Strike Out Jobs

The current strike on the London Underground displays all that is wrong with such actions, especially in today's world. The 'tube' drivers receive a very generous income relative to most others, a ridiculously extended leave allowance – based on some dubious psychology – yet demand more.

And yet, all many (perhaps most by now) do all day is sit in a cab and press a few buttons.

Anyone who thinks that the drivers have any value probably ought to read this book, which I have had for decades...

It explains how 'train operators' on the Victoria Line were included purely as a sop to the Unions, and were not actually necessary. It cost, and continues to cost, commuters a fortune.

Subsequently, the Docklands Light Railway has proven the original point very successfully. My brother worked on that, so I have access to the 'inside track' on that whole story if necessary.

This latest action (inaction?) will simply push the powers-that-be in the direction of driverless trains throughout the London Underground, and then all those cushy jobs will go. As someone who never accepted that the original Victoria Line decision was right, I look forward to that happening...

Reading On The Lines

There is a very old saying about 'reading between the lines' – but if one is paying attention, there can be a wealth of information that is already on the lines, and more that can be readily deduced from that without resorting to too much speculation, just a little intelligence.

Just as a comparatively simple exercise, I am going to look at a single Mail Online article and show just how much information is contained within this medium-length piece. Do have a full read-through before continuing here, if you can, but don't take too much notice of the headline and straplines: just concentrate on the content...

The core issue is the removal of half of UNITE's funding support to the Labour party unless their (Communist) leader gets his own way and in effect controls the party's policy, including reversing all trades union reform legislation and restoring the Labour party's traditional relationship with the unions. Okay, so far, there's nothing new or unexpected here.

As the biggest single donor to Labour, UNITE was always going to be the one to call most of the shots anyway – but their rationale is that only half their members vote Labour anyway. Now, that's an interesting statistic, especially as an admission by that union, and very public. Does that mean the rest vote Conservative? No: many don't vote at all, others will vote Lib Dem, UKIP or Green, or even Socialist Workers Party (where they have a candidate) – and yes, there will be a aignificant Conservative vote, though not huge.

The UNITE leader has also stated that he will "no longer tolerate those who welcome our money but don't want our policy input." Now, if that isn't a declaration of intent regarding who runs things on the political Left in this country, I cannot think of what might be. Notice my wording here: in effect, all this is saying to Labour that either they do what McCluskey demands, or he'll find another way to achieve it, putting the union's money and other resources into that instead of Labour. There is no other possible interpretation.

Notice some of their policy 'demands': the reversal of all government spending cuts, the scrapping of anti-strike laws and the introduction of a (wait for it) 75 per cent top tax rate, no less. What has any of this to do with even a predominantly public sector trades union's business?

It is a big revelation, and made in public so that Labour party leader Ed[ward] Miliband is forced to act and declare which way he is going to jump (and, one might reasonably expect, 'how high' as the common saying puts it in such situations). The immediate reduction in funding (despite the purported five year phasing-in period) sends the message: "do what I say, now – and to show you I mean business..."

It confirms what I have said before: that 'Red Len' intends to run a future Left-wing government, though of course no-one will ever have elected him to do so. He will be the puppet-master, and in effect already is. It is yet another danger of letting Labour in next year...

In practice, it would mean a faster route to the totalitarianism that has long been intended for Britain, even faster and more direct than the Frankfurt School policy programme that was being pursued by Blair and Brown during their 13 years in office at Number Ten.

There are several more items of information that one can find in that article, but I eave that as an exercise for the reader. Please feel free to post your own findings in the comments if you so wish. I have taken just a few key ones, so that this post didn't end up longer than I had intended. It's good mental exercise, and helps one see things more clearly and completely than casual readers of newspapers and the like generally do.

Weekly Political Digest – 1 November 2013

It has been another of those busy weeks, so I'll have to be selective or this will end up too long for comfortable reading – not that the content necessarily makes for comfortable reading, of course, but I try to temper it with my own thoughts and experiences...


A Knock for Nick

Actually, several over the past two weeks; but this from Guido shows the Lib Dem leader's apparent dual standards when it comes to his own education as against his public stance against Michael Gove's education reforms. It's that question of 'unqualified' teachers – in reality, those not indoctrinated into the politically-driven 'training' style of the (as is now widely known) Lefty 'profession'.

That's what this whole debate is really about: it has nothing to do with standards and quality, only about control by political interests, as generations of unqualified teachers have shown. Nick Clegg himself is an example of the outcome of that freedom. There are times when qualifications are of value, but this turns out not only to be one of the exceptions, but also to be long-established.

While we're looking at hapless Nick, just a few days earlier Fraser Nelson was looking at this and other aspects of the Lib Dems and the behaviour of that party and its leader. It's Fraser in his telling-it-as-he-finds-it mode, and well worth reading throughout.

On a Lib Dem related matter, also in the Speccie on the same day, James Forsyth considered what David Cameron needs to offer Nick Clegg in order to keep the minor partner in the Coalition on board.

Now, if they had done what I outlined a while ago, this wouldn't be an issue for much longer, and the remaining programme of joint work should be well established. Remember: I (and a few others) thought that the two parties could start to separate into more distinct entities in their own right, starting from the recent conference season. Indeed, we have already seen fairly strong signs of that happening.

The idea is to reach a point whereby all the pre-election initiatives and legislation are either now complete or are currently going through the necessary stages, from now on, and nothing brand new (except for emergencies) should suddenly appear at this relatively late stage in the parliamentary five-year term. I'm reasonably confident that this is exactly how it has all been set up, behind the scenes, by the two party leaders.

Expect the separation to be made decisive and unambiguous by next year's autumn conference season, by when only tidying-up and minor (uncontroversial) legislative matters should be all that's left to be done before the May 2015 election. Meanwhile, as James says, the Conservatives in particular need to construct their manifesto – and it looks like it's already well in progress...


Leverage

In the ongoing saga of the UNITE Union, news of the intimidation techniques used by their so-called Leverage Team has reached the public awareness. It is noteworthy that they feel fully justified in applying such techniques, and have all the excuses ready. Of course, as the civilised world realises, only the lowest of the low would even contemplate such tactics, and only absolute trash would put them into practice.

The term 'Commie filth' didn't come about as a nasty insult devised especially for that purpose: it came into being from experience of what such types do in pursuance of their own agenda, here and anywhere else in the world. Put yourself in the position of someone on the receiving end – or, even more pertinently, one of their children.

There is no excuse in the Universe for that behaviour; and I think it might need to be treated as a much more serious offence than it is at present. Society should not be in effect encouraging this through a light-touch penal code.

I don't know how many members have now left the Union as a result of this (and all the other nasties that have been going on for years), but here's the story of one. Clearly noone with a shred of decency can now be a member of such an outfit – which tells us something about those who still are members and who have no plans to even consider leaving. Although I have no wish to turn the tables on them, it would be interesting to know how they'd respond if that did happen. Boot on the other foot, and all that...

The ongoing Falkirk candidate selection row continues this week with another delightful inside-track piece from former Labour member Dan Hodges. A batch of leaked emails has told much of the real story anyway, and it fell to the likes of Dan to write-up their significance, along with all the rest that has been going on during this unhappy (and hugely embarrassing, mostly for Labour) saga.

He correctly deduces, from the evidence now before us, that it is Ed[ward] Miliband whose personal reputation stands to take the greatest hit, rather than his party or even the Union that seemingly tried to rig the selection. As someone who has personally encountered selection rigging, I am very much alert to and cognisant of those methods described and other tactics used (only!) by the corrupt with their own agendas.

