This Nation is Dying

Hate crime, [is that which is] committed against a person or property, stems from prejudice or hostility towards the victim’s disability, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, transgender identity or age’

Peter Walsh Eastern Daily Press

THERE ARE TWO incidents reported today that sum up the pitiful state of our nation and its feeble and tyrannical culture. Neither incident is an isolated example that require a mere cursory shrug of the shoulders. Each of them are just the latest of  such examples of similar incidences, that mark our decline as a culture and a nation. Although with the latter example, it is not immediately apparent without explanation.

            The first incident involves Dave Jones the creator of Fireman Sam, the children’s character. Mr Jones found himself passing through the  X-ray scanner at Gatwick airport, and, seeing a Muslim women pass easily through without having to remove her hijab, Mr Jones, who had to place his scarf and other items on a tray, jokingly commented to the official, ‘If I was wearing this scarf over my face, I wonder what would happen.’ The guard seemed sympathetic; ‘I know what you mean, but we have our rules and you aren’t allowed to say that.’

            This led to Mr Jones’ detention, which involved a visit from another official, this time of Muslim extraction… ‘who stated that she was Muslim and was deeply distressed by my comment’. The long and short of it was that an apology was demanded from Mr Jones; and as his release had been prohibited until he gave the apology, he did so.

            It was an innocent attempt at humour without any racial content implied or intended. As he himself said in an interview with the press: ‘I again stated [to the officials] that I had not made a racist remark but purely an observation that we were in a maximum security situation being searched thoroughly while a woman with her face covered walked through’.

            I do not blame those officers at Gatwick airport for Mr Jones’ treatment. I blame our politicians who have sown the seed for this type of thing to happen. It is they who deserve to take the blame for Mr Jones’ description of himself as being a player in George Orwell’s 1984. Political correctness has become so fine tuned, that, if Mr Jones’ remark can cause such offence, then what happens if we visit any public institution, like a library, and order the ‘wrong’ book according to our modern times? Even if, because of political correctness, it is not held in stock. The mere mention of its existence could warrant, like Mr Jones, an interview.

THE NEXT example of our country’s  decline concerns itself with something we all expect ourselves to take a hand in, if at some moment in our lives, we are called upon to save a fellow human being.

            In times past, there have been many acts of heroism, when one human being ventured out to sacrifice his or her own life to save another’s. In the past, one individual out of many has stepped forward and did what he or she saw fit to do to save a life (and not always a human life). Then, health and safety considerations would have been dismissed in favour of saving that life.

            Our lifeboat service would, for instance, never have gotten off the ground if Health and Safety had the leverage they have today. Health and Safety would have put a stop to this voluntary service, and it would have fallen at the first fence when creating the provision we see today

            Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire, was the scene, in March 2011, of an incident that took place in a model boating lake 2/3 feet in depth.

            Simon Burgess, 41, had been feeding the swans when he suffered a fit and fell into the lake face down for more than a half an hour before he was recovered dead from the boating lake. The arrival of firemen on the scene, you may have thought would have ended Mr Burgess’s ordeal. But the fire crew were not allowed to enter the lake for health and safety reason (they had not been trained to entre such depths), and Mr Burgess? By this time, if not already dead was fast approaching his ignominious end.

            Specialists were called for who were trained to wade at such depths, and when a policeman said he was going to wade out to Mr Burgess, he was prevented from doing so, as was a paramedic who also offered himself up.

            The emergency service was acting in accordance with part of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992; which, the Daily Mail found out, only applied to fast flowing rivers at a time of flooding.

            There were two ambulances, two paramedics, a rapid-response ambulance; a water support unit manned by to officers and containing thermal underwear, breathing systems, two rafts, 12 life jackets, and two locator beacons. Two fire engines were in attendance, along with 13 fire-fighters. Finally, an inflatable emergency tent was inflated containing  emergency equipment.

            Although the operation was successful, unfortunately the patient died, is what springs to mind in poor Mr Burgess’s case. Everything that modern technology, medicine and the rescue services, could be brought to bear was - except that none of it was actually used.

IF WE CONSIDER these events alongside every other of the kind. They tell us something about the state of our nation and its culture. The first incident involving the treatment of Mr Jones and his detention for being… what?  Fall fowl of one of our ‘hate crimes’ by merely pointing out the obvious; that a woman who wore a covering over her face was allowed free passage through Gatwick’s X-ray scanner without checking her identity? Although we are told that we face ever greater threats from terrorists – some of whom have worn the hijab to escape detection in the past.

