God bless 1926

AS  THURSDAY JUNE  30 DRAWS ever nearer, the overblown language used by the trade unions becomes common coinage among impatient leaders who cannot wait to take on a Tory government once again. Such is their extravagant  analysis of  the Great Day, that it  is being compared to the 1926 General Strike, when thousands of desperate and hungry workers from occupations that bore little comparison with the well heated classrooms, town halls, and government offices of those that will be marching at the end of this month.

            For trade union leaders, it has never been enough that they should protect the working conditions of their members, for, such is the extent of their own self-importance, that they also believe themselves to be generals leading an army against their class enemies, and in doing so, destroying them.

            Of course, such quixotic fantasies never materializes into anything more than further suffering heaped upon ordinary trade unionists who are used (when the opportunity arises) as pawns in their leaders political struggle. Those poor benighted idiots who elect their dysfunctional leaders to their posts, must learn to pay attention. By not doing  so, you end up with the likes of Bob Crow, Dave Prentice, Brendan Barber, and Mark Serwotka.

            Trade Union leadership ballots are notoriously frugal when it comes to turnout, and therefore, it could be argued that the members deserve what they get in the way of leadership. But unlike the hardcore of members, who live and breathe trade union politics,  the majority do not even bother to vote in leadership elections.

            When it comes to voting for strike action, turnout once again is often embarrassingly unkind to the leadership of the union.

           

IN 1926, TO HAVE USED THE WORD STARVATION to describe the state of thousands of British workers’ families, was to prove no exaggeration; for, all that those men on strike at the time wanted, was the ability to feed their families.

            But even in 1926 there were those among the trade union leadership, who sought to profit from the opportunity given them by history, to mount a political challenge that used their members’ real and genuine concerns to ferment a challenge to the very system itself.

            Today is different. For a start; those who will be taking part in the Grand Day Out on June 30^th are not from the private, wealth creating sector, but form the public sector. Now there is no doubt that any functioning, modern, civilised society needs a public sector.

            But what those who work within it have to realise, is that they cannot expect their material circumstance to outstrip those of the private sector. For if their working conditions do indeed become more favourable than those enjoyed within the private sector, then the private sector will have a right to feel aggrieved; as it is by their taxes that such a disadvantage has accrued.

            Public sector pensions, as well as the retirement age, has to be reformed. Such reforms have already been made within the private sector: the public sector cannot hope to escape the same restrictions as were imposed upon their private sector colleagues. Only if this Coalition makes another catastrophic U-turn, will this latest vampiric rising from the trade union coffin succeed.  

THE PUBLIC SECTOR has historically been the creation of politicians, via that is, the private (wealth creating) sector whose taxes they organise and arrange. The public sector would not, indeed could not, exist without a prosperous system of wealth creation. Of course, a wholly publicly financed economy has been tried, but it met with little success and much human suffering.

            Such a system was experimented with for over 70 years in the old Soviet Union, where not only town halls, classrooms and hospitals were in the public sector, but also factory after factory, within industry after industry: all were held to account by the state.     This system (known as socialism), rusted away. For such a system lacked innovation and the ability to reward personal ambition: and the one system that did (capitalism) rendered it insolvent. That insolvent country with its antiquated and cruel system, sought to build an empire in accordance with a utopian ideology – and failed disastrously.

TODAY THERE ARE STILL MANY among the trade union brethren who have drunk from the socialist waters, and still crave further replenishment, even after the well has dried up.

            If those within the public sector were to be allowed the continuation of the present arrangement regarding their pensions and retirement, then such a reversal for the Coalition would mean little. But for the country such a continuance would spell disaster.

            The unions have been impressed by the flexibility of Cameron’s spine over such issues as the NHS. It reminds them of poor old Ted Heath, rather than Margaret Thatcher. It tells them that, if enough pressure is exerted, David Cameron (ever the second term prime minister) will seek an accommodation. This is why today our brothers are almost in celebratory mood before the Grand Day Out actually takes place.

            The unions, having once been the only hope for the working man, have become, because of much of their leadership, the agents of our nation’s decline. For by insisting that public sector employees continue to wield an economic advantage over those working within the private sector (whose taxes keep them in work), then, sooner or later both groups of workers will be at loggerheads.

            The continuance of the present arrangement  would prove financially irresponsible and disastrous for the coming generations. But trade union leaders are happily ignorant of such a concept as irresponsibility. But I hope the Coalition does not retreat yet again – for it may well prove to be its last.

           

IF WE WANT TO KNOW where this current tranche of union leadership will lead us; we need look no further than Greece. Over the weekend, the Greeks en-mass (as our unions’ hope will prove to be the case on June 30)  demonstrated against their government’s austerity measures.

            We in this country have, thankfully, avoided, up until now, Greece’s implosion because we rightly chose not to join the single currency. This sane act however, does not, it appears, stop our leaders from pouring further billions of British taxpayer’s money into Greece’s debt ridden country.

