And so it begins... (for @TomHarrisMP) #equalmarriage

I think this is the first time I've noticed the start of a Fabian twisting of our language.

While I'm all for teh gayz having the right to fuck up their lives with marriage, I now see that we're not allowed to talk about gay marriage. It's "equal marriage".

No, it's not equal. There are different constraints that apply to gay marriage, one of which is that gays can have affairs and it's not grounds for divorce. That's a pretty weird form of exclusive monogamous commitment right there. There are other differences, a lack of consummation is not grounds for divorce either. So, you can have a gay marriage, never touch your partner, fuck around as much as you want and your partner just has to put up with it.

What kind of marriage is that, then?

But somehow, this has become "equal marriage". I'm pretty sure there's loads of people in straight marriages who would like the same perks, frankly. There are probably more straight people fuck around in their marriages and would like to do so without any prospect of sanction than there are gays who want to get married. What about some "equal rights" for them?

And what happens if a transgender gets married as a straight and then converts? Does their "conventional" marriage now become an "equal" marriage or are they a same-sex couple who have to be faithful?

This is just another badly-drafted, ill-considered bit of law that is going to fuck things around more. But mostly I'm annoyed about the abuse of the language.

It makes me wonder how much other "equality" law is a load of shit.

Paging Charlotte Gore

This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder why anyone of a liberal persuasion can vote for the LimpDumbs.

Essentially, parents have been barred from public playgrounds in parks. Instead, they are forced to wait outside the railings whilst council-employed "play facilitators" assist the children.

The council claim it is due to Ofsted regulations, although Ofsted have stated "only people working with children needed to be checked, not all adults on the premises. It added: 'We would never seek to prevent parents and carers having access to their own children.'"

The most pernicious quote is from the Mayor of Watford, the LibDem Dorothy Thornhill:

'Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground.'

Seriously, Thornhill, what the fucking fuck are you on about?

You can't have adults walking around unchecked in a playground?

Why is that?

You can't have adults walking around unchecked in a public space that they pay for out of their taxes? Or you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a playground because most or all of them are child molestors?

Neither one really makes any fucking sense to me.

What is "today's climate" on planet SocDem anyway? Because the rest of us, well, we live here on planet Earth.

You complete fucking moronic spaztard.

Unintended consequences again, again!

Here's a prime example of why governments should not be trusted to anything but the very barest minimum:

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".

So, these genii decided that for the sake of some cheap political point-scoring, they'd open our borders, alienating their core voters and leading to a surge of support for the BNP. The same left-wing BNP that they now bang on about as being right-wing, despite the fact that almost everyone who votes BNP is either a fool, a cunt or a disaffected Labour voter. So, a fool or a cunt, then.

The BNP themselves portray their party as "the Labour Party your grandfather would have voted for" and their policies certainly bear that out.

I'm not surprised Labour ministers are completely freaked out by the BNP -- they're having their own incompetence and stupidity rubbed in their faces now.

So, if ever you think that the government is the way to get something done properly, just remember that the government consists of people, people who are just as stupid, petty, incompetent and useless as you or me. And if you think that by collecting lots of individuals together, you somehow improve the quality of decision-making, remember this*:






Proof, if it were needed, that no-one in the government of the UK thought that "rubbing the faces of racists in multiculturalism" might provoke some kind of unpleasant reaction.

And if you think that people get the government they deserve, doesn't that make you want to shit in your pants?

* There actually appears to be an entire branch of management research devoted to the first poster: as far as I can tell, it's completely true.

It's all a con ...

It's not a credit crunch, it's just rent-seeking:

The credit crunch is not nearly as severe as the U.S. authorities appear to believe and public data actually suggest world credit markets are functioning remarkably well, a report released on Thursday says.

As a result, governments are pumping masses of public money into the economy across the world because of the difficulties of a few big, vocal banks and industries such as car manufacturing, which would be in difficulty anyway, according to the report published by Celent, a financial services consultancy.