            Mr Jones’s remark about him wearing his scarf over his face was no doubt meant to point this out in a jocular fashion. Political correctness however is not a joke, but a genuine threat; especially when it is backed up by the law. What political correctness does is make you nervous around ethnic minorities, or gays. The lady wearing the hijab should have been asked to remove it so her identity could be verified. But those officers present were as much victims of political correctness as Mr Jones.

            Were these officers apprehensive in asking the lady to remove her for fear of being accused of racism which carries with it, not only a penalty under the law, but also the penalty of the sack? All the lady involved would have had to do is take exception to the official’s request and level the charge of racism against him or her.

            This would be enough, at the very least, to lead their employers to investigate their employees. So, as an employee, why would you want to put yourself through all this? This is why I say that the officer who attended Mr Jones, was as much the victim of political correctness as he was himself.

            If you are a white British citizen, life is not as easy as it once was. Mr Jones found this out to his cost, has has many other Britains. We have had people being either dismissed, or threatened with dismissal for wearing a crucifix around their necks (presumably offensive to Muslims). We have had Christians prosecuted for not allowing gays to sleep in their hotel because their faith does not allow them to do so.

            The term ‘political correctness’ is as sinister an expression as inquisition. Those who fall foul of it may not face the kind of torture that befell the 16^th century heretic. But the mechanics of heresy are the same. Political correctness has spread like a virus throughout our culture. It has been granted the force of law, as the popularist expression of  multiculturalism; and it has become a measure of the indigenous culture’s decline.

            Tyranny, as far as millions of indigenous white people are concerned, is the word that best exemplifies their situation because of multiculturalism: and it is because of multiculturalism and its appendage, political correctness, that the Britain they felt themselves part of, is now well and truly in national decline. They see their indigenous culture brought to ruin by a multicultural one; and they are right to so believe. Which is, after all, why Mr Jones found himself a victim.

ENFEEBLEMENT of a nation takes hold when two things happen to bring such weakness about. Firstly, we have the stupefying mores inflicted by the cult of safety that permeates all aspects of our society. It has, like political correctness, been met with ridicule. But a whole industry, much of it quango leaning, has been erected to prevent all forms of calamites from occurring in the everyday lives of ordinary people. Calamities that have befallen people since the beginning of time itself are now being guarded against by Health and Safety (HAS) rules .

            Secondly, due to the litigation industry, this particular invasion has become a major part of our culture. This second consideration is important. We see adverts on television every night from legal firms promising no fee agreements. These firms were given the right to advertise by government…a Labour government under Tony Blair, a trained lawyer whose wife, let us not forget, is a practicing one.

            All forms of human risk behaviour is being curtailed by lawyers because politicians have given them their opportunity, at the expense of the likes of Mr Burgess, to garner their fortunes.

            The, some would say harshness, while others the stupidity, of Health and Safety is partly accounted for by our litigious society whose birth our politicians were midwives to.

            So we come to Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire, and the events surrounding the tragic death of Mr Burgess. Like their colleagues who challenged David Jones, the men and women from   the emergency services were no doubt also well aware of what could have been at stake if any of them who attended this event fell afoul, not of political correctness, but of something equally damaging to our nation, health and safety regulation; if by ignoring such regulation they had waded into the lake to try and save Mr Burgess, they could have found themselves without a job.

            If they had ignored the HAS regulations and met with an accident while seeking to procure the life of a citizen; such an individual would be surrounded by lawyers pressing him to make a claim. This is why, in part, the individuals’ natural instinct to save his or her fellow human being, has been compromised by HAS at the behest of lawyers.

            Mr Burgess was left to die in a boating lake with a depth of 2/3 feet. He should have been recovered much sooner than he was. If he had been, there was a chance, be it a slim one, that he could have survived his ordeal. But HAS, in fear of the lawyers, forbade any attempt to rescue Mr Burgess.

OUR NATION has been in decline economically since the end of the last war. But now we face a cultural decline due to multiculturalism; and a tragicomic decline in our preparedness to do good deeds, exemplified by the events at Walpole Park. Our society has been mismanaged by our politician’s over decades…it was they who created and implemented the ideology of multiculturalism with its manic offspring, political correctness, which is turning a once free and open society into a dystopian hell.

            It was the politicians who gave the green light to every ambulance chasing lawyer in the country to advertise their services; which in turn lead to insurance companies demanding ever larger premiums from councils and other organisations, before the most innocent of activities were allowed.

             HAS has became all powerful within such an environment, and destroyed any kind of risk taking, with it infusion of asinine regulations. It is hard to believe, looking at the country today, that this island created an Empire upon which the sun never set.

