This is the story of the day as Debbie Purdy goes to court to stop her husband from being prosecuted for helping her to commit suicide.

However, I have never understood why this is presented in this way. Over on the LPUK blog it is being spun as the individual versus the state and the right to choose the method of your own demise. It is nothing of the sort.

In fact, it is a million miles from what this is all about.

What is up for debate here is a law that prevents people killing other people. What is wanted is for people who are ill to 'kill themselves' and for their loved one to either be there or help them do it, but not face prosecution for it.

This is farcical. The law is there to stop people murdering their loved one and then saying that's what they wanted. When all is said and done, there is no way the law can possibly know whether that is the case, no matter the will or other statement, and has to treat the whole thing as unlawful killing of some kind.

Going to a clinic in Switzerland presents a slightly different case, but similar in nature. The person travels there and is euthanized, the partner comes home. But that is another country and the only defence is the same 'It's what they wanted' , a statement from a nurse and a receipt.

On the balance of protecting the innocent who do not wish to be killed in their wheelchairs the law is a fair and just one. It is nothing about the right to choose and everything about the right to not be murdered. In the vast amount of cases the partner is not prosecuted because the Judge and Jury take pity, or the CPS don't take it to court.

From a personal, moral perspective I actually find it selfish. This is harsh, but true. The person who is ill knows they are ill, they know they will suffer a long and painful illness and then endure a very painful and possibly drawn out death. All this time the person that loves them more than life itself is the one caring for them. Then, upon gaining near total incapacity, they ask this loved one to finish them off.

Of course you wish to ease their pain and you would do anything for them, but to ask someone to do this I find horrible. I find it even more so because it isn't as though the person who is ill hasn't had countless chances to simply do it themselves. In short, if you want to do it, do it yourself, don't ask the person who loves you to kill you and then ask the state to not view that with suspicion.

It is a very complex and emotive subject of course and I have immense sympathy for all involved (even for the poor bloody Judge who has to make the decision). But when all is said and done it is better to have the law as it stands than to change it and open up the complete opposite: elderly and ill people being killed when they don't want to be.

It sounds libertarian to support this, but I don't think it is at all. It is about protecting the liberty of individuals who are in no position to protect it themselves.

EDIT Over 100 UK citizens have ended their lives at Dignitas and not one person who has accompanied them has ever been prosecuted on their return to the UK.

I despair sometimes I really do. You think things are pretty shit, the poxy government are fucking it all up and complete morons are running around like complete morons because of a bit of 'flu, and something comes along to really kick you in the nads.

They want to shrink the size of chocolate bars. Un-fucking-real.

I'm not a massive chocolate fan (no, seriously I'm not. I'm sweet enough already), but I am partial to the odd Kit-Kat from the machine, or maybe a Snickers. What I am also partial to is making my own fucking mind up.

It's just taking the piss. A while back they got rid of these king size bars because the kiddy-wids were getting all podge, so the manufacturers simply created the whole 'duo' thing. Very clever. But now they want to actually shrink the bars. The normal fucking bars. Thing is, like all adults, I'm convinced that all food and drink has shrunk over the last twenty years anyway. My arse has a Snickers always been that small and Maccy Ds can fuck right off saying a cheeseburger is still the same.

The reasoning is superb, a classic piece of socialist bullshit. Ready for the first bit of truly great bullshitting?

Almost nine out of 10 children aged seven to 14 drink fizzy drinks and 34% of 11-16 year-olds consume chocolate at least once a day, figures show.

No fucking shit! Fuck me when I was 'seven to 14' I pretty much lived on 'fizzy drinks'! And shock fucking horror, a third of teenagers have some chocolate everyday. Well fuck me hold the front fucking page we've got a newsflash here.

The point they should have actually made, but didn't because they are mind controlling fucktards, is that 66% of 11-16 year olds don't, in fact, eat chocolate everyday. Like some sort of evil Willy Wonka, Wally Wanker if you like, these bastards are going to take away everyone's chocolate because the fat cunt down the road can't stop stuffing his fucking face and his mum thinks he's a growing lad. Yeah he is, but in the wrong dimension you stupid bitch.

Then the Food Standards drone pipes up by denying that they are doing what they are clearly doing. The director of the deliciously ironic consumer choice department says:

What we are not doing is telling people what to eat.

What we want to do is to make it easier for people to make healthier choices - to choose foods with reduced saturated fat and sugar - or smaller portion sizes.

They are not, not, telling people what to eat. They are simply telling people that if they are going to eat this stuff then it will be on the state's terms. They want to make it 'easier' for people to make choices.

They seem to have missed the fact that by making all the portions the same fucking size there really isn't much choice left is it. It's like the classic communist 'You can have whatever coat you want as long as it's this one'.

And easier? What the fuck population do we have? Are we made up of 62 million descendants of Sloth from the fucking Goonies or something? It's a fucking chocolate bar people! Before they had the staggeringly hard choice of the Snickers or the Snickers Duo, which to be fair was made up of two smaller sized bars so may have confused them into thinking they were getting less. Now they have to make their minds up if they want the 50g Snickers, the 50g Mars or the 50g Kit-Kat.

According to the FSA, this is the average British person.

They even want to cut the size of a can of 'fizzy drink' from 330ml to 250ml. And you know that if this goes through the prices wouldn't come down. Because I'm sure you've noticed that the inflation of a Kit-Kat is absurd, the vending machine near me has them at 70p at the moment. Up from 60p a few months back.

A few people get fat because they stuff their faces with no self control, a load of spurious numbers are given about the cost to the NHS and before you know it, they are shrinking all your fucking food.

Strange how they have never decided to shrink fags. It's only a matter of time before we're all huddled under a heater in the fucking car park puffing away on a fag the size of a match stick in one hand with new 400ml pint of £6.50 piss water in the other.

A terribly sad day today I'm afraid. if you are a human and have a heart that is not made of stone I urge you to look away now. The Chancellor's cat, Sybil The Cat, is dead.

Oh God, I promised I wouldn't cry. Give me a minute.

Okay.

Often rebuked for bringing in half eaten paparatzi, Sybil was a gentle and furry creature. A cat if you will. Featuring paws, ears, a little tail and a cute little nosey, Sybil was every inch a feline.

Sybil: Now in pussy heaven. Not that one.

Having only lived at Downing Street for 6 months, she returned to her native Scotland to feast on deep fried kitty bites and battered duck in a fish gravy. This had nothing to do with Gordon Brown not liking the cat.

Shortly after Tony Blair arrived at Downing Street, Humphrey the world famous cat was ousted. Both Humphrey and Sybil are now dead. The Labour party is denying that this is policy, but I think we all know what's going on here.

It seems Mr Boatang and I have upset a few people.

Mr B and I have been slammed twice, by two different individuals, over the same article that appeared on our site. The article in question is the one I wrote on Afghanistan. The objectionable, sorry, 'repulsive', aspects to this article appear to be comments I made about squaddies and penal battalions.

I shan't say where the criticisms were posted or who made them, other than they were not emailed to us or posted as comments to the piece. At the time of writing, the B&D article attracted one positive comment, one constructive comment in disagreement and one comment which neither agreed not disagreed.

I will say that the attacks have come from within the LPUK, though as there appears to be a cessation of hostilities at this present time, I'll stop there.

It is of some concern that these criticisms have been levied - not because we discourage or dislike criticism (quite the opposite), but because there was no reasonable justification for my article being held up for public ridicule and derision within the forum it was raised.

The caveat that went with the attacks was that it is little wonder Mr B and I wish to remain anonymous, given that I have written the objectionable piece on Afghanistan. As if, were people to know our real identities, maybe our safety would be compromised. I don't know. Is this what they were insinuating? If so, that's a little troubling.

It is bizarre that, just because Mr B and I ask awkward questions and discuss where we think the party ought to be heading, efforts (co-ordinated and pre-planned efforts, if my suspicions are valid) are being made to embarrass us, shut us down and make us look bad to fellow libertarians.

This, after countless months of solid campaigning for the party and the philosophy. You only have to browse this site for a few minutes to see how much time and energy we put into our political beliefs. Here, and elsewhere online and in real life, Mr B and I constantly campaign for libertarianism and for the party.

Now, I wouldn't be so sore about all this, if:

• Other LPUK members were flawless in the tone and content of their written blog work.

• The accusations against my article were fair, balanced and representative of what I actually said.

To deal with the first one, briefly: I find it amazing that I should be hauled over the coals for one article I wrote which apparently contains repulsive material that is shameful to the party. I now ask you readers, to consider the many other LPUK members out there who run libertarian blogs, and who espouse far more controversial, offensive and potentially 'repulsive' material than the stuff that appears on our superb site.

I shan't name any such blogs, I'm sure you can figure them out for yourself. Let's put it this way, we've never wished death on people and we don't hope that anyone, politician or no, dies painfully of cancer.

Such views, to my eyes, go under the bridge as far as the LPUK are concerned. But what I said on Afghanistan has caused a huge stir. Shall we find out why?

Well, the 'feedback' we have received attacks my piece for slamming the British squaddie. Indeed, I do slam squaddies in my piece as you can see, although my view is based on the fact that..."my few experiences of them have been dire".

I also added a qualifier in my piece, where I note that not all squaddies are as bad as my perception has it..."Soldiers are, obviously, not all bad men".

Another huge bone of contention, apparently, was that I support the setting up of penal battalions. Which isn't quite how I phrased it..."I am still open to the suggestion of the formation of penal battalions to help with some sort of 'big push'."

Read: 'open to the suggestion'.

Now read this: Like with so many of my pieces, it was written tongue-in-cheek.

For Fuck Sake. Do you seriously think I'm sat at home, like some cunt, tossing off on my exercise book jotting down my new revolutionary thoughts on how the British Armed Forces ought to seriously consider working with the government to empty prisons, train up convicts under pain of death and send them into battles in which they have a 1% chance of survival?

Of course I'm not, you daft pillocks! I honestly hope, maybe a hope too far, that our readers are of such a degree of intelligence that they can work out where I'm being serious, when I'm being semi-serious and when I'm fucking around and being daft.

The real message of the article in question is that:

• I think that public opinion is fickle and people are less hardened to the realities of life now, compared to before when people were tougher and were prepared to sacrifice more.
• The Afghanistan war arguably has its plus sides, and in our prolonged times of peace, it is a good idea for bored, violence-prone squaddies to get out there and gather some experience and skills instead of sitting around on base etc.

That's pretty much the serious side of my piece. Other stuff, not so serious. If you had a different idea when you read it, why not post a comment asking for clarification or simply criticise the piece on the blog?

If you want to play the 'Mr Burns' figure with us, it won't work. We have all angles covered here at Boaty & D. We've been there, done that, bought the Simpsons t-shirt, the lot. The more people try to denigrate us or treat us unfairly, the more we'll get pissed off.

Some people, huh? They just never, ever learn do they? So cheeky and sneaky, when all that is required is a bit of fucking respect and openness.

Here you go. Three very topical and convincing reasons for why Scotland should be granted independence, thus loosing that nation from the bonds and reciprocal obligations between it and its southern neighbour.

I'm not particularly for or against the Afghanistan conflict. I can see the pros and cons, the ways in which it hurts Britain and the ways it may benefit the country. I largely consider the extended skirmish to be an important training exercise for British troops. If they weren't there blasting shit up, they'd be sat, bored at their barracks in England, or else dossing about in Cyprus raping Swedish tourists and beating up the barmen and club owners of Ayia Napa.

In any event, I am uninterested by what squaddies get up to. My few experiences of them have been dire (they are generally the types of people that are seriously ill-equipped for normal, civilised society and are best kept out the way in their area of expertise - being cunts in a field with a gun). Soldiers are, obviously, not all bad men. Whatever their stripe, they join the army for certain reasons (not all of them fluffy) and they understand the risks involved. If they don't, then it's a mighty strange career choice.

So, let them get on with it I say, and if they return as a band of men more capable of understanding battle and the rigours of modern conflict, then I guess that's a good thing.

It's not even as if the battle is costing that many lives. At the time of writing, it's 191 Brits.

Yet, according to the Independent today, the wave of recent K.I.A.s is too much for the British public to stomach.

"A majority of the public believes that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and British troops should be pulled out immediately, a poll for The Independent has found."

...

"More than half of voters (52 per cent) want troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan straight away, with 43 per cent disagreeing. Opposition to the military action is even stronger among women.

By a margin of nearly two-to-one, the public believes that the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily. Fifty-eight per cent view the war as "unwinnable", with 31 per cent disagreeing."

Fuck sake. What a bunch of pussies we are in this country. It's almost like we have forgotten what happened in World War II, where the casualty figures that are making us bitch and whine today would be the sort of tally that would have made a General weep with joy.

"The growing opposition to the military offensive emerged as another two UK soldiers were killed, bringing the number of deaths so far this month to 22"

Wow. 22. Shit me, that's getting out of hand, huh. I mean 22 people, we may as well get that white flag out now and offer to provide our freshest and rosiest backsides to the Taliban for a round of victory rogering. If it carries on like this, we'll have no soldiers left and we'll have to declare a state of martial law, form a 'Home Guard' and make everyone eat bully beef.

Then what will be do when Tesco has run out of ready meals and Goodfellas pizzas?


Just imagine if our pussy arsed, nannied, bitchy, molly-coddled, supermarket / X-Factor obsessed, tosser, fucking moron Joe Public had this attitude in the summer of 1940. You might remember something about that year - it was when the Dunkirk Evacuation took place, following Hitler's resounding success at the Western Front.

We lost 177 planes and 6 destroyers. I might be an incorrigible cynic, but I guess it's fair to say that a number of British people died at that very early juncture of the war.

What if we just said, 'Nope! Sorry, it's all too much. I can cope with us losing three men every ten years, maybe by the odd mine or lucky sniper's bullet, but all those poor boys? The frogs and Pollacks will have to manage themselves. We quit'.

What sort of message would that have sent the enemy? Apart from 'fuck my arse now, I have no balls, call me bitch'?

Why was the public all hunky dory about Afghanistan three minutes ago, but after a series of deaths within a few weeks, now it's a bad idea and there should be no reinforcements?

The fact is, like it or not, it's too late - if we pull out now, we'll (rightly) be the biggest fucking laughing stock out there. Known as the country that bottled it. Couldn't hack a bunch of 'rag heads' in the desert, with all that technical superiority and financial backing. The Islamists will piss themselves. Our enemies would gain succour and the lefties in this country would fill the pages of the Guardian for a fucking eon.

Therefore, whilst my base point is one of cavalier indifference, I'm annoyed at how the public have reacted in such a weak and fickle manner, I suspect this has occurred because the population has largely grown fat on nanny's teat after decades of socialism and peace and I cannot bear the notion that left wingers will wring their hands with 'I told you so' glee if we do pull out of Afghanistan.

Our soldiers should stay and get the fuck on with it, reinforcements or no. And yes, I am still open to the suggestion of the formation of penal battalions to help with some sort of 'big push'.

There are many ways to crack a nut, as a wise old fucker once said.

Adios.

Let's get a few things straight - none of the main parties are libertarian, and pretty much none of the minority parties out there are libertarian either.

UKIP appears libertarian, but its 'Dad's Army Party' vibe and its overweening obsession with immigration and Europe rule it out from being a serious libertarian party with the ability to offer a coherent way forward with a wide range of viable policies.

It is also the case that political debate in Britain is still conducted within the old 'left-right' paradigm, and that when libertarianism is brought up, it is usually to slag it off for being too extreme, too 'libertine', too 'right wing' and too laissez-faire and neo-conservative.

What this boils down to, is that our enemies have us wrong and they are so dominant that their slurs stick. It's hard to counter misrepresentation, when there are so few libertarians on the scene politically, and when the consensus amongst our politicians and media barons is one that accepts the overarching power of Leviathan.

So, what to do?

Well, the first step has been achieved. There is a Libertarian Party in the UK (formed at the beginning of last year). It is abbreviated to 'LPUK', which sort of gives it a Spanish hockey feel to it (el-puck), but never mind. 'Labour' gives the image of a bloated wailer, spread-eagled on a bed with four midwives hovering around in rubber gloves. 'Tory' sounds like a posh public school girl with a snub nose and a flounce (spread-eagled image optional). 'Lib Dems' is a term that makes any healthy person sound like they have a cold, and are simply describing something incomprehensible as 'limp'.

So, 'LPUK' sounds daft, but not as bad as the others.

Thus far, LPUK have established their site, core policies, a forum and blog and they have fought two elections - one a council election and the other a (disastrous) by-election.

It's 'early days', some say. Which is just as well, because before we carry on any further, I would like to set out where I think the party should be heading.

Now, I like to do the odd bit of reading about libertarianism in my spare time (other hobbies include bowls, philately, train spotting and jerking off).

[joke, ed]

For me, essential libertarian philosophy can be understood by reading the likes of Milton Friedman, Immanuel Kant, F.A. Hayek, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Robert Nozick and Ayn Rand. These are some of my favourite philosophers and thinkers from down the ages. Much can be learnt from reading these guys.

However, our sources for inspiration need not enslave us libertarians who wish to see political success. We can inject pragmatism, without selling out. But ultimately, we must recognise that we live in a state-centric world, and as such, it's no good saying 'we're going to implement this drastic change' in the first five minutes, because everything would clearly implode.

So my answer is that the party takes a more pragmatic, moderate and careful approach to politics. This would have more widespread appeal, it would enable us to be taken seriously by people and it would get us pulled into the national debate.

At the moment, I fear the LPUK has policies which might go too far.

Take the policy on Income Tax, for example. The Party's position is that Income Tax must be abolished in the second year of a Libertarian government. It is Party policy that Corporation Tax be lowered to 10% and IHT and Capital Gains Tax be abolished in the first year of office.

This is a totally unrealistic platform to take. How on earth is this viable? To abolish income tax would effectively mean that the social security budget would be wiped out. Thus, de facto, welfare claimants would no longer be able to claim. It would lead to mass rioting and rapid social deprivation.

I personally think there needs to be massive, far-reaching reform on welfarism and the welfare state. It needs to be hauled back, the emphasis must be on work and getting people off the teat of nanny state - but this is something that takes time. A progressive rolling out of big policies is in order, because you can't go from one extreme to the other so quickly.

This is all very odd, because the LPUK's policy on immigration, as copied from the website is:

"As a party we are committed to establishing the free movement of goods, capital and people. However, the free movement of people into the UK is not yet practical while we have both a large welfare state and most other countries are themselves not broadly Libertarian in nature."

See that? 'not yet practical while we have ... a large welfare state'. Why is it possible to take a pragmatic position on immigration, but not taxation? Under the same logic (connected with considerations relating to the welfare state), there is no reason why the party cannot accept a more moderate and reasonable position on tax.

I am concerned that the LPUK goes too far - it appears almost anarcho-capitalist in its approach, and there is little appeal to libertarians who have similar ideas about individualism and freedom, but who do not wish for the role of the state to be virtually obliterated - which is what would happen if the state were deprived of virtually all of its revenue raising power.

It's a funny old world, when the LPUK wishes to go further than the Godfather of libertarianism himself, Milton Friedman.

One of my favourite books of all time is this economist and libertarian legend's tome, 'Capitalism and Freedom'. Within this old, yet relevant and important book written in the '60s, Friedman sets out his vision of the role of the state, the importance of economic, civil and political rights and how best the individual can thrive in western democracy.

I will explain in greater length some of Friedman's ideas in my next post. For now, I will note the importance of his work and how even Friedman (one of the hated 'Chicago Boys, much detested by Liberal Fascists like Naomi Klein) believed there is a role for the state, that income tax should exist at a flat rate and that neighbourhood effects may exist that justify the necessary evil of public monopoly and government intervention (as in the case of preventing pollution, for example).

I do believe that the overriding presumption, the first goal of the libertarian, ought to be that power belongs to the individual, that government serves us and not the reverse and that a smaller state is better.

This does not mean the state should be abolished, that it has no role and that we should head into a state of anarchism. It is more important to offer people better democracy, referenda, choice and the ability to choose, than it is to simply remove the state from the equation entirely.

I call for a moderate, centre ground libertarian LPUK - now let's talk turkey.

[tune in soon for more in depth political discussion on the future of libertarianism and the LPUK in Britain. Also, it took me some time to add links to all the key words in this piece, so do have a browse. Thanks]

It's a proper public service we provide here at Boaty & D. We say what people out there think, but don't want to say or don't know where and how. We make enemies with people who other folks just want to avoid or ignore. We are a rare breed, in that we are remarkably intelligent, personable and politically astute, whilst at the same time possessing not the least compunction in fucking up everyone else's party.

There are no others out there quite like us. I wear as a badge of honour, the people I have offended and angered. I am proud of the plethora of forums from which I have personally been banned for life. Because I know, that whilst my enemies choose the lazy, blinkered and pious option of labelling me a trouble maker, a cunt and a 'troll', what really upsets my enemies is that I ask awkward questions, I hold people to account and I take no bullshit.

Mr Boatang is no different. In fact, his style is actually slightly more persistent and relentless than mine.

Some of our more recent wars include:

• A good couple of years worth of tumultuous, high-blood pressure, bruising encounters with Peter Hitchens and his blog contributors over at the Fleet Street journo's gaffe. (we post very rarely these days - there's only so much of one's genius one can expose to the same people without it being unfair on the rest of the world's population)

• A skirmish with a pretend, faux, bullshit 'libertarian' and Guido arselicker named Anna Raccoon - which led to me being banned from posting there.

• A well publicised war between us and the English Democrats Party (on here and also on the British Democracy Forum) which led to us showing up key people in that party for what they are.

• A growing dispute between us and our very own party to which we are members - largely on account of the stubborn intransigence of key senior figures who refuse to answer our questions, refuse to debate openly and publicly and who appear to thinly insinuate that we are 'soap box' dwelling trouble makers.

As I say, these are just some of the recent ones.

We do what we do, because we realise that in our imperfect world, consisting of (among other organisms) very imperfect humans, no-one gets it right every time, no-one has the right answers all the time, and above all - everyone and everything must be questioned.

You will be amazed how many people we come across who are so dogmatic, arrogant and ignorant, they genuinely think that they are a) totally right and b) people who ask awkward questions ought to be shut down.

If there's one thing that's guaranteed to turn us into blood thirsty hounds with the munchies, it is someone who tries to shut us down. I mean, these people may as well forget it - such arrogance equates to nothing less than a one way ticket to Migraine Hell. We will fuck you up, make no mistake. You're really better off just admitting you are wrong, open to persuasion or just plain stumped.

Do we titter and chortle as we carry out our raids on the web? Not really, no. In fact, we're more likely to take the task seriously. Believe it or not, we genuinely feel that if we don't hold certain self-styled mavericks, upstarts, journos and wannabe politicos to account, no-one will.

And yes, that includes that utter, total unmitigated wanker Guido, whom everyone has on their blogroll, everyone loves, everyone worships, but is actually no better than the very self-serving cocks he has on his target list.

Let's put it this way, if he was that amazing and that 'new wave' and important, he'd attract clever people to his blog - people up for intelligent debate. Bit like we have here most of the time. Instead he gets people in their multitude who are either ill, very young, very stupid, or very bored. My guess is a lot of people with all four of these attributes. For all the comments sections on his blog resemble a form of MSN chat. A very bad one at that.

Whether they are old school, new wave, bloggers, established Fleet Street hacks, politicians, amateur politicians, show biz figures, the BBC or who the fuck ever: we will press our point home and seek debate and answers on an even playing field.

If you aren't a regular reader, then I feel sorry for you. You've just missed out on 2 years worth of sheer brilliance. But it's OK, don't panic. Add us to your faves, flick through our archives and enjoy the show.

If you have read us, and don't like us; ooh, just let me have a quick delve into my big bag of 'bothered'...

Shame, nothing there. Never mind.

Mr Boatang and I are in full throttle 'let's fuck off the world' mode at the moment. As such, we tend to sit in fifth gear for much of the time, tearing arseholes left right and centre whilst generating enough enemies to last several life times.

We enjoy this.

You enjoy this.

However, sometimes, the heavy nature of our discussion can become a tad tiring for author and reader alike. Therefore, without much further ado, I present a YouTube clip of a famous scene from the movie 'Bruno'. Pant wettingly funny, it most certainly is.

And so, now for something completely different.

Hello, Jonty McFucknut here. I'm a libertarian and don't give a fuck. You what? Who are you to give a fuck about whether I give a fuck or not? I'm a libertarian and don't give two shits what you think about anything at all.

Now, I love the LPUK with all my heart. They advocate lots of really good stuff and I once read their manifesto, though I didn't like most of it. But, hey, fuck it right? That's what libertarianism is all about.

