Today is going to be a very different one for this Crumpled Scribbler. Despite the cold – and it is very cold this morning with worse forecast to come – I have to drive down to Reading, have lunch with lovely Kathryn Burgoyne and her Dad, then address a group of 7 year olds on the subject of elephants.

I have put together a few pretty pictures, but I have absolutely no idea what I am going to say or how I will tackle the talk. I fear, this one is far more daunting than addressing my high-powered audience of naturalists last week.

Then I have to come back and ensconce myself in Oakridge where for a week or so, I will be cat sitting. Pud is on his last legs now and I have handwritten pages of instructions, but I have a horrible feeling that he will turn his toes up while I am in the hot seat.

All in all, it could be a long week, particularly as I have further talks – all on different subjects – tomorrow and Monday.

Some strange things have been happening lately in various parts of Zimbabwe. Last month, a man was hounded from a Bulawayo neighborhood over claims that he possessed goblins that were raping his wife and his neighbors’ wives, and otherwise wreaking havoc in the suburban community.

This week, Water Resources Minister Sam Sipepa Nkomo told a senate committee that mermaids have been hounding government workers off dam sites in Mutare and Gokwe.

The minister’s revelations add to the many sensational stories that Zimbabweans have over the years passed on about supernatural manifestations in their communities. Though many are sceptical, some folk really believe that mermaids exist in Zimbabwe and who is to say that they are wrong or misguided.

Nkomo told a senate oversight committee that traditional chiefs are going to perform rituals to exorcise mermaids believed to inhabit reservoirs in Gokwe and Mutare where workers are afraid to tread. He told the assembled senators that the mermaids carry humans underwater and if there is a public outcry, their relatives might never see them again. He also averred that victims can return as spirit mediums if their disappearance is not mourned.

Such creatures are said to be terrifying workers at the Gokwe dam in the Midlands and the Osborne dam in Manicaland. Nkomo said all the workers he sent to work on the dam sites to install water pumps had dumped the project vowing not to return to the areas because of the mythical water creatures.

Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister Ignatius Chombo, who also appeared before the senate committee, backed the call for traditional rites to be performed at the dams to allay workers’ fears.

Nkomo said the government is prepared to give the population the water it needs, but is unable to do so until the rituals are performed and necessary repairs can be carried out. He said he tried to hire white personnel to do the work at Osborne dam, supposedly because they would not believe in the mermaids, but they too refused to undertake the project alleging they had seen suspicious creatures.

According to the minister, workers report that people have disappeared mysteriously while some have been chased away by the mermaids – that conjures up a pretty picture, I must admit! Traditional Chief, Edison Chihota of Mashonaland East said there is no dispute about the existence of mermaids.

“As a custodian of the traditional I have no doubt," Chief Chihota said. "For anyone to dispute this is also disputing him or herself.”

Cultural activist Prince Peter Zwide Khumalo, a direct descendant of King Lobengula, said mermaids play a central role in spiritual beliefs and they are thought to mainly inhabit the largest dams, such as Lake Kariba.

“They are said to exist in water particularly in big dams like Kariba. I haven’t heard of mermaids in small dams.”

But Khumalo said it is important to weigh reality against what people believe, because development can be delayed wielding traditional beliefs that cannot easily be disproved.

Minister Nkomo, a Seventh Day Adventist, said that while he does not believe in mermaids in this part of the world, he would not meddle in the traditional beliefs of others, including witchcraft.

Witchcraft is a controversial subject in Zimbabwe: Some see it as a source of trouble, others believe it can bring good fortune. It is so widespread that it is recognized by the law – for instance the Bulawayo goblin man sought police assistance after he admitted that the goblins he bought from a n’anga to bring him riches were allegedly raping his wife and those of neighbours.

Nothing changes in Africa, but who are we to dismiss these stories as primitive superstition? I wonder if there are any mermaids lurking along the Zambezi.

“They behave like human beings and are very good tricksters.” Still in Zim, the manager of the Churundu border post might have been talking about politicians but it was baboons he was describing. They are wreaking havoc at the Zambian border: stealing grain from the trucks carrying maize from Zambia into Zimbabwe, breaking into cars, stealing whatever takes their fancy and attacking any human who tries to prevent their criminal activity.

Just like a human criminal gang – Chipangano in Mbare perhaps? - the baboons appear unstoppable as they launch their daily attacks. ‘Shoot the lot of them’ is the general cry among the locals, but the baboons are only doing what comes naturally: they need food and humans have that food! In baboon society that makes sense, so why not leave them alone to get on with their lives. But no, we humans always think our own problems take priority over the problems of the natural world.

Comrade Bob Mugabe this week described the AU as ‘a toothless bulldog.’ He was probably quite right, but one can only wonder why he rushes to attend AU Meetings if he has so little regard for the organisation? But as always with Mugabe, there is more to his actions and words than meets the eye. He launched into one of his now familiar attacks on the west and in particular the Nato bombing which resulted in the killing of the long-serving Arab leader, Muamar Gaddafi in October 2011.

“Who will be next?” The old fellow wailed. He then remarked that Europe has exhausted its natural resources while Africa has plenty. It was at first sight a puzzling observation until one remembers that Mugabe went to the AU to try to get them to endorse 2012 elections in Zimbabwe. He failed, so it had to be the fault of Europe and the colonialists. Yet amidst signs that a new generation of African leaders are increasingly disenchanted with ageing dictators, was Comrade Bob perhaps warning the AU not to interfere in Zimbabwe’s affairs? Civil Society was there in force, however, to remind the AU that, as guarantor of the Global Political Agreement (I wonder where they get that ‘global’ from?) and the coalition government, it was their duty to ensure that ‘Zimbabwe gets full support to deliver credible, democratic elections that meet the AU’s own requirements,’ as the Co-ordinator of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition put it.

I fear that I have more faith in those wayward mermaids than I do in any African politicians.

Mind you, it is not only the politicians of Africa. With exquisite timing, Labour-led Lambeth Council has splashed out £9,000 on olive trees to ‘fit in with the Mediterranean character’ of a South London street.
The trees have been planted along a road in Clapham, which is home to Spanish, Greek, French and Moroccan restaurants. A spokesman for the council, which has to save £29 million this year, said: ‘They are evergreens, long lived and can survive well in hard-surface areas where there is little water.’

Judging by the weather at the moment, they’d have been better off planting Christmas trees.

 

 

Just to give you some idea of what a chore, my early morning trawl of the papers can be, let me take you through the various bits of news I was confronted with yesterday.

The Sunday Telegraph exclusively revealed that it is winter – what a surprise! In the same vein, The Observer disclosed that it had been snowing, The Sunday Mirror exposed Britain as a nation on the verge of grinding to ground to a halt, and The Mail on Sunday surmised that Heathrow will soon become a repository for stranded travellers.

And the Independent on Sunday tried to force its revoltingly pro-European views on us via the backdoor, by pointing out we've got the same weather as the rest of the continent. Shame on them, but so what. It doesn’t make the weather any easier to bear.

Even the political news was dominated by weather of sorts. Ever since Chris Huhne resigned on Friday there's been talk of the cabinet reshuffle leading to a possible policy shift on green energy, and Tory backbenchers have wasted no time in trying to push their agenda, which is to scrap the massive roll-out of wind farms of which Huhne was a firm supporter.

100 Tories have written to Prime Minister to call for a rethink on wind farms, and the letter was apparently seen by The Sunday Telegraph. The letter has been orchestrated by Daventry MP, Chris Heaton-Harris, and the complaints largely focus on the impact wind farms have on the countryside. Clearly Tories aren't content with Chris Huhne leaving government - they want many of his policies out the door alongside him.

The Telegraph also reported that Tories are gearing up for a showdown with the Boy George over IMF payments. Like the veto that turned out not to be a veto, the government appears poised to U-turn over money to the IMF. They've said they won't allow UK contributions to the global fund being sunk into the Eurozone, but it's never been quite clear how that would work. The Telegraph reported that there may be a vote in the Commons on the matter in a month's time, but I would think they were only guessing.

On the subject of Britain's place in the world, The Mail on Sunday reported that it won't be long before the Westminster government will be having to keep illegal Scottish immigrants out of England. They're not making it up either, insisting they've seen a Foreign Office memo outlining contingencies for Scottish independence. One option allegedly being considered is a new 'Hadrian's Wall' - who would pay for this wall, I wonder and who would man the ruddy thing?

Given the matter is now subject to criminal proceedings there's not much left to squeeze out of the Huhne story - that will come in eleven days' time when he and his estranged wife Vicky Pryce are reunited in the dock of a Crown Court. But the Sunday Times has spoken to some Tories in Huhne's Eastleigh constituency who are apparently drawing up plans to trigger a by-election if Huhne is convicted.

Huhne's exit from the Cabinet means another senior Lib Dem is no longer in government and their replacements are a bit wet behind the ears, but The Sunday Telegraph, somewhat surprised that David Laws didn't make a comeback this week, reported that they expect the MP to make a ‘big comeback’ in the next few months. The fact that the man originally resigned over his expenses fiddling seems to have been handily forgotten.

The Sunday Times also led on claims that 5,000 headteachers are failing in their jobs, according to the new chief inspector of schools. Sir Michael Wilshaw clearly intends to pull no punches as he launches a clampdown on poor leadership at around 3,000 schools which are said to be ‘coasting.’ In his interview Sir Michael lays the blame for what he calls a ‘national disaster’ in education at the door of these mediocre head-teachers. Nothing was apparently said about firing them though!

Further down the intellectual food chain, the Mail on Sunday confirmed what Simon Hoggart at the Guardian has been banging on about for ages - David Cameron has a bald patch which he spends much of his day trying to conceal. Meanwhile a Tory MP has upset the whole of northern England for saying people there die young because their diet consists of nothing but chip butties and Benson and Hedges.

According to the Independent on Sunday, Comparisons between Red Ed and Wallace from ‘Wallace and Grommit’ fame are also causing upset. But it's not the Labour leader who's annoyed, it's the creators of the animated show. ‘You have to protect the brand,’ a spokesperson told the paper – I can only assume they're talking about their own brand, not Labour's.

That I’m afraid was a fairly typical Sunday newspaper collection. Is it any wonder that the Zambezi is calling me away?

Monday doesn’t seem much better, but I do agree with some of the hacks that the departure of Huhne gives Compo the ideal chance to do something about the overwhelming tide of green ideology that is rapidly bringing this soggy little island to its figurative knees. Mind you, the idea that it is only the Lib Dems who have bought into the green field is false. After all, Compo promoted it as a crucial element of his Tory modernising agenda. Who can forget his absurd stunt hugging huskies in the Arctic Circle, or fixing a wind turbine to his own home in Notting Hill? Now the Prime Minister faces a rebellion from within his own ranks over wind farms, a revolt which threatens to become his biggest headache since 81 Tory MPs defied him in the Commons vote on holding a referendum over Britain’s future in the European Union.

Despite his own history of green gimmickry, the PM must now use the opportunity of Huhne’s departure to listen to the wind-farm rebels for reasons rather deeper than merely heading off a trying back-bench revolt. Because, let’s face it, the wind-farm policy is as disastrous as it is farcical. Not only are these huge turbines an environmental eyesore, they also produce no energy if the wind is not blowing. But even more ludicrously, if the wind blows too hard, they have to be shut down. So wind power has to be supplemented by gas-fired power stations — which discharge into the atmosphere yet more of the carbon dioxide the turbines are meant to help reduce.

Then there are the added costs. Wind power is three times more expensive than normal-tariff electricity - a burden which is dumped on households which are already struggling under the effects of the recession. While the electricity companies and landowners who rent out their land for turbines can earn millions of pounds from the policy, it has so far added some £52 per year to the average household electricity bill.

Meanwhile, a Government adviser has calculated that even if 10 per cent of the country were to be covered with wind turbines, they would still generate only one-sixth of the nation’s energy needs. And since such subsidies drain investment away from new conventional power plants, the risk of power cuts grows ever greater.

Chris Huhne’s enforced departure offers the Prime Minister an opportunity to junk the climate change nonsense that is inflicting such harm on Britain’s fragile economy and relocate his government on Planet Reality. He could make a start by discarding the ‘Climate Change’ addition made by Gormless Gordon Brown to the Department of Energy’s name, which thus built into the very structure of government the idiotic fallacy that politicians can actually affect climatic behaviour.

Otherwise, it is not just his rebellious MPs who will give his administration a kicking but the British people, for whom the climate change fixation has moved from being a marginal piece of self-indulgence to a positive menace. If Compo Cameron sticks to this folly, he will not be forgiven by the Great British Public.

Wimbledon High School (fees £4,343 a term) in South London, has an impressive record, but plans to hold a ‘Failure Week’ seem ill-advised.

Teachers and parents will talk to pupils about what they’ve learnt from mistakes in their own lives, and the headmistress wants to see girls take on challenges outside their academic work - in sport, drama, art and music.
She thinks they will learn from the experience of not succeeding. I am a mere man, but I would have thought that to succeed in modern Britain, women need to learn confidence and positive thinking, rather than a way of acquiring even more things they can’t do.

It sounds to me rather like that old and very silly chestnut that the Brits inflicted on the world about being a good loser.

No wonder this soggy island is in such a mess!

 

 

With the country blanketed in snow, I feel so sorry for those folk who are travelling today. Imagine having to fly to Zimbabwe for instance. First there is the anxiety as to whether coaches will still travel up to Heathrow, then there is the problem that once at the airport, there is absolutely no guarantee that the relevant aircraft will take off.

I know from experience how draining that sort of situation can be and only hope that by the time it is my turn to fly out – 53 days now – winter will be well and truly over. Mind you, we could have similar problems by then – Icelandic dust storms for instance. Truly, travel is not all that it is made out to be!

The elder Milipede is in the news this week, making snide remarks about his younger brother in the New Statesman. I wonder how he finds the time in amongst his ever-lengthening list of commercial endeavours (a football club directorship, public speaking abroad, advising venture capitalists) that are earning him a reputed £500,000 per annum - a half-million which this strong advocate of a mansion tax reportedly channels through a private company in the way that is familiar to those seeking – entirely legally – to avoid paying income tax. Nothing wrong there I suppose. If being Baby Blair means anything, it means earning oodles from the contacts book and espousing the ancient Labour ideal that limiting tax liability is for the many, not the few.

Nor can David be blamed if the thrust of his argument in the New Statesman about the dangers of his party becoming ‘Reassurance Labour’ was too much for my somewhat limited intellect. That is my fault. I should have booked in to the local College for a course in the pidgin dialect of Blairspeak that is David’s first and only tongue. However I didn’t as it seemed too much trouble at the time, so I have run Milipede The Elder’s latest outburst through my tame Milibandroid-English dictionary, and can reveal that it translates, as follows: “Ed stinks, and it should have been me, me, me, me, meeeeeeeee.”

Returning to the original text, it is entirely predictable that the Labour figure whom the jug-eared one notionally attacks, for being too Lefty, is not his brother. The nominal target of this ‘comradely’ rebuke is Roy Hattersley, whose central relevance to the current political scene no one would deny, even though he did retire decades ago. Once again, the Enigma machine is not needed to decrypt this effort as a full frontal attack on the leader.

Nevertheless, formal confirmation came yesterday, when ‘friends of David’ claimed that undermining his brother was the last thing on his mind. In the New Labour glory days in which David used to seek sanctuary from reality, under the brutal leadership of Alastair Campbell, nothing was officially confirmed until it was categorically denied.

Somewhere in all the soporific verbiage, modelled on a half-understood University of Southern California management-speak course in 1987, something else was apparent. Whatever one thinks of Red Ed’s leadership, David would have been much, much worse. Like the bad general of cliché, he can only fight the last war. He clings for comfort to the idiotic ooze of political falsehoods that had been rumbled by 2005, when Toothsome Tony was re-elected on a dismal 36 per cent of the national vote.

In fact, the elder Milipede would have been a total disaster, not just the medium sized disaster that is Red Ed. The trouble is that like his master before him, he has turned failure into financial triumph and is milking the system to fill his pockets and show the world that really, he is far more successful than his younger brother.

Sometimes, the realities of politics just beggar belief.

There has been much angst in this country about the amount of money being dished out in ‘foreign aid’ to countries that need the money far less than this soggy little island. Now we learn that Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian ministers tried to terminate Britain’s aid to their booming country last year - but relented after the British begged them to keep taking the money.

The disclosure will surely stoke the fires of public resentment over Britain’s aid to India. The country is the world’s top recipient of British bilateral aid, even though its economy has been growing at up to 10 per cent a year and is projected to become bigger than Britain’s within a decade.

Last week India rejected the British-built Typhoon jet as preferred candidate for a £6.3 billion warplane deal, despite the Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, saying that Britain’s aid to Delhi was partly ‘about seeking to sell Typhoon.’

What world do British politicians inhabit I wonder. They just do not seem capable of grasping reality.

Mr Mukherjee’s remarks, previously unreported outside India, were made during question time in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament.

“We do not require the aid,” he said, according to the official transcript of the session. “It is a peanut in our total development exercises.” He said the Indian government wanted to ‘voluntarily’ give it up.

According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirumpama Rao, proposed ‘not to avail [of] any further British assistance with effect from 1st April 2011,’ because of the ‘negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by DFID.’

But officials at DFID, Britain’s Department for International Development, told the Indians that cancelling the programme would cause ‘grave political embarrassment’ to Britain, according to sources in Delhi.

DFID has sent more than £1 billion of UK taxpayers’ money to India in the last five years and is planning to spend a further £600 million on Indian aid by 2015. So even though the Indians don’t want this money, this benighted government will continue shelling it out, purely because it makes them look good.

Surely all those millions would be better spend at home or am I being politically naive yet again. It makes my blood boil I’m afraid, so perhaps I ought to go and have my early morning walk in the snow.

 

I suppose it says something for my gambling talents – or lack of them – that despite having fifty-fifty odds, I guessed wrong in the case of Chris Huhne. He is to be prosecuted after all, together with former spouse Vicky Pryce. I wonder if they will sit in the dock together? If so, I would love to be a fly on the wall!

Mind you, it took The Clegglet nearly three hours to go in front of the cameras after Huhne’s resignation. It probably it took him that long to clear the celebratory champagne bottles from his office.

Huhne and Cleggy were old friends who had become deadly rivals over the years. In the 2007 leadership campaign, Huhne came up with the nickname ‘Calamity Clegg’ and boasted that he would have won had the campaign lasted another week, because he had been making all the running. Many Lib-Dems thought for a while they might have picked the wrong man and I confess that for all Huhne’s peccadilloes and his reputation of being a man of raw ambition, I still think they did.

Whatever their relationship, Huhne became a big political beast who demanded and got big promotions. It may be a temporary relief to The Clegglet to see such a dangerous force laid low, but yesterday's events will have lasting consequences for the Lib Dems, regardless of the jury's verdict on Huhne's guilt or innocence.

It is the second time one of their Cabinet members has quit over a scandal, following David Laws's resignation over expenses irregularities. The Clegglet is at least able to promote some of his staunchest allies, the talented Ed Davey, and chief aide and whip Norman Lamb. Over time, if he is found not guilty, Mr Huhne could well re-emerge as a rallying point for Lib-Dem critics of the Coalition, making him potentially more dangerous than ever.

What does worry me though is why a Lib Dem should automatically replace Huhne in the Cabinet? Surely this is a time to promote the person most worthy of the job? Lib Dem support in the country has slumped since the Coalition was formed. The Tories’ popularity - thanks to the disaster of Red Ed the Milipede - is significantly up. Compo should surely have picked a worthy Tory to replace Huhne. If Clegg had objected, he could have been told the Lib Dems are in no position to call the shots on anything. Their effect on the country in the past two years has been largely malign. I wonder, does Compo still advance their cause because he secretly sympathises with them?

Now there’s a thought!

In Zimbabwe, the inquest into Solomon Mujuru’s death takes ever more intriguing twists and turns. Now, according to his family, there is some doubt as to whether it was the man himself who was buried. Although DNA was taken from his daughter for comparison, the results of the tests were apparently not released. It all conjures up a pretty picture of Mujuru doing a Lord Lucan on the crowd, although in his case, it is more likely that he would reappear with sudden majesty and take over the country as the People’s saviour.

Yes I know I am but dreaming.

It seems that it is not only officialdom and the Unions who are climbing on the Olympic gravy train. Greedy East End landlords are now booting out tenants as the Games draw closer. While short-term Olympic lets are common, some landlords are cashing in by loading up the rent for the duration of the games - or simply pressurising existing tenants to leave. They are also putting up their prices by as much as five times the going rate. Some rents in Hackney have soared from £300 per week to £1625 for a one bed flat.

This is surely usury and should be stamped upon by the government, but I suppose they are not only scared of upsetting the Olympic apple cart, but are too focused on punishing the bankers for their idiotic profligacy – even though that was condoned, if not enthusiastically supported by successive governments/

And anyway, if we are going to start punishing people who, without having committed a crime, have inflicted huge economic damage on the country by taking reckless decisions, why stop at bankers? What about the politicians who have wasted huge amounts of taxpayers’ money and caused hardship on a scale that dwarfs even the hideous mistakes made by Fred Goodwin? Why is it acceptable for politicians to escape scot-free?

The architect of boom and bust in this country was Gordon Brown. He also lost the country billions by selling off the gold reserves dirt cheap. On his watch, £20bn was squandered on the failed NHS computer system. So why, having betrayed taxpayers so, is he still a privy counsellor?

To my cynical mind, it seems that politicians in general are now pursuing the banking fraternity in order to divert attention from their own greedy shenanigans.

In one of the week’s more eccentric debates, peers discussed the right of the Scottish Parliament to have control over the South Pole area. Yes I know that sounds silly, but the Upper House accepted the Government’s proposal that the Antarctic should be redesignated a matter for Westminster rather than Edinburgh.

This did not stop Scottish lawyer, Lord Boyd speculating on whether there should be a Scots-style smoking ban in Antarctica. Furthermore, should scientists at the bottom of the world have a say in any Scottish independence vote?

You may ask how the Antarctic - where Britain has laid claim to territory since 1908 - was entrusted to Edinburgh in the first place? It seems that officialdom at the time made a hideous mistake in their paperwork, which is what the current lot are trying to correct.

What a daft world we live in and I fear it is getting ever dafter.

A number of people have asked me whether they will be able to follow my progress when I set out to walk the Zambezi. To be honest, I don’t know, but a special web site on the walk is being set up this week in South Africa, so when I know what it is called, I will circulate it to whoever wants to know and hopefully, I will be able to send in the occasional positional report that I presume will be plotted on the site. After all, I will have a satellite phone – I hope – with me and I am sure that cell phone reception will be available in many places along the way.

Anyway, I will do my best to keep everyone updated.

It is truly achingly cold here at the moment and although snow is forecast for the weekend, I actually look forward to it, as at least it will mean a small temperature rise. I did an eleven mile walk yesterday and when I got home at the end of it, I was hot and sweaty – yes, I know, a horrible thought! – from hips to shoulders, while my face and extremities were freezing. An old friend, who I haven’t seen in ages stopped her car on the hill and jumped out to greet me, but found herself enveloped in a very sweaty hug, although even she commented that my cheek was like ice. Sorry Keren Dear.

I do have the offer of a treadmill that I can set up in the dining room, but somehow that seems like an admission of defeat and if I can’t beat a few days of lousy English weather, how on earth will I beat the Mighty Zambezi? I know that is daft, but sadly perhaps, it is the way I am.

We are told that at ten o clock this morning, the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne will finally know whether he is to be prosecuted or not. If you remember, he is the one who allegedly asked his former spouse – before he ran off with a bi sexual researcher – to take his driving penalty points for him. Had that been you or I, the case would long since have been brought to court and finished, but because it is a Minister of the Crown, we have waited many months for a decision to be made by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Who was it said that the law was the same for everyone? He lied. I know that in this case, I have a fifty percent chance of being correct, but I’ll bet the man gets away with it.

In the House of Commons, there was uproar because a parliamentary bar featured a beer called Top Totty. Female MPs branded the label, featuring a scantily clad woman, ‘demeaning’ and a symbol of sexism in Westminster.

Kate Green, Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, said she was ‘disturbed’ at the guest beer in the Strangers Bar in the Commons, and remarked that it proved the need for a debate on ‘dignity in the workplace.’

Shadow minister Kerry McCarthy told us that the decision to stock the beer showed how ‘women are not treated with respect.’

"It's bizarre that they didn't realise it could be controversial. It is totally demeaning. It's the picture. The picture is so 1970s playboy. I just can't believe, I suppose it would still be a bit offensive in a commercial bar. But something with a playboy bunny called Top Totty in the MPs' bar just seems totally demeaning."

Why I wonder should feelings be any different in a commercial bar than they are in an MP’s bar. Do these wenches really think they exist on a different plane to the rest of us?

The beer itself is described by manufacturer Slater’s Ales as ‘A stunning blonde beer full bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma that produces an initial burst of bitterness with a citrus fruity finish.’

I might be a pleb, but that label sounds very fitting. Not so however for our ladies in power.

The House of Commons speaker's wife, Sally Bercow, said the beer's name was ‘outrageous,’ but as the queen of parliamentary outrage, she would, wouldn’t she?

But Charlotte Vere, founder of Women On and former Tory candidate stoutly told the world that what is after all, an incredibly petty row represented ‘more authoritarian posturing from radical feministas who are after a fun-free and sex-free world.’

I don’t know of Ms Vere, but she is right I’m afraid and I would have thought our lady parliamentarians had more weighty things to worry about than a label on a beer tap.

In Zimbabwe, the National airline has finally given up the ghost, but that is hardly a surprise. It survived through many years of sanctions and a guerrilla war, but once Comrade Bob laid his hands on the company, he used it as his personal toy and the end result was inevitable.

Political appointments fill the senior executive positions, and presidential relatives much of the rest. Air Zimbabwe has a staff of 1,400 where experts estimate 400 would be ample. Fares were kept unsustainably low, and charged in worthless Zimbabwe dollars until they were phased out in 2009.

It has no board of directors. The company is in the hands of a coterie of executives who, according to staff, pay themselves US$20,000 a month and drive the latest Mercedes Benz models. “They are a law unto themselves,” said one. Early this month a long-unpaid pilot won a court order for the seizure of company property in lieu of his salary. The sheriff entered Air Zimbabwe headquarters and left with three of the limousines.

“It has become the ZANU PF carrier,” said a senior technician. Each time the Mugabe ‘royal family’ return from a trip abroad, a 10-tonne truck and several pick-ups can be seen to drive up to the aircraft’s hold to be loaded with the Mugabe’s goods. Last year, Grace, the president’s wife, flew into a rage when her flight was late. Acting CEO Peter Chikumba presented her with US$10,000 ‘spending money’ by way of an apology.

Since the government took control of the fabulously wealthy Marange diamond fields in the east of country, cabin staff say that pilots are regularly given small sealed parcels by Mrs Mugabe’s staff for personal delivery to Asian businessmen in the Far East. Just ahead of elections in 2008, an Air Zimbabwe plane flew tonnes of ZANU PF T-shirts from Beijing.

But as Air Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd crumbles, a new development is secretly unfolding. A plain white 150-seat Airbus A320 with French markings arrived at Harare airport 10 days ago and was quickly concealed in an Air Zimbabwe hangar. Company and transport ministry officials have been tight-lipped.

The plane is on loan from Sonangol, a Chinese company with enormous interests ranging through oil, air transport and diamonds, Air Zimbabwe administrators say. A larger Airbus 340 is soon to follow.

“It’s a ministry of defence project,” said one. “It can only be funded by diamonds. ZANU(PF) will not be without their own airline.”

Is it any wonder that Africa is the most intriguing continent of them all? If the Western world doesn’t very soon wake up to reality, the entire continent will have been taken over by the Chinese and from there, they are likely to take over the world – including Britain and America.

 

I had an excellent elephant talk yesterday to an eminent group of naturalists. I was very nervous, particularly as it was my first talk since well before Christmas and a formal (ish) lunch beforehand did nothing to still my fluttering nerves, but once we started I relaxed and enjoyed myself.

My laptop started playing the monkey with me, but I talked my way through that and after it was over, I was virtually mobbed – it felt like it anyway – by segments of a reasonably large audience. One gentleman told me that it had been the most enjoyable ‘lecture’ he had heard in his twelve years with the Cotswold Naturalists Field Society so that was high praise indeed.

I came home feeling full of myself, but was quickly brought down to earth by having to make a fire and then cook supper.

Life can be cruel!

You know, it seems that almost anybody can get help for anything from psychotherapists in this country except apparently gays who do not want to be gay.

A man who wants to be a woman will receive not only the necessary operations but also a huge amount of psychological support and counselling. So will the infertile who desperately want children. Yet the unhappy homosexual should, according to gay activists be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he can be helped to become heterosexual.

Take the case of Lesley Pilkington, who was found to have broken the ethical code of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy when she agreed to a request from Patrick Strudwick to help him become a heterosexual. Unbeknown to her it was a bogus request designed to entrap her, or as he would put it, to discredit counselling which tries to help an individual change sexuality.

That of course is tommyrot, because no therapy will work unless the person receiving it is committed to the outcome.

Let us be quite clear about this though - Ms Pilkington did not approach Strudwick. It was the other way around. He approached her and because she thought he really wanted help and tried to give it, she now faces being barred from practising.

The real effect, as this homosexual herbert presumably wants, is to deter anybody from helping any of their ilk who would prefer to marry and father or bear children. He would rather they suffered, because he is arrogant enough to believe that everybody should be happy with what makes him happy, that everybody should follow his course.
The really significant factor in all this is that Lesley Pilkington is a Christian and the homosexual lobby has turned all its fire in that direction. Yet in recent days we have seen some Muslim men found guilty of a serious hate crime because they put round literature calling for homosexuals to be executed.

It is breathtaking not only that they could do that but that clearly they did not expect the consequences of what will undoubtedly be a lengthy jail sentence.

Why did they think they could get away with it? Probably because it seems only Christians have been targeted by gay activists seeking double rooms in their tiny guest houses or claiming to be offended by leaflets or opinions no matter how carefully expressed.

If anybody turns to a properly qualified practitioner for help there must be a presumption that he or she can get it. It is not a state crime to want to change one’s sexual leanings.

Yet!

The nonsense about the Olympic Games goes on and it really is turning out to be a can of worms. The ludicrous ticketing system, the traffic apartheid, the brand ‘cleansing,’ the spiralling budgets – it is all becoming ever more mind boggling. Read Anna Minton's book Ground Control for instance.  It details the transformation of British cities into CCTV-patrolled private precincts, and has been updated to examine the Olympics effect.

As Minton reminds us, the organisers of London 2012 have always compared the Games to the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Festival of Britain of 1951 - large, public-spirited celebrations with cultural legacies that we enjoy to this day. The trouble is, as she points out, the chance to provide a similar legacy for 2012 has been wasted.

What was going to become a new 500-acre Royal Park will now be private land. What should have become affordable social housing will fall into the private rental sector. The Wellcome Trust, Britain's largest charity, offered to turn the Olympic Village into the ‘Silicon Valley of Europe,’ a research centre that would create 7,000 jobs. Sadly, the Olympic Park Legacy Company rejected the bid as it did not offer ‘value for money’ for the taxpayer. A higher cash bid from a consortium led by the Qatari royal family was accepted instead - and now the site is likely to be sold off for the further enrichment of said royals.

No one Minton spoke to seems to have any idea of a conspiracy. Instead, as the leader of Newham council complained, "There are too many agencies. There's no overall governance of this area that makes it coherent." There is a diagram in the book that tries to map these agencies (they include LOCOG, GLA, LDA, ODA, OMDC and OLCC) and it looks a little like a Jackson Pollock painting. So much for privatisation removing red tape. We can expect something similar in the NHS soon.

It is not the public that profits from this Kafkaesque paper chase. While the public purse has provided around 98 per cent of the Olympics budget, almost all of the infrastructure will fall into private hands after the Games. Then, as Minton writes, ‘a very substantial part of east London will be characterised by new private fiefdoms accountable only to the blurred mass of quangos which are replacing democratically elected local government.’

There are still a few months to go, still a few decisions to be made. If their fine words about legacy mean anything, it is surely time for Bullyboy Boris and co to get jumping through as many hoops as it takes.

Somehow they have to cancel out all the naked greed that is being displayed at the moment or these Games will prove to be the most expensive disaster this country has ever known outside wartime.

Here's a thought - are we heading for war with France I wonder? First Compo Cameron nearly wets himself for the national cause, then the Diminutive Frog tells the credit ratings agencies to downgrade Britain. Now Bullyboy Boris Johnson is trying to steal their bankers.

It is quite scary you know. France is much nearer than Iran and it has definitely got nuclear weapons. With the anniversary of the Falklands coming up and The Iron Lady stoking nostalgia, we might yet be in for a little bit of a punch up.

Perhaps it is as well that I am heading for darkest Africa. It is decidedly safer there.

This is likely to be a big day for me. After nearly two months without having a talk to do, I embark on 10 days with 4 talks, starting with an important one on elephants to the Cotswold Naturalist Society – when I mentioned it to a friend the other day, she asked if they take their clothes off! – in Painswick Town Hall. They sound like an eminent bunch – clothes or no clothes - so my performance has to be good and I must get my facts correct.

At the beginning of next week, I go to the other end of the social scale, when I address a group of 7 year olds – again on elephants - but it is worrying me already. How on earth do I approach that? I can't show them my serious pictures, so will have to woffle my way through it - again!

Oh well, I need the money – I am not even being paid for the 7 year olds – and I need to get away from the daily slog of pounding icy roads with a 25  kilogram pack on my back.

Not that I will be getting out of my morning walk today, despite the temperature outside being well below freezing. I keep telling myself that it is better to hurt now than to hurt when I am wandering down the Zambezi, but in these temperatures, it is difficult to convince myself.

Back in the real world, Fred Goodwin who led the Royal Bank of Scotland – and the whole country for that matter – into penury has been stripped of his knighthood. A big blow to him I suppose, but what is it going to prove? The man was undoubtedly a charlatan and if the newspaper stories are to be believed, an unpleasant charlatan at that, but it is the government ministers who encouraged his profligacy who should be under the cosh. How can they punish one man merely for being an inefficient dolt? We have plenty of those in the corridors of power!

Yet it is a peculiar facet to Mankind in that we love to have a scapegoat. First it was Goodwin, then last week it was Stephen Hester, who was forced into returning his annual bonus by the baying of self-satisfied politicians and newspaper editors, who merely wanted someone to deflect attention from their own peccadilloes. It was all very well, Red Ed the Milipede crowing about government mistakes in the case of Stephen Hester, but he seems to have forgotten that it was his government that appointed the man and gave him the perks that he is now claiming. They obviously felt that he was the man for the job and in fact, according to his fellow bankers, he has done a wonderful job with RBS, but now he is being pilloried because Britain’s Great and Good need a scapegoat.

If Fred Goodwin is to be stripped of his honours, surely some of those corrupt and venal politicians should be similarly stripped of theirs?

What a strange old world this is. Thank the Lord I shall be dropping out of it in 57 days time. Well no, that isn’t quite correct – I shall be dropping out of this soggy little island then and dropping out of civilisation altogether a few weeks later. Even the fact that I shall be going into another winter doesn’t make the prospect any worse.
In fact, aching muscles or no aching muscles, I am looking forward to it.

At least I will enjoy a bit of sunshine.

I suppose most of us have had pictures taken that come back to haunt us. In Stephen Hester’s case it was that photograph of him in full fox-hunting rig. Now he knows exactly how the fox feels.

For the past few days, Hester has been pursued up hill and down dale over the size of his bonus as Royal Bank of Scotland boss. The RBS chief said he was ‘surprised by the vilification’ he had received. He shouldn’t have been. We live in an age of outrage and after politicians, bankers are Public Enemy Number One. As head of a bank that had to be bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of £45 billion, he was always going to be considered fair game.

The fact that the collapse of RBS was nothing to do with him, or that he was hand-picked by the last Government to bring it back to life, was never going to save him from a meteor storm of condemnation. So eventually, he waived his bonus, which large though it was, must have been promised to him by grateful politicians when he was employed to do the job.

Throughout this horribly demeaning for all concerned, debacle, I haven’t heard any suggestion that Hester is the wrong man for the job. He would appear to have done a damned good job so far, but he’s a ‘public servant’ in name only. Can you imagine leaving the rescue of RBS to the politicians or any paper shuffling civil servant you care to name?

How about Gordon Brown, who sold off Britain’s gold reserves at car boot sale prices, spent our money like a drunken sailor on shore leave, presided over the collapse of RBS under his mate ‘Sir’ Fred Goodwin, and bequeathed the country a trillion-pound debt?

Or the genius behind the NHS’s £12 billion IT scheme disaster; the mastermind at the Ministry of Defence responsible for wasting £2.5 billion a year on utterly useless kit for our armed forces; even that silly female from Suffolk Council, who was paid £212,000 a year to fritter away taxpayers’ money on lifestyle coaches and personal photo portfolios, and still managed to walk away with another £212,000 in redundancy pay?

Put it like that, and Stephen Hester looks cheap at twice the price. It is to his credit that he is sticking around to finish the job. Most of us would have said ‘stuff this for a game of soldiers’ and called a cab at the first splenetic burst of vilification.

Still, the political pack has scented blood and is now heading off in pursuit of other quarries. Lest any of us forget, the loudest among them seem to be the ones who took the PBT for a far greater ride by stealing our money to cover their fraudulent expense claims.

At least Hester would appear to be an honest man.

How many police investigations into the Press are taking place at the moment and how many officers are involved? How much for that matter, is it all costing the PBT?

Difficult to tell I suppose, but while all these clodhopping coppers are chasing reporters, the villains of society are enjoying a crime spree. The figures for burglary, as well as a number of crimes of violence are very much on the increase.

Meanwhile, one Fleet Street reporter who emailed a legitimate inquiry about a case to a senior Scotland Yard officer received a menacing call from a member of the anti-corruption squad, demanding to know why he was asking the question.

If that’s not intimidation, I don’t know what is. And talking of intimidation, was it really necessary to mount heavy-handed dawn raids on the homes of four Sun journalists on Saturday morning? They weren’t drug dealers or likely to do a bunk at the first sign of trouble. They were respectable members of the newspaper world and deserved to be treated as such.

One of those arrested told colleagues that police turned his home upside down for 13 solid hours, taking away 57 plastic bags of ‘evidence’ - including personal items and correspondence that could have no possible relevance. His wife and daughters felt violated.

Another ‘suspect’ is said to have had the door panels ripped off his car. All this over a crime which is alleged to have taken place ten years ago. Did they really expect to find signed receipts for bribes in kitchen cabinets and underwear drawers or hidden in books and CD cases?

Yes of course, those guilty of a crime must be punished, but that is surely no excuse for using KGB tactics and turning this soggy little island into a Stasi state. The rest of us are surely entitled to question the amount of time, public money and allegedly scarce police manpower devoted to these investigations.

Is anyone in overall charge of ordering these dawn raids and terrifying innocent women and children? Or is it the result of a bunch of over-zealous middle-ranking officers trying to make a name for themselves?

Perhaps the new Commissioner, Bernard Hyphen-Wotsit would care to enlighten us.

Personally I feel it is time that the overstretched – or so we are told – constabulary got back to their real jobs and started making the world a safer place for we ordinary citizens.