            Our indigenous white population have been made to feel like heretics when challenging multiculturalism and political correctness. The hate laws were yet another creation of our politicians; brought in to silence, not only the genuine racists, but people like David Jones whose timid reference to the wearing of the hijab, left him feeling like a criminal who had just tried to smuggle several kilos of heroin into the country.

            This country’s politicians have been the architects of their nation’s decline. Whether it is multiculturalism, health and safety, our liberally supine criminal justice system, the European Union, or the rickety gatekeepers defending us from mass immigration. Our political class has brought ruin upon us as a nation.

            There is a vast tapestry of failure within every aspect of society that politicians have been the main authors of. Their social liberalism has wreaked havoc. They have deliberately set about, over the past 50 years, changing our society to conform with their brand of liberal paternalism…and it has left our nation beached and helpless, and without any kind trajectory that makes any kind of sense to the white, indigenous people who are starting to feel like aborigines, patronised and ignored by liberal politicians from all the main parties. Is it little wonder that a minority have turned toward the English Defence League, or the BNP?

             

            

Business creates all else

BUSINESS is being defended by David Cameron in a speech he is to give today. That a prime minister feels such a need to do so speaks volumes about the state of our culture. On the socialist Left free enterprise is seen as a force for imprisoning the worker into wage-slavery.

            Even after the failed and brutal experiments of living under socialism that millions of Europeans were subjected to in the last century, the socialist Left cannot bring themselves to turn off the life support they give to such an impractical, merciless, and puritan system of living.

            Socialism is the antithesis of capitalism, and by implication, of  business. The businessman still remains the ‘greedy capitalist’ to the socialist Left.  As capitalism goes through one of its periodic crises, the socialists believe that their time has come and the cry goes out to every branch of whatever organisation the comrades belong…one more push!

            Capitalism in crises invigorates the socialist Left,  much as a cold shower cools the frustrated ardour of a priest faced with the temptations of the flesh. The socialist Left live for the day the dialectical process behind their CEO’s philosophy of Historical Materialism completes the process whereby socialism replaces capitalism…Marx will win the day!

           

BUT THE OLD Marxist Left are easy quarry when presenting a pro business argument. When it comes to centre Left politics as a whole, including his own party, the prime minister needs to perform.

            Tony Blair tried to change the culture of the Labour party by leading it away from traditional Left- wing thinking once engraved in the Clause IV of the party’s constitution; ‘To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service’.

            New Labour, as it fashionably became, succeeded in getting rid of this antiquated nostrum for electoral failure. But it left much resentment within the party. Blair even tried to isolate the wretched unions by approaching business for its financial support, and while his grip on both the party and government remained, the Labour Party carried success before it.

            Today, however, we have Ed Milliband leading the party, who, you will remember, was the placeman (because of the party’s electoral college) of the unions. While Blair took two steps forward, Ed has taken one step back. He has openly attacked city bankers whose profligacy regarding bonuses is deeply unpopular with the people, at the moment. But times will change and the peoples’ prospects will improve; but I doubt Ed Milliband’s will. Besides, for all their unpopularity, the City has paid £20 billion annually into the Treasury, which is something the Labour leader is either ignorant of, or is concealing from his public, to keep their tempers flared.

            As for the government’s coalition partners, their business minister has been as equally robust as Ed Milliband when it comes to the City. To be fair however, of all the Left of centre parties, the Liberal democrats take a more tolerant view of business. For they know that it is from this sector that the country’s wealth is being generated, and they appreciate that the private sector; and it is only the private sector, that keeps our schools and hospitals functioning. They do so by employing millions of people who pay their taxes, while the employers themselves make a financial contribution to their employees national insurance.

            But when it comes to the City and the banking sector, they, like Labour, are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water. City bonuses are none of any politicians business (except, of course, for electoral propaganda), and if they carry on as they are in deprecating the wealth they bring to this country; a country which, remember, no longer has a manufacturing sector that accounts for the bulk of the nation’s wealth, then the financial sector, which has been responsible for much of the billions poured into our schools and the NHS over the past decade, should be valued more than it  is by our political class.

WHICH, NO DOUBT, is why Mr Cameron feels the need to speak up for the business community. But even the Conservatives remain prepared to make the right anti-business noises if the public are less than satisfied with their lot.

            Cameron has to weld a business ethic once more onto our culture, not seen since before the last war. Capitalism, which is the system for business and the provider of wealth for the people, needs to be once more appreciated and understood.

            Wealth is good for a people and their nation; and its only known proven form of creation is capitalism. It is the engine of progress in manufacturing, medicine, and science. The only contribution that a socialist society made to such an endeavour was the Kalashnikov automatic rifle, which kills thousands of people on an almost daily basis.

