Islington

353 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: No Giles McDonogh falling house prices is good news

I start with a slam dunk political bet in the wake of Donald Trump’s looming arrest – a clean sweep for the Republicans in 2024, as I explained a couple of weeks ago HERE. Then onto why house prices falling at the fastest rate for 14 years ( a misleading headline) are to be welcomed but not if you are long Purplebricks (PURP) or the housebuilders. Not that I’d necessarily go short either. Today’s ouzo is sponsored by Asimilar (ASLR). I also cover Genedrive (GDR) and the placing it will not ‘fess to although it is clearly underway. Then I look at Pensana (PRE) where yakking on about climate change and hiring stacks of lesbians from Islington seems not to have prevented a bit of a looming cash crisis. How, I wonder, do folks in London N1 describe a fat lady in a woke way? Hey Magna Carta, guess what I forgot to mention today? HERE is a clue

---

392 days ago

One last time, Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks Annual 34 mile walk – we are on!

This will be the sixth walk and we have agreed the last. Maybe Lucian and I will do something different next year, maybe not. The old boy did turn 60 last year. The date is now set for June 17 and we will walk the 34 miles from Winchester to the Woodlarks camp. So far those signed up are:

---

429 days ago

Here are some temperatures the BBC is not reporting on: can you think why?

Oddly the BBC’s climate change correspondents are not reporting on temperatures in Siberia this week. You may remember their pitiful attempts, aftering being flown in on a private plane, to show you how global warming is melting the tundra a couple of years ago. But following on from its fake news on the death of European skiing thanks to global warmingg, oddly the BBC has not been back to Siberia.

---

492 days ago

So what about the dying polar bears and the penguins as the sea ice disappears: the biggest global warming myth of our time.

It was about ten years ago when I sat down with my daughter Olaf, now 21 and in her final year at Oxford, to enjoy a meal at an Italian restaurant. I was greatly taken by an electric grater of parmesan and suggested to the little Trustafarian (not on my side) that I quite fancied one for Christmas. “But what about the Polar Bears, Daddy” said Olaf almost in tears

---

607 days ago

Photo Article: Greek Hovel summer 2022 Old Kardamili

The Mrs decided that we should take our guests (Joshua’s pal T and her parents) to Kardamili. As you may recall I hate Kardamili with a passion. At this time of year there are far too many ghastly Islingtonians packing its streets, browsing its shops selling hugely overpriced clothes, jewellery and other items which are about as authentically Greek as a Big Mac and fries. The restaurants serve nice food but at London prices. It is Islington on the Med. I loathe it. Its only redeeming feature is the one sandy beach, which is out of town by Paddy Leigh Fermor’s old house, which having no toilet or bar is relatively deserted and quiet.

---

815 days ago

Last Photo Article from the Welsh Hovel Christmas 2021 - catering for a Pescetarian

As you may recall my thirsty daughter Olaf has been brought up in Islington and has therefore picked up some freakish liberal traits such as wishing to not only rejoin but to work for the accursed EU, bleating on about polar bears and the global warming cult and being a pescetarian. That means she will not eat meat so for her late Christmas meal with us, I prepared a whole salmon, not hooked in the Dee from our garden but bought in. Starting to fish in the river is a resolution for 2022.

---

972 days ago

Photo article from the Greek Hovel: From hell towards heaven

I do not like Kardamili. A few hours detention in its Police station thanks to a bent cop and an even more bent hotelier did not cause my dislike but it did not help the cause. Though a pretty town, Kardamili is very expensive and, worse still, it attracts the biggest tossers in Europe, swarms of them. The Mrs, however, quite likes it.

---

990 days ago

Losing my shirt and my temper as England lose deservedly & those I come to despise

We can talk of awful fouls and the penalty curse but should not deny that Italy played better football and deserved to win the European Championship. No doubt many of us are still in denial on that matter today but the statistics do not lie. I say this as someone who came into the tournament not supporting England for a range of reasons but who was won over by the charm of the young squad and of the manager and by the way it seemed to unite and give joy to the whole country. All of those involved in England did their country proud. I shall now go back to supporting Northern Ireland, but in this tournament the match against the Hun was the key turning point for me.

---

993 days ago

Shock horror in Kardamili, will Paddy Leigh Fermor be spinning in his grave?

I have noted before that despite its beauty, I am not a great fan of Islington on Sea, Kardamili, the small Greek Town where Paddy Leigh Fermor built his home here in Greece. It is not the town nor the locals that offend me so much as the hordes of rich North European tossers who go there each year, especially those from Islington and similar places back in Blighty. Rich, remoaning, patronising superior sorts.

---

1018 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: Paul Atherley do you really think this EU fake news will help you pull young women, even in Islington?

I start with the 4 week delay to what is laughably called Freedom Day here in Airstrip One. It makes me so angry as there is no justification for it. Next up more woke nonsense from Pensana (PRE), before a look at Colin Bird’s quartet of mining juniors and asking if it is worth the risk? Finally Tavistock Investments (TAVI) – too good to be true?

---

1079 days ago

Is Britain’s thickest MP Claudia “abolish every European” Webbe?

I realise that there is stiff competition for this title but Claudia is a strong candidate. Ms Webbe was elected as  Labour MP but currently sits as an independent as she was suspended from the People’s party after her arrest for allegedly harassing another woman. The real scandal is not whether she is a stalker but just how someone so dim managed to become an MP in the first place.  A clue lies in her education at a string of joke former polytechnics.

---

1080 days ago

Daughter Olaf says sign here and I am a good German

Daughter Olaf reckons that young folk have been hit hardest by the bonkers lockdown and so, like Brexit, which like everyone else in Islington she considered a monstrous display of alt-right Xenophobic ignorance by stupid poor people, this is a crime against the young by bloody old people. Of course, and not for the first time, she is wrong.

---

1172 days ago

Dad: your attitude to the Welsh & Scots is schizophrenic!

So says daughter Olaf who has repudiated her father’s DNA and is now identifying wholly as Welsh.  She is perplexed that I laugh at the Welsh and its certifiable political class, predict that Independence in the short term would be an economic disaster for Wales as well as Scotland yet support the cause, as a Welsh resident, most strongly.  Our starting point here is that my daughter is a teenager, lives in Islington and is a bit of a lefty. As such, she, by definition, does not really believe in jokes and many of my comments about cottage burners are said in jest and, thus, she does not understand them.

---

1197 days ago

Photo Article from the Welsh Hovel - preparing for the arrival of daughter Olaf

She is due for a visit after Christmas and seems to have become ever thirstier since her arrival at Oxford four terms ago. No doubt she will also lead her stepmother astray.

---

1302 days ago

Hello BBC license fee payers, it's Clive from Islington: why can't you plebs see the benefit of this diverse service?

This is tweeted out in Britain by the BBC. I wonder how many 75 year olds now being forced under threat of jail to pay for a TV license consider this money well spent?

---

1313 days ago

Photo Article from the Welsh Hovel Making Damson Jam with Joshua Part 2

Yesterday I showed how, thanks to God’s intervention, Joshua and i were able to pick our neighbour’s damsons without leaving our own garden. With c250 damsons picked and weigfhed up to 1.5kg exactly it was time to play with the new toys ordered from amazon.

