Obnoxio The Clown

Lest you think I'm a corporate shill

2012-01-29T10:35:00.002Z

I did have to laugh when I read this:

Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester refused to give up his £963,000 bonus yesterday as pressure escalated when his own chairman rejected a shares reward.

Hester, 51, sparked fury by accepting a £963,000 payout on top of his £1.2million salary as RBS chief executive – despite the state-owned bank’s share price falling 48 per cent.

But he is facing more calls to give up the bonus after RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton rejected a£1.4million windfall he was due next month.

Hampton told the bank’s remuneration committee it would not be appropriate for him to receive the 5.17million shares.

So Hester is sticking to taking his cash bonus and Hampton is declining his shares. My immediate thought is that Hester should be taking a bigger share bonus and no cash, but because he insists on taking cash and Hampton is not keen on shares, even though he is contractually entitled to them, they both reckon the shares aren't going to be worth shit.

Hampton is playing a canny game here, because I'm sure someone will slip him a quiet bung somehow. Probably the Chancellor.

My best guess is that the government is planning to intervene massively in the running of RBS within the next year, which will really fuck RBS's value completely. Hampton can't take his shares and dump them without a massive alarm signal going off. Hester is going to rack up the cash while he can.

I am such a fucking cynic sometimes.

Update: Unduly cynical, it seems. (To be fair, I had thought Hester's bonus had been share based, but my Google-fu failed me.)

Tip of the clown wig to @williamhenryson for the correction.

The virtues of representative democracy

2012-01-25T09:00:00.007Z

I frequently get into debates about democracy with people. In essence, I don't believe in government at all, so I wouldn't believe in democracy anyway.

If you have direct democracy with minimum levels of voting mandated for everything, you still wind up with a potentially significant section of the population having to live by rules by which they don't want to. There is nothing inherently more noble in 50.1% of the population beliefs over the beliefs of the remaining 49.9%. Yet no-one who argues in favour of democracy would disagree that the 50.1% have "won".

But the truth of the matter is that direct democracy is hard work. There are so many bits of law being created, we would never do anything else.

So in order to free us up to get on with our lives, we have "representative democracy", where we appoint people for five years to vote on everything for us. The problem with this is the inevitable issue that our representatives will represent us on some issues but not represent us on others. In addition, the people who voted for other parties are not, in general, being represented at all.

But in the delightful world of modern British politics, it's not even that good. The days of MP's taking their constituency's pulse on keys issues are long gone, if they ever existed.

Nowadays, MP's are referred to as "lobby fodder". By and large, policies that are deemed important by the party leadership are "whipped" and the opinion of the constituency are roundly ignored. The party leadership has decided what will happen, which means that as far as many core, central issues are concerned, the people who live in an affluent area in Oxfordshire have the most incredible levels of influence in the country.

But even that isn't true, because the cachet of having the Prime Minister as your MP means that even if you prove to be a complete fucking mentalist, mong, loser and profligate maniac, you will never get thrown out by the "democratic" process. Look at Gordon Brown.

So the Prime Minister is largely untouchable. And he drives vast swathes of policy that everyone has to live by.

But wait! It gets even better. Because MP's are lazy cunts and because there are so many new laws and regulations being introduced, not every bit of law that we are governed by is actually even debated in Parliament. They have introduced something called Statutory Instruments that aren't even submitted to the trivial scrutiny that our laws are.

Here is an example of just how fucking stupid these can be:

Weaknesses in parliament's law-making procedures have been exposed by a curious case encompassing a Tyneside egg-collector, the hatching of a non-existent offence, and the criminalisation of Britain's museums.

Museums. Made into criminals. At the stroke of an entirely unelected and unaccountable bureaucrat's pen.

Seven years after a statutory instrument updating nature regulations glided virtually unobserved through Westminster, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has this week admitted it "unlawfully" put a new crime on the statute books.

The unintended outcome of the rarely deployed Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 Amendment Regulations, Statutory Instrument (SI) 1487/2004, has been shot down by lawyers' persistent questioning.

Quincy Whitaker, a barrister at Doughty Street chambers, London, and Nigel Barnes, a solicitor at the Sunderland and Newcastle firm Ben Hoare Bell, realised that a parliamentary drafting error had accidentally removed a previous defence and laid in its place, cuckoo-like, a constitutionally impossible crime.

The regulations, meant to harmonise UK bird protection rules with EU laws, made illegal the possession of wild eggs collected from 1954-1981. Police and wildlife agencies used the new regulations to prosecute a number of people.

For seven fucking years, people have been prosecuted, fined, punished, chivvied, bothered by an unlawful law. Who has been punished for this? Who will ever be punished for this?

And the chances are that more than 50% of the people who read this blog would say "Fuck you" to EU law anyway.

The change in the law was never the subject of public consultation, neither was it debated in parliament. The retrospective criminalisation of historic collections has caused museums, scientific research organisations and private collectors to the risk of prosecution.

One of the first people to discover the law had changed was John Dodsworth, 52, who has past wildlife convictions. His home was raided by the police wearing riot gear in 2006 and about 1,000 eggs were seized from there. "Officers used a battering ram to force their way in. The children were very upset to see their parents manhandled by the police."

Riot gear? Battering ram? For EGGS?

At South Tyneside magistrates court three years later Dodsworth, an asbestos removal supervisor, pleaded guilty to one offence of possessing wild birds' eggs, but said: "I should never have been prosecuted. But when I was taken to court I was told it was a strict liability offence and I had to plead guilty. I was given a 100 hours community service order."

So not only do we have an unlawful law, but it's a law that you cannot argue with. You WILL be punished, you CANNOT be found innocent.

He later decided to appeal against both conviction and sentence. The sentence –was quashed in January 2010 and Dodsworth was granted an absolute discharge on the grounds that no one was aware such possession had been an offence at the time. "But they were still prosecuting people for this as recently as September," he said.

An overturn of the disputed section of SI 1487/2004 has proved more difficult.

Whitaker told the high court: "The retrospective criminalisation of possession of eggs that were lawfully held prior to the enactment of the regulations (those collected from 1954-1981) has widespread implications for museums and other public collections, natural history and scientific research collections and private egg collectors throughout Britain.

"[The creation of a new crime] would have been expected to have been widely announced and debated within the relevant communities if it was the intention that the regulations should have such an effect." Her judicial review case was also brought against the Crown Prosecution Service to prevent pursuit of fresh cases.

Evidence was given by Bob McGowan, senior curator of birds at the National Museum of Scotland, who said that the change in the law required him to assess 36,000 clutches of eggs in his collection. "It is difficult to imagine this particular outcome was an intention of the amendment," he said in a statement.

So, a demonstrably bad law was created, it was a strict liability offence, it was blindly and enthusiastically prosecuted right up to the last minute before being repealed. And this was all created in a democracy.

For several years after the law was changed the CPS website continued to advise that possessing historic eggs was legal, Whitaker added. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes the change was a legislative error rather than intentional.

Nigel Barnes, who represented Dodsworth in his appeals against sentence and conviction, submitted a series of freedom of information requests. "I questioned whether the statutory instrument was lawful," he said. "What are the CPS going to do now about the people who have been convicted? It may be a handful, it may be more. There are many more who may have committed an offence without realising it."

Whitaker searched through the parliamentary papers and Defra files. "When I got the papers I realised it must have been a drafting error," Whitaker explained. "The department has now conceded it was wrong.

Whitaker said: "It's an example of how much modern-day legislation is passed by civil servants without anybody understanding it.

"Had anyone realised what had happened, it should have been referred to parliament because it creates a criminal offence. As it was, it was unconstitutional.

"The House of Lords had specifically rejected the creation of the offence which the amendment regulations in fact created when the original act (the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981) was debated in parliament.

"To create an offence that was contrary to the express will of parliament by delegated legislation without informing anyone that it has that effect is highly unconstitutional to say the least."

A Defra spokesman confirmed that the department now accepted the change to the law was illegal.

A statement said: "The 2004 consultation documents on the draft statutory instrument did not outline an intention to remove the pre-1981 defence in relation to the possession of wild bird eggs. Defra has accepted that, as the consultation did not mention those particular changes, they were unlawfully made."

The Crown Prosecution Service's website said that something was legal while they were actively prosecuting people for that very act!

How many lives have been affected by this law, how many people needlessly criminalised, just because our duly elected representatives are too fucking lazy to actually debate and discuss every law that we are supposed to live by?

Still think democracy is such a good idea? Did you vote? Because if you did, this kind of shit is your fault.

Unintended Consequences

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000Z

So, folks, it's time to ask that awkward question again: if tax is such a benefit to society, and if business is not taxed "enough" according to "the left", how do we explain this complaint from the fantastic RaspberryPi project:

I’d like to draw attention to one cost in particular that really created problems for us in Britain. Simply put, if we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things, and it’s an issue we’ve taken up with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

So, if this project to bring low-cost computing to the masses, to provide disruptive and innovative technology to the world, to generate a remarkable potential manufacturing opportunity in Britain, creating jobs, bringing money in to the country from around the world, and yet the stupidity of the tax code is denying all this from happening.

Why does this happen if tax is such a boon to society?

Stupid Regulation

2012-01-20T09:00:00.000Z

Tory MPs go to war

2012-01-17T09:00:00.002Z

Oh dear God:

Conservative MPs are trying to sabotage David Cameron's plan to legalise gay marriage, threatening a rebellion bigger than the one in which 81 voted against the Government on Europe.

Really? This is important enough that you're going to rebel against it, but you wouldn't rebel to the same level over Europe?

What the fuck is wrong with these people? What is the fucking problem with two people who want to seriously commit to a permanent relationship? Why the fuck is it the government's business to stop this?

I wish these fuckers were actually at war. I wish they either got shot dead or captured and bummed to death.

Utter fucking cunts.

Minor blogroll addendum

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000Z

The more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a new blog on my roll.

He's not a total tossbag for a Tory.

Elfin Safety

2012-01-06T09:00:00.002Z

I gather from frothing on Twitter that iDave is talking about reigning in the lunatic madness of Health and Safety regulation. Predictably, tribal lefties are screaming about corporate murderers and how "the workers" will now be electrocuted, thrown into mills, and sacrificed to various frivolous profits.

The Daily Mail tendency are, of course, equally cheered. A triumph over the lunacy of elfin safety will now be won.

The truth is that both sides are wrong. iDave will tinker with the regulations but do nothing substantial.

Why the frothing from the left? Businesses have no particular interest in killing or harming their employees, because dead employees demotivate staff, reduce retention and cost in compensation - at the most cynical and heartless level. And of course, this ignores the fact that employers are human beings as well. So, I don't believe that it's in any way "good business" or profitable not to take a reasonable level of care for your employees.

But the other side of the coin is true as well: do employees not have a duty to take reasonable care of themselves? No person takes a job which says "one of your duties is to stick your arm into this tree shredder", do they? Do employees not have any responsibility in any industrial accident that may happen?

The problem with blindly relying on checkbox regulations is that people assume that they don't have to think about their own safety any more. I would argue that the mere presence of overweening health and safety regulation is that many people assume they don't have to think about their own safety any more.

I don't have a problem with each business clearly articulating the level of risk to each employee and letting them voluntarily transact. Some people have more of an appetite for risk than others. If the risks are crazy, employers won't find staff and will have to do something. But the massive burden of irrelevant, voluminous regulation that applies to all business is just a stupid cost.

And another thing

2012-01-05T09:00:00.002Z

Tory MP attends at party where someone else dresses up as a Nazi is sacked from the government to approving murmurs from the left, while Ed Bollocks who actually dressed up as a Nazi is still regarded as entirely acceptable as Chancellor and Shadow Chancellor.

Can anyone explain that to me?

Iz it becoz she iz black?

2012-01-05T09:00:00.001Z

@bimadew White people love playing "divide & rule" We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism

-- Diane Abbott, MP

Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but if I'd tweeted something like:

@HackneyAbbott Black people love playing at being thugs and sleeping around with as many lovers as possible #pastimesasoldastime

I would be condemned and vilified as a racist. Yet I am still to see one of the lefties I follow having a go at her. Is it because she's one of their tribe? Or is it because she's black and therefore can't be racist?

Why is it acceptable to make sweeping generalisations about one race and not about others?

A random thought

2011-12-31T09:00:00.000Z

Someone on twitter said:

2011 Award for most selfless protest : #rallyagainstdebt .. thinking about future generations, not yourself

This got me thinking: one of the biggest selling points about the alarmism around man-made global warming (or whatever shit they're calling it this week) is that it's based on caring for the unborn generations, despite the enormous uncertainties implicit in the MMGW issue.

Yet the same people who call for more "green" money to be spent to protect unborn generations are exactly the same people who mocked the Rally Against Debt which has a much clearer and more demonstrable case for saddling unborn generations with something they don't need.

Why should this be the case?

Gunning for HMRC

2011-12-20T09:00:00.000Z

I see that the clitterati are out in full force, damning "the Tories" for cosying up to big business with sweetheart tax deals.

Well, anybody who has been reading Private Eye will know that this shit has been going on for much longer than the Tories have been in power. It all started under our last Dear Leader, Kim Jong Brown. And I'm fucking sure the Labour Party knew bloody well it was going on. Margaret Hodge, (former Minister for Children because of her great experience being in charge during the Islington child abuse scandal) is making great political capital banging on about something that started when she was in government.

If she was that fucking worried about it, why didn't she say anything when her team was in charge? It almost looks like this is some cynical fucking attempt at making the Tories look bad.

Heaven forbid!

And another thing, we don't know the full facts of the case. I'm really not sure anyone did anything wrong.

But even if there was a "sweetheart deal", I don't fucking give a shit. I'd much rather Vodafone (and others) kept the money they'd earned honestly by voluntary transactions than give it to a government that pisses it out on shit like aid to India, which has a space program that we can't afford, or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or employing millions of people in jobs that are a nett drain on the economy,

Fuck them. If government hadn't been so incredibly profligate, the cuntry wouldn't be so fucked. The less money HMRC collects, the better for us all.

