Cannabis found at John Reid home

This is an interesting story, but not for the obvious reasons. If no action is to be taken and the amount was miniscule, why did it make the papers? Someone told the story to the press. Why? It is interesting that "human foible" stories seem to be making the news (Reid's weed, Prescott's two shags) at present. Is it to provide "noise" to cover the genuine public anger over Charles Clarke's incompetence?

If this is a "spin" operation, then it's highly sophisticated, but Prescott is 67 and utterly dispensable. His usefulness as the "token prole" and "token Northerner" is coming to an end, leaving only the embarrassment factor of his transparent stupidity. It seems the whole of Fleet Street knew about his affair. Goodness knows he seems to have taken no care to conceal it. So why did the story (and now Reid's story) break at a moment of real political crisis?

BBC NEWS | UK | Cannabis found at John Reid home

Brainstorming a solution

There are about 257 political bloggers in Britain according to the Power Report, an "Independent Inquiry into British Democracy" sponsored by the Rowntree Trust. Most of us bitch and moan and generally go on like grumpy old men. Few, including me, often propose practical solutions. I exempt Devil's Kitchen from that criticism, but as his practical solutions usually involve some variation of a lampost, a length of stout rope and a politician twisting gently in the wind, they are - at this stage of our "struggle" - rather impractical.

Can I ask every reader to suggest one practical step that we could all take to make a difference to Britain, particularly with regard to defending and restoring our liberties? Please don't suggest "A Written Constitution with entrenched liberties" as - while you would be absolutely right - it's just not something each of us could achieve here and now.

What about, for example, raising money for a private prosecution of the Prime Minister? It seems that not only has he - through his intermediaries - accepted bribes to grant honours, he has also - through the Whips - given bribes to and/or intimidated MP's into voting against their beliefs. The fact that it has gone on for decades does not affect that. However, when a Whip offers a trip abroad or the prospect of promotion in return for a vote, that's corruption - it's a bribe. When a Whip threatens an MP's political future if a vote is not cast as directed, that's intimidation. I suspect blackmail also sometimes comes into play.

Electors vote for MP's to represent them in Parliament; not to enlist in a political army. If I am right, crimes have been routinely committed in Parliament by the Whips on the orders of the Prime Minister. Allegedly, there have even been instances of physical assault. Could not bringing such a case send a shock through the political system; maybe even begin to change our sick political culture? Even if it were not successful, it would lead to a detailed discussion of the role of the Whips in Parliament - something not understood by the average voter (although God knows, the title speaks for itself).

A more controversial idea would be a private prosecution against the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. That would not involve complex legal issues, just a subpoena to get details of the "shoot to kill" policy and a judge deciding if it were legal. I am pretty confident it was not, as it was never approved by Parliament. Unless and until the Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill is passed, it still needs Parliament to introduce a new defence to a charge of murder.

I suppose you might expect a lawyer to suggest legal solutions. I am sure there are others; perhaps better. The key, surely, is to raise public awareness and motivate people to vote, join political parties and be politically active. The present dossers are in power mainly because the people are too disillusioned to support or build alternatives. Some evidence that there is real accountability - that politicians are responsible for their actions - might change that.

The Devil's Kitchen: To boldly go where no NuLabour supporting bastard has gone before

Devil's Kitchen lays mercilessly (and amusingly) into poor old Labour luvvie, Patrick Stewart. I admire DK's work, I really do, but would not personally lower myself to a battle of wits with an unarmed man. Lots of fun comments from political Klingons though. Go read them and put a smile on your face for the weekend. Enjoy!

The Devil's Kitchen: To boldly go where no NuLabour supporting bastard has gone before

No computer 'trace' of offenders

I am concerned about the media frenzy over the Home Office's failure to deport foreign convicts after release. Of course, it's hard not to enjoy the Government's embarrassment. Tony Blair was clearly rattled at his last PMQ. That was fun too.

However, Ministers will take no political responsibility for this and the people ultimately seem not to care whether Ministers resign or not. The despicable Polly Toynbee is - for once - right when she says this story will cool and be forgotten, just like that of Ruth Kelly and the paedophiles.

