I really have to get this off my chest before I wind up in A&E or worse, because it is really starting to piss me off cheap viagra.

Over the last few months, I have read an ever increasing amount of bullshit in an ever increasing number of publications roaring in indignation at the Americans for their persistence in trying to get Gary McKinnon extradited to the States for hacking into military computers cialis. You've got the right wing howling off in the Daily Mail , because it scores some good ol' nationalist Brownie points. The left wing have now taken up the baton, because of the whole 'aspergers' heart bleed not to mention the anti Bush, anti American angle and the fact 'liberals' detest the notion of a person going to jail for doing something wrong.

'Liberal' lefties really hate that one, which is why I will always simmer with rage at the very sight of a picture of Shami Chakrabarti, who seems to pass herself off as a lover of liberty, when in fact I know full well whose liberty she is more interested in protecting - the liberties of wankers and ne'er do wells.

My dear Mr Boatang summed the whole matter up perfectly in this recent piece - I can't possibly top this, and the article is well worth reading as dear old Boaty truly knows his stuff on the subject.

But what I need to nail home, further to the debate that generated on Mr B's recent piece, are a few points of logic. What I want to do is highlight all the areas that the pro-McKinnon/anti-extraditionists are using in their propaganda, and dismiss the logic that is being applied to each and every one of them.

So here goes.

Aspergers

My opponents in this field will argue that because McKinnon has 'aspergers', he should not be sent for trial in the US. The logic is that he could not have been fully cognisant of his actions and the gravity of his actions, and that because he was/is 'disabled' in some respect, it is unfair that he be made to stand trial in America for what he did.

This reason is also brought up whenever Mr McKinnon's current state of mind and stress levels are discussed.

My position on this is crystal clear - if his legal team wish to argue this, that's fine. But they should have to argue it in a court of law in the United States, because the current law dictates that he be sent to the country in which the crime took place. I.e. America.

If it were a burglary, it would have been no different. McKinnon essentially 'broke into', 'trespassed' and caused damage to property in that country. He may as well have been over there at the time.

What cannot be tolerated is the totally absurd notion that because a doctor says he has 'x' condition (a relatively recent diagnosis I would add) that means all is well and he should not be held to account at law.

Imagine if everyone started doing that? "Hello, my name is Pablo and I recently traveled to the UK from my home country of Portugal in order to rape a few university students. It's OK, though, I won't be standing trial in England for my crimes because my Doc back in Lisbon has a note to say I have a high libido and a bit of depression. Sorry about that. Send them my love, won't you?"

It's bollocks. This is what courts of law are for, you fucking imbeciles. You can't jostle your way out of justice, because you aren't well. It's the old 'sick note' getting out of gym class excuse, and I cannot believe serious minded people are using this ruse.

Have people forgotten what the Rule of Law is all about these days, or are people that emotionally driven and fucking stupid?

The 'aspergers' thing is something that must be tested in court. That court must be in the States. Why? Because the law fucking says so.

Get over it you simpering jerk offs.

Which leads me onto...

The Extradition Treaty is unfair

Some people, like Henry Porter of the Guardian (see the link above under 'the left wing'), think the law is unfair and inherently biased against the Brits. OK. This may well be so. But why was there no fuss about all this when the law came onto effect in January of 2004? Well, it's obvious. A case has arisen which throws it all into stark relief.

The trouble is, laws aren't there to be retrospectively applied, twisted and canceled at will, just because one party or another has decided it isn't much good after all.

The proper place to raise this is via the political and legislative process. In other words, there needs to be lobbying of ministers for a push in a change in the law. This is awkward, as it will undoubtedly involve the Americans who probably would not be overawed at the suggestion of a revision in the law.

Either way, you can argue the toss over the fairness of the law all day, the fact is, the Extradition Treaty is fucking law, and it's one that is engaged by the shenanigans of Mr McKinnon. It is very simple - a law exists. It must be applied. If people want it changed, that's something that the future, not the past, must accommodate.

It's a bit like taking an old jumper back to the shop without a receipt and asking for your money back. This one has more fucking holes in it than a block of Switzerland's finest. McKinnon (who I may shortly name 'McClownan for the sheer idiocy of his behaviour) did not play Tetris with the Pentagon Payroll for a few fucking hours.

He caused some serious fucked up shit over there, as explained by Mr Boatang on his recent genius comment.

Bloody Americans! Bloody politicians!

Yeah, yeah, fucking yeah. This is so bloody predictable it hurts. Just because politicians are selfish, short sighted shits and the Americans are a bit Gung Ho, does not mean that the Treaty is null and void and McKinnon should remain in Britain. Sorry about that.

To look at this point with more clarity, let us look closer at some of Henry Porter's words in his piece:

"(there is a) suspicion that the US authorities waited to apply for McKinnon's extradition under the new law, which came into operation in January 2004. The delay is held by many to have been a deliberate strategy followed by the Bush administration. To what degree the British connived in this delay is a matter of speculation but given the relationship between the Bush and Blair governments, now being revealed in the Chilcot inquiry, informal co-operation to make sure the Americans got their man cannot be ruled out"

I'm glad he used that word before I did. 'Speculation'. I am also glad he discredited his ludicrous position by linking the McKinnon case with Blair's alleged 'signing the Iraq war in blood with Bush in secret pact' matter. Because this makes it all clear, doesn't it. 'Politicians in dodgy horsetrading, 'real-politik' sneaky behind the scenes deal shocker! Therefore all actions of politicians must be inherently bent and corrupt.

But, even if we accept this assertion as fact, and that the British went along with American delaying tactics so that McKinnon was ensnared by the new law; it is still tough titty! Delaying tactics like this are not unusual in the legal arena. And linking an alleged delay with a determination to nab a particular person for whatever reason appears to me to be beyond proof.

Even if it could be proven, would that seriously mean that the Treaty is illegal, or void, or unenforceable? I seriously doubt it. You could have a thousand Johnnie Cochranes in your legal team, and I would lay odds of a million to one on the chances of getting the Treaty revoked on this basis.

You can yell about how unfair it all is, and how it all stinks, and it still does not detract for one moment from the fact that a law stands and it is there to be enforced.

McKinnon lost his appeal. The Home Secretary came out on the 27 November 2009 and said that the extradition must go ahead, because extradition is not incompatible with his human rights. McKinnon's team are putting in for a Judicial Review as I type, but I am convinced that the government would have stopped it all going ahead...if they were able. They are not able, because there is a Treaty in place and there is no way round it.

Hindsight is a marvelous thing, is it not?

Try him in Britain, not America!

Why? Extradition Treaties (and there are many of these things, look it up) are there for a fucking reason. I severely doubt that there would be so much uproar if it were a foreign person accused of committing a similar or even a very different crime from abroad against British property or interests.

The real reason people are upset is as I have described at the beginning of this piece. It's either because he is British (and therefore the argument lacks logic or merit and consistency) or it is because America is full of Americans and they are all right wing and nasty and have harsh jail terms. Again, illogical and ridiculous.

He didn't do that much 'arm, poor bugger and look at what the bankers have got away with!

This is fast becoming the modern day equivalent to Godwins Law. These lazy, inarticulate, dull, dim witted, left wing, sneering and childish moral equivalents are beyond boring. Who has said anything about holy, upstanding bankers? Just because some bankers have committed terrible misdeeds and have got away with lots of things, does not mean it is OK to let every other wrongdoer off the hook.

Henry Porter in the Guardian voices just such a view in his fatuous article:

"How much damage did McKinnon do in pursuit of evidence about UFOs? The Americans say it is equal to $500,000. It is perhaps worth comparing this amount with the harm done to the British and other economies by greedy and irresponsible American bankers. I don't see many of them being shipped out for prosecution."

This is text book Marxoid bullshit. I haven't heard anything this fucking inane since Tariq Ali last popped up on telly.

Just because you think and say it is about UFO's, does not mean that at law that is indisputable fact. That is why we have fucking laws, and trials, and judges, and juries and treaties you cock. To test evidence.

We are then sold the line that the damage done was small beer and of little consequence, again, as though the 'value' of the damage has much to do with it. Furthermore, the New Godwins Law is invoked, and we are asked to consider why bankers are not being shipped out for prosecution.

Firstly, I think the comment about the damage caused is insulting and embarrassing. The US will have their reasons for pursuing this case besides the money aspect. I should imagine there is a massive public interest factor involved in taking this case on - McKinnon is not the only fucking hacker out there, after all.

Secondly, bankers made bad decisions and poor investments because people, like you and me, freely banked our money with them. Securitisation went sour, but it was something that was happening years before the Sub Prime crisis hit. In other words, yes many bankers are bastards, but we let them get away with it and essentially, we all have a hand in how it all worked out.

Whether you are American or British, an American investing in Britain or a Briton investing in America, it's all part of the same picture in our globalised economy. Some American bankers were bad, and so were British ones. People had the choice before the credit crunch on who they banked with. Many claim ignorance of the workings of international banking and sub prime.

The trouble is, in law, whether in the case of McKinnon or the case of every day punters investing their loot with the bankers, ignorance is no defence.


All of the arguments posited by those against McKinnon's extradition are illogical and stupid. They are riven with non sequiturs and emotional bias. You can be against a law, but still understand its enforceability and legitimacy. You can want a law changed, but realise that any current law or treaty stands. You can wish a law never existed, but know that the clock cannot be turned back. You can try and get a law changed, but know that what has been committed is done and must be addressed by the appropriate law.

There is not a single valid argument against McKinnon's extradition. None that I have read or heard yet, at any rate.

Libertarianism is obviously the purpose of individual responsibility and contribution for the benefit of the individual and society as a whole, among other things, and that is why is it so opposed to the concept of the welfare state. Although I have stated that in the 21st century some form of safety net is a requirement, this does not include the vast majority of benefits that are currently on show.

This article focuses on employment and its consequences, in particular how unemployment benefit and its associated housing benefits have led to the current social breakdown and the ghettoisation of our country, and the wider western world to a great extent.

Unemployment is the great strain on many areas of our society, in many ways beyond many people's scope. Worklessness is not simply not having a job, it is the removal of individual freedom through the loss of income and therefore choice. The western, in this case British, solution to this is the welfare state.

The welfare state is no longer as it was meant to be. Originally it was the progressive liberal idea of a safety net largely based upon the parish taxes and other systems previously devised. As time went on it introduced the pension amongst other things. To clarify, I am not getting into the NHS here, although part of the system it should be approached separately.

Original intentions are important in other areas too. For instance, social housing, which has become inseparable from unemployment. This, however, was not always the case. Originally social housing rents were in fact higher than the private sector and you were given tenancy on your ability to pay the rent, not on you not having a job. That is, you had to have a job to pay the rent. Social housing was the better form, better facilities and was largely a solution to the slum dwellings that blighted much of this country.

It is important to note here that there was no security of tenure. If you broke the rules through crime or anti-social behaviour, you were out. The person who scrapped this and gave social housing security? Maggie Thatcher.

Unemployment is in the vast majority of cases the overwhelming economic factor of crime. The evidence is manifest. In turn, due to the changes of the 80s to switch the nature of social housing to the provision of tenure to those who were unable to pay or work, council estates became concentrations of poverty and in turn, crime.

A huge issue here is that unemployment benefit has become on a par with work. The cultural mistake of believing that work is a desirable human thing has become quite clearly wrong; the million or so who are euphemistically known as long-term unemployed but realistically permanently so, have no intention of working. They lower their standard of living to one that they find acceptable but many of us would not and therefore the incentive to improve it is simply not there.

On top of this they will readily supplement this income from the black economy - crime.

A key driver of their ability to live like this is simple: housing benefit. Housing benefit accounts for £12 billion per annum of taxpayers money, just to pay the rent of social housing for those that cannot afford it. 60% of housing benefit claimants live in social housing.

To go to work means losing your housing benefit, which means paying your rent from your wage, which means you might as well stay on benefits because you will now be worse off. This is a basic human calculation.

The libertarian solution is to scrap the welfare state, or depending on your position, some of it. However, I see an interim position as a way of ushering in a new era. I will mention others, but in the main...

The removal of social housing.

People on housing benefits would still receive money in order to pay their rent, but directly. No social housing requirement in new developments, no council or housing association as landlord. The money is paid directly into the person's account to be spent as they wish, in return they must provide a receipt for the housing provision they have used. In short, the rent is given to them to enter the private rental sector, which includes all previous social housing.

This makes them, forces them, to find somewhere to live, to enter into a rental agreement, to exercise free choice as opposed to allocation of resource. If they get a job, below a certain wage of course, they can top up their rental allowance and get a better place to live. If they choose to spend the money on drugs or drink and so do not get a roof over their heads, then they are homeless and their benefit is stopped. The consequences of their actions, or lack of it, are clear and absolute.

This gets people to start operating in the libertarian spirit. They must use money as a free choice, they must not just sit there and be spoon fed. If they choose to spend that money the wrong way, they go without. No back up, no help. They were given the chance, they blew it.

Many will obviously stay in their current homes, except now if they fail to pay the rent, they get evicted. The more they earn the less housing benefit they get until they are self-sufficient.

In turn, the black economy is removed. At the moment many turn to drugs and prostitution to earn and the only tax they may possibly contribute is VAT. My solution to this, in common with many people's, is decriminalisation.

Drugs are now taxed, prostitution is now taxed. They are regulated and licensed, they pay tax and they contribute to a person's income and help offset their benefits and also the deficit the state incurs.

Our country has become one of dependency. A huge number of people are utterly reliant on the state for their income, their housing, their food and water and clothing. On one side this is seen as a drain on the economy and an unacceptable use of an ever increasing tax burden on those that work. However, it is also the removal of freedom for those people. As Hayek argued, money is freedom. It is choice.

