Brown showed himself up today to be rude and ignorant, as well as gutless. I was never ashamed that Tony Blair was Prime Minister of this country. I may have disagreed with his stance on many international issues, but I wasn't ashamed of him representing this country. Gordon Brown isn't fit to lick his boots.
UPDATE: Mike Smithson from PoliticalBetting.com has an interesting take on this...
Having just read many comments in the previous thread, watched on TV the excruciating embarrassment of Gord’s late arrival in Lisbon for his solo treaty
signing, and had a half hour phone conversation with a long-standing friend who
is a Labour loyalist and former constituency chair the question arises as to whether today might be a turning point. For the message that’s coming through loud and clear is that Downing Street’s strategy for dealing with the Lisbon ceremony was a total flop and raised even more questions asked about Brown’s ability to do the job. In my Labour friend’s words and not mine will be picked up across Europe. “Our leader has just made himself look a total laughing stock and this will be picked up across Europe. How can he expect to influence the EU when he can’t even get this bit right? Patience is running our amongst many of the activists I know and we need to start asking whether he should be replaced.” Methinks it’s time to reverse my Labour buy moves on the spread markets.
You have it right Iain. Many of us disliked Bliar for all sorts of reasons, but I DID feel he was at least interesting, engaging and presentable. Brown is just a boor.
ReplyDeleteI never thought Blair was interesting, engaging and presentable. I thought he was malevolent,Messianic and prissily self-adoring. True, he didn't look like an oaf in public, as Brown does. He may have slumped on TV couches and mumbled in Estuary, but he never picked his nose on national TV.
ReplyDeleteBrown is as malevolent as Blair, but he's not as good at smoke and mirrors and fooling some of the people some of the time (but never me) as Blair, but they are two nasty, destructive, vicious socialist destroyers of our ancient, stable, familial society and I wish them both tremendous ill.
Thinking -- very naively -- about this topic in general:
ReplyDeleteBrown's disastrous turn at the helm has inevitably brought on a mood of Blairalgia. I don't subscribe to this: he was a shallow twister and has done great harm.
But, as Iain and others have pointed out: he could at least be depended on to do his public stuff: if there was a shameful treaty to be signed, there he would be in an expensive suit uttering affable platitudes and shaking the hands of bad men.
Also, however grave the effects of his rule, it never seemed that he didn't care about Britain. In imposing his stupid dogmas, he thought he was helping. He wouldn't have caused deliberate harm to the country (for all the harm he did cause).
And yet, for ten years this intelligent man had a close-up view of Brown and must have formed an opinion of him; and it seems likely from what we know at the moment that this view was that he was a disaster in every possible way.
Blair adroitly resigned the moment his ten glorious years were up, and before things went utterly pear-shaped. He had made a deal that he would hand over to Brown, but simply by staying for so long he had already broken the spirit of it. He could easily have broken it completely and pushed through a younger and less ruinous successor. He had broken every possible other kind of deal, it would have been the work of a cruel moment.
Why then, after hesitating so long, did he unleash this appalling person on our unhappy country? It seems almost like an act of deliberate revenge.
Iain; Watching your "Little Chipmunk", aka Hazel Blears, just now on Question Time, IMHO she bears more of a resemblance to "The Little Red Hen" rather than than a Chipmunk !
ReplyDeleteOh, come along now Iain. Brown did eventually get the hang of the dress code for the Mansion House speech, after about eight or nine years.
ReplyDeleteYou just need to give the boy a bit of a chance, that is all...
"thought he was malevolent,Messianic and prissily self-adoring. "
ReplyDeleteThat is PEWCISELY how many of your "visitors" come across, Iain, especially those who exhibit the flea-ridden intellect of "Verity".
I definitely saw Gordon Brown sign the Treaty on television this evening, not in the context of the stage-managed pomp that Camirror/ Camera/Camoron would have enjoyed (and, yes, he WOULD have signed it because it makes sense), but after a reasonably hard, unreported day at the officE.
The sooner your posters get over their fixation with "grooming" the more chance we'll all have of joining debate.
I suggest Verity invests in a decent powder to deal with her cats - previous contributions to your threads have left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.
The real suprise is that the Blair loyalists havn't stabbed Brown in the back already. After all we have a very very long wait for a General election.