Feeling troubled?

2011-12-15T18:12:00.003Z

Just why, pray tell, can fucking politicians and civil servants never refrain from calling a spade a metallic professionally formed hole digging device?

I see that the man with the massive forehead has come out with some fucking bollocks about sorting out "troubled families". These were previously known as "problem families", i.e. the feral cunts that no sane person wants to live near. You know, the cunts who play bangin' choons till 4 AM, puke in your garden, shit in your fishpond, beat your kids up for the hell of it and collect ASBOs for fun. And the whole clan joins in the fun, making the lives of everyone around them a fucking misery.

And what, pray tell, you fucking incompetent socialist fuckwit, is wrong with calling these utter shitstains "problem families"?

They are a fucking problem for the entire community that they live in. They make everyone's lives less pleasant. They are families that are a problem. They are not troubled. They are a fucking problem.

But as ever, the heir to Blair is hugging hoodies, and preparing to spunk out more of our hard-earned on some "eye-catching initiative" to show us how much he cares.

Look, Dickface, it's fucking simple: mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy language does nothing to solve the problem. It's clear that unwinding the mendacious bullshit of Labour is beyond you, but do you really fucking have to add to it?

Iz it becoz he iz black?

2011-11-15T09:00:00.001Z

So apparently, the police have moved in to clear out the Occupy Wall Street mongtards. The media helicopters have been removed from airspace above the various clear out operations, photo journalists have been removed from the premises and helmeted, black-clad Stasi have swept in to empty out people who have, to be fair, been entirely peaceful and civil in making their stupid, amorphous and inchoate "demands".

Now, I don't really know who gets to make the call. My best guess is that the police are very much under the control of the mayor of New York, and therefore this has sweet fuck all to do with the saintly Barry O'Barmy. If this is a one-off clear up, then my best guess is probably right.

But you just know that if this had been done while Dubya was still POTUS, this action would have led to frothing and screaming by Democrat voters and "liberals" around the world. People would still hold the shaved chimp responsible for everything they didn't like.

So why are people not inclined to scream when Barry "fucks up"? Why, when Bush bailed out business, was it rightly described as "looking after his mates", but when Obama does the exact same fucking thing, it's called "saving the economy"?

Now it is true that some of this could be ascribed to the blind, unquestioning loyalty of party politics that blights the limited value of democracy all round the world. "My man is doing it, so it must be the right thing to do, even though I screamed like a stuck pig when the other lot did it."

But even so, the reaction and blamestorming against Obama has been curiously muted.

So I have come to the conclusion that even though he has actually done nothing to Change or bring Hope to politics, although he has cynically continued most of the policies of his predecessor, people are afraid to challenge him lest they be accused of racism.

And the only reason they'd be afraid of that accusation is, because, y'know ... they're racist.

Perspective

2011-11-09T19:56:00.000Z

Incredible

2011-11-08T19:54:00.000Z

Border Bollocks

2011-11-08T09:00:00.001Z

I went abroad last week. For work, natch, I don't have the readies to swan off for jollies in 5-star hotels for fun.

And I was reminded again of what a fucking miserable business it all is. From the moment you start queueing for checking, through the several pointless and unpleasant "security checks" where bored cunts are clearly just seeing how far they can go and keep a straight face.

Take your belt off (It's leather and has a tiny buckle), take your shoes off, take out your laptop, do this, do that, stand over here, have you got your toothpaste in a bag, blah blah blah. It's all fucking bollocks. I'm bloody sure if I put my mind to it, I could find a way to subvert it, and I'm the least devious, most open person I know.

So I'm amused to hear that not only has Theresa May had to defend herself because someone at the UK Borders Agency decreed that people should be waved through to reduce queues, but that there is also an immigration debate (I caught the tail end of the exposé on the idiot lantern and there was the predictable bollocks that they had let through some people who were claiming benefits and weren't entitled to them - why is this UKBA's problem and not the problem of the FUCKING WELFARE DEPARTMENT?)

Now there has been a 100,000-signature e-petition which means that the government needs to debate tightening up border controls. This is fucking bollocks. Most of the migration coming into the UK is from the EU and there's nothing that anyone can do about that. And the vast majority of immigrants who come here, add something to the UK.

Yes, there are dole-bludging cunts and murderers and rapists, but fuck knows, we have more than enough home-grown of all of the above. I'd rather have a hard-working Somali cock-washer than a dole-bludging Northern gimp any day of the fucking week.

This is just more pandering to people who won't or can't think about what is going on here, or are just old-fashioned bigots. And conclusive proof that even the most direct democracy is just a festering pile of cock. Just because the majority or a significant minority believe some horseshit, doesn't give them the right to force it on the rest of us.

Not allowed!

2011-11-06T08:16:00.002Z

My head would explode.

Oh bloody hell, here we go again!

2011-10-24T10:13:00.003+01:00

I realise I'm going to be as popular as fuck for saying this, but really, does the fact that Stuart Walker was gay make him any deader?

Following reports Mr Walker may have been targeted due to his sexuality, Strathclyde Police said they were looking into all aspects of his life.

If people suspect that he may have been targeted due to his sexuality, then they must have some idea of who was targeting, mustn't they? Why are we even discussing his bedroom habits when we should be focussing on who committed this unspeakable act?

But more to the point, Stuart Walker, a human being, was slain. If he'd been shot in a random gangland slaying or knifed by a jealous lover or whatever, would that have been OK?

Is it especially bad to kill people because they're gay or black, or is it especially bad to kill people full stop? I can't help but wonder if gays and blacks are somehow better than the rest of us, because somehow when you're killed because of a label, it's worse than being killed for no reason at all.

If it's especially bad to kill people because of a label, why is no-one screaming blue murder about a thousand white people being killed in South Africa every year, specifically because they're white? With the tacit approval of the government?

Murder is murder. The motivation is irrelevant. The act is the unspeakable thing.

The minimum wage

2011-10-24T08:07:00.002+01:00

There is an excellent, concise and complete deconstruction of the nonsense that is the minimum wage here.

Instinctively, even lefties know that the minimum wage is a crock of shit, because no-one is calling for a national minimum wage of £1000 per hour, which would make us all "rich".

What is the state? (for @legalaware )

2011-10-22T11:23:00.003+01:00

This is actually quite a good question, and I'm sure there is a textbook somewhere that describes the state, but from a libertarian perspective, I'd say that it is any grouping or section of society that seeks to monopolise violence. Everything else (wars, "justice", taxation) that the state does, stems from their hold on violence.

If you think about the power of the state, it stems from the fact that we all think violence is icky and don't want to sully our hands with it. And it's true really, nobody sane wants to confront a burglar with a baseball bat or a shotgun. So having a group in society that is prepared to take this unpleasant chore from us sounds like a great deal.

And to keep us sweet, the state also offers us "services" like gimmicky health care and "education", specifically education that is tailored to making the state seem like a good idea.

The problem with the state is that once it has obtained that monopoly in violence and inculcated us with a belief that the state is the only proper wielder of violence, it is then quite easy and natural for the state to increasingly turn that violence on us. For example, you notice how "crimes" against the state get punished strangely harshly, while repeated crimes against individuals or property get a ludicrous slap on the wrist ... unless those crimes threaten the violence monopoly of the state.

One of the great burdens of responsibility that comes with the freedoms of anarchy is the responsibility to defend yourself, to protect yourself against crime and to exercise violence when it is needed. But as a wise man once said, "with great power comes great responsibility". And the power to live your own life to its very fullest must surely be the greatest power of all.

This may not be the definition you might expect of the state, but from an anarchist position, I think it's a valid one.

I concur

2011-10-20T10:13:00.000+01:00

They can just fuck right off.

Three line whip

2011-10-17T14:31:00.004+01:00

A three-line whip is a strict instruction to attend and vote, breach of which would normally have serious consequences. Permission not to attend may be given by the whip, but a serious reason is needed. Breach of a three-line whip can lead to expulsion from the parliamentary political group in extreme circumstances and may lead to expulsion from the party. Consequently, three-line whips are generally only issued on key issues, such as votes of confidence and supply. The nature of three-line whips and the potential punishments for revolt vary dramatically among parties and legislatures.

It seems quite curious to me that people still regard representative democracy with such fondness. Any representative has to balance the aggregated wishes of his community with his own beliefs, at the very best of times.

And here, in a matter where there is a broad belief in the "community" that the EU is not something we have universal love for, we encounter the true balance of power in the sham of our "representative" democracy. David Cameron has ordered a three-line whip to deny the British people a referendum on something that affects our lives every day, often in ways that British people do not want or agree with. I understand that Ed Miliband has done the same. The largely Europhile LibDems will be pretty much in the bag anyway.

This means that a handful of politicians effectively do get to decide things on our behalf, expressly rejecting the "democratic wishes" of the majority of the population. Cameron was democratically elected, and now has the ability to be a dictator on things that matter to him.

Even though a number of MPs will ignore the three-line whip, Cameron can be quite sure of his team of lobby-fodder sheep backing his wishes, and with the Labour Party whipped to deny us the referendum as well, he can be quite relaxed about those who disobey the whip. It all makes it look like there is actually democracy in action and the will of the majority has prevailed.

Cameron clearly has no desire to do anything to rock any boat, even though getting us out of the EU would probably get him re-elected by a landslide. He is clearly hoping to follow Blair into some other, grand, post-PM role and as an urbane member of the social democratic group, he probably quite likes the idea of having some grand political folly. Hence his three-line whip, hence his denial of a perfectly reasonable referendum. Behind that bland face and enormous forehead is the mind of a typical authoritarian cunt who knows better than all of us and is prepared to blatantly fuck us over to keep us in line.

Three-line whips are a test of the mettle of our politicians. I am quite certain that they will be found wanting. Again.

Update: I've just heard that the LibDems will be imposing a three-line whip. Why are our politicians so terrified of the will of the British people regarding the EU?

In defence of chuggers

2011-09-30T09:00:00.000+01:00

Chuggers, or "charity muggers". We've all seen them, we've all averted our eyes or plugged our headphones in to avoid being accosted by them. Usually dressed in jeans and some funky t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of their charity, they are annoying and rarely take my heartfelt "fuck off" well.

They invariably work for very well-known and very well-off charities, the kind that can afford loads of paid staff and whose chief executive earns a six-figure salary. The kind of charity that probably also suckles quite hard at the teat of the state, "delivering services" for the government.

Everyone I know hates them. But really, they're just salesmen, doing a hard sell. They're no different from the guy knocking on your door with his "we're just in the area" double-glazing pitch.

They're just salesman.

And the product they're selling is a salved conscience.

OK, that's just weird...

2011-09-29T18:50:00.000+01:00

Left foot in mouth

2011-09-29T09:00:00.000+01:00

I can't decide if Eoin Clarke is a socialist or a fucking idiot, the two terms being entirely interchangeable. But let's have a look at a particular example:

We in Labour Left argue that private companies in general have too big a share in the UK childcare market.

Do they? On what particular basis do you say this?

Fifty nine per cent of childcare providers are private profiteers.

Or, to put it another way, "59% of childcare providers, who parents willingly and voluntarily entrust their most precious bundles of joy with, are private profiteers."

What, exactly, is the problem?

We are going to make the case for co-operatives to play a larger part in the sector. In order to do this we wish to outline the poor value that private providers offer parents.

Right. Because people who have to pay the actual bills don't fucking shop around much, do they? They don't already balance off their individual requirements for cost versus quality versus trustworthiness and a zillion other factors when it comes to their kids? Because let's face it, it's only their fucking kids, what do they know?

In the current economic climate, can the average family afford an extra £910 a year just to send their child for 25 hours a week to a private crèche?

Er, Eoin, clearly they can, or they fucking wouldn't.

If the voluntary sector is able to provide it at a full £1,040 cheaper, then the state has a duty to boost that sector as much as in possible.

I am quoting verbatim from his post so far. I don't know about you, but I've got no fucking idea whatsoever where his numbers have come from. But let's assume they're justified somewhere, I'd like to point out that the voluntary sector, being voluntary, should be able to provide the childcare for free and gratis, it being, you know, voluntary. Unless, of course, Eoin has co-opted a well-known and clearly-understood word to mean something else, something that sounds jolly spiffy, but is actually a nasty, spiteful piece of socialist bollocks. Much like "co-operatives", something I see used with gay abandon, but entirely unexplained.

I'd also like to point out that the state has no fucking money of its own, sponging as it does off the long-suffering and increasingly-impoverished taxpayer. Many of whom either don't have kids or have made other plans for their own kids and can't really understand why they have to subsidise some other cunt's kids.

Given the fact that about 30% of crèche places are unfilled, the practice of charging parents deposits and registration fees to book their children into a care provider is deeply unethical.

Is it? On what grounds do you level this charge? People will either pay it and use the service, or they won't and fuck off elsewhere. I really don't see the word "ethics" entering into this at all.

And it is a fact that profit-making childcare providers are much more likely to engage in the practice. As well as expanding the voluntary sector, the government should also seek to ban registration fees for crèches.

Why? What fucking business is it of the government what pricing and payment arrangements are voluntarily entered into by private businesses and / or individuals?

Personally, I'd like to see the government ban registration fees for cars, but of course, dickheads like Eoin will never argue for that, because the money is going to their preferred thief, the government.

But these are not the only problems that parents face. The growing cost of childcare is also an issue. All of this data is based upon 2010 data but prices are climbing.

Yeah, well maybe it's got something to do with insane levels of regulation, mandatory staffing requirements and, of course, the taxes levied by the greedy state.

No, no, Eoin, you're quite right, it's all down to those greedy profiteers.

More that two thirds of providers have increased their prices in the last year, this comes at a time when the government are cutting by 10% the amount of childcare fees they will cover for low income families. That said, the families that receive state support with childcare only account for about 20% of the total number of children receiving these services. Eighty per cent of families have to struggle with these costs by themselves.

Life is cruel sometimes. But perhaps you'd be better off making a case for it to be easier for people to open up a small childcare business without the insane levels of box-ticking required by the government, and the eye-watering taxation levied on them.

