Lord Pearson's Bill

The noble lord does not waste his time. No sooner have the debates on the Queen’s Speech began (a sign, it seems, for senior members of the Government and the Opposition to disappear from the Commons) than Lord Pearson of Rannoch introduced his European Union (Implications of Withdrawal) Bill.

.

This Bill has indeed been before Parliament before but for all of that one might expect a little bit of attention from the British media. After all, there is periodic wittering about the need to reform, the need to look forward!

.

The purpose of the Bill is to Establish a Committee of Inquiry into the implications of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Not much to ask but the chances of the Bill passing into law is, to say the very least slim. Well, congratulations to Lord Pearson anyway.

The Sunday Quote

"The best way to get away from a crisis and yet hold on the reins without performance is to find a godfather who would save you at crisis and fool the entire world...This is how it has worked for me"

Sourav Ganguly
Indian cricket player and captain of the Indian National Cricket Team. b. 1972

Better Protection Needed

A good editorial yesterday from The Telegraph, headed, "Don't abandon Iraq", this blog could hardly disagree with the sentiment. However, what the leader doesn't do is then draw the obvious conclusions.

.

Clearly we are running away because we have to – we do not have the equipment to defend ourselves, and we need the troops and what little kit there is to stave off defeat in Afghanistan.

.

The point, of course, is that if British troops are to remain in Basra (and for the foreseeable future they must), they need much more equipment and much better protection.

.

Indeed.

Basra, Failure and Betrayal

Basra the facts of the events not the spin of the Government.

.

Foreign secretary Margaret Beckett has announced in Parliament that Britain could hand over control of Basra to the Iraq government in spring next year. That would be the next and penultimate stage in the retreat started in August, when al Amarah was abandoned to the militias - with entirely predictable results."The progress of our current operation in Basra gives us confidence that we may be able to achieve transition in that province ...at some point next spring," says Beckett, building on the claims at the end of October that the Army was close to reaching the "tipping point" in defeating the "insurgents".
.
At the time, some asked, "do we really look that stupid?" – and now we have an answer. More than stupidity though, it is perhaps that people don't care any more, one way or the other – and just want our troops out. And if it takes a little fiction - like we are winning the battle against the insurgents - to disguise our retreat… well, the government will do what it takes.
.
In the spring, then, we can see the Army pull back into Basra Air Station and Shaiba logistics base, abandoning its three main bases in the city: Basra Palace, the Shatt al-Arab Hotel and the Old State Building. These will be handed over to the Iraqi security services and then, most likely, ransacked by the militias. At that point, up to 3,000 of the 7,200 contingent will be returned home, some to be available for redeployment to Afghanistan.
.
The main function of the remainder will be to provide security for the road between Kuwait and the US zones, and the dock facilities at Umm Qasr, protecting the supply lines (and the escape route).This will leave Basra and the rest of Shia-dominated southern Iraq to the tender mercies of the Iranian-backed militias and their fundamentalist rule, precipitating either civil war or further flight of secular Iraqis.
.
Already, we are told, the meddling of agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry is so obvious that in Basra, when the residents want to give an address, "they use the office of the Iranian Intelligence ministry as a landmark."It also explains why, despite continued and continuing attacks, on the back of the most recent violence, the British government is doing nothing about the humiliating situation where civilians have to be evacuated from Basra Palace.
.
Despite the availability of defence measures and counter-measures, it has no intention of investing in the equipment necessary to protect its bases, when it intends shortly to abandon them.

.

Like Lieutenant Colonel David Labouchere, who abandoned the Abu Naji base at al Amarah as a means of stopping the attacks, the British generally seem to have adopted a strategy of retreat as a means of preventing attack.

.

But it is not their presence, per se that seems to be the problem. According to Hakim al-Meyarhe, president of the Security Council in the elected Basra Governing Council, it is their behaviour. "British forces in Basra have made a lot of mistakes," he says, "and they continue to do so''. They're arresting people inappropriately, storming into houses at night; raiding homes and families... They randomly arrest people without any permission from the government. These mistakes make people reactive (sic) negatively and violently." "That's the reason for the mortar attacks we have here," al-Meyarhe says. "They are specifically directed against the British army interests, they're not attacks on the people of Basra."