I decided to look up what the basic concepts of libertarianism are and found this cunt Boaz on some shitfest called Cato. He has it so fucking wrong it's amazing really, like he even knows what it's all about. He talks some right shit:

"Individualism - Libertarian thought emphasizes the dignity of each individual, which entails both rights and responsibility." You fucking what? Responsibility? Do me a favour pal, I do what I want, when I want and so can everyone else, no matter the consequences. Bullshit. If some cunt disagrees with me I'll delete his arse.

"Individual Rights - individuals are moral agents, they have a right to be secure in their life, liberty, and property." Damn fucking right mate. It's my life, my freedom and my property and I'll do what I want with it when I want. He has messed up though, I reckons he means 'the individual' because I couldn't give a toss about the security of anyone else's shit.

"Spontaneous Order - A great degree of order in society is necessary for individuals to survive and flourish." Spontaneous or not, bollocks. No order, no structure, only the individual to do what they want, when they want.

"The Rule of Law - Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that "people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything." Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others. The rule of law means that individuals are governed by generally applicable and spontaneously developed legal rules, not by arbitrary commands; and that those rules should protect the freedom of individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways, not aim at any particular result or outcome. " Nah, he's talking shit here. I know that it actually means I can do whatever I like and fuck the consequences because the state is evil. He's clearly some lefty wanker trying to create a socialist dictatorship.

My new symbol for libertarianism

"Limited Government - To protect rights, individuals form governments." This is where he really starts talking utter shit. Libertarianism stands for total removal of power from the state and the advocacy of a completely private economy. Bring it all down. everyone knows that and if they don't they are lefty fucks who just don't get libertarianism.

"Free Markets - Libertarians believe that people will be both freer and more prosperous if government intervention in people's economic choices is minimized. " This bloke is getting on my fucking tits now. Minimized? What? Zero you pleb, no intervention.

"The Virtue of Production - libertarians defend the right of productive people to keep what they earn." Bit more like it. I make it I keep it. Unless it's purely intellectual in which case it's only right that everyone can have my idea to do what they want with it no matter how much it cost me because obviously what is in my head is not real property.

"Natural Harmony of Interests - Libertarians believe that there is a natural harmony of interests among peaceful, productive people in a just society." Couldn't give a shit as long as I'm alright.

"Peace - throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict." Whatever, bothered. Sounds like ban the bomb socialist bullshit to me.

It's bastards like this that undermine what libertarianism is really about: me. All this free and fair bollocks pisses me right off. Burn it all down, end it all, get rid of all the taxes and all the politicians and let me live how I want and do what I want. If it bothers others, fuck 'em. If it means they get hurt, that's their choice to get hurt.

I think once people really understand what libertarians are all about and we get rid of tossers like this Cato lot we'll be well popular.

For those still unaware of the Libertarian performance in the recent Norwich North by-election, the party to which Mr B and I are members scored a total of 36 votes.

This result cemented concerns that we both already had, in that we felt that communication in the party hovers between lacklustre and non-existent, and it is a grey area as to what the senior people in the party actually do.

I, for instance, have received one email (relating to the AGM) since I joined the party one year ago. That is it.

Presumably, when the party was founded, there were at least a handful of people willing to take the job on of taking the outfit forward with the purposes of accumulating members and public popularity.

Yet whenever Mr B and I raise our hands to make constructive comment, criticism or points of view, we are (irritatingly) told that the party doesn't have a 'machine', that the senior people 'have lives' and that with little resources, the party does the best it can.

This is inevitably followed up with 'put your money where you mouth is' type challenges, which is like saying 'if you don't like it, you bloody do it'.

A resounding chime of confidence rings out of our heads, I'm sure you can imagine.

Well, I am happy to be a paid up member and so is my colleague Mr Boatang. We too have 'busy lives', though this singularly fails to stop us from writing thousands of words of blinding, genius and original content every single day on the world's best blog.

As it happens, Mr B and I are actually up for becoming more active in the party and getting out there to help in campaigns. The LPUK would realise this were so much a a solitary individual with responsibility disposed towards communicating with members properly. Email, and ten minutes of time, is not exactly like asking someone to organise the next Cannes Film Festival.

So, when the Norwich North election result came in, Mr B and I braced ourselves for the predictable and infuriating waves of spin that got pumped out on the LPUK blog.

One chap did a post trying to gloss over the result, whilst still (after the campaign was dead and over) making negative remarks about the Tory candidate and winner.

The Party Chairman, Mr Withers, produced a more down to earth article on the result, though there was the notable air of spin about the piece and a lack of comment on how to move forward and progress. Members would read that and wonder where the hell the party can possibly go, unless we start to look deeply and inwardly at ourselves and our approach to campaigning.

This is where Mr B. and I decided to step up and make an appearance. The more we offered constructive criticism (read the comments sections of the articles on the LPUK blog for evidence), the more certain people got annoyed.

Interestingly, the level of irritation and panic over our comments solidified once we popped on their blog and ours to cock a snook at the incestuous, cliquey and inbred manner in which the party (and its core, root cabal of blogging campaigners) conduct matters.

If Libertarianism is (and it is) about openness, accountability, democracy, fairness, transparency and power to the individual, it is obviously of some concern when a small clique of faceless people start to try and shut down debate.

'We have a forum, this is not the best place to discuss this, go there instead' is one type of refrain we've been getting.

'This blog should be deleted' is, amazingly, another idea, along with 'the comments should be heavily moderated'.

The deletion of a place of accountability? A public forum where people can talk and air views, which are fairly and rightly offered to prospective members and the public?

The institution of a 'heavily moderated' place of discussion?

What the hell is this, fucking Pravda? Views like this are valid, but please, if you genuinely think that the LPUK should conduct itself in this manner, then I am sorely disappointed to inform you that maybe - just maybe - you are possibly not that much of a Libertarian.

People in the LPUK may not like what we have to say, but we have the god damned right (as members) to go on the members' blog to voice our views on how we can improve and move forward. We have the god damned right to ask questions of this campaign in Norwich, and what the hell happened. We note that there has been a piss poor attempt at answering those queries. But hey, 'they have lives' huh. So I guess I'll just have to sit back and accept what is doled out to me.

We did find out one thing, however, after our attempts to relentlessly pursue some answers. There was no discernible 'LPUK campaign' to speak of, outside of one lady who turned up from the West Country.

Brilliant. And, er, was there no bloody campaign co-ordinator out there with the common sense to email members to ask for help? Or are we all expected to read every thread or article on the blog or forum thing in order to grab what snippets of info we can?

Little wonder there was nil man power. Little wonder poor Thomas Burridge could only get his family and friends out to vote for him.

I, many years ago, worked as an intrinsic team member in a political campaign during a general election. I witnessed countless volunteers, unpaid people of generous years, give up their time to campaign for a party they didn't even quite agree with, but helped anyway because they were made to feel important. They had morale in their hearts. And all that brought them out was a fucking phone call or a knock on the door.

We're talking common sense, not money or resources, just a little bit of effort.

There will be LPUK people who will read this and fucking fume. They'll hate our guts. They'll think we're mad, or trouble makers, or just plain arrogant cocky arseholes who haven't the balls to make their own efforts to help.

They will be angry for these reasons: we are right, and they know we're right...and we have the fucking bow locks to tell it how it is. If people like us didn't, no-one would. We do so because we are libertarian, we actually want the party to go somewhere and do well, and we don't like being bullshitted.

I'll leave all our readers with this quote from a bloke called John Stuart Mill. You might, if you are even vaguely libertarian, have fucking heard of him:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

...the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error...

Mr B and I do not state opinion as though fact; as though we are 100% correct, 100% of the time and our interlocutors axiomatically wrong. But we have the right to speak up and voice our opinion. We will offer that dissenting voice and we seek answers and responses. We will not be silenced.

I will be doing more articles over the next few days on libertarianism and what it is to be libertarian in modern Britain. I also hope to feed more into party debate. I know Mr Boatang wishes to feed into this process - though it is never quite clear if anyone in the LPUK is listening.

It is possible that we will end up being silenced, or banished from the party. It's human nature and libertarians are no less immune to it than anyone else - people don't like having their cosy little boat rocked by others. The apple cart simply must go on, with all the fruit aboard left in tact.

Mr B and are are like libertarian bandits. We'll fuck up that cart, we'll eat all the apples and we'll put a fucking hole in the quaint little gondola if it makes people wake up, listen and help get things done.

Today brings the sad news of the death of Harry Patch, the last British survivor of the Great War. This comes little more than a week after Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man whom JD paid tribute to only seven days ago.

It is amazing to think that this terrible war was fought very nearly one hundred years ago and that a handful of the people who were involved were still with us until last week. Now only three survive. in the world.

For our generation this war is all around us, our lessons at school and documentaries on television. When Harry Patch was actually fighting at the age of 18, there wasn't television at all.

No matter how much we read or study or watch, none of us can grasp the horror that must have faced this young man when thrust into Passchendaele, fully aware of the previous three years. Not the naive gung-ho of 1914 for Patch and his peers, three of whom he saw blown to bits at just 19. Just three of the three hundred thousand Britsh dead in that one battle.

What makes Harry Patch and his contemporaries heroes to be remembered and honoured is not their stiff upper lip and grit, but that they were normal. They were plumbers and bricklayers and butchers who were asked to lay down their lives for their country in a war they most probably did not fully understand. Asked to leave their wives and children and go through pure hell.

I read this on the BBC obituary and was so moved I am compelled to copy it here.

But Patch had no time for the Act of Remembrance on 11 November, an event he described as "just show business".

He always maintained that his Remembrance Day was 22 September, the day he lost his three best mates and his war ended.

Have to love it don't you, freedom of speech. I do, fucking great stuff. Freedom of speech lets B&D broadcast our genius and it let's me call Gordon Brown a cunt.

But the BBC News and the Guardian seem to feel that this is not he case for one J. Clarkson. The controller of BBC2 has said she has no problem with it all and no action will be taken.

Before broadcast, off air, warming up if you will, Clarkson talked about the government and how shit it was. He then called Brown a cunt. Obviously someone, maybe that wanker Mr Demetriou witnessed on the train, has felt this must be reported to the press. Oooh, he said last week too. Naughty boy.

He clearly hasn't done anything wrong so quite what the problem is I'm not sure. He also happens to be right, Brown is a cunt. Twice over.

As a libertarian, you see, I fundamentally believe in the freedom of speech and the removal of censorship. Over on the LPUK blog, there appears to be a feeling that stopping people from saying what they want to say because you disagree with it is perfectly fine, which is disturbing to say the least. It is also not beyond 'bloggers' such as guido and Raccoon to block and delete rather than argue their point.

Something that never happens here.

So I am fully supportive of Clarkson, even if he can be a twat most of the time. The fact the G and Beeb are even reporting this, without calling for it to be blocked, is a nice bit of moralising.

Cunts.

Here's a question for you.

Why is that Fleet Street and Westminster are so obsessed with Paul 'Wank' Staines, aka 'Guido'? He appears on high profile broadcasts hosted by people like Paxman, he's interviewed on Terrestrial channels, he's given occasional slots in newspaper columns (Guardian, Times) and hacks fawn over him and deride him in varying measures every week.

But, why? The bloke has some connections, and he attacks 'the establishment'. Not especially unique characteristics. He's a great self-publicist and he uses his 'blog' to 'reveal' attack and berate. Except the reality is, his scoops and insights are very few and far between.

He spends most of his blogging time writing very poor quality 'articles', which often say little or nothing at all. Maybe a quip here and there, or something utterly unfunny (meant to show him up in a positive light).

When you boil it down, he's just a piss poor blogger who happens to have money and a few people feeding him info.

Yet he is obsessed over, as though he is this black angel in the shadows, waiting to swoop and take out our evil, corrupt establishment. Journalists dislike him, though they focus on the wrong reasons. They ought to look a little more deeply and study his 'HQ' a little better. For it is there that the Leprechaun bell end pumps out his self-promoting bullshit.

I had a little look earlier, and lo and behold, the place hasn't changed. Look at this piss poor 'article' for example. It's nothing out of the ordinary for Mr Wank. A quick piece about him lounging on a beach and telling the BBC to get lost on the phone. Tosser.

At the time of writing, the article attracted 1,750 'comments' from readers.

'Wow!' you're thinking, 'that's amazing...he must have a lot of readers, he must be good.'

Wrooooonnnng. Most of the comments are from the same people, who post under the most tear-jerkingly boring and puerile pseudonyms I have ever spotted. A hard core base of fans (and the odd plonker troll) who spend their lives on there like a gaggle of bored 13 year olds on MSN chat.

And this is what it is like there, every day. The comments pages reveal the most infantile, puerile, babyish, pathetic, sad, mentally deficient, remedial 'MSN' chat style discussions you'll ever see.

Outside of MSN chat logs belonging to daft 13 year olds that is.

And the mainstream media and MPs actually listen to this bloke? A bloke who writes shit and commands a sturdy following from assorted dick heads who write in text speak and can't formulate proper sentences never mind arguments within sentient discussion.

Take this contribution, for example, written by a tittering, dribbling Guido blog fan named 'thick as a cunt'

"Last warning kiddie fiddler. I’m gonna mod you to death if you don’t bow down to our lord, Gaydo."

Ah-ha! Ah-hahahaha! How hilarious! How witty!

Of course, as usual, a row or two develops on Guido comments sections. Good, healthy arguments? Er, I'm not sure.

For 'tat' levies this beauty at a contributor on the above article's comment's section:

"you are a nobody and I AM TOP BOY! SHUT IT YOU DOPEY SLAG!
we do not tolerate truther morons like you here. you are paranoid nutters.
I understand that atlas caters for that particular type of retard.
please leave this place immediately and take your gay lover 11.06 with you.
thankyou.
what a pair of sp@stics!"

Nice, huh? These are just two comments I've plucked out at random, I'm sure there are far, far worse on old 'MSN - Guido 2.0'.

Of course, at Boaty & D, we don't censor debate, but we certainly challenge any inappropriate and utterly banal and stupid comments from people who make them. We don't delete, as this is morally wrong and not remotely in the spirit of libertarianism, but if people are rude, unfunny and off-topic? Well, see for yourselves - we have some standards here at Boaty & D.

Even if you disagree with that, and you think the standard of debate here leaves a lot to be desired (sometimes it can descend slightly, though not too much), I think we ought to all agree that this bloke punches far and away above his weight on the media scene.

And his blog, and the discussions therein, are beyond pathetic.

About two weeks ago I wrote a piece about passport prices being cranked up yet again.

At the time I said that I made a Freedom of Information request to the Identity and Passport Service to find out the unit cost of a passport; that is, how much it costs the IPS to actually make a passport.

Today I got a response, remember that a passport now costs £77.50:

Thank you for your e-mail of 7 July in which you ask for information on passport costs. Your request has been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

"I would like to know the unit cost (the cost of producing) a biometric passport as of 2009."

We believe that the information that you have asked for is already reasonably accessible to you. The question was raised by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne in the house of Commons and the response can be found in column WA53 on the Parliament website on the following link :-

Here

Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act exempts the Identity and Passport Service from complying with the duty to supply you with this information on the grounds that it is already in the public domain. Should you have difficulties in accessing this information by the means listed above please do not hesitate to contact me again.

So two fold really. First off a quick search of Google reveals this information to not be remotely 'reasonably accessible' to me. Do I read Hansard? Do I fuck. A sneaky, shitty way to hide information they simply don't want you to have.

Second, how much? £57 basic production cost is total bollocks. It's a notepad, A5, with a bit of laminate at the back and a chip in it. They are either being mugged by the printers, or they are hiding some costs.

The Foreign Office then whack a completely unexplained £12 on it, presumably for the cost of issuing passports in the various locations around the world. Strange that the IPS cannot take cash from other places, but it can have cash taken from it.

Even with this, we have £69. That is a profit of £18.50 each and every time someone has to get a passport. Where does this money go? Staff? I would hope not because that would take self-financing to a whole new level, a level that I do not believe any other state body is anywhere near. And it wouldn't cover the cost.

Last time I checked my passport wasn't made by fucking Moleskine

They deny the cost of a passport goes towards the setting up of the ID Card scheme. My arse. that is exactly what the profit is for. It is not, as Phil Woolas said, £18.50 worth of 'customer service', it is a tidy trick of turning a nice profit to pump into a scheme that no one wants.

So I repeat, when ID Cards are dropped, will the price of passports come down? Course they won't. And no one will even ask about it in the media.

Other than here. In fact I have contacted Baroness Miller of Chilthorne, a Lib Dem Peer, and asked her to find out the breakdown of this £57. What does it include, admin, staff, postage, Gold dust? Because I would really love to know how a passport can cost fifty-seven British notes to make, not RRP, to actually make it.

The Boatang has a roundabout way of kicking the state in the balls.

The results for Today's Norwich North By-election in full are:

Chloe Smith (C) 13,591 (39.54%, +6.29%)
Chris Ostrowski (Lab) 6,243 (18.16%, -26.70%)
April Pond (LD) 4,803 (13.97%, -2.22%)
Glenn Tingle (UKIP) 4,068 (11.83%, +9.45%)
Rupert Read (Green) 3,350 (9.74%, +7.08%)
Craig Murray (Honest) 953 (2.77%)
Robert West (BNP) 941 (2.74%)
Bill Holden (Ind) 166 (0.48%, -0.17%)
Howling Laud (Loony) 144 (0.42%)
Anne Fryatt (NOTA) 59 (0.17%)
Thomas Burridge (Libertarian) 36 (0.10%)
Peter Baggs (Ind) 23 (0.07%)

C maj 7,348 (21.37%) 16.49% swing Lab to C Electorate 75,124;
Turnout 34,377 (45.76%, -15.33%)

2005:

Lab maj 5,459 (11.61%) - Turnout 47,033 (61.09%)
Gibson (Lab) 21,097 (44.86%)
Tumbridge (C) 15,638 (33.25%)
Whitmore (LD) 7,616 (16.19%)
Holmes (Green) 1,252 (2.66%)
Youles (UKIP) 1,122 (2.39%)
Holden (Ind) 308 (0.65%)

I'd say that for the first time since becoming President, or even since he started his run for office last year, President Obama has finally put his bollocks on the line about racism in the US.

This story here in the Times explains what happened to Professor Gates when he broke into his own home on account of locking himself out. As you'll note, despite Gates offering incontrovertible proof of his identity, the cop wasn't interested and arrested him on the ridiculous, jumped up charge of 'disorderly conduct'.

In the UK this would be like arresting a man in his own home for a section 5 public order offence. Either that or a 'breach of the peace'. Except, in the UK, a 'breach of the peace' only counts if it takes place in a public place, outside of a residential dwelling.

Apparently, Obama's points of perfect logic on the whole matter has sparked 'an explosive national debate over the issues of race and police profiling...'.

This is a euphemism for, 'a lot of scared, reactionary white people will spit venom about the blacks and a lot of pissed off black people with an inferiority complex will blame white people generally for their plight.'.

The 'debate' is nothing new - it's just that sometimes, something happens that makes it all heated. One thing is for sure, the 'debate' will feature a bunch of clueless, overreacting idiots entrenching themselves stubbornly into their cosy little fox hole positions, and nothing will progress.

Two facts are clear on this case:

• Obama was right in what he said about the 'stupid' actions of the police, and also the disproportionate stop and searches against black people in America by the police.
• The Sergeant at the centre of the debate has refused to apologise for his actions.

Sgt Crowley denies being racist; yet if he isn't, and his actions weren't racially motivated or biased, then there's only one conclusion remaining - he's a fucking tool.

People lock themselves out of their homes / lose their keys and break back in all the time - because not everyone wants to wait for a locksmith. Shit happens. Police should know that this shit can, and will, happen. So a normal bobby would simply have verified the man's identity, drawn logical conclusions and left the place with a coke and a smile.

The fact he busted this guy, and didn't even appreciate the ramifications of that based on who Prof. Gates is, means that Crowley quite possibly is both racist and a total tool. Who knows?

Though I have no doubt at all that there'll be black people up and down the States stupidly calling all white people racist and the enemy.

There are, however, some people - a small group of people in fact - who have long held very radical views on race and racism in America. I can't bring myself to criticise them. This is because they are black music Gods.

I leave you with this to chew over while you read the Times piece (hopefully, if you're sufficiently clued up, in a separate window).

Adios!

What follows is an accurate depiction of real life events, experienced today by the God and Genius extraordinaire, known to many as...John Demetriou.

A personal tale for you today readers - we have been receiving good feedback lately for pieces we write that talk about our real life experiences, rather than just regular comment. So here's what happened, all in one lil' old day - today.

I was at the train station of a major English city this morning. On my way to work, as I decided to leave the car at home and try something different. Just for a change, like.

So I step into one of the carriages and, because I'm an anti-social sort of person who likes his own space, I didn't make my way to one of the vacant seats. I simply stood to the right of the door.

The train had barely a couple of minutes to depart, when I heard an almighty yell coming from the train platform, further towards the main hub of the station by the barriers and the insanely expensive baguette kiosk.

'Blimey', I thought, 'that's the sort of cry that is usually rent forth by men wearing brown shirts and cross-like medals.'

I shrugged, and carried on reading my book. A man with a large back pack stepped onto the train - an amiable looking bloke with brown cords and a foppish red mane. I had him down as a student, probably going home after the end of his third semester. Although he wasn't so young, maybe a mature student, or simply someone jaunting round the UK.

Next thing I know, an impatient man dressed immaculately in a suit and tie boarded the train and stared blankly at the backpacker. It was like a scene from American Psycho. I half expected him to ask the backpacker the time, blow his head off and make his way to the buffet cart for a nice cup of light brown powdered Kenco and a Twix.

The Suit man just hovered there. After a few moments, he spoke to the man who was clearly re-incarnated from a Lion.

"You do realise that you're not allowed to smoke on the station platform?" he said with an unwavering degree of severity.

"Oh, yes, sorry about that I didn't realise," the Lion stammered, "I apologise".

I looked up at the man in the suit, and he sniffed Lion-O briefly, and with contempt, and then got off the train and walked up one carriage and re-boarded. Lion-O was left distinctly embarrassed and slightly sad. Seeing me in the vicinity, he decided the shame was too much and he slopped off down the carriage, squeezing past the jutting seats with possibly the world's biggest bag strapped to his back.

He did, indeed, smell every so slightly of tobacco. But hold the fuck on for a minute here...

Firstly, there may well be this new 'no smoking' rule for station platforms. But the platform I was on was largely exposed to the open air. OK, he was breaking a law, a fascist law, but a law none-the-less. But why did the suited bloke feel quite so confrontational and bitter about it? Did it really bother him so greatly? Did he really feel the weight of societal guardianship on his shoulders? To the extent that he had to chastise and embarrass a fairly honest and decent looking member of the public?

I, obviously, put two and two together about the shouting from the railway employee - Lion-O had clearly been barked at by some jumped up jobsworth in a uniform, telling him to 'put that fag out!'

I'm also astounded at the immense piety and weirdness over the suited man moving carriages...as a snub and a statement at the man's tobacco scented clothing. I'm sorry to say this, but what a vile, fascist, jumped-up, arrogant, Labour government cock sucking, pussy-arsed cunt.

It was due to surprise at the events, and the rapidity in which they unfolded, that stopped me from asking him what the fuck his problem was.

Maybe I would not have minded so much, if Lion-o was clearly a pikey sort of bloke who not only smokes in newly banned areas, but also spits, farts, swears, jostles, bullies, intimidates and generally upsets people. But he wasn't. He just had a tab in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So this odd, disproportionate display of authoritarianism stuck with me for the day. Yet it was the homeward bound leg of my journey that cemented some thoughts in my head.

So, back I was at Fascist Central Station, sometime earlier this evening, when I boarded what is a very old and poorly maintained train destined for a place far hither and yonder. I'm staring out of the window, when two Asian lasses step on the train and stand next to me.

One of them was rather loquacious, spending every breathing second rabbiting and chortling to her mate about inane bollocks and shopping. She was small, ugly and kept staring at me. I'll call her The Orc, because that just about sums her up and it saves the time and awkwardness of calling her 'the Asian woman'.

So The Orc has been on the train for all of twenty seconds when she decides to start showing off in front of her mate, thereby boring me and everyone in the vicinity to tears.

"What's that smell? Smells of sweat in here it's disgusting!"

Well, I discreetly checked, and it wasn't me. In fact, as far as I could tell, it wasn't anyone specifically - it was the general dank, musty and muggy lukewarm atmosphere prevalent throughout the train. Anyone who uses public transport more than once every 7 years would not really make anything of the phenomenon.

Except Orc face wouldn't let it lie, would she. In an even louder voice, so everyone around could hear...

"That smell is fucking disgusting. Some people need to learn to use a fucking deodorant."

Now, sure, I swear a lot on my website, so this may sound hypocritical and pious, but really, that sort of public behaviour is taking the piss somewhat. The comments were obviously going to make people feel embarrassed and awkward, and any sentient person would be offended by it.

I wasn't offended, funny enough, and that is because one look at her face and all you can do is simply smile and remain satisfied that your life ain't hers.