"It's just stabbing in the dark with trillions of dollars," Octavio Marenzi, report author and head of Celent, told Reuters in a telephone interview where he questioned the depth of the analysis that preceded numerous fiscal stimulus packages.

The report, much of which is based on U.S. Federal Reserve data, challenges a long list of assumptions one by one, arguing that there is indeed a financial crisis but that, on aggregate, the problems of a few are by no means those of the many when it comes to obtaining credit.

"It is startling that many of (Federal Reserve) Chairman (Ben) Bernanke and (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson's remarks are not supported or are flatly contradicted by the data provided by the very organizations they lead," said the report.

Perhaps the U.S. central bank and treasury department, and authorities in other countries by extension, know something they are not telling anyone and which is far more worrying than the public data shows, the report says.

Or, more plausibly, they were generalizing erroneously from the bad experience of a limited number of big banks and companies that are in any case in difficulty.

"I don't think they're fabricating stuff but what I think they are doing is taking the situation of a handful of institutions and generalizing that to the market as a whole, incorrectly," said Marenzi.

The picture appeared to be broadly similar in much of Europe and Japan, said the report, based on publicly available data on trends in bank lending to industry, households and among banks themselves in the so-called interbank markets.

So, really, what's going on here is that a couple of well-publicised business failures due to bad practices have not been allowed to be punished by the market and now governments are making it worse by actively throwing tax money around at anyone who asks.

And still the socialists claim that this was a market failure?

Stop the planet, I need to get off.

Was there any point?

From the ASI:

In fact, I sometimes wonder why the government bothers involving Parliament in things at all, given the contempt it seems to have for the institution. It's well known that Tony Blair attended less than 10 percent of Commons votes during his tenure as prime minister, and rarely attended parliamentary debates (even in the debate on the Iraq war, he left after just a few speeches). Gordon Brown did little better as chancellor, and doesn't seem to have changed much since he's been at Number 10.

Of course, I'm not surprised that ministers don't care much for parliament. Although Labour MPs are rebelling with increased regularity, the Commons still more or less does the government's bidding in the legislative chamber. Most of the committees are just as bad, since they have government majorities and – usually – chairs (the Public Accounts Committee being a notable exception).

Indeed, politics these days is almost all about the media – parliamentary democracy being an unfortunate afterthought. Politicians are driven by polls, polls are driven by media coverage (generally, the more 'your man' is on TV, the better your poll rating), and media coverage is driven by action. And that's why politics-by-media means a constant stream of 'initiatives', endless tinkering, and masses of completely ill thought out legislation which undergoes little scrutiny.

Yep. One day constitutional historians are going to look back at the New Labour project in utter amazement and wonder how the country didn't implode.

Although there's still time, I guess.

More Labour child abuse

Yet another glorious Balls-up:

Traditional lessons in history, geography, drama and music could be cut from primary schools amid fears timetables are too "cluttered".

Too cluttered? Too cluttered? What the fuckety fucking fuck are these cunts on about? I thought the whole idea was to expose young minds to lots of different things so that as they grew older they would have a broader background upon which to draw when deciding what to do with the rest of their lives.

This is too horrible for words. But it's no match for the unbridled horror of what will come in its place:

Under the move, schools would be encouraged to merge subjects together. It will give schools more time to explore themes such as healthy lifestyles, multiculturalism and personal development.

I can't think of a single thing that I've read that has horrified me more in a decade of watching how Labour's education policies have fucked up kids.

Listen you appalling motherfuckers, I don't want my kids to "explore themes", especially not on such egregious Labourite cockwaffle as "multiculturalism" or "personal development". I don't want my kids brainwashed with what the government of the day thinks is a "healthy lifestyle".

I want my kids to be taught about history so that they can learn from other people's mistakes and understand where their culture and lifestyle comes from. I want them to learn about the mechanics of the planet and other places so that they can spot Green cuntmongering and be aware that there are other interesting places to go and things to see. I'd even rather have them watch Simon Schama or David Attenborough than have some deathless ZNL apparatchik tell them how to live their fucking lives.

