I am incredulous that the School of Politics, International Relation and Philosophy has a link to this blog on their British Government and Politics website - presumably for their students to find and use. I have to say if I was marking an essay and someone quoted this blog they would be very lucky if they didn't fail straight away. And I write this sodding blog...

LPUK Civil War

Well, I'd heard whispers that all was not well at LPUK towers, but this post is - for a small party like LPUK - explosive. In fact, my first thought is that it is difficult to see how the party will survive this.

Still, at least it answers this conundrum. No renewal of my party membership. Obviously.

UPDATE: I've got more - a lot more - to say about this. Watch this space.

A Special Treat For All Readers

I make no apology for posting this. It is your choice whether or not you listen to it, and your responsibility to deal with consequences if you do:

To Catch a Predator

A clip for the US TV show To Catch a Predator:



You can find many other clips from this startling show online - YouTube is full of them. In an odd sort of a way, the clips are quite addictive. It is like watching a car crash over and over again, because the format of the encounters between the annoyingly supercilious presenter and the pathetic men who come looking for teen sex varies vary little. The predators arrive, often coaxed into the house by an actor pretending to be a horny teen. Then the presenter confronts them. He doesn't initially reveal who he is, but he often comes across like a policeman. He asks them uncomfortable questions and points out their feeble lies, before telling them that they are on the TV. They then leave, only to be arrested outside using methods that would make Vic Mackey proud. And that's what happens, over and over again, in To Catch a Predator.

In a wonderful, yet terrifying, example of satire predicting real life, it all reminds me of this:

Don't get me wrong, those who want to hump underage teenagers do deserve the attention of the police. What I struggle with is the fact that the trapping of these predators* has to happen on national TV, and that the manner of apprehending suspects appears to have more to do with making great TV that it does with the needs of justice and protecting the community. And there is a lethal underside to this "entertainment" as well.

Of course, America is nominally a free society, and there is the argument that all the producers of this unpleasant show are doing is responding to the demands of the audience. Put simply, if people didn't watch this, then they wouldn't make it.

But that, in a sense, is even worse than the realisation that some producer somewhere decided that it would be good entertainment to name and shame potential abusers on prime-time TV. Because it is a pretty stunning indictment of any society that the public humiliation of some of its most maladjusted members might become popular entertainment.

This is an extension of Megan's Law, and of Sarah's Law. It is saying that some members of a society are so abhorrent to the majority in that society that they lose the right to be treated as a human being. They lose the right to justice, to the assumption of innocence until guilt is proven. To condemn a To Catch a Predator is not express sympathy with the victims, but rather to express concerns about the corruption of justice and the legal system in order to create exceptionally low-brow entertainment. It is only a small step from this to watching the execution of child killers or serial killers. After all, people would watch that, just as they watch the arrest of predators. So why not show it?

Ironically, there is something very predatory about To Catch a Predator. It nibbles at the darker side of humanity, and works to make the humiliation of other humans OK because of what they might have done had a TV crew not been there to stop them. Police work and the justice system cease to be a necessary but unpleasant part of life. Instead, they become a form of entertainment. And that is depressing both for justice, and a society as a whole.

*On occasion, those producing the show are keen to point out that there is a difference between a paedophile and a predator - something to do with the ages of their victims. It is a pedantic technicality that I'm sure is lost on those who watch with vengeful fury as potential abusers are forced to the ground at gunpoint by the police in front of the TV cameras.

The Non-Labour Labour candidate

I'd agree with this fella - which is unusual, as the tool in question is a Labour candidate:

A Labour candidate has launched a personal attack on Gordon Brown, saying he is "the worst prime minister we have had in this country".

Manish Sood, who is standing in North West Norfolk, added that Mr Brown was a "disgrace".

Mr Sood called Labour ministers "corrupt"...

He's right in much of what he says. But there is one small problem. If he believes all that, then why in the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the little baby orphans is he running as a Labour candidate? I really hate the Labour party too, so I'm not going to vote for them. I can't help thinking that this will be far more effective than Sood's strategy of wasting his life by being a Labour candidate.

Still, there is a novelty factor in Mr Sood. He is the self-hating Labour candidate. And I suppose that this is the political epoch that would generate self-hating Labourites...

