising fears they have fallen into the hands of enemy fighters in Afghanistan.

The Commons' Defence Select Committee said it was 'unacceptable' that than 3,900 state-of-the-art Bowman digital communications systems - or 11 per cent of the total handed out - had vanished.

I can understand losing one, two or even a handful, but 3900 is worse than ‘unacceptable.’ It is almost certainly criminal and the cops – even if they are M o D cops - should be called in.

Mind you, the committee also found that a new computer system for calculating pay and allowances had wrongly paid out £268million while another £83million was mistakenly deducted from troops' food and accommodation charges.

Jeepers, can we really trust these cretins to run a war?

Jacob Zuma has said efforts to create a conducive environment for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe are being hampered by targeted sanctions against Comrade Bob Mugabe and his allies. What crass codswallop! Zuma told journalists over the weekend that sanctions were undermining his efforts to push Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai to agree an electoral framework that could guarantee a free and fair vote. “We want to create a conducive environment so that they can have elections to choose their own government, but the continuation of sanctions is undermining the agreement,” Zuma said, but he was lying through his teeth.

 The European Union last week extended the targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his tame thugs for another year, citing lack of progress in implementing the Global Political Agreement. Zuma's statement on the sanctions attracted severe criticism from analysts who said the person to blame for Zimbabwe's woes was none other than Comrade Bob, with the assistance of his goons.

I think the South African president ought to get back to pleasuring his wives and girlfriends, rather than airing his lack of knowledge about the Zimbabwe situation.

Conducive indeed!

In the 11 months between August 2008 and July of last year, nearly 100,000 Zimbabweans came down with cholera in the first countrywide epidemic of the disease in modern history. Previous outbreaks, which have occurred annually since 2003, had affected only pockets of the country. This time, cholera was everywhere. Corpses filled the streets and hospital beds. In some districts, half of those infected died. It was a tragedy in every way - not least because the worst might have been prevented. Months before the initial outbreak exploded into a full-blown epidemic, Georges Tadonki, who headed the United Nations' humanitarian office in Zimbabwe at the time, says he warned his superiors of the severe risk, suggesting to the UN country director Agostinho Zacarias, that 30,000 cases or more were possible. But Zacarias stifled that warning.

"He forced us to put the figure very low," Tadonki said. "Because the government did not accept that there was cholera, the United Nations was forced to align with that position."

Why for God’s sake? Do these idiots have to agree with whatever dictators like Comrade Bob say? I thought they were supposed to be apolitical.

In fact, Tadonki says he was at war with his superiors not only about cholera, but also about the United Nations' preparedness for an election in Zimbabwe that swiftly turned violent. Zacarias, the country director at the time, holds a political science doctorate from the London School of Economics and was once a member of FRELIMO, the former guerrilla movement in Mozambique. That must have really prepared him for a career in diplomacy! He arrived in Zimbabwe three years before Tadonki in March 2005, after two previous UN posts, one in Angola and later as special advisor on Africa to the secretary-general. UN officials said they saw Zacarias as a classic, old-school African diplomat who thought he could achieve more by maintaining good relations and access to the government.

In fact, he was just another crook who cooked the books at the expense of ordinary people. It seems to be an ever-expanding problem in this modern world.

Meanwhile Sarah Brown has joined in the furore over her husband’s bad temper. “Gordon's the man that I know and the man that I love,” she simpered at a charity event. “I know him as a strong, hard-working, decent man and he isn't anything else. What you see is what you get with him.”

The trouble is that few people like what they see, Sarah Dear.

Here is a great example of the farce that Parliament has become.  Yesterday, the regional grand committee for the East of England was due to meet for the first time in the Commons. Regional grand committees are one of the great new Labour ideas to improve accountability. They are meant to give the English regions their own equivalent of the Scottish and Welsh grand committees that have existed for years.

Unfortunately, the Tories think the idea is a bit of a con to give Labour MPs a bit of publicity (as they scramble to save their seats) and are unofficially boycotting them. As a result, committees in the south of England are a bit of a problem.

The last time the East of England committee tried to meet in Bedford, there weren’t enough MPs for a quorum. Yesterday, to get more MPs along, it was scheduled for the Commons at 9.20am. The region has 55 MPs. The committee's quorum is a mere 17.

But even with five Tories turning up out of interest, plus independent Bob Spink and two Lib Dems, the committee was inquorate yet again. Despite frantic texting from whips, just eight out of the region's 12 Labour MPs turned up. All in all, they had a total of 16 - one short of the quorum needed.

And who is the Minister for the East of England? Step forward Barbara Follett of dodgy expenses fame. And it gets worse. This august body has met just once - to elect its five members, including its chairman. The said chairman (Horrible Harriet won’t like that!) is Margaret Moran – another one who landed up to her neck in trouble over her expenses claims.

These people are allegedly running the country. What a farce it all is.

And today, Gormless Gordon is set to apologise for the UK's role in sending tens of thousands of children to former colonies where they suffered terrible abuse.

The Prime Minister is due to express the Government's regrets over the child migrants programme in a statement today to the House of Commons.

Why? What good will it do and why is he not apologising to the many millions of people, driven to penury by his totally inept government?

 

23^rd February 2010

Well, we gave him quite a send off. The church was packed to the rafters and even though I was giving a brief eulogy, I had to sit on a cold step leading up to the pulpit. Then the Vicar, while giving his tribute to Graham Mayo, said what had been a large part of my speech, so I had to do some quick readjustment in my mind before getting up to burble.

For all that though, it went incredibly well and the family were pleased, which was the main thing. Tomorrow night, I am back to talking about elephants – always considerably easier.

Readers of these pages will know that I do not have a soft spot for our esteemed prime minister, Gormless Gordon, but I do think the current outcry about his alleged bullying of staff is somewhat cynical.

Does it matter if he throws tantrums in the office? So did Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Wilson and Maggie Thatcher. Being Prime Minister - particularly today, when Britain faces such seemingly insurmountable problems - is a uniquely important and pressurised job. Bearing this in mind, it is surely rather pathetic of people who work in No.10 to phone bullying helplines.

But just as pathetic are those other politicians affecting 'concern' in an orchestrated campaign over GG’s supposed maltreatment of secretaries and civil servants.

By all means, if you will, say that he has been a lousy Prime Minister. But GG’s bad temper is not a reason for discrediting him - any more than his having the sight of only one eye, or his having a Scottish accent. History shows that in order to be a leader you need a hell of a lot of aggression. Gormless Gordon would certainly seem to have that.

But truly great leaders need more than aggression - they need honesty, conviction, principle, decisiveness and much more besides. And on the evidence so far, GG appears to be sadly lacking in these essential qualities. Perhaps that is why his staff are not prepared to be shouted at, but surely the current outcry is merely reaffirming the public opinion that the crop of charlatans in Westminster are totally useless.

It appears that far from turning his toes up within three months as we were assured he would, the Lockerbie Bomber, al Megrahi is now living the life of Reilly in a luxury flat in Tripoli. He no longer receives or needs hospital treatment and has his family living with him. Professor Karol Sikora, the London-based doctor who examined Megrahi and predicted he would be dead by last October, admitted this weekend that the fact the bomber is still alive might be ‘difficult’ for the families of the 270 victims of the attack. Difficult? I should think most of them will be totally incensed by the news.

