Our “None of the above” protest vote is still not being heard by any of the political parties.
Clegg in the Poo
What we the people have said is what none of those in power want to hear.
We, the people, have said it, not just in Britain, but, all over Europe.
The knee jerk response to the EU, is UKIP’s “out is best”. I have a fair degree of sympathy with that view, but let’s examine the alternatives.
Notice, I do not mention immigration once and that is where UKIP have gone wrong in my view. The immigration policies of the EU, Labour, Lib-dims and Tory have been crazy for the last 20 years, but that’s not the main problem with Europe. The damage done to the fabric of Britishness is what most upsets many who directly experience the ghettoisation of many cities in the UK. Multi-culturalism was the issue, misunderstood by the political class and never dealt with; these EU election results and UKIP’s success is the result.
We the people never wanted the astonishing intrusion to our national identity, that is the direct result of EU law.
The main problem with the EU is that it was the EEC that we all voted for in the 1975 referendum.
– the EEC was a sensible construct; designed to stop Germany shooting at us all again
– the EEC was an economic collaboration of similar advanced European countries; it made sense
– the EEC morphed into a wishy washy federalist state designed by faceless twits in Brussels
– the EU is far too big and is run by failed politicians from Portugal & Belgium
– the EU is completely undemocratic, therefore, crass decisions are never opposed
– the job of an MEP is pointless; their votes do not count towards policy decisions at all (by design)
– corruption & inefficiency is endemic
– ridiculous situations are perpetuated, e.g.
– the fortnightly move from Brussels to Strasbourg in a fleet of lorries
– the Common Agricultural Policy which favours France to the point of idiocy
– inflated salaries are the norm for jobs that do nothing for we the people
– as for the Euro, words almost fail me. The Euro-zone “crisis” remains un-addressed. Disaster still lurks while they hope it goes away
The required reforms are these:-
– the complete unwinding of the EU back to the EEC (i.e. pre-Maastricht)
– the removal of the Euro from all but Germany, France and perhaps Holland. The rest of the Euro-zone is so economically primitive that it just beggars belief that it was allowed to join.
David Cameraman wants to tinker with bits here and there but still supports the global pro-EU businesses that support the Tory party. Labour still can’t accept that Ed Millibean is a joke, perhaps a number 2, but NOT a leader. The Lib-dims (who dey?) still can’t accept that Nick Clegg (who he?) is unelectable and that the EU needs such fundamental reform that his continued support for it is just ridiculous.
So then, perhaps UKIP are right after all, there’s just too much wrong with the EU. Let’s just get out and renegotiate individual agreements like we used to. It will be OK, don’t listen to words of fear, its only globalised commerce that’s scared of a smaller EU, less easy money to be made.
Acknowledgement:
Brian Adcock for the cartoon that says it all on Cagle.com
Nobody has ‘agreed with Nick‘ for three years. Now, even Vince ‘the’ Cable has joined that club of pollishituns who have shafted the public and refuse to take responsibility by resigning.
Vince gets ready for retirement
Vince Cable, the man who foresaw the financial disaster of 2008, is no more, and should resign after his disastrous mishandling the Royal Mail privatisation. He still speaks, but his words are mealy-mouthed establishment twaddle.
In every privatisation of public assets, since Thatcher’s dark days in the 1980s, the onlywinners have been the investment bankers who “oversaw” each under-priced share issue. Politicians have been routinely shafted by clever businesses who pay little tax here.
As a result, we the public have been shafted too, our assets raped and pillaged by nameless offshore tax avoiders unprotected by clueless and inept polishituns of both ruling parties.
Do not approach these thieves, they have arms and are dangerous to the public.
Nick Clegg, who many of us once saw as a possible good future for UK politics, self combusted after lying to a whole generation of students over the college tuition fees issue. He continues to support a corrupt, incompetent EU, hell bent on enforcing a uniform Belgian mediocrity for all, in a United States of Europe, and few understand why.
Their Lib Dem and Con-servative party political chums still support Nick & Vince but for how much longer? We the people certainly do not!