Nicholas Winterton - Wanker

Sir Nicholas Winterton, showing all the charm and sophistication that has made him one of our most hated MPs:

Sir Nicholas Winterton has angrily denounced plans to reduce first-class travel by MPs - telling the BBC he needs "quiet" and privacy to work.

Oh my, this is going to be a good one. Let's see dig down and examine exactly why Winterton doesn't want to travel the way the vast majority of people travel in this country:

The veteran Tory MP said there was a "totally different type of people" in standard-class train carriages.

Yes, there is a totally different type of person, Nicky boy. The people you represent - or, at least, supposed to represent. And God forbid that an MP might have to interact or spend time with ordinary people. That would be fucking terrible. But it isn't just a general snobbery that is stopping Winterton from sharing a train carriage with those that Alan B'stard might refer to as the ordinaries. No, he also needs to work:

"If I was in standard class I would not do work because people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction."

Yes, yes there would be distraction. Which is why most people either learn to manage their workload so they don't have to work on the train. Or they learn to get over the distractions on the train.

But Nicholas still doesn't think that a train is necessarily a nice environment. And you know what? He'd be right:

"There's lots of children, there's noise, there's activity. I like to have peace and quiet when I'm travelling."

I like to have peace and quiet when I am traveling - unfortunately, I know that if I am on a train, that is not likely to happen. I also know that the option of first class is available to me. I choose not to take it because I am too cheap to upgrade. And this is the option open to Winterton - he could upgrade too. But the idea that the taxpayer should pay for him and his idiotic, odious ilk is repugnant. Why should Winterton - or any other fucking MP, for that matter - be able to enjoy luxury traveller at the expense of those very people he/they are supposed to be serving.

Frankly, Winterton can travel in any style he wishes - on a gold-plated unicorn for all I fucking care. But I'll be damned if I - or any other taxpayer in this country - is going to pay for him to do so.

The Pope On Paedophilia

You know, for most institutions this would be a given, but clearly for the Catholic Church it needs to be spelt out:

Pope Benedict XVI has... condemned abuse of children by priests as a "heinous crime", and said Irish bishops must act to restore the Church's "moral credibility".

Well done to the Panzer Pope! To most people, he has stated the bleedin' obvious. But such is the insanity of the organisation he heads up that this could almost be described as a great step forward. Whatever next? Could we see the Pope taken further leaps forward? Perhaps by saying that contraception is actually quite good at preventing AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. Is that too much to hope for?

Yes, yes it is. I'm probably being optimistic there. But jolly well done, Pope Benedict XVI, for clarifying that your priests shouldn't rape children...

There can be few better examples of just how much the Labour party under Gordon Brown has lost its way than this - David Cameron claiming the moral high-ground and painting himself as the man of action over MPs expenses. Cameron's MPs were just as tainted by the scandal as Brown's, yet Cameron is able to posture like this is a party political issue. Sure, only Labour MPs have been charged - but owing to the sheer number of them relative to the Tories, it was always more likely they would face charges. Plus, if memory serves (and here it does), there is also a Tory peer facing prosecution. Cameron should be avoiding this issue in the way one might avoid a pissed-off puff adder. Not using it as a club with which to beat the Labour party.

The fact that he is doing so - and doing so with impunity - speaks volumes about the wreck the Labour party has become. This is pure opportunism from Cameron - attempting to land a punch that he knows should be blocked with comparative ease. He must be amazed - and delighted - that the punch has hit home so hard.

The expenses scandal was meant to benefit no-one - the fact that it is benefitting Cameron is entirely the fault of the Labour party.

Alastair Campbell: He's feeling a bit bullied, y'know...

A "tearful" (surely proof of some sort of karma) Alastair Campbell defending the "honourable" (pah!) Tony Blair:

"I've been through a lot on this Andrew. And I've been through a lot of that inquiry... and... Tony Blair, I think, is a totally honourable man."

Hmm. Those who deceive millions of people and then have to go through an inquiry tend to feel like they have been through a lot. Difficult to feel a lot of sympathy for them, though. It's a bit like being expected to pity Richard Nixon for being put through the mill over Watergate - next to impossible to actually achieve.

Oh, and using the word "totally honourable" in connection with Tony Blair without a "not" is basically saying "I am talking total shite."

But the shamelessness of the inspiration for Malcolm Tucker is startling:

Mr Campbell said the media was obsessed with "settling your scores and setting your own agenda".