            Capitalism has been the greatest and most progressive force in history; and even Herr Karl Marx was forced to agree with the description. His concern was for the welfare of the worker which in his time was dire. But if he lived today, would he be prepared to stand by his dialectic? I doubt it; for modern capitalism would have well surpassed Marx’s expectations of it. If he were a man of integrity he would bow down in defeat.

            But this prince of socialism was as chippy, to say the least, as his modern observers; and would have encouraged the anti-capitalist Left to fulfil his ‘scientific’ formula  for the birth of communism.

IN EUROPE Social Democracy is preferred to capitalism, and ‘solidarity’ to competition. All the main parties of Europe believe in ever greater public spending – which means collecting more taxes from the over regulated private sector and its employees.

            Well, this remained the case for forty years, right up until our European political elite came up with the idea of a single currency; a project which is now under sustained attack after countries (particularly in southern Europe) incurred large amounts of debt built from the cheap loans they had access to, thanks the more advanced and successful northern economies.

            Now, the public sector which social democracy cultivated until, in some countries it competed with the private sector as a percentage of economic activity, is having to shrink causing social unrest in many countries – and we are only at the beginning.

            In what the French derisively calls, the Anglo-Saxon economies i.e. Britain and America. The state, in theory at least, should play a minimal role leaving the private sector to deliver up the wealth via minimal regulation. In such economies, the state and public sector is seen as something which needs constant pruning to stop an economy from degenerating into a Greek example.

            The minimal state with the minimum involvement in the private sector, and a stern and constant watch over the growth of the public sector, is what allows business to flourish. The Anglo Saxon model is being seen by many in France today, as the right one to follow after the calamities surrounding the euro, and the grip the public sector had over Greece.

SO DAVID CAMERON is right to champion business and he should not just do it through one speech, but constantly refer to its wealth creating centre; whether in technology, science, publishing, engineering, and every other form of economic activity. It is the free market model that directed humanity from steam power in the 18^th century to nuclear power in the 20^th .

            It is the profit motive that stimulates all such advances. But in social democratic Europe (including the UK), profit is a dirty word tainted by human greed and should be sent immediately into the appropriate ring of Hell according to the Left.

            The free market with its spur of ambition and betterment, surpasses all else as alternatives to a capitalist society – for they have been tried and have failed horribly.

           

           

           

           

             

THE CONSEQUENCES OF LEGAL ABORTIONS

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH has carried out an investigation into gender abortions which are illegal under the 

1967 abortion act. Having sent a reporter undercover into various abortion clinics, they found that such abortions were agreed to with no questions asked.

            In a video that was secretly filmed by the Telegraph, a consultant, Prabha Sivaraman working in Manchester, both privately and within the NHS, is seen telling the ‘pregnant’ reporter; “I don’t ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination”.

            One of the reasons given for a gender termination is what is known as ‘family balancing’ where a mother wants to match a son up with daughter instead of another boy – or, of course vice versa.

            Last year in the UK there were over 200,000 abortions undertaken by our healthcare (sic) professionals, and the Daily Telegraph’s report leaves one wondering whether the cases they reported were merely the tip of the iceberg. I would not mind betting that such ‘family balancing’ is more widely practiced than the politicians would like to admit.

            Of course such sex selection was always foreseeable back in 1967, when such practices were outlawed in the bill; but no one back then believed that by the 21^st century over 200,000 terminations would be undertaken each year. We were told at the time, and have been told ever since, that no woman would enter lightly into an abortion, unless it was for the severest of physical, social or physiological reasons. Only through desperation would a woman willingly enter into an arrangement that destroys  the life of her son or daughter. Well, if this argument were taken at face value; we would now have hundreds of thousands of such troubled souls each year, (amounting to some two million over a single decade) seeking help from various clinics dealing with mental health problems.

            If such numbers had been suggested to David Steele, the author of the 1967 act at the time; he would no doubt have called such a view ridiculous in the extreme, and a reflection upon his opponents desperate reasoning for suggesting it. He would have reminded the public that his bill ensured the strictest medical checks into the background of those women seeking to terminate their pregnancies.

           

SEX SELECTION is taking place because abortion has become a mere procedure, like any other medical intervention. The foetus has been reduced to the status of tissue. Women have been told by all sorts of experts, whether they be from the world of medicine or from the Oxbridge quadrangles occupied by moral philosophers, that the foetus need not concern their consciences. The days when a strict  moral restriction stood in a women’s way; when they had to either chose to go the full term or seek out a back street abortionist, were long gone. Abortion had become part of a women’s liberation. It was progress, like the franchise…so be free!

