WHAT IS SACROSANCT ABOUT OVERSEES AID?

Many unpopular decisions will have to be taken by this duel government of ours in the fight to reduce our nation's economic deficit.

We are in great difficulties and need to show the financial markets that we are willing to go the distance in doing what is required to stabilize our economy by a program of debt reduction; and most public departments have been told to garner a 25 per cent reduction from their expenditure. But one department in particular has escaped the Axe.

The Oversees Development Budget now stands at £9 billion a year and has been ring-fenced while our Defense Budget has to go through yet another review that will ultimately result in further cuts to our armed forces.

If this country needs to make reductions in public expenditure, then first of all external expenditure must take the brunt until our economy recovers, at which time we can resume our tax-payers largess. This is why this government's decision to ring-fence our overseas aid budget is so wrong.

As a nation we must look after our own first and foremost in times of difficulty, where our own elderly, poor and disabled, will have to face various cuts and freezes; and where our armed forces will face yet another revenue driven defence revue.

It now seems to many people that the oversees aid budget has been given priority over the defence of the realm. The ring-fencing off any particular government department's finances should never have been contemplated in the first place, and I cannot understand why this duel-government never refused to stand by the previous government's decision.

As this deficit reduction program begins to hurt the many it has been found necessary to hurt, then they will cast a more critical eye over the ring-fencing of oversees aid; and as a consequence they will resent its very presence on the menu of public expenditure.

The politicians should have told the people that nothing should be considered inviolate when it came to saving our economy. By ring fencing oversees aid, the people could be forgiven for wondering where our duel-government's priorities lay; and when they find out that some of the 'tiger economies' in the Far East are in receipt of tax payer's money as part of the aid budget, will not their simmering resentment turn to outright anger?

THE FRAUD OF INCAPACITY IS ALSO A POLITICAL FRAUD

There is talk today of targeting disability benefits in the battle to reduce our £150-70 billion deficit. Such talk will undoubtedly attract criticism from the Left within all parties as well as the usual croaking from special-interest groups.

The first of these benefits to be targeted will be Incapacity Benefit (once known as Invalidity Benefit). It is about time something was done to reduce the numbers in receipt of this politically exploited benefit.

According to figures printed in today's Financial Times, the cost to the taxpayer of servicing the Incapacity budget is now £12.5 billion a year; and the numbers receiving it have trebled since the 1970s when the claimant count was 700,000. How could such a benefit have attracted such an increase in claimant numbers when the economy has grown, and we have had near full employment; while modern medicine has long since abandoned the poultice? How come the claimant figures have trebled to nearly 2.1 million? What kind of health calamity befell our population in the decades following the 1970s to justify such an increase in numbers?

The truth is, is that our politicians already know that this benefit has been abused by an estimated one million of its claimants, but little has been done (or has wanted to be done) by our politicians to redress this massive fraud upon the hard working people who pay their taxes in the belief that they will be spent wisely by whatever government is in power.

I wrote above that this was a 'politically exploited' benefit. What I meant by this was that politicians of all parties are as culpable as those who falsely succeeded in claiming it. This has been because all of the claimants were automatically removed from the unemployment statistics once they 'qualified' for the benefit: and, politically speaking, we all know what matters most to all of our governments - the unemployment statistics.

It all started back in the 1980s with the Thatcher government and has been continued with by every government since, until, hopefully, now.

What I speak of was a deliberate policy of reducing the employment count by transferring claimants from one benefit to another. By so doing the unemployment figures dropped steadily. So there was no outbreak of all forms of medical infirmity among the the UK's population between the 1970s and today; only the political wiles of our representatives.

If, as I believe they should, cheats and fraudsters should be taken off this benefit, then the politicians should at least acknowledge their own part in the overall fraud committed against the tax payer regarding the implementation of the earlier Invalidity Benefit, as well as the modern Incapacity Benefit.

THE WEST'S LATEST CHALLENGE

If President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron start announcing dates for the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, then, as someone who has supported the West's fight against the Taliban as well as our presence in that country in order to so do - I would sooner that we pull out immediately than have our leaders announcing to the Taliban the delivery date for their takeover.

Consider how the morale of the Taliban has been lifted by such announcements; and how (they will tell themselves), if they just stick it out for few more months or years, the country will be theirs once again, but with the added prestige of beating the infidel West as the icing on the cake.