During all of the above, the ever-wily Jack Straw MP tried distancing himself from that Union, as this short video clip shows. Not that he was telling us anything we didn't already know, of course(!) Whether anyone believes his new-found stance is a matter for conjecture; but it's useful to have this on the record from a long-standing Labour MP, no matter how dubious his true motives!


Newman is the same old (Labour/Commie) man

Red Ed (Miliband) will continue to be unable to shake off that description while he is still subservient to the likes of UNITE's Len McCluskey, and also while he is ineffective at dealing with the numerous hard left (indeed, Communist) types firmly embedded within the Labour party and including both current elected members and those selected to stand in 2015. This is the story of one of the hopefuls.

To be blunt I have to say that it differs in no practical measure from those I have seen non-stop appearing within the Labour ranks and being picked as candidates, often getting elected (typically in safe Labour seats, but not only in those). Labour has, throughout most of its existence, been a Communist-style party with a very cleverly-manufactured public face to make it less obvious, and that certainly hasn't changed in the nearly forty months since Ed-M took on the party leadership.

Indeed, it has become the norm once again, and not even as well camouflaged as in earlier times – although that isn't helped by modern technology: it is much more difficult to conceal such truths nowadays, so it isn't necessarily down to poorer standards of deception. The example of Andy Newman will be just 'more of the same old Labour' to seasoned veterans like me; but might be more shocking to the younger generations who didn't live through the Foor/Scargill/Wilson (and the rest) years.

To anyone in that position, I can assure you that we've seen it all before, and it is and more-or-less always has been the true face of Labour, despite the veneer of seeming respectability and moderation they try to slap over the red rot to hide it from public view. They are just as totalitarian in nature as those running North Korea right now, and Labour-run governments have always headed in a similar direction, as is nowadays a lot better documented – and more easily publicly visible – than it was in my younger days..

Don't squander the advantage this generation has over mine: learn the lessons and learn them well! Today's world has not only better prospects of understanding the reality, but also has no real excuse for not doing so.


Completely Up The Poll

Jusr a brief mention of this very useful post from Dr Anthony Wells about misleading headlines to reports of and discussions of opinion polls. Long-term visitors to my 'blog will already be aware of how I always play it straight with everything I write, including polling news. The message here is not to be lulled into believing that all others act with such integrity when dealing with the same topic.

The good Dr Wells (whom I have met and talked to at some length) puts the record straight on a couple of recent examples of misleading headlines, and in the process reminds us to be sufficiently alert not to be taken in by such practices.


The Tommy-Knockers

It has been standard big media practice to 'knock' the English Defence League (EDL) and its founder Tommy Robinson. When said Mr Robinson decided to quit the EDL they media hacks and editors must have been in paroxysms of ecstasy: their boat had come in!

In reality, the EDL for all its many faults was never anything like the outfit it was portrayed to be, and some have cited considerable evidence – sometimes backed up with hard-to-challenge photographics records of what actually did happen at EDL meet-ups – that reminded one of the anti-Israel reporting that has been thoroughly documented in other 'blogs for years (I have studied much of that material myself).

Despite all of that, the EDL was known to attract the less idealistic and more thuggish elements of society – I'm sure not by design, and it was just an unfortunate side-effect – so there is some valid criticism of them 'out there'. Much, however, plainly isn't justified. I have been watching the scene for a couple of years now, so have become reasonably well clued-up on what is and what isn't accurate in the various reports I have encountered.

Daniel Hannan MEP has his own take on what he perceives to be a symbiotic style of relationship between the EDL, the Islamists (often a..k.a. Islamo-Fascists or, in the Hannan piece, Islamo-nutters) and even the ironically-named Unite Against Fascism (UAF) folk. By appreciating how all sides act at times, Dan paints what I think is not only a more comprehensive picture of this whole sorry business, but also a more helpful one than others tend to offer.

As for Tommy Robinson's departure from the EDL, this was recently covered in a BBC documentary. Ah, I can already hear alarm bells ringing in my readers' heads! Yes, you are right to be suspicious, though the BBC did a generally good job. However there were other aspects that need bringing to people's awareness – and Douglas Murray has done just that. As one might by now expect of Douglas, he covers not only all you need to know about the programme and its main Islamic participant in typical thoroughness, and then goes on to look at deeper questions.

It's fairly long; but I think you will find the time reading it through time well spent and 9as with Dan) helpful; and that is what we need most in regard to a topic that is somewhat sensitive and prone to misunderstanding and misrepresentation, including of its most media-visible players.


On The Record

Coming closer to home, I usually like to feature at least one item from my local area and (more often than not) its council. This week, it is the initiative by Eric Pickles to allow the public to record Council meetings in sound and/or video, perhaps including committees as well..

Of course, this will not become law for a little while, owing to parliamentary and legal procedures, and at this early stage no-one knows what will even be proposed, let alone finally passed into law or equivalent. Therefore it is hardly surprising that Medway Council did not permit recording by the public of a recent Overview and Scrutiny meeting.

This has infuriated local Labour, who (several weeks ago, a full three weeks before the policy proposal had even been announced) were planning to make and use such a recording for purely party political reasons (as everyone realised at the time, apart from any dullards if indeed any were present), and they are – predictably – having a go at the 'wicked Tories' for refusing such permission.

It also has to be said: if Labour now say "it’s wholly wrong for people not being able to record or film in public meetings", why did they do nothing whatsoever about this during their thirteen years in government? It has taken the Coalition Government just three years (barely a quarter of Labour's tenure) to come up with such a proposal: one that Labour clearly never actually wanted – at least until they could see a way of turning it to their own political advantage.

As always but always with Labour, what is dressed up as being in the 'public' interest is in reality pushed by them only when it is in their interest – nothing to do with the public at all...

Weekly Political Digest – 14 September 2013

I have deliberately held this back for a day, so that those readers with a sensitivity to 'Friday the thirteenth' don't shy away from it. I know, I know...

These digests are proving to be very popular, especially the one two weeks ago which is still going strong, and now heading toward two thousand page views. Meanwhile, it has been an exceptionally busy week!


Unite? You Might? You're Not!

Inevitably the Unions-versus-Miliband saga rolls on. I don't wish to make this into a long-running overblown saga, so here are just a few links for those readers who are following all of this as avidly as I and at least some others are doing...

•  Guido's take on who was the stronger
• Isabel Hardman on how Miliband can sometimes hit the mark, but not this time
• James Forsyth on the (then) imminent Miliband speech to the TUC conference
• Here is that speech
• The Mail's reaction, including a video of the Miliband speech
• Alex Wickham on the similarity of Miliband-and-McCluskey to Roald Dahl's The Witches

Young Eyes Look Right

This is an interesting and well-evidenced piece from the always-excellent (and probably underrated) Mark Wallace on a further example of the younger end of our society turning more to the political Right than their (mostly Lefty) teachers and lecturers tried to prepare them to do, or even to be..

There is always an element of this trend, in every generation, even since the days when the Communist-style teaching  profession in this country first took prominence within our educational establishments – something that 'Miss Snuffy' and others have divulged public in recent years, so we know from the inside what many of us realised already.

Occasionally, when even young and less experienced minds can see the (deliberate) harm being done to society by the Left, there comes a kind of natural re-balancing that largely – though nowhere near entirely – corrects the tendency for the upcoming generation to head leftward in their outlook.

Although when I was in that age bracket it was a hugely different world from that of today, we still tended to go that way – though I was never seriously pro-Labour myself. It is always encouraging to see that, no doubt aided by modern communications and on-line resources, the current younger generation is seeing more truths than were perhaps so readily available to those of us in a parallel position half a century ago...


