Today's news says that David Cameron will announce tomorrow that local councils will be told to keep immigrants off housing lists for 2 years in order to stop them getting immediate access to 'social' housing.
Immigrants are people who have been granted the right to come and live here. Essentially, they have been told the government are happy for them to come and live, work, pay taxes here etc. So, they should go to the bottom of any council housing lists in exactly the same manner as would a British citizen moving from one council's area to another.
Maybe in his Bullingdon club induced trance, he is confusing 'immigrants' with 'illegal immigrants' and 'asylum seekers'.
It is an easy mistake to make if your are racist, elitist and xenphobic into the bargain.
A bit more difficult to explain when you are supposed to be the leader of the government!
Having mentioned the Bullingdon Club, I have to say, I have just found an allegation in the Daily Mirror that as part of a new member's initiation, they have to burn a £50 note in front of a beggar.
Nice!
Thoroughly good chaps, what!
Sunday, March 24, 2013
BBC Reaches New Levels of Silliness
Every day, one of the first things I do is check the BBC News website. Often, I find myself tutting and shaking my head at some of the silly headlines but it seems today, the BBC has reached a new level of silliness.
Reporting this morning on the death of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky yesterday in the "England" section, the headline is "Berezovsky found at Berkshire Home".
No kidding!
That's a bit like saying "Occupant found in his house".
And how is this for an unfortunate choice of language:
Reporting on an ordeal a British woman suffered in her hotel in Agra recently, when she was terrified that the hotel manager was intent on assaulting her sexually, their headline is "Agra hotel jump woman recalls ordeal".
Think about the use of the word "Jump", BBC!
Today's award for clumsy use of the English language is perhaps "Body of man found in snow by farmer".
How about "Man's body found ...etc"?
Maybe they employ ex Premiership footballers as headline writers ("We gave it 120%....We displayed a lot of grit & determination (after losing 10-0)".
Reporting this morning on the death of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky yesterday in the "England" section, the headline is "Berezovsky found at Berkshire Home".
No kidding!
That's a bit like saying "Occupant found in his house".
And how is this for an unfortunate choice of language:
Reporting on an ordeal a British woman suffered in her hotel in Agra recently, when she was terrified that the hotel manager was intent on assaulting her sexually, their headline is "Agra hotel jump woman recalls ordeal".
Think about the use of the word "Jump", BBC!
Today's award for clumsy use of the English language is perhaps "Body of man found in snow by farmer".
How about "Man's body found ...etc"?
Maybe they employ ex Premiership footballers as headline writers ("We gave it 120%....We displayed a lot of grit & determination (after losing 10-0)".
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Tax and how it hurts (part 1)
This week, in the Chancellor's budget speech we heard "blah blah blah" (or words to that effect) on the subject of tax.
For example; Corporation tax is to be reduced to 20%. Nice! If you have a company earning you a few millions or whatever, you will pay 20% tax on the profits. Of course, the profits will be managed shrewdly and, dare I say, minimised.
So, 20% tax rate. That is the same as you will be taxed on your hard earned wages.
Never mind, let's ignore the rate for now because, in the case of many companies, it will be irrelevant anyway. Look at the record of Starbucks, Google, Amazon et al.
I know tax avoidance is legal; if the government can't frame a set of rules that cover all the loopholes, rather than create them, then they have no business running an enterprise as large as the United Kingdom.
And to think, most of the numties in Westminster went to expensive schools and colleges, graduating with degrees in the likes of Economics, Law, etc. And they can't come up with a set of taxation rules that stop billions of pounds leaking out of the country annually?
To be fair, we shouldn't put 100% of the blame on the inept government. A large share of the blame should be apportioned to those robbers that once were trumpeted as the "Captains of Industry". It seems to me that their collective record borders on the stupid. They run a company for so long, until their incompetence overtakes them and they find themselves staring at declining balance sheets.
"Hmmm. What can we do to continue giving the shareholders a nice return? I know! Flog the company and distribute the winnings as a dividend".
So the company is flogged off, usually to a foreign investor, the board take a handsome salary/payoff and the government clap hands at the "inward foreign investment".
The new foreign owner immediately takes steps to re-locate to somewhere else and the taxes that had previously been going to the Exchequer now disappear.
Now go to Part 2...
Tax and how it hurts (part 2)
Continued .....
So, how about the very public individuals with less than public tax arrangements?
Well, let's start with Tony Blair, that well known multimillionaire 'socialist' (Socialist my arse!). In 2011, his company (or one of them), Windrush Ventures declared an income of something around £12 Million. In their accounts, they listed all the usual expenses such as rents, salaries etc. along with £8 Million "administrative expenses".
The net profit then was just over £1 Million and tax was paid on this at £315,000. Nobody (as far as I can discover) has been able to explain these "administrative costs". If they had been included in the profits, the tax bill would have been an awful lot higher.
Now; pay attention, this could get tedious: Mr Blair is involved in (owns, perhaps?) a series of companies, chief among which appears to be Windrush Ventures No 3 LP. "LP" means Limited Partnership. Limited Partnerships are not required to publish their accounts.
Still with me? Good!
Windrush Ventures No 3 LP is linked to Windrush Ventures No 2 LP and BDBCO no 819 who in turn are linked to BDBCO No 822. Both of these companies are listed as Dormant so let's ignore them for now.
Windrush Ventures No 2 LP is yet another Limited Partnership so forget about any public accounts there!
Next in the chain are Windrush Ventures Ltd and Windrush Ventures No 1 Ltd.
Would you believe it? Windrush Ventures is trading under the name "The Office of Tony Blair". Now I could link this to the relevant website but it is stated on the Terms & Conditions page of that website that I can include links to the site only with their (his?) permission. So bugger them! Just Google the name.
Windrush, in their 2011 accounts, say they are paying £500,000 rent for their premises in Grosvenor Square. I'll bet you a quid you can't figure out who is the owner of that property., Doh! You got me! Of course it is Tony Blair. His own company is paying him to rent his own premises. (Mind you, I did see evidence a couple of years ago that David Cameron was doing the same with his house. Probably the whole rotten crew are doing something similar).
Oh hang on; there's another company named Firerush Ventures. No prizes for guessing who owns that lot (ACL Blair) and how the company fits into a structure including Firerush Ventures No 2 LP and Firerush Ventures No 1 LP.
If you are still awake, the whole saga can be summed up"What a complex web, allegedly set up to manage Mr Blair's charitable affairs"!
Let's go to Part 3 ...
So, how about the very public individuals with less than public tax arrangements?
Well, let's start with Tony Blair, that well known multimillionaire 'socialist' (Socialist my arse!). In 2011, his company (or one of them), Windrush Ventures declared an income of something around £12 Million. In their accounts, they listed all the usual expenses such as rents, salaries etc. along with £8 Million "administrative expenses".
The net profit then was just over £1 Million and tax was paid on this at £315,000. Nobody (as far as I can discover) has been able to explain these "administrative costs". If they had been included in the profits, the tax bill would have been an awful lot higher.
Now; pay attention, this could get tedious: Mr Blair is involved in (owns, perhaps?) a series of companies, chief among which appears to be Windrush Ventures No 3 LP. "LP" means Limited Partnership. Limited Partnerships are not required to publish their accounts.
Still with me? Good!
Windrush Ventures No 3 LP is linked to Windrush Ventures No 2 LP and BDBCO no 819 who in turn are linked to BDBCO No 822. Both of these companies are listed as Dormant so let's ignore them for now.
Windrush Ventures No 2 LP is yet another Limited Partnership so forget about any public accounts there!
Next in the chain are Windrush Ventures Ltd and Windrush Ventures No 1 Ltd.
Would you believe it? Windrush Ventures is trading under the name "The Office of Tony Blair". Now I could link this to the relevant website but it is stated on the Terms & Conditions page of that website that I can include links to the site only with their (his?) permission. So bugger them! Just Google the name.
Windrush, in their 2011 accounts, say they are paying £500,000 rent for their premises in Grosvenor Square. I'll bet you a quid you can't figure out who is the owner of that property., Doh! You got me! Of course it is Tony Blair. His own company is paying him to rent his own premises. (Mind you, I did see evidence a couple of years ago that David Cameron was doing the same with his house. Probably the whole rotten crew are doing something similar).
Oh hang on; there's another company named Firerush Ventures. No prizes for guessing who owns that lot (ACL Blair) and how the company fits into a structure including Firerush Ventures No 2 LP and Firerush Ventures No 1 LP.
If you are still awake, the whole saga can be summed up"What a complex web, allegedly set up to manage Mr Blair's charitable affairs"!
Let's go to Part 3 ...
Tax and how it hurts (part 3)
If we think the affairs of Mr Blair are a tad confusing, how about another individual whose affairs are a lot clearer but less savoury?
Let's look at Sir Philip Green. Never mind his early years, they are all available elsewhere.
Let's look a bit nearer to today and a quote from him during the 2010 election run-up:
"Cameron and Osborne understand what needs to be done by giving more tax breaks to dodgers like me They get it."
Yep! Says it all really, doesn't it? "more tax breaks to dodgers like me" indeed!
His various companies seem to be above board, paying the tax due on their operations. Good for them!
However, back in 2005, he declared a dividend in one of his companies, Arcadia, which meant that as the owner of 92% of the shares in that company, he & his family had a £1.2 Billion pay day. How many!
£1.2 Billion, that's how many!
Of course, Sir Philip pays tax on his salary in the UK. So what's the problem?
Well, the company Arcadia is in his wife's name. She lives in Monaco and pays no tax. So the £1.2 Billion went to her account in Monaco and attracted zero tax in this country.
If tax had been paid in the UK on this amount, it is calculated it would have paid for the salaries of 20,000 nurses.
Not to worry though; there is no suggestion that anything he did was illegal.
Under the current 11,000 page tax code now in force, all he did was legal, even if distasteful. He is not alone though; it is reported that there are many rich buggers doing this in the UK; using "legal" tax loopholes.
Luckily for us, the new government in 2010 commissioned a review and report on how to improve government efficiency, including stuff like maximising revenue (tax) and minimising expenditure.
Don't forget, the government drones on day in and day out about the "deficit". This is the difference between government expenditure and income (or taxes). So, one would assume this review would encompass things like tax avoidance loopholes. Bet you it won't. The man appointed to carry out the review was Sir Philip Green!
Nope! I just read the review and tax doesn't get a mention. It is all about how the government spend lots of money on office premises, telephones etc. All depressing reading but not going anywhere near the real issue; a massive hole in the government's tax take.
Back to the corporate robbers; Cadburys was taken over some time ago by the American conglomerate, Kraft. What did Kraft do? Implemented a series of restructuring moves to channel Cadburys profits through Switzerland. According to Uk Uncut, a loss of £60 Million to the revenue.
Diageo is a company better known for its Johnny Walker scotch whiskey brand. Have a look at this report into yet another complex web of comanies here and companies there:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/02/tax-gap-diageo-johnnie-walker
The article reckons that, if the company didn't ponce about and re-route profits etc to offshore operations, the difference in taxes would be the equivalent of the annual tax take from 20,000 households in the UK.
And here is a link (albeit an old one) that gives a clue to the tax arrangements of Tesco:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2008/06/01/tescos-the-zug-deal-is-tax-avoidance/
Isn't it high time we (the silly buggers who foot all the bills) got off our backsides and did something about this? How can we tolerate a government telling us we are a nation of spongers because their tax take is down, while they are going for cocktails, freebie holidays etc with the very people who could make a huge difference to the lives of ordinary, hard working people?
Let's look at Sir Philip Green. Never mind his early years, they are all available elsewhere.
Let's look a bit nearer to today and a quote from him during the 2010 election run-up:
"Cameron and Osborne understand what needs to be done by giving more tax breaks to dodgers like me They get it."
Yep! Says it all really, doesn't it? "more tax breaks to dodgers like me" indeed!
His various companies seem to be above board, paying the tax due on their operations. Good for them!
However, back in 2005, he declared a dividend in one of his companies, Arcadia, which meant that as the owner of 92% of the shares in that company, he & his family had a £1.2 Billion pay day. How many!
£1.2 Billion, that's how many!
Of course, Sir Philip pays tax on his salary in the UK. So what's the problem?
Well, the company Arcadia is in his wife's name. She lives in Monaco and pays no tax. So the £1.2 Billion went to her account in Monaco and attracted zero tax in this country.
If tax had been paid in the UK on this amount, it is calculated it would have paid for the salaries of 20,000 nurses.
Not to worry though; there is no suggestion that anything he did was illegal.
Under the current 11,000 page tax code now in force, all he did was legal, even if distasteful. He is not alone though; it is reported that there are many rich buggers doing this in the UK; using "legal" tax loopholes.