What, in effect, President Obama's announcement of his intention of starting troop withdrawals from next year means, is that every allied soldier killed between now and then will have truly died for nothing except to meet the requirements of a politician's electoral calender.

To camouflage any withdrawal as well as our disgrace, we are being promised by our leaders that the mentoring of an Afghanistan army will have progressed to such a state that when we leave, the newly trained Afghan army will be able to succeed where we failed, and defeat the Taliban.

No Western politician finds this scenario remotely plausible, but are all so desperate for the problem of Afghanistan to go away. Their public rhetoric is indeed Winstonian and will remain so right up to our retreat. But in private they are desperate to find a way out that they can sell; if not as a victory, then as some kind of success.

It is not the first time that the ordinary soldier will have been used by politicians - all you have to do is read your Kipling. But this time we are not fighting a colonial war where we have to hold on to the territories we grabbed for the sake of Empire. We are in Afghanistan because the country represents the most important of many fronts against extreme Islam. The other fronts comprise Israel as well as parts of those Islamic communities living amongst us in the UK as well as the rest of Europe.

If you think the latter front is in anyway a racist observation, then ask why Turkey is still waiting to join the European Community? Indeed, Turkey has recently shown a desire to join the Islamic main stream through frustration at Europe's ambivalence to her membership. She knows where she is not wanted and so once more seeks to play her historical role at Islam's centre in the modern world.

The West is experiencing the worst economic crisis in modern history, and under such an avalanche of needed sacrifice, it is natural that the economy rises to the top of our politician's agenda - if only (once again) for electoral purposes. But to wish away the most immediately threatening ideological problem since communism, in order to concentrate upon an economic one that can be managed internally, is like comparing bowls with cricket.

It is my fear that if we fabricate what we will try to sell as a 'withdrawal' rather than a retreat from Afghanistan, the Islamic world will quite naturally and rightly seek their advantage.

What this may mean is that those Islamic countries who now support the West will be tested with threats from their own people. Thus we may see Egypt as well as Jordan, to name but two Western friendly Arab nations being threatened by Islamic fundamentalism.

The whole Islamic world will change if we fail in Afghanistan. To the Islamic world any withdrawal, under any terms, that leads to the retreat of Western forces from Afghanistan, will make it seem possible for their ambition to conquer the West a reality

A TAX ON ALL YOUR HOUSES

Today is the day of the emergency budget. The Chancellor, George Osborn, will announce cuts in public expenditure, as well as increases in indirect taxes such as VAT, alcohol and tobacco. To say that this will be an unpopular budget only states a commonplace of almost every budget, even in a good year.

Everybody knows, or should know by now, that this country is in a financial mess. We are carrying £180 billion of debt, and we all know that if we do not tackle it our children and grandchildren face an awful future as citizens of what was once a proud and successful nation; but will have been set upon the road of regression and impotency, where the likes of Portugal and Greece, rely upon stronger economies to continually bail them out.

The public sector unions have threatened to resurrect the 1970s and bring chaos once more onto our streets. For those of you who were not around at the time, it had its appeal to young leftists like myself, who enjoyed seeing the proletariat with their boots pressing hard on the necks of a weakened management; and seeing managements from all sectors kowtow to this militancy. 'Red Robbo' in Birmingham and Arthur Scargill in South Yorkshire played their enthusiastic part in this country's humiliation culminating in a British government . . . .a British government; going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund to bail us out.

The unions then were politically motivated; they either wanted a Left-wing Labour government, or a more purer form of socialism unadulterated by democracy, known as Marxism. To these people the working class were merely a means to an end, and they nearly achieved that end. But British people declared that enough was enough by voting in, not only the first woman prime minister, but a Tory one at that. Margaret Thatcher brought in new industrial relation laws to bring union militancy into line, and she has never been forgiven to this day, for so doing. Yet she gave this country another chance to succeed in the world by binging in the tough measures George Osborn finds it necessary to replicate in today's budget.

If we chose to go once more the way of the 1970s, it will spell our end as an entrepreneurial nation for such talent will be driven abroad. If the changes needed to lower the deficit prove unacceptable to this nation then the consequences will be dire. If we cannot 'suck it up' as the Americans say, and make the sacrifices needed, the markets will respond in the appropriate fashion.