But there are lessons to be drawn, when looking at the morning and evening experiences in unison. The platform smoker was hounded and chided publicly by two people in the space of a couple of minutes. All he did was have a fag outside, under a station awning, not harming anyone, and barely touching anyone with second hand smoke.

He broke a minor law, but his actions were not harmful or offensive - at least, in my mind, to reasonable people.

The Orc, on the other hand, behaved like a total bitch in a busy environment, not caring who she offended or upset, and her continued use of loud, aggressive bad language obviously did pollute the atmosphere - you could have cut it with a knife.

Except, as to be expected these days, no-one said a word to her.

I've been on trains - and I'm sure you have - where groups of blinged up wide-boy twats have spat on the train floor, hurled abuse at passengers, put their feet on the chairs and generally ruined everyone's day.

I remember one time, on a night bus going home through South London, some low life leaned into a corner by the stairs, pulled down his zipper and pissed all over the floor. I spent the next 40 minutes watching a yellow puddle move down the bus then up the bus, spreading out into a lake of sickly scented urine. No-one said anything. No-one ever dares say anything.

The scum have the upper hand. Sorry to say this, but if the scum happen to be of an ethnic minority, people are even more scared. Not necessarily of them, but of the biased law which clamps down harshly on those accused of being racially discriminatory.

This is modern Britain in a perfect nutshell. The real transgressors and haters of liberty and fairness are given a blank cheque, while the rest of us are easy meat for the new generation of Orwellian chieftains and rule makers.

They can't, or don't want to, cajole the anti-social and the miscreants into line. That is a war long lost, and in any case, they are generally not seen as class enemies.

Decent, normal, respectable people who care about individualism are derided and chased out of town. They are easy meat. You, and I, are fodder for the jobsworths and the pious - people who love to feel superior and impress power over difference and choice.

There is no logic in any of this sort of thing - I make it my job on Boaty & D to point out the illogical and inconsistent. So I will, undoubtedly, have more tales to tell in the near future.

Adios.

Yes, I know me writing this to tell people to shut the fuck up about Swine Flu is a tad ironic. Don't care. It needs to be said, namely by me. Because I'm a fucking god.

Swine Flu is getting fucking stupid. We're all going to die they scream, then week after week of the press discussing if it is because they are hyping it up, or if it is real. Then The Sun comes out with shite like 'Girl Dies Of Pig Flu'.

First off, most of the people who have died have had massively underlying factors leading to their demise. There are always underlying factors you see. It's just that the underlying factors aren't very interesting because they don't have quite the same hit as death by pig sneeze.

So off they scream, we're all going to fucking die of something other than Swine Flu but there will be a sure fire hint of a some swine related event. No mention that the deaths from Swine Flu are currently miles below just normal everyday 'flu. In fact, want to know the fatality rate? 0.1%. What's that based on? That, ladies and gents, is based on a 30% infection rate completely guessed at based upon previous pandemics. The last one being nearly 40 years ago

So bollocks then.

Around 12,000 people per year are said to die of normal 'flu. Not a fucking dicky bird about those poor fuckers, let's all rant and rave about someone who was dying anyway but got a touch of the old Swine Flu.

And they love lines like "The worst flu pandemic occurred in 1918, when Spanish flu is estimated to have killed up to 50m people worldwide", um, yeah, but slightly different circumstances weren't they so, totally irrelevant. Not even worth mentioning, you might as well talk about the fucking bubonic plague for the same link.

In other countries, no one really gives a shit. Are they getting it? Probably. Except they phone in sick, touch of 'flu, week off and then back to work. Here, we go on about it like someone has stolen all the fucking beer and we're walking around screaming 'Where's all the fucking beer gone?!'.

This won't be happening

Seen Shaun of the Dead? The bit at the beginning when all the news broadcasts are talking about a mystery illness? Then they wake up one morning and they are all zombies? Yeah? That won't fucking happen. It was a fucking film!

The media are going on about it like by September we'll all be zombie vampire killers if we don't have a website and a phone line stat!

A website and a call centre staffed by idiots who go 'Yeah, sneeze? Cough right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Really? Runny nose yeah? Tired? Have you had a nap?'. What exactly is that going to solve?

If we didn't have the mass panic about it all we wouldn't have Doctors rocking in their chairs mumbling imbecilic nonsense because they have been on the phone for 138 hours straight dealing with retards telling them they are going to die.

The advert should be "Do you have a sneeze? Do you feel achy wachy? Do you feel 'Dunno, bit tired I spose'? Then you could have Swine Flu and may be about to die. You might have normal 'flu. You may well be hungover. To be honest, we really don't know and we really can't tell."

The economy is fucked. We are at war. In fact the war is currently returning a lot of body bags. There is a by-election. There are stories everywhere, but Fleet Street has decided that because it's silly season a stupid story like this needs to be cranked up to 'riots in the streets' proportions.

People are phoning in to radio shows and complaining because the GP hasn't got something they don't know, but they do know that the GP needs it really badly for a reason they don't really know either.

For fuck sake people will you get a fucking grip!

What may be the best case all round is that all the people who are running around shouting that we're all going to die, namely everyone in the media and morons, get Swine Flu. And it is deadly. That should solve the fucking problem.

Today is the day the Teddy Bears get shafted. That is the hope of millions of people around this country and it falls to the people of Norwich to deliver. No pressure.

So, if you are a person in Norwich and are reading this during your break, please do the right thing and vote Libertarian. Here is a list of the candidates and as you can see, they are all useless bar one. Thomas Burridge.

Many people like a protest vote, even more so in the current climate. But please, please don't go and waste it on some reactionary extremist from the BNP, or some made up loony party. Let alone UKIP who may, possibly, share your views on Europe, but their domestic politics are a shambles.

Remind yourself of the expenses debacle. Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat - they were all up to their necks in it. Don't give them the satisfaction of your vote.

Labour have destroyed this country.

The Tories are a shoe-in for the next election, but not winning this seat would give them the kick in the arse needed to attack to win it rather than sit back and let Brown lose it.

The Lib Dems are pointless. They won't win the election, they don't offer anything in Parliament. And remember this: if the election returns a hung Parliament they will have the casting vote, giving them another MP will probably give Labour one more as well when they side with them.

So that leaves the Libertarian Party. Here is the LPUK website and here is the manifesto. As you will see the party has a fundamental belief in your freedom of choice and the reduction of government powers to reduce that freedom.

Libertarianism is a wide ranging philosophy that encompasses wide ranging views from Left to Right. Your voice can be heard.

A vote for the Libertarian candidate is a kick in the teeth of the major parties and the rejection of the traditional protest parties. They have done nothing for anyone or anything. They represent the extremes of the traditional party system. The Libertarians do not, they represent a new approach that puts you first, a political party that challenges the political system itself.

Thomas Burridge is the second name on the ballot, send the right message to Westminster and the media of where you want this country to go.

Quite astounding hypocrisy is evident within this Telegraph story on Cypriot outrage over British ferry-bound sex orgies.

Apparently the Mayor of Ayia Napa is very upset over the fact that some tourists have been found to get up to naughty things on little night time boats at sea.

This is nothing new - the Brits took over Ayia Napa years ago and turned it, literally, into a fuck hole for the young 18-30s crowd. More to the point, there has been no shortage of Cypriots ready to cash in on this long standing tourism boon.

What with me having ancestral roots to the island, I have a little bit of an insight into all this.

First and foremost, the faux outrage is, in itself, outrageous. If the shock 'n' 'orred' local Greek communities were that bothered by the goings on amongst the young and boisterous holidaymakers, then they ought to consider whether setting up club after club after piss artist bar after Linekers after sweat-hole table top shit fest is a good idea. Almost every Greek family has at least one family member who made their fortunes in this industry.

Secondly, why all the fuss over a bunch of foreigners shagging in boats? Back in the nineties they were complaining about the English pissing and screwing up against the walls of the old church in the town centre. Fair enough, this is an issue - although allowing the throbbing heart of Pukesville to be build three metres away probably wasn't the best way of keeping the drunks off sacred soil.

But all this mock offence over some offshore orgies seems a little, well, populist.

But thirdly, and this is the killer, there is a phenomenon in Cyprus that is little known to us in the West and that is the phenomenon of the 'Cabaret'. This has nothing to do with bad comedy, this is about the spectacularly popular illicit, illegal sex trade, where Russian women are trafficked into the island every year by the in the hundreds so that they can entertain dodgy Cypriot males and their adolescent sons (it is a common right of passage, many fathers insist on it - I'm not joking).

Here's a link to 'Protection Project' which looks into this growing problem. A problem that places Cyprus on the UN and EU black lists of countries that have serious problems with the exploitation of imported women, sold as slaves for the purposes of being used by (often married) men.

When I lived there, these places were not confined to certain districts - they were, and are, everywhere. Next to apartment blocks with families, near the beach, near motorways, near just about anything. They are both official and unofficial (like most things out there) and exist due to utter flagrant corruption, a total indifference from the population who see these women as whores and worthless, and of course - the Russian and Turkish mafias.

There are more cabarets than doctors surgeries and schools. You can find a hooker from Siberia or Bulgaria more easily than you can locate a loaf of bread or a car mechanic.

They are easily spotted. Not only are they large clubs with tacky neon lights and blacked out windows, they are also small bars which have an air of mischief about them. You'll look through the tinted glass and there'll be three amazingly attractive, blond, suspiciously non-Greek women collecting glasses in 18 inch stilettos and mini skirts, and around 6 cab drivers and kiosk owners sat round the bar sipping Metaxa 7 star. At 4 in the afternoon.

There's no hiding it, and where the local males are happy with this arrangement, the local women hate the guts of these women as they generally steal their husbands. So if it weren't for the odd sympathetic Priest, this would be a human catastrophe that simply wouldn't be reported as such because either no-one knows, no-one cares, or we're too busy reading about Jordan or Jack Tweedy's latest rut.

So, in a nut shell, the Cypriots, until such time as they clean up their own act, can shut the merry fuck up.

I thought I would follow up with my own personal take on the phenomenon that is the suburban dwelling and the suburban way of life. Mr Boatang has done a mighty fine job with his insightful piece, so it's only fair that I throw my own tuppence into the plastic water feature.

I really must ask this question - and if your place resembles this, please explain what made you do it - but why do baby boomers insist on arranging their homes in the most infuriating, illogical and perverse manner possible?

They obviously started out vaguely normal, then as the eighties wore on, they slowly morphed onto the sort of dribbling mutants you find in sequels of Resident Evil. Silent, brooding, slow moving, utterly bereft of any form of sentient thinking and capable only of loping from one area of the house to another prowling for life forms to attack for having the audacity to open a door and go into a room.

So there they were - our parents - complaining about the 12% interest rate payable on a mortgage totally around three grand for a 4 bed semi with garden, double drive, garage and various fruit-bearing trees. They got the gigantic dining room they always wanted, and filled it with various expensive things they got for their wedding. Like the wine cabinet, the oak double leaf dining table, the crystal, the decorative novelty plates, the doilies, the china, the oil paintings and the added smell of antique room which came as standard.

The dining room was used for Sunday dinner and special occasions where friends and relatives came round every couple of weeks.

Then 1995 occurred and the people stopped coming round because everyone became old, grumpy and boring. This is in part because of the Daily Mail, but also because the suburbs suck cock.

Sunday dinners round the table ceased on account of young Timmy becoming of age and moving off to Uni, while Hannah was never around anymore because she kept getting booty-called around 2am. She told them she was having a sleep-over at Amy's, but she was really fucking Gareth somewhere in Bexleyheath.

It should have been a time of great joy and relief - kids off the scene, time to enjoy oneself and live a bit. Quite the opposite happened.

Instead, the gentle layers of dust that fluttered around the sun-blenched curtains on a Saturday morning turned to thick layers of dead skin, caking the tops of the furniture while the ironing pile began to resemble Mount Kilimanjaro.

It either went that way, or the opposite, with the mum of the house spending every spare moment of her life immaculately polishing and obsessively dusting every square inch of the house.

Except there was one small problem - less and less of it got used, and as the noughties progressed, more and more of the echoing house became strictly out of bounds.

And here we have the bizarre state of affairs discussed by Mr Boatang - the dining room that is 'kept for best' and never used, apart from at Christmas, and even then only for an hour before everyone moves into the lounge, which again, is only used at Christmas, or by the dad - who by now is the grumpiest cunt in the world, and only allows three things to exist in the lounge under pain of death:

• The TV (either history channel or discovery channel on permanently; both channels will always feature polar bears foraging for seals)
  
• A coffee table (covered by Daily Mail supplements and assorted pages of the Mail)
• curiously excessive numbers of mantelpieces and wooden surfaces all of which are infested with utterly pointless figurines, novelty plates, bullshit 'antiques' and odd little carriage clocks - atop the customary doilies.

Despite being old, the parents will insist on waking up at 5am. So regardless of whether you've moved out, staying for a night, or whether 16 guests have been invited to stay for the weekend, the daft bastards will wake up at 5am and expect every living soul to not only be up too, but also showered (without, miraculously, having used any of the hot water), dressed and in the happiest mood since Adam Sandler appeared in his last movie.

So you've got another 18 hours to spend in these peoples' company. You grew up with them, you were nurtured by them, educated by them, and you're standing in the kitchen looking at these people wondering who the fuck they are and how they managed to get to that age without being locked up under the Mental Health Act.

Suddenly you're posed with a knew way of life - everything that can possibly be done in this house is possible within the confines of a modest sized kitchen and an adjacent utility room built for a wash basket and a cat's shitter.


You'll be over for dinner one day, possibly with your other half, and dinner is about to be served. No, not on the dining table which, quite frankly, you could play 5-a-side on and have enough room to bring in the off side rule. It'll be held on their new kitchen table.

Yes, that's right...the dining room and the lounge and the breakfast room and the conservatory and the outside patio and decking are off limits - sorry, didn't they tell you? For 'best'. Just to make sure, they have shut the doors so no-one can get in. Some parents set up trip wires and remote sensors, just to make sure you're not a naughty scally while their on their 19th holiday of the year and you've popped over to feed the cat.

So there you are, the four of you, sat round a table that would fail to dwarf the steering wheel of a Landrover Defender. You don't want to offend when the plates turn up, so you squeegee your cutlery on the plate, put your glass on the floor, or the kitchen tops and pull the plate towards you to make room for the potatoes ('cos, you know, potatoes MUST be served in a separate serving dish, never directly onto the plate. That's common).

Then, when dinner is finished, and your vertebrae is screaming at you like an Austin Maestro in its death throes, you sit and wait patiently until either mum or dad suggests that you all retire into the lounge.

You might have heard of the true function of a lounge if you are under the age of 45 - it's where you relax. Lounge, even. It's where you go to sit on nice comfortable seating, and engage in civilised discussion with drinks.


Alas, you're straight up shit creek. The kettle will boil, again and again and again, and still you're in there, listening to conversation whilst nodding sagely and glancing carefully at the oven clock which is blood-boilingly wrong.

"Oh, yes, I always keep it fast...in case I'm running late."

Running late for what, you prick, you don't do fuck all you lazy twat!

Eventually, when the wolves are howling and your car has been iced over on the street, you'll up and leave and carefully toe your way to the door, hacking back the ten grand shag pile with your handcrafted machete whilst hoping the shudders on the floorboards don't cause an avalanche of pointless figurines and novelty collectibles to bury you up to your neck.

You're out the door. Only twenty metres of carefully paved-over grass to cover now, and several cars to worm your way past before you reach the rare commodity of the front garden hedge. It is about 3 feet tall and trimmed to within an inch of its life. As long as that hedge is alive, it has to contend with the barren mass of concreted driveway as its sole company.

The hedge bids you goodbye, and you almost feel sorry for it, stuck there between the road and hell.

As you get back into your shitty little motor, a distant sound fills your ears and grows louder and louder, haunting you for nights to come...


Fucking ghastly.

As you may well know JD and I hate, with a passion, the suburbs.

Oh yes in-fucking-deedy. Who's the daddy now Clive at number 37? You, that's fucking who. There are two ways to do this though, the less common secret dining room that is sealed off like a crime lab from the rest of the house and only ever used for bestest best, or the more common second living room. You opt for the second.

Plans are afoot for the dining room...

This is where the suburban nightmare really begins. You see, in the suburbs people need two living rooms. One for the telly and the family and watching Match of the Day, the other for when people who need impressing come to tea. This 'lounge' is shut at all times and is filled with utter fucking wanking shit. All the best chintz goes in there, there isn't a telly, there aren't books, there isn't a computer. Large collections of tiny, tiny china figures of badgers playing guitars or some such bollocks line shelf after fucking shelf.

The second part of the plan is, naturally, the kitchen table. The bain of my fucking life.

What happens is thus: A dining room is established, the living room and/or secret bestest 'lounge' is in place. A new kitchen is installed and to go with this goes...a kitchen table. This must be like the one that Jill has at No.4, or the sister has in a much nicer and larger house in the country.

Will it fit? Will it fuck. The dining room is literally next to the fucking kitchen and takes an entire 2.2 seconds to reach from a standing start at the oven. However, that wouldn't make the dining room, oh yes, 'for best'.

So, in the kitchen goes a nice big 4-6 seater table. That's it wife, cover it with a nice dining cloth, bowl of fruit maybe. And all the shit of your fucking life. The table is now in a position where actually using the fucking kitchen to fucking cook anything is near on fucking impossible.

The dining room now becomes best. Usually the dining 'room' is simply the end of the living room that was knocked into one in 1974. However, the dining room is now out of bounds and is reserved for Christmas only. In fact all eating can now only happen at the kitchen table, from which you can fucking see the dining room table, and all food is banned from the living room.

What is the fucking point? It's like people in suburbia are intent are having houses with wings and a living room and a lounge room and a smoking room and a reception room and...you get the point. It's not. It is/was a 3-bed semi that you have turned into a wonky 5-bed semi which now has rooms that you never fucking use and a kitchen you can't fucking move in.

Everything is a project, everything is this banal, pointless task of adding shit on. Then the kids move out and the parents are left with this bizarre mix of plastic water features, pink carpet and rooms that are never fucking used.

Then they die and normal people move in and rip it all out.

I'm sorry, but who writes hundreds if not thousands of words of original, first class content, every single day?

Who says it how it is, when they want to, how they want to, without pandering to any agenda or platform?

Who tells folks to go swing their dick into the nearest nail-riven fence if they don't like what they say?

Who gets the lo-down on the most topical, relevant and interesting happenings in world media?

Who tears strips off the establishment, whilst keeping one eye on the equally flawed anti-establishment?

Who digs up the best news, flares up the best campaigns? Who are the relentless mother fucks who just don't give a fuck?

Who rocks loins and stirs the love nests of ladies round the world, just at the mere hint of connecting fingers to keyboard?

Who are so God damned fucking cool, and so fucking insanely intelligent, that every time they publish an article, several billion people round the globe stop what they're doing and explode in a writhing, near-death inducing, Quaalude abusing spunk fest of Ecstasy?

We churn out our top quality shit, daily. We have readers from all over this country, and regulars from America, France, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany...hell, we even have random chaps from Pakistan (Islamabad), Tehran (Iran), Indonesia and Saudi Arabia pop in - though these guys usually find us via google, by typing in things like "35 years old cunt".

How is that civil war going in Pakistan, anyway? *waves!*

The fact is, our popularity keeps growing and growing. This isn't because we have connections, it isn't because we try to ride the coat tails of the latest Emperor's New Clothes, it isn't because we're technical masters. It's because we are legends. God's almost. No, fuck almost, we are Gods, end of.

We take an idea, sculpt it, tend to it gently, watch it grow very quickly and then plant it in the garden for all to sniff and pluck and wank over or what the fuck ever else it is people do when they log into the World's Best Blog.

We are respected, loved and utterly admired. Jesus and all the demi gods of all the religions in the world are all floating about, monumentally jealous at the incredible love and attention we are bequeathed from mankind. Every day. In fact, Jesus texted me the other day and asked me what my secret was. I said I'd call him back, I was washing my hair.

I lied too, and there's nothing he can do about it.

It's not even like we need to brief or de-brief about our shit. As libertarians, we just say it. Then a day later Mr B will log on, read it, and mail me about it. Or vice versa.

Our email conversations go something like this:

09:05am...

Mr B: Oi, c#nt, you in yet?

Mr D: Yeah I am c#nt, and f#cking what, you c#nt?

Mr B: I read your piece about the BBC. I liked it.

Mr D: Course you did you c#nt.

Mr B: What d'ya mean, you piece of sh#t?

Mr D: 'Cos I wrote it.

09:32am...

Mr B: C#nt.

This is an abridged version, of course, and will generally take place on a Monday morning when we're both grumpy and can't be fucked to talk too much. As the afternoon wears on, our discussions will morph into chunky stream of consciousness blurts which we then think about, go away and privately source for inspiration for the next piece.

Or, we think of shit, then research about it and write a piece on the blog. It's not rocket science to us, it probably would be to you - because we make the pants of the intelligentsia wet on a habitual basis. We dick on Fleet Street like Dirk Diggler would dick all over...I don't know, a fellow porn star actor with an infinitely smaller winky.

There's none of this 'Oh, won't it be jolly baity if today, I slammed the beeb! *scoff scoff* and you popped on tomorrow and did a little ditty about Gordon Brown!' 'Oh how quaint!'

In essence, I am a genius, Mr Boatang is a genius, we do our thing on here and then go away and do that thing called: "having a life".

Weirdly, Boaty & D dot com doesn't constitute the raison d'etre of either of our existences. It was never, and will never, be part of a cleverly devised vehicle to take us to fame, fortune and riches.

This is because we are so fucking amazing, we have no choice but to keep a firm lid on this blog otherwise the hoards of paparazzi and adulating fans would destroy our front doors. That would annoy the likes of Lady Boatang and Dame Demetriou, and we can't be having that.

While I'm vaguely on the subject of blogs, I thought I'd add this: Total Politics dot com have an online election out right now for the top politics blogs in the UK. You, the people, can vote. Though it did not pass our notice that this election was not announced particularly publicly to the blogging community, or the bloggers listed on Total Politics (including us).

It appears that the usual sycophantic, cliquey crowd got the early heads up, and Iain Dale's chum Guido may well end up getting shoed in at number one spot, like he does every year in this shambolic rotten borough blog contest.

So, to stop the rot, and return the majestic and mighty B&D to top flight blogging status at Total Politics, we urge you to do the right thing and follow the big link at the top right of this page.

and finally...

I thought I'd end this piece by appending some pictures that will give you an idea of who and what we are. Being Gods, our faces are like that of the actual God that Christians believe in - unseen and unexposed.

Think of these images and blend them into one - then marvel in the phenomenon, the magic, that is the gift to Planet Earth: Mr K. Boatang and Mr J. Demetriou.

I'aaaink yaaaow.

Browsing the old Guardian Unlimited jobs page this evening, wondering whether there's anything (sorry, 'owt') interesting on the market. For the billionth time this year, there isn't.

But on my little trawl, I dug up these little beauties:

Davey boy has come out and said that peace campaigner Brian Haw should be removed from Parliament Square because he has become an eyesore and 'enough is enough'. To be fair, he has a point.

This bloke started his protest on 2nd June 2001. He started protesting because of the sanctions on Iraq and then continued because of the invasion. Now, both John and I were and are strongly against the Iraq war and Haw was seen as a bastion of the right to protest during this time.

This was made even stronger because of the pathetic, totalitarian rules brought in to stop people protesting in Parliament Square and the surrounding area. Because they might try and blow up the MPs of course. Cue giant concrete slabs, plastic screening in the gallery and the complete destruction of the right to protest outside the epicentre of our democracy.

Then his protest became huge. It went out of all proportion and the Council stepped into to remove the small town he had built. This is where he started losing it.

I'm going to be harsh, because I am. I am all for the protest in many ways, it is a right that we all have and should use. But after over 8 years, does it not lose its impact? It's just there, ignored, walked past by all. It hasn't achieved anything and it is now written on his site that he is there 'to remind them all of the cost of their wars'.

Brian Haw driving his point home. Whatever it is.

So not in protest at sanctions, not at the war, not at the invasion of others countries, not at sanctions on other countries...to remind 'them' of the cost of invading Iraq. Which it doesn't, thus rendering it pointless.

A large part of my view of Brian Haw was formed a while back on a program Mark Steel was doing and he went to see Haw in Parliament Square. Steel was entirely on Haw's side and wanted to talk to him about the protest etc. Because this show was on BBC2, Haw attacked him in this drunken, unbalanced way that left Steel shouting something the lines of 'I'm on your side you daft bastard!'.

I just took the view that while his actions may be noble, I simply don't believe his intent is. He has lost his wife and kids and has slept on the streets for 8 years. For what? 'The right to protest'? Rubbish. The very cause he is there to fight for doesn't even exist any more, so he has changed it over and over again. This leads me to believe he is protesting for the sake of it rather than to achieve anything.