Before we remove the vast majority of the welfare state, we must first implement an interim system to get those affected back to exercising freedom of choice, the decisions that make them individuals and the consequences of their actions. Libertarianism's perspective on the welfare state is not just about the tax burden it creates, but also the freedom it removes from those that become reliant on it.

In turn the welfare state, and housing benefit in particular, have created no go areas, ghettos of poverty and state reliance, poor education, high crime. The approach above removes this, it gives people control over where they live and how they make those decisions, it removes the threat of crime and re-introduces the income produced from those activities back into the formal economy.

Before many of the things we want to see achieved can be implemented, a road map must be drawn up to show the stages that will be put in place to get to our primary objective: lower taxes, less state control, individual responsibility, freedom.

I cannot recommend this documentary enough. I watched it last night, and it blew my socks off.

A fantastic look at the importance of beauty in art, architecture and our every day lives, from a straight talking conservative-minded philosopher and writer.

He, with devastating politeness and simplicity, destroys those responsible for bringing vulgarity and ugliness to our lives - something that began in earnest from the 1960s onwards.

You are left agog, only to make a series of logical connections to things and to wonder how more people do not realise what is going on in our society today.

Click the link and watch the broadcast on BBC iPlayer, for free. This is available for the next 6 days, so get in there if you haven't seen it already.

And if you wish, pen your thoughts on it here for further debate.

Yet another poll has been published on the forthcoming fortunes of the main political parties, this time a YouGov poll for the Daily Mailygraph.

You will be flabbergasted to learn that the Tories are doing quite well, and...the Tories intend to do well at the election by targeting target seats.

A little clue for the pollsters: they are called target seats for a reason. They are marginal, and hence target seats, and they are targeted, because of small majorities for the opposing party thus making them winnable.

Bunch of pricks.

However, there are some interesting clues in the poll which reveal much about a) the state of the Tory Party, and b) the state of modern Britain.

You may have noticed lately that Cameron's Tories increasingly peg their chances of winning by triangulating traditional and new Labour policies and appearing more socially democratic than the party of the centre-left. The other day we heard about Cameron's wooing of the fatuous and despicable 'mumsnet' outfit (a collection of nasty, embittered gossiping wenches who spend their lives bemoaning the fact that they don't get enough 'entitlements'. I.e. other peoples' hard earned money).

Two days ago the Torygraph reported on some inane utterings by a major Cameron adviser called Philip Blond, nicknamed the 'Red Tory'. This adviser is telling Cameron to 'break up' the big supermarkets, impose anti market policies and interfere in the workings of big business. Apparently this qualifies as 'fresh thinking'. Even though this sort of thing started to become popular about 70 years ago, with a current revival in statist Keynesian ideas coming to the fore under our very own PM Gordon Brown.

But here's an extract from the Torygraph piece on the poll, which contains two noteworthy messages.

"Although the poll will please the Conservatives, it also points to some significant Tory vulnerabilities. Some 61 per cent of marginal voters say the Tory plan to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1million shows they “mainly want to help the rich, not ordinary people”.

The results also suggest that while marginal voters are increasingly disillusioned with Labour, they are not yet fully convinced by the Tories on many key issues: only 26 per cent think education would improve under a Conservative government. For the NHS the figure is 22 per cent, and only 19 per cent think that the Tories would cut crime."

So let us look at that first bit, shall we? 61% (that's quite a lot) of 'marginal voters' (so people who voted for New Labour but might be swayed this time) are unhappy about the Tory IHT proposal because it shows they want to 'help' the rich and not 'ordinary' people.

"Wa-hay! We're the Basildon Clowns and we want to help 'ordinary people', just like Maggie here! Guffaw Guffaw!"

This says pretty much everything you need to know about our brainwashed nation. Out there, there is a large number of people who think that the role of government is to take wealth away from people in order to 'help' those who are deemed worthy. To not take tax, according to these people, is tantamount to taking away from worthy folk.

To not take money by way of an inheritance tax from rich(er) people, means that 'ordinary' people are somehow hard done by.

The underlying assumptions inherent within these received norms and ideas are breathtakingly irksome and worrying. Firstly, who are 'ordinary' people, and what is it that they want exactly from a government that taxes the estates of dead people? Secondly, what moral or other claim do 'ordinary' people have in this case? And why is the Tory IHT plan any kind of statement about that party's intent regarding 'helping' people?

None of this makes any sense. It only begins to materially piece together as a narrative, if you pop the old social democratic specs on and go wading through the righteous jungles of quasi Marxist freedom, machete in hand, ready to catch anyone who looks like they have a bit of money in the old 'sky rocket'.

So long as people think in terms of what the government can do for them, rather than what they can do for themselves and their families, this country is screwed.

We will never, ever, get anywhere as a nation state, so long as people think in these terms. The reasons people do think in these terms are varied and many, though one major factor is the fact that people aren't generally that bright, are easily open to influence from above, and are all too willing to pass the buck when the going gets tough. I'd also add that most people aren't very political and therefore do not see the consequences of handing over vast amounts of power to the State.

A second clue in the piece lies in the final paragraph, which says that the Tories are failing to convince the floaters of their ability in the key areas of health, education and crime.

In this, they are quite right in their fears. The Tories will be utterly useless on these, and most other areas, and almost certainly no different or better than Labour. Why would they be better? Their ideas are tame, they are substantively the same as Labour and their solutions are authoritarian, not libertarian.

What the marginal voters do not realise, is that until they connect the first assumption (that they deserve 'help' from the state) to the second assumption (the opposition party won't improve anything) nothing will ever change.

Politics cannot be something other people do on your behalf - it is something that, if it is to work, must properly involve us all at all times.

I'll be brief with this one, readers. As I wish to move on to some very important topics over the course of the next couple of days and the subject matter here is unworthy of big word count.

Russian spam

First up, a few words about spam. Boaty & D (the dot com version) has been up and running for almost a year now, and we've had precious little trouble in terms of spam hitting our comments sections. Until now, that is.

This is quite an interesting development, because the spam is largely from a Russian source, and arrives in mostly Cyrillic script. Co-incidentally, all this started soon after a visitor from Moscow made a few hits on our site. I know he/she is from Moscow, because I keenly check the Boaty & D battleship computer most days and we get all the details on who checks in and out.

It's not often we get readers from Russia, and so call me paranoid and presumptuous, but I've kind of put two and two together.

If, as my suspicions would have it, we are under attack from a Russian based spam artist, I cannot say as I am very surprised or shocked. Our site has featured one or two articles in the past attacking that country's foreign policy, specifically how they handled the South Ossetia crisis.

From what I understand, Russia under Putin and his pals have adopted a peculiar and rather bizarre way of dealing with anyone who criticises that country or anything remotely Russian, even slightly: they attack them in any way they can.

I might be totally wrong here, but based on the trickle of news that comes over regarding Russian issues, I would not be amazed to learn that Moscow employs a little department somewhere dedicated to cyber-attacking and disrupting all internet based sources of anti-Russian sentiment.

Why else would a British based blog, that has nothing to do with Russia, and is written in English, come under sustained and vigorous attack from Russian spam?

The trouble with all this, is that while this may cause upset and a change in direction to most other sites, this will only have the direct opposite effect on me. Because I am a very odd sort of bloke who has a real stubborn, fucked up, nihilistic attitude to things. I do not always act rationally and cautiously, particularly when I feel under attack or treated adversely for no good reason.

In other words, I don't give a motherfuck. I really don't. Words are cheap, but these ones are the real deal. If these cunts seriously think that by slapping my site like a bitch, I'm going to pick up my handbag and makeup and tout my wares on the next street corner, they have another thing coming.

In fact, what I intend to do is actually the exact opposite of what they want (which is probably to take down the comments section, moderate the site, or block Russian IP addresses).

So here's a final warning to the weird deranged cunts attacking the Mighty B&D:

If Boatang & Demetriou continues to be targeted by Russian spammers, we will start writing articles that criticise Moscow. The more spam, the more articles. It's that fucking simple.

Anonymous postings.

Boaty & D welcome posts and comments from anyone who wishes to make a comment, particularly if it concerns the subject matter of the piece to which the comment is appended. We prefer it if people used, if not their own name, then a handle so that their comments can be aptly attributed to an identified author. We are not anal about pseudonyms or anything like that, but one 'anonymous' is no different in identity to the next, even though they are often different individuals behind the post.

We are delighted and encouraged by the recent standard and content of comments on our site. Be they critical or approving. Many good comments have come from 'anonymous' posters, so that has been great.

That said, when we receive abusive comments, it is somewhat infuriating when they come from an 'anonymous', purely because of the sheer gutlessness behind the exercise. If you want to be particularly rude and abusive, that's fine, but it reeks of cowardice when it is not even penned under a handle.

It is doubly infuriating when the abuse is posted on threads which are months old. This is horrendous bad manners and poor blogging form, not to mention sly and pathetic. Guess what, you didn't get the last word in, because the debate is dead and we only see your comments pop up by email notices to our account.

Here's one such example of a post, which was attached to an article we did on Libertarianism in September of this year.

"Nah. The Libertarians are the 'fascists' in the modern useage, who would finally rape the last of the assets out of the UK and go live with their pedo buddies in Thailand or Cambodia on the proceeds.

You cunts are a joke. You rail against socialism/statism, and yet haul the least able to verbally defend themselves for trying to,because they have suffered in the schools of Frankfurt School socialist propaganda, leaving them bereft of the ability to string together cogent arguments.

If you two weren't devoid of compassion, just like Libertarian in Chief (even if she quibbled about the lables she was attached to), Ayn Rand you soulless bastards, you would pity them rather than mock them.

Still you'll die eventually, probably at the hands of the Moslems when they take over once the BNP and anyone else standing up to them have been shut up by a pair of cultural Marxists like yourselves. Or like Thatcher, covered in your own piss and shit, unable to talk or wipe your arse.

Shitbags"

This semi-literate, incomprehensible rubbish scores 1/10 on originality and 0.5/10 on amusement value. Intellectually, it scores a minus, and in terms of addressing any actual view we have stated past and present, the comment is in 6 minus figures.

Apart from getting libertarianism wrong, our politics wrong, the whereabouts of us and our associates (Cambodia?) wrong, and concepts of life and death wrong (don't we all die eventually, you prick?) this chap, like with so many abusive trolls, eventually gives away his true motivations.

Racism.

It is no co-incidence, in my mind, that the rise of the far 'Right' in Britain has brought with it a new surge in ultra nationalist and racist blog comments. Probably because there are more of these people, and also because they realise the value inherent in spreading their hate across the internet.

So not only have we been hit by Russian spam over the last year or so, we have also been hit by numerous (including this) fucked up racist diatribes which fail to address any points we have made and fail to advance discussion.

The spam 'comments' will be deleted, but the comments from the lunatics and morons will not be.

But for the sake of your own pride, nationalists, we ask this: that if you want to make your views known here, you do so in a coherent and identifiable manner. Use a nickname, and try to address points we make and views we hold. It will make your shit sound that little bit more plausible and interesting.

You've got to love the bubbles.

Many readers of ours may have formed the view that because this half of Boaty & D is of Greek extraction, he must therefore be biased to all things Greek. Au Contraire. As with anything in life, I believe in consistency and weighing up all the facts before making an informed decision. This means that nationalism or patriotism or whatever you want to call it mean precisely zero to me. I do not see the point of it.

There are over 60 million people in Britain. Most of them are British. Similarly, there are around three quarters of a million people living in Cyprus; a majority of whom (in the Republic) are ethnically Greek Cypriot. And guess what?

In each instance, I've met well under 0.0000001% of them. And of those I have met, a reasonably large proportion haven't been overwhelmingly nice to me.

So why should I be biased towards any group of people, based on flag and nationhood? It is a bollocks concept, and I ask all who read my articles to consider the logic in supporting a country's politics, people or culture out of tribal loyalty.

Yet, as ever, I digress. What I rail against today is one of my usual targets: authoritarianism. Except this time I am not talking about authoritarianism and its pernicious effects on the individual in Britain. You may read this and feel a modicum of relief, if you are one of our UK readers, because I sincerely believe things have not plumbed quite such ridiculous depths over here...for now at least.

I seek to draw your attention to some goings on in a land of my ancestral heritage and a land where I spent a few years living and working as an ex pat earlier this decade.

Today I read a staggering story in the Cyprus Mail (a correspondence piece may also be found in the Daily *gulp* Mail) about a bunch of very old women who were arrested and charged for playing gin rummy.

The women, from Limassol, Cyprus, were charged on Sunday.

According to the Cyprus Mail piece:

"Officers found the 42 women at the club run by two women aged 79 and 70. The oldest person arrested was a 95-year-old. The raid took place around 6pm on Sunday after a series of complaints by neighbours about noise in the evenings when the women were coming and going from the house. Officers found that one of the rooms in the house had been set up with several tables covered in green felt. The 42 women were caught seated around the tables playing poker and gin rummy for cash in a similar fashion to a gambling club.

Playing cards for money is illegal in Cyprus and police regularly carry out raids around the island at betting shops, clubs and associations particularly coming up to Christmas, and through New Year, when more people go out to play cards and socialise over the holiday period."

Lovely stuff, eh? Some old women get together on a winter's evening, because they unlike everyone else don't want to spend their remaining years in front of a TV and would rather do something different with their private lives, and they are arrested. For hurting precisely...no-one.

As the Mail correctly reports:

"Many Greek Cypriots, including mainly middle-class women, are passionate card players. But it is a criminal offence to play for money, even in the privacy of one’s home."

As the articles on both publications spells out quite clearly, not only is this a law in Cyprus, but it's a law that the police are more than happy to enforce in the most heavy handed manner. To the extent that they don't care about nicking and banging up ancient grannies who like to diddle about with a few Euros once every now and then.