Compo was very much King of the Castle when he defied the European leaders a few weeks ago and refused to sign over British money to help out ailing European economies. Now though, his popularity will plunge among Eurosceptic back benchers, because last night he reneged on it all and signed a treaty that he vetoed in December.

Why is anyone surprised I wonder? During his short stint in power, the man has indulged in more U turns than a jazz jiving silkworm.

 

Here we go for another week and if my calculations are correct, I have another 60 days before I climb on that ruddy great airbus for Johannesburg and the start of my big adventure.

It is a big one too and there are times when my heart quails at the magnitude of what I am taking on. For all that though, I will do it and enjoy it – if only in the memories.

Back in the real world, I can’t quite figure out whether they teach masochism as a degree course at Eton or whether our revered leader is merely a sucker for punishment.

Here he is, the foremost old boy from the college and he wanders off to Strasbourg, solemnly promising to lecture the human rights judges on minding their own business. Inevitably perhaps, his words were greeted with freezing contempt by the judges, so much so that the (British) chief judge, Sir Nicolas Bratza, refused to even meet him.

Ignoring this insult our worthy Prime Minister went straight to Davos to offer a sermon to the international hoi pollois of the financial upper strata. This was also greeted with stony-faced disdain.

Then he flew home to be faced with a bumptious Scottish demagogue telling him how this country will be split and its northern third governed from 2014 onwards.

I have no idea whether the Eton Boating Song really is part of the college tradition, but Compo should surely remember the words: “We’ll all swing together...” Yes and I fear he will at the next election if he doesn’t stop kow towing and fawning to unelected foreign fat cats instead of governing this once-proud country the way the people want it governed - with sovereignty and pride.

For God’s sake Compo, instead of bending your knee to this riffraff, just govern Britain for the British and challenge the Europeans to do their worst.

Simply refuse to obey them and see what happens. My bet is that it will quickly blow over because they are all facing economic collapse anyway. So are we in Britain, but we would not be if we did not voluntarily cripple ourselves with the millstone of EU bureaucracy. And to please whom, exactly? The same unelected placemen who have just treated the British prime minister like dirt.

There has to be a moral there somewhere – doesn’t there?

We learned this weekend that the Queen only likes 'plain' cooking as a subtle hint to us all, because the nation has been asked to come up with a new recipe to mark the diamond jubilee.

Have the palace phoned Ed Balls, I wonder?

As part of his complete image rebrand, transforming himself from Gordon Brown's brutal bully boy to a weeping fan of the Antiques Roadshow and sensitive chap, the Ballsy Boy has let it be known that he cooks a mean lasagne.

I wonder if this amazing new persona of his was inspired by that house-husband of Denmark's female Prime Minister in the TV drama Borgen, who is always demanding sex and serving up meatballs?
As Yvette Cooper is touted as the next Opposition leader, Labour's pushy pair have been hosting a series of networking dinners at their London home, and it would seem that Ed himself has been doing the cooking.

Some of his other ‘specialities’ he tells us with vacuous humility, include a good 'stiff sponge' and slow cooked shoulder of pork.

I don’t know about you, but Lasagne always leaves me feeling bloated and full of wind - who does that remind you of?

 

 

Though most businesses in this country are facing tough times, I suspect I know one that is booming - the Emigrate Show, which kicks off in London and Glasgow over the next couple of weeks and helps folk find jobs in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

I clicked onto emigrateshow.co.uk and had to laugh at the selling line: ‘Are you fed up with the increasing chav culture, obsession with celebrities and loutish behaviour? Do you want to wave goodbye to our politicians, footballers, their wives and petty crime?’

On that basis, this country will be deserted by the end of February.

Would you believe that the PBT – that means you and I - is forking out a cool £9 per view of a Department of Health video aimed at encouraging healthy eating and starring TV chef Ainsley Harriott. That I am told is the same price as a cinema ticket.

The department of health's New Year supermeals campaign, which involves cookbooks, videos and recipe packs cost the public £329,000 - including £22,000 spent on producing youtube videos starring Harriott and hosted on the Change4Life website which have currently been viewed just over 2,000 times, despite being online since 3 January.

As part of the health meals move, 100,000 cookbooks with ideas for cheap and healthy meals will be distributed through the Daily Mirror and to what the department of health describe as ‘Change4Life supporters.’ Four million recipe packs, aimed at encouraging healthy meal ideas, have also been printed at a cost of £213,000.

When will these fatuous people stop trying to nanny us all – at our expense!

I have watched developments in the Solomon Mujuru inquest taking place in Harare with great interest. It now seems that two firearms, including an AK47 were found beside the body, despite there being a well stocked gun safe elsewhere in the house. The fire itself was obviously deliberately started according to fire experts and the fire engine that attended the scene had to drive the 60 kns from the city without any water because the tanks leaked.
Mujuru’s police ‘bodyguard’ also face disciplinary action for sleeping on the job and panicking when the fire started.

For an assassination – which it undoubtedly was – it might have achieved its aim, but oh boy, was it ham fisted!

Still in Zimbabwe, the branding of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as ‘a Western stooge’ by the new Zambian President Michael Sata has caused a certain amount of consternation in the ranks of the MDC.

Political aides to MT reacted with fury to Sata’s disparaging remarks about the MDC leader, in his interview with the Daily Telegraph. In the interview published by the paper on Tuesday, Sata, known as ‘King Cobra’ for his sharp tongue, indicated that he would not block Robert Mugabe’s push to abandon the unity government.

In the same article, the 74 year-old Sata made comments likely to have irked pro-democracy movements in Zimbabwe. He first dismissed Tsvangirai as a ‘stooge’, and described calls for security, electoral and constitutional reforms in Zimbabwe as ‘unnecessary.’

In that, I  believe he was wrong, although neither electoral or constitutional reforms are likely to topple the Zanu PF government, but in his comments on Morgan T, I am afraid I heartily agree. The hopes of a nation that originally rested on Morgan’s shoulders, have been shamefully betrayed I’m afraid.

Here, I find it a little weird that whenever one sees a picture of The Clegglet, he has a cup of tea in his hand. Is he trying to show that he is really just an ordinary fellow I wonder? I can remember when I was first taken on by my late agent, Frances Bond and she told me that if I was having my photograph taken, I should always have some sort of gimmick by which I could be recognised. To my mind, that meant having a glass in my hand and being a booziest, I have managed to stick to that over the years, but jeepers, a cup of tea?

Mind you, I suppose it reflects the fluttering charisma of the Deputy Prime Minister!

In the light of the Costa Concordia ship disaster, I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said when asked why he had chosen an Italian boat for his latest cruise. He said he had three reasons:

1. The cuisine is unsurpassed.

2. Their service is superb.

3. They don’t believe in all that women and children first nonsense

Says it all really!

Would you listen to the man? The day after the publication of Britain’s negative growth figures, Compo Cameron lectured the world from Davos about improving the global economy. Was this meant to be a deliberate exercise in irony, I wonder? He needs to lecture his own Chancellor about the urgency of providing a stimulus for demand, which means cutting taxes - and cutting them for everyone, not just the low-income voters that Cleggy wants to suck up to.

I confess to being a little disturbed by a judge’s decision this week to jail a juror for six months for contempt, after she searched the internet for information about the defendant in her case. Her mistake was admitting the fact - I bet other jurors do the same all the time. Such behaviour cannot be policed, and the internet cannot be policed.
Judges want to keep doing things the ways they have always done, but the easy availability of (sometimes wrong) information threatens that cosy attitude and I fear that new rules have to be drawn up. The internet is a marvellous invention, but it has changed the way society works and it cannot be uninvented.

Richard Branson is the latest ‘celebrity’ to call for the legalisation of drugs on the grounds that we have lost the war against them. Unfortunately, like so many other big deals, he lives in his own rarefied social circle and doesn’t understand the raw damage that drugs do to everyone – not merely the drug takers. Besides, we have lost the wars, against careless motorists who kill people, burglars, muggers and young gang members who fight each other with weapons of their choice. Should they all be legalised too?

I fear we should leave the estimable Mr Branson to dabble happily in his own world, where he freely admits to having used cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy and leave the cops to carry on the fight against drugs – for the sake of the rest of us.

I am off to Weston Super Mud today in order to enjoy a liquid weekend – told you I was a boozist – with former police colleagues and friends. It is in the nature of a last farewell before I head off for the Zambezi – 61 days to go – so I will enjoy myself, but I won’t be ranting tomorrow.

I should be back on Monday though.

 

 

I had never heard of Angus Buchan till yesterday, but it seems that his activities have inflamed some of South Africa’s leaders, because they are deemed to be racist. Buchan was originally a Zambian maize and cattle farmer of Scottish descent who was forced to sell everything and move to Greytown in KwaZulu-Natal in 1978 due to political unrest in Zambia.

In 1980 he started the Shalom Ministries to preach in his local community. Over time he has become a full time evangelist while the farm is now being run mostly by both his sons. In 1998 Angus wrote a book about his life called Faith Like Potatoes. The book was turned into a film of the same title in 2006, so Angus did pretty well out of it all. He also presents a 30 minute religious show, Grassroots on e-tv, at 8:00am mostly filmed from his own farm.

As if that routine wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Buchan is also a full time evangelist going around South Africa and the rest of the continent and drawing very large crowds of up to 400 000 at a time.

But in a new initiative to advance racial integration in South Africa, the ANC government has proposed a bill to Parliament which states that all Angus Buchan's ‘Mighty Men’ conferences must be representative of the population of South Africa.

The proposal includes legislation that will force the organisers of these conferences to first sell 70% of all tickets to black Africans, before any tickets may be sold to whites or what are loosely deemed, ‘settlers.’

Mrs Beauty Kumalo, who is the Chairperson of Africans for Jesus, has commended the initiative by the ANC government. "For too long,” she burbled happily. “Real South Africans (blacks) have been excluded from having the same privileges as the whites in serving our Lord Jesus Christ from Nazareth - now relocated to heaven. Apartheid has given the white man better churches, Bibles and theologians which gives them an unfair advantage of reaching heaven. We require equal rights for all Christians. We are tired of the racist white man trying to keep us out of heaven."

I have always said that racism is an integral part of Mankind’s makeup and all the legislation in the world won’t change that. But it works both ways and should be dealt with accordingly. South Africa is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, but it will take many centuries before completely illogical attitudes, such as Beauty Khumalo’s are eradicated. The Rainbow Nation it is not, I'm afraid.

Here, train staff on the Docklands Light Railway have secured a bonus of up to £2,500 for working during the Olympics. The deal - for more than 550 staff including train ‘captains’ - is the best for the Games so far and paves the way for thousands of Tube workers to secure bumper bonuses.

RMT union chief, Bob Crow yesterday boasted that the DLR package was a ‘truly groundbreaking deal’ which raised the bar in the industry. Of course it is and it leaves the way open for more grasping workers to blackmail the Olympic authorities and the Poor Bloody Taxpayer into forking out ever larger sums of money.

The agreement created astonishment among other train operators yet to finalise Olympic bonus payments. Transport for London has proposed a £100 bonus for Tube workers but is expected to announce an improved offer in the next few days.

The DLR, which carries 260,000 people a day, will play a crucial role in the Olympics with direct links between events at Stratford and Greenwich transporting more than two million extra passengers.

The deal will cover the nine weeks of the Games and Paralympics. It is made up of a £100 ‘attendance bonus’ for each of the nine weeks and a guaranteed minimum overtime payment of five hours a week - 45 hours in total - paid at time and three-quarters.

The fully automated DLR does not use conventional drivers but each train has a ‘captain,’ earning a basic salary in excess of £36,000. Their guaranteed overtime for the nine weeks will total £1,132. Other staff who are more highly paid will earn up to £1,600.

I find it all extremely distasteful, particularly when I hear the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire (the county in which I live) solemnly assuring us that policing in the county is ‘on the edge of a cliff’ and that beat bobbies are set to disappear from our streets if any further cuts are made.

It seems that with one hand, this inept government are taking money away from all our services and making life increasingly difficult, while with the other, they are pouring money into the ruddy Olympics.

Not only is that terribly hard on the average person, but it is – or should be deemed so – blatantly dishonest. This country cannot be in such a desperate financial state as is continually claimed if they can afford to keep subsidising the People’s Games that isn’t.

For the past couple of years, my morning programme has invariably meant hauling myself out of bed at fiveish, making tea, then repairing to my office to trawl through newspapers and press agencies for anything that raises my blood pressure. Invariably, it comes down to a choice between ever more colourful and annoying stories, but this morning I am totally amazed to report that the news in general was totally bland.

Of course, there are the usual stories that seem to appeal in this celebrity-obsessed culture, but as I know few of the names involved, I always pass those by. Who on earth wants to know that Amanda someone-or-the-other nearly died when giving birth? I certainly don't.

On the other hand, The Clegglet is whittering on about lowering taxes, but then the poor lad is so unpopular, he must be desperate to make a few friends, even though he is unlikely to do it this way. Compo apparently had his nose put out of joint when Mick Jagger pulled out of a joint appearance with him at the Davos Forum, although what the crinkly Jagger might have contributed to such a distinguished gathering is somewhat unclear. I don't know what it is about modern politicians, but they seem intent on proving themselves 'trendy' by cozying up to pop stars, although perhaps it is a measure of Compo's personality that the only one he can find to consort with - albeit briefly - is a star who is very much of yesteryear.

Apart from such interesting snippets, the news pages are virtually empty, so I am not going to rant at all today. Mind you, I must tell you what happened to me yesterday. I was out on my morning walk, the world was still very dark and I had my pack firmly on my back and two small dogs at either end of a rope lead. As we wandered - well, the dogs wandered, I staggered - along a farm lane, the lights of a car came towards us. Switching on my little torch to make myself visible, I hauled the dogs into the verge and flattened myself against a hedge. The car - it was a farm truck - went by, I stepped out again and a root, bramble or fallen branch tugged at my ankle.

Normally, that would have meant a brief stumble before resuming my walk, but with 25 kilograms of books, bricks and water on my back, I was driven floorward and came into violent contact with unyielding tarmac. It hurt and quite apart from the pain and embarrassment of finding myself on all fours in the middle of the road - thank the Nkosi Pezulu it was dark - I was faced with the problem of getting back on to my feet.

The dogs watched my struggles with interest, but eventually I resumed my walk, albeit without any great enthusiasm. This morning though, I feel as though I have been hit by that very same farm truck that caused the initial problem. I shall walk as usual, both first thing and later in the day, but I fear I won't be carrying my pack today.

I think I am probably too old for all this physical exertion, but it has to be done if I am even to survive my Zambezi Trek and I leave for that exactly nine weeks from today. Jeepers - that is not long, so I had better leave this aimless whittering and get on with my walk, aches and pains or no aches and pains.

I don't only 'think I am too old,' I am too ruddy old damnit!

How nice it would be to begin my day with a selection of encouraging and warm-hearted articles in the newspapers. Instead of which, it is an unvarying diet of doom and gloom. Was it always thus I wonder? Did the ancient Romans and the Visigoths – whoever they might have been – shudder at the state of their modern world over their morning vine leaves? Who knows, but life here in Britain would certainly seem to be getting worse.

Not merely in Britain I suppose. Europe is becoming ever more of a basket case, but nobody seems willing to do anything about it.  The financial gurus are again warning that ‘time is running out for Greece,’ but they have been telling us that for months and months? It's like a dying man constantly being given intravenous shots of adrenaline (meaning our money).

He gets up, wanders round the sickbay for a while and collapses again. Then the white coats all go: "Ooh, time is running out. We need more adrenaline."

Of course we don’t. More money will simply keep the sick charade going for a few more weeks.

Meanwhile the three huge credit-rating agencies, all American and concerned only with facts and odds, are stripping away the credit ratings right across Europe like rotten wallpaper. Only those outside the euro are looking halfway healthy, even gigantic Germany is beginning to reel.

And here's the weird bit.

Everyone knows that the three corpses - Greece, Portugal, Ireland - should quietly slip out of the club and be given the chance at least of a gentle recovery. But that would mean admitting error, which these vanity-bloated buffoons at the top end of the EU simply cannot do, no matter how many have to suffer.

If they have anything about them at all, Compo Cameron and the Boy George have just got to stand firm and tolerate the screams of rage emanating from Britain’s European partners.
Not a penny more of British money must go to the euro project, not via Frankfurt, or New York. We poor saps here in Mud Island are going to need every penny we have got, merely to survive the years ahead.

And, as we occasionally see a two-page display of all the soldiers lost in Afghanistan, could we not also have a reminder of the top 200 pompous clever dicks who advised us to abolish the pound and adopt the euro? And who smeared everyone who disagreed and stuck up for sterling? And who are now keeping as quiet as the odd Trappist monk on the subject in case anyone remembers their blandishments? I'd love to have Heseltine, Brittan, Clarke, Hurd, Howe, Kinnock, Mandelson, Blair and the rest on my office wall.

 I need the darts practice.

Talking about the military, while a huge wodge of fighting men and women are about to be made redundant, it seems that the desk jockeys in the M o D are unlikely to lose many of their jobs. That I’m afraid is fairly typical, as it is the desk jockeys who decide the chopping order.

Mind you, those very same paper shuffling desk jockeys have been criticised by MPs for losing £5.2billion worth of equipment – yes, that really is well in excess of FIVE ruddy BILLION!

Weapons and £125million of battlefield radios were among the items that went missing, raising fears they could have fallen into the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The report by the Commons defence committee says it is 'concerning' that nearly 4,100 state-of-the-art Bowman digital communications systems, introduced in 2007 could not be found. Hell, it is more than ‘concerning,’ it is a ruddy disgrace!

MPs are also worried about soaring levels of theft and fraud in the MoD. Equipment worth £1.9million was stolen last year – including £50,000 helicopter blades (I wonder what the thieves did with them?) and night vision goggles worth £45,000 – compared with £376,000 worth in 2006-07.

The number of thefts rose from 167 in 2006-07 to 433 last year. Fraud more than doubled from 254 cases to 592.

Ursula Brennan, the MoD's top civil servant, said that they were focused on guarding weapons and other dangerous equipment.

Not very well, it would seem!

At a more junior level, wasteful council chiefs  have squandered nearly £20,000 of PBT money on theatre for young offenders. Theatre, I ask you – the little perishers should be locked up, not entertained at our expense.
Town hall bosses also spent £1,152 on ‘trampolining activities,’ while another council splashed out £3,506 hiring a solar-powered Mercedes.

Another blew £27,000 on consultants to advise them how to save money and officials also spent PBT cash on circus workshops for under-fives. Is that not completely barmy?

Councils across the North-west disclosed spending for the first six months of the 2011 financial year in line with orders from Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles to account for all payments over £500.

Stockport Council paid £19,500 on ‘theatre activities’ for offenders and anti-social teenagers plus the trampolining. Manchester Council – which hired the Mercedes – also spent £1,600 on the circus workshops and £10,000 encouraging people to play water polo.

Robert Oxley, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Despite the need for savings, too many councils are still being frivolous with taxpayers’ money.”

Tameside Council, which paid for the consultancy firm Ad Esse to help save money, claims it led to savings of more than £500,000.

Of course it did! I am glad my hard earned council tax doesn’t go to them. Mind you, God only knows what wasteful practices Stroud District Council get up to. The greed and foolishness of modern civil servants would seem to know no bounds. Come back common sense – all is forgiven.

The Peoples’ Games have struck again. Babies will be banned from this year's Olympic Games unless they have their own ticket - even if they were not conceived when their parents bought seats.

The 2012 organisers have said every child, including small babies carried in their parents' arms, must have their own ticket or they will be excluded from the Games. The issue has understandably provoked considerable fury on the Mumsnet website in the last few weeks, with parents saying they are being forced to pay full price for babies not yet born.

Some are doubting whether extra tickets will be available for the popular events they are attending and one woman described it as the ‘biggest rip-off in the history of London’ while others wondered what to do with babies they will be breastfeeding.

Another said: "The whole thing is ridiculous, there are people who bought tickets before their babies were even conceived - how are they supposed to know to buy a ticket for a child that doesn't exist yet?

‘There should be more complaining about this policy. It's nuts."

No Ma’am, it is just plain greedy.

A press spokesman admitted the Olympics helpline had received calls from pregnant women and expectant fathers whose babies will just be a few weeks old when the Games commence.

They have been told they can try and buy an extra ticket for their chosen event, otherwise the infant will be prevented from entering the venue.

I fear that if he wants to earn his huge salary, that noble poltroon Sebastian Coe must take a hand and stop the blatant profiteering that is taking place throughout the Olympics set up. If he doesn’t, this will end up as being one of the worst Games in living memory.

Mind you, I will miss it all, thank God! The perils of the Zambezi seem infinitely less dangerous than the perils of the 2012 London Olympics.

 

Somehow I don’t think I was designed for the twenty first century. In truth, it is all proving bad for my blood pressure. Would you believe that a new row over taxpayer-funded union officials broke out yesterday, as a cash-strapped London council admitted paying more than £300,000 to a National Union of Teachers official, Julie Davies, who is involved in campaigning against the Government's school reforms and has not taught since 2000 when she became a five-days-a-week representative of the NUT.

She doesn’t teach but she gets paid for teaching! Haringey council continues to pay her between £35,000 and £45,000 as an English teacher at Northumberland Park Community School. She is among hundreds of public sector staff across Britain paid from the tax purse to carry out union activities under local agreements.

What sort of nonsense is this? No wonder the unions are strong enough to put a jug eared, adenoidal dope into power as leader of the Labour Party.

Last year, Haringey ordered £84 million cuts out of a budget of £273 million, shedding 1,000 jobs. It has the worst primary school results in inner London, with English and maths scores sliding recently. How then can they afford to keep the Davies woman on their books and pay her for twelve years while she isn’t working?
It truly beggars belief!

Isn’t it amazing how lives in the modern world seem ruled by what happens on the idiot box? We now have hundreds of horrified parents complaining about a Coronation Street episode which showed a 10 year-old girl being smacked across the back of her legs.

The controversial scene showed builder Owen Armstrong slapping his girlfriend's 10-year-old adopted daughter Faye and viewers have apparently written in en masse, accusing the programme of going too far.

Angry fans even took to Twitter and internet forums to voice their outrage. Many have also complained to ITV and media regulator Ofcom about Monday night's episode. One forum user said: "He was really laying into her, or that was the writers' intent."

One fan tweeted: "Very uncomfortable. Wrong on so many levels."

Another added: "Don't think it should have been shown. Not necessary in this life today. No need for it."

Come on people – it was a scripted television programme for God’s sake! That little girl was even paid - and paid well - for that smack.

This has been a particularly gentle winter here, but I often wonder about the ‘homeless’ when the weather is particularly severe. I have been cold at times and I picture them shivering beneath their cardboard blankets and waiting with knocking knees for daylight and the possibility of warmth.

But it seems I have it all wrong. You don’t actually have to be without a home to be judged homeless in this country. In legislation, homelessness can mean that you are eligible to be housed by the Government and that can be for a number of reasons, one of which is overcrowding. If accommodation is so overcrowded that there is no practical alternative to a boy and girl older than 10 having to share a bedroom, their home may be statutorily overcrowded and so they become ‘homeless.’

Nonsensical isn’t it, but it then becomes a local authority problem – and a huge boost to the homeless figures. And we all know how local authority bleeding hearts think. That is certainly the last time I buy The Big Issue or feel sad at heart when I listen to or watch adverts, begging me to ‘help the homeless.’

The England football captain John Terry appears in court next month charged with racially abusing fellow professional Anton Ferdinand. The case is said to rely on video footage taken from the game.

On Sunday, millions of Sky viewers saw Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli stamp deliberately on the head of Tottenham’s Scott Parker. Although the referee took no action, Balotelli will face sanction from the FA. But there appears to be no question of criminal charges.

I don’t particularly like Terry and certainly don’t approve of the constabulary getting involved in what happens on a football pitch, but surely an unprovoked assault, which could have caused brain damage is at least as serious and worthy of police attention as an allegation of racism.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d rather be abused verbally, however viciously, than kicked in the head.

My heart sinks at the news that the Government is passing on responsibility for public health to local authorities. Councils are being given £5 billion a year to combat obesity, binge-drinking and smoking. Where is the money coming from I wonder?

The last thing we need is for Town Halls to be given new powers to nag and nanny us. They can’t even perform the simple tasks we pay them for already. This will become yet another job creation scheme, hiring thousands of useless, interfering bureaucrats to dream up fatuous campaigns and enforcement strategies.

We’ve got a standing army of five-a-day outreachers and smoking cessation co-ordinators, even though it’s none of their damn business what we drink, eat or smoke.

Councils will also be charged with promoting breast-feeding. Why? What’s it got to do with them? This news appeared yesterday alongside an announcement that the National Childbirth Trust has decided to stop telling mothers to breast-feed because it’s considered ‘too posh.’

The inmates are definitely ruling the asylum I’m afraid. It is still early in the morning, but I reckon I need a puff on my pipe, just to bring my blood pressure down - and to hell with the Council health police!

Talking about the cops, at the age of 73, when most people have put their feet up, Fat John Prescott has announced that he wants to be the elected police commissioner of Humberside. God help the people who live there.

Who does this buffoon think he is I wonder. He has no law enforcement experience, unless of course, we count a handful of speeding tickets and smacking that bloke in the mouth on the election trail, but Fat John, who now sits in the House of Lords clearly thinks he has something left to offer.

What would he bring to the role I wonder – a bit of that canteen culture, the do gooders so often whitter on about? Fat John definitely knows all about canteen culture. No one finds their way round a canteen better than the former Deputy PM, plate piled high with chips, and I suppose there is a touch of the Gene Hunt about him, especially in the way he treats women.

He’d love zooming round the manor too in the commissioner’s souped-up, armour-plated XJ.

Whether he’d pass the police physical exam is another matter, though. If they ever made a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Commissioner Two Jags, they’d have to call it Life On Mars Bars.

The trouble is that with the state of the Establishment as it is, Fat John will probably get the job. As I said, God help the people of Humberside.

With nine and a half weeks to go – I am already counting – to the start of my Zambezi Trek, I am starting to feel very old and frail. My pack now weighs 20 kilograms and that hurts, particularly when walking up hills. Today is also the day marked down to add a further five minutes to my rowing machine schedule, so that means more aches and pains tomorrow.

Oh well, it has to be worth it I suppose. I well remember my Binga walk, when I trained for months with but a day pack and when I finally hoisted my big pack prior to starting out, I could almost feel my legs buckle. It took me a good three weeks of pain to acclimatise on that walk, so this time I am going to endure that pain well before starting out.

Sometimes I wonder if I really am losing my marbles.

Mind you, talking about craziness, when Sasha Laxton was born five years ago, his parents decided they wanted to avoid classifying him as either a boy or a girl. They felt that to do so was a kind of ‘sexual stereo-typing’ which had to be avoided at all costs.

So instead of referring to their son as a boy, they talked about him as the ‘infant,’ and kept his gender secret from all but a few close friends and family until he started school.

So proud were they of what they were doing that they even posted on YouTube a video of Sasha saying it was ‘silly’ to talk of differences between boys and girls, and sent friends pictures of him dressed as a pink and glittery fairy.

Can you imagine such idiocy in the twenty first century? The parents ought to have been locked up. Doubtless they love their son and want to do only the best for him. But really, it is hard to believe that people can be quite so desperately misguided, not to say completely barmy.

I mean, it is one thing for parents to encourage their sons to be a bit more gentle and caring, and their daughters to be a bit more adventurous and mechanically minded, but to believe that the innate difference between a boy and a girl is something that is ‘shaped’ by other people and slots a child ‘into a damaging box’ labelled gender is frankly, to appear a few bananas short of a fruit salad.

For Sasha is a boy damnit and there are differences between boys and girls, males and females. Would these parents similarly feel that they are being slotted into a damaging box if they are referred to as Sasha’s father and mother? Perhaps they would reject as ‘sexual stereotyping’ any suggestion that they are themselves a man and a woman?

The scary part of it all is that Sasha’s parents are by no means a one-off aberration in this silly modern world. Last year, a Canadian couple insisted they would also raise their baby, Storm, as a gender-neutral child. In certain batty but influential circles, this is becoming a fashion.

The fact is that for more than three decades, Left-wing ideologues have been determinedly unravelling sexual and gender differences - on the grounds that the very idea that people are different amounts to a kind of prejudice.
Bizarre as it may seem, what started as a campaign for equal rights has progressed into a movement to abolish altogether the differences between men and women. This movement consisted of an alliance between, on the one hand, radical feminists who were consumed by hatred of men and, on the other, gay activists intent upon blurring the distinction between hetero-sexual and same-sex unions.

What arose from both was a push towards androgyny, based on the false belief that biology had little to do with gender differences - which were instead said to be artificially constructed by society. Denying the biological facts of life in this way is surely a form of lunacy. Indeed, scientists have shown there are many differences between male and female brains and in general, men and women clearly have different approaches to their environment, relationships, children and so on.

Nevertheless, promotion of androgyny has become a kind of default position among progressive thinkers, writers and politicians. It all started with the idea that men and women should have interchangeable roles both at home and in the work-place, and that fathers were no longer essential to the family unit.

The end result will be an increasing tide of misery I'm afraid. Human identity is formed by the union of male and female. Sexual and gender differences lie at the very heart of what it is to be a human being. Denying those differences to a child not only threatens that child’s own sense of identity and well-being, but also starts to unravel what it is to be a person.

Far from ushering in a better world, this threatens to stamp out the individual right to know what we are, and to rob us of humanity itself. Mr and Mrs Laxton – sorry Folks, but that is what you are – and all those of similar belief should be locked up on the grounds that they are a threat, not only to their son’s sanity but to public safety itself.

Princess Beatrice has joined the growing ranks of the unemployed. Since graduating from university last summer with a degree in the History of Ideas – what sort of academic subject is that I wonder - she has failed to get herself a full-time post.

Meanwhile, elocution lessons are making a comeback as desperate jobseekers try to improve their prospects. Tutors say that graduates want to soften their accents and improve their public speaking. In London, the jobs on offer are in bar work, hotels, restaurants and catering - perhaps Beatrice is just too posh and needs help to sound a bit less regal.

I wonder though if she gets a job, can we stop paying for her protection officers? If so, please someone give her something to do. Like her parents, who unlike the Laxtons, at least seem to acknowledge that they are or were man and wife, this young lady is a serious drain on Society and the Poor Bloody Taxpayer.

 

In the four days I have been playing out my Lord of the Manor act, little seems to have changed in the world. In Zimbabwe, everything is in a mess, with a Victoria Falls bookseller being arrested for selling copies of Tsvangirai’s memoirs and the inquest into Solomon Mujuru’s death being told that his ‘bodyguards’ ran like billy oh when they saw the fire start. Apparently, these buffoons ran to the farm compound three kilometres away in order to find out where Mujuru’s bedroom was.

I enjoyed my police service, even in the Zimbabwe Republic Police, but what on earth is happening to coppers, seemingly throughout the world?

Here, Jeremy Clarkson is in trouble again and it seems that Chris Huhne might – but it is only might and we have heard it before – be charged this week with conspiring to pervert the course of justice. He might even have his former spouse Vicky Pryce in the dock with him, so that could be fun to watch, but why on earth has it all taken so long. The case has dragged on for months and it seems that the authorities are somehow worried about charging this mountebank, just because he is a government minister and a domineering bully in his own right.

Meanwhile, the British political scene moves to a Swiss ski resort this week. Both Compo and the Milipede are appearing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, but they’ll be pushing very different messages.

Our revered leader – and I use the adjective advisedly - intends to bang the drum for trade. He’ll push for an extension of the European single market and wants to kick-start world-trade talks. For his part, Red Ed wants to take his critique of ‘irresponsible capitalism’ on to the global stage. I wonder how he will justify that with Brother David – he of the Prince Charles ears - milking the capitalist pot for all that it is worth at the moment? The man must be second only to Toothsome Tony when it comes to hauling in the shekels on account of the position he once held.

I reckon that we can expect excess at the top and bottom of society to continue to dominate debate for a while though. Labour seem determined to challenge Compo to use the Government’s stake in RBS to block Stephen Hester (another fat cat banker’s) bonus. They say that having called on shareholders to restrain executive pay, it would be hypocritical of him not to act, but then I would think the man is quite accustomed to being labeled in that way. He is s hypocrite in all sorts of fields damnit!

The Tories, meanwhile, are relishing a fight over the benefits cap. The policy, which would mean that a household with no one working could not receive more than £26,000 a year, goes before the House of Lords tomorrow night, and Labour plan to ally with cross-bench peers and rebel Liberal Democrats to defeat it.

But the Tories are adamant they won’t back down. ‘If Labour want a fight over whether it is fair to stop people who don’t work and aren’t disabled from receiving what someone who worked would have to earn £35,000 to make, then bring it on,’ was the battle cry spouted by one ministerial aide.

What tosh! It is an emotive issue among the general public, so the government know that they can enhance their own popularity by backing it. Very little thought will have gone into it and we can expect a great deal of rhetoric and histrionics over the next few days.

Oh how I love politics and the pratwinkles who espouse it.

I had good news yesterday though. My book Never Quite a Soldier is to be reprinted in South Africa and made into an ebook as well. Apart from Ivory Madness, NQAS has been far and away my most successful book and after Peter Stiff of Galago books had told me some months ago that he was not going to reprint, I was sad that the letters of appreciation would finally come to an end, but apparently he has had so many requests for the book that he has reconsidered.

Strange though, that despite hardly thinking about scribbling over the past few months, the news lifted my spirits to the skies. Perhaps I should forget about adventuring and concentrate on the one talent I have left.

No, I think adventuring compliments the scribbling and besides, it is fun – to look back on at any rate!

 

I am off to do my Lord of the Manor act today, so am unlikely to rant much – if at all - until Sunday. Sorry about that, but this is the one time I can get paid for really enjoying myself. Can’t be bad hey?

Would you believe that this government is actually ordering councils to scrap fines of up to £1,000 slapped on people who put out the ‘wrong’ kind of rubbish. Penalties for minor infractions of recycling rules will be limited to just £40.

Councils have tried to pretend that these ridiculous punishments were necessary to save the polar bears and prevent climate change, but that is merely sanctimonious cant. They were there to raise money and show off a bit of power. They also managed to encourage fly-tipping, but if councils can’t fine us for one thing, they’ll fine us for another, while continuing to cut back on essential services.

For instance, in Surrey, Samantha Hamilton and Colin Freeman spent their spare weekends getting rid of weeds, broken bottles, scrap metal and other assorted rubbish from an overgrown verge outside their home in Mytchett. You might have thought that was the job of the local authority, but the council hadn’t touched it for months.

Now the couple have been told that because the land belongs to the highways department they weren’t allowed to tend it at all and unless they pay £78 for a ‘retrospective licence,’ the verge will have to be restored to its original, untidy state.

And our revered leader still whitters on about the Big Society!

And what has happened to the old fashioned concept of service and the fact that the customer is always right – even when he is wrong? It seems to have all been forgotten I’m afraid. Take the case of Madeleine Pallas, who was asked to leave her local Tesco in Surrey because she had some mud on her boots. She was told by two burly security guards that this constituted a Health and Safety hazard for God’s sake!

Couldn’t they just have mopped up behind her, or offered her a cloth to clean her boots?

She was a customer and should have been treated with respect damnit.

Could it be that the worm is finally turning in Zimbabwe? Last week, a group of street vendors, those self-employed merchants who are to be found at almost every city street corner, hawking anything from sweets, vuka-vuka portions, imported bum-enhancing drugs, boiled maize cobs to pirated music CDs finally turned on the cops. The vendors decided that enough is enough and struck back, pelting police officers with stones and other handy missiles to exact revenge for years of torment and harassment.

It must have been lovely to watch as the Zimbabwe Republic Police have made life miserable for all street vendors over the years, but were forced to run for their lives as the vendors fought back.
 
Media reports said the clashes forced the closure of shops along the busy First Street Mall and Nelson Mandela Avenue while a police vehicle and a ZRP post had windows smashed by the stone-throwing vendors. Obviously taken aback by this unexpected rebellion by the hitherto docile traders, police moved-in, armed with teargas canisters and rifles, in a bid to round-up suspects, but this was after all had quietened down.

Predictably, in their attempt to explain away this alarming turn of events, fingers were pointed at the usual scapegoats – the MDC. “What we have gathered is that there are some political activists masquerading as vendors or vendors who are masquerading as political activists who have become so confrontational each time the police want to enforce the law, especially near Harvest House,” police spokesman, Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka burbled. For those who don't know, Harvest House is MDC Headquarters.

I was once proud to be a member of Zimbabwe’s finest, but over the years they have become a disgrace to their uniforms and when at a loss for someone to harass, have usually turned on the hapless vendors. So to my mind at least, this was poetic justice. I have spent hours chatting to street vendors over the years and most of them are single parents trying to eke an honest living through street vending and when police arrest them and confiscate their wares, never to be recovered, they are left desperate.

So let’s hope this little rebellion against authoritarianism is the start of something bigger. I am not normally an advocate of violent protest, but good for the street vendors of Harare.

Here, an unauthorised website is selling thousands of tickets for the London Olympics at hugely inflated prices, as millions of Britons are struggling to buy official ones. Euroteam is selling tickets for 42 events, including gymnastics and athletics.

Tickets for the opening ceremony are on sale for £4,000 each, while some for the closing ceremony are priced at £8,000 each. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has warned buyers to avoid these websites as they are reportedly selling fake and unauthorised tickets.

However Euroteam founder Atle Barlaup told the media that he is selling Visa sponsor tickets along with other tickets from ‘official sources.’ It seems that there are 8.8 million tickets available for the Olympics with eight per cent sold to sponsors or stakeholders, including the Government.

This means that around 700,000 sponsor tickets will be available, so it's not unlikely that some will end up on the black market. Olympic sources admit that they are aware that some tickets allocated to overseas countries are sold illegally.

Mr Barlaup, who is known in Norway as the king of the black market, said: "We have 500 suppliers around the world. For these big events we only work with people we trust 100 per cent, official organised Olympic committees. We also work with the official sources who are handing tickets, which are often national organising committees."

What a corrupt carve up it all is, but it's not just black market ticket touts who stand to profit from the London Olympics. Research conducted by Tessa Jowell no less has found that the cost of hotel rooms in London will quadruple during the 2012 Olympics.

The unlovely Ms Jowell who is the shadow Olympics secretary, researched 60 London hotels and found that, on average, prices will rise by 315 per cent during the games compared with late last month.

One hotel, the Belgravia Mews, was charging £63 for a double room on December 23. The website shows that this will rise to £890 on the night of August 3, once the games have begun.  This is surely profiteering at its worst.

The world is definitely going mad! A lady called Gwen Nicklen bought a £4 musical birthday card for her two-year-old grandson from a branch of Sainsbury’s in Bournemouth. It had a giant number ‘2’ on the front.
On the back though was a safety warning: ‘Not suitable for children under three years old.’

Says it all really.

 

I had a most enjoyable day yesterday. Not really wanting to go because it is a long drive, but feeling that I must do my duty, I poddled down to Herefordshire to visit with my junior Bratlets and their Mom. Number Two Brat is doing a stint in Ethiopia and I even had a chat with him over Skype – most weird to be talking face to face with someone who is five thousand miles away!