---

1316 days ago

Photo Article from the Greek Hovel August 2020- Day 8, an afternoon in Kardamili

Regular readers will know that in August, Kardamili, the town where my hero, Paddy Leigh Fermor, made his home, becomes Islington on Sea. I dislike its new visitors as a breed and go there under sufferance. But as Uncle Johnny aspires to be a member of the metropolitan liberal elite and, as a now qualified Shipman, can afford to buy into the lifestyle we took him for a visit.

 

---

1324 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: is my old chum Paul Atherley suffering from Islingtonitis, Guardian reading derangement syndrome?

In today’s podcast I look at Pensana Rare Earths (PRE), Verditek (VDTK), Zenith Energy (ZEN), Inspirit (INSP) where there is a rebellion about to break out and, natch, I back the rebels, Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and Superdry (SDRY).

---

1364 days ago

David Starkey is indefensible but so is the BBC slander of Darren Grimes

I had a brush with the celebrity historian David Starkey about fifteen years ago when he used his celebrity status to bully, humiliate and put down my daughter’s godmother as we ate in an Islington restaurant. He picked on her for no reason as she read Olaf a story, not too loudly, saying at a high enough volume for every diner to hear “Will you just be quiet? Some of us are trying to eat.”  Maybe the American accent grated with Starkey’s patrician senses.

---

1376 days ago

Holly Baxter of the Independent Newspaper says every single US Policeman is a bad cop – This is #scumMedia

In the period January 1 to June 4, there were around 160 million interactions between US cops and US citizens. That resulted in 429 citizens being shot by the Police of whom 88 were black. Blacks were over-represented in this category but they are also disproportionately represented both in terms of victims of violent crime but also perps. This is not exactly genocide as some in BlackLivesMatter claim. Yet some in the media do not view it this way. Meet Holly Baxter of a failing British Deadwood Press turned, as a result of crashing sales, internet-only rag The Independent.

---

1386 days ago

First they came for the statues, then they came for the comedy: as Fawlty Towers is banned the woke revolution rolls on

Though, as I demonstrated earlier, he invested not a cent in slaving, the statue of philanthropist Thomas Guy is now officially for the melting pot. First they came for the statues. Then they came for the comedy. I have just played the video below to my woke Islington based daughter Olaf and she laughed loudly.

---

1965 days ago

Why can’t I get an Advent calendar featuring Jesus?

The main item on the shopping list yesterday as Joshua and I headed into Clifton was a new Jeremy Corbyn, Strong & Stable, mug for the Mrs to replace the one Joshua had smashed, in an early sign of his sound gut political instinct. That mission was accomplished. Jeremy Corbyn is already making me poorer and the Sinn Fein/IRA loving old bastard is not even in power yet.

---

1981 days ago

Islingtonite daughter Olaf, Peter Tatchell, liberty and free speech

Islington dwelling daughter Olaf seems to be in charge of securing public speakers for a posh girls school debating forum. She asked if I knew any funny and controversial speakers. I offered up friends such as James Delingpole of Breitbart and Dominic Frisby but was told that they were Alt-Right, fascists or just not acceptable. I am sure you get the picture. In this world anyone to the right of the Guardian is Alt-Right and should not be offered a platform

---

2030 days ago

Photo article - supper in Kardamili

This is just to make my pal Evil Knievil jealous. I found myself in Kardamili, Islington on Sea, to use an ATM and to buy Evil a very superior bottle of Greek red wine, to show the old wine snob that not everything produced here tastes of mouth-wash. far from it.

---

2041 days ago

Photo Article: Joshua posing in his mother's straw hat

Okay, I am biased,m but surely you would agree that my son, two in just over three week's time, is pretty good looking. takes after his mum natch. Here he is borrowing her hat at a posh restaurant in Kardamil,i as we took time out from the Greek Hovel to allow daughter Olaf to go and breathe the same elitist air as her Islington kith and kin who tend to swamp this particular town.

---

2101 days ago

And now the PC bastards want to ban Zulu because it’s racist – natch

This weekend in Folkestone there was set to be a charity showing of the film Zulu to help raise cash for the arms forces charity SSAFA. Members of the charity voted to show the 1964 classic portrayal of the battle of Rorke’s Drift but, like cycling, they are clearly just racist. 28 virtue signalling busy bodies have written to the Council demanding that the showing be scrapped stating that:

---

2112 days ago

Daughter Olaf berates my T-shirt and wants Mayor Sadiq Khan to be PM – should I disown her?

Not even mentioning Father’s Day, which she will no doubt forget tomorrow, my Islington based daughter Olaf honoured us with a visit to the boonies and Bristol yesterday. She was checking out the University in an open day and has decided that if things don’t go the right way at a proper seat of learning on the M40 she will, like all the other Oxbridge rejects, come here.  Having checked out the University and come away really impressed she met up with myself, the Mrs and Joshua for lunch.

---

2247 days ago

Middle class women celebrate as more working class girls chucked on the dole in the name of feminism and progress

I noted the other day the extraordinary way that those fighting the feminist cause really did not appear to give a stuff about working class girls and women suffering real exploitation, preferring to show masive outrage on behalf of middle class girls suffering far less. Now the feminazi movement moves up a gear and is today celebrating a victory which sees working class girls chucked onto the dole. Hooray, trebles all round in Islington!

---

2454 days ago

Everybunny dance! Pro fox propaganda, written by naive idiots, on the rates in Bristol

As I noted yesterday, the BBC believes that if it repeats myths often enough in its drama we come to accept those myths as facts. In the end we will accept that everyone in the Countryside is right behind gay pride and they all oppose fox-hunting. The mindset of Arcadia has become that of Islington because the BBC told us so often that the Arcadians/Ambridgians had Upper Street values all along. This attempt to bully into accepting liberal values by distorting the truth is how the left wages its cultural war today.

---

2463 days ago

I am such a goddamn fucking feminist - loving life as a primary carer of Joshua

I never thought that I'd be revelling in changing nappies, watching a baby throw his food everywhere and all the other joys of motherhood n the months leading up to my 50th birthday but I am loving it. The Mrs is away for a few days "working" and returns to full time work in ten days, in as much as that is not a contradiction in terms in the public sector and especially on liberal arts campuses. And so, right now I am the sole carer for nine months old Joshua and in ten days time I will become the primary carer. I am such a fucking feminist - I am almost tempted to chuck in work altogether and then go for a divorce taking the Mrs to the cleaners saying that I had to quit my job to look after Joshua. Only kidding.

---

2464 days ago

A conversation with a 16 year old daughter on her Birthday

16 years ago it was a terrible day. A 26 week pregnant wife - Big Nose, a rushed Ceasarian, a tiny little creature weighing 1 lb 4 oz emerging and being stuck in a fish tank in intensive care at UCH at once. She stayed there for three months. Who would have thought she'd be sixteen today, eating cake in bed and opening presents and phoning her old dad afterwards?

---

2472 days ago

Photo Article: a dog in a truck in Kambos

I guess that in England the owner of this dog and this truck would have been locked up by the Health & Safety Executive or prosecuted by the PC nazis at the RSPCA. The poor hound is not muzzled and not on a leash and travels in the back of the truck everywhere. FFS he is not wearing a seat-belt, call the old bill now!

