Bumper stickers

I was driving through our nearest town today.

I noticed a bumper sticker on the vehicle in front. It said: “I love my country - I just don’t trust it’s government.”

It made me chuckle.

The Eurovision song 'contest' rolls round once again

Tonight is the night of one of the greatest wastes of British TV taxpayer’s money in the entire year. The Eurovision Song Contest.

It is saved, mostly by the fact that watching the often frankly amazing performances appeals to the sneaking desire to watch a curiosity, combined by Terry Wogan’s gentle micky taking on behalf of us all.

Humourless European officials decry his efforts, whilst failing to grasp he is probably the only thing that keeps the opinion of the UK public in a mood of benign amusement - as opposed to outright contempt.

The 'contest' is intrinsically silly and unfair, it always has been. He does not need to make it look that way, he just uses the fact that it is to entertain us...

We all know we have very little chance of even doing well in it. We know we are not particularly popular with Europe as a whole, given our relationship with the US. But mostly it is the voting system and the blocks that doom all the old large western European nations.

Namely the Baltic and Balkan voting blocks.

Firstly each group tends, by accident, or design, to vote the high points largely exclusively for other members of ‘their’ block.

This, combined with the fact that a microscopic country that consists of several small towns, has the same voting power as a huge country with a population of multiple millions. Tends to give them a lock on the contest, no matter how good or more likely bad the particular entries happen to be.

It’s as if you were to give each county in the UK an individual vote and they all voted for the UK, and Irish entries.

How different would the results be it it were down to a simple total of all the votes cast for each entry, with no country being able to vote for it's own entry?

One suspects it won’t be much different for Andy Abraham tonight. One fears how good the song, or the performance, is will only have a peripheral impact on how well it actually does. The fact that I don’t come right out and predict it is more a triumph of optimism over experience than anything else. We shall see on the morrow…

How the mind set behind the New-Labour project stifles dissent.

This is an interesting post. I recommend you read it all.

For me the sentence: “The solution is to create an ethic according to which any deviation from the consensus is treated as opposition to 'egalitarianism', to 'progress', and to 'fairness'.” said it all.

Just about a perfect summation of the UK’s New-Labour and their cheerleading ‘Islington Tendency’s’ modus operandi.

NICE advise alcohol ban for expectant mothers

NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) who withhold life saving treatments to save the Government money are changing the advice they give to pregnant women concerning alcohol. Up ‘till now they have advised that small daily amounts were fine, a unit of alcohol a day.

Now the health facists are insisting women should not drink any alcohol in the first three months of pregnancy.

When pressed NICE conceded the change was not on the basis of any actual evidence – but, for puritanical political social control reasons. It seems they just feel people are drinking too much these days so arbitrarily decided to change the advice.

Typically New Labour’s Chief Medical Office, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, was enthusiastic about the change.

The advice is of course largely useless, as it is likely many women will not actually initially be aware they are pregnant. So, even if they are inclined to be dragooned by the State, who clearly think they know better than the rest of us lower orders, they will be unable to obey these instructions without going permanently tee total.

NICE’s Dr Gillian Leng said people - particularly women, were drinking more and they wanted to send a "clear message"; "Women should be advised not to drink."

So what it boils down to, is that these people, who make life or death decisions, about whether we can have treatments or not, just don’t fee that the average woman is actually up to making a sensible, informed decision, based on actual evidence, for themselves.

Hike in UK alcohol duty is bigger than advertised

I was out of the country, enjoying the benefits of a less punitive tax regime, for Gordon Brown’s darling glove puppet’s first (and hopefully last) budget.

I was pleased ;-) along with the health fascists at the British Medical Association (BMA), to see the "large rise", on top of the already outrageous levels of taxation imposed on alcohol by the glove puppet - They have been so effective on curbing alcohol abuse to date that much more of the same is a sure recipe for success.

The huge price hike in duty on alcohol (six per cent above inflation), 55p on a 70cl bottle of spirits coupled with the increase of 14p in the duty on a bottle of wine is bound to stop the quality single malt whisky fuelled drunken binges of retired colonels and vicars in our high streets at weekends. Not to mention the sparkling wine fuelled thuggery so prevalent in our towns and cities.