I have had little to do with my Junior Bratlets during their short lives because we have usually been on opposite sides of the world, so this was a chance for Gramps to have them to himself for a change. We built ant cities – without ants – had a huge lunch, went walking and then young Dougal first painted me black – figuratively speaking – before wiping the floow with me in computerised tennis. We Lemons are competitive types and Gillian’s side of the family are the same, so it was inevitable that the boy showed no respect for my venerable age and really rubbed it in when he won.

Still, it was a grand day and I came home with Number Two Brat’s backpack so that is another worry taken care of.

Back in the real world, it seems that ageism is rife in society. What a surprise! Apparently we are all enslaved to the cult of youth, and the assumption that younger and less wrinkly is somehow fundamentally better. New research reveals that one in three people have been victims of age discrimination. That's hardly going to come as big news to anyone, but what is odd is the news that this old age starts at 59. As one who is well past that age, I am not sure how to take that.

A study by the Department for Work and Pensions asked people when youth ended, and where old age began. The average age for the end of being young emerged as 41, while the average age at which we start being elderly is apparently 59.

Those under the age of 25 are more deeply ingrained in the culture of youth, and therefore think old age starts younger - at 54 and that people stop being young at the age of 32. Men think people are over the hill at a younger age than women do. I certainly don’t so where they get these figures from, I have no idea.

This all would seem to have a major impact on age discrimination. The report concluded that: ‘age-related stereotypes are rooted in British society.’ Older people are soon written off, with society thinking they are past it at 59. That's when they still have the best part of a decade left at work, and should expect to live another 20 years at least. The study revealed that one in seven people think that having a boss in their 70s is ‘completely unacceptable.’

How can that possibly be? Leaving aside Compo Cameron and his fresh-faced sidekicks,  Angela Merkel is knocking on the door of 60, Winston Churchill was leading the country through the Second World War when he turned 70 - and was re-elected prime minister as he edged towards 80, our current Justice Minister is in his 70s. Is this 'completely unacceptable?’

Meanwhile a survey by Saga found that 86% of people over the age of 50 don't feel old in the slightest - including 89% of people in their early 60s. We're still firing on all cylinders, and the idea of slowing down and taking a back seat seems ludicrous. I hate to say this but I shall be almost 70 when I complete my walk down the Zambezi.

Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister said it was time we had a rethink about age. He said: "People today are living longer, working longer and contributing more in their later lives. This is great news and it is important that our perceptions of age keep up with the reality of our increasing longevity."

However, Webb can say what he likes. Young people will pay no attention because he's over the age of 45 and heading well into 'old man' territory. While everyone we see on TV, in film or in the media is young, or having enough plastic surgery to make them look that way, we will still believe that younger people rule the world, and older people will still disappear into the woodwork.

Changing our perception means more than just Webb wagging his finger at us and tutting loudly. We need a positive effort on the part of all of us to recognise the people behind the ages, their skills and abilities as well as their age. Of course, things could be worse for older people... they could be young damnit. Older people don't corner the market on discrimination. Only one in 20 people were happy to live with a boss in their 30s, and those under the age of 25 were twice as likely as other age groups to say they had been a victim of age discrimination.

What a lot of nonsense it all is. You are as old or young as you are. Some deteriorate early, others keep on till the wheels fall off, but there is nothing any of us can do about it except go out and enjoy every minute.

The Ginger Biscuit and former Labour leader, Lord Kinnock has lashed out at ‘cowards’ within the party over criticism of the Milipede's performance. They would certainly seem to be in an uproar at the moment with Yvette Cooper installed as the bookies’ favourite to take over from Red Ed before the next election, but what does Ginger K know?

Red Ed himself has dismissed the negative comments about his leadership as ‘noises off,’ but The Biscuit solemnly warned the party's MPs and peers they could damage Labour's poll chances because ‘in politics, division carries the death penalty.’

He should know. I quite enjoyed the man when he was in politics, but he was a buffoon and must surely have led Labour to more defeats than any other leader. It doesn't say much for the current crop of Labour politicians that he is now regarded as some sort of sage.

I like Michael Gove and feel that he has a lot of good ideas, but I did wonder how long it would be before he gallantly proclaimed that he would make it easier to ‘sack bad teachers.’

Every Education Secretary in living memory is eventually reduced to saying this and every one of them has eventually conceded defeat to the Unions.

Nothing changes, and it won’t until they bring back grammar schools and a little bit of classroom discipline.

This has been the week for high speed rail and I don’t often use trains, but surely we need more low-speed rail - and lots of it

Mind you, the campaign against the new high-speed rail line through the Chilterns is seriously hypocritical. Railways don’t do nearly as much damage as motorways, and I can’t remember anyone fussing much about the hideous and totally irreparable scar made in the Chilterns by the M40, which is visible 20 miles away.

But that aside, if there's money to spare for building railways, surely what Britain needs is low and medium-speed lines that go where passengers want to go, not bullet trains between big cities. This soggy island is so small that a 125mph maximum is quite high enough.

The lunatic mistake of the Beeching cuts, which left dozens of medium-size towns without a station, needs to be reversed and perhaps above all, England needs a decent East-West link for both passengers and goods, which is efficient and reasonably affordable.

My rants are going to be intermittent and at odd times next week as I am looking after ‘my’ mansion in Sheepscombe for a few days. It is a blissful thought!

 

Well, it would seem that there might be a ‘big cat’ in Stroud after all. Many sightings of this creature have been reported over the years, but now a deer carcass has been discovered that looks as though it has been killed by something larger than a dog or fox.

I have never discounted the stories and at one stage, started a novel about a ‘big cat’ in Gloucestershire, but what worries me about all these sightings and discoveries – which have been reported from all over this country – is that nobody ever finds spoor.

Even the smallest of wild cats is a heavy creature and at the moment, the ground out there is very soft, so surely whatever killed the deer would have left footprints?

It is a good story though and might well do wonders for the tourist trade in Stroud.

They are meant to be the best days of all our lives, but according to a new Church- backed survey, more than half a million children in the UK are unhappy. The Children's Society questioned more than 30,000 youngsters between eight and 16 in the UK and one in 10 of the little darlings revealed they were far from content. Poor diddums!

The Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu says the discovery is ‘a wake-up call to us all,’ but he is talking drivel again. If you examine the statistics the picture is not that bleak. Leaving aside the thorny issue of what happiness actually is, one can only infer that nine out of 10 children polled are reasonably happy. Now that is pretty astonishing and a cause for national rejoicing.

Christianity is about spreading the good news of the gospel so I don't see why the archbishop can't be more positive. Modern children are certainly more cosseted than previous generations and have access to all the latest gadgets and designer clothes. Even my bratlets all seem to possess smartphones and ipads damnit, while more than 50 per cent of babies born in the past few years can expect to live to 100. I don't know why we should be feeling sorry for them.

I am far more concerned about the feral toddlers who run riot in this society. They are blissfully happy and make no compunction about bashing each other up in nursery schools or uprooting wild daffodils. Is that necessarily desirable? Perhaps not, but it is certainly natural and should be encouraged.

What is happiness, anyway? It is a very nebulous concept and a mental state of wellbeing which can disappear as soon as it arrives. Anyway, I would prefer to see children striving for fulfilment rather than giddy elation. And I would much rather know if they believed in the existence of God if they are to be subjected to these vacuous surveys.

By the same token, do these young children know what unhappiness is? Wait until they grow up and then they will really have something to complain about. No job prospects, eye-popping bankers' bonuses, rising house prices, and so on. You only get grumpier with old age. If youth is wasted on the young, so too is unhappiness. Teenagers have always been drama queens and they tend to blow everything out of proportion. The truth is they ain't seen nothing yet.

We are told that the Turkish courts have lodged charges against the Duchess of York for criminal invasion of privacy after she secretly filmed inside their state-run orphanages.

She’s not been in the headlines for months, so it is not impossible that the Duchess of Porkies might have encouraged the Turks to chase after her. Can’t you picture the headline - ‘My hell in a Turkish prison, a script for the remake of Midnight Express, starring Fergie,’ as told to Oprah Winfrey for a big fat fee.

And how ironic it is that a woman who has made a living out of invading her own privacy is now charged for infringing someone else’s. What a fatuously silly lass, the woman is.

Talking about criminal charges, it now seems that Vince Cable might be dragged into the Chris Huhne driving licence saga. Vicky Price, the odious Huhne’s former wife apparently told all to Cable as a family friend. In a tabloid today, the evidence against the Energy Secretary is laid out and appears overwhelming. Why on earth has nothing yet been done? If the same charges with the same evidence were levelled against anyone else, the case would have been dealt with a long time ago.

I confess to being puzzled as to why youth employment in Britain is so high when it’s quite clear there are plenty of jobs available, but few young people are willing to do them.

Take nursing, for example. We are in the ludicrous position of seeing the number of nurses being recruited from abroad rising by 40 per cent in the past year. Northampton General Hospital has just brought in 40 nurses from Portugal, Spain and Italy, while hospitals in Cambridge recently sent six senior staff to Madrid, where they hired 25 nurses during a recruitment drive. Why on earth aren’t our young bashing down the hospital doors to become nurses?

Why would they rather stay on benefits - or are they all just waiting to be ‘discovered’ on The X Factor?
I fear it is the system that is wrong. There would appear to be no incentive for British youth to get off their backsides and actually work.

 

 

All seems to be working with my computer this morning, so let’s talk about politicians – just for a change!

Personally, I am beginning to worry about Red Ed the Milipede. He seems to have such a posthumous air about him these days that it almost seems cruel to analyse his weaknesses as leader of the Labour Party, but this country does need a credible opposition..

Earlier in the week, Red Ed had a dismal interview on Radio 4’s Today programme and this was quickly followed by a vacuous and lacklustre speech that was supposed to be his and his leadership’s, ‘relaunch.’ It was all very uninspiring and I’m starting to think Red Ed is becoming the most dismal leader of a main party I have witnessed in what is a very long life – and I include a number of African boss men in that.

His chief spin doctor, Tom Baldwin, was reduced last week to telling Labour activists that their leader was not like Iain Duncan Smith. This was meant to boost Red Ed, but I reckon IDS ought to sue for libel, as to be compared with the Labour leader in any way was surely pretty insulting.

The Milipede is actually doing so badly at the moment that a poll last  Sunday had him behind The Clegglet in popularity with the public, which is a bit like coming second to North Korea’s new dictator Kim Jong-un – or even Comrade Bob himself.

As if the public mood was not bad enough, Red Ed has also been battered by attacks from Labour figures, who the party pretends are of no consequence, such as the political adviser Lord Glasman, and those who unquestionably are, such as Toothsome Tony Blair.

His abject failure to impress this week reminds us how bad it is for the country when the Leader of the Opposition is little more than an empty space, for the Coalition that runs this country requires serious scrutiny and challenging of a sort that only a proper Opposition can provide.

Yet when you think about it, The Milipede’s decline has been pretty sudden. Before Compo Cameron’s veto in Brussels, Labour had looked competent and businesslike. Admittedly, much of this was down to Red Ed keeping out of the way and leaving more able colleagues, such as Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna, to shine in the media spotlight.

Now, Labour MPs recall with dismay the joke made by the Prime Minister when the Labour leader tried to highlight Compo’s divisions with The Clegglet over Europe. When Compo retorted, ‘It’s not like we’re brothers or anything,’ it was as if you could hear something break.

Red Ed is notable only as a political fratricide. He is where he is, not because he is especially able - the past 15 months have shown he isn’t - but because the trades union movement put its arm round him in 2010 and told him they would, under Labour’s ridiculous leadership system, ensure his election at the expense of his brother David. He has little following in the party in the country. He has little, either, in the party in Parliament. Hardly any of his Shadow Cabinet made him their first preference as leader. And, as he showed this week, he has little vision, and no idea how to provide a decent Opposition.

The last government made a horrific mess of the economy, and the country knows it, yet the Milipede and his colleagues patronise the electorate and insult our intelligence by pretending the economic problems we face have been caused by the Coalition. I don’t like the Compo/Cleggy alliance, but that is nonsense and everyone knows it. Until the Labour leader acknowledges his party’s culpability - and his own part in it - he has precious little hope of being taken seriously

Surely it is time for a political coup?

Mind you, The Clegglet is not much better.  Before the last general election, he argued for an In/Out referendum on the European Union. Speaking with a passion that can now be seen as entirely synthetic he raged that: “We’ve been signed up to Europe by default - two generations who have never had their say.”

But earlier this week the very same Clegglet displayed no appetite for democracy and instead spent his time insisting that new EU plans judged a threat to British interests by Compo could be implemented by being ‘folded into’ existing EU treaties. What sort of verbal twaddle is that?

He also backed yet more British taxpayers’ money going, via the IMF, into shoring up his beloved eurozone – and all without any referendum at all. Now he is safely ensconced as deputy PM with all the perks, Cleggy is happy to reveal his real opinions. This is, after all, a man who believes Britain would be a ‘pygmy’ on the world stage without his friends in Brussels.

But given that his party only commands a third of the support it did at the last election he is in acute danger of over-reaching himself. It is surely time Compo Cameron called his bluff. The Clegglet should be told to stand aside on European policy or see his ideas tested at a snap election.

That ought to shut him up once and for all.

It would seem that national views on the new film about Lady Thatcher are sharply divided.

There can be no doubt that she transformed British politics through her own conviction and that had to be good. She believed that the world owed nobody a living and that it was up to each and every one of us to make the best of our lives.

As I have said before in my rants, she was not my favourite politician, but she translated her belief in good housekeeping into a radical policy that turned Britain’s failing economy round, and never wavered in her commitment to public duty.

By contrast, most politicians today seem to care only about public image. This nonsense began with that master of spin, Toothsome Tony Blair - who craftily used the ladies to bolster his own image. In the event, he may have stuffed his benches with ‘Blair’s Babes,’ but did little for the cause of female politicians.

Today, it’s a struggle to remember more than a few of the 101 women Labour MPs who were swept to power with him in 1997. Many were the product of women-only shortlists and positive discrimination, lured by the prospect of power and publicity.

So, where are Maggie Thatcher’s successors I wonder? Of those 101 Blair’s Babes, three-quarters have lost their seats or stood down. None had a fraction of her drive or desire to change the world.

As for the women in Parliament today, most of us would struggle to name more than a handful. The most senior woman in the Conservative Party is Home Secretary Theresa May, who seems fairly competent but is far from inspirational. Then there is Louise Mensch, whose most notable feature is her penchant for publicity.

Ann Widdecombe was a contender who somehow failed to rise to the heights, and while I don’t begrudge her, her retirement fun on Strictly Come Dancing, the fact remains that by donning a sparkly dress and clodhopping about the stage she has added greatly to the gaiety of the nation but made it harder for female politicians to be taken seriously.

Today, after years of complacency, Britain once more faces economic failure - this time, thanks to bankers and the EU. Will a female politician to rival Mrs Thatcher emerge from these years of austerity?

I very much doubt it - a mark not only of her ambition and competence, but of this nation’s political impoverishment.

For me, the most apt sentence uttered throughout the Thatcher film was the following: ‘Politics used to be about trying to do something; now it’s about trying to be someone.’

She certainly had that right. For that statement alone, I might even force myself to see the film.

 

No, I haven't turned my toes up or stepped off the edge of the planet - I merely have computer problems, which for some obscure reason won't allow me to trawl the media outlets first thing in the morning. I might be paranoid, but I blame the anti virus application Macafee that I have on this machine. They seem to install 'updates,' which result in a complete go slow, at least once a day and sometimes more often, usually labouring the point at 5.15 in the morning when I start working on my rant.

I will sort it out though and in the meantime, remind you all that I have exactly eleven weeks before I fly out of here and into the next adventure - this time, walking the length of the Zambezi. It is a daunting prospect, but my luck seems to have changed of late and with lots of help from Andy Taylor from Cowbell and my literary agent, Jean Gaiser of the Bond Agency, I am feeling considerably happier about it all. Little donations are also trickling in and I smiled somewhat wryly when I read Ed Stafford's book about walking the Amazon.

Not only was Stafford inundated with up to date, technological equipment - to the extent that his pack was too heavy - but he also managed to go through £48 000 in sponsorship cash. How the other half lives! I fear that my little expedition will be simpler and easier to manage. The physical effort will be much the same, particularly in view of our age difference, but in my initial calculations, I reckoned that I needed £3500 to make the trek viable and I still don't think it will come to more than that - including air fares, visas etcetera.

We shall see, but in the meantime I count the days before departure - 77 to go. Perhaps I will be back to my usual ranting tomorrow.

Don’t these politicians ever learn from experience? Now we have them sabre rattling and threatening to ‘use force’ against Iran. The government claimed last weekend that  tougher sanctions would ‘hasten Iran's economic collapse and deepen rifts within the regime, in the hope that saner voices will deem the price of pursuing nuclear weapons too high.’ This is just the same old nonsensical theory that totalitarian states react to economic pressure as democracies might. Sanctions do not initiate such a process. They just build walls. Meanwhile we are enraging Iran's scientific community by apparently condoning secret assassination as a way of impeding its nuclear programme.

The idea that any nation becomes more malleable when threatened from outside is absurd. A reasonable observer could assume that every utterance from Washington and London at present is scripted to bolster the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his very insecure throne. The west's threats must exhilarate the young bloods of the Revolutionary Guard and depress the opposition. They may be supported by Iranians abroad, but the diaspora is seldom a reliable guide to politics in the home country.

Economic sanctions are coward's diplomacy and just do not work. They purport to the high moral stance but are merely a low-risk way of bullying the world. The danger is that they encourage militarist lobbies to escalate the steps that lead to open conflict.

Those of us who argue against unnecessary war are routinely asked for an alternative, but taught since 1939 that Britain must be seen to do something, the British are programmed to meddle. There have been occasions in the last 50 years when it has been right to declare hostilities against other nations - the Falklands, Kosovo and perhaps – but only perhaps - the first Iraq war. But usually the answer to what to do about foreign regimes of which we disapprove is, quite simply, to do nothing.

For the most part, other nations' business is not Britain’s. In the last 25 years this country has mostly been useless at putting the world to rights - it has struggled to wrap itself in the tattered flag of empire, at vast expense but to little effect. It would have been far better to maintain good relations with other states in the hope of assisting causes we profess to hold dear. As for rattling a sabre whenever Washington says so, that is the most humiliating idiocy.

But if Mr Hammond, the Defence Secretary has his way, British forces will soon be limbering themselves up for yet another futile war.

What woman would object if a national newspaper columnist said they looked 15 years younger than their age and possessed a ‘smooth face,’ ‘clear complexion’ and a ‘lithe’ body? Sounds pretty complimentary to me, but then I am a mere man.

It seems that if one is backbench MP Louise Mensch and the columnist in question is Sarah Vine, wife of Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove, such might cause considerable indignation.

I am told that the worthy Ms Mensch hit the roof after Vine, in a column headlined ‘Are you a Jordan or a Mensch,’ called her ‘pure Made in Chelsea’ and remarked on her ‘pert but modest-sized breasts.

According to Vine, there are now three types of women in the world. The MP, the glamour model, or women like herself. Pretty sweeping I suppose, but Ms Mensch – bless her – was so offended  that she complained to the prime minister himself about Vine's article in the Times.

Downing Street have refused to comment on talks between Cameron and his MPs, and Mensch has remained tight-lipped about the incident, but what excellent publicity for Sarah Vine.

I couple of weeks ago, I ranted about the tale of Clare Donoghue, a librarian from Huddersfield, who was refused work as a volunteer in a soup kitchen for the homeless, because she didn’t have a food hygiene certificate and couldn’t prove she wasn’t a criminal.
I

t came shortly after news that a charity Father Christmas project in Belfast had been abandoned after almost 40 years under the sheer weight of bureaucracy imposed by the child protection racketeers.

It seems that in modern Britain, everyone is considered guilty unless they can prove otherwise. In the twisted minds of the Town Hall paper shufflers, we’re all potential paedophiles or axe murderers. Even women who volunteer to arrange the flowers at cathedrals have to undergo a criminal records check.

Sally, a trained teacher, who lives in the Home Counties, offered to help part-time with reading classes at her children’s school. She wasn’t allowed to until she had applied for criminal records clearance, a process which took four months.

When she later joined the steering committee of the local playgroup, she had to obtain another CRB certificate, even though she was only involved in fund-raising and had no contact with children. Not only that, but because her husband’s job had taken the family abroad, she was expected to provide evidence that she didn’t have a criminal record in the countries she had lived in over the past few years - just in case she was guilty of a chainsaw massacre and was on the run from the state penitentiary in Tennessee.

It’s no wonder that people decide the game isn’t worth the candle and some charities struggle to attract volunteers. The time, paperwork and money involved are deterrent enough, never mind the intrusion.

Compo Cameron whitters on about the Big Society, but all we get is George Orwell’s Big Brother.

We may be heading for a double-dip recession, but things could be worse. In Zimbabwe, where inflation is in triple digits, they’ve banned the sale of second-hand underwear. Apparently, there is a thriving black market in cast-off broekies nowadays.

To the best of my knowledge, no one is knocking out previously-owned knickers at car boot sales in Britain just yet, but if you do come across an advert for: ‘Slightly-soiled Y-fronts, low mileage, one careful owner, only worn to church on Sundays,’ you’ll know we’re in more trouble than we thought.

Would you believe that undercover inspectors are touring shops in Barnsley to discover whether they are gay-friendly. Shops which pass muster get a rainbow tick logo to stick in their window. I’ve always associated Barnsley, a former mining town, with tough types like Michael Parkinson, Dickie Bird, double-cut lamb chops and Barmy Arthur Scargill. I really can’t picture it as a hotbed of homosexuality, but perhaps they just have a good publicity machine.

Back to the desk jockeys and health and safety I’m afraid. It is difficult to believe, but a Spitfire pilot who fought the Luftwaffe in the Second World War was not allowed to sit in a restored plane's cockpit - because of health and safety fears.

Eric Carter, who is 91 was invited to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke on Trent, to inspect the Spitfire RW388. It is similar to the one he flew when he was 21, and the museum is located in the city where he trained to fly, but he was left bemused when his request to sit in the cockpit was turned down.

"I used to fly those things every day fighting the Germans. Now that really was a health and safety concern, let me tell you.” He said. "I had to laugh to think that I couldn't sit in a stationary Spitfire in case I got hurt.

‘I suppose they had their reasons and they were probably just trying to be extra careful, which was very nice.

‘I just wish the Luftwaffe had been so caring.

Sometimes I think the inmates are running the asylum and I am sure Mr Carter would agree with me!

 

I was in Compo Country yesterday, when the Bratlets played and lost to a very well drilled and competent Witney side. For me – apart from the disappointment of the defeat – the most noticeable thing about the morning was that the Witney parents and supporters were all extremely well spoken and had that indefinable air of the comfortably well off about them.

I don’t think Compo is a native Witney Boy and I find it a disturbing part of modern politics that parties reward their brightest sons and daughters by inflicting them on places where the party leaders just know they are going to win.

I know it is probably very natural, but it all leaves me feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

Thirty odd years ago, I wrote a piece for the Zimbabwe Herald newspaper that I entitled True Freedom is Freedom of Expression. It wasn’t published and I was warned off by the CIO for my subversive views, but I think that piece has even more relevance in the Britain of today than it did in the Zimbabwe of yesteryear. Freedom of expression in this country has been forgotten. Prejudice has become the cardinal sin, because protecting the feelings of a selct few is now more important than anything else.

As a result, the feelings of hurt suffered by self-designated ‘victim’ groups are interpreted as a criminal offence and dealt with far more severely than common or garden crimes. The problem with this approach is that it leads straight from the decent desire to eradicate true prejudice to the politically correct tyranny of stamping out any view with which those in authority may disagree. Moreover, the culture of political correctness dictates that only groups who are deemed powerless can be considered victims of prejudice.

Thus people who make remarks which offend Muslims or gay people for example, may find the police investigating them for ‘Islamophobia’ or ‘homophobia.’ Yet, on the other hand, Christians find themselves being insulted all the time with no redress.

In the interests of driving out prejudice, we are now in a position where even language has been progressively censored. So, for example, the word ‘retarded’ was changed to ‘mentally handicapped’, which, in turn, also came to be considered insulting and so was replaced by ‘differently abled.’ Similarly, ‘ethnic minority’ was bafflingly replaced by the new PC-speak term ‘minority ethnic.’

What sort of nonsense is this? The PC Brigade are playing around with words for their own purposes and merely muddying the waters even further. We have progressed seamlessly from insult to euphemism, with truth and a sense of proportion being mislaid somewhere along the way.

Meanwhile, true offensiveness, cruelty and humiliation are considered acceptable on TV reality shows such as Big Brother or I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Jeremy Clarkson, despite all the uproar he creates, is still handsomely rewarded for his consistently tasteless patter. And despite the gross anti-white racism, violence and offensiveness of rap music, our arbiters of taste and decency - in their wisdom - simply ignore it.

So why is it that while causing offence, in some cases has become the greatest sin that can be committed, in others its practitioners are richly rewarded? The answer is that by trying to stamp out certain attitudes, political correctness creates a culture of public bullying.

By affording ‘victim groups’ immunity from the possibility of being prejudiced themselves, it gives them carte blanche to abuse and intimidate others. For example, rappers are considered part of a protected black culture in a way that Diane Abbott, who plays the mainstream political game has discovered she is not, despite her colour. Rappers, therefore, are beyond criticism and are given licence to abuse.

This bullying culture has become all-pervasive. Whether on Twitter (that new vehicle of the PC hate-mongers) or on reality TV, which makes money out of cynically breaking all boundaries of taste and decency, it all amounts to an invidious abuse of power.

To such hypocrisy and inconsistencies, however, our society has become (if this is not an insult to the aurally impaired) tone deaf.

It is all rather sad really.

Toothsome Tony Blair is reported to have paid tax of about £315,000 on income of more than £12million last year. His staff of 26 were paid a total of about £2.6million, but £8million in ‘administrative expenditure’ is said to be unexplained.

His management company had a total turnover of more than £20million in the past two years, of which £470,000 was paid in tax.

I am sure there is a perfectly good explanation for both the seemingly low tax and high administrative spending. The former Prime Minister is surely an honourable man who would not countenance any action which has the appearance of being a tax avoidance device - would he? His successor as PM, Gormless Gordon declared earnings of about £1million (much of it from speaking engagements around the globe) and is said to have given it all to charity, but I am sure that is irrelevant.

TT has wisely set up a number of companies and partnerships to manage his income. One of these is called Windrush Ventures Limited. I haven’t seen an explanation anywhere of why it should be so called, but as I am sure we all know, SS Windrush was the ship on which the first party of West Indians migrated to Britain in 1948. She is called ‘the ship that gave birth to today’s modern multi-cultural Britain.’ Was it a romantic whim to name his personal ship of finance after this historic vessel? If so, survivors of that voyage - and their descendants -will surely feel pride. Or not, as the case may be.

Labour MP Denis MacShane says Buckingham Palace should return the present of jewels that the Countess of Wessex was given by King Hamad during a recent visit to Bahrain - ‘or sell it and donate the proceeds to the victims of Bahraini repression…’

What codswallop! I am no admirer of the Royals, but high-minded MacShane, you may remember, had to return £1,503 in Parliamentary expenses he had wrongly gifted to himself.

Personally, I am intensely relaxed about royals and gifts. Long may they be offered them. So far as I am aware, they do not arrange political favours in return, whereas, our grubby politicos take money, not mere trinkets, from ‘donors’ who do expect favours. Or, until found out, bleed us dry via Parliamentary expenses.

Across the pond, Michelle Obama has apparently sought to exercise influence on her husband - ‘She feels our rudder is not set right,’ said the Big O - and was criticised by aides for wearing expensive designer clothes and tacking private holidays on to official trips, according to a book out tomorrow. A White House official says: ‘These second-hand accounts are staples of every administration in history and often exaggerated.’

He has a point. John F. Kennedy is alleged to have canoodled with girls under wife Jackie’s nose and Hillary Clinton to have hurled White House crockery at her erring husband. In  comparison,the Obamas sound as dull as the Bushes – both senior and junior.

Why don’t I like politicians I wonder.

What a difference 19 months makes to the aims in life of a politician. Speaking in the Downing Street gardens as he launched the Coalition back in May 2010, Compo Cameron promised it would be ‘committed to civil liberties and curbing the power of the state.’

The Clegglet added that after years of Labour authoritarianism, theirs would be a government ‘that hands you back your liberties.’

They both lied. Nineteen months later, and almost unnoticed, this same Government is planning to enact highly illiberal changes to the justice system. If, as Compo intends, these changes become law later this year, the consequences will be an unprecedented growth of secret hearings in both civil court cases and inquests; to deny ordinary citizens the ancient Common Law right to challenge evidence against them; and to make it far more difficult to call wrongdoing by government agencies to account.

Why on earth are the tosspots in Parliament not challenging this nonsense. So far, the only MP from any party to speak out against what is a blatant increase in State authority is David Davis – but then he always was a more straightforward character than most of his colleagues. What a pity, he was deemed too honest to be Tory leader.

Still with the law, I really cannot join in the overwhelming sense of nationalist triumphalism that surrounds the conviction of David Norris and Gary Dobson for the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Quite apart from the fragility of the evidence – at least as portrayed in the media - what happened to the law of double jeopardy? It has been part of the justice system in this country for centuries.

I am sure that both these men have done bad things. It may be that they are guilty of awful murder, but I fear that their guilt is not proven beyond reasonable doubt. And I am revolted by the fact that the authorities were so shamefully negligent that Norris was severely beaten up by other prisoners while on remand. If we set out to achieve justice, then we must be sure that justice is what we actually get. A show trial in which justice seems to have been done, and hasn’t been, actually makes all our lives worse. If these are the wrong culprits, locked up to make us feel good about ourselves, then we have responded to evil with evil.

The rule against trying anyone twice for the same crime is essential for liberty. And it should be absolute. It must apply even when it makes us weep or vomit to obey it. If laws can be overridden by convenience, desire or because of effective campaigning, they are not laws. In 1996, these two young thugs were found not guilty of Lawrence’s murder. A  private prosecution followed, but fell apart through lack of evidence. That should have been the end of it. The courts had failed. The guilty should therefore be marked as what they were and shamed.

But the politicians, desperately seeking to burnish their own tarnished reputations immediately stepped in and sought to use the case for their own ends. They wanted a politically correct inquisition into the police, already weakened by Left- liberal attacks in the eighties but still a deeply conservative institution. And the Blair Government, which despised British liberties saw an opportunity to smash the ancient double jeopardy rule.

The Macpherson report, a bizarre document that few people have read, never found any actual evidence of racial bigotry in the police. That is why it had to dredge up the old sixties revolutionary slogan of ‘institutional racism.’ This is a presumption of guilt that has been used ever afterwards to enforce political correctness in the police force.

Thanks to this case, and what followed, have racial killings ceased? On the contrary, they are more common. Are murders and other crimes investigated more thoroughly? Of course they aren’t! This country contains many families, as deeply wounded as the Lawrences, whose losses have also gone unavenged by justice, and who have no hope.

What must they think about this fanfare of triumphalism over one case, no matter how horrible it might have been?

It is that time of year when we're all feeling a bit under the weather, but new research could make those with a cold think twice before reaching for their car keys. According to new findings by Halfords and insurance company Young Marmalade, driving with a blocked nose can be as bad as having four double whiskies, then getting behind the wheel.

Basically, they found that a cold can slow down a driver's reaction times and that sudden braking can become much more frequent, in the same way that drink driving can.

To collect this data on driving behaviour, a 'black box’ was fitted in a car that monitored speed, cornering and braking. The findings concluded that the quality of someone's driving drops by 50% when they have a cold.

Following on from these findings, the Constabulary – bless ‘em - have warned that drivers getting behind the wheel while suffering from a heavy cold could be prosecuted. The Police warn, that if you are stopped and judged unfit to drive, then you've committed the same offence as someone who had driven on illegal drugs such as cocaine.
Pardon me, but even with the crazy system of justice that prevails in this country, I cannot see too many prosecutions for driving with a cold succeeding.

But I could be wrong!

The unlovely Diane Abbott was embroiled in another Twitter row yesterday after accusing London's taxi drivers of driving past black customers. Scotland Yard is already examining allegations of racism against the Labour MP after she tweeted: ‘White people love playing 'divide & rule.’ A Met spokesman said the complaints from members of the public were being considered but sources played down the possibility of an inquiry.

So why investigate at all I wonder?

Ms Abbott has also provoked outrage from cabbies with another tweet. ‘Dubious of black people claiming they've never experienced racism,’ she wrote from her iPhone. ‘Ever tried hailing a taxi I always wonder?’

Steve McNamara, a spokesman for the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said: "This is a typically silly comment by Diane Abbott and deeply unfair. The modern generation of taxi drivers is as diverse as London itself and most of the knowledge schools now have prayer rooms.

Red Ed was praising himself as a ‘man of steel’ yesterday. I wonder if he is hard enough to stand up to Diane Abbott.

A few months ago, he was being hailed as the answer to all Britain’s crime problems, but the Yank ‘supercop’ brought in to advise Compo Cameron on gangs caused outrage yesterday by calling Britain's gun crime problem ‘laughable.’

Bill Bratton, who introduced zero-tolerance policing to New York and Los Angeles, also described UK gangsters as ‘wannabes’ copying US criminals. He was undoubtedly correct, but I fear he has ruffled a few feathers among the Great and the Good. Not so long ago, Bratton was being tipped as a potential Met Commissioner and was said to be the Prime Minister's preferred choice for the role, but the move was opposed by Home Secretary Theresa May, who insisted that Britain's top police officer should not be a foreigner.

Mr Bratton, who has also been championed by Boris Johnson, advises the Government on tackling gang crime, but in an interview with US magazine The New Yorker, Mr Bratton said: "The firearm problem in England is almost laughable in the sense of how small it is. The gangs here, I would describe as, basically, wannabes.

‘They're heavily influenced by American gangs - in dress, in language, in the stupid signs they use."

MPs and anti-gun campaigners reacted angrily to the comments, describing them as ‘disappointing’ and ‘insulting.’

That benighted and horribly pompous pratwinkle, Keith Vaz who is Labour chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, said: "His comments are disappointing and may be seen as insulting to victims of gang violence in London and elsewhere. The phrases that he uses are most bizarre and will not help us solve the very difficult issue of gang crime in London and our major cities.”

But he was right though and Mr Vaz knows it.

 

I mentioned this yesterday and apologise for harping on about it, but really do feel that the racism issue in this country is getting out of hand. Now, I believe in free speech and think that if someone wishes to expose herself as ignorant and unpleasant by saying white people are divisive as Diane Abbott did, then she has a right to do so, but since successive governments have decided to make uttering ‘racist’ remarks a crime almost on a par with armed robbery, I can’t see why Miss Abbott is still in her shadow minister post.

A white MP who said blacks were natural slaves, and explained this away by saying he was referring to 19th-century colonial times, would be immediately humiliated and hounded out of public life by his peers. So why hasn’t she been? I know she is violently outspoken and would make a huge fuss, but are the powers that be more scared of offending the black folk in this country than they are of doing the correct thing?

Could it be that we are not all equal after all and what does the increasingly pathetic Red Ed the Milipede intend to do about this rampant hypocrisy?

No, that was probably a silly question. The man is proving himself ever more weak kneed and useless, so he won’t do anything and the unlovely Ms Abbott will continue to stir the racist waters whenever she can.

Would you believe that according to the latest poll, support for the Liberal Democrats has evaporated after a punishing year in government, with two thirds of their voters abandoning them. What a surprise!

In a survey conducted by YouGov, only 33 per cent of those who voted for the Lib Dems at the 2010 election said they would do the same again, which means that 67 per cent of those who helped the party into a coalition with the Conservatives now regret their decision.

At the same time, the Tories saw a five per cent drop in support, and Labour gained a significant 24 per cent rise, suggesting the fleeing Lib Dem voters are backing Red Ed and his fairly pathetic team instead.

But it is the Lib Dems, I want to concentrate on for the moment. They have taken a battering since the election, with The Clegglet’s U-turn on raising tuition fees proving particularly damaging, yet he cannot seem to understand why this should be so and nor apparently can those close to him. They continue to tell us what a fine job they are doing for Britain.

The worthy Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that the Lib Dems need to do everything they can to promote the ‘positive effect’ the party is having on the Coalition - citing the pupil premium and attempts to re-balance the tax system - to correct perceived voter misconceptions.

“We must constantly explain to people what we are doing in this Government,” he told Radio 4's Today programme. “Look at this debate about irresponsible capitalism, what I call crony capitalism – it is the Liberal Democrats who have led the debate on clamping down on bankers' bonuses, and I think we have to be just as tough this year with the bonuses coming up as we were last year, if not more so.
'

It is the Liberal Democrats who led calls, Vince Cable did last year at our party conference, for a new transparency and accountability on excess in executive pay, where people are being paid too much money when they fail to do well for their companies. Our cornerstone commitment is to make the tax system fairer by lifting the point at which you start paying income tax.”

To me, his outburst smacked very much of woffling inanity, but his view was backed by Mark Pack, co-editor of the Lib Dem Voice, who said the losses were recoverable if the party continues to win policy successes, such as accelerating towards the £10,000 tax allowance.

Speaking on the same programme earlier in the day, Mr Pack said: “The Budget will be particularly important.  We are not going to see a big giveaway Budget, but the influence of the Liberal Democrats is an open question. There have been more Liberal Democrat policies implemented in the last year than in my lifetime - and yet politically we are not benefiting.”

Perhaps that is because the country is not benefitting Mr Pack. In fact, despite the bonhomie toward the nation exuded by Compo, Cleggy and the like, this country would seem to be sliding ever faster down the slippery slope to perdition.

The position of The Clegglet and his pathetic LibDems was best summed up for me by a quote from Conservative MP Nadine Dorries toward the end of last year. It came right at the close of business for the Commons, when Cleggy was due to answer for his boss at PMQs. Four Conservative and one Labour member failed to turn up on this occasion to ask the deputy PM the questions, they had tabled on the days agenda. One of the Tories was the said Nadine D and when asked why she had so deliberately snubbed the deputy leader, she charmingly said,

“Nick Clegg is and inconsistent, bad tempered, sulky, misguided, badly informed, opportunistic political irrelevance. Why would I want to attend the chamber to ask a man of such poor political attributes a parliamentary question?”
I

n fact, she probably didn’t turn up because she was anxious to be off on her hols, but to me it was the quote of the year and very very apt.

Well said Mrs Dorries.
 

I’m afraid I don’t have a great deal of time for Britain’s chief God Botherer, Dr Rowan Williams, but the man is right when he says that many of Britain's young people have been let down by adults who show them ‘only suspicion and negativity.’

For decades children from poor white and black families have been left to rot in abysmal schools where teachers have no expectations of them and show it. No government in recent history has managed to turn this tide of failure, though they have spent untold billions trying. Now as we get into 2012 with little hope for better times ahead, the most important man in Britain has to be Michael Gove, the Education Secretary. He has the job of putting energy and enthusiasm into demoralised schools and inspiring teachers who have already given up.

Gove is dedicated and innovative but all his new ideas will founder unless the teaching unions, the education authorities and parents give him support, although at present the Teachers’ unions seem to be doing their best to destroy the entire system. The only way this country can drag itself out of decline is by producing a highly educated body of men and women capable of making and marketing the kind of seriously technical and luxurious products that other countries will buy. Britain needs entrepreneurs, scientists, computer wizards, designers and engineers to give the country any chance of competing with the economies of the Far East.