Just imagine, thousands of potentially unemployed people not only earning money, but also reducing the costs for people already in work.

Or does that not fit in with your socialist, centrally-controlled, authoritarian mindset?

No, I did think so.

Blatant economic protectionism

2011-09-28T09:00:00.000+01:00

Via the Institute for Justice.

Oh, for FUCK'S sake, Ed!

2011-09-27T12:00:00.001+01:00

The man is clearly a fucking idiot:

Private equity firms and businesses deemed to be “asset strippers” will face higher taxes under a Labour government, Ed Miliband will warn tomorrow.

And how will you know that, Ed? Will it be if someone rats them out? Will you have inspectors who go round analysing businesses to identify

companies with the “wrong values” who do not create jobs, invest in companies or train their staff

So the options are:

Employers will be at the whim of employees who may take every rejection of jazzed-up training as an excuse to try and get their employer the higher tax level;
Labour will employ thousands of inspectors to make sure that every business meets a checklist of bollocks criteria that will do nothing to prevent "bad" behaviour, but cost the taxpayer billions;

Ed is blowing smoke up the party faithful's collective ringmeat.

And, of course, there is the tiny but hardly irrelevant matter that asset stripping is, in fact, wealth creation. You fucking idiot.

Oh, I can't wait until these cunts get back into power. Happy days.

Striking off

2011-09-27T11:27:00.000+01:00

"Dear fellow socialists, time has come for us to acknowledge that there is a group in society, who have an insidious and far-reaching power; a group who claims to seek truth and act in our best interests, yet has a much darker aim; a group that is completely unaccountable and even when caught acting in an improper manner will escape all but the most symbolic and trite of punishments.

"I therefore propose that politicians be licensed and placed on a register, and if struck off from this register, they will not be allowed to politic at the rest of us ever again."

-- Ivan Lewis, not at all an authoritarian fuckwit, not at all speaking out of his fucking arse later today.

Fake charity steals from reformed prisoners

2011-09-27T09:00:00.000+01:00

Ah yes, as bland churnalism, this can hardly be beaten:

At least £1m a year will be taken from prisoners' wages and used to help crime victims, under legislation coming into force today.

About 500 offenders who work outside prisons in community schemes will see their take-home pay cut by 40 per cent, as part of the "rehabilitation revolution" promised by Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary.

There are also plans to take cash from prisoners who work behind bars, although they receive just £10 a week on average.

Under the Prisoners' Earnings Act, 40 per cent of prisoners' wages – after tax, national insurance and any court-ordered or child support payments – will be given to Victim Support. Javed Khan, the charity's chief executive, said the money will be used "to deliver real, practical support for victims and communities".

Policing minister Nick Herbert said: "Making offenders pay financial reparation to victims will require them to take personal responsibility for their crimes.

I scarcely know where to start with this bollocks, but here's some random thoughts:

"Victim Support" is a fake charity, largely supported by state extortion. If you look at their accounts:

Income from the Ministry of Justice was £38.6m for the year. Income from other statutory bodies, including local authorities and criminal justice agencies, was £10M.

They spend a bloody large percentage of their income on salaries:

Total expenses for the year were £49.6m (£48.6m in 2008/09) of which £35.1m relates to staff salaries (£32.9m in 2008/09).

I can't find evidence for Javed Khan's salary, but his predecessor earned a tidy £100,000 per annum, apparently.

So, it sounds like Victim Support is nothing more than a lobbying organisation, funded by the state to lobby the state ... evidently for more funding!

It certainly doesn't sound like there's a massive amount of money left for, you know, supporting victims in any kind of financial way.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the tiny handful of prisoners who are allowed to work outside of prison, often have to fund a lot of their living expenses. They are rarely paid much more than the minimum wage. So there is now a massive incentive for the handful of prisoners that everyone agrees are a safe bet to reintroduce into society, to say "fuck you, I'll just sit here and rot some more."

A million pounds is pretty much chump change, even to Victim Support, as it will barely fund another dozen over-paid earnest, executive staff. Who all have hearts of gold.

Dickhead Herbert is also being pretty fucking disingenuous about this crap, because 90% of prisoners will not qualify for paid work, so only the tiniest proportion of prisoners, who are by definition the ones who have done the least damage to society or have the best chance of fitting back in, are bearing the brunt of this petty spitefulness.

All in all, a triumph for the unthinking, the mean-spirited and the average Daily Mail reader. Oh, and a handy little burnish for the tough Tory brigade.

Cunts. One and fucking all.

Collective Libertarians

2011-09-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

One of the fallacies that I encounter about libertarians is that we're all selfish bastards who can never work together for "the greater good", whatever that might be. But the truth of the matter is that libertarians are absolutely sold on the idea of voluntary cooperation.

And one of the best examples of excellent voluntary co-operation on a libertarian basis can be found over at Anna Raccoon, who has gathered some excellent authors and accepts posts from total weirdos from time to time.

Her blog has been rewarded with a number of prizes at the Total Politics awards, including one of the "best group blogs" awards, an interesting challenge to the well-funded and/or political-machine-backed group blogs like ConservativeHome or LabourList. And Anna herself has also been rated as a top political bloggess in her own right.

It just goes to show that libertarian ideals can provide a viable alternative to clapped-out, boring, yah-boo-sucks tribal politics. Well done, Anna!*

*I'm not remotely jealous of the fact that the boot-faced old harridan thoroughly kicked my arse this year. Honest.

Obo Elsewhere

2011-09-19T09:14:00.000+01:00

Over at Anna's, wot I did on a Tuesday night. Innit?

Hari kiri

2011-09-19T09:00:00.002+01:00

I am absolutely amazed that despite being rumbled for plagiarism, Johann Hari has been able to keep his job at the Independent. I can only assume he has very special photos of Simon Kelner.

But it will, almost inevitably, be a Pyrrhic victory for the fat poof. The media has its dander up, and stories have been dripping out and will continue to do so. The worst to date is how Hari has evidently used sock puppets to attack his critics, particularly one called David Rose.

I struggle to see how the Independent can retain Hari after this, but as the Telegraph blogger Nero points out, it gets even worse. Imagine the Independent retaining an actual racist as one of its leading columnists!

Still, it's good that journalists can hold their heads high, secure in the knowledge that their professional standards and credibility are so much better than bloggers.

The cunts.

You fucking cunts!

2011-09-15T11:30:00.002+01:00

I'm gutted. I'm only at number 10, despite my desperate attempts not to blog for the whole year. Plus, I wrote a load of shit.

So actually, thank you!

The professionally aggrieved

2011-09-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

This bloke had a disagreement with his girlfriend. He went to the pub and stayed out all night while his girlfriend stayed home sobbed her eyes out.

Now click here.

Plausible?

Or was your first thought "This shirt excuses domestic violence"? Like twitter did?

The professionally aggrieved saw this shirt and immediately started seeding twitter with "Look at this shirt, it makes domestic violence into a joke". Now if you look at the shirt again, thinking about domestic violence, it also makes perfect sense.

But crucially, it would make sense in almost any relationship dispute, violent or not. The frame of mind you're in when you first see the shirt has a massive impact on how you take it.

Needless to say, of course, that TopMan have pulled the shirt.

Dale Farm

2011-09-08T09:00:00.002+01:00

It is a truism that if the UN is united on something, then the correct thing to do is the exact opposite of what they are saying:

The government must suspend the "immature and unwise" eviction of 400 Travellers from Essex green belt and seek a peaceful solution, the UN and a European human rights group said.

So, let me get this straight: things are so fucking peaceful and perfect in the rest of the world that the UN has enough time to give a shit about 400 pikeys getting hoofed out of an illegal settlement? No-one is dying in a war or famine or something?

Well, that's just fucking excellent news, for a change. Because, of course, if millions of people were dying in genocides or catastrophes, and the UN was bitching about a perfectly legal eviction from England's precious "green belt", well, then they'd look like a fucking bunch of cocksniffing fuckwits, wouldn't they?

Oh, they are a bunch of cocksniffing fuckwits, then.

This whole Dale Farm thing really gets on my tits. I don't believe that all of England's greenery is as fucking sacred as it's made out to be and so I'm quite in favour of people using land to fucking build houses on and stop the ludicrous home-ownerism in this country.

But as much as I believe that planning permission is a crock of shit, I believe more in the rule of law. And if I have to go through a mire of cunt soup to build an extension on my existing home, I can't see why a bunch of fucking pikeys can do whatever the fuck they like and not only get away with it, but get the fucking UN involved in sucking their collective cocks.

It's the same fucking thing with closed sessions at the public pool for Muslim women. Jesus. Imagine if I said that I wanted the pool for three hours a week exclusively for CoE males - I'd be laughed out of the fucking building. Yet here in this godforsaken corner of England, there are times I am not allowed to enter the swimming pool because my gender and creed are not the one whose cock gets sucked by every diversity-coordinating fuckmong in the country.

I think by and large most people, not just the British, are pretty tolerant of strangers. But everybody resents minorities who trade on the minorityness to get things that are forbidden to the rest of us.

So on balance, I'm going to say: fuck the pikeys, fuck the UN, and God help me ... I'm rooting for Basildon Council.

Ford: thinking of the cheeeeldren

2011-09-07T09:00:00.001+01:00

I was somewhat less than amused to see that Ford has introduced nanny-state cars:

The US motoring company announced that it was extending a concept called MyKey to its European models from next year. The system allows owners to programme a particular key with limitations for the vehicle, including a maximum speed and even a cap on the audio system's volume.

Already standard on most US Ford models, the technology allows a series of options designed to make teenage motoring as safe – or, depending on your perspective, as irritating – as parents choose.

The maximum speed can be set at an already-illegal 80mph, with the option of warning chimes at 45, 55 or 65mph. Another feature means the system that curbs tyre spin cannot be deactivated. Seatbelt reminders can be set to be more regular and insistent than usual, with the radio set on silent till the deed is done.

Seriously. It's a good thing I don't fucking buy Fords, but really? I would just fucking "lose" my key and have to borrow my dad's. The whole fucking thing smacks of lunatic cotton-wool-wrapping gone totally fucking bonkers.

As if that wasn't enough:

In a slightly more nannyish vein, the warning about low fuel can be made to sound sooner, while there is an option to bar deactivation of electronic parking assistance and blind spot detection systems.

"In a slightly more nannyish vein"??? How is that more fucking nannyish than limiting speed or hifi volume, for fuck's sake?

How fucking long will it be before the government gets to dictate what parts of the car we can and can't control any more.

Of course, it's no surprise that this useless bunch of turd-burgling fuckmonkeys are happy turn motorists even more ovine than they already are, they've got a long tradition of cosying up to bullying fucks who "know better".

I'm sure BRAKE are masturbating themselves into a coma over this mongstrosity.

Ausgezeichnet!

2011-09-01T12:00:00.000+01:00

Via @PME200, this:

Michael Palin speaks pretty good German!

The Utopianism of Anarchists

2011-09-01T09:00:00.002+01:00

One of the more irritating disparaging remarks that gets levelled at me as an anarchist is that my views are "utopian" and "impractical".

Yet it seems to me that when you discuss the failings of every system of government that exists, each will be supported by its own group of political anoraks that will say that "if the government just did this and that, why then everything would be perfect!"

Even in the frankly appalling cesspit that is social democracy, there are people who say that "if we just got government employees to care a little bit more and focus a little bit more on making things more efficient (and maybe one or two other things) then it would be perfect".

But this is considerably more utopian than the ideals of anarchy. Every form of government involves balancing objectives that are often diametrically imposed. Yet somehow, if we just fiddle a bit here and tweak a bit there, then current government can be made absolutely spot on.

Well, fuck that. I don't believe that shit for a fucking moment. People have been honing and shaving and fiddling and twiddling and generally buggering around with government since it was first shat into being. Some brilliant minds used to be involved in it (although those days are long gone now!) and yet it's always been a fucking shambles and it always will be a fucking shambles.

And what about impractical? Well, it's true that some things might be more difficult to do in an anarchic society. But I think people would be amazed at how few those things were. But even if there are some things that are difficult to do, do we as people not deserve the other benefits that come from a regulation- and government-free society?

I don't think that an anarchic society would necessarily look much different from what we have now, but at least costs would be transparent and fairly borne by people who need services and our money wouldn't be wasted on crap like jingoistic wars and we wouldn't have the behemoth state sucking the life out us all.

Courgettes with pancetta ( #ObosKitchen )

2011-08-31T12:00:00.001+01:00

I was inspired a while ago to indulge in cooking, rather than treat it as a chore. Much to my surprise, I've become more and more hooked on it. Those who follow me on twitter will know about ObosKitchen.

Yesterday I cooked something that rocked my world so much, I thought I'd share it on my blog and who knows, it may become a occasional feature. Since it's aimed a blokes or the kitchen-impaired (like me) the kind of food I'll do will be quite simple and much more aimed at taste than looks.

Because I was hungry, I used the following:

1 courgette, sliced into 2", pinkie-thick "chips"
2 small tubs of cubed pancetta (available in the "cold meats" section of most supermarkets - Tesco and Sainsbury's do two small tubs in a blister pack)
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped or pressed
A dozen "mozzarella pearls", which Sainsbury sell in their super-cheap "Value" range
A pinch of coarse ground black pepper

You don't need oil or butter because the pancetta produces prodigious amounts of fat.

Warm a pan to a low heat (I turn the gas down as low as I can) and pour in the pancetta. It should start to sizzle and release the fat. As soon as there is "enough" oil in the pan, add the garlic.

Stir occasionally until the pancetta just starts to show odd bits of browning.

It's very important NOT to let the pancetta cook too far before you start adding other ingredients, or it will become very crunchy.

Add in the courgettes and move everything around so that the white inside of the courgette chips is in contact with the pan. It's a bit fiddly, but worth it.

Make sure that the white surfaces of the courgette all get a bit of golden brown on them.

