Feral Scum

The vicious mugging of Labour MP Anne Moffat will, perhaps, bring home to MPs of all parties how increasingly dangerous many of our urban streets are becoming in Britain. Her her watch and jewellery were stolen and she was left with broken ribs, cuts and bruises by the gang of feral thugs who attacked her. She is right to describe her attackers as scum, but it is a failure of our politicians in recent years to properly address - or understand - the issue that is the problem. A full comment is posted on The Waendel Journal.

A question of Tax

How much as a per centage of the total price of Vehicle Fuel at the pumps is paid in tax by the British (already over taxed) motorist in fuel duty and VAT combined ?

Answers in the comments box below!

Election Time Warp

A comment from of the result of the bye-election at Crew and Nantwich last Thursday is that it is almost like living in a time warp – we are back to two party politics with a vengeance, the smaller parties being squeezed as the big players dominate the scene.

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The Conservatives achieved a majority of 7,860. Wiseheads in the Conservative Party are fully aware, however, that this was not a vote for them, but a vote against the government and, in particular, a personal vote against Gordon Brown. The most oft-repeated phrase in the campaign was: "Give Gordon a kicking". It was ever thus. The old saw, "oppositions don't win elections – governments lose them," may be a hackneyed phrase, but it is still largely true. But then, so is the other old saw – "a win is a win".

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To that extent, it does not matter why people voted. It is the result that counted

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In a higher than expected turnout of 58 percent, the Tories took 49 percent of the vote, Labour 30, and the Liberal Democrats 14, giving the Tory candidate Edward Timpson a 7,860 majority on a swing of 17.6 percent.But, that actually means that, of the total electorate, 42 percent did not vote. Thus, as a percentage of the total electorate, the Tories took 29 percent of the vote, Labour 19 and the Lib-Dims 10. Should that spread be repeated at a general election, it would mean – as currently – that we will have a government with no mandate from the majority of voters.

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Nevertheless, that is the way the system works. The "silent majority" cannot expect to be represented – or heard – if it does not cast its vote. But it does mean that there is a huge constituency out there which does not participate in the political process.The problem is, even if there was a hundred percent turnout, we would still have a government with no mandate from the majority of voters. That government does not hold elections and, in its fortress in Brussels, does not need our vote. It will continue on, elections or no elections in the provinces.

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Thus, while last weeks vote was great theatre, nothing actually has changed. We saw the return to "biff-bam" politics, shorn of substance, with as much relevance as the result in a TV reality show.

Not for two years though will we have the great "electorally mandated reshuffle", (General Election) when we get to chose our new member of the European Council (our true Government) but there is plenty to keep the political classes entertained in the meantime.

The Sunday Quote

''The higher a monkey climbs, the more you can see of his behind.''

General 'Vingar Joe' Stillwell. (1883-1946)

Fuel Price Report

Our dear government is receiving hundreds of millions of pounds in extra taxation as a result of rising fuel prices, two business groups have stated. The extra income is enough that it should scrap the 2p-per-litre rise in fuel duty scheduled for October.

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Whilst Business organisations whiter on about the detail (mostly accurately) the cost of motoring, a key factor in our (or any developed nation's) economy continues to increase.

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The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) claims that higher than predicted North Sea oil prices have boosted the government's tax proceeds by £390 million since 1 April. It adds that soaring prices at the pump have netted VAT income of £115 million more than predicted, constituting a total windfall of £505 million.

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According to accountants Grant Thornton, which provided figures to both the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), deferring October's fuel duty increase until April 2009 would cost the government £550 million. "High fuel prices are crippling small business owners in every sector and in every area of the country," said FSB National Chairman John Wright. "Apart from the immediate extra costs to motorists of filling up at the pumps, spiraling petrol prices also have a knock-on effect on everybody in terms of more expensive food and consumer goods." Calling for the introduction of an 'automatic adjuster' for fuel duty, Wright added: "A mechanism which automatically uses extra oil tax revenue to reduce fuel taxes would be an efficient, effective and fair way of delivering some relief to motorists of all kinds."

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Well it is nice to see Mr Wright getting some meaningful publicity; but to what effect? During the high profile peoples fuel campaign of 2000 when vehicle fuel taxation was on the firmly on the political agenda Mr Wright, then Chairman of the Teesside Branch did not want to put his head above the parapet for fear of upsetting his Labour Party friends (details on request from the editor). But that was then; now the FSB has joined in the fuel price winge, but far to late to have any meaningful effect.

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BCC director-general David Frost who has for some time been a pain the the side of the Labour Government accurately said: "With the Treasury estimates on [its fuel tax income] woefully out of line with reality, this £505 million windfall in less than two months must surely rule out the 2p rise scheduled for October."