            But no doubt, our own union emperors feel invigorated by the events on the streets of Athens over the weekend. To them it must be like October 1917 in Russia all over again. They must feel once more that the Marxist dialectic has been rejuvenated as a presence in the making of modern history; instead of being a mere intellectual conjuring trick that engaged the concentration of those on the Left who wanted it to be true.

Oh Matron!

“Everyone knows the NHS cannot stand still in the face of demographic change and medical advance. Reform is a constant necessity”.

Alan Milburn.

 

BY THE MIDDLE OF THIS CENTURY, the cost of the NHS to the taxpayer will double to over £200 billion. In today’s Daily Telegraph, Alan Milburn takes the Coalition to task for its u-turn on the much needed NHS reforms that  the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley had championed.

            Of course, the country cannot afford such a bill for the health needs of its people. This is why urgent changes had to be made. If, by the middle of this century, the country can no longer afford, free at the point of need, a publicly funded system of health care, then it will be due, in large part to the two leaders of the Coalition, David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

            It is estimated that by 2050, the population of this country will increase to 70 million due primarily to the influx of immigrants the previous government allowed  to settle among us in the hope of harvesting their votes. Couple this with the increased longevity of our citizens, and the new, costly, technological innovations that are appearing almost on a monthly basis, then the realisation that the NHS needs major reform becomes apparent.

            Both Cameron and Clegg, for reasons best explained by Mr Milburn in his Telegraph piece, have sold the people short and betrayed their future for wholly political consideration. As Mr Milburn complained: “Cameron has returned to his original strategy of playing safe on the NHS in order to decontaminate the Tory brand”. While in Nick Glegg’s case, “[Clegg] has had a different motive: to differentiate his Liberal Democrats from their Conservative Coalition partners by saving the NHS from “Tory privatisers”.

            The NHS cannot continue on its present course. The service has attained almost religious significance among the electorate, and this has paralyzed our politicians, who live to make themselves popular with the electorate; and prevents them acting in any other way than self-seeking.

            Ambition and popularity has, in the case of much needed NHS reform, done a major disservice to our citizens’ future. If the truth be known, Cameron was not unduly concerned that Clegg took the credit for this u-turn; for when history returns to their fatal decision, then Cameron can give a plaintive shrug and point to his partner in coalition for forcing the fatal decision upon him.

 

OF COURSE, THOSE WORKING WITHIN THE  health service, say they to understand the need for reform, but believe that Lansley went too far. It is strange that the spokesmen of those working in the public sector always see the need, but always opposes any remedy, that will put either their members jobs under threat, or supports any kind of input by the private sector into the NHS.

            Andrew Lansley should have said to Cameron, that if he backtracks on the much needed reforming of the NHS, then he would move to the backbenches. If Andrew Lansley had done this out of principle, instead of kow-towing out of ambition, then he would have been far thought of  future generations than he now stands to be.

 

            By opposing the major reforms needed, this Coalition has paved the way for the NHS to become a system of health care that not only vacates its original criteria of free cradle to the grave treatment, but becomes a minimalist service.

            For our nation cannot afford, through taxation, a doubling in the cost of NHS spending. Mr Milburn knows this and wishes to preserve its ethos; but he also knows that to do so things must change dramatically. These changes must, above all, push to one side the reactionary impulses of the self-interest groups working  within the NHS through their unions.

            If the radical change that Andrew Lansley sought to introduce is no longer on the horizon because of political expediency,  then anything offered instead will fall well short of what is needed.

 

I SPEAK AS SOMEONE who has greatly benefited from the NHS. I have relied upon this much appreciated system of healthcare since the age of 19 (I am now 61), when I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. I have, over these decades been well monitored by the NHS,  and I received two new hips in 1981, followed by a review in 2008, when one of the hips was replaced.

            Five years ago, I was admitted to hospital suffering from anaemia, which lead to the discovery of  three ulcers due to my medication for spondylitis; and was given 4 units of blood.

            Last November I had an aneurism on my lung, and, as a consequence, was put on wafarin, which thins my blood, but (should) limit my intake of wine.

            So I, like millions of others, have had much to be grateful for. The NHS should be a blueprint for all systems of health care. But if the services it provides can be carried out at less cost in the private sector but through public imbursement, then the savings made to the NHS allows publicly provided healthcare to continue; and believe me, I believe in publicly funded health care.

            However, the NHS has become an almost ideologically driven service, where the principle is put above the needs of the people, whose sole concern is their treatment.

 

ANY SYSTEM OF HEALTHCARE paid out of  taxation should meet the concerns, and only the concerns of those who pay for and require treatment. All those who pay their taxes to fund such a system care about is that they, when needed, receive the best care available to them. They do not, I suggest care whether such treatment is in a NHS or private hospital. All the individuals, as well as their families care about, is his or her recovery.

            But when it comes to those unions that represent their members within the NHS, such a consideration is never considered; and this is why any sentimental attachment to the NHS is not only silly, but may prove dangerous.