---

2478 days ago

Tim Farron quits as Lib Dem leader as he faces witch-hunt for being a Christian in sad new Britain

Tim Farron was a pretty hopeless leader of the Lib Dems. His weasel words and demands for a second vote on Brexit were laughable and the way that he kept on insisting that he was the only working class ( pronounced with no r) was just plain cringe worthy. But the reason that he has quit as Lib Dem leader is that in modern Britain being a Christian is not acceptable, at least to the fake news wolf packs of the liberal metropolitan media.

---

2483 days ago

The liberal media elites prepare for an onslaught on the DUP - everything they despise

It has started already. The DUP, from God's chosen land of Ulster, will back the Tories and we might just have stable Government for a while. The liberal media elite who are reporting Jeremy Corbyn's "victory speech ( hint Labour lost) is enraged. The knives are out for the DUP for they stand for everything that London millionaires despise.

---

2509 days ago

Photo Article from the Greek Hovel: darling daughter Olaf, your bedroom is almost ready!

I have been updating you on progress on what was known as the bat room but is now know as Olaf's bedroom at the Greek Hovel. The initial task was to dig out the earth and rock floor so that there was 7 foot of headroom rather than 5-6 foot in what was once where the animals lived. I should say that my almost 16 year old Islington dwelling daughter did not respond with great excitement to the first photos HERE. Fear not Olaf, things are looking better.

---

2516 days ago

Photo Article: Back in Kardamili with the Mrs - More global warming and mixed feelings

As I tap out a few words on my laptop next to the bright blue sea it is about 27 degrees. It is T-shirt weather and the Mrs is forcing myself and Joshua to go for a swim in an unheated pool a bit later. It is hot here in Kardamili. But as you can see in the two photos below, in the higher points of the taygetos mountains behind us, the last remnants of the winter snow still cling on. These are not the highest points of the range but Al Gore would be mortified to see global warming still on the ground in the sourthnmost part of Europe in May. The computer models, global warming nutjobs like George Monbiot and the entire population of Canada, plus 99% of peer group approved scientists all predicted desertification not this.

---

2522 days ago

My Godless daughter brands me an evangelist who's got religion as I defend Martin Luther King

My godless, almost 16 year old, daughter Olaf calls me as her GCSE's start next week. Her school reports are glowing, she has already won a scholarship to the 6th form and I wish her luck but am confident that it will be A*s all round. We have agreed not to discuss grade inflation, I'm very proud of her anyway. Conversation then turns to the General Election where she says she is backing the Tories. Again I am proud of her. Her real anger is directed, however, not at her fellow Islington resident Comrade Corbyn, but at Tim Farron and the Lib Dems. She is furious at poor Mr Farron for his less than unequivocal support for LGBT rights. In Islington that is the sort of issue that really matters above all else.

---

2559 days ago

Photo Article: Islington in Europe - the 1% elitists still don't get democracy

The photo below says it all. A bunch of middle class folks who will all be in the top decile of earners (if not higher) sit together drinking cheeky little reds in a multi million pound house in Islington preparing to march with their fellow Guardian reading elitists who "know so much better than the plebs"against Brexit and making some home made placards. They are from the group Islington IN Europe whose self important democracy denying and patronisng rantings I have covered previously HERE. The best placard?Brexit

---

2569 days ago

Make sure you have a bath Daddy and be smart!

I like to boast that I spend fewer than five day a year in London so much do I loathe the place. But as, bad, luck would have it I am drawn to the capital today on personal business. And thus when my soon to be 16 year old daughter, known as Olaf, called to ask if I was free to attend her parents evening - which happens to be tonight - I was able to say yes. 

---

2570 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: The mystery of the dog Sabien and the bark in the night

Those who read Sherlock Holmes will understand the title. In this podcast I mention Islington in EU and a chat with Chris Booker - more on that HERE. I look at Blancco Technology (BLTG), Sabien (SNT), Quadrise (QFI), Prairie Minerals (PDZ) and Lionsgold (LION).

---

2571 days ago

Photo article: Islington In Europe - unbelievable stupidity and pious sanctimony in a nutshell: beyond satire

In the leafy London Borough of Islington where smug Guardian readers live in £3 million houses they voted overwhelmingly against Brexit. Of course they did, The pious liberal elite know that only thick, old, white racist white van driving working class types wanted to leave. But the battle goes on lead by a group Islington in EU which holds regular events including one with the odious Gina Miller as you can see below. Its website is a stormer, beyond satire, with a star exhibit a poem which displays the prejudices but also the sheer ignorance of these folk perfectly. The key four lines are underlined by me:

---

2577 days ago

Daddy of Islington teenager gets all the answers wrong on International Women's Day

My nearly 16 daughter called in last night from Islington where I am sure that the Ministry of Truth has ensured that everyone knows that March the 8th is International Womens's Day. Out here in the unfashionable suburbs of a provincial City where I live the Ministry holds no sway and we plebs get on with real life. But my daughter is from more enlightened places and so asks "what are you doing to mark International Wimmins day?" My first wrong answer is "when is it?"

---

2616 days ago

Who will the Lefty Wimmin & Islington poseurs want to win: The Daily Mail or Melania Trump?

You know when your kids ask you "Daddy would you rather jump into a room full of poisonous snakes or an aquarium full of great white sharks?" and you just say " It is not a choice I expect to make? This morning lefties across Britain and all those pampered posh liberal nitwits (and my daughter) from the Wimmin's March wake up facing just such a choice.

During the US election a deranged Hillary Clinton supporting blogger Griffin Webster Tarpley posted a (100% fake news) story suggesting that the wonderful and intelligent six language speaking Melania Trump had been a high class hooker. Britain's Daily Mail duly repeated this lie and

---

2649 days ago

Midnight mass - I leave feeling good about the world, then I talk to Uncle Chris

On Christmas Day I chatted to Uncle Chris Booker. A wide ranging chat but we cannot help but conclude that at a geo-political level the world is going ever more badly wrong. Price Charles this populism is a real danger and must be fought. Quite right you unelected hereditary multi millionaire, lets pursue policies that favour the 1% and screw the masses. Let's stick with policies that, for a reason that a patrician fool might not grasp, are not popular in any way. As a life long republican I really do hope that the Queen lives forever. 

---

2664 days ago

How much would my Greek Hovel lunch on Thursday have cost in London?

Lunch on Thursday at the Greek Hovel was provided by the wife of George the Albanian. At least I think it was his wife, it was one of his two female assistants. I pondered how much an Islington bistro would have stung me for, offering similar fare.

---

2723 days ago

Lily Allen you spoilt privileged luvvie snob you do not speak for me or for England on immigration: feck off!

Born to two celeb luvvie parents, the pop singer Lily Allen has never had to struggle. Growing up in lefty and leafy Islington she attended 13 different schools including uber posh Bedales and was booted out of most of them. She is fabulously wealthy thanks to her pop songs. And now, when visiting the Jungle near Calais, she has apologised to those there on behalf of the whole country. Lily you are an out of touch elitist and can fuck right off.

---

2769 days ago

Tom Winnifrith postcard: I explain to a 15 year old from Islington why she should not be disgusted that her Dad backs Donald Trump

My 15 year old daughter from Islington says she is "disgusted" that her Dad would like Donald Trump to defeat Crooked Hillary this Autumn. I try to explain in this podcast why she is wrong. I neglect to mention Trump's admirable pro gay rights record and the fact that he is pro choice but such is the hysterical coverage from the liberal media in Britain that facts do not count any more. I fear that in N1 my daughter is being captured by the establishment. I am sticking with the insurgency.