Falkirk Fail Quirk

Oh dear! There seems to be a falling out between Labour MPs Tom Watson and Jim Murphy over the Falkirk vote-rigging allegations issue, as this highlighted tweet shows. The latter's message to the former reads (with shorthand expanded to aid readability)...

"You know how to get in touch away from Tory twitter eyes. Meanwhile I'll just get on with supporting Ed's plans for party/Trades Union reform."

Ouch!


Continuing to 'Ed' South

Still heading toward oblivion, along the road of irrelevance and via the town of Little Dooing On-the-Hole, the Labour leader continues to be seen as a non-entity by his own side's supporters at least as much as by his political opponents. Fraser Nelson covers the current state of play in more detail here.

This quotation of David Aaronovitch of The Times, by Iain (radio presenter of the year) Dale, is one of the most telling I have yet encountered – especially as I have known of Aaranovitch for a number of years, and realise just how strong this really is. Probably the most significant phrase is this...

"...politically he is not a presence at all, he is an absence."

Ouch again!


Food Banks

As with all schemes that are essentially hand-outs, the food banks that were introduced during the Labour years have gone, to some extent at least, the way of all such:  something to be exploited by the scroungers. Once this reaches widespread public awareness, the whole idea tends to become discredited, which – as with the other such ideas – does a disservice to the genuine and honest cases.

This from The Mail revolves around first-hand testimony of (wait for it) a Liberal Democrat former mayor, whose personal experience of what seems to be a fair number in Liverpool strongly suggests that many of them are using the handout nature of food banks as a way to subsidise a more luxurious lifestyle than any reasonable person might well expect.

The example given by the former mayor is of the preponderance of (very expensive!) iPhones that the claimants (for want of a better term) seem to sport. Lefties have, as usual, sprung to those claimants' defence, suggesting that perhaps the iPhones were 'gifts from friends or family'.

Oh, I can just see that happening in either my own family's equivalent generation, or others I know – not! Also, if these obviously ricj benefactors were even slightly aware of the person's situation (and wouldn't you be, in that kind of situation?) surely they'd opt for a cheaper 'phone and some cash to put dinners on the table, at least for a while. Yes?

When it comes to trusting the views of Labour's Luciana Berger or the insight of Michael Gove, most intelligent and insightful folk must surely go for the latter; and that seems to be what is gradually happening, thanks to this debate that was triggered by the Education Secretary's words on the subject recently.

Ultimately, the lessons to be learned are (a) accepting that some long-standing handout schemes probably cannot be changed materially, no new ones should be introduced, and more recent ones need to be reviewed to try to find a better way to tackle the underlying issues; and (b) if that can't be done for one or more specific schemes, at least make the criteria more intelligent and much less easy to cheat one's way in as a lifestyle choice at others' expense.

There is much public support for taking a more sensible line on welfare and related matters in the country nowadays, as even The Independent acknowledges, including admitting that this is benefiting the Conservatives at Labour's expense. Interesting reading, that!


Age of Education

On the subject of education itself (i.e. not just the minister!) there has been a proposal by a collection of Lefty 'experts' to move the school starting age to seven. Interestingly, it was that side of the political divide that formerly (while their people were running the country) supported early years learning.

Back then, they were able to indoctrinate our youngsters with their ideology at their most susceptible time of life, as I have covered previously, and as is evidenced in the famous Jesuit Fathers claim that I supect is familiar to most if not all readers of this 'blog, so needs no repetition here.

As Toby Young, a co-founder of the West London Free School, writes in The Telegraph, such a move would result in 'a generation of illiterates'. His piece is well-evidenced and is worth reading in full, especially by existing and potential parents

We have already seen the outcome of a dumbed-down education system in the Labour years, concentrating on non-subjects such as 'diversity' and 'citizenship' at the expense of genuinely useful areas, with the well-documented (and glaringly obvious to employers) result that we already have a generation of whom a fair-sized proportion are at best semi-literate and numerate.

This, of course, is the 'Plan B' idea of these self-styled 'experts'. If their people in government can no longer reduce future generations' education to largely worthless non-qualifications and lower-standard exams, then they might at least reduce the time for proper education by a few crucial years..The aim is the same, but now coming at it from the other end, so to speak.

As always, we should never let ourselves be fooled by anything Lefties attempt to foist upon us, however appealingly it is dressed up for public consumption. It's our children's futures at stake, no less – a point reinforced by this tale of Labour and Green councillors voting together to defeat a very promising looking proposal for a new school where it is genuinely needed in central Hove.

It seems that the Lefties there prefer instead to make the site into what is described as a comfortable environment for council staff. Interesting choice of priorities here, and as always with Lefties one wonders who they think should be serving whose interests...

On a not entirely unrelated topic (the need for more school places) it is Labour's 'time-bomb' caused by their deliberate flooding of the UK with some four million immigrants (as Daniel Hannan MEP reminded us in a tweet earlier today) that has now come around to causing a shortage of secondary school places.

Although in theory it should be possible for any council to see the problem coming in advance, and prepare for it, it doesn't seem that many if any parts of the country actually achieve this, at least not consistently over the years. I have seen it in my own area, and have been aware of it elsewhere; and the above-linked article just shows how big the issue is nationwide.

Lessons need to be learned by bureaucrats and councillors/MPs as much as lessons within the classrooms themselves, but also the immigrant tide needs to be stemmed so that we don't get a repeat of this potentially harmful (to the youngsters) situation arise again in the future.


Striking at Britain

The TUC-supported nationwide labour strike (once upon a time called 'industrial action', even though it involved inaction and certainly without any industry).was indeed accepted at the Congress's conference last Monday. Their main beef appears to be the public sector pay freeze, and the firefighters also have an issue regarding their pensions.

Indeed, it is (predictably?) the unions covering public sector – either exclusively or with some private sector membership as well – who are leading this, driven by their predominantly known Communist leaders. For them,.as always with their ilk, their foot-soldier members who will be called upon to lose income by striking, are merely pawns in their (purely political) game.

From the TUC's and the more moderate unions' point of view, there is a separate reason, and that is of having become less relevant during the past three decades, and seeing that trend continuing ever more since the change of national government in May 2010.

They need something, anything of significance, to rally the troops and help promote a dwindling overall membership (as I gather it is in reality, though not widely realised), especially while the public sector is now shrinking – which is where the mainstay of the active union movement resides in practice.

As a nation, we'll live through it all, just as we have done in the past as I well recall from my own experience.

When it's all over, or even before, although there will be a modest (but inflated in the reporting of the usual suspects e.g. BBC/Guardian/Mirror, no doubt) shift toward sympathy for the strikers, perhaps just one group such as the firefighters, this is likely to be hugely outweighed by the real public opinion. I've seen that before as well, and in much more favourable times for the unions and the rest of the political Left.

That will give the government all the 'ammo' it needs to further tighten-up union-related legislation, reduce public funding/support for them still further (way beyond the current 'Pilgrims' clampdown) and turn more public services over to the private sector. The TUC et al are playing straight into their hands, but are not bright enough to realise it. Well, they shall reap what they are planning to sow...


FullFact on Royal Mail

It is not exactly surprising that FullFact have taken a detailed look at part of the Royal Mail sell-off issue, though completely ignoring (except via a fairly short quotation from Business Secretary Vince Cable) the question of the service's future viability. Thus this is one of their more selective (slanted, one might even consider it) reports, and should be read with that in mind.