            If we cannot, for political reasons, alter the way in which be deliver publicly funded healthcare today, then, come the middle of this century, we will not be able offer our people any kind of publicly funded healthcare – saving the bare minimum. The rest to be paid via private insurance.     

           

Cameron showers Bill Gates with £800 million

“… The Coalition's plans to increase the overseas aid budget have come in for considerable criticism. But there is a largely unremarked element to this issue. Ours is an economy chronically short of aggregate demand and overseas aid is spent abroad. My suggestion is that the aid budget is suspended and its resources diverted to domestic spending”-  (Keynesian)  Economist, Roger Bootle

THE PRIME MINISTER has promised £800 million to fund vaccines in the Third – whoops! sorry,  I meant, Developing World. Mr Cameron made his announcement while  speaking at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) in London this morning. Having promised not only to ring fence the Overseas Aid Budget (OAB), but to increase it from £8 billion to £12 billion per annum over the next four years; he sought, no doubt, to both impress Bill Gates as well as seek ownership of the bragging rights for being the prime minister who committed so much of his country’s tax payers income to such a project.

            The trouble with politicians from all parties today, is that they forget where the money they are spending comes from. The Conservative Party never used to suffer from such a memory loss, as they were brought up to understand money and believe in its importance to people’s lives. Big government meant big taxes; this in turn meant taking from people an ever increasing portion of the money they worked all week to earn. Politicians, especially Tory ones, were careful therefore, about how much they would put into the Treasury coffers.

            The Party prided itself on being the Party of low taxation who believed that the people should decide for themselves where and how to spend their own money. It was arrogant, therefore, that Mr Cameron should announce so blithely his intention of sprinkling like confetti the people’s taxes from a department of state the people believe must shut down for the duration of our current economic crises,

            Overseas aid must not be allowed to assume such a degree of importance that it is allowed to be spent without limit, while other departments of state closer to the people’s hearts, like Defence and Education, are told to make serious cutbacks in their revenues.

            Like all families who give privately to charities, they give what they can afford when they are in a financial position to do so. If we froze the OAB budget and used its income as a means of decreasing our multi-billion pound debt, then the sooner this country will be able to afford both the increases in the OAB, as well as all the other spending departments within government, that the people support.

THE OAB is being used by the prime minister to dispel the people’s image of  his party as the “Nasty Party”.  In other words, the OAB has become a device for deconstructing past impressions of British Conservatism, by turning the Party into a friendly-fuzzy concoction, whose architects are PR gurus, pollsters and media savvy types, who probably impressed upon David Cameron when he came to power, the need to ‘modernise’ the Party’s philosophy as well as its image.

            The problem is, is that the British people are living through such restrictive times that they would prefer the old model to the new. After all, the new model never secured an overhaul majority and had to go into coalition last year.

            Cameron’s announcement today will no doubt please the ears of Bill Gates as well as liberals everywhere – in the metropolis that is. But the British people believe that charity should begin at home. If, instead of promising £800 million to a programme of vaccinations, he had instead sought to encourage people to dig into their own pockets freely, and to do so generously, then the amount taken from the public purse may not have been equalled, but at least the people would have had a say in its giving.

            It is said that Gavi are after some £3 billion pounds in order to secure the protection of millions of children against fatal childhood diseases.

            It is appalling that so many children are sent prematurely to their maker. But – and yes, there is always a But – such tragedy cannot be compensated for from the public purse. As with all such needs, private donors and rich philanthropists must be the main source of funding in difficult economic times. This is why, rightly, other countries have had to consider their own people and their diminished circumstances, and put those before any other country. This does not mean that they do not care, but  it does mean that the ball has been put in the court of the people themselves to give what they can.

            An example of the success of such an approach has been the £100 million collected on behalf of  Help For Heroes since it began some 3 years ago. The charity, which sees that our young servicemen and women injured in Afghanistan or any other conflict the politicians see fit to send them, are adequately looked after once they return home.

            In difficult times, the state must take a back seat when giving away tax payer’s money, and allow the traditional sources of giving to take the helm until the finances of  this country, in particular, have been sorted out.

            After all, to be cynical, our prime minister, like all of those who came before and will come after him, have and will continue to oversee 250,000 abortions carried out each year with little of the razzmatazz given to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, on show today in London.

            This irony will no doubt be lost on the attendees at Gavi; but then abortion is purely a feminist issue that no male politician dare challenge.

WE, AS A NATION, have little to reproach ourselves for regarding what our government gives and has given, so generously, to the Developing World on our behalf. But this generosity is being questioned by the people of this country who see our defences being undermined while the OAB is being increased.

            We are being told, for instance, that we will have to share a French carrier, as our one and only new carrier will take another decade to enter service; while at the same time we have put our two existing carriers up for sale; on E-bay? We have also dismissed our harrier force and would have done the same with our Tornado bombers, had not the Libyan crisis intervened to save them.