.

With the British sending out such strong signals of its intentions, however, it is hardly surprising that the militias are already jockeying for position and, as we have seen, are launching a murderous campaign against those who are helping the occupiers, making it more difficult to control the region.

.

Most recently, the target has been the interpreters. At least 21 have been kidnapped and shot in head over the last month, their bodies dumped in different parts of the city. Another three are still missing. In a single mass killing, 17 interpreters were slain.None of the Iraqis, be they police or army, want to share the fate of the Harkis, giving their loyalty to the occupiers, only to be slaughtered once they leave. Why should any Iraqi trust their lives to the British, who cannot even protect their own?

.

So, inexorably, do we move to the end game, a sordid, tawdry example of failure and betrayal, our government abandoning its task unfinished, leaving the Iraqis to a fate unknown. But the worst of it is the spin, the attempt to disguise that unalterable fact, that we are running away. And, in so doing, what – as Charles Moore so eloquently put it – will we have gained?

The Sunday Quote

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

Empty Condolences

A taxi to a death in Iraq

by Christopher Booker

.

The tragic deaths of four British soldiers in Basra last week, when their boat was blownup by a riverside bomb, were naturally seized on by our anti-war press simply asfurther evidence of the price which is inevitably having to be paid for a foolish and unnecessary war. Of course the UK Defence Secretary, Des Browne, intoned a ritual reference to the "sacrifice made by the brave men and women ofour Armed Forces". But his Ministry of Defence officials have understandably been remarkably reticent about just why these three men and one woman died.

.

They were not on "a routine boat patrol", as the MoD claimed. They were being transferred up the Shatt al-Arab waterway, from one British HQ to another, in "water taxis". This is because we have no transport helicopters for this purposeand no vehicles sufficiently protected against roadside bombs to transfer themsafely by road. But, as the local insurgents were well aware, in order to negotiate a pontoonbridge en route the boats would have to move in right next to the riverbank,rendering them just as vulnerable to a bomb as a Snatch Land Rover.

.

These entirely predictable deaths might have been avoided (as my colleague Dr Richard North has argued on the 'EU referendum' blog), if the MoD had providedthe Army with proper mine-protected vehicles, such as the fleet of Mambas weused in Kosovo. But these were sold off, some to a security firm, Blackwater, which now uses them to good effect safely ferrying US generals and other topbrass from Baghdad airport to the city' s "green zone".

.

Alternatively, the MoD could have supplied our troops in Basra withmine-protected RG-31s, as used with similar lifesaving success by the Canadiansin Afghanistan. But instead of paying £280,000 apiece for the RG-31s they had ontrial in 2003 (and could by now have in service in Basra), the MoD preferred tospend £413,000 each on 401 highly-vulnerable Italian-made Panthers, which in anycounter-insurgency would be useless.

.

As the tragedy facing our hopelessly ill-equipped troops in Iraq fast comes to ahead (they were being bombarded more heavily in Basra last week than everbefore), the responsibility for this disaster lies four-square with the MoD. It has preferred to spend billions equipping our forces to play their part in a fantasy "European army" of the future rather than spend very much less to equipthem for the real wars they are actually having to fight now. This is apolitical blunder of the first magnitude, scarcely made more bearable by Mr Browne's empty condolences over deaths which should never have occurred.

The End of Week Quote

This weeks “end of week quote” is taken from today’s leader in The Journal:-
.
"The promise of thousands of Civil Service posts being relocated to the region proved yesterday to be what cynics [including the editor of this Blog] said it would be.

.
Too good to be true. Instead the North-East will lose 1,400 valuable jobs as the Government sets about culling one of its newly created departments."

Well if there is one particular government department that small businesses detest most it is the one where the taxperson hangs out. However any celebration at a reduction in taxing officials should not occur. The services that will be further reduced by the job losses will be the issuing of Tax Credit Payments, Tax Codes and P45s. As The Journal commented:-

.
“Unfortunately as we have learned from the late payment scandal at the Rural Payments Agency, this Government is not averse to taking lumps out of people’s lives through its inability to process the paperwork its rules demand.”

Oh well, once again: “it can only get better”!