"You did it again this morning, which is probably why I'm a bit upset, this constant sort of vilification.

"You compared the novel to the dossier, and it's all fiction and all the rest of it. It's not. And I just think the way that this whole issue has developed now where I don't think people are interested in the truth anymore, Andrew."

That's right, we've got Alastair Campbell - who helped to hound a man to his grave - complaining of vilification from others. At the same time as complaining that other people aren't interesting in the truth while discussing his part in constructing a dossier that lead this nation to war on an utterly false premise. I suppose the scope of his ambition could be admired - although I really can't think of any men less likely to achieve the aura of "put-upon truth-seeker" than the ever atrocious moral desert that is Alastair Campbell.

"A Bit of Local Colour"

On that 45 minute claim:

"That is my personal explanation of why, as it were, people fell on the 45 minutes - at least that was something the secret service would allow to be used," Sir David said.

"And, with hindsight, one can see that adding a bit of local colour like that is asking for trouble but we didn't really spot that at the time."

Really, what the fuck? A "bit of local colour"? This was part of a report that sent British troops to kill and die in a foreign land. You don't add a "bit of local colour" to a report like that. You try to make it as accurate as possible! Surely, by definition, "intelligence" should at least aspire to be intelligent?

"A little bit of local colour" deserves to become as notorious as Alan Clark's claim to being "economical with the actualité". It simply adds to the sinking feeling I have that the film In The Loop actually wasn't a satire on how we chose to go to war, but rather a documentary.

Don't worry about the truth of any claim being made by the government, people. See, they might just be adding a "bit of local colour" to what they present as facts.

Staggering, isn't it? That even in 2010 a bit of snow can do to great swathes of Britain what terrorist campaigns and the Blitz failed to do - bring them to a shuddering halt.

Quote of the Day...

...if only for being monstrously moronic:

We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term.

Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino, showing the sort of intellect and realism the world associates with the Presidency of George W Bush.

Service Nation *Retches*

Others have already discussed this one at length, but the idea of "Service Nation" is so abhorrent to me that I cannot help but throw my thoughts into the arena as well.

The plan is this: make young people work for the state. Since, y'know the state has given them such a fantastic education. It is, as DK puts it, "state slavery", even if those deluded, dangerous dickheads who are proposing the policy don't agree:

David Lammy, the minister for innovation, universities and skills, said the ideas should become Labour policy: "In a consumerist age, young people need more opportunities to develop an ethic of service to others. For a more altruistic, less parochial youth culture, we need a national civic service."

The concept that you can force altruism on others would be laughable if it wasn't come from the mouth of someone with considerable power in this country. But seriously, what the fuck? Does this moron actually think that by forcing the youth to work for the state for free he will actually be creating a more altruistic youth culture? Because I reckon what will happen is that many members of the youth forced into this "opportunity" (NB: it is not an opportunity if you are forced to take it up; that is better defined as an order or diktat) will actually come to resent both the state that makes them into de facto slaves and also the community they are meant to be serving. You can't make people be altruistic any more than you can make them be charitable.

Besides, does this really create an "ethic of service to others" or rather create an idea that, from an early age, that the state can demand from its citizens pretty much what the fuck it wants when it wants it? Because the real people who will benefit from this will be the likes of Lammy, who will have access to a large, unpaid pool of labour. Just imagine if a large corporation demanded free labour from the youth of this country. There would be absolute outrage. Well, this is pretty much what is happening here; except that the government is also using this as an opportunity to indoctrinate the people from and early age with the idea that serving the state is something that should be done by all. It demands us all to be grateful to the monolithic, bureaucratic and increasingly dictatorial state. Which is something that makes me feel physically sick.

As does this:

She (some Demos piss midget) said it was fair to ask students to pay for the scheme. "The interest raised would be a fair levy on those benefiting from state-subsidised university education. Those who have gained most must also give something back."

Yeah, give something back... like, I don't know, substantial percentages of their salaries throughout their working lives as demanded by the current taxation system? Surely that is giving something back. And let us remember who is subsidising universities to a large extent, good reader. It is the parents of the students. Not only are they paying for their students to attend university, but it turns out that they are also selling their kids as free labour to the state as well when they walk into those hallowed halls of learning.

But all of this pales into insignificance next to the idea that students are going to be expected to fund their own periods as effective slaves of the states. It is like demanding that someone buys you a flick knife, and then using that flick knife to mug them.

