Chris Huhne -Minister without Portfolio

I always thought that the title 'Minister Without Portfolio' was odd, though perhaps a typical and endearing English eccentricity. However, having a 'Climate Change' Minister with supposed responsibility for Energy is today a stranger title, bearing in mind climate change is the man made bit and Huhne doesn't appear to have any energy strategy. Under Huhne, lots of people get rich putting up useless wind turbines and fortunes are spent on solar panels that will repay the owner after they are dead. However, we are going to close down our proper energy supplies (under EU direction -referendum please) and so have no way of, as they say, keeping the lights on.

Now it seems Huhne may have illegally avoided a speeding offence by getting someone else to take the points for him. It seems absolutely in keeping with the character of the man who has left the 'Energy' department in idle, whilst perhaps putting some effort into establishing wealth for a small band, that I'm sure he will have connections to. They always do and particularly so if they are of a left leaning persuasion.

Alternative Voting

AV is a scam. It is a ruse to take real democracy out of the hands of voters and I believe will be used as a stepping stone to further erosions of democracy. What is wrong with a system that gives the person with the most votes the winners rosette anyway? On AV it has to be NO. And with no second preference.

Trusting Scientists

I find the recent bleating of scientists about how no-one trusts them any more, quite feeble. The poor luvs, they just do their best and people think they are lying, that they are not very good at their jobs. Bless. It is true that for quite some time, during an era of rapid technological achievement, we have come to view scientists as benign and wholly committed to their studies, to producing things that amaze us and move human civilisation forwards. Lovely people in fact. People who are only motivated by science.

Then we get Global Warming or Climate Change as they now prefer (can be used in any situation then). There is science in there but most of what affects us is driven by politics. Scientists have chosen a path and will not be diverted, so they lie about their 'science' and act hurt when someone challenges it. Is AGW a lie? Well, if a 'scientist' tells you that it is a 'settled matter' and must not be investigated further, you do not need to be a genius to know you are being sold a pup. Since when did science ever declare a subject as perfectly known and beyond further research? It is against the essence of science, yet it is the very position of the Royal Society.

And we should also remember what scientists did during WW2 in Germany, totally of their own free will. Scientists are not wholly wonderful people of unimpeachable character. And certainly when science and ideology are combined the child will be a monster.

Bin Laden Still Dead

There is something not quite right about the recent 'Gotcha' with the killing of millionaire recluse Osama bin Laden. See, when Raoul Moat was shot, I didn't need to see the bodies, with holes, to be convinced as there was enough circumstantial evidence. Now I know the order of importance is somewhat different here, but the whole thing was videoed so surely there is footage to prove it was the nutter himself, without having to show us the gory bits. All this, 'yep we got him, definitely him, but we won't show you any kind of substantive evidence and we disposed of the body at sea. Really quickly', just doesn't wash. This we are to take on trust, but from people who have also said he used his wife as a human shield, quickly followed by no he didn't. So which bits are made up and which bits true?

I also liked the dithering bit. Obama has a reputation for not being keen on making definitive decisions, you know, ones that he could be held responsible for. Kind of makes you wonder if he really thought through being President, what with the way the job spec. for that role reads. 16 hours I hear; he spent 16 hours deliberating on what to do once he knew where Osama was. See how you do. The question was, 'we have found the location of the most wanted man in the world, the man who committed the worst atrocity in US history. Should we go get him?' You can see the difficulty can't you?

And so it comes back to trust. The Left managed to sow the line that Bush was as thick cold custard and comedians repeat it endlessly, but we don't hear that about Obama, despite all the evidence. Now this might be because he isn't actually dumb. or because it is only the Left who think slurs are the best way to conduct intelligent politics. Obama doesn't strike me as being all that reliable, which is why I see him as no more than a US version of Tony Blair (it doesn't get worse than that). If I could borrow a Left tactic for a moment then; those still pictures showing an enrapt Obama might just be the military showing him the Chris Morris movie 'Four Lions'.

I think bin Laden is dead, but something tells me that the recent 'event' isn't all that we are being sold. He may not have been killed there or there maybe something they need to hide regarding the way he was killed. I don't know, but the more you think about it the more questions arise. If the Pakistani's didn't know anything about the raid, how come there was no armed opposition from their military when four very noisy helicopters drop from the sky and then there is considerable mayhem and shooting? Particularly when a military facility was so close at hand?

Bin Laden Dead

So the news is in that Osama bin Laden has been presented with the opportunity to discuss murder with his Creator. I see no reason to cheer at the death of any human being, but it is highly likely that the death of this man will mean others will live. It was not an opposing ideology he represented but an emptiness, a vacuum of thought, just I suspect as with any other simple murderer. Osama was we should remember, a bored millionaire playboy for whom killing became his entertainment. I don't think he was mad and killed from the clouded thoughts of an unclear mind, I think he was absolutely clear on what he was doing. Not least because he was so keen that someone else did the dangerous stuff.