It would appear from various newspaper enquiries that the Libyan government actually paid for the medical evidence, which helped Megrahi to be released. The Libyans had encouraged doctors to say he had only three months to live. This was crucial because, under Scottish rules, prisoners can be freed on compassionate grounds only if they are considered to have this amount of time, or less, to live.

Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, ruled last August that Megrahi should be freed, but this was only after Libyan leaders warned that lucrative oil and trade deals with Britain would be cancelled if the bomber died in jail.

Putrid really, isn’t it?

I have never been too keen on the various animal welfare agencies that seem to abound in this country, but now the major one has blotted its copybook by displaying extreme greed.

The RSPCA has been criticised by a judge for taking the heirs of a wealthy donor to the High Court in an attempt to increase its share of his estate. George Mason divided his £1million estate between the animal charity, his brother John and two friends, Norman and Patricia Sharp.

However, under Britain's complicated tax laws, the RSPCA was concerned it was going to have to pay inheritance tax on its share of the estate, so it took Mr Mason and the Sharps to court to try to get them to pay some of the tax out of their bequests.

However Mr Justice Peter Smith said the RSPCA's claim was 'extremely weak' and 'patently wrong.’

“It is a matter of regret that this action was ever brought,” the judge said and he was surely right. The fact that these greedy pratwinkles could not be content with a free gift of £370,152 says a great deal for their motives in running this so called charity.

Clare Kelly, Mr Mason's solicitor, said she thought it was 'quite disgusting' that a donation which had been left in good faith by an elderly animal lover had been used to pursue his relatives for more money.

She was quite right too.

Equally disgusting is the fact that EU leaders in Brussels have decreed that the British should not be allowed to give any preference to themselves when selling tickets for the Olympic Games that are being held by the said British in what used to be their own country.

Amazing isn’t it?

 

22^nd February 2010

This is going to be a trying day. At two this afternoon, we are having a memorial service for my friend Graham Mayo who died last week and I have to address the mourners. I was truly honoured to be asked, but with  6 hours or so to go, the nerves are building up and I pray that I don’t fluff my lines. I suppose I should use notes, but for a 9 minute speech, that seems a little unfignified, so I will rely on memory and the fact that I have rehearsed my speech a number of times to myself. It will be the biggest funeral this village has ever seen too.

Oh well, hopefully we will have a good party afterwards and I will at least have the opportunity to tell a gently suggestive joke in church.

In Zimbabwe, we now learn that at least 16 High Court judges have received land seized from white farmers. How then can these men and women issue fair and unbiased judgement when handling land disputes between farmers and the other thugs and villains who have seized land at the behest of Comrade Bob. Why isn’t Mr Mincyband saying something about this I wonder.

Mind you, it seems that diplomatic postings to Harare are being regarded as plum jobs these days. The embassies are oases of comfort and ease, kept well away from the public eye. Well-watered lawns, commanding views, tennis courts and swimming pools lie within the fenced estates. Britain's ambassador occupies arguably the most impressive residence in Harare, set in spacious landscaped grounds, a position that befits the former colonial power. Before independence in 1980 the British High Commissioner, the United Kingdom's senior diplomat, occupied a different residence, ‘Marimba,’ a graceful home set in several acres of rose gardens. It was put into mothballs in 1965 when Britain withdrew its representation following UDI, but the building, now with an expansive, elegant portico, was spruced up and sold to the Canadians in 1980 and is today the second most impressive diplomatic residence in the capital.

The French and South African envoys also have imposing homes. By contrast, the US ambassador has to make do with a relatively small residence. Perched high on a hill, it boasts a panoramic view, but it does not have the grounds to accommodate large numbers of guests. A recent incumbent found entertaining there on the Fourth of July so difficult that he converted his car park at the bottom of the hill into an impressive reception area. The Americans put on a grand display of marching marines on their national day while a robust speech on the virtues of democratic governance can always be expected from the ambassador.

Britain's Queen's Birthday is the social event of the year in June during which medieval-style tents set out on sloping lawns house vast amounts of smoked salmon, stilton cheese and Scotch whisky flown in for the occasion. Strawberries and cream and tea and cake are served. The Norwegians, Swedes and Dutch provide equally impressive spreads on their national days although not everyone is captivated by the prospect of reindeer. The French are known for their elegant array of cheeses and chilled champagne. Last year, the cheeses were nowhere to be found, much to the consternation of pampered guests who have become used to special treats on certain occasions.

Comrade Bob’s ministers, who once boycotted E.U and US events, are gradually returning now that there is a government of national unity that includes Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change. But  the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said it wants to vet political speeches by ambassadors so ministers can respond.

The most recent diplomatic arrival has been US ambassador Charles Ray. He has this month been entertaining a delegation of congressional representatives who are exploring ways they can remove some of the sanctions introduced after flawed elections eight years ago. If there is progress on political and economic reform, the way will be open to improved relations with the US That might mean further expansion of the car park/reception area for the July 4th festivities. And more diplomats, of course.

I wonder do any of these pampered plutocrats ever think about the downtrodden masses of ordinary Zimbabweans who surround their sumptuous palaces. They don’t have smoked salmon or strawberries to feed on.

Here, that demented harpy, Harriet Harperson is now trying to ban girls from wearing skirts in schools on the grounds that they discriminate against transsexuals. Guidance to public bodies from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has warned that requiring pupils to wear ‘gender-specific clothes’ is potentially unlawful.

Gender equality and human rights rules, which currently apply to public authorities are set to be extended to schools under the Equality Bill currently going through Parliament.

The EHRC guidance said research had shown that pupils born female but with gender dysphoria ( presume that means doubts about their own sexuality) experienced ‘great discomfort’ when forced to wear ‘stereotypical girls' clothes’ such as skirts.

Surely this is going too far, even for Hideous Harriet. Has the woman lost every little iota of whatever common sense she might once have possessed?

 

I see fox hunting is back in the headlines with all the old arguments for and against resurfacing in various newspapers. Surely we can’t go through all that again? The last time we had this silly debate, the House of Commons devoted no less than 700 hours to argument.

When it came to the invasion of Iraq, they debated for a mere seven hours.

That surely says a great deal about the priorities of these cretins in power.

 

 

 

21^st February 2010

And today is the birthday of Comrade Bob himself. I wonder how many elephants will be shot in order that common folk will be able to party in his honour with lashings of nyama to fill them up. Of course, they will be back on starvation rations next week, but Bob will at least be able to point out how much they love him because of all the parties they put on for his birthday.

A horrible lot, politicians!

We had a robbery in the village this week. At 5 o clock on Tuesday morning, there was a knock on the door of the New Red Lion, a pub in the High Street. When the 70 year old licensee answered, he was bundled inside by 4 masked men wielding crow bars and made to hand over his safe. This led to a minor argument in the Kings Head yesterday over whether or not one should just let these thugs take what they want or whether it is worthwhile fighting back – or at least attempting to.

My line was that although I agree that life is precious and should not be easily thrown away, I would have to live with myself afterward and had I meekly handed over my valuables to thugs – whether masked, armed or not – I would feel deeply ashamed of my own cowardice.

Mind you, I was in a decided minority, so perhaps that is the problem with modern Society – we have lost the will to fight back and with it all semblance of pride in ourselves.

And it all has to come from the top. Would you believe that MPs spend more than £800,000 a year on European junkets, which some of them freely admit are just happy orgies of drinking. Some spend up to two months a year on them, running up bills of around £30,000 each.