When the courgettes look mostly golden, drain the mozzarella pearls of their water and then add them to the pan. Crank the heat right up and stir for about a minute. as soon as the mozzarella starts to show signs of melting, take the pan off the heat (and turn the stove off!) and throw the whole shebang into a colander to drain off the fat.

Pour it straight out of the colander onto a plate, sprinkle with a pinch of pepper and tuck in. Not very pretty, but it tasted fucking epic!

Is that really even a word?

2011-08-31T09:00:00.002+01:00

Batmanghelidjh?

Apparently it is, and apparently Camila is one of the "good people", who actually does a lot of good things for "street kids". And I don't for a moment doubt that she does.

But the article left me feeling irritated for some reason.

London has woken up to street violence, and the usual narratives have emerged – punish those responsible for the violence because they are "opportunist criminals" and "disgusting thieves". The slightly more intellectually curious might blame the trouble on poor police relations or lack of policing.

Ah. The casual dismissive attitude towards people who dare to regard a bunch of opportunist criminals as opportunist criminals. Christ knows I am no fan of the police, but what is this shit about "police relations". The police are there to give you a crime number when you get burgled, nothing more and that is to a large fucking part because they spend so much time on fucking "community relations" that they can't be arsed to police any more.

Second, for those of us working at street level, we're not surprised by these events.

Casual smugness about those living in ivory towers or not being otherwise "down wiv da yoofs, innit?" is just as unwelcome. I'm not remotely surprised by these events, and I'm not even in the street kids business.

Twitter and Facebook have kept the perverse momentum going, transmitting invitations such as: "Bare shops are gonna get smashed up. So come, get some (free stuff!!!!) F... the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! Dead the ends and colour war for now. So If you see a brother... SALUTE! If you see a fed... SHOOT!"

Twitter and Facebook were also used by the police to warn and advise, or by people telling their friends and loved ones that they were safe. I only saw Twitter and Facebook used "for good", I guess I don't follow enough opportunist criminals to see the momentum you did. So fuck you and your fatuous example.

Working at street level in London, over a number of years, many of us have been concerned about large groups of young adults creating their own parallel antisocial communities with different rules. The individual is responsible for their own survival because the established community is perceived to provide nothing.

Apart from the dole money that they use to keep themselves in dope and booze, and the fucking council house they live in. But God forbid we dare to raise the idea that these fucking twats don't deserve the largesse of the people they looted from who already pay their cost of living!

Perhaps if they weren't so fucking entitled to a place to stay and a fucking handout, they wouldn't be so fucking dismissive of "the establishment". But Camila, I'm afraid "the establishment" does not have any money of its own. "The establishment" extorts money from taxpayers and the very people who had their businesses pillaged and destroyed were helping to pay the upkeep of the scum who robbed them.

Perhaps community outreach workers and the like could actually point this out a little more to the scum who think the world owes them a living.

The insidious flourishing of anti-establishment attitudes is paradoxically helped by the establishment. It grows when a child is dragged by their mother to social services screaming for help and security guards remove both; or in the shiny academies which, quietly, rid themselves of the most disturbed kids. Walk into the mental hospitals and there is nothing for the patients to do except peel the wallpaper. Go to the youth centre and you will find the staff have locked themselves up in the office because disturbed young men are dominating the space with their violent dogs.

This utterly fucks me off.

When I grew up, I had no fucking youth cunting centre in the entire fucking town. I cannot fucking stand this shitting bollocks that we need more cunting fucking cock-sucking youth centres. It's a fucking bullshit excuse because you don't need a fucking youth centre to read a book or play a game or ride a bicycle or fucking go to a movie.

If Camila is that fucking worried about street kids, why the cunt is she promoting this lazy shit that we need youth centres at all.

What we need is a society where kids are not entitled to be entirely disrespectful of the very people who are raising them or contributing to their very survival. The endless excusing of the behaviour of these twats and constant calling for someone from the council or the government to do something to give them facilities is the very cause of the problem.

Walk on the estate stairwells with your baby in a buggy manoeuvring past the condoms, the needles, into the lift where the best outcome is that you will survive the urine stench and the worst is that you will be raped. The border police arrive at the neighbour's door to grab an "over-stayer" and his kids are screaming. British children with no legal papers have mothers surviving through prostitution and still there's not enough food on the table.

Precisely because the estates are free. If you don't pay for something, it has no fucking value to you. The state doesn't give a flying fuck, it's not the state's actual money, and the people who live there don't give a flying fuck because they don't pay for it.

Why should British children have papers? What fucking bullshit point are you trying to make here?

Mothers surviving through prostitution is awful if they don't want to be prostitutes, but why is there not enough food on the table? Is it not perhaps because the mother is choosing to spend the money on something else? What is this shit? Assuming the mother gets a tenner a trick and does one a day, that's enough to feed a family of four, if you're not living off fucking Dominos or KFC. What is this shit?

It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped.

What the actual FUCK is this shit? If they're young and intelligent, they can get off their fucking arses and get a job or start their own business. What fucking "help" does a young and intelligent person need? How about a fucking kick up the arse?

Savagery is a possibility within us all. Some of us have been lucky enough not to have to call upon it for survival; others, exhausted from failure, can justify resorting to it.

Oh pass me my violin, Camila. Seriously. If Britain was a country where success wasn't vilified and denigrated, where the people who work the hardest and pay the most tax weren't insulted with demands to have more of their money stolen to feed and clothe and house the feckless and the lazy and the entitled, that would help more.

I've been on the fucking bones of my arse more than once, not knowing how I was going to feed and clothe my family and the thought of looting a 52" LCD TV never entered my mind. I have "failed" completely more than once and lost everything. I'm still here, I'm still raising my child and I'm not fucking setting fire to the livelihood of people more fortunate than myself.

It costs money to care. But it also costs money to clear up riots, savagery and antisocial behaviour. I leave it to you to do the financial and moral sums.

Or in English: "give me some money to salve your conscience".

But no, fuck that I say.

It doesn't cost money to care. Throwing money at problems like this, rather than individually taking responsibility for raising our own children and keeping them on the rails makes this whole fucking thing worse, a lot worse. Caring costs effort.

And that is one thing that we seem desperately unwilling to give.

Sorry mate, we're full

2011-08-30T09:00:00.001+01:00

Things really have come to a pretty pass when banks don't want to take your money:

U.S. regulators have asked some banks to take more deposits from large investors even if it’s unprofitable, and lenders in return are seeking relief on insurance premiums and leverage ratios, according to six people with knowledge of the talks.

Deposits are flooding into the biggest U.S. banks as customers seek shelter from Europe’s debt crisis and falling stock prices. That forces lenders to raise capital for a growing balance sheet and saddles them with the higher deposit insurance payments. With short-term interest rates so low, it’s hard for financial firms to reinvest the new money profitably.

Regulators have asked banks to take the deposits anyway, three people said, with one lender accepting $100 billion. The regulators want lenders to take the deposits because it improves the stability of the financial system, according to one of the people, who said U.S. banks are viewed as places of strength.

Some of the largest ones have talked with regulators about softening rules for ratios that measure capital and assets, according to the people, who declined to be identified because talks are private. At least one asked for a waiver on paying higher premiums to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is less likely to be granted, one of the people said.

A couple of things leap out of that story to me, first and foremost that the EU's banks are so fucked that the US banks look like a good bet.

Just think about that for a moment. The US economy is fucked, with fucked topping and still the money is pouring in from Europe, because Europe is even worse!

Secondly, my inevitable observation that regulation is proving to be an expensive bolting of the stable door, long after the horse has fucked off. Banks, who rode the wave of economic bubblery created by lunatic governments are now being taxed (because the deposit insurance is no such fucking thing, of course, it's just another Ponzi scheme) and taking in masses of money is so expensive and (government-mandated) interest rates are so low that they actually cannot afford deposits of large amounts of money.

Thirdly, this shows exactly why the EU's much-hyped "Tobin Tax" is doomed to failure, and worse yet, will actually probably fuck the entire financial industry beyond repair. It's true that masses of money are shifted around the markets in search of short-term gains, but often those gains are not significant amounts of money. If shifting a billion pounds from one account to another for a couple of days will cost you a fiver for your time and nett you a couple of grand, you'd probably do it (or have a clerk do it). But if you have to pay a grand to get two, is it still worth the effort?

I can see these escalating costs of "insurance", etc., totally destroying the movement of capital in search of gains, which means that the people who want that capital enough to get the gains, are not going to get them.

This will not end well.

Obo Elsewhere

2011-08-26T17:28:00.002+01:00

Over at Anna Raccoon's Cuntry Club.

Currying Favour

2011-08-26T17:25:00.002+01:00

If you haven't already voted for me at the Total Politics Blog doohickey, please do.

And if you haven't voted for me at the House of Twats HoT 200, please do.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 16

2011-08-16T16:00:00.001+01:00

Fin.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 15

2011-08-15T16:00:00.001+01:00

The Fallacy of State Prevention of Crime

2011-08-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

One of the most irritating objections to anarchy that I have to face on a daily basis is that the state prevents crime. Hopefully, it is now abundantly clear to the thickest of statists that it does no such thing.

The thing that prevents most of us from committing crimes is that we don't want to. Most of us do just want to get along and live a peaceful life. Those that don't are almost certainly already criminals, who may or may not yet have been caught.

The fear of detection is not really a factor in preventing crime. It just means more planning to the committed criminal and is not a concern of anyone committing a spur-of-the-moment crime. But even if this fear is a factor, why does that imply that we need a state?

Detecting can, and often is, done by private investigators. Bobbies on the beat (remember them?) could easily be replaced by privately contracted people.

The business of slapping people on the wrist and dishing out entirely inappropriate punishments could also be done by a call centre in India, with as much effect on criminals.

But seriously, although it's the area where most people really struggle with not having a state, the truth of the matter is that most people implicitly accept the idea of having multiple impartial arbiters for various requirements. You don't go to a Magistrate's Court to settle a football match.

You don't go to the Supreme Court to arbitrate a small claim on a shop. You don't go to to the FA to get a decree absolute. Equally, when you sign certain contracts, you agree the jurisdiction that will be applied.

So when you download stuff from Apple's iTunes Store, you're agreeing to a whole bunch of conditions under the laws of the United States, even though you may not be there and may never have been there.

And even within the UK legal system, there are specialist courts for specialist legal areas. So the idea of a market for courts is by no means unfeasible. A market for courts already exists.

The big struggle that people have is that they feel like having them privately funded will expose them to greater risk of corruption. I disagree, because in a society with no state to hide behind, judges would be completely personally liable for the consequences of any corruption or malfeasance.

So I would expect judges to be much more careful in their dealings because the consequences of any shady dealings would not only mean that they could wind up in gaol if caught, but they would also be financially responsible for any losses incurred by affected parties.

But really, in societies before government, there are always a shaman or a chief or elders or some group that people subjected themselves to.

In an anarchic society, you might have a visible disclaimer in your shop saying "Any crimes committed in this shop will be under the jurisdiction of Fred's Supa-cheep Court", or on the company website you might find the disclaimer "Any crime committed against this company will be under the jurisdiction of Chris's Corporate Court".

This would make it clear which court you would be tried at. Or, in much the same way as juries are haggled over by defence and prosecution attorneys in the States, perhaps the initial haggling would include which court was going to decide the case.

In either event, it's not beyond the wit of man to imagine such a system.

Similarly, it's not beyond the wit of man to realise that the state has done nothing to prevent this current outbreak of crime and is more responsible for its happening than anyone else.

The state does not prevent crime. The state is not needed to detect or punish crime. The state does not make us all just get along.

Fuck the state.

Post script: if you think the police are a better, safer option than private security with unlimited liability, watch this:

Tip of the clown wig to @Matt_Muir on twitter.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 14

2011-08-14T16:00:00.001+01:00

Too late!

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 13

2011-08-13T16:00:00.001+01:00

Smell the smugness...

2011-08-13T09:00:00.001+01:00

The nation that gave the world Tiananmen Square expresses its approval of Call Me Dave's views on the internet.

I feel unclean.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 12

2011-08-12T16:00:00.000+01:00

Banning always works

2011-08-12T10:19:00.000+01:00

I don't really have anything to add to this fantastic blog post which highlights the gap between the nobility of intention of stupid politicians and the harsh truth or the real world.

Other than, perhaps: WHY DO YOU FUCKING CUNTS NEVER LEARN?

@LouiseMensch is a fucking idiot

2011-08-12T10:00:00.001+01:00

I had an argument with a fellow twatterer about his MP. He said she was one of the good guys and wouldn't hear a bad word about her.

I, on the other hand, explicitly distrust anyone who goes into politics as being someone who thinks they know better than anyone else how we should live our lives. And if you climb the greasy pole far enough to actually become an MP, then you must be a mendacious, bullying cunt of the highest order.

And so it came to pass. First we had:

Northamptonshire Police advise me that much of their time and resources were wasted answering false alarms due to soc media rumours.

Then:

Twitter regularly down for maintenance, and if in a major national emergency police think Twitter and FB should take an hour off? So be it

(Firstly, Twitter doesn't fucking regularly go down for maintenance, you daft bint, it's a 24x7 operation that isn't supposed to go down AT ALL. Likewise Facebook.

Secondly, the only way you can stop access to Facebook and Twitter is to completely disable access to all websites. I'm not even sure this is technically possible. It would certainly destroy every online business in the UK.

Still think it's a good idea?)

Then:

I don't have a problem with a brief temporary shutdown of social media just as I don't have a problem with a brief road or rail closure.

See above.

Then:

If short, necessary and only used in an emergency, so what. We'd all survive if Twitter shut down for a short while during major riots.

How often are you expecting major riots, Louise? Are you privy to some information that us plebs aren't entitled to?

Anyway, there more stupid tweets about maintenance and stuff, and then we get this gem:

And really, stop w/ all the dramatics. Nobody is talking about "shutting down Twitter". It's about listening to police & a couple hours off.

So here we have it: one of the "good guys" in politics thinks it's absolutely fine that the police (the fucking POLICE!) should have the power to shut down everybody in the UK's access to social networking because of a few miscreants that they can't handle. Never mind that in doing so they'd have to cut everybody in the UK off from the web completely. Never mind that it would lay waste to every online business in the UK at the same time.