Luckily for us, the new government in 2010 commissioned a review and report on how to improve government efficiency, including stuff like maximising revenue (tax) and minimising expenditure.
Don't forget, the government drones on day in and day out about the "deficit". This is the difference between government expenditure and income (or taxes). So, one would assume this review would encompass things like tax avoidance loopholes. Bet you it won't. The man appointed to carry out the review was Sir Philip Green!
Nope! I just read the review and tax doesn't get a mention. It is all about how the government spend lots of money on office premises, telephones etc. All depressing reading but not going anywhere near the real issue; a massive hole in the government's tax take.
Back to the corporate robbers; Cadburys was taken over some time ago by the American conglomerate, Kraft. What did Kraft do? Implemented a series of restructuring moves to channel Cadburys profits through Switzerland. According to Uk Uncut, a loss of £60 Million to the revenue.
Diageo is a company better known for its Johnny Walker scotch whiskey brand. Have a look at this report into yet another complex web of comanies here and companies there:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/02/tax-gap-diageo-johnnie-walker
The article reckons that, if the company didn't ponce about and re-route profits etc to offshore operations, the difference in taxes would be the equivalent of the annual tax take from 20,000 households in the UK.
And here is a link (albeit an old one) that gives a clue to the tax arrangements of Tesco:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2008/06/01/tescos-the-zug-deal-is-tax-avoidance/
Isn't it high time we (the silly buggers who foot all the bills) got off our backsides and did something about this? How can we tolerate a government telling us we are a nation of spongers because their tax take is down, while they are going for cocktails, freebie holidays etc with the very people who could make a huge difference to the lives of ordinary, hard working people?
Honest gov, we've got no money!
Well, I have to start somewhere so how about a topical item; the deal allowing West Ham to take over the Olympic Stadium in London's East End.
Now, first get into your head the recent government pronouncements that they have no money.
Skint, broke, nothing hidden under the mattress or in the old biscuit tin.
Got it?
Now, look at this for a government that keeps telling us we are all idle wasters, sponging off the state, spending money we don't have etc:
The cost of building and developing the Olympic Stadium finished up at around £600 Million. Now that is a lot of money but at least it had been budgeted for when plans were drawn up before the games.
Now, it has been announced that West Ham football club will take over the stadium for their new home from 2016.
Before they take up residence, there will need to be modifications and improvements to make it suitable for use as a football stadium; stuff like sliding rows of seats to cover the athletics track, new roof to cover a larger portion of the seating area etc.
The deal announced yesterday includes these costs, expected to be around £150M, possibly (probably?) rising to £190M, the funding of which breaks down roughly as follows:
Contribution from HM Government (aka taxpayers) £60 Million
Contribution from Newham Council (aka taxpayers) £40 Million (a sum that the council has had to borrow)
LLDC (aka taxpayers) £20 Million
West Ham F.C. £15 Million plus £2M per year rent.
Notice how these sums do not total the guesstimated £150 Million?
They seem to add up to £135 Million but that is using old fashioned arithmetic. Under this government's version of arithmetic they do indeed add up. Honest!
Well, that is what they want us to believe. I am not a betting man but in this case, I will make an exception; the taxpayer will cough up more than £150 Million by the time the dust has settled.
Oh yes, and nobody has factored in the huge expense of maintaining the stadium. I wonder how much Mr & Mrs Taxpayer will be stumping up for that!
So; HM Government repeatedly tell us they have no money to spend on hospitals, the disabled, the unemployed etc.
But they obviously feel quite comfortable about bank rolling a couple of millionaire pornographers, probably worth close to £1 Billion between them.
So there we are; to paraphrase the useless cabinet "Honest gov, we've got no money!".
Now, first get into your head the recent government pronouncements that they have no money.
Skint, broke, nothing hidden under the mattress or in the old biscuit tin.
Got it?
Now, look at this for a government that keeps telling us we are all idle wasters, sponging off the state, spending money we don't have etc:
The cost of building and developing the Olympic Stadium finished up at around £600 Million. Now that is a lot of money but at least it had been budgeted for when plans were drawn up before the games.
Now, it has been announced that West Ham football club will take over the stadium for their new home from 2016.
Before they take up residence, there will need to be modifications and improvements to make it suitable for use as a football stadium; stuff like sliding rows of seats to cover the athletics track, new roof to cover a larger portion of the seating area etc.
The deal announced yesterday includes these costs, expected to be around £150M, possibly (probably?) rising to £190M, the funding of which breaks down roughly as follows:
Contribution from HM Government (aka taxpayers) £60 Million
Contribution from Newham Council (aka taxpayers) £40 Million (a sum that the council has had to borrow)
LLDC (aka taxpayers) £20 Million
West Ham F.C. £15 Million plus £2M per year rent.
Notice how these sums do not total the guesstimated £150 Million?
They seem to add up to £135 Million but that is using old fashioned arithmetic. Under this government's version of arithmetic they do indeed add up. Honest!
Well, that is what they want us to believe. I am not a betting man but in this case, I will make an exception; the taxpayer will cough up more than £150 Million by the time the dust has settled.
Oh yes, and nobody has factored in the huge expense of maintaining the stadium. I wonder how much Mr & Mrs Taxpayer will be stumping up for that!
So; HM Government repeatedly tell us they have no money to spend on hospitals, the disabled, the unemployed etc.
But they obviously feel quite comfortable about bank rolling a couple of millionaire pornographers, probably worth close to £1 Billion between them.
So there we are; to paraphrase the useless cabinet "Honest gov, we've got no money!".
Back Again!
It is high time I renewed my blogging. There was a hiatus caused by my working abroad in a place where blogging is not necessarily encouraged.
And, since my return to these shores last November, I find the country is in such a bloody state, it is difficult to know where to begin!
What do we have?
Well, government "manipulating" of employment statistics. (Some may call it lying but I am being generous).
Then the attempts to dismantle the National Health Service.
Or how about Tony Blair and his continued war mongering? 10 years after the catastrophe that befell Iraq, he is still advocating war with someone, anyone!
The economy perhaps? Or education maybe? Defence of the Realm?
How about the great British whingeing public? Christ, they can moan! About nothing!
I know! The government plan to create and encourage more misery in the Near East (I was brought up when the Middle East was a long way from the Mediterranean).
I thin kI shall make another cup of coffee and let the blogging begin...
And, since my return to these shores last November, I find the country is in such a bloody state, it is difficult to know where to begin!
What do we have?
Well, government "manipulating" of employment statistics. (Some may call it lying but I am being generous).
Then the attempts to dismantle the National Health Service.
Or how about Tony Blair and his continued war mongering? 10 years after the catastrophe that befell Iraq, he is still advocating war with someone, anyone!
The economy perhaps? Or education maybe? Defence of the Realm?
How about the great British whingeing public? Christ, they can moan! About nothing!
I know! The government plan to create and encourage more misery in the Near East (I was brought up when the Middle East was a long way from the Mediterranean).
I thin kI shall make another cup of coffee and let the blogging begin...
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Poor MPs
Sir Nicholas Winterton, Tory MP for Macclesfield really deserves our sympathy.
He has just been told he can only claim the cost of a Standard Class train ticket when travelling between London and his constituency.
Bless him!
In the hope I cam be of some help to the beleaguered gentleman, I have done a minute's research.
Standard Class from Euston to Macclesfield after school at Westminster throws out on Friday evening (peak time) will cost £52.50 whereas First Class will cost £74.00.
That's a difference of £21.50! Scandalous!
Actually, what is really scandalous is that this croaking comes from someone who is apparently well versed in the art of milking the public purse.
He and his MP wife were recently rumbled, having claimed £41,508 and £41,584 respectively in rent on a flat which was owned by a trust controlled by their children. Trustees? Sir Nicholas Winterton, his wife and their solicitor.
Out of all that wonga, you would think he would be able to stump up the additional £21.50 without our help.
On the other hand though, it is not merely a matter of funds. As Sir Nicholas pointed out; he needs to travel First Class as the people that travel in the other parts of the train are riff-raff.
To be fair, he didn't actually say that. What he did say was:
"They are a totally different type of people. There's lots of children, there's noise, there's activity. I like to have peace and quiet when I'm travelling."
Riff-raff, in other words!
He also said:
"They want to stop Members of Parliament travelling first class. That puts us below local councillors and officers of local government. They all travel first class. Majors in the army travel first class. So we are supposed to stand when there are no seats. I’m sorry, it infuriates me.”
Sir Nicholas, think on this; people such as Majors and local government officers have trained and worked hard to achieve their status. You didn't; you were elected by a group of citizens who were possibly fooled into thinking you were off to Westminster to do them some good when it transpires you wheedled your way into the job in order to line your own pockets and to satisfy some narcissistic compulsion to be seen as an "important person".
You are not.
Now, sod off quietly into the sunset. Roll on the general election when you retire and give us a break.
Come to that, why wait? Retire now.
Go!
He has just been told he can only claim the cost of a Standard Class train ticket when travelling between London and his constituency.
Bless him!
In the hope I cam be of some help to the beleaguered gentleman, I have done a minute's research.
Standard Class from Euston to Macclesfield after school at Westminster throws out on Friday evening (peak time) will cost £52.50 whereas First Class will cost £74.00.
That's a difference of £21.50! Scandalous!
Actually, what is really scandalous is that this croaking comes from someone who is apparently well versed in the art of milking the public purse.
He and his MP wife were recently rumbled, having claimed £41,508 and £41,584 respectively in rent on a flat which was owned by a trust controlled by their children. Trustees? Sir Nicholas Winterton, his wife and their solicitor.
Out of all that wonga, you would think he would be able to stump up the additional £21.50 without our help.
On the other hand though, it is not merely a matter of funds. As Sir Nicholas pointed out; he needs to travel First Class as the people that travel in the other parts of the train are riff-raff.
To be fair, he didn't actually say that. What he did say was:
"They are a totally different type of people. There's lots of children, there's noise, there's activity. I like to have peace and quiet when I'm travelling."
Riff-raff, in other words!
He also said:
"They want to stop Members of Parliament travelling first class. That puts us below local councillors and officers of local government. They all travel first class. Majors in the army travel first class. So we are supposed to stand when there are no seats. I’m sorry, it infuriates me.”
Sir Nicholas, think on this; people such as Majors and local government officers have trained and worked hard to achieve their status. You didn't; you were elected by a group of citizens who were possibly fooled into thinking you were off to Westminster to do them some good when it transpires you wheedled your way into the job in order to line your own pockets and to satisfy some narcissistic compulsion to be seen as an "important person".
You are not.
Now, sod off quietly into the sunset. Roll on the general election when you retire and give us a break.
Come to that, why wait? Retire now.
Go!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Ali Dizaei; part 2
It seems it never stops, once something begins to unravel.
In this instance, the unravelling relates to the strange nether world inhabited by Dizaei and his ilk.
A few years ago, the Met Police spent an awful lot of money on Operation Helios.
This operation stemmed not from the fact that they jsut had a few quid left over in the kitty. This operation stemmed from some serious concerns raised by the Serious Organised Crime Agency about his conduct. The concerns were passed on to the Met's anti-corruption unit. Shortly after that, Dizaei went up for his second promotion board and "got the job". This despite the observation by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner following his interview as "the most rude and arrogant man she had ever met".
While serving with Thames Valley police, a Met Police informant told of allegations that Dizaei was "involved in drugs, interfering win court cases for money and consorting with prostitutes. Nothing came of these allegations and Dizaei was allowed to go on his merry way. Soon after this, he was transferred to the Met.
Again, allegations were made to Thames Valley about his conduct and these were passed to the Met. Operation Helios began soon after that.
The allegations and concerns about Dizaei were taken seriously enough that over 1,000 wire-taps were put in place, from which evidence arose of Dizaei's involvement with foreign embassies.
He was a frequent visitor to the Iranian embassy where he apparently had meetings in a high security room.
He also allegedly drove a car belonging to the Liberian embassy, with the accompanying diplomatic plates no doubt.
During Operation Helios, Dizaei had a good laugh at the investigating officers regarding the Iranian embassy visits. He claimed they were all announced by him before hand.
Yeah, well, if that was the case, why is it that one of the triggers for Operation Helios was an allegation of him spying for the Iranians? Smoke...Fire...?
Operation Helios suffered an ignominious defeat somewhere between all the thousands of hours of surveillance and the case's arrival at CPS and the High Court.
Subsequent to that collapse, an inquiry was held into the operation and found that the Met had been rather jolly unfair cads and bounders. The good, honest and upright citizen Dizaei had been prosecuted because of his race. Still laughing about that conclusion are we Sir William Morris?