So little work is done that some politicians regard them as a ‘holiday.’ In some instances, MPs use them as opportunities for sex. They get free business-class travel and a daily allowance of £236 paid direct into their bank account by PBT with no questions asked.

Do we really want or need these cretins telling us how we ought to behave and regulate our lives?

I read with a sense of disgusted shock that the Association of Chief Police Officers is under fire for its commercial activities. Believe it or not, this supposedly worthy body sells information from the Police National Computer for up to £70 a go - even though it pays just 60p to access the details. It also markets ‘police approval’ logos to firms selling anti-theft devices and operates a separate private firm offering training to speed-camera operators. This is run by a senior officer who was banned from driving.

Now they are under fire for buying a load of luxury flats and houses close to Scotland Yard for senior officers to stay in. The trouble is that they have used money from the anti terrorism budget to finance these little – and not so little -  pads. Surely that money woulds be better used elsewehere – perhaps in actually seeking out terrorists.

ACPO president Sir Hugh Orde has pledged to reform the organisation, admitting its role as a private firm, paid millions a year by the taxpayer to effectively run the nation’s police forces was uncomfortable.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, went further, saying its ‘status as a private limited company cannot continue.’

Too damned right it can’t! That is PBT money these pompous pratwinkles are throwing around and it is surely time they got back to being policemen.

Let’s stick with the law for a moment. Why do you think the official report on juries was commissioned, with its damaging claim that they the juries, don't understand what judges tell them? Well, it is simple enough.

The British Establishment knows that if we stay in the EU, we will sooner or later have to abolish jury trial, because it does not fit in with European law and we will be forced to give it up in some sordid deal. So it is softening us up for this moment, a potentially disastrous loss of liberty, as trial by a jury of one’s peers has always been regarded as the right of any Briton.

That is also why they have been holding the first non-jury trial in England for 400 years, on the grounds that they supposedly couldn't prevent the jury from being nobbled. What tommyrot that is! They couldn't be bothered to prevent it. One of the allegedly dangerous defendants in this trial was given bail and so lightly watched that he walked off during the lunch hour. Yet he is now said to be so dangerous that we mustn't approach him if we see him - but he was let out for lunch? How can this be right?

I wouldn't trust the people responsible for this fiasco to do a night's babysitting, let alone protect a jury from tampering. For all that, if ever I am hauled up before the Beak on a serious charge, I want a jury trial and refuse to see why my right to this will be abolished to fit in with the British government toadying up to Europe.

I have to give a talk on modern policing in a couple of weeks time and I am becoming ever more nervous about it. How can I defend coppers who now list children throwing snowballs among their statistics of ‘serious violent crimes?’

But this is actually happening. Six such incidents were logged in the same category as murder or using a weapon to inflict injury by the Greater Manchester force during the cold snap in January.

Officers admit to being baffled about how to record government crime statistics when it comes to snowball fights and it is thought they assumed a snowball should be regarded as a weapon if it is thrown at someone.

Chief Constable Peter Fahy cited the incidents as he lambasted his own officers for over-recording incidents of crime. He said many officers at GMP were not applying common sense and were 'too cautious' in their work.

Mr Fahy said: “People do not feel they are trusted to make a common sense decision. Common sense says throwing a snowball is not a violent crime.”

No Sir, it definitely is not.

 
 
 
 
 

 

20^th February 2010

It is my granddaughter Zara’s birthday today, so let’s hope it is a day to remember. I always tell her that she is my absolutely favourite granddaughter, to which she patiently points out that she is also my only granddaughter.

 

Ah well – happy birthday, My Zara – and everyone else who has a birthday today.

 

Tiger Woods gave his carefully stage-managed public apology yesterday and I fear that he did himself little good by an especially crude and uncomfortable performance. His wife was noticeable by her absence and the timing of Woods’ apology cut no ice with his fellow golfers, who branded it as a cynical attempt to get one over on the first sponsors to drop him.

 

What has happened to sport and sporting ethics I wonder. Sportsmen and women have always ‘strayed,’ but then non sportsmen and women do too. For someone like Woods to court sympathy in such a pathetic manner merely demeans him and other golfers in the eyes of the general public. As Donald Trump put it, ‘he should say goodbye to his marriage and just go out and have a good time.’

 

That would certainly be less hypocritical.

 

Much was made yesterday of the fact that James Purnell, the former Labour minister who quit his ministerial post last year in protest at Gormless Gordon’s leadership, is now to resign his seat altogether. He was the pin up boy of the Labour Party and expected to go on to great things, but a hint as to the reason behind his resignation came from one of his constituents.

 

‘He's my MP,’ the man wrote. ‘The week before last he went canvassing in the constituency and a lot of news has leaked out locally about the extremely bad, and in some cases overtly hostile reception he got. He must have realised then he had no chance of winning.’

 

Why don’t most of them follow his excellent example?

 

Mind you, after the uproar about the crass comments made by that buffoon Nicholas Wiunterton last week, Dashing Dave is pulling up the drawbridge and installing as many ‘young bloods’ as he can in Tory Headquarters. But – and it is a big but - many natural, instinctive Conservatives are beginning to feel increasingly isolated by the coterie of privileged friends and associates who now hold the reins.

In DD’s rarefied metropolitan world, youth, gender, ethnicity and sexuality count for more when qualifying to become a candidate than hard work, experience, party loyalty and ability.

And I fear this trend is creeping into the party's policy priorities, too.

At a time when people are desperately worried about their jobs and the country's future, DD’s mate and environment spokesman Nick Herbert has travelled to Washington to deliver a speech on – wait for it - how the Tories plan to allow gay couples to marry in church.

That is surely not a priority at this stage? Ordinary Conservatives are crying out for a party that champions common sense and family values, aspiration, self-reliance, thrift and a small state – not the rights of homosexual couples of either gender.

On the plus side for once, I was pleased to read that a compensation court has at last shown a modicum of common sense in their ruling. When Lance Sergeant, Donna Rayment made a sexual harrassment claim against her male colleagues for festooning barrack walls with ‘girlie’ pictures, she was originally offered £185 000 by the Ministry of Defence.

Believe it or not, she turned that down and went for more, despite the fact that other colleagues were receiving peanuts for horrific injuries sustained in battle. As I said, for once a compensation court showed some common sense and in the end, she was awarded a mere £7000 while her solicitors will have to pay the half million owing for costs.

I would not even have given her that amount, as she must have known what would happen when she joined the army, but hopefully the judgement will send a warning shot across the bows of opportunistic women and compensation lawyers throughout Britain. It is certainly time these ludicrous claims were brought to an end.

Gormless Gord (bless him) launched his election pledges yesterday, promising he would 'stand up for the many, not the few'. Do you think he means the 20 million pensioners whose savings he has plundered? Or perhaps the 1.7 million children who live in poverty? Or even the 8.08 million not in work?  Perhaps Labour's new slogan should be 'abandoning the many, not the few.’ That would certainly be more honest.

I laughed when I heard that Lord Mandyflower had flown in to try and save the 1,600 jobs at Teesside's Corus steelworks. Given his success in saving Cadbury's Bristol plant (about to close) and the Honda plant in Swindon (mothballed for four months), he is fast becoming like that famous hospital cat who cuddles up to the patient who is going to die next. Not so much the angel of mercy as the kiss of death.

Meanwhile, Jug-eared Mincyband is huffing and puffing with outrage against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems that a possibly Israeli hit squad had the audacity to steal the identities of British citizens to bump off the Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al Mabhouh.