            The first duty of any government in the modern world, is the protection and defence of its people. But this ‘Conservative’? led Coalition has reneged upon this ‘social contract’ and seen fit to uphold and increase, rather than decrease spending on overseas aid - that one department of state that exists to help none-British citizens.

            David Cameron has, I suggest, allowed the runes that were offered up to him by the various media folk he was greeted with upon his election to the leadership of a once great party, to dominate his and the party’s itinerary.

            I believe that, rather than the Labour Party, the Conservative Party faces the greatest challenge to its survival because of the direction David Cameron has taken it. In the short term he will be courted by various liberal celebrities – that modern phenomenon that began with Harold Wilson - but such a constituency means very little to the voter nowadays.

            If we are to put our economic house in order then difficult decisions have to be made. But if a difficult decision needs to be avoided – like the one on defence, then, in the interests of the British people, surely the one spending department that can have its assets frozen, is the one department that seeks to proffer no help the British people.

OVERSEAS AID is important. But not to the extent of sacrificing the budgets of  British departments of state. David Cameron will be remembered, not for his generosity toward other nations, but for his energetic, and some will say, ruthless attack upon the budgets of his various ministers whose provinces are the various departments of state that encompass the governance and defence, and only the governance and defence, of the United Kingdom.

            David Cameron’s background should have ill-equipped him for the leadership of a traditional Conservative party. But his party were silenced by the achievements of Tony Blair and his leadership of the Labour Party. The Conservatives looked at Cameron and decided that  he best represented their party’s best interest and opportunity to govern once more.

            How wrong they were. The Conservative Party today have become a kind of liberalista that treats its right-wing as a fungal infection that cannot be curtailed by antibiotics.

            The modern ‘Conservative Party’ is no such thing, and the sooner its traditional elements realises it, then the sooner  it can claim back those members who have, in ever greater number, voted for UKIP.

            Conservatism is just what it says on the label. It believes in tradition, as well as our nation and its history. But the modern variant dismisses all such components, and chooses to lead the country away from nationhood into a European Federal structure where nationhood finds only its graveyard.

            For centuries, our heroes, as Churchill was want to describe them, kept these isles afloat as a nation. Nationhood exemplified the character and culture of its citizens. It mattered little which nation and which citizens…all nationhood and its citizens shared the same legitimacy.

           

OUR FIRST CONSIDERATION is to ourselves and to no other. Our politicians first duty is to their country and its people. They cannot use the taxes they collect in a way that suggest that they are dispersing taxes as if they were part of  their own private wealth; as seems to be the case with Cameron’s £800 million ‘gift’ to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.

            It is Cameron’s duty to stay loyal to the people and country he was elected to serve. If he finds himself in conflict with such a centuries old traditional arrangement because of his commitment, not only to his ring-fencing of oversees aid, but actually to increasing it in opposition to the wishes of the vast majority of the electorate in such difficult times, then he must take the consequences.

             

            

Then comrades let us rally once again …for old times’ sake.

PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS ARE VOTING en-mass to take strike action on June 30. Both the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) have voted “overwhelmingly” (be it from low turnouts) to play truant. They hope to be joined on the day by NHS, town hall, and railway workers - while the civil service is expected to follow suit today with their own strike vote. In all, according to the unions, some 750,000 public sector workers are expected to participate in a “coordinated” day of action.

            The teaching unions have been told that their members have to contribute 3 per cent more toward their pensions, and be expected to work longer before retirement. In other words they are being asked to emulate  their colleagues in the private sector who have had to come to terms with far greater sacrifices than are being asked of the public sector.

            It shows just how powerful the public sector has become in this country; its numbers had swollen under the previous Labour government.

             The Labour Party has increased its financial dependency on the unions, as company donors have taken to the life-boats; a process that began with the departure of Tony Blair and accelerated under Gordon Brown.

            Those private donors have seen Labour’s current leader crowned by the unions, in a bizarre electoral process that found Ed Milliband’s brother David, come top in the poll among party members and MPs, only to have his crown put on his brother’s head by union barons.

            Whether the Labour Party likes it or not, they are once more in the grip of the unions, as they were in the 1970s and 1980s.  Having burnt its bridges with the private sector, the party, and in particular its leader, finds himself in the unwanted embrace of the likes of Bob Crow.

HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE 70s and 80s; today the discontent is restricted to the public sector, who, despite their increased numbers, do not have the power or wherewithal to bring the economy to a standstill and threaten the nation’s prosperity.

            Those working in the private sector have it much harder than those who will be marching on June 30^th . In the private sector, the people now understand that their and their families fortunes are tied up with the success of the company they work for. These workers produce the wealth that pays their wages, from which they have to pay their taxes, which in turn pays the wages of those in the public sector, who also pay taxes – but from private taxation.

            Of course we need teachers, doctors, nurses, as well as civil servants. But they cannot expect a more privileged position within the economy than those working all hours in the private sector - in many cases for far less than those who will take the day off on the 30^th June.