Facing the Big Guns

When is a Blog not a Blog? When it’s a Clog!

Corporate giants, the dead tree industry (newspapers), chief plods (Chief Constables) and politicians, spend vast amounts of money trying to muscle in on the Blogosphere. As all good Bloggers know the Blogosphere is by it’s very nature anarchic and thus unsuitable to those of an institutional nature. Thus, what the corporate wallahs and their acolytes produce are CLOGS – corporate blogs.

Inspired possibly by the concept of wishing to ‘educate our masters’ (Disraeli) many British politicians have established ‘web-clogs’. One of the most elaborate is that of ‘laggyband’ (The Rt Hon David Milliband). The North East MP has admitted that his 'clog' costs taxpayers all of £4,500 per year to run.

The Right Honourable gentleman's posts about everything from lack of fish stocks (not mentioning that this is the fault of the EU) , personal carbon emissions (sounds rude), to international climate change talks (fashionably green) and 'Laggie's’ other political interests, which include, promoting recent Government White Papers.

Well now, this Blog (or at least its Editor) is well practiced at putting one’s head above the parapet, the inevitable consequence of course is to be shot at ferociously (often by one’s own side). So this Blog directly challenges politicians and their ilk to stop polluting the Blogosphere with their corporate emissions.

All comments posted below will be fired on mass to 'Laggie’s' political web-clog. That being the first salvo, more will follow. Hopefully when they fire back they’ll miss the target but will raise the calibre of the debate.

____________________________

Click below to read a previous post

http://verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com/2006/05/miliband-is-he-up-to-job.html

Federation Role

A cutting from The Northern Echo. Peter Troy is expected to campaign for the position of National Chairman of the FSB.

.
In the early ‘reign’ Margaret Thatcher’s Premiership, Business Links were established in England and Wales with the objective of encouraging the birth of new small businesses in inner city areas. Now 25 years later Business Links and indeed their many offshoots have paradoxically become big business.

Business Link North East is to become the first government controlled national business organisations to be regionalised, appropriately perhaps, on the 1st April 2007.

Despite the overwhelming rejection of Regionalisation at a Referendum in the North East, in September 2004 those that govern us still persist in telling business people what they think is best and imposing more Regionalisation by the backdoor. All apparently with the amazing collaboration of the Federation of Small Businesses in the North East.

Perhaps, a simple reduction in taxation for smaller businesses would in actuality do more to promote business and job growth than the ever spiralling regional control and the unwanted reorganisation of support agencies so favoured by Quangos and (politically naive) government lackeys.

Thus is how we are now governed; perhaps this instance is a classic example of true business people being mostly oblivious as to the great deception of our political ‘masters’.

Not a Jot of Difference

From the FSB's website:

.

The FSB’s EU and International Affairs Chairman Tina Sommer has been leading a campaign against a European Commission proposal that could cost UK businesses £37 billion. The proposal aims to protect the supply chain against terror attacks by promoting a quality standard for businesses. But the FSB and others believe it will be completely ineffective in combating terrorism and will place huge burdens on small businesses. The FSB’s Brussels office has been lobbying MEPs and the Conservative Party chief whip Philip Bradbourne MEP agrees with the FSB’s position: “I have personally asked the Commission president to withdraw the proposal and if the report comes to a vote in parliament I will be proposing a rejection in its entirety.”

.

Philip Bradbourne can ''ask'' and ''propose'' as much as he likes; it will make not one jot of difference.

.

There are only 78 MEP's from the UK. When the proposal comes before the EU Parliament as undoutably it will all 732 MEPs from the 25 members states will vote.

.

As in the way of these matters a few months following the creation of the new EU regulation the UK Parliament will, as it is bound to do, automaticly pass the new EU law into UK law. No amount of 'lobbying' by the FSB will in actuallity make any difference to the process what so ever. Thus is how we are now governed.

.

The EU 'Parliament'

To view the index of the last 26 postings from this site that feature The Federation of Small Bussinesses (FSB) please click below:

http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=FSB&ie=UTF-8&ui=blg&bl_url=verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com&x=32&y=6

Blogger in Need

Postman Pat left ( www.beebounced.co.uk) Peter Troy right!