Would Mincy be equally upset if someone had swiped an Israeli passport to kill Bin Laden I wonder? I think not.

Personally, I am all for such assassinations, but wonder a little that the Israelis were quite as amateur as they seemed in all the TV footage. I am sure MI5 would have been far more professional. Perhaps it was the other way around and the Brits are trying to pin the killing on the poor old Israelis?

 

What a murky old world we live in.

 

 

 

 

 

19^th February 2010

Well, I had an excellent start to my day yesterday. Just before nine in the morning, the phone rang and it was my very pretty neighbour, Giulia, asking if she and her six year old daughter Phoenix could drop in for breakfast. They did and what a lovely time we had. We set the world to rights amid much giggling and when she signed the Visitors’ Book, little Phoenix spelled toast as towst, which I thought was rather nice.

 

Now the snow is back and they probably wouldn’t be able to get across the road if they wanted to. Ah well – there is little we can do about the weather.

 

In Zimbabwe, many beneficiaries of the chaotic land reform programme have confessed that their participation in the exercise was not for that hunger for land that Africans trumpet about, but merely because they wanted to take over the nice farmhouses used by the white folk. Most of those houses now lie in ruins.

According to a ZBC Newsnet reporter who has been reporting on the land grab exercise from the start, most resettled farmers who are now standing helplessly staring at ruined acres that were once profitable fields of grain, wheat or tobacco, have said that all they wanted was the houses. Few of them were interested in actually working the land.

 

Now there’s a surprise!

 

A new report in this country says that more than one in five people of working age are now 'economically inactive.’ They include pensioners, students, the unemployable, early retirees who have no chance of getting another job and all those malingerers claiming disability benefits with the connivance of the Government.

The number of adults not in employment or seeking employment stands at more than eight million. This figure doesn't include the seven million who now work for the state, whose ranks have been swollen by Gordon Brown.

I'm not talking about front-line staff - doctors, nurses, dustmen, teachers, policemen - but the legions of diversity monitors, climate change managers and their ilk in non-jobs.

We need a new category for them. How about 'actively uneconomic?’

This weekend, Channel 4 television are sinking to new depths. On Sunday evening, Gerry Adams, with blood trickling from his hands will present an hour-long programme about Jesus, part of a series called The Bible: A History.

Adams is a terrorist, pure and simple. He was personally implicated in one sectarian murder and associated with many more, but he has been invited to make a documentary about a man described by his followers as the Prince of Peace, who lived a life that celebrated non-violence.

How on earth could this happen? You may suspect Gerry Adams was chosen to discourse on Jesus because he has freely admitted his sins, and apologised for his past. Christianity, after all, is a religion that extols forgiveness, and puts a high value on repentance. But not a bit of it. Adams is not sorry for what he did - not of course, that he admits to having ever killed anyone. He says at least twice that violence was the only course open to people like himself.

 

That is what the Muslim fanatics say as well. Not only them, but the brutal thugs who murder, rape and torture in Africa, South America and many other places. Like Adams, they are terrorists and to allow them time to make programmes such as this is surely the absolute nadir of television entertainment.

Those who run Channel 4 ought to be ashamed of themselves, but I don't suppose they will.

18^th February 2010

I gave an excellent talk on elephants in a village called Sandhurst last evening. Although it was to the local WI, there were a number of men present and that always makes it easier to crack the occasional joke and talk about the difference between genders.

They put on a wonderful spread of cakes, sandwiches etc afterward too, but the trouble with that from the speaker’s point of view, is that so many folk cluster around me with questions – that they could have asked from the floor – and I don’t get a chance to fill my face.

It was fun, but this morning I am brought down to earth by my daily perusal of the news. Truly, this world is in a mess and this country is being governed by buffoons.

Over the past few weeks, the Climate Change Research Unit at East Anglia University has been at the centre of a storm over leaked e-mails that appeared to show a willingness to hide the truth in the quest to support politicians. Records have gone missing, graphs have been distorted and sceptical scientists have been excluded.

Two days ago, Professor Phil Jones - recently suspended as director of the unit over the e-mail scandal - confessed he had trouble ‘keeping track of information’ and did not do ‘a thorough job.’ More significantly, he admitted that since 1995 there has been ‘no statistically significant’ global warming.

So there we have it. One of the scientists in charge of climate change analysis says that there is absolutely no basis for all the hysteria that the politicians have generated. The green crusade is shot to pieces.

It seems shameful that we, the PBT we have been taxed and bullied because of a massive political fraud. It is exactly the same with the current furore over immigration. As the foundations of these daft ideologies crumble, it is striking to see the similarities between them.

Both involve constant guilt-tripping by the State, with ordinary citizens made to feel ashamed of everything from patriotism to car ownership. Both have created an atmosphere of fear in which basic liberties are suppressed.

So in the name of the Government’s ‘war on climate change,’ spy cameras are placed in wheelie bins and huge fines are imposed for putting out rubbish on the wrong day. In the same way it is now impossible to have open discussion about multiculturalism and that is the way these over promoted zealots want it.

A high priest of the liberal establishment, Andrew Marr, once wrote an article in which he called for ‘the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress’ in the campaign for diversity. The government had to ‘stamp hard’ on politically incorrect thoughts, he argued, for ‘repression can be a great, ­civilising force for good.’

Comrade Bob would have been proud of him and yet Jug-eared Marr touts himself as a scourge of the political classes. Left-wing ideology has certainly provided him with an extremely lucrative living, as well as the chance to feel self-righteous and pour scorn on those of us who doubt.

While driving up to London the other day, I listened to a radio phone-in programme on a recent survey about rape. It is a ticklish subject I know, but the survey showed that 71% of women feel that the woman involved must bear some responsibility if she gets into bed with a man and 50 per cent believe that women should take some responsibility for what happens if they are drunk or wear provocative clothing.

Predictably there has been an outcry from organisations which look after the victims but I suspect this result is pretty representative of what sensible people think and I certainly agree with many of the sentiments expressed.

Rape is always wrong but so are theft, murder and other crimes yet, while we all accept that we have a responsibility to avoid exposing ourselves to those dangers, it is somehow argued that rape is something, which one need not take any steps to prevent. That is absurd.

Teaching teenage girls that rape is never their fault is daft because it takes away the need to act responsibly. If we worried less about the conviction rate and more about prevention we might be more successful in combating this horrible crime. And horrible it really is. I am sure that no rape victim is ever going to forget it and it can destroy her confidence in men and life, to the extent that her own life is changed for ever. We simply should not abandon women to that. So the very straightforward message – that they owe it to themselves to take care of themselves – is the one we should be yelling from the rooftops. We men are animals I know, but when carnal lusts are inflamed – even by a misunderstanding – the end result becomes inevitable and women owe it to themselves to try and avoid inflaming those carnal lusts.

I was very cynical when Gormless Gordon announced that a number of Cabinet meetings would be held in outside constituencies in order to ‘meet with the people.’ So far indeed, PBT has forked out nearly £650 000 on such meetings around the country. Now it transpires that the main trips outside London have taken place in seats that Labour is under threat of losing at the General Election.

Cabinet meetings last just 90 minutes, which puts their cost at around £700 per minute. We are paying for this nonsense – all on behalf of the Labour party and it has nothing to do with anything other than blatant electioneering.

