WANT AN HONOUR ? WIN A MEDAL !

Inevitably, a tranche of 'honours' have been handed out to a bunch of assorted athletes. Why escapes me.

 

There was a time when to be awarded an OBE was a mark of great distinction; being made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire was something of which to be very proud as it signified that you had made a genuinely important contribution to socirty, the nation or mankind in general. Not any longer. Honours are tossed out like confetti to whomever is currently in the news plus, of course, to a raft of time-serving civil servants.

 

Bradley Wiggins, whose exploits perched atop a bicycle have been very laudable, is to be made a Knight of the Realm as is David Brailsford who's credited with coaching Wiggins and his chums to their recent run of success. Someone of whom I've never heard, Sarah Storey, is to be made a Dame of the British Empire for doing something in a wheelchair, while the likes of Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pendleton are all to be given CBE's, an award just one rung below knighthood or damehood. Possibly due to his previous comments about being Scottish rather than British, Andy Murray is to receive only the lower honour of an OBE; that'll teach you to think before you gob-off, young man !

 

The real point in all of this, though, is that the recipients of these awards together with 70 or more of their compatriots, have mostly done nothing whatsoever that will ever enhance the lot of anyone other than themselves. Leading sportsmen are, by the very nature of what they do, utterly self-centred; they are focused on their own achievements to the exclusion of all else. These days, they are also funded very generously by the state and some even become very wealthy due to the large prize money available at many meetings and events. Given all of this, to further reward them with national honours when they succeed in doing what they love doing is ludicrous.

 

Wiggins was a worthy 'Sports Personality of the Year' and, in 20 or 30 years time when he's passed on his experience to generations of younger cyclists, he might well deserve an award; today, he does not, any more than do any of the other sporting recipients of these wholly devalued gongs. Sadly, we have reached a stage in which real contributions to our society go unnoticed while pointless celebrities and others in the media are showered with plaudits and honours. Is this really the way it should be ?

 

 

YOBS SHOW US UP FOR WHAT WE ARE.

Walking to and from my local town this morning I became more convinced than ever that the majority of human beings are no more than a hair's breadth removed from the apes of the jungle.

 

While we pride ourselves on our intelligence and common decency, I watched as numerous motorists drove at silly speeds, failed to signal manoeuvres, cur corners and generally behaved like morons. In town, a young yob was apprehended by security staff after apparently having assaulted an elderly woman, presumably with the intention of stealing from her. In the shops, the lack of common courtesy was everywhere with very few people, other than myself, standing back to allow others to pass through doors or other small spaces. All-in-all, it was a depressing experience.

 

We are a society which considers itself to be educated and distinctly better than the animals from which we have evolved, while the truth is that most of us are still in the jungle. The yobs who attack old ladies in the street, steal from shops, burgle our homes, and drive like maniacs are everywhere; the appalling drunk and drugged creatures who inhabit too many of our town centres at the weekends make many peoples' lives a misery. Frequently, these sub-humans masquerade as 'normal' people, living in decent houses in decent areas but when the surface is scratched ever so slightly they show their true colours; their first reaction to any stress is usually physical violence and they have no thoughts that any other reaction is possible.

 

None of this is aimed at any part of our society in particular as the offenders appear to be of both sexes and of all ages, races, colours and creeds. The animalistic behaviour of football crowds and the audiences at 'rock concerts', the the yobs on our streets and the general violence in our society is the true image of natural human behaviour rather than the one we like to believe of nuclear families living wonderful lives and being concerned about everyone around them.

 

There are times when the truth hurts.

ROYAL SUCCESSION DILEMMAS

The proposed change to the laws regarding succession to the throne of the United Kingdom have, of course, been welcomed by all of those who claim to despise discrimination wherever it occurs. However, one wonders to what extent these people have considered the possible negative implications of this current proposal.

 

For one thing, if the rule of male primogeniture had not existed, the Quenn would not now be Queen. In fact, on the death of Queen Victoria, the crown would have passed to the warmongering German Kaiser, Wilhelm II; where we would now be is anyone's guess.  Another consequence could be a constantly changing royal 'House' name, something which normally remains static through male lines and only usually changes after a female heir or monarch marries, or when there is a revolution. In the most recent times, this wouldn't have been an issue, however, following King James II, we could have had a House of Orange, followed by a House of Oldenburg, had either of his daughters produced surviving children.

 

It's also the case that James II may never have become King anyway as he would have been outranked by his elder sister Mary; Mary married William II, Prince of Orange, and died before her elder brother Charles II, so her son William III, Prince of Orange, would have succeeded to the throne in his own right in 1685, rather than being invited here in 1688 on the expulsion of James II. Such an apparently minor change could, however, have had major implications as we would never have experienced the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688, probably never had the Bill of Rights of 1689 and on William II's death in 1702, the destination of the crown may have been disputed. William and Mary had no children and William was an only child, so the heir would have been found through an earlier generation; whether this would have been on his father's or mother's side is open to debate. 

 

This is, of course, all just fantasy as any change to history would almost certainly have caused many more and the history which we currently recall simply wouldn't have happened. However, pondering on this matter, one hopes that the government has actually done some 'in depth' thinking around the issue in order to try to prevent such complications happening in the future.

 

One hopes !

DUCHESS 'PHONE HOAX GETTING BORING.

The nonsense about the Duchess of Cambridge and a hoax telephone call really is taking up far too much space and time in our media.

 

Hearing repeats of the radio broadcast, it's pretty clear that the impression of the Queen was awful; I haven't heard that of Prince Charles, but I suspect it was just as bad. It was a silly prank that really shouldn't have worked and the only reason it hit the headlines initially was that hospital staff were so easily taken in by it. The tragic consequences have, of course, made the story even more newsworthy.

 

While the apparent suicide of the nurse who took the call is sad, her action was horribly out of proportion when considered in the light of what she actually seems to have done; as far as I understand it, all she did was to answer the telephone and pass the callers on to another member of the hospital's staff. That she felt sufficiently upset that she committed suicide suggests deeper problems in her life.

 

The second nurse who, according to the press, then happily discussed the condition of the Duchess in some detail was much more at fault. However, the major part of the blame for the success of the hoax rests fairly and squarely with the hospital management who had obviously failed to ensure that there were adequate procedures in place to safeguard the confidentiality of their patients. Most hospitals have such procedures that make it almost impossible to gain any information about hospital patients regardless of the identity of the inquirer; the King Edward VII hospital clearly failed miserably in this respect and has serious questions to answer.

 

The television interviews given by the 2 Australian radio presenters who perpetrated the hoax were excrutiatingly dreadful. Their tearful apologies and expressions of regret surely were more intended to try to salvage their own careers than anything; why their careers should be at risk is a question that perhaps needs to be answered. They did nothing terrible, it was simply a childish prank; the only people in their organisation who should be in real trouble are the managers who agreed to broadcast the telephonic conversation.

 

No doubt this story will rumble on for a few days yet, hopefully not very many. Behind the scenes, one or two heads might well, and probably should, roll, but let's not get this out of proportion. It was a silly stunt and nothing more; the sad outcome for one individual was of her own design and we should not be looking to lay the blame at the door of anyone else.

SIR PATRICK MOORE.

The death of Sir Patrick Moore which was announced yesterday made it a sad day indeed. Sir Patrick was one of those most unusual people, a man who seemed to have nothing but enthusiasm for life and wished to do nothing more than enthuse and encourage others.

 

His fame as the outstanding presenter of 'The Sky at Night' belied his true importance in the world of science, and astronomy in particular. Many of today's best known scientists have identified him as the one person who inspired them to pursue their careers and he, himself, was so revered as to be made a Fellow of the Royal Society even though he was 'only' an amateur.

 

Sir Patrick had looked increasingly frail in recent years and seemed even more so on his last appearance on 'The Sky at Night' last week  Nonetheless, and with typical élan, the grand old man of television looked forward to the next programme when he promised to provide advice and guidance to those who might be lucky enough to receive a telescope in their Christmas stockings. Sadly, he will not now be able to fulfill his pledge, though we must hope that others will pick up his baton and continue the wonderful work that he started so many years ago. He will be missed very much.

DORRIES MUST BE DUMPED.