This reminds me of a trip I took to Cyprus back in '02, where I stayed at a hotel in Larnaca with my parents and decided to get the cards out in the hotel bar and play brag with my mum for matchsticks. The barman came over and bumptiously told me to stop playing and put the cards away. I was bewildered at the demand, and my attempts to explain that we were not gambling came to nought.

Plainly this is because he feared his joint getting busted up by the filth, because the sight of two consenting adults playing a game of cards provides reasonable suspicion of a twisted felony in action over there. The fucking tools.

My position is this: if a law exists that stops people engaging in voluntary activities, as free individual agents, where those activities are of no consequence or hindrance to the liberties of third party agents then that fucking law should not exist in the first fucking place.

It's that fucking simple.

There is another howling example of this sort of mindless, disgusting authoritarianism in Cyprus: the laws that forbid teachers from teaching. Yes, you read that correctly. Only state employed teachers, and teachers who are documented as working for (and within the physical confines of) private schools are allowed to teach pupils of any age. Child or adult.

I read several stories in the press of young people in their thirties being arrested by the filth and charged, because they were caught...giving private tuition at home to students studying for their exams.

Want another example? In Cyprus, you're not allowed to let your property to tenants without getting permission and a license from the Cypriot government. There is much hoo-ha out there because of the numbers of Brits who live in Paphos and let out their first and second homes to foreigners for periods of the year - there are spies in Cyprus who keep an eye on websites to track down people who try and advertise their property.


Their fucking property. An individual has no right out there to do with his or her property, what he or she wishes, and the state gets to muscle in to try and wangle a piece of the pie for their greedy little coffers.

However, in areas you would not expect, libertarianism as a concept is taken, injected with a crack-adrenaline-diesel fuel cocktail, bottle fed to a rabid Alsatian, and unleashed upon the kindergarten pen of unsuspecting toddlers.

For example, they don't bother with drink drivers in Cyprus. My experience of the Cyprus police is that they are hideously lazy and corrupt. They bum about the station eating and smoking fags, and when they're not doing that, they are cruising up and down the sea front checking out girls and stopping off at tavernas for free beer and chips.

I had a mate out there who told me of a friend who was at a party out near the mountains where two guests were police officers. They were steaming drunk, and when asked if they thought it was a good idea to drive home, they scoffed and said 'yeah sure, why not, we do it all the time!'

Boy racers and football hooliganism are a serious issue out there now. Larger numbers of young lads think nothing of spending all their time and money on ridiculously fast, turbo injected Japanese motors and racing them at weekends and evenings in residential areas at in excess of 80-90 miles per hour. The rate of accidents because of stupid pricks like this is rampant.

Then there's the Russian Mafia and the 'Cabarets' (sex clubs staffed by forced Eastern European labour, often consisting of very young and scared girls deprived of their passports and any sense of dignity).

The cabarets operate openly. Their clubs are easily identified by their neon lit signs and they are ubiquitous in the extreme. The Russians, who run these clubs and other illicit enterprises) settle disputes with grenades and guns. They tend not to get arrested or hassled, because they bribe and back hand government officials and the police.

The Greek Orthodox church gets to see about 1% of the fall out of the horrific human rights abuses meted out to sex slaves through the charity and refuge work they do, by taking in scared and abused Russian and Eastern European girls who have escaped captivity or who attempted suicide and wound up in hospital where outsiders could reach them.

What sort of fucking joke is it, that normal, innocent, peaceful and harmless people are pursued relentlessly by the state and turned into outcasts and criminals, while the real pricks and villains are allowed to go about their mayhem without fear or obstacle?

This is just the sort of madness that I fear will envelope Britain, though for very different reasons.

EDIT TO ADD:

I almost forgot to mention. The filth confiscated a combined pot of 90 Euros at the iniquitous gambling den of Granny gin rummy evil. Apparently, 45 old biddies were in attendance, including the 95 year old. That means each granny went along to this gambling fest armed with 2 Euros each.

2 Euros doesn't even buy you half a fucking pint of Keo out there. What a bunch of fucking cunts. Tosser police bastards.

There's a simple yet devastating equation that aptly sums up the state of modern Britain. For those involved in the equation, I doubt it all matters that much. For those, like me and you, whom it does not involve but who it affects, it matters much.

Simply put, what we face is thus.

You might be forgiven for thinking that it is of little or no consequence that so many people are addicted to junk TV and vacuous, pointless, empty existences. Their lives, right? Well, this isn't quite so. Because you see, back in the day, freedoms and liberties were fought for and won by regular punters against the powerful land owning masses.

Emancipation, right to vote, the Magna Carta, English Common Law, Habeas Corpus, property rights, freedom to roam and live in peace and civility. These things weren't achieved because a handful of bored people took political power and decided they were nice ideas. They were gained because of pressure from below, not above.

The trouble with modern Britain, is that people are so wrapped up in their own weird house-bound, TV obsessed lives, they don't even realise that essential basic freedoms and norms were once achieved and that to hold onto them, you need to hold leaders to account.

This means becoming politically aware and astute, and more active, and it certainly means voting and insisting that politicians maintain their promises and their integrity.

What we have now is mass apathy, a total lack of interest in politics and what political decisions mean for people and it means basic standards in political life are left to rot.

I'm not talking about the Expenses row. As far as I'm concerned, all that became hot news because information was leaked to the Telegraph. Anyone who seriously thinks that expenses abuses weren't happening for eons before the recent scandal are naive in the utmost extreme.

What I am talking about here is the bottom line. The core, basic fundamental essentials, before everything else, that our senior political leaders must possess if the country is capable of functioning on a base level, morally and economically.

Over the last decade, we have seen two Prime Ministers. Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown. It has come to pass that both men are quite possibly the most damaging, sociopathic leaders this country has seen in the last century.

Anthony Blair decided to throw all our political and moral capital into the cauldron that was George W. Bush's neo-con brand of corrupt and vile imperialist politics. In other words, he wavered not for a moment in declaring war against a country that had no nukes and no immediate foreign ambitions. He sent a massive portion of our armed forces and huge amounts of military hardware into a country essentially at peace, and proceeded to help the Americans blow the living shit out of it, directly and indirectly leading to the deaths of countless thousands of people.

When people talk about Anthony Blair as a 'war criminal', I don't believe they are being unreasonable. This morning, Michael Howard was pressed by a Radio 4 journalist on whether he thought Blair should face proceedings for war crimes. Howard gutlessly fudged the question, obviously, because all politicians these days seem to have this sort of 'code of the club'.

I won't 'go there', if you don't 'go there'. It's called 'consensus politics' in the trade, which is a euphemism for 'we can both get along quite well if we ignore the will of the people and leave certain tricky issues alone'. It's why we have experienced slightly diluted socialism for the last 6 decades, unhindered.

But look closer at this issue. Blair launched a dodgy war that led to many deaths. He broke international law in doing so. Ergo, he is a war criminal. Yet how many people out there really give that much of a shit?

If that is not worrying enough, let's look at our current mad man. Not only does he insist on Afghanistan like a recalcitrant junkie insists on his afternoon fix, he insists he is the saviour of the world, despite being the man largely responsible for the total collapse of the British economy and the bankruptcy of the country.

Even Mervyn King has come out and spoken out against his former colleague and cosy mate.

Let's not forget a couple of simple facts here. Brown spent most of the early part of this decade cultivating a false, hugely inflated property boom and debt bubble, because it helped to spur on public receipts of taxation and it helped make him look like the master of the economy. When it collapsed, he stepped aside and flapped about by blaming the bankers.

What we face are years and years of high tax, poor services, crap job opportunities and low pay. The haves will be fewer and richer, the rest of us will founder, except those who have been designated as the beneficiaries of the massive wealth redistribution schemes. Labour's underclass heartland, in other words. People bribed to get that dick out of the throat and go vote.

Brown won't hear a word of criticism. He is incapable of taking blame or admitting error. The bloke is a sociopath. A highly temperamental, brooding, moody, angry, stubborn, dark-minded, dim witted, cold, uncaring and dogmatic sociopath. I doubt he really cares deep down that he has fucked it all (and at least a large part of him deep down will undoubtedly realise that he fucked it).

He believes that the top job is his by right, and if it all goes to shit, then fuck everyone for not doing enough to make it go right for him. He divests himself of all responsibility (despite the gigantic stakes) in the face of massive evidence that he messed up and in the face of continued opinion polls showing that he is unwanted.

It takes some doing, to run a country so badly that you bankrupt it and send the majority of the people and their off spring into long term serfdom. It takes a great deal of stupidity and short sightedness to blow a financial surplus and a great economy on a huge, cash obsessed gamble, in some vain hope that social democracy can take root for generations to come - and to consider these plans at all sustainable beyond a period of 5-10 years.

The two Labour leaders we have had (Blair, Brown) are so bad in every way, that one has to wonder - why did the British put up with it?

Well, it might have something to do with the fact that all anyone seems to really care about, while Rome burns are this and this.

So when people like me turn on Question Time, and see Labour politicians like Phil Woolas use the word 'unfair' on more than half a dozen occasions to describe his and his party's treatment by those who dare to question them, I despair.


I was amazed that no-one picked him up on it. Last Thursday on QT, Woolas just kept saying that people were being 'unfair' on him and Labour. Unfair? Is that not a weird choice of word to describe a situation where people hold the ruling power to account?

Oh, I'm sorry Phil, how rude of people to ask questions and expect answers from the government and its ministers. How appalling. How, er, 'unfair'. Yes, that's right. We're all bullying you and it is very sad and unkind how people are so horrid to Gordon Brown.

I think you deserve another go. In fact, all this talk of unfairness has convinced me that Labour are fit for a fourth term.

The sad thing is, even in the hilariously fantastical event that the masses switched over from their shite, dumbed-down, low brow ITV bullshit and watched Question Time for a bit, they would fail to pick up on Woolas's disgraceful attempt at 'pity poor me' martyrdom.

Because most people, like the blubbing idiots on these non-talent contests and reality TV wank fests, operate on this very level. Responsibility, you see, is something other people do. And politics is for the boring grey suits.

Will they wake up when the repo man comes for the Plasma?

No, I say, because they are too stupid and apathetic to even appreciate what is about to befall this country.

I read this story in the (gulp) Metro yesterday, although it was also in its big bro the Mail. I obviously take a rather huge pinch of salt when reading things of this nature in tabloids like those and I have, for the first time ever, released a picture of the B&D salt provision that we have set up in a top secret location for these purposes.

I was pretty fucking shocked when I read this, let's just make that nice and clear.

We were spending a lot on pinches of salt, so we went to Macro. Sorted.

This 'lady' has popped out a really rather remarkable 13 little shits (14th on the way), sorry I mean kiddywids at almost the rate of one a year for the last dozen. She just loves 'em she says, can't stop 'avin' 'em she says. And she won't either until she gets twins.

After the bullshit of 'Jedward' and the total freak show that inbreeding has produced, I'm a amazed anyone wants twins at all.

That's fine though, her choice. But wait a second, it's fucking not is it.

Oh no indeedy, because this bastard is on £50,000 benefits a year to fund her unrestrained, 1920s Catholic, 'Ain't you 'eard of con-tra-cep-tion', breeding programme. Fuck me she's skewing the graying north statistics by herself.

Fifty large, fifty big ones. Yes, they have a 3-bed council house and the fella works building canal boats. And yes, they collect over four grand a month in benefits. And yes, she - pinch of salt alert - spent five grand on Christmas presents (which, let's work this out, means she spent over £400 on each of her 12 kids, the 13th being an adult and the 14th being avec oven. Maybe more salt.)

But it's all right folks, don't fret, they still go to fucking Butlins every year...

The best bit though is possibly this quote:

If people saw us living in a pigsty they would say that we were a scrounging, low-life family who begged from the state.

They would say I was a slapper for having so many children and that I couldn't even be bothered to keep the house looking nice

And that's so not true. Even when I'm straight I can't put my feet up. I've been known to take down curtains at midnight and wash them.

Well fuck me! This really needs to be read several times for it to really sink in. Maybe even read it in reverse, because it's the opening gambit that is the gem. The whole thing, in the main, reminds me of the Chris Rock sketch where he talks about black people, the bit where he slags people off for saying things like 'Shit, I look after my kids'. Yes, because that's what you meant to fucking do you moron.

Wow, shit look at that, she only washes the curtains, fuck me! She only keeps the fucking house tidy! Well, that seals the deal as far as I'm concerned, she can have as much as she likes, take my cash, go on, you have more benefits from tax in a year that I fucking earn let alone pay.

It takes at least 9-10 people on an average wage to pay enough tax per month to pay for her tribe. Ten people a month are paying tax, not for their health care, not for the boys getting shot at, not to bail out banks, not to fix roads...to pay for her desire to have children.

That opening bit, I feel a break down coming on. I gets me my decks, break that sheet down Boatang:

IF, IF they lived in a pigsty, then and only then would people think: 1) they were scrounging, 2) they were low life, 3) they begged from the state, and 4) she was a slapper. Let Brother Boatang split the shit: 1) they clearly are fucking scrounging, they take 4k a month off the state, 2) that really is pretty fucking low isn't it, 3) they quite obviously beg from the state, they have filled a form in saying 'can have some money please for my breeding experiment', 4) slapper may be harsh and I presume they all have the same Dad, but that is dependant on the position of her legs, not the fucking cleaning.

It's all right on the night though, because she , newsflash just in, washes the fucking curtains!