The trouble is that so many people ask what's the point of education when there are so few jobs, and it's true that youth unemployment is a curse throughout Europe, but if the government give up striving for a better future, the rest of us will also suffer and that future will still be sitting in grimy classrooms while the economy goes up in smoke. It seems so sad that education – despite the best efforts of Mr Gove – is in such a mess over here, while in poorer countries, people would do anything to have a fraction of the educational facilities that are on offer here in Britain.

I am becoming heartily fed up with politicians telling us how wonderful the 2012 Olympics is going to be and what a tremendous boost for Britain it all is. Hell, so far it has been nothing but chaos and confusion. We now learn that too many swimming tickets were sold – how on earth could that happen? – so that some people will have to give theirs back and that a floating river park championed by Boris Johnson will not be completed in time for the Olympics and will have to be redesigned if it is to go ahead.

The Thames river park project, which has attracted hundreds of complaints from residents, would have been a public walkway on a linked series of pontoons running from the Millennium Bridge to the Tower of London. It would have included a lido and a jetty for ferry services. The Mayor last year gave his backing to the £60 million project and called it ‘design brilliance.’

Like so many Johnsonian pronouncements, he was jumping the gun I’m afraid. The park's developers had insisted that the whole thing would be completed before the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, but after a series of delays they have admitted there is no chance of this. They also conceded that the design would have to be changed to have a chance of securing approval from the City of London Corporation's planning committee. Surely that should have been sorted out before they started? Anyway, the developers said they would return with new plans in the coming months.

Leader of the London Assembly Labour group Len Duvall said: "It was obvious when the Mayor rushed in that this was going to be much more complex and difficult to deliver on time than he realised. There are still unanswered questions about this project and the lack of financial due diligence that should be investigated."

Green Party Assembly member Darren Johnson said: "It's no surprise that Boris Johnson's promise of a Thames walkway in time for the Olympics is rapidly fading after fears that it poses a navigational hazard."

A spokesman for the Mayor said: "Protecting and enhancing our cherished waterfront has always been at the heart of delivering this exciting project. It is only right that people's views are being taken into account so the river park has their complete blessing."

What he really means is that he backed the wrong horse. I wonder who is paying for it all – or is that just being silly?

We learn too that despite the massive security arrangements already in force, Games chiefs will assign a personal bodyguard and tour guide to top Olympic VIPs for the duration of the Games as part of an unprecedented red carpet operation.

Each of the 120 heads of state or government (will that include Comrade Bob I wonder?) will be met from their flight by a ‘volunteer officer’ provided by the Foreign Office who will have ‘experience of the culture, politics and language of the country concerned.’ Why – these people will have their own advisers with them – paid for by the PBT – so why saddle them with more ‘experts?’

The heads of state will also be accompanied by a ‘personal protection officer’ from the Metropolitan Police, which in view of the cuts to the police service, seems very wrong to me, particularly as each of them will be offered a ‘recce visit’ in May for presidential security teams should countries wish to send their own bodyguards – which of course they will.

Each head of state will have two passes for use of their cars on the Olympic lanes. The exception will be for the opening and closing ceremonies when transport to the stadium will only be by ‘secure coach transfer’ from central London. Locog warned: "There is extremely limited parking at all venues, and dignitary convoys will be kept to a minimum."

Official entourages must be kept to a maximum of four, which will have to include the VIP's own security personnel. Heads of state will receive free tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies, plus a guest, but other accredited members of the entourage, including the ambassador, will have to buy their own tickets.

Locog – bless ‘em - have set up a protocol co-ordination centre and operations at each venue to ‘ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience for the head of state or government.’

But what about ordinary Londoners? Was this not supposed to be ‘the People’s Games?

Sadly I fear not.

Britain's first black woman MP, Diane Abbott was forced to issue a humiliating apology yesterday after making blatantly racist remarks about white people. Even Red Ed the Milipede was cross and he ordered the shadow health minister to say sorry after she tweeted: ‘White people love playing 'divide & rule'. We should not play their game.’

The papers today are full of it, but all I can say is that if the same remark had been applied to black people by a white MP, he or she would have been fired on the spot.

It is not the first time that this woman has courted controversy. On Remembrance Day last year she was heavily criticised after her office tweeted about Labour's lead in the polls during the two-minute silence and during the Labour leadership contest in 2010, she told political pundit Andrew Neil that ‘West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.’ When Neil asked whether this meant that black mums love their kids more than white mums, she backed down but I’m afraid Dianne Abbott is as racist as they come and it is high time that someone in power had the gumption to stand up to her.

For me, the die is cast. I booked my flight to Johannesburg last evening and fly out from here on 29th March. The latest return date I could be given was at the beginning of December, but I was airily informed that I could extend that for another three months free of charge at any local office.

I wonder if Emirates have a local office in the wilds of Mozambique.

 

This soggy little island is soggier than usual today as storms continue to rage around us. I spent much of the night wondering whether The Elms was likely to crumble into rubble under the onslaughts of the wind, but it has stood for nearly 300 years, so I was probably being slightly melodramatic. I have to drive in to Cheltenham so that my dentist can allow me to smile again too and that could be a trial.

Oh well, life goes on and I was vaguely amused, but not a little scared when I watched the Republican candidates for the American presidency in Iowa yesterday.

One of the two initial leaders is such a Puritan that he won't touch coffee. The other's a hardline Christian who'd bomb Iran. Yesterday, they became Republican front-runners for the White House. It was pathetic to watch, but bounding out of a hotel lobby bar, Mitt Romney’s chief strategist hailed their win of the Iowa caucuses, the first contest in the Republican battle to face the Big O in November.

‘Landslide, baby!’ he said, waving his iPhone and punching the air. ‘We won by eight. We thought we lost by six!’
The margin he was celebrating was not eight percentage points or even 8,000 votes. It was eight votes out of more than 122,000 cast. That was a landslide? God help America.

Essentially, Romney was beaten to a draw by Rick Santorum, a hard-line Christian conservative long viewed as a no-hoper in the White House stakes. A brash former senator for Pennsylvania, Santorum once condemned a Supreme Court decision to throw out a Texas law against sodomy. Defending the moral hard line, he said: ‘If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.’

Such views led to Santorum being denounced by his own nephew, who said the presidential hopeful was determined to ‘dictate to individuals how they must live.’

Romney on the other hand is hardly the most exciting candidate. As a strict Mormon - he has served as a bishop in his church - he doesn’t even drink coffee, let alone alcohol. He can’t be that fabled guy that voters would like to have a beer with because he’s never even sat at a bar. His hair is too perfect (though it’s tousled a bit more these days) and as a multi-millionaire former venture capitalist he is the epitome of Corporate Man (hence his decision to dress down on the campaign trail with jeans and open-neck shirts.) What a tosspot!

So these two have begun the race in front and of the also rans in Iowa, there is still Newt Gingrich, the monumentally self-satisfied, thrice-married, 68-year-old former antagonist of President Bill Clinton. A month ago, Gingrich led by 11 points in the state, six points nationally and was airily declaring that the Republican nomination was his. Yet he finished fourth in Iowa, and used his concession speech to whine about the negative advertisements run against him.

What amazed me most is that all the candidates looked like cardboard cut outs, with identical outfits and the same cheesy grins, displaying expensive dental work. I realise that in this contest, there is no perfect or ideal candidate. These are extraordinary times - it’s a terrifying jungle out there, and the Western world is being sucked into the very heart of darkness - and extraordinary times require an extraordinary and larger than life character. The question is not whether candidate X presses all the right buttons – it’s whether the one button he does press is so big and crucial that voters need to set aside all his ‘baggage’ because the other guys have no button at all.
Are these Republicans leaders or lemmings I wonder? Is there really no-one in the whole of the United States who has what it takes to lead the free world away from disaster – and persuade the American public to follow?

What a sad reflection on modern society, this drawn out electoral process is going to be. The Big O must be loving it and I am only glad to think that my Zambezi Trek will keep me away from watching many similar ‘shows’ – and that is all they are – to that nonsense last evening.

Here, Red Ed the Milipede’s leadership was under sustained attack last night after one of his closest allies denounced him for offering ‘no strategy, no narrative and little energy.’

In a highly embarrassing intervention, the Labour leader’s political guru Lord Glasman denounced the party’s economic policies in government as ‘all crap’ and said Labour had shown ‘no signs of winning the economic argument.’

And in a withering assessment of poor Ed’s personal qualities, Lord Glasman said he had ‘flickered rather than shone,’ ‘nudged not led’ and had ‘not broken through’ with voters during his first full year in charge of the party.

The attack is all the more remarkable because Lord Glasman is a friend of the Milipede and was handed his peerage by the Labour leader last year, but perhaps he is merely the first of Red Ed’s cronies to realise that the Labour ship is heading for a watery grave unless something is done pretty rapidly. Glasman also laid into Ed Balls as one of the architects of Britain’s financial woes who seems to have no idea as to how  the country can get out of those woes. I would agree with everything he said – even though he later claimed that his words were taken out of context - and feel that if Labour are ever to mount a feasible challenge to Compo Cameron, they must have a new leader and must have him or her in place pretty damned soon.

Like the Big O, Compo must be loving it all. What a waste of oxygen these modern professional politicians have proved themselves to be. Surely there must be a real leader out there somewhere.

 

For this Crumpled scribbler, yesterday was one that left me in a state of shock and all for the right reasons.

The day started awfully when my early morning walk was done in a force ten – it felt like it anyway – gale and driving rain. Well over half of my mile and a half circuit was walking into the weather and despite allegedly waterproof trousers, I arrived home dripping wet and decidedly peeved about life in general. Half an hour on the rowing machine did nothing to improve my mood and it wasn’t until I met up with my former son in law Andy Taylor at lunch time that my day improved – and then its enjoyment rating climbed up into the stratosphere.

Andy is the boss man of a dry foods company in Zambia and we were meeting to discuss how he could help with my Zambezi Trek. He had already offered to supply me with kwacha – the local currency and tiny milk sachets to sweeten officialdom, but at the end of our meeting, we had agreed that in return for some publicity, Cow Bell – despite the twee name, I love them all already -will not only fill my pockets with kwacha, but will also resupply me in three small towns along the way and put a cool £1000 in my pocket beforehand to help with travel arrangements etc. It was more than I could ever have hoped for and I drove home again in the said state of shock.

The papers this morning are full of the Stephen Lawrence case and the fact that two of the supposed attackers have been found guilty of his murder. I feel very sorry for the Lawrence family, but I can’t help feeling that a murder case which has cost the PBT many millions of pounds is far from over. Gary Dobson and the other buffoon who was found guilty with him are evil thugs, but there has been so much publicity over the case and so much hysteria whipped up by the Media – in particular the Daily Mail – that despite the Judge telling the jury that they had to ignore it all, it was fairly inevitable that their heads would be swayed. Will that happen I wonder when the case goes to the Court of Appeal, as it certainly will.

Somehow I doubt it, so there will be many more headlines and buckets more PBT money spent yet.

Then there is the case of Michael Atherton in County Durham who shot his girlfriend and two of her relatives – before shooting himself over Christmas. Sad, but happens was my initial thought, but now we learn that he had no fewer than six firearms in the house – all of them duly registered and licensed. Why was that allowed I wonder. Who needs six firearms in this gentle country, particularly when pistol shooters are no longer allowed to practice their own sport – a sport at which Great Britain excelled. Not only that, but a few years ago, the local constabulary confiscated the weapons from Atherton because his GP decided that as he was suffering from depression, he was likely to harm himself. All well and good, but it seems that an unnamed senior officer decided to overrule the GP and the firearms were handed back, resulting in four completely unnecessary deaths.

That particular senior officer should be put behind bars, but such is the police service today that he will probably be promoted.

The silliest thing I have seen in the media so far in 2012 was a television interview in America, a clip of which was sent to me by a reader. Some suavely sophisticated US congressman was being interviewed on a chat show and the interviewer asked him why for years, the US had been sending healthy dollops of aid to Andorra. The congressman bless him was sorely affronted by this and demanded to know whether the interviewer realised that Andorra was a small state in Africa where everyone was hungry.

Says it all really. I wonder whether politicians are somehow chosen for their idiocy and lack of knowledge or whether it is because of that idiocy and lack of knowledge that they gravitate into politics. Whether it be Britain, America, Australia or the myriad states of Europe, it would seem that the current crop of political rulers have totally lost touch with what they are there to do, yet we, the Poor Bloody Taxpayers are asked to keep supporting them.

I honestly feel that dictatorship in Africa works more smoothly. Unfortunately though, there is a distinct shortage of possible dictators in the western world. If they can’t make the ordinary, everyday decisions of state, the modern politician’s chances of taking over a country and running it in whatever way are nil.

What a sad world this is becoming.

 

Right, the holidays are over, normal January weather is howling its fury outside my skylight and a quick trawl of the media outlets tells me that Britain in 2012 is likely to be exactly the same sad Britain that it was in 2011 – if not slightly worse. I learned for instance that there are nearly 1000 serving coppers – including some in fairly senior ranks – with serious criminal convictions. In my day – back in the old forever perhaps – a criminal conviction of any sort was enough to have one thrown out immediately, but perhaps in a few years time, they will be actively encouraged among coppers, so that they will know exactly what it all entails.

What a world this is becoming and to my slightly jaundiced eye, it is epitomised by our revered leader, Compo Cameron. This mountebank came to power promising to cut immigration to a trickle and scrap the pernicious Human Rights Act. He lied on both counts. Net immigration actually rose to record levels last year, with more than 250,000 new arrivals. This year there are estimates that the number might fall to 180,000, but these predictions are all too easy to make out and rarely come true. Despite the economic troubles here and unemployment heading for three million, Britain is still a magnet for immigrants from all over the world. They are attracted here by a generous, no-questions-asked welfare regime, and a twisted legal system which moves heaven and earth to make sure they won’t be deported, even if they have arrived illegally or commit a crime while they are here.

It is virtually impossible to remove anyone from Britain, thanks to the human rights racket and the totally insane interpretation of the law by politically-motivated judges appointed by the last government. Labour – bless ‘em - purposely abandoned border controls to change the face of Britain for ever and ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity.’ Ministers saw no upper limit to the number of foreigners settling in this overcrowded island and smeared as ‘racist’ anyone who dared to disagree. Once you’re in, the chances of you ever being kicked out are close to zero.

Calling Britain a ‘soft touch’ is a cliché which doesn’t begin to do justice to the scale of the problem. Many arrivals from outside Europe come through ports in Greece, France and Italy, where they are supposed to be processed. They are required by law to apply for asylum in the first country they set foot in, but our so-called EU ‘partners’ simply wave them on to Britain. We are now even banned by the courts from returning them to Greece, which despite being in the EU isn’t considered ‘safe.’ We are told that’s because the Greek asylum system is a shambles.

What a shame for these unfortunate people, but why should the Greeks be allowed to dump their problems on Britain’s doorstep?

More than 90 per cent of foreign nationals who arrive in Britain in this way are never considered for deportation. In 2010, on the latest figures available, just 1,600 out of 18,000 failed asylum seekers who had travelled here through other European countries were considered for removal, despite having no legal right to remain in Britain.

Judges and lawyers display great ingenuity in discovering reasons why illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay. For example, we are all now familiar with the story of the Bolivian shoplifter who was granted leave to remain in Britain because of his right to a ‘family life’ - determined by the fact that he kept a pet cat.

That case caused an argument at the Tory conference between Theresa May and Hushpuppy Kenneth, for whom any piece of European legislation, no matter how insane, carries the weight of a holy writ, but it was only one of many. There was the case of the 22-year-old Sri Lankan, jailed for 15 months for robbery, who managed to resist deportation on the grounds that he too, had an inalienable right to a ‘family life.’ He wasn’t married, had no children, no job, but he did have a girlfriend. So now the definition of ‘family life’ extends to some bird he met in a pub. Judge Christopher Hanson even refused to allow the media to publish the man’s name, any details of his crime, where he lives, or how he arrived here in the first place - on the grounds that not only is he entitled to a ‘family life’ he also has an absolute right to privacy.

Why damnit? The man is a criminal and should be thrown out.

It seems though that Compo’s plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights have been scuppered by the Lib Dems’ lunatic fetish for all things European. He should tell Cleggy to get stuffed and do his own thing. The Lib Dems are hardly going to collapse the Coalition to defend the rights of foreign criminals, international terrorists, failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to stay in Britain. They’d stand even more chance of being wiped out at the next election. The paying public – that’s you and I - is sick of the abuse of the immigration and asylum system. The camel’s back is close to breaking point.

The most recent case likely to bring this about or at least raise collective blood pressure is that of a Bangladeshi trainee accountant called Abdullah Munawar, who was refused permission to stay in Britain, but has won his appeal against deportation because he has a right to a ‘private life’ under Article Eight of the European Convention. This, believe it or not is because he has made friends here and plays cricket. It’s not as if they’re short of cricket pitches in Bangladesh and their Test team certainly needs strengthening. If playing cricket is now a legitimate basis for flouting the immigration process, then this country is well and truly stuffed and the powers that be might as well open the doors, forget about passports and let everyone in until the whole island sinks.

Talking about the cops – as I was briefly - an undercover officer has admitted having sex with several female protesters he was supposed to be spying on. Mark Kennedy, who spent eight years posing as an eco-warrior, said free love was part of the culture and if he hadn’t slept with the women his cover would have been blown.
Eight of the women involved are now suing the police, alleging that Kennedy and four other undercover cops caused them ‘intense emotional trauma and pain.’ The officers are accused of ‘sexual intercourse by deceit.’

Now when was that a crime I wonder? Cheating spouses do it all the time.

Call me old fashioned, but my sympathies are with Kennedy. Have you seen the state of some of these women, their clothes all dirty and themselves looking as if they haven’t been near a bath in months? Having sex with them was nothing less than heroic and way beyond the call of duty. Mark Kennedy deserves a medal.

I hope 2012 is a wonderful year for all of you, although I fear that it won’t be greatly different from its predecessor – certainly not on the evidence of the first two days.

 

 

And here we go for what should be an eventful year for this particular Crumpled Scribbler. I hope it will prove an excellent one for all of you and that 2012 will give you everything you want of it.

When I was in the pub the other day, picking up my Kindle – I have almost figured it all out now - I listened to two old boys discussing Margaret Thatcher and I was amazed. I had always thought of her as a much revered prime minister in this country, but these two fellows were brimming over with vitriol. Suzanne Moore in one of the tabloids this morning also rants with extreme bitterness about Thatcher and it would seem that perhaps I had things wrong.

For me, Thatcher was the British leader who – against advice from those of us on the ground – handed Rhodesia over to Comrade Bob Mugabe and for that, I will always dislike the lady, but it seems that it was not only my countrymen that she sold down the river. According to the article today, she had an ‘us and them’ mentality and if you weren’t one of her ‘us,’ you were very much a ‘them.’ This caused her to roll right over anyone that did not share her views and it would seem that she did untold harm to Britons – in particular those Britons who came in generations after hers.

Perhaps I have Compo Cameron, the Clegglet and company wrong? Maybe they are merely trying to clear up Thatcher’s mess, not making a huge mess of their own.

No, I don’t think so. Whatever her faults – and as I said, I am not a Thatcherite – Maggie T was at least a strong politician, whereas the monkeys in power at the moment, seem more interested in their public images than in looking after the country, they are paid to manage.

I was asked the other day whether I believed in God and it was a difficult question to answer. The questioner was a church going lady and we were discussing my forthcoming Zambezi walk and the challenges it will present.

Having been educated by the Jesuits, I find it difficult not to believe in something, but the concept of an all-seeing, all-hearing Being somewhere ‘up there’ is a difficult one for any thinking person to accept. Yet there have been times in my adventures, when I have felt the presence of something and can only put some of my weirder escapes down to divine intervention. When I was lost in the Matusadona during that awful last night of my kayaking trip in 2010, I just knew I was going to die, but there was somebody walking with me, whose presence seemed terribly real, even after it was all over and I hadn’t died after all.

Sounds weird, doesn’t it, but perhaps in my case, the Jesuits will always win, even though I am not sure whether I believe in a Supreme Being or not.

Nothing like starting the new year in philosophical bent, is there? Mind you, it is time I got my mind in gear for the Zambezi and I only have three months to go before I take off.

Not sure whether I am excited at the prospect or overcome with trepidation.

Well, here we are at the end of another year and with the world in its usual unholy mess. We are ‘reliably’ informed by Goldman Sachs that in four decades or so, Britain will once again have the leading economy in Europe, so everyone will be happy again.

I fear that will be a tad too late for some of us though.

For me, the year has been a difficult one and has felt like a constant battle against my health, but as it ends I am getting fitter by the day and looking forward to the challenges of 2012 when I intend to write myself into the adventure history books by walking the length of the Zambezi. It is a daunting prospect, but I reckon I can do it and with the help – both financial and otherwise – I have received so far, I feel that things are finally coming together.

The year is also ending on a bright note with the new Kindle arriving so out of the blue. All I need to do now is learn how to use it and at least I will have reading matter for my trip.

Would you believe that a gentleman from Huddersfield has formed a new group to increase the pressure on Comrade Bob in Zim. Alan Fish, who has only been to Zimbabwe twice, wants to help get rid of our revered president and so he set up ‘Conservatives for Zimbabwe’ in an effort to build support for change in my country. Ironic really, as Maggie Thatcher’s conservative government gave the country to Bob in the first place.

Anyway, I am sure you have noble motives Mr Fish, but I fear it won’t work. The politicians who rule the world will not allow it, because Comrade Bob is black remember and will immediately scream about racism if anyone, not of that hue tries to do anything about him.

Well it doesn’t appear as though the Worthy Ann Widdicombe is to be ennobled this year after all. I had a quick trawl through the tabloids and they are all somewhat hot under the collar at the fact that Gerald Ronson – the last survivor of the Guinness scandal – is to be made a CBE and some rich banker who pours money into Conservative coffers is to be knighted.

For me, the idiocy of the entire system is highlighted by the knighthood given to Peter Bazalgette. He has the dubious distinction of being the man who brought Big Brother – the epitome of downmarket reality television – to UK screens, but despite what many will regard as a less than enriching contribution to British life, the media executive has been given a knighthood for services to broadcasting.

Says it all really.

Right, I will be back next year and to those of you who read my rants through 2011, I do hope they kept you amused – I am not really such a crabby old b@%£@&* - and perhaps gave you food for thought from time to time. My words will not have achieved anything earth shattering, but if they have entertained, then it has all been worth it. Thanks you for reading, enjoy your parties – or quiet evenings – tonight and may 2012 bring all of us what we want.

 

 

I am back and I am sorry for taking a few extra days off. I was due back to my desk on Tuesday, but was vaguely indisposed that morning, then had a very late night with friends in for supper which left me in no fit condition to rant on Wednesday either. Yesterday, the computer was playing up, but everything seems to be going smoothly this morning – apart from the after effects of another late night – so here I am at last.

It was perhaps a nicer Christmas than usual. The day itself was spent quietly, with Malvern Liz staying with us as she normally does at this time of year. She and I went for a walk, then gifts were opened – most of mine were bottle-shaped – and we sat around until it was time for the meal – roast lamb this year although I would have been happy with egg and chips.

As always though, Boxing Day was the busy one. My Brats and Bratlets descended en masse and Gramps had to ply them with assorted curries. It meant a hard working and fretful morning for this crumpled scribbler, but it all seemed to go well and the five curries on offer were duly polished off with expressions of accumulated delight. I received a few more bottles as my reward, but felt a vague sense of disappointment that the Brats hadn’t clubbed together and bought me a Kindle as my one luxury item on my forthcoming walk. For all that, the day was a lot of fun and I managed to escape with but a badly scraped arm, sustained in horseplay with Number Three Bratlet – unfortunately, now larger and stronger than Gramps.

On 27th, Number Two Brat flew back out to Ethiopia and our houseguests dispersed, so that life at The Elms could resume some semblance of normality. I resumed my exercise campaign and in the course of climbing a very steep hill, managed to lose a crown from the front of my mouth, so that with a huge gap and still very bloody arm, I began to look like something out of a horror comic. The 28th was a similar day but without particular injury, then yesterday, I had been watching South Africa meekly succumb to Sri Lanka in the Durban Test match, when I was summonsed downstairs by Herself. When I returned to my desk, I noticed that my cell phone proclaimed a missed call from a number I didn’t know. Being very nervous about phones in general, I hesitated before listening to the message that had been left, but as my favourite landlady shrilled good news in my ear, I could feel my smile growing broader. The lovely Patricia cheerfully informed me that I had won a Kindle in the Kings Head Christmas raffle. It was hard to take in at first, but despite my antipathy to telephones, I rang her back and she confirmed that it was indeed so. Ticket number 500 – mine – had duly won the Kindle and that left me all sniffly and emotional – silly old what-have-you that I am.

So I have my luxury item after all and as soon as 2012 kicks off, I must start to do something about flights, visas and getting the other odds and sods that I will need.

It would seem that back in the real world, feminists have gone bonkers over a decision to include a female panda, Tian Tian, in the BBC’s Women of the Year list. They were already foaming with outrage after not a single woman was short-listed for the 2011 Sports Personality of the Year.  The Labour MP Stella Creasy said: ‘While we all love a good panda story, in a year when Christine Lagarde became head of the IMF; Helle Thorning-Schmidt became prime minister of Denmark; or even the sad death of Amy Winehouse, it’s frustrating the BBC couldn’t think of 12 human female faces who have made the news this year.”

I can think of a couple. Anne Widdicombe of course, the former Tory minister, who complained that she had been overlooked for a seat in the Upper House because no one took her seriously. The hugely unglamorous lady was last seen being hurled round the Strictly Come Dancing studio, like a baby elephant in a Disney movie, and is currently starring in pantomime, as Widdy-In-Waiting to Strictly judge and former rent boy Craig Revel Horwood’s Wicked Queen. Apparently she still hopes to be elevated to the Lords despite these silly capers, but quite honestly, I don’t see how anyone can take her seriously any more.

Then of course, we have Sally Bercow, the shy, retiring wife of Commons Squeaker Little John and a woman who seemingly will go to almost any length to see her name and face in the tabloid pages. The unlovely Sally appeared on Celebrity Big Brother, boasting about her ‘spicy sex life,’ and was photographed wearing nothing but a bedsheet despite being in the Squeaker’s grace and favour apartment. I know she is entitled to do what she wants in her own home – and for the moment at least, it is – but she has definitely lowered the tone of this most dignified of institutions.

She told a magazine that her favourite gadget was a vibrator and is soon to appear in a Channel 5 ‘reality’ show, sharing a caravan with former CBB house-mate Paddy Doherty, star of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

Woman of the year perhaps – we can only hope not.

And there is Vicky Price – an economist and dignified, much-in-demand ex-wife of windmills minister Chris Huhne, who left her for a lapsed lesbian. In a fit of revenge, she told a newspaper that Huhne had persuaded ‘someone else’ to accept speeding points on his behalf, so he wouldn’t be banned from driving.

The someone else is apparently herself and she is currently being investigated, along with her ex-husband, for conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Mind you, for some strange reason on which I might have commented before, the Crown Prosecution Service – bless ‘em – seem to be taking an inordinately long time to make up their minds as to whether or not to charge either of them.

Perhaps it will all be sorted out by the end of 2012, but with such leading candidates for Woman of the Year as these three lovelies, I reckon Tian Tian was a pretty good choice.

In Zimbabwe, there were obviously very mixed feelings about the death and subsequent funeral celebrations of North Korean leader Kim Jon il. His death will provide little consolation to the survivors of Gukurahundi (the 1980s massacre in Matabeleland) but it has put into context this year’s Unity Day celebrations. A North Korean army unit, under the command of the late Kim Jong-il’s father, trained the infamous 5 Brigade, which was deployed in the south western regions of Zimbabwe in the 1980s ostensibly to pursue dissidents.

Kim Jong-il was then a top military official and since then, many Zimbabweans have utter disgust for the late North Korean strongman, although Comrade Bob’s praise singers in Zanu PF have described Kim Jon il as ‘a lovely man,’ and one whom they are not ashamed to associate with.

“He was a lovely man whom we associated with,” Zanu PF’s secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa said. “He was our great friend, and we are not ashamed of being associated with him.”

I am not sure that thirty odd thousand Matabele people who were murdered by the Fifth Brigade soldiers would have agreed with that. The world is better off for the man’s death, but it remains to be seen whether his son who succeeds him will be any better.

Well, here we go for Christmas again and I must make the most of it as my next one is likely to be spent alone, sitting under a tree in the middle of nowhere. So for the next few days, I will do as little as possible apart from exercising, cooking curry for my Brats and Bratlets on Boxing Day and sitting around, filling my face with food and grog. It is forecast to be far warmer than usual, so with apologies to those who longed for a white Christmas that will certainly make my life easier.

I had an offer to help with the Zambezi Trek preparations yesterday from my old school friend, Tony Warde. I told him that I didn’t think there was much he could do at this stage, but not to be beaten back that easily, Wardey prepared a presentation – for want of a better word – for me on Squidoo. I confess, Squidoo is a new one on me, but the presentation itself is well worth reading, so have a look at it please and pass the word around. Although my funds for the adventure are slowly increasing, the increase is too slow to bring much comfort at the moment.

Anyway, click on http://www.squidoo.com/one-man-and-a-river and enjoy Tony’s work.

Would you believe that Sydney and Phyllis Smith have just celebrated 75 years of wedded bliss with their three children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Their recipe for a happy marriage is to sleep in separate beds and that is something I have always believed in. People are not designed to lie close together for long periods of time and sleepless hours spent listening to one or the other partner snoring, grunting, talking and laughing in complete oblivion leave the most even tempered of men or women scratchy-eyed and irritable in the morning.

And regretfully, irritability accumulates and festers, so all you young folk starting out on the long marriage road, remember the advice of Sydney and Phyllis Smith – and David Lemon of course.

Compo Cameron has definitely hit all the right buttons to end the year with a smile on his face. First he vetoed the European treaty that would effectively have created a fiscal European superstate. Then he talked about the importance of recognising marriage and ticked off the Church of England for not championing Christianity.

And, lo and behold, having at last espoused these traditional, Middle England values - the kind of Conservatism the effete pratwinkles who run the Conservative party insist is so toxic to the Tory brand - he shot ahead in the polls.

There is surely a message for all politicians there.

On the subject of messages, who on earth does the Clegglet feel he is speaking for? All his whining and drivelling about Compo’s use of the veto in Europe being bad for Britain has been flatly contradicted by 77 per cent of businessmen, who think that what the PM did was absolutely right. I suspect they know more about making this country economically prosperous than Nauseating Nick does, since he has never had a proper job in his life.

It is bad enough our having to put up with this sanctimonious little pifflewit, but to have to tolerate a sanctimonious little pifflewit who is also wrong about everything is a punishment few of us deserve.

Talking about politics, Edinburgh Zoo’s hugely popular giant pandas have upset the penguins next door to their enclosure. The penguins are jealous of the attention the pandas are getting and taking revenge by pooping on anyone who passes by and even hurling fish dung – and their own – at passers by and the pandas. Experts have dubbed this fit of pique as ‘monochrome jealousy’ syndrome.

I have a feeling that this is exactly what the increasingly repellent Lib Dems are suffering from too, as they watch Compo Cameron getting all the attention?

On which note, I am going to embark on my Christmas. Thank you all for reading my somewhat acerbic rants over the year and I hope that I have touched a chord from time to time and made some of you think. For my own part, I have found it good for my blood pressure problem, although researching the news occasionally leads to an early morning explosion of temper.

But I have been warned that I must try and smile more in the New Year or I will end up looking like Red Ed the Milipede. That is a truly horrible thought, so if you spot an elderly man grinnning from ear to ear for no apparent reason over the next few days - and hopefully hereafter - it will be me.

Enjoy your Christmas, wherever you are and I will be back on Tuesday 27th.

 

Margaret Thatcher was never my favourite person – after all, she literally gave Rhodesia away – but as a leader, she was head and shoulders above the pathetic crop of politicians who have followed her into Downing Street.

Now it appears that she is to be given a state funeral when she turns her toes up and this surely cannot be right. Prime ministers used to retire quietly. Now they expect to be treated as if they were ex-presidents, with entourages and large corporate offices. And once Lady T has been given her state funeral, why not Brown, Blair, Major and Cameron?

It is nearly 50 years since Winston Churchill died. When the boat containing his coffin passed through the London docks, dockers lowered their cranes as a mark of respect. It was a profoundly moving moment because these working men were saying that, while Churchill had been born an aristocrat, he was also one of them because he had led them in the war against fascism. I wonder how many of those dockers would have paid such a tribute to Margaret Thatcher. After all, she was public enemy number one where the Unions were concerned.

State funerals should in my humble opinion be reserved for those who were loved and admired by the entire nation and iron lady though she was, that certainly could not apply to Maggie Thatcher. In addition to me, there are hundreds of thousands of mine workers, dockers et al in this country who detested the woman and they certainly would not support the idea of such a send off.

Mind you, I see that the original proposal for such a funeral came from Gormless Gordon Brown, who doubtless used it as a device to suck up to the Conservative Right at a time when he was trying to destabilise David Cameron. Says it all really about the deviousness of the man!

By all means allow Margaret Thatcher to be buried, as Attlee was, in Westminster Abbey. She was a great leader and deserves that, but Compo who loves to pretend that ‘we are all in this together,’ would be well advised to lay the idea of a state funeral to rest.

The racism in football furore has taken another bizarre twist I’m afraid. The television pundit and former Liverpool footballer, Alan Hansen has had to make a public apology after describing black players as ‘coloured’ during a debate on Match of the Day.

Hansen apparently angered viewers after he twice referred to black players as ‘coloured’ when discussing the race row threatening to engulf the sport. It appears that many people were offended, but surely this is becoming ever more pathetic. In Southern Africa, ‘coloured‘ refers to people of mixed race, but in the northern hemisphere, it tends to be used to describe anyone who is black. This is not an insult and if I was Hansen, I would stand up to the effete and idiotic BBC and stick to my guns.

Mind you, they pay him an enormous salary for whittering on about football, so perhaps that is why he made no such stand and uttered an ‘unreserved’ apology.

I found it rather disturbing to read about the learner driver who was jailed for killing a child on her very first lesson.

Beatrice Mawamba (sounds Zimbabwean) panicked and careered down a narrow alleyway into a grassed courtyard while starting out on her lesson, Leeds Crown Court heard. The court was told that Mawamba, a mother of three who had not driven a car before, crushed to death nine-year-old Shamirah Grant and injured two other girls, one seriously.

It seems that Mawamba was being taught by her husband and in her panic, she did not know how to brake, with the result that the car veered out of control and hurtled down some steps and on to a children's play area near Leopold Grove in the Chapeltown area of Leeds.

The defendant described the car going very fast and her husband telling her to brake but she did not know how to. Her husband also tried to stop the car but couldn't.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Openshaw said Mawamba was ‘profoundly ignorant’ of the most basic driving skills, adding that setting off to drive when so lacking the most basic driving skills amounted to a ‘thoughtless disregard for the safety of others.’

He was undoubtedly correct, but two years behind bars seems a pretty serious penalty for a moment of thoughtless panic and a lifetime of regret thereafter. Tragic though the incident was, it does appear to have been an accident and if anyone was to be prosecuted, surely it ought to have been the instructor?

Besides, very few rapists or muggers go down for two years in this day and age, but then the law in Britain seems to have badly lost its way.

I am occasionally hard on the paper shufflers and desk jockeys of City Hall in my rants, but in one aspect at least, they have my sincere sympathy. According to the Freedom of Information Act, anyone can write to their local council with a question and these have to be answered within twenty days. In 2011 – and the year is not out yet – more than 197 000 such requests for information have been submitted to councils in this country and £31,6 million has been spent on replying to these questions.

I know I have little faith in the sanity of those around me, but I cringed when I read that Hampshire Council was asked how many drawing pins there were in its town hall, and what percentage were stuck in a pin board. Is this relevant to anything I wonder? Mind you, it gets worse. Scarborough Council was asked how many cheques were issued by the council and how many it received, while the number of privacy walls between toilets was the hot topic for a Cornwall Council taxpayer.

A request to Wealden Council asked: How does the council manage to cope with the vagaries of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which is something to do with quantum mechanics and deals with the impossibility of simultaneously knowing both the momentum and position of a sub-atomic particle.

Closer to home and even more daft, Cheltenham Council was asked to provide details of its contingency plans for a crash landing by Father Christmas. The applicant wanted to know who at the council would rescue Santa, who would be responsible for rounding up the reindeer and which staff would get the job of clearing the crash site.

Both Bristol Council and Leicester Council were quizzed about their readiness for a zombie invasion, while Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service was asked about plans for an alien attack.

I sometimes wonder whether I am going barmy or the world in general has lost its marbles!

Mind you, it can't just be me. The world’s most expensive coffee has gone on sale at a London nightclub. Costing £70 a cup, it is made from the droppings of an animal called the palm civet - a sort of cross between a cat and a mongoose. After digesting fruit pulp, the civets excrete the beans, which are then harvested and turned into Kopi Luwak coffee on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

One cup is said to cleanse the system and shake off the effects of a hangover. Call me old-fashioned perhaps, but I find an extra scoop of Nescafe normally does the trick for a lot less than 70 bucks a throw.

The management of that nightclub must be gleefully rubbing their hands at the inane gullibility of their clientele.

 

 

Today is the shortest day of the year, so in theory at least, summer is on its way.

Huh! It still feels and looks awfully wintery to me, but there is nothing any of us can do about the weather. It is time we all did something about the state of this mixed up modern world though. Take the case of Alan Pollock, who I have mentioned a couple of times over the past week or so. He provided one of those rare moments when the whole nation rejoiced as a brave man stood up to a lout.

Pollock was hailed as a hero after millions on the internet watched a video of the ‘Big Man’ hauling an alleged fare dodger off a train, but yesterday it emerged that the authorities do not share the public’s enthusiasm for his actions and he has been charged with assault.

Almost two million people have seen the YouTube video of his intervention in an argument between student Sam Main and a conductor, who claimed the teenager did not have a valid ticket and should get off the train. The incident, on the Edinburgh to Perth service on December 9 was captured on another passenger’s mobile phone and posted online.

The video, called ‘ScotRail No Ticket’was widely acclaimed as an example of what ordinary people can do to protect the rights of others, but inevitably perhaps, the pifflewits in authority have bowed to the complaints of a yob and taken the easy route of prosecuting a decent young man.

Amazing too how the Crown Prosecution Service – or its Scottish equivalent - can so quickly make up its mind, not only in this case, but in the case of footballer John Terry who is being charged with a racist verbal attack on another player, but they are taking such an inordinately long time to make up their minds as to whether or not they should charge Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary.

I have little time for John Terry or the other hugely overpaid young men who kick a ball around, but in any sport, tempers run high and insults fly. Why should this one be worse than any others?

And as for the worthy Mr Huhne, he is a Minister of the Crown and in a position of power – to spend buckets of PBT money at any rate – so surely a decision on his case should take priority, particularly as he is being accused of cheating the system.

But no, in the new liberal Britain, it is easier to prosecute a man standing up for public rights and a footballer than to stand up to an arrogantly bullying politician.