When the final British soldier leaves Iraq this year, then he can pack up with some sort of dignity and say 'Job done', but he won't. In years time when everyone has left Iraq and it's a peaceful country, he will still be protesting about it.

The right to protest is something we should defend completely, it is fundamental to our democracy. What annoys me about the Haw protest is that it is more a slightly deranged, drunken, broken, homeless bloke living in a box no longer really knowing what it is he is protesting about. Should people really be championing him as the leader of the democracy and peace movement or should they be helping him?

To my mind he is just being used as a useful figurehead by people who wouldn't do what he is doing.

I was cycling on my rather expensive folding bicycle earlier on this afternoon, when I thought it a good idea to toddle up to Tescos to buy a small bottle of Coke Zero.

What should have been one of the day's simpler tasks ended up being a lesson in frustration and blind annoyance.

Now, I know that big businesses like Tescos are the government's best pal. Tescos boosts the economy and creates jobs, the government in return takes the money of the shoppers and the workers via tax whilst boasting about how great everything is.

Despite the depressing nature of 'UK PLC', where virtually none of us have a say about how our country is run and what it is being turned into, and despite me knowing about all this, to my shame, I still shop there.

Because it's either go there, or stand in front of closed shop doors with the opening times dangling on a rusty sign from the inside, or wonder around aimlessly for hours on end trying to hunt down the nearest non-existent bakers. It's really that simple.

So I hopped off my bike, and walked towards the moribund entrance to this casket of a supermarket (you'll recognise these entrances, for they are directly opposite the car park which is only busy at the back because 500 of the closest spaces are reserved for disabled people of which only 12 real ones exist in your entire town).

I considered folding up the contraption, but seeing as I only wanted one bottle of diet coke (available from a fridge three metres inside the store on the left) I realised that it would take longer fucking around with the bike than it would be to buy the god forsaken pop.

So in I walked, with the trusty steed ticky-ticketting away like a cautious tickety type thing. It didn't get in anyone's way - it is a small, portable sized bike, not a mountain bike, not a racer, but a self-powered contraption barely bigger than a transformer.

I took the coke from the fridge, about-turned and went over to the 'kiosk'. A security guard (let's call him Chump Challenge) was stood there by the counter, arms crossed. His colleague, whom I have decided to name 'Bertha', was stood behind the counter whispering out of the corner of her mouth to another colleague named Bertha.

Down went the coke onto the counter, and in went my hand into my pocket to locate some money.

"Er, excuse me, you'll have to leave the bike outside next time," ventured the glum, pale, vacant face like thing belonging to Chump Challenge.

"Oh, OK," I replied. My mind whirred and I mused upon all those non-existent areas designated for bikes, and all those inappropriate places where one can lock a bike safely.

Leave a grand's worth of bike on the pavement outside? Don't think so. Not with that many tower blocks nearby.

I think the bullshit is all over, and I'm nearly done with the place. But it didn't end there...

"Oh, yeah, and you're not allowed to wear helmets. Take it off next time please," murmured Bertha Number One.

So I strolled out with my 500ml bottle of (inexcusably pricey) coke, and stood by some bollards with my bike. I lit up a cigarette, and cast a glum look up at the even glummer skies. It started to rain. As I looked to my left, the security guard came out. He just stood there, looking at me.

So when I finished my fag, I felt inhibited in doing the right and normal thing - flicking it into the gutter.

I had been utterly outflanked, bossed and embarrassed by the very supermarket that habitually takes my money week in week out. Treated like some kind of wanker or scum bag, for having the temerity to walk in with a bloody bicycle.

What is so annoying here, is not so much the intransigence over the bike. The bike thing was utter bullshit and any half normal minded, pragmatic member of staff would have bypassed the usual rules and given the nod on that.

It was the fact I was rapped for wearing a cycle helmet. In case you've never seen one before, here's a picture of one:

A Bike Helmet - not generally used by terrorists and bank robbers, but despised by Tesco PLC

Want to know something about bike helmets, apart from the fact they are stupid looking pieces of shit that cyclists feel they must wear out of social pressure?

You can wear one - and people will still see your boat race. They do not cover features, they do not conceal identity.

So why was I banned from wearing one at Tescos? I know why. It is because their management decided (probably during a series of pointless and pathetic meetings) that customers should be banned from wearing 'crash helmets'. As the rule came into being, no-one looked at the definition of crash helmet, and so cycle helmets came under the ban even though they have no business being under the ban, because it's fucking mindless bullshit.

Want to know what customers are allowed to wear in Tescos? I know, I have shopped amongst people who have worn them...

The Burkha; an increasingly popular garment for women living in some of the coldest and sunshine free regions of the globe. Which is clever, seeing as what little vitamin D one gets from the sun is immediately blocked out by sweaty black cloth. Well played.

So, either Tesco does have a ban on people wearing concealing garments, but doesn't enforce it. Or it does not have a ban, in which case they are guilty of being incredibly stupid and blinkered regarding customers who come in wearing head gear.

Either way, Tesco are on the cusp of having one less prolific customer.

It's bad enough the government issue bans and ridiculous health and safety guidelines every single week. But when businesses start doing it as well...?

One wonders why this is all happening. The fact we don't know for sure and are kept in the dark makes me wonder all the more.

I reproduce an article I have written for the Libertarian Party UK blog representing the Yorkshire region...

As a Londoner (or an ex-Londoner as I call myself now) I thought that it would be hard settling into a new life in Yorkshire when I moved up here several years ago.

I am happy to say I was wrong. Not only because so much of my county is beautiful and quintessentially English. Not only because of my love of the dark, dank industrial architecture of the 19th century.

What makes Yorkshire so warming to me is the people - Yorkshire people are probably the finest individuals I have ever met on these shores.

Unlike so many people I have encountered from the South, people from Yorkshire almost always possess certain traits that I find compatible with my own attitude to life.

They are direct and no nonsense. They are generally friendly, respectful and decent. And more so than people I have encountered elsewhere, they are self-reliant, full of self-respect and understand the dividing line between valuing their community and dependence on government for the answers.

Yorkshire is probably one of the most naturally Libertarian areas in Britain today. I have found it interesting that, historically speaking, Yorkshire is one of the few regions in the North of England where the Conservative party have done well at elections.

Yet from what I can see, this isn't because the place is packed out with blue rinse mob Tories - it appears that people have traditionally leaned to the Tories over the years because the party is linked with less interference, less tax, more emphasis on the importance of the individual and family and more emphasis on enterprise and personal endeavour.

I say 'traditionally' for a reason. If the Conservatives ever did really stand for these things to any meaningful degree, they certainly do not now.

The authoritarian element within the Tory party is now joined by a new ally - the wet, Blairite, social democratic David Cameron, who wishes to keep public spending high, keep the role of the state ever present and who will do nothing to withdraw the disgraceful impositions upon the British people that have been placed there by the Labour government.

The people of Yorkshire want none of this, and it is only because everyone is so sick of Labour and Gordon Brown that people may consider the Tories as the last, least worst hope.

It is therefore an opportunity and a blessing that the naturally Libertarian minded people of Yorkshire and the LPUK presence in this region are able to see a way through the malaise. The more people get to hear about us and the more we grow as a party, the better.

For Yorkshire men and women will at last have a party that stands for their beliefs and their ideals. A party that isn't ideological, isn't dogmatic, isn't right or left in the old fashioned sense, isn't pathetic and uselessly 'New Labour'-esque, isn't about special interests and agendas and isn't about state dominance.

People will in the future see our party and see an outfit that offers freedom and liberty. Freedom from the shackles of excessive state interference. Freedom from being told what to do by a bossy, over-dominant Westminster establishment and elite. A party that says - 'you know what is best for you and your family; go build your lives we'll leave you alone'.

The only thing stopping the LPUK from becoming popular in Yorkshire is a lack of awareness and exposure. This, undoubtedly, will come in time with effort and perseverance.

John Demetriou.

Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and WW1 war veteran, has died.

Mr Allingham's life spanned 6 monarchs, 3 centuries and just about every memorable world event and historical land mark one can think of since the days of Charles Dickens. He died aged 113.

I defy anyone to read this story, and look at the pictures depicting his life, and not be moved to tears.

It is events like this that really bring a reality check to people like me - people born and raised in times of peace; people who do not know war and severe oppression thanks to amazing people like the late Mr Allingham.

When you read about people like Mr Allingham, it becomes very clear that were it not for brave courageous souls like he, the rest of us would be in the soup.

There are now only two remaining UK WW1 veterans left alive. One of whom lives in Australia. The other is Harry Patch. Soon we will only have their stories and their memories as evidence of one of the most devastating and unjust wars the world has ever seen.

I would salute you, Mr Allingham, but I am not even worthy of such a tribute.

JD

I was so incensed when I read the Times this morning, I am almost speechless. Though, luckily for you, not quite.

According to the Times, 'Senior BBC executives made expenses claims totalling nearly £800,000 over the last 5 years, according to figures released yesterday by the corporation'.

Of course, to most of us, £800,000 is just a number. It might occur to you that this may or may not be a high or low figure - it depends on how this figure is put into context.

Well how about this:

The Times piece states: "The figures showed that Alan Yentob, the corporation's creative director, spent £1,579 on an 'executive Christmas dinner' for 27 people in 2006"

and

"£157.73 on taking Nigella Lawson, the celebrity chef, for dinner in July 2007."

"Jane Tranter...led the way, with claims totalling just over £46,000 over the past three years. Her expenses included about £3,000 on flowers...as well as another £3,000 in gifts to BBC actors..."

The piece just keeps those revelations coming...

"Ben Stephenson, who inherited Ms Tranter's post of head of drama, carried on her gift buying trend, spending £309.50 of public money on eight Jo Malone candles as gifts, as well as £201.48 on a box of champagne and £103 on a case of wine."

"Another big spender was Roger Wright, the controller of Radio 3, who spent £35,000 in the period, including £7,000 on taxis compared with only £4 on London Underground fares." "Andy Parfitt, the head of Radio 1, spent £25,000, including nearly £6,000 on monthly 'pizza meetings' for his staff, and a £632 taxi to a radio event in Coventry."

and still we hear more...

"Graham Norton, already on a £5 million contract, was the recipient of a £200 lunch with Jay Hunt, the controller of BBC One. She claimed a taxi back from the lunch at an extra cost of £20."

and so it goes on and on.

This has nothing to do with Daily Mail middle England fury, this is not about small, petit mindedness or grumpy-guts misery. This is about basic common sense and vague notions of decency and respect.

The BBC are funded by the tax payer, by the force of the law. If you don't pay the tax, you will be questioned under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984), you will be taken to court, you will get a criminal record. You have to pay it.

You have no say in how much the license fee is - the BBC and their Labour government pals work all that out and you get the bill. If you don't watch BBC, but have a TV, you still have to pay the tax.

It is therefore blatant common sense and clear logic that the BBC have a duty to spend the license fee in a fair, moral and proportionate manner. Otherwise, the system is nothing but a corrupt farce and a way of feeding a select elite with the perks and bonuses that are common place in oligarchies and dictatorships.

Our money is being appropriated and used by people in a disgusting, corrupt and immoral manner and there is nothing we can do about it.

How, how, how can anyone at the BBC justify these expense claims? They are wholly inappropriate and decadent; they are obviously over the top and unnecessary. This sort of money does zero for the purposes of public broadcasting, and the salaries of BBC staff are such (particularly higher up the trough) that spending this money on luxuries and charging it to us mugs at home is unjustified.

I'll be amazed if anyone could state otherwise.

I work for the public sector. I work in an organisation which is entirely funded by the tax payer. My salary comes from the tax payer. Yet no-one, top to bottom, behaves like this or could ever get away with behaving so arrogantly and dismissively of the public.

Our senior executives usually travel in regular class via train (not first class) and keep expenses down by refusing First Class carriage. Train fares are bought in advance, and via websites to save money. I can't think of anyone that uses taxis (certainly not for fares of more than a tenner or so) and I can't think of anyone, high grade or no, with a ridiculous and pompous aversion to public transport in general.

As far as wining and dining goes, forget it. Alcohol is banned from being put on any expense sheet and lunches provided to training courses and lengthy meetings are both rare and very modest. Often bought, not from caterers, but from Asdas or cheap supermarkets.

The buying of gifts for people on expenses is rightly not allowed.

My place acts like this, because we act responsibly within our budget and everyone is constantly aware that every penny we spend is tax payer's money and not to be pissed up the wall on very cheeky purchases.

There are probably more public sector organisations that behave in a responsible manner - so what gives with the BBC?

The BBC behave like this because they are arrogant and see themselves as an autonomous, superior and untouchable body of the great and the good. We proles ought to be grateful to receive their 'work' and their artistic creations and what they do in the comfort of their South East based elitist circles is their business, not ours.

Well, to put it bluntly, fuck them. I've had enough of this bullshit.

What annoys me more than anything is the fact that it is the enormously well paid and very wealthy BBC figures that are worse than anyone. I cannot abide by tight people. I loathe and detest rich, parsimonious piss-takers.

How can someone on a handsome BBC executive salary even think about going through the motions of submitting an expense claim for a posh lunch. It is staggering, and of course, hugely reminiscent of those wealthy, landed MPs recently caught out squeezing the system for absurd purchases which any right thinking person would pay for themselves.

I look at these stinking tax-enriched bastards, and then think about the number of work related visits and trips I've been on where I don't bother claiming for subsistence expenses because I have more dignity and fucking self respect and decency than to put in a claim for a couple of sandwiches and a packet of crisps.

These people have no shame.

Look at Alan Yentob. According to his wikipedia page, "In July 2009 Yentob was revealed to have accumulated a pension worth £6.3m, giving an annual retirement income of £216,667 for the rest of his life. This is one of the biggest pensions in the public sector."

What a tight arse. All that money, and the greedy bastard claims the money back for a lunch he laid on for Nigella Lawson. Can you believe the bloody brass balls on these people? How can they even look at themselves in the mirror, regardless of where the money comes from? He's that rich, and claims cash back for a fucking lunch.

Well, I'm not going to leave it there. I can't cope with it. I will be writing a complaint to the BBC. Watch out for my next post, where I will reproduce my complaint letter and leave the thread open for the official response which I shall post for all to see.

It occurred to me today that maybe society has become a little too informal in the way people address each other. It's been a slow, gradual 'creep', but as time has gone on, it is more and more acceptable for people to use others' first names when in conversation.

Use of one's first name (or 'Christian' name if you are of a conservative disposition) is an important issue for some. Peter Hitchens, for example, cannot abide by people who comment on his site, referring to him as 'Peter'. He detests the 'matey' 'over familiarity' it engenders. To be honest, he has a point. If you don't know someone, you really don't have a business in applying first name terms.

I wonder how long it will take before formal letters are habitually addressed 'Dear John' (as opposed to, for example, 'Dear Mr Demetriou'.)

Is this a silly non-argument? Well, not entirely. Because like most people, probably including you, I do not like to be patronised and I am not happy where people try to play little power games, manipulating me along with little sticks. One of these sticks is often the use of my first name.

This happens a lot in the work place. It's not a problem if someone you like and trust does it, but if it is someone you do not like and do not trust, suddenly 'Er, Jooooohn' brings about a sudden 'parent - child' scenario and it is difficult to negotiate.

None of this would be an issue, if everyone used surnames at work, preceded by the formal title: Mr such and such, Ms So and So etc.

It sounds stuffy and archaic, but it's not really. I call my friends by their surnames all the time. It confers a base level of respect and shows that you are competing as equal adult individuals. It also shows a respect for that person's family, as you're using the family name, not a first name or even more informally, a shortened first name or nickname.

I think it would be a good idea if people made an effort to try and rewind the clock to those pre-trendy New Labour Brit Pop bullshit Blair years. Where it was not seen as desperately pathetic and parochial to actually inject a little respectful and English dignity to every day dealings between people.

'Call me Tony' changed a lot in the political sphere. Suddenly, Whitehall Mandarins and politicians had to junk the old way of addressing the PM (Prime Minister) and it was all about 'Tony' (how nauseating). If not Tony then, 'TB', in memos.

I remember watching a documentary of some sort featuring the hilarious character Jeffrey Archer, who firmly stated that he always called John Major 'Prime Minister' in his presence.

With Cameron set to win the next election, it seems the Blair clone won't even change this: 'Call me Tony' will officially morph into 'Call me Dave', which is precisely what Cameron wishes to be called.

This is all fine, I mean, it's up to him what he wants to be called. But these things spread as trends, and suddenly it's fair game to call people by their first name, thus breaking down that barrier of mutual respect. The boundaries that exist in peoples' relationships change when first names are used. How awkward must situations become when they turn sour in a professional context - suddenly every attempt to speak to someone (using first names) becomes patronising and passive aggressive. Or at least potentially so.

None of this need apply between genuine long standing friends. Although you may have noticed that Mr Boatang and I rarely refer to each other with first names on this site - we like the atmosphere we set when using the formal form of address. (In private we call each other 'cunt' as a matter of course, but that's a separate matter).

Is it about standards slipping? I am not sure. I do know, however, that while the idea of becoming more formal in certain situations appears crusty and old fashioned, it would actually serve individuals better were formality applied. Because it means there's a lower chance of being subject to power games by others and there's less chance of people being sly, passive aggressive and generally two faced and awkward.

I am probably not old enough to know what the traditional norms were like in the workplace prior to the '90s. Are there any readers that can shed any light? Has much changed here over the years?

Send me a postcard and a present, or, post a comment. The choice is yours...

I was having a conversation with the missus earlier and it sparked an interesting realisation - the poor tend to pay out disproportionately more, in many areas of life, than middle class people and the middle classes pay out more than the rich.

A few weeks ago I found myself driving into Huddersfield town centre (great place, highly recommended, not at all a broken, disgraceful welfare satellite state hell hole at all). My route took me through a fairly unpleasant ghetto 'suburb' of the town called Fartown (if any readers could illuminate this blog with why Fartown is called Fartown, I'd be grateful - it's a source of minor bewilderment for a southern shandy bass like me).

As my car trundled along the main thoroughfare of 'Fartown', I noticed what must literally be the world's biggest Launderette taking up a huge area of land amidst the residential terraced homes and shitty 'bab shops that line up like a platoon of soldiers waiting to be shot for desertion at dawn.

Washing machines are a bit like the people in modern Britain. They get turned on and come to life every now and then, but ultimately they lie dormant all day and are content to be just another number like everyone else.

I was so agog at the sheer size of this place, it got me thinking: if a place like this does a good trade, it can only mean one thing - a hell of a lot of locals don't own their own washing machines and that is probably because they cannot afford one and cannot get credit for one.

I mean, let's face it, areas that are not run down pretty much never feature a Launderette.

Connected with this thought was the memory of my recent holiday, where the washing machine in my apartment broke and I had to visit a downtown Launderette to sort out fresh, clean towels and tees.

I paid out 10 Euros for 4 washes.

This is not much as a one off payment, but when you consider that two people produce quite a bit of washing over the course of a month, it is quite plausible that someone without a washing machine might have to, as a matter of course, pay out approximately £50 / 50 Euros a month (at these average sort of rates) in order to keep their clothes reasonably clean.

If you consider that a cheap but sturdy and new washing machine costs around £200, it does not take a genius to work out that poor people who go to Launderettes a lot are spending the same amount one would spend on a new machine, every 4 months approximately.

This does not make the poor person a mug - it means they do not have instant expendable income to blow on a machine up front, and it means their credit rating is shit for various potential reasons.

The conclusion here is that poor people pay more for this aspect to every day living than richer people.

There are many other areas where this dichotomy occurs. Take earnings and banking for example. Poor areas will always have at least one of those god-awful 'cheque cashing in' establishments. You know the sort of place. It has a gaudy yellow sign and invitingly asks people to cash their cheques for the mere fee of around 15-20%% of the total sum of the cheque.

Places like this ought to be called things like 'Bend Over Please' and 'Mugs Galore', because this is how these places treat people. Like absolute shit.

The Money Shop - so called because you go into the shop, and you hand over your hard earned money. A business model inspired by the famous ex-Chancellor called Mr G. Brown. You might have heard of him.

The factors that push the poor into going to these places do not apply to middle class people (like me) or anyone else higher up the socio-economic scale. A lot of down at heel and down on their luck people tend to go to cheque cashing places and similar establishments because they are so poor, they can't afford to hang on to wait for a cheque to clear normally.

They may even be out of work, and have a one off cheque to cash, or they may be cashing one of their own cheques to get money fast, in the hope that fresh funds will hit their account to cancel it all out. Overall, we're talking about desperate people in desperate straits. The kind of people that wind up paying banks £40 overdraft charges and such the like - yet more things the poor pay out for that no-one else does.

Another area where the poor disproportionately feel the pinch relates to the food shop. If you do alright for yourself, and you do not have a heart attack at the thought of trying to feed yourself and your family, you probably (like me) shop either once a week or once a fortnight. If you're wealthy, you either shop once a month and spend a grand stuffing the cupboards and chest freezers (new money) or you shop every day for the best and freshest produce from local village delis (old money).

The poor don't quite do it like that. They shop as and when they have spare cash, which is usually either on pay day or giro day. More importantly, unlike their more comfortable peers, they do not have the propensity or ability to take advantage of 'economies of scale'.

It's one of those things, but this tin of beans will cost you around 1p less than a tin 3 times its size. People who buy in smaller quantities pay vastly more for the same amount of food over time than people who buy 'in bulk'.

Supermarkets, particularly in Britain, are all about the bulk and BOGOF deals. The more you buy, the more you save. Poor people can't go lashing off on large quantities, in part because they can't come up with the cash up front and their homes and fridges have less storage.

Those on the bottom rung are also less likely to have access to cash and carries and they are less likely to go abroad so often, thereby not availing themselves of the opportunity of taking advantage of cheap cigarettes, alcohol and such the like.

It is also worth mentioning that, contrary to popular myth, because of the crash in the pound against the Euro, Aldi and Lidl aren't particularly cheap any more. Poorer types tend to go there, yet they are better off going to horrid places like Asda. The cost of importing from the Euro zone is such that goods sourced by UK based supermarkets from UK based producers make the prices more attractive than goods that are not from Aldi and Lidl. The sooner that old chestnut about those two ridiculous German supermarkets is blown apart, the better for everyone.

Here's a massive example that most people certainly will not encounter. The phenomenon of the gas and electric 'key meters'.

I feel sorry for people who have to use these. Apart from anything else, the stigma attached to this way of life must be depressing - unless I've got all that wrong and they really don't give a fuck.

In a nut shell, people use these instead of paying for their energy in monthly or quarterly bills because they are dirt poor and cannot afford to allow their bills to run away. They need to keep a check on it all. Of course there are some who have been forced to use these because of bad debts or unpaid bills or because the property is black listed (maybe because of a former tenant).

Whatever the reason, it boils down to a shortage of freddies - but like with all the examples given above, this all costs the user more in the long run. It's a far more expensive way of using therms, amps and kilojoules of energy. In short, it's another area where the poor are getting their botties ruined and their teats milked.

There are countless more examples I could give. I could also focus on how the richer you are, the less you pay. People who shove expensive lifestyles on the, er, expenses. People who get comped at nice and pricey hotels, people who get tickets and invites to stuff for gratis, free champagne, free cars home, free this and that.

The idea that the poor lead cheap lives is a myth. Just thought it worth pointing out. That's it really.

Good ol' Ken Clarke. I disagree with him on Europe and taxation, but by and large he's an incredibly capable and experienced old hand and he'd make an excellent minister in pretty much any department.

The Guardian has reported some things he came out with in a recent speech, where he voiced his concerns that the Tories appear 'a bit bland' on account of the fact that the party has not done enough to set out its policies to the public.

Can't really argue with that. Clarke also rightly points out some concerns over Cameron's attitude to big business - Clarke wants the party to be the most pro business party of government since the war. Again, can't really argue with that either.

Cameron can't really do without Clarke - one of the few and great survivors of the '97 cull. At the same time, he must worry about his propensity to turn into a loose canon on occasion. Clarke does not really do the whole 'saying shit I don't really believe' thing. Maybe at his age, he thinks he does not have to. Good on him, I say. We need more honest mavericks on politics, not less.

That the Tories refuse to properly set out their stall speaks volumes about their gutlessness and dishonesty - they are treating us like mugs, thinking we've had enough of Labour and will simply shoe them in.

I distrust and dislike Cameron and Osborne. My ambivalence towards them has solidified into outright opposition. They remind me of the sorts of Tories I used to know, the type that would take one look at me, hear me speak and then trot off with their noses in the air. I think they are arrogant, pompous snobs with absolutely no connection to real people. They think leadership is their human right, because of their upbringing and Etonian education.

As much as I usually oppose the politics of Peter Hitchens, I think he did a good service in highlighting Cameron's Toff-esque credentials in his C4 documentary, Toff at the Top.