I find it almost impossible to believe what I'm currently watching and listening to on the BBC. In the 'Sunday Politics', Andrew Neil is presenting an item on Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP who thought it was acceptable to 'bunk-off' from Parliament and go on a jaunt to Australia for a particularly rubbishy television programme.

 

Dorries is quite clearly a shockingly arrogant and deluded parliamentarian. The reasons she has given for her actions are so ridiculous as to be risible; it is obvious that the woman is far more interested in self-promotion and her own ambition than in anything else.

 

One can only hope that George Young, the Conservative Party Chief Whip, will give Ms Dorries' stated desire to have the whip restored to her very short shrift indeed. One must also hope that suggestions that this horrible woman might migrate to UKIP are either unfounded or that she will be sent packing by them as well. The sooner she disappears in a cloud of smoke, the better.

TOP GEAR : A PROGRAMME FOR MORONS.

I know it's fashionable to kick the BBC but that is not my main purpose. My main purpose is simply to ask why  a state funded organisation is so happy to pay for the idiocy that is 'Top Gear' and its spin offs.

 

I don't like Jeremy Clarkson and positively despise Richard Hammond, but not because they are on the BBC or because they are in a programme that makes a lot of fuss about cars that most of us couldn't afford even if we were lucky enough to win the lottery. The reason I dislike them is that they are grotesquely overvalued morons.

 

Clarkson and Hammond have no talent whatsoever; they are simply annoying little trolls who have struck a note with a more modern generation which is fascinated by stupidity. They seem to believe that encouraging people to drive cars at silly speeds is a sensible thing to do; Hammond almost died doing just that and probably cost the NHS a fortune to keep him alive, and yet he still does the same idiotic things now. No sane organisation would allow this.

 

'Top Gear' belongs on some moron-dominated channel, not on the BBC, unless, that is, the BBC is a channel dominated by morons. Is it ?

GEORGE OSBORNE TO SAY THE WORLD IS GREAT !

George Osborne, the boy who is pretending to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, will deliver his latest piece of bad news for the country on Wednesday with his 'Autumn Statement'.

 

Of course, the headlines and most of the speech will tell us that things are looking up and he is now able to make all of our lives a bit better. The subtext and what's concealed in the small print will undoubtedly tell a very different story.

 

After Wednesday's statement we will all be poorer, some given notice, surreptitiously, of being very much poorer. This is inevitable and nothing more than a restoration of reality; we have mostly been living well beyond our means for decades. The availability of credit has allowed people, and the country, to spend money it never had, or will have, and the consequences are now coming home to roost.

 

The real truth that no government will ever tell us is that we are on a downward slope; our costs are too high as are our expectations. In time we will inevitably become poorer and will be forced to adopt a much more frugal approach to our lives. China, India, Brazil and the rest will replace us at the head of the line and we will have to re-learn the tradesmens' skills that we have forsaken and accept the low wages and standard of living that it brings. We won't like it and there will be trouble, perhaps very serious trouble, but it is inevitable.

 

Rather than acknowledge this and start to make provision for it, Osborne will tinker; he will fiddle while Rome burns. In the end, it will be Osborne and his like, all of his predecessors and those whose political ambitions outweighed their morality, who will bring this country to its knees and even to its ankles.

 

God can't help us because he doesn't exist. The politicians won't help us because it's not in their interests. We can only help ourselves by recognizing the problem and responding to it in a way that most will reject - more training in old fashioned trades, lower wages and a lower expectation of what the future might hold. At the moment, the jobs that will survive in 30 or 40 years time are filled by immigrants, almost exclusively; by then they will control our economy and the indigenous white population will be scratching around for a living.

 

This is not a racist diatribe, it is simple fact. The truth is that immigrants are generally from poor countries and are much more willing than the pre-existing population to undertake low paid menial jobs. In the future this will change unless the existing population accepts its true position in the world; of course, it won't and there will be trouble. The result is as inevitable as was the victory of New Zealand over England in Saturday's Rugby international; that didn't happen which suggests there may be hope, though it's not great. It's in our own hands.

NOW HEALTH FASCISTS GET TO WORK ON ALCOHOL.

Today's news carries the bad news that the 'health fascists' appear to have won the argument over minimum pricing for alcohol. It seems that the government is to publish a consultation paper on the matter, which normally means it's made up its mind and is now simply going through the motions of pretending to listen to the views of interested parties.

 

No one can be in any doubt that there are people in our society who drink from too young an age and / or drink excessively; some drink to such excess that it results in anti-social behaviour as well as causing serious damage to their health. However, introducing a minimum price for all sales of alcohol is simply using a paper sledgehammer to crack a nut.

 

Most people do not drink to excess, they actually drink fairly responsibly; these people will be equally affected by the proposed legislation. Whether they get through one bottle of wine a week or one bottle of gin a month, they may well find themselves paying much more than now for their tipple. In round figures, a minimum price of 45p per unit would see a fairly standard bottle of wine, say at a strength of 12%, having to cost at least £4.05, while it would be illegal to sell a standard bottle of spirits for less than £12.60. Beers that are often sold in supermarkets for around £1.50 would suddenly rise in price to £1.80 or more.

 

Many questions arise.

Are things really as bad as the government claims, both in terms of public disorder and health consequences ?

Is it reasonable to try to control a tiny minority of the population by imposing price controls on us all ?

Will introducing minimum prices actually have the desired effect ? What is the real evidence ? Alcohol is not a product like furniture or electrical goods; it is more like mobile 'phones, designer clothing and cigarettes. The price / demand curve may act anomalously.

Is it right that the government, any government, controls the price of any product in a free society ? (We all know what happened in the USA when they tried to outlaw the sale of alcohol in the 1920s).

How will the minimum price be obtained ? Will it be through higher duties and VAT, or will the retailers simply make a greater profit ?

How will pricing be monitored ? Will we have yet another government watchdog, OFHOL perhaps, set up and run at enormous cost to the public purse, and with its snoopers around every corner ?

 

Accepting that there is a problem with some people in some areas, why on earth doesn't the government address these people and areas directly, rather than trying to impose draconian legislation on the whole nation ? If there are people who cause disruption in towns either by the irresponible sale or consumption of alcohol, deal with them. Close down retailers who sell to underage drinkers and give the weekend town centre louts proper punishments, but do not take this fascist approach of trying to regiment the whole of our society - it will not work and will end in tears.

 

With cigarettes, successive governments have increased the duty until prices are now at a ridiculous level, and yet still many people smoke and more start every day, including many who are far too young to buy cigarettes for themselves. They have banned smoking in many places and yet still smokers carry on; they're in the process of banning displays of cigarettes and yet still new smokers appear. Presumably, this is the pattern that will now follow for alcohol. When minimim pricing doesn't have the desired effect, the BMA and other fascist groups will demand further action. No drinking in public places, then restrictions on sales outlets and hidden displays - this may seem impossible, but it will happen.

 

Responsible drinkers must join the fight now or face a future in which there won't even be a single glass of wine with their dinner, or a single beer with their pals in the pub.

LEVESON DESERVES RESPECT EVEN IF HIS VIEWS AREN'T FLAVOUR OF THE MONTH.

In the wake of the scandal over telephone-hacking by the media, the Government asked a senior legal figure, Lord Justice Leveson, to lead an inquiry and make recommendations for the future governance of the press. Now, it seems  that the Government is less than eager to hear what the honorable Lord has to say.

 

It is being reported that poor Leveson is expected to make a variety of recommendations which leading political figures are unlikely to find in favour of. Indeed, some senior Government figures, notable Michael Gove, have even been pouring scorn on what Leveson is believed to be going to suggest, making mockery of the Judge's position and attitudes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there has also been a sustained attack on the Judge's likely recommendations in various branches of the media but it is the pre-emptive strike by politicians that is the more worrying.

 

This seems to be a blatant example of Government failing to achieve the result they wanted and, therefore, simply setting about making the actual result appear to be stupid, uneducated, irrational and so on. Notwithstanding that Lord Justice leveson was appointed by the Government, they are being only too quick to distance themselves from his findings.

 

Whether the findings of his review are what the Government expected or not, the eminent Judge deserves to be treated with respect and not with the disdain that is currently being heaped upon him. People such as Gove bring ignominy and disrepute to themselves by acting in this way.

TIME FOR BRITAIN TO STOP THE GRAVY TRAIN.