And here, straight from the woman's mouth, are the names of these kids and why. You can call your children what you want, but after the first one you really have to start asking some serious questions:

Stephen – after his doting dad, Stephen
Malachai – after a character in the horror film, Children of the Corn
Peppermint – after Sara started craving mints during her fourth pregnancy
Echo – after a group of eco-campaigners who Stephen met during a job at work
Eli – another character in the 1984 film Children of the Corn
Rogue – a character in the film X-Men
Frodo – hobbit in Lord of the Rings
Morpheus – a character in film, The Matrix, staring Keanu Reeves
Artemis – book character, Artemis Fowl, an obnoxious teenage criminal
Blackbird – named after a gathering of blackbirds which flew onto Sara's lawn
Baudelaire – named after the Baudelaire orphans which featured in Lemony Snicket's film A Series of Unfortunate Events
Voorhees – named after serial killer, Jason Voorhees in the horror movie, Friday The 13th

Jesus fucking H Christ on a souped up bike with go faster fucking stripes. What. The. Fuck. We have here ladies and gents a sci-fi , horror film obsessed hippy. Her naming conventions appear to be: any name from 'Children of the Corn', the native American custom of naming the sprog after some random event, someone who has slaughtered people, a character in a utterly shite film.

The only reason this woman has this experiment to see how many kids you need to pop out before you get twins and/or what happens to children when you give them absurd names that happen to also be serial-killers in shit films, is because the state will give her shed loads of cash to keep it going. Why? Why the fuck should I be paying these two hippy sex maniacs with a serious issue concerning horror films and 'eco-warriors' to have children?

They can't even use the argument that they pay the tax and therefore claim back the tax breaks they are due to even it out. They are using the entire income tax payments of ten people a month!

I'm not saying they are having a fabulous time, or it's easy. I knew a family that had 12 kids and it was far from easy, but the Dad had a good job with good money and the wife worked when she could and they had a nice house tht they owned. That is, they could afford it and made a lifestyle choice on that basis. Fine, good luck to them.

This lot though can't afford it and expect all of us to help them out. The irony is we can't afford it either.

New Labour in 2009 is like Toby Young in 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People'. An unpopular piece of shit. And like all anti-social morons, Gordon Brown and his grubby party has been abandoned by even the most patient of formerly loyal Saints.

The BBC has been successfully wooed by the left wing Conservative Party under the left wing Cameron. The Independent has given up their usual ridiculous demonisation programmes against that party and editorially shrugs its shoulders and accepts the inevitable.

Of the tabloids, only the unread 'Mirror' fails to back Cameron. The so-called 'Great and the Good' and modern cultural figures who appear on TV every now and then have good words to say about Cameron. Hell, even 'Mumsnet' is sucking his dick.

Cameron has sucked up the centre-left like a Dyson sucks breadcrumbs or a hooker sucks schlong.

But Labour has one mate left. One sad loyal cunt, who despite its best pal's unpopularity, refuses to catch the cab home to down a glass of Evian with the Alka-selzter and settle in for a long, alcohol induced period of hibernation.

The Guardian, as exemplified in this utterly absurd Sunday online front page here, seems to believe that Labour are electorally out of the soup thanks to some bullshit survey based on the telephone-call gathered information from a pool of a thousand people in the entire country.

Sorry, I'll adjust that. The Guardian probably doesn't believe this, but wants you mug twats at home to believe it, or at least enough of you to consider Labour as a viable option that inspires some degree of faith and integrity. In other words, it's all hands to the Millbank pump down there in Farringdon, and we're all supposed to lap up the bullshit.

The best bit about this daft article is the headline: "Poll boost for PM as confidence in economy grows"

There are three areas of utterly mind boggling bollocks that must be exposed here.

First: There is no amount of economy growing (and I don't believe for a moment the economy actually is growing or will grow any time soon) that can forestall the blatantly obvious truth of what faces this country - years and years of serious, crippling, high tax inducing debt. So much debt, in fact, that it is highly likely that we will default and go to the IMF.

Because Labour are using a very odd form of super-Keynesian economics in a time of near bankruptcy and surprise surprise, it ain't working. So, er, fuck 'green shoots'. We're fucked, and there are enough voters out there to realise this and know who not to vote for next time.

Second: To focus on bollock number two, I have to quote Sir Robert Worcester (the founder of MORI, the company that did the survey) as set out in the Guardian piece.

"This poll will jolt the electorate into the reality of British politics in the run-up to the election. Whether or not there has been a blip among the electorate caused by short-term events such as Labour's surprise win in Glasgow North East, it will not be easy for the Tories to gain the 117 seats they need for an overall majority, never mind the 140 they require for a working majority."

This is serious, serious bullshit territory. How bad can this man get it wrong? He is like the man who recently scored the joint lowest on Mastermind. Except take away the 7 points and put him in a room with Mark Lawrenson. He is the epitome of wrong. He is the political equivalent to a Dirty Sanchez imposed upon a very polite Geisha Girl. Just fucking wrong, wrong, wrong.

The poll will jolt precisely fucking no-one. You want to know why it won't jolt anyone, apart from Alan Rusbridger's cock? Because it is just a fucking poll, and political polls come out every five and a half seconds. In ten minutes time, I could log on, click through Google news for a bit and find a poll by some other outfit on the rise and fall of political trends. By Christmas, there'll be a compendium of fucking surveys and polls to wank over.

So just shut the fuck up about the daft fucking poll which shows the gap between the Tories and Labour narrowing for a little bit, OK?

Also, the suggestion that the Glasgow North East election has had any kind of mind altering, inspirational affect on the would-be Labour Party lovin' finger lickin' public is beyond fatuous. The fact is, Glasgow North East was not a fucking surprise. Whoever said that lied. Because that seat is arguably Labour's safest in the Kingdom. They were always going to win, they were the sitting party there and have been for nearly 8 fucking decades. It's a bit like saying 'John Demetriou isn't homeless and he has not been declared bankrupt...I therefore suspect he has secretly won the lottery and sleeps every other night in Hugh Hefner's Mansion. Obviously'.

And will it be easy for the Tories to turn Labour over? Well, there's a quick way of answering that: yes, it will be. Labour are fucked. They have alienated every last fucker out there. Their core vote has either disappeared or gone to sleep, the Unions hate them, the anti war reds despise them: they are finished. The Tories are cracking at getting out the oldies on Election day, and I can't see any other result than a Tory win, with or without hoards of fresh voters, of which believe it or not, there is an abundance.

But the icing on the Guardian cake really has to be summed up by this gem:

Thirdly: An unemployment quote from the piece.

"The most recent unemployment figures, which showed the smallest rise since spring 2008, also provide grounds for optimism. The number of Britons out of work rose by 30,000 less than expected to 2.46 million in the three months to September, the lowest increase since May last year."

So, unemployment doesn't go up as much as thought before, and therefore it's time to break open the Champagne and celebrate Labour's 11th hour salvation. Brilliant.

Except even this is nonsense. The fact is, and I realise this from what I have seen of the workplace lately, a lot of people are taking up very short term contracts and temp work in the run up to Christmas.

It is also the case that public sector bodies are raiding the 09/10 budgets, before the April window closes and money is cut off from departmental spends. In other words, there's a bit of hiring going on, but this will drastically shrink after next Spring.

After April next year, not only will it be clear that unemployment is killing this country, it will also be clear that the recession isn't ending, the pound is perilously vulnerable, particularly taking into account the teetering dollar, industry is failing, debt is mounting and receipts are falling.

There are no beneficiaries from all this, and I fail to see how made-up 'economy is growing' rubbish will at all convince even the most die-hard of Brown supporters. Please show me tangible proof that the economy is growing? Who is doing well right now? Apart from some of the usual people who do well, like some Supermarket chains and food retailers?

No, no, no, this won't do. The Guardian will really have to do better if they think they can help their wing man pull at this party. For the love of God, they have pulled the wool over the eyes of too many people for far too long as it is.

...And is what the Tories and Dave don't realise.

A whole heap of news sources hit me today like a fucking brick, the sort of moments you have when a pang of realisation happens.

First off was this utterly farcical bullshit. Yes, we, the British people, are whacking 1.5 million bad boys at the traffic problems of third world countries. Yes you did read that right. £1.5 million on poor traffic lights and zebra crossings because bad traffic and driving kills a lot of poor people. Quite why the AA are so up this I don't know, but at a guess I would say they are getting an implementation and management contract out of it.

Then the Tories slammed one home. Oh indeedy, the Murdoch trade off is finally here: local media. It's a shame, they scream out loud, that local papers are not allowed to be owned by one 'group' (read 'person'), that is why they are going under. Nothing to do with the nationals sucking them dry for every penny and reducing your important local print to be a run off from AP. Not at all. In fact my local is pretty fucking good, local interest etc. But it would be so much better if it was owned by News Corp. Course it would.

Then we had the economy. Fuck. Me. Last month we borrowed...11.42 billion Queen's faces. That's the highest October borrowing on record and means we now owe £829.7 billion and have, in turn, 2.46 million unemployed. Public sector net debt as a percentage of GDP now totals 59.2%; the highest on record. That piece of news is buried, you see that swanning about.

But what's that? Oh yeah, it's the piano dropping onto the Rolls. In case you haven't already heard, this is now the longest recession in history. So Gordon's absurd argument that the Tories would make the recession longer and deeper are clearly utter bollocks.

So who is it that is being kicked firmly and squarely in the rotund particulars? The working classes, that's who. As this Beeb article from last month clearly shows, it is not Mr Tory voting, New Labour endorsing tosser that is the loser, it's Mr working bread-winner man.

And that is why socialism has utterly failed.

Labour are a socialist party, fair enough. I don't like them, but they are what they are. The one purpose of a socialist party is to raise up the life of the workers and remove poverty and its affects from their lives. That is the biggest thing Labour has singularly failed to do. Ever.

The stats speak for themselves. Places like Walsall and Hull have gained nothing from the artificial boom Labour created to placate the Rover drivers of Kent and Hampshire. Now it is over, they are the ones getting a good kicking.

And this is repeated again and again over the last century, nothing. Nothing has been improved, nothing gained from the West Midlands to the North West, the North East to Glasgow. Hard Labour voting areas that are still shit holes.

Now they are pledging to cut child poverty, for instance, after 12 years and not one of these areas will ask 'But isn't that why we voted for you?'.

So why do they vote for them? Money. As JD said, it's about getting the cash in their pockets that they think they are 'entitled' to. Which is just fucking sick.

The people in these ghettos generally don't give a shit. They were on the dole in the 80s, the 90s and now and they will be a decade from today. They get their cash, they sit on their arse. And we aren't talking about the early 1980s and over 3 million unemployed here. The bulk of the unemployed are the same million time and again, sitting there on the statistics like some battered fridge on a lawn.

Kids are not ‘poor’, the areas they live in are poor. No jobs, no input or creation. All that happens is their parents sign on and the state gives them money. That isn't a solution. That’s the problem. And why do they keep voting Labour? For the same reason mumsnet thinks Dave will screw them, because Labour gives them cash and stuff in exchange for fuck all. The Tories, traditionally, give them the opportunity for cash and stuff in exchange for work and production.

And that is the solution that Labour cannot see, the voters refuse to wake up to and the Tories have sacrificed in a misguided bid for votes.

The only way to help these areas is to give the Local Authorities the powers and freedom to spend the money and form the partnerships to actually inject genuine regeneration into the community. Give them the power to lower business rates and taxes so that companies want to set up shop there, employ local people and spend cash in local places.

But the Left, old and new, do not see this as a solution. They quite simply do not trust you or I to spend that money in the way they want us to and they do not trust Local Authorities to do what is needed without the iron grip of state on them.

The socialist solution is to take money from A and give it to B. The proper solution is to let C set up shop and employ B to make and produce goods and services for A. But that wouldn't be a redistribution of A's money now would it, and why should B have to work for their money when A has it all sitting there doing nothing in their pension pot. Better tax it.

The clear as day fact is that the A to B solution does not work and never has.

The number of people contributing has fallen and the bill for supporting them has gone up. Yet getting these people off of support and into contributing is anathema, it can't happen. You forget, they are carers and are needed by their slightly hard of hearing wife with a slightly dodge knee.

The result is astounding. You can bet a fair whack on Labour getting voted back in for those areas, but others are lurking: the BNP.

Why? Because they are a left wing party that claims to represent the masses and it is no surprise that these scum filled bastards are cleaning up in areas of high working class unemployment. Even in Scotland the SNP Marxists are dumping Labour on its arse.

Why? Because Labour has abandoned the working masses and the working masses want the gravy train to keep on a'rollin'. They could vote Tory like '79, but the Tories have missed that boat by becoming New Labour. They could vote for a libertarian party but the only one out there is too small for them to see. And anyway, the idea of individualism is terrifying.

So no, they vote BNP or it's lighter cousin the SNP. And Labour cannot see that the reasons for this are not actually immigration, or propaganda, but a total lack of the socialist party of the people no longer representing the people. The working people are losing their jobs, their money, and it's their party that has done it.

And so socialism has completely failed and has in fact never worked. And it is that reason alone that Labour should really be held to account. It's had 12 years with a massive majority and socialism still hasn't worked, it still hasn't solved anything. Because it can't.

What it does provide though is a free ticket on the piss take express. Labour has fucked up a lot of things, but rather than hammering Labour as a party we need to start hammering socialsm as a system. Socialism and social-democracy has not, does not, will not and cannot work, it is a bankrupt belief that people still cling to. They need to be woken up to the fact.

Hello, John Demetriou here. Remember me? I sometimes write for this site. Yes, indeed, apologies for my 'BEST BLOG IN THE WORLD' absence of late. Don't take it personally, though. I've been laying off the internet in general the last week or so because it (like most facets to modern life) has been poisoning me and taking over my life.

However, like a lover of good Ale, I'm over my hangover and I'm up for a stiff sample of the good stuff. I.e. my brilliant writing. So stop what you're doing, put the coffee down, the wankerchief, the porn mag, the cigarette, what the fuck ever, and pay close attention.

Here I shall pen a few thoughts in pointed attack against the evil, pernicious forces of social democracy.