The public sector in this country suffers from clinical obesity. It is fed on taxpayers money, and figures announced last week suggested that a worker employed in the private sector works nine years longer over a lifetime than one working in the public sector. The public sector also has a jobs for life culture with a generous pension at the end.

The public sector needs culling, with the exceptions of the NHS, Education and Defence. This does not mean that these ring fenced services should not face job cuts; but only that they should be made selectively and prudently without effecting the performance of each sector.

The welfare state, once a safety net, has grown into a supermarket of benefits, many of which are stolen from the shelves by fraudsters. The first step should be to freeze all benefits with the exception of state pensions. Then a closer look should be taken at Incapacity Benefit. This is the benefit that politicians from all parties have allowed a claimant increase to occur in order to disguise the unemployment figures; thus to circumvent the greatest curse to befall any democratic government - unpopularity.

The argument has been made by this government's opponents that any reduction of the public debt should wait until next year, thus giving the recovery the chance to take root. The city seems to agree that by acting now on the deficit, the recovery may suffer somewhat, but by starting to trim the deficit now this country will show the rest of the world that we are serious, and that it is not mere political rhetoric, as seems to be the case in many parts of Europe.

We are at a crossroads: we can turn to the past out of anger, envy and resentment; or realise that the medicine has to be taken. Marx said that 'history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce'. I hope this does not prove to be the case in the coming weeks and months following this budget.

THE VUVUZELA

The BBC has received 545 complaints about the vuvuzela, that soul destroying 'musical instrument' invented by the Afrikaana to torture Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, and now being deployed by the South African people at the World Cup as a device for world conquest. The bagpipes, I am told, have been labelled a weapon of war by the Geneva Convention. If this is indeed true, then the vuvuzela should go into partnership with the bagpipes: with such a combination, who knows what conquests South Africa and Scotland could achieve?

In the coming weeks following the end of this tournament, it is my guess that, one way or another, the vuvuzela will wash up on our shores BP-like, and neighborhoods will be plagued by children deliberately setting out to annoy, especially the old and retired, on numerous housing estates. The police will be called out to deal with many complaints, while burglars will be free to go about their business unmolested due to the vuvuzela's popularity.

As an English supporter (God help me) as well as a football supporter (the two do not necessarily go together), I have had to sit through the continuous drone that is the backdrop to every game televised. Those 545 people who have complained to the BBC are a tiny minority of those like-minded viewers who have had to put up with the cacophony. How can these users of the vuvuzela possibly be interested in the game they are supposed to be watching? These instruments require such an effort on behalf of their users to make their presence felt. All concentration must, during the course of 90 minuets, be sacrificed to the wretched vuvuzela instead of the game.

The Western broadcasters are sensitive to the 'South African (rainbow) experience', and the BBC in particular, have so far managed to make light of the vuvuzela despite the 545 complaints which, in the scheme of things, they can readily ignore.

Such is the fear of racist accusations, that the the whole of the Western Media is in hock to political correctness. Thus the torturous vuvuzela is being treated so lightly; as would the bagpipes if Scotland ever managed to host the World Cup without finances from England.

FIFA has refused to countenance a ban on the vuvuzela for reasons given above. This footballing body is well attuned to the sensitivities of those other countries, in what was once known as the the third world, but is now known as the developing world. Every member of every media institution within the West has political correctness tattooed upon their arms in place of mother.

The host country, South Africa, never sought or wished for any favors from the politically correct Western media. But the vuvuzela is one hindrance to far. The British people were not only glad, but were looking forward to South Africans hosting of the World Cup. If ever there were a nation that, in the point of view of the UK's people, deserved to host the World Cup, then it was indeed South Africa. But this instrument of torture is spoiling many an Englishmen's enjoyment of this tournament, having never been expected to be made familiar with the vuvuzela.

The vuvuzela is a diabolical invention by.... who? It does not matter who the wretched entrepreneur was who came up with such a monotonous drone; it is sufficient that he or she seeks profit from the World Cup. In so doing it may be that the main beneficiary of the vuvuzela will be Great Britain itself. For I can see next seasons Premier League being drowned out by this childish instrument.

A noise is a noise, but because it emanated from the Rainbow Nation, I can imagine a modern classical composer taking it seriously and being praised to the rafters by critics for his composition based upon the subtleties of the instrument that has passed the rest of us by.