Why the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union is a mystery to me.

 

In order to join this largely socialist, and even communist, organisation, the UK was required to cut most of its trading links with its Commonwealth allies, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Instead, we were tied to a union which imposed ridiculous trading arrangements on its members and which has continuously expanded its sphere of operations, not to mention the extent of its bureaucracy.

 

Today, the European Union is a bloated and vastly inefficient organisation dedicated to imposing its socialist philosophy across the continent. Its policies are largely backward-looking, maintaining highly unprofitable practices in farming and fisheries at the expense of developing new tecnologies, and promoting the most damaging of employment policies in pursuit of a socialist utopia that never did and never will exist.

 

The UK's interests are not well met by those of the countries of continental Europe and certainly not by those of the more easterly nations. In fact, the UK's interests have been positively damaged by the vast influx of migrant workers from those eastern European countries and more are soon to follow as the next tranche, from Bulgaria and Romania, will be able to come here unfettered, from January 2014. Many of those who have already come here have taken jobs previously carried out by British workers, have enjoyed the same state benefits as thos paid to workers who have lived here all of their lives, and have sent many thousands of pounds back to their own countries, thus stripping resources out of the British economy. This cannot possibly be in the UK's best interests and it is time we stopped it.

 

It seems to me that the current impasse over the EU's grossly extravagant budget demands is a perfect opportunity for Britian and others to impose some order in the chaos that is the EU. The UK is one of only 7 or so countries which are net contributors to the EU's financial pot, while around 20 countries are net recipients of funds. Inevitably, this latter group are in favour of an increased budget, meaning more money for themselves, while the former are less enthusiastic. The French, in typical fashion are both in favour and opposed, depending on which specific elements of the budget are under discussion; they favour a budget cut but want their own farming subsidies protected, while demanding a cut in the UK's rebate. All very messy.

 

More and more, the UK finds itself at odds with the demands of the EU, the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights, discrete organisations that feed off of one another in their attempts to impose outdated socialist philosophies on all of their member states. More and more, we are left in a state of impotence as ludicrous judgements are handed down or rules imposed; our own government and courts are no longer supreme but are subservient to their masters in Brussels and Strasbourg. This has to stop and the budget stalemate points the way out.

 

If David Cameron has any balls, he would tell his 'colleagues' in the EU that enough is enough; the UK is cancelling all of its contributions to the Union with immediate effect and until they come to their senses, meaning until they produce a properly audited set of accounts for the last 20 years and until they bring their practices up to date. Furthermore, he should be telling the ECHR that the UK will, in future, look upon its judgements as no more than advisory and that the UK Parliament will be the final arbiter in all matters affecting the UK. In the event that these positions prove to be unacceptable to the other member nations of the relevant organisations, Cameron should give notice of the UK's withdrawal from membership within 12 months but, of course, he will do none of this; he will, instead, be another Neville Chamberlain, eventually returning from some meeting in Brussels waving a meaningless and useless piece of paper while his opponents celebrate.

 

Michael Fabricant, a Tory MP, has suggested that Cameron should attempt to forge an alliance with UKIP in advance of the next General election, an alliance which would see UKIP candidates standing aside in marginal seats in return for a guarantee of a refendum on EU membership; Nigel Farage, for UKIP, has put up 2 metaphorical fingers to this idea, rightly so in my opinion. The Tories have already reneged on one promise to hold such a referendum and there is no reason why they would not do so again; UKIP would have nothing to gain and everything to lose from such an arrangement. The people of Britain would also lose the ability to vote for the only party which stands four-square in its opposition to the assorted European insitutions.

 

UKIP is a far from perfect organisation but is the only real hope of salvation for the people of the UK. It is UKIP that we should all vote for whenever the opportunity arises and, in particular, in the elections to the European Parliament in 2014; a resounding vote for UKIP then would set alarm bells ringing throughout the corridors of Brussels and Strasbourg.

DORRIES IS NO CELEBRITY, BUT WILL BE GOT OUT.

I've often felt that members of Parliament were little removed from the entertainment industry and recent events have proved me to be correct in this belief.

 

The Conservative MP for somewhere in Bedfordshire, Nadine Dorries, has decided that, rather than do her day job of representing her constituents, she will instead take a month's holiday in Australia while participating in an appalling 'reality' TV show, "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here". That she is a member of Parliament and not a 'celebrity' seems to have passed her by, as does the fact that she is forsaking both those who elected her and her Party.

 

Ms Dorries has a track record of being something of a maverick and her Party has reacted, as might have been expected, by withdrawing the 'Whip' from her, effectively suspending her from Party membership. One imagines that, in due course, her constituents will do rather more and withdraw her Parliamentary seat.

 

It seems that Ms Dorries has decided that politics is not, after all, for her and a career in the entertainment world is more to her liking. In doing this she is following the examples of several others; Neil Hamilton who lost his seat and then, with his wife, took to the chat show circuit; the unlamented Lembit Opik, who gave up his Commons seat to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian, something which many probably felt he'd always been; and George Galloway, whose dreadful antics on "Big Brother" plunged new depths of political desperation. Others, Brian Walden and Mathew Parris spring to mind, have also followed a political career with one in the media, though these have nearly always been what might be called 'respectable'. It is also the case that none of these felt it right to leave the country for a protracted period in order to pursue their alternative careers while also still being a Member of Parliament.

 

Ms Dorries apparently failed to even tell her Party managers of her intentions, no doubt being aware of the reception she would receive, and so no arrangements were put in place for either the temporary representation of her constituents or for 'pairing' in the event of votes in the House of Commons. It's been reported that the Conservative Chief Whip, George Younger, is expecting Ms Dorries to present herself before him on her return. No doubt the reception will be frosty and the meeting painful.

 

If I were Ms Dorries, I think I'd resign now and stay in Australia. That, of course, would entail her giving up her Parliamentary salary and the assorted perks which go with the job so, presumably, she'll hang on until her constituency kicks her out, which will not be before the next election in 2015. If ever there was an argument for being able to expel recalcitrant MPs from Parliament, surely this is it.

US BOWS TO HURRICANE 'SANDY'

Many years ago I used to listen to the wonderful 'Round the Horne' on Radio 4 or, more probably then, the Home Service. One of the mainstays of the programme was a sketch piece involving the eponymous Kenenth Horne with Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick as 2 camp fellows introduced by Williams with the line "I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy".

 

Few living on the eastern side of the United States will be considering their 'Sandy' to be a freind this morning as the storm-cum-hurricane of that name does its best to bring huge parts of the country to a halt. Airports and subways are closed, the streets are deserted and thousands have evacuated their homes. That mighty bastion of US society, the New York Stock Exchange, was closed yesterday and will remain closed today, the first time since 1888 that it has failed to open for 2 consecutive trading days. Some have no doubt lost their lives, many will suffer personal, business and financial loss and the Presidential election campaigning has been brought to an abrupt halt. What the eventual costs will be cannot even be guessed at, though the overall effect on the global economy may eventually be positive as repair and restoration work gets underway. Only the future will tell us.

 

This is not the first hurricane to strike the US and it will not be the last; they are battered by 10 or 20 every year but this one has hit its most important centre of population and finance in devastating fashion. At a time when the human race and, in particular, the United States, believes itself to be all-powerful, this storm has issued a salutary warning. Not only are we, and they, not all-powerful, in the face of nature in all its pomp, we are all but powerless.

SCOTLAND : INDEPENDENCE NIGHTMARE.

The agreement on a referendum to determine whether or not Scotland should become independent raises far more questions than it will ever resolve.

 

The agreement gives everyone who lives in Scotland and is aged over 16 an opportunity to vote on the independence question; this will include many non-Scots who happen to live there and exclude many Scots who live elsewhere. The inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds raises issues about their possible involvement in elections in the future, something which I consider to be ludicrous. Given that Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom and that breaking the Union apart will have a dramatic effect on the rest of the Kingdom, why isn't the rest of the population being given an opportunity to voice its opinion on the matter ?

 

These basic points aside, there would be many far more complex political questions. Would an independent Scotland retain the British monarch as head of state ? Would they retain sterling as their currency; in fact, would they even be able to ? The word seems to be that if Scotland became independent it would then have to apply for membership of the EU as it could not simply ride in on the coat tails of its UK association, and would then be required to adopt the Euro. There would be serious issues regarding border controls, overseas links and representation, defence and so on.