Today, this horrible bunch of political popinjays are meeting in the North East where – guess what - another Labour constituency is held by a tight margin. Ministers will hold a Cabinet meeting for just one hour in the afternoon, after five and a half hours of 'media opportunities' and meeting the public.

No wonder this country is in a mess. There is nobody around to govern it. Those that are paid for the privilege are too busy preening themselves in front of the cameras or fighting to keep their jobs.

Not that Dashing Dave’s lot are any better. We now have Tory grandee, Sir Nicholas Winterton complaining that MPs are no longer allowed to travel first-class.

This already wealthy poltroon, seemingly oblivious to public anger over the expenses issue, said he was ' infuriated' that politicians had to travel with ordinary members of the public.

In an extraordinary interview with Total Politics magazine, Sir Nicholas spoke of his outrage that he has to 'stand when there are no seats.’

Who on earth does the man think he is? If he feels so strongly, why doesn’t he pay for his own ticket and save PBT a bit of money?

Another Tory frontbencher suggested yesterday that homosexual couples should be encouraged to adopt children. In a provocative speech that risked offending some Christians, Environmental spokesman Nick Herbert also said homosexuality may be 'given by God.’

He hinted that the Church was wrong to oppose gay marriage and should support gay adoption. He also said a future Tory government would legislate to promote 'gay equality.’ This could involve bringing in beefed-up laws on homophobic bullying and hate crimes.

In fact, people like Herbert would love to make homosexuality compulsory.

Who on earth can we vote for? They are all as bad as each other damnit!

 

17^th February 2010

I drove down to Exeter yesterday in order to pick up a kayak from Dennis (Johnny) Johnston, now in his late eighties, but once of the BSA Police, Malawi in Nyasaland days and assorted adventures all over the world. What a man! He kept me fascinated for a good two hours with tales of his exploits and I wondered why I bother to write about my own. Here I am desperately trying to get myself vaguely fit – or at any rate not completely blobbish – by walking 4 or 5 miles a day while Johnny does that as a matter of course and rides his bike wherever he does.

Mind you, I received an oblique compliment in the morning when Tyron Richards who is trying to find me a kayak or something similar in Zimbabwe, emailed to say that he had spoken with a chap selling an 18 foot canoe. When he asked whether the craft could take Kariba winds and storms, the other bloke said, ‘If David Lemon is in it, the boat will be alright. That man is magic on the lake.’

I am not sure that I have the same faith in my own prowess, but that was nice.

Recent polls carried out on Gormless Gord’s much-publicised interview with Piers Morgan offer stunningly predictable results. Would you believe that the public now has more sympathy for GG, but less respect? Can this possibly come as a surprise to anyone? Politics seems to have gone from an honourable and extremely serious profession to a comedy act of epic proportions. It really has become light entertainment on all sides.

Quite apart from GG and his trembling lip, we hear much of a catfight in the North Kensington constituency. The Conservative chairman (a woman) fell out with the candidate (ditto) and the fight had to be refereed by Dashing Dave himself, who happened to have been at school with the candidate's husband. This is like a ruddy cocktail party, not a political one.

This totally irrelevant behaviour, conducted apparently oblivious of the fact that Britain is struggling to avoid going back into recession, our soldiers are dying in an offensive in Afghanistan, and our European partners are facing economic meltdown, is not confined to the Conservatives. Labour's main concern is that middle-aged people are too fat. It is also spending (or rather wasting) oodles of our money on an expensive advertising campaign suggesting that anyone ordering a third pint of beer had better book an undertaker to go with it. Some people still ask: why is the public so disengaged from politics?

Surely that is obvious to anyone with even half a mind?

I start to wonder whether we are destined to see an eruption here such as that in America where the Tea Party movement is gaining considerable support. For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, allow me to explain. This political movement has become a loose federation of local gatherings of people fed up with the American political class. They hate Democrats and they feel little better about Republicans. Their slogan is that they want to ‘take America back’ from such people. Mr Obama they regard as a socialist. Some subscribe to the conspiracy theory that he was not in fact born in Hawaii, or indeed in America at all, and therefore holds his office illegally. Some of their other views are closer to sanity. They believe the American political class has sanctioned indecently high spending, indecently high taxes and insanely high debt. They want all this to stop.

That surely isn’t confined to the Yanks. Most modern politicians seem to have lost the plot and this surely has to be down to the fact that politics has become a well paid job rather than a vocation.

If you have lost  the remote control and can't be bothered to get up to change the channel on the TV, you aren’t really lazy, you simply have sluggish cognitive tempo disorder.

And if perhaps you are prone to a bit of a tantrum when you misplace the car keys, that is possibly a sign of intermittent explosive disorder.

These are just two of dozens of extravagantly titled 'conditions' under consideration for the latest edition of the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the psychiatrists' 'bible.’ Symptoms of sluggish cognitive tempo disorder include passiveness, dreaminess and sluggishness – traits that could easily be confused with laziness – but of course we can’t accuse anyone of being lazy any longer, even if they are.

And with other potential entries including sex addiction there are concerns that the revised manual will trigger a boom for drugs companies, who after all are the real rulers of the world. Richard Bentall, professor of clinical psychology at Bangor University, dismissed the new conditions as having 'no basis in science,’ adding that 'The more disorders there are, the more private business psychiatrists get.'

And the more we can be nannied along by the State and the nincompoops who run it.

For instance, a fireman in Scotland who saved a pet dog from a frozen pond is now facing disciplinary action for allegedly breaching healthy and safety rules.

Stevie Logan rescued a cocker spaniel called Matt who ran on to ice and then became trapped in the water. Using his initiative – as fireman used to be trained to do – Mr Logan jumped into a nearby canoe and paddled out to the distressed animal, encouraging it to swim towards a ladder other firemen had laid across the ice.

After the successful rescue, Mr Logan was hailed a hero by Matt's owner, but his bosses were unimpressed. They have ordered an investigation into his conduct, saying that Mr Logan - who is commander at Kilmarnock Fire Station - broke force guidelines by putting himself unnecessarily at risk when he paddled out to the stranded pet.

Becomes ever more pathetic doesn’t it. That Tea Party idea might not be a bad one.

 

16^th February 2010

London yesterday to sell 30 books, Exeter today in order to collect a kayak. By golly I am becoming a social gadabout. I don’t think I have the stamina for long drives any more though and am already looking forward to getting to bed tonight.

Sad to get old, isn’t it?

Mind you, one doesn’t need to be old or even middle-aged to be smacked in the face by the ludicrous rules and regulations that are becoming ever more prevalent in this country. Take the case of Morag Faulds who gave birth to a baby boy in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. When she went for a walk in the corridor carrying her son, she was reprimanded by a midwife who said she might drop him.

She was told that she should be wheeling the child in a crib instead. Surely mothers have been carrying their babies for millennia without this sort of nonsense? Nor do they have wheeled cribs in most parts of the world yet I don’t suppose too many babies get dropped.

And it isn’t only at that end of the life scale that these bird-brained desk drivers wield their nonsense. The journalist Mark Steyn has related how pallbearers at a funeral he attended refused to carry the coffin because the footpath leading to the church was uneven. They produced a trolley instead and wanted to wheel it inside.

Fortunately, the mourners protested and offered to carry it themselves.

So you see – Gormless Gordon and his equally gormless army of sycophantic bureaucrats have us all under their thumbs from the cradle to the grave.