            If the status of the foetus has been so freely undermined, by the 1967 act, why care whether parents pick and choose, as with any other ‘commodity’? Why should those who support abortion object to a women’s right to choose? Is this not the argument that set the ball rolling in the first place?

            The argument that it was ‘my body, my choice’, surely applies equally to sex selection? If there is now no moral or legal obstacle to the abortion of a foetus, then there can be no objection to the way in which it is treated by the mother. The mother has been given the final say in how her pregnancy proceeds… or not.

            The state has handed over to women, the legal and moral right to choose parenthood. But, by implication, the state has also, despite the 1967 act, made it possible for a women to select the sex of the child she wishes to go to term. It is all part of the liberation of women, and if they felt the need to start a campaign to dispose of the part of David Steels’ Bill that makes sex selection illegal, they have a very good chance of winning.

             Women now have sovereignty over the lengths they wish to go regarding termination. The liberal elites gave women this choice in the first place, and cannot set obstacles in the way of such sovereignty; and I am sure the European Court of Human Rights would agree.

            There is no such thing as being half free, which is what the 1967 act seems to suggest by standing in the way of sex selection.

I OPPOSE ABORTION; and I am a man. By legalising abortion and reducing the foetus to its current servitude as a piece of tissue, those who put forward the argument for the legalisation of abortion have, as a consequence, created the tsunami that has become abortion on demand, and cannot now take any kind of moral high ground when it comes to sex selection. After all, are not many of those unfortunate enough to have inherited the wrong kind of gene, or, in the case of Down’s Syndrome a chromosome malfunction, been given permission to terminate?

            So why leave out those who wish to sex select? Once abortion was legalised many other moral dilemmas follow. By treating the foetus in the way it has been treated; it now matters little how those who are picked to survive are or are not selected.

            It is only, after all, only human tissue several months short of becoming a human being. So why do those proponents of abortion object so virulently to sex selection when all other forms, like chromosomal and genetic selection, are perfectly in tune with current thinking on foetal abandonment; for want of a better expression?

IT APPEARS THAT, at the moment, sex selection among Indian women accounts for much of such discrimination. In Indian culture the male foetus is set as the premium and the Telegraph insinuates that it is amongst such a community that sex selection is most vigorous.

            In Indian culture, much to the displeasure of our indigenous feminists, the male of the species carries the most clout when it comes to surviving what our feminists would describe as the tissue stage of a pregnancy.

            No doubt our indigenous feminists would seek to balance this up by procuring the survival of  the female foetus; and will no doubt, in the future lay claim to the survival of the female gender at the expense of the male.

            Ho what a tangle moral web we weave, when abortion on demand is decreed. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; and when David Steel introduced his Bill, he did so for the very worthy reason that women where suffering from the illegal abortionists dubious and deadly methods.

            But were such people responsible for 200,000 abortions a year before the Abortion Act was brought into law? Today abortion is being used as another form of contraception after the pill and morning after pill. To pretend that women, in the majority of cases take their termination’s seriously is undermined by the statistics.

            How long will it be before parents being choosing what they regard as desirable features. You now the kind of thing; blond hair, blue eyes.

            Before the abortion act, the foetus had the same protection in law as any other human being; which is why it was illegal to abort a foetus. Once you undermine, legally, medically, and philosophically, the eminence and rank of the human foetus – it no longer matters how you treat it; which is why female foetuses are being discard in preference to male ones in certain cultures.

           

           

WHERE RELIGION BECOMES MORE DANGEROUS THAN COMMUNISM

WILLIAM HAGUE, the Foreign Secretary, has warned of a new Cold War; this time emanating from within the Middle East if Iran manages to create a nuclear bomb.

                It is the Foreign Secretary’s belief that other countries in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, would seek to construct their own nuclear military capability. Then there is Turkey. She would not wish to remain outside of such a club, and would take the necessary measures to join it.

                Mr Hague’s analysis will be taken notice of; but where the Cold War he describes for the Middle East  would differ from the one the West was involved in for over 70 years, is over the participants readiness to use their weapons.

                During the old Cold War, each side were driven by a political ideology, and would not have used their nuclear arsenals when push came to shove, as was shown with the Cuba crises.

                If a nuclear conflict had come about it would have been through either accident or misunderstanding. For although both sides prepared for a nuclear confrontation by engaging in an arms race; neither side, I believe, would have been prepared to wipe out humanity for the sake of a political ideology. But each side had to convince the other that they would in order to defend either democracy and communism.

                MAD  (Mutually Assured Destruction) was the acronym that caught the public imagination, as well as the politicians. But a front had to be kept up to convince the Soviets that the West meant business, and this paid off during the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960s.

