The environment and air travel

I was listening to the unknown liberal who wants to be leader of their party (for some reason) on the weekend. He was banging on about air fares and the environment. He was advocating the need to increase taxes on air tarvel for the benefit of the environment. He was to say the least, short on specifics.

The SOLE point of environmental taxes on air fares, is to make air travel prohibitively expensive, and therefore, reduce the number of flights (as I understand the green argument).

It is impossible to be elected on a platform of "Vote for me, and I'll tax away your foreign summer holiday"

So, he was somewhat equivocal, saying that taxes needed to be increased modestly (without defining modest). So increase fares by £10 and people grumble, the environmental effect is nil, and the government find another way to tax us. Which is what will happen.

Increase air taxes by say £500 and lots of people are taxed out of holidays and air travel is reduced, having an alleged environmental benefit (though I am unconvinced) and NO ONE is gonna do that.

So really, it was just more smoke and mirrors in the place of policies. Very poor indeed.

Mark Oaten

is (or was until today) the liberal home affairs spokesman, who was today busted for having an affair with a male prostitute. The party are saying it is a private matter, error of judgement etc? (for 6 months you accidentally got into bed with two male prostitutes and paid them for sex?). Now I don't really care what people do in their private lives, albeit I find that a little sordid. But when he does the politician thing, posing with the wife and family as a regular guy, he's surely being a hypocrit. In addition, he's given secret briefings as a front bench spokesman and is (or was) open to blackmail

And that isn't a private matter.

Liberals haven't really had a good time of it lately. Leader is an alcoholic, and the home affairs guy chases rent boys? Just as well they will never be a government.

Innocent children on DNA database

The government is keeping DNA records on 24,000 juveniles in a national crime-fighting database who have been neither cautioned or charged with any offence, the Home Office confirmed on Saturday.

The figures were released at the request of Conservative MP Grant Schapps after he investigated the case of a teenager whose DNA data was retained in the database despite being wrongly arrested in a case of mistaken identity.

"The police refused to remove the DNA profile even though they realised they had picked up the wrong chap," Schapps told BBC radio.

Home Office Minister Andy Burnham told the BBC the number of young people on the database reflected the reality of everyday policing.

So everyday policing is now suspecting the innocent !! Andy would not be out of place as a comissar in Soviet Russia. I have been warning of this as regular readers will know

15 years is not enough

Kieron Smith, aged eighteen, was today convicted of killing Lauren Pilkington-Smith aged ten, in Leigh, Greater Manchester, on 7 July last year.

He was a friend and had been playing with her all afternoon, and then he battered her to death. Lauren's body was found by her grandfather, hidden under leaves. She had suffered severe head injuries. Her blood on his shoes that he could not explain, convicted him.

He was sentenced to a minimum of fifteen years in jail. This is an inadequate sentence. So he could be out aged thirty-three, with a new identity.

Ten year old Lauren will get no second chance.

Neither should he.

He should be executed for this crime, or at least NEVER released from jail.

How to be a dictator in the UK

1. Make guns illegal and people defenceless
2. Subjugate parliament to your will
3. Remove the right to silence on arrest
4. Make citizens prove they own stuff legally
5. Restrict the right to trial by jury
6. Make citizens seek your consent, before they protest against you
7. Increase the amount of time you can detain anyone to say 60 days, without trial or charge
8. Think about admitting evidence in court obtained under torture
9. Ensure a supranational body like European commissioners, that you can neither elect nor dismiss has power to pass laws on a wide range of issues in your country
10. Talk about removing the rules on double jeopardy, so the state can keep prosecuting citizens, for the same alleged crime, until they get the result, they want
11. Pass laws making certain views illegal, like hate-crimes and arrest christians for protesting against what they believe to be state pro-gay propaganda thereby further reducing free speech
12. Have the toughest libel laws in the world, that only the very wealthy can ever access
13. Introduce an ID card, so that not being able to prove who you are, when challenged by the state becomes a crime !!!! even though you know, this will have no impact at all on "terrorism" which is your bullshit to justify it
14. Decide there are countries you kinda don't like, and make up a bunch of bullshit about WMD, and bollocks to international law, you'll just invade them and cause utter carnage and murder on a fucking grand scale and make tough sounding speeches, whilst remaining safely 7,000 miles away yourself
15. Rely on a bunch of weak minded fuckwits to think “Well if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear….and anyway, I’m not a terrorist” whilst they are distracted by televised singing and dancing contests that they get to vote in, and celebrity diets, and who J-lo is dating, and Jordans plastic surgery etc……

Me and Machiavelli

Neither Israeli politics nor the liberal democrats are favourite posting subjects of mine, but here’s the thing:

Machiavelli 1: You're Simon Hughes and you say "Charles has problems and we all wish him well, but the party is more than one man, and the next election is make or break for us. We are a nice party, but to win, we need to be ruthless. We cannot win with Charles, as he is now, electorally, a liability. My colleagues, through misguided loyalty, seem to lack the strength of character to do what has to be done. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. In the interests of the liberal democrats, I will stand for and win the leadership. That way, we can enter the next election, untainted, and make the breakthrough we have sought, for 80 years. With your support, together, we can win. Inaction, dithering, delay is not an option; we must take firm, decisive action now. With your support, I will lead you to electoral breakthrough, and announce my candidate for the leadership of the party"

And you win.

Machiavelli 2: Sharon ain’t coming back. Kadima without Sharon is a headless ass. The MP’s who have committed to it are toast without him.

Enter Shimon Peres. He can write his own ticket as leader and finally, be the man who brings peace ~ maybe

Just has to play it right.

Labour are afraid of Kadima. Likud are down to 10 seats of Kadima stays credible.

It’s his for the taking.

Politics is like human chess. Utterly fascinating.

The right to jury trial.....

.....was reaffirmed in the Bill of Rights in 1689 when parliament sought to entrench the traditional liberties that had been, threatened by the autocratic ambitions of the Stuarts (i.e. to entrench the rights of the individual against the executive)

As Lord DevIin wrote,

“The first object of any tyrant in Whitehall would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will and the next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for no tyrant could afford to leave a subject's freedom in the hands of twelve of his countrymen. So that trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than one wheel of the constitution, it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”

Who can say, with three line whips and de-selection, parliament is not now utterly subservient to the PM. Now they want rid of trial by jury. We are sleep walking into serfdom.

We are fast approaching......

...the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

Two quotes from my favourite author, which seem chillingly pertinent in the UK today.

Number plate recognition cameras

So the government is now proposing to install these and link them to a database, which will basically record every single trip everyone makes. This is apparently necessary to aid in the "fight against terrorism" (like every other bullshit unnecessary measure that might be unpopular).

That of course is palpable nonsense, as it relies on the various groups actually correctly recording their details with the government driving records centre, the DVLA. So unless Mr O bin Laden, (address: a cave, north Pakistan) actually admitted owning the two year old blue ford, the whole thing would fail right there.

Of course it's nothing to do with terrorism, and all about keeping still more information on us. And it's becoming increasingly disturbing.