Not that official idiocy is all on the part of New Labour. If this wasn’t so serious you’d have to laugh. Shadow schools minister Michael Gove has said he wants film star, Goldie Hawn to bring fresh thinking to the Tories’ schools policy, and is ready to sign up to a relatively unproven educational system called MindUP, whose commercial trademark just happens to be owned by Miss Hawn.

Mr Gove (who seems in danger of falling victim to the same starstruck celebrity fixation as his boss, Dashing Dave) says Miss Hawn has met his team and is anxious to open one of her schools in the UK. ‘We are going to have another meeting to discuss how she might be able to help and influence education here.’

This is surely madness. The schooling system here is already in complete disarray, yet this pratwinkle wants to introduce some new, unproven method devised by a sexy looking comedienne from Arkansas. Can it be that Glamorous Goldie – who has already visited Westminster to discuss her plans – has come up with a solution that the country’s combined academic brains, think-tanks and well-paid mandarins have failed to find?

I don’t think so. The MindUP system is said to teach children how to calm themselves by breathing deeply. Okay, that sounds fairly simple and sensible, but wrap it up in the fancy language of Goldie’s people and you get something less understandable, ‘An evidence-based teaching model and curriculum that provides children with emotional and cognitive tools to help them understand and improve their own emotions, moods and behaviours; reduce stress and anxiety; sharpen concentration; build confidence, increase empathy; and improve performance in school.’

Perhaps I was doing Mr Gove a disservice? Maybe he was impressed with the gobbledygook rather than the eminently ravishable Miss Hawn’s good looks. It might be simpler to ask the kids to breathe deeply though.

Better still, let’s go back to teaching them the fundamentals of education without the fripperies. Let the likes of Goldie Hawn keep their weird systems in America.

I really am hoping that I will be away when the general election comes around. Dashing Dave’s wittering henchmen seem every bit as useless – and indeed dangerous – as GG’s goons and goonesses.

Take for example the case of an experienced hairdresser, Michelle Hilling who has employed scores of junior stylists at her busy high street salon. Their age has varied and the key quality required has been keenness to master the skills of the profession.

But when Mrs Hilling tried to find another willing recruit, she ran into a problem in the form of jobcentre officials. They refused to place her advert for a new junior stylist - because the word 'junior' discriminated against older applicants.

The salon owner was warned that she would have to drop the offending term if she wanted the vacancy to be displayed.

Well, I am offended that any desk-jockey would think I would be offended by such a term. Where on earth is this politically correct nonsense going to end?

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

15^th February 2010

After a weekend without the horrors of the media, it seems a shame to come back into the so-called real world. Of course, the main story of the weekend was that appalling interview that Gormless Gordon gave to Piers Morgan.

Like him or not, support him or not, it was difficult to watch a once proud, intellectual, awkward politician cough up his innermost experiences like some electoral sausage machine. He had plainly been programmed by media handlers. 'Sarah and I, we're a modern love story,' he said artlessly. The blatant soundbite was repeated later. 'It, it is a great love story, Sarah and I.'

That was truly sickening! For years we have been told that GG was the rock, a hard man, the clunking fist. Now, with the opinion polls bad, we have different tactics. His spin doctors (no doubt led by that PR-professional wife) got him to blub on Sunday night telly. It was awful to watch.

The spectacle began just after the ice dancing. From one feast of sugary emotion to another. He arrived with a zingy, forced, almost Basil Brush smile, on a set straight out of Mastermind. Stark lighting. Brooding photo of himself on the back wall.

He was told he was seen as 'a plonker’ and he admitted he was one. This is the leader of a nation for God’s sake! How on earth can the public look up to him?

He said he liked to 'get things done' and accompanied this by pumping his right arm like a cyclist with a flat tyre. It was not just Morgan – himself a tabloid hack of no real stature - who was pushing his snout where it did not belong. All of us viewers were paddling our fingers in Mr Brown's private affairs. This was truly gutter journalism at its worst.

As for the prolonged questions about the moment GG proposed to his wife, what on earth has that to do with any public figure and why did GG allow it? 'Were you on bended knee?' asked Morgan greedily. 'Were you standing face to face holding hands? What were the words?'

This torrent of tackiness was at least better than the moment Morgan heard that the couple met on an aeroplane. 'You didn't join the mile high club, did you?' he demanded.

Ye gods. Here is a politician standing for our highest public office and ITV's interviewer wants to know if he had sex in the cabin of a public jetliner. It's the Jonathan Ross-isation of television and a huge insult to the British People in general..

As for the commercial breaks, we went from a taster of Mr Brown crying over Jennifer to a trailer for some ITV programme full of sex, and an advert about contraception.

I am not trying to belittle the unimaginable pain of losing an infant or coping with a child's disability. Both Brown and his wife Sarah deserve the greatest sympathy for the private ordeal they have been through. But that's exactly how it should have stayed - private.

Instead, just weeks before the election, the Prime Minister chose to take part in what he must have known would be an intensely personal and intrusive discussion, which probed every aspect of his private life - his marriage, his sex life and, yes, the death of baby Jennifer.

Even if he was 'ambushed' by Morgan once the cameras had started rolling - which I very much doubt - GG could have politely insisted that he was not willing to discuss that part of his life.

Instead, his behaviour was a betrayal of the man Gormless Gordon has always claimed to be - a stoic who put dignity and gravitas before cheap spin. In 2008, in a scathing attack on Dashing Dave (at a time when the Tory leader's own firstborn child Ivan was desperately ill), GG scornfully said: 'Some people have been asking why I haven't served my children up for spreads in the papers. And my answer is simple. My children aren't props, they're people.'

Seems to have forgotten that now though.

And not to be outdone, Dashing Dave was also reduced to tears over the weekend when he was questioned about the death of his son Ivan and how it had affected him.

Is there nothing too tawdry and horrible that these alleged leaders will stoop to? They make me ashamed to be human.

In fact, there is something unspeakably irritating about modern politicians. There are several things that send most people apoplectic about them, but one of the most irksome is their ability to try to say something remotely sensible, and end up being spectacularly insensitive, thoughtless and stupid.

On Friday for example, we had Housing Minister, John Healey responding to record repossessions with the view that it may actually be 'the best thing for people who are struggling.’

What crass insensitivity is that? There's nothing that's 'best' about repossession. To get to this point, people have faced terrible financial hardship, incredible levels of stress and upset, first as they fell behind with their mortgage payments, and then as the bank started taking action against them.

People lose control of the selling of their home, and are forced out of neighbourhoods that have been the source of all the support that has helped get them through these trying times. They have to give up their sanctuary, their home, and start again.

It's not sounding like the 'best’ of anything, is it? Perhaps Mr Healey should try it for himself. At the very least, he should think before he speaks. After all, he has two homes and a massive 15056 majority, which basically means a job for life. How can he possibly pronounce on the pains of repossession?

For the record, Healey claimed £144,000 in second home allowances and we paid the £690-a-month mortgage on one of his homes, which he subsequently sold for a tidy profit of £88,000 last year. Is it any wonder we hold these freeloaders in such contempt?

Doesn't it say everything you need to know about the institutional arrogance and wastefulness of the BBC that their director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers, thinks it's perfectly acceptable to claim £7,514.80 of our money for a flight to Seoul and nearly £4,984 on chauffeur-driven cars, in three months. One single minicab fare was an eye-watering £627.37 (it turned out to be a limo). But, as we know: a fish rots from the head down.