For those with a long standing political inclination, you may look at the title of this piece and consider it somewhat reminiscent of certain words uttered by a certain former Prime Minister of Britain. Indeed, for it was back in 1999 that Blair spoke of his desire to lead the charge "...that defeats the forces of conservatism".

It is well worth clicking the link to read the speech Blair gave to the Labour Party conference in 1999 in full. For it is stunningly clear what a complete lie the New Labour project was and is and always will be. The lie of the Third Way. The myth that still even now some people accept as fact. 'Change the leader' (Brown), they say, 'then we can beat them'. As if Labour and social democratic policies still hold credence, still maintain any respectability or validity. As if theirs isn't a joke politics based on a busted flush and an exposed fallacy.

More-so, as if the Conservative Party under Cameron is remotely different or remotely conservative or right wing.

My favourite part of Anthony Blair's speech was this bit. Remarkably portentous and prescient, given it was made before his mate Bush came to power and a full two years before 9/11 and the ridiculous War on Terror:

"In the last few months alone, I've been compared (by Hague's Tories) to Hitler, Mussolini and Milosevic. Maybe they think I should be indicted for war crimes - the crime of leading the Labour Party into government, and disturbing the natural order of things."

Indeed, Anthony. Indeed.

Ask any New Labour supporter (if you can find one) or anti-right wing social democrat (usually found within the corridors of public sector organisations that have enriched them) what that party has achieved since 1997, and they will invariably point at this.

This is from experience. They can't trumpet the old Prudence Brown strong on the economy horseshite anymore. Even the 'Real PM' (Alistair Campbell) would be unable to spin that bollocks to the public now. They can't talk about unemployment, or education, or health, or transport or crime, because these areas have demonstrably worsened since Major left power in 1997.

They can't talk about 'child poverty' or homelessness, because all that is still a serious issue. They can't talk about Robin Cook's ethical foreign policy anymore, because that turned out to be a despicable lie. Labour have been huge fans of the arms trade, regardless of the nature of the buyer, and they started two nasty wars under some outrageous liberal interventionist-meets-Neo Conservative bout of madness.

So it's about Tax Credits. A system which, to heap insult to bizarre and callous injury, advances and extends the welfare state so that it is a mechanism that not only provides an unaffordable and impracticable system of social security for the poor, but an incentive scheme for lower middle and middle class women and 'families' to procreate - at the expense of single people and childless couples of working age.

People like me, then.

Boy, did I fume earlier on this evening whilst watching Channel 4 News's broadcast about 'Mumsnet'. The arrogance, the sheer fucking impudence, of these fucking shit bags was absolutely staggering. Truly mind blowing. Well, it would be for people with a brain left in their skulls and an existence based on more than the consumption of 'X-Factor', Carling Extra Cold and socialist lies.

For those who didn't see it, a very brief run through of the news skit goes thus: C4 news interviews left wing, state-addicted mothers sitting around a child care or community centre, or some such fucking joke-hole funded by the £500 a month I pay in Income Tax. The vox pops reveals that most of the mothers are Labour Party supporters, who are wavering and considering voting Tory because they are unsure whether Labour will provide them with sufficient entitlements.

People who hitherto were die hard Labour voters are considering, for the first time, *pious gasp and shock* voting for Cameron. All this got a local sitting Labour MP a bit wobbly and various mums sat about indignant, wondering who will actually do the most for them.

Let's have a look at a few underlying premises here, shall we? Fundamental assumptions that were not, for obvious reasons, picked up on by C4 or indeed anyone in the public eye who comments on things like Tax Credits, mums, the welfare state and cheeky fuckers after my money.

Firstly, the two parties are so close, life long Labour voters are considering a change.

Secondly, David Cameron woos these people, yet still declares his party as the Conservative Party and himself as conservative.

Thirdly, it goes as unchallenged fact that moneys and resources taken from people like me, at law, under threat of jail, in order to provide 'entitlements' to women who want to breed is good and right.

Except there is a problem here: there are no such entitlements. It is not an entitlement. To decide to have children, yet to not afford such a choice and to heap the burden of financial responsibility onto the tax payer, is not just sickening, wrong, immoral and staggeringly rude, it is parasitic.

Did I agree to Tax Credits? Do I agree with this bizarre Mussolini-esque fecundity programme to pointlessly boost the population of the Motherland?


You see, I have no choice in all this. If you are like me, you don't either. If you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail and everything fucks up in your life. You lose the lot. Gone. Yet if you do pay, then you will be deprived of certain choices.

Take me for instance. I scrape by, I have people to support, shit to maintain. I pay around £500 a month in direct tax, which incidentally goes towards a pot of money slightly less than the annual social security budget.


That's £500 a month I can't use for things I want and need to do. I need to replace my old car for example, but that's something I shunt to the back of the priority list because I can't afford it. My liberty, every day, is clearly infringed, because the State forcibly extorts large amounts of money from me in order to pay for outrageous projects I don't have a say in.

Labour won the election in 1997 and subsequent elections, yet they did so using an undemocratic two party system which effectively means the people have little or no choice. A system that works within a centralised pattern of government, where Westminster happily, whoever is in Number 10, grows and feeds from the Serfs (us) in order to expand Whitehall and bribe voters for electoral advantage.

So when I see the News, and I am faced with a bunch of grumbling fucking women looking at which socially democratic party will provide them with most of my hard earned money so that they can make choices I cannot personally afford because I work for my lot, I get angry.

Very fucking angry.

I didn't put a picture of Mussolini up here for a joke. I looked into it and there are clear parallels between Mussolini's 'Battle for Birth's' and Blair/Brown's disgusting, parasite-feeding Tax Credit system.

According to the Wikipedia source on Mussolini's plan:

"The Battle for Births began in 1927: Mussolini introduced a number of measures to encourage reproduction, with an objective of increasing the population from 40 million to 60 million by 1950. Loans were offered to married couples, with part of the loan cancelled for each new child, and any married man who had more than six children was made exempt from taxation."

The only difference between Mussolini's plan and Labour's, is that Mussolini's plan for a more fecund, populous nation was based on a specific aim to expand the size, scope and influence of a strong Italy. At least he had a fucking half understandable purpose. Labour's Tax Credit scheme is nothing more than an immoral, cynical ploy to bribe people and expand the Labour Party electoral base.

I guess there is a second difference. Mussolini favoured married couples. Labour doesn't care about marriage, because that's a conservative and stuffy old Tory notion that belongs in the dustbin, so they have decided to use their corrupt system of bribery to help break apart yet something else that worked quite well for eons until they came along to fuck everything up.

Was this part of what these bastards meant by destroying the forces of conservatism?

Well, it must have worked, because they have managed to make the leader of the Tory Party just like them.

I'll end this piece with one final salvo in my fresh battle against the Forces of Social Democracy. Something I said in a piece a few months back.

People who deliberately use or manipulate the welfare state system to enrich themselves to others' cost, are nothing less than parasites and leeches who use the State's 'License to Thieve' to pay for lifestyle choices they themselves should work for.

Only a matter of time really.

We've had Blears and others harping on about, well, us for ages now because of one thing:

In case you missed it Baroness Buscombe, Chair of the utterly pathetic, shambolic and possibly most useless body on Earth, the PCC has called on the regulation of bloggers. The phrase lalaland springs to mind. The reasoning for this daft cow's argument is simply superb:

Some of the bloggers are now creating their own ecosystems which are quite sophisticated. Is the reader of those blogs assuming that it's news, and is [the blogosphere] the new newspapers? It's a very interesting area and quite challenging.

Yup, you readers are so fucking stupid that you need the PCC to help you understand. As a moron you clearly can't separate fact from opinion (to be fair, some don't have that capacity) and therefore you need a body to regulate and control us bloggers, just in case we tell you something, god forbid, isn't true.

Then, when I say a naughty word, or even express a view about a a group of people or the fucking weather you can lodge a complaint to Baroness Dickwad and get me censored.

Not on my watch.

The PCC are totally in league with the media as is well documented (censor) and this all stems, in my opinion (don't take this as fact and true, like you would the BBC...) from the print media shitting themselves over the blogging world. They hate it.

The news feed site, NewsNow is currently up to its neck in threats because it dares to post links to media sites that you then get directed to when clicked. Otherwise known as massive traffic driving. But the leading papers are threatening legal action over this because it is a source, no matter the benefit, they cannot control.

They want the web to be like the high street. They want restricted access and controlled outlets. That is the total opposite of what the web and blogging in particular are about. Blog, weblog, an online diary. A diary, the views and opinions of a person or persons. Granted some of these sites are basically full time professional hacks that are under the radar, but is what it's all about.

If you want to protest about this you can sign a letter over at Liberal Conspiracy, or simply write to your MP, the DCMS and the PCC.

Oh yes, tomorrow is the 'big' day when Gordy sets out his stall. Dave and Nicky are getting all worked up about it like two pathetic little boys arguing about the bigger boy being bigger, forgetting that they would do the same given the chance.

Brown has about 6 months left of the fine life, then he's out on his ear. He knows it, we know it and barring the moronic masses having yet another moronic moment and voting him back in, it shall come to pass. Therefore he has to go for it in this Speech. Major did a similar thing all those moons ago in '91, it's an opportunity that few would pass up.

So Dave and Dave Too can shut up.

What exactly is wee Gordy proposing to push through inside 70 days that will save his chops...

Housing budget to be trebled to £2.1bn. Um, Okay. Two years, 110,000 houses and powers to Local Authorities (oh the irony) to stick people in them based upon need and 'local connection'. That is, a bill designed to build more houses to help the building industry (which had a flush day on the FTSE yesterday due to decent profits, so a boat missed Gordon) and in turn a knock to the BNP by actively giving social housing to local people as opposed to immigrants.

This is the sort of thing he needs to put forward, but it's all a bit 'seen that, didn't do it'.

People under 25 unemployed for a year will be guaranteed the offer of a job or training. What a load of rubbish. If they don't take the job then they get their benefits blah blah blah. Had it all before, it's never strong enough. And how do you guarantee a job? Training is simple, you just chuck large buckets of taxpayers money to make people 'IT Innit', so they can write blogs usually.

In turn there is £150 million for high-tech and bio-science jobs. More utter crap that barely touches the sides and is there to make him look all modern and 21st century.

Health Interesting bunch this, mainly because I thought we already had them all. Silly me.

• Guarantee for a free health check for all over-40s - Isn't that called your GP and it's 'free' because you pay a vast amount of taxes? Is there a law I'm not aware of that means that over the age of 40 you have to pay for the GP?
• Guarantee that no-one will have to wait longer than 18 weeks between GP referral and hospital treatment - I'm pretty positive that is already the case in the NHS Charter.
• Cancer patients in England to get guarantee that they will get consultation within two weeks - Ditto.

Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children. Um, where to start? Each child will get a (sorry, a guaranteed) personal tutor for English at big school. Sorry, but who the fuck is paying for that? The we have 'Tighter monitoring of children educated at home', go state!

My favourite here though is an all new report card. Well fuck me sideways with a badger, that'll sort it all out in a jiffy I should think. Nice new report cards, lovely stuff.

Policing Crime and Private Security. Cracking down on private wheel clampers (something that I think I'm missing the point on maybe, simple solution is don't park on their fucking land in the first place), allowing (love that) people to have a say on CCTV, and, the best bit 'measures to protect women from violence'.

Yup, before all this women were in the shit when crime happened, fact. This has Harman all over it as far as I'm concerned.

Constitutional Renewal Bill. This is Big Daddy important chaps, so listen up. That includes you flapper. It starts off with some rubbish about peers, namely removing hereditary ones and rules to get rid of misconducting ones (if that isn't a word, it's mine).

Then, however, comes the big one. Restoring the right to protest in Parliament Square. That's quite a measure to counter the big brother state accusation, which still stands of course but it won't half help come election time. And as long as it gets done I don't care to be honest.

Energy Bill. Load of crap about carbon capture to get a load of green wankers on board. Probably won't happen.

Digital Infrastructure. Zzzzz. All over broadband by 2012....etc etc. Strange one this as it really isn't a priority,but is no doubt there to plump up the Speech.

Financial Service and Business. The big one about altering the role of the FSA, which warrants its own article really. Until it's fleshed out it's unclear what will be put in it, but this is the one that will be top of the pile to get through, a no brainer. I would expect a good bucket of shit to be dumped on bankers so that Gordy can get the Mail vote, no matter the consequences. Those include him losing the City vote.

The G has already lined up the Durex for a posh one over this little number.

Cluster Munitions. Zzzzz PtII. Has to be done for international agreements, however makes a mockery of Cook's pledge of a new foreign policy and arms trade circa 1997.

Flood and Water... More shite to flesh this out so that when everyone drowns this Winter Gordy can point to this and say 'Look we are doing something, their answer is to do nothing', as per usual.

Child Poverty Bill. Another big one that will get the hardcore vote onside, although I can a potential fall out purely because it won't go far enough for the likes of the Leninists. Nice to see that after 12 years of Labour and record child poverty and an even bigger equality gap then under Major, with 6 months left Gordon puts this baby on the table. Nice touch.

Bribery Bill. Hmm. Making new offences of who you can bribe. Silly me though bribery of foreign officials for business was already 'bribery', apparently not.

Equality Bill. Here it is ladies and gents, The Time Bomb. This is the one that will either get pushed into Guardian wet dream territory and literally kick off big time, or will be dumped for that reason a la ID cards. This is a fucking nightmare and Gordon may well be packing it in anticipation, because I don't envy him this at all. A Harman special to force public bodies to accept that gay black people have special qualities that Chinese gay people don't have.

The great irony of this one is that Harman appears to have convinced herself that she has answered the diversity issue that has split academia for decades. It won't work and can't work and the middle classes of Britain will make it very clear come May.