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However as we have stated before on this blog the motorist and particularly the business motorist will continue to pay ever increasing amounts for vehicle fuel; the greenies will continue to whinge about CO2 immersions adding to global warming when in fact the planet is cooling not warming and business organisations will continue to 'lobby' to little effect whilst the economy continues to both slow down and inflate. So all in all nothing new to report other than the cost of vehicle fuel has risen by more that 25 per cent in the past 6 months and almost without murmer we are paying up.

The House of Europe

What had once been the proud headquarters of the Conservative Party, from 1958 to 2003, is now to suffer the indignity of new owners and a new name: Europe House.

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The new owners, announced by Property Week, are jointly the European Parliament and the European Commission. They have bought the building for £20m from the debt-ridden Irish developer Harcourt Developments.The company, owned by Donegal businessman Pat Doherty, is a generous contributor to the ruling Irish political parties. Yet it has sustained a loss of £10 million on the deal, having bought the building for £30m from the Conservative Party last year.

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Needless to say, EU Politicians are delighted. "This deal will provide a suitable and convenient Europe House in the UK," says Gerard Onesta MEP, one of the vice presidents of the EU Parliament. "Our ambition now is to refurbish the building to the highest standards of environmental excellence, fit for the 21st century, to serve the citizens of the UK."Not only do we not want to be "served" by these cretins, it seems we must also suffer the indignity of seeing the detested ring of stars flown from this building - which is due to be occupied by early 2010 – instead of the Union flag which it once so prominently flew.

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But then, for the Party which took us into the (then) EEC, agreed the Single European Act and then forced ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, it is perhaps appropriate that the new owners should be moving into their old headquarters.

Conveniently located for the Westminster Parliament,'Europe House' will provide an ideal launch pad when they come to buy up that building as well, once the current occupiers realise that it has ceased to have any useful function.

Second Class Mail

The damage done to the British postal service by EU rules gets worse. The Government report warning that our "universal postal service" is at risk because, under EU postal services directives, Royal Mail has lost the most lucrative part of its business to 19 private companies, turning its hefty profits into a £279 million loss.

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Now we learn that 3,000 more post offices may have to close, if the £1 billion-a-year contract to handle pensions and benefits payments goes to a rival company under EU procurement directives that require such public contracts to be put out to tender.

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Under the same rules, the Post Office has already lost contracts worth £168 million a year for handling television and driving licences, which is why it now needs £150 million a year from the taxpayer to survive. Even this much state support had to be pleaded for in Brussels by the Government, as we can see from a European Commission letter of last November, graciously permitting it to pay this subsidy under EU "state aid" rules

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First the EU orders us to sell off all the bits of our postal service that make a profit. Then we have to go to Brussels on bended knee for permission to subsidise the resulting losses. It is hardly surprising that our postal regulator, Postcomm, was last week proposing that Royal Mail should be partly privatised, as the only way to get round these "state aid" rules. But who would want to buy shares in a business that the EU is doing its utmost to ensure can only be run at a loss?

Tougher for Small Businesses

A recent lead editorial in The Daily Telegraph, complains that, "Business needs less, not more, red tape". The proximate cause of its complaints is the government's new legislative programme which, it says, "will make life tougher for small firms on two fronts". The devil in the detail can be read in Dr North's excellent piece in EU Referendum

The Sunday Quote

''Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. ''

Blaise Pascal

New Britain under New Labour

Us Britons find ourselves now obliged to live under a system of surveillance more rigorous than at any time or place since the fall of the Stasi, with more CCTV cameras per head of the population than anywhere else in the world. The local elections are largely an irrelevance, as elected representatives have little say (or even knowledge) of what is going on. EU officials in Brussels talk to Whitehall officials who talk to local officials regardless of the wishes of local politicians.

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Meanwhile, more and more inoffensive British citizens find themselves listed as registered criminals, while the real criminals go about their nefarious business with comparative impunity. It is no joke finding yourself with a criminal record, as the headmaster who forgot to renew his fishing licence or the bus driver who over filled his wheelie bin discovered recently.

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A feature of recent ubiquitous advertising has been the '' we know where you live'' threats about the BBC tax. The authorities boast of a database with 28 million addresses. In the old days the BBC gave relatively cheap access to eminently trustworthy news, quality drama uninterrupted by advertisements, first class comedy and much edifying content. Now it is a continuum of banal prole circuses (unrelieved even by the occasional football match) punctuated by bouts of lefty-greeny propaganda posing as news, i.e. it is the central pillar of the new establishment. It is naked extortion, like Mafia insurance, pay up or you’re on the list – we know where you live. They cannot even bully with subtlety, but in an authoritarian society why bother? Three billion pounds of income per annum, greater than the GDP of, say, Nicaragua, yet they claim they cannot manage. Why? Officials! Like its host country, of which it is a microcosm, the BBC is sinking under the weight of overweening administration.