 

Scotland's population is around 5.25m, obviously larger than many already independent nations but hardly a giant; in fact, Scotland would be one of the smallest contries in the western world. Given that it is the western nations which are under most pressure in the conomic woes of our time, would independence really make sense ? It was the UK Government that 'bailed' out both the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland when they became insolvent, not the Government in Edinburgh. Future similar problems would have to be resolved by Scotland alone and we all know what's happened in Ireland, Greece, Spain and the rest, when governments found this to be impossible.

 

Alex Salmond is a fanatic who leads a party of fanatics. His determination to break away from a 300 year old Union is so strong that he will happily ignore all of the difficulties in order to achieve his aim. He uses statistics in a way that is highly selective and he ignores the high level of subsidy which Scotland currently receives from the UK Government but which, in reality, comes from English taxpayers. He has talked nebulously about Scotland joining other small northern economies in some sort of economic resurgence - Ireland and Iceland, 2 countries which have experienced almost total economic collapse, have been mentioned in the past. Can Salmond truly believe his own spin ?

 

If Scotland becomes independent, it will have a permanent socialist government, while England will benefit from the removal of a raft of Scottish Labour Members of Parliament and will probably become permanently Conservative as long as immigration is brought under proper control. The potential benefits to England, which will no longer have to support a weak Scottish economy and unsustainable spending by the Scottish Government, are huge; the disbenefits to Scotland, which will then have to balance its own budget and try to compete on its own merits, will be enormous and debilitating.

 

Separating the 2 countries will have its issues. Resiting defence capabilities, potentially separating controls over defence forces, railways and public utilities and, worst of all, separating the finances of the 2 nations will be far from simple although, no doubt, the civil service will cobble something together. Salmond really doesn't care about all of this, he just wants to be the leader of an independent country. Cameron, in agreeing to the referendum, no doubt believes that the Scots will vote to remain in the Union; let's hope he's right, although, as an Englishman, I might be encouraged to think that getting rid of these troublesome neighbours would not be an entirely bad thing.

TEBBIT SLAMS INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT.

It's good to know that that Grand Old Tory, Norman Tebbit, is in tune with my thinking.

Lord Tebbit is reported to have said that David Cameron, reputed to be the Prime Minister of our benighted nation, has allowed "this dog of a coalition government" to look incompetent. He was apparently speaking with particular reference to the saga over the now-departed Andrew Mitchell but his remarks come after a series of blunders by senior ministers.

 

Tebbit has also suggested that it is high time that Cameron started introducing some genuinely Conservative policies - tougher rules on immigration and crime, for instance; of course, his Liberal partners wouldn't like this and, probably, neither would Dave. It seems that the words of the 'Chingford Bovverboy' will continue to fall on deaf ears until the Conservative Party realises that it's best approach is to return to its true roots, rather than trying to appeal to the ridiculously named 'Middle Ground' which is, of course, a euphemism for being mildly socialist.

 

When our main electoral choice is between 3 parties whose difference is merely their degree of socialism, for whom are right wing believers to vote ?

BBC TAKES 'PETER PRINCIPLE' TO THE LIMIT.

I've just been watching the third part of Andrew Marr's 'History of the World' recorded last Sunday. A more pompous and ludicrous programme is hard to imagine.

 

Marr is a former BBC political broadcaster who has moved on to grander things; these days he presents programmes such as 'Start the Week', an unashamed piece of advertising from an organisation which is not actually allowed to advertise and which is an increasingly awful load of rubbish.

 

What Marr's qualifications are for presenting a world history are unknown; that his presentation is a mish-mash of semi-mythical stories with little historical basis seems to be obvious. The programme was interspersed with some supposed true accounts but these also seem to be dubious; an account of the affair between Casesar and Cleopatra was presented as recorded by Plutarch who was not born until almost 100 years after their deaths. The death of a woman named Perpetua was recounted according to an account of a supposed eye-witness although this person was not named and whether or not it was truly an eye-witness account was not challenged. This was no history but a piece of romanticized nonsense. The rest seemed mostly to be a repeat of an assortment of well known facts with nothing new being added. We jumped from India to China to Rome to Arabia with barely a pause for breath; how this was any sort of coherent history escapes me.

 

Why does the BBC persist with producing such rubbish ? Programmes about history should be presented by historians, in the same way as programmes about nature are presented by biologists and natural historians. Marr is acceptable, just, as a political commentator, but as a presenter of programmes such as this latest effort he simply doesn't have the wherewithal. Sadly the BBC seems to have a current policy of promoting newsreaders and commentators to greater things without actually bothering to assess their suitability for the more exalted roles. Humphreys, Bruce, Vine and others now including Marr and the egregious Balding, are everywhere and do nothing but convince me that they are well beyond their areas of expertise and ability.

 

If ever there was a perfect example of the operation of the 'Peter Principle' this is it.

 

 

OBAMA OR ROMNEY; DOES IT MATTER ?

We are often told that the US PResident is the most powerful person in the world and, therefore, the identity of the postholder is of enormous importance. I wonder if this is really true.

 

The notion of 'power' is inevitably associated with military capability and, in particular, with possession of nuclear weapons. The US has both in abundance and probably has the world's most extensive security and intelligence operations; I would be far from surprised to discover that they have a file on me, for instance, even though I am not a US citizen, have never been in the US nor even tried to go there. I have, however, occasionally expressed my views on certain issues on the internet which may well have been sufficient to gain their interest. The US also has the world's largest economy by some distance and, on the face of it, the US President does, indeed, preside over a pretty powerful setup.

 

However, in reality, what actual power does the President have ? Obama has largely failed to implement policies which are dear to his heart due to opposition in the Senate, House of Representatives or both. The involvement of his country in overseas ventures, notably Afghanistan, has been a continuing disaster though admittedly not of his making. The US economy is continuing to struggle and is currently weighed down by a far greater burden of debt than it had when he came to office. US diplomacy has failed totally to achieve any solutions to the problems affecting Israel, Syria and Iran, while interventions in Egypt and Libya have produced highly uncertain outcomes.

 

While the President may have had to 'sign-off' on the overseas military campaigns, his ability to influence much of the rest seems to be very limited. Indeed, apart from committing military forces it is difficult to deterrmine exactly what a modern President can really achieve. Perhaps this is because Obama is a weak President or perhaps it is simply because of the nature of the United States today.

 

One has the feeling that the Presidents of a few decades ago genuinely wielded power. Roosevelt in the 1930s, Kennedy for a brief period and even Nixon until he was caught, but more recent incumbents seem to have been increasingly emasculated. Ford was generally seen as a joke, and Carter likewise, although both may have been rather better than theywere  credited with being. Reagan stands out principally due to his charismatic presence and oratorical skills rather than for any great political ability, while Bush, senior, probably wasn't up to the job and his Presidency will be one of the forgotten ones. Once we reach the era of Clinton and 'George W', I truly begin to wonder who was in charge. Clinton was certainly a smooth operator while Bush minor was an imbecile, but both seem to have been backed by powerful organisational interests which pulled all of the strings.

 

Given the history, whether the winner of November's poll is Obama or Romney isn't what will matter. The important thing is who are their backers and what are their policies and desires ? Additionally, will the next President have enough control of the Senate and House of Representatives ? If Obama wins, we can expect more of the same; much rhetoric and little action leading into at least 2 years of a 'lame-duck' administration until the election of 2016. If Romney wins, things may change or they may not; he and his backers may find that their cherished policies are blocked by a hostile Congress and they have 4 years of stalemate while the economy continues to pile up debts.

 

Personally, I would never vote for anyone who has fought so hard and spent so much money in order to be 'top dog'. Anyone who is so desperate for power almost always turns out to be incompetent or worse, so I vote for the White House gardener who has no such ambitions but would do a better job simply because he would feel obliged to do his very best rather than worrying about satisfying his backers and winning a second term in 4 years time.

AUSTERITY, WHAT AUSTERITY ?

Listening to some of our politicians and political commentators whittering on about the extent of the 'austerity' being visited upon this country by those nasty people in Government, one may easily be driven to believe that we're in the middle of a massive squeeze on our pockets. These same people constantly harp on about 'Plan A' having failed and telling us that it is now time for 'Plan B', whatever either of these plans is supposed to be.