During the trial and again during the inquiry and yet again in a attempt to get a High Court injunction on Dizaei's behalf prior to the court appearances resulting from Operation Helios, the CPS had the following to say:
"When one looks at the fruits of Operation Helios: cocaine, steroids, threats to an ex-girl friend, admission of wrong-doing apparently violence to the boy friend of an ex-girl friend, concerns that he had connections to the Iranian Intelligence Service, assisting the xxxx sisters to remain in the United Kingdom for payment of money, a cheque identified from one of them to be paid into his account, an envelope given to him in the course of his assisting xxxx with the arrangement of police assistance at a Fulham hotel, £500 paid to him for assisting xxx with her visa application, associating with xxx thought to be involved with smuggling illegal immigrants into the United Kingdom, associating with xxxx, yyyy and zzzz, suspected advance fee fraudsters, his very close friendship with xxx who had tried to deposit £2million in a bank in the most suspicious circumstances and agreeing to assist xxx by adding his legitimacy to a conference, interfering with police investigations and disclosing information from those investigations, suggesting to xxx the various options available to xxx accused of damaging a car, interfering with that investigation by bullying yyyy, agreeing to assist xxxx who was under investigation for assaulting a traffic warden, ineterfing with xxxx licence application by deliberately flouting a command not to be involved, but going on to do so.
Receiving £800 from xxxx in return for advice on providing a defence on a drink-drive charge, and meeting that accused person while on bail and receiving 7 free concert tickets each of which was nominally worth £500 when he was responsible for policing that concert."
They then go on to say that this was "some, but not all, of the material received during the Helios investigation".
The Morris inquiry has published most of its findings on line. An interesting Appendix is this submission by Dizaei himself:
http://www.mpa.gov.uk/morrisinquiry/downloads/evidence-axd-00.pdf
It is heavy going, reading through the whole bloody thing but at the end, you will be left with the impression that here was a barrack room lawyer of the first order. A whinging, so and so who looks as if he was weaving the strands of potential rabble rousing, even as a police probationer.
As for the Iranian embassy connection, how about this for a potent brew:
NBPA and their alleged "values" (anti-racism); Dizaei's use of the NBPA as a platform for his tub thumping; Iranian president, Ach Me Dinner Jacket and his pronouncements that Israel must be wiped off the face of the planet. Now, it seems to me that a view such as that held and publicly declared by the Iranian president is somewhat racist. The very thing Dizaei and the NBPA vow to fight against.
Well check out this picture:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/02/10/article-1249775-08320287000005DC-352_468x398.jpg
Our good old friend Dizaei, addressing a conference in Iran in support of Ach Me Dinner Jacket's presidential "election" campaign. This at a time when he was suspended from the Met.
Thanks to the Daily Mail for that snap. It is part of a larger item on the outrageous behaviour of Dizaei:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249775/The-day-General-Dizaei-met-Iranian-president-guess-paid-trip.html
Finally, yet another Daily Mail link (and I thought I was crusading!):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249613/Ali-Dizaei-faces-sack-weeks-receiving-year-term-framing-innocent-man.html
PS All the xxxx, yyy etc above is a result of names having been blacked out in the transcripts.
London in nto infested with hordes of people with the surname xxx!
In this instance, the unravelling relates to the strange nether world inhabited by Dizaei and his ilk.
A few years ago, the Met Police spent an awful lot of money on Operation Helios.
This operation stemmed not from the fact that they jsut had a few quid left over in the kitty. This operation stemmed from some serious concerns raised by the Serious Organised Crime Agency about his conduct. The concerns were passed on to the Met's anti-corruption unit. Shortly after that, Dizaei went up for his second promotion board and "got the job". This despite the observation by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner following his interview as "the most rude and arrogant man she had ever met".
While serving with Thames Valley police, a Met Police informant told of allegations that Dizaei was "involved in drugs, interfering win court cases for money and consorting with prostitutes. Nothing came of these allegations and Dizaei was allowed to go on his merry way. Soon after this, he was transferred to the Met.
Again, allegations were made to Thames Valley about his conduct and these were passed to the Met. Operation Helios began soon after that.
The allegations and concerns about Dizaei were taken seriously enough that over 1,000 wire-taps were put in place, from which evidence arose of Dizaei's involvement with foreign embassies.
He was a frequent visitor to the Iranian embassy where he apparently had meetings in a high security room.
He also allegedly drove a car belonging to the Liberian embassy, with the accompanying diplomatic plates no doubt.
During Operation Helios, Dizaei had a good laugh at the investigating officers regarding the Iranian embassy visits. He claimed they were all announced by him before hand.
Yeah, well, if that was the case, why is it that one of the triggers for Operation Helios was an allegation of him spying for the Iranians? Smoke...Fire...?
Operation Helios suffered an ignominious defeat somewhere between all the thousands of hours of surveillance and the case's arrival at CPS and the High Court.
Subsequent to that collapse, an inquiry was held into the operation and found that the Met had been rather jolly unfair cads and bounders. The good, honest and upright citizen Dizaei had been prosecuted because of his race. Still laughing about that conclusion are we Sir William Morris?
During the trial and again during the inquiry and yet again in a attempt to get a High Court injunction on Dizaei's behalf prior to the court appearances resulting from Operation Helios, the CPS had the following to say:
"When one looks at the fruits of Operation Helios: cocaine, steroids, threats to an ex-girl friend, admission of wrong-doing apparently violence to the boy friend of an ex-girl friend, concerns that he had connections to the Iranian Intelligence Service, assisting the xxxx sisters to remain in the United Kingdom for payment of money, a cheque identified from one of them to be paid into his account, an envelope given to him in the course of his assisting xxxx with the arrangement of police assistance at a Fulham hotel, £500 paid to him for assisting xxx with her visa application, associating with xxx thought to be involved with smuggling illegal immigrants into the United Kingdom, associating with xxxx, yyyy and zzzz, suspected advance fee fraudsters, his very close friendship with xxx who had tried to deposit £2million in a bank in the most suspicious circumstances and agreeing to assist xxx by adding his legitimacy to a conference, interfering with police investigations and disclosing information from those investigations, suggesting to xxx the various options available to xxx accused of damaging a car, interfering with that investigation by bullying yyyy, agreeing to assist xxxx who was under investigation for assaulting a traffic warden, ineterfing with xxxx licence application by deliberately flouting a command not to be involved, but going on to do so.
Receiving £800 from xxxx in return for advice on providing a defence on a drink-drive charge, and meeting that accused person while on bail and receiving 7 free concert tickets each of which was nominally worth £500 when he was responsible for policing that concert."
They then go on to say that this was "some, but not all, of the material received during the Helios investigation".
The Morris inquiry has published most of its findings on line. An interesting Appendix is this submission by Dizaei himself:
http://www.mpa.gov.uk/morrisinquiry/downloads/evidence-axd-00.pdf
It is heavy going, reading through the whole bloody thing but at the end, you will be left with the impression that here was a barrack room lawyer of the first order. A whinging, so and so who looks as if he was weaving the strands of potential rabble rousing, even as a police probationer.
As for the Iranian embassy connection, how about this for a potent brew:
NBPA and their alleged "values" (anti-racism); Dizaei's use of the NBPA as a platform for his tub thumping; Iranian president, Ach Me Dinner Jacket and his pronouncements that Israel must be wiped off the face of the planet. Now, it seems to me that a view such as that held and publicly declared by the Iranian president is somewhat racist. The very thing Dizaei and the NBPA vow to fight against.
Well check out this picture:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/02/10/article-1249775-08320287000005DC-352_468x398.jpg
Our good old friend Dizaei, addressing a conference in Iran in support of Ach Me Dinner Jacket's presidential "election" campaign. This at a time when he was suspended from the Met.
Thanks to the Daily Mail for that snap. It is part of a larger item on the outrageous behaviour of Dizaei:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249775/The-day-General-Dizaei-met-Iranian-president-guess-paid-trip.html
Finally, yet another Daily Mail link (and I thought I was crusading!):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249613/Ali-Dizaei-faces-sack-weeks-receiving-year-term-framing-innocent-man.html
PS All the xxxx, yyy etc above is a result of names having been blacked out in the transcripts.
London in nto infested with hordes of people with the surname xxx!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Ali Dizaei; the Shahrokh Mireskandari connection
Now, here's a little bugger.
Shahrokh Mireskandari (or Dr Shahrokh 'Sean' Mireskandari BSc (Hons), MA (Hons) JD (Hons) as he likes to style himself) was pretty closely involved with Commander Ali Ba Ba.
In September 2008, Dizaei was suspended for, among other things, his allegedly advising a defence team in the prosecution of an East European woman who was charged with killing a cyclist in a hit and run accident.
The lawyer representing this woman was Shahrokh Mireskandari.
In 2007, the lawyer was a guest at Dizaei's wedding (well, one of them) as was this East European woman.
As far as I can gather, this woman was on bail for the alleged offence.
And Dizaei, a top cop, had invited her to his wedding!
It was alleged, in the Daily Mail, that Dizaei was briefing the defence team on how to pick holes in the prosecution's case, which was being prepared by his colleagues in the Met.
The defendant's sister later said "'Sean told us that Dizaei would be a consultant and would guide us about the police work and whether they were right or not... whether they had done something illegal.' (Sean is another of the dodgy brief's names).
Anyway, back to the dodgy brief.
As can be seen in the opening lines, he has a pretty impressive string of titles, degrees etc.
Except they are all bogus!
He does have a long experience of the law though, beginning with his conviction in Los Angeles in 1991 for operating a telephone marketing scam.
Read this item in the Daily Mail from 2008:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article........
This article also covers how the Solicitors Regulation Authority investigated this dodgy brief and discovered how he acquired the string of letters after his name.
He claimed to obtained a law degree at the American University of Hawaii. This was shut down by the courts in Hawaii in 2005, with the owner, Hassan Safavi under investigation.
Hassan Safavi? Another bloody Anglo-Iranian!
The dodgy brief, when questioned, refused to disclose where else he may have obtained his "law degrees".
Eventually, at the end of their investigations, the dodgy brief's law firm, Dean & Dean, was shut down by the SRA.
Guess what his next move was? He was, in 2009, suing the SRA and the Law Society for "race & religious discrimination". I don't know if this has been resolved at this time but the SRA web site still carries the notice of "Intervention" which closed him down.
I don't know the full extent of his case load over the years he has been in business here but I can say that an awful lot of his work seems to have involved the Met's Black Police Association. He appears to have been central to a number of high profile cases, generally encouraging anyone of an Asian background to sue the police for "discrimination".
Ali Dizaei; enough said about that piece of work!
Tariq Ghaffour; having finished his 30 years in the force, he decided he wanted to be the El Supremo at the Olympics in London in 2012. At the instigation of Dr Dodgy Brief, he accused Sir Ian Blair of having reneged on a promise to give him this plum job. It had been made very clear from a long time before this that the government would be taking charge of this, not the Met Police. It didn't stop the accusation of racism and the Met (quite wrongly and irresponsibly) paying out £300,000 as compensation for the "hurt he had felt". On top of that, this bloke goes away with a pension-related lump sum of £525,000 and an annual pension of £85,000.
It seems this deal went through in order to smooth the handover from Sir Ian Blair to Sir Paul Stephenson as Commissioner. Bloody spineless and irresponsible!
Commander Shabir Hussain; he sued the Met Police for ....well you know very well what for.
He claims he was overlooked for promotion in 2006. It transpires that, during the selection process he was one of 7 candidates. One other candidate scored the same as Hussain, the others all scored higher. Nobody scored lower. He didn't get the job. Now, that was in 2006. What happened between 2006 and the date the spurious claim went to a tribunal in 2008? No idea but probably Dr Dodgy Brief became involved.
He lost his case.
Yasmin Rehman; This woman was a senior manager with responsibility for "promoting racial and religious diversity" within the Met Police. In 2008, she lodged a claim of racial discrimination, making all manner of outlandish allegations. In December of that year, she withdrew the allegations and has since quit the Met. (probably a fair indication there was nothing to her claims). Throughout this fiasco, she was advised by the MBPA. This organisation often employed our friend Dr. Dodgy Brief; I wonder what, if any, involvement he had in this trumped up nonsense?
It goes on and on, usually with this fraud somewhere in the background, apparently orchestrating things.
Have a listen to him attacking Sir Ian Blair in a radio interview in 2007:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7589568.stm
Last heard of, this numty was suing the Solicitors Regulation Authority for £10million.
Again, last heard of, there were rumours he had legged it to the USA.
Nice!
Shahrokh Mireskandari (or Dr Shahrokh 'Sean' Mireskandari BSc (Hons), MA (Hons) JD (Hons) as he likes to style himself) was pretty closely involved with Commander Ali Ba Ba.
In September 2008, Dizaei was suspended for, among other things, his allegedly advising a defence team in the prosecution of an East European woman who was charged with killing a cyclist in a hit and run accident.
The lawyer representing this woman was Shahrokh Mireskandari.