So there you go, a fair amount of utter tosh will be read out by Liz tomorrow from that rather dashing chair. And it's always good to see Black Rod, or Roddy Noir as like to call him. That name is one off Darth Vader.

Two or three are must haves for Brown come May/June and he has to get them through to show some form of change and to win certain key areas of the electorate. The problem is that some will piss off the other key areas. It's all a mess frankly and none of it is exactly inspiring, but in the debate afterward we will see a full blown campaign be launched.

I have to say though, if I was Labour, this would be lightweight. It's not forceful enough and there are no rabbits, out of hats or otherwise. There isn't much here that is going to get a front page screaming

A typical example of this was the grade of steel used for exhaust manifolds in the Class 43s - frequent manifold failures….More importantly, the driving cabs of the locomotives would fill with poisonous exhaust fumes...Perhaps unwisely, North British supplied many of its diesel and electric locomotives to BR at a loss, This and the continuing stream of warranty claims to cure design and workmanship faults proved fatal

Yes, two great minds will be slaughtering their way though the South-East this weekend, fending off rival gods and laying waste to their worlds. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

It should be emotional. I'm welling up already, hence the rain.

This is Bo'n'Dage FM and you're listening to Kevin Boatang and his buns of steel, wadin' in on behalf of all you truckers out there. Can I get a whoop? Thought not.

Nothing like lowering the tone on a sensitive issue that's what I say.

Now, this bloody Jacqui Janes thing. I've stayed away from the subject in order to see what is going on, and what is going on is what I thought in the first place: The Sun are a bunch of shits.

Mrs Janes is obviously very sad, upset and in mourning and given the chance will vent that on the bastard who helped to invade the place her son got shot. The Sun, helped by uber-twat Dominic 'China White' Moran, have given her just that chance. Along with a cheque, a recording device and lots of air time.

It struck me as being like the last episode of 'The Thick of It' where a wife is exploited in her campaign for justice for her dead husband.

There are, however, a few things about this sorry episode that should be approached bit by bit.

First is the simple fact that rather than attack the war, The Sun decided to attack the Prime Minister's handwriting. This speaks volumes about the state of this country, I mean for fuck sake people the guy has a sack of shit the size of Denmark ready to be dumped on him, his poor handwriting due to being clinically blind is not in it.

Second is that the phone call was a lynching, the extracts can be read here.

Thirdly and most amazingly, Gordon Brown still employs the same PR team. As possibly the worst PR people in history I find it quite amazing they still have a job. Only Brown and his team could turn something so simple into a total nightmare. I await the claims that the backlash against The Sun has caused sympathy to happen for Brown as was their intention all along and victory...

Lastly though, is the whole reaction to the war. Namely, people seem to misunderstand what the word 'war' means. I don't really support the war in Afghanistan, although I can see both sides of the argument. I don't support the methods we are using on either the hearts and minds front or the guns or bombs side. However, I do grasp what a war is.

In a war people die. Armies exist and they exist so that they can kill people, be it defence or otherwise. The people they kill, in the main, tend to be soldiers of other armies and in return those armies try and reciprocate.

Yesterday was the day that people say 'Lest We Forget', not just the sacrifice of a generation, but the very outcome of what war is - lots and lots of dead people.

No one in Afghanistan is a conscript like Vietnam or the world wars, or even doing national service like Korea (something that is largely forgotten). They joined the army of their own accord and in return for the rock climbing and snowboarding they are expected to get shot at and in turn shoot others.

It should then come as no surprise that this is what happens. I have immense sympathy for the loved ones of those killed and injured, but it is not an unexpected consequence. It would be unexpected if they were a traffic warden in Gateshead.

What we are seeing is an increase in the shock that when you invade another country and wage war body bags arrive home. That is meant to be the whole deterrent against going to war in the first place.

I watched a channel 4 documentary over the weekend called 'The Day of the Kamikaze', which was a fascinating historical portrayal of the Japanese Kamikaze fighters who fought for their country on the Pacific front during WW2.

As ever, I found myself utterly enthralled by the production. I love documentaries on pretty much anything, even stuff I'm not generally into, but war stuff is like waving a pouch of the white stuff in front of a Bolivian playboy. I can't get enough of it.

That said, I do not pretend to be an expert on war matters and I am no military strategist. Yes, sure, I am a politico and a genius in the art of political debate. My political knowledge is second to none. But I couldn't tell Sir Michael Jackson how to best surround a Bosnian Serb village with a view to kidnapping armed insurgents. I also wouldn't be very good at telling tanks what to do.

I've had years of playing Command and Conquer as a bored student at Uni. Believe me, I've tried. Those soldiers are pesky blighters to pin down.

But something about the documentary had me reeling. It was the depiction of the final stages of the Battle of Okinawa in the dying days of the war. The Kamikaze pilots had some limited success up until the summer, but it was obvious the Japanese were on their way out. It wasn't if, but when.

So it was somewhat of a surprise to learn of a certain strategy, or putsch, ordered by the Japanese High Command once they realised that man power and the air force was fucked and something urgent needed to be done to prop up the effort on Okinawa.

They elected to carry out a weird operation called Operation Ten-Go.

It was like a Kamikaze mission, except with the Navy not the Air force. The aim was to use every last scrap of the remaining Japanese fleet to steam towards Okinawa, fighting its way through the Allied Naval shield so as to beach on the land, use the Artillery aboard the ships as though land based canons and the sailors as make shift land infantry to back up the dying Okinawa force.

To call it last chance saloon was obviously an understatement. It was a decision that effectively threw away the Navy. The High Command obviously didn't think it worth keeping, what with it containing the world's biggest Battleship and all. No, no. They wouldn't need it in the event of a US land invasion, because everyone had been handed bamboo poles so they'd simply fight the yanks off on the streets.

Why waste time on boats when you can unleash Granny, Kill Bill style?

Yet this isn't what made me scratch my head in bemusement. You see, the clever chaps in charge of things in Japan decided it would be a good idea to put Operation Ten-Go into effect at dawn. So by the time the fucking ships got going, it was late morning.

Funnily enough, and I can't think how this happened, Allied planes spotted the mass swarm of Jap ships in the Ocean, and reported it. So the Americans knew what was going on, and pretty much intercepted the little scheme and obliterated the fuckers before they got anywhere near the objective. Over three and a half thou Japanese dead, and the big old beaut 'Yamato' stuffed into the sea like Pimento in a ripe Olive.

So here's the question: Why didn't the fucking stupid cunts set sail at night when it was less likely they'd get spotted by a plane?

Why did they go during the day? Why didn't they use the cover of an inclement evening? A cloudy, rainy, grotty patch around 2am even.

Because if they weren't seen, and they managed to break through, it might have made a little bit of a difference.

If I were running the show, I wouldn't have bothered sending them in the first place, because they were needed at home.

I also wouldn't have run the suicide plane missions, because antagonizing the Americans was never going to be a great idea. There's sneaky missions like Pearl Harbour, there's brutal long winded battles that consume American lives, and then there's dive bombing planes into boats and fucking everything up.

That said, I couldn't help but be moved by the staggering sense of honour and duty amongst the Japanese military. It was all pervading, extending throughout society as a whole. The idea of putting something higher above self has always fascinated me, and you don't get more extreme an example of this human phenomenon as with the case of the Japanese war generation, who quite simply saw things on a wholly different level to Western nations.

Oh yes, a big old title for a Sunday to be sure, but what the hell.

Some may have watched a documentary on BBC2 last night about life behind the Berlin Wall and the efforts and counter-efforts of those therein. It was the usual story of man talks about freedom gets spied on by friend goes on march knocks wall down gets freedom. You know, one of those stories.

But one of the things that struck me was not so much the tales of yesteryear from those that were there, interesting as they were, but the images that were shown. The marches against the Stasi with people bravely chanting 'Stasi Out!' in broad daylight before undercover agents amongst them ripped down the banners and carried protesters away, no doubt for good. Others showed the sheer passion of the people of Hungary who literally ran thorough the newly removed Iron Curtain and into Austria.

Their faces were almost in a panic, the mixture of fear and excitement you get when you do something you were always told not to. Would they get caught? Would they get all the way to the line and then it was all a big trick? Or was this really, really it, freedom?

Of course it was the latter and the traffic jams and huge numbers of people making their way to the West are testament to that. It was a picture of the desire for freedom, what freedom means to human beings when denied it for so long. Not restricted, denied. That is an important distinction that must be made.

We live in a free country. We may argue and protest for our freedoms, out liberty, but it cannot kid ourselves that we live in the USSR. I know that many may disagree, but when all is said and done you can work where you want, say what you want (mainly), buy what you want and, most importantly, have the choice to choose or not choose. There are far too many restrictions upon us and the cry for real freedom is what the libertarian movement fundamentally represents, but we do not live in the East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

What made those people scream for freedom as if for water in the desert was not Health and Safety laws or the EU, or even too much tax, it was the total removal of free choice. Their reaction to being offered the freedom they craved was to run like demented children to their dream. These are people that risked their lives for this dream and now they had it offered. And we must remember, the freedom they were being offered was not a libertarian society by any means, it was the Western Europe of 20 years ago.

Marx stated that in order for a communist utopia to be realised, a fully fledged capitalist one must first occur and be reacted against with socialism. That is, before we can get what we want lads we must allow the people what they want so that may realise it to be the opposite before it all implodes. Like letting a child stuff themselves stupid with chocolate so they feel sick as a parrot, in order for you to say 'I told you so'.

This theory was obviously flawed and unachievable. The ideal that Marx and Engels envisioned was never going to be realised as long as man has the desire for power that can so easily be sated by socialism. The result of the ever controlling world of socialism, in a supposed bid to re-order society in preparation for the coming New Age, was the pictures witnessed at the fall of the Berlin Wall.

However, is the reverse of this what libertarianism requires?

Here we have long argued a pragmatic vision of increased social and economic liberty. We want more but realise that it quite simply isn't going to happen, no one is going to vote for the scale of reforms that some propose. That's fine, there should be a realist and idealist vision, it's healthy in many ways. The main reason, as I said, that the kind of full blown libertarianism that some call for not happening is that people are scared of that kind of freedom when the world we have allows them to have everything that really want.

On an everyday basis the vast amount of people, in my view, do not concern themselves with the restriction on their liberty that some others see all too clearly. They have their house, their kids, they have jobs and holidays. They may moan about the EU, or taxes, or the government, but for the majority the day to day, real life world is one they just want to get through.

It could easily be argued that this very attitude is what is causing the West to decline as it is: we are all too comfy.

So, in order for a libertarian ideal to be achieved, do we need the opposite of what Marx called for? That is, Marx. Witnessing the desire for freedom that was created by the true removal of it by the former communist states, and indeed the increasing desire for freedom we are seeing China slowly giving way to, maybe we need that very state of affairs to happen first.

Should Britain, maybe even all of Europe, react to the current economic issues and political disillusionment by shifting to the Left, proper freedom would cease.

This is not so fanciful as may be first thought. Prior to 1914 it was commonly held that war was abolished, that peace was achieved and democracy (of that era) was established. Then the war happened. Then states fell, the communists seized their chances, what they saw as the war being the culmination of capitalist society heralding the dawn of a socialist one. Post-1918 a sudden rise in communist and fascist thought occurred that very few, such as Hayek and later Orwell, argued against. They foresore the nightmare that could occur, they were dismissed. Europe went on a socialist bender that we are still living through, like the party goers heaped in the corner with a bottle of Gin at two in the morning. It's all gone wrong, but we're going to keep on partying all the same. Even if we can't stand up and we're covered in our vomit.

All it takes is a reaction. Jobs and houses are lost, maybe war is threatened. These events can trigger an unexpected chain of events that can very easily result in our country becoming a communist or fascist dictatorship.

But maybe that is what is required to have people realise what they really want. Maybe people need to have their freedoms literally taken away before they realise that they want a properly free country. Just like Marx felt that they needed to be shown the full horrors of a totally capitalist society and to let capitalism destroy itself before his communist dream could occur.

Obviously, as the title implies, this is theoretical and I am not necessarily arguing for a full blown take over by the BNP in response to war with China simply to herald a bright new era of liberty. But I get the feeling that this is precisely the situation we will be confronted with in our lifetimes, probably in the not too distant future.

Huxley and Orwell both created protagonists that saw the light through the darkness of a some future distopia and were willing to sacrifice everything to achieve or regain it. But in our own reality we have witnessed the same thing through the Berlin Wall.

Freedom through revolution is not something that can be imposed on a people, libertarianism must be validated by democratic means and not by the destruction of the current state through violent means. Freedom is somethign that pepole must want, must be willing to do anything for and that when they get the chance of it they will run to the ends of the Earth. That isn't going to happen in our current state of affairs and it won't happen until something drastic happens.

Hello

There's still some time left before the 5th of November ends and the 6th begins, so I thought I'd quickly knock up a timely piece noting an observation made earlier on today by Dame Demetriou (credit and 'hat tipping' where it is due and all that).

"Name me," she randomly asked after dinner, "two of the most memorable, seismic and explosive acts of political sedition and violence ever to take place in London."

So I thought about it, and was slightly annoyed with myself for only coming up with the obvious one. Then I thought a bit more, and discounted IRA stuff for not quite being big enough to be historical.

Then I gave up and Dame D offered her personal example: the 7/7 bombings.

"Fair enough," I said.

"Now tell me what Guy Fawkes and Mohammed Siddique Khan had in common," followed up Dame D.

So I thought about it a bit, and to my amazement, only differences between the two blokes came to mind. Then I thought a bit more...

"They were both pissed off."

"Naturally."

"They were both blokes."

"Yeah..."

"They both used explosives*."

* obviously Fawkes was foiled, but he intended to use them.

"Good, but not the answer I was thinking."

And then she hit me with it. Siddique Khan and Guy Fawkes, two terrorists who have left a huge blood stained mark on British history and who threatened to bring down the capital in a blood bath of terror and violence, were both from Yorkshire.