Once it has cooled, Labour will spin the story as another argument for ID cards. All the press comments about the Government "not even knowing where they are" lead obviously to that. The point is they knew where they were before they released them! They should have held the deportation hearings, as recommended by the trial judges, then.

Even the Government's incompetence will be used against the people. Yet again, an ill-thought out, costly and dangerous new initiative will substitute for diligent management of the existing functions of the State.

It seems to many of us that under New Labour, Ministers of the Crown have deployed all their (fortunately limited) skills and energy to procuring favourable headlines. They have only paid attention to their departments as status symbols, travel agents for the Queen's Flight, estate agents for "grace and favour" residences and reservoirs of totty to entertain therein.

Tory "sleaze" was kindergarten stuff compared to these guys. A couple of bad apples brought the Conservatives down. This Government is rotten to the core.

BBC NEWS | Politics | No computer 'trace' of offenders

Beau Bo D'Or - Cry, Freedom

The ever-inventive Beau Bo D'Or proves that one picture of his is worth a thousand of my words.

Beau Bo D'Or - Cry, Freedom

Cameron is a true-blue Tory, for all his chameleon traits

This is a depressing Telegraph leader. Libertarian Thatcherite Tories are - it seems - mere interlopers in the Conservative Party, somewhat akin to the old Militant Tendency in Labour. The true Conservative Party is in the condescending, paternalistic and patrician mould of the Carlton Club grandees. Dave Cameron, for all his forced mateyness, is the natural leader of the true Party. If those of us who believe in small government and setting people free to shape their own lives don't like it, then we can just tug our forelocks and shove off sharpish before he takes a horse whip to us.

This "narrative" would certainly account for my continued frustration with the failure of the Conservative Party to oppose the construction of the apparatus of a police state. If one is a paternalist patrician, one can just as easily use such apparatus (for the good of the people, of course, old chap) as can a paternalistic Socialist. One of the irritating facts of life in Continental Europe is that there is a broad consensus on the need for a powerful state. The only dispute is as to how its powers should be used. Both right and left in Europe interfere in markets. The Left interferes to "protect the workers" and the Right interferes to "promote national champions". Either way the taxpayers cough up zillions to be squandered by chaps with more confidence than ability.

If the Telegraph is right, perhaps British politics are finally converging with those of our EU partners?

Cameron is a true-blue Tory, for all his chameleon traits

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Clarke attacks 'poisonous' liberal media

Charlie the Safety Elephant is getting upset with us. Good. Let it be clearly understood that the "pernicious and even dangerous poison" in the bloodstream of our nation is not the "liberal" media (where the hell are they?) but those members of HM Government who seem intent on destroying all our ancient liberties under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Mr Clarke is unfit to be an Englishman, let alone one of Her Majesty's Ministers. He has not changed since he presided, elephantine and condescending, over the National Union of Students conferences I attended as a naieve young man. He was a Leftist thug then and he is a Leftist thug now.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Clarke attacks 'poisonous' liberal media

Courts will lose £80m as plan to give victims a voice adds to costs - Law - Times Online

This is a ZaNu Labour classic. They have given the "right" to victims to be represented in criminal cases - so that they can feel involved in the process and achieve some "closure" as Oprah Winfrey might say. They will not add to the process. They will simply be able to have their say (or hire lawyers - at the taxpayers' expense if they are entitled to legal aid - to do so). This will cost an estimated £80 million - depending on how many British people have a taste for such emotionalism. This is all to make people better disposed towards the justice system. I can't see what it does for them to speak in court, rather than on the steps afterwards (if they are so inclined).

This "feelgood" initiative is unfunded. Probably it was made up on the spur of the moment in some meeting of spin doctors. No extra money will be provided to the courts service to deal with it. So costs must be slashed - to the detriment of justice itself. Which matters? Justice, or the ability for people to share their pain in public? The answer seems obvious to me, but since the mass hysteria after Princess Diana's untimely death, I am not so sure I understand my fellow-Englishmen.