In 2007, the lawyer was a guest at Dizaei's wedding (well, one of them) as was this East European woman.
As far as I can gather, this woman was on bail for the alleged offence.
And Dizaei, a top cop, had invited her to his wedding!
It was alleged, in the Daily Mail, that Dizaei was briefing the defence team on how to pick holes in the prosecution's case, which was being prepared by his colleagues in the Met.
The defendant's sister later said "'Sean told us that Dizaei would be a consultant and would guide us about the police work and whether they were right or not... whether they had done something illegal.' (Sean is another of the dodgy brief's names).
Anyway, back to the dodgy brief.
As can be seen in the opening lines, he has a pretty impressive string of titles, degrees etc.
Except they are all bogus!
He does have a long experience of the law though, beginning with his conviction in Los Angeles in 1991 for operating a telephone marketing scam.
Read this item in the Daily Mail from 2008:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article........
This article also covers how the Solicitors Regulation Authority investigated this dodgy brief and discovered how he acquired the string of letters after his name.
He claimed to obtained a law degree at the American University of Hawaii. This was shut down by the courts in Hawaii in 2005, with the owner, Hassan Safavi under investigation.
Hassan Safavi? Another bloody Anglo-Iranian!
The dodgy brief, when questioned, refused to disclose where else he may have obtained his "law degrees".
Eventually, at the end of their investigations, the dodgy brief's law firm, Dean & Dean, was shut down by the SRA.
Guess what his next move was? He was, in 2009, suing the SRA and the Law Society for "race & religious discrimination". I don't know if this has been resolved at this time but the SRA web site still carries the notice of "Intervention" which closed him down.
I don't know the full extent of his case load over the years he has been in business here but I can say that an awful lot of his work seems to have involved the Met's Black Police Association. He appears to have been central to a number of high profile cases, generally encouraging anyone of an Asian background to sue the police for "discrimination".
Ali Dizaei; enough said about that piece of work!
Tariq Ghaffour; having finished his 30 years in the force, he decided he wanted to be the El Supremo at the Olympics in London in 2012. At the instigation of Dr Dodgy Brief, he accused Sir Ian Blair of having reneged on a promise to give him this plum job. It had been made very clear from a long time before this that the government would be taking charge of this, not the Met Police. It didn't stop the accusation of racism and the Met (quite wrongly and irresponsibly) paying out £300,000 as compensation for the "hurt he had felt". On top of that, this bloke goes away with a pension-related lump sum of £525,000 and an annual pension of £85,000.
It seems this deal went through in order to smooth the handover from Sir Ian Blair to Sir Paul Stephenson as Commissioner. Bloody spineless and irresponsible!
Commander Shabir Hussain; he sued the Met Police for ....well you know very well what for.
He claims he was overlooked for promotion in 2006. It transpires that, during the selection process he was one of 7 candidates. One other candidate scored the same as Hussain, the others all scored higher. Nobody scored lower. He didn't get the job. Now, that was in 2006. What happened between 2006 and the date the spurious claim went to a tribunal in 2008? No idea but probably Dr Dodgy Brief became involved.
He lost his case.
Yasmin Rehman; This woman was a senior manager with responsibility for "promoting racial and religious diversity" within the Met Police. In 2008, she lodged a claim of racial discrimination, making all manner of outlandish allegations. In December of that year, she withdrew the allegations and has since quit the Met. (probably a fair indication there was nothing to her claims). Throughout this fiasco, she was advised by the MBPA. This organisation often employed our friend Dr. Dodgy Brief; I wonder what, if any, involvement he had in this trumped up nonsense?
It goes on and on, usually with this fraud somewhere in the background, apparently orchestrating things.
Have a listen to him attacking Sir Ian Blair in a radio interview in 2007:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7589568.stm
Last heard of, this numty was suing the Solicitors Regulation Authority for £10million.
Again, last heard of, there were rumours he had legged it to the USA.
Nice!
Ali Dizaei Saga; NBPA
As a result of the recent conviction of Ali Dizaei, I started looking into some of the things with which he has been involved and one of these is the National Black Police Association, of which he is a past leader.
I do not like racism of any sort and an organisation that restricts its membership, aims and agenda to exclude any other group is racist.
This is regardless of which ethnic group is restricting others, black, white, brown or purple.
For some time, I have wondered how this nation can tolerate the idea of an organisation which seems to boast of its own brand of racism in its name.
Let there be a White Police Association and there will be bloody uproar!
I read a post somewhere in which some mis-guided person wrote that membership of the NBPA is open to anyone, regardless of ethnic origin. I actually believed it, for about 5 minutes.
First I looked up the NBPA's web site and found that none of its leaders, prominent members etc are white.
I looked a the constitution to see what it says about membership.
They skirt around that somewhat by saying membership is open to any of the national Black Police Associations. So that means looking up the membership requirements of the various associations around the country.
At the outset of the NBPA constitution, they include a handy re-definition of the term "Black":
"1.3 The definition of "Black" is one that emphasises the common experience and determination of people of African, African-Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Asian or Asian sub-continent origin to oppose the effects of racism and victimisation".
This tells us 2 things:
1. It is a racist organisation
2. They are thick. "Middle Eastern, Asian and Asian sub-continent origin" all means one thing; "Asian".
Come to that, people of African-Caribbean origin can also be deemed to be of African origin.
Anyway, I checked the Merseyside BPA for their membership criteria, to see if they were a little less woolly about membership requirements. They say:
"Full members must be able to satisfy our constitutional definition of ‘black’. Contrary to popular believe this does not mean you must be must be black as commonly understood, but rather have the ‘common experience and determination’ of people who are, because it is they that are typically far more likely historically and currently, to be on the receiving end of racism. Indeed we have a number of white full members, one of whom is currently an MBPA Executive Committee member."
Which proves 2 things:
1. It is a racist organisation
2. They are thick. Check the spelling and the grammar. Trust me; I copied this directly from their web site: http://www.merseysidebpa.org.uk/
I don't think I need any more convincing that this organisation is anything other than racist.
If they called their club something along the lines of the "Anti-Racist Police Officers Association" and opened membership to any Police Officer who was determined to stand up to racism in any form, they may get a bit more sympathy.
As they stand, they are to be condemned as racist. Nothing more and nothing less.
Incidentally, did I mention that they are thick?
Here's another gem from one of their affiliated associations, the Met Police BPA:
"The Metropolitan Black Police Association (MetBPA) were very surprised to hear the verdict given on 08.02.2010 regarding the case of Commander Ali Dizaei."
No shit, Sherlock!
To be fair, they do go on to say "It is imperative that we recognise and respect the decision of the Jury - no one should be above the law." but the damage is done in that first sentence.
(By the way, why does the word jury require a capital J?)
Nice guys that they are though, the web page does include an invitation to their MetBPA Social Dance.
Don't you love these "Social Dances"? Far better than the "Unsocial Dances"!
Tickets are available to all police officers, regardless of ethnic origin (apparently).
Tickets are £12.00 for BPA members and £15.00 for non-members.
Hang on, isn't that discriminatory? Doesn't that mean that officers who don't fit the membership definitions will be obliged to pay the higher price?
I smell scandal!
I do not like racism of any sort and an organisation that restricts its membership, aims and agenda to exclude any other group is racist.
This is regardless of which ethnic group is restricting others, black, white, brown or purple.
For some time, I have wondered how this nation can tolerate the idea of an organisation which seems to boast of its own brand of racism in its name.
Let there be a White Police Association and there will be bloody uproar!
I read a post somewhere in which some mis-guided person wrote that membership of the NBPA is open to anyone, regardless of ethnic origin. I actually believed it, for about 5 minutes.
First I looked up the NBPA's web site and found that none of its leaders, prominent members etc are white.
I looked a the constitution to see what it says about membership.
They skirt around that somewhat by saying membership is open to any of the national Black Police Associations. So that means looking up the membership requirements of the various associations around the country.
At the outset of the NBPA constitution, they include a handy re-definition of the term "Black":
"1.3 The definition of "Black" is one that emphasises the common experience and determination of people of African, African-Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Asian or Asian sub-continent origin to oppose the effects of racism and victimisation".
This tells us 2 things:
1. It is a racist organisation
2. They are thick. "Middle Eastern, Asian and Asian sub-continent origin" all means one thing; "Asian".
Come to that, people of African-Caribbean origin can also be deemed to be of African origin.
Anyway, I checked the Merseyside BPA for their membership criteria, to see if they were a little less woolly about membership requirements. They say:
"Full members must be able to satisfy our constitutional definition of ‘black’. Contrary to popular believe this does not mean you must be must be black as commonly understood, but rather have the ‘common experience and determination’ of people who are, because it is they that are typically far more likely historically and currently, to be on the receiving end of racism. Indeed we have a number of white full members, one of whom is currently an MBPA Executive Committee member."
Which proves 2 things:
1. It is a racist organisation
2. They are thick. Check the spelling and the grammar. Trust me; I copied this directly from their web site: http://www.merseysidebpa.org.uk/
I don't think I need any more convincing that this organisation is anything other than racist.
If they called their club something along the lines of the "Anti-Racist Police Officers Association" and opened membership to any Police Officer who was determined to stand up to racism in any form, they may get a bit more sympathy.
As they stand, they are to be condemned as racist. Nothing more and nothing less.
Incidentally, did I mention that they are thick?
Here's another gem from one of their affiliated associations, the Met Police BPA:
"The Metropolitan Black Police Association (MetBPA) were very surprised to hear the verdict given on 08.02.2010 regarding the case of Commander Ali Dizaei."
No shit, Sherlock!
To be fair, they do go on to say "It is imperative that we recognise and respect the decision of the Jury - no one should be above the law." but the damage is done in that first sentence.
(By the way, why does the word jury require a capital J?)
Nice guys that they are though, the web page does include an invitation to their MetBPA Social Dance.
Don't you love these "Social Dances"? Far better than the "Unsocial Dances"!
Tickets are available to all police officers, regardless of ethnic origin (apparently).
Tickets are £12.00 for BPA members and £15.00 for non-members.
Hang on, isn't that discriminatory? Doesn't that mean that officers who don't fit the membership definitions will be obliged to pay the higher price?
I smell scandal!
Got you, you toe rag!
At last, the bane of the Metroplitan Police, Commander Ali Dizaei has been well and truly rumbled.
Yesterday, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for perverting the course of justice.
Now let's hope the Crown Prosecution Service will go back in time a couple of years to see what
really happened on the numerous occasions this nasty piece of work was "cleared" of other charges.
The National Black Police Association, headed by Ali Dizaei himself, has constantly claimed that
there has been a conspiracy against him.
In the past, he has been accused of knowingly employing an illegal immigrant, of attempting to
pervert the course of justice, of misusing his police credit card fraudulently etc etc.
On each occasion, he has been cleared but it is gradually becoming obvious to any who care to see, he has relied upon the "race card" every time.
The problem has usually been that the police have had treat this barrel of laughs with kid gloves,
scared to death of the race issue being raised and driven by political correctness.
Generally, this cowardly attitude has arisen from the inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder. The inquiry declared that the Met was "instituionally racist".
An absurd term that, I think, will come back to haunt a few people.
My understanding of the term would imply that there was a policy in place in that force that
dictated a policy of racism that should be followed as a regular procedure in much the same terms as, for example, the policy that lays down what uniform an officer must wear or how an officer fills in a notebook etc.
I have, a long time ago, worked briefly at Scotland Yard, the home of the Met Police and I know of the "canteen culture" that McPherson's inquiry referred to.
Yes, there was the odd officer or two who was possibly guilty of racist remarks but in no different
ratios than can be observed in all walks of life. Policemen (and women) are ordinary people and
ordinary people do have their own, individual, characteristics. Some are good, some less so.
My observations in Scotland Yard were that the people I saw there were no different from people I met elsewhere; some were possibly racist, others were "pissed on power", while others were just pretty decent, common or garden people.
So, to use the term "institutionally racist, all McPherson did was to create a new weapon that
would come in handy for a bunch of miscreants. Every time anybody who was not obviously white was accused of anything by the Met, they could all cry "racism" and the powers that be were too cowardly to stand up to them as they were scared to death of the prospect of either being racist themselves or of propping up a racist organisation.
Now, with the conviction yesterday, it may be time to look at some of the events in this crook's
recent past.
Only 2 months ago, the News of the World newspaper paid "damages" to Dizaei after reporting that he had hired an illegal immigrant.
The person involved, Ace Bakhtyari, was indeed an illegal immigrant who was in this country on a fake French passport.
Ali Dizaei did indeed employ him, first as a photographer, taking photographs at Dizaei's second
wedding.