They have instead focussed the 'conclusion' end of their post on the opposition to the move by – well, one can guess before even reading that far down, it's so predictable. This is where one needs to be careful not to be lulled by FullFact's straighter reports into thinking they are impartial, as they claim. It is not that difficult to spot when they have an agenda, and this looks to be one example of that.


Medway A & E

Great news regarding the now well-overstretched Medway Maritime Hospital's Accident and Emergency department, as Medway MP Mark Reckless has blogged about here including a clip from his words on the topic in the House of Commons.

This significant grant – one of the largest being made – ought to make a real difference, though I doubt that it will be able to overcome all the reported issues all of the time. A&E is like that; though my own experiences on two occasions in the year 2011 showed that it was a well run outfit with no waiting outside in the ambulance and only quite modest delays within the department.

Indeed, my longest wait was the necessary time for some administered medicine to 'kick-in' (as they say there) and that was less than half an hour. I had no reason for complaint; and as I observed the workings of the place I noticed a calm but always on-the-go activity. I am no expert, but I couldn't perceive a problem on either of those occasions, at that time – barely thirty months ago.

Sooner or later, though, as populations rise and social trends can add to the pressures, something starts to give. From recent reports, it looks as though that has started to happen on occasion, so this is good if less than ideal timing for what one might term an 'enhancement grant'..


A Few Links

To avoid making this post too long , I am providing the following few links on assorted topics as a simple click-on list. None of them needs any significant comment from me...

• Obama's Syria speech falls flat
• Douglas Murray on 'human rights' hyper-inflation
• UKIP founder creates new left-wing party
• Benedict Brogan on the lobbyists issue

?And that's it for another week. Hopefully next week will be at least a little lighter and not quite as busy!

Weekly Political Digest – 6 September 2013

There's something for just about everyone in this week's selection of new stories and follow-ups to earlier ones...


Syria Vote

Was the UK parliamentary vote on the possibility of our participating in air strikes in Syria a game-changer? Possibly; not only for what has happened here (and is continuing to unfold) but because it has triggered a copycat move by President Obama. This is actually a big move and could obviously have far-reaching consequences if the American equivalent of our parliament. were also to vote against involvement – which is unlikely, but anything could happen. The Spectator's special View from 22 podcast covers some valuable ground on this and other Syria-related topics.

Meanwhile, back home in Blighty, the row continues over Labour's party politicking that not only lost the Commons vote but also lost their parliamentary party (and their leader in particular) a considerable degree of credibility. The Telegraph has this well covered from two different viewpoints: David Barrett and Robert Watts look at the backlash from Labour backbench MPs, and Dan Hodges' take is on how the British people are likely to look upon the vote and its outcome.

Both are useful to read, and it is worth spending a few minutes on this important international topic via those two pieces. Perhaps the same cannot be said for Ed[ward] Miliband's attempted face-saver he probably had written for him that appeared in The Guardian (where else?) last Friday afternoon. I held back on that last week, awaiting developments. It has now become obvious what it really was, especially with the sprinkling of buzzwords old and new (such as 'hard-headedness' among the new ones) so I really need add no more: he gives the game away himself.

Not that poor Ed has all that many influential supporters these days, as even David Aaronovitch (yes, him!) reveals, as quoted by Iain Dale here...


Ed Northwards

Poor Ed[ward] Miliband is also stuck in the middle of the Falkirk candidate selection business, as shown in this useful Storify timeline (from Raheem Kassam) covering the two months since it broke. This has appeared only within the last half hour as I write this, which explains the late night timing of this week's digest (I was waiting for it, before posting this digest).

Essentially, two of their members were suspended – the UNITE-favoured candidate and the chairman of the local Labour party – the matter was referred to the police, then the UNITE Union threatened to withdraw from the upcoming Labour conference unless their candidates were re-instated, and Labour has now complied with this.

It will be said that they caved in to to threat from the union, especially if today's claims that key evidence was withdrawn – upon pressure on witnesses – is verified. UPDATE 7 September @ 1130: The latest word, just minutes ago, is that the union reforms and changes to the party leader electoral college system that Ed-M had been planning are to be shelved, adding more fuel to this fire.

The old saying about rocks and hard places seems to apply here, and I don't know how Labour could survive as a party if their Union support were to fall off significantly. Another of the big Union donors has already reduced its funding to Labour, so Labour bosses must have been feeling the pressure, especially as it affords more power to UNITE whose contributions will henceforth form an even bigger percentage of the party's income. I do not envy them that position...

Oh, and the truly ghastly (and frequently dishonest – or perhaps just stupid) Rachel Reeves has yet again been caught out misrepresenting her party's income streams and their relative significance. Guido has done the best job he could, bearing in mind the Labour party's secrecy over this, and it is sufficiently conclusive to show Ms Reeves' error in her claim...


Ooh, Nasty!

Or, 'ooh, Nazi' perhaps, as Michael Gove is again targeted by Labour MPs in what looks like either an accidental or deliberate misunderstanding over words – I can't be sure which way it really is in this case. The Mail carries the story..

This will probably turn out to be a storm in a teacup and will soon fade away; but it has to be said that all of Labour has a lot more in common with Germany's National Socialists, as they then were, than the Conservative Party has in common with the long-defunct Tory party. That fact has never stopped Labour folk calling Conservatives 'Tories' – but that just goes to show how hypocritical they are. I, for example, have never been a 'Tory' in my life.

Personally, I'd place Labourites closer to Communists (and many of them are actual Communists, and several prominent members have admitted as much), especially after the Marxist policies their party was following during its 13 years in government from 1997 to 2000. This was the infamous Frankfurt School of Cultural Marxism's treasonous policy programme that Messrs Blair and Brown (and their then ministerial colleagues) were following, point by point, with the direct intention of destroying our nation and its culture. No wonder one of their early actions was specifically to remove the death penalty for treason...


Spongers Look Away Now

Speaking one of the truths that were 'unacceptable' during the Labour years, London journalist Marina Kim rightly entreats us all to have children only if we ourselves can afford to do so. I don't necessarily agree that all of us should have any automatic right to have any children at all, especially with the population issues that the Satanic New World Order has seized upon as an excuse for (soon to be implemented) mass murder, but the basic principle is correct.

I know personally of more than one local female who deliberately had at least one child with the express intention of using this as a way to sponge off others and live a comparatively easy life. One of those spends much of her time playing computer games, for example.

With modern birth control methods, it is obvious anyway – quite apart from admissions and omissions when quizzed – that their aim was deliberate: to get us all to subsidise them, using the child as the emotional blackmail element that makes it difficult to reform the benefits system as it needs to be. They know they have a meal ticket for X years, easily extended by having another baby at the right time

As Marina says in her piece, though, this often (not always) means some level of deprivation for the child/children involved, who were always in reality merely pawns in this game, no matter what they might become after birth when a more enduring emotional bond might well come into being. It is not good for the child to have to grow up in a poorly-suited locality.

The mothers might then demand this and that be provided in their home area – but the truth is they should not have brought their young into the world in an unsuitable area, then expecting (again) everyone else to subsidise their wishes because of their (very poor, self-centred) lifestyle choice.

Second births onward are also a good clue, in such cases, as to the mother's true intention; and with the utility of different fathers the truth of the way this extensive sub-culture operates within our communities becomes all too clear.

There does not seem to be an easy answer to this – which of course gives the New World Order brigade one of their best excuses for their planned mass extermination of the population of the world. From an initial cull of 25% it is apparently planned to extend to 95% of us. The poisons in the chemical trails (chemtrails) we see in our skies are no doubt part of that, and many of us in the targeted places such as Kent will have been so infused by this nanotechnology by now that the second stage, whatever form that might take, is almost certain to kill us. Even I am not immune these days.