There has been zero public interest in protecting the legal rights of citizens. Magna Carta has been repealed without a murmur. Maybe the right to emote will be more valued.

Courts will lose £80m as plan to give victims a voice adds to costs - Law - Times Online

The Devil's Kitchen: Tony Blair: you fascist fuck!

God bless the Devil's Kitchen. The burden of professional respectability never weighs heavier on my shoulders than on days when he really lets fly like this. Colourful as his invective is, I cannot fault his accuracy.

The Devil's Kitchen: Tony Blair: you fascist fuck!

"Climate Change"

Forty-one scientists wrote to the Telegraph to say - in summary - that

"global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise' "

They felt the need to do so in order to refute recent quasi-religious assertions by such diverse chaps as Dave Cameron, Gordon Brown and Lord Rees of Ludlow that human-caused global warming is "concerning", "a moral issue" and generally a bloody good excuse to tax air travel and powerful cars.

I recommend to anyone still interested in knowledge, rather than intellectual fashion, the work of Bjorn Lomborg entitled The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg is a "green" academic who set out to prove "global warming" to his students by statistical means, only to conclude that he had been wrong. To his credit, he felt the need to publish his findings. In consequence, he has been demonised by all those chat-show pop-scientists he might (had anyone read him) have robbed of a "nice little earner."

Does no-one connect the pseudo-science of man-made "climate change" with the desire of its promoters to build ever-greater State control over the lives of individuals? Does no-one connect it with the higher taxes it justifies - even to such (alleged) "Conservatives" as Dave Cameron? Does no-one connect it with a puritanical dislike of the finer things of life; fast cars, foreign travel, air-conditioning, exotic foodstuffs airlifted in for our enjoyment?

I am heartily sick of this bunk. I have lived long enough to have been repeatedly (and falsely) threatened with disaster by s0-called "scientists" with no sense either of history or of their own insignificant place in the cosmos. For that matter, they seem to have little grasp of humanity's insignificance. Mother Earth was here before us and will be here after we are gone. I doubt we will leave more traces than the dinosaurs who lasted so much longer than we have (and who succumbed to a global catastrophe not of their making before they managed to evolve into Jeremy Clarkson).

Would that Douglas Adams' marvellous idea of a "Total Perspective Vortex" had actually been invented, so that all the green charlatans (and chameleons) could be fed to it without mercy.

Telegraph | Opinion

BBC NEWS | UK | MPs out of touch on crime - Blair

It is difficult to refute the PM's arguments. After all, he has made them true. Liberty is old-fashioned in Britain, having been replaced by a "modern" (i.e. a more recent) approach to civil liberties. Like a Marxist denouncing a liberty-based view of the world as "bourgeois", Blair is simply attaching an insult ("old-fashioned") to the concept. If you don't want to be thought old-fashioned, please submit willingly to imprisonment without trial, double (no doubt soon to be triple) jeopardy, and to having your every personal detail recorded by the State on a central database, the better to track you through your life.

It is New Labour, with its attachment to 19th Century theories long-since disgraced, which is old-fashioned. But calling each other names does not - as the PM perfectly well knows - constitute an argument in any but the most barbaric circles.

BBC NEWS | UK | MPs out of touch on crime - Blair

Pay for nurses and surgeons doubles NHS overspend

For a brief moment, this article lifted my spirits. Why? Obviously I do not rejoice in waste of taxpayers' money. But I thought for a second that such monumental incompetence and deceit - enough to get a Minister shot in better ordered nations - might at least get the condescending tones of that nauseating apparatchik Patricia Hewitt off our airwaves.

Then I remembered. Blair's ministers don't resign, however incompetent they are. It just wouldn't be practical, given that you are more likely to find a unicorn than a competent Minister in Whitehall these days.

Telegraph | News | Pay for nurses and surgeons doubles NHS overspend

The Observer | Comment | An open letter to the Conservative leader

I can only agree with Lord Onslow. Why are the tribunes of the people silent in our country? Speak for England, Dave.