Ali Dizaei did indeed take this person into the House of Commons, allowing him to bypass security on the grounds that "he is with me". It would be a brave constable who would say to a superior officer of Dizaei's rank "I don't care who he is with, where is his ID?"
According to Bakhtyari, now back in Iran following his deportation, he became Dizaei's odd job man, staying at Dizaei's house (well one of Dizaei's 3 houses). He was so close to and trusted by Dizaei that he used to carry Dizaei's credit card for purchasing bits and bobs for his little jobs around the house.
When he was arrested during a routine police stop, Bakhtyari was found to be carrying Dizaei's credit card, along with the fake passport which led to his arrest and deportation.
Did I mention 3 houses? Indeed I did. Dizaei, allegedly, has homes in Acton, Henley and Chiswick.
Not bad going for a bloke who was on an income of £90,000.
Another bit of Dizaei's "previous" was involvement in allegations of helping a bent solicitor,
Shahrokh Mireskandari, in a case involving Dizaei allegedly helping an East European woman get off a case by showing her lawyers how to pick holes in the prosecution's case.
In fact, come to think of it, this ex-lawyer Mireskandari is such a bill of goods, he deserves his
own page!
As does Dizaei's best mate, Ali Ghaffour who is another walking travesty.
It is rare I say this, but I actually do feel sorry for the bog-standard, run of the mill policeman
in this country.
The race relations industry (for that is surely what we have here) has the police authorities by the throat and are not going to let go easily. The effect this has on your ordinary, honest policeman must be a sapping of morale.
Under the stewardship of the previous boss, Sir Ian Blair, the Met Police seemed to have become
toothless in the face of any challenge using the race card.
Hopefully, the successful prosecution of Dizaei might indicate a new willingness to face up to the
sharp practice brigade in the Met.
Finally; the government recently overturned hundreds of years of history and scrapped the "Double Jeopardy" rule which meant that, should you be found not guilty of an accusation, you could not be prosecuted again.
Now, if the prosecution don't like a not guilty verdict, they can drag you back to have another go
at you.
Well, let's see if they have the guts to use this new found power to resurrect some of the apparent miscarriages of justice surrounding the likes of Dizaei and his ilk.
Yesterday, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for perverting the course of justice.
Now let's hope the Crown Prosecution Service will go back in time a couple of years to see what
really happened on the numerous occasions this nasty piece of work was "cleared" of other charges.
The National Black Police Association, headed by Ali Dizaei himself, has constantly claimed that
there has been a conspiracy against him.
In the past, he has been accused of knowingly employing an illegal immigrant, of attempting to
pervert the course of justice, of misusing his police credit card fraudulently etc etc.
On each occasion, he has been cleared but it is gradually becoming obvious to any who care to see, he has relied upon the "race card" every time.
The problem has usually been that the police have had treat this barrel of laughs with kid gloves,
scared to death of the race issue being raised and driven by political correctness.
Generally, this cowardly attitude has arisen from the inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder. The inquiry declared that the Met was "instituionally racist".
An absurd term that, I think, will come back to haunt a few people.
My understanding of the term would imply that there was a policy in place in that force that
dictated a policy of racism that should be followed as a regular procedure in much the same terms as, for example, the policy that lays down what uniform an officer must wear or how an officer fills in a notebook etc.
I have, a long time ago, worked briefly at Scotland Yard, the home of the Met Police and I know of the "canteen culture" that McPherson's inquiry referred to.
Yes, there was the odd officer or two who was possibly guilty of racist remarks but in no different
ratios than can be observed in all walks of life. Policemen (and women) are ordinary people and
ordinary people do have their own, individual, characteristics. Some are good, some less so.
My observations in Scotland Yard were that the people I saw there were no different from people I met elsewhere; some were possibly racist, others were "pissed on power", while others were just pretty decent, common or garden people.
So, to use the term "institutionally racist, all McPherson did was to create a new weapon that
would come in handy for a bunch of miscreants. Every time anybody who was not obviously white was accused of anything by the Met, they could all cry "racism" and the powers that be were too cowardly to stand up to them as they were scared to death of the prospect of either being racist themselves or of propping up a racist organisation.
Now, with the conviction yesterday, it may be time to look at some of the events in this crook's
recent past.
Only 2 months ago, the News of the World newspaper paid "damages" to Dizaei after reporting that he had hired an illegal immigrant.
The person involved, Ace Bakhtyari, was indeed an illegal immigrant who was in this country on a fake French passport.
Ali Dizaei did indeed employ him, first as a photographer, taking photographs at Dizaei's second
wedding.
Ali Dizaei did indeed take this person into the House of Commons, allowing him to bypass security on the grounds that "he is with me". It would be a brave constable who would say to a superior officer of Dizaei's rank "I don't care who he is with, where is his ID?"
According to Bakhtyari, now back in Iran following his deportation, he became Dizaei's odd job man, staying at Dizaei's house (well one of Dizaei's 3 houses). He was so close to and trusted by Dizaei that he used to carry Dizaei's credit card for purchasing bits and bobs for his little jobs around the house.
When he was arrested during a routine police stop, Bakhtyari was found to be carrying Dizaei's credit card, along with the fake passport which led to his arrest and deportation.
Did I mention 3 houses? Indeed I did. Dizaei, allegedly, has homes in Acton, Henley and Chiswick.
Not bad going for a bloke who was on an income of £90,000.
Another bit of Dizaei's "previous" was involvement in allegations of helping a bent solicitor,
Shahrokh Mireskandari, in a case involving Dizaei allegedly helping an East European woman get off a case by showing her lawyers how to pick holes in the prosecution's case.
In fact, come to think of it, this ex-lawyer Mireskandari is such a bill of goods, he deserves his
own page!
As does Dizaei's best mate, Ali Ghaffour who is another walking travesty.
It is rare I say this, but I actually do feel sorry for the bog-standard, run of the mill policeman
in this country.
The race relations industry (for that is surely what we have here) has the police authorities by the throat and are not going to let go easily. The effect this has on your ordinary, honest policeman must be a sapping of morale.
Under the stewardship of the previous boss, Sir Ian Blair, the Met Police seemed to have become
toothless in the face of any challenge using the race card.
Hopefully, the successful prosecution of Dizaei might indicate a new willingness to face up to the
sharp practice brigade in the Met.
Finally; the government recently overturned hundreds of years of history and scrapped the "Double Jeopardy" rule which meant that, should you be found not guilty of an accusation, you could not be prosecuted again.
Now, if the prosecution don't like a not guilty verdict, they can drag you back to have another go
at you.
Well, let's see if they have the guts to use this new found power to resurrect some of the apparent miscarriages of justice surrounding the likes of Dizaei and his ilk.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
How long does it take to learn a lesson
Many years ago, I was a soldier. During my time, we had 2 main weapons; the 9mm Sterling sub-machine gun and the 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle (SLR).
Shortly after I left the Army, there was much talk about a shift away from these to smaller bore weapons.
The theory went that it wasn't really necessary to kill people, it was good enough to merely wound them. Someone had calculated that it takes 2, 3 or 4 (don't remember the number) extras to take care of the wounded, thus putting a serious strain on the enemy's resources.
Bollocks! shouted Kelvin. I have never heard such twaddle.
At the time, the big emphasis was on the potential Cold War opponents, USSR & China.
If the generals had read their history thoroughly, they would have noticed that this pair had a history of wasting their own soldiers' lives wholesale. Well, with the huge populations each have, they could afford to.
The "let's wound them and grind their efforts to a halt" theory thus goes right out of the window.
If a soldier of the USSR or China was wounded then he would be left where he was. In fact, if he was a Russian soldier and he managed to crawl back to his own lines, he would probably be shot by his own comrades for running away!
Regardless, the hierarchy pressed on with their "good idea" and eventually came up with the SA80, which fires a 5.66mm round. When they had added all the high tech gizmos, it weighed around the same as the old SLR so was no benefit to the poor bloody soldier who had to cart it about (about 10 lbs with a loaded magazine).
It did have a nice high-tech telescopic sight though. Fat lot of good that was as the weapon was not expected to be used much above 300m from the target. If you couldn't see the target without a telescope at that range, you were possibly in the wrong job.
When the SA80 was introduced, it was plagued with all manner of problems with bits falling off, breaking etc.
God knows how many years later, these "issues" were fixed.
Good! Now they had a rifle that worked. Except for this 300m range thing.
Throughout the time of the adoption and development of this wonder weapon, all of our real and potential foes have stuck to the good old Kalashnikov, good for 400M or more.
The net result is that our troops have to get a bit closer to the baddies, either by sneaking up on them or through the good old fashioned typically British tactic of charging the bastards.
Now some bright spark has determined that what we really need in places such as Afghanistan is a weapon more comparable to the Kalashnikov, so they have produced a new weapon.
Guess what? It is a 7.62mm self loading rifle.
Well, bugger me!
Isn't that where we came in?
Twenty odd years and who knows how many wasted lives later, we are back where we started.
Anyone who has served with the old SLR will tell you that when you get shot with a 7.62mm round, you stay shot. At any distance up to 600m or so.
Why do we need to re-learn all old lessons every few decades?
Why do we need to fix something that wasn't broken?
Shortly after I left the Army, there was much talk about a shift away from these to smaller bore weapons.
The theory went that it wasn't really necessary to kill people, it was good enough to merely wound them. Someone had calculated that it takes 2, 3 or 4 (don't remember the number) extras to take care of the wounded, thus putting a serious strain on the enemy's resources.
Bollocks! shouted Kelvin. I have never heard such twaddle.
At the time, the big emphasis was on the potential Cold War opponents, USSR & China.
If the generals had read their history thoroughly, they would have noticed that this pair had a history of wasting their own soldiers' lives wholesale. Well, with the huge populations each have, they could afford to.
The "let's wound them and grind their efforts to a halt" theory thus goes right out of the window.
If a soldier of the USSR or China was wounded then he would be left where he was. In fact, if he was a Russian soldier and he managed to crawl back to his own lines, he would probably be shot by his own comrades for running away!
Regardless, the hierarchy pressed on with their "good idea" and eventually came up with the SA80, which fires a 5.66mm round. When they had added all the high tech gizmos, it weighed around the same as the old SLR so was no benefit to the poor bloody soldier who had to cart it about (about 10 lbs with a loaded magazine).
It did have a nice high-tech telescopic sight though. Fat lot of good that was as the weapon was not expected to be used much above 300m from the target. If you couldn't see the target without a telescope at that range, you were possibly in the wrong job.
When the SA80 was introduced, it was plagued with all manner of problems with bits falling off, breaking etc.
God knows how many years later, these "issues" were fixed.
Good! Now they had a rifle that worked. Except for this 300m range thing.
Throughout the time of the adoption and development of this wonder weapon, all of our real and potential foes have stuck to the good old Kalashnikov, good for 400M or more.
The net result is that our troops have to get a bit closer to the baddies, either by sneaking up on them or through the good old fashioned typically British tactic of charging the bastards.
Now some bright spark has determined that what we really need in places such as Afghanistan is a weapon more comparable to the Kalashnikov, so they have produced a new weapon.
Guess what? It is a 7.62mm self loading rifle.
Well, bugger me!
Isn't that where we came in?
Twenty odd years and who knows how many wasted lives later, we are back where we started.
Anyone who has served with the old SLR will tell you that when you get shot with a 7.62mm round, you stay shot. At any distance up to 600m or so.
Why do we need to re-learn all old lessons every few decades?
Why do we need to fix something that wasn't broken?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
World's biggest collection of Chavs
Has anyone been watching the darts tournament currently under way in Frimley?
I have seen a couple of games, mainly because there was bugger all else on telly.
I am amazed at the collection of enthusiasts, families etc that gather there. I have a suspicion that if anyone turns up dressed like an ordinary person, they will quickly be shown the door.
The players turn up as bloated as you like showing yet another possible aspect of the dress code. If you aren't covered in tattoos and loads of bling, you don't get a game.
The audience seem to favour a collection of flashing, plastic tiaras for the women and jesters' caps for the men.
Then there is the commentator, can't remember his name now, possibly it is Tony Green, but he goes on and on and on about players' families, girl friends etc. "There's Fred's wife, lovely lass is myrtle". "Young Griselda, Bert's lady, is looking in fine form this evening. Lovely lass is Griselda". Every bugger there is great, lovely or smashing according to Mr Green.
Come on, they are a bunch of chavs and pikeys!
I used to play a lot of darts myself, both in the Army and while working in places such as Saudi Arabia etc and I used to enjoy it. It was looked on as a game, not a sport, and as a great social event, bringing people together for a good old laugh, booze-up and some social sandwich eating.
What have we now? A collection of very strange people, dressed in some really strange garb and calling for darts to be recognised as an Olympic sport!
Give me a bloody break!
I have seen a couple of games, mainly because there was bugger all else on telly.