            This country is in a mess and all the main parties know it. There needs to be a tightening of the belts if we are not lose our economic prestige in the world. We have £170 billion deficit that needs to be emasculated, and the only way to do it, is to cut back on public spending. For the public sector is the one area of the economy where governments can act directly to reduce the deficit, and so it has to be

            There is no other road to take. Even the Labour Party realises this, but pretends that the pace at which the cutbacks are made is of significance. They do this to conjure up a dividing line between themselves and the Coalition. No doubt on 30^th June, Ed Milliband will be told to be on hand by his paymasters, to once more elaborate upon this fictitious dividing line in Trafalgar Square or Hyde Park.

IF THE LABOUR PARTY truly had the nation’s interests at heart, they would  take their paymasters to one side and impress upon them the necessity of pension changes, job cuts, and pay freezes in the public sector having had them introduced by employers in the private sector.

            In the private sector workers have even taken a pay cut to ensure their continued employment. If the public sector believes that such people as these will be found to be sympathetic to their cause; then I suggest they had better think again before it is to late.  

            The private sector is the driving force within any free economy. This sector, and only this sector, produces the wealth that affords taxation. We live in a free market economy – the most creative and successful social organisation that man has ever put his mind to.

            The architects of any public sector are the politicians, who decide how the taxes garnered from the private sector are to be spent. Defence, Health, and Education, have been considered, in this country at least, to be at the forefront of people’s minds when they look puzzlingly at their wage slip to see how much these priorities are to cost them.

            They are willing to pay, but, I suggest, not willing to be taken advantage of by those to whom they have given part of their salary. If those they pay through their taxes, have an unperturbed and far more comfortable retirement outlook than those whose taxes pay for such a retirement vista will ever see: then, may I suggest, that on June 30^th  those unions had better be more persuasive than the facts suggest.

           

                       

             

Article 8

ACCORDING TO TODAY’S SUNDAY TELEGRAPH some 102 criminals have beaten deportation over the last year due to Article Eight of the European Convention of Human Rights, which stipulate the criminal’s “right to family life”.

            The European Convention was passed into English law by the previous Labour Government, and as such surely qualifies in joining the ever lengthening list of ruination that, between 1997-2010, the Labour government brought our country to.

            But the betrayals of the previous administration are for another time. What concerns me is the way in which human rights have become weighted in favour of the criminal, not only by the European Convention, but also with the compliance of British judges, many of whom today seem to relish upsetting the public by their decisions.

            Although their hands have been tied in many cases by our politicians, who have signed and negotiated away the sovereignty of English law over our lives; they must also face criticism. Their “not me gov” shrug whenever challenged over an outrageous court decision; followed by a nod toward European judges, will just not do.

            The criminal is not and never will be the victim: the victims are those whom the criminal damages. His or her rights are secondary to those of his or her victims, and never their equal. The criminal’s background and upbringing, while a curiosity to inquisitive psychologists , probation officers and social workers; such professional observations should not be used to further the needs of  criminals by giving them, the perpetrators,  a “right to family life”.

            How many times have the victims or their families been left in tears by a judge’s sentencing? The newspapers, almost on a daily basis, record some unfair or downright criminal injustice committed by the criminal justice system itself. Under such circumstances, by passing the buck to Europe, members of the judiciary displays a lack of the very independence which they insist is a requirement of their office. They should  resign if they feel they have made a decision based upon a body of foreign law that has been allowed to migrate into English law by our politicians.

THE VAST MAJORITY of the British people, I proffer, are social conservatives who have been silenced by the political class that governs us within and outside of parliament. All the main parties are now Left of centre, as are the majority of the media who oversee them.

            The language of human rights are, however, easily understood by the conservative  majority - providing such rights are enacted by a British parliament, having been declared within party political manifestoes.

            The majority of the British people, may I suggest, have little truck for the criminal class – especially as that majority represent the peaceful and law abiding, who wish only to make their way through life with the  knowledge that they have the full protection of the law in doing so: but they can only feel themselves well enough safeguarded by the law if they are the sole agents of its creation through the power of the franchise.

            The European Convention of Human Rights, is a device devised, among many others, to help in the salami slicing of each nation’s independence away from national sovereignty and into a Federal Europe.

            There was no earthly reason for the last government to agree to sign up to legitimising this body within English law, unless the politicians who did so wished for the full integration of this country into Europe as mere canton or county council of a Greater Europe.

            Article Eight is a mere hors d'oeuvre to the main course that will be eventually served up to the peoples of Europe.

            In any mature and fully functioning democracy, the law provides the last word. It, if you like, fully abides by the wishes of the people by reflecting their broad idea of right and wrong, as well as the punishments meted out by the state to the law-breaker - including the conditions in which the criminal is kept.

           

THE LAW BREAKER does not have, and should not have equal rights with the law-abiding citizen. The question is, is how far the state should go in deciding the limits that have to be imposed, so that the criminal should not, in his captivity, enjoy more of the ‘comforts’ than are enjoyed by the law-abiding citizen on the outside?