I cannot be the only one to cast a cynical eye on Cameron and his buddies who have all emerged in the top positions in the Tory party. It is now a tightly knit crowd of snooty hooray Henrys. I doubt they are capable of governing, many of them will probably treat it all like a jolly baity parlour game and I'm not sure how I feel about being led under their administration.

Remember that George Osborne / Russian Oligarch (Deripaska) business back in October? Well, people don't like Mandelson for a reason. Do we need another toffy nosed fuckwit with political power and no principles running the show?

If we want normal people with the capability of running a country with ability and integrity and if we want to junk sleaze and all that business, then voting for the Tories is not the answer. Trouble here of course, is that not voting Tory allows Labour (who are horrific) a fourth term. This will mean the country will die quicker, and not necessarily less painfully.

All this makes me move towards a pro-PR position. If smaller parties can get somewhere, maybe the monopoly over politics could be broken and politics may improve.

As explained on Obo's site today, Total Politics are running their yearly voting for the top ten most liked and popular blogs.

If you are a regular reader, or you only pop in every now and then to see what we're saying, and you like us, please do slot us in on a top ten ballot and send it to 'toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com'

We appreciate your support.

Thanks

Mr Boatang & Mr Demetriou

All this crime talk has caused a bit of debate between the Mighty D and B, namely why we don't just sort it out. Sounds simple, but in many ways it is.

The most annoying thing about the crime debate is self-convinced twats on either side like Hitchens and Tornbee. As far as they are concerned the only way to sort the mess out is their way, and their way cannot possibly fit with any other way. This is bullshit of course.

Crime, the great issue that people care about when it happens to them and when some statistics come out. The rest of the time the public couldn't give a shit. It's a simple fact and because it is a fact the politicians don't care either. Here, however, we do give a shit and our naturally pragmatic leaning allows us to offer something else. So here we go.

Certain things have been well established for decades, centuries in some cases. In prison it a proven fact that putting Wee Jimmy the petty thief in a cell with Angelo the crack head pimp and 'Mad' Johnny Two Fingers the serial rapist tends to result in Wee Jimmy becoming a serious career criminal.

It is also a known fact that the vast majority of inmates have serious mental health issues, were usually expelled from school, are almost certain to be illiterate and a high proportion have been in care.

So, it is completely pointless to put a 19 year old first timer who cannot read or write, was thrown out of school at 13, abandoned by his Mum and has spent ten years going from foster home to foster home and as such as developed a large smack habit leading to major mental health problems in a cell with two or three hardened cons and 'punishing' him with serious time. He will not get anywhere and will almost certainly come out worse than he went in.

However, there is a flip side.

Prison sentences in this country are pathetic. We have had so many Criminal Justice Acts I have lost count several times over. Each one trying to clear up the mess of the last. I watched, for some unknown reason, a few minutes of ITV's highbrow documentary 'Cops With Cameras'. Two cases stood out. One was a woman who properly smacked a copper in the face. The second was a large row in a club where a knife was found and the guy arrested. His mate with a monkey's brain told the officer it was his, so they nicked him too. He went mental, assaulted four coppers, ran off, did some more cop bashing and was eventually arrested.

The woman got 4 months suspended for assaulting a police officer. The bloke got an £80 fine for assaulting four officers, possessing a lethal weapon, resisting arrest and drunk and disorderly.

A fucking joke. You'd get worse for being a unit over the limit.

So, sentencing does not deter those who commit crimes, the scum who will do it no matter what are then not duly punished when inside. The whole shouldn't be-watching-telly-should-be-breaking-rocks thing is a tad old hat, but there is an underlying truth to it.

Prison is there to punish the criminal and by removing him from society, protecting the public. That is the fundamental tenet of prison. But while they are there the perfect opportunity to sort them out presents itself.

First off, sentencing. I won't go through the whole lot, but minimums, not maximums, should be in place. Beyond that the Judge should be allowed to apply the law as he sees fit without limit from politicians. The sentence should also be the sentence, all this half tariff good behaviour rubbish is absurd and the public mood is firmly against it. Sentences should also, in most cases such as rape (and I class paedophilia as rape, because it is) and murder, run consecutively. None of the concurrent bollocks. You kill three people, you get a minimum of 25 years each consecutively. Carrying a knife is automatically with intent and as such it should be an automatic, minimum, 3 years.

This is not about deterrent as such, although I don't believe extreme sentences deter anyone, the examples above are so lax it would surely make many think twice. It is about what is appropriate.

Second, prison buildings. The number of people doing time does not change the amount of crime. Simple fact. We have a huge number of people inside and crime is going up. The prisons are too full and this makes the job of punishment and rehabilitation all the harder. I advocate two to a cell maximum because it helps the institution, not so they can have a cushy life.

Third, prison itself. The order of the day is to get prisoners to sort themselves out whilst realising they are being punished. After being woken up at 6am they should be fed and watered, then taken off to learn how to read. After that they should go off to drug rehabilitation if needed, or therapy. Then in the afternoon and evening they should be put to work, kitchens, making uniforms, cleaning the prison, doesn't matter. TV is banned, computers are banned except for monitored educational purposes. If you aren't working or being treated, then you should be learning or asleep.

We simply cannot ignore that many are there because of the issues they have and while they are there those issues can at least be sorted out.

The important factor is what they get. I find it laughable that mobile phone signals are not blocked and that drugs are smuggled in. It's a fucking prison, maybe we should start treating it like that. Block the phone signals and search every tiny thing that is brought in, staff included. If you are found with drugs it's a year on your sentence.

So, sentences are harsher and implemented in the way they were always intended, prisons are increased in number so that the staff can do their jobs and cell mates are more evenly matched, and prison life is cracked down on in a mixture of hard work, enforced learning and compulsory therapy.

The Left nor the Right will advocate this. One wants all out rehabilitation and understanding, the other wants all out punishment and hard labour. The fact of the matter is that neither system works.

America is a country governed by fear and fear of crime is the number one type. They have out of control gun crime, out of control gang culture and out of control violent crime. They have legal firearms of course, but this is not the sole problem. What they do have is a huge penal system, the death penalty in many states and police officers and metal detectors in schools.

The latter is doing nothing to stop the former. The response to crime is ever increasing punishment and draconian security measures. This is where the classic Right wing solution gets you: an arms race.

Tackling crime is a multi-pronged attack. You need to punish, severely in many cases, those who commit the crime, you need to rehabilitate those who can be and you need to stop the route causes of crime.

Many crossover. For instance it is quite simply unacceptable that in 2009 1 in 8 11 year olds cannot read.That is a total failure of education policy and it's knock on effects vis a vis crime and the economy are obvious. Mental health care in this country is farcical and is the subject of complete disdain from government, not just this one but forever and a day. It is not a vote winner and so it is not on the radar. The whole social services situation when taking children into care is a cruel joke. How they are placed and how they are educated is a shambles.

These are issues for other departments that have a direct contribution to the crime that none of us want. In fact they feed it directly. You will never stop the people who want to murder or rape, or those who will always be scum - they are the people that get cracked down on hard - but you can prevent people who could lead perfectly normal lives from falling through the cracks.

It is not as simple as 'more police on the streets', or 'life means life', or 'send them all to rehab'. Crime is fed by a huge range of areas that all need to be tackled at once. The results would take several years, but at this scale the public would just have to wait for the overall results.

What is truly criminal is the skewing of statistics by the media and the complete sidelining of a major issue by the political elite. They distort it, fire it up, then ignore it over and over again.

Yep, it's that time of year when bullshit, fiddled stats on crime make its way into the public consciousness. Predictably enough, you had the left wing Labour Party supporting BBC and the left wing and Labour Party supporting Guardian newspaper choose the most flattering stats for the government. The 'G' ran with this piece, which misleads the public into thinking that murder is not so common now, when it demonstrably is a widespread problem - murder rates are shockingly high, with nearly 700 people being killed last year.

Were it not for the amazing work of doctors and paramedics, how many more would be added to the tally of the murdered?

The BBC and Guardian have been very selective in what stats to publicise and prioritise as part of the mixed bag that came out. Neither left wing purveyor of journalism properly explained how the recording standards have changed over the years - we have not been told the full story, and they seek to play down just how lawless and hostile and broken this country has become.

Naturally, because of left wing policies and the absence of any half decent punishments.

To contrast against this, the Telegraph ran this piece, which leads with the figures that have risen, not fallen (pickpocketing, bag snatches).

It might be worth putting this into context. Since the '90s, we have seen near enough 5 million crimes a year recorded in England and Wales. Whether there's a bit of a fall or a bit of a rise, it is far far higher than the levels of the '70s or before.

No-one talks about how crime has disproportionately shot through the roof (in comparison with population levels). No-one talks about solutions outside of left wing ones, and the traditional solution of the modern day 'prison'.

The stats come, we digest them in the Metro or the Beeb, then we forget them till next year. The left wing press lies and plays it down, the right wing press scare the shit out of people without boldly presenting solutions to the issues.

The question is: why are Boaty and D so god damned good, and why are we not recognised as the pure legends that we are? Come back for real incisive comment and analysis. You won't regret it.

Strange fella that Nick Griffin, he has an amazing ability to talk absolute shite that sounds just about intelligent enough so that people with an IQ of less than 60 think he is talking sense.

On the Andrew Marr show he has now claimed that the BNP have realised that an all-white Britain just isn't possible. But not because they are no longer racist morons, but because

Nobody out there wants it or would pay for it

Which I love, because it pretty much ends a large proportion of what his party stands for in this strange realisation that nobody actually wants it. If you don't know, the BNP constitution is fundamentally racist, as I went though last month. As such the very essence of this party is the 'purification' of the races - or folks as they like to call it - of the British Isles. So by saying they no longer want this is tantamount to giving up.

Except it's complete bollocks. The constitution remains and the exclusion of non-whites is still the core of it. It also states that they are against white people having children with anyone of any other colour. So, basically, whites only



Stalin and Hitler. Two fine upstanding citizens of the world who simply wanted to make it a better place. Or not. Griffin refutes he is a fascist and that anyone who claims this is simply smearing him, which would be terrible. The thing is the BNP are a strange mix of Stalin and Hitler, they have the race obsessed doctrines of the right mixed with left wing economic policies.

The two men were also, as much as they were abhorrent people, superb at convincing the population to believe them and do what they said. Much of this was fear of course, but in the early years it was much more to do with strength of will and knowing what to say and how to say it coupled with, most importantly, what not to say.

Griffin has none of this and consistently reveals his inadequacies as a politician. In this interview he has blagged his way through some rubbish about no longer wanting some sort of Ayrian brotherhood in this country, made up of the kinfolk of these ancient shores of course. To the untrained eye or some normal, ignorant chap who happened to have the BBC on it may have seemed plausible.

Then he put his foot in it.

Last week he made the quite amazing announcement that people who get on boats in North Africa in a bid to reach Italy and a new life should have their 'boats' blown out of the water. John looked at this in a very good article. This is all part of the new and quite terrifying international position the good people of Yorkshire have given him at the EU.

He can now talk endless racial rubbish in a new found international context, playing with the other extremists that have been given a voice such as the Northern League in Italy. Rather than say this, let it die down and use the Marr Show to put across a nicer position, rather than bat Marr's question away with a joke or something, he said this.

What needs to be done as an example is to sink a couple of boats near the shores of Libya - throw them lifebelts so they can paddle back, so they understand they will never get to Europe. Because the alternative is accepting that Britain eventually is going to end up like Africa.

Well done, you have shed the pretence of the new age, all the colours of the rainbow and revealed your true self.

So, 'near the shores of Libya'. Really Nick? Because that would mean an act of war in Libyan territorial waters wouldn't it you dick. The 200 miles off the coast is known as the Exclusive Economic Zone and under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea a coastal country "cannot regulate or prohibit passage or loitering above, on, or under the surface of the sea, whether innocent or belligerent, within that portion of its exclusive economic zone beyond its territorial sea". The first 12 miles are territorial waters and this is why migrants head for the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa.

Basically the whole idea is illegal under international law, a law which, if broken, would have massive consequences. Either the Libyans do it in their waters, or the Italians do in their's, the EU has no power to do anything at all any further than 12 miles from Lampedusa. A bit far to paddle home and would actually become Italy's problem.

My favourite has to be 'so they can paddle back'. Classic stuff. Paddle? How close to Libya is he planning this act of aggression because we're getting pretty close to invading Tripoli here. Once the small raft is blown out of the water by a gunship the migrants will simply be thrown a lifebelt and they can shout 'Thanks, see you again tomorrow', and swim off. I'm not sure if they have to pay for the lifebelt though.

And of course, the biggy. If we don't blow up this 'boats' that are carrying illegal migrants from Libya to Italy, Britain will 'end up like Africa'. The absurdity of this comment is one a whole new level.

It is quite common, of course, for them to get to Lampedusa, then claim asylum. Then after being kept in the camp there for a few months and arriving in southern Italy they often trek all the way through Europe, all the way to Calais. Then they either apply again to the UK and spend another few months in a camp, or get in a lorry. Honest.

If we don't start blowing these fuckers up and let them paddle home, we're in a right old two and eight and that's a fact.

The man is a moron. But who's worse, the fool or those that believe him?

So I finished my meeting around lunchtime and found myself with several hours to kill before I was due to board my train home. 'What better opportunity', I thought, 'to have a wonder about the place I used to call home?' My dear old London town. The place of my birth, teenage years and early career.

So off I toddled. Making my way down Grays Inn Road, near Kings Cross, along through Oxford Street, then up into old 'Bertie Wooster' country (W1) with all the blue plaque Georgian Terraces and 'old money' abodes of the rich and long-gentrified.

Along New Cavendish Street for a bit, then up to Great Portland Street, carrying on West to Marylebone, Edware Road, Hyde Park, then cruising through Bayswater, Notting Hill and ultimately High Street Kensington. By which time I was knackered and in urgent need of a tube ride back to the station.

I didn't stop walking. I found the whole thing rather fascinating. So fascinating, I even stopped off at a Boots half way through my tour de force so I could pick up 'two for one' Boots disposable cameras. A snap-snap-snapping I went. I must have seemed like a right tourist prat to all those tourists.

My observations, as a Londoner who rarely comes back to see his old City of yore, were startling.

My first observation is actually a subject that I will return to in careful detail this week in a new article. I must revisit it, because it is an important topic and I also want to explain my position clearly in order to dispel any radical and incorrect misapprehensions that may arise.

It is this: where have all the English people gone? In fact, never mind English, where are all the British?

'Yeah, yeah, what do you expect, you went through tourist land etc'. Well, not exactly. Some of these 'zone 1' enclaves I passed through are very traditional local London stomping grounds. I know the fucking difference between Edgware Road and Harley Street; Oxford Street and Marylebone High Street.

The fact is, regardless of the obvious identifiers of people of foreign extraction, almost everyone who walked past, be it in groups or on the mobile phone, spoke in foreign languages. I decided to test it all out and asked a good two dozen people the way to Notting Hill. Only two people could speak back to me in English - and one of these, an old and immensely polite woman, knew the answer.

"How's your Portuguese, Jeeves?" "Ahem, not so good, sir. May I be permitted to ask why you enquire this of me, sir?" "You'll need it to order my pastrami and pickled gherkin sandwich, Jeeves. It's OK, you can 'make a sign'."

The fact is, whilst harbouring no resentment or ill-feeling to the foreign guests in my midst, what started as a joyous task (a leisurely summer stroll through the heart of old London) quickly became a little, I don't know...depressing.

I asked myself why, and I came to one over-arching conclusion: humans (yes, that includes me, hard to believe huh?) require some form of bond and cohesion, some identification with our fellow man. It's what makes our DNA - a need almost to feel part of something. That something, perhaps, being 'society'. If everyone belongs to their own little groups, speak their own languages and don't interact much (modern day London in a nut shell) then things do not work so well.

Of course not everyone was foreign, but the place resembled Babel at market day if I'm being honest. And here's the clincher: never before have I seen so many Muslims wearing traditional modes of dress (often seen as acts of people pitching their identity to their masts and separating themselves from the wider community).

The Niqab, the Hijab, full facial coverings, the Burka, headscarves, black winter weight materials, flip flops the whole lot. Pakistani Muslims, I believe. With some better turned out 'Gulfies' and groups of Somalis thrown into the mix.

As I say, I have no ill will towards them. I just felt a bit awkward about it. All such people I briefly encountered, walking past them, bar none, spoke a language other than English. They looked different. Contrary to British custom, many of them concealed their identities, though notably not that of their children.

This was not just in Edgeware Road, where one would expect to see such a blend of people. This was in every street, every postcode.

I took my task a little further, and dropped by several pubs and cafes for soft drink refreshment. Again, if I was not served by someone from abroad, I was sat next to someone from abroad speaking another language.

So I was faced with the bizarre experience, one I do not recall having before, where I was surrounded by absolutely beautiful architecture, parks, gardens and sites of amazing historical importance whilst at the same time, feeling totally alien to my surroundings and almost a ghost passing through a void.

I have never experienced this before, so why now? I know part of the answer to this, which I will go into in my next piece.

I would like to know this, though. If so many Londoners, or visitors to London, are apparently down at heel and scruffy as indeed most people I encountered were, who is paying these exorbitant rents for small flats in W1 and nearby postcodes?

I stopped by a letting agents near Marylebone, and had a curious peek at some of the 'housing' on offer to anyone interested in living in the heart of town. 'Two bedroom apartment, fully furnished, kitchen, lounge blah blah...£850'.

'£850', I thought. Not bad. Could be worse.

No, no...per week. Yes, that's right, £44,200 a year. On rent. Excluding bills etc. So, to afford it and just about live a half respectable life, you'd have to be on, what, a hundred K a year, rock bottom min? Thus putting you in the top one percent of the earning population.

When my parents were young, back in the '60s, you'd have middle earners with the fucking title deeds to flats in Covent Garden. Now, you have to be a Russian Oligarch to afford to live in vast swathes of the British capital.

And therein lies part of the rub - Stacks of the best London real estate is owned by the dodgy super rich, from the Gulf States but more often these days from Russia and other former Communist bloc countries. They hardly ever stay in them, but that's not the point is it. What this does to the housing market is of course the stuff of property analyst legend. The outcome is not good for working Londoners that's for sure.

So my smog laden trek continued, into the midst of what I usually identify as my favourite part of London - Kensington. It was quiet. The housing was stark white and sumptuous. Builders carried out maintenance on scaffolding, with their voices echoing down silent streets.

The streets of the hugely wealthy - I wonder where they all were. They're clearly too rich for normal jobs. I overheard one conversation between two well dressed young blokes in their '30s who just got out of a Porsche Carrera: "yeah, rents are coming down...I'm just in the process of selling one of my flats in Manhattan".

Sorry...one of your flats in Manhattan?

Jesus Christ.

This was one of my few brief sightings of English people. A rare breed it seems these days down there in the capital. Soon after I exited the locality, I mooched my way into High Street Kensington, which these days tends to resemble any other smog packed, bus jammed high street. I took a picture of Evil Towers (the Daily Mail HQ) and then went for a coffee (thirsty work all this walking in sultry summer city heat).

I was served by a Polish girl. Very efficient. Probably a lovely person. Except her 'efficiency' was so efficient, I found it almost jarring. 'Yes, I am actually a person ordering this stuff, not robot number 9, thanks. You can smile back.'

The tube back was fun. I stood next to a group of around 10 twenty something Italians who all spoke to each other raucously and at the same time. Which was, to put it mildly, deafening. No-one else seemed to care.

The young professional females on the tube sat there po faced, ignoring it, all tightly bunched together next to badly dressed blokes and people in their forties dressed like 18 year olds. Most of them spotty or with some acne problems. Probably because they are so busy they haven't the mental capacity to look after themselves properly. Either than or the shitty atmospheric conditions and germ ridden public transport make being clean and non-dishevelled nigh on impossible.

As I walked into the station, ready to head back to my blessed idyll, I looked round and saw the ubiquitous London symbol of our age. A CCTV camera. For almost every street I walked along, and almost every building bar a number of residential private houses had one of these.

I wonder how many of them followed me as I took pictures of foreign embassies and old pubs

If we're not being watched, we're being forgotten.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust, two things will survive. Cockroaches, and CCTV cameras.

I happened to see that Chris Moyles, a professional fat cunt who everyone thinks is a fat fucking cunt, is moaning because the BBC are trying to stop him being so much a total fucking fat fucking cunt.

What a cunt

He also claims to be 35. My fucking arse is this guy 35 years old and if he is, then being a total nob cheese must really age you.

The cunt is also going on this 'Who Do You Think You Are?', which he thinks the answer is 'the greatest thing ever to have existed'. The show, for those who haven't seen it, involves a load of sort of celebrities wondering around Europe and beyond doing family research.

The conclusion is always pretty obvious. Anyone who is Jewish strangely enough finds out something nasty about the second world war. Anyone who is black usually finds some sort of slavery story. Babs Windsor appeared shocked that her family were, prepare yourself, working class and lived in, you will never guess...the slums of East London. What a fucking shocker.

It always makes me laugh when they suddenly go off to some great-great-uncle because it's the only remotely interesting thing in their history, like 99% of the rest of us.

They then always cry at being confronted with something that should really be expected. In this fat obnoxious wanker's case he will find out that his great-grandfather died in the first world war. He cries. Newsflash for cuntoid: a lot of people's ancestors died in a war that claimed millions of people so please spare me your emotional bullshit for someone you never knew and died nearly a hundred years ago.

This overpaid, over hyped, over fed cunting cunt can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned. In fact stick him in a boat with Zane 'Fucking Cunt' Lowe and send it on its way.

This piece is very different to my usual stuff. It's sort of political in a way, but more of a personal story and a social comment about the London suburbs.

You see, I'm from the 'burbs. I left the 'burbs years ago and now live in an entirely different setting. But my experiences still live on in memory and they naturally feed into my politics and entire world view. It will help to explain part of the reason why I react so strongly against the Daily Mail and why I embrace Libertarianism.

I hate people impressing their bullshit on others. I hate people telling others what to do, how to live and how to behave. I hate moral pomposity and hypocrisy and aloof arrogance of any hue. I hate repression and oppression.

I hate Paul Dacre's guts.

Growing up in the 'burbs taught very many valuable lessons. Yet it has been the passage of time, time that has taken me long and far away from those climbs, that has really given me the most important instruction on what the suburbs do to people. What their effect is on humans and why they are sick, fucked up places to exist within.

Unless you've grown up in the 'burbs, you almost certainly won't appreciate what the fuck I mean when I talk about them. You won't properly understand why I can be brutally anti-'liberal' left and also anti Daily Mail little-middle England.

Because the suburbs are inhabited by three types of people: very old people who are living out the rest of their days doing the gardening and obsessing over land-rights and borders around garden fences etc, the older baby boomer generation (the parents of now-30 somethings like me) and a type of person who I, for brevity and ease of use, refer to as the 'pikey'.

Unless you're from the suburbs, you will probably see this word and wince. It's OK, I understand why - you're civilised, liberal-minded and disapprove of prejudice against travellers. Except there's no racism here: pikey is a term not exclusively used in reference to travellers. Least not by Mr Boatang and I, who use it in a context we and those like us understand.

It doesn't even mean 'chav' (a term that is so often and widely used it has lost all meaning, and tends to be used by snobs in reference to the white working class.)

The 'pikey' is the ubiquitous life form that inhabits suburban dwellings, having realised that there are better birds and more drug money there than in places like Dagenham and the Isle of Dogs, and also far fewer blacks - whom pikeys despise, being the racist scum that they are.

Pikeys don't dress down. They don't know how to dress down. Instead they choose an existence that requires them to draw down as much debt (former cheap debt) as possible in order to vigorously pursue the life of the footballer or WAG. Gucci, Moschino, Versace, Armani, Ralphy (Ralph Lauren), Fred Perry, all the clothes are labelled items, in ostentatious colours, stinking of the most expensive and tacky cologne or perfume on the market.

They hate anyone who isn't like them, they detest any sign of civilised conduct or educated behaviour and they are immersed in a way of being that is alien to anyone that isn't part of their culture.

They are ubiquitous. They fill every pub and contaminate them with their loud, obnoxious and violent behaviour - verbal and physical. They snort coke in the toilets, they talk about women like they are bags of meat for the pounding, they murmur about attacking people who happen to look at them by mistake.

The 'pikey' may not be particularly poor. He or she may have a half decent job, though usually these younger 'new money' types will be involved in drugs which continue to be a spectacularly lucrative trade for these wannabe big time dealers.

Little wonder that the suburbs have become such an alluring place to hang out. They find their best and most prolific and moneyed custom there. There is also prestige for the pikey who hangs out in the suburbs.

Liberal commentators in the press confuse them with the derided 'chav'. They don't know these people; they have never met them. Daily Mail readers spit venom at them, again, without understanding much about who they are and what they are doing there.