If that's what a "good" politician thinks, can you imagine what the rest of them think?

It's so true, scratch a politician, any politician and you'll find a closet fascist.

Ban Twitter!

2011-08-12T09:00:00.007+01:00

Tory MPs, earlier

Call Me Dave has responded to the riots and violence in a way that any Fabian would approve of: he has called for the ability to shut down BBM and Twitter to prevent violence from happening.

This is despite the fact that in other countries, twitter and so on are considered (by fucking Call Me Dave!) to be good for democracy.

Typical fucking politician, cheering something that looks good when it happens to someone else, but quick to shut it down when he thinks it's bad for his proles.

This despite the fact that a zillion people used BBM and Twitter without fucking needing to riot.

Is there anything in iDave's fucking bullshit posturing and hypocrisy that would not be familiar to a student of New Labour? Of course not, they are all the fucking same, apart from the tie colour.

Thieves, cunts, bullies and fucking fascists. Hang the lot of them.

Post script: more appropriate response from the wonderful, infalling, completely trustworthy state.

Fucking cunts.

Help Siva

2011-08-11T17:18:00.000+01:00

Donate another pound, please.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 11

2011-08-11T16:00:00.001+01:00

Fuck you

2011-08-11T13:33:00.002+01:00

It made me laugh...

Keep Aaron Cutting

2011-08-11T09:41:00.000+01:00

Donate a pound. That is all.

I didn't predict a riot

2011-08-11T09:00:00.008+01:00

Lord knows how many days of riots now. Spreading like a rash over London, with sporadic incidents of related violence in Birmingham and Leeds and Bristol and Lord knows where else. People have died.

I am acquainted with a local rozzer and if what she's telling me is true, it's either going to, or already has kicked off in some unlikely, sleepy places.

Out of nowhere, mass uprisings of what really do appear to be nothing more than well-organised scrotes are going out and indulging in some high-impact shopping.

It's quite mind-boggling. Lefties have been quick to leap on the bandwagon of "Tory cuts", but since I see no evidence of cuts anywhere, I am forced to conclude that they're talking bullshit.

In fact, I want to say some more about this. When I was a kid, my parents were not, by any definition of the word, rich. I went to a "theme park" exactly once as a child, and we literally had just enough money to get in. We trudged around the park looking at the exhibits and stuff, did all the free things and then left. We didn't even have enough money to buy a cold drink. I was not inundated with the latest consumer playthings. As soon as I was legally able to, I went and got a job.

My parents provided me with clothes, food and a roof over my head. I never went out to riot, the idea never even occurred to me.

This just looks like a mad surge of thugs out to help themselves to new TVs and various other bits and pieces. Expect a massive surge of cheap electronics on eBay next week.

I am actually quite angered by "the left" blaming this on social deprivation and a lack of role models. First of all, the state has, for decades been visibly throwing money at "social deprivation" at the behest of the left, and now it's clearly not working and the argument is that we need to throw more money at it, because it just wasn't enough? By far the biggest component of state spending is on welfare. And now more spending on welfare will have a better result?

And the lack of role models thing really gets on my tits. By making it viable for any woman to be a single parent, by making it reasonably easy for a single woman to raise children on their own, what the cunting fuck did they think was going to happen? I mean, you can argue the case for single mum-ness, and you can argue the case for lack of good role models, but you can't have that particular cake AND eat it. All the single mothers I know take their parental duties seriously, and that included not having an abusive or useless father in the house.

And fair play to them, it's easier to be a single mother than make the effort of going off to find a decent father figure who can also provide. I don't make light of the effort required to find a decent and compatible man. But then you can't wring your hands and say that somehow this violent behaviour is excusable because the perpetrators don't have a good role model in their life. Your policies have made it much more likely that they would grow up like this.

Some of the stories I've read have been horrifying, like this tale of an injured boy being casually mugged by looters.

It is one of our worst nightmares, really, a mass insurgency of violent, amoral thugs, storming homes and shops, casually burning buildings and cars and looting with apparent impunity. And it came out of nowhere. The ostensible cause of it all, the shooting of an allegedly armed man, bears no relation to the scale and delightful social inclusiveness of the subsequent rioting.

Scuttlebutt is that the looters are using a number of social media sites and tools to organise the looting with nearly military precision.

The police have been rocked back on their feet. BoJo and the massively-foreheaded cunt have curtailed their summer holidays. Cameron has been photographed repeatedly looking serious, pensive and statesmanlike, while BoJo has apparently disgraced himself completely and made a laughingstock of himself. Both of these underscore just how much use modern politicians are.

Of course, far be it from me to point out that one of the great advantages of a state is that it protects us from things like this happening. Or so I'm told, repeatedly. Without a state, we would descend into mayhem and nihilism. Mindless violence and thuggish theft would rule the day.

I'm so glad that the state has prevented this from happening out of the blue.

The truth is, the inability of the police to bring this under control underlines the value of the state quite clearly. Eventually, the thugs will get bored and run out of easy prey and it will quieten down and the state will claim victory.

Sadly, that will not be the case.

The state has been systematically removing the normal tools of ensuring civility and cooperation from us. They claim a monopoly on defending us from violence, exhorting us not to resort to evil vigilantism. But if you look at how useless they've been at stopping this from happening, it's abundantly clear that it really cannot protect us from the one thing that "everyone" agrees that we need a state for.

The thugs will eventually get bored and go do something else. The police will arrest a trivial number of them and by the time they get to trial, the usual hand-wringing bollocks will kick in and nobody will get an appropriate punishment. Insurance and the taxpayer will pick up the pieces and a couple of businesses will be shut down, further destroying jobs and inflicting poverty and misery on innocent people.

We will be told that the state has sorted things out, when in truth boredom and apathy will be the only things that actually stop the mindless violence.

The only people who will wind up paying for this will be taxpayers and anyone who actually pays insurance. Thugs will be reassured that no-one will actually do anything to stop them if they ever feel the urge again and we will all be worse off.

And still the sheep will cry out that the state is necessary to protect us from this exact thing, that the state prevents it from happening more. Therefore we need more state, so that the state can protect us even more.

It makes me weep.

Strangely Apt

2011-08-10T17:42:00.001+01:00

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 10

2011-08-10T16:00:00.001+01:00

Words fail me, again

2011-08-10T10:47:00.000+01:00

Listen to this.

I have no words.

School punishment (for @danoprey )

2011-08-10T09:00:00.002+01:00

Earlier this week I had one of those frustrating conversations on Twitter where I wasn't expressing myself clearly but I also came to realise that I was maybe holding on to some lazy assumptions.

The discussion revolved around whether it was necessary to beat children at school or not. I grew up in an environment where getting beaten by a teacher was nothing exceptional. Daniel felt that this was going to teach children that violence was a valid way of life.

My gut reaction was "for fuck's sake, it's not violence", but actually, of course, it is.

The whole situation in which I was educated was completely different: parents were much stricter and there was a general consensus that parents expected teachers to maintain strict discipline and that if you got punished, you deserved it. In fact, if you got punished at school, you'd almost certainly wind up getting punished again at home.

But there's more than one aspect to this violence. Firstly, it was not dished out casually. You had to explicitly transgress a fundamental rule. Teachers would always give ample warning. I never once got a beating or saw anyone else get a beating where I thought "that was patently unfair."*

Female teachers were obviously not going to administer corporal punishment, so you got sent to the headmaster, which was another level of scary.

It all took place in a spirit of respect and fairness. The teachers knew that the school was populated by testosterone-charged teenagers and that sometimes things would happen. Discipline was appallingly strict compared to what my daughter sees today, but I never felt like it got in the way of my education or my development as a person. (Maybe it did, but I didn't feel like it did, and that's what mattered to me.)

And the teachers respected us as much as we respected them. I don't for a moment imagine that beating someone inspires respect, but I respected my teachers as teachers, not because of their ability to beat me. I still remember them fondly, and regard them as inspirational, amazing people and I wish that all children could experience teachers like that.

But they don't, as we now have an environment where teachers feel it's appropriate to be "down wiv da yoof" and banter with the kids as equals.

You may well argue that we are all equal, and that's a valid perspective, but why the hell would you pay the blindest bit of attention to your "mate" when he tries to chastise you for your inappropriate behaviour?

So, as much as it's discriminatory, I can definitely see the logic in teachers being aloof, rather than trying to be all matey-matey. But aloofness, a strict (if commonsense) code of conduct and respect from teachers can only do so much to maintain discipline.

If a student is being disruptive, there is a need to restore order. If you reason with them, or point out that they are disruptive and they still carry on, the teacher has to have an effective sanction.

And here I get a bit lost as a libertarian. Currently, it seems like a student can be sent out of the class. That's great, but it means that the student misses the lesson.

@danoprey would rather see the disruptive student excluded from the lesson, and it being upgraded to excluded from the school if necessary. This will mean the student being sent to the office (which they may or may not do, unless accompanied, which means more disruption). Then there has to be some sort of appeals process to ensure that teachers are being reasonable. Then there has to be some sort of reasonable escalation process before someone is completely excluded to make sure that someone is given sufficient chance. And somebody has to keep completely accurate track of this.

This is all possible, I suppose, but I can see it becoming a lot more disruptive and time consuming overall.

I would rather see a swift punishment administered that means that focus can be regained and the class can continue with a minimum of disruption and that the offender is not prevented from learning.

And assuming all the other things are in place, like the code of conduct and mutual respect and all the rest, I can't really see what, other than a couple of smacks with a cane, will fulfil that role.

*I did once get a beating that was completely undeserved. But even at the time, as the "crime" was happening, I could see why the teachers thought I had transgressed, plus, I'd have had to snitch on a classmate to protect my arse. And that was beyond the pale.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 9

2011-08-09T16:00:00.003+01:00

I'd see a doctor, myself!

TEA Party this, TEA Party that...

2011-08-09T09:00:00.000+01:00

I am increasingly fucking irritated by the habit of socialist twats to ascribe everything to the American TEA Party.

The Taxed Enough Already Party, let's just remind ourselves, is a grassroots movement of American citizens who feel that the federal government takes enough tax from them, thank you very much, and that maybe the government should stop pissing taxpayers' money away on corporatist "bailouts" (transfers of wealth from the poor to the very rich), vanity projects and pork-barrel politics (where a bill gets passed as long as the congressmen who support it get some money passed back to their sponsors and mates.)

The TEA Party is also a reference to the Boston Tea Party, the start of the American Revolution, which was about taxation without representation above all else. Currently, a significant number of American citizens feel that their government spending is out of control and that their votes are not sufficient to counteract what government is doing in their name.

Here in the UK we feel the same, nobody actually feels like government is acting for the people, but rather than do something about it, it's much easier for us to sneer at our lunatic colonial cousins.

I don't know about you, but I don't think any half-way sane person could object to the motives of the TEA Party. It is a direct expression of the will of the people, and it's a direct objection to the way government actually works: government does what it thinks is best, not what the people want it to do.

It is unsurprising that bandwagon-jumping loonies would be keen to rail-road such visible popular politics into their particular brand of statist politics, but that is not what the TEA Party is about.

The latest fucking stupidity I heard was that the TEA Party was being blamed for the downgrading of America's credit rating. Well, that's fucking bollocks:

S&P cut the long-term US rating by one notch to AA+ with a negative outlook, citing concerns about budget deficits.

The agency said the deficit reduction plan passed by the US Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough.

In other words, S&P cut the long-term rating precisely because the TEA Party did not get what they wanted.

People in the UK need to stop venerating the government.

The government takes your money, spends it very badly on delivering things because it's just a way of hiding transfers of wealth from you to multi-national businesses. The government takes us to wars that we have no business fighting, leading us to be responsible for the deaths of thousands or millions of innocent people on the other side of the planet. The government sticks its nose in to things which are none of its business.

All these people who seem to equate society with the government are leading us down a very dangerous path.

Lazy journalists who attack businesses for being tax efficient because that starves the government implicitly seem to feel that the government deserves to have our money for whatever fucking nonsense they want to do next.

Cheerleaders for government spending ignore the fact that most government spending is simply transferring money from you and me into the hands of Accenture, Capita, ATOS, Cap Gemini, Capita, etc.

Stop being cunts and fucking think about what you're saying for a change.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 8

2011-08-08T16:00:00.002+01:00

Gil Scott-Heron was wrong

2011-08-08T15:47:00.000+01:00

Why Tory economic policy is doomed to fail

2011-08-08T09:00:00.002+01:00

It's a conundrum for everyone who cries out that a smaller government inevitably leads to economic growth.

Hence, libertarians and "small-c conservatives" are all calling for cuts, yet despite all the evidence of cuts being trumpeted left, right and centre, economic growth is flaccid, limp and in desperate need of economic Viagra.

The cuts are smoke and mirrors. Inflation is kicking in, services are being cut, especially at the frontline, and yet growth isn't happening. "Progressives" and tribal Labour supporters are jeering that this is proof that government spending is vital.

But the truth is that we're not seeing the whole truth.

The previous government spent money it didn't have like a drunken sailor in port for the first time in 18 months. Banks were bailed out, vanity projects were finances, PFI skullduggery was rampant.

And when governments do cut spending, they always cut at the frontline first, because that way it hurts people the most so they start screaming for services to be reinstated.

In a business, you cut the frontline as late as possible, because those are the people bringing the money in. It's always possible to make managers manage more people or combine functions so that you can get shot of people in the back office.

But the motivations are different in the two cases. Businesses want to make a profit and retain customers. Governments want to build empires and fuck people around.

So while there may be small cuts happening in government service provision, there aren't cuts in taxes from the savings made. And because there are no cuts in taxes, it's impossible for individual spending to make up for the cuts in government spending.

Taxes are still sky-high, and that's because of the massive debt. The debt isn't even being attacked, all that the government is trying to do is clear the deficit, which is the gap between current income and expenditure. When they've done this, they will still be left with the legacy of debt that needs to be paid off. But at least then they'll be able to start paying off historical debt.