ReplyDeleteTachybaptus - Are you serious? "it never seemed that he didn't care about Britain. In imposing his stupid dogmas, he thought he was helping. He wouldn't have caused deliberate harm to the country."
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to figure out whether you were being ironic.
Can anyone shut that overly-focussed, vicious, hissy old nellie "James" up?
Can anyone shut that overly-focussed, vicious, hissy old nellie "James" up?
ReplyDeleteIf Iain wanted to, I'm sure he would, but I reckon that I add value, unlike your inane contributions, which seek to regress Iain's potential supporters (Maidstone rather than Boleyn!) to the Stone Age, from whence you came.
I would have appreciated "up" earlier in the sentence, dear.
ReplyDeleteVerity: I wrote (with the passages you omitted in italics)
ReplyDeleteAlso, however grave the effects of his rule, it never seemed that he didn't care about Britain. In imposing his stupid dogmas, he thought he was helping. He wouldn't have caused deliberate harm to the country (for all the harm he did cause).
Qualification, OK? I was trying to make the point that he lived in a fantasy world in which he was making everything lovely.
verity said:
ReplyDelete"thought he was malevolent,Messianic and prissily self-adoring. "
james said:
"That is PEWCISELY how many of your "visitors" come across, Iain, especially those who exhibit the flea-ridden intellect of "Verity"."
and:
"not in the context of the stage-managed pomp that Camirror/ Camera/Camoron would have enjoyed"
Pot? Kettle? Black?
Iain - you hvae finally lost the plot!
ReplyDeleteBlair was a self deluded, egotistical, vain self-obsessed individual who was interested in one thing and one thing only - projecting himself as the saviour of mankind!
He has a Jesus complex, and I can only imagine this increasing once he is comfortably ensconced in the position which Brown today created for him - el Presidente of the Union.
At last - he will have what he wants - power without the tedium of accountability, fame, media drooling over him, chauffeur, cash expenses, and before too long, probably the lifestyle of the man who he really measures himself against - the President of the USA!
Blair was a malevolent force in British politics. He has turned this once great 'union' into separate states/countries/regions who now distrust and dislike each other, has 'invested' gazillions of our (not his) hard earned to create a 'world class public services' which largely comprise of a public sector workforce doubling in seize with interfering and officious bureaucrats, petty officials and non-jobbers who spend their life being paid by me to come up with ever new inventive ways to meddle, interfere and regulale that which needs only to be left alone – and all of whom have a financial interest in voting Labour (they might lose their non-jobs under a proper Tory Government).
He has allowed our borders to become over-run with immigrants (illegal ones who cause crime and legal ones who will vote Labour out of gratitude), has allowed our once lauded 'common sense' approach to life to be replaced with a 'com-pen-say-shun' culture, fat ambulance chasing corporate ‘Claims are Us’ solicitors, and built a society where no-one takes any responsibility for themselves, and if something goes wrong, we just ask ‘who can we blame and get to pay’.
He has changed the police from a ‘force’ which once protected the innocent and chased the criminal, into a ‘service’ which does nothing about 'proper' crime (or the small number of feral youths responsible for most of it), but instead endlessly harass the law abiding middle classes because they are seen as easy target-fodder and a nice cash-cow to boot.
He has demoralized our armed forces and destroyed the moral contract which existed between those who we send to die for our freedom and those who benefit from their bravery - in two illegal wars.
He turned our once great economy into a sluggish underperformer where nearly 30% of the workforce are dependent upon the tax payer for their wages, yet in return the tax payer gets little or nothing in return except speeding fines, parking tickets and ASBOs for grannies who clip a ‘yoof’ around the ear!
In short Iain, Blair has ruined this country, and how you can say that you are not embarrassed by him is beyond my reasonable mind. The man is a traitor to the ‘peepul’ whom he lied to in order to get elected, and I for once have never fallen for the ‘straight kinda guy’ schmaltzy ‘above politics’ ‘man of the peepul’ crap which he has spun.
He is a ruthless man who mas made millions by selling us down the river.
I detest him from the very core of my political being, and if I ever get the chance to tell him so, I would gladly do so.
Even if some jumped up traffic warden or ‘Local Authority Rage Outreach Officer’ recommends me for an ASBO!
If Labour dump Brown, could they dump the EU at the same time please.