Taking responsibility is now a meaningless phrase, which actually means “I’m very sorry, but I need the job, my 11% pay rise and the luvverly pension and benefits. So, piss off please. I am not resigning, and anyway what are you going to do about it?
Party conference poppycock – Part 1 – the Lib Dems.
Vince Cable Business Minister, remember him? He ‘s the chap who foresaw the banking crash, the credit crunch and says that George Osborne is wrong about signs of economic recovery. He is still seen by everyone as somone who has principles and vision.
Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, remember him? He’s the chap who lied about his principles to students and forever lost any trust the public might have had. He is seen now by everyone as desperate to keep political power at any cost.
Knives out for Clegg
Vince has decided not to attend today’s Lib Dem conference debate on the economy! Because he has principles!(see Update below).
Nick is so desperate for power at any cost his principles are seen to be sham.
If the Lib Dems don’t ditch Clegg they are forever lost – Bye Bye! Nobody “agrees with Nick ” anymore.
Party politics – pah, poo & poppycock! (I would have preferred to say bollocks)
Acknowledgement: Gary Barker for Cable & Clegg cartoon
Update: Ooops! 24hrs is a long time in politics. Vince was made to turn up & vote in favour of the silly motion. Can’t trust any politician it seems (I thought I already knew that too – ah well.)
Apart from being good news for the £ (of which more later*), the lack of a majority for any one Italian party, in yesterday’s general election, is giving the political classes the same lesson that they failed to learn in 2010. “We the people” have nobody credible to vote for. When an Italian comedian can get 25% of the vote, then I think we may say that conventional political parties have been rumbled as the comedians.
The lesson that “we the people” all recognise that party political politics, if not yet quite dead, is increasingly irrelevant in an age where ‘we the people‘ are better informed than ever before and where individual issues transcend party political dogma.
What’s not to love eh? Trust me – I’m a dick!
Clowns like Berlusconi are in a funny little world of self delusion, as are our own ” Ed Millipede”, “call me Dave” Cameraman and “Nobody told me” Cleggy. That so many actually voted for Berlusconi is a sad reflection on the Italians and a hint for those who still think the Euro can be saved.
Poor Cleggy. He made a promise he thought we would never have to keep. What odds he would have been in Government?
‘They‘ are all seemingly incapable of realising that the gravy train days are over and that the people want sensible, but of course boring, competent management of our human and physical resources.
* As I have mentioned before and analyse in depth in meBook, the Euro is a ridiculous and entirely illogical construct, doomed to fail, but being kept alive by a financial and political class who believe that “money” actually exists and has value in itself. Whereas the simple truth is that most of today’s ‘money’ is actually indebtedness created by a mad banking system supporting an irrational globalist business class that worshipped growth as its only aim. OK – I have to admit that many of “We the people” were seduced by the ‘need’ for the shiny new stuff now rather than later 🙁 . Grandma, however, has been proved right! Are today’s multiple gadget owners happier as a result?
The probable good news for Sterling is that the Euro has been hit because the “markets” hate Euro uncertainty – ah bless!
There are no Keynesian solutions to the mess created by the consumer society madness; Keynes himself would recognise that the whole indebtedness thing is just too big now. Keynes would laugh at Ed Balls’ silly wafflings.
To all those who still say that Economic Growth is the only way out I say GROW UP! The answer was laid out in 1973 in Schumacher’s book “Small is Beautiful” – essential reading if you actually want a real solution to the world’s woes – sadly I have have to say “fat chance”.
The quest for growth is what caused the 2007/8 crisis and until they admit that, there is no hope for “we the people”.
“The Lords Reform Bill is dead.” says Cameraman Senior.
“Oh no it isn’t!” says Cleggy Minor …
The rowdy delinquents are at it again – no parental controls in place as Clegg minor & Cameraman major battle out their respective class captain campaigns for the next two years. Although Cleggy Minor’s dad (Lord Steel) has tried to calm down his errant offspring by calling him “petulant”*2
Once again these silly little boys are spending all their time, our money, on politics*1 ( see footnote for definition) rather than on the difficult issues of resource management and public sector efficiency.