                The Cuban crises convinced the Americans that the Soviets were not prepared to use their Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (IBMs) to defend their allies; but only if they were forced to by the West. That is, if the West moved against the Soviet Union on the plains of Europe and the Soviets faced defeat.

                Of course, it is only with hindsight that I can make such an assumption. At the time, I as well as millions of others, were convinced that each side meant business, and the Cuban crises may have worked to the benefit of the West – but would the next confrontation?

                On the whole, after Stalin’s death, the Soviet leadership were more pragmatic as even the fiery Khrushchev proved during the Cuban crises.

 AS FAR AS THE Middle East is concerned; well, things look very different. A Cold War in the Middle East would be far more unstable than the one between the West and communism.

                Where Mr Hague may prove to have been week in his analogy, is in not taking  the one factor into consideration that makes a Cold War a real one in the Middle East, almost certain.

                If Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey set about manufacturing nuclear weapons in response to the West’s cross-fingered approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, then the resultant stand-off promises greater instability than the earlier Cold War ever managed to manufacture – even taking into consideration the Cuban crises.

                Israel is a nuclear power -  although she does not admit to being such. Add the Jewish state into the mix, then the prospect of at some time a nuclear conflagration taking place in that part of the world seems almost certain.

                When Syria attempted a nuclear programme, Israel bombed the facilities that Syria had created for the purpose; and to this day Syria has not attempted a reprise. But when it comes to Iran, Israel’s so-called allies have forbidden her to repeat her success with Syria against Iran. If three or four years ago Israel had been given the all clear for such a ‘Syrian’ mission, we would not be fearful today about a Cold War in  the Middle East. But time has passed and Iran has put her nuclear capability beyond Israel’s reach without America’s help.

               

TODAY, INSTEAD OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGY driving the new Cold War, we will have religious faith driving the conflict: and under such a circumstance, I am afraid the international community’s failure to stop Iran manufacturing her nuclear capacity; will make any military conflict in that part of the world nuclear very quickly.

                Because religion will be at the helm of any nuclear conflict; whatever the faith, be it Christian, Hebrew or Muslim. Those who believe in life after death…but not only believe, but are as convinced about their afterlife, as they are about the rising of the sun; then life or death matters little to such people: and in Iran we have such people.

                We have Muslims tying explosive about their waists to die for their faith – communists never did this. Muslims are prepared to give themselves up to Allah at any time. By so doing they become martyrs for their faith. To such people death is just part of the journey and they believe it to be just that – a mere journey.

                Israel cannot stop Iran now. She could have done at one time. But not with the censoring of her actions by America and the United Nations. Now, because of such dilatory and cowardly behaviour by the West and the UN, Iran is on the brink of nuclear nationhood and all that this will come to mean for the international community in the very near future.

                Radical Islam is on the march in Iran; Iranian radical Islam cares little about the death of their perceived enemies and welcome their own martyrdom in the pursuance of their enemies death. If the Infidel is destroyed, then Allah will reward his martyrs in the afterlife. It matters little to such people whether their martyrdom, or their enemies defeat, is procured by the cross-bow or an atomic bomb.

               

               

               

                

GREEK DEFAULT IS THE BEST OPTION FOR THE LONG TERM

IS GREECE BEING SET UP by the banks and politicians to delay the inevitable? According to an interview in today’s Der Spiegel, given by Hans-Werner Sinn, the head of Ifo, a top German economic think tank, this is exactly what is happening. Mr Sinn believes that any delay to Greece’s inevitable departure from the single currency only causes greater problems: ‘Because Greece's external debt is rising with every year that passes until it leaves the currency union…’

            He goes on to argue that the political leaders in France and Germany want to postpone a decision until after the impending general elections in their countries; thus putting their own interests before those of the Greek people: and as for the banks; it is they who will benefit from the latest round of bailouts, not the Greek people. It would therefore  be to their benefit if the troika of IMF, ECB and Germany kept coughing up euros.

            This latest round involves €130 billion, and to justify such largesse to the people of Europe, the supporters of the euro have been rushing to the television studios with dire warnings of imminent economic catastrophe by contagion, if this money is not paid to the banks.

            But Hans-Werner Sinn is dismissive of such scaremongering: ‘There may be contagion effects. But I think this argument is being instrumentalized by people who are worried about losing money. People keep on saying "the world will end if you Germans stop paying." In truth only the asset portfolios of some investors will suffer’.

            If Greece were to leave the eurozone no one is pretending their troubles will be over; but they will be over quicker by returning to a devalued Drachma than trudging along the current mud-covered road they are hell-bent upon travelling. It is suggested by economists like Mr Sinn, that, if the Greeks remained part of the eurozone, it would take a decade or more to free themselves from their debts.