Guy Fawkes was from York, and Mohammed Siddique Khan was born in Leeds and eventually wound up in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

To re-cap in a slightly different way, two of arguably the most radical political acts ever to take place in the capital were plotted by Yorkshiremen. Not people born outside the UK, not Londoners, not Brummies, Geordies, Scousers, Mancs, Scots, Welsh, Irish, bumpkins from the South West or Fenlanders...Yorkshiremen.

This is interesting because, as I have found since living up here, people from Yorkshire tend to see themselves as living in, not so much a county, but a separate country to everyone else. They don't want to set up a passport system yet, but there is a bit of us vs. them going on. Not in a malicious way, but they just have their own strong regional identity which marks them out strongly against other people from the north and especially those from the south.

Yorkshire people also, to my mind, have immense patience and tolerance of others, though when that tolerance is pushed (or should I say, when Yorkshiremen and women perceive that their tolerance has been pushed and their freedoms breached) they act quite explosively.

Particularly their women, though I'd better not go there...

So I wonder whether there might be some vague, tenuous but potential correlation there. On the one hand, they seem like two utterly different blokes, and on the other, the similarities are startling.

Other similarities include:

• Their crimes are known by their dates, more than the content and details of the deed.
• Their main conspiracies were set to take place in central London.
• Their crimes were to be carried out by way of high explosives in order to blow people to smithereens.
• They were both from unfavourable religious minorities
  
• They both (though this is possibly disprovable) were obsessive and regular eaters of pie and peas. And they raced whippets...and didn't like spending money.

Something for you to chew on.

Now go watch some fireworks and quit jerking off.

Cheers.

Today certain bloggers and readers of blogs have come together in London to boost one man's ego - sorry, I of course mean to march on Parliament. The choice of costume for this occasion is that of Guy Fawkes as a symbol of defeating Parliament and its control in order to gain freedom. Or something.

The same outfit is warn by V in the V for Vendetta series. And some bloke who runs a social networking site via a tax haven of course.

This is something that confuses me for the simple reason that Guy Fawkes represented anything but freedom and V had motives very different from the libertarians that use him as their idol.

The gunpowder plot of 1605 was an orchestrated terrorist action by a group of Catholic fundamentalists. Their goal was to blow up Parliament, the King, his family and the entire aristocracy, the result being a new Catholic Britain led by James I's daughter Elizabeth. In short, a monarchy much like France: absolute and ordained by God.

Although this was all started from the persecution of Catholics at the time (although it is easily forgotten that this was with good reason), it cannot be argued that this had anything to with freedom. You might as well hold up bin Laden as a modern freedom fighter.

In turn this image was used for the character V. V in turn is also held up as a freedom fighting hero, although this is never stated as his intention. V is an anarchist terrorist who rises up against a brutal fascist regime that has taken over the country and he blows up various buildings, including parliament a la Fawkes.

The man is brutal. He tortures and slaughters in the name of bringing down the system. The 'system' he desires is not a libertarian society in any way shape or form, it is a totally anarchist society where there are zero forms of of anything at all.

So, you have one 'hero' that was willing to commit mass slaughter and instigate a revolution in order to create a Catholic dictatorship, and you have another 'hero' who is willing to commit mass slaughter in order to create total chaos (which is exactly what happens at the end of the novel).

And these two figures are being held up by 'libertarians' in their march on parliament as symbols of freedom.

The 5th November is not to be remembered because of a drastic bid for freedom, but as a warning from history of how close this nation came to being turned into a theocratic nightmare.

And by marching about dressed up in a stupid mask and wig, the message is denigrated. It becomes a big jolly, a laugh, a piss up. A few thousand people marching on parliament in a traditional protest, calling for freedom and the reduction of the state would carry real weight.

All you have today is a bunch of egotistical anarchists who don't understand the outfit or the day, mincing about getting drunk and having a laugh. The battle for our liberty is not a laugh, it is serious and real. And that is why I had no intention of going today.

You may remember that a while back a very witty petition was set up on the Downing Street website by a Mr Kalvis Jansons calling on Brown to resign; over 70,000 people signed it. I like the irony of this site, the irony being that Number 10 actually think it 'reaches out' and people actually think anyone listens.

That's why I liked this one in particular, it was a piss take and got a fair whack of publicity. Well, now old slack jaw has confirmed that irony by 'replying' to the petition:

The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all

Which doesn't really say 'No, I won't be resigning' does it? He does have some ambitious targets to achieve by May though.

There is an article in the Mail today about how a convicted paedophile has been sentenced to death and his punishment. To my mind it reveals some disturbing aspects of human nature, particularly on within normal middle class people.

Some background. The man was arrested a few months ago after he tried to snatch a child, that child then identified him. That description matched a report from a parent of another child. His conviction is for the rape of five boys aged 3 to 7 years old, one of whom he left to die in the desert.

His punishment is to be beheaded and then crucified. To clarify something that the headline incorrectly implies, the crucifixion is of the dead body after execution where it is put on display.

Other than the fact this hearing appeared to have been remarkably quickly, I won't go into details of the case, because we don't know them and that is not what I am writing about. But to set my stall out I am against the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe it acts as any form of deterrent (if it did then the countries that had it would be crime free) and therefore it serves simply as a source of revenge.

What strikes me about the comments on this article is the almost blood-thirsty clamour for this mans head. Now, his crime is an utterly disgusting one and I offer no excuse, but my moral standpoint is to refuse to lower myself to his level. That includes the delegation of lowering to a man who is prepared to cut his head off with a massive sword, for I feel that the act committed in my name is committed by me. The people are the state and therefore it is the people that have acted.

In this country this man would have been sentenced to several years in prison, although many seem to think he would get community service. One comment that is typical is "At least the punishment goes some way to fit the crime, if only our laws took a more robust view of the horrible crimes committed by the few." I find this quite disturbing.

I believe in a strong criminal justice system. I believe life should mean life, I believe rape (all forms of rape) should carry hefty sentences. I do not believe in time off for good behaviour. I also believe that inmates should have to work, although I do support education and rehabilitation for drug users. Fundamentally, however, I believe in a system that is proportional.

Proportion is the key word of justice. The sentence must fit the crime and the severity of the crime must be reflected. This takes detachment. Stealing is awful for the victim, but it is not GBH. GBH may be awful for the victim, but it is not rape. Rape is horrific, but it is not, just about, murder. Therefore we have a scale of punishments that get worse depending on the crime.



What this one comment says is that beheading and crucifixion in public just about fits the crime of raping children. Seeing as this is the ultimate punishment, surely it should be reserved for the ultimate crime, if at all (as I said, I do not believe in capital punishment).

But, for many any violence is abhorrent. They would struggle to smack a dog, let alone kill someone. All of a sudden though a huge number of people become revenge obsessed blood thirsty sadists who want, crucially, someone else to spend week torturing someone before killing them for their crime.

This behaviour, this reaction is the very lowest point of the human soul. It is the point of our base, un-evolved mind screaming for blood. The problem is we are seeing this reaction increase. The answer for many to a criminal only getting 2 years for 500 robberies is to send him down for 20. Seriously, read the comments as a reflection of this and some are pretty sick. In fact I had to wonder about the state of mind of some.

To my mind this touches on John's previous article about 1930s Germany and the current state of play. As society starts to fragment, as disillusion sets in not just with justice, but with everything so the support for the far right and left increases, so people's morality becomes corrupted, so those previously civilised feelings of revenge, hate, fear come to the fore.

It is symptomatic of our current state when you couple this with the issues of crime, youth offending rates, re-offending rates, unemployment, recession, education standards etc etc etc. People's behaviour, of all walks of life, is beginning to reflect the disintegration of our country.

The people who step into this void are the religious extremes and the political extremes. From fundamentalist Christians (a huge rise in activity and political involvement), fundamentalist Muslims (focused on too much by the media) through to extreme parties like the SWP and the BNP.

The last time this happened was the early 90s with the Bulger murder. This was horrific, but the media went to town on it and much of the draconian legislation we now have to deal with was pushed through by Major in a desperate bid to out position a salivating Blair. The mob was fuelled by the media and the politicians caved. This time there isn't much room for manoeuvre.

Prisons can be made harsher, punishments can be increased, but history shows us that this can lead to a rapidly escalating process. A return to more balanced politics and an increase in freedoms is the only solution to this, the fear is that the  powers that be will go the other way in a bid to counter the extremists and satisfy the increasingly baying mob.

I wouldn't say I need the men in white coats.

Yet.

Lately, I've been experiencing more than my usual levels of barely controlled rage. It's pretty bad, I'll be honest. The old red mist descends probably around twice a day on average at the moment, and I've come perilously close to turning one of my road rage episodes into a fully fledged mission off Grand Theft Auto. You know those missions: the ones you give up on, because it's just so much more satisfying seeing how many people you can kill with a golf club before the cops arrive.

The reasons for my increase in apoplectic, seething, barely concealed fury are not really for discussion in this piece. I know what they are. I don't need a shrink to find out, and I don't need to talk about it. What I need is something firm and palpable I can beat the living fuck out of for a good hour or more. Daily. Probably something that breaths and annoys me a lot. So, probably something that breaths then.

I need to do something about it though. So all suggestions welcome, including the tear-jerkingly boring and inane not to mention wholly predictable ones from the usual standard set of Berkeley Hunts that visit this site on a daily basis.

The reason why I am writing this, is not just to explain about my current worrying state of mind, but to talk about some interesting things I've mused over of late.

You see, I am an extremely moral person. No, I don't have a monopoly on the understanding of what is moral and what isn't, but I take it for granted that certain basic, obvious things are right and proper. I embrace those.

I don't steal, I don't hurt anyone, I consider my neighbours a lot, I always ensure I leave enough space for them to park outside, I always treat everyone I meet with proper respect and etiquette. I am a good egg, overall.

But lately...there appears to be a few cracks appearing in my formerly concrete-solid character. My anger is weirdly morphing into something else. Something that creates moments of red eyed rage, quite similar to the rage in the film 28 Days Later.

Weirdly, in those moments of complete loss of control and rampant negativity, I briefly assume a very odd power mantle. A sort of momentary satisfaction that I am, at that moment, quite capable and up for tearing some motherfucker's head off and punting it off into the distance like Shay Given in one of his more desperate moments.

Then it goes again, and I'm left with that utterly infuriated vibe, where I simmer at 98 degrees Celsius for a good hour or so, just under boiling point, and ready to explode again. It's not great.

But my little insights have got me asking some seriously searching questions and philosophical questions about mankind.

At what point can a man be pushed, or can a regular bloke reach, before his morality and state of mind shifts to the extent that he is capable of killing. I don't just mean in a brief, rash and decidedly regretful moment of despair. I mean, to the point where his entire value system shifts and he is no longer Jimmy Blogger who opens doors for grannies and pops a quid in the charity pot in his local and buys the Big Issue every other Thursday.

To the point where he is a bona fide murderer.

Is this something that a tiny minority are capable of, and where the vast majority just don't go there?

That's clearly bollocks when you think about it. History has taught us the huge importance of upbringing, nurture, culture and the development of civilisation over the centuries when it comes to explaining western codes of conduct and morality.

In the early 20th century, when the stability of nations was at its weakest for generations, millions of people suddenly forgot morality and reverted back to old, blood thirsty instincts and notions of survival. People became violent, or accepting and tolerant of violence, because of fear and hatred of other people.

Imagine working for a week, to take this home, only to find out it's worth around 57 pence? Then imagine you've been bombarded with propaganda blaming it all on department store owning rich backstabbing Jews. It's easy to say you wouldn't be like the rest, but why did millions back Hitler on the Jews?

The stab in the back myth was something that required very little evidence before it was accepted wholesale by the German people in the 1930s. But then that should be obvious. When people are pushed, and when their anger and despair is prodded, they need reasons and they need an outlet.

War was an outlet, but equally as importantly, so was violent ideology.

In the West today, we all join hands and sing ring a ring a roses when we talk about the Nazis of the 1930s. We all agree, oh so easily, that they were evil and wrong and what they did was disgusting and the treatment of the Jews was awful.

These are all fair positions to take, but it completely ignores the fact that any given one of us, given similar circumstances, might easily act like the Germans did back then. Either the Germans who held the gun, or the Germans who phoned up the Gestapo office with a tip. Or the German who turned away and walked off at the sight of a Jew being beaten and kicked in the street.

Ask yourself this question: If you were a struggling German person back then, forced into penury, broke, awash with feelings of dis-empowerment and humiliation and with the knowledge that you could not feed your family or get a proper job, might you end up harbouring grudges against A.N.Other? It is very possible to imagine how you might.

I can see how value systems might suddenly alter. Let's face it, with the growth of the BNP in this country, worrying truths are not a million miles away.

Remember that lunatic militant feminist from the '60s and '70s? Valerie Solanas. A woman who wrote a pamphlet which lovingly adorns my bookshelf at home called 'The Scum Manifesto'. (SCUM = Society for Cutting Up Men).


Old Valerie nearly killed Andy Warhol, after plugging him with a good amount of the lead stuff. She will go down in history as one of the most extreme misandrists and hardcore feminist nut cases of all time.

She argued for the torture, humiliation and eradication of all men from existence. Her booklet, which is a hilarious read and comes highly Mr D recommended, makes Mein Kampf looking like a Mister Men book.

But you know what? I can see, I can understand what drove her and motivated her. I do not for a split second, as with Hitler, agree with her views or excuse them or relate to them. But I can see how a person might find themselves, or might contribute to their path towards, a situation where they become murderers and bloodthirsty maniacs.

Her childhood was horrendous. By her account, she was sexually abused by her dad and her awful 'upbringing' culminated in more sexual exploitation when she wound up on the streets selling her body to sleaze bags.