Of course it is a moneymaking exercise. The last thing the state wants is for us to cut back on buying alcohol as this would eat into their revenue. It makes a nice fig leaf for gouging levels of taxation to wave at the naive though - and an excellent excuse for ever more intrusive measures of social control.

It’s the gift that just keeps on giving because every penny increase in duty allows a corresponding increase in VAT, so that 55p headline increase is actually a hike in the Government’s cut of over 64p per bottle and that’s just the hike, not the total taken. Oh and don’t forget you already paid tax on the money you are being taxed for spending, when you originally earned it.

But we should all feel hap-happy about it because… Ahh! it’s allegedly going towards a good cause - towards ending “child poverty” by 2020.

New Labour are unlikely to ever have to actually live up to such a distant target. Though it would be nice to believe they might be slightly more effective at it between now and when they finally get kicked out of power, than the pathetic showing they have managed to make on this moving target to date.

New Labour Back bencher threat to agency staff

One wonders if the MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, New Labour's Andrew Miller, is actually intent on damaging the UK economy, or if it is only a side effect of his attempt to grab more influence for the unions.

Supported (of course) by the trade unions he has tabled a private members bill to force the same rights/benefits as full time employees receive on agency staff, such a sick pay.

The union said there should be a "level playing field" with permanently employed people.

I have often heard full time employees express slightly jealous amazement when they find out what agency staff are paid by comparison.

The fact is that agency staff usually get a higher pay scale than permanent staff. This generally makes up at least the financial difference for sick pay and annual leave, etc. that they don’t get.

They usually also get a premium to make up for the lack of job security, as they generally fill posts where full time employees are off long term sick, having children, or the post is unable to be filled. They are also used when capacity suddenly and temporarily needs to be expanded for a project.

These people tend to be independent and avoid union membership. They also tend to take far less sick leave; so can spend that portion of their wage as they choose.

If they had the same rights and conditions as full time employees they would no longer be competitive, or of any use to an employer, in the capacity they are generally used in. It would not be economical to pay them the same rates as they get now.

If these rights were introduced then this sector would become much less competitive and be markedly reduced. The knock on is that all the businesses that make use of them to fill in would be less efficient and less cost effective.

This would in turn force them to look for redundancies more often and make full time employees positions a little less secure. It would of course strengthen the union’s position.

A permit to allow you to do lawful things the ruling political elite disapprove of

It is arguable that Professor Julian le Grand a lecturer in social policy at the London School of Economics, is a very scary person.

Why? Because of some of the more sinister methods of state control of the individual that he advocates, coupled with the fact that, as a former aid to Tony Blair and chairman of Health England, a ministerial advisory board, he has the ear of those in power, so wealds undue influence.

He is advocating the introduction of licences to permit people to purchase perfectly legal goods.

He proposes that the licences should be made as difficult as possible to obtain, with complicated forms to fill out and that they should cost between £10 and up to £200 (presumably to penalise the better off) and be renewable annually.

You know it must be something to concern citizens of every political stripe when both the Telegraph and the Guardian have commented on it detrimentally.

He is talking about smoking in this case and the permit would be to purchase tobacco products – but the principle is dangerously easily applicable to anything the state, as the tool of the ruling political elite 'disapproves' of.

But hey! The money would all go to the good old NHS, so that’s OK then – Right?

Once the principle is accepted and applied to a limited hate group, who many non smokers will not worry about, it can be rolled out further.

Alcohol? All those binge drinkers disrupting society, it would keep underage kids away from the stuff right? Stop those middle class wine lovers inadvertantly drinking themselves to death right? Probably not…

‘Unhealthy’, ‘fattening’, food and drinks like burgers, or even tea? Apparently drinking bottled water is ‘immoral’ now. How about that?

A petrol/diesel permit?

What about certain activities like taking a cheap flight, or maybe taking a foreign holiday?

This is actually pretty scary stuff - and by no means beyond the realms of possibility.

In a truly bizarre piece of convoluted newspeak he attempts to brand this classic example of fascist thinking as “libertarian paternalism". An oxymoreon if ever there was one.