I accuse the Labour Party of being unspeakable fascists, dressing up their statist brainwashing in honeyed but meaningless words like "multiculturalism", "social justice" and "child poverty".

You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, GO!

Bradford and Bingefucked

Seconds out, round number two. No fucking dithering this time, I see. Has some useless civil servant discovered they have a taste for nationalising, I wonder?

This is just so fucking bad for us all.

Darling declares war on City's risk culture

Via Samizdata, this:

The Chancellor pledged to clamp down on the City's culture of rewarding undue risk-taking and will soon reveal plans to tighten market regulations.

For fuck's sake. Meanwhile, in the real world:

The fact that insurance companies refused to insure property located on storm-wracked coasts is not an instance of market failure. A market failure supposedly occurs when the price of goods and services do not reflect the true costs of producing and consuming those goods and services. That's clearly not what happened here. The market is practically shouting at people, "Don't build something you can't afford to lose where hurricanes periodically crash ashore."

Instead the state "insurance" scheme is an example of government failure which occurs when a government intervention causes a more inefficient allocation of goods and resources than would occur without that intervention. In this case, it's the government that's telling people that it's OK to build in dangerous areas and then not charging them enough for the "insurance."

In what way does the cunt think that businesses are keen to fire up risky ventures? Businesses would rather have a sure thing any day of the week. All this fucking around with derivatives and the like stems from regulation stopping businesses from offloading their risk in a transparent manner, so they create new financial instruments that bundle up the risk in obscure and exciting ways and sell it off.

So what is old badger brows going to do? He's going to create more regulation, leading to even more complex derivatives, leading to more risk-hiding, leading to more speculation, leading to ...

A step too far?

Via Timmy, this:

Since July 2007 it has been a criminal offence to "procure, test, process or distribute" any gametes (sperm and eggs) intended for human application without a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Processing and distributing my gametes is an offence? Hand shandies are illegal? Fucking around is, too? Even shagging in a committed relationship?

Fucking hell, these cunts are even stricter than the Old Testament!

The first unintended consequence of banning shorts

Yes, it's already started:

the likes of John Mack have implicitly conceded that there's simply no way they'll be able to issue any kind of convertible bond for the foreseeable future.

How's that? Investors in convertible bonds are perfectly happy to put up new money, but they invariably short the underlying stock at the same time. It's called convertible arbitrage, and it's popular enough that there's almost no room in the convertible-bond market for anybody else. Any bank trying to issue a convertible bond into a market where short-selling is banned would be doomed to fail.

There is pain, and there is pain. You can slow the pain down or push it out to a different point, but sooner or later it's going to bite and the further you push it out, the more it's going to hurt. Some day, not too far from now, we're going to see the real consequences of banning shorts.

And it won't be pretty.

Update: NEXT!

"Can I have a car as well?" ask first-time buyers

The Daily Mash in splendid form here:

Meanwhile a spokesman for the House Builders Federation said: "So what you're saying is, we can build as many of these shitty little houses as we want and the government will buy them?

"Cool!"

Something for Harriet Harman

See what happens when you "rescue" prostitutes?

Moron regulation

I mean, of course, "more on regulation":

Gasoline shortages are caused by:

A. Hurricanes
B. Something else

Intriguingly, all the states with petrol shortages are those states which have anti-gouging regulation.

Hmmmm ...

On the "value" of regulation

Considering he is a Vulcan and works for Call Me Dave, John Redwood makes a lot of sense sometimes:

236 people were employed in the USA to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Were their jobs really necessary? They were slow to realise the seriousness of the predicament these two large companies got into, and were unable to do anything against the lobbying power of the mortgage companies when they did think there was room for improvement. Despite the Regulators the companies got into financial trouble which required a huge Federal bail out.