When that day comes, all of us should remind ourselves that it was the sheer selfishness of the breeders – and in particular the 'multiple breeders' with several offspring – who gave these malign forces one easy excuse to murder us by the billion!


Poverty in Kent

Following on from the last item, this in one of our local newspapers is a valuable reminder that, even here in Kent, there is a lot of poverty in places. Most of this is about 'the Planet Thanet', but it applies elsewhere just as much – even in Tunbridge Wells of all places, if you know where to look.

Now, much of this was deliberately manufactured by Labour both locally and nationally in order to create a 'client State' that would be dependent on hand-outs so a captive voter base for them – or at worst, a lot of non-voters rather than (most likely) Conservative voters.

I am well aware of examples of this in (for example) parts of Rochester back in the 'eighties, changing the demographics there so that it all sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. It's obvious that it didn't happen naturally or by chance, as it is inconsistent with the broader area and with the whole place's history during much of the past century. This isn't the Victorian Rochester that Charles Dickens knew – and even that wasn't like these parts are now.

As always, be cautious about poverty figures: it's all done by 'relative poverty' since the Labour years, so there will, by definition, always be thousands sufficiently below the average to count in this nonsense methodology. Many of the 56,000 Kent children mentioned in the linked article will have provision and lifestyles that no-one sensible would consider to be in any way deprived, and this can colour (perhaps intentionally?) our view toward the relative few who really are 'in poverty'.

The allusions to immigrants and dumped (typically from London boroughs) people will resonate with long-term readers of this 'blog, as I have looked at (and into) these topics in the past. For example, as is now more widely known, I engineered the Medway Council scrutiny meeting item regarding the number of undeclared (to the council) asylum seekers housed within Medway – the one where the policewoman was reprimanded for telling the uncomfortable truth that police bosses didn't want publicly exposed.

We all subsidise cheap housing – it doesn't come free (so to speak) – by house prices rising hugely, as also happened primarily and perhaps most dramatically during the Labour years. We all saw this happen, year or year, making houses more-or-less unaffordable for ordinary folk – hence the term 'affordable housing' (i.e. subsidised by everyone else).

All of this will never be solved unless we return to a true market-driven housing market, completely scrapping subsidised housing in all forms, and even then it will take at least two full generations to get back to a sensible and sustainable footing. We shall always have poor people in our society, but plonking them in unsuitable and inappropriate locations to ultimately satisfy some party political manipulation is not the way to cope properly or sensibly.

All the most severe problems we have with actual poverty – and much of what isn't poverty at all, but plays on the artificial 'relative' definition – stems from such social engineering, as history from before the onset of that programme several decades ago shows. It will time to fix and will be politically tough for any government as well as for councils; but if we never even start along the necessary path, it never will be fixed. A good start would be to boot out as many Lefties as possible at all future elections, thus removing the underlying cause of the problems.


Hello, Good Evening, and Welcome

And finally for this week...

No more shall we hear that famous opening line from Sir David Frost, except in videos and old television repeats, as we lost the man earlier this week. There have been enough tributes, including a particularly good one from no less than Andrew Neil – probably the best political interviewer and commentator on British TV currently.

I shall leave readers to pursue any of these tributes that they might prefer to peruse (I do understand that this can be very much a personal matter) and instead leave you with an example of when he didn't get a comfortable ride, when interviewing Mrs Thatcher on 9 June 1985 regarding the sinking of the Belgrano in the Falklands conflict...

Weekly Political Digest – 30 August 2013

Issues big and small, international, national and local, abound this week...


Syria is the Kobayashi Maru

Star Trek movie fans will be well aware of the Kobabyashi Maru simulation used on training exercises at Starfleet, and introduced in the second Trek movie The Wrath of Khan. It has been referenced several times since, in later Trek productions of one kind or another. It was a no-win scenario and was a test of character only – unless one cheated and re-programmed the simulator to make it able to be solved, as one James Tiberius Kirk apparently did...

There is no doubt that the biggest news this week has been over the Parliamentary recall to debate the possibility of UK involvement in a military action against the Syrian Assad régime following their use of chemical weapons against their own people, including children. Specifically, air strikes were being considered, in principle at this stage, in a two-vote arrangement the second of which would have come later.

These are always difficult decisions to take, and this one – perhaps more so than others, perhaps just the same but this time we're handling it more democratically – has been just like the Kobayashi Maru. There is no 'right' answer, as I have today tweeted, yet each side of the argument to go in or not believes it alone is right.

Unless a way could be found to forensically (to use the in-vogue term) remove Assad and those he commands who commit these acts, we could not even be a form of 'international police'. Whether or not we should intervene in another country's affairs, especially bearing in mind what has tended to happen in previous cases, is another question.

I have some sympathy for the decision-makers, because it is a very close call in practice: not because the issues are small, but because even a big pull in one direction is countered by a different by equally large pull in the opposite direction. It really is like that. I am not surprised, therefore, that even our own Medway Members of Parliament were split on the vote, with two of them voting one way and the third walking through the other voting lobby.

Back to the 'Maru': as a test of character, it certainly brought out the strength of PM David Cameron's character, though not backed up properly by the Number Ten machine and Conservative Parliamentary Whips' Office, which have rightly come in for strong criticism. Cam made his case, made concessions to the leader of the opposition, and put the question before the House of Commons.

As Dan Hodges (among others) covers in his 'blog post today, Ed[ward] Miliband behaved abominably, as did members of his party who revelled at the defeat of the Government's motion as a political success, as that was (as always) all that really mattered to them.

It comes as little surprise that Dan Hodges has, at last, resigned from the Labour party – who are no doubt rejoicing over that as well. As is so often the case, there is a lot of good, solid stuff in the Hodges piece and I recommend spend five minutes or so reading it all the way through.

Of course, it is equally unsurprising that local (and no doubt others whom I do not follow) sycophantic Labourites are fawning over Miliband's 'victory' and finding yet more ways to lick his boots. They show themselves up by so doing, as the Hodges piece clearly demonstrates – and I can if required provide links to others in the know who have confirmed what he has said, such as Toby Young, here, and (update) the Mail here. There are others... If there were the need for a new reason to feel disgust at Labour and their supporters, here it is in spades.

Unusually, Fraser Nelson is, I think, very much overstating the severity and significance of this defeat for Cameron, which he has done a few times before, though not to this extent. Never again can his stated support be taken as genuine. There are matters that need to be sorted out, especially now the hard lesson has (I hope) been learned that Mili-E is not to be trusted and his assurances can count for nothing.

In the final analysis, the defeat last night might see our standing within at least some sections of the international community weakened for a while, and it could harm the (admittedly largely fictitious) 'special relationship' we supposedly have with the USA; but in the longer term I have a feeling that history will soon enough show that, on balance, it was the better outcome, though not by a large margin.

This extract from an important document on the feasibility of an operation such as that being proposed makes for sobering reading, though, and I dread to think how much it might have cost us in resources as well as the most important resource of all – our Armed Forces' lives – if we had committed to the air strikes and whatever might lie beyond.

Meanwhile, other countries will no doubt make their own decisions about whether to intervene in Syria, and in what way. This little island, despite its significance on the world stage, is but one relatively small nation among hundreds on Planet Earth. Yesterday's debate and vote showed also that we are one of the more democratic, with Parliament trumping the Executive where necessary...which is exactly as it should be.