It is certainly a fine example of the Political Patrician classes mental processes at work. Showcasing the patrician view of the lower orders he feels and possibly intends this to impact more on poor and less well educated, justifying it on the grounds that it should contribute to a reduction in 'health inequalities'.

It clearly about as diametrically opposed to actual Libertarian thinking as it is possible to get.

One wonders if this may be deliberate on his part, in an attepmpt at black propaganda, targeted at the political ‘meat and two veg brigade’, to put them off realising what Libertarian ideas are really about, given that those ideas are such a threat to his way of thinking.

UK Report claims obesity is society’s fault

It seems what is billed as the ‘largest ever UK study into obesity’, drawn up by the Government’s ‘Foresight Program’ contributed to by 250 ‘experts’ and predictably backed by the Nu-Lab government is claiming that being overweight (by their definition) is now normal.

They say we now live in an "obesogenic" society. Then getting their crystal balls out they predict that dramatic, comprehensive action is needed to stop most of us becoming ‘obese’ by 2050.

And where is all this heading? Well they argue the individual can’t be held responsible for being ‘overweight’ so - and here is the bit you should be scared about - government must act for the individual. And so the UK takes another lurch towards the fascist state.

So that’s nice we ale all now apparently pathetically unable to save ourselves and too daft to see we need to. Still it’s reassuring to know there are strong people willing to inflict some tough love on the rest of us, able to save us from this insidious plague?

If you have a ‘fat’ voting block it might not be so easy to deny the overweight treatment under the NHS and there are dire predictions it could cost the economy and the NHS.

Sir David King the government’s chief scientific glove puppet advisor is worried that: "There is a danger that the moment to act radically and dramatically will be missed," - let’s hope so for all our sakes.

Dawn Primarolo Nu-Lab’s Public Health Minister stated the government would be holding further consultations on how to proceed. She felt was premature to say if the same ‘shock’ approach used in anti smoking propaganda would be used, or whether a tax on fatty foods might be considered.

Now let’s look at those stats, because behind every government imitative to restrict our individual liberty and take ever more money from us there are dubious government stats.

What they do not mention when they say how the percentage of the adult population that is obese has risen over the last 12 or so years, is how the ‘baby boomers’ by their very existence are distorting the figures. Maybe they haven’t worked it out themselves.

The post WWII ‘baby boomers’ are getting older. They are well into the middle aged spread years. The age where they cut back a bit on Sunday football and squash. They may not be putting on much more weight than anyone their age did 30 years ago.

But they make a significant lump of the population, a lump depending on how you measure it of around a 125,00 more people around the 30/35 to 55/60 age range. As they age and put on weight it will increase the percentage of the population that is over weight and the percentage of the population that is over a certain age.

Nu-Lab’s campaign against ‘traditional’ light bulbs gathers pace.

Son of staring eyed Left Winger Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Hilary, Nu-Lab’s Environment Secretary, informed their conference he wanted to see sales of 150-watt bulbs banned from next January.

But of course it is not just 150 watt bulbs - He wants to take the same ‘defeat in detail’ route Nu-Lab so successfully applied with HIPs, that minimises resistance to the point where it can be ignored.

He stated "our aim is for traditional 150-watt light bulbs to be phased out by January next year, 100-watt bulbs the year after, 40-watt bulbs the year after that and all high-energy light bulbs by 2011."

This might be worthwhile if it had a reasonable chance of ‘doing what it says on the tin’, as they say.

Mr Benn claims that the ban could save five million tonnes of CO2 a year. Typically he appears to fail to take several factors into account:

Firstly he appears to fail to take into account that the heat generated by incandescent bulbs, that he is counting as wasted, actually contributes to heating the premises the bulbs are used in - and this reduction in heat will actually largely have to be made up by additional heating costs and result in increased CO2 emissions required in heating that will offset the supposed saving to be gained in introducing the bulbs.

So a lot of expense in changing all the bulbs for far less gain than touted. Then there are the disparities in production costs… All this will be coming out of the consumers pockets.

Then there is the small matter of the mercury that goes into making the ‘low energy’ bulbs. Nu-Labs Euro MPs were so concerned about the threat of mercury to the environment that they banned mercury barometers, but they seem happy turn a blind eye to the threat of a metric ton of Mercury being dumped in the UK each year that these bulbs pose.