Just remember – these two kids are supposed to be in charge of Team GB and displaying maturity in quality decision making! Party politics is the root cause of this ridiculous time wasting posturing for position.
I skimmed through the Lords reform bill (174 pages) a couple of days ago and found many, many words written written about mechanisms, timescales, new jobs for old boys and technicalities but precious few on WHY reform was needed.
However, Lord Steel’s (Cleggy minor’s dad) alternative bill (2 pages) is much clearer and makes sense to everyone (unless your conkers are being confiscated of course):-
Sack all those Lords who have served a prison sentence. (15 would go straight way!)
Sack any ‘Lord’ who failed to attend at all in any one term. (Another 300 gone by my quick count)
Hereditary peers would no longer be replaced allowing the silliness to gently disappear.
Future nominees “All nominees would have to demonstrate conspicuous merit and a willingness and capacity to make a contribution to the work of the House of Lords.”
Well then, ‘What a jolly good idea!’
Until “Lords Reform” is actually defined (Ed: ‘What a jolly good idea!’) it really is pointless to continue with Cleggy Minor’s ill defined pile of time consuming poo.
*1 Politics defined : “the truly pointless discussion of how what ‘someone’ said might be perceived by ‘others’ and whether or not this will damage their ‘credibility’.”
*2 Clegg will look ‘petulant’ unless he backs down, warns Lord Steel (Independent 8th August 2012)
Baroness Warsi off to help the Pope fight agressive secularism ...
Almost daily now, on the BBC, we hear religious leaders droning on about the importance of faith in our lives and the dangers of aggressive secularism. Now ‘we’ are sending Baroness Warsi to the Vatican, accompanied by 7 cabinet ministers, to join forces with the Pope to speak out against so-called ‘aggressive’ secularism which I would simply describe as reason and commonsense! I find this government mission frankly deeply misguided and almost unbelievable – and who on earth sanctioned that level of expense? We are the only country in the world (apart from Iran) to have theocratic ‘believers in the improbable’ as part of out legislature! As for being ‘aggressive’, secularists are simply employing reasoned argument to remove the priviliges these relics of the Dark Ages still enjoy!
Nick Clegg, as our Deputy Prime Minister (and as the atheist he most assuredly is) should be ashamed of himself for not lambasting this criminal waste of tax payers money. The Lib Dems are rapidly losing any credibility they ever had – nobody now ‘agrees with Nick‘ – not even other lib dems!
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore and Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson will also attend, along with International Development Minister Alan Duncan, Energy Minister Greg Barker and Foreign Office Minister Lord Howell of Guildford. Despite Duncan and Barker being openly gay, the forthcoming free vote in the Commons on introducing gay marriage is said to be firmly off the agenda. (With thanks to the Huffington Post).
How can the suspension of reason in favour of divisive policies at the heart of government be considered so important? We waste so much time in this world trying to cope with religious differences and prejudices that we really should have caught on by now – secularism is the safest place for religion to reside. Religion must be a matter of personal choice and NOT EVER part of central government. Here are just two examples:-
1) Just because Henry VIII fancied a new woman he invented the Church of England to rid himself of the Pope’s veto on his divorce. He broke with Rome in 1534, which led to hundreds of years of sectarian violence and death in England and Ireland. The wounds are still open today 400 years later. A religion created on a pompous monarch’s whim.
2) Just because early Muslims couldn’t agree on who should lead them in after Mohammed’s death in 632 AD, we have another religion divided (Sunni Muslim versus Shia Muslim) at each others throats for the last 1,400 years. The figures here for sectarian violent death are impossible to estimate but ‘100s of thousands’ is probably not too far out.
In the UK, both labour and conservative governments still think that creating more and more faith schools, which are, by definition, inherently divisive, is a good idea! Parents opt, mostly hypocritically, for a faith school, if they can, simply because discipline is managed better in faith schools, religious faith does not play much of a part in the decision for most.