The vuvuzela is a fairground toy which all Western commentators on the World Cup, from whichever nation they represent, are afraid to disparage outright. So they attempt to humor its existence. I would sooner hear (and I cannot believe I am writing this) the usual foul mouthed obscenities that usually accompany matches in the Premier League on a Saturday afternoon, than this continuous and seemingly endless drone we are being presented with in South Africa. At least our Saturday obscenities contained humor.

BLOODY SUNDAY

The results of the Saville inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday, are due to be published next Tuesday. On January 30, 1972, British paratroopers shot dead 14 civil rights protesters in Londonderry. What the Saville inquiry's conclusions will be, we will have to wait until next Tuesday to find out.

What we do know, is that since Tony Blair announced this inquiry to the commons in 1998, it will have cost the taxpayer nearly £200 million; £100 million of which has gone in solicitors and barristers fees, making, as a direct consequence of such largess, many millionaires within the legal profession.

The only winners are, as usual, the lawyers, who since 1998 have dipped their beaks in that lucrative trough known as the public purse. The victim's families themselves will never be comforted by such financial generosity - and those soldiers involved in the killings, may now face prosecution.

I feel great sympathy for the families of the victims of that terrible day; although, if they were to read what follows, I have no doubt that they will think such an expression somewhat insincere. I cannot imagine their loss and the circumstance surrounding it; but I am capable, through personal experience, of understanding what long ago events have put them through.

But apart from Bloody Sunday, as Douglas Murry has pointed out in today's Mail on Sunday, "What about bloody Omagh, Brighton, [and] Enniskillen......" Today we have Sinn Fein, once the political wing of the IRA, now in government in Northern Ireland as part of a so-called peace and reconciliation process. Gerry Adams, who has far more blood on his hands than any of the paratroopers who were present on Bloody Sunday, is now a minister in the province. Martin McGuinness (who I read was carrying a machine gun on that fateful day), has always been his inseparable Siamese twin, and who is also a minister in the province.

On top of which IRA members have been conditionally released from prison for their crimes, by an amnesty that sought reconciliation within the province. As part of a kind of South African process of peace and reconciliation, the first Blair government brought about the release of many republican inmates, and promised an inquiry into Bloody Sunday. So while many a republican prisoner has been released; and while the province's government is being served by the leaders of the IRA's political wing, five British paratroopers (those found to be most culpable) may now face prosecution for their part in the events of Bloody Sunday: as scapegoats, these five individuals may now find themselves on trial with the possibility of serving a very long prison sentence.

The parachute regiment was deployed by politicians to Northern Ireland, when the province was thought to be on the brink of civil war, and at the time our politicians were desperate and thankful to the Paras for their presence. The regiment is the toughest and boldest in the British Army; it was never intended for the kind of policing action they were given in Londonderry. These are elite front line soldiers whose specialty is aggressive and uncompromising soldering of the kind they displayed in Serra Leone. They are of necessity tough and brutal men (professionally speaking), trained to be placed in the most difficult of situations demanded in warfare.

They should never have been sent to Northern Ireland at that time by their political masters, who now seem to be missing from the cast list of the inquiry. Yet it is they who are far more culpable for what happened on that day in January 1972, than the military. The Paras were ill-used and have now become the scapegoat. The deaths of those demonstrators have satined the reputation of the British army; the Paras may have pulled the triggers but the politicians pointed the guns. They did so by deploying the parachute regiment to carry out such a task in the first place.

The Saville Inquiry's results should prove interesting for the coalition government. Will this government kowtow to republican sentiment in Northern Island as the last Labour government did, and be prepared to prosecute these servicemen if the inquiry demands it? This will be a true test of the coalition over an issue that splits them. If it is decided those paratroopers should be sent to trial, then why not Adams and MacGuinness ?

I know it is very difficult for the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday to accept that those soldiers who killed their loved ones should be allowed to retain their freedom. But in Londonderry on that day, the paratroopers were ill-trained for civilian purpose and inappropriately used. At the time of the Paras deployment I can remember thinking to myself that the then Minister of Defense, Jim Callaghan's decision to deploy military forces in 1969, must have signaled to the Irish republicans a state of panic. But by involving the Paras in Northern Ireland in the first place proved deleterious to the regiments's reputation.