ReplyDeleteJust saw the Beeb 1 am news. It led with a completely irrelevant story about baseball, the signing away of most of what remains of our sovereignty was item 3, and no mention at all of Broon's disastrous childish petulance. They had a fanatically pro-European spokeswoman from the Centre for European reform. About the worst example of BBC bias since one of their journalists referred to Labour as "us".
ReplyDeleteWell, Adrian Yelland, we have clashed in the past, but you have written every word I would have written myself. You have dotted every i I would have dotted, and crossed every t.
ReplyDeleteThe destructor of Britain was Blair, with the engines of the socialists clearing the way. "Make room! Make room! All hail to the boy (in his late forties) king!"
From current accounts, he was a noted pest at Fettes, as well, but of course, couldn't harm our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a schoolboy.
Later, Mr Fussyboots couldn't decide whether to be a rock star (ever seen those photos?) or a barrister as the next biggest costume-wearing community. The public vetoed the rock star fantasy.
So, the law.
At least you get to wear a wig. He was nicknamed "Miranda" in chambers. For innocent reasons, one is sure.
Then he morphed into "Bambi". Remember him pretending to ride that bicyle in Amsterdam? The new Britain! "Britain is a young nation!"
Wha'???
Cool Britannia as an international meme! Doubly stupid because no one outside the UK knows "Rule Britannia" so wouldn't make the connection, but what the hell! Ignore reality! Plough on! The Millennium Dome was the Seventh Wonder of the World! It had acrobats suspended from wires and No Smoking signs!
The evil spirit was steady throughout, though. He took a wrecking ball to our ancient Constitution and Bill of Rights and our Common Law which had spread throughout the Anglophone world over the previous 250 years and is freer and less restrictive of the invidual than the Napoleonic Code that is now being applied to the necks of the British without a shot being fired.
I am full of contempt for Britain, because you either voted for this toxin to be introduced into your national blood system, or you didn't bother to vote.
You let the MRSA in.
It's fatal, you know.
psj - Amazing. An entire country and an entire culture delivered into alien hands without a shot being fired. I wish we'd hanged Edward Heath as a traitor, and I wish we had the resolve - which is long, long swirled down the drain - to charge Chris Patten.
ReplyDelete[Shadowy giggling of the Trots in the tunnels burrowed through our society.]
If the Queen signs the signing away of our kingdom into law, then she too is complicit, no matter what her age.
She alone has the power now, to say "No".
Ancient nellie "James", rouged cheeks and a cravat a la Quentin Crisp, I am sure, and who loathes women (me and Judith so far, but then there aren't that many women posting on this site) is a hissy old queen who calls himself Veritas on other sites. [Could be some name anger there. I got Verity first.]
ReplyDeleteHis word patterns and hatred patterns are the same.
A vicious, hissy, angry little old thing. Veritas, I read that these days, you can get Viagra over the internet from India. Don't worry if you don't have a "partner".
At least you won't have to look your best.
I always thought that Gordon Brown would eclipse Blair and indeed it has proven to be the case. What took Blair 8 years to achieve as PM - Brown has achieved in barely 6 months.
ReplyDeleteFor a PM to be so ridiculed, despised and regarded with contempt and revulsion in both his own country and abroad takes a man of some intellect and ability.
Despite an early "fortunate" set of
events which allowed Brown to posture as competent his awkward personality,his control-freakiness and the sheer cack-handedness of his government has proven to be is undoing.
He was lucky with the economy for the last decade, benefiting from an improving World economic cycle which enabled him to strut and preen as the "best Chancellor" this country has had in recent times - complete rubbish. His policies of complicated taxation and stealth together with Labour overspending in the Public Sector to little result is now starting to unravel.
In 2008 his last shred of reputation for economic prudence will be shredded and whilst he might stumble on for another 2 years he and his party will be consigned to electoral oblivion at the next election. A politician and political party can recover from a lot but ridicule and the taint of sleaze never
Presumably Gordon Brown asked himself, "How can I best use this opportunity to demonstrate that I am a complete plonker?"
ReplyDeleteNothing else will explain his behaviour.
When I saw Brown on ITN last night turning up late in Lisbon ,I was struck by the cruel accuracy of Vincent Cable's "Mr Bean" jibe.Incidentally the difference in tone between the BBC and ITN coverage was such that it did not seem that they were covering the same event.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @ 7:48 said...