It is only a few days since the Big O made his toe curling speech and the last American troops pulled out of Iraq, but already the coalition government there is experiencing problems that throw Britain’s Tory/Lib Dem squabbles into perspective. The Sunni vice-president is on the run after the Shia-led government accused him of running death squads and masterminding attacks on the country’s security forces.

Needless to say, I have no idea whether or not Tariq al-Hashemi, the most senior Sunni politician in Iraq, is guilty of these charges. Either way, there is no doubt as to the seriousness of the situation. A Sunni ally of his, who happens to be the deputy prime minister, has even compared the Shia prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to Saddam Hussein himself.

Doubtless it would be premature to suppose these difficulties mean the Shia-Sunni coalition that has been cobbled together is about to disintegrate. Perhaps it will soldier on, but it is not at all obvious that the conditions exist in Iraq for democracy to take root, let alone prosper. The country is in any case, an artificial construct of empire, handed to the British in 1919 when the Ottoman empire broke up, and comprising a Shia Arab majority and a Sunni minority, as well as the Kurds, who mostly live in their own semi-autonomous region in the north. Now of couse, they all want their own bits back and to be recognised as little nations in their own right.

In the years following the American-British invasion of Iraq, insurgent groups, mainly made up of Sunni dissidents, killed thousands of Iraqi civilians in a spate of bloody bomb attacks, but nobody in the West seemed to care, because Saddam had been hanged so all was apparently well. Estimates of the number of people killed since 2003 range from 100,000 to more than one million. According to the UN, nearly two million refugees have fled the country.

There were 4,459 deaths among the American military while 179 British servicemen lost their lives. The cost of the war and occupation to the U.S. has been estimated at a staggering £500 billion, though it may well be significantly more, while we, the PBT have shelled out nearly £10 billion.

Was it worth it? Of course it wasn’t! If Iraq were a properly functioning democracy facing a dependably settled future, one could at least make out a case that the stupefying sacrifice of blood and treasure was worth the price, but this was a war fought for the personal power of two major politicians, Bush and Blair. As it is, Iraq is very far indeed from being a model democracy, and all the signs are that it will be a very long time before it is. When that happy day eventually arrives, who will be able to say it might not have come sooner if Saddam Hussein, evil man though he indisputably was, had been left to his own devices?

For me, the lesson of Iraq, and most probably of Libya and Afghanistan, is that you can’t implant democracy with the barrel of a gun. If only our leaders could cling to that truth, we would have fewer foreign wars and a happier future for us all.

I fear the Falklands will be next but I am not sure what Britain has left to fight with. Could be an interesting New Year.

 

Would you believe that as the sun rises tomorrow, 400 inmates in British prisons will be celebrating a day off, some of them with a sip of wine and a ceremony involving Tarot cards and rune stones - whatever they may be.

For it seems that the 22nd of December is the winter solstice, one of eight pagan festivals that prisons must now recognise. Pagan prisoners are allowed to choose two out of eight festivals on which to take a day off from the work they would normally do in jail, which might be cooking, cleaning and so on. If this sounds pretty outrageous, the fact is that prisons are expected to provide a means of worship for dozens of religions, many of them totally obscure.

Kitchens are expected to cater for the dietary practices of particular faiths, and prison officers are expected to observe hundreds of sacred festivals, excusing prisoners from work duties - as they will do with the pagans tomorrow. Of course, none of us will be in any way surprised to discover that all this madness is a result of the Human Rights Act, which guarantees ‘the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.’

The great irony, of course, is that law-abiding citizens who are not in prison seem to be offered scant protection from this law when it comes to respecting their own rights.

For example, there was the case of that Christian couple, who were successfully sued after refusing to allow a gay couple to share a bed at their B&B establishment, or the case of another Christian couple, from Derby, who were forbidden from fostering children because they refused to drop their belief that homosexual acts are wrong.

Yet inside jail, the right of inmates to freely practise their faith has been taken to extraordinary lengths. Recently, Broadmoor Hospital - which houses some of Britain’s most notorious criminals, including Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe - was reported to be recruiting Wicca (white witchcraft) and Rastafarian representatives to join its chaplaincy team following an official audit of patients’ religious needs.

Unfortunately, Broadmoor, like all the nation’s jails, doesn’t have any choice in the matter, since the right to have access to religious representatives is laid out in a 154-page Prison Service manual, which airily states: ‘Chaplains and ministers of recognised religions must be available to prisoners. When a minister of a particular faith is not available to a prison, advice must be sought from the Prison Service Chaplaincy, the Religion Section of the Prisoner Administration Group, or from the Religious Consultative Service for the particular faith.’

In other words, if you are one of the 412 pagans behind bars, or one of the 81 Seventh Day Adventists or 58 Christian Scientists (not to mention those Wiccans and Rastafarians), you can demand that the Prison Service provide you with a religious instructor - at PBT expense.

And boy, but it is expensive! The Prison Service recently advertised for chaplains in Norfolk on a salary of between £23,082 and £35,799 - significantly more than parish priests are paid. One can only assume that the Wiccans and Rastas are on the same pay scales or their human rights would also be being abused.

In May, a Muslim prisoner called Imran Bashir won a High Court case against Rye Hill Prison, in Warwickshire after he was punished for failing to co-operate with officers, demanding that he give a urine sample for drug-testing. The court ruled that Bashir’s human rights had been infringed by being expected to give a urine sample while he was fasting.

Yet it wasn’t Ramadan or any other Islamic festival at the time he was asked for the sample. Apparently, Bashir had decided to embark on a three-day personal fast. What nonsense is this? It means that if a villain has an inkling that he might be due for a drug test, all he has to do is embark on a ruddy fast for his own reasons and nothing can be done.

Going back to those Pagans for a moment, it seems that they must be allowed ‘incense, jewellery, a hoodless robe, a flexible twig or wand, rune stones, a private altar in their cells and Tarot cards’ - the latter on condition they do not use them for telling fortunes. The Prison Chaplaincy service must also provide them with wine for their ceremonies, which they must then be allowed to pour on to the earth, into a flower pot or down the sink - though, referring to the latter practice, the rules state: ‘Not all pagan chaplains will find this acceptable.’ Of course they won’t. It will be a waste of wine, which I don’t suppose will be cheap plonk or that too would be going against someone’s human rights.

Pagans, the manual goes on to advise prison staff, believe that Western civilisation has evolved over recent years into a ‘me first, grabbing and grasping society in which the strong, under delusion of separateness, tread down the weak.’

With such idealist attitudes, it makes you wonder how these pagans ended up in prison in the first place - if not as the result of a little grabbing and grasping of their own.

It is Britain’s all-pervasive culture of political correctness that allows this lunacy, and means that prisons are in danger of becoming completely ungovernable. In this crazy world, convicted criminals are given ‘human rights,’ which by dint of the crimes that sent them to prison in the first place, they have almost certainly denied to their victims.

And we are paying for it all, not only in money, but also in the possible future consequences of all this madness.

My father always taught me that swearing means that one cannot think of a suitable word in the English language and it is advice that I passed on to my own brats. As a result, we Lemons rarely use bad language of any sort, and I have always felt that viewers and listeners to media outlets should also be protected from the gratuitous use of swearwords. Last weekend however, Virgin Media’s electronic programme guide began to see offence in words which otherwise would be happily broadcast on breakfast TV. Alfred Hitchcock, for example, became Alfred Hitchc**k, with a similar fate befalling BBC Radio 6 Music's Jarvis C**ker. Charles Dickens became Charles D***ens and Arsenal became A***nal.

We can only imagine what would have happened to Scunthorpe had they also featured on the football results programme! A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "Over the weekend a temporarily over-zealous profanity checker took offence at certain programme titles. The altered titles have been swiftly an*lysed and we're fixing any remaining glitches."

It proves perhaps that machines, no matter how digitalised and sophisticated, never will rule the world.

 

Christmas really is the silly season, but this year it looks like raising my blood pressure to a serious extent. Would you believe that toddlers in North Yorkshire have been banned from performing actions to the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, in case it offends deaf people. Bosses at the Sure Start children's group in Acomb have introduced the ban after realising one of the hand actions could be misconstrued as a rude gesture.

The issue is said to be that the hand gesture used for diamond resembles the official sign language sign for female genitalia and the powers that be are worried that continued use of the gesture could offend deaf children or deaf parents - despite their not being any at the group.

Unsurprisingly the move has been criticised by parents, with one mother telling reporters: "These are innocent little children just making a sign to show a star. No-one would give it a second thought. Now every parent may worry their child may be making an offensive gesture when they're singing this song."

However, a spokeswoman for City of York Council, which is responsible for the group, said it was ‘a sensible decision taken to prevent deaf children or deaf parents being offended.’

What sanctimonious humbug and why single out a group of toddlers for censorship?

Huh! The answer to that is simple enough. The staff involved had just been on a special training course aimed at helping them understand sign language and its potential pitfalls. Brimming with their newly-acquired expertise they returned to work determined to put it to good use. Their laser-beam attention quickly locked in on a performance of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star likely to cause a breach of the peace.

Another box ticked for the paper shufflers, but a group of kiddies will be left bewildered as well as disappointed.

But then, local authority staff these days seem to spend half their working lives on training courses, indoctrinating them in the new religion of ‘diversity.’ Councils waste millions sending staff to be brainwashed, at anything up to £500 a time, inc VAT, vegetarian buffet and all-u-can-drink Fair Trade coffee. So I suppose we should be pleased that all our PBT cash isn’t being entirely frittered away by the desk jockeys, even if it is at the expense of kiddies.

Yet I would think it must take a particularly diseased mind to detect something sordid in an innocent performance of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star by a group of toddlers.

I think I mentioned him the other day, but the man who threw a foul-mouthed student off a train now faces prosecution. What a travesty of justice it will be if he is hauled before a court.

Six-footer Alan Pollock, normally a respectable, mild mannered bloke intervened when nineteen year old Sam Main started abusing an elderly ticket inspector who challenged him because he hadn’t got a ticket. Pollock finally took Main by the scruff of the neck and chucked him off the train, which was stopped and holding everyone up on their way home from work.

The student claims he fell on the platform and suffered injury. What a pity, but now the inspector could also lose his job for ‘allowing’ Mr Pollock to butt in. British society has become so ridiculously liberal that the criminal has become the victim and the honest and decent are presumed guilty. Compo Cameron promised to stop all this nonsense, but as with so many of his promises, it would seem that he lied.

On the subject of crackpot rulings being handed down, we now learn that Cambridge dons have been instructed not to shake hands with visitors for fear of offending foreigners and local councils are spending millions on translation services, with the result that they are having to cut back on other work.

What has happened to the old dictum that ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ damnit? When I go into another country, I expect to follow the laws and customs of the country that has been good enough to let me visit. If at all practical I will make a stab at their language, at least to say please, thank you and good day. If required I will waggle my ears or do a backward somersault instead of shaking hands. It’s called being polite.

These silly little local authorities should scrap all translation services. Foreigners who live here should either learn English or pay for their own interpreters. And shake hands when that courtesy is proffered. When it comes to collective mania, I get the feeling that the desk jockeys of Britain are leading the field.

For instance, my blood pressure rocketed when I read that packs of sweets are being left beside the beds of new arrivals at £55,000 a year Ashfield Young Offenders Institution - or do I mean Hotel?

Surely this is hardly the way to remind young offenders that they are being punished, if such a concept exists any more? Instead of fudge bars and sweeties, how about welcoming the louts with a mop and bucket, plus a swift clap around the ear just in case they are looking for trouble?

Our revered leaders are at it again too. It is already known as the best club in London, but now a Commons committee is recommending turning part of the Palace of Westminster into an exclusive private club. For an annual subscription of £2000, members will have access to bars and dining rooms and be able to sip champagne on the famous terrace overlooking the Thames.

Corporate memberships will also be offered for £20000 a year, to attract wealthy businessmen. Personally, I’d willingly pay the money – if I had it – just to avoid rubbing shoulders with MPs, but there will no doubt be plenty of takers. These tosspots even have plans for a range of merchandise, including T-shirts, wallpaper and a line of limited edition prints by Grayson Perry, the transvestite potter. Perhaps Perry could be persuaded to meet and greet the guests, dressed as Little Bo Peep? That would make them feel at home.

When the new club opens, they could employ Compo as an obsequious, upmarket maitre d’ and add a casino, with the Boy George as chief croupier. Bring in a few high-rolling bankers and the national deficit would be halved in no time.

In fact, the mind boggles at the possibilities for high class entertainment at this fancy new meeting place for the rich and famous. How about a weekly dwarf-tossing contest, featuring Squeaker Bercow in his black gown being fired at a giant dartboard? The queues would stretch round Parliament Square and I’m sure Sally B would be more than happy to do a turn as a pole dancer. After some of her tacky stunts recently, it would be a step up in the world.

Another one who would doubtless jump at the chance of joining is Max Mosley - especially if they set up a punishment dungeon staffed by a few of Cameron’s Cuties in skimpy Black Rod outfits, offering the full three-line whip.

Oh the mind truly boggles at the possibilities, but surely Parliament was designed to be a place where affairs of State are soberly thought about, discussed and sorted out. Instead of which, the pratwinkles in power seem determined to make it even more seedy than it usually is.

Oh for a few politicians with some shred of dignity about them.

 

 

I have to confess to a cinematic weakness, in that although I rarely watch a film and haven’t been to a cinema in ten years or more, I do enjoy an old fashioned Western.

Feeling that an idle Sunday was called for yesterday, I made a fire, sat down in front of it with a cheering glass  or three – it is Christmas after all – and watched The Alamo. It was not the first time I had seen it and despite the presence of a host of big name stars of yesteryear, it seems more amateurish each time I do, but it always leaves me reflecting on how the Yanks have made so much capital out of the incident, whereas the loss of the Shangani Patrol in Rhodesia is fussily swept under the carpet by the Brits.

Yet the two incidents were eerily similar. Colonel Travis at the Alamo is always portrayed as a grim, text book soldier, as is his Rhodesian counterpart, Major Forbes. Most of the men involved in both incidents were irregulars, rather than properly trained soldiers and both groups faced up to a hugely superior force and died with extreme gallantry. Why then are Allan Wilson’s men forgotten by the world, while Jim Bowie and co from the Alamo are regularly lauded in films and books?

There are times when history doesn’t seem fair, but I suppose the Yanks admire raw courage while the Brits fear being politically incorrect because the Shangani fight was between black and white.

That is my theory anyway.

As we enter Christmas week, it is interesting to compare what is happening with our political leaders. Take Compo Cameron for a start; his economic strategy has gone up in smoke and so have crucial relationships in Europe. Violent urban disorder erupted on his watch over the summer and scandal forced the resignation of a key member of the cabinet in the autumn. The northern part of his kingdom is threatening to break away. His closeness to senior members of the Murdoch empire has been a personal embarrassment. On a core element of the government's domestic programme – the NHS legislation – he has been forced into reverses which cost political capital without doing anything to reduce the risk that it will turn into a terrible mess.

And yet Compo is ending the year on something of a high. His backbenchers greeted his return from Brussels with a hero's welcome. He may eventually come to rue raising expectations that he cannot ultimately fulfil, but for the moment he has won what one influential Tory MP calls ‘a breathing space’ with his party during which ‘we will get off his back about Europe.’ He verbally flattened the Milipede at the last Prime Minister's Questions of the year. Despite a bleak economic outlook, accompanied by the worst unemployment figures in 17 years, some polling has the Conservatives nudging ahead of Labour. The languishing Lib Dems are reduced to sighing with relief when they can just squeak a third place in a byelection, but we can ignore them. Giddier Tory MPs can even be heard speculating about engineering a snap general election. That might not be practical, but the fact that it is talked about at all is indicative of the state of play as we come to the close of 2011 - Compo Cameron is on top.

This is not because the prime minister has had a brilliant 12 months. In many respects, it has been a year which has exposed a variety of flaws, limitations and contradictions in both his personal style and political strategy. The ‘big society,’ which was once to be his governing theme, is rarely heard of these days. Even he appears to have given up making speeches trying to sell it. His premiership is becoming defined by austerity and Europe, the opposite of what he originally intended.

Yet he remains in the pound seats, because let’s face it, all politics is relative. One reason he seems to be in a good place for a prime minister is because international rivals and domestic competitors are in much worse ones. He leads a government which looks unusually robust when set beside many others. Rancour between Tories and Lib Dems is as nothing compared with the poisonous divisions in the US where government is paralysed by the deadlock between the White House and an obstructionist Congress. Whatever its faults, Britain's coalition can pass a budget and enact legislation. Greece and Italy have ‘technocratic’ governments – in other words, governments that no one voted for – imposed on them by the failure of conventional democratic politics and the terror of the bond markets. I have lost count of the number of summits at which the Diminutive Frog and Frau Merkel met to resolve the euro crisis and then failed to do so.

Here, the Boy George has been forced to rewrite his deficit reduction strategy, an event that ought to be a humiliation for a chancellor. A mere 18 months after he stridently told us that he would have the job done in a parliament, he now promises a diet of gruel into the foreseeable future. But the markets have continued to tolerate the size of Britain's debts, and most voters continue to buy the prime minister's excuses, because this government seems more decisive and stable than most.

Besides, Compo has nobody to threaten him in the seat of power. Fourteen months after Red Ed's victory as successor to Gormless Gord and he still hasn’t been able to tell us what are the beliefs to which he alluded in his victory speech, as running ‘through everything I do.’ Whatever these mysterious convictions may be, they could not be better applied at this stage than to organising his replacement by Yvette Cooper, the Labour party's only conceivable solution to Compo Cameron.

For her part, the timing might be no better now than it was in 2010, when she said her children were too young to make such a commitment, but for now at least, there is no other contender. Electoral humiliation already looms and if she waits too long, the much-hyped Chuka Umunna will come along and Labour still won't have its first woman leader. Cooper’s spouse, the Ballsy One might be far more useful at home, where he could also find more time to bawl in front of Antiques Roadshow and One Man and His Dog.

If she is any kind of patriot, Cooper hardly has a choice. You do not have to be a Labour supporter to cringe at debates in which Compo's jest about Labour wanting a new leader for Christmas passes for some Churchillian gem. As demonstrated in her conference speech, Today interviews and demolition of Theresa May during their great borders stand-off, Cooper is more fluent than Miliband and more plausible than her husband, but even without opening her mouth, her presence alone would be a huge, possibly insurmountable obstacle to Compo’s attacks.

True, the Ballses extracted some tremendous expenses, by way of house-flipping – but is that a failing on which the wisteria-clearing Cameron, employer of fellow-flippers, would want to focus? Unable to taunt and scoff at her in Flashman style, or to patronise her, using his ‘calm down dear’/’lady's frustration’ mode, how on earth would Compo crush an equally intelligent, unimpressed woman whose only real political weakness is her husband's contribution to the debt crisis? Given that any hint of sexism would, instantaneously aggravate his own most glaring problem - that of systematically alienating women?

Certainly, a degree of humourlessness, noted even by Cooper's sympathisers, could if unchecked be turned to Compo’s advantage. She certainly doesn’t appear to be the life and soul of any party, but she appears to repress warmth, rather than actually require a transplant. A look at Cooper's pre-1997 Independent columns, before she was suddenly selected for Castleford, confirms that she did indeed write in approachable human terms, even about economics. Among other themes she explored in her writings of the time were educational unfairness, callous misconceptions about ME (from which she temporarily suffered), relations between the sexes and idiotic statements about youthful political disenchantment.

"Why vote when you could be snogging?" she asked. "Politics isn't cool and it isn't sexy."

Not exactly high blown rhetoric perhaps, but both the country and the poor battered Labour Party deserve someone better that Red Ed the Milipede.

No wonder Compo looks so smug these days.

 

Gloucestershire has missed the worst of the weeks wintery weather, but it is hellishly cold this morning and I long for some hot sunshine.

Ah well, only three and a half months or so to go. I wonder if I will survive, particularly if this does develop into as vicious a winter as the last one.

Poor old Archbishop Rowan Williams really is rather a pathetic leader and hardly the symbol the Church of England needs in these troubled times.

This is because he’s a rather dull mainstream leftist, who talks about politics when he ought to be urging this neo-pagan country to return to Christianity, before it is swamped by Islam. At the moment most Briton’s seem more interested in shoes and booze than in God.

In any case, since all three major political parties are also controlled by dull, conformist leftists, the Archbishop is pretty superfluous when he enters the political arena. He is powerless in the material world and as we have seen in the past few months, he doesn’t even control his own cathedrals.

However, when the Prime Minister talks about religion, it’s a different matter. Compo Cameron does indeed have the power to shift this country sharply towards Christianity. All he needs to do is to dismantle the many anti-Christian laws which have attacked the faith over the past half-century – for example, instant divorce, mass giveaways of contraceptives to children, the teaching of promiscuity in schools, the licensing of greedy commerce on Sundays, plus of course the total abandonment of right and wrong by the justice system.

He won’t do any of those things of course. In fact, he’d sneer at anyone who suggested that he ought to do so. So his creepy pose as a ‘committed Christian’ (committed to what I wonder?) last Friday was – like almost everything about this man – a brazen fraud on the public.

Of the two, I think I prefer the Archbishop, who promises nothing and delivers nothing, to a premier who promises the world, but whose parcels, when we eagerly open them, are always empty.

And now we learn that a purge is to be launched by Ministers on the health and safety Scrooges who ruin the spirit of Christmas. They released a list of false Christmas H & S edicts that have been wrongly used to ban children’s snowball fights and brand Santa’s sleigh as dangerous.

The move, announced by Work & Pensions minister Chris Grayling was accompanied by a renewed pledge to scrap all pointless safety ‘do’s and don’ts’ and make it easier for unnecessary rulings to be overturned.

Haven’t we heard all this before? Wasn’t just such a reform on health and safety nonsense promised by Compo Cameron before he came into power?

Anyway, the ten-point list of ‘ridiculous’ Christmas safety bans, compiled by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), included:

Children banned by teachers from having snowball fights in case injured pupils seek compensation; 

 Homeowners and businessmen being sued for clearing the snow outside their properties by passers-by who had slipped over; 

 Carol singers being classed as a health and safety risk; 

 Panto performers ordered not to throw sweets into the audience for fear of injuring them; 

 Santa’s sleigh outlawed for posing a traffic risk – a Father Christmas was banned from riding his sleigh through Alnwick, Northumberland, after council officials said their insurance would not cover it.

Mr Grayling, bless him said that in the New Year he would set up a ‘challenge panel’ to help businesses overturn needless rules. He added: “We are putting common sense back at the heart of health and safety. Our reforms will root out needless bureaucracy and ensure the health and safety system is fit for purpose.”

I can’t see that getting past the Clegglet. He is about to create more waves in a speech today by attacking Compo’s views on the benefits of a nuclear family, as ‘outdated’ and he seems intent on turning down any idea that entails even a semblance of common sense.

There was uproar in at least one tabloid today at the fact that most of our erstwhile MPs have broken 6 days early for Christmas, but to be honest, they are a fat lot of use when they are in parliament, so why not let them go. At least one of them protested that he was going back to work in his constituency, but that is the excuse that is continually brought out on these occasions.

I have never even seen my MP, the worthy Neil Carmichael. Nor does he get much coverage in the media, apart from the column he writes himself in the local rag.

And I am sure that the hapless Mr Carmichael is fairly typical of the tosspots who make up modern governments – certainly here in Britain.

 

I am very late this morning, but that is due to the fact that my typing machine has been playing silly wotsits and driving me up the wall! I fear that when the Good Lord drew up the blueprints for this crumpled scribbler, he left out the gene that enables one to understand the marvels of technology!

There was one particular headline that caught my eye and made me smile somewhat cynically yesterday. It read as follows, ‘Lying To Parliament May Become A Criminal Offence, Minister Suggests.’
S

urely that is more than a wee bit unfair? If our Lords and Masters want to make such a law, it should be modified to cover all lying in Parliament and automatic jail terms be added as punishment.

Mind you, that would soon lead to a totally empty house and very full prisons, because those self same Lords and Masters truly are a desperately untrustworthy lot.

For instance, can you imagine working for a company that only has a little more than 635 employees, but of these, 29 have been accused of spouse abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 9 have been accused of writing bad cheques, 17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses, 3 have done time for assault, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit, 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges and 8 have been arrested for shoplifting.

And that is not all – no fewer than 21 of them are currently defendants in lawsuits, 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year and collectively in 2011, they have cost the PBT £92,993,748 in expenses!

And these are the people who have the cheek to get all uptight about lying!

 Mind you, it is not only the MPs who are doing their best to disgrace themselves in the eyes of the world. We now learn the London’s bus drivers have threatened to strike during the 2012 Olympics unless they each get a £500 bonus.

The 28,000 staff claim they need the money just for turning up to work - because their buses will be so busy.

They should be prosecuted for usury, not given extra money merely for doing their jobs.

Inevitably I suppose at this time of year, Santa Claus is in trouble. Joan Dufosse from Southampton, was having her picture taken with her two grandchildren in Santa's den at Selfridges in Oxford Street when she fell over a plastic icicle and broke her leg.

She is yet to make a full recovery from the accident last November , but is now in line to win up to £30,000 damages after the Court of Appeal blamed her fall on Santa’s elf, Sarah Chamberlain, and Santa himself – in this case,  actor David Warren.

Mrs Dufosse's claim from compensation from the company which ran the grotto, was originally rejected at Southampton county court in March, but yesterday the decision was reversed at London's Civil Appeal Court, which concluded that human error by Father Christmas and the elf had led to the accident.

Lord Justice Rix said: "The accident happened when Mrs Dufosse, at the request of the elf, stepped sideways and backward into the corner. Santa and his elf were not as careful in taking precautions against debris on the floor as they should have been."

What fatuous nonsense! Accidents happen and while the exact amount Mrs Dufosse will receive will be determined at a later date, she shouldn’t get anything damnit!

London's traffic wardens have been given a tremendous dressing-down by Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. In a debate on the London Local Authorities Bill, he described seeing ‘desperately scruffy tatterdemalions who wander around Westminster as accredited persons.’

He said: ‘They are parking meter attendants and look as though they have been dragged through a hedge backwards. Their uniforms are anoraky things, not the sort of thing an officer of the Crown would ever be seen wearing.’

Well said, Mr Moggy and it is not only in London I’m afraid. Mind you, I fear that the North Somerset MP is a little biased in the matter, as his wife Helena has recently been given three parking tickets. ‘Usually,’ says her angry hubby, ‘when unloading babies, drivers are allowed a little leeway.’

Obviously not, but then Mr Mogg, you and your lot make these laws. The poor old wardens - or whatever fancy name they go by these days - merely enforce them.

There is gathering outrage in the tabloids as they suddenly discover that coppers have been taking freebies for pop concerts and the kind of sports events most of us dream of attending.

For me though, the most disturbing aspect of the whole affair was that one police chief pocketed six sets of Take That tickets. It’s not corruption I’m worried about, but a grown man and a senior copper to boot wanting to see a boy band six times.

What is the world coming to?

 

Would you believe that a gang of nine yobs who broke the nose of a girl with autism and shattered her face have escaped punishment. They didn’t even get to Court damnit!

The mob attacked 16-year-old Sophie Russell, punching her in the face 20 times and leaving her with injuries, so severe that she had to have facial surgery and take 10 months off school to recover from the trauma.

Yet these horrible little so and sos were let off after police only cautioned one of them.

The attack happened at Sophie's school in Louth, Lincolnshire, in February. She had to have surgery for a broken nose and has since moved to a new school in Lincoln.Those who attacked her have not had to move.

A Lincolnshire Police spokeswoman said the case was passed to the Youth Offending Team who decided not to press charges but to give a caution for common assault.

She said: "Age is a factor in the decision but everything would have been taken into account."

Everything but the feelings of the victim!

Multi culturalism undoubtedly has a lot going for it, but with the lunatics in charge of the madhouse, it is causing more problems than it is worth. Take the case of Paulo Franco, who is Portuguese, but was forced out of his job as a supervisor at Britain’s biggest banana-packing factory, in Coventry, because he couldn’t speak Polish.

Although Mr Franco speaks perfect English, he wasn’t able to communicate with his overwhelmingly Polish workforce, so he had to go. Some other managers at the factory have now downloaded iPhone apps so they can translate their instructions into Polish.

Fyffes Bananas’ spokesman Paul Barrett said: ‘You can’t ban people speaking in their own language.’

No, but you can ban people speaking English in England, apparently. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

The withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq yesterday is anything but the end of American military involvement in the Middle East. The latest focus of Washington's attention is Syria, where the United Nations says 5,000 people have been killed since the uprising erupted in March.

Before American (and probably British) soldiers are asked to give their lives in another Arab country, they are surely entitled to ask a few important questions. Is Washington attempting to install a democratic government in Damascus for example or is it seizing the opportunity to bring down Iran's main Arab ally in advance of an American or Israeli attack on Iran?

Did the US have a hand in fomenting the rebellion that it says it now must support? Their record in the Middle East would certainly support that particular view. Will war in Syria be as bloody as the Iraqi conflict, which the Brookings Institution says killed at least 115,000 Iraqis and nearly 5,000 Coalition troops and turned four million Iraqis into refugees? Will Syria suffer the kind of sectarian bloodbath that has yet to end in Iraq, despite the American pullout?

The Iraqi government clearly fears a Syrian conflict spilling across its border and is urging caution. "I know people must get their freedom and their will and democracy and equal citizenship," Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said this week at the White House. "But I do not have the right to ask a president to abdicate. We cannot give ourselves this right."

The Big O promptly had his say as well "There's no disagreement there," he muttered portentiously.

What rot is that? It was only in August that Barak Baby whittered how, 'For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.'

Seems to have changed his tune somewhat, but then he has proved himself as inept a leader as Britain’s own beloved Compo Cameron.

Talking about Compo, his admission that he used Enoch Powell's ‘full-bladder technique’ on the EU puts his veto in a new light. The more I think about the events of last Friday however, the more they seems unplanned and silly rather than a great act of Statesmanship. After all, there is a difference between looking after number one and running out because you don't want to wet yourself in front of the Diminutive Frog.

When Compo went wee wee wee all the way home, the rest of us had to swallow some awkward news. He didn't hold it in for Britain - he did it for the bankers. It may be that the British public dislike Eurocrats even more than they dislike bankers but the Prime Minister should at least have been honest about whose interests he was protecting - badly, as it turns out.

Because you know, those self same bankers have over the past few years proved themselves to be totally inefficient. Britain’s financial sector contributes 11 per cent of the country’s GDP and provided £193 billion of tax revenues in the boom years from 2002 to 2008. However, the taxpayer has already had to spend £289 billion propping up the banks since then, £45 billion of that on RBS alone. Sensible regulation brought in by Europe might have resulted in banks that actually help our economy to grow rather than leeching off it. Compo seems content to let that hope dribble away.

The British demands were tabled in the early hours without any agreements set up beforehand. I am no politician, but I would have thought that ground work has to be put in place before momentous calls are made. Every time you want something from someone else you have to warn them, be their friend, understand their position and find a way of dealing with it. Compo certainly doesn’t seem to have done any of this. He didn't even understand that the Frog and the Hausfrau had done the deal already.

What everyone wants to know is where this leaves Britain now. I am sure I am not the only person who fears that we've played our big card, infuriating everybody by making it harder for them to co-operate, and leaving them with no reason to listen to us. In fact, we seem to be well and truly stranded at the moment. We have already kicked away our transatlantic relationship, because there are no strong ties between Compo and the Big O. Now our revered leader seems to have impulsively cut the country off from Europe too. I said it last week when it all happened and the political silence since then seems to reinforce my view – I don’t think this inane coalition government has the faintest idea of where to go from here.

I mentioned the Scottish pandas last week and I know little about the breed, but to me they are surely the benefit scroungers of global ecology? We silly people spend millions keeping creatures like Tian Tian alive - in fact, the panda is the symbol of the World Wide Fund for Nature - but they refuse to learn to help themselves. It's almost as if they want to become extinct.

Despite the fact that they're technically carnivores, pandas insist on eating bamboo, a foodstuff with about as much nutritional value as a McDonald's cupcake – do they have cupcakes in McDonalds, I wonder. They have the sex drive of a lump of plasticine, too. Females can be bothered to ovulate only once a year, and when the males do manage to get it up, they prefer to try it on with members of their own family.

They're lazy, feckless and dysfunctional to boot. In fact, if Tian Tian were human, we would cut off her benefits without delay.

Elderly passengers in wheelchairs and families with children spent Tuesday night at Gatwick airport in London as good old Air Zimbabwe failed to secure the release of the plane that was seized on Monday over unsettled debts. This was the second night passengers had spent, not knowing when they would fly out.

Tourists from as far away as Australia were among the estimated 200 people stranded without any alternative arrangements being made by Air Zim. The Gatwick airport press office said they had provided food, water and beds for about 50 to 60 people on Tuesday night.

The aircraft was due to be auctioned on Wednesday but according to reports, Transport Minister Nicholas Goche said negotiations with their creditors were continuing and the auction would not go ahead.

Goche is quoted as saying the ministry was, ‘frantically looking for money’ to pay the $1.2 million owed to American General Supplies, the aircraft spares company that impounded the Boeing 767-200 plane after getting a court order.

Zimbabwe’s treasury reportedly told management at the national airline that no funds were available to save the plane. The government owns majority shares at Air Zim and like other parastatals the airline has been riddled with mismanagement and corruption.

Makes one proud to be a Zimbo, but all they need to do is sell off a handful or two of those Chiadzwa diamonds before they reach the pockets of the politicians.

Then they could buy a new aircraft or even a fleet of the ruddy things.

 

I must admit that this European crisis does give occasional cause for amusement, particularly when one watches the antics of the Libdems. These overpaid nincompoops don’t seem sure who they should be venting their fury on at the moment – Compo Cameron or their own leader, the hapless Clegglet.

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne (when oh when will the CPS tell us what they intend to do about his driving licence fiddling?) laid into them both yesterday, but he can obviously sense that if Cleggy goes, he will be favourite to take up the leadership reins, particularly as there is not one potential bossman left among Libdem ranks.

What a mess it all is, but I still wonder what Compo intends to do next. It is all very well making a stand and sounding defiant, but he must surely have a plan B – mustn’t he?

Talking about the lack of money in Europe, the MEPs yesterday gave the go ahead to spend a cool £131 million on new offices for themselves. With harsh austerity cuts being endured by citizens right across the continent, the EU parliament’s all powerful Budget Committee obviously felt that this would be a worthwhile expenditure of dosh.

They already have lavish offices in Brussels, but the price includes spending £118million to demolish and build a new office block near to their current headquarters and to buy another.

A further £13.5million will be spent on buying and renovating a building that currently belongs to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg – the Parliament’s second home that it uses only 10 times a year for four days at a time.

With the Euro itself apparently on life support and the whole continent in a state of economic crisis, these pratwinkles are doing what they do best – feathering their own nests without worrying about anyone else.

Surely it is time Britain withdrew altogether from this nonsense?

In the allegedly real world, a judge yesterday agreed not to fit a criminal with an electronic tag because of his 21st birthday plans – and said that only a ‘tyrant’ would impose such a punishment.

Corey Brown had been ordered to do 150 hours of community service for his role in the theft of a pensioner’s car, but when he failed to turn up for the work sessions five times he was hauled back into court to be given a curfew and an electronic tag.

This horrible young villain was spared after complaining that the punishment would ruin his plans for a night out on his 21st birthday, poor lamb.

Recorder David Hall told a stunned courtroom: “It would be a tyrant who tagged someone on their 21st birthday and at Christmas.”

Turning to Brown– who had sat smirking throughout the hearing at Warwick Crown Court – this buffoon then said: “If I give you seven more hours [of community service] to do, and you keep out of trouble, is that a fair deal?”

Brown, from Bedworth, Warwickshire, simply nodded, and then walked free from court, no doubt leaving Mr Hall feeling proud of his own magnanimity and the people affected by Brown’s one man crime wave stunned at the ineffectiveness of the justice system.

In a similar incident, Ryan Girdlestone, who was part of a gang of feral youths that threw a 40lb paving slab at a pensioner, leaving him writhing on the ground in agony, also walked free from Court.

Girdlestone was fitted with a curfew and an electronic tag after his lawyer convinced magistrates that the 18-year-old was full of remorse for the incident that ended with Bernard O’Donnell with a broken leg.

Remorse? I fear not; only minutes after leaving Court,  Girdlestone boasted on his Facebook page: ‘Jus got out off court wiv a 4 mouths [sic] tag hahahha d**ks!!!’

Hushpuppy Kenneth Clark has apparently said that the case will be investigated, but I feel he should investigate the entire justice system which does fall under his management. British Justice used to be looked up to throughout the world, but now it is just a laughing stock.

I haven’t watched the Frozen Planet series on the idiot box, but have heard enthusiastic descriptions of the ‘marvellous photography.’

Now it appears that a great deal of it was faked and not taken on or under the ice caps as claimed, but carefully rigged up in zoos various.

I am a great admirer of David Attenborough and wish I had his job, but it seems a bit sad that even he should be tarnished with the same brush as the rest of the television con trick.

As I have said to a large number of people over the years, when it comes to the idiot box, don’t believe it just because you see it.

 

For those who tried to read my honeyed words yesterday, I apologise but I wasn’t in a fit state to trawl the media outlets I’m afraid. Weeks of walking in rain and wind suddenly caught up with me and laid me low with a cold and a throat full of razor blades.

Today sounds foul again and I don’t feel a lot better, but with less than four months to go before my Zambezi Trek, I have to keep walking.

Anyway, back to the real world, where Compo Cameron may have left Britain hopelessly isolated within Europe, but he has renewed his popularity among Tories and that must surely seem like a fair exchange to him.

Previous efforts at personal definition on his part involved hugging a hoodie and jumping aboard a Norwegian sled, but by hugging a Hungarian and hitching himself to the Eurosceptic bandwagon, he has added to his street cred and made himself look pretty good. The voting public have no interest in the minutiae of Euro regulation, but the image of their Prime Minister standing tall against the massed ranks of the Euro legions will have brought a patriotic glint to many a doubting eye.

By the same token, the weaselly Clegglet hardly covered himself in glory by not attending parliament yesterday and skulking off like a schoolboy who hadn’t been given the Christmas present he wanted. What sort of a man is this and do we really need him at the centre of power?

More importantly, for Compo though, the whole episode has given him a bit of breathing space. His hardcore Eurosceptics believe this is the start of something big, but Compo quite obviously intends to use his new status as the first British leader since Henry V to shun a European treaty to put a lid on the issue of Europe. Whether that is realistic over the long term is questionable, but in the short term, he now has enough capital within his party to marginalise the anti-EU fanatics should they come demanding fresh Euro scalps.

His brilliant failure in Brussels also represents a bitter blow to Red Ed Milipede and the Labour party. Over the past few months their leadership have been manoeuvring themselves into a position of greater Euroscepticism, from which they hoped to exploit growing Tory divisions on Europe, but they left it too long I’m afraid and now Compo is hogging the glory.

What he does next will be interesting though.

Would you believe that Katherine Kerswell, who is managing director at Kent County Council, could pocket a total of £750,000 for less than two years' work after joining the authority in March 2010. 