 

That there is a degree of Government tightening of the fiscal controls is undeniable but at the same time they are pumping untold billions into the economy via the wholly unproven mechanism of 'quantitative easing', a euphemism for printing money. The actuial consequence of all of this is an increase in employment, not the sharp decline that would be expected in a traditional economic downturn, though take-home wages certainly have been squeezed. Nonetheless, we do not have the starving millions on the streets that we might expect if we really were being subjected to severe austerity measures, as they are in Greece, Spain and one or two other Eurozone countries.

 

Politicians and their acolytes inevitably talk in political terms and for them it's all about whether they are supporters of the Government or of the opposition. The nonsense about 'Plan A' and 'Plan B' seems to have been an invention of the socialists, as is the drivel about the appalling austerity we're being forced to endure. In truth, we're little more than 2 years in to the current administration's term of office following 13 years of increasing mismanagment by the other lot which brought us to the point of total economis collapse, and I'm not talking about the banking crisis.

 

The Labour Governments of 1997 to 2010 followed the usual socialist policy of borrowing and spending vast amounts on the basis that something would turn up to plug whatever financial holes were created; while Mr Micawber was hourly expecting that something would, indeed, turn up, he also knew that spending more than you earned was the path to ruin. Labour apparently did not read 'David Copperfield' or chose to ignore Micawber's sound advice.

 

What was left in 2010 was the biggest Government mess ever, compounded by the effects of the banking crisis; the banks did not cause the Government's mess, but the Government certainly had a hand in the creation of the banks' one through its lax financial policies and monitoring. This was, of course, all in the pursuit of some idyllic world  in which we all becomne richer and richer while doing nothing of any tangible worth, a policy which was always going to end in tears.

 

Where we are now is at the sniffling stage. Those who had non-jobs in the public sector are the first to suffer and will soon be joined by those whose principle source of income is state benefits of one sort or another. Next will be those whose pay is simply not matched by their productivity or the value of the goods and services they produce, and their new cars, televisions, mobile 'phones and foreign holidays will have to go. By the time we get to this stage it will be all-out bawling our eyes out, but this stage is some way off yet. In other words, real austerity hasn't even begun.

 

Those who argue for a 'Plan B', meaning stop cutting government expenditure and start increasing it, are living in a fantasy land well beyond that of the cloud-dwelling cuckoos. For decades, we have paid ourselves too much for doing too little and the chickens are decidely coming home to roost; an economic correction had to come at some point and this is it. If we don't take the medicine now, but follow the socialist line of spending still more, the eventual pain will be a real live and full scale Depression which will teach us all the true meaning of 'austerity'.

 

Whatever the socialists are currently saying, they know full-well that more government spending will be disastrous; interest rates would soar along with inflation producing massive unemployment and a total loss of international credibility. We would be back to 1976 when dear old Denis Healey, another socialist, had to ask for help from the International Monetary Fund and had to accept stringent conditions as well.

 

Whether we like it or not, we're in for a lengthy period of economic retrenchment, not helped by the fact that most of the western world is in the same boat. The only good news is that we're not in the Euro.

ENTWHISTLE AND BBC AT THE CROSSROADS.

Listening to a discussion this morning about the BBC, it was easy to understand why this organisation is in such a mess.

 

The new Director General has been making nebulous statements about increased quality, reduced costs and heaven knows what else; his remarks tick all the right boxes, as required, without actually meaning anything specific, which is what he and his senior management would doubtless see as in their best interests. After all, if there are no properly measurable targets, there is nothing to be held to account for.

 

Once upon a time, the BBC fulfilled a role of huge national and international significance but it is now a pale shadow of its former self. Funded by the Government through the imposition of a tax dressed up as the 'Licence Fee' it has become a nonsense. Many of its programmes are merely advertising vehicles for whoever has released a new film, song, CD or DVD, book, play etc., etc. It is populated by a bunch of has-beens - as I write this, the television in front of me has a gaggle of newsreading women from the 1970s presenting yet another consumer programme. What their qualifications for doing this are and why they got the job must be 2 of life's great mysteries; given the BBCs penchant for being politically correct in all things, one has to assume that their presence on my screen has a lot to do with their a) being women and b) being over retirement age, neither of which seems to be an appropriate qualification.

 

When I was a child, there was one television channel, BBC1 which broadcast for no more than 10 or 12 hours a day; there were 3 main radio programmes titled the 'Light Programme', the 'Third Programme' and the 'Home Service', which were supplemented by the then great 'World Service. That was it. Today we have umpteen television channels - BBCs 1, 2, 3 and 4, CBBC, CBebbies, BBC News, and BBC Parliament, several of which broadcast around the clock; there are radio programmes 1,2,3 and 4, plus 1 Extra, 4 Extra, 5 Live, 5 Live Sport Extra, 6, Asian Network, and the World Service, plus a host of local radio stations on top of tall this, there's the BBCs website and online programming. Why all of this should be necessary in a world littered with commercial offerings in both radio and television is another mystery.

 

Mr Entwhistle, the new DG whose name seems to be drawn from the cast list of 'Last of the Summer Wine' has so many obvious targets for cost cutting and rationalization that he should have no trouble whatsoever in putting the BBC back on to the right path. We are often told these days that something is 'not fit for purpose' or that is has to be 'fit for the 21st century'; these and other meaningless phrases can and should be seized upon by Mr Entwhistle. For the BBC to be fit for a 21st century purpose, it should rid itself of all of the commercial and pseudo-commercial content which can be left safely to commercial broadcasters. It should stop the game of trying to compete with commercial broadcasters with its ridiculous and pointless morning chat shows and it should stop trying to provide individual services for just about every minor interest group in the country.

 

My recipe for the BBC is a simple but radical one. Get rid of the television channels, CBBC and CBeebies; these channels already have an amount of airtime on BBC2 in the mornings and some minor additional programming here should more than suffice as replacement. Merge BBC News and BBC Parliament into one online channel. Close Radio 1 which is nothing more than an advertising platform for music companies and leave this to comemrcial enterprises. Combine Radios 2 and 3 and get rid of Radio 6. The Asian Network should either be closed or added to the mix of Radios 2 and 3 - there is no place for separate community style radio stations in a national broadcaster. All local radio stations should be handed over to commercial broadcasters.

 

If Mr Entwhistle and his Board really want to make a difference and bring the BBC up to date, these are the types of changes he will have to make. Does he have the will ? Does his Board have the gumption ? If they go down this road they will have an almighty fight on their hands but, in the end, the BBC would emerge as a far stronger player producing genuine quality programmes. The alternative is a continuation of the decline in quality which has been seen in recent years and an eventual sale of the whole lot to Sky or some other commercial enterprise, which will then close most of it down.

HILLSBOROUGH : A CATALOGUE OF INCOMPETENCE, LIES AND DECEIT.

Back in April 1989 I had only recently moved from the northwest London area of Pinner to Hinckley in the midlands. I did not support either of the teams involved and was not a fanatical football supporter anyway; I had no particular connection with or knowledge of Sheffield.

However, when I heard that 2 of the victims of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster were teenage sisters from Pinner, it made the tragedy much more personal to me than it would otherwise have been. As the horror story unfolded the news was full of reports blaming anyone and everyone for the events of that day, 15th April, though what I remember most is the tragic story of the 2 girls, Sarah and Victoria Hicks, girls who had trodden the same streets that I did.

The publication of an independent report yesterday finally seems to have shed some real light on the tragedy. The Hillsborough Independent Panel has reviewed a vast amount of documentation and its findings are damning indeed:

Crowd safety was compromised at every level;

The response of the emergency services was slow and inadequate;

There was poor co-ordination and leadership of the rescue attempts;

Many of those who died may have had a chance of survival if the emergency response had been better;

Some authorities attempted to create an unjust account of events that sought to blame fans for the disaster;

The police spread "despicable untruths" about the behavious of some fans as part of an effort to "develop and publicise a version of events that focused on allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence";

Police officers carried out PNC ('Police National Computer') checks on those who died in an attempt "to impugn the reputations of the deceased";

 

Additionally, it's said that police officers 'doctored' statements in order to create a picture of events which supported their claims about the causes of the disaster and have continued to stand by these falsified documents ever since.