The Observer | Comment | An open letter to the Conservative leader

Tycoons tell Labour: pay us back now - Sunday Times - Times Online

An interesting element of this story goes unremarked by the journalists. An unnamed Labour spokesman is reported as saying

“The clear intention with the loans was that they should not be paid back — at least not until Blair was no longer leader.” (my emphasis).

Conspiracy theorists by proxy who believe in the massively useful and probably fabricated "Blair/Brown feud" may think this an important piece of evidence.

Whatever it says about Blair's view of Brown, it speaks volumes about his loyalty to the Labour Party. If his people have been raising money on such terms it amounts to a "poison pill" for the Party on his departure. At the least it means that the Party would need his personal support to survive financially, as only he and his cronies could extend the loans.

He's a young man. Maybe this was his way of ensuring that he would be treated with respect after his leadership of the Party was over?

Tycoons tell Labour: pay us back now - Sunday Times - Times Online

Why Labour is losing the working class

It is good that Frank Field and other Labourites know they are losing the working class. His explanation, however, could scarcely be more wrong.

A manual worker of my acquaintance in in the North West explained that she lives next door to a woman on disability benefits (the woman is perfectly mobile) who gets a new car from the State every three years. My acquaintance and her husband both work. They have no hope of having a new car - ever. They feel foolish that they work and their neighbour laughs at them. They are paying for their neighbour's car, which - to their mind - is why they can't hope to afford their own. It's too simple an analysis of course, but the grain of truth in it hurts.

They have sought to improve their humble home but their estate agent tells them they have wasted their time and money. Their many neighbours living idly on benefits have reduced the reputation of the neighbourhood so that that no-one will buy. The whole district has been colonised, in effect, by wasters. The Devil finds work for all those idle hands and - being too lazy to travel far to steal - they prey on their neighbours, so that crime is rife. They are living behind enemy lines - and their enemies are the beloved clients of the Socialist State, rewarded for evil at every turn.

Her husband has given up on working overtime at weekends because after tax it's a waste of effort. He is beginning to lose faith that there is any benefit in effort. He is drawn to the dark side of an idle life on benefits with free cars etc. His wife is a good woman who is holding fast to an unjustified faith in work and self-reliance. What hope for the next generation in the face of such lessons? By all objective analysis, though I admire her resolute stance, she is wrong. She should abandon herself to idleness, the faster to make the whole vile system fall.

The Labour Party used to stand for workers' education and self-advancement. It now stands for idleness and degradation. The Conservative Party, meanwhile, has taken a vow of silence for fear of being castigated for supposed "nastiness".

None of this has anything to do with race, by the way. This saga is set in a Northern county town, not an old mill town. The ethnic minorities are not the issue. Where they are perceived to be, of course, the whole story can take on a much nastier, darker, aspect.

Much more than the miserable, whingeing, envious, intellectually-weak, middle classes who are all too happy to find a sinecure with the State, the traditional working classes respect self-reliance. They know that all "help" from the State comes at a price, like the Salvation Army cup of tea and bun that comes with obligatory hymn-singing.

They know that, in the end, the idea that anyone but yourself and your loved ones will look after you is total bullshit. Every day they live with the evil that is being generated by a system that punishes effort and rewards idleness. They can't comfort themselves with Polly Toynbee's half-witted clap-trap in the mornings because - unlike her - they can see the truth through the windows of their humble homes.

Telegraph | Opinion | Why Labour is losing the working class

This Bad by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Spring 2006

Theodore Dalrymple writes, as always, brilliantly.

"One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems - economic, social, and cultural. Its public services - which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth - are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite. An often cynical and criminally minded population has been indoctrinated with shallow and gimcrack notions - for example, about social justice - that render it singularly unfit to compete in an increasingly competitive world. "

This Bad by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Spring 2006

Drinking From Home: Yet more "It's our fault"

I cannot disagree with a word of this. The white working class in England DOES feel despised. The chancers who pass for political leaders in our country focus all their attention on a few hundred voters in swing marginals who decide the outcome of every election. If those voters were Muslims calling for Sharia Law in England, Sharia Law is what we would get - and to hell with our own wishes, traditions or human rights.