It is that time of year when the BBC brings out Pudsey Bear for the annual fund-raiser Children in Need. Your Editor (organising the publicity) yesterday joined hundreds of children at the Playshack in Shildon (www.theplayshack.co.uk) for the arrival of Pudsey Bear and Postman Pat. The children and your intrepid blogger had their photograph taken with Postman Pat the proceeds of which are going to the Children in Need Appeal.

As the children gave their ‘letters to Santa’ to Pat, it was commented that, “he would probably do a better job of it delivering them.” Postman Pat was sacked by Royal Mail in 2002 apparently his ‘lifestyle image’ was incompatible with Royal Mail’s corporate style. What became of Jess (the famous black and white cat) is unknown although conspiracy theories abound.

.

__________________

Please note that no animal was harmed (or actually cooked) in the production of this posting

Compulsory Metrication

''The metric system is better by miles'' Tony Blair, 2001

.

The metrification drive inches closer to commercial catastrophe.

If one were to say that these words are being typed onto a 15-inch computer screen, most people would understand, because this is a worldwide standard. In three years' time, however, under EU law, it will become a criminal offence for Dell, Apple and other computer firms to describe their screen-sizes in inches.

.

In all advertising, packaging and so forth a 15-inch screen will have to be relabelled as "381 millimetres". It will similarly become a criminal offence to sell shirts in inch collar sizes; for garages to provide air pumps measuring tyre pressures in pounds; even to employ the notation used to size sutures and ligatures in an operating theatre, because this is not based on the metric system.

.
Last Thursday representatives from a wide range of industries, from clothing, tyres and white goods to healthcare, food and drink, met officials at the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the massive worldwide problem that now looms because of the ban, from January 1, 2010, on any use in the EU of what are called "supplementary indications": ie translations of metric units given to help those who need them.

.
An array of organisations, speaking on behalf of thousands of firms in America and in the EU itself, have sounded the alarm over the almost unimaginable costs and complications this will entail (not to mention the safety implications).

.

The objection is not so much to the EU's wish to enforce universal use of the metric system within the EU as its attempt to ban any reference to non-metric units to assist understanding.

.
John Gardner of the British Weights and Measures Association (BWMA), who helped set up last week's meeting, reports that the DTI is sensitive to the difficulties this will cause, and will be joining bodies such as Orgalime, representing a quarter of all Europe's manufacturing firms, in pressing the European Commission to extend beyond 2010 the period when it permits continued use of "supplementary indications". The EU Commission is soon to issue a consultation paper on the issue.

The BWMA will this week publish the results of its latest poll, commissioned from a leading marketing organisation, which shows that less than only 10 per cent of Britons support an end to the right to use non-metric units, and less than a fifth of the population say they use the metric system exclusively.

.

Small businesses in the UK may well be wondering what pressure the Federation of Small Business (FSB) is applying to the EU Commision from its offices in Brussels. The FSB has a long standing policy of opposition to compulsory metrication.

.

If the Commission is mindful of the damage this ban could do to the EU's image, it should start listening hard to what the world is trying to tell it.

Christmas Shopping Ideas

Editor Peter Troy looks at some Christmas shopping ideas at Inspirations in Darlington 01325 367522

The Sunday Quote

“In 1944 Parliament had decided to sit in Church House opposite Westminster School. I was walking from Dean’s Yard to Westminster Station when a doodlebug came over. The doodlebugs would cut out and then come backwards and drop. I was terrified but I did not want to show it. Would I run? No fear! Nobody else was running – I wasn’t going to run. If a single person had thrown himself down into the gutter, I’d have followed but of course no-one did. Not one; we’re British."

Ellen Harris – Reuter’s Wartime Correspondent in the Houses of Parliament
Source – Imperial War Museum Sound Archive

Historical Notes –

.
1. On the 13th June 1944 Nazi Germany launched the first V-1 Bomb, nicknamed ‘doodlebugs’. They were small jet powered pilotless planes packed with a ton of explosives that detonated on impact. The V stood for Vergeltunswaffe (Reprisal Weapons). The deployment of these weapons brought a new terror and mass destruction to the civilian population of Britain.