The Militax

Staying with Mili-E for a few minutes: Michael Gove is on form as usual in exposing the Labour leader's latest wheeze to get you and me to fund his party from the public purse. This is standard practice for the Left anywhere in the world, near enough, and probably always has been, so it's hardly a surprise.

The best weapon against this very bad idea, though, is as always exposure to the public gaze – and this is exactly what Michael Gove is doing at the linked article. It covers a fair amount of ground, and is well worth a read, which will probably take eight to ten minutes (it looks longer, but a few medium to large size photographs give a misleading first impression of its length).

Meanwhile, ongoing money-laundering exploiting any route that is open to them, Lefties in positions of authority and Unions continue to come to notice, such as this one regarding some £64,000 passing from Tower Hamlets to what is a UNITE Union establishment that includes union recruitment facilities and, apparently, considerable pressure to join.

I leave it to readers here to follow the link and read the post by Ted Jeory, and the comments beneath, the latter taking a mix of sides, though I spot the methodology of those trying to suggest that 'it's all okay', so perhaps it's advisable to stay especially alert when reading those.


Abbott on the Landscape

This telling-it-like-it-is piece by Stephen Pollard in The Express hits lots of nails on the head regarding the ghastly Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. The headline concerns Labour's real intentions regarding immigration, none of which comes as a surprise to me (and probably not to many others by now, either) but he also catalogues a fair amount of other useful information by which we might gain an insight into this character.

Interestingly, when Ms Abbott was a regular on the BBC's This Week, the contributors to the LiveChat sessions had her well sussed, even then, so there really is nothing surprising to any of us who were regulars on the LiveChat. For everyone else, read and learn...

On the related topic of foreigners claiming UK benefits, the Mail reports that the numbers of these have increased by over forty percent during the past five years (a Labour government legacy, still not fully tackled in the coalition situation) to some 400,000 and costing billions of Pounds every year.

Again, it's not unexpected by those of us who have been conscious of what was happening during the Labour years and how much of it was effectively semi-permanently locked into our nation, so reversing the trend was deliberately made almost impossible by Blair, Brown and Co.

You might remember that, not long before the Coalition was formed, statements came trickling out about how things had been rigged (for want of a better word) by Labour in a number of areas – so it has been public knowledge for a long time.

Of course, knowing about something is not the same as being able to deal with it, and this one will, I suspect, take several years to remedy...and probably can't be done without a Conservative overall majority in the House of Commons.


Not So (Sha)nice...

The holographic receptionist at Brent Council that I mentioned a little earlier this month is, unsurprisingly, coming in for some stick. Even The Guardian has a mostly negative report on her – though, perhaps predictably, their biggest gripe appears to be the loss of a public sector job because Shanice supplants such a human employee. They also point up Shanice's "lack of compassion".

Ah, well: you can't win them all, as the saying goes...


Medway Matters

BBC News Kent has reported on a claim that our local council's free periodical Medway Matters is 'biased toward the Conservatives'. This is a bit strange for a publication that, for all its faults (and it has them) has remained essentially the same for something like a decade, and I have not noticed any slant suddenly appearing, so why wasn't this ever brought up before?

In practice, it continues to cover quite a wide range of topics, mostly without any politicians being mentioned, quoted or pictured at all, apart from the regular ward-by-ward contact page inside the back cover.

The truth is that, when there is a political involvement in anything included in the magazine, it almost universally means Cabinet members, or perhaps the mayor or deputy mayor. These are all Conservatives, but only a minority of them (under a third, in fact).

Now, I have made so secret of my dislike of the Cabinet system that was inflicted upon us by the then Labour government in 2001, and which Eric Pickles has now allowed councils to scrap if they so choose. it is the continuation of that inappropriate and non-democratic institution that is the real cause of this separation between the 'élite few' and all the other elected members. It has nothing to do with the opposition, several of whose members were featured in the magazine a few years ago in page-long specials on each.

Indeed, it has been a de-politicisation of Medway Matters that has meant that series of features has never been revisited, and I am pleased about that. It seems to conform with the long-standard governmental guidance on how such publications should be edited and presented.

Of course, in Labour-run councils the boot is on the other foot; yet I am not aware that Conservative oppositions have ever made such complaints in those councils. I am ready to be corrected on this if I have missed something; but I shall be just as critical of any such as I am of Medway Labour.

All that is now needed is to get rid of the Cabinet-and-Scrutiny structure and give everyone elected to the Council back their equal voting status, as per Eric Pickles' wise-headed provision. That would also bring the elected Council closer to its electorate.

Labour, though, seek only party political coverage as usual, so again have missed the real target in pursuit of self-interest. After all, they want coverage for their members in the magazine, titling it back to more political coverage than now. That is their true motive, and it is so transparent. I'm not taken in, and nor should anyone else be.


Truth Goes The Gallo-way

Finally for this week, here's a short video that seems to show Respect's Georhe Galloway first making a truly outrageous claim on the Iranian television channel with which he is associated, and then denying it in the House of Commons, courtesy of Trending Central.. It looks very much like a GOTCHA..

Weekly Political Digest – 2 August 2013

Despite being within the holiday season, this has been  a surprisingly busy week, so there are a number of subjects I need to cover – though I'll try to make it all reasonably concise...


Daniel Pelka

There can be no doubt that this is the biggest human story of the week, where yet again we find a child treated so badly, so abominably, that he eventually dies, in this case at the age of four years.

Predictably, out of the woodwork spring all those whose agenda is to use any excuse they can to have officialdom allowed ever greater powers to intrude into people's lives, as in Scotland where the SNP plans to allocate a State 'guardian' to every child; but in reality if the authorities were doing their job properly, this could easily have been spotted under existing powers.

Not that these facts have stopped the BBC trying to manipulate the story away from being about the child to being about the 'concerned' public sector workers. This is transparent and, as so often occurs, shows the true nature of the BBC. No regular reader of this 'blog should be taken in and be diverted from the core issue.

As far as the social workers et al are concerned: if they could even handle this, no additional powers would change that situation: indeed, existing resources would end up spread more thinly across a wider spectrum of 'potentials' and many more would be missed. No: sensible and intelligent targeting is what is needed here; and so far the record is somewhat dismal, though not as bad as these occasional isolated severe cases might suggest.

The truth lies in between; but the only way to achieve a better and safer country for all our children is to think straight and avoid the pitfall of 'more regulation/intrusion/whatever' that seems to have become the near-universal answer to all ills and (in particular) shocking headlines ever since 1997, significantly. Remember the then Labour government's response to the Climbié case and the impositions on councils that were well-intentioned, but were demanding on resources yet unfunded, so deprived other services as a consequence...


Rochester Airport

?I touched on this last week; but this (admittedly simplistic, to suit the needs of the local newspaper) column by the Deputy Leader of Medway Council explains at least some of what it's really all about. The most important aspect is that the council is investing in one of its own ongoing assets – hardly a first – and will generate a considerable amount more in return, and in fairly short order (it should break even in a relatively short period, and it's all gain from then on).

Those of us who have been involved with this subject, and especially those (seemingly comparatively few) who have a clue about how such  things work, fully understand what it means – but the chip-on-shoulder local Lefties, who haven't a clue, continually show their complete ignorance and inability to comprehend.

For now, while the public consultation is under way, I shall leave matters there (unless something huge comes up), but I fully expect to comment in considerable detail in a special post once that period has passed...


Untie the Union

Untie or otherwise detach it from Labour. That is the message that is increasingly bearing down upon that party and, in particular, its nominal leader. Ed[ward] Miliband is being seen as weak by ever more people in a widening circle, and it looks as if it's heading towards an untenable leadership.