Mr Boatang and I know all too well what these people are like, because we grew up surrounded by them. We went to the same schools as these people, drank in the same pubs, shopped in similar shops.

Except whilst Mr B and I have successfully and fortunately moved away from these confined circles, our friends are still lost in the soup - they still live amongst them, and they are forced to put up with the repugnant and negative fall out of their presence.

For decent, civilised people of my age, who have been cursed by the Daily Mail suburban life since birth, 'getting out' seems less and less of an option the longer time drags on. Mr B. and I are in the painful position of watching our varied friends from the burbs literally founder, seemingly unable to find a partner and move on in life. Not all of them, but most of them.

A major reason, and all this links with the above, is because the mating pool in the suburbs is so woefully poor. Unable to afford London prices, and lacking the energy, enthusiasm and unrepressed drive to go anywhere else, our friends stay put. Where the population of the suburbs and its demographics have changed and expanded, the mating pool has in fact stagnated.

Our many single friends are faced with a choice of two types of woman:

Essentially, the same type of creature and one who is not remotely interested in 'dating' (or as people in their circles would call it - fucking) people who:

• Have a degree
• Are called something other than 'Darren', 'Dan', 'Danny', 'Danno', 'Dave', Dar'', 'Daw', 'Dazza' or 'Danmeister'.
• Don't drive a pikeyed up car with alloys, UV light, Pioneer speakers with sub woof, spoiler, racing exhaust.
• Wear clothes without the label gaudily splattered over the front.
• Don't have a criminal record or some brush up with the law.
• Don't deal or supply class A
• Don't speak with glottal stops in an Estuary effect.
• Tend to avoid fighting.
• Drink beverages that do not begin with the word 'Stella' and end in the world 'Artois'.

Our lads have not a fucking hope. Even if they did want to dabble in the forbidden fruit that is the pikey girl, and even on the billion to one shot they'd be interested, there would inevitably be a series of blokes (probably called 'Darren' or 'Dave') waiting in the wings to give them a kicking. By virtue of the fact they have their number and slept with them within the last 7 days.

Any female worth her salt has long disappeared from the suburbs, or, has settled for a bloke already and is therefore accounted for.

Single, eligible and half respectable does not exist. From 18 all the way through into the 30s and beyond. Our boys only have these types to contend with, and it is a cause for much consternation. For they are wondering what went wrong and how things have ended up so fucked. Dry patch? These lads are in the Gobi desert without a fucking camel.

The answer is for them to move - just move for fuck sake lads!

Alas, because of the very nature of the 'burbs and 'burb-esque upbringings, they do not have the mental disposition or drive to do so. Such is the Daily Mail way ... 'you will stay here forever...you will never move on, never become an individual...'.

Oh yes, it is the Daily Mail way too - for one common factor here is that all our mates' parents, bar none, have been life long Daily Hate readers. They have therefore been subjected to mind abuse and weird English repression for years. It's like a trap, a poison of sorts.

I'm not sure who I'm angry at most for the fucking up of my mates - the pikey scum bags who ruin everything, or the Daily Mail for making the world look like a tightly sealed bag of Werthers Originals.

It's a sad, sad state of affairs.

Mr Boatang? Thank fuck we made it son. Thank fuck we never got sucked into the trap.


[to read an old piece I wrote on the suburbs, click here]

According to the BBC, a genie (as in, a genie in a lamp, as in, Aladdin's Lamp) is being taken to court by a Saudi family for harassment. The genie was throwing stones apparently.

I feel sorry for the Genie. I mean, it might have its handle cut off for that. Over here it'd get an ASBO tops, and might incur a little rust over the course of a few weeks. Nothing a little TLC couldn't sort out at the hands of caring social workers and probation officers.

Let's hope the Genie gets a fair trial. I am a little concerned though. From what I hear, Genies aren't the most loquacious of artifacts. Someone once told me that Genies don't actually speak at all. So how this will play out in terms of giving evidence in court, I don't know.

What sort of trial will this be if the defendant is not able to respond to the allegations?

Prosecution: I put it to you, Genie, that you hurled shit at your master on the afternoon of the 16th July last year, and in doing so you caused unnecessary distress and anxiety for all in the vicinity. How do you respond?

Genie:

Prosecution: I see...I ask the members of the jury to make their own conclusions on your blatant silence in response to my reasonable question. Is there nothing at all you want to say in your defence?

Genie:

Prosecution: Members of the jury, maybe you would like to see these photographs. The children. The poor, poor children weeping and cowering in terror. Maybe you'll speak NOW, Mr Genie?

Members of Jury: *GAASP! OOHHHH, GHMMMM*

Genie:

Or...the Genie could hire Johnnie Cochrane. In which case, it could fuck the its master's wife up the Kulo and kill the kids in the face and get off all charges.

This could be difficult though. I don't know many Genie's who could afford those fees.

Adios!

I'm going out on a limb this morning. I'm in a proper nihilistic, couldn't-give-a-motherfuck-mood and I really couldn't give a flying gnat's pussy squirt whether any of you cunts are offended or if you ever come back.

That's how we play shit here on Boaty & D. We can be all polite and incredibly articulate and intelligent in our articles. Then wham! We'll get the hump about something and stick a few sheaves of paper containing spectacular words of genius right up your dirty little poo box. So fuck you, and go get a colonic. You cunt.

So here it is on a platter: Britain is overpopulated. No, I don't think we have a population of 80 fucking million people right now, based on an article in the 'not so' Independent newspaper which explains how the figure is based on 'what we eat'. The government is totally fucking corrupt and incompetent but even they couldn't mask a population increase of this scale since the last 2001 census.

However, this sort of figure could be reached by 2060. It's an upwards trend. Right wingers across the board are correct when they state that this country is hemorrhaging law abiding, decent folk who go abroad to travel or live, whilst those coming in are quite often broke and from differing cultures that might not lend itself towards a happy co-existence in these times of multiculturalism.

I would assert that it is not just your moneyed Mail reading twats who fuck off to places like Thailand and Toronto. I have witnessed many friends and other people I know disappear off abroad never to return, and they are diverse in their political beliefs and monetary wealth.

The point is, the country is overpopulated and the country is not only worse off because of the obvious strains on housing and resources, but because civic values, civilised behaviour, peaceful conduct and mental well being are all on the massive wane.

This provides government with the perfect tool by which they can beat the public into submission through 'justified' authoritarian measures and new laws. 'We need to enact this law and stop you from doing this', says government, 'because otherwise things would get out of control'.

And it's not just London I'm talking about - although the place of my upbringing and 20s has certainly spiraled from an exciting, interesting city into a total, abject, Orwellian hell hole in my lifetime. It's everywhere.

Even in the county where I live, new homes have shot up at a rate of knots, and with the house price crash, it's only a matter of time before the twin evils of social housing and buy to let investors come along to snap up the vacant properties, thus turning them into cheap rentals for the burgeoning scum class that seems to multiply like a defective solar powered calculator that's been out in the midday sun.

It is not often spoken about, but cases of mental health crises in Britain, particularly in urban areas in London, have skyrocketed over recent years. This often affects young black people, often males.

Why? Because places like London are so hideously overpopulated and they are unhealthy, nasty, synthetic, unnatural places for humans to live. The stresses and strains, particularly for those on the bottom rung of the ladder who for various reasons can't move on, are too much. It is an awful state of affairs, and the only way forward here is to get that population down.

This has nothing to do with colour or race or how much money people have, in case you have made that mistake. I am colour blind in this and I'm certainly no snob. It makes no difference to me how the racial make up changes, or whether there are less hard-up people. I just want the population to come down and for people to live happier, healthier and more integrated lives. This means less bullshit government meddling.

I'll make no bones about it, Thomas Malthus was a cunt. Quite how he managed to reach some of his conclusions when the population of Britain consisted of three maids, Daniel Defoe, Daniel Defoe's Yorkshire Terrier, a man named 'Lasenby', 'Smythe the Bootlegger' and several poets is beyond me.

Someone ought to have said: "Tom, it might be overpopulated in this half a mile square of the East End, but guess what...the rest of the country consists of meadows, forests and cow pats. Instead of ravaging the minuscule population of Britain with disease, war, murder and face-killing death, why don't we build a few houses?"

However, an eon later and his words are prescient. We're fucked, and it won't be god or government who comes along to sort it out. The former doesn't exist (certainly not in the format we impressionable humans think) and the latter exists all too evidently.

Like pretty much anything in life, things happen in cycles. History repeats itself, they say, and not just political history but scientific history, meteorological history and so on. Just because a fuck off world war happened in the '40s, doesn't mean something grand scale can't happen again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nuclear age, asymmetric warfare, non-conventional conflicts, blahdy fucking blah. Of course things have changed. But the concept of the viable state is being challenged all across Europe and other countries. This began with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and is being cemented following disastrous socialist and immigration policies enacted by 'social democratic' governments. Ask yourself how a supremely liberal country like the Netherlands can turn so harshly, so quickly in favour of less tolerant, more extreme wings of politics within a generation?

It is because of overpopulation and excessive immigration, during a time when left wing government insists on multiculturalism, rather than stepping back and allowing a fair, non-racist, multi-racial, libertarian way of things to develop within the context of reasonable, democratically chosen levels of immigration?

If countries don't end up fighting eachother, then countries will find their populations fighting amongst themselves. Nationalism never dies. That's a key fact. There may not be major, active border disputes within Europe, there may not be burgeoning imperialism or venomous relations between countries at present, but people when pressed in difficult circumstances will always find an 'other' to fight.

There's only so long Britain can keep up the pretence of being a functional, viable state. I may deride and spit blood at the reactionaries in the press, but when they speak of broken Britain and a decline into chaos, they may come from a different underlying position, but they are right.

The thing is, when all this comes to pass, how will it play out?

If Britain ends up fighting a foreign war, I can't see how we'd do that well. British troops are fantastic, but there's one problem: unless we bring back our knackered, overstretched Afghanistan force, we only have about 19 of them. And they're so young and inexperienced they'd find the Krypton Factor a bit too exciting.

The government, being cunts, would panic and consider conscription. Another problem presents itself. No, not so much the large numbers of people in this country who hate it. There have always been conscientious objectors and fifth columnists, it's nothing new really. Although it is a growing concern and people are definitely getting very pissed off at certain communities. Hence BNP support.

What bothers me is stuff like this:




This is the fastest growing type of individual in Britain today. The fucking stupid fat pikey. If the swelling underclass (or Cunt Class as I prefer to call them) aren't fat, then then are stupid, and probably pikey. If they're not pikeys, then they are almost certainly stupid. A lot of stupid people happen to be fat and a lot of fat people happen to be stupid.

No really, go into any given high street or town centre in Britain, actually make that anywhere at all, and you'll notice an alarming prevalence of the stupid fat fucking gypo twat. They are the most ubiquitous of all Britons. And they are absolutely sure as night is night and day is day fucking useless.

You couldn't train one of these fuckers to open their post or do a fucking barn dance, let alone equip themselves for battle.

There would be ministers in cabinet war rooms and crisis committee meetings, watching the country burn to the ground in the midst of blistering chaotic nihilistic Armageddon wondering what went wrong with all those radio ad campaigns about '5-a-day' and why the brilliant 'ASBO' system didn't seem to cut the mustard.

They'll never sit back and wonder whether they created this shit. Though they should be grateful. It's cunts like this that have helped authoritarian Labour become what they are...and stay in power.

Wouldn't it be great if somehow, the population of this country could be slackened off somewhat by sticking these cunts on the front line of battle? No...not as useful troops. I'm talking canon fodder here. They wouldn't do anything useful or help to win anything, because they are useless fat fucking stupid cunts, but there are too many of them and that's the point.

They'd make marvellous penal battalions would they not? They could even meet up with friends and relatives on the front line, once all the overcrowded prisons have been emptied and the ex convicts are lined up somewhere around Walthamstow tube station, all wondering what the fuck is going on.

Why not? The Russians were good at this. It helped them to defend Moscow from the Nazis. Though I wouldn't be looking to use the sorts of namby pampy tactics employed by the NKVD. I quite like the idea of using attack dogs to chase the fuckers towards the enemy. Would make the whole process much quicker.

I reckon if these people could be corralled out of their living rooms and off the park benches and stuck onto the field of battle, wherever that may be, we could finally get somewhere.

Otherwise...


...we're all fucked.

It's times like this when I really value the online Libertarian blogging community. Because if it weren't for such people, I would not appreciate the many things that I miss on my daily political plod.

An excellent article on 'GrumpyOldTwat's' site highlights some spectacular, unabashed and infuriating pro Labour Party bias from the BBC. Specifically from a recent broadcast of Question Time - an episode I actually watched on iPlayer. However, I did not catch certain evidence the first time around.

Have a look for yourself.



This sort of exposure is fantastic and it's really what is needed in a time when freedom of speech and opinion is being quashed by heavy handed, authoritarian government. The internet is, still, by and large, a bastion of freedom and we are yet to witness the sorts of crackdowns evident in other countries. Though I feel that as long as people like Grumpy Old Twat help to highlight outrageous state TV bias, there will always be a lobby within the elite that will seek to silence them.

Do have a look at the clip and let us know what you think of it. I was personally shocked by it. There's no two ways about it is there? You cannot interpret what Harman does, and how Dimbleby reacts, any other way. The BBC and the Labour government are totally in bed with eachother. Which was the opposite of when the Tories were in power, and the relationship was frosty to say the least.

How even left wingers could deny this is beyond me. You've even got ludicrous, shot, has-been no marks like Johann Hari who, every now and then, counter the obvious truth and growing discontent at BBC pro-left corruption with public braying about how the BBC is biased...to the right!

Well, they need to pump the stuff out there every now and then, for fear of more people waking up and smelling the coffee.

You are being taken for a total fucking ride. An absolute fucking shafter of a rollercoaster of a fucking Alton Towers Nemesis fucking helter fucking skelter of a piss taking ride.

You may not think it important, but all this stuff does is slowly and gradually shift the centre ground of British politics leftwards. Inch by inch, until the public psyche has little or no time to contemplate or understand conservative leaning or libertarian perspectives and policies.

The only saving grace is the fact that the Question Time audiences are obviously, to all but those of a mentally unbalanced disposition, rigged and overly stuffed with idealistic teenagers, '68er bitter-faced left wing trot hags and ivory tower dwelling smelly old professors. If the British electorate really was a reflection of the make-up of those audiences, we wouldn't ever have had the pretence of New Labour. We'd be in the middle of Socialist Mark 2, Phase 3, Andropov overfuckingdrive, because everyone would be so left all the capitalists would have been hanged by the yard arm years ago.

Oh well, never mind. It's not like I deserve to have a stake in my own country is it? Who am I? But some reactionary twat from the burbs who deserves to die.

Well, that's the sort of thing that has been levelled against me by pro Labour, pro BBC individuals before, for daring to oppose what the government has been doing all these years.

Lovely people, are champagne socialists. Lovely.

There we are standing so much untold with freedom so unknown, so untold.

So I see the sky with it's freedom so worthless, speech with no value.

Why bother

Fuck so much with nothing.

Empty. So empty with liberty given.

Gone.

Let me start off by simply stating that we at Boatang and Demetriou support the LPUK as the de facto representation of libertarianism at a political level in the United Kingdom. Any criticism we may give is not meant to be negative, but as constructive words of wisdom.

Because here at B&D, as many will know, we will take on anyone and anything. We are more than willing to attack our own if we feel something needs to be said. Peter Hitchens once said of us that we reminded him of a journalist of yesteryear who was known to shout awkward questions from the back of the room. He was annoying and irritating, but he asked the questions that needed to be asked.

The question I am going to ask is: where are we going? Where are libertarians in the UK actually going?

There is a healthy mix of Left and Right in the libertarian world, offering views from different perspectives. What is worrying me is that within the LPUK it appears to be far more Right. And by Right, I mean proper Right. As we've discussed before, anarcho-capitalist Right. And that isn't on.

I have been making some awkward noises recently on the LPUK blog and I do not apologise for doing so. The blog is stated as not reflecting the views and policies of the party, yet senior members of the party write articles on it, including the leader Ian Parker-Joseph.

This is naive in the extreme. Would you see David Cameron or Brown writing speculative articles on ConservativeHome or LabourList? No you wouldn't. You wouldn't get Osbourne or Harman writing on the same sites about how they would implement far more extreme policies if they could, but they wouldn't be able to get away with it.

Politics is a nasty and vicious world. Any slip and you will be stamped on, any perceived weakness will be slam dunked. The problem with mainstream politics is that this concern has become all powerful, like in America. A perpetual fear grips Westminster. Smaller parties do not have this fear, bu that does not mean they should be ignorant of the dangers.

Stating on a party blog that party policy would be far more extreme if only it were possible is not a good move. At the current time it is something that can be gotten away with, but at some point other rival parties will seize it and run.

The movement for more freedom and smaller government has become one of no government. This is not libertarianism.

A consistent antagonistic approach to everything sees the political efforts resembling the Daily Mail. It pains me to say it, but it is true. There is ranting against waste policy and advocating landfill as a good thing for instance, huge issues are made of things that are rumoured to possibly be considered such the Tory/Microsoft episode.

For a normal blog this is fine, that is what blogging is. But for a political party it is not the same, it is meant to be serious business, not a hobby.

The libertarian movement was effectively started by bloggers in this country and that is why I am writing this. I am not seeking to start some sort of war, but simply a debate about what is happening and where we are going.

I am becoming more and more irritated by what I am witnessing and the apparent treading water that has been going on for over a year. There are barely any press releases for instance, let alone emails to members to explain what is going on and never a mention of an interview. This just isn't good enough. I know money is an issue and I do not expect huge campaigns, but email is free and so are articles on the dozens of serious political websites. Cases need to be stated and arguments had, the name needs to spread. Because at the moment is seems that blogs like this one are fighting the fight alone.

In my view the choice of elections this year was totally wrong. The LPUK has a stated anti-EU stance that could easily have been used to increase exposure in the European elections. Instead we have some prospective parliamentary candidates including an 18 year old in the upcoming Norwich North by-election. I wish him all the best and respect his efforts and bravery, but this is not the action of a serious political force for change. Andrew Hunt did pretty well in the local elections considering it is a new party, but my view is that local politics doesn't offer enough exposure.

We have to start somewhere though and it is good to see candidates of any sort, but the targeting was wrong as far as I am concerned.

There are key areas that the people of this country want and the Libertarian Party can offer. They want smaller government. They want spending brought under control. They want an increase in democracy. They want less state interference. They want a clear and sensible tax system. They want less, if not no, control from the European Union.

As libertarians we all have other things we would want to bring to the table and have different degrees of how far we would go. But by arguing those key attributes of libertarianism people will understand and support what we are about.

What is need therefore is a clear and precise message, hammered home over and over again. This is what we stand for, this is what we want to achieve.

What I would also like to see is the blog separated completely from the party leadership and anything they wish to say to be issued in press releases on the website and by email. I would also like to see a massive increase in effort to get proper interviews going to increase exposure. If the English Democrats can get on prime time news I'm sure we can.

As exposure grows then others can be brought in, not to replace the leadership but to complement it. Some people that have been part of the political world for long enough to know how it ticks.

I'm hoping we can have a debate and discussion on this, but if you feel like going mental at me then go for it.

Reading this article in the Times today jolted my memory of Martin Bashir's documentary about Michael Jackson, which I saw when it came out around 6,7 years back.

Let's not make any bones about it, Bashir showed himself up to be a proper worm. But that's not the issue here. The issue is the fact that Bashir obtained firm, concrete evidence by way of footage, revealing Jackson to be someone totally incapable of being honest about key questions concerning his life choices.

The bloke basically spent himself into the ground. Going from one of the richest people in the world, to one of the most hounded, financially ruined and precarious people outside of Lehman Brothers. The man who professed to being 'good with money' is seen in this clip from Bashir's documentary going on an absolutely obscene spending spree at a specialist art store in Vegas (see around 5 minutes into the clip):



He probably never even used or looked at most of this stuff again. All the while, millions of the starving kids he insisted he loved were starving to death round the developing world. With principles like that, one wonders whether he was mates with Bono or Geldof.

Of course after all these years, the public have been required to believe that Jackson's bizarre changes in appearance are not to do with plastic surgery, but just the natural processes of adolescence. Or, some condition that messes with skin pigmentation, seemingly named after a Volkswagen.

In the following excerpt, Jackson insisted: "I've had no plastic surgery on my face, just my nose". He said he "just (had) two operations", and when pressed on the matter he confirmed that it is "not true" about any changes to his face and he was "telling you (Bashir) the honest truth".

Ah, yes, the truth. That funny old commodity that has a strange and stubborn habit of not making itself available to the highest bidder, but remaining an awkward, irritating thorn in one's side.

Of course, just a couple of leeeeetle nose jobs wasn't it? (See footage around 4 mins 30 secs in and onwards).




The biggie was the kiddy fiddling matter, which Bashir tentatively prodded him about. According to Jackson, there was no funny business, it was just about milk and cookies and bed time stories and all things sweet and innocent. Not, I repeat NOT, about porn, alcohol and abuse.

Oh, and 'Blanket's' mother was black. Yeah. Course she is.



It's weird how I remember so much of that documentary. Probably a good thing, as all that has transpired since then has shown Jackson to be a total billy bullshitter. He was able to look into the camera and point blank insist that there was nothing sexual going on with kids and he was able to insist on a whole host of other claims and denials.

Only a blind fool (or a Jacko fan) could possibly believe the ridiculous fallacy that he never had anything going on with male minors.

He was the King of the Porkie Pie - or is that the King of 'Duck Butter'?

Either way, it's not on my menu and I fail to understand how he maintained his steady legion of fans throughout the last 15 years or so. There are so many gullible twats out there, all of which explains the success of the British Parliamentary Labour Party, Oasis, X Factor, Corrie, the Daily Mail and Greggs bakers.

It's the sort of quote the left die for when dealing with their enemies.

Except the left won't like one aspect to Nick Griffin's amazing interview with the BBC today - they aren't alone in their bewilderment and disgust at Griffin's comment. They'll have to share opposition to Griffin's sentiments with people from right across the political spectrum. Including right wing Libertarians like myself.

MEP and BNP Party boss Nick Griffin said today that as part of his EU campaign against immigration, boats bringing Sub Saharan African immigrants into Europe ought to be sunk.

Source.

Griffin stated: "Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats. "Anyone coming up with measures like that we'll support"

The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."

Mr Griffin replied: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".

So, the MEP who represents me in my region and the MEP who represents the people who live in the next door region think that it's perfectly fine to torpedo boats with people in them by way of a solution to EU immigration.

Somehow, someway, such an action is apparently not tantamount to murder. Presumably because the Mediterranean is so small, and so cosily warm and nice, to wind up in the drink wouldn't be a big deal because there are always rafts handy to ferry you back to Libya. Presumably these rafts are formally manned by professional seamen equipped with compasses and maps. Oh, and and enough men who can row the fucker back to shore without everyone dying of exhaustion.

click image to enlarge...

Griffin's statement is staggering, even by his (albeit two faced) standards. That he seriously thinks that sinking boats won't cause a loss of life is bizarre. Bizarre, only if he genuinely feels that such actions wouldn't cause loss of life. He denies the 'murder' analogy, except this is what it would be. My guess is he secretly yearns for these immigrants to be taught a few collective lessons as a deterrent. I also assert that his words will have caused yelps of joy and delight amongst his supporters.

I wonder how many of the 1,000,000 plus BNP voters nationwide, including the 120,139 BNP voters from my region, voted for that party knowing that this was just how far the BNP are willing to go on their immigration policy?

What a fucking joke. Oh, but wait! Please don't forget, they are not a racist party and in addition to that, their manifesto does not propose forced repatriation. Only gentle, voluntary repatriation. This is what their supporters realise and the rest of us don't because we are dupes and socialist traitors.

So let me clarify for you:

1. The BNP proposes voluntary repatriation of immigrants from Britain.
2. The BNP proposes that in order to prevent immigration from Africa into Europe, the boats carrying immigrants should be torpedoed, destroyed, and the blacks inside should use rafts to get back to Libya.

By this logic, of course, forced repatriation is too harsh and extreme. But annihilating someone's private property by way of military intervention, and forcing people into a choppy sea with no horizon in sight and only a handful of shitty rowing boats is perfectly reasonable.

Of course, all this assumes that these boats actually have rafts or lifeboats, that anyone has the ability to navigate said boats to the specific shores of Libya, and of course that no-one has died in the explosion whereby the ship/boat has been scuttled or taken out by EU military forces.

It also assumes the weather will be alright, that people have food to last the slow, arduous journey back to Africa, and that the littluns and old timers have the strength to undergo the perils and ardours of having to swim about whilst thumbing for a lift.