ReplyDeleten 2008 his last shred of reputation for economic prudence will be shredded and whilst he might stumble on for another 2 years he and his party will be consigned to electoral oblivion at the next election. A politician and political party can recover from a lot but ridicule and the taint of sleaze never
Can't disagree with that, so we've Iain's lot to look forward to...
Hang out the bunting! Street parties for all!!
Bugger that. They may be a different colour, but they still want to control your thoughts, your money, your lives.
Politics can be entertaining to watch, but, please, don't think for a minute that there's any difference between any of the self-serving scum.
Gordon Brown: what courage, what statesmanship! What shambolic, mortifying, ignominious behaviour from a British Prime Minister, he simply isn't fit for the job.
ReplyDeleteMadness in great ones should not unwatched go. Even would be great ones.
"Ancient nellie "James", rouged cheeks and a cravat a la Quentin Crisp, I am sure, and who loathes women (me and Judith so far, but then there aren't that many women posting on this site) is a hissy old queen who calls himself Veritas on other sites"
ReplyDeleteI'm struggling to see why Iain allowed this one through . It doesn't begin to adress any issues, and is a meaningless out-pouring of bile.
Verity questions my sexualit and attitude to women. Why? I think it might be because "verity" has no reasonable answer to my political points.
While I occasionally can't be bothered to fill in ny name, I would never call myself "Veritas", as that was the name of Kilroy-Silk's party, which sank without trace.
Clearly Verity is in need of a strong coffee.
When her argument doesn't convince, then she resorts to name-calling. It isn't very edifying.
Verity's world-view is uniquely pre-historic, and her tone ridiculous in its pomposity and self-aggrandising. My world-view is rather more widely held, though I'm sure plenty of people here disagree with my opinions on politics.
I'd really be grateful if this would stop now. I've allowed every comment through so far, but it's getting very unedifying from both your viewpoints.
ReplyDeleteVerity - thank you, I think!
ReplyDeleteI like to think I am a fairly reasonable kinds guy - I like to think that I and my family benefit from my hard work, that the taxes I pay go to pay for public services I and the country need, that my children will grow up in a safe society where they will not be affected by crime, where their education will be the best it can be, and where their future will be more prosperous than the one I enjoy. I like to think I live in a country where people from overseas who bring something of their exotic lives can come and live here, integrate into our way of life, whilst maintaining the more attractive and enjoyable aspects of their culture in an environment which is mutually respectful and accepted. I hope to live in a country where rules and regulations are there to ensure common sense prevails, and that the law abiding tax paying majority are not over-run by the ungrateful, unwilling and unlawful minority. I hope to live in a society where what people do in their bedrooms, and who they do it with is a private mater and none of my business. I like to think I live in a society where in return my privacy is respected. I also hope that this ‘civilised’ approach will spread across the globe to other nations who are not so fortunate as ours, and that through our good example, their lives will improve with our help and their hard work.
But no, this is not New Labour's Britain.
Instead we have a situation where those who benefit first from my hard work are those who despise me, my values and my way of life. I now work ever longer into the year to pay my tax bill off before I can start working to keep my family in the modest comfort they feel they deserve!
I live in a country where my kids cannot get into a school with which I feel comfortable unless I am prepared to pay thousands a year for the privilege. I live in a country where my children (quite properly) learn about Ramadan, Divali and Yom Kippur, but where the nativity play is canceled because it might cause offence to those of other faiths – even though my Muslim neighbors send me a ‘Happy Christmas’ card, and come over for mince pies!
I live in a country where I have to live my life forever watching my back in case my house gets burgled or I get mugged. And of course, if that does happen – don’t expect anything from the police, they are too busy attending ‘Diversity Awareness Seminars’ to actually try detecting any crime. And anyway, having my own house and car is simply tantamount to ‘asking for it anyway’, as, according to New Labour, and theie lap dogs at the Metropolitan Police, the real victim is the guy in the caravan on the travelers park up the road, or the feral ‘yoof’ on the local estate, or the young man forced into drugs to justify his love of mugging people. Perhaps if I had learnt to speak their ‘street language’ and made them feel more ‘included’, they wouldn’t feel the need to rob me!