I am amazed at the collection of enthusiasts, families etc that gather there. I have a suspicion that if anyone turns up dressed like an ordinary person, they will quickly be shown the door.
The players turn up as bloated as you like showing yet another possible aspect of the dress code. If you aren't covered in tattoos and loads of bling, you don't get a game.
The audience seem to favour a collection of flashing, plastic tiaras for the women and jesters' caps for the men.
Then there is the commentator, can't remember his name now, possibly it is Tony Green, but he goes on and on and on about players' families, girl friends etc. "There's Fred's wife, lovely lass is myrtle". "Young Griselda, Bert's lady, is looking in fine form this evening. Lovely lass is Griselda". Every bugger there is great, lovely or smashing according to Mr Green.
Come on, they are a bunch of chavs and pikeys!
I used to play a lot of darts myself, both in the Army and while working in places such as Saudi Arabia etc and I used to enjoy it. It was looked on as a game, not a sport, and as a great social event, bringing people together for a good old laugh, booze-up and some social sandwich eating.
What have we now? A collection of very strange people, dressed in some really strange garb and calling for darts to be recognised as an Olympic sport!
Give me a bloody break!
Weather and Whingeing Brits
A couple of days ago, the BBC News web site quoted a prat at Gatwick airport, saying "Why is it whenever we get a bit of snow, this country grinds to a halt?" He then went on to describe the country as pathetic because of the effect the recent bad weather has had on transport etc.
I hereby declare this berk as "Empty Head of the Year".
He has probably been to Torremolinos a couple of times and considers himself therefore qualified to make sage comments on how this country compares in various fields, including dealing with the weather.
Well, Mr Empty Head, how about this?
I have lived and/or worked in plenty of locations where I have experienced cold/snowy weather, including Sweden, Norway, Germany, USA, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary etc.
Take it from me sunshine, they all have difficulties when the weather takes a turn for the worse, despite all of the above countries being much more familiar with severe cold and snow.
Look at Germany this weekend; roads closed left, right and sideways, trains & planes cancelled, more than 300 car accidents reported in one State alone (Baden Wurttemburg) and 108 more in Nord Rhein-Westphalia and a major motorway, the A5, closed.
In Poland, more than 140 people have frozen to death.
Eurostar have reduced their services through the Channel Tunnel, allegedly because of "traction problems".
Twaddle! It is because their trains are crap in the cold weather. Shuttle trains are running on the same tracks, with the same iron wheels. How does that work?
Tell you what, Eurostar's locomotives are desinged and built in France, while the Shuttle locomotives are built in Peterborough. Crap in the UK when the weather is bad then?
I spent time in Dallas in the winter of 1977 which was their worst in 100 years. It was entertaining to watch cars doing pirouettes on the icy freeways. Although the deep snow and ice remained until Easter, I don't remember seeing a gritter out on the roads once! Snow ploughs, yes but not gritters.
So, Empty Head, shut up and get some more travelling done. Try somewhere that doesn't thrive on Watneys Red Barrel, fish and chips and drunken British dick-heads.
I hereby declare this berk as "Empty Head of the Year".
He has probably been to Torremolinos a couple of times and considers himself therefore qualified to make sage comments on how this country compares in various fields, including dealing with the weather.
Well, Mr Empty Head, how about this?
I have lived and/or worked in plenty of locations where I have experienced cold/snowy weather, including Sweden, Norway, Germany, USA, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary etc.
Take it from me sunshine, they all have difficulties when the weather takes a turn for the worse, despite all of the above countries being much more familiar with severe cold and snow.
Look at Germany this weekend; roads closed left, right and sideways, trains & planes cancelled, more than 300 car accidents reported in one State alone (Baden Wurttemburg) and 108 more in Nord Rhein-Westphalia and a major motorway, the A5, closed.
In Poland, more than 140 people have frozen to death.
Eurostar have reduced their services through the Channel Tunnel, allegedly because of "traction problems".
Twaddle! It is because their trains are crap in the cold weather. Shuttle trains are running on the same tracks, with the same iron wheels. How does that work?
Tell you what, Eurostar's locomotives are desinged and built in France, while the Shuttle locomotives are built in Peterborough. Crap in the UK when the weather is bad then?
I spent time in Dallas in the winter of 1977 which was their worst in 100 years. It was entertaining to watch cars doing pirouettes on the icy freeways. Although the deep snow and ice remained until Easter, I don't remember seeing a gritter out on the roads once! Snow ploughs, yes but not gritters.
So, Empty Head, shut up and get some more travelling done. Try somewhere that doesn't thrive on Watneys Red Barrel, fish and chips and drunken British dick-heads.
Treason?
When watching the government's recent announcement regarding the granting of licences for wind farms in British coastal waters, I was struck by some of the ridiculous statements concerning the additional benefits these farms would bring. ('Additional' only applies if you believe there are any benefits to begin with!)
Gordon Brown said: "This new round of licences provides a substantial new platform for investing in UK industrial capacity".
On the other hand, the British Wind Energy Association said the UK would only truly benefit if the turbines were manufactured here.
Another spokesman from the same association said more or less the opposite of that.
Recently, a successful manufacturer of turbine blades, based on the Isle of Wight, was closed by its (foreign owned) parent company. Not enough money in it, apparently.
Now that is rubbish, the Vestas plant exported all its production, thus earning foreign currency and contributing to some extent to the perennial balance of payments issue.
These blades were not particularly small either, have a look at this load leaving Southampton (for Canada) in 2008: http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/details.php?image_id=2692
And I have seen plenty of these.
So, in order to examine the claims of more jobs etc, let's look at what is actually happening.
The licence areas are:
Moray Firth Zone; licence granted to EDP Renovaveis and SeaEnergy Renewables. The first of which is a Portuguese company and the second is a newly renamed company, previously known as Ramco, based in Scotland. Ramco shares are largely held by Lanstead Capital PL, a venture capital mob run by a couple of Americans, Lampe Conway of Delaware and Stephen Remp, an American.
The Firth of Forth Zone; licence granted to SSE Renewables and Fluor. Now there's a can of worms. SSE refers to Scottish & Southern Electricity, a company which is in to all sorts of other ventures beside just plain selling of electricity. If ever you played one of the myriad scratch-cards available in the UK, there is a chance it was one of theirs. Other products they offer include broadband and internet services. Try looking at their web site; it doesn't bloody work! If they handle the offshore wind issue with the same technical skills they apply to the internet side of their business, there could be bumpy times ahead.
The Dogger Bank Zone; licence granted to SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft. Christ! More SSE Renewables! Plus RWE, Statoil and Statkraft.
Now, in Norwegian, 'Stat' means 'State' and Kraft means (in common with many other European languages) 'Power'. So there we have 2 Norwegian state owned concerns, 'State Oil' and 'State Power'. Meanwhile, let's not forget RWE Npower Renewables. This is a subsidiary of a subsidiary of RWE, otherwise known as 'Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk'. A German company.
The Hornsea Zone; licence granted to Mainstream Renewable Power, Siemens Project Ventures and Hochtief Construction. Mainstream Renewable Power was formed by the Irish company Airtricity in 2008, and Airticity in turn was acquired by SSE in 2008. Siemens and Hochtief are both universally well known German construction companies.
The Norfolk Bank Zone; licence granted to Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft. Scottish Power Renewables is owned by Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish based multi-national. Vattenfall Vindkraft is a Swedish company that does ...well.. Swedish things.
The Hastings Zone; licence granted to E.On Climate and Renewables UK. We probably all are aware the E.On is a German company.
The Isle of Wight Zone; licence granted to Eneco New Energy, a Dutch company owned by 61 Dutch municipalities.
The Bristol Channel Zone; licence granted to RWE Npower Renewables. Done them, see Dogger Bank above.
The Irish Sea Zone; licence granted to Centrica Renewable Energy and involving RES Group. RES is part of the Robert McAlpine Group. Bloody hell, it is British! As for Centrica, they may well have been out of a demerger with British Gas but have in the past been the proud owners of the AA, Halfords, Goldfish credit cards, OneTel etc. etc. Not really a construction company then.
So, having had a look at that lot, I can see a couple of companies that qualify as engineering/construction companies, in particular Siemens, Hochtief and Fluor. None of these are based in Britain so why does anyone think they would be falling over themselves to generate jobs here?
There can only be one possible answer to this; the UK government will offer massive subsidies to "encourage" them. The EU will probably then block such subsidies, the engineering companies will, quite naturally, ensure those jobs are created in their home countries and the UK government will shrug their collective shoulders and say "we tried but EU regulations foiled us".
Balls! If this government was as serious about creating jobs here as they are about the fairy stories surrounding wind power, they would apply any subsidies to British engineering companies, helping regenerate at least a section of our manufacturing industry, creating jobs for UK residents and keeping our taxes here.
They would rather see all the assistance that this move would provide go to foreign industry.
That is why I headed this rant "Treason".
Definition of treason: a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
Also defined as: the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
Gordon Brown said: "This new round of licences provides a substantial new platform for investing in UK industrial capacity".
On the other hand, the British Wind Energy Association said the UK would only truly benefit if the turbines were manufactured here.
Another spokesman from the same association said more or less the opposite of that.
Recently, a successful manufacturer of turbine blades, based on the Isle of Wight, was closed by its (foreign owned) parent company. Not enough money in it, apparently.
Now that is rubbish, the Vestas plant exported all its production, thus earning foreign currency and contributing to some extent to the perennial balance of payments issue.
These blades were not particularly small either, have a look at this load leaving Southampton (for Canada) in 2008: http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/details.php?image_id=2692
And I have seen plenty of these.
So, in order to examine the claims of more jobs etc, let's look at what is actually happening.
The licence areas are:
Moray Firth Zone; licence granted to EDP Renovaveis and SeaEnergy Renewables. The first of which is a Portuguese company and the second is a newly renamed company, previously known as Ramco, based in Scotland. Ramco shares are largely held by Lanstead Capital PL, a venture capital mob run by a couple of Americans, Lampe Conway of Delaware and Stephen Remp, an American.
The Firth of Forth Zone; licence granted to SSE Renewables and Fluor. Now there's a can of worms. SSE refers to Scottish & Southern Electricity, a company which is in to all sorts of other ventures beside just plain selling of electricity. If ever you played one of the myriad scratch-cards available in the UK, there is a chance it was one of theirs. Other products they offer include broadband and internet services. Try looking at their web site; it doesn't bloody work! If they handle the offshore wind issue with the same technical skills they apply to the internet side of their business, there could be bumpy times ahead.
The Dogger Bank Zone; licence granted to SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft. Christ! More SSE Renewables! Plus RWE, Statoil and Statkraft.
Now, in Norwegian, 'Stat' means 'State' and Kraft means (in common with many other European languages) 'Power'. So there we have 2 Norwegian state owned concerns, 'State Oil' and 'State Power'. Meanwhile, let's not forget RWE Npower Renewables. This is a subsidiary of a subsidiary of RWE, otherwise known as 'Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk'. A German company.
The Hornsea Zone; licence granted to Mainstream Renewable Power, Siemens Project Ventures and Hochtief Construction. Mainstream Renewable Power was formed by the Irish company Airtricity in 2008, and Airticity in turn was acquired by SSE in 2008. Siemens and Hochtief are both universally well known German construction companies.
The Norfolk Bank Zone; licence granted to Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft. Scottish Power Renewables is owned by Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish based multi-national. Vattenfall Vindkraft is a Swedish company that does ...well.. Swedish things.
The Hastings Zone; licence granted to E.On Climate and Renewables UK. We probably all are aware the E.On is a German company.
The Isle of Wight Zone; licence granted to Eneco New Energy, a Dutch company owned by 61 Dutch municipalities.
The Bristol Channel Zone; licence granted to RWE Npower Renewables. Done them, see Dogger Bank above.
The Irish Sea Zone; licence granted to Centrica Renewable Energy and involving RES Group. RES is part of the Robert McAlpine Group. Bloody hell, it is British! As for Centrica, they may well have been out of a demerger with British Gas but have in the past been the proud owners of the AA, Halfords, Goldfish credit cards, OneTel etc. etc. Not really a construction company then.
So, having had a look at that lot, I can see a couple of companies that qualify as engineering/construction companies, in particular Siemens, Hochtief and Fluor. None of these are based in Britain so why does anyone think they would be falling over themselves to generate jobs here?
There can only be one possible answer to this; the UK government will offer massive subsidies to "encourage" them. The EU will probably then block such subsidies, the engineering companies will, quite naturally, ensure those jobs are created in their home countries and the UK government will shrug their collective shoulders and say "we tried but EU regulations foiled us".
Balls! If this government was as serious about creating jobs here as they are about the fairy stories surrounding wind power, they would apply any subsidies to British engineering companies, helping regenerate at least a section of our manufacturing industry, creating jobs for UK residents and keeping our taxes here.