Every time I see someone state the truth like this, it hurts. The BNP is gaining strength in our country because of such uncomfortable truths. Yet the BNP is far from being the answer. It is a vile group of neo-Nazis and will not save us from the evils of the current regime, but lead us to perdition by a different route. While doing so, it will reinforce the view of the liberal left in Britain that the white working classes are ignorant racists whose views deserve to be held in contempt. I am confident that, with the usual exception for the nutters in every nation, that is not true.

For generation after generation, England has welcomed and absorbed immigrants. I grew up among the working classes of the North and never heard a racist sentiment expressed. I believe that racism has been manufactured in England by a "race relations" industry which needs racism to justify its existence and which, by constantly berating the white population for its supposed racism has generated resentment.

If the BNP wins votes, I believe those votes will not represent a desire for racist policies. They will be a protest, designed to shock the political classes out of their complacency. The gap which has opened between the world as presented by politicians and the everyday truths of existence in Britain is simply too wide. If the conventional politicians won't bridge it, the people will.

I am very concerned. Things could get messy. I don't want decent British people to disgrace themselves and our nation by voting for neo-Nazis. But, to be honest, I don't know what else to suggest to them.

Drinking From Home: Yet more "It's our fault"

Crime appeal pay-outs cut by £5m

It seems to me that the Government is very well aware that the net effect of its various assaults on the justice system and civil rights will be an increase in the number of innocent people convicted. It has complained repeatedly about the need for higher conviction rates - and it knows what its target-oriented insanity has led to in other fields.

This story is a small admission of guilt. What NuLabour is saying is that it cannot afford to compensate the victims of the gulag it is building.

The comparison with the cap on compensation for victims is telling. There is of course no cap on claims for compensation in the civil courts by victims of crime. They can sue for their losses in full. It is only compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board which is capped.

It is very sinister that the Government is seeking to remove even the adverse financial consequences of injustice. How much injustice must it be planning for it to care? It does not normally give a toss about taxpayers' money running into billions!

BBC NEWS | UK | Crime appeal pay-outs cut by £5m

Special reports | Officer who challenged Met chief may lose job

What could be more incriminating? What could be more revealing? If the Met didn't lie in the aftermath of the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, then why is it so concerned to hide away the one officer who has broken ranks and told a conflicting account of the events of that time?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Officer who challenged Met chief may lose job

Chief's apology for bomber gaffe

Will everyone without the sense of humour to enjoy the joke in question, please go to live in Syria? Thank you.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Chief's apology for bomber gaffe

Benefits determine lifestyle choice | the Daily Mail

Britain really is comprised of two nations, if this is news. Growing up among the working classes of the North, I have always known this. My mother-in-law recently recalled a neighbour who had lived at home on family benefits garnered from an immense and impoverished family he had bred for the purpose. When his wife's ability to reproduce ended, he got a job. These days, he would have got a new "wife" and carried on.

Who can ever have been such a fool as to believe that benefits would not be subject to the second most important law; the law of unintended consequences? For generations now, the unintended consequences of State hand-outs are the only ones that matter. They have corrupted and demeaned our nation- and probably guaranteed its demise.

Benefits determine lifestyle choice | the Daily Mail

eBay.co.uk: Number Me! (item 9509747282 end time 24-Apr-06 09:05:49 BST)

A supporter of No2ID with a sense of humour is offering on eBay the right to assign him a 16 digit ID number, before the Government does so. Go and bid. It's for a good cause!

eBay.co.uk: Number Me! (item 9509747282 end time 24-Apr-06 09:05:49 BST)

Corruption inquiry moves closer to No 10

On the face of it, I owe Britain's police an apology. I predicted that the investigation into the corrupt sale of honours would end without charges. There are none yet, but it is unlikely that they would have made a much-publicised arrest if charges were not swiftly to follow.