I live in a country where I am told that my own standards and way of life are not good enough for those whose own standards and ways of life are alien to the country in which they live. I am told that if I point this out, I am 'intolerant' and 'racist', despite the fact that I have loads of friends who are black, mixed race and Asian – all of whom are sick to death of being ‘patronised’ by do-gooders who feel ‘offended’ on their behalf!
I live in a land where what is ‘tolerates’ and ‘included’ is strictly monitored by a bunch of lunatics who are still fighting a 1960’s style class war.
I live in a country where the sex lives of other people are forced down my throat, and that if I object to having to know about it, I am exhibiting homophobic tendencies, and I could be the kind of person who commits a ‘hate crime’. However, I am forever being told by my friends who are gay that they gay rights lobby – funded by my taxes – are an embarrassment to them!
I pay ever more taxes to support the ever growing legions of non-jobbers who contribute nothing to the worth of society, and who produce nothing of value for the economy, but who are simply the hidden unemployed, sitting around in endless ‘workshops’ and ‘case study meetings’, drinking fair trade coffee and wearing their fleeces made from recycled plastic bags, deciding how best to interfere and harass the law abiding and tax paying mugs who pay for them.
I live in a country where the law has lost a sense of perspective, where the slightest infringement of minor laws leads to hefty financial penalties, but where muggers, rapists and murderess go unpunished – or when they do get punished, they get released early to re-offend. I live in a country where a man witnessing a crime apprehends one of the ‘yoofs’ responsible, makes a ‘citizens arrest’, and then gets arrested by the police whom he called! I live in a society where if I drive my car 3 mph too fast, or park 2 minutes too long, I get nicked, but if I duff up a granny, I can expect never to be caught. I live in a country where despite being spied on by endless reams of CCTV, crime is going up, and the Governments answer is to introduce ID cards!
I live in a country where the police refuse to help a man who has just been mugged and can point out who the mugger is, because they are too busy putting out traffic cones! I live in a country where the European Court of Human Rights decides that a man who kicked a complete stranger to death in order to steal a pack of fags has had ‘his human rights’ violated when the Government refused to let him father a child from behind bars – and where the NHS now has to pay for a convicted and imprisoned criminal to have artificial insemination babies with his (recently released from prison) girlfriend!
I live in a land where I am guilty of committing a crime if I simply think something which someone might take offence at, and where I can be guilty of committing a hate crime simply if someone else ‘believes’ I am guilty of committing one. Yet, if I punch a guy who tries to rob me at knifepoint, I am guilty of assault!
I live in a society where almost every thing I do at work revolves around doing risk assessments to avoid being sued, where people’s first response to the slightest problem is ‘I know my rights you know’, and where fat-cat corporate lawyers encourage a compensation culture which means that no-one accepts responsibility for the slightest thing, and that something as simple as bad luck is reason to go to law.
I live in a country where local councils can fine me thousands of pounds for not sorting my rubbish into the correct bags or boxes, but somehow they escape the need to collect the rubbish regularly enough to avoid my garden being overrun with rats and maggots, and where (despite doubling my council tax since 1997) money is tight, but the council can still afford to employ ‘Outreach Workers’, ‘Diversity Awareness Officers’ and a host of other non-jobs which suck the economy and society dry!
Welcome to New Labour Land!
I'm surprised that my rather measured response drew Iain's admonishment, and not Verity's unpleasant rant, but there it is.
ReplyDeleteI recognise and agree with Adrian Yallands description of his aspirations, but I recognise very little of his description of the country I live in. It seems to have been gleaned from the press, unless he's been extremely unlucky.
One aspect I do accept deals with our conception of our nation, as compared with the self-conception of our neighbours. The French would neveer have dreamt of hiring a non-French national team manager. When it comes to sport, we really are not competitive enough, and seem to throw our hands up in despair too easily.
On the Europea Treaty Referendum, the apathy is extraordinary. Fewer thjan 9% of Telegraph readers have signed their petition - less than one per cent of its online readers have signed.
Personally, i like the idea of a (thinner and cheaper) fedeeral layer, so I don't mind. YOu guys who want us distanced from the EU must be furious at the torpor amongst your own sympathisers!
Oh no, Blair was infinitely worse. I squirm at the memory of him.