---

2833 days ago

Should I back #KeepCorbyn ? Where is hashtag #VoteAngelaEagle ?

The loathsome Margaret Hodge has put down a motion of no confidence in comrade Corbyn as leader of our great Labour party. It is obscene that a millionare, whose family trusts use every trick in the book to dodge tax, and who as leader of Islington council branded as homophobes those who exposed the industrial scale peadophilia taking placing in Council homes on her watch, is a Labour MP at all. What message does that send out to the millions of traditional Labour voters who are abandoning the party in droves? Anyhow, the nonce apologist, is now playing Judas.

---

2895 days ago

PHOTO: Jim Mellon's bully boy security guards march Pizza Hardman Darren Atwater out of minor trade show marked by empty seats

Pizza Hardman Darren Atwater responded to a piece of spam email and ordered a ticket legitimately to attend Jim Mellon's minor trade show in islington today. The show claimed that 10,000 tickets had been booked although capacity in the rooms booked is sub 3,000. Whatever. Atwater attended this morning and saw plenty of empty space. He estimates that, including suits manning stands, there were perhaps 2,000 in the hall. Again, whatever.

---

3121 days ago

Malcolm Stacey goes to Islington to find Jeremy Corbyn’s Money Tree – part 3

Malcolm Stacey arrived in Islington last night in his pursuit of Comrade Jeremy Corbyn’s famous Money Tree. He felt that he was close to his quest. But did he get to meet the great bearded one?

As you know Getafix Stacey is worried. His potions based on cuttings from the money tree do not seem to be working. Why are shares in Advanced Oncotherapy not at 50p despite being featured here twice a week? Why is the FTSE 100 not at 8,000 as predicted? Perhaps the Money Tree he has been using in the depths of the Welsh forest is a fake or has lost its powers. But another old fool (sorry we meant respected druid) has emerged in North London.

As he wandered up Upper Street in Islington, wading through the litter of discarded granola bar wrappings, Malcolm sensed that the London of his youth had changed. This un-nerved him slightly but he took consolation from the fact that he was just minutes away from the last rally of Comrade Corbyn’s campaign.

Gone were the ramshackle shops of old. Next to the stern sign from the local council “anyone caught smoking cigarettes will be shot with

---

3122 days ago

Malcolm Stacey’s quest to find Jeremy Corbyn and the famed Islington Money Tree – part 2

Good news. The Quest is hotting up. Getafix is worried. His potions based on cuttings from the money tree do not seem to be working. Why are shares in Advanced Oncotherapy not at 50p despite being featured here twice a week? Why is the FTSE 100 not at 8,000 as predicted? Perhaps the Money Tree he has been using in the depths of the Welsh forest is a fake or has lost its powers. Fear not…for another old fool (sorry we meant respected druid) has emerged in North London and Malcolm seems to have tracked him down.

Comrade Jeremy Corbyn is a true believer in the Money Tree. And tonight the great man will be holding his last rally as he seeks to become leader of the Labour Party. The event is in Islington North London where almost everyone seems to believe in the Money Tree.  Malcolm is heading to N1 as we speak to find this new mystic. Can Malcolm find him and will Corbyn reveal where he cuts twigs from his Money Tree… watch this space, Getafix is in hot pursuit.

---

3227 days ago

Karadimili Conversations - Tuscany in Greece

Kardamili has no sandy beaches and so is not a family resort. It has no bars and cafes serving fish and chips, burgers and cheap lager. Folks seeking sun, sea, sand and burgers and a pint of Fosters head to Stoupa down the road. Kardamili is an oasis of gentility which the Mrs rather prefers - for reasons I cannot understand - to The Greek Hovel and life in Kambos. And so last week I swapped the hovel for six days in a luxury hotel. It's a hard life.

A fortnight ago Kardamili hosted a Norwegian jazz festival.

---

3245 days ago

What did you and other Tories do in the riots of 1997?

In 1997 the war criminal Tony Blair won a landslide victory at a General Election. As a right thinking voter do you remember how you protested?

I remember going out and celebrating with champagne with my lefty colleagues at the Evening Standard. Heck it appeared to be on expenses and that is Democracy. But perhaps you went and protested outside Tony Blair’s Islington townhouse. Did you daub obscenities on a war memorial? Did you push a policeman in N1? Did you make a placard saying “no gratuitous overspending in my name – I will stop you filthy commies!” Do you remember those riots when we refused to accept the democratic will of the people? 

Er, thought not. We had jobs to go to and just carried on accepting that we had lost. A bit of a contrast with the reaction of the left in 2015 don’t you think?

---

3367 days ago

The Liberal Media, Charlie Hebdo, the cowardice and duplicity over the Paris massacre

Naturally I am shocked over the massacre of journalists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris by Islamofascist gunmen. It is an assault on free speech, it is sickening and it must be deplored but watching C4 coverage of the event last night the cowardice and duplicity of the Western Media was there for all to see.

First up were the range of voices singing the praises of the publication for daring to challenge cultural norms, standing up to religious intolerance and to racism for fighting for free speech and calling for the Front Nationale to be banned. Er…hang on a sec…

Personally I do not find some of the crude jibes made at all religions by this publication very clever, funny or brave. Let’s face it Jews and Christians are not going to react by hacking heads off in protest, that sort of behaviour is the preserve of the Islamofascists. However, amongst the trendy liberal elite it is deemed clever and almost the norm to mock those of any faith (but especially the Christian faith) as if they were some relic of a former age, like those who support fox hunting, hanging or who believe in a flat earth.  I admire those with faith. I cannot believe but almost wish I did. I find the principles of Christianity as far more appealing than those of the chattering classes.

As such while I regard much of what Charlie Hebdo lampooned about the faith I’d like to have offensive, crude and not very clever. Sure, attack the Church where it fails (like in child abuse) but to attack folks just for having faith or the faith itself in a sneering manner – how very Islington.

But I defend its right to publish this bollocks because I believe in free speech. And that is why I am perplexed by how the liberal elite think that Charlie Hebdo trying to get the Front Nationale banned is worthy of praise. Okay it fits in with the modern liberal agenda but it is hardly in the Mill or Gladstone tradition of supporting free speech is it?

That I loathe and despise everything that the party of Le Pen stands for is a given. But 

---

3373 days ago

In praise of Nicho, Papou in Kambos

On my first night at the Greek Hovel I wandered into town to watch the World Cup Final. As you may remember I was the only person present supporting the Krauts against the Argies and this drew particular disapproval from one man wearing the heavy moustache one would associate with a Maniot warrior of old.  That man was Nicho.

By the end of the summer we were firm friends. He speaks English and is the life and soul of the Kourounis tavern run by the lovely Eleni. The young men call him Papou (grandfather) but respect him as a chap who can drink them under the table, happily do a Greek dance – after half a bottle of whisky – but also be deadly serious.

As the only English speaker bar Eleni he is a conduit for me to wider world. His main job is with an organic food form headquartered in Athens. But he can work remotely and one imagines that business is not exactly booming and so he has plenty of time for more important things such as growing olives.

You will remember that an olive tree is viewed as a being like a beautiful woman who must be treasured and cared for. And Nicho owns a 500 year old specimen which in Kambos terms is like saying that you have Cheryl Cole waiting for you at home lying in a state of undress on your bed.