I really do envy my friends Ron and Monica, living among the spectacularly beautiful Welsh mountains. We had a long walk with them yesterday and the air was breathtakingly clean and pure – probably because there were few of these overpaid and useless pratwinkles about to spoil it.

And would you believe, more heavy snow is forecast for the week ahead. Truly God must be cross with the people of this soggy little island.

 

 

12^th February 2010

I was approached by the Western Daily Press yesterday and told they had heard I was an ‘interesting character’ and would I write 750 words on myself for their book page.

Wow! What scribbler could resist that? I have always claimed that writers are exhibitionists at heart and my reaction to that invitation certainly proved it where I am concerned. I was over the moon. Now of course, I have to carefully think out what I will say – only in the interests of literary perfection of course and nothing to do with telling everyone what a hell of a fine fellow I am.

I listened with some incredulity yesterday to a heated radio discussion between Clive Stafford – Smith, the lawyer for Binyam Mahommed and another chap whose name I can’t remember. For the life of me, I do not understand what the furore over Mohamed is all about.

Why on earth did the Government go to such lengths to secure his release from Guantanamo Bay and then charter a private jet to fly him 'home' to Britain? He isn’t British. He's not even a British 'resident’ for God’s sake. He is an Ethiopian national who lived here for a few years before choosing to move to Afghanistan, where he is said to have attended an al Qaeda training camp. At the time of his arrest, he was attempting to board a plane in Pakistan using a forged passport. So why does anyone in their right mind want him back in this country?

And was he tortured at all in the true sense of the word? While at The Bay, he was shackled and deprived of sleep - practices approved at the time by the White House. He is also said to have suffered severe mental stress over threats that he would be removed from U.S. custody and transferred to a more cruel regime. Shame! He was quite happy to train with that regime to begin with.

As to his claims to have suffered genital mutilation while in CIA custody in Morocco, there has never been any firm evidence produced. We are asked to take his word for it. But why should we believe anything he says? Binyam Mohamed maintains he went to Afghanistan not to train with the Taliban, but to confront his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

What sanctimonious cant. For a man said to have been in mortal terror of being tortured, he appears to have had no problem moving to a jurisdiction which would have cheerfully beheaded him or stoned him to death for taking a sip of alcohol.

The inconsistencies in his story are glaring, yet he has found a gullible audience for his fairy tales, including a fawning 'interview' on the BBC.

We never hear such vociferous complaints against Pakistani treatment of terrorist prisoners. Yet intelligence gathered by Pakistan is said to have foiled countless plots in Britain and saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives. How does anyone think this information is gained - with a cuddle and a nice cuppa tea?

These people are fighting a war damnit and wars are not won by sticking to rule books. Binyam Mahomed is now living the life of Reilly at the expense of PBT. Must we put him up for sainthood as well?

These are trying times economically and in keeping with the new spirit of austerity, Birmingham City Council has announced a major cost-cutting exercise aimed at reducing its budget by £69 million a year. Up to 2,000 jobs will go and day-care centres, residential homes and libraries will be closed.

I suppose it is too much to ask that the burgeoning diversity, climate change and publicity departments are scrapped too?

While Europeans are grimly debating how to save the economy of Greece, Lord Mandyflower still thinks that the euro has been a 'remarkable success.’ “It is strong and that is why it is going to remain intact,” he blithely tells us, but Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance does not agree. “Greece is a living example of why you should never give up control of your own currency, and Lord Mandelson must be living in cloud-cuckoo land if he thinks we should still join the euro.”

Germans for instance have become so disillusioned with the euro, many will not accept notes produced outside their homeland.

I think Mandy is probably the chief cuckoo but he wants to take us all with him.

In Macklesfield, police officers have begun testing windows and doors at night as part of a campaign to increase home security. If they find one open, they are under orders to knock on the door, drag sleepy residents from their beds and lecture them.

Police say their actions are necessary as almost 40 per cent of all burglars gain access through an unsecured window or door. But some residents have condemned the plan, saying it could cause alarm and increase the fear of crime, especially among the elderly.

It would certainly increase the incidence of crime if they tried it around here. If I was woken by a Bobby just to tell me that I had left a window open, I would be seriously displeased and that Masai spear on the landing might well come in handy.

And there I was thinking I would only use it on a burglar!

I shall be in Wales for the weekend, so there will be no Daily Rant, but I will be back - hopefully refreshed and raring to go - on Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

11^th February 2010

Well, it looks like the final nail in Zimbabwe’s coffin. Yesterday the Top Comrade announced that any business that isn’t at least 51% ‘indigenised’ (which means, run by black people) will be taken over by the State. Now watch the country plummet into oblivion.

 

'It will obviously turn off investment very strongly,' said economist Tony Hawkins. 'It doesn't matter who they are, the Chinese, everyone. And the Chinese are the biggest investors.'

Companies most likely to be affected were foreign-owned, he said, and investors on Zimbabwe's stock exchange.

Last week, Prime Minister in Name, Morgan Tsvangirai told big business at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that 'confidence has returned' to Zimbabwe following a decade of economic collapse. 'This is the time to look at the country in a more positive light,' he said.

 

I fear that Morgan must have been on the happy pills again! What a disappointment the man has proved to be.

Business executives, both black and white throughout the country expressed shock at the new laws. 'First they took the farms, now they are taking businesses,' said one worried businessman. ‘Where will it all end?’

 

I can tell him that. It will end in the totally ruin of a once proud little country and I wonder what David Mincyband will have to say? What’s the bet that he ignores it all as though it was a bad smell. Mrs Thatcher and Lord Carrington can also sleep soundly knowing that the destructive process they started in 1979 has finally come to completion.

 

Forgive me for sounding bitter, but I am.

 

Here, fresh questions about Gormless Gordon’s temperament emerged last night as a sensational new book chronicled his 'reign of terror' in Downing Street. Former Downing Street spin doctor Lance Price claims that GG flies into furious rages when things go wrong - shouting at staff and kicking the furniture. He must get through a lot of furniture as things seem to keep going on in his inept administration.

The book quotes serving and former aides describing the Prime Minister displaying 'extraordinary flashes of anger.' One insider accuses GG of 'unforgivable' behaviour towards junior staff. He describes the Gormless One 'shouting at staff, jabbing an angry finger, throwing down papers, even kicking the furniture.’

I must admit, I often feel like kicking things, but then I am not a pompous, overbearing, bullying Prime Minister who ought to know better. Mind you, Price is a former aide to that arch bully Alastair Campbell, so who knows how much of the book is fact and how much merely well-aimed and vaguely vindictive spin.

Mind you, I did read that Campbell is now on Gormless Gord’s side.

I find the suggestion that New Labour under the Toothsome One deliberately engineered Britain’s immigration policies to bring in more Labour voters, totally abhorrent.

Can a political party in a democracy really do that? Well, a previously unseen official document from 2000 suggests that it can. The document makes clear that immigration policy was driven partly by economic needs but also by the Government’s ‘social objectives.’

The phrase ‘social objectives’ appears eight times in the document’s executive summary of a few hundred words, and in six instances was removed in a censored version published in 2001. It seems that migrants, and to a slightly lesser extent their descendants, are much more likely to vote Labour than for any other party. It therefore follows that one shameful motivation behind New Labour’s open-door immigration policy was to alter the social composition of this country so as to improve the chances of the party being reelected.

This confirms what Chris Mullin, the former Labour minister, wrote in his diaries. In January 2004, he lamented the failure of the Government to tackle immigration abuses such as ‘the rackets that surround arranged marriages’ before noting that ‘at least 20 Labour seats depend on Asian votes.’