They would rather see all the assistance that this move would provide go to foreign industry.
That is why I headed this rant "Treason".
Definition of treason: a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
Also defined as: the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Newspaper? Really?
Being a staunch supporter of Liverpool FC, I never buy the thing called "The Sun". I know the proprietors of this rag class it as a 'Newspaper' but they are taking the wee wee.
The Times used to be a fine newspaper but has fallen into a new category now; a sort of broadsheet tabloid. Being part of the same stable as The Sun, it was inevitable that the standards of this publication would fall from its pervious position as the yardstick by which other newspapers would be judged.
However, it is that other rag, The Sun, that is the subject of my attention today.
At work today, someone left a copy of this paper on a table in the lunch room, so I thought I would have a look (as surely it is a 'look' that one has, not a 'read') and what an eye-opener that was!
Some samples;
Front Page Headline: HATE MAIL CLERIC. This refers to a proposal by the leader of a bunch of Islamic fascists, Anjem Choudary, to write an open letter to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. He plans to publish this (it is an open letter, after all) on the internet. He is mailing nobody but don't let that get in the way of the Sun's front page rant. "Bugger the facts lads, it's the headlines we want".
Fast forward a few pages, past all the tits and bums etc. and, on page 11, is the headline "Killer Dad in suicide ahead of Vickie trial". This refers to the father of a murdered girl who had been remanded in custody, awaiting trial for the girl's murder. There's the catch; he was awaiting trial. He had been found neither guilty nor not guilty. Once again, the cry in the editorial room goes up; "Bugger the facts lads, it's the headlines we want".
On page 12 we see the headline "Family's Brit plea". What the bloody hell does that mean? It is not English as I understand it, it is merely a lump composed of two English words with an American slang word stuffed in the middle. What does it refer to? It refers to the family of the British man executed for drug smuggling in China recently. The article explains; the family want the UK government to hold an inquest. (Can't help wondering why, even I know how he died). My question to The Sun is "How does this headline give an inkling of what the article was about?"
On page 21 we see, in a massive font "DRUGS TERROR POTTER STAR IN HOSTEL HIDEOUT". I can't be bothered reading it, the headline tells me all I need to know. It will be gibberish, written by a moron with little or no actual 'news' content. So let's move on.
A item on page 22 refers to women being likely to return an unwanted gift from a partner.
The headline "Gift Rapped". ???
Page 26 brings the following gem; a man serving life for killing gay people has lost 7 stones in prison. There you go folks, that is what you hand over your hard earned cash for!
And so this rag goes on. Crap from cover to cover!
And to think, people happily hand over 30p for this!
The Times used to be a fine newspaper but has fallen into a new category now; a sort of broadsheet tabloid. Being part of the same stable as The Sun, it was inevitable that the standards of this publication would fall from its pervious position as the yardstick by which other newspapers would be judged.
However, it is that other rag, The Sun, that is the subject of my attention today.
At work today, someone left a copy of this paper on a table in the lunch room, so I thought I would have a look (as surely it is a 'look' that one has, not a 'read') and what an eye-opener that was!
Some samples;
Front Page Headline: HATE MAIL CLERIC. This refers to a proposal by the leader of a bunch of Islamic fascists, Anjem Choudary, to write an open letter to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. He plans to publish this (it is an open letter, after all) on the internet. He is mailing nobody but don't let that get in the way of the Sun's front page rant. "Bugger the facts lads, it's the headlines we want".
Fast forward a few pages, past all the tits and bums etc. and, on page 11, is the headline "Killer Dad in suicide ahead of Vickie trial". This refers to the father of a murdered girl who had been remanded in custody, awaiting trial for the girl's murder. There's the catch; he was awaiting trial. He had been found neither guilty nor not guilty. Once again, the cry in the editorial room goes up; "Bugger the facts lads, it's the headlines we want".
On page 12 we see the headline "Family's Brit plea". What the bloody hell does that mean? It is not English as I understand it, it is merely a lump composed of two English words with an American slang word stuffed in the middle. What does it refer to? It refers to the family of the British man executed for drug smuggling in China recently. The article explains; the family want the UK government to hold an inquest. (Can't help wondering why, even I know how he died). My question to The Sun is "How does this headline give an inkling of what the article was about?"
On page 21 we see, in a massive font "DRUGS TERROR POTTER STAR IN HOSTEL HIDEOUT". I can't be bothered reading it, the headline tells me all I need to know. It will be gibberish, written by a moron with little or no actual 'news' content. So let's move on.
A item on page 22 refers to women being likely to return an unwanted gift from a partner.
The headline "Gift Rapped". ???
Page 26 brings the following gem; a man serving life for killing gay people has lost 7 stones in prison. There you go folks, that is what you hand over your hard earned cash for!
And so this rag goes on. Crap from cover to cover!
And to think, people happily hand over 30p for this!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
And in the news...
A few items in the news recently have caused a few eyebrows to be raised. Well, 2 at least.
First there is the execution of the British man in China for drug smuggling.
Now, I personally stopped supporting the death sentence about 15 years ago but it has to be said:
China makes and operates Chinese law. If the Chinese government was to kick up a stink because a Chinese man in London was going to prison for eating his family's dog, the British government would be bloody quick to tell the Chinese to keep their beaks out.
Secondly, there has been a lot of stuff about this man having Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression as it used to be known). A bit of digging reveals that this seems to be the diagnosis of a forensic psychologist, hired by the charity Reprieve for whom I have the highest regard. His diagnosis came not from interviewing the man but from speaking to Chinese Embassy staff and talking to people who knew Mr. Shaikh. Almost as good as the on-line swine flu diagnosis service.
Third, this man had 4Kg of heroin in his bag and he claimed he knew nothing about it.
Hang on. 4Kg in my money is 8.5 lbs. Imagine if someone had stuffed 4 bags of sugar in your bag without you knowing about it.
Isn't it likely you would think "Hmm. This seems to be a bit heavier than when I packed it"?
Bipolar Disorder causes extreme mood swings. It doesn't cause terminal stupidity.
Anyway, what about the shrieking from the British government about rights, liberty etc?
Who the bloody hell are they to shout, having turned this easy-going, freedom loving nation into what is possibly the most repressive regime this side of Iran?
Get arrested for taking photographs. Get your face on one of the umpteen million CCTV cameras now decorating the country. Get your DNA placed on the police database, guilty or innocent. Get arrested for making a peaceful protest on the grounds it is too close to Parliament.
Better yet; live in London and be shot dead at point blank range for looking too foreign or walk home from work, through a demonstration, say something out of order to a police officer and be dead within the hour.
Note to our government: Get your own house in order before getting high and mighty with Johnny Foreigner!
Next item to catch the eye; Metropolitan Police (Met for short). To anyone out there who is not familiar with the name, they are the people who populate Scotland Yard. They police London.
Today, it was revealed that last year the Met spent more than £6m on air travel.
Most of these flights were domestic, within the UK. They averaged 5 flights per day from London to somewhere within the country. A country which is less than 1,000 miles from end to end. 11 of these flights were from London to Southampton, a distance of 90 miles. This journey can be made by train and will take around 90 minutes. The trains leave from Waterloo which is a quick tube ride from Scotland Yard. Now figure out the time needed to get to Gatwick airport, check in, go through the security business, fly there and then get from the airport into Southampton.
A bloody sight more than 90 minutes! They are buggered now though; I believe the airline that used to run flights between these 2 cities has given it up.
Just remember; the Met Police is the police force responsible for policing London.
Not the entire continent of Europe!
Nuclear Power is creeping back into the headlines. Today, it is in the form of a group or two who want to stop the proposed new power station at Hinckley Point. One lot says it is unsafe, the other lost say it will be a nuisance.
You can't win, can you?
There is a huge clamour to get rid of coal, oil and gas fired power stations on the grounds they .... well they do all sorts of things. Acid rain, global warming, stop the hens laying etc etc.
Now here is a real example of the lunatics running the asylum. These Luddites have persuaded governments everywhere that bloody big, ugly, noisy wind turbines are the answer. Wrong! What they fail to mention is that these things are so inefficient, they can only be commissioned with the help of big, juicy government subsidies. And, just when you have decided to ignore the subsidies, along comes another problem. It doesn't blow gales of wind every day which tends to leave these monsters looking rather limp and useless. Ah ha! There is a solution to this problem; they have generators on stand-by to fill in the gaps. These generators are coal, oil and gas fired power stations which can not be switched on like a bathroom light. They need to be brought into operation over a period of time as they all need to do the same thing, boil a bloody big kettle to generate steam to turn the turbines. The only way for these power stations to be available to compensate for a flat calm is for them to be running 24 hours per day. Which puts us right back where we were at the beginning. Except we now have the enormous cost of the "wind farms" to bear.
Yippee! Everyone's a winner! Well, except for you and me, the gullible tax payers.
For Christ's sake government, stop fannying about and build the nuclear plants, rip out these turbine plantations and be done with it.
Finally, a headline that caught my eye this evening was on the BBC web site. It referred to a feature thus; "The sights and sounds of well-known figures who passed away in 2009".
They (whoever they were) didn't pass away. They died. What has become of our language that we are now scared to say "died"?
It gets worse, doesn't it? Today, we refer to certain school kids as "special needs" kids. In my day they were known simply as twats. Having been a rather well known exponent of the art of being a disruptive bugger at grammar school, let me tell you something. We never had disruptive disorders or attention deficits. We had tossers. Anyone whose attention was found to be wandering or deficient in any way was quickly snapped out of it with their desk lid being slammed smartly and loudly (or a well aimed board rubber), causing a sudden awakening, accompanied perhaps by an "out of bottom" experience.
Goodnight.
Note to any UK politicians reading this; watch out, you are about to feature in these pages in the coming week!
First there is the execution of the British man in China for drug smuggling.
Now, I personally stopped supporting the death sentence about 15 years ago but it has to be said:
China makes and operates Chinese law. If the Chinese government was to kick up a stink because a Chinese man in London was going to prison for eating his family's dog, the British government would be bloody quick to tell the Chinese to keep their beaks out.
Secondly, there has been a lot of stuff about this man having Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression as it used to be known). A bit of digging reveals that this seems to be the diagnosis of a forensic psychologist, hired by the charity Reprieve for whom I have the highest regard. His diagnosis came not from interviewing the man but from speaking to Chinese Embassy staff and talking to people who knew Mr. Shaikh. Almost as good as the on-line swine flu diagnosis service.
Third, this man had 4Kg of heroin in his bag and he claimed he knew nothing about it.
Hang on. 4Kg in my money is 8.5 lbs. Imagine if someone had stuffed 4 bags of sugar in your bag without you knowing about it.
Isn't it likely you would think "Hmm. This seems to be a bit heavier than when I packed it"?
Bipolar Disorder causes extreme mood swings. It doesn't cause terminal stupidity.
Anyway, what about the shrieking from the British government about rights, liberty etc?
Who the bloody hell are they to shout, having turned this easy-going, freedom loving nation into what is possibly the most repressive regime this side of Iran?
Get arrested for taking photographs. Get your face on one of the umpteen million CCTV cameras now decorating the country. Get your DNA placed on the police database, guilty or innocent. Get arrested for making a peaceful protest on the grounds it is too close to Parliament.
Better yet; live in London and be shot dead at point blank range for looking too foreign or walk home from work, through a demonstration, say something out of order to a police officer and be dead within the hour.
Note to our government: Get your own house in order before getting high and mighty with Johnny Foreigner!
Next item to catch the eye; Metropolitan Police (Met for short). To anyone out there who is not familiar with the name, they are the people who populate Scotland Yard. They police London.
Today, it was revealed that last year the Met spent more than £6m on air travel.
Most of these flights were domestic, within the UK. They averaged 5 flights per day from London to somewhere within the country. A country which is less than 1,000 miles from end to end. 11 of these flights were from London to Southampton, a distance of 90 miles. This journey can be made by train and will take around 90 minutes. The trains leave from Waterloo which is a quick tube ride from Scotland Yard. Now figure out the time needed to get to Gatwick airport, check in, go through the security business, fly there and then get from the airport into Southampton.
A bloody sight more than 90 minutes! They are buggered now though; I believe the airline that used to run flights between these 2 cities has given it up.
Just remember; the Met Police is the police force responsible for policing London.
Not the entire continent of Europe!
Nuclear Power is creeping back into the headlines. Today, it is in the form of a group or two who want to stop the proposed new power station at Hinckley Point. One lot says it is unsafe, the other lost say it will be a nuisance.
You can't win, can you?
There is a huge clamour to get rid of coal, oil and gas fired power stations on the grounds they .... well they do all sorts of things. Acid rain, global warming, stop the hens laying etc etc.