And the other side of the government spending issue is that government spending isn't actually going down. By the time the Tories get kicked out of power again, government will have spent more every year than even that insane Scottish spendthrift maniac could spunk out in his desperate attempts to buy votes. It's just being spent on paying for debt.

So if the currently fuckwit Lib Dem and "Red Tory" hold on taxing the people who actually work to death, while spunking money out on their pointless vanity projects continues, the best that we can hope for is that some miniscule growth will happen and that somehow Gideon will pay off some of the debt so that the next lot of delusional cuntwanks can start the whole "pissing other people's money away" lark again.

Personally, I can't wait. I'm fucking off to Lichtenstein.

Terrifying!

2011-08-07T17:44:00.003+01:00

Update: It seems like this is not the truth any more. However, the actual truth is hard to ascertain, because the Home Office website says it's seven days, while Damian Green says it's fourteen.

So much for a quick blog then.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 7

2011-08-07T16:00:00.001+01:00

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 6

2011-08-06T16:00:00.000+01:00

Very puerile, I know!

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 5

2011-08-05T16:00:00.001+01:00

The old ones are the best!

2011-08-05T10:18:00.000+01:00

Yes, you moronic twat, your profligate money-pissing saved the world.

In other news, this:

Wall Street had its worst day for almost three years as shares tumbled on fears about the eurozone debt crisis and the US economic recovery.

The Dow Jones index closed down more than 500 points, or 4.3%, and came after the leading European bourses fell more than 3%.

It was the biggest one-day fall for the Dow since October 2008.

Earlier, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned that the sovereign debt crisis was spreading.*

Also in New York, the S&P 500 index fell 4.8% and the tech-rich Nasdaq was more than 5% lower.

Meanwhile, Frankfurt's Dax and London's FTSE 100 indexes had their worst day this year, closing almost 3.5% lower as investors fretted that Italy and Spain might become engulfed in the debt crisis.

"People are throwing in the towel because they can't find relief on any front," said Milton Ezrati, market strategist at Lord Abbett.

Investors sought the relative safety of gold, sending the price of the metal to a new record high of $1,677 an ounce.

Christ knows how many billions of pounds Brown's stupidity has cost us. Every time someone does the sums, it turns out that if we'd held on to the gold, it would have been worth more and more.

Obama's bailout of every greedy cunt who stuck their hand out has clearly fucking worked well.

Rather than actually addressing the structural and fundamental financial issues, it looks like a handful of companies got huge amounts of taxpayer funding thrown at them which has helped to the extent of the square root of fuck-all, as far as I can tell.

The Teleprompter Jesus has failed to save the US. The snotmuncher failed to save us. The collective wisdom of Gollum and his fuckwit elves is clearly not saving the EU.

The only upside of this is that by the looks of it, the Euro is going to go down the shitter in a hurry, so my holiday should be a cheap round this year.

*In February, Barroso displayed his deep financial knowledge by claiming that the Euro would protect the EU from default issues. The cunt.

Anarchy and the death penalty

2011-08-05T09:00:00.000+01:00

Everybody has been banging on about the prospect of resurrecting (as it were!) the death sentence in the UK.

And just to get it out of the way, like every right-thinking person, I'd be absolutely in favour of killing some brutal mass-murderer or child-killer if it was cut and dried that they'd done it.

But the truth is, it's almost impossible to find a case where its cut and dried who did it and why they did it and that there were no extenuating circumstances. Even a voluntary confession is by no means conclusive, and despite all the crap you see on CSI, most crime scenes are nowhere near as conclusive. DNA isn't conclusive either. And even CCTV and so on can be misleading or tampered with.

And that's before we even get on to the dozens of miscarriages of justice that have been waved through British courts over the centuries.

Be honest, even if you were absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone was guilty of a heinous murder, would you still want their death on your conscience? Would you, personally, actually be able to flick that switch? I wouldn't.

So, we are at a point where there is no fucking way I'm going to endorse the death sentence anyway.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that I have massive reservations about the state deciding not only who should die, but which "crimes" deserve the ultimate punishment. (One that had me wondering about the sanity of the person saying it was "cop-killer". Why is killing a cop worse than killing anyone else? And why should someone who is quite happy to enforce blatant bullshit laws for victimless crimes be regarded as anything but a thug in the service of other thugs?)

The state is happy to go to war, happy to funnel money from taxpayers to large corporates, clamp down on our freedoms "for our own good", and so on. Given the glorious judgment shown by the government in deposing Saddam Hussein (and elsewhere!) do you really want them deciding which crimes deserve to have the ultimate sanction?

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 4

2011-08-04T16:00:00.001+01:00

The invisible man on Twitter

2011-08-04T09:11:00.002+01:00

"*"
- Oliver Letwin on Twitter

Clearly, Mr Letwin is a man of few words on twitter, although he recently said a mouthful elsewhere:

Oliver Letwin, the coalition's policy minister, has revealed the government's determination to instil "fear" among those working in the public sector, who he claimed had failed for the past 20 years to improve their productivity.

I really have no idea what he means.

Although at a recent social gathering, a Treasury civil servant tried to convince me that civil servants are not overpaid, by outlining the salary the Treasury's head of Child Poverty was likely to attract.

When I pointed out that in real terms, the UK not only has no actual poverty, but actually has no idea what poverty even looks like, I could see the rolling eyes. When I pointed out that the average person in Africa would regard the life of the meanest, poorest dole-bludger in a Glasgow tenement as a life of complete luxury and ease, the penny dropped.

The problem is not that there are not hard-working civil servants. I'm sure that if you looked around hard enough, you could find a handful. But even if you ignore the bureaucratic empire-building that goes on, with five people doing the work of two, there is still the fundamental problem of productivity. That the Treasury has a department, however small or large it may be, to deal with a problem that does not exist in reality, but only exists in the minds and tick-box targets of empire-building civil servants, simply indicates where a large part of the problem is.

My employer is a massive, bureaucratic monster. But even they don't employ a Department of Child Poverty. It's got nothing to do with the continued success of the business. (This despite my employer having a positively annoying number of diversity and inclusion fora and voluntary social outreach programs.)

But the Treasury gets money no matter what it does. And perversely, the more it fucks up and the more stupid ideas it has, the more of our money it can take.

In essence, for every hard-working civil servant (apparently 14-hours a day is a lot!) there are rooms full of dross, people who may mean well, who may have families to feed and all the rest, but in truth are just sucking up everyone else's money and resources and there are also entire departments that exist for no other reason than somebody with sufficient clout in the organisation wanted them to exist.

Letwin, architect of the coalition's plans to reform public services, told a meeting at the offices of a leading consultancy firm that the public sector had atrophied over the past two decades.

I think Letwin is wearing rosy specs here. The public sector has been atrophying since it was born.

In controversial comments angering teachers, nurses and doctors, he warned that it was only through "some real discipline and some fear" of job losses that excellence would be achieved in the public sector.

Ah, "teachers, nurses and doctors", the Holy Trinity of the left-leaning twat. Because of course, admin clerks and the rest don't really matter do they? But anger a teacher and WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHEEEEEELDREN? Not to mention the saintly, untouchable NHS!

So, every other civil servant, be told: you don't matter. Only teachers, nurses and doctors matter. Even the Guardian thinks the rest of you are scum**.

Letwin added that some of those running schools and hospitals would not survive the process and that it was an "inevitable and intended" consequence of government policy.

"You can't have room for innovation and the pressure for excellence without having some real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers that things may go wrong if they don't live up to the aims that society as a whole is demanding of them," he said.

And this is the nub of the argument, and probably the only time I'm going to agree with an MP.

I compete in my job. I have to impress my manager just to keep my job. I have to compete with the people in my team, I have to show willing, I have to excel to show I deserve my bonus. There is always some or other headcount reduction (or other cost reduction) program going on. But because I'm doing my job well and making the difference, I'm not worried about losing my job.

I would do it anyway, because it's not just the technology that excites me, I like making a difference and making problems go away. But if I was going to collect the same salary whether I bust a gut or not and I knew I'd never lose my job, I'm pretty sure there would be days where I would pull a sickie or get hammered the night before and sit in the office playing Freecell. And who knows, it might get to be addictive and maybe I'd stop working altogether, become a Wally in Dilbert-speak.

But along with the carrot of job satisfaction is the fact that I'm a parent with a kid to feed and my job is not guaranteed for life.

"If you have diversity of provision and personal choice and power, some providers will be better and some worse. Inevitably, some will not, whether it's because they can't attract the patient or the pupil, for example, or because they can't get results and hence can't get paid. Some will not survive. It is an inevitable and intended consequence of what we are talking about."

I really can't see why lefties are up in a froth over this. Do they really believe that if someone is a shit doctor and patients don't want to see them, they should get paid (and presumably still be doctors as well)? If someone is a useless teacher, would you want them teaching your kids?

Of course you fucking don't. So why the hell are you pretending that any of this is controversial?

*@oliverletwin hasn't tweeted yet.

**This is a joke. I think.

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 3

2011-08-03T16:00:00.001+01:00

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 2

2011-08-02T16:00:00.000+01:00

Dining out - an occasional series. Part 1

2011-08-01T16:00:00.001+01:00

Reggae Blegging

2011-07-30T18:14:00.002+01:00

I am mindful that my life lacks reggae. However, most of the compilations I can buy are filled with dreary pap. I have Natty Dread and Legend by Bob Marley, Bass Culture and Forces of Victory by Linton Kwesi Johnson and I have enough UB40 to be getting along with. Shamefully. I also have a decent ska collection, so I don't need any more of that.

I'm not desperate to buy vast swathes of albums, but I'm looking for interesting individual songs, I suspect that stuff from the early 70's to the mid 80's is probably a sweet spot.

As clues, I quite like Sinsemilla by Black Uhuru, Heads High by Mr Vegas, You don't love me by Dawn Penn and Montego Bay by Freddie Notes and the Rudies apart from the aforementioned bands.

I'm looking for stuff with a good beat and some kind of "hook".

Can anybody recommend their favourite reggae tracks?

Streets of Dreams

2011-07-29T12:37:00.003+01:00

Can I really face it though?

2011-07-25T23:49:00.001+01:00

I can feel it. I'm getting sucked back into the world of trying to explain to people that we don't need a government with a gun to our heads to make us all get along.

I can see the endless, circular arguments because people are so terrified of not having someone to mollycoddle them.

Do I really want to get back into this?

Stairs

2011-07-24T10:25:00.003+01:00

Blogging, like tweeting, should never be attempted while drunk.

Firstly I'd like to thank all the people who made sympathetic or helpful comments online, offline and elsewhere, as well as those who made slightly less sympathetic comments.

My post was not ultra clear, I accept. The key point that I was trying to make was about addiction, rather than about anything else. I've always suspected that I would be susceptible to dependency, which is why, as much as anything, I've lived a much more teetotal life than most people.

The reasons why people get on to that staircase of dependency vary from person to person. But once you're on it, it's fantastically seductive.

Anybody who has known me for a while would be amazed at the amount of alcohol I consume, and equally amazed at how tempted I am to start the day off with another glass of wine, rather than my patented arse-kicking, bowel-emptying coffee. If it's safe to do so, sometimes I do.

I'm still managing to balance the seduction of dependency with my legal responsibilities and the rest of my life, so maybe I'm not really addicted at all, maybe I'm in no position to opine.

But the truth of the matter is that whereas I used to be unable to understand how someone like Winehouse or any other intelligent person with talent and success and other good things in their life could succumb to that destructive spiral and throw it all away, when I look at it now, I can now see how perfectly sensible, desirable and indeed inevitable it seems.

I've looked at the "quick and easy" option, and it's way too hard and scary. This is just one small step at a time, a Fabian process to easing your pain, if you will.

I guess I'm right at the top of the stairs at the moment, so I can be a bit more objective. But when it comes to people who "have everything" and "throw it all away", I've certainly become a lot less judgmental.

Torn

2011-07-23T19:39:00.004+01:00

I know it's Amy Winehouse who's dead and not Natalie Imbruglia. But I do feel torn, because part of me feels that we all have responsibility for our own lives, while part of me understands very fucking well indeed what it's like to lose control of your life and everything spirals out of your reach and to reach for something that will take the pain away, even if it's for a while.

I don't mind mentalist jokes and abuse, indeed, absolutely nothing matters to me any more, and I suspect Amy felt the same. Yes, it's sad for those left behind, but they were unable to feel Amy's pain and there was nothing they could do to help her.

It's a shit crumb of comfort to take away, if you actually knew Amy, but at least she has peace now.

I can't tell you how much I crave that myself. Peace. No more pain. No more despair.

But equally, if she was anything like me, I don't expect or want some well-meaning, better-knowing cuntwaft to come in and sort it out for me. It can't be done. The damage is all inside me, nothing outside can touch it, let alone heal it.

I'm standing at the top of the same staircase she was. I've take a few tentative steps down in to the comforting darkness. I'm on my own. No-one can hold my hand and lead me out. The damage is done and the only person who can decide which way I'm going to go, every day, is me. All the love, all the pills, all the money in the world can't drag me up again.

It's all in my head.

Either I escape, or eventually, the pain gets too much and I get my peace.

Either way you win.

Administrivia

2011-07-23T17:11:00.000+01:00

The more astute of you will have noticed that I've updated the look of the blog. I did this for two reasons, I've decided to get rid of some of the crappy buttons I've had for years and Blogger has done away with my original template. I know it's still around somewhere, but I quite like the new one I've chosen and it's not too busy.

As a result of reverting to the standard template, there are also a whole bunch of sharing buttons and rankings of my posts that can be done. I'm interested to hear what people think about these, whether they "add value" or not.

I've always believed blogging was about the content not the look, I like the simple look and feel of this template, and I've managed to get the twitter feed to look like it belongs quite quickly.

I've ditched the "Google connect" widget because it was clearly slowing the page load down a lot, and in the current world, it simply doesn't mean anything any more. Links between people with blogger ID's has quickly become passé in a world of Twitter and Facebook and Googleplus.