Religion, whilst it remains at the heart of government, will continue to engage us in pointless activity trying to appease all yet pleasing none. Until we remove the shackles of ‘faith’ from our everyday lives we simply cannot make “reasonable” decisions and live in peace. Please note that I am concentrating on versions of the Abrahamic based religions as it is these which have caused most of the worlds strife. Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion and Hinduism with Sikhism both seem not to be bent on world domination!
A few thoughts from just a few well known thinkers might explain my position, a position based on reason:-
Hippocrates (c.460-c.377 B.C.E.) “People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don’t have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it’s divine. And so it is with everything in the universe.”
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), “Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.”
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) “The most practical and dramatic victory of science over religion occurred in the 17th century, when churches began to put up lightning conductors.”
Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935 – ) “This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
Despite these insights, spanning the last two thousand years, around 70% of the inhabitants of the USA think that world was created in 7 days by a god like man with a white beard who actually cares about them. He cares far more about Republicans of course 😉
The world has gone mad – faith has trumped reason despite the legacy of Socrates and the European Enlightenment philosophers, so where to start? ‘Reason’ and philosophy is the best place to start so here goes:-
The Riddle of Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
If God is willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
If he is able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
If he is both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
If he is neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
If there is a god, he is no use to us because he / she / it made so many errors in the overall design of the universe, and us, that we have to invest billions in the NHS to save us from the disease pestilence and famine that he (in his own mysterious way) sent, so, even if there is a god, he obviously does not care about us one jot or tittle. The beautiful ‘theory’ of evolution just makes far more sense, and yes it is a theory but it is the best explanation that we have, so far, for the random, beautiful, unfair, chaotic but wonderful world in which we live.
If ‘he’ had a master plan for our ultimate “salvation” he did a very poor job in communicating it! The message should surely be the same for all, so why all these different religions with different back-stories and disagreements?
Its almost as if he / she / it / was some shadowy human Mandelson figure who makes up a different story every few hundred years and tries again 😉
For example, starting with the Jewish Torah, then on to the New Testament followed on a few hundred years later with a punchier version of the Torah because the New Testament was just a bit too… well, New Age! All that talk of love and peace PAH, let’s get back to smiting! So finally, to the Quran, the last and biggest Abrahamic story revision. Do take some time to read it – I have read it twice in two different translations and whilst I acknowledge the beauty of the Arabic oral rendition of the Quran – it is sheer poetry, mesmeric – one does not need to understand the words to feel the ‘power’, it is simply spine tingling when recited well.
For me however – the words of the Quran are those of a politically astute desert Arab[1] who demands the suspension of personal reason, the sublimation of free will and demands complete submission to what HE says or else, and, since all he says is the will of Allah, there is no choice but to accept (very handy)! The Quran is a scarily primitive political polemic in which all Muslims seem to be trapped forever; after all, it is “the unalterable word of god”.
Christians have had their reformation but many, albeit in declining numbers, still take enormous comfort from the social structures it provides, but Islam is seemingly forever held frozen in the Arab deserts of AD 650 promoting misogyny and Islamic supremacy; it will take a very brave moderate Muslim scholar to reform all that!
I know I have missed out Rosicrucian’s, 7th day Adventists, Mormons and the ‘Beam me Up’ Scientologists, but they are all just too silly for words aren’t they?
Well aren’t they? Apparently not, some 40 million of us would disagree. (20 million Mormons claimed worldwide, 100,000 best estimate for the Scientologists (OK +0.5 for Tom Cruise ’cause he’s a bit short), and say another 20 million Christian and other religious factions).
So then, our government thinks it’s a jolly good idea to support a Catholic leader who still supports the protection of pedophile priests by doing nothing? Who on earth thought that an inter-faith dialogue would promote peace when all the evidence is that the slightest disagreement causes schism, death and mayhem as history demonstrates over and over again?
Oh dear me “Beam me up Scotty – take me away please”.
[1] I have a theory that it was his first wife who did most of the political thinking whilst coping with Mohammed’s ‘divine’ fits of epilepsy (see Hippocrates quote above).
This is the first of a new series of posts pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of politicians that most people don’t have time to spot – I do, so here is a classic example.