He then goes on to say:

Northern Rock was a heavily regulated business in the UK. Its business plan and accounts were permitted by the FSA. It took its regulatory duties very seriously. No-one suggests it bent the rules or tried to misinform the Regulator. Indeed, in the last Accounts before the crash the Directors were busily planning how to reduce the amount of capital they held for a given level of business in response to the relaxation of capital standards being pushed through by the world Regulators in Basel II! I was told by the Chancellor I was wrong to propose getting rid of the mortgage regulations the present UK government brought in, as that would be dangerous! In all the years when we did not have such specific mortgage regulation we had no run on a mortgage bank. Its enactment and enforcement did not save Northern, or prevent Northern and others lending money to people against high house prices on high multiples of earnings. So what was it for?

So, Northern Wreck was playing with an absolutely straight bat, as far as we can tell. This is the crucial bit:

The Northern Rock saga should remind us that sometimes regulations preversely make things worse rather than better. If there had been no capital adequacy requirements laid down, Northern’s Directors may have been more cautious. Because standards are laid down, Directors are tempted to say “Let’s deliver the required standard” assuming that will be prudent.

And therein, as the Bard said, lies the rub: by deferring your own judgment to the government's regulation, you are assuming that the government has got good judgment.

It's important to note that the directors could have played even faster and looser with their capital adequacy, I'm not denying that! But they played things according to government rules and we then discovered that the government rules were completely inadequate. How can we blame NR for getting it wrong, when they did exactly what the government told them to do?

And more worryingly, if they completely screwed the pooch for NR, how safe is any other bank?

John Kay gave us a more modest list of things regulators could do. They could concentrate on policing activities to try to prevent or intercept criminal activity within financial businesses - attempts to steal client money in one way or another. They could ensure a comprehensive deposit protection scheme. The Central Bank should concentrate on providing cash to the system - where it has a monopoly - against reasonable security from the banks. The rest should be left to the market.

And I think there's a lot to commend in that kind of thinking: don't focus on the minutiae of regulation, because a) you will inevitably get it wrong and b) it creates a barrier to entry, which benefits only incumbent businesses. Our regulatory watchdogs have shown themselves time and time again to be utterly toothless when it comes to prosecuting fraudsters and we don't have an adequate deposit protection scheme.

So: focus on what you want to achieve and do the minimum to ensure that; don't try to get too clever on the details; make sure that what you actually choose to do is properly policed; and for the rest: get out of the way.

One salami slice at a time

So, on the one hand, you have kids spying for the councils, based on "bin crime" legislation; while on the other hand you have councils spying on kids using anti-terror legislation:

Councils are using anti-terrorism laws to spy on residents and tackle barking dogs and noisy children.

That's right folks, the same laws that are used to protect us against dangerous terrorists, like 80-year-old hecklers at Labour conferences, is now being used like this:

* Newcastle City Council used the Act to monitor noise levels from smoking shelters at two different licensed premises. The council has twice used the legislation to monitor noise from a vet’s practice following a complaint about barking. [Barking at a vet's practice? Wow! Right up there with 9/11, innit?]

* Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council used it to deal with 16 complaints about barking dogs. [Probably barking at dusky Jihadists.]

* Derby Council made sound recordings at a property following a complaint about noisy children. [I'm sure they were screaming their plans for overthrowing the government by force at the top of their voices.]

* Peterborough Council investigated the operation of the blue badge scheme for disabled drivers. [I've been there and moaned about the cunts abusing the scheme myself. But they're cunts, not fucking terrorists!]

* Poole Council used it to detect illegal fishing in Poole Harbour. [I can see how that would threaten the future of Britain as an independent sovereign state.]

* Basingstoke Council used photographic surveillance against one of its own refuse collectors after allegations he was charging residents for a service that should be free. The operation was dropped when it was decided the allegation was false. [And what about that nuclear bomb he was assembling in his shed?]

* Aberdeenshire Council admitted using the Scottish version of the Act to request the name and address of a mobile phone user as part of an investigation into offences under the Weights and Measures Act. [Well, of course! Weights and Measures Act transgressions, who knows where that could end up?]