Government advisors say cohabitees should get same rights as married couples

Couples who live together should have the same property rights as married couples if they separate according to advice drawn up by Exeter University academics for the UK Ministry of Justice.

Doesn’t that sound grand (in a deep resonant voice) “Ministry of Justice”… It conjures up images of steely eyed agents bringing UK crime to it’s collective knees doesn’t it?

Back on topic - It seems the Law Commission may be coming up with something similar. The only trouble is the recommendations don’t seem to consider how long a couple must cohabit before the rights apply…

Firstly, if a cohabiting couple want the same rights as a married couple then they can get them right now, just by getting married. One of it’s main social functions for millennia has been to regulate property rights.

Secondly, if the 'marriage thing' does not float your boat, a couple could always enter into a legal contract, again something they could do right now. If the Government cared to they could arrange for a simple contractual registration scheme as an alternative to state marriages that could be treated the same as marriage legally.

If the Government really feels the need to interfere in peoples private relationships, that have nothing to do with Government, then most people would probably feel at least two years cohabitation would be a reasonable period before any such ‘rights’ kicked in.

Otherwise you could end up with someone staying for a few weeks at someone else’s flat and then claiming half the owner’s worldly goods.

Better still, if the Government just practiced the art of making a little less legislation - rather than continually trying to come up with a law for every possible combination of circumstances.

To paraphrase the saying - Make love, not legislation Gordon…

Government Researchers call for tax on fatty foods

There are Food Nazis everywhere - UK Department of Public Health researchers, at Oxford University, are claiming that more than 3,000 fatal heart attacks and strokes could be prevented in the UK each year if Value Added Tax (VAT) was slapped on a vast range of foods.

Dr Mike Rayner, who worked on the study, said: “the time is right for more debate on the issue of 'fat taxes'”

Such a tax would, of course, be music to the ears of the EC who are pushing to completely remove the UK’s zero rated category for VAT applied to such things as books and some food.

It is absolute unalloyed health fascism. They want to force you to do what they believe is good for you – and it will cost you money.

Basically they plan to drive up the price of ‘unhealthy’ foods through taxation to the point where people are effectively forced to resort to more ‘healthy’ foods. They calculate this would initially inflate household food bills by 4.6%.

There is no pretence that they imagine the average individual is capable, or entitled, to manage their own eating habits, or by extension even own their own bodies. Even if their claim is true their proposal is still something to be vigorously resisted on principle alone.

Downing Street's strategy unit was reportedly flirting with the idea in 2004, but Tony Blair rejected it.

Such a move would probably suit any government wishing to make concessions to the EC by falling in line, by providing something else to blame the move on. Something like saving the NHS from the criminal recklessness of the general greedy fat over eating population who gain weight specifically to drain the coffers of the NHS. Though it would lead, rightly, to accusations of nanny-statism.

Maura Gillespie, of the British Heart Foundation, indicated that they aren’t yet convinced by the idea saying: "Further evidence is needed on the effect of targeted food taxes before we can support a 'fat tax'."

The thing is though , to some extent all this is only playing with statistics. No matter what, until they come up with a way of indefinitely extending healthy life, you are just shifting the balance of the causes of death around. One less heart attack will be one more stroke, or Alzheimer’s. Even if you could live forever it would be stats on what accident finally did for you.

Eventually some Health & Safety Fascist would be banning you from using plastic eating utensils because they were too dangerous to you any anyone nearby.

Government proposals to cut drink drive limit

The UK Government could be cut the drink drive limit.

The UK ‘Roads Minister’ Stephen Ladyman, said the Department for Transport would be producing proposals for a consultation later in the year on reducing the drink drive limit, after Ministers have come under increasing pressure from the British Medical Association and road safety groups.

The limit is likely to be reduced from 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood down to 50 milligrams.

Apparently several police forces have ‘voiced alarm' that the "do not drink and drive" message was not reaching young motorists.