Furthermore, no-one's said anything about the ownership of the boat. What if it belongs to a legitimate company and the immigrants have secreted themselves away? Would be interesting that one. The EU showing the world what they will do to international trading ships if they happen to contain some dodgy aliens from Rwanda.

But he wasn't being tongue in cheek. He wasn't even being that flippant. He genuinely stated this opinion as a viable EU policy platform.

The only three words that remain of me on this matter are as follows.

Okay, time to get this out of the way as it appears to be spreading across the planet like one of those genesis things in Star Trek. The Guardian are obviously going mental over it and seem to think that revolution is a matter of moments away. Maybe it is.

I can't help but feel the real issue is being missed though. Andy Coulson is being targeted in a big way because he is Cameron's press chappie, that's understandable. But when you really step back and look at that side of the story he isn't really the big fish. He left the News of the World over two years ago over a similar scandal and it will be interesting to see how involved he was during his term, no doubt about it.

But that very scandal was brought to court by the police. The police were also very much aware of the other names on the list of who had been illegally tapped.

That is the big story. The police knew that senior Cabinet figures right up to the Deputy Prime Minister and maybe even beyond were being bugged by a major newspaper. A newspaper, it is worth noting, that is owned by a foreign company with major interests in China and other less than democratic countries.

It should be remembered that the the real deal in the Profumo scandal was not the affair per se, but who Keeler was also sleeping with. I'm not saying that Murdoch or senior News Corp figures are spies, but having a foreign company with close links to less than friendly nations tapping senior politicians at the heart of government, and as a result having files on what they have said, is surely a huge security risk.

The police appear to have thought otherwise.

The police are the centre of this story, not Cameron and not Coulson. They are players yes, but they are not the leads. The very simple fact of the matter is that a massive security breech occurred with the full knowledge of the police and they did nothing.

There can only be a couple reasons for that and neither of them make pleasant reading. The first up is that the police were genuinely stupid in ignoring the situation. If that is true then the officer in charged should be sacked and possibly even have charges brought against him.

The second is that this government was fully aware of what was happening and turned a blind eye and instructed the police to do the same.

New Labour are up to their necks in Murdoch. He is a huge part of the party machine and was basically bought off before 1997. For example Tony Blair promised to bring in legislation that would effectively crack the monopoly that we have with the media in this country. Owners would be restricted in which mediums they could have stakes and how much they could own. This is sensible and should be brought in. Except it never will be.

Shortly after Murdoch switched allegiances to Labour the whole plan vanished, in power Blair simply let it drift off into history. In return for support Blair gave in. This continued over the years with all sorts of u-turns and dodgy dealings, most notably The Sun's famous almost mid-sentence 180 degree u-turn on the Dome. Going literally from one minute ruining it to the next minute hailing it as a national achievement. They did the biggest of all reverse ferrets.

It is obviously a pure hunch, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if the people at the top of New Labour knew what was going on and in exchange for the two prison sentences handed down, kept quiet.

They are now shouting the loudest about Coulson and are busy recoiling in shock at the NOTW story this morning. I do feel the lady doth protest too much.

It is the police though that will receive the full glare of the media in the coming days, serious questions are already being asked about why they stood by while this obviously huge illegal activity took place. They may well give reasons that certain people would rather they didn't.

News Corp, the owner of News International who in turn owns the NOTW, is listed on the Nasdaq. When that opens this afternoon it will also be interesting to see what happens to its share price, what with the quite probable total destruction of its UK arm.

You may remember that I wrote a little piece about the absurd proposal in Scotland to pay smokers to give up. Well, me being me, at the same time I sent off a complaint the BBC about the scale of bias being broadcast.

BBC Breakfast has become the most bias thing on the BBC, coming up fast on Radio 4 for the overall title. It is routinely the worst example of totally one sided reporting I witness on television with a good dose of lazy, half-arsed journalism thrown in.

I am sick and tired of the show, but it's either that or, gulp, GMTV. So while I chow down on my cereal of choice (this week it's crunchy nut cornys, I finished my coco pops on Monday) I put up with this banal shite.

There is at least one story that is beyond pointless. 'We know the world is going under, the Prime Minister is making a major announcement, the economy has dropped again, unemployment is going through the roof, a major company has gone bust and a new poll shows the Tories racing away from the beloved Labour party....but we're looking at a new scheme in Derby where children can trade their packed lunch for a fruit bar'.

Substitute that for anything obscure and irrelevant and you have the daily bulletin.

Then they will send at least two of their reporters that are usually in the studio, normally that one who does the weather or one of the sports chaps, to some totally stupid location at my expense. Last week the business bloke, the little one not the Aussie, went off somewhere to piss about in a fucking ice-cream van. Because that is important business news.

But at all times there is a total absence of perspective. What I mean by that is the perspective they don't agree with. Yesterday a woman was on talking about assisted suicide and that the law should remain in place because it provides a safeguard for those that need it and those that do go ahead with it are never prosecuted anyway. I won't go into this now, that's for another day, but Kate Silverton totally destroyed her on it in some bizarre personal frenzy. The opinion was valid and a counter argument from Silverton would be fine, but in a normal and professional manner. In this case the expert was simply treated as a hater of the disabled and evil.

So, my complaint. During the series of on site interviews - have to fly to Scotland for this of course - The person arguing for the payment was talking about how much it costs Scotland and the NHS. As I said in my original piece, this is rubbish. All the reporter had to so was simply ask 'But is it not the case that smokers pay a proportionally higher amount of tax and that tax revenues from smoking are more than the outlay by the NHS', or words to that affect. He didn't and by doing so showed agreement with the proposal and blind acceptance of the figures being mentioned. This is the response from the BBC:

Thanks for your e-mail regarding 'Breakfast' broadcast on 2 July. I understand you feel the report about plan to offer Scottish smokers £12.50 per week if they can give up should've mentioned the money the government makes form tax on cigarette sales. I note you feel this report was unbalanced as a result.

I assure you that impartiality is the cornerstone of all our news and current affairs output as we endeavour to present the facts in a clear and balanced way, allowing our audience to make up their own minds. We do, however, maintain impartiality by charging our editors with ensuring that all relevant voices are heard over a reasonable period of time, as we're obliged to by our Charter.

This story was focused on the way the Scottish Parliament is thinking of encouraging people form quitting and I therefore feel the report was entirely appropriate. We're aware however, that the content we choose for our news bulletins is subjective, and we'd never expect everyone to agree with our decisions on every occasion. It's with this subjectivity and your complaint in mind I'd like to take this opportunity to assure you that I've recorded your comments onto our audience log.

This is an internal daily report of audience feedback which is circulated to many BBC staff including senior management, producers and channel controllers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

What a load of shit. The BBC has a over riding duty to be impartial at all times and that in itself governs the degree of subjectivity. They are not a broadcaster for what people want to say, they are there to ask the right question in the right way to make sure the public are given a fair and balanced perspective of the facts.

All they did here was reinforce the myth that smoking costs the NHS money, when it doesn't as any basic look at the numbers will tell you.

Sneaky increases, that's what this government has been all about. Little price rise there, small tax hike there, better put that tax up by 1p, increase that duty by 2p. And now they have done it again.

The price of a passport is to go up by a fiver. Er, why? It's a passport, the price is set and it costs what it costs. Have they employed more people? Have they increased the technology in secret after the biometrics of a couple of years ago? Has the price of the paper gone up?

Five British pounds. Five pounds fifty to be precise. That takes it to £77.50, an increase of 7.6%. For a passport. I have to keep repeating it because I can't really believe it. There must be a reason for it, what has someone official go to say?

Immigration minister Phil Woolas said the price increase would maintain "the high standards in customer service and document security British citizens have come to expect"

We here at B and D love Woolas, that complete tool who thinks Gurkhas are dirty foreigners raping our nuns. Only Labour could react to tabloid immigration demands by banning the Gurkhas.

It is also mentioned that 8 million of the new passports have been dished out since 2007. So the earliest won't be running out until 2017. I would imagine this would cause a fair problem, but the number of passports per year must be fairly steady surely?

In turn the income from passports is allegedly ring fenced according to the BBC. It must be the recession then, meaning people are being bad and slacking off their yearly fly away and hitting revenues. Tell you what Phil, whack the prices up, that'll learn 'em.

Of course this wouldn't the first time. In 2005 they went up 21%. In 2006 they went up 29% to 'pay' for the new technology. In 2007 they went up again and was "needed to maintain the quality of British consular services abroad", this time by 9%. They left it last year, which was nice of them.

So, in four years the price of a passport has increased by 85%.

Each year is a new reason, first to pay for the new technology, then to pay for helping people abroad, then it's to cover the costs of 'stuff and that, you know'. Now they have just given up and said it's to continue the great service. Which is double speak for give us yer money.

The increases are there solely for the ID card fiasco and the massive infrastructure we have given hundreds of millions of pounds to IBM and others to build. The Service must support itself so it simply uses passports as a product, putting up prices to pay for whatever it is doing. Service betterment is a load of rubbish.

A good article on this can be found here, which goes into some numbers.

The thing is, it is highly unlikely that ID cards will ever be put into service. The Tories have pledged to scrap the scheme when they get in and only last week Brown removed the need for airport employees to have an ID card. But I will bet you anything you like the price of your passport won't go down.

They don't like Freedom of Information requests do they? Good, because I have felt the need to ask the Identity and Passport Service how much the unit cost of a passport is. I await the excuse for not telling me.

I tell you what though, they better be expensive.

I recently found this brilliant Bill Hicks comedy sketch on smoking and non-smokers.

Sheer genius. Bound to cheer you up (unless you're the sort of pious, sermonising cunt who'd instantly despise this sort of irreverent, Libertarian-minded stand up humour)

Enjoy.

Don't you just hate flying? I mean, really, don't you just?

I've just come back from my nice, extended holiday in the Med, and if there's one thing outside of getting the shits, getting sunstroke and rowing with the missus that's guaranteed to fuck up a great holiday in the sun, it's the motherfucking flight.

Fortunately there wasn't too much of the first three on that list for me, this time around. But there's never, ever any getting away from the flight.

Firstly, I flew via a national carrier.

'Oooh, hark at you!' some of you cunts are saying. Yeah, that just sums up the state of the world now. You have to be posh or rich to not fly with one of those pissant, cunty cheapo airlines that treat you worse than the fucking fodder they feed cattle, never mind the fucking cattle.

The cattle go fucking first class with Ryanair these days. They get free fucking drinks and everything. The passengers are peddling in the back on exercise bikes to power the fucking engines.

So there's me, forking out hundreds of hard earned pounds months and months in advance to save my forty fucking quid difference, thinking, like the naive cunt I am, that when June comes, I might - just fucking might - get a vaguely civilised, half decent, non-humiliating journey to my destination.

Some fucking hope.

Because apart from the fact that Cunt Class seats offer you all the manoeuvrability of a buffalo in a utility cupboard, I always somehow manage to end up sat behind and in front of total and utter pricks.

Five minutes into my journey going out and I shit my pants, convinced that an alien life form has impregnated the upholstery of my chair and the soon-to-be borne alien is practising fucking drop kicks into my back.

But no. It's not an alien, it's a small child sat on the lap of the dick-wad mother behind me. And it's kicking. Kicking incessantly. Kicking the fuck out of the back of my seat - i.e. kicking the fuck out of me. Over and over again.

I had the turbulence making me lurch up and down, and the little shit behind me making me lurch back and forward.

Here's a spot of feedback to the airline company: If I wanted to take part in a rodeo, I'd have gone to fucking Kansas and paid for the real thing.


I mean, what's the point? Is it because these fuckers who run these airlines just know that you can't afford to upgrade and there's nowhere else for you to go? That they pack you into a teeny tiny little area of 'space' and knowingly place you in front of a family with kids in the middle of the fucking aircraft?

How little common sense is required for the airlines to simply place families at the back of the plane, so they don't bother everyone else.

Luckily for me, I had a little distraction from all this back-booting. Half way through the flight, while everyone was engrossed in the piss poor 'Marley and Me' with Owen Wilson, I received a jolt in the ear. ( btw, someone tell the sad fucker he can't act, please. He might do us all a favour and change career - maybe advertising male hair dye or some shit)


Yep, you got it. The family behind me. Their other little shit bag decided he liked Marley and Me even less than me. Who could blame it, but is that a reason to interrupt what pathetic little snatches of sleep I was able to grasp of this painful, uncomfortable flight?

'JD, you harsh bastard, don't blame the kid it's not his fault everyone has children some day maybe you will too LOL!'

Go fuck yourself. If I have a kid, and it's under the age of 9 and fails to respond to the sight of my fist waving a belt, it'll be in one place and one place only (no, not the luggage hold, I have some morals) - it'll be left behind in England with a relative.

Because there's nil point in taking small children on holiday, when they're so young that they can barely fucking see anything through their fuzzy vision and shit-whiffy nappies.

What the fuck is the matter with these people? It's almost like they want to have a shit holiday. They spend 21 hours a day bleeding their brains dry trying to tend to jobs, the home, the relationship and first of all a highly demanding kid, and when it comes to the one fucking fortnight a year where a scrap of time might be spent chilling out with no worries, they decide to pack the fucking pram and the baby milk and all that bullshit and take the lot with them.

Fucking sadists.

More to the point - fucking inconsiderate fucktards. Buy a Renault Scenic and fucking drive across Europe to your destination, leave hard working cool motherfuckers like me alone so we can enjoy our beer breakfast and peanuts in peace.

This shit pisses me off so much, it'll get to the point where I'll end up feeding my peanuts to the kids when mummy and daddy ain't looking and waiting for the fucking allergy to kick in (why are 90% of kids these days 'allergic' to something? Fucking whining little weaklings. I blame their parents, for being inferior, blubbery little puss-bags)

Maybe, just maybe, all this wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't such a rip off. But these days we're paying ever-increasing taxes. Taxes for airports, taxes for this, taxes for that, extra fees to cover aviation fuel hikes, fucking enviro-loon taxes because our PM really gives a shit about the Ozone layer.

Oh, sorry, that's not the vogue cause anymore is it, it's 'CO2'. Because everyone knows that planes are destroying the planet with those naughty emissions.

Except while the government are fucking us up the arse, the airline companies are using government bullshit as a smoke screen to pull off bullshit of their own.

Take my non-budget flight for instance. Drinks trolley comes round...


For fuck sake. It wasn't just gin either. Their 'vodka' was a brand called 'Glens' which made me almost hurl just watching it swill around the large bottle as it went past. The Whisky clearly didn't qualify as Whisky and the beer appeared not to have been chilled (I have an eye for this shit).

These are clear tell-tell signs of cut backs. 5 years back you'd never have seen bullshit like this on the drinks trolley.

They also think they're fooling me with the food. I distinctly remember barely a few years ago that you always got a little bit of vacuum packed cheese with your crappy little bread roll.

Always. Plus, 2 little crackers. This was always my favourite part of the food - non-offensive, nice and nibbly, goes well with a cup of sock-juice coffee or tea and takes the edge off the main meal which invariably involves 'smash' or liquefied carrots.

This time? One bread roll and a little mini-container of marg. That's it. For mains, stew and 'smash', and liquefied carrot. A separate plastic white cube filled with nasty salad (is there any other type?) and some fruit (for fuck sake) for desert. Fuck off. Let me at my cigarettes, I'll eat the tobacco to keep me going. At least I'd get my fucking fix, which is of course banned from all airlines despite smoking being allowed at the back of planes within my living memory.

It's sad, because traditionally I (weirdly) look forward to plane food, as it always offers a little surprise and it's nice to feel like you're getting a little something back in exchange for your money. I don't count the whole 'flight to your destination' as a valid part of the exchange, because it is barbaric and inhuman and only millionaires can afford to sit on those big loungy chairs at the front and get their bollocks massaged by blond stewardesses named 'Chantelle'.

Of course, there is one thing planes haven't banned or denied customers now - the ability to recline the seat several inches backwards into the face of the person sitting behind you.

Which is precisely what happened to me today on my journey home. Me and the missus, sat there (sorry, trapped) in our seats of this shitty little 'airbus' and the two absolute cuntbags sitting in front lowered their seats back to the maximum, almost as soon as they sat down.

I couldn't fucking believe the brass balls on this pair of cunts. One was a pale English woman who looked like a Mail reader, the other was a dark swarthy chap wearing pin stripes and a gold Rolex (fucking weird).

I even made a point of checking the whole plane to see if anyone else had done this: nobody. So, just us two afflicted by this then? Cheers for that.

I wouldn't mind if it was just for a little while, but this lasted the whole journey, even after the pilot announced: "we will be landing in 30 minutes, please fasten your seat belts and bring your chairs to the upright position".

When it came to eating my meal, I was forced to rest my forehead on the tip of the reclined seat in front, whilst attempting to bring the fork of food to my mouth - without success. Pea after pea after pea dropped onto my lap, because I was physically un-fucking-able to eat my meal because of the fucking cunt in front of me.

Fucking cunts. Why I didn't bitch slap them I don't know. Oh, yeah, I do know...it's because I value my job and the fact the Criminal Records Bureau don't have a criminal record of me. Such reasoning is the only thing that prevent me from hurting a lot of people, every day, believe me.

And this is the best I can ever expect to get when it comes to flying abroad for my hols. The budget airlines are spectacularly worse, and not especially cheaper if you want to 'upgrade' to anything remotely acceptable.

Take Monarch for example. They charge you extra to sit next to your travelling companion. They charge you for seat location. They charge you for luggage, extra weight above 15kg, extra hand luggage, the meal, there's a premium for drinks, the list goes on.

Ryanair are talking about charging people for taking a shit. These outfits already charge for basic drinks and for headphones or anything else you might want. Maybe a charge for oxygen will follow, or a charge for a fully qualified pilot to attend to matters.

This latest story in the Torygraph explains how Ryanair are now planning to make passengers stand up during flights! It's just getting fucking ridiculous now. You're no longer paying for a seat, just airspace in a metal tube.

Us normal passengers, between the government, dick-head passengers and greedy, unscrupulous airline companies, are taking a thick shaft up the anal cavity. Maybe I ought to consider building a boat and sailing off under my own steam. Or maybe using a canoe and catching the right current to my holiday destination.

It'll become known as the 'John Darwin' method of going on hols - minus of course, any hint of fraudulent insurance claims and incriminating group photographs developed by hardworking technicians from Brazil.

Just a quicky, but I have just seen one of the greatest pieces of irony from any Labour minister. Step forward the grade 'A' chump, Harriet Harman.

Families won't want to be lectured by anybody about how to lead their lives

Expect by Harriet and her merry band of twats that sit on top of the pile. Not to mention Harriet and her gigantic pile of shit, otherwise known as The Equality Bill. Her entire political purpose is to tell people what they can do.

And then she says that. Is any more proof were needed that politicians simply don't hear what they are saying and it's all just bullshit on demand?

A really quite incredible attack by four senior Labour figures involving homophobia has been reported, I'm pretty shocked to be honest.

But not for the obvious reason.

Ben Bradshaw and Christ Bryant have said that the core of the Tory party is homophobic, in fact they went further by releasing a statement with work and pensions minister Angela Eagle saying

Why are the Conservatives rejecting important equality legislation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people in the shape of the Equality Bill? Why did Cameron and his frontbenchers oppose fertility rights for lesbians?

This was then backed up by Harriet 'My kids went to a grammar school just before I was elected so I am not a hypocrite' Harman.

They have voted against the Equality Bill. If they were sincere, they would support it. The essential heart of the Tories is homophobic.

Really quite amazing. The BBC, to be fair, have quite rightly pointed to a poll of Tory PPCs in winnable seats that shows 62% say same sex couples should be given the same benefits as married couples. It's not as high as many would probably want, but not agreeing with this issue is not on a par with being homophobic. This is a democracy and not everyone has to tow the line.

Unless you are Labour.

The real attack, in this crude way, is the Equality Bill. Harmen's little baby has received a similar reaction to a giant pile of shit with a giant bag of puke sat atop it throughout the media and the country. It is not wanted and it is not needed. In typical political style, but in perfect Labour form, some reform that would have been wanted is tagged onto a huge stinker that would usually get kicked out.

So to oppose the Equality Bill is to be homophobic. Well, guess that makes most people violent gay beaters then.

What a lovely Bill it is though. It wants to protect breastfeeding mothers, and protect carers and a whole batch of Labour Left wing made up rubbish. Such as increasing the powers of positive action (that would be telling a shit job candidate he has go the job because he ticks the equality boxes).

However, in the eleven points listed on page 10 (pdf found here) not one of them mentions anything about being gay. It goes on about 'equality', breastfeeding mums are in there, old people being protected from vicious anti-old attacks is in there. Not being gay though.

It also manages to blame all poor kids getting bad results, poor people not doing well in life and the poor being poor in general....on class. It's obvious really, it has nothing to do with life or the state failing in its duty to educate, but because of the horrible class system.

There it is, buried in point 3, slipped in that sexual orientation will become a diversity factor. That's it. Because form now on gay people that are under-represented must be given jobs so that their invaluable skills are made available.

Myself, I find that staggeringly homophobic. And all the other phobics. What it is saying is that gay people have skills that only gay people have. That gay people, or black people, or Asian people, or old people, or disabled people, or Muslim people, or anyone other than middle class white heterosexual people, offer something 'special'.

It says that simply by being gay, in this context, automatically means that you bring something to the table that makes up for not being as qualified or experienced than the person who should have got the job. Because you are gay. I'm struggling to think of what this is to be fair. Surely this is creating discrimination?

There is also the problem that according to this government, every public sector manager is a racist, homophobic bastard who hates women and Hindus. The examples they give for how this will benefit 'the gays' are just absurd. Such as, if a nasty man in a working man's club (not a toffs club of course) refuses a drink to a man because he is gay, he can be done for it.

I'd say that the barman was, 1) a in possession of some amazing gaydar because unless the guy walked up to the bar was Julian fucking Clary I'd find his quite impressive, and 2) a wanker. So surely, if he is this homophobic tosser that can spot a gay man a mile off, from now on he will simply give another reason for not serving someone?

And because the Tory party are opposed to this farcical legislation they are homophobic. Which is just plain insulting. This insidious little smear attack smacks of a terrified party who will use any means it can to bully it's opponents. They are even warning gay people not to vote Tory because

If gays vote Tory they will rue the day very soon

Why, because the Cameron will set up special camps and introduce genetic screening? Or because Labour will then turn all nasty on gay people? I've never seen anything like it, a sad and pathetic attempt to scare a group of people into voting for them. It has nothing at all to do with a large shift in voting patterns in the gay community though...

Jake is a networking group for gay people and recently did a poll of its members voting intentions. 38% said vote Conservative and Labour got 20%.

This Bill is the ultimate socialist brainwashing exercise in an effort to completely control who is employed and why. They have decided that certain groups offer something extra simply because they are in certain groups, rather simply giving that person credit for the talents and skills they have as a human being.

But apparently to not support this is to be homophobic. Welcome to the Stalinst world of the Brown government, where to disagree with is to be tagged an enemy of the state and a hater of gay people.

Some thought processes of mine happen at the strangest of times, they really do. Like all great minds the shower and the toilet are the classic locations for the mind to prosper. This morning I found a thread whilst brushing my teeth.

That process was the welfare state. Now, I have obviously put a lot of thought into this before, marveling at how much we spend on welfare payments. But this morning I did a bit of mental arithmetic and it gave a moment of clarity. It's along the following lines.

If we take unemployment at 2.5 million in this exceptional time, and we say they get £50 a week. This is very rough and I know they get more and housing and all the rest, but just for a rough number bare with me. That is £125 million a week. Or put another way, £6,250,000,000 a year. That, in the grand scheme of things, is not a vast amount of cash and is obviously near the maximum in terms of unemployment.

I am a libertarian, but I am not a hard right one, or anrcho-capitalist as is often the case. As such I do not believe in a total removal of the welfare state. It is a misconception that before the second world war there was no safety net, there was. Parish taxes were paid and people were looked after.

What I do believe is that people are more than willing to pay a proportion of earnings into a pot that is there to support those that lose their jobs, which could obviously include themselves. People know that if they were given the money to save on their own they wouldn't.

People are also happy to pay money towards helping those genuinely in need. As a civilised nation has a duty to help those who are disabled, or handicapped, or mentally ill. They are the very emotive definition of what the welfare state is really about. This costs a lot of money of course.

Some may not be aware of the cost of the UK welfare state. If not I would sit down before reading the following, maybe get a cushion and some smelling salts. Ready? £164.7 billion.

Yes you did read that right. In fact next year, no doubt because of the recession, it will be £170.9 billion.

The screaming issue here is in fact income tax receipts. We now pay £140.5 billion a year in gross income tax. That's right, we are now paying out £15 billion more a year in the form of welfare than we pay in income tax. This is completely unsustainable.

The other red alert moment should be the number, naturally. As shown, just unemployment by itself costs something in the region of £6 - 7 billion. Then there is disability payments. Even if you say all that costs £25 billion, would someone care to tell me where the other £140 billion is being spent?