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If the wealth creating part of any enterprise shrinks continuously, while the wealth dissipating part grows relentlessly, there can be only one eventual outcome. It is not, as the ghastly cliché says, rocket science.

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Meanwhile, the powers that be in the UK withdraw into a fantasy world of imagined crimes attracting draconian fines to fund their excesses, while the rank undergrowth of society flourishes. The habitually law abiding portion of the population finds itself increasingly criminalised, while the habitual criminals go about their business untrammelled.

The Sunday Quote

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right? ~ Robert Orben

A New Mayor for London

In our capital city we now have a new mayor, though many Londoners prefer not to have one at all. Nor are they all that desperate to have a London Assembly or the rest of those quangos that together make up the GLA or, more widely, “London’s government”.

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London does not need a government as it has managed spectacularly well without one for centuries. This supposed government is little more than a money-hungry incubus on the whole city.

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On the other hand, if Londoners do have to have to have a mayor, even temporarily, it is better not to have a power-hungry, self-centered, not-much-reformed socialist who brought in huge white elephants, thought of new ways to fleece the public and saw himself and his entourage as another foreign office.

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The truth of how much those many trips abroad to places like Venezuela or to conferences about so called global warming has not yet come out.

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The truth of how much the many media officers have cost Londoners will be known but shall we ever find out the money spent on endless groups and organizations that were supposed to “help” various “disadvantaged” groups in London, such as young people? Did you know that there is a whole “yoof” section in the GLA where youngsters, who should be looking for proper jobs and having a life are employed to create a great deal of useless and expensive (to the taxpayer) employment for themselves and others like them in endless groups, committees, discussions, forums etc etc?

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On the whole the '' yoofs'' are a messy lot who seem to think nothing of dropping litter on the floor and never switch off their machinery when they leave the building. Last heard of they were a little worried that their cushy and mindless jobs might disappear under the new Mayor. Let us hope so.

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The new Mayor Boris Johnson has won very handsomely. Despite the ridiculous system of three ballot papers, two preferences for the mayor and two separate votes for the assembly, which has consistently created more spoilt ballots in London than anywhere else, the victory is clear and uncontestable.

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The turn-out was around 45 per cent, about ten per cent higher than last time and about 13 per cent higher than the time before. This is still not spectacularly high but by standards of local elections, not bad.The Tories could have achieved this victory last time if they had not been so stupid in their choice of candidate. Stitching up the highly presentable Nikki Page and putting forward the highly unpresentable Steve Norris, who had lost once already, was an act of madness. And there was serious talk of doing the same this time.Unfortunately, this story wrong-foots the “local-is-best” brigade. It was the London Conservative Party that messed up last time and it was the national leadership that insisted on Johnson as candidate this time. We don’t know how the man himself was talked into doing this but if whatever he was promised means only one term as Mayor, that is all to the good.

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David Cameron must have some ambivalent feelings. It does not take too many brain cells to work out that Boris Johnson will now have a power base that is completely independent of the leader and, unlike Livingstone, he has never made the mistake of antagonizing other members of his party.

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Johnson got 1,043,761 votes on first preference, that is 42.48 per cent and Livingstone 893,877, that is 36.38 per cent. Our citizen Ken got more second preference vote but as the Evening Standard said not enough to catch up. Final count was 1,168,738 for Mayor Johnson and 1,028,966 for ex-Mayor Livingstone.

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Contrary to what the media tells us, Livingstone has not been a success in his political life. Nothing but a career local politician, he actually helped Thatcher to destroy the GLC, which he had seen as his power base. Then he became an MP, only to find that as a back-bencher and a greatly disliked one at that, he had no role to play. Now he has lost his power-base again after a couple of rather disastrous stints. His “achievements” are not precisely great. Getting the 2012 Olympics for London is a poisoned chalice for the rest of us.

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The extension of the congestion charge zone westwards of the centre of London was a highly unpopular, badly argued piece of spite against people who refuse to vote for him. Getting more people on the buses is a ridiculous claim as the buses are no more frequent or efficient than they ever were. In other words, this has simply added to the discomfort of travelling in London.Some of those more people are children and teenagers under 16, who can travel anywhere for free and hop on and of at different stops, making life difficult for other passengers and adding to the obesity problem among children. And so on, and so on.

One can but hope that citizen Ken Livingstone will now disappear from public life and go back to spending more time with his newts.

Global Cooling

Christopher Booker in today’s column, re-enforces the case for a period of global cooling all of which looks pretty persuasive. As we have pointed out in numerous posts, the policy implications for this are huge, not least the effect on the global food supply and, in turn, the implications for global security. What is remarkable, therefore, is how little coverage there is on this issue in the media.