I was at the time a Republican supporter and romantic as far as anything Irish was concerned. But I heard an interesting statistic the other day from someone on Sky News. The British army were responsible for 10% of all deaths during the conflict, while the Unionists were the cause of 30% of all deaths. However the Provisional IRA had the dubious title of killing the most people ( 60%).

If those paratroopers who killed those 14 people on Bloody Sunday, one day find themselves in a court of law, then I hope the British people will make their feelings heard. If Cameron and Clegg accept any finding that promotes these former soldier's prosecution, then I hope for once the people will stand by those to be scapegoated and haunt this coalition out of office.

Polemic: POLITICS OF THE PORK BARREL

Polemic: POLITICS OF THE PORK BARREL

NEVER HAS NATIONHOOD BEEN SOLD SO CHEAPLY

I have always wondered how, in an almost 300 year old democracy like our own, we can have our sovereignty and nationhood taken from us without lifting a hand to defend ourselves. With our history of fighting to maintain our identity; from the Roman, Anglo Saxon and the Norman invasions; to Hitler's attempt in the last century; this island nation has paid heavily to keep us a nation, independent and proud. As the list above suggest we have often lost the argument, but we never contemplated surrender without challenging our conquerors. But it now seems that such national pride has become focused on football rather than our nation's survival.

This piece is not however, about the World Cup. No, it is about how we were finally conquered as a nation, not by armies, but by that modern phenomenon, the bureaucrat. For the politicians of this country have collectively betrayed its history and the many hundreds of thousands who died creating it. They did so by first of all signing a plethora of agreements that would eventually rescind our very nationhood. I speak of course of our membership of the European Union, and how this island people were lied into compliance with that rescinding.

None of the main British political parties are blameless. They have all come round to the idea of European federalism, and the ultimate destruction of the European nation state. The political class of course cannot come out and say what they know to be true because, particularly in this country, there would, one hopes, be opposition to such an eventuality. As a Euro-sceptic nation, our politicians have to show levels of deviousness that perhaps other members on the continent need not trouble themselves with.

We had, for instance, the last government denying us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, despite a manifesto promise to do so. Now I see that the European Commission is demanding that every nation has to present them with their budgets before they announce them to their respective parliaments and people.

The rope around our citizen's necks is becoming ever tighter. Soon our main parties will have delivered us into the arms of a United States of Europe. At which point our vote at national elections will be pointless. Our parliament will become nothing more than a super county council, overseen and overridden by Brussels; just as today our local councils can be overridden by our national parliament.

The nation state must be protected; its powers must never be challenged by any institution other than its national parliament. This formula is and has always been the bedrock of any democracy. If we were to succumbed to what our political elite requires of us, our franchise will be rendered meaningless because of its impotence within a Federal state of Europe.

If we cannot exist on our own in the world then it is up to our politicians, from whatever of the main parties, to explain just why they think we cannot survive without our incorporation into a federal Europe - their explanation will at least allow the people to make judgement.

Over the past few months the European currency has come under sustained pressure from the financial markets; Greece, Spain and Portugal (none of whom should ever have been allowed to join in the first place), are all facing social unrest because of the unpopular decisions having to be made by their respective governments, in order to reduce their large deficits.

Yet, given all of this, our politicians still cling to the hope that we will one day join the Euro. Even at the height of the markets assault on the Euro, Peter Mandelson refused to abandon his infatuation with the wretched single currency by letting it be known that we would one day be joining it.

The European Union is corrupt and has a shaky democratic foundation. The European parliament is a very expensive debating chamber whose members surpass even our own parliament in creative accountancy when it comes to their expenses. Whereas, in some European countries (particularly in the south), a scandal actually equates too paying your taxes.

This whole misadventure was meant to remedy the continents historical legacy of conflict. I can understand why the likes of Ted Heath, one of the main architects of closer political Union was so determined to bring this country closer to Europe. Like many of his political contemporaries, he fought in the bloodiest of all European conflicts and was determined not to see a repetition.

Today in our schools, the Second World War is part of the history curriculum, but whether it is aimed at the understanding of history, or is used to promote European Union is, to me, debatable. But no matter how idealistic the motives, there will always be conflict on the continent of Europe, and it will on occasion spill over, as it has done in the past, into military conflict. For the European Union will be just as open to European alliances as the Europe of nation states.