            This question has been ignored by the criminal justice system and accounts for much of the anger of the law-abiding citizens. Each day we hear of cases where prisoners claim their human rights under the European Convention of Human Rights, or some other European directive; only to find their complaint upheld for the most ridicules of grievances.

            Each nation should be allowed its OWN independent system of justice without intrusion from the outside. Even in America, for instance, being a federal union, each state acquire many of their laws independently from Washington. This means that in some states capital punishment is still on the statute. It is so because, and only because, the people of that state requires it to be done so through the ballot box. If this is not true democracy then what is?

            In this country as well as Europe our political elite must be in total control. They, being of liberal dispositions, cannot tolerate any decision that they deem reactionary or that runs contrary to the climate of political correctness. For there is as little to discern between Christian Democrats or Socialists in Europe, as there is between Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Labour in the United Kingdom.

            As such, our European liberal establishment can bare comparison with a totalitarian assemblage of some kind, the nature of which I do not wish to venture upon, but I will make one comparison; this would be with the Roman Empire, not at its height, but in the decades before its collapse.

MY POINT IS THIS. Laws belong to a people living within a specific nation and culture. Any intrusion from without may meet with some success through the alliance of a treacherous political class with a specific ideal - like the European Union.

             But if, through some extreme form of nationalism, which the liberal political class will be wholly responsible for calling up, the idea of a federal Europe will not go unchallenged; then they must take their share of the blame, because they would have run counter to the feelings of the people they live amongst and, seemingly, have nothing but contempt for, as liberal thinkers.

            Article Eight of the European Convention lacks credibility with the British public - but not with their politicians. Which is why it has been allowed to pass into English Law. Our main party politicians, I am sorry to say, wish this nation of ours to become a mere county within a Greater Europe.

            I am afraid to say (as far as traditional Tories are concerned)  that David Cameron is as pro-European as was Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before him. But I understand that it will take some time for the rank and file Tories to realise this. The great realisation that all the main parties speak as one in private regarding the European Union and the criminal laws it seeks to enact, currently by a back door that can be challenged by, if not altered by, the current “Tory” leader, one David Cameron.

           

             

           

            

The Archbishop once again dips his beard in the political soup

WHEN THE COALITION was elected in May of last year, it invited backroom deals involving changes and compromises to each of the parties election manifestos. This, after all, is in the nature of political coalitions; and this is why the people voted against the Alternative Vote last month so resoundingly. For the people now that the policies that will flow with such an arrangement, would never be advanced in any of the individual political manifestos.

            To this extent the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is indeed right to suggest that we are being served up policies which nobody voted for. But the people who voted knew that we have £170 billion deficit to sought out, and that in order to do so, much pain and hardship would be the consequence - but it seems that only the Archbishop was ignorant of what the rest of us knew.

            Or perhaps he has a series of policies that require no such sacrifice, and at the same time reduces the budget deficit. If so, then I for one would be willing to kick Cameron out of Downing Street tomorrow and give the Archbishop his opportunity to make fools of us all, and save the country in the process.

            All the main political parties (and yes, including Labour) knew before the last election that welfare spending in particular would have to have the axe taken to it - but then, the welfare budget has required close attention from reforming politicians for over two decades now. It has become, not a safety net protecting the individual from the vagaries of the market place, but a fast food drive in with a menu grown so large that Beverage must be turning in his grave. The safety net has become, for hundreds of thousands of people,  the equivalent of a fast food diet. It allows people to become idle and dependent, not just for few weeks, but over a life time. There are today in this country thousands of families, none of whose members have ever worked – this cannot be right.

            Archbishop Williams does his flock little service by attacking, as he does, the main architect of change in this government when it comes to welfare reform - Mr Duncan Smith. Mr Smith will do more for those imprisoned into welfare than ever the Archbishop will accomplish with his rhetoric.

            The Archbishop believes that the Coalition’s actions are an ‘opportunistic’ cover for spending cuts. There is nothing opportunistic about it. This country’s economy demands such cuts if future generations are to be relieved of further suffering.

           

IN HIS PIECE AS LEFT- WING CELEBRITY editor for the New Statesman, Rowan Williams also attacks the cost of higher education. Education, like welfare reform are two of the Coalition’s flagship policies; and so the Archbishop also has the Education Secretary, Michael Gove in his sights.

            The cost  of  higher education stands at a maximum of £9,000 per student, per year, depending upon the university, and the Archbishop deprecates such an amount. Presumably, Canterbury still believes that higher education should be subsidised by the tax payer, like everything else. The trouble is, is that people are facing higher living standards and cannot afford the increased tax contributions that free higher education demands. The government has already promised that NHS spending will not be cut, despite its many wasteful aspects.  At the moment the NHS budget stands at over £100 billion pounds and is expected to double by the middle of this century.

            The government has also ring-fenced oversees aid due to be increased to £12 billion- this, in order to prove that the that the Conservative Party is no longer the ‘Nasty Party’.