The anger, the sheer hatred and fury, that she vents in her 'book' doesn't strike a chord with me exactly. But I sort of see the fury and see how someone can reach that stage.




So, luckily, I still maintain control of my emotions to the extent that I have not yet committed a serous crime under English Law. The 'value system' I have been given / I have nurtured is in tact. But it shakes, and it wibbles. It wobbles and it sort of crumbles a bit on odd places.

If I didn't live such a respectable life in a nice area, I am unsure whether this would still be the case for long.

What if I lived somewhere like this?

Quite a staggering story in today's papers, reporting a disgusting attack against BBC journalist Paresh Patel by a couple of drunken scum bag pikey low life animals.

The piece absolutely shocked me. Largely because the level of criminal aggression and intimidation, culminating in assault, meted out by these thugs went largely unchecked and unnoticed. It took ages before the police arrived, and even when the van pulled up one of the scum bags continued his bizarre campaign of abuse and physical intimidation.

Here's the You Tube clip.



What is even more depressing than this awful site of an innocent man being victimised in the streets unchallenged is the punishment handed down by our useless, pointless, waste of space justice system.

According to the piece:

"Nugent and McKenna, both from Manchester, admitted charges of affray and assaulting Mr Patel on September 11.

McKenna was giving a community order for 18 months with supervision and 14 hours unpaid work at Manchester Crown Court on October 22.

Nugent was also given an 18-month community order with supervision.

Jodie Anderson, 26, the female who threw the drink over Mr Patel, had previously pleaded guilty to assaulting Mr Patel and was given a suspended six-week prison sentence and ordered to pay him £50 compensation."

Naturally, Mr Patel ought to be applauded for defending himself in the way he did. Though quite how he was that restrained is nothing short of breathtaking. I watched the footage, and felt a swell of rage and apoplectic contempt and anger just sat here. My God, what if Mr P had my temperament? They'd be scraping off chav skull from the pointed wrought iron bars of the nearest mansion house fence for a week.

I strongly believe that had Mr Patel beaten that man's head to a pulp, and left him a gibbering vegetable for life, he ought to have been roundly praised and possibly even decorated by Her Majesty. We need to make positive examples of those who step up to the plate and show how self defence needs to be done in our lawless, underclass-ridden shit hole society.

Because our judiciary and our political classes are stubbornly treacherous when it comes to crime and punishment, and ensuring the citizenry of Britain are safe and secure.

Those 'punishments' given to the guilty three are so laughable, so pointless, it is amazing to consider for a moment that the judge handing them down thought they could have any effect whatsoever. When you consider the cost of taking these dogs through the system, it makes you wonder whether there's any point at all in the exercise.

If our despicable, gutless, treacherous political elites and left wing judiciary (including the CPS and ACPO) point black refuse to punish, or do anything that could deter crime, then might we at least have some tax money back from the massive, swollen, pointless pot of public money that funds security and law and order.

Some hope. They will keep every penny and ask for more. In fact, the money locomotive will grow and become faster, as we will continually be told that scum bags like Mr Patel's attackers are society's victims and aggrieved, and that the answer is more funding, more welfare, more public services and more state endorsed love and care.

When common law is finally eradicated, and the European Union owns every last inch of our skins, our right to self defence will wither away as the state will decide it know best of all.

Our last vestiges of freedom are going. The judge that praised Patel is probably one of the last judges who would commend and support actions of self defence. How long before the honest, hard working individual is rendered down to nothing more than a tax cow. A statistic, there to be milked and used as a tool in left wing wealth redistribution.

Rights? Safety? Security? Freedoms? Liberty? 'What are they?' the state will ask us.

We will be frowned upon for making decisions and defending rights that the state so greedily requires for its own grandiose plans.

We must resist the socialist left wing trends that are taking grip in this country. Resist them with all your might.

George Monbiot is probably a pretty nice guy when you get him off the subject of global warming/climate change. Probably.*

Today in the Grauniad he writes yet another article attacking those who dare not to conform, except this time he takes a slightly different angle in that he attacks certain demographics. He also centres the debate upon himself in a wonderful piece of egotism to which I can only tip my godly hat, "My fiercest opponents on global warming".

The main cut and thrust of the article is that he is not a happy bunny with 'the people', who are daring not to believe what they are told on the subject of global warming. In fact he is really rather upset, whilst staring out of the window at his organic rabbits, that the number of dissenters is growing according to a number of surveys. Collective gasp people**.

He goes on to blame, a shocker this, the right wing media and websites, including blogs. Presumably for daring to have free expression and debate. He even says "these books and websites cater to a new literary market: people with room-temperature IQs", I know the feeling, although he is obviously not talking about this awesome blog* and its awesome readers*.

Yes, free speech and the ability of doubt are wrong, because the scientific evidence is so strong that only a moron would argue against it. Well, this is an intelligent blog* for intelligent people* and we'll have no morons here. Oh, hang on "Plenty of intelligent people have also declared themselves sceptics", nice little caveat there George m'boy. I quite liked this though:

Had he [Clive James] bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing armies – climate scientists on one side, rightwing bloggers on the other

It's that simple, scientists versus bloggers. Right wing bloggers at that. And the over 65s even more so because that is the age group that dares rise up and say 'Mmmm, really?'. It's okay though, they'll be dead soon and the last of the free thinkers will be gone. That's stupid people, intelligent people and old people. Not many left is there?

His conclusion is along these lines. As we get older we become fearful of death and the evidence of climate change is a reminder of mortality. So the oldies react more and more against the evidence.

Now this is clearly deranged, lefty bollocks*.

The basic human behavioural trait he so easily ignores is that the more control is exerted, the more people rebel. The tighter the fist the more slips through the fingers. That is precisely what is going on* and he simply doesn't get it.

Global warming is a divided subject with many more coming down on the side of it is happening then the other. I myself say it is. But the whole other part of the argument is if it is man-made or not. Some people say it isn't happening and so it cannot be man made, others like myself say it is happening and but it isn't man made. I then wrestle with myself over my views, because that is what you do when you form an opinion.

I have a view. I'm not a climate scientist anymore than I'm a many things, but I have a view all the same. However, I am also not deluded enough to deny that a fair amount of influence on that view is my wish not be told what to do.

I accept many scientific things on evidence that I can readily see but am not an expert on. Such as evolution, or medicines. What these experts, in the main anyway, are not trying to do though is control my very life.

If I choose not to believe in evolution and instead put my faith in an invisible deity that likes leaving cryptic and conflicting messages in various books that it itself does not write, or even update, then I can. I will be told I'm a loon, which I would be*, but my life would carry on. If I decided that cannabis should be Class B and not Class C, I would be a loon and Gordon Brown.

But if I decide that I have some quibbles about who is at fault about the climate, I am attacked and castigated. In fact the people who want me to believe what they believe go beyond debating with me and telling me I'm wrong, which would be fine, they actually force their will upon me. My taxes are changed, my travel is dictated, the very political system is geared against me.

I recycle almost religiously, but I do so because I don't believe in waste and do believe in reusing the resources we already have. I will walk whenever I can rather than get the bus because I don't see the point of getting public transport when I don't have to. I buy fairtrade when I can because I believe in the principle. I turn off every light and plug I'm not using, the only thing I have gas for is the boiler and the house is fully insulated. In fact, thinking about it earlier today, I am possibly the 'greenest' person I know.

But I do not do any of these things from a position of saving the planet because of man made climate change. Something I am very cynical about. I don't even do any of these things because of the taxes or expenses, I do it because I don't like waste or people getting a raw deal.

So people like Monbiot have zero effect on me in terms of how I live my life other than make me incredibly suspicious of their motives for trying to make me do what they want me to do. No doubt I am not the only one*.

So George, get a grip. Open your eyes and understand that the more you tell people to do something, like a child they will do the opposite. It's nothing to do with being old, or being right wing, or being a blogger, or even being a bald Australian ex-pat. It's you and your acolytes taking over every facet of people's lives that makes them suspicious.

*This is an opinion. It is not fact and is not absolute. It is an opinion formed in my mind that is readily open to being debated with. Opinions are good. Opinions are what we need more of in this controlled state. Opinions lead to debate and debate is what leads to resolution and understanding. Now, let's all sing the opinion song...

**This is not an order. Please note the lack of a gun to your head making you gasp. If you wish to gasp as an individual or as a group, please feel free to do so.

If Libertarians are to retain any credibility in discussion, we have to acknowledge that there are flaws in the free market, and that when those flaws arise, the best way forward is for people to act in such a way as to minimise their exposure and maximise their potential.

The biggest rift amongst libertarians takes place when it comes to discussing how to deal with the consequences of the free market and who should benefit. Left libertarians (Ralph Nader from the States is a good example) believe that what benefits people is important, and so consumer rights are more important than the needs of big companies.

Right libertarians are the ultimate capitalists. What is good for big business, is good for the people, so just roll with it folks and don't complain or ask too many questions.

Let me explain a working example of what I mean here.

As you know, supermarkets really took off in the 1980s to the extent that, by the 1990s, everyone did their shopping in one of the big supermarkets and smaller shops and village stores were going bust at a rate of knots.

To analyse this quickly, supermarkets succeeded and killed off the small grocers and butchers shops, because of three rather obvious factors in their favour:

1. They offered an easy one-stop shop for people to get everything they needed under one warm roof.
2. They offered a wider range of better quality and often exotic goods that, hitherto, were out of reach of the masses.
3. The main reason: because of their buying power, the goods on offer were cheaper and more competitive.

One relative of mine wound down his shop back in the '80s, because he could not compete. Sainsburys opened up, and offered more choice for less price. He didn't have the ability to even try to compete and so that was that.



What we have now, however, is a rather interesting yet predictable pattern.

Take my local Tescos. It opened up a few years back, putting the final nail in the coffin of local village shops and services. It is a massive warehouse style store that sells everything you can think of.

Correction...

It used to sell everything you could think of. Now, it doesn't. I have since found out that this is a trend amongst supermarkets in recent years.

Being a snob, I tend to avoid certain things in my local Tesco and go for the nicer stuff. This is great, because not only do I eat better stuff, feel better and enjoy food more, I also get to look down my nose at the fucking proles who spend half their shopping time mooching up and down the crisps aisle.

The fact supermarkets have entire aisles dedicated to crisps and entire aisles dedicated to soft drinks and biscuits is enough evidence about Britain's latent, terminal decline.

But weird things have been happening the last few months. I used to like a certain type of expensive pate. They recently discontinued it. I used to get jars of tapenade and sometimes pick up some anchovy paste. They no longer do it.

On a more basic level, I like gherkins and red cabbage (very Eastern European in theme, which makes sense as I am rather fond of the Trabant). To my disbelief, my local Tesco has actually stopped selling jars of red cabbage. They have also trimmed its range of gherkins. They no longer do the jars of little baby gherkins I like, which has really pissed me off.

They've even pikeyfied their ketchup range. I used to get this top of the range expensive shit. Made in Essex, old fashioned jar, can't remember the name. Not any more. Because they've stopped doing it.

You get the picture - suddenly there's less stuff about.

But this makes perfect economic sense from Tesco's point of view. At the start, they killed the competition. The existence of fellow supermarket chains means that there will be some competitiveness on pricing, but it is in the interests of all the supermarkets to make maximum profits.

Where are those profits to be found? Well, in mass produced stuff, popular stuff, and tat. The posh stuff and nice stuff carries higher price tags, but less people buy it, it costs more to make and there's less buyer power involved. So we're talking about things that take up shelf space and don't really advance the business.

There's less concern about cutting lines, because, well, there are few places out there that stock diverse ranges of speciality goods and interesting nice stuff. So there is now a reversal of fate for the consumer. We are getting poorer quality stuff, and a crap range of stuff, because outfits like Tesco know they can get away with it.

It is also the case that supermarkets sometimes engage in willful profiteering and price fixing. They are quick to increase prices and slow to lower them when costs come down (like when pasta went mental two years ago and then came down again...have we seen that reflected on the shop floor? Not massively).

But what is happening now is a resurgence in the small local shop. A butchers has opened up down the road from me lately, and that is hot on the heels of two new delis. They are competitive, and the quality is better. But while this is a trend, it hardly evidence of a mass consumer switch to local shopping. The bulk of the market belongs with the big beasts.

So what does this mean for the consumer?

It means fuck all, unless there is a left libertarian solution to the problem. Individuals acting on their own, outside of the loop, might slowly catch on and make a few changes. But it is more effective when people act in concert with one another. Hence my boycott the Daily Mail campaign recently. Hence why I praise George Orwell and people who fight for noble and just causes.

If something is unfair, don't expect the state to help. Expect rational action from other people to help. People power doesn't have to mean some lefty student in a Che T-shirt and ripped jeans punching the stuffy air within a university lecture hall. It doesn't have to mean Fidel fucking Castro.

We are not talking authoritarianism here, we are talking about raising awareness for things and getting campaigns going so that the free market can be utilised to the benefit of most people, not just a few people.

If a business is acting like a cunt, they will carry on until they can't get away with it any more. It's really that simple. If they maintain power, they will freeze people out, and that ridiculous hard right libertarian myth about 'if you don't like it, you open up in competition' is blown out the water. Because you have an Oligarchy where the powerful have a total iron grip on everything and where they work with their competitors to secure a 'good for the top table' state of affairs.

Who can honestly argue that an individual can fight Tescos by setting up shop in competition with them? Or any other of the big names for that matter?

So, we either accept the long term dominance of a small number of companies that control affordable food supplies to the population, and accept the bullshit stunts they pull. Or, we look to left libertarianism for some ideas on how to approach the matter.

*to add, I am not a left libertarian per se, I am a centre right, moderate libertarian, but I acknowledge where left libertarianism is valid and offers solutions. This is just such an example.