Mrs Kerswell, who has divided councillors within the authority, was brought in to lead a reorganisation, but now while it isn’t clear whether she has resigned or been made redundant, she is leaving with a whole sack full of PBT dosh.

She was previously forced to defend her £197,136-a-year salary in her last job at Northamptonshire County Council by claiming it was only 29p a year for everyone in the county. While there, she launched the much-mocked Taste the Strawberry campaign as a catchphrase for the council's services.

Now she is off again and a statement from Kent County Council said: ‘Katherine Kerswell has done an exceptional job at Kent reshaping our approach to service delivery and recasting our overall management arrangements.’

But surely, nobody is worth three quarters of a million for less than two years work? No wonder the councils of this soggy island are almost all flat broke.

I don’t care how good this paragon was at her job, she cannot have been that good.

But it isn’t just council employees who are abusing public money I’m afraid. That lovely lot who represent us in Parliament have seemingly brushed aside public anger over their expenses fiddles and demanded automatic allowances to fund their second homes.

A cross-party committee suggested yesterday that they should no longer be required to provide receipts to back claims for housing and travel. Instead, they argued that their salaries should be boosted by automatic flat-rate payments potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds a year.

The report also called for the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to be neutered – effectively breaking up the tough expenses regime imposed in the wake of the 2009 scandal.

MPs on the committee on members’ expenses even suggested the proposals would provide ‘greater value for money’ for the taxpayer because officials would not have to make time to check their receipts.

They just don’t get the point do they? The ordinary man in the street doesn’t want his member of parliament to be a crook, yet it seems that most of those people elected to represent us have money on their minds and care little about the welfare of their constituents.

At least Comrade Bob Mugabe and his henchmen are openly corrupt. This lot put up a front of respectability, but are as much on the fiddle as any politician in Africa.

Makes me want to go back to my sick bed and hide my head under the sheets I’m afraid. I have often railed against the venality of mankind, but it seems to be ever more rampant these days among those we elect to represent us and who we expect to be respectable people and not low class crooks.

I can't quite work out whether it is the politicians or we, the people who are behaving like blind fools.

Predictably perhaps, the newspaper columnists seem somewhat confused today. Depending on what rag one reads, Compo Cameron is either a champ or a chump, but although lots of fatuous advice is being thrown in his direction, nobody really seems sure where Britain goes from here.

One person though who comes out of it all with his dignity intact is Ian Duncan Smith. He was a disaster as leader of the Conservative Party, but he's shaping up as being at least an honest politician now – and there aren’t too many of those around.

The Work and Pensions Secretary wants to reform the welfare system so that long-term jobless have an incentive to work, but his plans are constantly frustrated by the cuddly wuddly Libdems, whose erstwhile leader The Clegglet is pictures in many of the papers today with his nose decidedly out of joint. In fact he looks a little like a Christmas turkey wondering whether to celebrate or cry. But I digress – back to IDS. Quite rightly, he is angry that unemployment benefit has been increased by 5.2 per cent while tax credits for those in work are cut.

"It's not going to be the permanent direction of travel," he warns. Let's hope he gets his way, but I doubt if it will be allowed while Cleggy’s lot share power.

Duncan Smith is also to be commended for sticking his neck out and telling the Prime Minister that he is duty-bound to give Britain a referendum on the EU. He reminded Compo that this was a ‘cast iron’ promise and breaking it would be a breach of trust. Hooray for a politician of principle. But will we get the promised vote? I fear not. Compo and the Boy George are terrified of an economic backlash though it has to be all in their imagination.

Do they think for one second that if Britain were no longer in the EU, the Germans would stop selling us their expensive Mercedes, Audis and VWs along with all the washing machines, cookers and everything from bathroom scales to frankfurters? Would the French refuse to sell us their wine I wonder? Britain buys far more from other EU countries than they take from Britain, so it is truly ridiculous that this soppy government hand them a huge subsidy as well.

To my untutored mind, it seems a little like paying an entrance fee to go shopping in Tesco. The next few weeks could be extremely interesting, but I do wish Britain had more politicians like IDS – men and women with backbone who will stand up to the EU bullies and the left wing media.

Compo has made a start though. I will give him that.

In other news today – and there isn’t much – I read that a former member of Bideford Town Council, Clive Bone, is taking the council to the High Court because he is an atheist who has been embarrassed by the custom of councillors saying prayers before the commencement of business.

What fatuous nonsense is this and who is paying for this lunacy? Whether Mr Bone likes it or not, Britain is a Christian country with an established church and it is quite right that its institutions offer prayers before they conduct business on its behalf.

It would of course be quite different if councillors were forced to say prayers, but they are not. Instead they may sit quietly without participating or simply not be there until prayers are over.

It is exactly the same for MPs. Every day Parliament starts with prayers and it is quite normal to find people waiting outside the chamber for them to end either because they are of different faiths or of none. Almost every official gathering in the land begin their meeting with prayers and that is how it should be.

Does Mr Bone never attend Christian weddings or funerals I wonder? Is he embarrassed then? Does he never find himself at a formal dinner where grace is being said?  Did he not attend the local Remembrance Service each November while he was a councillor? Did he never attend a nativity play at a primary school or a carol concert?

I have little respect for the numptys who sit on most councils nowadays, but Mr Bone is taking things to a new low. Surely a man who is willing to put himself up for election is tough enough to cope with the sound of a few prayers.

What this is really about I fancy, is Bonehead for reasons of his own, wanting to deny the rest of the council the right to pray, deny them their freedom of thought, conscience and religion and force Christianity out of public life altogether.

I hope the High Court throws out this nasty little action, which predictably is backed by the National Secular Society and awards not inconsiderable costs against that body – but in these crazy times, I wouldn’t bet on it.

With the arrival of two giant pandas at Edinburgh zoo this week, there are now more pandas in Scotland that Conservative MPs.

Now there’s a thought!

 

Well he did it. The jury are still out on whether or not Compo standing up to Europe was a good thing, but at least our revered leader showed some conviction for a change.

Besides, to my mind at least, the whole question of whether or not Britain gains from being a member of the EU seems very confused. A few weeks from now, it will be 40 years since Edward Heath signed the Treaty of Accession that sealed Britain’s membership of the European Community, but when Sailor Ted was scrawling his signature that day in January 1972, Europe seemed the future. It represented international brotherhood, peaceful idealism and the triumph of the free market. Centuries of splendid aloofness were over, and Britain was part of one big happy family.

Four decades on, the position could hardly be more different. After using Britain’s veto to block a European treaty that would have marked the triumph of Franco-German plans for greater financial convergence, poor old Compo flew home yesterday virtually isolated in Europe. Even the Diminutive Frog refused to shake his hand.

To the pro-European idealists who applauded the Treaty of Accession all those years ago, Britain’s current situation would have been almost unimaginable. They could never have dreamed that one day, as the European elite hurled more and more money onto the bonfire of the single currency, a British Prime Minister would turn his back and walk away.

In the long run, Compo Cameron’s decision may have incalculable consequences. For the first time since the early Seventies, Britain’s position in the EU gravy train is in genuine doubt, but is that such a bad thing?

It seems to me that the great blunder of modern British history was not in entering the European project in the seventies. It was in staying out 20 years earlier, when Britain was still Europe’s richest, most powerful and most influential state. I they had taken the lead in shaping Europe in the fifties, they could have moulded it in a way fitting British parliamentary traditions and democratic instincts. Instead they preferred to stand aloof and so, under French and German leadership, the EU has swollen to become a grotesque, bureaucratic monstrosity.

The idealism that drove its founders has long since sunk beneath a sea of corruption, political self-interest and financial anarchy. A union that claims to embody democratic values now seems indifferent to the basic demands of democratic accountability. This is summed up by the staggering fact that once a month, the 736 members of the European Parliament, as well as thousands of officials, have to travel from Brussels to Strasbourg, followed by a fleet of lorries carrying documents - merely because the French insist that they must have sessions in both cities.

As for the utopian values that drove the founders of the European enterprise, who believed that only by coming together could they banish the conflicts and hatreds that had fuelled the world wars, they now lie in ruins. Indeed, the extraordinary thing about Thursday night’s bun fight was that even after the implosion of the Greek, Irish, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese economies, the D.F and Frau Merkel still refuse to contemplate a gradual, orderly break-up of the eurozone.

“Never has Europe been so necessary. Never has it been in so much danger,” declared Little Sarko, cutting an increasingly melodramatic figure. “We must confront those who doubt the stability of the euro and speculate on its break-up with total solidarity.”

What a ninny, but the message was clear. For France’s pound-shop Bonaparte, even to talk about the possibility of dismantling the euro is a kind of treason, a betrayal of the European ideal. The truth is that the single currency has become a kind of fetish, an idol to which European politicians must pay obeisance. Infatuated with their grand project and indifferent to the suffering they are inflicting on people from Dublin to Athens, they are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep it alive.

Yet whatever the dwindling coterie of Euro-enthusiasts might think, few British people have ever felt fully European, and few can now explain precisely what the European Union is for. The truth is that from the battlefield of Waterloo to the committee rooms of Brussels, Britain’s attitude to Europe has always been strained. For the past 40 years we have been locked in an uneasy relationship, marked more by bitter squabbling than by romantic assignations.

Yesterday’s events marked a watershed in the history of that relationship and for once in his political life, Compo Cameron would appear to have done the right thing. In the months to come, the gap between this island nation and her federalist neighbours seems likely to grow, but unless Europe’s masters can bring themselves to countenance serious reform, then the demands for British withdrawal will become too great to ignore. Such an outcome is not yet inevitable, but it is looking ever more likely.

On an unconnected front, our political leaders suddenly seem obsessed by the rights of Britain’s transgender population.

In a world that’s gone mad, the Home Office decrees that pupils as young as five must be taught about transgender equality to combat ‘transphobic bullying,’ and it publishes a document stating that schools must be ‘more inclusive for gender-variant children.’

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announces he is cracking down on crimes against transgenders, and doubling the minimum jail term for murderers motivated by the hatred of transgenders to 30 years.

I have nothing against people who feel they were born the wrong gender. They are a minority group entitled to just the same rights as the rest of us, as long as I don’t have to pay for their foibles, but why on earth should they be singled out? Bullying is reprehensible whatever your sex, colour, religion or sexual orientation. That is surely what equality is all about.

This week we read that David Askew, a 64-year-old with learning difficulties and a mental age of ten, died after confronting feral gangs who had subjected him to years of mockery, vandalism and intimidation on the Manchester estate where he lived with his mother. Even though his mum called the police 88 times to complain, the bullies were still able to hound him to his death, yet you can bet your life that if Mr Askew had wanted a sex change, the cops would have been round like a shot.

Coroner John Pollard declared Mr Askew had been unlawfully killed, but no one was punished. We also heard how a 19-month-old toddler called Fletcher was punched to death by his father Nathan Allen, from Romford in Essex, because he would not stop crying in his cot. Allen was sentenced to nine years.

Presumably, if he’d killed a transgender person his sentence would have been much higher.

The message is that the lives of bullied David Askew and little baby Fletcher are worth less than the lives of people who want a sex change. That is what these new edicts on transgender amount to.

It is surely time this twisted attempt at a government got its priorities right I reckon. There are only a few thousand transgenders in the UK. In contrast, there are more than 1.5 million vulnerable people with learning difficulties like Mr Askew, so why is no legislation brought forward to protect them as well?

The reason is that the David Askew’s of this world are not fashionable victims, and don’t fit into the Coalition’s metrosexual, metropolitan equalities agenda. This Government cannot stop banging the drum for equality. Yet so blinded is the Coalition by political correctness that it can’t acknowledge that all people - young and old, handicapped and able, gay, straight and transgender - are equal under law.

I am sorry but I couldn’t think of a suitable word, so I used metrosexual, which probably doesn’t appear in any dictionary but sounds okay – I think. It surely isn’t as bad as transphobic and that appeared in an official document.

Letterbox Cherie is back in the news, this time attacking the slow progress of women in British boardrooms and saying that the equality movement shown in the Arab Spring shames us in Britain.

Great news – let’s pack her off abroad as some sort of roving sage. I can think of no better ambassador to Syria and Iran than Cherie - provided she wears a burka!

Talking about the Blairs, we now learn that Foxy Knoxy has signed up Toothsome Tony’s super-agent to sell her autobiography. TT received a cool £4 million for his memoirs, Foxy is expected to get just £1 million.

Just goes to show that fiction sells better than fact.

Yes I know – miaow, but I do have strong feelings about the scribbling business and the cloying amount of 'celebrity' razmatazz that goes with it in this day and age.

 

I watched the inestimable Lord Crow – he could run, but does that make him of noble stock I wonder? – on the idiot box last night and his smug self assurance over the Olympic Games made me cringe. We now learn that over a million motorists will need new permits to park outside their homes or businesses during the Olympics - or face fines of £200 - in the biggest ever anti-car clampdown in the UK.

Huge swathes of London will be turned into no-parking zones for a large part of next summer. The outline plans were revealed yesterday as a Government watchdog warned of serious delays which mean that millions of Londoners will not be told in detail how their neighbourhood is affected until March 2012.

Restrictions will typically be in place for 13 hours a day, seven days a week within a 30-minute walk's radius of each Olympic and Paralympic venue. Meanwhile the said Lord Fauntleroy Crow and his fat cats will be chauffeur driven in commandeered bus lanes.

And I thought this much-heralded Olympics was for the people of London – they probably thought so too.

I know these cases are isolated, but how can one not cringe in disgust when reading about a paramedic who refused to carry a dying schoolgirl to an ambulance for ‘health and safety’ reasons?

A Coroner was told yesterday that Cassandra Lynn said she was worried about her back during the ‘chaotic’ attempt to save 14-year-old Shannon Powell.

Shannon had collapsed in mud and was foaming at the mouth in a violent fit during a cross-country race, but due to a series of gaffes, paramedics only reached her almost an hour later.

First aiders were so exasperated by Miss Lynn and her colleague from the London Ambulance Service that they took matters into their own hands and carried Shannon themselves using a first aid trolley. She died on the way to hospital, but her life might surely have been saved if those supposedly trained piddlewits had carried out their jobs efficiently.

One of the first aiders, Daryl Proctor told how they acted after Miss Lynn ‘said she didn’t want to hurt her back.’
He said, “The paramedic was saying, ‘We can’t carry her because it’s health and safety and we might fall over.’ They didn’t come up with any solution at all. We all looked at each other as if to say, ‘**** health and safety.’”

So say all of us and I hope Ms Lynn loses her job, but I don’t suppose that will happen.

You know, I have always thought of myself as a grumpy old man, but perhaps I am not really. It seems that my ranting views on the world are shared by a goodly percentage of the population, although most folk keep their grumps to themselves.

I’m indebted for this revelation to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, the Government’s massive annual focus-group, whose findings for 2010 are published this week.

This wonderfully cheering document has fully restored my faith in the average Briton’s deep-down intelligence and common sense, and their refusal to be bamboozled by political cant. The picture it paints of the real Britain is about as far removed as it’s possible to imagine from the fantasy version accepted by every mainstream political party and promoted tirelessly by the BBC and the Left-wing media.

Take climate change for instance. For Compo Cameron, it was an article of faith from the start that the Conservatives’ chances of election would be greatly improved if they adopted the radical policies espoused by the environmentalist lobby. In his view, this was an essential part of his party’s make-over, vital to his own popular appeal.

Hence the windmill on his roof and his jetting off to a Norwegian glacier to be photographed hugging a husky. Hence, too, the slogan that gave him so much pride and pleasure, ‘Vote blue, go green.’

Yuk!

Labour and the Lib-Dems were the same, fiercely competing with each other to be seen as greener-than-thou, in the apparent belief that this would go down well with the electorate.

Turn to the BSA, however, and you’ll see what the voters were really thinking during election year. It shows that while the political parties were turning ever greener, the people they were fighting to represent were growing increasingly sceptical of the claims of the man-made climate change lobby.

In the year 2000, only 24 per cent believed environmental threats were being exaggerated. Just ten years on, the figure is up to 37  per cent. Yes, we sceptics are still in the minority, but the wind is blowing our way.

Incidentally, the non-metaphorical wind was blowing so hard yesterday that wind turbines all over Scotland and the North had to be switched off and a few were even blown over before bursting into flames. Truly, the more we see alternative energy working in practice (or, rather, not working) the more fatuous and wasteful it seems. Doesn’t this go at least a little way towards explaining the public’s growing disenchantment?

Where green taxes are concerned, the shift in public opinion is just as pronounced. A decade ago, 31 per cent backed them to combat climate change. Last year, that minority had shrunk to a mere 22 per cent. Yet this doesn’t seem to stop that prize poltroon Chris Huhne, (when are they going to do something about his driving case damnit!) from piling them on. But then, when have the Lib Dems, wrapped up in their self-righteous certainties ever cared a hoot about what the rest of us may think?

It’s the same with health policy. Over the years, I’ve heard it said a million times that the British people are unshakeably attached to the NHS. So often, indeed, that I had almost come to believe that most of the public had a visceral horror of the idea of turning to anyone but the state for their medical needs.

Compo clearly thought much the same when he made it a central plank of his election manifesto that the Tories would ring-fence spending on the NHS and fight to their last breath to defend it from the taint of privatisation.
But look at the survey findings. Only 24 per cent say that paying for private healthcare is wrong - down from 38 per cent in 1999. This is a huge drop in just a decade, representing a revolutionary shift from faith in the power of the state to self-reliance. That shift is even more marked in the numbers who believe taxes should rise to pay for health and education. As recently as 2002, 63  per cent said they should. By last year, the figure had more than halved to 31 per cent. Many put this down to the recession, but can’t it equally be attributed to the experience of the boom years, when Labour poured untold billions of our money into hospitals and schools, to almost negligible effect? Indeed, when it comes to education, the popular perception - as opposed to the fantasy peddled by the fiddled exam grades - is that standards have fallen, not risen.

On social problems, too, the BSA shows attitudes wildly at variance with the official line, plugged so remorselessly by the political Establishment. Apparently, most of us don’t believe that ‘society is to blame’ for child poverty. A whacking 75 per cent put it down to parents’ drug and alcohol problems, with more than half also blaming family breakdown - and a remarkable 63 per cent attributing it to parents’ unwillingness to work.

Meanwhile, 54 per cent think unemployment benefits are too high - up from just 35  per cent in 1983. Yet only last week, the Boy George surrendered to the Lib Dems’ demand that Jobseekers’ Allowance should increase by 5.2 per cent - more than five times as much as a front-line soldiers’ pay.

Mind you, there’s one BSA finding that doesn’t surprise me in the least: in 1997, 73  per cent of Britons aged 18-35 turned out to vote in the general election. Last year, the figure was down to 47 per cent. But then who can blame those who didn’t bother, when there’s not a single party in the land that truly speaks for the people?

As he studies this portrait of the real Britain, shouldn’t our revered leader reflect that if only he’d presented a truly conservative manifesto to the country, he might have won an overall majority?

He might even have got my vote.

I had a lovely surprise yesterday. On my return home from a long walk, there was a message on my answer phone from lovely Annie Kurtoyze, saying that she wanted to make a donation toward my Zambezi Trek. I rang her back and told her that I was seeking corporate sponsorship rather than individual donations, but she insisted and clinched the ‘deal’ by saying that ‘Mother would have wanted it.’

That was enough for me and whether the donation is for a fiver or something substantial, it will be hugely appreciated.

Annie’s mother, Mary King was an old fashioned tyrant who went through carers on an almost daily basis. A hard-drinking, hunting, shooting, fishing, horsy type lady, she and I hit it off after a torrid start when she tried bossing me around (We were doing her garden) and I refused to be bossed. She wanted me to write her life story and to that end, I spent many hours with her toward the end of her life, but interesting though her life had been, the book would not have made a commercial success. Nevertheless, I grew to love the Old Girl and drove a round 1200 mile trip to speak at her funeral.

Annie’s donation will mean that I have Mary King sitting on my shoulder when I walk and that will be somehow comforting. I might even listen to her orders this time!

Back in the plastic world we all inhabit, Compo Cameron is in trouble and it is far and away, the most serious trouble of his political career. What it comes down to is that he cannot please Frau Merkel and his own party at the same time.

That is why the European Summit beginning later today is going to be a big one for all concerned. It won’t solve the economic problems of the eurozone, which may very well be beyond resolution, but it will determine the future of Compo’s prime ministership.

The issue is one of good faith. Again and again he has promised Tory backbenchers that Britain will negotiate to repatriate some powers from Brussels. But now he insists this will have to be delayed while the eurozone is peering into the abyss.

Why for God’s sake? When could there be a better time? Frau Merkel and the Diminutive Frog have agreed there should be a new European treaty and that will need Britain’s agreement. If there was ever a moment to secure the repatriation of powers in areas such as immigration and employment, this is it.

And yet Compo, despite his repeated promises on repatriation says he doesn’t want to rock the boat. Far from doing what he has said he would, he is enthusiastically supporting the Merkel/Sarkozy plan for fiscal union among the 17 eurozone countries - i.e. an embryonic United States of Europe.

It won’t do I'm afraid. Here is a man who was elected leader of his party on a Eurosceptic platform and he is discovering that there are many in his overwhelmingly Eurosceptic party who took him at his word. The signs were plain six weeks ago when 81 backbench Tory MPs defied the whip and voted in favour of a referendum on this country’s future relationship with the European Union. This was the biggest ever Tory revolt over Europe

Over the weekend, Iain Duncan Smith said that any major treaty change in Europe should be put to a British vote - a promise that the prime minister has signally failed to make in recent weeks. D - S was slapped down by No 10 for his pains.

Perhaps even more significantly, Compo’s old rival, Bullyboy Boris yesterday made a similar call. And on his way to Brussels, the prime minister might like to read a piece in today’s Spectator magazine by Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland Secretary and a close ally of Mr Duncan Smith’s, advocating a referendum even if the 17 eurozone countries agree to fiscal union without a new EU treaty.

The truth is that the Conservative Party is overwhelming Eurosceptic in a way that it wasn’t 20 years ago at the time of the Maastricht Treaty which gave more powers to Brussels. The same could be said of the British people as a whole and many Tory MPs don’t like seeing pledges on which they fought the last election, and which have been periodically endorsed by their leader, being disowned and ignored in this manipulative way.

In other words, Compo is increasingly out of step with his party. The days of trying to keep Merkel and the Frog, plus his Lib Dem partners and Tory backbenchers all on side at the same time have ended. Compo is going to have to make a choice - and if he goes against the views of most of his party, not to mention the majority of the British people, he will be in trouble.

Compo’s problem is that he is not a conviction politician. He appears to hold no very deep beliefs and his talents are managerial. In other words, he is a desk jockey and paper shuffler of note. In good times this might suffice, but we do not live in such times. This country is teetering on the point of disaster and the question is whether he is equal to the task.

It is not the Clegglet’s gaggle of Eurofanatical Lib Dems he should be listening to - or Whitehall mandarins or that increasingly ridiculous lone Tory front bench Europhile, Hushpuppy Ken. Nor even the Frau Merkel and her feeble sidekick the Diminutive Frog. No, he must heed his own party, which on this matter reflects the views of the great majority of Britons. If Compo goes on ignoring his own people, only disaster, in some shape or form, can lie ahead. In fact, if he continues to go his own way on the matter, we could well have a new prime minister well before the next scheduled election.

The Bully Boy must be licking his lips at the prospect.

In Bulawayo, the latest Zanu PF annual bean feast is taking place and I fear there is little chance of this conference tackling the perennial taboo called the succession issue. Frankly, none of Comrade Bob’s underlings have the guts to raise that issue in Bulawayo or anywhere else for that matter. There are numerous ways of inviting death to oneself in Zanu PF and this is only one of them. If Mugabe dropped his tsvimbo (rod of office) at the Bulawayo meeting, no one in his party would dare pick it up. They are all very likely to plead with him to retrieve his rod and keep it for as long as he likes. They will be petrified of even secretly thinking of taking over from Africa’s oldest and most controversial megalomaniac.

Further, the Bulawayo circus is taking place at the time when both Zanu PF and the MDC have grown weary of the gridlocked inclusive government and both parties have publicly expressed the need for the holding of elections as soon as possible. The MDC has however, stated that elections can only be held after the implementation of all the agreed provisions of the election road-map. This is unlikely to be realised in time for the holding of elections in 2012, since Mugabe and his merry men have vowed not to accord the MDC formations any more concessions. This is likely to frustrate both Mugabe and the Joint Operations Command as the latter is anxious that elections be held while the former is still able to engage in an electoral campaign, albeit with great difficulty.

Complicated, isn’t it?

Mind you, the conference will – as always - also be a time of feasting, boozing and partying for the estimated 6000 delegates that are expected to grace the occasion. Mugabe praise singers will be working overtime and bootlickers will actively seek to outdo each other at every turn. Of course, the Chief Comrade will use the occasion to lambast Western countries, colonialism and imagined imperialism. The call for the lifting of sanctions will be the battle cry, but we are all accustomed to that. Nothing will be achieved that in any way benefits the people and Comrade Bob will settle down for at least another year in power.

Talking of not achieving anything, when oh when is Squeaker Bercow going to do something about his idiotic spouse?

The unlovely Sally’s latest stunt is to  plead for Celebrity Big Brother winner, Paddy Doherty to be spared jail after he admitted affray, following a bare-knuckle brawl which police linked to an underworld shooting.
In fresh embarrassment for her husband, she described Doherty as 'quite a softie' adding, “I would very much hope the sentence is suspended.”

It has nothing to do with her and Doherty is a violent thug who ought to be locked up for a very long time, but Madame B will do or say anything for a bit of publicity.

She has a history of leaving the Squeaker red-faced and only last month, she revealed that her favourite gadget is a sex toy, weeks after openly discussing their 'spicy' sex life on that same silly programme.

Say what you like about Comrade Bob Mugabe, but at least he acts with dignity, whereas this trollope is merely debasing and abusing the dignity of Parliament. She wasn’t even elected damnit, but she is surely enjoying the limelight her position gives her.

Perhaps, she is merely typical of the sadly plastic, ‘celebrity’ age we live in.

 

After yet another birthday – they don’t really mean a lot at my advanced age – it is back to the reality of a sad, sad world for this crumpled scribbler. I could feel my hackles rise when I read about Defence Minister, Andrew Robathan – a smoothly groomed young Tory who has obviously never known hardship in his life – offending Arctic convoy veterans by saying Britain did not ‘throw around’ honours like the Libyan tyrant and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

According to this buffoon, the UK only awards medals for ‘risk and rigour.’ What would he know about either?
Mr Robathan made his remarks as those who risked their lives on what Winston Churchill once described as ‘the worst journey in the world,’ took their fight for a medal to Westminster.

Caroline Dinenage, Tory MP for Gosport in Hampshire used a Westminster Hall debate at Parliament to tell Mr Robathan it would be ‘utterly, utterly disgusting’ if the Arctic veterans went to their graves without being honoured. Insisting that it was an ‘insult’ ministers had not kept their promise to award such a medal - which of course was made before they came into power - she added: “It brings shame on our country. At their age they should not have to fight for justice and it appalls me that people who gave up so much to ensure the freedoms we take on a daily basis for granted should have to beg for the recognition that they deserve.”

Late last night Mr Robathan tried to calm the row, saying, “There was no intention to cause any offence. I was making the point that we honour people for their service in a very different way to that of authoritarian regimes.”

Where is the relevance I wonder? Perhaps this supercilious sounding pratwinkle should read Alastair Maclean’s wonderful book, HMS Ulysses. It might give him a different perspective on exactly how he came to enjoy a comfortable life. It might also instill in his terribly confused little mind exactly who the people are to whom he owes his current comfort.

These men deserve recognition for all they went through and as there are but 200 or so of them still alive, the award of a medal will hardly bring this idiotic government crashing to its knees.

After all, they dole out great wads of cash to the various Olympic bodies every day as estimates are revised – upward of course – and revised again almost every day. We now have to pay another £5 million toward the building of an Olympic pool which is already nearly three times over budget.

The list of false promises about these pestilent games goes right back to 2005 when the then London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Sebastian Coe and former Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell promised us the Games would cost an eye-watering £2.4 billion.

That was bad enough, but then it doubled - then it trebled. By 2007, it had hit £9.3 billion. That’s still the figure, so we are told by the organisers, but not all of them seem to agree on that.

First, there was the extraordinary admission from Jack Lemley, the former chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (the bit that builds the stadiums). He resigned in 2006, conceding that the final bill could hit £20 billion.
Two years later, Ken Livingstone admitted that the London bid had been a ‘con trick’ to siphon off government money into the East End. Then there were the deluded promises that a victorious Olympic bid would somehow translate into a million new people playing some sort of sport. This week’s National Audit Office report gives the true figure - 108,600.

Hardly worth the expenditure of billions! Obesity rates in this country go up twice as fast and at a fraction of the cost!

Meanwhile, the European Tour Operators Association has reported that bookings for London during the Olympics have fallen drastically. They are 90 per cent down on what is normal. At least London’s rivals are happy. VisitScotland, for example, have just declared the London reservation slump as a ‘fantastic opportunity,’ adding, ‘We will be looking to tactically target those who are looking to get away.’ And who can blame them?

We the PBT have been treated like imbeciles by those who believe they have a divine right to squander other people’s money in the name of sport. It is also our misfortune that we should have signed up to this in times of plenty and are still obliged to deliver the same star-spangled show during a vicious recession that is teetering on becoming a slump.

But then normal rules do not apply when it comes to the Olympics. Just two years ago, LOCOG, was offered a bargain - a 10,000-seat stadium just five minutes walk from the Olympic Park. Leyton Orient Football Club would not be using their ground during Olympic fortnight. Club chairman Barry Hearn was offering it to Lord Crow’s lot for absolutely nothing.

It would have saved the cost of building a £20 million hockey stadium. But no - the response was a cool ‘no thanks’ because as far as LOCOG was concerned, it had promised London and the International Olympic Committee a brand new shiny hockey stadium. And that was what it was going to deliver. It was all part of the great Olympic ‘legacy’ - regardless of the non-existent demand for hockey stadiums in East London.

It is far too late to change much about these Games, let alone give them back to Beijing, but oh how pleased I am that I will miss them. Even mosquitoes, tsetse flies and an acute lack of food seems infinitely preferable to listening to the likes of Sebastian Crow telling us how wonderful it all is while he cheerfully throws away billions of PBT pounds.

Would you believe that a gang of Muslim women who attacked a passer-by in a city centre walked free from court after a judge heard they were ‘not used to being drunk’ because of their religion.

The group – three sisters and a cousin –  screamed ‘kill the white slag’ as they set upon Rhea Page as she waited for a taxi with her boyfriend. Miss Page was left with a bald patch where her hair was pulled out in the attack and was left ‘black and blue’ after suffering a flurry of kicks to the head, back, arms and legs while motionless on the pavement.

Ambaro Maxamed, students Ayan Maxamed and Hibo Maxamed, and their 28-year-old cousin Ifrah Nur each admitted actual bodily harm, which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, but Judge Robert Brown gave them suspended jail terms after hearing mitigation that as Muslims, the women were not used to being drunk. The Koran it seems, prohibits Muslims from consuming alcohol, although Islamic teachings permit its use for medicinal purposes.

What imbecilic nonsense is this and what sort of precedent does it set? A young woman was mercilessly attacked because she was white and her attackers get away with it because ‘they weren’t used to alcohol!’

They should not have touched the stuff then and they should surely have been charged with racially aggravated assault, as would have been the case were it 4 white girls attacking a Muslim.

Speaking at her home yesterday, Hibo Maxamed told reporters, “I’m not proud of it, it’s not something I want to talk about. I just want to get on with my life.”

When asked if she wanted to apologise though, she replied, “What, to the public? I really don’t care.”

Says it all really.

Well, I have reached the grand old age of sixty seven today and to be truthful, I feel around a hundred and three. Nevertheless, it is a bit of a triumph as my father always forecast that I would be hanged before I was thirty and a number of people have been predicting an early demise for me ever since.

Perhaps I have even surprised myself, but I intend to have a restful and relaxing day.

Huh! I don’t suppose it will work out like that though.

The Prime Minister – what a great fan of ‘togetherness’ the man is - yesterday announced plans for greater collaboration between private health firms and the NHS.

According to his latest grand wheeze, life sciences companies – you know, those boffins who do research into new and wondrous drugs and how they will/do/might cure all our ills - should be given more freedom to perform clinical trials in NHS hospitals, and benefit from more ‘data-sharing’ - which is to say, giving them a sneaky peek at the NHS database rather than expecting them to share secrets of their own.

I don’t think I like that idea Compo old chap. Why should some inanely capitalised multinational with a name such as PharmCorpIntoSauron and a history of withholding proprietary drugs from dying Africans and injecting stem cells into monkeys grow fat by picking over the carcass of the NHS.

Mind you, I can see how this might look like a good idea to Compo Cameron. Here is a vast body of data, of as yet unknowable clinical and commercial potential. It could, used properly, help lead to medical advances that will be of great benefit to Britons in particular and humankind in general. It might even – or so he hopes - help put life sciences near the centre of a much-needed rebound for the UK's industrial economy. It might – hopefully – ensure our revered leader’s place in the history books as a saviour of mankind!

But there's a problem and it's a ruddy big problem. That data is not Compo's to give away for whatever reason. The NHS is in a privileged position of trust. Even ‘anonymised’ - and how anonymised and to whose specifications for God’s sake - the data he is whittering on about belongs to we individuals.

Besides, what happens if an individual objects to vivisection, abortion or even the behaviour of a given drug company. It won’t matter, because his or her data can still be used to the furtherance of any or all of those things.
And there's also the thought that those who go private - and whose medical histories will be far less thoroughly in the public domain - won't join in. Image is all it may be but the image of a two-tier society, in which the personal details of NHS-using peasants like me are harvested by and for the benefit of Bupa-covered elite like Compo and his ilk is not an attractive one. In fact it makes me feel quite sick.

Do these people ever think I wonder? As part of an economy drive, Sutton Council in Surrey, has brought in a herd of cows to keep the grass down. Some bright spark on the council, which is shedding 500 jobs, thinks cows will cheaper than gardeners and that it will be able to cut its maintenance budget by £2,000 a year. The trouble is that this could backfire spectacularly.

And I do mean backfire. Cows may be an efficient alternative to tractors and petrol-driven lawn-mowers, but what goes in must come out and there’s nothing eco-friendly or pleasant about the stuff that emerges from a mombie's rear end. I know; I have trodden in it on countless occasions. Unless the council plans to retain a man with a very big shovel, the playing fields of Sutton will soon become more slurry than Surrey.

I wonder what whizzkid thought it up.

Oh well, on with my day. I have never been sixty seven before, so I intend to enjoy it.

 

I am late today but that is because my computer has been up to its evil little tricks again. It is Top Brat's birthday too - he was my 21st birthday present together with a half set of golf clubs - so if you read this Brian, have an excellent day.

This country is rapidly losing all its principles I'm afraid. First it was sex education and that led to ever more unwanted pregnancies. Then it was drugs and the drug problem in this country became completely out of control. Now it is gambling and I have very strong feelings on this one as my grandfather literally gambled away a fortune. Admittedly, it was his to do with as he wished, but my own life might well have been far more comfortable were it not for the curse of the bookies.

The recommendation that children as young as 12 should be taught ‘responsible betting’ in school will strike anyone with an iota of common sense as some kind of very bad joke.

GamCare, the support body for gambling addicts, has told a government review of personal, social and health education that pupils should be taught that studying the form of race horses, dogs and sports teams can improve their chances of winning a bet. It also said schoolchildren should learn about fruit machines and how to calculate betting odds.

What sort of official lunacy is this and who are the pifflewits promoting it?  How can betting ever be anything other than irresponsible and what possible justification can there be for teaching this to children in school?

The Labour Party has inevitably welcomed GamCare’s idiotic proposal on the basis that it would help prepare children for the adult world. Whatever next I wonder? Do we teach children the responsible use of prostitution to help prepare them for the adult world? Perhaps they can go on shoplifting or armed robbery courses to help prepare them for the adult world too. Surely there must be a hundred little and not so little perversions we can teach them to prepare them for the adult world?

Surely any responsible preparation must mean learning there is certain behaviour that is off-limits because it is intrinsically dangerous and harmful. Alas, GamCare’s proposal is not some aberrant rush of blood to the head, but part of a more general pattern. A small sector of British society have lost their marbles as well as all semblance of morality and they make so much noise that successive governments are scared to slap them down for fear of being accused of bullying a minority.

There are already an estimated 100,000 problem gamblers under the age of 18 in this country, including some 60,000 12 to 15-year-olds - a prevalence rate of 2 per cent, which is more than twice that for adults.

GamCare’s proposal would cause even more children to start gambling and that is because the key factor behind such socially reckless behaviour is the message that it has ‘positive’ points and thus does not merit automatic disapproval.

GamCare’s chief executive says that one of its core aims is to ensure that gambling ‘remains safe for all.’ But gambling is ‘safe’ for no one damnit! It leads to untold suffering and misery, not only for the gambler, but for all those around him or her.

Sometimes our revered prime minister is truly beyond belief. He seems to want to be a parody of what ordinary people expect in a national leader and while he bans officials from his kitchen before breakfast, he is quite happy to welcome in the cameras. As pictures in Saturday’s Daily Mail of the Camerons at their breakfast table revealed, he won’t miss a chance to burnish his family-man credentials.

Now, he’s at it again, playing the ordinary guy in the latest issue of the Radio Times where he lets slip the secrets of a Cameronian Christmas. He still receives stockings bless him, presents are always opened in the morning - and he’s not allowed to decorate the tree.

Isn’t that sweet?

Apart from Toothsome Tony who described his bathroom habits in his memoirs, never has a Prime Minister so routinely invaded his own privacy.

I did smile when I read that Tory MP, Andrew Percy tweeted last week, ‘Have left Prime Minister’s Questions. Most ridiculous one I’ve sat through thus far. Silly comments flying about, lots of noise, just childish.’

Sounds like a normal day in the Mother of all Parliaments. God help us all!

 

 

I have ranted from time to time about the changing ethos in sport that is usually caused by huge infusions of money. Yesterday though, we had a moment that demonstrated as nothing else could just how marvellously uplifting and emotional, sport can be.

Wales were playing rugby against mighty Australia and it was little – for a modern rugby player at any rate – winger, Shane Williams’ final game. Williams is the leading try scorer in Welsh rugby history and has become a legend in his own right over the years. He cried his eyes out during the anthem and then had a very poor game by his standards. As Australia went ever further ahead, the crowd were almost silent, but with a minute to go, the little man, broke through the Australian defence to score a try and end his illustrious career in triumph.

What a moment! The result of the game was largely forgotten as even the Aussie supporters saluted Shane Williams. In the post match interview, he broke down in tears again and even watching from the warmth of my own lounge, I could feel my throat closing up and moisture edging from my eyes.

It was a moment, I would not have missed for the world and almost restored my faith in modern sport.

I thought the oafish Clarkson probably had a book coming out, but it seems to be a DVD, although why anyone would buy such a thing, I have no idea. Anyway, he seems grimly determined to offend as many people as possible, having now become embroiled in further controversy after describing people who throw themselves under trains as ‘selfish.’