A humbled and diminished Vince Cable was tonight allowed to cling on to his cabinet post as business secretary, but was stripped of all responsibility for media policy after it emerged he had told undercover reporters that he had “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch over the media magnate’s plans to take over all of BSkyB.
Cable’s reckless claims, in a secretly recorded conversation, were considered a flagrant breach of his duty to take a quasi-judicial approach to the proposed takeover, and were declared “totally unacceptable and inappropriate” by Downing Street. Many had expected an angry David Cameron to sack Cable or transfer him to a lesser cabinet role.
But instead the business secretary was hauled in front of his party leader, Nick Clegg, and then Cameron. After a series of emergency meetings, which included George Osborne, the chancellor, Clegg felt he could not afford to lose the second most senior Liberal Democrat from the government.
Nearly 70 civil servants responsible for all aspects of media and telecoms policy will now be transferred from Cable’s business empire to the Department of Culture Media and Sport headed by Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary and a Conservative likely to be sympathetic to Murdoch …
Now that Murdoch has been accurately exposed as a gutter dwelling, lying stinkpot (which we all knew anyway), Vince Cable is seen to have been justified and correct in his observations.
So much for a rational and principled response from politicians then eh? Cameron, Clegg and Miliband owe Vince a huge apology – but I haven’t spotted one yet – have you? Cable has obviously been gagged by Clegg and Cameron – can’t have truth being aired in Westminster village, can we – bah, poo & piffle says I.
The pathetic displays of self righteousness, in the last few days, from people like Prescott, Brown and Cameron is truly nauseating …
Nick Clegg is a huge disappointment to me, and to many people who were looking for a new political direction in the dying days of the Brown government; his academic writings and philosphical background were like a warm fire to me 15 months ago – but oh how times have changed!
OK then – what’s he done to upset me?
He actually wanted PR, not AV, as a parliamentary electoral system yet he “forced” a referendum on AV as part of the “coalition agreement”. The last time we had a referendum, back in 1975, it was about joining the EEC (NB: this was not the pile of poo we now have called the “EU”!). So, he should either have stuck to his principles and used his temporarily powerful position to get something useful done for the people. Referenda don’t come round very often and he completely screwed up on this one.
He is now proposing to rename the House of Lords as “Senate”, a word that belongs to a republic not to the primitive Monarchical jobby that we currently have and incidentally he does not want either.
However, the very worst of his proposed reforms is to increase religious voices in the new “Senate” instead of taking the opportunity to remove them all together, which as an atheist is what he really wants to do. So, as well as the priviliged nonsense from the Anglican ‘Lords Spiritual’ he proposes to add Muslim, Roman Catholic and Jewish voices into the reviewing legislature. Sunni or Shi-ite? Orthodox or liberal Jews and what about the Scientologists, after all they get tax breaks too! (Yup, I know it sounds bonkers but alas it is true).Clegg has clearly sold up any principles he held dear to the Westminster power / money game and looks desperately miserable as a result.
Chris Huhne seems to have been caught lying to the police about a driving issue, Vince the Cable has blotted his copybook, by telling us the truth about the BSkyB takeover, so where next for the Liberal Democrats?
Nick has to go back to his liberal principles and try to get just one of his genuinely held views out there.
Are you listening Nick? Because I, and many others “agree with you” still, but for how much longer ..?
Today some 50% of the British public will put a tick in a box to ‘change politics forever’. Poppycock, this referendum was party politically motivated, irrelevant to the British people and as such will be supported by the British people in drove(let)s. Pah BOOO & piffle
If PR were an option then perhaps it might have been a useful exercise – but let’s see this exercise for what it was – “a miserable little compromise” to quote Clegg.
AV is a useful system for voting for a chairperson, president or group leader but its use and relevance for electing a parliament is nigh on useless, if not damaging.
Labour still can’t accept that Ed Millibean is a joke, perhaps a number 2, but NOT a leader. The Lib-dims (who dey?) still can’t accept that Nick Clegg (who he?) is unelectable and that the EU needs such fundamental reform that his continued support for it is just ridiculous.