* Easington council put a resident’s garden under camera surveillance after a complaint from neighbours about noise. [I can only assume they were test-firing AK47s.]

* Canterbury City Council used CCTV surveillance and an officer’s observations to monitor illegal street trading. [Illegal street trading funds terrorism directly. Doesn't everyone know this?]

* Brighton and Hove council launched four operations against graffiti artists ["Death to the infidel", the graffiti artists wrote. And that Banksy is actually Osama Bin Laden in drag, you know!]

* Torbay Council accessed an employee’s emails after an allegation that suspect material had been sent. A second employee was investigated over the “use of council vehicle for personal gain”. [He was showing an Al-Qaeda cell around vital sites.]

* Westminster City Council covertly filmed a locksmith following allegations of fraud. [He was making keys for terrorists, obviously!]

* Durham County Council obtained authorisation to monitor car boot sales during an investigation into the sale of counterfeit goods. [Counterfeit goods = funding terrorism. Everyone knows this.

This country is SO fucked.

"Justice" from afar

Christ, the EU really are on a fucking roll today. Mind you, the government are the true cunts here:

The government has welcomed EU plans to allow British citizens to be tried in their absence in other member states.

Welcomed? WELCOMED? Come here you supine bunch of Euro-cock-suckers, and welcome a stick of dynamite up your rancid fucking arseholes.

British subjects could also be extradited automatically at the request of other EU states under the proposals.

WHAT?????????? You're not even going to run it by a fucking judge?

Ministers say it will prevent them fleeing to other member states to escape justice and increase co-operation between legal systems.

You can take your fucking Napoleonic legal system and shove it right up your fucking arses, you cunts. Jesus, did even Stalin ever try this shit on the Soviet bloc? Are these fucking Eurocrats insane?

And what the fucking fuck is this useless shower of fetid goat-shit of a government of ours doing, just acceding to this?

Give me George W and the Department of Homeland Security any day -- they're no match for the EUSSR ultra-fascists.

Here we go again!

Some days, it just doesn't help me to read the papers. Remember this cunt?



Well, guess what?

In a further disclosure from a leaked letter to the Prime Minister from the Home Secretary, it is proposed that police community support officers (PCSOs), who receive less training and are paid less than full police officers, be used as a cost-effective way to fight the increase in crime that it predicts will result from the economic downturn.

Can you imagine having PCSO Fuckwit above doing actual police work with his capacious knowledge of the law and his fantastic social skills?

Jesus wept, we are SO fucked.

Spying watchdog has a go at councils

Colour me confused. We have a "spying watchdog" who is supposed to protect us from an over-intrusive state using spying in an inappropriate fashion.

They can also be used to target members of the public suspected of breaking the law by fly-tipping, cheating the benefits system or dog fouling. Direct surveillance is used in many cases.

As my reader will recall, I don't have much time for people getting benefits at all, let alone those who cheat the laughably lax system. But using telephone taps to find someone who lets his dog shit on my drive (another huge irritant) is just excessive.

However, Sir Paul said that not enough councils were making use of their powers to obtain communications data from other people. Just 154 local authorities out of more than 410 councils in England and Wales used the powers last year. Sir Paul said many more should use them, but did not suggest which crimes the technology would be suitable for.

He said: "Very few local authorities have used their powers to acquire itemised call records in relation to the investigations which they have conducted.

"Indeed our inspections have shown that generally the local authorities could make much more use of communications data as a powerful tool to investigate crime."

The phone records could be used to identify criminals who "persistently rip off consumers, cheat the taxpayer, deal in counterfeit goods and prey on the elderly and vulnerable".

You what? You're fucking saying that they should spy on us some fucking more?????????

Why stop there, you totalitarian cuntwaft? Why not spy on people who might want the government strung up on lamp posts, along with with useless, toothless watchdogs who want them to spy on the people they are supposed to represent?