            I believe that the oversees aid budget should be cancelled all together until the nation’s finances are once more looking healthy. But instead of having the courage to do this, David Cameron prefers to weaken our nation’s defences without knowing (as with the Falklands) just what is around the corner.

            So I, like the Archbishop, also have my grievances with the Coalition, but mine are about priorities, and I think that this nation’s defence is of higher priority than its oversees aid budget.

ROWAN WILLIAMS was chosen by Tony Blair to represent the Anglican Church, and became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003. His first foray into controversy was in 2008 when he foresaw as being ‘inevitable’, that parts of Sharia  law, particularly divorce proceedings, would become incorporated into the British legal system.

            In 2009 he attacks the Labour government over Iraq followed up in 2010 by his expression of ‘deep sorrow and regret’, after he suggests that the Irish church had lost ‘all credibility’ over the child abuse scandal. While in the same year he gives ‘two and a half cheers for David Cameron’s ‘big society’. Providing, that is, that they are not an ‘alibi for cuts’.

            In May 2011, the prelate has America on his mind when Osama bin-Laden met his much deserved fate at the hands of US Navy Seals. But, the Anglican leader was not offering congratulations; but rather, feeling ‘very uncomfortable’ at the killing of an unarmed man.

            Finally, on the 28^th May, he finds his sympathy being direct toward those celebrities who take out ‘super injunctions’.

            Cuts are what is needed whether they are an ‘alibi’ or ‘opportunistic’, or delivered in the national interest. We cannot continue on the road marked out by the last government. Today’s economic reality, to the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, seems to be a conspiracy of right-wing dogma, without any functioning veracity in the world in which Canterbury lives.

            Our country lives in dire times, times that many have not woken up to, including many of those in government, who are trying to come to terms with the ominous circumstances, the full force of which, are coming up to surprise us.

THE CLERIC OF CANTERBURY is a liberal ecclesiastic. He masterminds tolerance to the point of full capitulation. He believes in the basic goodness of all humanity, and as such will cause much suffering among those who follow his path.

            He has made overtures to Islam that surely many other Anglicans either denounce or must outright censure. To foresee, as the archbishop does, Islamic divorce proceedings being part of English Law, must make his position impossible. If it does not as it apparently has not, then how seriously can the nation take this prelate.

            I, like Canterbury, and speaking as a mere voter, feel outraged at the Coalition. I, for the first time in my life, (I was, at the time of the general election 60 years-old) gave my vote to the Tories after my disillusionment with Gordon Brown after a lifetime of voting Labour. I am as un happy with the Coalition government as is the great Rector of Canterbury. But my concern is not about the need for cuts, for they are indeed needed, but rather about their priorities.

            Rowan Williams has once more delved into the murky waters of politics. He may think he has a part to play in the political debate of the nation. If he feels this urge, as one or two of his predecessors have also done, then let this unelected prelate now enthroned on the leather benches of the House of Lords seek election through popular will instead of presupposing that he has the ear of the nation.

           

            

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY, Andrew Mitchell, our country has become a ‘development superpower’ after the Coalition’s decision to increase the oversees aid budget by 34 per cent to £12 billion.

            Please tell me Mr Mitchell is not a Conservative, as I have never heard of him or wish to continue doing so after his Alice in Wonderland boasting about the ‘virtues’ of foreign aid.

            When I first read his pronouncements, I thought it was a put up job to cause heart failure among Mr Cameron’s bitterest critics. Mr Mitchell is either a political scapegoat whose modus-operandi  is causing the maximum outrage among the voters, in order to be slapped down by a ‘tough’ and ‘hard hitting’ prime minister, who will not countenance such political naivety – or, Mr Mitchell is just plain bonkers.

            He comes up with such gems as, ‘Be as proud of our £12 billion foreign aid bill as  you are of the Army’. Only to add the Queen to the list.

            Looking at Mr Mitchell’s photograph in the press as he arrives in Downing Street on his bike, one begins to form a portrait of this contemporary Tory. He has been put where he is, not because he believes in traditional Conservative values (for who does nowadays), or any kind of tradition at all; but because he does not represent what was once described by a Tory as ‘the Nasty Party’,  after the Thatcher and Major years. He represents the ‘Cuddly Party’ of David Cameron.

            Apparently, according to Mr Mitchell, we are admired throughout the world for our largesse. He does not qualify such admiration by naming names of those who esteem us so greatly. Are they world leaders who, like David Cameron, have the ability to dip into their exchequers purse? If so, then their high regard and good opinion, is worthless unless they are prepared to wage a foreign aid race with us, by sanctioning increases in their own aid budgets.

            My guess is, is that the esteem in which we are held, emanates not from other world leaders, but from the numerous NGOs who are the main benefactors; or the  celebrities who promote themselves by organising concerts on behalf of the blighted poor of the world - celebrities like the tax exile Bono.

            The kind of world Mr Mitchell is living in  requires enormous resources of gullibility to comprehend. It now seems he actually believes in what he is saying on the subject of oversees aid and I have misplaced a shrewd politician for a fool.