How typical though that an ordinary working teacher - a volunteer worker for the Labour Party - should be arrested, while the Prime Minister has not even been interviewed. It is impossible that this ordinary man could have orchestrated the whole thing without the involvement of any member of the National Executive, the Cabinet or even of the Parliamentary Party.

Will Plod work his way up from the lowly goombah to the Godfather, or will the former take the rap? Don't hold your breath.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Corruption inquiry moves closer to No 10

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Terrorism Act comes into force

"The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants. It is its natural food."

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"Mankind will never be free until the last king has been strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

Glorification of terrorism? I think not. However, I am not so sure about appointing IRA murderers to be ministers of education.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Terrorism Act comes into force

Adam Smith Institute Blog

Blogging another blog is usually a pointless activity. However, I want easy access for the future, for myself and my readers, to this important piece from the Adam Smith Institute blog. It is important because it reminds us of something it is all too easy to forget. Since the agitprop experts of the old Soviet Union hung up their poison pens and retired to their dachas, the most mendacious propagandists in the world are the Greens.

Greenery is just another form of puritanism. It has a lot in common with health fascism and a New Labour's desire to peer into and modify our lives. I personally prefer a sleek low-slung sporty model to a Chelsea tractor (a 5.5 litre engine is more fun if you don't weigh it down with too much bodywork), but the hatred towards 4x4s/SUV's felt by the Greens is little to do with genuine environmentalism and everything to do with the green god of envy.

If everyone in England stopped before they demanded a change in the law and asked themselves honestly whether they want it positively for the public good or negatively to attack someone they envy, our torrent of legislation would subside to a trickle.

Adam Smith Institute Blog

Sir Ian tipped to land Blair peerage | the Daily Mail

Acting on Ian Blair's illegal orders, officers of the Metropolitan Police murdered an innocent man. Blair made damning and misleading public statements about the dead man. If he believed them, he was incompetent. If he didn't believe them, he was and is a liar. His PR people have since leaked various smears about the innocent victim. Blair shows no remorse. And for all this, he is to be elevated to the peerage?

It is the scariest thing I have heard for a while. The PM is signalling that his political henchmen will be protected and honoured; whatever they do. Be afraid, England. Be very afraid.

Sir Ian tipped to land Blair peerage | the Daily Mail

Ditch Livingstone

Of course I would like to see Livingstone go. He's a fool. His comments about the Tienanmen Square massacre are typical of him. There is no leftist or islamist abomination for which he is not prepared to be an apologist. He is the archetypal useful idiot for the enemies of the open society.

But he's popular. The real question to be addressed by right-wing thinkers is "why?" Why do Londoners love Livingstone? Why do millions of British voters love Blair and Brown? To this extent, David Cameron's political instincts are right. The right-wing in Britain have railed against these promoters of clapped out leftist ideology for a decade, to no positive effect. Voters are not interested enough in history, economics or political philosophy to engage in a debate.

Hence the people keep voting for these idiots, even as they make £8 billion pound gestures with the peoples' money to prove that they are "kind" and "caring" individuals. Telling the people the truth; that some of the £8 billion will go towards the purchase of arms to oppress Africans and most will top up the Swiss bank accounts of dictators, does not seem to do any good. Pointing to the £6 billion a year stolen from Britons' pension funds by stealth taxes and suggesting a connection with the waste in foreign "aid" or the NHS is just seen somehow as "heartless". For some reason, the voters don't want to hear. They would happily descend into poverty in their old age in return for these "feel good" moments today. They will happily accept the moral equivalence of a poll tax riot to a massacre, as long as cuddly Ken keeps being a caring cheeky chappie who rides the Tube.

To say we should analyse this is no counsel of despair. That's where Cameron and I differ. He's prepared to be a political tart; to adopt the insane and destructive policies the people have voted for without asking why. I don't see the point in that. How is it better to do wrong yourself than to watch others do it?

We need to understand voters' motivations for doing wrong to see if we can harness them to do right. To do that, we have to look beyond politics and engage in the black arts of psychology and sociology. Labour has been pushing the British people's buttons for a decade until they make it look easy. The Conservatives don't even know where those buttons are. Sadly, until the IMF once more sends in the bailiffs' men, none of those buttons will be labelled "economics".