ReplyDeleteAdrian Yalland, excellent indeed. Hopefully like minded people can get together and help throw Labour into the wilderness at a minimum and return decency, honesty and common sense to government.
ReplyDeleteI fear the Conservatives, on present showing, are not up to the task, it seems there is nothing that will excite the Shadow Cabinet enough to speak out in public with conviction and passion (witticisms in the Commons don't count).
James: Would you like some well documented examples of what I am talking about - such as the lunacy in the poolice 'service', schools where teaching the three Rs is secondary to political correct ideology, and where taxes are wasted hand over fist?
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could start by reading the 'Society Jobs' section in the Guardian on a Wednesday - here you will find a veritable army of pointless, worthless non-jobs which cost us millions a year and are only suitable for people who would probably be otherwise unemployable, are screaming lefty Gay /animal/environmental rights nutters, or should actually be taken away by the men in white coats for everyone's safety!
The country has been overtaken by a bunch of purse-lipped, dissaproving, nannying social workers who hate their own country, feel guilty for being alive, dislike anyone who doesn't have their narrow view on life, and wrongly believe that society can be remade for the better through their meddling and social engineering, thought control and endless criminlisation of innocent activities deemed 'unaceptable'.
Sadly, since 1997 they have moved out from the town halls of Islington, Tower Hamlets and Hackney into offices of state - where they do real harm in the name of producing a non-gender specific, racially integrated, tolerant, fair, inclusive, sterile, risk-averse, cotton-wool wrapped, harmonious society which stifles freedom of thought, speech, expression and religion - unless of course you express thoughts and speech, and practice religions which are deemed 'acceptable' to these perverse and corrosive.
I am fed up with these narrow minded priggish and chippy morons telling me what I should think, feel and do, having my thoughts, activities and behaviour regulated in the interest of some as yet unproven 'greater good', tired of being threatened with summary justice for non-offences which cause no harm to others, and I am sick to death for being told that I must despise myself and my country for no other reason than they are blind to reality.
I would do anything to get rid of this shower, and about 99% of everything they have done since 1997.
The only thing I slightly agree with is the smoking ban in pubs - but even that (as a non smoker) was taken too far and should have been voluntary so people can choose to go to either licences smoking or licences non-smoking pubs.
But no - we need a ban to regulate everyone's behaviour because, we the people, cann never be trusted to act sensibly or in our best interests and must therefore be 'guided'.
And before I get accussed of racism (an insult never far from those who cannot argue the facts), I do not hate the Europeans, or Jews, Muslims, Africans or blacks.
ReplyDeleteI speak French and German fluently, as well as a little bit of Spanish, Italiana and Slovene. I travel regulalry to Asia, India, SOuth America and just about everywhere else. I am particularly excited about to to Poland for the first time next year. I welcome them into the EU!
I welcome immigration, and recognise that it adds both value and colour to the UK.
But, I am oppossed to the EU - which is different to disliking Europe or Europans. It is a political body which seeks to control - and I am oppossed to being controlled.
I am oppossed to the kind of unlimited and unregulated immigration we have at the moment, as it allows people into the country whose motivation for coming here is to rip us off, commit crime, and who have no intention of fitting into our way of life or living by our laws. I am oppossed because it makes it harder for everyone to rub along together, and creates tensions. My poor old Muslim neighbour recetly said "too many people now coming to the country - we fear that we are being cast in with those who do not wish to be both British and Muslim, but who wish to create a Muslim Britain".
Quite!
Hurrah for Adrian Yelland!
ReplyDeleteBTW, I and many others didn't sign the anti-Treaty petition because we thought it was pointless. It was quite apparent that Brown would deliver us into the next stage of the recreation of the Holy Roman Empire.
How soon do you give it, Verity, before the post of EU President becomes hereditary?
Agree, as I often do, with Dearie Me. Blair was worse, worse, worse. Infinitely worse.
ReplyDeleteHmmm ... Interesting point, Judith. If it does become hereditary,then it will go to a Frenchman. There's no way the French would have a hereditary German or hereditary Romanian (just kidding, everyone; although stranger things have happened) over them.
ReplyDeleteI truly don't think it will, although it will be passed around among a tiny cadre of the nomenklatura. It will certainly never be put to the vote.
God, I hate these people!