European nation states evolved almost Darwinian-like into their cultural entities. For centuries we had a lose arrangement of self interest between nations. Alliances were formed based upon the perceived national interest of each nation and their culture. This, despite contemporary opinion, worked

The Second World War, following upon its predecessor caused a general rethinking of this status. It is due to these two earthshaking events that it was concluded that Europe must become One - a superstate to rival America. This appealed to both Germany and France. For France it captured the spirit of the code Napoleon. For a modern Germany it would mean an end to its assertiveness, the kind that lead to two world wars.

Europe is and can remain the greatest free trade area in the world. But only if each country is left with its own independent future, free from the collective idealism that haunted communism. Friendship and alliances are better than forced marriages.

If we as a nation, are intent upon our national insolvency through European Union, then do it so democratically through a national referendum, and be honest with the voter. If our politicians favour a Federal Europe, then let them persuade the electorate through a referendum, instead of this dishonest creep, creep toward our national demise that has been the pattern knitted by our politicians for the past 35 years.

Polemic: WOODLEY - WELL TANNED AND READY FOR ACTION

Polemic: WOODLEY - WELL TANNED AND READY FOR ACTION

Polemic: Israel - The Thermopylae of Western Culture

Polemic: Israel - The Thermopylae of Western Culture

Polemic: ARM EITHER THE POLICE OR THE CITIZEN - ARMING NEITHER WILL NO LONGER DO

Polemic: ARM EITHER THE POLICE OR THE CITIZEN - ARMING NEITHER WILL NO LONGER DO

Polemic: IMMIGRATION AS SOCIAL ENGINEERING

Polemic: IMMIGRATION AS SOCIAL ENGINEERING

ARM EITHER THE POLICE OR THE CITIZEN - ARMING NEITHER WILL NO LONGER DO

Following the appalling events in Cumbria last week, talk has once more turned toward banning guns, as it did after Hungerford and Dunblane. We probably have the strictest gun laws of any other country (certainly on the European continent). Yet gun crime has, if anything, increased since the law on gun ownership was tightened after Dunblane. But it seems that those wanting a total ban on gun ownership will not be satisfied until the legitimate gun owners are disarmed, leaving only the criminal armed.

Derek Bird was a legitimate gun owner who went off the rails and slaughtered 12 people and wounded over twenty others. But given his state of mind, he would have gone to any lengths to achieve his end. Unlike those who use guns in our inner cities, Bird can legitimately claim insanity as a motive for his deranged behaviour.

It is not the legitimate gun owner whose numbers, I read, surpass the million mark, who cause the real damage to society; but the drug gangs who will still manage to come by their weapons whether a total ban is in force or not. Derek Bird took with him a .22 rifle and a shotgun, while the drug gangs use Uzi machine guns and powerful hand guns, none of which would ever be licensed to a legal owner. Between now and this time next year dozens of people will be killed by illegal gun owners, yet, because their numbers will be spread over 12 months, no debate about ownership will take place. Only when a legitimate owner goes bad, do we once more debate a full ban.

It seems to me that when gun crime is on the increase, people want to disarm the ordinary citizen. Only a liberal society such as ours could countenance such twisted logic. In America it is within the constitution that every citizen has the right to bare arms. For if the state cannot fulfill its part of the social contract with the people, then the people themselves have the right to protect themselves and their families.

I do not blame Cumbria police, but some of those deaths could have been avoided. I believe that had this scenario been played out in America, the police would have eliminated Derek Bird and saved some of the lives Bird put paid to. For in America all of the police are armed, as they are in many other parts of Europe.

But we still like to see the traditional unarmed bobby on the beat approach - the police themselves also prefer it. This attitude can only encourage the criminal in the modern world. Until 1920 every citizen had the right to gun ownership, except the police. Believe it or not the crime statistics involving guns were lower then than they are now. They were lower because the citizen was given the right to protect his or herself from assault. On top of which the criminal faced the ultimate penalty for murder.

The families of those killed by David Bird should, when they have finished grieving for beloved ones, campaign for the police to be fully and properly armed if they wish such a tragedy never to unfold in the future. At the same time there must be a change in attitude toward arming the police from the police themselves. They have an ambivalence to a fully armed police force, but if such a measure is not forthcoming then the people can no longer be protected by the state, and as in America, the people will demand the right to protect themselves.