The Mani

---

3413 days ago

Video Postcard #90 - The Rochester fallout, UKIP, immigration and the despised political classes

I start this week's video postcard with a couple of comments on life at the Greek Hovel. Pictures will follow. But the main focus is on the Rochester fallout. UKIP and immigration is a mess and I explain why. Equally the comments of Emily Thornberry, the snobbish Labour prig from Islington are a symptom of an out of touch and despised political class.

My weekly financial video postcard looks at the City analyst system which is bent and not working and it can be viewed HERE

---

3478 days ago

If you think I am right wing meet Robin Woodbine Parish – El Oro Annual Results

Investment Company El Oro Ltd (ELX) was set up by the war hero Major Woodbine Parish. He used to use his results statements to berate the IC for rating his company’s shares as a sell in 1953, noting their outperformance each year in the 40 years that followed, to plug his war memoirs and to launch a phenomenally right wing rant. El Oro is now run by his son “young Robin” who takes after his old man with a storming results statement today. This man makes me look like a Guardian reading, Islington mad lefty.  I can’t say I agree with him on everything but he is unique, a true character... Read on…

---

3567 days ago

The RSPCA and RSPB – sick as a parrot

The Mrs and I were wondering back from lunch by the Avon and came upon a car park at the edge of the woods where three boys cried out “help there is an escaped parrot, can you help us?” To misquote my father (a Greats Man) “A PPE man can turn his hand to anything” although catching rather confused and slightly injured escaped parrots in Bristol car parks is not my normal line of expertise.

As I got down on my front and peered under whichever car the parrot opted to hide under the Mrs called the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB). “Sorry madam that is not the sort of thing we deal with.” Hmmm, I guess the RSPB is too busy campaigning against global warning to do anything like actually protect a bird in need.

So what about the RSPCA I suggested? Again no luck. They said that we should try the Old Bill. FS we know that the Filth will be far too busy arresting folk for calling a Police Horse gay or for tweeting out comments t folks in Liverpool about how all scousers are sympathy milking, workshy, welfare addicts ( which they are) to assist.

And so as I scrabbled underneath another car and the parrot eluded me again, the Mrs tried another RSPCA number. Eventually she was told “it will probably find its way home but if you do catch it we will come and collect but we are massively under-resourced”

The first comment is a lie.

---

3696 days ago

The final journey for Kitosh (my old cat)

Kitosh came to me as a kitten and had a varied life in Islington, Shoreditch, France and finally in the Isle of Man. I remember well the Paris to Douglas train, taxi, train, train, ferry and taxi journey we made together. His sudden death in Douglas a few years ago was a real blow. His ashes have travelled with me since then but have remained for almost two years in a wooden urn hidden at Real Man Pizza in Clerkenwell. Now his final journey begins.

Born on a council estate in Walthamstow he would not have imagined that he would have been so well travelled. But the travelling is now over.

Now that I have a sense of permanence, the Mrs and I have agreed that Kitosh’s urn can be buried in our garden underneath the fig tree. We are not sentimental enough to contemplate some grand ceremony. It will just be the Mrs watching as I dig a deep hole and in goes the urn. The tree marks the spot.

During some years of upheaval for me Kitosh was the one constant in my life and a portrait of him already hangs in the new house as a reminder of that. I am not sure the Mrs is that impressed but she has let it go.  So this weekend it is the final farewell, RIP Kitosh my good friend.

---

3728 days ago

Solving Britain’s housing “crisis” – why lefty cheerleader Owen Jones is 100% wrong

Self-appointed leader of the angry young left Owen Jones reckons that we need to build a million new homes in the next few years to solve a housing crisis. By “we” Owen – as ever means The Money Tree/the ever grateful taxpayer. Heck you pay for your own house so why not pay to build one for someone on Benefits Street as well? Bargain. Except that Owen is 100% wrong on this. To be fair so are most of the political classes – there is no need to build a single new home. 

My starting point is the Empty homes statistics for 2012 (the most recent currently available). These showed 920,000 empty homes across the UK. This excludes those unfit for habitation, due for demolition and – critically – an estimated 300,000 empty homes above shops. So the real number is c1.2 million homes.

But how, I can hear Owen whining, do you propose getting those homes back into use? Actually it is very simple. Even a deluded lefty with a tenuous grasp of economics should be able to understand the solutions.

---

3858 days ago

A knock on the door at 2.30 AM

On a writing catch up I was sitting at a table in Real Man in Clerkenwell and it was 2.30 AM. Suddenly the shutters rattle again and again. The last time this happened it was a religious loon and I ended up walking her via various churches to Islington nick as she had reported herself to the old Bill as being a loon. I rather feared the worst as there are some strange folk in the corner of Clerkenwell. I was right to fear the worst.

For it was Colourful James. As you might expect he had already had a few.  It is now 4 AM and Colourful and I have set the world to rights. A glass or two for me still leaves me sober enough to drive and write. Colourful (after a glass or three on the house) will not be at his sharpest at 7 am. Perhaps I should have gone to the sociology conference at Warwick University after all?

---

3884 days ago

Entering the offices of Pinsents Masons (lawyers to the scumbags, Sefton) & an American Psycho

A difficult moment arose today as I returned my daughter Olivia to her mother Big Nose after a week in Kent. For some reason Big Nose was worried that I might humiliate her by wandering into her offices at Pinsent Masons wearing an inappropriate T-shirt, holding the hand of Dan Levi or just being a general embarrassment. For Big Nose is a partner at Pinsents, lawyers to the scumbags at Sefton who are accusing me of libel.

And so I arranged to meet her at Liverpool Street Station for the handover. Olivia and I arrived on time and called in but Big Nose was in a meeting. Then she had an urgent call and so I was instructed by her secretary to take Olivia over to the lion’s den, the global HQ of Pinsent Masons. Ooooo er. I could hardly contain my excitement.

---

3935 days ago

Back at 2 AM from spending time at Islington Police Station

Nope, the BB morons have no reason to celebrate. I was not assisting the Old Bill with their enquiries. Nor was I being questioned for revealing who was shagging who in the Downing Street Affair. Instead…. Well it is a long story but it started mid-afternoon. I am starting to worry that I am not a complete bastard after all and can actually be a good guy on occasion. I may have to seek counselling from someone really bad and immoral. Where’s Colourful James when you need him most?

Mid-afternoon two ladies from Informa popped in to Real Man Pizza Company seeking prizes from local businesses for a charity raffle. Since I only support one charity (Woodlarks) my standard answer to such requests is No! But I found myself offering a prize of a meal for four. I clearly was on a slippery slope towards virtue.

And so after an evening of being exceptionally nice to everyone, sending staff home early so I could tend to the last few customers (two of whom hung around forever) I sat down fully intending to spend the whole night writing. But at midnight I heard the sound of banging on the shutters. I peered out and there was an Indian bird in obvious distress.  So I opened the door and through the shutter she said she needed to find a church to pray at, a priest to speak to and that the Catholic Church would put her up for the night as she was homeless but needed directions. Hmmm “We are a catholic restaurant hang on while I get an A-Z”

Before I knew it she was sitting inside Real Man and had made me turn off my music (AC DC by Joan Jett was playing at the time) and from my laptop she was playing her favourite hymn. She then explained

---

3977 days ago

Viva Maggie – New T-shirt, sweatshirt and mug range launched today

I have been meaning to do this for a while but only today have we launched a new range of T-shirts, mugs and sweatshirts dedicated to our greatest ever Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. I am ordering a sweatshirt and T-shirt in blue but kind of fancy the red Che style too. My deluded lefty partner has already said that I am not allowed to wear these outfits at events where her deluded lefty friends might be present. We shall see. For wandering round liberal bastions such as Clifton and Islington I can think of nothing better to wear. Although the It’s Time to Leave T-shirt gets some good comments.