Remember that in large parts of England Labour has long been losing ground. In 2005, the Tories actually won more votes in England than Labour. As the party’s traditional bases in Scotland and Wales began to weaken, so it needed more people in England who would naturally vote for it. As they didn’t exist, they had to be found.

Even as I write these words I can scarcely believe them. That a political party should have put its own selfish interests above those of the country on so enormously important a matter is deeply shocking. To me it is a thousand times more shocking than all the MPs’ expenses fiddles about which we have learned recently.

The amazing thing though is that Dashing Dave’s  Conservatives have been almost entirely silent on the issue for fear of being branded racist in the liberal media, just when they are trying to re-package themselves as an inclusive party.

Come on DD; this manipulation of a population is as bad as Comrade Bob’s ruination of my country. Why on earth aren’t you screaming about it to anyone who will listen.

 

Could it be that DD is wishing he thought of it first I wonder? What a horrible lot these politicians are.

 

I have never really believed in Valentine’s Day, but for most folk, it is a harmless rite of passage – and one remembered with affection. But the tradition of exchanging cards on 14^th February has been denied to children at Ashcombe Primary School in Weston-super-Mare.

 

Why? To protect the little darlings from the ‘emotional trauma’ of not receiving a card. The pupils have been warned that if any cards are found or exchanged in school, they will be confiscated. According to Headmaster, Peter Turner these children are not emotionally mature enough to ‘understand relationships.’

 

How truly pathetic and what are these desk driving, politically correct pratwinkles trying to do to future generations? I was never a great one for girls – cricket was more important – but I can remember the joys and sorrows of Valentine’s Day and I don’t think it did me any harm at all.

 

I suppose I am somewhat dinosauric, but I find this addled modern thinking totally beyond belief. Thank God for elephants – they at least resotre a modicum of sanity into my life with their innate common sense.

 

10^th February 2010

4000 British troops are to embark with 11000 others on Operation Moshtarak today and what happens – huge publicity is given in the media. What sort of war are these people fighting or do the lives of their own troops not matter in the greater scheme of political advancement?

I know I am no longer involved in military planning or strategy, but to my mind, this media coverage merely gives the Taleban time to lay thousands of extra IEDs and roadside bombs. Another bomb disposal officer died yesterday and there will be more as the bombs pile up.

Bungling Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary told MPs that the advance warning was given to allow civilians to flee the area ahead of the assault, adding that minimising civilian casualties is a central part of the new ‘hearts and minds’ strategy in Afghanistan.

I wonder how many important Taleban commanders will be among those civilians. This is a war damnit! I don’t agree with the aims of the war, but surely it should be prosecuted to the best of military ability and not made into a media circus, paid for with Troopies’ lives?

Perhaps I have lost touch with modern ways of thinking when it comes to warfare.

With all the fuss surrounding John Terry, the England football captain, it is refreshing to see that the national cricket team is led by an unassuming young gentleman in Andrew Strauss. I have always been a supporter of Strauss but feel that by not going with his team on their tour to Bangladesh, he is doing them, the game and the Bangladeshi public a grave disservice.

Sure he must be tired, but no more tired than the rest of them and as Captain of England, it is his duty to lead from the front. Bangladesh are hardly world beaters on the cricket field, but they are a Test team and should therefore be afforded the respect due to them – and that means fielding the best possible team to beat them.

Leading a team at whatever level is the biggest thrill in sport and for Strauss to casually hand the reins across to someone else – even though it is on a temporary basis – is insulting to all players who would just love to be Captain of England.

I have ranted at length about trends in British society of late and even compared this Nation and its problems to those that occurred during the last days of the Roman Empire. Perhaps I have it wrong though. Maybe it is not the British as such, but the whole concept of a civilised world that has gone wrong. In New York for example, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl has been suspended for doodling her name on her desk with an erasable marker.

 

Fair enough you might think. She was defacing school property, but Alexa Gonzalez was carted off in handcuffs to the police station to answer for her 'crime' of writing, "I love my friends Abby and Faith" and "Lex was here. 2/1/10" with a smiley face on her desk.  Alexa spent several hours at the police station, before her suspension was lifted and the school has since admitted that it may have over-reacted.

Nor is she the only New York student to have been 'cuffed’ for minor infractions

Three years ago, a thirteen-year-old was arrested for writing 'OK' on her desk at a school in Brooklyn. Two years ago, a five-year-old was handcuffed and sent to a psychiatric ward after throwing a fit in nursery school. Then, last year, another twelve-year-old was arrested for doodling on her desk in the Bronx.

What do they call the place – The Land of the Free?

Mind you, in this country a young mother had to pay £150 to recover her car from a police compound, even though Sarah McDonald- Lee hadn't been parked illegally and there was nothing wrong with her car.

Her 'crime' was to see her little daughter being driven away at high speed during a carjacking. The vehicle with its unwilling passenger was soon recovered, but Mrs McDonald-Lee then had to pay the money to get it back.

This is surely inquitous in such circumstanced but a po-faced police spokesman merely said that the force had a policy requiring owners to pay when abandoned vehicles were recovered from the roadside. The spokesman added: 'These matters are set down in legislation.'

So could nobody use a bit of initiative or is that not allowed any more?

And now that benighted and horribly overpaid bunch of desk drivers in Brussels are debating the lifting of sanctions against Comrade Bob and his goons. This is supported by Denmark and Germany who say that any softening of sanctions is not rewarding Zanu PF but the MDC, after Tsvangirai asked for the removal of the sanctions.

This really is nonsense because the only reason MT has asked for the sanctions to be lifted is because Comrade Bob has leaned on him. Thankfully, a few countries such as Portugal are holding out, but I have a horrible feeling that once again, politically correct madness will be the order of the day, despite protests from Zimbabwean human rights groups who are bitterly arguing for the sanctions to stay. In fact, Gabriel Shumba, after chronicling a list of violations of the GPA by Mugabe, said he was puzzled by any suggestions that the sanctions should be lifted. "The debate should instead be on intensifying the restrictive measures against people thwarting the implementation of the GPA," he said. Okay Machisa of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association said the restrictive measures ‘must be maintained until there was real democracy in Zimbabwe.’

These are people on the ground rather than in the rarefied air of Brussels, but it will be interesting to see which group wields the greater clout. I fear that common sense will once again be ignored.

It seems that Gormless Gordon has weaned himself off KitKats and is now eating up to nine bananas a day, so he will look 'radiant' in time for the election. Nutrition experts warn that if the Prime Minister eats so many bananas, it 'could cause bloating and excess wind.’

What’s new I wonder?.

One fighter against the awful cult of political correctness is eight year old Jacob Rush.

This doughty campaigner wrote to the editor of the Beano complaining about the new, unmenacing Dennis the Menace. Needless to say, he did not get a reply until he wrote again and threatened media coverage, but his complaint was simple.

'I don't like Dennis because he doesn't have his catapult or water pistol any more and he's not menacing enough - I want the old Dennis back.'

Beano editor Alan Digby admitted there had been a number of' complaints, adding: 'There are certain compliance rules relating to the way things like bad behaviour can be depicted on children's television, particularly on the BBC.

'I would not say Dennis has been watered down, he has evolved as the character has done throughout his lifetime. He still has his catapult and peashooter, but does not use them against people any more.'

Why have the ruddy things then?