The organisation he built up though could not succeed just because of the support of a bunch of easily led simpletons and idiots, but because those he opposed were weak. Political Correctness above all showed that the pathetic weakness of the Left was taking the upper hand in the West and that we couldn't oppose a blancmange. Ideologically the West was becoming corrupt and debased. The lack of care for family, the removal of personal discipline and standards, of care for others and of humility was undermining our own strengths. Strengths that came from a Christian values (and I don't mean you needed to be religious). Overwhelmingly however, the weakness was manifested in the likes of Blair who constantly showed that he would surrender to terrorism on certain conditions. One was that he personally could become enriched and the other was fear, which is why he gave in to the IRA. Neville Chamberlain showed Hitler that he didn't need to fear his 'enemies' and Blair continued that weak tradition of behalf of Britain.

In the US, with an election looming, Obama inserts into to announcements about the killing that he ordered it, so ultimately all praise is due to him. This very Blair-like behaviour shows how deeply mired the US is in a Presidential cult, where Obama sees himself as more important than any other aspect of his country or it's government. They need to rid themselves of parasites as we did.

But regarding this killing of Al Qaeda's murderer-in-chief, we must wait to see what comes next from the deeply conflicted heartlands of Pakistan.

New Labour and the Nazis

There is a current fashion to say that any mention of Hitler in a commentary immediately invalidates it as being written by a nutter and the view will be wrong. I'll run the risk.

I am reading Richard J Evans superb book, The Third Reich at War and it has some very interesting points, for more contemporary events. When the Nazis invaded Poland they viewed the Poles as sub human and Jews some way below that. We know of course that Hitler wanted territory to plant Germans in for a Greater Reich, something known as lebensraum. But to ensure its safety and survival he had to destroy this land of sub humans. His targets (aside from just killing large numbers of people) were, to reduce education to a very basic level, to undermine the basic infrastructure for the ghettos of non-Germans, through continuing propaganda to instill hatred of 'the others' and to destroy the culture of the captured land.

Compare this with the main projects of New Labour. After 13 years of intervention, children now leave school with abysmally low levels of education. Standards are constantly lowered and the cry that 'all shall go to University' is not about increasing intelligence but rather undermining and destroying universities as institutions. Removing their excellence. In the area of basic infrastructure, the State now runs a political police and a public sector that is gleefully detached from the population, enforcing petty rules and with no mechanism for complaint or satisfaction. Hospitals have been destroyed from within, no longer even recognising that making people better is any part of their remit. The NHS is a bureaucracy run for the sake of the bureaucracy. New Labour also relentlessly pushed 'class hatred' as if it was some identifiable element in 21st century Britain. Often they inhabit the class and certainly adopt the manners and privileges they claim to despise. Class hatred is the same as and just as pointless as racial hatred. For New Labour it is just a tool, not a position. And also, Blair and his New Labour project through the empty policy of multiculturalism and by forcing unlimited immigration on the nation sought to eradicate any sense of a British identity, to destroy our culture.

Clearly, New Labour were and are intent on forming a dictatorship here that works only for Party members and its followers, by removing any ability for an opposition to form. Equally clearly, New Labour are actually the idiots themselves that they imagine we are. But then, Hitler did some unimaginable things and no-one seriously objected, no-one stopped him. No-one seemed to think his monstrous acts were all that bad. Hitler got away with it. So New Labour remain hopeful for their project. Perhaps Miliband's support for the violence at the recent 'cuts' demonstration (though there hadn't been any cuts) indicates again their focus.

Switchover

So, this region has now had 'digital switchover'. Whoopee do. We now receive television exclusively via digital signal. What does this mean in practice? Well I have had to buy an enhanced aerial for my portable telly and a 'set top box'. I have Sky for the main set so nothing has changed there. Except, Sky do rather like you to leave your box switched on (in standby) so they can still access it. Similarly the other box is left in standby, though I do unplug the transformer for the aerial. So, extra purchases and extra electricity usage, that will please the eco-nazis.

Did I ask for digital? No. So how come a purely commercial decision, that digital appeals to the broadcasters, become backed by the force of government? Who knows. For Freeview, which will be the best option for many people who were completely happy with the previous provision you really need a rooftop aerial and bigger than that required by the old analogue system. Such is progress.

The question remains why? If it hadn't been forced on us we wouldn't have adopted it, so it was not for the service of customers, it was entirely profit driven. I suppose businesses are run by voters, but they do seem to have some remarkable clout, for a small segment. It is what should be expected in a country that lives by the code; a government of the people, run for the sponsors by the politicians.