            In the late 1980s and early 1990s Argentina faced a similar crises as Greece. But overcame it through being economically independent and making the necessary choices, which, had they been part of a single currency, they would never have had the freedom to make.        If Greece were cut herself free from the eurozone, she will have control of her destiny and no longer be faced with the humiliation of having her elected president replaced by a foreign  technocrat.

            Greece  was the first democracy, and the world, with varying degrees of success inherited the title from her. To witness her elected president being dismissed and replaced by the European Union, (which in reality meant Germany and France) I found deeply troubling; especially as the EU was the child of liberalism, that embraced an idealistic need to end all future conflict in Europe, as well as dictatorship (sic).

THERE IS NO easy way through this for Greece, and once  Ms Merkle and Mr Sarkozy are, as they hope, once more returned to power, Greece will as subtly as possible, be shown the door. Already Angela Merkle has been accused of wishing to see Greece’s departure - which of course is being denied.

            As a British prime minister once said ‘a week is a long time in politics’. Then if this is the case, a year must represent an eternity. It is now being said that Greece’s exodus would be far less costly now than it would have been a year ago when the Europhiles were doom mongering about contagion if Greece left.

            Now apparently, the markets in particular have adjusted themselves to the prospect of the euro zone being one member short. As for Italy and Spain; well, it is no longer thought inevitable that either of these countries would follow in Greece’s footsteps, as the Europhiles once suggested they would if Greece was allowed to default.

            This is why Herr Merkle is seen as the willing party prepared to push Greece over the precipice. Besides which, Germany has contributed enough of her peoples hard earned taxes to help Greece remain in the euro zone; and Angela Merkle should therefore, not be judged harshly if Greece does leave.

            If I were a German citizen whose taxes were being fritted away to keep a foreign economy afloat, an economy which belonged to a nation that despised us, for our  historical transgressions; then I would say we still had had a duty to help them. But such help cannot be expended to the detriment of our own economy; which, if it continued, it would certainly be.

GREECE SHOULD NEVER have been allowed to join a single currency, when, economically, she was ill-equipped to do so. I do not blame Greece, but I do blame those early idealists of the European Union (EU) who thought that such discrepancies between each nation’s economies could be sorted out later, believing that the benefits of ever closer union outweighed these problems.

            Greece became bloated on cheap borrowing due to the platinum collateral offered by the northern European economies who were in effect her guarantors. It was comparable to myself being given a million pound mortgage while living on a monthly income of just one thousand pounds. For this in effect was what happened. The richer nations of northern Europe stood surety over Greece’s borrowings once she became part of the euro-zone club.

            Political idealism taken to such extremes, which in politics, it eventually is, causes untold unhappiness and regret. The need to make Europe a family without nation states drove forward the federal union project - especially following this last war.

            Out of pure stubbornness and little else; those pioneers of full political and monetary union within the EU have sought to keep that ambition alive by keeping Greece within the euro-zone. Now, however, after months of prevaricating, they are about to do what they swore would never happen…Greece now has to be invited to leave if the European ideal if it  is to survive.

             Greece’s behaviour since she became a member of the euro zone; including the frightening growth of her public sector because the country lacked a sufficiently robust private sector, apart from shipping and tourism, to employ her people –  so she created a public sector paradise paid for from cheap borrowing which became the main source of employment.

            Such was the largess accumulated by Greece’s position within the eurozone, that all sorts of financial benefits were given, including an early retirement age that would have been the envy of those northern EU countries whose energies and taxes were creating Greece’s slumber-land public sector economy.

GREECE WAS NEVER a front runner as many tried to warn the EU at the time. Now finally, after much suffering to the Greek people, those giants of political and monetary union, Herr Merkle and President Sarkozy, are prepared, after billions of euros of expenditure on keeping the euro zone whole, are finally prepared to see Greece depart the euro zone.

            As for the Greeks, they must consider themselves lucky after leaving. Yes, I do mean lucky. Let Mr Sinn explain: ‘…Greek products would rapidly become cheaper, demand would be redirected from imports towards domestically produced goods. The Greeks would no longer buy their tomatoes and olive oil from Holland or Italy but from their own farmers. And tourists for whom Greece has been too expensive in recent years would return. In addition, new capital would flow into the country. The rich Greeks who deposited so many billions, possibly hundreds of billions of euros, in Switzerland would see the falling property prices and wages and would have an incentive to start investing in their own country again.

            By trying to remain part of the euro zone, Greece will only prolong her suffering. Leaving will be hard of course, but as I have already said, staying would much harder, going on for much longer.