Telegraph | Opinion | Ditch Livingstone

North East Wales | No action over sex victim naming

Like all State Organs, the police are a producer monopoly. Once the naieve enthusiasm of the new copper wears off, the "customers" can easily become a mere irritation.

Brunstrom, the Ayatollah of the speed camera, is a particularly nasty piece of work. He is a careerist who is unlikely to let any concern for the public get in the way of his advance. Anyone with an ounce of decency would never have considered naming the child victim of a sex attack. Anyone in the private sector who strayed so far beyond the Pale would resign or be fired. Not so in public "service".

A quick and heartless apology to the victim and her family, and the whole thing is over, the perks and pensions paid for by those who live by sterner rules as secure as ever.

BBC NEWS | Wales | North East Wales | No action over sex victim naming

Hamas condemns 'hasty' aid cuts

If their voters had anything to say on the matter would the USA or the countries of the EU ever have donated any money to the Palestinians? They are not our strongest enemies, thank God, but they are certainly the most hostile. Who can forget their demonstration for Saddam Hussein during Gulf War I or their celebrations on the streets after 9/11. They hate us with all their meagre force. Why in the name of all that's sane would we feed them? Let their Muslim brothers do it.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Hamas condemns 'hasty' aid cuts

Agent's death 'won't stall peace'

This "agent" has paid with his life for his service to the Crown as an infiltrator of a terrorist organisation. His killing by that organisation (who else?) "will not stall the peace process." Of course not. It draws attention however, to the interesting difference between a "peace process" and "peace".

Nothing, I suspect, will now induce any loyal British Muslims to accept similar roles in our Islamist terrorist groups. Having seen the retirement plan, they are unlikely to find the other terms and conditions attractive. This is sad, as such infiltration is our best hope of protecting ourselves against terrorist attacks in future. It would be much more effective than the Government's other ideas.

New Labour is prepared to trash our every liberty for its "War on Terror". New Labour has only recently established its new Secret Police, with the cuddly acronym SOCA and all kinds of interesting and "exciting" powers. New Labour's leader specialises in grim, determined soundbites about terrorist threats. How come no-one points out the hypocrisy of all this in the context of New Labour's abject surrender to Sinn Fein/IRA? A surrender so total, that they are prepared to allow their people to be tortured and killed without a murmur of protest.

A "peace process" with such murderous thugs is a joke, not to mention a national humiliation. I don't suppose for a second that our new secret police will be ordered to deal summarily with the men who killed Denis Donaldson. They are far more likely, I fear, to come for you or me.

BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Agent's death 'won't stall peace'

'Busy Blair' stakes claim for two more years at No 10

So that's OK then. Another fake row, and Blair goes on, ruefully acknowledging that he's not very popular. But never fear, because Gordon is on the way. What tosh. The Prime Minister said it was a soap opera - and he is right. He should know, as he and Brown are the co-writers.

Telegraph | News | 'Busy Blair' stakes claim for two more years at No 10

Leaders set for 'anti-sleaze' talk

Don't you just love the way that talks about voting taxpayers' money to fund political parties are headlined as being "anti-sleaze" talks? It's classic Orwellian doublespeak. What could be more sleazy than the members of private organisations who happen to be in politics voting subsidies to those organisations?

In a parallel development, I understand that members of the criminal community in London are meeting today to discuss how to reduce burglary. A spokesman said "It is deplorable that so many hard-working young people are caught up in a cycle of drugs, burglary and other crime. We suggest that a voluntary code of criminal conduct be adopted, whereby burglars will agree not to steal more than £100,000 worth of goods in a given year, in return for which taxpayers will agree to provide free drugs or otherwise make good the burglars' financial losses. This is a win-win situation for society, which will reduce crime figures by addressing the causes of crime in a constructive way".