OVERSEES AID has been ring-fenced and allowed to increase by the Coalition. It has been done at the expense of our armed forces (which Mr Mitchell professes to be proud of).

            The prime minister was, in part, influenced by his youthful experiences with the Live Aid Concert in the 1980s, when he decided not to intrude upon the oversees aid budget - except only to increase it; even in such difficult economic times for the country.

            It is my belief, as it would have been the belief of any truly Conservative government in the past, that the security, health and education of our own citizens must be put before all else. This outlook still exists today, but not within the modern British Conservative Party. It still flourishes in all Western countries including Democrat America. For it is not immoral to put one’s own family before others.

            What is immoral, is that you ignore the suffering of others when times are good for your family and you have the surplus to give away in the form of increased amounts of taxation on aid.

            Oversees aid has been, and still is being,  much abused. It has found its way into numerous Swiss bank accounts and diverted from its intended purpose. It has been so arranged by corrupt leaders who slice off  the cream. This fraudulent behaviour has been prevalent on the African continent for decades. African leaders, who should have the welfare of their people at heart have grown rich on the backs of the Western taxpayer, by stealing from both their own people as well as ours.

            The British government speaks of rigorously ensuring that the aid given is being used in accordance with what they perceive as being in the interest of the British people.

            But we know, do we not, that there have been hundreds of millions of pounds donated to countries that are on the verge of becoming the next generation of world leaders? India and China have enjoyed over a billion pounds in British taxpayer aid in just one year, despite their world ascendency.

            We, on the other hand, have had to (because of a purely political decision) reduce our armed services (particularly our navy)  to a level that shocks even our ancient enemy – France.

            Our navy has seen its carrier force rendered none existent for the next decade. We have taken the decision to scrap our two aircraft carriers as well as our Harrier jet squadrons that manned them. We also sought to abandon our Tornado squadrons; until Libya changed Mr Cameron’s mind.

            In their place, we will share French carriers until our latest carrier comes on stream. I say carrier because two are to be built, but only one will see service.

            We are a seafaring nation that has been caught out on more than one occasion by an enemy we thought incapable of attacking us. But our navy has always provided the wherewithal to meet any challenge. Friends can soon become enemies if they feel that they can defeat you militarily.

ANDREW MITCHELL is a product of the liberal sensibilities that have gripped this nation’s establishment since the 1960s. The International Development Secretary has voiced his views on aid and has done so soberly.

            He genuinely believes that, ‘[His] ambition is that over the next four years people will come to think across our country – in all parts of it – of Britain’s fantastic development work around the poorest parts of the world with the same pride and satisfaction that they see in some of our great institutions like the Armed Forces and the monarchy’. 

            In believing such nonsense, he opens up this country to an impossible escalation in British tax-payer funded aid to the rest of the world. This man, through his professed pronouncements, seeks to make oversees spending, at least more important than this countries defence. If not why is his department being saved from the cuts while the MoD has to face, like all other departments, a 20% cut in their budgets?

            The  aid budget has to take its share of the current cost cutting. If it falls short, as it seems likely to, then the other departments of state must call for a stop to such munificence.

            Politicians from all parties and in all democratic countries seem to think that the money they are spending appears from a chancellors wish list instead of through the taxation of their citizens. Politicians treat taxes as if they were the rewards of their rhetoric rather than the sacrifices of  their citizens labour.

            I say this to Mr Mitchell. Ask any father or mother in this country whether, in such difficult times, that their family should be considered secondary to the people of the Third World. It is human nature to look to one’s own before transgressing and sacrificing on behalf of total strangers.

            We in this country have suffered many of the tortures and indignities that now proliferate among the developing world. In Britain during the period of our climb from darkness to light had to pay the price.

            Our people suffered during our Industrial Revolution on a scale measurable and comparable with the slavery that was the hall-mark of early America. But our Industrial Revolution laid the foundations of prosperity that today we take for granted.

           

I BELIEVE IN OVERSEES AID. But I do not elevate it above all else when having to make cut-backs within our national criteria.

            If we live in troubled economic times then priorities must be made. But such precedence’s must be arranged according to the country’s national interest. In the modern case of preserving and adding to the oversees aid budget, I do not believe that such a national interest is well served, especially if much of our country’s defence has had to be made redundant so spuriously by the current Coalition. But then, what are they? They are, may I suggest, a Cabinet collective that cares little for the people they represent.
            By advancing the oversees aid budget the Conservative Party hopes to relinquish the ‘Nasty Party’ image that Cameron has decided to, whatever the cost, rid his party of.

            International Aid is the icing on the cake for successful nations who wish to pour much of their post-tax surpluses into helping the unfortunate of the world. It is a worthy ambition to rid the world of its poor; and we must continue to fulfil the ambition.

            But when we are told that we must, in the still affluent UK, continue to support and increase oversees aid, while our nation’s defences are depleted at the same time to meet the cost of such advancement; then our politicians had better be sure of their ground before giving their support to such an overture.