You can order your Viva Maggie T-shirts, mugs and hoodies only at our online store here.

---

3995 days ago

Romany Blythe – Pin Up girl of the parasite class

Romany Blythe ( pictured) is my age, 45, and her 15 minutes of fame have arrived thanks to her organising parties to celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher. That in itself is horrible. But to understand why Romany is such a nasty piece of work look at the story of her adult life.

There is the fact that although she had a well-paid job as a teacher Islington Council gave her a council flat in a pleasant house – a nice mid terrace Victorian job. She took it. She earned more than my staff but they cannot get such housing as they are not defined as “key workers” – they are just scum from the private sector. We shall see how “key” Ms. Blythe is later.

In June 2006 Miss Blythe bought the leasehold of that flat from Islington Council for £141,000.  To fork out that much she must have been earning a bob or two. So why the f**k did she get a Council flat in the first place? Just four years later she sold the North London property for £298,000. If she had sold it within three years she would have had to repay some cash to the council. Again she took.

A few years earlier Miss Blythe had a boob job on the NHS, again she took.

And now with her new (large) boobs and the money she trousered from the council flat sale she works as a drama teacher with a workshop company that is paid by daft local councils to visit secondary schools. She specialises in ‘facilitating workshops for young, excluded and potentially criminalised individuals and uses drama techniques she has developed to explore resolution of conflict and oppression.’ Sounds a bit different to the three Rs. Basically she poisons the minds of the young and fills their head with crap and the State pays her to do this. She takes again.

This ghastly creature has never generated a cent in wealth for society. She is the sort who believes that the “money tree” can fund a society where all have rights and no-one (except wicked bankers, evil Tories, disgusting capitalists, etc.) has obligations.  She is the pin up girl for the parasite class.

The Romany Blythe’s of this world, Guardian reading members of the middle classes are tied at the hip to the Heather Frost’s – the trash who live as pure welfare parasites from cradle to grave. Both classes have continued to grow in size under this coalition leaving ever fewer folks out there to create the wealth and generate the taxes to pay for it all.  Those who are treated most unfairly in this brave New World are the poor who work and pay tax. They fund folks who do not work ( or who do crap non jobs like Romany) and who then get so much in state hand-outs that they can live in better houses/have a greater disposable income etc. than the workers who pick up the tab.

Margaret Thatcher understood the inequity of this. The heir to Blair, Call Me Dave just does not get it.

---

3999 days ago

Olivia starts to learn Welsh

There are worse things that a nearly 12 year old daughter could tell her Dad. Olivia has already had to broach the news to me that she supports Wales (like her mother, big nose) not Ireland.  Being told that she was supporting Manchester United like her mother’s young man rather than West Ham would be a real blow. And so today comes the news that she has now been given an audio tape and will soon have a private teacher to learn Welsh.

I put it to Islington resident Olivia that this would be a very useful language to acquire for later life. To her credit, she giggled. Why she cannot stick with another really useful language she is learning which I can speak (a bit) I do not know. What is wrong with Latin?

---

4007 days ago

Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013 – Our greatest ever PM

There will no doubt be wild celebrations in parts of Islington, Bristol and bastions of the Guardian reading Middle Classes tonight.  After a long illness. Margaret Thatcher has died of a stroke today. This death will divide the nation.

I am watching the BBC’s coverage and it ignores her achievements totally. It is spiteful and worthless reporting.  The left will blame her for all sorts of matters and will delight in her demise. Already I see tweets saying “the witch is dead.” Expect a torrent of tasteless and unpleasant comments and myth perpetuation over the coming days. Thatcher had that effect – she polarized opinion.

That the left hated her with such a passion was down to the fact that she delivered so much of what the left claims as its own ground. And so the left claims to represent “women” but Thatcher showed that a woman could rise to the top based on ability and without positive discrimination. The left claims to look after the poor. But whereas Milliband, Brown, Blair etc are all solidly working class, it is the Tories who have delivered the leaders from truly humble origins (Heath, Major and above all Thatcher).

The left keeps its client state poor. Thatcher gave opportunity to that client state to get a better life: to earn more based on work and ,merit by breaking Union power and abolishing collective bargaining; to own their own home via council house sales, to save more by cutting taxes. That was revolutionary and Britain needed a revolution because in 1979 after the Winter of Discontent, Margaret Thatcher took control of a country on its knees: bankrupt and with no sense of national pride. Thatcher faced opposition from a left determined to keep the poor poor and from patrician Tories who did not wish to upset the status quo. Bravely she drove through change in society by ensuring that the State did less not more.

She was not always right. In her early career it was she who did away with large numbers of grammar schools. I suspect she regretted that. She did not stand up to Mugabe in his early years when the mad old kook could have been stopped. Again, I sense that she regretted that. But on the big calls Maggie was right and that is why the Left cannot abide her.

All those Guardian readers celebrating today were, if my age or older, proudly wearing CND badges and trooping off to Greenham during the cold war. Folks like Tony Blair, Paddy Pantsdown and Baroness Ashton may pretend otherwise but the lefties were wrong about how to win the Cold War while Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Regan were right. Many of those same lefties would have caved into the Argies in 1982. Thatcher stood firm, although some of those around her wobbled. For her it was a matter of principle. Thatcher was right about the ERM and the Euro. She was branded an out of touch nationalist for her views but her views were based on pure economics and she was once again right. She was right. The deluded lefties were wrong. History is on squarely her side.

In parts of the North they say that they cannot forgive her for closing the coal mines and other State subsidised rust belt industries. But the same folk lambast today’s politicians for bailing out the banks. Thatcher understood that there is no such thing as the Government’s cash. There is money paid over by the taxpayer and that cash cannot be wasted. Subsidising an industry which just cannot make a profit, whatever the industry is waste. It is taking money from those who are creating wealth and paying it to others who are not. Whether the recipients are bankers or miners Thatcher understood that such an action was wrong.

Today’s conservatives do not dare cut Government spending or taxes or foreign aid because they are afraid of being confrontational. They have forgotten what principle means. Thatcher never forgot principle and based every decision about it.

Margaret Thatcher was without doubt the bravest politician of the 20th century. She was without doubt the most principled politician of our lifetime. She was a truly amazing woman. And she was right about almost everything.

To celebrate any death shows that you have no heart.  We should pity those who celebrate the passing of Margaret Thatcher. This woman shaped the lives of a generation. She saved the UK from the bankruptcy and humiliation of the 1970s. She engineered a renaissance of Britain which all of her successors have done their best to dissipate.

Our greatest leader, Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013 RIP

---

4015 days ago

The Iraqi benefits queen YOU pay for – why housing benefit is a farce our useless MPs will not deal with

This will make your blood boil. Bushra al-Rahimi is an Iraqi national. She lives in London and was given housing benefit to cover the cost of a flat in an exclusive part of Westminster which she then let out at £4,000 a week. Finally she has been booted out of that accommodation and ordered to repay rent arrears of £30,800 BUT…

She is now living in an Islington flat paid for by housing benefits which in the private sector would cost £5,000 a month to rent. She continues to get a Jobseekers Allowance worth £71 a week. God knows what other benefits this parasite is getting.