And the killer sting to this? It's the wonderfully "libertarian" Conservatives:

To free up police time the Conservatives would axe the requirement for RIPA clearance for CCTV surveillance, using automatic number plate recognition software and public surveillance of a building.

RIPA authorisations would also not be required for commissioning covert recording or bugging of a house or car, or using thermal or x-ray surveillance of a building.

Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, said: "It is not right that we charge our police with combating crime and disorder and then tie their hands behind their backs in the name of Whitehall bureaucracy.

"Conservatives believe the police should be given both the resources and the freedom to use those resources to do their job.

"Revising the RIPA framework so that authorisation – and all the paperwork that goes with it – is not required for basic police work is just one way the Conservatives will cut red tape to free more police onto our streets."

Yep, those libertarian Tories. They're really interested in your civil liberties, aren't they?

Cunts.

Update: One Tory minister, Douglas Carswell seems to be making the right noises, although I'm not sure I agree with his ultimate conclusion:

If pushed, like other officials, he would no doubt trot out the standard line about being accountable to Parliament via Ministers etc etc etc. Utter tosh. I sit in Parliament, and he is not accountable to me - nor anyone else in the House of Commons. The traditional model of accountability to Parliament through Ministers simply does not work any more (look at the SATS fiasco involving the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority).

So far, so good. But:

Until the House of Commons has the power to directly hire and fire quango chiefs like this, we will see more and more Big State intrusion.

No Douglas. Just shut all the quangos down. The government should do less, not get itself more involved in the minutiae of life.

Update 2: The Metro has a poll. Please go and vote.

Conflict of Interest - Tim Yeo works for "green" car company

Via Ian PJ:

Tim Yeo used his casting vote as chairman of the all-party Environmental Audit Select Committee to push through a report, published last week, which backed the decision by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, that new, higher rates of vehicle excise duty (VED) rates should apply to previously-purchased cars.

But. He is paid £40,000 a year as non-executive chairman of Eco City Vehicles Plc, a company which plans to market a hybrid car which would qualify for low rates of VED under the new tax regime, due to its low carbon emissions.

Under Commons rules, select committee members are required to step aside if their role conflicts with their remunerated interests.

As well as preparing to launch a greener hybrid electric/petrol car, Eco City Vehicles last month launched a new taxi through its subsidiary, KPM, which it hopes will qualify for lower VED rates because of its reduced emissions.

Roger Lawson, of the Association of British Drivers, said: "He should have withdrawn from the discussion on principle. The proposed changes to VED are totally excessive and unfair. How was someone who bought their car six or more years ago supposed to know they would end up paying more tax?"

This is CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Lining his own pockets at the expense of taxpayers, or in this case, screw the taxpayer.

You can read the full article in the Telegraph here.


Tim Yeo is yet another MP that should be stripped of the whip, deselected and voted out.



There is no left or right in politics any more.
This battle is about one thing, Authority versus Liberty.



There IS another way!




Your Life, Your Country, Your Choice.

The Rise of the Fingermen?

I've already blogged about the plastic policemen, but Ian P-J raises something I didn't know and find rather scary:

REAL police officers swear allegiance to the Crown, whereas PCSO's only have allegiance to the Home Office, and are the political police of the future along with the SOCA, who also only have allegiance to the Home Office. (A sworn police officer who wishes to join SOCA must resign his post and renounce his crown oath before joining).

For the Home Office, this underhand strategy has 2 benefits. Firstly they are buying votes from creating jobs dependent on the Government, secondly, they now have 2 organisations, headed by politically motivated and aligned personnel that can be used outside of the Judicial system at both a national and local level, essential and historically proven in all dictatorial regimes.

I did not realise that PCSOs and SOCAs do not have the same allegiances. I find it particularly worrying that a copper who wants to become a SOCA has to renounce his oath of allegiance. Are SOCAs not loyal to the country, then?

It does sound like a recipe for a police state, rather than a strong police force.