I shall create a context: in 2000 benefits cost us £97 billion. In ten years it has gone up over £60 billion. Sixty Billion Pounds. That same year Gordon Brown described this cost (as well as interest payments on the national debt, which as of now we spend more on than education) as the costs of failure. Indeed.

The vast majority of welfare spending involves, at the end of the day, state sponsored control and subsidy of consumerism. That's what it really is. As we have seen from the recent arguments in parliament, the word 'cut' has become a dirty word. We are addicted to spending and anything that involves cuts instead instantly seen as bad.

You earn money, but not a lot. The state tops this up because you have had a child. You need the top up because you can't afford the child's things. But by topping up your earnings and therefore increasing your buying power, the excessive price of the goods is justified.

You lose your job and live with your parents. You get money from the state. To increase this money you get a tenancy agreement with your Dad so that you can also claim housing support. You also work 15 hours a week cash in hand. You have savings of £5,000. After six months you confirm that you really are doing all can to get a job.

The Left, of course, go mental over proposing any changes to this. Blair repeatedly tried to change the system and was faced with chaos from his backbenches. It's really quite sad. Carers are a known scam in most cases for instance. I have no issue with genuine cases where a spouse or parent must give up their career in order to look after someone. However I do not include some giving up work because they have a bad back and then their partner doing the same to look after them.

You can get benefits housing support, children support, council tax support, money to attend a funeral support, looking for work support, out of work support, going back to work support, traveling to the hospital support...the list goes on and on and on.

It's endless.

You will not usually need a medical examination when you claim for Disability Living Allowance - Direct.gov.uk

The solution is always to give money to someone, because it is this that keeps people in check and under control. You are earning under a certain amount of money so the state will give you some more. But you carry on paying income tax. That is, the income tax that is paying for your benefit.

The same thing all the little tag on benefits that are designed to ease the strain rather than he benefits that are designed to actually help people who actually need help.

The obvious solution is the precise thing the state does not want to do. If you have a child and earn under a certain amount, rather than actually giving you cash, the state drops your income tax by, for arguments sake, .3%. But they won't do that, because then you haven't got to ask for it.

You can easily argue that the welfare state is bloated to the tune of £140 billion, but none of the main parties will do so. They are terrified that as soon as they point out that the benefits system has gone out of all control, they will be targeted by the Left, the anti-cut lobby. This is absurdly spineless.

People are now paying taxes, more than their entire income tax payments, in order to receive back a small percentage of this at some unspecified date to help them out because they are paying out so much tax in order to get the benefits to help them out. If they weren't paying the tax they wouldn't need the benefit.

Cut the benefits and cut the taxes. Job done. Stealth taxes exist purely to actually fund the state, because the money that is there to fund a large part of it can't even meet the cost of the welfare system. The argument to cut it all back is then skewed by attacks of slashing unemployment benefits or harming the disabled. That is not the case, as shown above. The overwhelming amount of benefits are paid to people that don't need it and would be better off by simply not having to pay the tax to support it all in the first place..

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" goes the classic Pacino movie quote from Godfather III.

Indeed, it's been barely 8 months since the US Presidential election race and already I'm faced with news that the stupidest person in the world (who also happens to be a successful US based politician) is rearing her stupid head once more to shock the world with her abject, unadulterated stupidity.

According to the Times, Palin has handed in her P45 as Governor of Alaska and it is widely presumed that this bumptious tit of a woman, who isn't fit to run a tap never mind the United States, has timed all this so that she can run for Senate in 2010, with that itself being a strong launchpad for the 2012 Presidential bid.

"Vote for me, of I'll 'click click!' fuck y'all up! GUFAAW GUFFAW! Chucks ain't I good?"

Palin. Know-nothing carrot for brains loony authoritarian right wing prick, the potential Republican nominee for the Presidency of the world's most powerful and influential nation. Fucking terrifying.

McCain's team were right. She is a narcissist, but it's not that that's so much the problem. The problem is that she is an idiot. But not just any old idiot. I mean, there are many low calibre, mediocre, vacant-headed politicians out there in every country. I mean this woman is a serious fucking liability. She is so stupid; such a complete idiot, that to let her near the reigns of serious power would lead to a world war. Fuck diplomatic crises, that would be in her first week in the Oval Office.

She only needs to open her mouth to fuck off world leaders. She'd make Bush look like Stephen Hawking. People would beg to have Bush back, just so we could have someone markedly less stupid in charge of an obscenely powerful and errant army and air force.

Here's her resignation speech if you haven't seen it. Surprise surprise, she comes over as a total and unmitigated fucking idiot. I can't stand her intermittent, folksy attempt at familiarity either. Along with the daft basketball analogy (which even she as an American sports fan can't pull off properly).

Her pre-prepared speeches go tits up - this woman could fuck up a cup of coffee. Seriously, are there any Americans who think for a split second that this woman if elected to the Presidency would confer so much as a nanogram of respectability and positivity towards the US from any foreign nation? Is it at all wise to elect a know-nothing lunatic with extreme opinions on foreign affairs to the Executive? (a post that is largely all about foreign affairs and diplomatic/military intervention)

Apparently at this point, Palin commands 20% support from the Republican base. But don't be fooled - it's all up for grabs in the Rep. Party which is still looking for a strong, new ideological base and a heart and spirit to take forward the politics of the GOP.

After one term of Obama, the Republican base will have no time for another centrist like McCain; who they were suspicious of at the last election. I can see them, through frustration, desperation and a lack of common sense (not to mention a lack of media-exposed alternative), actually giving this stupid idiot the nomination. I really can.

Then what? Imagine...Obama Vs. Palin. It's 2012 and the voting has begun. Such a night would be one of terror for the whole world. A million Al Quada bombing campains couldn't induce the sense of fear and loathing that would cloak the world at a time when this total fucking spanner, this tool, this utter moron, this prize idiot is at the cusp of taking the Presidency of the US.

It's 3 years away and I'm already shuddering at the very thought.

When you think of Daily Mail crusades, you'll likely imagine them focusing on things like plane spotters, cancer, paedophiles, immigrants and single mums. The trouble with Hate Mail campaigns is the fact they are bereft of principle, consistency or logic. If something crops up that the Mail perceives may cause fright and paranoia amongst its narrow minded WASPish (White, Anglo Saxon Protestant) readership, it's all hands to the pump to give a massive boot up the government's arse.

When it comes to law and order, there's seldom a purveyor of journalism that isn't as brutal and unforgiving as the Mail. I am also extremely hard-line on crime and punishment, though I am suspicious of the Mail's angle on this topic as it is invariably knee jerk and its other, more pernicious agendas have a strange habit of sneaking in (see Mail comment on things like date rape and on cases that involve Johnnie Foreigners).

You can usually rest assured that the Mail is guaranteed to lobby for the harshest outcome for criminals of whatever hue.

So what's with their latest bizarre campaign (front page of online edition today) where the paper wants the government to step in to stop a bloke from being extradited to the States for his alleged crime of hacking into the Pentagon computer systems?

"Betrayal of a naive hacker" screams the front page, "Why are our MPs doing nothing to help Asperger's victim Gary?"

Cheeky cunts, are the Daily Mail. A man (allegedly) commits a crime, but because the Mail has decided he is a 'naive hacker', that's alright then. Our MPs are to spend their time lobbying in favour of the bloke, presumably because he is:

a) British
b) er, that's it.

Do you seriously think the Mail has suddenly grown benevolent bones, and is now a champ for disabled and disadvantaged people? Quite a hilarious notion, given that some Mail hacks take the view that Asperger's, autism and ADHD don't exist or are exaggerated conditions used by left wing social services. The Mail has no time for the disadvantaged of society, so I am a little cynical as to why they suddenly give a shit now.

The piece whines on and on and on about how harmless the bloke is and how unfair it is for the US to want to drag him over to the States for trial.

What is wrong with this newspaper? Do they really stand by the logic that, because the alleged hacker (Gary McKinnon) is supported by those that make excuses for his actions, those excuses should by law be perfectly reasonable and no trial is required? By that logic, most court cases should never transpire, because the defence could simply conjure an excuse for their client's actions and that should be taken at face value. Fuck trials, expensive things anyway eh.

Apparently if found guilty, McKinnon will receive a harsh sentence. Again, is this adequate reason for arguing against extradition and trial? Of course not. If a crime has been detected and if there's enough evidence to link it to a person or persons, then a trial should take place. There's an extradition treaty between the US and the UK, so it's an obvious fucking point that he ought to be extradited to face a fair trial where McKinnon's defence would undoubtedly raise certain points, including his Asperger's, to a jury.

What the fuck are the Mail on about here? And why should our MPs be fighting to make this bloke a one off case where extradition must be fought against?

I'm not at all surprised that the US have a hard-on for this matter. The bloke did the cyber equivalent of breaking into Fort Knox, running about the main hall with a wheelbarrow full of gold whilst doing moonies at the CCTV and running off again. It's pretty serious and it's blatantly obvious that the world's geeky hacker community will be watching to see whether there's much consequence for trying out stuff like that.

But no, McKinnon is Caucasian British you see, and is therefore lovable and part of our rich, eccentric nation's tapestry. His condition is a great sideline to tap into, but really all this is about is prodding the patriotic sentiments of the readers for the purposes of drumming up support and sales for the rag.

Naturally, of course, were it a foreign hacker breaking into British systems, the Mail wouldn't give a fuck what excuses the foreign cunt came up with. They'd want his brown face in a stockade and they'd give their readership a barrow load of rotten aubergines to pelt him with all day long.

The double standards operated by the Mail is incredible. Harsh and unforgiving when it suits its agenda; a lover of human rights, fairness and a British sense of decency when it also suits its agenda.

If no-one can see the weirdness of this story, then the country has sadly entered a rather dim and blinkered phase in its history. It is up to Boaty & D to wake everyone up and show them the way - few else seek to do this.

More common sense from the intelligent, charismatic and staunch left-libertarian Peter Tatchell. In the Grauniad, he takes a few pot shots at Gordon Brown for his poor show on gay rights and how he has blocked efforts at improving equality vis a vis civil ceremonies.

Tatchell is staunchly in favour of gay marriage and he remains perplexed and unhappy at Brown's unwillingness to liberalise the laws and bring a halt to what he calls 'apartheid' in the system. Namely that heterosexuals cannot have civil partnerships and gays can't get married and enjoy the same benefits as straight married couples.

In my old fascist Mail reading days as a youngster, I despised Tatchell and his lobbying on behalf of Stonewall and gay rights. Now I realise the ridiculous and despicable error of my ways, for tolerance and open-mindedness is critical and it is entirely down to the individual what life they choose. Who am I or anyone else to judge?

There is no logical position against Tatchell's case. And indeed he is right - Labour have been poor on this matter, and I believe it is because they don't want to rock the boat. I would call this gutless politics, and it is totally in keeping with the soulless Machiavellian nature of our piss poor excuse of a PM.

Tatchell is one of the best advocates of left Libertarianism out there, and I have absolutely no problem with any of his campaigns, human rights or otherwise. The man doesn't exercise double standards like many other lefties. He is principled and consistent, and that makes all the difference.

Any sturdy position against state control is, for me, worth defending and worth fighting for.

Bring on The Tatch.

Apparently Man Utd are set to sign away their chances of winning the Premiership next season. They are on the verge of signing up Newcastle United's Michael Owen - possibly the worst, most overrated and useless player in the world.

Owen has been total wank for the last 9 years. He's always injured, he never scores (last time was in January), he needs more chances than a Las Vegas down and out and no matter how many forwards he is paired up with, he's about as useful as two tits on a boar. I can scarcely think of a worse player.

Sam Allardyce has given him the swerve, Hull would probably have considered him an expensive white elephant and personally, I don't think he's good enough for the likes of Leicester or Southend. He's a moody waste of space and a spoilt 'got rich too soon' cunt. The bloke annoys the fuck out of me quite frankly. He sums up what happens to the modern footballer when they use their early pay checks to buy Aston Martins and big houses - they lose the spark and the guts and make a farce out of their profession.

Liverpool are the perennial losers. They start off all shaky, pick up a bit but it's always too little too late. This is largely because they only have a couple of really good players and their manager is a dick wad who hasn't a fucking clue what he's doing.

Arsenal live in a fantasy land, still believing they are great whilst sending boys in diapers onto the pitch to do battle with men over the age of 24. Wenger is a lost it and his team are destined for ignominy for at least another decade.

For me, the best tip for the 2009/2010 season is Chelsea. William Hill are offering twos on the South London scumbags, which I think is well worth a punt. Their end to the last season was excellent and their players have settled in nicely. They will relish the challenge in a way that no other team possibly can.

Surely worth a few ton. Champers all round come May next year.

Adios, cunts.

They're a funny bunch, lefties. They love nothing more than to push their chests our and strut around like peacocks, telling us how 'progressive' and intellectually 'forward thinking' they are on ways to stop crime and 'rehabilitate' the misunderstood (read: criminal scum). Yet, there are always exceptions to the lefty rules.

Under the politicised Home Office since Labour got in, we've seen vast sums of money go to 'consultants' and hand picked 'experts' and University Professors who have put crime under the microscope with the aim of finding out why people commit crime. Any outcome is possible for the government, except one: that human nature is such that there will always be people who, in the absence of a deterrent, will fuck people over.

We've had restorative justice, we've had tagging, community sentencing, money pumped into education and work placements, we've had lighter sentencing and all the usual liberal left shibboleths - all these 'solutions' have come out to play.

The outcome? Obvious. It's been an abject failure and Britain is now one of the most violent countries in Europe, with more recorded violent crime than South Africa and with a society that is bereft of civility. The country is breaking up before our eyes, and all Labour can do now is stick their collective head in the sand and pretend it isn't happening. God forbid that right wing Tories were right all along!

Ronnie Biggs. Not a young misunderstood wide boy cunt from Kennington; should therefore rot in jail until he's 203. According to Guardian reading progressives.

What do we have now? Rampant knife and gun crime, high homicide rates and assaults and rape at unacceptable levels. If a woman is raped (or even gang raped) and stabbed to death or if someone is kicked to death in the street, amazingly, the perpetrator if sent to court by the left wing Crown Prosecution Service and found guilty will receive a fake, invented sentence of around 10 years on average.

I say fake and invented, because the sentence bears no semblance to reality - that sentence is inevitably reduced by around 60%. So the worst form of scum imaginable (and there's a growing pool) often only do 5 years or so in their hotels for the worst crimes. Except...

Except, of course, if the perpetrators: a) belong to the white working class (the most hated of groups by liberal left Labourites) b) committed their crimes before the advent of colour TV and the Sweeney. Can anyone tell me Jack Straw's reasoning for refusing to accept the parole board's recommendation for the Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs?

The man is on the verge of death and is about 80 years old. He's fucked. Can't he spend his last few days with his family? Has he not, in comparison to worse scum that commit worse crimes these days, done enough Turkey?

According to Guardian readers, no. More than half of 'G' readers in that paper's poll think he should not be released. Source. I bet you if he was 40 years old, black and lived in Hackney, the poll would show the reverse - for then, of course, he would be the victim of social disadvantage and inherent British racism.

Weirdly enough, it was the Home Office Minister (Jack Straw) who refused Reggie Kray's release. Was that because he was 'wholly unrepentant'? No. He was repentant actually, as any source on the subject shows.

So why did he refuse Kray's release, even though he served more than his entire, original sentence of 30 years?

Reggie Kray was released in 2000, having served 31 years for the murder of a low life gangster. That's 1 year more than the 30 year tariff set by the judge in 1969. When you consider that the circumstances and factors involved in the crime for which he was committed, and if you then consider the sorts of crimes that go before courts now, I think it fair to say that 31 years is a fucking massive sentence.

The sort of sentence that would never be instituted against anyone now, regardless of how sick their crime and regardless of the innocence of the victim. There's no mistaking it - the Establishment have absolutely no time for white working class villains or anti-heroes of the '60s.

There's no sympathy factor there, no liberal impetus for supporting them or seeking the understanding of their communities. I needn't add here that B&D are in no way favourable or biased towards any persons who break the law, particularly on serious matters such as murder or violence.

But there's a clear bias here and it's political. I would not mind so much if hefty sentences and an absence in leniency were applied across the board, but it isn't. Meanwhile the Establishment and the liberal media search for new ways to avoid punishing the guilty properly (outside of ancient people like Biggs) and the only solutions that are discussed by people on Question Time, BBC broadcasts, Channel 4 broadcasts and consensus wet Tory pussies are solutions that involve a total absence of punishment.

The Lib Dems want to empty all the prisons of criminals who committed non violent crimes and simply ask them to sweep up some litter and wear a tag. Anyone who asks for anything severe to happen are regarded as swivel eyed loons.

The world has gone totally insane - we need to take the power back from liberal traitor scum, it really is as simple as that.

I've argued the trace point before, back on the Wordpress blog we used to have. In short, CO2, despite it's increase, is a tiny fraction of the atmosphere. It is so tiny in fact that seeing it as a major cause of global warming becomes hard to swallow when you see the zeros.

I don't often write a piece simply to raise a subject somewhere else, but over at the Libertarian Alliance blog they have an article that I found to be excellent on this subject and where the whole CO2 thing even came from. I'm a bit slow and it was done back in January, but still it's worth a read.

Article here

I was taken aback this morning whilst eating my Coco Pops when BBC Breakfast ran a piece about smoking in Scotland. For those who didn't see it, they are paying people £12.50 a week to give up smoking.

Yes, that's right, the Scottish Socialist Semi-Republic, or SSSR as it is cheerfully known, is to actually pay people to give up smoking because...um...er...hang on, because...um. It costs money?

Oh yeah, that's the argument by the Scots and indeed by the BBC, who failed in every way to simply ask them why it costs money. The claim put forward by the medical chap was that it costs the Scottish NHS £400 million a year or some such rubbish, it's something that fucks me right off.

At no point, ever, does anyone point out the tax that is pumped into this fucking country by smokers. If you want a fact it is actually £8.2 billion a year. There is no way on earth that smokers drain the NHS to the tune of that figure, in fact it's about £5 billion. The people who say that some sort of premium should be paid by smokers because of the 'drain' are fucking pricks. Look it up, do some fucking research and then shut the fuck up.

The numbers are plain and simple, yet are never, ever mentioned. Ever. Smokers do pay a premium, it's called the £4.45 of tax on every £5.85 pack of fags. The interesting thing here is the tax, I shall explain.

People moan about the tax on fags, fair enough, but the percentage of the price that is made of tax hasn't changed for twenty years ormore, but at the same time the number of people smoking has halved from 99 billion sticks a year in 1990 to 47 billion in 2007. Hand rolling has also dropped, although duty free consumption is estimated to have gone up.

So consumption down, price up, tax percentage stable. The point being that despite people giving up as the government claims to want, it's tax revenue is going down...unless they force the price up. They are now getting the same amount of revenue from a smaller and smaller pool of people, relatively speaking.

And now they want to pay people to stop smoking. This is just fucking stupid. The guy being interviewed was, surprise sur-fucking-prise, recently unemployed and therefore on welfare. So he has no money for fags and I would suggest the benefit of not buying fags he can't afford and being boosted to the tune of twelve notes a week has him dancing round the fucking kitchen fucking cunting table.

But it continues, oh yeah, it gets better! What do we all know as a basic fact about Scotland? They are the fattest fuckers in the world. Indeed it costs the Scottish NHS hundreds of millions a year. But what's this? It's that £12.50 in the form of, incredibly, a voucher card. To only be spent on fucking food.

Yup. You fucking heard me. They are giving people money every week to stop smoking, because it 'costs' the NHS and instead buy food, with world record breaking levels of obesity. Is it that the Scots love their grub so bloody much that they will give up anything for a kebab? Maybe we should offer them £50 a week in burgers if they get off their fucking arses and go to fucking work.

They have no control of what they spend it on, except it has to be food. Pies are food. Chips are food. Frozen 'bab is food, sort of. There is nothing stopping these fat, unemployed, chain smoking fucks spending £12.50 of my fucking money on fifteen pies a week. Each. A four strong tar soaked family in Dundee can now buy a whole sixty fucking pies a week. Result! Back of the fucking net that one.

You would have thought, would you not, that they would have limited it to fruit and veg in order to kill two birds with one taxpayer funded stone.

It baffles me the war on smoking, it really does. I am one of those kinda smokers, I light up at the pub a couple of times a week and if I'm pissed I'll decimate a pack of twenty. But I'm not that bothered about it. Yet I have no issue with others smoking because they pay their tax, they make their choices and they know the risks.

It doesn't cost the state anything, in fact they gain from it and for many it is the little joyful habit they have; they don't really go out or drink or windsurf, but they smoke.

One bit might of jumped out at you, 'Scottish NHS'. Because under devolution the Scots have control over their own NHS, hence the absurdity of a resulting two tier system. So who is paying the £12.50? It isn't clear to be honest, I can't find it anyway. The point being that if the Scottish NHS are looking to get smokers off of their budget and it is the UK welfare state paying the £12.50, then the Scottish taxpayer is only paying a proportion of the £12.50. The rest being paid by everyone else.

It's a win win of state control. Paying morons to give up something they can't afford to do anyway and bribing them with food despite being chronically obese. There is a strange obsession with getting people to stop smoking, yet they won't cain the price up to £20 a pack, or ban it, or smash the industry with tax, they just inch it up and collect the readies.

I thought the UK was a fucking joke at the moment, but Scotland has gone off the deep end. Paying fat fucks tiny taxed food to stop them smoking highly taxed fags to solve a resources drain, you couldn't make it up. Except they have.

Here at Boatang and Demetriou we love our readers, we really do. At some point we want to organise the first annual B&D picnic, with games and maybe a small music festival. The numbers attending is an issue and we are in negotiations with Hyde Park, but we may have to settle for Wembley.

Because of the genuine love and overwhelming affection that is present on this blog, I feel it is my duty to offer some sound advice to you all on how to deal with the whole 30C heatwave we are going through. Too many good B&D men and women have died this week and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it continue.

The unions have asked for office workers to wear shorts in a bid to save lives and the aqua-liberals (copyright K.Boatang 2009) are still fannying about deciding whether it's hot because of global warming or not hot enough yet to 'prove' it.

Tip 1 Men, do not wear fucking shorts. If you wear shorts to the office you will look a cock, this is a known fact. It is also a known fact that women in offices can wear anything they like because they are all lovely and soft, men on the other hand must wear the minimum trouser/shirt combo at all times.

Tip 2 Do not wear a jumper. This may seem obvious, but it was only yesterday afternoon I saw a person wearing a chunky knit roll neck, close to death. This is a stupid move that I hope our intelligent readers would not succumb to, but it is tempting. Resist the temptation.

How scientists predict Surrey will look by Friday

Tip 3 Do not wear scarves and gloves. I'm getting sick and tired of having to say this so it's the last time okay? June and July are not the months for scarves and gloves yes? Scarves and gloves November, t-shirts and flip-flops July. It's not hard. If you want to, fine, suit yourself, but when you are in hospital don't say you weren't warned.

Tip 4 Go to the pub. This is no time for being at work so sack it off and go to the pub. Think 'Ice Cold In Alex', they didn't fuck about did they? Get the fighting bit over and done with and hit the bar, nice cold one. If you can't get to the pub because it's full of yellow polo shirt wearing twonks called Jay or Alfie, then recreate the scene at home in these easy steps. In the garden simply place a picnic bench or similar product, fill a bowl with fag butts and piss on the lawn to get that authentic aroma. You may wish to make the cat/dog puke in the corner for a true experience and you can top off the day by having the missus pour you lager in exchange for huge amounts of cash.

Tip 5 You are indoors and it's getting hot. You can't work it out, the windows are open and you have taken your jumper off, the scarf is put away beyond temptation. You've been to the pub and had a nice cold pint and now you are at home you've whipped on the shorts. But it's really hot. You know what you've gone and done don't you? You've only gone and left the heating on! Go and turn it off and it will be fine. This is a surprisingly common mistake in July so don't feel ashamed, just learn from your mistake and move on.

It's that simple, follow these five easy words of wisdom and certain death will be avoided. The elderly will obviously continue to wear heavy knits and gloves with the heating on, but once over the age of 70 it's a known fact you only have the internal temperature of a fridge. Those of you who are in that category, and you are out there, I would suggest you give the t-shirt a go, see how it feels. You can always turn back to the safety of a wool/viscose blend.

Details of the first BDstocknic at Hyde Park will be announced soon, Blur are okay with us using their stage after they've finished with it this weekend so we're making progress and we have a verbal agreement from Rod Temperton to give a speech on the virtues of 21st century libertarianism in a liberal fascist world.

We are still in negotiations with Tony Benn over him featuring in our 'Pelt A Cunt' cage so we may have to settle for Zane Lowe.