 

That our police service is far from perfect is something which many people know only too well. The often overbearing and aggressive manner in which some officers behave even when dealing with the most minor of situations has no doubt been experienced by many of us, although I've also experienced the other side of this coin - friendly, helpful and supportive officers who engender confidence and trust. However, the Hillsborough disaster seems to have brought out the worst in many of the officers who attended the stadium on that day; the Panel's findings indicate examples of lying, deceit, falsification of evidence and perverting the course of justice. It is a shocking report.

 

Many are now calling for new inquests to be held on the victims and for any implicated police officers who can be identified to be appropriately charged. To these calls, I can only say "Hear, hear!", and hope that those 2 girls from my small town, Sarah and Victoria Hicks, will finally receive some form of justice. 

WHO IS CHARITY REALLY FOR ?

I've always had the view that many supposed charities are nothing of the sort but are really just a mechanism for those in charge to con members of the public into paying them large salaries. Last Saturday, an article in the 'Daily Telegraph' provided some evidence for this viewpoint in respect of at least two well known charitable organisations.

 

Anthony Daniels, a former doctor, penned a piece about children in our society and the way in which supposed poverty has been used at the excuse for most of their ills from obesity to lack of education and bad manners. He particularly pointed at 'Save the Children' as one major 'charity' which uses the poverty tag in order to gain public sympathy

 

Daniels claims, probably quite rightly though I have no independent knowledge, that 'Save the Children' is simply a part of what he calls a charitable-bureaucratic complex that infests our society. Of the money it spent in 2009, £88m was on humanitarian assistance while a vastly disproportionate £58m was on staff wages. Worse still, this grotesquely bureaucratic organisation is headed by a man who was previously Communications and Campaigns Director for Gordon Brown, so simply a 'PR man', on a salary approaching £140,000 per year while a further 164 staff were paid salaries of more than £30,000 per year. All this in an organisation supposedly dedicated to eradicating 'child poverty'.

 

Almost one third of the total funds raised by 'Save the children' in 2009 were spent on fund-raising; is this really what people think they're contributing to when they put their cash in the envelope or tin ? Daniels also commented in passing on another, smaller, charity which is far worse; the 'Child Poverty Action Group' managed to spend £1.55m of its total income of £1.99m on wages, that is nearly 80% of its total revenue. How can this possibly be considered to be a charity, unless it's one for its staff ?  

 

'Save the Children' receives substantial funds from various governments including our own which contributed £19m in 2009. The European Union also paid over £12m, meaning that organisations that take our taxes happily chucked over £30m of our money into the 'Save the Children' kitty.

 

Charity is no longer what it once was, small organisations run by volunteers and other well-meaning people on small salaries. Today's charities are often huge bureaucratic organisations, sometimes multi-national in scope, which operate as much for the benefit of their employees as for whatever cause they're theoretically supporting. They have hordes of directors and other people in corporate roles, jobs more typical of industry than of charity and governments seem to be quite happy with all of this, allowing them an assortment of special arrangements and tax breaks.

 

WHY ?

 

TAX CREDITS CAN BE A CON.

I've just heard a Labour spokesman, Rachel Reeves, make a statement that I find mindbogglingly incomprehensible. Talking on the 'Daily Politics' the importance of people being better off in work than on benefits came up and Reeves immediately referred to the importance of tax credits in achieving this. Tax credits were, of course, an invention of that failed Chancellor and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who just happens to be a member of the same party as Reeves.

 

Now, I have looked in some detail at the way in which tax credits operate and the way in which they also affect 2 other principal benefits, those for housing and council tax. The simple truth is that these 3 sources of income are structured and intertwined in such a way as to render it impossible to gain from working more hours once you have achieved the minimum for tax credits which is currently set at 24, at least if you're on a relatively low wage. The way that the system works actually means that for anyone who receives all 3 payments, which must be a very large number of people, every extra pound they earn from additional work is taken away by reductions in their tax credits and benefits; there is, in fact, a perverse disincentive to work longer hours or earn any more.

 

There are some slight 'wrinkles' in the system which mean that tax credits are not usually reduced within a year in which a claimant's pay rises, but this is countered by the savage actions of local councils which grab back whatever they can whenever they can, frequently, it seems, following a deluge of incomprehensible paperwork.

 

The system as it is currently structured may encourage people to go to work, but it provides no incentive for them to work more than 24 hours nor to earn more than the minimum wage. It simply encourages people to seek out menial, low paid, employment and, once they've found it, does nothing more. Whether or not Iain Duncan Smith's much heralded 'Universal Credit' will address this issue has yet to be discovered but there can be no doubt that the present system has failed miserably and is in need of replacement.

 

Reeves might do well to find out  bit more about how the tax credit system actually works.

CHARLOTTE GREEN & HARRIET CASS; TWO GREAT OLD PROS !

This morning I've heard snippets of a story from the BBC which is also about the BBC, though without so far hearing the full context. The story is one which will cause considerable pain to many.

 

It appears that one consequence of the Beeb's ongoing internal reorganisation is to be the demise of 2 of its most long-standing newsreaders, Harriet Cass nd Charlotte Green, both of whom seem to to have been around for ever. Indeed, one presenter stated that their combined service added up to well over 70 years.

 

In this age of local accents and dialects not to mention the rise of 'celebrity' newsreaders such as Fiona Bruce who think themselves so much more important, to hear the tones of Harriet and Charlotte has been a pleasure. Every time some other presenter announced that it was time for the headlines, to be read by Harriet Cass or Charlotte Green, one's spirits soared. Both speak with mellifluous tones, clearly and precisely. They have shown no propensity to pretension and have, for me at least, remained wholly unknown except for their voices; ohh, those voices !.

 

Charlotte, of course, has had a couple of  'moments' which will no doubt be remembered long after she's gone, and she's also been a wonderful voice on the long running radio programme, 'The News Quiz'. Harriet, I think, has kept more to her role as a newsreader and announcer, a role she has fulfilled professionally and beautifully for many years. The 'Shipping Forecast' really will never be the same again.

 

To say that the departure of these 2 ladies is a tragedy would be to overstate things, but they will be sorely missed. Unlike the egregious bunch of television presenters who all seem to see newsreading as merely the first step on a ladder to celebrity status, these 2 stuck close to their roots and were all the better for it.

 

Farewell, Dear Ladies; your headlines will never be forgotten.

NEIL ARMSTRONG: FIRST MAN ON THE MOON

On 20th July 1969, the human race reached the pinnacle of its development to date when Neil Armstrong and 'Buzz' Aldrin landed on the Moon, the first time in human history that a man had walked on another world.

 

The enormity of this achievement has probably faded over time but what the 'Apollo' programme achieved was truly astonishing. With technology that today would probably only ever be seen in museums, the astronauts put their lives on the line; some, most memorably the crew of Apollo 1, lost their lives in pursuit of the goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee never even made it off of the launch pad as their capsule caught fire during a practice run. Nonetheless, after a lengthy pause, the programme continued and 12 men eventually did walk on the Moon; Armstrong was the first and, inevitably, the most famous. His death yesterday reminds us just how little we have moved on in the intervening 43 years since that amazing day in 1969.

 

Those who knew Neil Armstrong say without hesitation or dissent that he was a fine man, modest and humble in all his dealings. That a man who was so iconic, and will remain so for centuries to come, could attract such universal admiration says more about him than I possibly could.

IS REVOLUTION ON THE HORIZON ?

Talking to a chap in my local pub today, I found myself drawn into a conversation about the deteriorating state of our nation. This was an ordianry chat in an ordinary pub that may well have been replicated in many places across the country.

My drinking companion commented on the way in which an assortment of foreigners have 'invaded' this country in recent years, expecting the indigenous population to accept them and their ways. He referred to Poles as well as to the influx of Asians and was clearly unhappy at the way in which these immigrants had not only taken local jobs but had also imposed their culture on us.

In many, if not most, countries immigrants are expected to accommodate themselves to their new surroundings but not, it seems, in England. In England we almost fall over ourselves to allow these newcomers to take over large parts of our major cities, build their temples and behave as if they were still in Delhi, Rawalpindi, Mogadishu or wherever else they are from.

My companion was of the view, from which I did not demur, that the ultimate consequence of this situation, in the absence of any action from our government that supports the rights and position of the established population, is revolution.