Ignore the neutral language of the Nu Labour drones. Don't be fooled. This policy is absolutely abhorrent in any society, let alone one claiming to be a liberal democracy.

A comment about Anthony Sowell, America's latest serial killer:

"We kept away from him and he kept away from us," said neighbor Tamica Pierceton, 26. "We should have said something to someone. I wish I had."

One can attribute that statement to shock, and excuse it because of that. Otherwise, it just begs to be pulled apart. What could be said to someone about the apparently stinky Sowell? "Oh, that man smells bad, he must be bad." Or "Jesus, he needs to take a wash, like, seriously!" Being smelly is unfortunately not enough to show that someone is evil. Otherwise the aromatic tramp who sits by the canal in Nottingham drinking super strength cider all day everyday is just about the most evil person in the world. And who is the someone that something should be said to? The police? Because not even in America has it become a crime to stink to high heaven. And some might say that being stinky is enough to arose suspicion that you might have corpses sitting around the house. However, there is no causal link between serial killing and being a little whiffy. Otherwise, the vast majority of fat people on the tube on a hot summer's day are amongst the worse mass murderers ever to walk this earth. Judging by the smell, I mean...

Undesirables and Criminals

Via Mr Eugenides, a startlingly jarring and utterly inappropriate quote from some cuntrag of an MP:

Mr Wilshire wrote: “The witch hunt against MPs in general will undermine democracy. It will weaken parliament - handing yet more power to governments. Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler’s gas chambers.”

First up, people knowing more about what their thieving shites elected representatives are up to is not bad for democracy. The whole expenses scandal is good for democracy. What it hasn't been good for is cockbags like Wilshire. But his interests - and the other greedy, truculent pigs in the House of Commons - are not synonymous with democracy. And it certainly won't be handing more power to those in government - the very fact that these absolute fucking arses have had so much control over their own remuneration is how they have ended up in this mess.

And the line about Hitler's gas chambers... My God. How insulting is that? To compare the justified outrage against MPs with the horrors of the Holocaust? How dare this cunt make that sort of a comparison? How dare he? A massive ego combined with a massive persecution complex is the only way to explain that comparison. But since Wilshire is too lost in his own self-importance to take into account even the most basic of facts, let me spell out a few things to him. First of all, the Jews were not just branded as undesirables. They were cast out of the economy, they were robbed, they were stigmatised, they were forced into ghettos and then sent into camps where they lost their lives as the result of a callous, cold-hearted genocide. Contrast this with MPs, who have been branded as undesirable owing to a massive fraud committed by some of their number against the British people. As a result, some of them have lost their jobs, and some of them have had to pay back some of their ill-gotten gains. A comparison of the plight of MPs with that of the Jews in Nazi Germany is a sickening as it is crass and inappropriate.

One final point - societies across the world do designate people as undesirables all the time. However, it isn't based on race or gender or religion. No, the people now classed as undesirable are those who have committed crimes and have not been punished for them. And if certain MPs are falling into the undesirable category, it is because they appear to have committed fraud against the very people they are meant to represent. So you'll forgive me if I don't feel much sympathy for them...

If he can't send one rival for the keys to Number 10 to the EU, then he'll send another. Yep, Gordo is talking about sending that young pretender to his throne to the EU to take up another of those made-up roles currently seeking candidates:

Gordon Brown is secretly backing David Miliband to be the European Union’s foreign affairs chief — clearing the way for one of his protégés to be Labour’s next leader.

Downing Street is discreetly supporting the foreign secretary as a candidate for EU high representative for foreign affairs, with Tony Blair looking increasingly unlikely to win the presidency.

First we try to make a discredited former Prime Minister EU President. Now we are pushing the dweebier of the two Miliband spawn as the Foreign Affairs representative. What will the EU think? We truly are sending our trash to them, and expecting them to give that trash high-profile jobs. Still, this sort of thing will be common - and increasingly blatant - as the government freefalls into a general election defeat. Labour MPs will be jumping ship left, right and centre. And what better place for them to head to that the EU? Undemocratic, elitist, patronising and offering massive financial rewards. What more could an ambitious Nu Labour troglodyte want?

It is this, though, that really gets to me:

Miliband’s departure for Europe would increase the chances of one of the prime minister’s chosen candidates, Ed Balls or Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary’s brother, winning a leadership contest if Labour is defeated at the general election.