This just defies belief:

a) This woman has broken the law. Is it not possible to amend our laws so that if someone arrives in this country seeking political asylum we make it explicitly clear that if they commit any crime (including benefits fraud) they will be sent back home (even if it means they face persecution) with all their dependents automatically? It is a sort of social contract: we give you safety but you MUST obey the law.

b) Why the hell does she get to choose where to stay?

---

4016 days ago

The Idiocy of press laws in the internet age – ref 82 year old arrested in Savile Enquiry in paedoBritain

The Idiocy of press laws in the internet age – ref 82 year old arrested in Saville Enquiry in paedoBritain

Last week an 82 year old entertainer was arrested in Berkshire as part of the Savile enquiry. We are told that he is Australian but cannot name him. You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to work that one out. Think of Aussies who were famous in the 1970s and 1980s for appearing on British TV and find out how old they are on wikipedia and hey presto. I bet you guessed already.

Now go do a google search for “82 year old arrested xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx (fill in the name you had probably guessed anyway) and hey presto there are 40,100 web pages coming up in 0.32 seconds. Of course under the new British terror laws (sorry Royal Press Charter) none of the mainstream press is naming this chap.

I have no idea what xxxx is accused of and it seems as if most of those arrested so far in this multi-million quid enquiry are not being charged at all so frankly his arrest ( for a second time – he was also arrested on November 29th as part of this enquiry) proves absolutely sod all.

But what exactly is the point of laws that just do not work? I might add that a former senior minister in the Thatcher regime

---

4017 days ago

Could UKIP win the South Shields by-election?

Well anything is possible. The uber talented chanteuse Ms Cheryl Cole could be walking down my street right now to ask me out for a hot date.  Frankly that is more likely than Labour losing a seat that has never been anything but Labour. But miracles can happen. Hang on… there is someone at the door.

Pizza delivery. Wrong address. Not Cheryl. Drat.

The results last time were Labour 52%, Tory 22%, Lib Dems 14%, BNP 7%, others (not including UKIP 5%). Following Rotherham and the national trends my assumptions would be:

Various others including the BNP and the Lib Dems get 10% between them. The Lib Dems will come somewhere between 5th and 8th on another night of abject humiliation for Nick Clegg. The BNP will not achieve much.  At least Clegg’s memory these days seems to be so poor when it comes to hearing painful news (Rennard, Huhne, Hancock) that he will soon be able to forget about leading his party to another electoral caning.

The Tory vote will slump. Call Me Dave has done his utmost to piss off traditional Tories (I am amazed that there were so many in South Shields, wherever it is, last time) and voters will tactically switch to the best placed party that might just run Labour close, i.e. UKIP. The Tories will get 10% of the vote ( + or – 3%). I suspect the – is more likely than the + - it will be a dire night for Call Me Dave as May 2nd also sees local elections in which the Tories will get thrashed. There will be stacks of very angry ex Tory councillors on May 3rd.

And so on the face of it, if the Labour vote held steady then that would see UKIP on 30% and Labour on 52%. But….

South Shields looks to be the sort of grim Northern shit hole that Labour takes for granted. Its voters there are working class and one suspects that their views on immigration, Europe and a range of other issues are not exactly the sort aired by Ed Miliband and his pals at Islington dinner parties. Besides which this by election is caused by Dave Miliband pissing off to New York to earn loads of wonga. Talk about treating your poor constituents with contempt. That makes the circumstances a touch unusual.

And so my guess is that there will be some shift from Labour to UKIP (as there was in Rotherham and Eastleigh) and also from Labour to “not voting at all as you are all wankers.”

UKIP has nothing to lose here. If it gets 30% and comes second (from nowhere) that is a triumph. But I have a sneaking feeling that it could do rather better than that. It is currently 17-1 to win and I am tempted to have a tiny flutter.  Anything is possible. Hang on... is that the doorbell I hear ringing again?

---

4030 days ago

Misbehaving as I meet deluded lefty scumbags in Islington

I was walking a deluded lefty to Highbury tube station this morning but as we approached we encountered the assembly the start of a “demo” against wicked Tory cuts. The victim in this case is the world’s third largest employer (viz the NHS) but the moaning and wailing from the crowd was against cuts in general. Yes, I know Government spending is in fact increasing but that does not fit in with the narrative of the left. Tories = cuts = wicked.

And so as we approached the tube one lardbucket who looked as if he had not encountered a bath in quite some time tried to thrust a pamphlet into my hand “stop the cuts” he said. I could not be bothered to point out that Government spending was in fact increasing. So I just said “No, I want more cuts, in welfare payments, in Government spending and in taxes for lower paid workers.” I am not sure that the protester (whose life is, I bet you, funded by the State) was expecting such a response in Islington and he looked a bit baffled as if I had said “the moon is made from cheese.”

Before had time to think of a response I was hustled swiftly on and reprimanded for being a) too right win and b) confrontational. When is the great demo protesting about how this hopeless Government is not cutting enough/at all planned for? I am happy to attend with my placard “Cut taxes for the poor workers,” “Heather Frost welfarism isn’t working,”  “No more cash for kleptocrats.”I’ll be there.

---

4031 days ago

Lord Ahmed is a prize shit – does Labour believe in a global Jewish conspiracy?

In 2009 Lord Ahmed, a Labour peer was sent to prison for just 12 weeks ( but served just 16 days) after he smashed into a stationary car, having sent a series of text messages while driving his Jaguar on the M1 at 70mph. The other driver died.  Personally I regard that sentence as a joke. 16 days for killing someone because you were driving recklessly? I would have been thinking in terms of years.

But Lord Ahmed thinks that he was hard done by. In an interview given a year ago on Pakistani TV, which cropped up this week the total shit said that he was given a harsh sentence  only because of a conspiracy by Jews  “who own newspapers and TV channels”. The judge, he added, had been specially chosen because the Jews wanted to punish him for supporting the Palestinian cause.

This murder trots out the sort of nonsense you might expect in the Protocols of Zion, he pedals lies in a way aimed at inciting hatred against Jews and the Labour party is okay with that? To be fair it has suspended him but if he did indeed say this then Labour must either boot him out or it too is signing up to what is just unacceptable.

The problem is that in deluded lefty circles anti-Semitism is cool. Not the sort that denies the holocaust. It is not yet acceptable to pretend that Auschwitz did not happen when munching your bruschetta in Islington. But David Ward MP (Lib Dem) is still a member of that party despite saying that the holocaust was comparable to the situation in Gaza. As I have noted before that trivialises the greatest act of genocide of the 20th Century (if not all time) and is just abhorrent.

The left collectively has a choice. Either it decides that it is fine to bait the wicked Jews, incorporates the Protocols of Zion into 2015 manifestos and states that trivialising the murder of 6 million men, women and children is fine. Or, it shows a genuine commitment to an equality and nondiscriminatory agenda and tells folks like Ward and Ahmed that with their views they have no place in British politics.

They will not. The Lib Dems and Labour will fudge the issue. Too many of their core supporters loathe Israel with a passion. And too many of that number extrapolate that into a loathing of with wicked Jews which involves spouting conspiracy theories and hatred as if they were discussing the weather or whether West Ham will defeat Chelski this weekend.