He complained that those who commit suicide at railway stations cause ‘immense’ disruption for commuters. In his column in The Sun – I thought he only wrote for the Sunday Times - Clarkson wrote, ‘I have the deepest sympathy for anyone whose life is so mangled and messed up that they believe death's icy embrace will be better. However, it is a very selfish way to go, because the disruption it causes is immense. And think what it's like for the poor train driver who sees you lying on the line and can do absolutely nothing to avoid a collision.’

Later in the article Clarkson referred to those who choose to jump in front of trains as Johnny Suicide and argued that following a death, trains should carry on their journeys as soon as possible.

‘The train cannot be removed nor the line re-opened until all of the victim's body has been recovered. And sometimes the head can be half a mile away from the feet. Change the driver, pick up the big bits of what's left of the victim, get the train moving as quickly as possible and let foxy woxy and the birds nibble away at the smaller, gooey parts that are far away or hard to find.’

I defended this overpaid poltroon when he was being castigated for jokingly wanting to shoot strikers, but this latest outburst is a little too close to the bone, even for me.

That is not humorous Mr Clarkson, even by your sad standards. It is merely crass and offensive. Perhaps the BBC should volunteer his services to clean up after one of these suicides. That might shut him up once and for all.

Did you spot Compo on the idiot box during the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last? I understand that he employs a personal trainer, but judging by those jowls they restrict their sessions to the Full English Breakfast at some larnie London club or the Savoy perhaps.

Picture the scene - “Push the fork right through the sausage with your left arm, Prime Minister, and you can scoop up a mushroom at the same time. That will do you for the day.”

But, to be fair to Compo, he’s not the only borderline porker on the front benches. The Boy George’s puppy fat is rapidly turning into middle-aged spread, and young Danny Alexander looks as if he has to breathe in very deeply before buttoning up his trousers.

It surely wouldn’t happen in America, where politicians are far less obese than their electorates. Can you remember a tubby American president? I reckon the last one was probably Herbert Hoover, who had a Cameronian wobble to his chin and was equally ineffective whilst in office.

Not the happiest of omens for this soggy little island I’m afraid.

Sex ‘education’ for children was followed by more sex among the young. What do you think will follow drug propaganda for children?

Well, we shall soon find out, because now there is a children’s picture book about dope, called It’s Just A Plant - so is tobacco, so are opium poppies, so is deadly nightshade damnit.

It’s full of the usual liberal claptrap about ‘medical cannabis’ and the loonie left propaganda against the drug laws.

The book is obviously aimed at irresponsible parents who, like so many modish British liberal elite types, smoke dope at home and want to lie to their children that this unpredictably devastating poison is perfectly safe - a ‘soft’ drug, as in a soft drink.

Who publishes this sort of garbage and why is it allowed by this ever more liberal government? If they have to sell it, the author should be made to add a scene in a mental hospital where one of the characters ends up with his brain scrambled because he believed the cannabis lobby’s selfish lies.

Haven’t the last two generations of parents done enough harm to the children of today?

 

 

Still the free publicity parade goes on and we the PBT have to pay for it. Charlotte Church testified this week to the Leveson Inquiry and burbled that her management had chosen to waive a £100,000 fee to sing at Rupert Murdoch’s wedding in return for good publicity in his newspapers.

Jonathan Shalit - who was Ms Church’s agent at the time – tells us this is a load of twaddle. In an interview on Radio 4’s The Media Show on Wednesday (which has been shamefully under-reported) he said, “It is absolutely not true. In fact, if Charlotte Church had been offered £100,000, I would have advised her to take it.”

He went on to explain the tacit deals that celebrities strike when they are asked to perform for royals, politicians and powerful figures. “In the same way that Charlotte sang for Prince Charles and President Clinton, she was not offered a fee. But the deal is: if you sing for these people, you get added benefits for your career. That is why, for example, at the Royal Variety Show next week, massive stars will queue up to sing for free for the Queen because they will get a free boost to the Christmas sales of their albums.

‘And, equally, Rupert Murdoch is a very powerful media proprietor and has the ability to promote people through his publications. If you assist him, he will assist back, but that’s normal business - there is no difference if you are a plumber giving a free bit of plumbing to an accountant and getting a bit of free accountancy back in exchange. That is what happens in life.”

So basically, it boils down to a question of who is to be believed – the journalists who are under fire or the ‘celebrities’ touting for a bit of public sympathy.

I read that the ban on HIV-positive surgeons and dentists working with patients is to be lifted and the news fills me with horror. Since 2006, all these people have had compulsory tests to ensure they don’t carry the virus, but now this fawningly pro-gay government says there have been no recorded cases in Britain of patients catching HIV/Aids from healthcare workers, so we don’t have to worry any more.

But surely that is precisely because the ban has been in place or are these piddlewits too dim to understand that? In other EU countries with less rigorous checks, HIV has been transmitted to patients, but that doesn’t seem to have registered with our lords and masters.

And the government is doing this, despite the fact that last year saw the highest number of people with the disease ever recorded in the UK. Personally, I would want to know if my surgeon had HIV and, if so, I’d demand the right to choose another. I wouldn’t want to be cut open by a surgeon who had malaria, chicken pox or any other disease either either.

The cheek of some people somehow takes a lot of swallowing. A murderer who killed his 15-year-old niece has moaned from his prison cell about his working hours over Christmas.

Stuart Campbell, who was jailed for life in 2002 for the murder of Danielle Jones, complains that he is being forced to work 'unsocial hours' - poor lamb - over the festive period without getting double time.

The 52-year-old, who has never revealed where he dumped the body of his teenage niece, complained that other lags who didn't work in the canteen had Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day off, but still got paid.
And in a whining letter to the national prison newspaper Inside Time, this tosspot questioned the right of bosses at HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire to force him to work on public holidays without getting a bonus.

I know what I would do if I was in charge at Wakefield, but it is illegal. What’s the bet that when he gets out, Campbell will become either an MP or a union official. With his background and his cheeky snivelling, he would surely do well as either.

Talking about politicians and experience, (which I was vaguely) have any of them any idea as to what real life is all about? We now learn from Labour MP Sheila Gilmore that stacking shelves in a supermarket is not a ‘proper job.’

In the Commons this week, she leapt to her hind legs to condemn a training scheme under which, she said, “even young people with qualifications [are] being sent for 13 weeks of shelf-stacking.”

And why not Madam? If she thought about it, Mrs Gilmore might recognise that for youngsters who may become managers, it is no bad thing to have an appreciation of the repetitiveness of less demanding jobs.

But then, she wouldn’t know about that.

I wonder why Compo went to see the Diminutive Frog yesterday? Did he perhaps fancy a good lunch, because there would not seem to have been any other reason for the meeting.

The official line was that our revered leader was urging the French President to find a way forward on the euro, but surely he needn’t have bothered. Sarko would seem to be in complete denial on how bad things are, with at least one of his country’s banks about to go under. He also rules out the idea that the creation of a fiscal union - a common tax and spending policy - is the only way to sustain a common currency in Europe. The man is a blind fool where Europe is concerned, but seems determined to secure his place in history, even if it means ruining everyone else.

If Compo really wants to have a word about the euro with someone who can actually influence its future, there’s only one place he needs to visit and that is Berlin. But of course, the food won’t be quite so good there.

Mind you, he could have been channel hopping to avoid flak for his latest decision to effectively cut the pay of British troops, even those serving in Afghanistan. In a time of conflict like this that is surely shocking, but neither Compo nor the Boy George have shown a shred of solidarity with the Armed Forces since taking office. But that’s hardly surprising, considering the only uniform they’ve ever put on is the sky blue and ivory of the Bullingdon Club.

I have said it many times before, but this – and every other country too – needs leaders who have lived in the real world.
I

mentioned that dreadful bombast Alastair Campbell yesterday and in his evidence, he told the Leveson enquiry that he had personally apologised to Carole Caplin for wrongfully accusing her of leaking secrets to the media.

I wonder if he ever thought of apologising to the families of the 179 British soldiers he sent to their deaths in Iraq with his dodgy dossier?

Somehow I don’t suppose that entered his mind.

 

I have never been a fan of Jeremy Clarkson on the idiot box. The man writes a searingly funny column for The Sunday Times, so he has talent in that regard, but I have always regarded him as an intellectual yob. Now though, JC is in trouble. Unison is taking legal advice over him saying on prime time TV that Wednesdays strikers should be taken out and shot in front of their families. Even Compo Cameron was forced to pass comment on such a heinous faux pas and the grovelling Beeb has come out with a fulsome apology.

Why oh why don’t these people grow up?

Clarkson is big enough and ugly enough to fight his own corner, but if you ask a known controversialist on to a TV show and invite him to say something outrageous, don’t be outraged when he comes out with something controversial.

The perceived outrage is as synthetic as the original remark. For example, Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary, said, “Clarkson’s comments on the One Show were totally outrageous, and they cannot be tolerated. We are seeking urgent legal advice about what further action we can take against him and the BBC, and whether or not his comments should be referred to the police."

What sanctimonious claptrap! For the record, though, I don’t agree with Clarkson. I think the strikers should be hung, drawn and quartered.

Amid all the hysteria, the militantly nasty face of trade union strikers was laid bare last night when a senior member of Unison – the self same mob that want to prosecute Clarkson -denounced members who went to work during Wednesday's walkout as 'scabs.’

Jon Rogers, the branch secretary in Lambeth, South London, also denounced those who refused to strike as 'immoral', saying they 'should be ashamed.’

In an email sent yesterday, Mr Rogers wrote: 'What you did was immoral and unacceptable and you should be ashamed. Whatever reason you thought you had to let your colleagues down it was not a good reason,' he went on, 'If you cross a picket line you are a scab. There is no other word for it and it is one of the worst things that can be done.'

Pardon me for my ignorance, but I thought Unions were a symbol of democracy. That surely means that members have a right to work if they want to – particularly if they are among the 75% of members who didn’t vote for the strike.

Or am I missing something?

Last week, the 2012 Olympic Games was threatened by a boycott of Indian athletes over sponsorship by Dow, the firm responsible for the Bhopal disaster. This week, we learn that two thirds of the British contingent will boycott the opening ceremony because it is being held too late at night and will interfere with their preparations.

It seems that that the ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9pm so that the climax can be broadcast by US ‘prime time’ television.

Methinks the athletes have a point. With that sort of timing, few could hope to be in bed before midnight and that is not good for any tope class sportsman or woman. Once again, the spirit of the Olympics is being thrown out for pure greed.

It seems that US television pay a big part in bankrolling the games, but if they would look beyond the cash aspect, they might realise that the most important people in this silly extravaganza are the athletes. They have ensured that the general public is to be largely unrepresented in the Games, now they want to do without the competitors.
Why don’t they just have a big party for the Great and the Good and try to save some desperately needed cash by scrapping the entire shemozzle.

In Surrey, a council that is laying off around 1,000 workers told its £200,000-a-year chief executive to spend at least one day in 10 away from the office - to allow him to think!

Ged Curran was ordered to take a day out every two weeks to 'review the strategic direction' away from the 'stress' of the workplace at Merton Council. The 'out-of-office' day was among a number of management targets set out in a confidential leaked document from the council, which is making a third of its 3,000 employees redundant.

What pathetic nonsense! Mr Curran, who last year was paid £215,546, is also supposed to 'demonstrate capacity to lead change and develop an organisation,’ 'develop and manage the organisation as it reduces in size by a third' and 'maintain personal perspective and self-knowledge.’

Poor lamb – with that sort of salary coming in, I would have thought he could find the time for a bit of thinking in his work environment and I am only pleased that my Council Tax is not going toward funding that extravagant nonsense.

I wonder if he was one of those brandishing their banners last Wednesday.

Do you remember Gormless Gordon Brown I wonder? Three years ago, he boasted that he had ‘saved the world’ from financial meltdown. He then embarked on a deranged global tour that ended up in Brazil, where he had his photograph taken with Pele.

Three years later, the world is back on the edge of the economic abyss, so you might have thought he would be offering his advice. After all, in Britain at any rate, this is Gormless Gordon’s recession. We’re in the brown stuff as a result of his ruinous and profligate economic policies. His decision to sell Britain’s gold at car boot sale price was criminally negligent and he deliberately laid the ground for public sector strikes after he was booted out of office.
Yet we have heard not a peep from this erstwhile buffoon. Well, not until he suddenly made a surprise appearance in the Commons last week.

Was he there to talk about fiscal responsibility, quantitative easing or Post Neo-Classical Endogenous Whatever-it-is?

No, nothing so important I’m afraid. GG was there to ask the MoD to ‘fund remediation work’ to prevent radiation risk in Dalgety Bay, Fife, which happens to be in his constituency.

It seems that we poor saps in the rest of the world are just going to have to save ourselves without our Gordon. Somehow, I think we’ll manage.

 

Today we enter December so Christmas is well and truly upon us. This one will be different though as Britain’s biggest cracker maker has overhauled its jokes – dropping politically-incorrect barbs at Essex girls, blondes and mother-in-laws.

Papermaker Swantex shares 25 million cracker jokes with festive diners each Christmas, but bosses feel many of the old gags are no longer funny and are trying out a new set of non-offensive jokes this year.

New samples include: What do whales eat when they are hungry? Answer: Fish and Ships. And what do you get if you cross a pig and a telephone? Answer: A lot of crackling on the line.

For God’s sake – cracker jokes have never been noted for their wit or intellectual content, so let’s get back to the blondes and mothers in law. At least they brought the odd smile.

In my rant about the Boy George’s Autumn statement, I mentioned the fact that about the only thing going up is the amount of benefit paid out to claimants, which is to be increased by 5.2%.

I blamed the BG for this, but according to private reports from Westminster he is not the one at fault. Apparently he tried to bring in a lower increase in welfare payouts, at 4.5 per cent, which was bad enough but would have saved the Treasury almost £2billlion, but he was opposed by an internal Cabinet alliance headed by Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith and leading Liberal Democrat ministers. With so many other battles to fight BG surrendered on this and I suppose that is understandable.

Just as in the debate about public sector pensions, the issue of welfare reform is drowning in sentimentality and synthetic compassion. If the Chancellor had tried to hold any benefits increase below the top headline rate of inflation he would probably have been portrayed in parts of the media as a brutish lout, eager to grind down some of the most vulnerable people in society.

But for all its pragmatism the move is wrong. For a start it is grossly unfair on most of those in work who have had to put up with years of pay rises below inflation and in many cases even pay cuts. Pay settlements in the economy are running at just 2.3 per cent, less than half of the income rise that benefit claimants will receive.

I appreciate that those who have paid their taxes and national insurances throughout their working lives should receive proper support when they find themselves jobless because of the economic crisis, but it is completely wrong that scroungers who permanently leech off the taxpayer should now be so generously rewarded. Due to the generosity of the welfare state we now have successive generations of spongers totally divorced from the labour market.

There are almost 400,000 households in Britain where no adult has ever worked. Our hard-earned taxes are often used to underwrite the lifestyles of the most irresponsible, such as the 80,000 drugs addicts and alcoholics who receive lavish so-called ‘incapacity’ payouts because of their self-inflicted problems.

A quarter of these wastrels have been living on welfare for at least a decade yet cocooned in their world of rising subsidies they never have to grapple with the financial struggles experienced by the rest of us.

Is it any wonder that the British people are becoming more disgruntled by the day? That disgruntlement (is there such a word?) makes them ever more susceptible to the union rabble-rousers, like those who organised yesterdays strike.

Compo Cameron labelled the whole affair ‘a damp squib’ in the Commons yesterday, but his boastful attitude must have infuriated union leaders and will doubtless lead to more of the same.

Our revered prime minister beamingly boasted that major airports and transport systems were working, four in 10 schools were open and less than a third of civil servants had walked out.

"It looks like something of a damp squib," crowed Compo during rowdy Commons exchanges. However, millions of children went without lessons and thousands of hospital operations were postponed, so I am not sure that everyone will agree with him.

In London alone, 1,629 schools closed, 402 were disrupted and only 180 were unaffected. Half the capital's ambulance workers went on strike. Thousands of nurses, teachers and other civil servants took to the streets in marches up and down the country. Some 36,000 NHS workers joined the picket lines.

Up to 30,000 union members met at Lincoln's Inn Fields to march through central London and gathered for a rally at Victoria Embankment.

If it was indeed a damp squib, I fear it was a pretty damaging one.

Yesterday too, we had that arch villain of the media world, Alastair Campbell appearing before the Leveson enquiry. What a performance of arrogant and unrepentant hypocrisy he gave and I am still not sure whose side he was supposed to be appearing for.

Firstly, he told the panel that newspapers have used private detectives ‘on something close to an industrial basis’ to obtain confidential information about people in the public eye. He of all people, should surely know.

In a 55-page statement to the Leveson inquiry, he said it was ‘at least possible’ that the phones of Cherie Blair and her lifestyle guru, Carole Caplin were hacked, including in 1999 when the Human Letterbox was pregnant with her son Leo. Does ‘at least possible’ mean anything at all I wonder? It is probably at least possible that my phone was hacked too, even though I rarely use the ruddy thing.

Campbell also claimed that police investigating the hacking scandal had shown him evidence from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire that he and his partner Fiona Millar had been targeted and went on to say, "At the moment I think we have a press that has become frankly putrid in some of its elements."

He should know that too. He manipulated the news with his boss, Toothsome Tony for many a long year and many of his methods were also 'frankly putrid.' Is it not ‘at least possible’ that he too was deeply involved in all this nonsense?

Yesterday we had solemn faces – and what appeared to be at least one streaming cold - in Parliament as the Boy George told us that Britain is financially doomed, yet today it seems that over two million public sector workers, including teachers and nurses are going out on strike because they are upset at having to work longer and pay more for their pensions.

The Boy George is certainly learning the hard way that occupation of Number 11 Downing Street is a bed of nails. The economy rarely performs as the experts forecast and as a result even the best laid plans for cutting Britain’s levels of debt can be reduced to rubble. His predecessor, Alistair Darling was thrown off course by the global financial crisis of 2007 and BG is staring into an even deeper abyss following the catastrophe in the eurozone.
If, as looks increasingly likely, the single currency does break up and Greece and a number of other countries are forced out of the euro, then the disruption to most world economies will be even more disastrous than the implosion of the banking system after the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago.

And of course, the legacy of Labour’s disastrous handling of economic policy was always going to take years to erase, even with the right policies. However, the Government’s policies have certainly not been the right ones and in many ways have merely exacerbated the problems. The bitter truth is that the Coalition has abjectly failed to cut public spending sufficiently. Just as worryingly, it has failed even to make voters aware of the urgent necessity of so doing.

The one advantage that Compo and the Boy George do enjoy is that their Labour rivals, Red Ed and the Ballsy Boy are figures of comic opera inadequacy. The nakedness of the opposition is a big help to a Coalition Government likely to become seriously unpopular, particularly to me as one thing BG announced yesterday that doesn’t seem to have raised much comment is a big increase in airport tax!

Mind you, he did go up in my estimation yesterday, speaking quite bravely and admitting more of the truth about our predicament than do most politicians. Although he said he expects us to avoid a recession, BG conceded there might still be one if the eurozone collapses. I am no economist, but I don’t think anything quite as bad as the current crisis has hit Britain since the Great Depression of 1931.

The coalition government seem frozen in denial and just don’t appear to recognise the perilous state of our finances. The Boy George might have been fairly brave yesterday, but apart from a few marginal initiatives, didn’t appear to have any answers to the problem, apart from telling us all that the situation is serious.

Nor is it just politicians who fail to grasp the truth, I’m afraid. The millions of public-sector workers who are striking today over the size of their pensions clearly fail to see that destabilising the economy further will make the prospect of improved terms and conditions of service even more unlikely.

BG must make meaningful job cuts – even above the 700,000 now being promised – in Whitehall, in local government, in quangos, in the bureaucracy of the NHS. This is achievable if he and his patsyfying colleagues can only summon the courage to face down the unions.

Because, let's face it, the predominantly white-collar workers who form today’s state bureaucracy all have skills that could easily be transferable to a reviving private sector.

He must also pull the plug on posturing luxuries such as the overseas aid budget (Africa has been coping with climate change for millennia) and trim the welfare state even further. He certainly won’t have made any friends among the working classes yesterday by cutting their income and raising the amounts paid out in State benefits. Where on earth is the logic in that?

As I said, I am no economist, but I feel that this is an economic crisis unprecedented in almost everyone’s lifetime, and it requires unprecedented measures if Britain is to ride the storm. Growth can come only from some sort of fiscal stimulus, which means tax cuts and to hell with the consequences.

BG has avoided doing this, probably because he is nervous that cutting taxes would send out the wrong message politically – suggesting that he favours the wealthy and business over the less well-off, even though the tax cuts would be across the board. However, the situation is so desperate  that he cannot avoid such a move much longer. He must start planning for it now, whether the Liberal Democrats like it or not.

Mind you, yesterday’s performance ended in farce, as so often seems to happen in the Mother of Parliaments these days. The Chancellor finished off his speech with a pointed reference to quick-fix politicians being like ‘a quack doctor selling a miracle cure.’ Five seconds later. Ballsy sauntered up to the despatch box. ‘Quack!’ shouted Tory stooges. ‘Quack quack quack!’ Squeaker Bercow had to squeak even louder than usual to stop them.

The Ballsy Boy was at his most punchy I’m afraid, but his hooks were entirely ineffective. The Government’s policy is ‘IN TATTERS,’ he told us all. Plan A has failed and it has ‘failed COLOSSALLY.’ The Chancellor was ‘in COMPLETE disarray’ and had made a ‘CATASTROPHIC error of judgment.’ How exhausting it must be, being a Balls. I wonder if he talks to Yvette over the corn flakes in capital letters? The Boy George stood up to the hectoring though. In fact, for once he wiped the floor with the shadow chancellor and shortly afterwards, Red Ed the Milipede left the Chamber, possibly to blow his nose, possibly to have a cry, for his was the streaming cold I mentioned earlier and as he sat in the centre of the front bench, it was glaringly obvious.

I am worried about that airport tax though. I had almost begun to feel that my Zambezi Trek can be done without financially ruining me, but that mountain I am climbing seems to be getting bigger. Oh well – hopefully something will turn up.

Talking about money, ‘There's £35,000 just gone down the toilet.’ Last week it was revealed that an England rugby player used those very words – and not about any old game, but in the changing room straight after England had flopped against France and gone crashing out of the world cup.

That comment was among the most striking published by the Times in its leaked official documents into England's shambolic performance in New Zealand Even for those who couldn't care less about rugby, the reports are a sad reflection on the modern game.

After all, this was a sporting campaign more closely resembling a never-ending booze up, with everything from accusations of cheating to bungee jumping and heavy drinking during a ‘Mad Midget weekend.’ But – and this is sad - running through the whole debacle is an obsession with money. Just before flying off to New Zealand, players revolted over pay – and some kept leaving the camp to work for sponsors. Even the squad's bodyguards were rumoured to be speculating how much money the tabloids might pay for photos of Mike Tindall's night out.

What's happened to England's rugby team this autumn is obviously not just about money, but it's an excellent example of something free marketeers often ignore, but that research proves time and time again. Adopting a market system does encourage people to think about cash and their individual wellbeing, rather than about the spirit of their endeavour.

England’s rugby problems should come as a stark warning to the government, particularly when it comes to health care. In this country, we have NHS in which the sick are treated by staff increasingly encouraged by successive governments to see themselves as providers in a market, rather than people dedicated to providing for patients. Care doesn't necessarily get worse, but it does change – and in ways that patients might not like.

Once large amounts of money get into any system, the entire ethos is bound to change. Oh for the days of amateur rugby players and dedicated nursing staff. Unfortunately though, I don’t think they will come back.

Once again, money rules the roost, but with increased airport taxes, how on earth will I afford to even leave the country, let alone walk down the ruddy Zambezi.

And still the so-called celebrities line up to tell Lord Leveson how wronged they have been by the Press. Some of it is justified, like the tale of a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after cavalier press lies that his murdered sister had been a bully. The business adviser of the supermodel Elle Macpherson went into a psychiatric facility after being accused of leaking to the press when the model's phone was actually being hacked. The actress Sienna Miller accused her own mother of betrayal when the true culprits were reporters working for Rupert Murdoch.

Yet there was something distinctly uncomfortable about the celbrity outpourings. It is surely hard to feel that the Press have done the dirty on Sheryl Gascoigne, who appeared on I'm a Celebrity, wrote a biography, and sold her wedding pictures to Hello! – and now is bemoaning invasion of privacy.

The comedian Steve Coogan seemed slightly out of proportion with his complaint too. "This guy sat outside my house! It's just a risible, deplorable profession."

Sitting outside someone's house is not quite in the same league as the mendacity, intimidation, spite, blackmail and theft that Lord Justice Leveson heard of elsewhere. And there was a sense of hypocritical sanctimony about the lament of Max Mosley that an exposé of his sado-masochistic orgies pushed his son to suicide, as if his own behaviour played no part in the fatal shame and embarrassment.

So it was interesting to hear on Friday that a leading QC, Paul McBride, had pronounced the coverage of Leveson ‘hysterical.’ There were far better things, he said, to be doing with public money and police time just now than investigating contraventions of the Telecommunications Act. Then the father of one of those killed in London's 7/7 bombings, Graham Foulkes, a magistrate whose phone was hacked, decided not to offer evidence to Leveson claiming the inquiry had been ‘hijacked by so-called celebrities using it for their own purposes.’

Echoes of my own feelings I’m afraid, but all too typical of the culture that pervades what is rapidly becoming the most selfish and greedy society in the world. Because you know, despite so many of Murdoch's people splashing about in a swamp of wickedness and criminality, the state of British journalism is generally sound and even envied around the world. Some mistakes are inevitable when you work as fast as journalists do, but its investigative reach and tenacity remain impressive.

The corrupted culture of the News of the World was exposed through 18 months of dogged work by a handful of  journalists on The Guardian and The Independent papers. Without them, the Murdoch empire would have sailed on unscathed and Compo Cameron would almost certainly have allowed it to take full control of BSkyB. Other parties should not escape whipping; relationships between New Labour and News International also had the feel of a cosy cabal. For decades, British politicians have feared that Murdoch's top-selling tabloids could swing elections against them, and some feared exposure or ridicule of some embarrassing aspect of their private lives. Politicians and proprietors have repeatedly done one another favours - in fact, it may well be the News of the World's last favour to Compo's government to have provoked such an endless cavalcade of complaining celebrities that everyone forgets that the real scandal here – the unseemly relationship between that paper's former editor Andy Coulson and the Cameron government for which he was a key election adviser.

The smoke of celebrity indignation is nicely obscuring that just now, though Coogan's testimony was uncomfortable for the Prime Minister's former head of communications, who has yet to be brought to account. But, by and large, Our Compo must be pleased at the success of his cynical ploy to cast the Leveson brief as wide as possible to distract attention from the Conservatives' Coulson cancer.

It is also easy to forget that the much-deplored tabloid tradition of paying the police and others for information is not always a violation of the public interest. The flood of evidence about MPs fiddling millions of pounds of expenses came from a CD of detailed spreadsheets of parliamentary expense claims for which the Telegraph gave money to a public official.

A free press is the cornerstone of democracy, but I have an awful feeling that this enquiry, which we are told will take many months, is going to do its best to emasculate that free press – and all because a few of the Great and Good are enjoying being in the limelight and telling us all how hard done by they were.

If you ever doubted that we live in a sick, sex-obsessed society, read the latest government sponsored, sex education booklet for eight year olds.

The lessons are explicit, illustrated and frankly disgusting. If an adult started speaking to your son or daughter in the street in the same terms, you would call the police. Primary school kids  are being subjected to hard-core filth and it is all perfectly legal.

It’s not as if teaching children the facts of life at an ever-younger age has been a spectacular success. Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in Europe, but judging by some of the so-called ‘lessons,’ you’d think Gary Glitter was now in charge of sex education.

The people responsible shouldn’t be working in classrooms or even striking over pension rights tomorrow, they should be behind bars.

At the other end of the scale, we would seem to be living in an hysterical age of advanced paedo-phobia, in which every adult is considered a potential child molester. Parents who volunteer to play Father Christmas in schools have now been ordered that under no circumstances should they allow any child to sit on their knee.

Every single one of them is now suspected of being a kiddie fiddler and banned from any kind of physical contact.
What sort of world are British children growing up in? Is it any wonder that society is becoming ever more weird and that normal, healthy family life is very nearly a thing of the past?

And the people most responsible for this sick state of affairs are our revered politicians symbolised for me by that miniscule mountebank, Squeaker John Bercow. We the PBT have now forked out a cool £37 000 to tickle the pride of this fatuous piddlewit, who has designed himself a coat of arms and charged the £15 000 fee for it to us. Not only that, but he has had his portrait painted – with the heraldic symbol featured of course - and that has cost us a further £22 000.

What nonsense is this? The country is broke and the rest of us are reduced to foraging to stay alive, but this pipsqueak can spend our money as though it means nothing – which to him, it obviously doesn’t.

As for the coat of arms itself, it is hardly artistic and I don’t think I would appreciate it if I was a member of Clan Bercow. It features a ladder up the middle, a group of what are said to be tennis balls and the motto, ‘All are equal. ‘

This is punctuated by pink triangles which stand for his ‘championing of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights,’ according to the official explanation. Rainbow colours on the scroll represent the flag of equality. A pair of scimitars, taken from the coat of arms of Essex, symbolise his attachment to the county where he went to university and apparently have nothing to do with his disagreements with the unlovely Sally.

Constitutional expert Kenneth Rose, a close friend of the late Queen Mother, said: “Some people seem to think that acquiring a coat of arms will make them a chivalrous person, but of course that is simply not the case. It is a form of bogus prestige like acquiring a lordship of the manor.”

He can make himself Lord of Dombo Tombo for all I care, but I object to paying for his idiotic vanities.

 

 

Somehow I can’t help wondering whether the cops in this country have completely lost their way. With ever nastier crimes being committed all over the place, eleven year old Bethany Ogley has been warned off by the constabulary from visiting the grave of  her eight year old sister.  Her daily walks to the cemetery in Barnsley have effectively been banned on the orders of a police officer because of a school rule.

Bethany was stopped by PC Alan Dickens during a recent trip to tend the grave and told that school rules didn’t allow her to be inside the gates in uniform.

This paper shuffling desk jockey told the little girl that if she was found in there again, she would get detention. What on earth has that to do with him I wonder. The school, Carlton Community College confirmed that there is a school rule about visiting the cemetery in uniform, but that individual cases could be considered.

Rules are rules and I am normally in full favour of them, but this pillock of a policeman was merely being officious and throwing his weight around. If he is typical of the South Yorkshire constabulary, God help the people of South Yorkshire.

Not far away in Greater Manchester, a 94-year-old widow had her home destroyed by yobs just hours after she was taken to hospital. They flooded the house, bringing down a ceiling, poured drink over the furniture and stole jewellery, cash and a benefits book.

Iris Mires, who had been taken for treatment after falling and breaking her wrist, will now have to move into a care home - something she vowed she would never do.

The villains – undoubtedly young and probably drugged to the eyeballs - deliberately left taps running and water from the bath and sink cascaded through the house. The sitting-room ceiling caved in and plaster fell off the walls.
From her hospital bed, Mrs Mires said, “I was heartbroken when I heard what they had done. I can't believe someone would do that and I have been left with no home.”

Where were the likes of PC Dickens I wonder – making eleven year old girls cry with their officiousness perhaps.

Talking about villains, we now learn that our worthy Energy Secretary Chris Huhne (when are the CPS going to come to a decision on his driving licence I wonder?) is about to pour hundreds of millions more PBT cash into Africa. This is to help Africans cope with the impact of climate change would you believe?

The £330million handout will be spent over the next four years on schemes to install solar power plants and encouraging investment in low-carbon transport. One of the main beneficiaries will be South Africa, a country which is prosperous enough to have its own space agency.

This complete nicompoop - Chris Huhne, I am talking about - will unveil the foreign aid package at a United Nations summit on climate change which opens today in Durban. How can it possibly be justifiable to spend so much money at a time when the government are reducing the number of police officers in this country? Soon we will only be left with the likes of PC Dickens!

Besides, we all know that little of the money being so cheerfully handed out will go to the projects it is intended for. Just last week, an independent watchdog found that the rapid expansion of Britain’s international aid programme has left it increasingly exposed to fraud.

Julian Morris, president of the London-based think tank International Policy Network, said Mr Huhne’s announcement would be seen as a bribe.

“The timing seems to be a cynical move by the British Government,” he said. “It suggests this is an attempt to bribe African governments to sign up to whatever deals the British Government wants them to sign up to in Durban. The money will almost certainly go to foreign governments and do little to improve the lot of the poor.”
Jacob Zuma must be running his hands in gleeful anticipation and will surely invite Mr Huhne to come back to South Africa soon.

After all, he doesn’t need to drive there!

I am possibly the only member of my family who enjoys classical music and can sit for hours with my eyes closed, listening to the works of Bach, Vivaldi, Beethhoven and Purcell. However, thanks to the pifflewits in Brussels, this might well be coming to an end.

Performers warn that it may soon be impossible to play such music as the composers intended it to be heard because of EU rules restricting the manufacture of traditional cow gut instrument strings.

Brussels has got involved over fears that musicians could catch ‘mad cow disease’ from the strings. Specialist musicians play violins and cellos with such strings to replicate the musical sounds of 1650 to 1750, which is how the composers intended the music to be heard.

Now though, new and very strict controls on raw materials from cows are threatening the centuries-old technique of making their instruments.

And do you know what? To catch mad cow disease, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from strings made from an infected animal, you would need to swallow several metres of the ruddy things. Do these idiots really envisage mad musicians resorting to orgies of string chewing after each performance I wonder.

A friend of mine sometimes ends complaining text messages with the word 'Aaaargh' and on Monday mornings like this, it seems singularly appropriate, but I must remember my blood pressure.

 

Strikes, squabbles, scandals and silly people looking for celebrity status and seemingly willing to do almost anything to get it – what sort of a world are we leaving to the kids of today?

For instance, this week's planned public sector strike will be the biggest outbreak of industrial action since the 1979 Winter of Discontent - and is expected to cause disruption for millions of people. Nine out of ten schools will be closed, thousands of NHS operations will be cancelled, bin collections will be missed at many households, and ports and airports will be gridlocked.

The action will also cause misery for working parents who will have to make emergency childcare arrangements. All three major teaching unions – the NUT, NASUWT and ATL – have voted to walk out. Of the schools likely to remain fully open, most will be free schools and academies. Many NHS trusts are drawing up contingency plans to treat only the most seriously ill patients.

Departments such as A&E, maternity, cancer care and those providing dialysis are expected to run as normal, but thousands of radiographers, pathologists, cleaners and porters are likely to strike.
At ports and airports, troops and police officers could be called in to help secure Britain’s borders.

Yet despite all the chaos and carnage that will ensure, turnouts in strike ballots have been extraordinarily low, with as few as 25 per cent of workers taking part, and ministers now say the case for tightening the law to make it harder to conduct a legal strike is ‘pressing.’

Verbal garbage I’m afraid. Like politicians before them, these pifflewits don’t have the courage to take on the unions, so no law tightening is likely to take place.

Compo is rattling his sabres as usual without saying anything meaningful and the Milipede is under mounting pressure from his own people to denounce the strikes. His problem though is that he owes his position, his fat salary and the trappings of apparent power to the Unions, so is unlikely to bite the hand that feeds him.

It really does seem a mess I’m afraid, but strikes are merely an example of people being led by the nose by unscrupulous union leaders and when one considers that this one is supposed to be all about pensions and then reads what sort of pension pots await Bob Crow and the other militant leaders, it all seems somewhat inexplicable.

If these people are so willing to make life so difficult for ordinary folk and perhaps cost a few lives in the process, are they the people we, the general public want in responsible jobs?

As I said yesterday, there are over 2 million unemployed – let’s use them.

I was perhaps a bit hard on Bullyboy Boris the other day because in one case at least, I tend to agree with him. That out of touch nitwit, Mr Justice Bean (I wonder did Rowan Atkinson’s infamous Mr Bean character come from him) says that it is not a crime to swear at the police because they hear foul language too often to be offended.

On the same principle, the time will come when burglary, mugging, GBH and even murder will no longer be crimes, because we have all got used to them happening all the time.

Well, when that day comes, we won’t need Mr Bean or his like any more.

Why are the public not protected against idiotic fools in red robes and white wigs I wonder?

One thing about waiting around in hospitals, as I have been doing of late is that one gets to read magazines that one wouldn’t think of in the course of normal living. Some of these magazines give one a peculiar insight into what is regarded as normal in polite society too.

For instance, whose home life is being described here? Is it perhaps some dismal tower-block existence in post-industrial Northern England?

A mother who ‘yearns to try her sleight-of-hand’ at shoplifting, though she reckons it is not ‘age-appropriate’ for her now... ‘so, off you go, children, but remember, only steal from large conglomerates.’

A mother who ‘doesn’t hide her occasional joint-smoking’ from her teenage son. A son who says ‘my mother smokes more pot than I do.’ A mother who held her child’s 15th birthday party in her home at which beer and wine were provided – and vodka smuggled in.

The vodka wasn’t removed once it was discovered. The mother recalls that amid the vomiting and the girls being walked in the night air to keep them conscious... ‘out of my peripheral vision I witnessed [my son] smoke a joint, [and] swig vodka from the bottle.’

A son who says ‘I was 13 when, with my older half-brother, I smoked my first joint.’ A mother who says she has given dope to her mother and father, aged 78 and 82. A son who was present when this happened.

No, these are not from some sad social worker’s report into misery and deprivation in the lower depths of our society. They are taken from two freely given interviews with gilded, fortunate people.

One was in The Lady magazine, with Polly Samson, wife of millionaire Pink Floyd star David Gilmour. The other appeared in The Guardian, given jointly by Ms Samson and her son, Charlie Gilmour.

You may recall that Charlie recently emerged from prison after swinging on the Cenotaph in a drug-induced frenzy. I have to say I feel more sorry for him than I did before. Is this sort of upbringing what Britain’s well-off chattering classes now regard as normal? I fear it may well be.

Is it any wonder this country is tearing itself apart?

When I tell people that I write for a living, I usually see dollar signs appearing behind their polite smiles and it always makes me annoyed. Most scribblers struggle just to make enough to live on, but a fortunate few – usually with little talent – make life difficult for the rest of us.

I now read that Pippa Middleton has signed a six- figure deal to write a book about being the perfect party hostess and it makes me cross. Good luck to her I suppose, but this young woman – famous for nothing but her bum and being the Duchess of Somewhere or the Other’s sister - is banking a cheque for £400,000 after a fierce bidding war with some of the country’s biggest publishing houses.

Pippa’s literary agent David Godwin finalised the deal last week, which is understood to be with publisher Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin books. HarperCollins and Random House’s subsidiary, Cornerstone, were also said to be keen to buy the book, but Penguin outbid them.

Pippa bless her, has told friends she signed the deal last week and will not be employing a ghost writer. She has been setting aside several hours a day to draft chapters. Apparently it is a  nerve-racking prospect, but she is looking forward to the challenge of writing her first book. Poor lamb had to actually write a synopsis which was sent to a number of publishers under a strict confidentiality agreement. There were some serious offers, but Penguin stumped up the most cash.

Amazing what one can do with a pretty bottom and a few connections, but it is enough to make serious scribblers hit the bottle.