Those two are the chosen successors to the Labour leadership? Jesus. The less famous Miliband brother and the only man in modern politics less easy to like that the incumbent Labour leader. Presumably Gordon Brown is pursuing a scorched earth policy for the Labour party as well as the British economy, since either Ed would be electoral suicide!

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Really? Like, wow. Really, wow. I'm surprised. Because, with the greatest respect to Obama, the field for the Nobel Peace Prize must have been really slim this year. Because Obama has done nothing to help world peace other than spout platitudes about it:

The committee highlighted Mr Obama's efforts to support international bodies and promote nuclear disarmament.

As far as I am aware nuclear disarmament has not happened and international bodies can't report any net gain over the course of the Obama administration. I'd also dispute whether the former is actually possible and whether the latter is desirable, let alone a reason to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Still, that prize hasn't been the same since Henry Kissinger won it. In fact, since Kissinger won it, it should arguably be called the "Ironically Named Nobel Peace Prize." Because that warmonger Kissinger had even less to do with global peace than the preaching Obama...

Taxation Fraud Targets

News reaches your humble author of an incentivisation scheme within the civil service:

The Times has learnt that £44,000 in bonuses for the “most senior staff” at the Revenue & Customs Prosecution Office (RCPO), which pursues tax fraud cases, were linked in part to hitting confiscation targets.

Sounds good on face value. Yeah, the public sector should incentivise its workers to get the best from them. Although here, the results are good only for the ever greedy public purse. The penalties are, shall we say, a little draconian:

In one recent case, 16 people convicted in a £3.2 million VAT fraud conspiracy were each ordered to pay back £3.2 million — a total of £51 million.

In another case a pharmacist who had overclaimed £464 in VAT was subjected to a confiscation order of more than £212,000.

Right. Now, I'm all for those committing crimes being punished, but a fraud of just under £500 carrying a penalty of just under a quarter of a million pounds seems a little excessive. Particularly since those pursuing the conviction are incentivised to get as much money as possible from the guilty party.

Still, this is Britain, so at least people will get a fair trial, so perhaps we can rest a little easier with the incredibly harsh penalties:

In other cases, where defendants’ assets have been frozen before trial, there have been complaints that they have been hampered in mounting their defence; for example, they have been unable to hire expert witnesses.

Magic. So the government incentivises people to get as much money as possible from those accused of fraud, and then it turns out that certain things happen that reduce the likelihood of the accused people getting a fair trial. I don't know about anyone else, but this absolutely screams at me as something that is horrifically wrong.

Sir Ivan Lawrence, QC, said he was uneasy about “manifest injustices” in confiscation proceedings that were compounded by the setting of targets. Sir Ivan, a former Conservative MP and chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “Once you start setting targets you are saying, ‘Never mind justice.’ Bodies like RCPO have to make a judgment on the cases they pursue — if they make that judgment on the basis that they will receive a lot of money, it calls into question whether justice is going to be done.

“There are indications that the Court of Appeal is uneasy about some of these cases, but the astonishing thing is that no one is up in arms about it.”

Well, quite. We should all be up in arms about this. It has nothing to do with justice; it is governments trying to get as much as they possibly can from their people. It represents an absence of justice, and the draconian power of an ever more arrogant state.

From the BBC:

Gordon Brown has arrived in Belfast for talks with Northern Ireland's political leaders in a bid to resolve a deepening row at Stormont.

What fresh insanity is this? Gordon Brown has been sent somewhere to help stop a row? What the fuck is all that about? Brown is a magnet for resentment, rage and hatred. Wherever you send him, there will be aggravation. Sending Gordon Brown to try to resolve a deepening row would be like sending Pol Pot to stop a likely genocide. It is a fucking dumb idea.

Sometimes news can be so unsurprising that you actually feel shocked that what you are reading about didn't happen ages ago. This would be a great example of that:

THE county council has pulled out of the bid to bring the World Cup to Nottingham in 2018.

The real surprise here is that Nottingham - a small city with a Robin Hood fetish and economy based on students and debauched stag/hen parties - ever thought it could host the World Cup in 2018. It was probably an odd mix of naive optimism and crass stupidity that made them make a bid in the first place, but frankly Nottingham has more urgent problems than trying to host a glorified football tournament in the year 2018...