Various other dead bits of clutter are also going, like the LPUK news feed.

I've lost the "Labels" widget because it's just so big it doesn't have any use. The "Blog Archive" thingy is useless (I think!)

I've consolidated all my "awards" into a single blog post to remove the space they take.

I'm seriously contemplating the twitter widget, because it seems to be quite slow as well. Any comments on this would be especially welcome.

And finally, I'm also trimming my various blogrolls, because a lot of them appear to point at dead blogs. If I remove you and you are still blogging, just lazy, let me know and I'll put you back. Also, if anyone wants to be on my blogroll (which, let's face it, is also pretty passé!) then let me know.

My Moral Compass

2011-07-23T16:33:00.001+01:00

My Political Views
I am a far-right social libertarian
Right: 9.69, Libertarian: 8.48

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -6.49

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Culture War Stance
Score: -3.63

Political Spectrum Quiz

Just moved this from the sidebar to tidy up my blog.

Historical awards

2011-07-23T15:15:00.004+01:00

Lest I forget:

First Month Awards (2008):

Top 100 Right Wing Blogs: 81

2009:

Top 100 Right Wing Blogs: 13

Top 20 Libertarian Blogs: 4

Top 20 Political Blogs: unknown

2010:

Top 100 Right Wing Blogs: 13

Top 30 Libertarian Blogs: 4

Top 50 Political Bloggers: 25

HOT 200 Political Twats: 4

100 Worst Political Blogs: 5

2011:

Top 10 Libertarian Blogs: 10

Top 10 Libertarian Bloggers: 8

Thoughts on Norway

2011-07-23T10:37:00.004+01:00

It's all a bit numb, isn't it? Norway, where is that, somewhere near Sweden, right? And there was a bomb, but there didn't seem to be too many casualties and everybody immediately assumed it was bearded darkies and it all seemed to fit into the Al Qaeda narrative.

I certainly sighed heavily and expected the security forces to ratchet things up a notch in response to another vague threat of "Muslim extremism". (Indeed, the "Helpers of the Global Jihad" were said to have claimed responsibility via some secret squirrel jihadist website. Which then turned out not to be the case.)

And then came some reports of shootings near a youth camp. It turns out that the youth camp is where the Norwegian "Labour youth" hold training camps.

Now, leaving aside the dubious idea of a "Labour youth training camp" for the moment, what happened here was actually the more disturbing of the events. Apparently, this bloke coldly went round a youth camp shooting kids, basically. Numbers are unconfirmed, but it sounds like more than seventy young people were systematically shot in cold blood.

That leaves even me a bit stunned. It's one thing to plant a bomb and walk away and maybe some people will die (although I couldn't do that) but to walk around an island and shoot more than seventy people? That's not mad. That is something else.

At some point you might imagine Raoul Moat shooting a couple of people before it all got too much. You could imagine a couple of mad, hormone-warped kids shooting at seventy people, missing some, hurting some and killing some. But to shoot, in a single sitting, more than seventy young people to death, hurting God knows how many others and missing how many others ... that takes a level of dissociation from reality that is just beyond anything I can imagine.

Inevitably, people have rushed to analyse his motives, with the usual tired old bollocks about his religion, his politics, his interest in freemasonry, his TV habits and his gaming habits coming to the fore.

But this is all bollocks. There is nothing in his interests that justified what he did. I know dozens of ultra-fundamentalist Christians and not a single one of them would dream of planting a bomb, let alone shooting dozens of kids in cold blood. I have never met anyone further to the right in politics than me, and I wouldn't dream of doing what this guy did. All the freemasons I've met have been beacons of caring humanity. My daughter watches Dexter, it bores me shitless. And no gamer I've ever come across has ever even hurt another person.

None of these influences offer any kind of justification for what he did.

There is no point trying to ascertain his motives. Motives are for rational people. And there is no kind of rational thought involved in methodically chasing down more than seventy young people and shooting them to death. Since he was caught, he may well even profess motives and who knows, he may even believe them. They may even make a kind of "sense".

But the truth of the matter is that nothing this man can say can make any sense. You cannot ever explain or rationalise what he has done. Sometimes people just flip a mental switch and terrible things happen as a consequence. You can never predict something like this and you can never prevent it happening.

That is why I am so heartened by the response of Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian Prime Minister, who has called for more democracy and more openness, rather than immediately calling for borders to be closed and a police state. Sometimes shit just happens and you need to keep an eye out for it, but calling for pogroms of people and raising suspicion and divisiveness helps no-one.

Quite unlike the increasingly despicable cunt Obama, who immediately leapt in with

"It's a reminder that the entire community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring."

You can't, you fucking twat. Not without creating a grey, drab, miserable existence for everyone, where we all walk around naked and eat beige pablum porridge provided by someone who could still kill us all by poisoning our oats.

So, you stick to your guns* Jens. Shit has happened and it was fucking terrible. But don't try and do something about it "for the children". Because if you do, this madman will have won and everybody else in Norway will lose.

(And can I just say that "lefties" really made me want to punch them yesterday when the news broke. Seriously, what kind of utter fucking cuntstain wishes the victims of this kind of bloodbath "solidarity" when commenting on it.

Solidarity? That's what you offer someone on strike. You don't fucking say "solidarity" to survivors and the families of the victims, you insensitive fucking unspeakable fucking mongs!)

*I realise this might not be the best choice of phrase, but shit happens.

Has your twitter account been hacked?

2011-07-22T13:13:00.003+01:00

If I've sent you to this post, let me first start off by saying you're a cunt. You've clearly clicked on a link and given authority to a dodgy application without thinking what you're doing. So you're a cunt.

When people point this out, you will invariably rush back to Twitter and change your password, because not only are you a cunt, but you're a stupid cunt. Stupid because changing your password will do nothing to stop someone accessing your twitter because Twitter has an authorisation mechanism that persists beyond password changes. But that won't mean anything to you, because you're a stupid cunt.

So instead, here's how you actually fix it (in "new" twitter):

Log in to your Twitter webpage
On the top right of your page will be your name. Click on it.
Choose "Settings" from the menu that appears.
Click on Applications.
Click the "Revoke Access" on all applications you don't use all the time. It's quite possible that the naughty application will be the first in the list, but not a given.

In "old" Twitter:

Log in to your Twitter webpage
Click "Settings".
Click on Applications.
Click the "Revoke Access" on all applications you don't use all the time. It's quite possible that the naughty application will be the first in the list, but not a given.

The problem should now be gone.

PS You're still a cunt.

The horror that is the free market

2011-07-20T10:50:00.004+01:00

Imagine, just for a moment, a world without a government to protect us, to compensate us when Shit Happens (we will come back to this in a moment, I'm sure).

In such a world, there would be no statutory regulation, no minimum wage, no closed shop unions, no vested interests that exist precisely because government enables it.

In this appalling world, markets would be truly free. And a free market is an interesting thing. People speak about the "free market" (which absolutely does not and cannot exist in a world which contains statutory regulations) as though it's some sort of evil monster that can "fail".

Such thoughts fundamentally and profoundly misunderstand what a free market is. A free market is merely the recording of prices for the exchange of goods and services when there are no legislated barriers to entry from either the supplier's side or the consumer's side.

It has no power, it is merely the recording of the price agreed when two parties freely agree to trade.

Let's assume (in the world without government) that you are walking along a beach on a hot, sunny day and you come across a lemonade stand. You have no idea how the lemonade is made, but you're hot and thirsty and the vendor wants a pound for a glass of cool lemonade. You buy it and drink it. He has a pound in his pocket, you are refreshed, both parties have gained from the transaction, both parties are happier than they were before.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the absolute horror of the free market in action. The thing that socialists blame for the collapse of the world's economy.

Of course, it gets more complicated. I think I can make a better lemonade for the same money or even less. So the next sunny day, I make up a batch of lemonade and I go set up a stall next to him. I want to get customers to buy my lemonade (which I think is better) and so I sell it for 99p, or 95p or whatever. I still make a decent profit at this price, and because my lemonade is nicer, I sell out quickly and the other vendor is forced to either bugger off, or lower his price to 90p. He's still making a profit, and although my lemonade is better, he grabs back more market share. If I don't sell out my batch of lemonade, I am forced to cut my price so that my price is the same as or better than his, or so that the price difference is so small in my favour that people don't mind paying the difference for my lemonade and I sell out.

At the end of this round of horse trading, we stabilise at about 80p per glass for him and 81p per glass for me, because it costs us 50p to make it and neither of us is prepared to do it for less than 30p per glass profit. Someone else comes along and decides, he's prepared to do it for 25p per glass profit, or he has a source for cheaper ingredients and so the battle starts all over again.

At no point in this bloodthirsty, violent struggle has any of us lost out -- we are all still trading voluntarily, and more importantly, the people who walk on the beach are having their wants met for a lower and lower price. Everybody is still happy. At some point, one or more of the vendors may fold, or may go off somewhere else and the whole dynamic will change again. But everybody is still buying what they want for a price they're prepared to pay and the vendors are all still making enough money for it to be worth it for them.

After a while, a devious vendor appears. He starts casting aspersions on existing vendors, claiming that their lemonade made him ill. Or maybe it's true, who knows? We certainly don't! Anyway, he creates "The Guild of Lemonade Vendors", which mandates basic requirements for GLV-approved lemonade, which also means they can charge a higher price.

Customers can now choose from existing lemonades or lemonades that are pricier, may not taste as nice, but are "certified" as good. Vendors can choose to join the Guild (which will probably mean paying something which increases their costs and reduces their margin), create their own "Society of Lemonade Vendors" or remain unaligned and trade on their existing customer base and reputation.

Eventually, this horrific, brutal struggle to deprive the consumer of their hard-earned money will reach moments of stasis, where no-one sees any benefit in entering the market, but then everything will change again. The price of lemons (in itself a free market) could collapse, leading to cheaper lemonade for all or it could rise sharply, making lemonade more expensive.

But at no point does anyone stick a gun at the customer's head saying they have to buy lemonade. The customer may not have enough money on them, and the vendor may or may not be susceptible to haggling or a freebie to win over a repeat customer. It may not be warm enough that people will buy. So other "sweeteners" may be offered to get customers to buy, which may or may not work.

Shit Happens.

All the free market does is measure the prices at which people make mutually beneficial trades, completely removed from the burdens of externally-imposed constraints.

Terrifying, isn't it? And aren't people who believe in the free market heartless, unfeeling bastards?

Enough with the gossip! (for @BBCLauraK )

2011-07-20T09:25:00.003+01:00

Chris Bryant tells me senior figures at Buckingham Palace warned David Cameron's team about taking Andy Coulson into no 10
-- BBCLauraK

This really got on my tits today. It's not that I particularly object to anonymity for sources, God knows no real scandal would ever break without it. But this is not a breaking scandal, it's well and truly broken, and an MP who let it happen on his fucking watch is now trumpeting anonymous sources which may exist only in his own head purely for his own party's political gain.

This isn't what people pay their license fee for, Laura. This is you being led by the nose by a partisan mong who knew about this shit for ages but did fuck all about it.

Shame on you.

Update:

RT @MatofKilburnia If the pissing Windsors were commenting on government appointments they would be in breach of convention #guillotine
-- House of Twits

Apart from the rather liberal and tolerant idea that "breaching convention" merits a death sentence from a liberal and tolerant lefty who blocked me because he didn't like my sense of humour, this actually is quite the bit of news. If the Windsors, who have steadfastly remained out of government affairs (much to the detriment of Britain's politics, I think!) actually took the rather unprecedented step of themselves telling Cameron not to get involved with Coulson, that would be political dynamite.

But I stand by my original statement. Talk "senior whatever sources" is just bullshit.

Yah! Boo! Sucks!

2011-07-19T09:08:00.001+01:00

Jesus, watching any kind of political debate on Twitter really makes me want to commit violence. I'm not even sure what program is on, oh, apparently it was Newsnight. But just compare these tweets:

Nick Boles terrific on #Newsnight reminding Harriet high horse Harman of Brown's links with News Intl -- Tim Montgomerie, Tory

vs.

The #Tories really ought not let Nick Boles speak for them in public. @HarrietHarman easily knocking down his angry rants. -- PeterL_77, Labourite

Really? Is that the standard of political discourse among educated, grown up people who are really interested in politics? "My guy is saying it best! Your woman is an idiot!*" "No, my woman is saying it best! Your guy is an idiot!**"

Can none of you understand that your partisan, uncritical, blind loyalty to your party is what gifts lobby fodder scum decades at the trough? It is why politicians get away with things that their party is ostensibly totally opposed to.

"My party, right or wrong" is the validation of every bad idea, every cruel policy, every innocent killed abroad, that politicians want. It is the thing that destroys the very limited value of democracy.

The next time any politician does something wrong, ask yourself: "What is more important: my principles or my party?" And if you can't honestly say that it's your principles, then you need to know that one of the gravest, most insidious heaps of rotten decay in the body politic looks at you in the mirror each day.

*Technically, this is actually true.

**Technically, this is also true.

The Wisdom of Governments

2011-07-18T15:44:00.001+01:00

The next time you think the government can spend your money better than you can, think about this.

I knew there was a reason I gave up caring about politics

2011-07-18T15:18:00.001+01:00

I did, for a while, genuinely lose interest in politics, because I found something that mattered more than politics. But since I no longer have that happiness, I've started to look back at politics, and once again the sheer hateful stupidity of it all stands before me:

Lord Glasman, the leading policy adviser to the Labour leader, said the country should “draw the line” on immigration and even renegotiate EU rules that allow free movement for migrant workers.

He told The Daily Telegraph that Britain is “not an outpost of the UN” and the needs of the British people must be put first.

The comments are the most drastic yet for any of the major political parties and would effectively end immigration in to the UK.

However, the Labour party was last night quick to distance itself from the suggestions, insisting Lord Glasman’s views were “his own”.

Immigration has been thrust back on to the political agenda by both Labour and the Conservatives.