2. The House of Commons was forced to relocate to Church House opposite the Houses of Parliament following extensive damage, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. Fifty five years later the Congress for Democracy sat a number of occasions over a period of five years to successfully repel a latter-day treat to British democracy, the euro.

The Best of British

By Peter Troy

.

This morning's Service at the Cenotaph was as it has been for eight decades poignant. It was what we the British do best; military ceremony.

.

Her Majesty the Queen led the Nations mourning to the millions who have died in the service of their country at time of war and conflict. It has been commented on by some that this year’s act of tribute was more poignant than in recent years. The reason of course, British troops continued involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sited by some as conflicts to end all terrorism.

The Festival of Remembrance held at the Albert Hall, London has been ‘updated’ with a stronger emphasis on the losses and tragedies of current conflicts. Without detracting from the tragedies of the deaths of those involved it is worth emphasising the un-necessary deaths of British Soldiers due to crass, inadequate equipment. I refer to the scandal of the ‘scratch landrover’ issue (see links below).

Lest we forget, "war is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means"– Karl von Clausewitz.

The Saddam Hussein Question

In typical form the Prime Minister this week attempted to evade the question of whether he backed the decision of the Iraqis to hang their deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. He has refused to back the decision to hang Saddam but he has backed Iraq’s right to execute him!

Olympic Games plus VAT

The Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority has recently resigned because he cannot stand the politicking and is afraid (understandably) that the project will not be brought in on time and on budget.

.

It seems that he ought to have realized that when an Olympic budget says one thing it really means something quite different, probably three times as much, precisely as the One London group at the London Assembly has been saying all along.

.

Meanwhile HM Treasury has also weighed in, pointing out that VAT will have to be paid on construction and infrastructure projects, the alternative would be breaking EU rules on state aid.

.

It seems that the London bid calculations did not include VAT because that would not have made them competitive. What would happen if a business used that excuse?

.

Furthermore, Tessa Jowell, the relevant Minister, assured everyone that VAT would be waived. I suppose it is not likely that she would ever find out what she is talking about before she opens her ministerial mouth. VAT the pain of most small businesses, can not in fact be waived without breaking EU laws (for those that enloy the detail, see European Union Directive 77/388/EEC).

.

More of the story on One London blog.

.

Cartoon courtesy of Anoneumouse.

A General Opinion

Maurice Mitford Blackburn's letter published today in The Sunday Telegraph has delighted a number of readers not least Mr Blackburn, a retired commercial airline pilot.

.
The letter about General Sir Richard Dannatt MC, KCB (God's top general) is the United Kingdom's military head of all the Armed services. The published letter was slightly shortened. The full version is below:

.

Sir,

.

You report that Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, believes that on numerous occasions he has been protected by God. The General says he has been in mortal danger on at least four occasions. Each time the Almighty intervened to save him, at the price of a dozen or so colleague's lives. He and the Good Lord were able to chat about it afterwards.

.

Many years ago I was rostered to take a flight to Madeira. Another skipper asked me to swap with him. After take-off from Southampton Water the aircraft lost two engines and crashed into the Isle of Wight, killing all the crew. I was told I had a guardian angel. I was disgusted by the idea that I had been saved at someone else's expense.

.

I wonder if Gen. Dannatt's troops are happy to know their leader is one of God's chosen ones; the Bible mentions only one Chosen One.

.

Maurice Mitford Blackburn, Thames Ditton, Surrey.


Well indeed, the General was highlighted in the nation's press last month when he gave an interview to Sarah Sands, the former Editor of The Sunday Telegraph and now a columnist in the Daily Mail. General Dannet's comment's on a desirable exit strategy from Iraq were considered to be controversial in that his remarks were viewed by many press commentators as contradicting government policy. Actually, the General was reinforcing Blair's previous recent and reasonable statements on the future of the coalition forces in the troubled region (for the record that is the third time in nine years the editor of this blog as supported Tony Blair).

What, however, was controversial and without doubt unacceptable was the fact that General Dannet held a press conference on the steps of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in uniform (and without head-dress). Military staff of all ranks do not attend the MOD in uniform; it is quite simply not British.