A total ban on every fire arm would not stop the criminal, but would leave the ordinary citizen unprotected by the state. I would sooner take my chances with a gun in the event of an armed burglar entering my house, than just wait upon whatever fate the burglar decided for me. At least the armed burglar would think twice before entering a property illegally.

The right to self protection should be enshrined in every constitution whether it be a written one or not. If our police force refuse to be armed, then for our own self protection, we the citizen must be given the chance to protect ourselves. We cannot go on waiting for the next atrocity to take place, accompanied by the next rubbing of hands and the media circus.

Israel - The Thermopylae of Western Culture

Israel's three year embargo of the Gaza Strip has to continue, despite the pressure being placed upon her by the West. It is of particular concern that the Obama administration has now come out in support of such a ban, followed, as usual, by the UK.

First of all, the ban itself has been put in place for sound military and political reasons by Israel. It exists for the protection of the state of Israel. The threat is real; the shipments of more sophisticated weaponry, including missiles from Iran that can target any city or town in Israel being unleashed upon the Israeli people is a real possibility; a possibility the West has, for the past three years believed would happen, if the embargo were ever cancelled.

Now the so-called friends of Israel seem not to believe that such threat any longer exists, or else why would they demand (in, of course, the language of the diplomat) the abandoning of the embargo?

Well, for one reason, Turkey (a NATO member) has started to turn her back on the West and toward the Muslim world. Having been kept waiting for so long at the alter of European entry, she has decided that her national interest is be better served within her own religious community.

Last week it was a Turkish vessel, the Mavi Marmara that caused so much embarrassment to Israel and led to Western demands for the abandoning of Israel's blockade. The Mavi Marmara was the Turkish government's way of getting the West's attention. This act, if the West's response is anything to go by, succeeded beyond expectation. All Western governments took heed and, after three years of almost silence on Israel's embargo, they promptly sought to retract Israel's claws.

At one point the media picked up and briefly ran with a story out of Jordan that suggested that the Turkish president would join the next flotilla, surrounded by the Turkish navy. This must have caused quite a bit of hair-tugging within the Western political and diplomatic community. The story captivated Sky television, until an Israeli spokesman told them what they should have already known; that such a source was unreliable.

The threat to Israel is real, but the West has now been warned by Turkey that her ambitions may, after all, lay elsewhere; and this sends a shiver down the spines of Western politicians. Because our politicians in Europe, have allowed a population of over 15 million Muslims to live among us. This was allowed to happen in Europe, because Left of centre 'progressive' governments felt a colonial guilt that demanded to be recompensed.

Turkey has suddenly become what the West feared - a major Muslim power which, should she so choose, become the leader of a Muslim axis partnering Iran and Syria in opposition to the West. Such a combination of opponents for the West, with their indigenous populations of disenchanted Muslim communities, would pose a challenge we in Europe at least, would not be able to meet without succumbing, as the Archbishop of Canterbury (no less), suggested we do, incorporate parts of sharia law into our own.

Israel was right to oppose the Mavi Marmara in the way she did. My only criticism is that not enough commandos were used for the purpose. What is more, Israel should continue with her embargoes until a two state solution is agreed upon. What the rest of the Western world decides to do about Turkey should not matter to Israel. It should not matter because the West will, in its present state, kow-tow to any Muslim grievance, leaving Israel out in the cold.

Israel should continue to do what she has, since 1948, always done. She must look to herself, just as many individual Jews have been forced to do throughout the history of the Diaspora. Israel is surrounded by potential enemies. Her so called allies in the West cannot be relied upon in extrema. In final analysis you as a people belonging to a newly recovered country can, in the final analysis only rely upon yourselves.

Polemic: Woodley, Simpson, and a BlackBerry

Polemic: Woodley, Simpson, and a BlackBerry

Polemic: HERE'S ANOTHER FINE MESS

Polemic: HERE'S ANOTHER FINE MESS

Polemic: BEFORE THE COCK FINISHES CROWING....

Polemic: BEFORE THE COCK FINISHES CROWING....