Now here is a real example of the lunatics running the asylum. These Luddites have persuaded governments everywhere that bloody big, ugly, noisy wind turbines are the answer. Wrong! What they fail to mention is that these things are so inefficient, they can only be commissioned with the help of big, juicy government subsidies. And, just when you have decided to ignore the subsidies, along comes another problem. It doesn't blow gales of wind every day which tends to leave these monsters looking rather limp and useless. Ah ha! There is a solution to this problem; they have generators on stand-by to fill in the gaps. These generators are coal, oil and gas fired power stations which can not be switched on like a bathroom light. They need to be brought into operation over a period of time as they all need to do the same thing, boil a bloody big kettle to generate steam to turn the turbines. The only way for these power stations to be available to compensate for a flat calm is for them to be running 24 hours per day. Which puts us right back where we were at the beginning. Except we now have the enormous cost of the "wind farms" to bear.
Yippee! Everyone's a winner! Well, except for you and me, the gullible tax payers.
For Christ's sake government, stop fannying about and build the nuclear plants, rip out these turbine plantations and be done with it.
Finally, a headline that caught my eye this evening was on the BBC web site. It referred to a feature thus; "The sights and sounds of well-known figures who passed away in 2009".
They (whoever they were) didn't pass away. They died. What has become of our language that we are now scared to say "died"?
It gets worse, doesn't it? Today, we refer to certain school kids as "special needs" kids. In my day they were known simply as twats. Having been a rather well known exponent of the art of being a disruptive bugger at grammar school, let me tell you something. We never had disruptive disorders or attention deficits. We had tossers. Anyone whose attention was found to be wandering or deficient in any way was quickly snapped out of it with their desk lid being slammed smartly and loudly (or a well aimed board rubber), causing a sudden awakening, accompanied perhaps by an "out of bottom" experience.
Goodnight.
Note to any UK politicians reading this; watch out, you are about to feature in these pages in the coming week!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
What goes around....
I am not sure whether the global loony tunes quotient is increasing or my grumpiness is becoming more acute.
Whatever, here's a spot more for you.
Tell you what; I shall begin with a spot of schadenfreude, otherwise known as "what goes around, comes around".
An item in today's news says that the government of the Yemen is appealing to the West for help in the struggle against Al Qaeda. Small, smug smile crosses my face.
They say there may be around 200 to 300 Al Qaeda members in the country. Well, who let them in? I have checked my diary and it certainly wasn't me. Was it then you, dear reader? No, I thought not.
But why a smug smile, you ask.
Back before a lot of you were born, this boy arrived in the port of Aden (in 1966 actually) as a teenaged soldier, just out of training. I then spent most of the next year putting up with the antics of the local bad boys, who threw bombs, rockets, AK47 rounds etc at us on a daily basis.
This was done with the open support and connivance of the government of....Yep! Yemen.
Sadly, the purpose of our being in the bloody dump in the first place was to try to help the locals organise a proper government, with democratic ideals and all that other fancy Western stuff.
The Yemen government was pretty much a collection of tribal oiks, who frankly had not moved much beyond the 18th century. In their endeavours, they were supported, quite openly, by that other bastion of civilised, democratic behaviour in the Middle East, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Nice lad, President Nasser; in addition to his years of interference in Yemeni affairs, keeping the civil war well stirred, he was responsible for gassing as many as 1,500 Yemenis, mainly in 1967. Not much said about that at the time, nor later.
Still, while the local numb nuts were throwing their hardware at us, including tactics such as throwing hand grenades into school buses, we also had to tolerate the bloody Yanks interfering.
At that time the USA was on a Brit Bashing drive, mainly at the UN. The cry was heard over and over again from the Yanks; dismantle the British Empire (they hadn't noticed this had already been done some years earlier). Independence for all British colonies etc. (Don't anybody mention the colonisation going on under the Stars & Bars at this time!).
It didn't matter what we did, the cry was relentless; end British Imperialism. An eerie foretelling of what was to come in 1982 when we fell out with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
Well, some years later, that smug smile crept out for an airing. In October 2000, the USS Cole was attacked by a suicide bomber in the port of Aden. Now, I do not condone this sort of attack, nor the loss of life and injuries caused by this kind of action but I had to smile to myself as the first military unit to come to the aid of the Americans was a frigate of the Royal Navy, HMS Marlborough.
How ironic! The US government spent ages telling us to get out of Aden, turning a blind eye to the daily terrorist attacks that we suffered, then they move in and get some themselves! Terribly sad for the US servicemen who were killed and maimed. (Having had mates killed and maimed in that same place, I can sympathise with those guys). Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the American politicians.
So there we are; a good example of what goes around, comes around. In both cases, governments which had spent a lot of time and effort deriding and, in the case of Yemen, killing, British servicemen, come to the British for help.
Err Why?
I know the phrase "sod off" doesn't translate at all well into either American or Arabic but surely it is time our politicians discovered a diplomatic term to cover this?
This and other current cock ups are of your own making. You didn't want to listen when the Brits tried to explain the facts of Middle Eastern life to you.
Get on with it!
More ravings tomorrow.
Whatever, here's a spot more for you.
Tell you what; I shall begin with a spot of schadenfreude, otherwise known as "what goes around, comes around".
An item in today's news says that the government of the Yemen is appealing to the West for help in the struggle against Al Qaeda. Small, smug smile crosses my face.
They say there may be around 200 to 300 Al Qaeda members in the country. Well, who let them in? I have checked my diary and it certainly wasn't me. Was it then you, dear reader? No, I thought not.
But why a smug smile, you ask.
Back before a lot of you were born, this boy arrived in the port of Aden (in 1966 actually) as a teenaged soldier, just out of training. I then spent most of the next year putting up with the antics of the local bad boys, who threw bombs, rockets, AK47 rounds etc at us on a daily basis.
This was done with the open support and connivance of the government of....Yep! Yemen.
Sadly, the purpose of our being in the bloody dump in the first place was to try to help the locals organise a proper government, with democratic ideals and all that other fancy Western stuff.
The Yemen government was pretty much a collection of tribal oiks, who frankly had not moved much beyond the 18th century. In their endeavours, they were supported, quite openly, by that other bastion of civilised, democratic behaviour in the Middle East, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Nice lad, President Nasser; in addition to his years of interference in Yemeni affairs, keeping the civil war well stirred, he was responsible for gassing as many as 1,500 Yemenis, mainly in 1967. Not much said about that at the time, nor later.
Still, while the local numb nuts were throwing their hardware at us, including tactics such as throwing hand grenades into school buses, we also had to tolerate the bloody Yanks interfering.
At that time the USA was on a Brit Bashing drive, mainly at the UN. The cry was heard over and over again from the Yanks; dismantle the British Empire (they hadn't noticed this had already been done some years earlier). Independence for all British colonies etc. (Don't anybody mention the colonisation going on under the Stars & Bars at this time!).
It didn't matter what we did, the cry was relentless; end British Imperialism. An eerie foretelling of what was to come in 1982 when we fell out with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
Well, some years later, that smug smile crept out for an airing. In October 2000, the USS Cole was attacked by a suicide bomber in the port of Aden. Now, I do not condone this sort of attack, nor the loss of life and injuries caused by this kind of action but I had to smile to myself as the first military unit to come to the aid of the Americans was a frigate of the Royal Navy, HMS Marlborough.
How ironic! The US government spent ages telling us to get out of Aden, turning a blind eye to the daily terrorist attacks that we suffered, then they move in and get some themselves! Terribly sad for the US servicemen who were killed and maimed. (Having had mates killed and maimed in that same place, I can sympathise with those guys). Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the American politicians.
So there we are; a good example of what goes around, comes around. In both cases, governments which had spent a lot of time and effort deriding and, in the case of Yemen, killing, British servicemen, come to the British for help.
Err Why?
I know the phrase "sod off" doesn't translate at all well into either American or Arabic but surely it is time our politicians discovered a diplomatic term to cover this?
This and other current cock ups are of your own making. You didn't want to listen when the Brits tried to explain the facts of Middle Eastern life to you.
Get on with it!
More ravings tomorrow.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Mad as Bloody Badgers
Well, someone out there is stark raving mad. The sad thing is, the numbers seem to be rising.
Within the last few days, a nutcase tried to blow his leg up on an aeroplane heading into Detroit.
Of course, this has prompted reactions from the various authorities, including the following:
Canada has decreed that all arriving aircraft will have to sit on the tarmac for an hour before anybody can get off. Oh! That is clever! Exploding leg nutcases will never figure out that the time and place to detonate his leg will be somewhere other than on the runway in Canada.
The President of the USA has ordered a review of airline security. This apparently includes a ban on leaving your seat in the final hour before landing. Hello! These headbangers have no particular desire to leave their seats, unless it is through a gaping hole in the fuselage which they had recently created.
Not only can you not leave your seat; you are banned from having a blanket on your lap during this final hour. So; you can't go to the toilet for an hour but, should you piss yourself as a result, well you can't hide your shame under a blanket either!
The UK, at the behest of their American masters, has introduced matching restrictions which include a limit of one piece of hand baggage. Well, that will fix everything, won't it? If the next nutcase should try a similar stunt, he will be thwarted by the fact he will be unable to hide his exploding leg in a briefcase.
The British authorities, again at the behest of their American masters, have announced that Britain would consider having "more in-flight air marshals". Just the job, eh? If the exploding leg fanatics don't get you, the stray bullets whizzing around the cabin will!
It is not only the aviation/security sector that attracts loonies. Far from it.
Look at the example in the news today of a bingo caller in East Anglia being told to adjust his vocabulary to suit political correctness.
I kid you not! For years, people have become used to the cry of "Two fat ladies" when the 88 ball is drawn.
A spokeswoman (bloody hell! shouldn't that be 'spokesperson'?) from Sudbury Town Council said "In particular with John being a councillor we have to be politically correct."
Other items in the news today include an item about a heroin user being tested for anthrax.
Be honest; who actually thinks we should give a toss whether this herbert has anthrax or not, as long as he keeps it to himself. If you are stupid enough to stick needles full of crap into yourself, what possible difference could the odd spot of anthrax make? (Other than saving us tax payers a bloody fortune on your fruitless re-hab courses).
Not only does the UK have its share of nutters; I see in today's news that eunuchs in Pakistan are to "get their own gender". Where does that line get drawn? Will we end up with a selection of genders from which we can choose, regardless of what biology says we are:
Male; Female; Eunuch; Undecided; A bit of this and a bit of that; Jedi?????
Within the last few days, a nutcase tried to blow his leg up on an aeroplane heading into Detroit.
Of course, this has prompted reactions from the various authorities, including the following:
Canada has decreed that all arriving aircraft will have to sit on the tarmac for an hour before anybody can get off. Oh! That is clever! Exploding leg nutcases will never figure out that the time and place to detonate his leg will be somewhere other than on the runway in Canada.
The President of the USA has ordered a review of airline security. This apparently includes a ban on leaving your seat in the final hour before landing. Hello! These headbangers have no particular desire to leave their seats, unless it is through a gaping hole in the fuselage which they had recently created.
Not only can you not leave your seat; you are banned from having a blanket on your lap during this final hour. So; you can't go to the toilet for an hour but, should you piss yourself as a result, well you can't hide your shame under a blanket either!
The UK, at the behest of their American masters, has introduced matching restrictions which include a limit of one piece of hand baggage. Well, that will fix everything, won't it? If the next nutcase should try a similar stunt, he will be thwarted by the fact he will be unable to hide his exploding leg in a briefcase.
The British authorities, again at the behest of their American masters, have announced that Britain would consider having "more in-flight air marshals". Just the job, eh? If the exploding leg fanatics don't get you, the stray bullets whizzing around the cabin will!
It is not only the aviation/security sector that attracts loonies. Far from it.
Look at the example in the news today of a bingo caller in East Anglia being told to adjust his vocabulary to suit political correctness.
I kid you not! For years, people have become used to the cry of "Two fat ladies" when the 88 ball is drawn.
A spokeswoman (bloody hell! shouldn't that be 'spokesperson'?) from Sudbury Town Council said "In particular with John being a councillor we have to be politically correct."
Other items in the news today include an item about a heroin user being tested for anthrax.
Be honest; who actually thinks we should give a toss whether this herbert has anthrax or not, as long as he keeps it to himself. If you are stupid enough to stick needles full of crap into yourself, what possible difference could the odd spot of anthrax make? (Other than saving us tax payers a bloody fortune on your fruitless re-hab courses).
Not only does the UK have its share of nutters; I see in today's news that eunuchs in Pakistan are to "get their own gender". Where does that line get drawn? Will we end up with a selection of genders from which we can choose, regardless of what biology says we are:
Male; Female; Eunuch; Undecided; A bit of this and a bit of that; Jedi?????
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