The only question that remains is 'When ?'

JESSICA ENNIS : £3 MILLION A YEAR ?

Listening to some marketing man on the radio this morning set me thinking about the value we place on different talents.

This marketing expert said, in answer to the usual third rate interviewing conducted on the 'Today' programme, that the likes of Jessica Ennis will now be able to earn as much as £3,000,000 a year for the next few years on the back of her Olympic success. Others such as Mo Farah, Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins will also profit greatly from their admittedly major achievements. What was not mentioned is that most of our high profile successes were delivered by people who have received substantial financial support from the state, sometimes over a period of many years.

If a teenager demonstrates great ability in science or engineering and gains a place at university, they have to borrow money from the state to support them through their period of study and development; once graduated, they are required to repay the money that was borrowed, with interest, from their subsequent earnings. However, for those who show ability in sport, it appears that no such arrangements are in place; in fact, they are simply given large amounts of money, either directly or through the payment of their coaches and other aides. When members of this latter group achieve success and become high earners, they keep their money; there is no requirement to pay anything back to the state.

Why is this ? Top-earning sports' stars can earn many times more than even the best paid scientists and engineers although their true contribution to the country is far less. Sports' stars do not contribute to the long term future of the country in any way, while scientists and engineers, even those who choose to teach rather than to 'do it' themselves, are the bedrock for future growth and development.

This blatant favouring of transitory success over long term gain is a stark indicator of the disease that infects this country today. Politicians and the media are interested only in the 'quick fix', the sound bite', and whatever will make news today; tomorrow can 'go hang'. Our priorities are wrong.

As our government spirals increasingly out of control and our economic woes worsen still further, we can no doubt expect a raft of honours for our successful Olympians. A knighthood, perhaps, for Mo Farah, damehood for Jessica Ennis and honours from MBEs to peerages for others; the lunacy of such awards is almost palpable. For 5 minutes, the nation will be reminded of the great achievements of our state funded competitors, and then all will melt away. The horrendous reality of the world we are really in will return.

ARE SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS REALLY SO INFALLIBLE ?

Today's news carries an item about a website called 'Babyjabs' which has been ordered to remove certain advice as it is considered to be misleading.

The website claims that the MMR vaccine may be causing "up to 10%" of autism in children in the UK. Someone has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority and they've determiined that the website has breached its rules.

It is the case that controversy about the MMR vaccine has rumbled on for years with most so-called experts claiming that it hs no detrimental side effects; note that I say 'most'. In the past, we have been told many things by eminent scientists and what they've claimed to be incontrovertible 'facts' have been proven to be nothing of the sort on more than one occasion.

We were told to replace sugar with saccharine, only to subsequently been told to ditch saccharine because it was a potential carcinogen. Antibiotics and then steroids were heralded as new 'wonder drugs' only for both to harbour hidden dangers that were discovered only decades later. We've been told that AIDS would kill us all, then it was BSE follwed by SARS, and we have the annual influenza panic.

Today some scientists tell us that global warming is man-made while others vehemently take an opposing view; some even deny it is happening at all. Genetic engineering of our food is a 'must' according to some and is a potential nightmare according to others; some would like to have genetically engineered people. The artificial extension of human life through such means is seen as a potential boon by some, a terrifying vision by others. People are told that they 'must' take the drugs known as statins in order to reduce their cholesterol levels, but does anyone really know what the long term effects of these drugs are ?

Scientific advance is probably inevitable as long as humans exist but what really matters is how that advance is managed. Many scientists seem to believe that if they can do something then they must be allowed to do it. As a consequence, we have women becoming mothers in their 60s, well beyond any natural span of childbearing, and we have vast sums of money being spent in many other ways that may well be to the ultimate detriment of humanity.

I don't know if the MMR vaccine, or any other vaccines or medication, are truly safe or not. I do know that scientists, of which I used to be one, and doctors, of whom I have known many, are far from infallible. We should all be very circumspect about the banning of controversial claims and points of view of which we disapprove.

FRIVOLOUS OLYMPICS OR REAL WORTH ?

It occurs to me that while the London Olympic Games will cost us a reported £11,000,000,000, NASA have landed their rover on Mars for around one seventh of this at £1,500,000,000.

The benefits and rewards from the Olympics is a debatable issue but are unlikely to be long lasting; the eventual consequences of NASA's project for the human race could be utterly incalculable. For the price of the Olympics, we could have sent 7 'Curiosities' to Mars.

Why are governments so willing to spend money on frivolous trivia and so reluctant to spend it on truly important projects ?

NASA'S 'CURIOSITY' TO WIN GOLD ?

In the middle of the frivolity of the Olympics comes the news that NASA has successfully landed a car-sized 'rover' on the surface of Mars.

While we may all be marvelling at the Earth-based achievements of some of our greatest athletes, such as the almost unbelievable Usain Bolt, NASA's success overnight will undoubtedly have much longer lasting consequences for manhkind. The rover, nicknamed 'Curiosity', has already sent back a few pictures and will soon start its real mission, wandering around the surface of the 'Red Planet' collecting and analysing rock and dust samples, probing the ground and generally searching for any signs that there was once life on this now barren world.

The technical achievement in successfully landing 'curiosity' is, itself, a marvel. The consequences for humanity if the rover does find any conclusive evidence that Mars once played host to living organisms will be inconceivable. In contrast, the Olympic Games, fun as they are, will rapidly fade into history and be no more than a minor footnote. Strange, then, that it's stll the Olympics which dominate the news.

JOBS UNDER THREAT FROM OLYMPICS ?

Today is the first test of the way in which the Olympics will disrupt normal life for working Londoners. 'Transport for London', the body which oversees the capital's trains, buses and road system has already warned commuters that they may well face delays as priority on the roads is given to the transient 'Olympic family'.

One wonders how everyday employers will react when staff turn up late for work. Will they be understanding and forgiving, allowing that the dusruption is short term and in no way the fault of their staff, or will they threaten and cajole ? Will staff find their pay stopped and their jobs under threat if they don't 'pull their socks up' ?

Only time will tell.

BRITAIN'S OLYMPIC EMBARRASSMENT.

Thank God the ludicrous nonsense of the opening is now over and we can get on with the Games.

Inevitably the media, in pariticular the BBC, has come out in whole-hearted support of the overblown tripe that was served up last night. The BBC, of course, has a vested interest in lauding this rubbish given that it is broadcasting every last moment of the Olympic extravaganza, but why every other outlet seems also to have fallen prey to the jingoistic euphoria defeats me.

This once great country of ours now has little to celebrate, at least in its modern guise. Being reduced to a parachuting Queen accompanied by James Bond, and David Beckham driving a speedboat along the Thames says more about modern Britain than anything else possibly could. We are a country obsessed with trivia and celebrity.

What the rest of the world made of this drivel is anyones' guess. Kenneth Branagh pretending to be I K Brunel reading Shakespeare made little if any sense and a horde of dancing nurses and bouncing patients was a pretty poor representation of the real state of our NHS. What little I saw of this supposed spectacle left me cringeing with national embarrassment.

Let's hope that our athletes can redeem us with some genuinely great performances.

MARSTON'S RETAIL AGREEMENT.

The recent furore over the legalities and moralities involved in the payment of taxes is something I find a little bewildering. It is surely illegal to evade taxes, that is, to deliberately falsify accounting records so as to reduce one's tax bill, but it is not illegal, nor in my mind immoral, to use lawful means to achieve the same end. If the tax man doesn't like it, he can always act to close so-called loopholes in tax law, otherwise he, and others, should keep quiet.

While all this fuss is going on, we have to remember that HMRC routinely enters into arrangements with major companies which reduce their tax bills. According to yesterday's 'Daily Mail' neither Google nor Vodafone pay much, if any, tax in this country as a result of accounting arrangements which HMRC must have approved. Similarly, I'm aware of a scheme being operated by the brewing and pub operating company, Marston's, which seems to break all of the rules while apaprently having been given the 'green light' by HMRC.

Under what they call their 'Retail Agreement' Marston's enters into purported tenancy agreements with pub landlords under which the landlords are supposedly self-employed and running their own businesses. Marston's pays all of the pub bills except for staff costs and the council tax for the associated residential element of the property, and simply take back about 80% of the pub's net takings after VAT. Marston's say that they will be responsible for all building maintenance and that they will ensure the properties are maintained in an excellent state of repair. So far, so good. 