Polemic: NOT SO PROUD TO BE GAY

Polemic: NOT SO PROUD TO BE GAY

Polemic: THE SHIP OF HATE

Polemic: THE SHIP OF HATE

THE SHIP OF HATE

The flotilla of 'peace' that tried to break Israel's blockade of Gaza was forewarned and, at least on one vessel, the Mavi Marmara, came forearmed with an arsenal of weaponry ready to take on the IDF. To suggest that the IDF's response was an over reaction is tantamount to stupidity on the part of those who speak and write such drivel. Israel ordered the flotilla to enter an Israeli port where its cargo could be offloaded, examined and allowed through into Gaza, as 100,000 tons of supplies have already been allowed through over the past quarter.

But obeying such an order would have robbed our 'peace' flotilla of much needed publicity. Besides which they came for action and action did indeed come to them. The people of peace sailing on the Mavi Marmara had their own man- made medieval armoury on board, and were ready to repulse the IDF, in order to gain publicity from a squeamish Western media held firmly in the embrace of Palestinian sentimentality.

The fact that only one ship resisted the orders of the IDF, should tell us something about the intent of those aboard the Mavi Marmara, and who they were. We have all seen the footage of Israeli soldiers being beaten with iron bars and attacked with knives; at least one petrol bomb was thrown, and an Israeli commando was thrown overboard, while some others received life threatening injuries. Having seen what the protesters were hoping to do, it is thanks to the IDF that they managed bring the situation under control before there were even more tragic deaths - but then, perhaps it was also the intention of those on board the Mavi Marmara to court martyrdom.

Israel will never be given the benefit of any doubt from the rest of the world over their actions - they never do. Even their supposed allies are, as usual, less than fulsome in their support. Even America under Obama wishes that the whole episode could be swept under the carpet. If only he did not have to rely upon the Jewish vote, as all presidents need to do when an election is in the offing. But then, perhaps, in the future, the Muslim vote will prove itself just as demanding.

This so called peace flotilla was stage managed to embarrass the Israelis. The state of Israel, unlike many Western nations, will go to any length to protect their sovereignty. A thousand years of surviving within the Diaspora has taught them to protect themselves at any cost, once they had gained their homeland within the ancient boarders of Judea.

The state of Israel is here to stay; and in order to meet this end she must protect her boarders and her citizens, and in doing so may upset her allies as they seem to have done once more. But if America or the UK were surrounded by such a threat to their existence, would they tolerate any of the criticism that Israel is now forced to endure from the United Nations? Would the British army, for instance, have acted any differently under similar circumstances? Those politicians in the West must answer this question before aiming their criticism at Israel

Israel launched her attack after giving warning (which probably allowed the inmates of the 'peace' flotilla to prepare themselves). Nevertheless Israel gave her warning, which the international community would have demanded from them; and in so doing would have allowed these people of peace to arm themselves in expectation of the inevitable. If Israel had not given warning to the flotilla, can you imagine what the outcry would have been if they just sunk it?

Israel will hopefully always defend their rightful and natural boarders against all comers. I will always support and admire the Jewish people within the Diaspora as well as the state of Israel . Historically, the Jewish people have always managed to accommodate their loathing from whomsoever they were forced to live amongst, in order to survive until they found their own state.

We hear all the time about a two state solution to the Middle East, but the West must know by now that Hamas seeks no such thing. They seek only the dismantling of the Israeli state and its replacement with an Islamic state of Palestine. Those Palestinians on the West Bank would indeed accommodate a two state solution, but would argue over the boundaries of such states. Either option is fraught with difficulties, but until such an accommodation is arrived at - one which both the Israeli and Palestinian people can agree upon, then Israel has every right to protect her boarders as they now stand.

Those people on board the Mavi Marmara were not protesting on behalf of all Palestinians, but in support of the jihadists of Hamas. This ill named 'peace convoy' should never have left port in the first place. Israel had its own arrangement for allowing supplies into the Gaza strip, and this only proved necessary in order to stop the smuggling of ever more sophisticated weaponry from states such as Iran.

My only criticism on this occasion was that the IDF should have used greater manpower than they did. They were surprised by the activists response on board the Mavi Marmara. There is now talk of another convoy setting sail, I hope the next time that Israel will learn lessons and pay careful attention to any ship they suspect carries jihadists from Turkey. But above all continue to stop these ships on behalf of your people and your nation's right to exist.