Now, it's absolutely true that I have, in the past, railed on about immigration, but it's more that it's a symptom of the welfare state that I despise, than that I have an issue with immigration.

And the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of immigrants who come to the UK get jobs (that feckless British cunts don't want to do), pay their taxes and get on with their lives. There are also some genuine refugees and then there are also some weapons-grade motherfuckers who come here to sponge off the state.

The cost of the weapons-grade motherfuckers is easily outweighed by the sheer benefit of people picking up the shitty jobs that are beneath the dignity of the noble Briton, a race clearly designated for only fulfilling, high-paid jobs and nothing menial, OK?

Never mind that they chip in disgracefully high proportions of their income into the saintly NHS or gold-plated pensions for fucking useless civil servants.

Immigrants are a nett benefit to British society, end of. It doesn't matter whether they're Somali cockwashers, Polish builders or Australian IT twats. They come here, they either pick up shit jobs or bring skills we don't have. They endure taxation without representation. They are A Good Thing(TM)

Yet here we have an experienced and educated man, elevated to a peerage, advisor to a man who would rule us, representing the "party of the common man", who wishes to encourage this fucking bollocks because it resonates with people who have been encouraged to believe this fucking bollocks.

God forbid anyone should have an intelligent debate on the real fucking reason immigration is bad: it's bad because it puts more strain on housing and public services.

Why does it put a strain on housing? Because it's in the government's interest to keep house prices disproportionally high which they do my invoking the sacred "green belt" mythology. House prices are kept artificially inflated by regulation and the encouragement of NIMBYism.

Immigration is really not the factor it's made out to be here.

And immigrants do not place any more stress on "public services" than the rest of us, if they are allowed to work. Once they can work, they can pay taxes. Fucking bullshit laws that make it difficult for immigrants to work mean that the fucking government is forcing them to be a drain on public services.

And apart from that, the generosity of the welfare state is hardly the fucking fault of migrants who come here specifically not to suck at the state's teat but come here to work and earn an honest wage, nor is it even the fault of migrants who come here specifically to suck at the state's teat. The state designs, maintains and operates the welfare system. Is it really the fault of some uneducated, filthy foreigner from Outer Krapulastan or The Republic of Bongobongoland if they can look at it and think "I can have these guys for a decent lifestyle"?

Nah, fuck it,immigration is just another fucking bogeyman that the political classes use to frighten us all into voting for whoever is going to "take the strongest line" without being "racist".

So fuck you, Lord Cockmong, and a hearty fuck you to all the imbeciles who have leapt on to his bandwagon. I hope you all fucking die of face cancer.

Update: Snap!

In which Steve Richards shows what a fucking idiot he is all over again

2011-07-14T09:28:00.002+01:00

I've noticed quite often that lefties can be quite astute at describing concisely, what things actually are like. But when it comes to identifying the root cause and especially when it comes to fixing it, they get it completely fucking wrong. So it is with Steve "Dick" Richards in the Indy today:

Power in Britain is distributed widely and erratically. Yet on the whole we report and scrutinise decisions, events and public personalities on the assumption that most power is concentrated in the hands of politicians in general and ministers in particular. Around the clock, politicians are held to account, even though most of them wield virtually no power at all. If anything happens anywhere, the instinct of the media and the gladiatorial parliamentary culture is to hold the Government to account almost alone. Weak-kneed elected politicians feel compelled to respond.

And thank fuck for that, even if the mendacious bastards just lie through their teeth all the time.

This form of robust accountability is largely healthy. To reverse the proposition and argue that elected figures should not be held to account would be deranged. But the consequence of an excessive focus on mainly insecure, scared politicians has led to a distorting lack of accountability in relation to non-elected institutions that wield power with anonymous, and often unjustified, self-confidence. Few voters had heard of the senior bankers who were leading them to the edge of the precipice until it was almost too late. And yet the likes of Sir Fred Goodwin, who steered Royal Bank of Scotland towards catastrophe, had far more power than most elected ministers who were regularly attacked on the front pages and summoned to explain their timid, powerless behaviour at 8.10 am on the Today programme.

It is healthy. And Richards skirts around the very edge of the real problem here. But being a lefty, he can't face the truth of the matter, because it would totally uproot his weltsanschauung.

Similarly, only now is more intense scrutiny being applied to the activities of the Metropolitan Police and the quality of some of its senior staff. The accountability of the police is highly sensitive and complex, but some senior figures in the Metropolitan Police have sheltered under convoluted lines of scrutiny. Both the Mayor of London and the Home Office have theoretical powers, while police retain operational independence. In fairness, the head of the Metropolitan Police is a public figure and extensively scrutinised, but it was alarming to watch the Home Affairs Committee interview a former assistant commissioner, Andy Hayman, and a current holder of that rank, John Yates. How did such cocky mediocrities rise to senior posts, ones that gave them responsibilities for handling the threat of terrorism? No elected minister would get so far up the Cabinet in the way that unimpressive duo rose up the hierarchy of the police. The media and parliamentary scrutiny would have exposed their different flaws long ago. Yates wields more power than most ministers, and Hayman used to.

So close. So very close. Will he grasp the nettle? Of course not!

Some media organisations, but most specifically Rupert Murdoch's, have become the most extreme example of this trend towards unaccountable power. Murdoch rarely gives interviews.

Disaster neatly averted. Attention diverted to the bogeyman du jour.

So, let's talk briefly about senior figures in private companies being held to account. In essence, that is what shareholders do. Sometimes it's difficult depending on the structure of the shares and who holds the shares, but in general, any company with a public shareholding is compelled by law to allow shareholders with even a single share to propose motions and argue against actions taken by the company, to vote against the appointment or reappointment of directors, etc. In general, if the company is making money, shareholders will be happy. But there will always be people with particular bees in their bonnets and companies are legally obliged to hear them out, no matter how blatantly vexatious they may be. I own some shares and every year when the AGM comes along, I get to vote, democratically, on things that shareholders and directors propose. I always take this seriously and I always vote, because it's my money that's at stake.

People being interviewed by the press is a load of bollocks for accountability. The only reason an exec would ever voluntarily agree to an interview is the chance to raise his profile and that of the company he works for. It's true that occasionally some senior exec will be shredded by the press, but it's usually a sacrificial goat situation, not that the company is being held to account as such.

Murdoch doesn't do interviews because he doesn't fucking need to. He owns newspapers, he doesn't need to raise the media profile of his company and he's rich enough not to need to raise his own profile. So let's just park the stupid idea that the press (or anyone else) needs to, or even can, hold executives to account.

The real issue that Richards skirts around here is the real unelected, unaccountable power in the country. He touches on it with the police, but inevitably he pokes at a couple of people, rather than the systemic failure.

It's true that the police wield lots of direct, unaccountable power. Don't ever piss a cop off, because they can make your life a fucking misery without you ever being able to prove it or stop it.

But the real problem, the thing that Richards cannot face or admit to is that the entire civil service is stuffed with faceless, unaccountable people who have power at various levels and degrees.

Stalin was partly right when he said that it doesn't matter who can vote, power rests with those who count the votes. But in Britain's completely fucked political system, the power does not rest with the elected policy makers or even the vote counters, but rather with those who get to implement (or not) those policies.

Ministers propose legislation at the broad brush level. The nuts and bolts of implementation can align with the intent of a policy or completely undermine it. The people who decide how and when a policy get implemented are completely unaccountable, completely hidden from scrutiny.

Another fine example of how unaccountable people in state employ are can be found in the latest issue of Private Eye (issue 1292), where the saintly NHS is exposed in how it hides avoidable deaths and punishes those who try to expose its failings.

It is true that journalists do terrible things in pursuit of stories. But it's equally true that they do these things in response to a demand from the general public, who are desperate to read disgusting tittle-tattle. So I do not really subscribe to the current froth of high-minded criticism of journalists. They wouldn't do those things if they didn't sell papers as a result of them. And crucially, newspapers do not fuck up thousands of lives every year or kill 25,000 people a year needlessly.

Belatedly, a strange sort of enforced accountability is taking place as parliament reasserts its right to stand up to non-elected institutions that function in the dark. Some commentators suggest that this is a sinister development, possibly leading to excessive political interference. Such fears are unfounded. How can it be sinister when those we elect challenge lawbreaking by a non-elected organisation?

Two words: parliamentary expenses. What do you say now, Steve? Or do you think the MP's got an unfairly rough ride there?

We need to know a lot more about the activities of bankers*, powerful business leaders, senior civil servants, police and, of course, what is happening behind the closed doors of media empires. This is a story about who runs Britain, and as light is shone we discover horrors. The light must not fade again.

All our public institutions deserve much tougher scrutiny than they get and at all levels, not just the police or "senior civil servants". And I wonder if the "media empires" will include the saintly Independent.

But of course, this will all blow over, much as the expenses scandal did. We can always count on occasional tweets and press releases from MP's moaning about IPSA to reassure us that they are learning their lessons and that they're never going to do this kind of thing again. Until the next time.

(And if you're that fucked off about what News of the Screws did, why are you railing at them for supplying something that millions of people paid to read week in and week out? Why aren't you attacking the people that wanted those dire little titbits?)

*Banker bashing. Yawn.

A tale of two brains

2011-07-08T13:48:00.001+01:00

With great thanks to CynaraeStMary.

Thoughts on hacking Milly Dowler's phone

2011-07-04T18:59:00.004+01:00

Predictably, the Twitter has exploded. Left, right and centre are apoplectic with rage. Calls for Rebekah Brooks's head, Andy Coulson's head, Rupert Murdoch's head, Jeremy Hunt's head and the death of the monarchy have all crossed my timeline.

And The News of the Screws was bang out of line. Whoever was in charge at the time (I really don't give a flying fuck who it was) should grow a set and take responsibility.

But I do wonder about the rage. Milly Dowler clearly doesn't give a fuck. And really, I don't think the largely left-wing clitterati aren't normally unduly vexed about the government doing things like this, or about the papers doing this sort of thing to other people.

Nobody's complaining about the Police being implicated in helping and / or covering up journalists doing this.

And I'm amused to see that other papers are generally not being too savage in their reporting of this, I can only assume they don't want to crow too loud lest it wake skeletons in their own closets.

I also don't recall this fulminating lefty hatred for Murdoch when he was in Tony Blair's camp.

Let's face it, this was disgusting and shameful. But I bet it's no more disgusting or shameful than stuff all the papers get up to every single day. They're all at it. The government keeps equally invasive tabs on us. The police do it to suspected criminals and if those suspects are exonerated, fuck all gets said about that.

And the idea that Rupert Murdoch personally knew about it and approved it is laughable.

Nah, fuck it. This is just a convenient excuse for some moral outrage, the lefties are using it as a hook to beat up a media mogul because he's not on their side any more.

Everyone else who is outraged seems to think it was because a dead girl it's somehow worse than hacking a live sleb or listening in to John Prescott's pie orders.

It's a load of shit. It doesn't matter any more or any less than any of the other hacking or any of the other manufactured bullshit of manufactured personalities devoured avidly by vacuous tits who can't think beyond the latest issue of Heat magazine.

All of the people frothing at the mouth are exactly the same low-life twats who are so obsessed with Peter Andre and Katie Price and Ryan Gigg's sex lives that they drive this kind of demand for salacious titbits.

We get the government we deserve. We also get the media we deserve.

"All anarchists should be made to go live in Somalia"

2011-06-30T16:01:00.001+01:00

Hur! Hur! Hur!

The only difference between paying for private protection of property rights is that the costs are transparent. The biggest fear of government is that people see how much they pay and how little they get back in return.

All you statist cunts can suck my hairy balls.

With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel

2011-06-30T12:20:00.003+01:00

Hello piles, my old friend
You've come to hurt my arse again
Because a swelling softly creeping
Grew big while I was sleeping
And the vein that was swollen in my arse
My poor arse
Hurts from swollen piles

On porcelain seats I cried alone
Arsehole hurts like shitting stones
'Neath the halo of a bathroom lamp
I winced with pain and felt my bottom cramp
When my arse was stabbed by the pain of a swollen vein
That wracked my brain
And hurt the ring of my arse

And then my naked arse was sore
Fucking piles are red and raw
Arsehole hurting with no shitting
Bleeding red with such hurting
Arsehole shitting blood and such despair
And I don't dare
To wipe my sore arse

"Fuck", said I, "I do not know
Why piles like a cancer grow
Hear my prayers that I might wipe you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of arse pain

And the clown, he bowed and prayed
To the porcelain god he made
And his arse flashed out its warning
In the pucker that it was forming
And the pucker said, "The arse of the clown is bleeding on the toilet walls
And toilet rolls"
And he cried from the pain in his arse

Regulation... again

2011-06-29T15:32:00.002+01:00

So, regulation is ALWAYS for the protection of the consumer, isn't it? It never benefits the vested interests.

Labour, as ever the party that champions civil liberties (for @lukeakehurst )

2011-06-29T00:11:00.004+01:00

Recent comment on twitter, by Labour NEC member, Luke Akehurst:

Dog Control Orders being discussed now - serious issue in Hackney's parks and open spaces

My rather inevitable response to this further encroachment of the state into things that are really not any of its fucking business was:

Oh for *fuck's* sake. What a load of utter cunt!

Luke then asked:

any particular reason for that reaction? "Status dogs" owned by gang members r serious menace in local parks

Dude! Seriously?

do you *really* think a gang is going to pay any fucking attention?

Luke's devastating response:

they will get fined if they ignore it

Right, so a gang member that is quite happy to own an illegal dog and possibly train it to be an attack dog is going to be so fucking terrified of a doggy ASBO and a fine that he's going to turn into a productive member of society instead?

Really?

Are you fucking serious?

These are the same people who collect ASBO's as a badge of honour. They are absolutely unafraid of the ASBO system. Do you not think that perhaps they may regard a doggy ASBO as a badge of honour for their dogs?

Do you really, REALLY think they're going to give a flying fuck about your stupid fucking nanny state horseshit?

Christ. Is there no end to human stupidity?