However, Marston's is also the sole supplier to the pub business and can determine the levels of stock to be maintained; astonishingly and despite this, the cost of stock that becames unsaleable, for example, real ale beyond its shelf life, is a charge to the retailer. Marstons also sets all of the retail prices through their computerised stock control and till system; I'm even aware of prices having been changed without any notice being given to the landlord. Marston's provides a degree of training, though very little as far as I can tell, and landlords have to agree a business plan with Marston's and are subject to close managerial oversight from them. Marston's determines the opening hours of the business and the pubs have to be operated strictly within rules laid down in accordance with an Operating Manual provided by them. All takings have to be paid into a Marston's bank account every 2 or 3 days and the landlord is required to submit a weekly invoice in order to claim their share. The sole source of income for the landlord is Marston's.

Marston's would no doubt argue that the agreement actually gives the landlords more say than this but, in practice, it does not. Marston's operates these outlets as if they were managed houses and the landlords were their employees, while claiming they are not. This allows Marston's to avoid paying the minimum wage and to avoid paying National Insurance; they also have no responsibility for any staff employed in the pubs, even though such staff appear to be employed using Marston's stationery and are paid through Marston's payroll system.

When it comes to buildings maintenance, Marston's are to say the least reluctant to spend any money. One local pub of my acquaintance has a kitchen which has been condemned and another has one that is wholly unsuitable; Marston's are unwilling to do anything about these situations, meaning that the landlords are unable to develop their businesses in ways that they might wish. Both pubs have other maintenance issues that Marston's have refused to deal with. In one case, the landlord was driven to call in the local environmental health officer in order to compel the company to fulfil its obligations; that landlord has now been given notice. Pubs on this agreement which are able to sell food are tied to menus and products supplied by Marston's.

Where all this leaves us is with an arrangement, presumably approved by HMRC, which allows Marston's to avoid paying the minimum wage, avoid paying national insurance and avoid the other responsibilities of employing staff. That the arrangement is in flagrant violation of HMRC rules governing what is and what is not self-employment is blatantly obvious. The earnings of the landlord and his family are generally such as to entitle them to claim tax credits to a significant extent, meaning that the tax payer is also subsidising this arrangement to Marston's benefit. The landlords I have spoken to also seem blissfully unaware that their free accommodation should quite probably be treated as a taxable benefit, this not being something that Marston's have highlighted, and declared on their tax returns and tax credit claims.

Is this right ? Is it moral ? Indeed, is it legal ? Is this just a tax and responsibility avoidance measure ?

BBC NEEDS TO BROADCAST PROPER NEWS, NOT DRIVEL.

Listening to this morning's BBC Radio 4 news at 9 o'clock, makes me wonder why we bother with 'News' on the BBC.

For the last week and more, we've been assailed by increasing hysteria about Bradley Wiggins winning the 'Tour de France'. Not that he 's actually won it yet and he won't until later today, but this inconvenience hasn't prevented the BBC from reporting, daily, that he's going to win it. Today's news broadcast was no different and was even repeated on television on "The Andrew Marr Show", with interviews and all. Since when have future events of this type become news ?

The BBC followed the non-news about Wiggins with an item about President Obama visiting the site of the recent shooting in the US; not that he's visited there yet, but he will do so later; this is not news. Item three was yet another non-story, something about a commemoratory day in Norway for the shootings there a year ago. How is this story worthy of being included as the third most important news story of the day ?

Finally, we arrived at  an item of real news. Increasing unrest in Syria has to be a serious concern to the whole of the Euro-Asian world and yet it ranked as only the fourth most important item in the minds of the cretins who determine such things in the BBC. It may be that the crisis in Syria is becoming a bit boring for the bright young things who run the BBC, but this is one of the few international news stories of the moment; for it to be relegated to only fourth place, after 3 non-stories, shows how little the Corporation values genuine news coverage and how much it panders to populist and sentimental tripe.

Sadly, it was then back to a story of little importance, the resignation of Rupert Murdoch from a number of directorships within his 'NewsCorp' group of companies. That Murdoch is 81 and well past retirement age seems to have been ignored and, in any case, why is this worthy of being considered national news ?

A story which seems minor but is probably an indicator of the ways in which successive governments in this country show a total lack of common sense came next. A Fijian man who served in the British Army for 13 years and has married and made his home her, has been told he must now leave the UK by 9th August. Having served in Afghanistan and Iraq, he left the army in June but a fight he had with a colleague in 2010 is deemed to give him a criminal record; accordingly, the Border Agency, an organisation of dubious quality and ability, has said he is debarred from settling here. That this is a grotesquely unfair judgement must be abundantly clear even to the jobsworths of the BA, but the real story has to be the utter stupidity and incompetence of its staff. One can only hope that this man who has given so many years to this nation will eventually have his application to stay approved by someone with a brain cell.

The Beeb then progressed from the insane to the desperate. Today, temporary trading laws come into force for the duration of the madness that is the Olympic / Paralympic farce.All shops, including the largest supermarkets, will be allowed to remain open on Sundays for the same hours as during the other 6 days. Small convenience shops are unhappy as they can see their customers drifting away to the larger shops and, no doubt, many of the staff of the larger stores are finding themselves under pressure to give up their Sundays. All of this is in an attempt to maximise the financial benefits of the Olympics though I fail to understand why longer Sunday opening hours will increase takings; surely this will only spread the existing spend over more hours. Of course, visitors here specifically for the Games may benefit, but they're likely to have only so much money which they'll spend, or not, regardless of the Sunday opening hours. The rest of us will just have to grin and bear it.

The last item deemed worthy of inclusion in the BBC's news was the death of the once beautiful actress, Angharad Rees, at the age of only 63. This story doesn't actually make it onto the headlines on teletext (not teletext noe, I know, but what else do you call it ?) and one would have to ask why it should. I well remember being enthralled by her portrayal of the elfin 'Demelza' in the serialisation of Winston Graham's 'Poldark' series on television in the 1970s and I still have videos of the programmes; Angharad was perfectly cast and must have been a fantasy 'love' for many, but she was, in all honesty, a minor actress. Her death at such a young age saddens me greatly and will encourage me to have another look at the great series, but it no more warranted inclusion in the country's main news broadcast than would have the demise of any of our bronze medal winners from 

the 1976 Olympics.

After listening to this broadcast, do I feel enlightened about the world and what's happened in the last few hours ? Are you 'avin' a larff ?! Three items were not even news, Bradley Wiggins, Obama and Norway; the amended Sunday trading laws was a reminder of something decided a long time ago, and the items about Rupert Murdoch and Angharad Rees were too minor to be included in a limited national news broadcast. Only two stories, about the Fijian soldier and trouble in Syria, were worthy of inclusion. What a joke.

NUISANCE CALLERS NEED SHOOTING.

What can we do about the 'cold calling' that plagues us ?

I signed up with the Telephone Preference Service years ago, and still I receive these unwanted nuisance calls. Some, perhaps many these days, are from abroad, often with strongly accented callers claiming to be Sarah, Charlie or some other western name, although they are almost certainly Gita, Gupta or Sanjeev in reality. These calls can't even be barred as they leave no number; we just have to endure them.

Calls from UK numbers can, of course, be barred though this doesn't seem to deter them. The companies involved in ignoring the TPS rules simply use other numbers to annoy us from. If my caller display shows a message such as 'International' or 'number wihheld' I tend to ignore the call; however, if a number is displayed, what to do ? It might be a genuine call which is ignored at my peril, so I usually answer - 'Can I speak to Mr/Mrs *****' comes the cheery voice. 'Why ?' or 'And who are you ?' says I.

The almost inevitable next line involves something which makes clear the caller is marketing something - insulation, PPI reclaims, or whatever. I hang up, or tell them, politely to go away and not bother me again. Do they take any notice ? Of course. So, in the end and in an attempt to make an impression on these most annoying of intruders into my private life, I tell them, loudly, to 'F*** off'. They feign indignation as I close the connection.

At least they know they've really p***ed me off and I bar the number as well, for all the good that seems to do. What I really want is something that can shoot them through the telephone wires - any clever inventors out there ?