Although this at The Commentator is written in a slightly sensationalist style, and I for one do not go along with all of it (even the quoted song lyrics are wrong!), much of what is in that piece is beyond reasonable challenge.  This is turning out to be a lot more than a mere storm in a teacup, awkwardly for Mili-E and Labour, and it just isn't going away.

How the public perception of this 'in their back pocket' suggestion can be changed is far from clear, as the Unions will not permit it anyway – and they are the ones who really call the shots. I do not envy Ed-M on this: the 'rock and hard place' analogy never seemed more apt.

Nevertheless, he has no realistic alternative but to devise an original and manageable (to all sides of the party) solution to this issue, or Labour will tear itself apart from the inside and also call for his replacement as party leader. He will be unable to resist that widespread a demand, and he obviously realises this.

It's probably why he and the shadow cabinet are so quiet on the news front right now, as at least one leading commentator has remarked: my guess is that they're probably spending the time trying to thrash out a workable plan to deal with the Unions...


Banking On Success

Here's another example of Labour and other Lefties not 'getting it', as I saw at the Medway Council meeting just over a week ago. Their banker-bashing Motion for a financial transactions tax (not part of the council's business anyway!) shows a complete lack of understanding of how the competitive world works, and would if implemented put us at a significant disadvantage relative to the parts of the world without such an imposition.

The present government is able to be 'played' by officials (one Coalition partner against the other, using Sir Humphrey.-style methods), so is also failing to take the best approach that it could. Let Patrick Minford explain the fallacies and a possible way forward in just eleven paragraphs – which is good going for what is a complex subject.

Politically, what he suggests is bold, neck-sticking-out stuff; but it looks to be the only way I have seen proposed that has the feel of a real improvement to the way the sector operates in this country and within the global market as well (it is inextricably intertwined with the world's monetary sector).

I fear that the proposals in the City AM article have little chance of being implemented by anything other than a Conservative majority government, and that with a Chancellor who by then feels able to make such changes through being no longer encumbered by coalition partners who, frankly, haven't (as a party) much of an idea about this kind of activity.


The Royal Baby

This is interesting: was the media coverage of the event appropriate or over the top? Two opposing views appear together in The Observer (Sunday Guardian), from a slightly tongue-in-cheek Quentin Letts and the Observer features editor Elizabeth Day, put their views in an interleaved print debate, with the latter naturally being given the last word.

What each of us thinks will vary from one person to another; but the advantage of the media is that one can always avoid them, which is what I did and thus got only a minimal amount of news and commentary during those last few days and beyond. We're not all telly-obsessed, tabloid-buying soaps-and-celebs' followers...

Not that all (public) commenters had what might be considered a normal, straightforward take on the baby, as this image comprising a number of oddball tweets reveals(!)


Councils' Parking Income

Now here's a classic example of cause-and-effect – and it isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it isn't ideal however it is done. Parking charges are the 'Kobayashi Maru' (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) of council activitity: there is no 'correct' approach, only the best compromise one can devise to fit all the prevailing circumstances at least reasonably well.

This Independent article does rather mix up parking charges and parking fines, and isn't always as clear as it ought to be (and I suspect this is a deliberate attempt at conflation), but it is a thorny subject, including here in Medway where the council's CCTV cars have become far too controversial, largely through their drivers' behaviour.

I have long wondered whether that was a deliberate (perhaps Union-driven) attempt to discredit the Conservative administration, but sadly have no solid evidence one way or the other – yet. That could change one day...

The whole point behind parking charges being made into a money-spinner is the sheer cost of maintaining a council's road network and the government grant system having been substantially gerrymandered during (mostly) the Labour years of government, along with those years' never-ending programme of costly and unfunded (except perhaps, if we were lucky, the first year or two) impositions from Westminster via Whitehall.

It should be noted that most of what has been implemented during the past fifteen years or so has been engineered by Whitehall 'mandarins', especially in regard to councils where they are sufficiently remote to escape being directly accountable and thus vulnerable to scrutiny, such as the Cabinet-and-Scrutiny political management model whose only purpose was to allow those same mandarins to control council's policy agendas: look at any council Cabinet agendas to see what I mean, including here in Medway – it's staring you in the face!

Thus the reality behind the parking charges is Whitehall's powerful efforts to minimise local democracy, with the ultimate aim of destroying it by starving councils of funds – so those councils have been forced to find other ways to fund the work that their electorate expect of them. Thus we end up with the so-called 'cash cow' of parking charges, and – more relevantly – parking fines.

The fines are fair enough, of course, provided they are justified; and I am pleased to see that challenging dubious and borderline decisions has a tendency to have fines rescinded in a number of cases. eventually this will settle down, with a body of what in other circles would be termed Case Law (but without having needed to go to that extreme to demonstrate).

As we all here know that the road repair programme is even now failing to meet the needs of road users, it suggests that fines in particular might need to be raised. I do not automatically go along with that, not because I have any particular sympathy with road users (it's all such ancient and primitive technology, any form of 'carts on wheels', so I am no fan of any of it) but because one always needs to strike a sensible balance.

If it hadn't been for the Labour-era starvation of many (especially the good) councils of necessary funding, none of this is likely to have arisen. Now that we are living with that legacy, our local elected representatives need to find innovative ways of getting this balance right without discouraging those who might otherwise spend their money in our town centres and tourist spots, among other places.

It has become increasingly tricky over the years to make it work well, as I have seen from the inside – but let us give our councillors a chance and support their efforts rather than perpetually criticising them. Monitor by all means, but do try to understand the difficult situation they face, and put yourself in their place. Could you do any better? Seriously? I very much doubt it!.

Boris and the Unions

This quite short video has been kindly shared by Your Thurrock, and shows how Union folk feel they can behave. It's nothing new, of course: I have encountered (one way or another) much the same for over forty years; but it tells us all that this is what you get with some outfits. This was yesterday (31 July 2013).

For those who think this behaviour is acceptable, put the boot on the other foot and imagine yourself in Boris' position, surrounded, intimidated and all-but assaulted by your opponents, with only your closed-up car protecting you – and yes, it is exactly the same, no exceptions, no excuses...

Weekly Political Digest – 19 July 2013

There is again a lot to go through this week, but I shall, as always, attempt to keep it fairly brief...


First, following up something covered in my last digest, it's worth noting that UNITE's Len McCluskey has, as expected, welcomed Ed Miliband's proposal regarding union affiliation fees that will give the unions more of the money they will continue to collect, while making Ed-M seem responsible and competent in the eyes of those who don't realise what a sell-out it really is.


How Much Tax?

The Daily Mirror ran a typical front page headline that tried to suggest that the Coalition Government was placing a higher tax burden on 'the poor' than on 'the rich' – standard Lefty class warfare. Of course, they got it wrong, on two counts in fact.

First, as Fraser Nelson reports, there has already been a significant shift of the tax burden away from the poorer end of society and toward the better off than was operated under the previous government, or indeed any previous government.

Second, the real or effective tax level for some at the lower end can be as high as 84%, not the 36% that the Mirror splashed over its front page; and Fraser has provided the data to back up this claim. Some could even be paying 95% in effective tax.

As he says, the real issue is the slow reform of the welfare system that really needs to move on apace, as the reality of Labour's system and how it was structured was (as some have been saying all along) to trap huge numbers of people within a system that was always intended to make them dependent upon the State and be economically unable to find a realistic way out of in as many cases as James (a.k.a. Gordon) Brown in particular could devise a way to hold onto.

Not that Labour has stopped there: in order to restore and expand on that whole policy, they are secretly planning to make claiming benefits a kind of 'human right', so that it becomes a permanent and unshakeable burden and a trap for even more of us than ever before.