---

4095 days ago

More money for the troughing political classes even in austerity Britain

The Government is meant to be making spending cuts. Of course we all know that the wicked Tories are doing no such thing, spending is going up. But just for a minute let us humour Call Me Dave and pretend that MPs realise that Bankrupt Britain is going bust and that Government spending has to be cut back. So what news do we have today? MP’s reckon that local councillors should get more money for their allowances. Hell’s teeth. Labour MP Clive Betts things that compensation needs to be “appropriate.” At a number of levels this is obscene.

Checking out the website of Real Man Pizza’s local council ( Camden) I see that in the year to April 2011 ( the last available data) its local councillors cost local residents £807,473.47.

---

4112 days ago

Merry Christmas to you all - what does it mean to you and me?

May I start by wishing all the readers on my own blog or the ten other sites to which I now contribute (going to eleven in January), a very Merry Christmas and – of course – a prosperous New Year. But what does Christmas mean to you? I have no idea. I know what it means to me and my family. For starters it is not just a holiday it is Christmas. I am simply not having a happy holiday or sending season’s greetings. Whatever your own personal views on religion you are getting a few days off work because you live in a Christian country and Jesus was born on Christmas Day. Get used to it and stop pretending otherwise.

Actually it is extremely unlikely that Jesus was born on 25th December, in 0 AD, in Bethlehem or in a manger. But that is another matter.

My family is religious. My step mother is a lay preacher and my father an enthusiastic member of the Shipston church although possibly the worst singer in Warwickshire. I was brought up to attend church and know the bible well enough. But try as hard as I can, and occasionally I have tried, I have never been a person of faith. I just cannot believe. I am not hostile. I leave that to my eleven year old daughter Olivia who has grown up with a mother who has a real hatred for the Church. Olivia is thus a proud Islington atheist. And thus three generations bring three views.

---

4133 days ago

Starbucks and Google – The Stench of Political Hypocrisy and Short sightedness

The political class is today delighted as Starbucks appears to be caving in and agreeing to pay more tax. No doubt Amazon and Google will follow suit. My warning here is that what is going on will cost British jobs and it stinks of high hypocrisy. And yes Margaret Hodge MP I am talking about you.

I start with Hodge who has appointed herself as witchfinder general sniffing out big American companies who pay tax rates of as little as 1% in the UK. You may remember that this was the vile woman who ran Islington Council at a time when an institutionalised paedophile ring operated in its care home system. When this started to be exposed she attacked those doing the exposing as homophobes. Her reward for allowing little kids to get buggered by council employed nonces was to be made Children’s Minister by Tony Blair. You could not make it up.

---

4139 days ago

The Daily Mail, the Government house prices and first time buyers – all wrong

The Daily Mail has its knickers in a twist about how young hard working couples cannot afford to get on the housing ladder without help from middle aged hard working parents ( er…Daily Mail readers). The Council for Mortgage Lenders says action is needed. And the Conservative Party panders to this anger saying the situation “is not right”. There is a hint ( to appease Daily Mail readers) from some shit for brains housing minister, Grant Prisk, that the Government will take steps to address the “problem”. They are all wrong – they promote a ponzi scheme because it is popular to do so.

That young folks cannot “get on the housing ladder” is undeniable. That is because a) the banks will not lend unless you have a hefty deposit and b) prices ( in terms of price to income ratios) are by historic standards and in absolute terms too high.

Given that prices are too high it is exceptionally prudent of the banks to require steep deposits and having done their conkers on more or less everything they touched it is in no one’s interest (least of all the taxpayer who actually owns most of the banks) to force or bully them into making reckless loans in this area too.

So the only way to address this problem is for house prices to fall.

---

4152 days ago

Why does the West’s liberal elite deny Israel the right of self defence?

For once the BBC and the Guardian do not stand in the dock alone. It seems as if the entire Western liberal elite and press corps are united in condemning the wicked Jews, oops they meant to say Israel, for taking out Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari today. Old Said was the head of the military wing of the Islamofascist Hamas organisation that runs the Gaza strip today and thanks to a precise strike from the Israeli Defence Forces he is now on a one way ticket to hell.

I support the brave IDF 100% and am this evening celebrating the death of this bigoted murderer. It seems that deluded lefties across the planet have a different view.

The BBC coverage stands out for its extreme bias. No surprises there. On its website today the lead story reports:

---

4154 days ago

Africa’s Hitler (Mugabe) steals $2 billion and still gets £80 million of YOUR cash

We all know that the UK foreign aid budget is a costly disgrace this country cannot afford. Across Africa our money is allowing tyrants to rob their people with the aid we pump in a real disincentive to reform. We help no-one with our efforts but Call Me Dave is so desperate to be seen as “nice” that he keeps on writing cheques. Well Mr Cameron please explain Zimbabwe to me.

A report out today from Partnership Africa Canada, a member of the Kimberley Process, the world regulatory body on the diamond trade, says that Mugabe and his cronies have stolen $2 billion from the Marange diamond fields which lie within his country. That $2 billion has been looted over a period of six years so let’s call that $330 million a year. Funds from diamond sales of that order should have shown up in the State Treasury but have not. They have, of course, headed off to Switzerland. Mugabe says that the report is false. The authors of the report say that the $2 billion number is a “conservative estimate” and it appears that Hitler’s own finance minister Tendai Biti backs up the claims from PAC.

Now what does this tell us? Well first a quick word about Hollywood, deluded lefty celebs and the film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo di Caprio.

---

4159 days ago

Obama wins – UK Election Coverage Awful, BBC dismal

Okay I admit it, I tried to watch a bit of the Biased BBC coverage. Three minutes of Newsnight was enough for me. This organisation gets taxpayer’s money to offer balance. And so I sat through a discussion with a stuffed British shirt ( who turned out to be novelist Martin Amiss), a horrible hag from Newsweek in the US who made Amiss look like a neocon and some third rate Republican ex Governor who was occasionally allowed a word or two for “balance”.

The bon mot from Amiss was that Ronald Reagan would be rejected by today’s Republican Party for being far too left wing. Paxman looked bored and did not bother to challenge this obvious lie which was part of the night long deluded leftie luvvy agenda of portraying everyone in the GOP as racist, sexist, homophobes who want to shoot all poor people. And so for some balance he turned to the old hag from Newsweek

---

4214 days ago

Olympic Spirit of 2012 can reverse Britain’s National Decline: Utter Rubbish

The headline screams out from columnist Alison Pearson in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. Does anyone actually believe this rubbish? Or have we been so brainwashed that Big Brothers will be hauling me off to Room 101 for pointing it out. Well I shall risk it anyway. La Pearson states:

Patriotism not being a source of toe-curling embarrassment may be one of London 2012’s enduring legacies. Britons waved their flag, and found that they liked it. The need to be cool was displaced by the wish to be warm. Figures out yesterday show that crime was down in London by 6 per cent. Only nine people were arrested at Olympics venues. Attendance at the Proms themselves hit a record 93 per cent.

Of course, helpful smiles may blow away with the first churlish gale of autumn, but what will remain is the knowledge of what can be achieved when the genius of our people is harnessed.

Let’s start with waving the National Flag. Most ordinary (I do not use that word in a disparaging sense as you will see below) folk in Britain have never had a problem waving the flag. They have been British and proud of it.

---