I raised this uniform concern this morning with an expert (he hates the term) on all things military, political and many other subjects. My friendly expepert apreciated my concern but asked me to consider who would be brave enough to actually tell Britain's armed service chief that he was inappropriately and incorrectly dressed ? Well this is a blog with attitude !

Sadam Hussein Death Sentence

For the latest post on Saddam Hussein's execution click:

http://verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com/2006/12/saddam-hussein-hanged.html

.

An Iraqi special tribunal today convicted Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging for the brutal repression of a Shiite town in the 1980s.

As the verdict was read, the former despot shouted, "Long live the people! Long live the Arab Nation! Down with the spies!" He then chanted "God is great."

.

The chief judge, Raouf Rasheed Abdul Rahman, tried to silence Hussein. "There’s no point," Mr. Rahman said.

The five-judge panel, which heard more than nine months of testimony in the case, also issued death sentences for two of his seven co-defendants: Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Mr. Hussein’s half-brother, who was head of Iraq’s domestic intelligence agency; and Awad al-Bandar, president of Hussein’s revolutionary court.

For many Iraqis, the verdicts represented a moment of triumph and catharsis after decades of suffering under Hussein’s tyrannical rule.

Spontaneous celebrations broke out across Iraq in spite of an around-the-clock curfew imposed on the capital and other regions. Pistols and assault rifles were fired into the air across the capital and elsewhere in a common gesture of celebration. People flooded the streets of Sadr City, a Shiite bastion of Baghdad, whooping and dancing and sounding car horns. Even some Shiite police officers joined in the celebratory gunfire.

Hussein, along with six other defendants, is also currently being tried in a separate case in which they face charges of killing at least 50,000 people in the so-called Anfal military campaign in 1987 and 1988 in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Prosecutors are preparing numerous other cases against the former President. The tribunal may decide to try him on some or all of the additional charges if it wants to create a full record of the former leader’s horendous crimes.

.

Whilst it is a scandle that Tony Blair deceived the British people on the facts of the threat to world securtity in the months prior to the commencement of the war in Iraq the importance of removing Sadam Hussein and his thugs from power, even in the light of the US and UK government's failure to properly managage the post invasion situation, must be properly recorded. Lest we forget that the true reason the United Kingdom went to war in Iraq was to rid the world of an evil dictator.

.

The question is now - is there any point in hanging Sadam Hussein ?

The Sunday Quote

''Civilisation is built on a number of ultimate principles .... or human life, the punishment of crimes against property and persons, the equality of all good citizens before the law ....or, in a word justice.''

Max Nordau, (born 29 July 1849, Pest [now Budapest] died 23 January 1923, Paris, France), Co-founder of the World Zionist Organization, philosopher, writer, orator and physician.

The Crumbling Euro

It looks like the euro currency, in Germany at least, crumbling.

.

According to EU Business, euro bills in Germany are mysteriously disintegrating, leaving the authorities baffled. This first surfaced in June in Berlin when a 20-euro bill crumbled on contact and now about 1,000 have been affected. The German daily Bild, however, has a theory. It has reported that bills may have been sprinkled with a sulphate salt that becomes sulphuric acid when it comes in contact with moisture, such as hand perspiration. The bills then gradually disintegrate. Investigators have told Bild that they suspected would-be extortionists could be behind the case, aiming to prove they can destroy currency at will.

.

The European Central Bank, however, has a more prosaic explanation. It believes it might be possible the bills were stolen during a cash shipment and that the hijackers had used chemicals to remove anti-theft dye.

.

One would like to think this was yet another sign of the impending collapse of the European Union, a metaphor for the innate corruption of the political construct that the currency represents, a stark metaphysical representation of its decay and final disintegration…

.

But then, it could just be sweaty fingers on contaminated notes!

God is on our side

Well, a Roman Catholic bishop – which amounts to the same thing, we suppose.

.

Taking time off from plotting the expansion of the European Union – and no doubt from working on his plans for the European Rapid Reaction Force - the Rt Rev Tom Burns, the catholic bishop of the forces, warned the government yesterday that it was "morally reprehensible" to fail to provide British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with proper equipment.

.

This is according to The Daily Telegraph which cites the bishop as saying that British servicemen and women had a "right" to be adequately armed, supplied and reinforced.

.

read more...