Again, the solution is (as with so many inadequate outcomes since 2010) a Conservative overall majority in 2015. Not only would this release their MPs and Ministers from the compromises and blockages that they are currently having to tolerate – and I have considerable inside info on this, provided to me in confidence – but it would also remove the excuse of the Lib Dems, for those who like to perceive it as such.

As I say, I know more of the truth than to fall for that easy attack line myself, but that doesn't stop others, especially UKIPpers, who seem to have made a career out of it.


Fantasy Politics

Lord Ashcroft has an enormously respected record of extensive and detailed opinion polling, and among his latest commissioned work has been the result that a lot of ideas being floated by some within the Conservative fraternity, including some MPs, is just fantasy politics that has little if any public support. He has been looking specifically at what has been labelled The Alternative Queen's Speech: it is the speech that is different, not the Queen, I hasten to add(!)

As the Noble Lord. says, those policies are not the way to a parliamentary majority in the next General Election. Although there is no harm in looking at these side issues in private (they make for useful mental exercise, especially in terms of inventiveness and thinking outside the box), but it isn't a good idea to promote such ideas in public.

However, now that this had been done, it did at least afford Lord Ashcroft a suitable opportunity to teach us the hard-knock lesson of life regarding such things, so I suspect this is the last Alternative Queen's Speech we shall encounter from this government...


Beeb Traps Itself

Charles Moore looks at the BBC this week, and finds all manner of interesting things, some of which I and others already knew. It is worth going through the whole piece. The most striking conclusions, inescapable though they are (in more than one senses of the word), are that (a) the Beeb has, in effect, trapped itself into reporting only what suits its people's own outlooks, and (b) employing only like-minded people.

This seems to be irreconcilable, no matter what anyone tries to do, so almost certainly cannot be solved in any way that leaves the BBC essentially intact. As a number of commenters and observers have been saying for years, it has to be broken up and sold off as a commercial enterprise that will in future need to compete directly in the marketplace, not hold a privileged position outside and above the real marketplace. The licence fee (in reality an anachronistic stealth tax) must then go as well, and rightly so!


Medway Maritime Hospital

Our local hospital – the one where I was taken when I had my 'incident' a couple of years ago – is one of the fourteen that were looked at specifically in the recent inquiry, and of which eleven have now been placed in so-called 'specisl measures'. Whether or not the media were right to latch onto the 'excess mortality rates' as the single big factor is challenged by FullFact, with some justification, though it shouldn't be dismissed as a measure, having considerably validity nonetheless.

The Keogh report contains a number of colour-coded tables to show the level of quality at each of those hospitals in various areas and a range of aspects of each. It has to be said that the Medway came out not all that badly overall, but a moderate number of areas needing attention did get highlighted.

In a sense, all this is good news, in that it had been going on for years yet nothing was being done about it. The previous Labour government treated the NHS almost as a kind of sacred cow, and it is known that the then Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, refused to countenance dealing with any complaint and instead preferred to hide it all away and pretend that all was well.

That has been documented in several places, though with differing numbers of formal complaints, so there isn't a single source I can quote with a hundred percent confidence on that particular aspect. The 'NHS as a religion' meme is covered very well by Rev. Dr Peter Mullen at Cranmer's 'blog, and helps one understand just what it is like to some and what that means in practice.

It will come as no surprise that Lefties treat the NHS as an entity as the be-all and end-all, and that (as always with the Left, as I have reminded readers numerous times) the individual has no value. Paul Goodman covers this in his piece for ConHome.

When the subject was aired in the House of Commons, perhaps inevitably – and certainly predictably – it became something of a blame game. Now, there are those who don't like that in politics, and I tend to go along with that view myself as an ideal; but if one doesn't realise and understand how we got to a particular point and why, and especially if some are spreading misinformation, then it becomes difficult or even impossible to find a proper and lasting solution.

Take it from an old hand in the public sector who has seen it all before...

Indeed, as Douglas Carswell MP reports, Labour MPs were far more interested in making it out to be about them than caring about the multiple deaths and other ills at the hospitals. Self-serving to the end, their 'phoney rage' (as Douglas puts it) attempts to divert attention away from the actual issues.

Meanwhile, local Medway MP Mark Reckless welcomes the support that the special measures will apparently provide to Medway Maritime Hospital. We shall have to wait and see what this will turn out to be in practice, but Mark's words in the linked article do make for illuminating reading about how the three Medway-based MPs have approached the matter of our local hospital and its deficiencies and needs.

Weekly Political Digest – 12 July 2013

There is a fair amount to cover this week, even after my whittling down of an admittedly busy week into a manageable amount of material...

(With) UNITE We Fall...

The big national political story of the week was, without any doubt, the Labour ties with (and dependence upon the financing by) the UNITE Union. The only way Labour leader Ed[ward] Miliband was going to come out of this at all well was by appearing to stand up to the Unions in general, and UNITE in particular.

He has managed to pull off this trick, thus deflating the Conservatives' taunts of 'weak, weak, weak' as their current description of Ed-M.

The truth is, though, that by limiting the opt-in change to just the Labour party affiliation fee, nothing really changes apart from the unions keeping some of that money rather than passing it on. Zero change overall, in fact, as the Financial Times' Jim Pickard has sussed out. Indeed, the Miliband proposed change stands ready to give the unions more power than they have now.

This leaked UNITE briefing note is helpful in calibrating our thinking regarding the outfit's true motivations and intentions.

Labour's past keeps the party stuck in the 'what once was' era, meaning it can never really be a true part of today's world, no matter how much posturing and clever wordplay they apply to their public messages. As Matthew D'Ancona has realised, Ed-M's handling of this tie to the past is absolutely crucial to his and his party's future. So much hangs on this, which is something that very few people seem to realise...


Royal Mail

Should the Royal Mail (as distinct from the Post Office, which is a separate organisation) be privatised? City-AM's editor, Allister Heath, not only believes this Coalition Government move is a good one, but thinks it should have been done some twenty years ago. His arguments for this appear to be sound.

It is certainly demonstrably the case that the delay in so doing has left the outfit a lot less able to cope in the market, whereas if the John Major Government had managed to see this one through during their time the situation would be vastly better for the organisation.

Locally, Labour have expressed their (predictable) opposition to the currently planned change; but they are wrong to do so. It might be late, but it is something that really must not be left any longer, as the rapidly-changing market (mostly toward parcel deliveries, especially same-day services) will get even further away from the Royal Mail if it remains in the market's wilderness for much longer.


More Bona Than Jonah

Followers of Guido's anyone but Gordon series of posts, largely featuring Gordon Brown as a Jonah-like character who seems to be able to spoil any sporting types' chances of success simply by his meeting or just mentioning them, might have noticed that the same does not apply to Brown's successor at Number Ten, David Cameron. Instead, Cameron is bringing a genuine involvement and interest with him, such as at the Wimbledon tennis recently, as this tale explains so well.

Yes, Dave is a tennis player himself (and a good 'un, apparently)  and is interested – and he didn't put the mockers on Andy Murray either. Lefties are hating this, and a number of their disgusted reactions have been spotted in the usual social media. The colour of envy is green, but their raging faces were no doubt more like red...


Suffering From The Trots

Poor local Labour candidate Tristan Osborne, having been likened (only visually) to the young Leon Trotsky, has been featured in one of the Kent newspapers trying to lay this spectre to rest.

It isn't easy, when in fact there is indeed quite a close resemblance, as this public photograph of the young 'Trot' shows...