The Department for Transport’s figures show that there were 1,050 17 to 19 year olds involved in drink drive accidents in 2005, compared to 810 a decade ago. That’s a difference of 240 accidents in a year. What was the spread of severity? How many involved injury? What level of damage. How are they measuring these figs now compared to a decade ago.

The figures and portentious pronouncements all sound laudable and plausible, on the surface - if you are really thinking about what you are planning to do this week end instead of actually paying attention.

For a moment lets pretend we can believe Government Statistics and that the way they measure them and what they measure hasn’t changed several times over the period to render them unreliable.

Do they mention how much over the limit these 17 to 19 year olds were? Because if they were not somewhere between 50 and 80 milligrams then lowering the limit wouldn’t make a jot of difference would it?

Do these figures include passengers? If so were there actually more accidents, or just more car sharing... No surely they wouldn't have included passengers.

If they were over the limit of 80 then they would also have been well over a 50 limit and if they were not swayed by the penalties, risk of being caught - and dangers - of driving whilst impaired, then they were just not convinced and would be no more likely to heed a 50 limit than the 80.

It would probably be far more effective to actually increase their likelihood of being caught over the 80 limit.

Now the British Medical Association involvement - exactly how are they experts on road safety? When you think about it they are no more qualified to pronounce on this particular matter than my postman. Just because they may be qualified to practice medicine it doesn’t make them expert plumbers or trapeze artists - No they are just pushing their anti alcohol agenda again.

How many agendas are operating here?

Consider - Just how low can the limit go before, practically speaking, you will not be able to have a modest drink in the evening if you want to be able to pass a breath test whilst driving to work the following morning? Is it a sneaky way of forcing a reduction in general alcohol consumption tailored to, or below, their recommended number of units?

Also could this recent Government enthusiasm for looking at a 50 limit have anything to do with the fact that in the EU the UK, Ireland and Luxembourg are now alone in retaining the 80mg limit?

From what I understand all the others (except Sweden at 20) have reduced their limit to 50mg, are they looking to standardise legislation?

UK Government targets drinkers in their own homes

UK Ministers have decided they want to change English drinking culture

Ministers want to change the English ‘drinking culture’ and the willingness to accept ‘drunkenness’ and ‘anti-social behaviour’ as a normal part of life. They have a new strategy and are planning more social engineering…

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker stated: "It is unacceptable for people to use alcohol and urinate in the street, vomit and carry on.

All sounds reasonably ok so far, from a mildly authoritarian, curtain twitching perspective, you might think.

The strategy apparently includes plans for ‘alcoholics’ (presumably, sooner, or later, anyone arrested for being drunk) to be sent for compulsory counselling after being arrested.

Frank Soodeen of Alcohol Concern enthusiastically referred to the strategy as a "big step forward", but said still more money was needed. He went on:"We are incredibly excited. It looks far more, ambitious and far-reaching, than it’s predecessor.".

The Government is primly claiming there are 7.1m "hazardous and harmful" drinkers in England, costing the health economy £1.3bn. So they are looking for justification then. All those virtual criminals wasting ‘health economy’ money! Jail is too good for them!

But Health minister Caroline Flint doesn’t just have her sights on antisocial drinkers. Oh no!

This time they are also planning to target older people who they consider to drink ‘too much’, in their own homes. She glossed on: "There are people, adults, who on a very regular basis are probably drinking twice the amount that is recommended."

Who recommends? The Government. How much is too much? Well the Government tell you that, although the evidence had not changed they recently changed the advice for pregnant women.

Hang on! Let’s stop for a moment and go over all that more carefully.

The government forces you to be part of a decrepit, mismanaged, ‘health service’, that swallows millions extra - without any obvious improvement.

There is no choice, no opt out. It effectively uses force, or the threat of force, to make you pay significant amounts of cash into it weather you want to or not. No choice.

They then use the possibility that you may use this ‘service’ to justify intruding into what you do in your own home, in private, to make sure you are not damaging your health. Drink related this time. They are well on the way with smoking, how long before eating too much gets worked in there?

Is it still your health? Is it still your body? Not entirely if they want control over it.

And you don’t even get to make your own informed choice as to what ‘too much’ might be in any given circumstances. Not you. No they decide that for you.

Could you see the French putting up with that?