1959 days ago
Yes I am a rabid Brexiteer. I want the country where, regrettably, I spend most of the year to be free to make its own laws, set its own taxes, control its own waters and chart its own destiny. I have faith that Britain can do that. Yet for sneering metropolitan elitists like the twit who tweeted me last night, as you can see below, that is incompatible with liking your fellow Europeans. Au contraire..
2598 days ago
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?"
2802 days ago
The Government is set to allow the doubling of the price of buying a National Lottery ticket which the bigoted lefty Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror sees as another way of transferring cash from the hard working poor to the evil rich. Is there a more misguided man on Fleet Street than the loathsome Maguire?
2846 days ago
Britain in 2016 feels ever more like 1792 France. Cherie Blair or Theresa May will soon be saying that we the great unwashed should not worry "let them eat cake" and hundreds of celebrities will put their names to a petition saying what a good idea that is.
It is one rule for the establishment and one for the rest of us. Day after day we are reminded that the millionaire political, business, celebrity and media elite can get away with murder, literally in the case of Tony Blair, while the rest of us just get screwed. No wonder Britain is so angry.
The 40,000 silly people at yesterday's MarchforEurope do not represent that anger. Overwhelmingly middle class Southerners they, or their parents at the bank of Mum & Dad, have done very well as property owners enjoying the post 2008 asset bubble created by QE and funny money interest rates. For those in the Midlands and North where property prices in the post industrial towns have not rocketed, where there have been no real wage rises - unless you are a middle class employee of the State - there has been no financial windfall since 2008. They are excluded. Shafted financially and with no-one speaking up for them. Indeed for ten days now they have been told by large sections of the media and by the middle class liberal establishment that they are ignorant and racist and that their views should somehow be ignored.
And now we discover that when the Chilcot Report in finally published this week, it may slate Tony Blair and Jack Straw for lying and starting an illegal war but they will suffer no consequences. You and I might think that lying to Parliament
3561 days ago
One of George Orwell’s amazing predictions back in 1948 – when he wrote 1984 – is how the plebs would be kept in a state of ignorant servility by pleasures such as the lottery. Malcolm Stacey described it yesterday HERE as a “voluntary tax.” Yes but it is a bad one none the less.
Malcolm is not a normal lottery player. He is intelligent and middle class with an above average income. Your average lottery player is less intelligent than the mean, working or benefits class and on a below average income.
Poor and stupid people volunteer to pay this tax.
3617 days ago
And so the old parties run by the political classes are running scared of UKIP. After UKIP wins the Euros on Sunday there will be more hand wringing and talk of “we must listen.” Of course they will not. UKIP is not going to win the Westminster elections and so there is a pretence of listening to the voters but it is a sham. Which is why UKIP may not win any or many Westminster seats but it will not go away.
LibLabCon could neutralise it at a strike with just two announcements which negate the poisonous issues of sleaze and Europe.
4124 days ago
I have consistently advocated that the UK scrap its entire foreign aid budget on dual grounds. Firstly Britain is almost bankrupt and we cannot afford to be generous. And secondly foreign aid never helps those it is meant to help, it is merely a transfer of wealth from poor folks in rich countries to (the Swiss bank accounts of) rich people in poor countries. You can check out a couple of my pieces on this matter HERE. and HERE. to show that I am not exactly new to this subject. But today comes a damning report on this matter from the think tank Civitas. It is not the conclusions which are worth noting (they are hardly surprising) but what it says about the gaping gap between our political and media elite and the rest of us. You and I. The plebs.
The Civitas study shows that our foreign aid budget which is set to increase by 30% this year as spending on so much else is pared back, does not actually help poor people on the ground. That is damning. But more damning