I don't have any respect for the Queen any longer, either. She allowed an unelected "prime minister" with absolutely no mandate, to sign our country over to a dictatorship that few in Britain want. She should have dissolved Parliament and demanded a general election.
Charles would be worse.
D'ya know! I feel a lot better for having got that off my chest!
ReplyDeleteI am starting to sound like Littlejohn in my old age!
Aspiring to sound like Littlejohn? He's a rabid right-winger who was as bad a McKenzie in the late eighties.
ReplyDeleteMy point remains that the things you mention are largely happening in the tabloid stories, rather than in real life.
Not one of the things you mention has affected me or anyone I know, or had any noticeable detrimental affect on anything. It is possible to blame "them" , but people who are bitter and frustrated should really first look in the mirror before they start seeking to demonise public services.
I'm an extremely happy person, reasonably successful. Not as a result of Govt activity, nor despite it. I'm almost completely free of paranoia. Most people won't sign the Telegraph petition because they don't really need to. It won't change anything substantially either way.
Your kids can't read? Do you write a letter to the school, or teach them yourself? I know what I do.
By the way, Scotland's health results are much improved since the smoking ban. As a consequence of it? I doubt it.
James, where do you live - I want to move there.
ReplyDeleteFirstly my kids can read because I taught them to before they went to primary school. But when it came to finding a decent secondary school, whose values are based around educating and disciplining - I had to move! And there are plenty of schools where 'diversity' is part of the curriculum because the vast majority of the kids in the school are from ethnic minorities. I visited one school which boasted that over 30 langugages were spoken in their school - yet the school had no policy of ensuring kids spoke as much English as possible, thus enabling them to integrate better into wider society. So the kids left school speaking their language perfectly, but not speaking English as well as they could. And then we celebrate this ghettoisation of our citizens as multicultuarlism, and then wonder why there is so much tension between communities. We should be doing more to integrate ethnic minorities, not alowing them to ghottoise themselves from the wider mainstream British culture.
I haven't got time to give too many examples, but as for PC nonsense in the police - they are legion! If you really want some, I will sit and write them up, but trust me there are hundreds of examples of where the police have lost the plot and now act as lightening sonductors for Labour's war on tradiational British culture and values.
And I invite you to read the Wednesday job section in the Guardian for a whole army of non-jobs!
How you can say that what I am describing is just in the tabloids is beyond me!
Let's
Ps James - get the Telegraph today - 1,300 schools where English is the minority language!
ReplyDeleteArticle here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=11SHUY5H1TGXTQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/12/17/nschool117.xml
Adrian
ReplyDeleteI live in five miles from the centre of London. I don't have direct experience of secondary schools as a parent yet , but i'm with you on teaching the kid(s) to read early. Add multiplication tables.
As for PC nonsense being "legion" - clearly you must be vewry unlucky to have so much direct experience of it. Living where I do, I have had reason to call the police a few times in twenty years - to report disturbnces, and after being burgled. Most people never have to call the police.
Your argument suggests we are beset by them and PC nonsense. The fact is, we largely are not, but read anecdotes in newspapers. Anecdotes which don't reflect a true picture.
For example, those most in fear of being attacked are those least likely to be attacked; those least in fear of being attacked are those most likely to be attacked.
Positive anecdotes hardly ever register. I gave my postman his annual Xmas tip the other day. Same postie for the three years I've lived in that street.
As for schools dealing with language diversity, it's an extraordinarily difficult problem, especially when many parents are so determined to throw responsibility for such things to the teachers, and take so little responsibility for their own kids.
Discipline should be taught at home. Schools should be able to start from the point where their charges can learn about leadership.
James
ReplyDeleteThat's 6.4% of schools - hardly over-run, are we?
The fact is that the resources are out there to provide English language training to anyone who needs it.
If I went to live in a country where I didn't speak the language, I'd treat that as a first priority.
I repeat that the responsibility lies with the individual - the most the state can do is provide the resources and access to the resources.
I don't know anyone whose kids' education is stymied by this problem, but if I did, I'd suggest they find out where the nearest language courses were offered and get the school to advertise it to the relevant parents.
What I would not do is throw my hands up in despair and count down the days to a Tory Government (which wouldn't make life much better, if at all, anyway.)
Adrian - Sorry I called you James instead of Adrian!
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. I have been called much worse than James!