 

 

Yesterday was not a good one for this Crumpled Scribbler I’m afraid. It started with a visit to Cheltenham hospital in order to have the repairs on my toe checked out and the stitches removed. Fortunately perhaps I had cheated and had the ruddy things taken out locally, earlier in the week.

Anyway, I was duly shown into an outpatients’ department loaded to the gunnels with sick people. Well, they were injured people rather than sick because it was the orthopoedic section, but there were an awful lot of them and I had nothing to read.

After an hour and a half, I queried how much longer I would have to wait and when told that there were still 5 patients before me, assured the young lady behind the desk that at my age, half a day wasted in sitting around with a group of strangers, was more than a little criminal. Then I left them to it. Anyway, with the stitches out, the toe is definitely on the mend and at least I will have saved the NHS 10 minutes in what was obviously a busy day.

However, even worse was to come. A few days ago I gashed the end of my thumb while chopping potatoes. It was very sore, but beginning to ease, so last evening I removed the plaster so as to get air into the wound. Huh! That was a mistake because while cutting an onion this time, I sliced right back into the previous wound and I am sure my yell could have been heard ten kilometres away!

Now my thumb is back in its pretty plaster and I am not going anywhere near kitchen utensils for at least a week.

In the real world though, I get the feeling that the Leveson enquiry into phone hacking by the Press is already losing its way. Every day, we see endless ‘celebrities’ babbling away about how their lives have been ruined by media intrusion when often they have paid millions of pounds to PR consultants to get their names in to the paper in the first place.

Even PR guru Max Clifford has been called to give evidence. Jeepers, the man has made millions out of seeking the very publicity all these people now seem to be complaining about.

And it would appear that the Metropolitan Police have used an enormous amount of precious resources to investigate the phone hacking nonsense. Could they not have merely sat as spectators in the gallery at this enquiry? After all, the Met have the highest rate of unsolved murders – about 15% - in the UK. Surely the money would be better spent sorting that problem out than worrying about the private lives of so-called celebrities – all of whom seem to be very much enjoying the spotlight at the moment.

As schools across the country close their doors to millions of pupils for Wednesday’s public sector strike, one institution will be staying resolutely open - with the help of the Army.

Despite the fact that half her teachers will be on strike, Rachel de Souza, head of the Ormiston Victory Academy in Norwich, has state defiantly  that she is ‘not for striking.’

She has enlisted the help of Armed Forces personnel, police dog handlers and other locals, who will take classes for the 850 pupils in everything from science to team work, communication and music.

Good for you Ma’am and it is interesting to see soldiers only too happy to help. They are paid less than the striking teachers, willingly put their lives on the line for folk who don’t seem to care and are not allowed to strike themselves.

I reckon the children will learn more from these people than they will from the normal teachers in any case.

The world is definitely going mad! Usually criminals attempt to break-out of jail, but police in Lancashire are investigating a jail break-in, after burglars stole cigarettes from a prison.

Thieves scaled the fence of HMP Kirkham in Lancashire on November 5 in order to snatch £8,000 worth of tobacco that was held in a workshop on the former RAF training camp.

A spokeswoman for Lancashire Constabulary said, "We can confirm that we are looking into a report of a theft of a large quantity of tobacco after an outbuilding within Kirkham prison was broken into earlier this month. An investigation is ongoing and officers are reviewing CCTV footage."

Quite apart from the incongruity of the crime, what on earth was that much in the way of tobacco doing in a prison?

Britain is in trouble with Europe again, this time over garlic of all things. The UK Government has received a European Commission ultimatum to hand over £20 million within two months or face legal action.

The wrangle is over the fact that import tariffs on frozen garlic from outside the EU are lower than the rates for fresh garlic and according to the Commission, UK authorities ‘carelessly’ levied the lower rate applicable to frozen garlic on imports of the fresh product from China, in breach of EU customs rules.

They obviously don’t have enough to do in the corridors of European power.

I was talking about soldiers, but would you believe that since the Coalition came to power, the Ministry of Defence has ‘lost’ no fewer than 287 computers?

As well as 99 desktop computers and 188 laptops, the MoD has misplaced 18 mobile phones, 10 BlackBerrys, 194 CDS and DVDs, 72 removable hard disk drives, 150 backup tapes, 73 USB sticks, six printers and 135 ‘other’ items of IT equipment, the majority of which were USB tokens but also radios, 3G cards, cameras, keyboards and monitors.

Defence minister Andrew Robathan defended the department, but said it was inevitable that some equipment would go missing given the size of the ministry.

What sort of pathetic whitewashing is that? These things cost the PBT a great deal of money and it is surely incredibly difficult to ‘lose’ a desk top computer.

Methinks, losing items of expensive equipment should be made into a hanging offence or perhaps the loser should immediately be sent to Afghanistan.

I have been proved correct in my oft-repeated assertion that the white, heterosexual male is no longer regarded as a person in this country. The official picture of the uniforms to be worn by more than 70 000 volunteers during the Olympic Games is now out and shows them being modelled by four people of Asian or black descent and one white girl.

Oh well, now we poor blokes well and truly know our place in this weird world.

I wonder if it isn’t time to get a wee bit more ‘Reaganite’ about the public sector workers who will strike next Wednesday? They are complaining mainly about reform of pensions that they consider inadequate, but which most private sector workers can only dream of. In his day, Ronald Reagan promptly sacked air traffic controllers when they went on strike and, remarkably, the airspace over America did not seize up.

There are 2.6 million people unemployed in this country, so the answer to the strike seems fairly obvious to me.
Come on Compo – act instead of whittering please.

 

It seems that it is not only in this soggy little island that those in charge of the sweetshop have to undergo a lobotomy before being allowed to govern. In Oz too, the inmates rule the nut factory with appalling results.

A reader tells me that a place called Margaret River some four hours from Perth is heavily wooded and a noted fire hazard, particularly at this time of year. This year though, the conservation hierarchy decided to do a selective burn in the area so as to avoid the possibility of mass bush fires.

All very sensible one would think, but the wallies in charge decided to light their fires on a very windy day. The end result was that at least 20 homes were burnt down and by midday yesterday, the fires were still out of control.

And this in a country where the fire hazards at this time of year are so great that even barbies in the back yard are forbidden!

As if that wasn’t tragedy enough from the land down under, I have the story of a young couple looking forward to the birth of their twin boys. Shortly before the due date, Mum’s tum was scanned and one of the babies was found to have a brain tumour. Amid much angst and discussions between family and medical folk, it was agreed to abort the damaged child, which was duly done.

We used to think this sort of thing could only happen in Africa, but of course the pifflewit surgeons aborted the healthy baby and then went on to terminate the one they should have sorted out in the first place.

It isn’t just Africa I’m afraid – standards of efficiency in life are slipping everywhere and that feeling of healthy pride in one’s own capabilities seems to have been forgotten. The trouble is that as in the two cases I have outlined, it is innocent folk who suffer for the lowering of standards.

Here, we had the fairly unusual sight of thousands of coppers launching raids across London yesterday in a huge crackdown on criminals said to be bringing misery to their communities.

Drug dens and cannabis factories were shut down as about 4,000 officers carried out operations in every London borough. The raids were ordered by new Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe as the latest ‘Big Wing’ operation to target specific crime problems - a tactic, said to be inspired by the Battle of Britain.

Mr Hogan-Howe himself attended one raid with Bullyboy Boris backing him up (I'll bet he loved that!) as about 30 officers targeted a suspected drug dealer on a Peckham estate. However they failed to find Class A drugs in the 18-year-old's flat after breaking down the door, and were forced to let him go. BB though, managed to have himself photographed wielding a police issue battering ram with a smug smile on his face.

I wonder how those coppers felt about having such a fatuous pratwinkle in attendance, but I don’t suppose anyone thought to ask them.

Johnson also criticised a High Court judge who ruled that swearing at police is no longer a crime because officers hear bad language too often to be offended. Mr Justice Bean last week overturned the public order conviction of 20-year-old Denzel Harvey, who repeatedly used the F-word while being searched for drugs.

The Mayor said: "It may be necessary to take this up in Parliament. Officers are entitled to some basic level of respect. When I was a child I would not have got away with swearing at a policeman."

In the upper echelons of polite society in which Boris grew up, I don’t suppose they ever saw a policeman and if one did call around, he would have had to come in via the back door. I fear the Mayor is merely politicking again.

Despite the delighted whittering of various commentators and politicians, I think I have always felt in my bones that the so-called Arab Spring would turn out to be a can of worms. And so it is proving I’m afraid. In Libya, which Briton helped to ‘liberate,’ they are introducing sharia law.

Syria is about to go belly up and Iran is going nuclear.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood are on the march and the army is murdering demonstrators in Tahrir Square, where not so long ago Compo Cameron was doing a lap of honour.

Surprising how those very same commentators and politicians are being very quiet about it all.

Let me go back to the cops for a moment. It seems they are setting up an alternative call number to 999 for non emergency calls. The new 101 hotline is intended to handle people reporting so-called ‘minor’ crimes and will cost 15p a pop, so probably won’t be used much.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that 101 is the same number as the torture chamber in George Orwell’s 1984, but can you imagine how the new system will work?

‘Thank you for calling 101. Your call is important to us and may be monitored and reported to the phone hacking inquiry.

‘You are being held in a queue. All our officers are busy at the moment, filling in their overtime forms or suing each other for sexual or racial discrimination.

‘If you are ringing to book a luxury room with en suite jacuzzi at Bramshill Police College, please press 1.

‘If you have shot a burglar, spotted a golliwog in a shop window or been accused of homophobia, stay on the line and a helicopter and armed response team will be with you immediately.

‘If you are calling to report that your furniture showroom has been burned down by rioters, your call is being transferred to India and someone will get back to you in the next 72 hours -if you’re lucky.

‘If you have been caught speeding on the M11 and wish to transfer your penalty points to a relative, please press 2 . . .’

Which brings me back to the question as to when the Crown Prosecution Service are actually going to come to a decision on the matter of Chris Huhne and his penalty points. Surely they have deliberated for long enough?

Either he did it or he didn’t do it. Let's get it back out in the open damnit.

We had the first frost of winter yesterday and although it wasn’t a severe one, the task of scraping ice off the car windscreen – both inside and out – reminded me that I have an entire winter to survive for the second year in succession.

That was quite enough to spoil my day!

You know, I really cannot see the point of the Leveson enquiry, set up by Compo to investigate the journalistic phone hacking ‘scandal.’

By the very nature of their trade and the fact that the public are greedy for news about so-called celebrities, journalists will go to almost any extreme to get their stories. They obviously stepped out of line with the phone hacking, but what can an enquiry do?

It cannot say that we need a criminal offence to stop journalists hacking phones because it already is an offence to hack phones. It cannot say that we need a criminal offence to stop reporters bribing police officers because it already is a criminal offence for reporters to bribe police officers.

In fact, if there has to be an expensive enquiry, it ought to be looking at the cashless corruption Rupert Murdoch perfected.

He did not behave like a common criminal. Instead of giving the ruling party money to spend on political propaganda and demanding business favours in return, Murdoch instructed his editors to provide propaganda free of charge and our revered leaders were all too happy to take advantage of that. Now the hacking racket has been exposed, we need an inquiry to ask if the law should make it an offence for media conglomerates to use threats and inducements to enrich themselves and for politicians to bow to such threats and inducements.

But Leveson has not begun by calling Compo Cameron, Jeremy Hunt, Toothsome Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell before him and demanding to see all papers and emails on their dealings with Murdoch. This is hardly a surprise really, as it was Jeremy Hunt who appointed Leveson and his panel of advisers. He appears to have picked them with some care too.

Leveson is a judge with virtually no experience of freedom of speech cases and his panel include such notables as Elinor Goodman who used to be the political reporter for Channel 4 and the Chakrabarti woman who makes such a fuss on behalf of Liberty but never seems to actually achieve anything.

The enquiry has already proved itself as a publicity vehicle for a few outspoken ‘stars’ however. That fatuous nincompoop Hugh Grant and comedian Steve Coogan say that honest men and women should welcome 'their' proposals to extend privacy law.

What has it to do with them I wonder? I would probably listen to Grant and Coogan with attention and respect if they were to lecture me on how to play light comedy, but they are hopelessly wrong about freedom of speech.
The law already protects Grant and Coogan. The scandal is that a corrupted police force did not enforce the law against phone hacking. The Met is now remedying its faults, but I suspect that will not be enough for the great and the good on the Leveson committee. Rather than admit their redundancy, I suspect that they will hammer the worthwhile journalism that they are supposed to be protecting from a few miscreants and rogue reporters.

It all seems rather a waste of time, effort and money.

What on earth has happened to Ed Balls I wonder? He was always the hard man of New Labour, the bulldog called in as hatchet man by Blair or GG when something needed hammering down. And yet we are now invited to imagine Ballsy as a veritable human waterworks. In a magazine interview, he claimed he cries when watching of all things, the Antiques Roadshow.

When confronted by the sight of Fiona Bruce and co, the Lesser Ed apparently becomes as inconsolable as a homesick refugee from Bamba Zonke. He told Total Politics magazine: ‘I cry when someone comes in with some family heirloom and the expert says: “Do you know how much this is worth? It’s valued at X thousand pounds.”
‘And they say: “I’m amazed it’s worth that much. but it means more to me than money.” Incredibly emotional.’

This from the man who was Gormless Gordon’s most feared enforcer!

A few bars of The Sound Of Music is apparently also enough to set Ballsy off like a punctured garden hosepipe. What a sensitive fellow he must be. Maybe it is the stress of all that deficit denial. I wonder if the unlovely and waspish Yvette Cooper, does not occasionally wish her husband would pull himself together.

My problem is that I don’t really believe it. Balls is merely climbing on the latest political fad in which men like to prove they are emotional, tender hearted beings, even when they are not.

Even the Clegglet is in on the act. Last year he told New Statesman magazine that he cried ‘regularly to music.’ Huh! Could that be the  Downing Street Blues, Mr C? He also dwelt in maudlin terms on how his little sons ask why Daddy is hated so much.

Oh Boys, where does one start with that one?!

The received wisdom is that it goes down well with female voters, though I am dubious about that - do any of us, male or female want politicians to be cry babies? Would it not be better if they displayed their strengths to a gullible public rather than pulling out the onion at any sign of trouble.

Do we not want our leaders to be strong? How will they ever be able to cut budgets and bring our national deficit under control if they well up at the first hard- luck story? And what does crying do for a politician’s standing with colleagues in the hardened world at Westminster? Next time he or she stands at the Dispatch Box, might they all start bringing out the tissues in sympathy?

Next time he or she has to go into negotiations with, say, Russia’s distinctly unhuggy Vlad Putin or one of those human waxworks from Peking, will it help create an aura of statesmanship around the British representative if the foreigners know he is prone to doing a Stan Laurel at the first sign of disappointment? I suspect not.

The trouble is Ed Balls’s motive is so transparent. He wants to soften his brutish image. He wants to ‘connect’ with the modern voter, if such a thing exists. As so often, he miscued the shot and came out with the absurd example of Antiques Roadshow, laying bare the shallowness of his strategy. Is it too much to hope that in future if leading politicians are asked the weeping question, they reply: ‘Of course I cry, but I certainly have no intention of telling you about it.’

Now that would be the manly thing to do.

It is many years since I have been into the West End of London, but the local council have caused considerable angst by raising parking fees to an enormous extent and keeping them in force during evenings and weekends as well.

Lord Young, Compo’s business adviser, has now launched a blistering attack on Westminster council's stupidity in the matter, saying they will ‘destroy’ firms in the West End.

This mighty Thatcherite accuses the Tory borough of ‘biting the hand’ of struggling business ratepayers and says of leader Colin Barrow: "If this chap wants to get re-elected he had better start thinking again."

As Mr Barrow ponders what to do, he might well compare the CVs of the two men advising him. On the one hand, Lord Young is a giant of both politics and business. A former Institute of Directors president, he headed a string of companies including Cable & Wireless. He headed the Thatcherite think tank, CPS, in the 70s, became Trade and Industry supremo in the 80s and now is back at 10 Downing Street, aged 79 as an aide to Compo Cameron.

On the other hand, there is Lee Rowley, a 31-year-old management consultant and Westminster councillor in charge of parking and traffic, and a would-be MP - a man whose humourless sense of proportion is such that he declared being given a glass of water as a gift.

I know whose advice I would choose, but thank God I don’t live or work in London. Why are these paper shuffling desk drivers allowed to have such a huge influence on the lives of ordinary people. It surely cannot be what democracy was meant to be about.

 

 

“Racism is hilarious. It’s only uptight people who don’t know it.”

At long last, someone in the public eye has the courage to come out with some plain speaking on the matter and the irony of it is that American comedian, Reginald D Hunter is black as the Ace of Spades.

His use of the word ‘nigga’ on advertising posters for his shows had them banned from the London Underground, as well as some hoity toity comedy association in the big city, but Hunter has stuck to his guns

Can racism ever really be funny I wonder? President of Fifa Sepp Blatter is fighting disgrace for denying it exists in football and even Compo Cameron has weighed into the debate, saying ‘now is not the time for complacency' in the battle against racism.

The combative comic defends himself: “Comedy uses racism a lot because it’s hilarious. Racism is absurd; it is not based on anything that’s real. It’s an imaginary construct so it’s right to be made fun of."

Hunter doesn’t follow football, but he ironically remarks “I do like racism. All these people who are condemning Blatter and feel so strongly about racism, I’d like to know what else they are doing to combat racism if it means that much to them. That would be interesting. It is easy to take a grand stand, to lean into someone and be loud about a popular position, especially a popular, unpopular position.

‘Getting rid of this man does not solve any problems. It doesn’t fix racism.”

When asked what should be done to combat discrimination, Hunter says blandly, “It’s not a matter of doing something in particular to combat racism, you can’t issue enough fines to get people out of racism. You can’t bully people out of racism.”

Methinks the man speaks sound common sense and instead of climbing on the racism bandwaggon like the footballers and politicians screaming for Blatter to go, he is doing more in his own way to combat what is unfortunately a natural human emotion than all the filly-faddlers who use racism for their own idiotic agendas.

For weeks our political leaders have been announcing that they intend to use the eurozone chaos to renegotiate Britain’s terms of EU membership.

Powers would be repatriated and the menu would include the NHS-wrecking Working Time Directive, the small-business-destroying Agency Workers Directive and anything else that might irritate the worthy Clegglet, like a bonfire of EU red tape.

What sanctimonious codswallop! They can’t do any of it because they have already signed up to Europe and are hamstrung by the rules. Yet ministerial self delusion still goes on.  When will they wake up to the fact that no single nation can be half in and half out – nor can they pick and choose the bits they would like to abide by.

They are not terribly smart, you know, and it takes time for politicos to work out which side of the sky the sun rises. Nor is it any use listening to the Foreign Office. They can’t find their way to the loo without a Labrador, so in Downing Street the mood seems to be veering from self-delusion to panic. What a surprise!

Franco-Germany has ann¬ounced that there will have to be an inner core dominated by them and the core will dominate the outer periphery which will have no say in decision-making but will do as it is told. And that includes the UK. Reaction of the British lion? “Oh, er, wow, I mean golly gosh, that’s not very nice.” The usual dynamic leadership, we have come to expect from this effete lot of political camels.

But the good news comes from across the Irish Sea - actually Mrs Catherine Day, secretary-general of the entire Brussels Commission, the highest-ranking civil servant in the whole shebang and as fine an Irish colleen as ever downed a pint of the black stuff. As the chubby Frau in Berlin is adamant that there will have to be treaty re-writes to create the inner core, Catherine Day is equally adamant that the Irish will have to have another referendum. And if the Irish respond to their present imposed misery by giving it the thumbs down as I am sure they will, what will the shining knights of Westminster do?

They will surely have to hold the long-promised and so often put aside referendum in Britain and that will really send the proverbial cat in search of a pigeon dinner.

It could be fun I reckon.

Compo Cameron likes to label this a caring society, but the suicides this week of a couple facing the winter on £57 a week must surely show that up as blatant lying.

Mark and Helen Mullins were abandoned by officialdom. She was unfit to work by way of mental inability, her husband was her only carer and they lived in one room while walking miles to a soup kitchen once a week.

However, shocking though that may be, it is not the most worrying aspect of this case.

Long before social security became an everyday fact of life, long before we discarded terms such as ‘village idiot’ in favour of the more respectful ‘learning difficulties’ and long before the NHS was born, Britons knew how to look after people like the Mullinses because neighbours kept an eye out for each other, families assumed responsibility for their members, the Church was the centre of community life and philanthropists prowled the streets looking for people to be kind to.

Now it is all left to the state with the assumption that we pay our taxes and this is a country in which anyone and everyone can get benefit and nobody will starve. Rubbish I’m afraid. Where was everyone while the Mullinses starved and shivered and walked 12 miles to a soup kitchen?

Where were the Christians whose solemn duty it is to help the poor? I suppose, because so few people have any interest in church going these days, nobody thought to alert them.

Where were the neighbours; where were the relatives? Presumably everyone was too wrapped up in their own narrow little lives to take much notice. Neither GP nor MP appear to have become involved but of course they don’t live next door. You have to seek them out before their services become available. It is what those who knew of their plight were doing that really matters and friends have apparently said that Mark and Helen Mullins were ‘in despair.’ So what did they ruddy well do about it?

Did they take round a crust or two? Invite them into a warm home? Bang on the door of the Church? Alert a local charity? Tell the local councillor? Ring up a member of the family? Ring up SAAFA (Mark was ex-army)? Tell the MP? The list goes on.

Every so often we read of someone lying dead for days, unmissed, and we ask how can this happen in modern Britain, but Mr and Mrs Mullins were alive, walking about and suffering yet it seems nobody could resolve their hideous situation.

They were abandoned in the midst of plenty and starving in one of the wealthiest countries in the western world. Surely this is a disgrace, not only for those involved, but for the entire nation.

Caring Society indeed! It would not have happened in poorer nations where people look after each other, but in heartless Britain I am sure it is all too common. Every single one of us should feel ashamed about what happened to these two people.

With supreme predictability, Compo Cameron seems paralysed by the issue that all but destroyed his predecessors. This time though the question of Britain's role in Europe is not a political game and the livelihoods of millions are at stake. Yet once again, Britain stands on the sidelines, carping and snorting, pleading to be involved and yet refusing to engage constructively.

The Prime Minister's awkward day trip to Berlin last week was reminiscent of John Major, diplomacy only just masking mutual disdain and the UK's less-than-blissful isolation. As in Major's time, as with the string of hapless Conservative leaders while Labour was in power, Compo can do nothing to break the stranglehold of his party's Eurosceptics at Westminster. So strong has the hostility to Brussels grown, he is unlikely to even try. He knows he can’t win and, to a certain extent, he agrees with them. The best he can do is to channel their venom towards the Continent in order to blame the Germans and French for the UK's economic woes.

The trouble is that the silly man just doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what he is doing. There is no sign of a strategy, either financial or otherwise and Britain would appear to be going down the pan just as quickly as Greece, Portugal and the others who are feeling the heat.

I am no economist, but it seems to me that at every twist and turn of the currency crisis over the past year, rather than working with the Germans behind the scenes, the Brits – Compo in particular – have chosen to grandstand in public, waffling on about European incompetence, while making a complete mess of the economy at home.

It is time the British either got right out of Europe and tried going it alone or shut up and let the more experienced leaders do something about the current mess. Compo’s whittering from the sidelines is merely exacerbating the problem.

Would you believe that a golf club in Scotland has just been forced to pay £120,000 because it didn’t have sufficient signs warning players about flying balls.

Niddry Castle Golf Club, in Winchburgh, West Lothian, was sued by Anthony Phee, who was hit in the eye by a wayward drive from fellow golfer James Gordon. The Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that Mr Gordon was 70 per cent responsible for the incident, but that the club had to bear 30 per cent of the blame because it had failed to post a sign warning players that they could be struck by balls.

Even though Mr Gordon shouted ‘fore’ - the traditional warning of a wild stroke - he was found guilty of negligence and ordered to pay Mr Phee £277,000 damages for his loss of sight in one eye. The judge also ruled that the club was liable ‘for their failure to place signs at appropriate places’.

Mr Phee is naturally entitled to sympathy and some financial redress for his injury. That’s what insurance is for. But all the warning signs in the world would not have prevented him being hit by Mr Gordon’s mis-struck ball. It was an accident damnit and and accidents happen.

Don’t be surprised, though, if some killjoy now demands that all golfers are forced to wear hard hats, safety goggles and those ghastly yellow, hi-visibility jackets at all times when out on the course. That’s if they don’t want golf banned altogether.

Elsewhere, in Lymington, Hants, one of the world’s oldest cricket clubs has been ordered by its local council to spend £50,000 erecting safety nets around its entire boundary and designate a person to patrol the perimeter shouting warnings about the dangers of flying cricket balls.

If it refuses to comply, the club - which dates back two centuries - has been threatened with eviction. So it now faces either bankruptcy, to cover the cost of the netting, or being kicked off the ground where it has been playing continuously for 175 years.

It almost goes without saying that of the estimated 1.8 million balls bowled at the ground in those 175 years, not a single one has ever struck a spectator or passer-by, but that didn’t stop Councillor Penny Jackman insisting that “The plain and frightening reality is cricket balls have been landing at great speed a matter of inches from unsuspecting people.”

I would have assumed that if the people in question were at a cricket match, they were hardly ‘unsuspecting,’ but it would seem that the worthy Ms Jackman had baser motives for her indignation.

During a heated meeting, she was overheard saying to a colleague, “Oh, let’s just shut the buggers down.”

There speaks the genuine voice of  Britain’s officialdom – of all those paper-shuffling desk jockeys that have taken over Town Halls and just about everywhere else in this benighted land. It is all about throwing their weight around, showing us who’s boss, finding out what people like to do and then stopping them doing it.

‘Let’s just shut the buggers down.’

Sounds about par for the course – sorry.
A teachers’ union official has claimed somewhat absurdly that the Government’s education reforms are a ‘crime against humanity.’

Patrick Roach, deputy general secretary of the NASUWT, attacked plans which allow parents to set up schools free of local government control. Only a fanatic could equate freeing schools from political interference with genocide and torture, but this pratwinkle didn’t seem to see any irony in his choice of words and let’s face it, this is the type of deranged hyperbole we have come to expect from the Left-wing rabble which runs Britain’s teaching unions.

I’ll tell you what’s a crime against humanity. It’s teachers and education professionals like Roach, who have betrayed a generation of children, now leaving school semi-literate, innumerate and ill-disciplined, utterly unsuited for the adult world of work.

Trendy teaching methods and ‘child-centred’ learning are what lie behind the fact that more than one million young people in Britain are not only unemployed, many of them are unemployable.

It’s also a crime to shut every school in Britain by staging a politically-motivated, self-indulgent strike, which is what Roach and his fellow ‘professionals’ intend to do next week.

The strike is going ahead, even though only a third of NASUWT members voted in favour of it. We can only hope that the majority of staff who opposed industrial action will report for work as usual, even if that means crossing hostile picket lines and to my mind, any teacher who walks out on November 30 should be sacked out of hand.

Children surely deserve better than this sort of nonsense and if we want them to grow up as useful members of society, it is high time, the rabble rousers and Trotskyists like Patrick Roach were locked up for criminal neglect of their duties.

On an even more sombre note than the education of Britain's children, 100 odd elephant have died of thirst in Hwange National Park. That too is criminal. The park has no natural water of its own, but for nearly a century, the wild life have been supplied from boreholes and artifical wells. Now the pumps have all broken down and apparently cannot be repaired without oddles of cash being donated. Whether this situation has arisen through neglect, incomptence of blatant corruption, I don't know but yet again it is the elephants and other natural denizens of the wild places that are suffering.

Is it any wonder that I have so jaundiced a view of my fellow humans?

 

Sepp Blatter, Stephen Lawrence and now the House of Lords – racism or more properly, perceived racism has certainly been in the news over the past ten days.

Enough woffle has already been produced about Blatter and Lawrence, but three Asian peers given lengthy bans from Parliament after wrongly claiming almost £200,000 in expenses are now at the centre of an extraordinary legal battle over whether they were targeted because of their race.

The sanctions against Lady Uddin, Lord Paul, and Lord Bhatia were the most draconian against misbehaving peers in 300 years, and now Labour peer Lord Ali has hired leading human rights lawyer Imran Khan to review the damning judgment on the peers by the Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee.

What in the name of all that is holy has it got to do with him? The suspensions, ordered last October, were the longest for the Upper House since the 17th century, but as I ranted the other day, gaol sentences would have been even more appropriate.

Lord Ali, who created Channel 4’s Big Breakfast, was made a peer by Tony Blair in 1998 at the age of 34 and – perhaps trying to show his maturity, he said yesterday, “Something is not right about the way these three peers were treated. There were at least 12 members of the House of Lords who were accused of abusing their second home allowances, yet only these three were singled out to be disciplined. Look at them.

‘All three are Asian. It does not look right. This process was flawed. At one point, when Lady Uddin was before the sub-committee she was reduced to tears by the questioning.”

How pathetic and so what? If this harridan hadn’t tried to cook the books – and got away with it for some time – she would not have been reduced to tears. She claimed more than £100,000 between 2005 and 2010 by stating that her main residence was a small flat in Maidstone, Kent, rather than her family home in East London. She was suspended for 18 months and ordered to repay £125,000 in second home allowances.

The other two were almost as bad. Lord Bhatia claimed £27,446 on the basis that his main home was a small flat occupied by his brother in Reigate, Surrey, even though he and his wife were listed on the electoral roll at their long-standing address in Hampton, South-West London. He was sidelined for eight months, has repaid more than £27,000 and resumed his seat.

Lord Paul, one of Britain’s richest men, lived in London but designated a one-bedroom flat in an Oxfordshire hotel that he owned as his main home. He was suspended for four months and has returned £41,982. All three also claimed travel expenses.

So what difference does their skin colour make. This has nothing to do with racism and the noble Lord Ali is merely trying to make a name for himself.

The simple fact is that all three of these swindlers should be behind bars.

The tabloids like to giggle at his gaffes, but once again, Prince Philip has performed an invaluable national service by tilting at windmills - or to be more precise in this case, wind turbines.

In private remarks that found their way into the Press, he apparently said wind turbines were ‘absolutely useless,’ completely reliant on subsidies and that those who claimed they were one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy believed in ‘fairy tales.’

The Prince’s outburst may have been impolitic but many will be cheering his words and I for one, fully agree with him. Indeed, he understated his case. The Government’s promotion of wind-farms is simply daft from every conceivable point of view.

Not only are these turbines hugely expensive to build and operate but also – and what a surprise it is! - they produce no energy if the wind is not blowing.

Conversely, when the wind blows too hard they have to be shut down, so wind power has to be supplemented by gas-fired power stations - which push into the atmosphere yet more of the dreaded carbon dioxide that the turbines are meant to help diminish.

This supposedly green development is actually environmentally unfriendly, for the turbines are not just an eyesore, but on many wind-farms they have had to be turned off after locals complained that the noise they made left them unable to sleep and even needing to wear ear-defenders in their gardens.

For these and other miseries, the Poor Bloody Taxpayer is having to pay through the nose yet again. Public subsidies make wind power three times more expensive than normal-tariff electricity and since such subsidies drain investment away from new conventional power plants, the risk of power cuts grows greater.

Meanwhile, a government adviser has calculated that even if 10 per cent of the country were to be covered with wind turbines, they would still generate only one-sixth of the nation’s energy needs. Does one laugh or weep at such a farcical policy emanating from what deems itself to be a responsible government? More ludicrous still, it is becoming clearer by the day that the premise upon which these wind-farms are based, that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are producing a catastrophic warming of the planet, has been shot to pieces.

For years, the scientific and political establishment has claimed that there is a ‘consensus’ that ‘the science is settled’ and that man-made global warming is beyond challenge. What utter, self-serving bunkum! Now the organisation at the very heart of this claim has sidled out a tacit admission that it is all boloney - while trying to conceal that this is not in fact the mother and father of U-turns.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC as it is known is the body which has driven man-made global warming theory for more than 20 years. Ably supported by that idiot Chris Huhne (when are the CPS going to do something about his case I wonder?) they have been telling us that the climate will without a shadow of a doubt get so hot that the planet will fry, drown, succumb to terrible diseases, hurricanes, extinction of species and a general environmental apocalypse.

Now though, they would seem to have changed their woolly little minds. According to a new report, it is not possible to predict changes in the Earth’s weather systems for at least the next three decades because of ‘natural climate variability.’

In other words, it might get warmer or it might get colder. The IPCC doesn’t know which because there are too many unknowns in nature. So is there something special about the next three decades which has suddenly served to halt the apocalypse in its tracks?

Don Quixote comically mistook the windmills at which he tilted for giant enemies. But as Prince Philip has helped us perceive, it is the wind turbines and the sham climate theory they represent which have tilted Britain and the Western world into an expensive and ruinous farce of truly lethal dimensions.

But it is time I ignored the doomsayers and hypocrites that seem to control all our lives and got on with my day. At around 11.15 this morning, the stitches are due to be removed from my toe after the plank-removal operation, so hopefully that will ease things and I can wear a shoe again. Running around in one slop – even with socks – is not pleasant at this time of year.

Then I have to get myself fit all over again. Yuk!

By the way, a number of you have complained that you haven't been able to write to me on this site. All I can say is that the servers - if such they should be called - have been playing silly whatsits with me for the past few months and hopefully, my lovely daughter will be constructing a whole new site for me before I head off into the wide blue yonder at the end of March.

If you want to write to me, please do so via lemonfolk@aol.com Payements can be made via Paypal (I think) and cheques are always gratefully received at The Elms, France Lynch. GL6 8LJ.

He is no longer Defence Secretary, so I suppose it is hardly fair to rant about him, but we now learn that the US Navy and US Marines are to buy the 74 Harrier jets which were so stupidly scrapped by Liam Fox.

The Yanks cannot believe their luck. “We’re taking advantage of all the money the Brits have spent on them,” said American Admiral Mark Heinrich gleefully. “It’s like buying a car with maybe 15,000 miles on it.”

Methinks Dr Fox should help out the PBT from his own pocket. After all, that was our money he so stupidly squandered.

Do you remember Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller? She somehow came to lead MI5, a bloated and expensive collection of desk jockeys, which feeds on our fears and could probably be abolished tomorrow without any of us being less safe.

I always laughed when Dame Liza was called a ‘spy chief,’ as if MI5 was the same as the marginally more glamorous MI6, which does actually have the odd secret agent here and there.

But now the worthy dame is stepping out of her league and pronouncing on drugs. She claims there is a ‘war on drugs’ and that it has ‘failed,’ so the obvious solution is to ‘decriminalise’ dope.

The same hogwash has gushed from the mouths of various other airhead celebrities and ex-Ministers over the years and does untold harm to Society in general and the hopheads on the streets in particular.

Cannabis use in this country was effectively decriminalised years ago, with most offences now being dealt with by an unrecorded warning. In February 1994 – nearly twenty years ago damnit! - John O’Connor, former head of the Scotland Yard Flying Squad, said somewhat bluntly, ‘Cannabis is a decriminalised drug.’

It is because our wishy washy leaders have given up the fight against this horrible drug that the correlation between cannabis use and mental illness is now worrying psychiatrists so much.

The loonie left really do have a great deal to answer for and the sad thing is that with people like Dame Liza shouting their mouths off, we can only wonder what cause they will take up next.

I really am glad that I am not a youngster setting out into the big wide world in modern Britain. Many young Brits have jumped through every hoop put in front of them by a whittering government and are heavily into debt because of it. Those who aren’t in debt are at the very bottom of the heap and totally alienated.

The young are the collateral damage of the system that those well meaning but ineffective campers outside St Paul’s are protesting about. It is easy enough to sneer at them for questioning the morality of extreme capitalism, but how can we really blame them? They are complaining about the powerlessness of government in the face of the markets and the overall power of money in this plastic world we live in.

We are already seeing what happens in countries with large populations of unemployed but educated young. This is the one unifying factor among the very different kinds of civil unrest that are springing up across the world. Of course Britain is not Egypt or Tunisia, nor even as yet Spain, but when young people are systematically stripped of any future, the system is broken and trouble results.

It seems inevitable to my feeble little brain that there is going to be a hell of a lot more unrest in this and other countries because of austerity measures and rising unemployment. Jobless youth will be at the forefront of it too. After all, what do they have to lose? All they need is leadership.

Compo Cameron is to appoint a ‘senior female adviser’ to assess the impact of Coalition policies on women. What a prat this man is turning out to be. Suddenly he realises that women – unarguably the most sensible gender – are turning their backs on his brand of smarmy materialism and the ‘yes men’ he likes to surround himself with.

I wonder if the new woman in his life will tell us that cuts to the public sector, pensions and benefits are hitting women hardest or that the services women use are being dismantled? Of course they are. Female columnists and commentators have been complaining about this for at least a year, so how is Compo going to sugarcoat it?

As a mere man, I can only say that if I was female, this sort of charm offensive by our revered leader would be stomach-churning, particularly at a time when Steve Hilton, Compo’s male policy guru is suggesting that maternity pay should be scrapped.

It is surely time, Compo came down from the clouds and got his feet back on solid ground. He isn’t merely losing touch with the people, he has never been in touch with them.

Health and safety is the bane of the modern world, but when it contributes towards a death, something surely ought to be done. We now learn that a lawyer and mother of two, who fell 45ft down a mine shaft, died after fire chiefs refused to mount an immediate rescue operation because of health and ruddy safety fears.

Alison Hume was left lying in agony in the cold and dark for eight hours with several broken bones. A report into her death yesterday found she could have survived if rank-and-file firemen had been allowed to do their job and bring her out.

One fireman had been lowered down while a paramedic was strapped up in a harness ready to follow, but bosses refused to use a winch to lift the lass out because they were slavishly following rules which said the equipment could only be used to save their own staff.

Instead they waited through the early hours of the morning for a police mountain rescue team to arrive. Mrs Hume was lifted out but died shortly afterwards from a heart attack brought on by hypothermia.

While the rescue operation was in progress, group commander Paul Stewart arrived as a media relations officer – something that was obviously very essential! He assumed command after realising he was the most senior officer there.

His first move was to stop a paramedic who was already strapped in a harness from being lowered and he refused to allow colleagues to rescue her using ropes, because they had not received the correct training. Mr Stewart feared they could be sued if the mission failed.

Incredibly, he told a fatal accident inquiry that the operation had a ‘successful outcome’ because the casualty was ultimately removed from the shaft.

Equally incredibly, Stewart is still in the fire service and is on the waiting list for promotion to divisional commander. He should be banged up in the nearest nick, awaiting trial for murder.

But I fear that Paul Stewart is symptomatic of the lack of practical leadership in this country and it has spread to almost every walk of life. What chance do young people really have?

 

What a surprise! In a damning indictment of community policing, it would appear that one in four Britons has never seen a bobby walking the beat. Despite millions of pounds being poured into making the forces of law and order more visible, the streets are still too often devoid of that reassuring presence.

Even the ‘Blunkett bobbies’ – those police community support officers who strut around without any powers at all - are seen infrequently, despite all the woffle we have had from successive governments about strengthening the police and making them more ‘visible.’

PCSOs were introduced by David Blunkett when he was Home Secretary and are supposed to spend the bulk of their time pounding the streets. The Home Office spent hundreds of millions of pounds on re