Leaders set for 'anti-sleaze' talks | the Daily Mail

No rift with Brown, says Blair

I have never believed in the Blair/Brown soap opera. It's too convenient. I am sure that Blair and Brown agreed on a handover, but I think their plan was to run with Blair until, as inevitably happens in politics, his popularity fades.

Voter fatigue sets in after a decade, and suddenly a PM who can do no wrong, can do no right. At that point, historically, his party "gets it" too. I suspect that the "Granita Plan" was to run a fake conflict between the two throughout Blair's stint as PM and then for Brown to "defeat" Blair and take over. That way, the ZaNU Labour reign can continue when Blair is a spent force. In the meantime, a few "leaks" from the "supporters" of the supposed rivals and the soap opera has the ability to put the real Opposition out of the headlines at will.

The perception that the Tories won another election by dumping Margaret Thatcher for the pathetic John Major probably inspired the plan.

By providing its own opposition, New Labour has kept the hopes of the Old Labour voters alive. Brown is no more an authentic Old Labourite than Blair (although with his crabbed and miserable looks he seems more like it). He will get a new "honeymoon" period from the Labour Party when Blair goes. If the handover is judiciously timed, the honeymoon will include an election and an historic fourth term.

I am not sure Britain's economy can survive that; still less what remains of our liberties.

No rift with Brown, says Blair | the Daily Mail

The Database State rolls up its sleeves

Thanks to my special correspondent Will Dean for the following web pages; one from before the weekend, and one after. It looks like the Government has been reading my mind. As one of over 10,000 people who have pledged to go to jail rather than carry ZaNU Labour's ID Card or be registered on its database, I had in mind to extend my international career by renewing my passport early. From the before and after Web Pages (click on them to enlarge), you can see the Government is determined to prevent people doing that. They want us on the database, and sooner rather than later.

A dangerous lust for power

How bad must things be that the Observer, the "Sunday Pravda" of Britain's Left, should write in such terms? I have to say this leader column hits the nail on the head.

The Observer | Politics | A dangerous lust for power

'Tony's crony' says his friend is not finished

As I predicted, House of Lords "reform" will be accompanied by a diminution in the Upper House's powers. Falconer is an intelligent man. When he makes the simplistic statement that "you don't want an election on the same day with identical results", he does so because it is obviously ridiculous, the more easily to knock it down. He disposes of the idea of an elected Upper House or Senate by disposing of one ridiculous way of achieving it. Then he moves on.

It says a lot about his view of the electorate, that he assumes we know nothing about bicameral legislatures in other countries, where perfectly sensible approaches are adopted to avoid such a stupid situation.

He was turned down as a Labour candidate for Parliament because he refused to withdraw his children from private schools. He knows how pathetic is the State education system his Party designed and defends. I assume he is relying on that system to deliver him voters so stupid that they can't see through his transparent devices.

New Labour has exposed the weakness in our Constitution. For centuries, our only protection from tyranny has been the robust character of our members of parliament. Historically, they were often financially-independent, independent-minded individuals who were difficult to manage and manipulate. Today, they are usually career politicians with an eye for advancement. As their promotion depends entirely on their Party leader, and as the party whips act on the leader's orders, they have become cravenly submissive.

Rather than genuinely scrutinising, reviewing and debating new legislation, they vote as they are directed. That is how it is possible for a headline in "The Sun" to lead to a new, ill-thought-through and damaging law within days or weeks.

We need an Upper House to review legislation generated in such a shambolic way by a House of Commons which has been neutered and corrupted in this way. That is the reason why the unelected mess of an Upper House we have at present appears to be doing such a good job; it is by contrast to the pathetic performance of the House of Commons. Blair's and Falconer's proposed "reforms" are not designed to make Parliament function better. They are not designed to create a system for intelligent drafting, debate and review of new law. They are designed to neuter the Upper House as the Labour Party has already neutered the House of Commons.

We need a constitution which defends the people from fly-legislating; from laws made hastily for political effect - to buy a headline at the price of lost liberties and increased costs. I have no idea - under our present constitutional arrangements - how that can be achieved without violence.

Telegraph | News | 'Tony's crony' says his friend is not finished