I agree, education should be a (and I hate to use the word) 'partnership' between parent and school - not the job of the school only. Parents must take more responsibility for their children.
Secondly, kids from ethnic minorities should be taught English language, and if they cannot speak English then they should be held back or put into classes where they get specific language lessons. No-one can integrate properly, and therefore prosper, unless they speak the main common language.
If I was living outside the UK, I would make sure that I and all my family could speak the language sufficiently. My wife agrees, which is why she is fluent in Malay!
Finally, as for PC Pcs, just one experience from my own life. I was mugged in Streatham (at knife point) on my way home. Instead of giving over my case, I elbowed the guy in the face, then gave him a bit of a slapping. I then sat on him and called the police.
When the law arrived, they looked at him, accused me of using an inappropriate level of force, and basically said they were going to arrest me for GBH or ABH (cannot remember which).
I pointed out that I was defending my property, and they said that defending property was not a sufficient excuse for 'beating someone up'. I then said that he had a knife, and produced the knife to show them - inviting them to check for his fingerprints.
They then said that unless I thought my life was in danger I had no right to hit him any more than he had a right to mug me. I said that I dind't think my life was in danger in the slightest despite the knife, but I just wasn't going to give my briefcase, with my wallet, keys, documents and god knows what else in it! They said that I was therefore guilty of committing an offense, and that they were arresting us both! I got bundled into the back of the van, sat opposite the guy who had tried to mug me!
So, there was the moral equivalence - I was not the victim, but a perpetrator of a crime on a par with the guy who mugged me. We were both seen to be as bad as each other!
I was invited to accept a caution at Brixton Police Station, which I refused as a caution is an admission of guilt. I said they should either charge me and send me to court or release me.
After a night in the cells, wrangling, arguing with the arresting officer and a further refusal to accept a caution, I said to the police that if they were so convinced I was guilty of a crime, they should charge me and let me plead not guilty in court.
I was then released with a stern warning (which I refused to accept, arguing with the sergeant that he was undermining civil order in his attitude) that I should not hit people as it creates an unacceptable spiral of violence'!
Where as mugging is what? Gainful employment?
I then again pointed out that I was defending my property, and that if the police had arrived on the scene sooner, I wouldn't have had to restrain the mugger for as long as I did (30 minutes), which only er....added to his injuries, a little.
It was stupid. Utter facrce!
And that happened to me. I have mugged three times in London, twice at knife point.
If you converse with verity, I'm not surprised!
ReplyDeleteAt least it's good to know that a there's another poster on here who recognises the importance of taking responsibility, rather than praying that Osborne allows our next generation to inherit enough to not have to work quite so hard.
As I said Adrian, you are unlucky, which explains your view. No doubt people with such direct experience feel the same way, but there's no excuse if you haven't been at the wrong end of shoddy treatment. Very few people have been mugged at knife-point, let alone arrested their assailant themselves.
Clearly you weren't charged with an offence for the simple reason that no prosecution of you could have worked. A solicitor should have been able to get you released without charge earlier, but probably would have advised you to say that you were defending yourself rather than your property.
The principle the PC pc's were mis-applying is just, in my view. Reasonable force (you used it, and their interpretation was wrong) is not an excuse for meting out punishment. If the law were changed to allow people to beat up burglars with whatever force they felt was necessary for punishment purposes, rather than restraint or defence, then that would be wrong.
"I thought I was being attacked/burgled so i killed him..." would become a defence.
A pc relative in the 70's advised me, if challenged in my own house by a burglar, to retreat, saying "I'm retreating" as clearly as I could, to remove any possibility that I could be sued by my burglar if for instance he fell down the stairs in trying to get away. The PC brigade have been around a long time.
Having said that, the PC s who attended would probably have enjoyed giving him a good kicking
themselves if they'd caught him red-handed.
I've been burgled a couple of times and found the attending pc's prompt, sympathetic and brave (investigating a suspiciously open loft space which could have concealed some-one). Maybe my good luck has coloured my view.
Labour hasn't wasted tax revenues any more than the Tories did, or would. It's just that the money Labour "wastes" is spent on higher employment and wages in the public sector, whereas Tory taxes are wasted on benefits for the unemployed.
There are strikes, marches and even riots most months across Europe. When was the last serious mass protest in this country over under-funding and poor pay and conditions? They used to happen all the time.