            If I were a Greek, I would want out as quickly as possible. If Greece’s political leaders, instead of their EU appointed technocrat placemen, still persisted with membership of the eurozone, then they will invite a cataclysm in the form social unrest that may develop into  one of the wilder forms of political extremism.

            Believe me. Greece should abandon everything to do with the EU. She will, after a difficult beginning, once more be the master of her own destiny unlike many of those countries she will leave behind.

              

           

              

             

            

DEVO-MAX – SALMOND’S FOOT IN THE DOOR OF INDEPENDENCE

WILL IT BE A two or three question referendum? A straight Yes or No; or increased powers  for the Scottish Assembly, known as devo-max - and Alex Salmond’s preferred option.

            The Scottish First Minister, knows that whether a referendum is called now or in 2014, the Scottish people will not vote for independence. Which is why he is eager for the devo-max option, which may not give him what he wants, but the further powers it will give him, will serve as a temporary measure until the Scottish people come to their senses. Besides, increased powers will, he hope, give his people the confidence to vote for independence in the next referendum in a few years time, or whenever Salmond  has the confidence to call one with a straight  in or out ballot.

            Depending upon what ‘more powers’ would mean in practice if the third option was allowed and selected as an alternative to outright independence by the people of Scotland, devo-max would, in principle, put Scotland two thirds of the way toward independence.

            Devo-max is a salami-slicing measure leading to full independence, and Cameron would be foolish to agree to its inclusion on the ballot paper. But then he may have no option if Alex Salmond goes ahead anyway. I have no idea what this would mean constitutionally, but whatever it would mean, if Salmond chooses to ignore it, will Cameron be prepared to withdraw all financial support to Scotland? I doubt it; for to do so, even if he were so inclined, it would only drive more of the Scottish people into the First Minister’s arms.

THERE IS HOWEVER a hand to play which may or may not put Salmond off balance, but will leave a direct impression on the Scottish people.

            If there is to be a devo-max question on the ballot paper, then Cameron must allow the English a say on the matter. He must await the outcome of the Scottish vote, and then give his people their chance to say whether or not Scotland should continue as part of the United Kingdom, or not - but he must announce such an English ballot before the Scottish referendum is taken, so the Scottish people have a full picture of what is at stake.

            I, like the prime minister, believe wholeheartedly in the union. But if there is to be separation then let it be clean cut and not obfuscated by Salmond with the devo-max option.

            As things stand at the moment, the chess board is being dominated by Alex Salmond’s superior strategy. He knows, or at least believes, that a Tory will comply with anything that will save the union; even if only temporarily through devo-max.

            Even if there were a Labour government (the midwives of devolution), they would also be at Salmond’s mercy because, the Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster would  be in real trouble if Scotland became independent. If Scotland were to gain its independence, the Tories would have a permanent majority in parliament because of the loss of 41 Labour MPs.

            Alex Salmond knows all this, being as he is, in control of the chess board. He has worked out every move he thinks his opponents can make; he is also so convinced of his enemies limitations that he cannot see them having an opening move.

           

THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE can either stay within the union – my option. Or they can vote to become independent. But the English people will not, and should not, accept Alex Salmond’s third option, which is why there needs to be an English referendum; and if we are denied this option; as we have been regarding other important votes over Europe, then we must give up on the democratic process and refuse our votes to the three main parties at the next election.

            Then all three parties will either come to their senses, or another party in tune with the British people’s opinions will emerge. Such as UKIP , which has proven itself worthy of the British people’s support over Europe, and deserves the support of any member of any party who believes we must remain a nation free from all outside demands for the discontinuance of our  national sovereignty

            But when it comes to Scottish independence; it is the English people who must have the final say, and it had better be given them by their prime minister. We are sick of being treated as mere ballot box supplicants, who, every five years are given a say on who governs us based upon a manifesto that soon becomes a betrayal of its intentions, due to political expediency, once in power.

            If our politician’s obeyed their own manifesto pledges, then referendums would no longer be needed; but unfortunately, they cannot.

            Scottish independence has plagued our politics for far too long. It created the so-called compromise of devolution, championed by John Smith, the Labour leader and secured by Tony Blair. At a cost of £400m the Scottish Assembly building was created to support such a development, and the English tax payer remained passive.

            At the time of devolution there were some voices that warned the Labour Party then in government of what such a development could lead to. But the death of John Smith placated those in the Labour Party who were against its introduction.

            Now the inevitable is happening and Scottish independence  is a practical option thanks to devolution and John Smith’s determination to see what he called the ‘settled will’ of the Scottish people given its expression.