STEVE SMITH; STILL CHEATING.

A few days ago, Steve Smith, now the former captain of the Australian cricket team, appeared in front of the cameras to make light of his team's ball tampering. Smith then seemed to believe that it was a pretty minor matter and insisted that he would simply 'learn' from the 'mistake' and carry on as team member and captain.

Today, having discovered that blatant cheating is considered rather more seriously by the Australian cricketing authorities, Smith has again appeared before the media but his demeanour this time was somewhat different. Apologetic and contrite, he developed a nasty case of crocodile tears as he talked of his sins.

How utterly false and nauseating. Having been found out and condemned, Smith now seeks to engender pity; for a man who is as hard as nails, this simply doesn't wash. The actions that he initiated and supervised were premediated and calculated yet now he wants us to accept that it was really just a terrible single mistake. 

Poppycock. A mistake it wasn't and whether it was a single occurrence is seriously open to question. The man is a cheat of the worst kind and his behaviour today was nothing more than an attempt to cheat watchers again. Do not be fooled by the phoney tears.

IS JEREMY CORBYN FOR REAL ?

Is Jeremy Corbyn's past finally beginning to catch up with him ?

As a Marxist, Corbyn has little real connection to the modern British Labour Party and has few friends of real influence in the upper echelons of the party; his power comes from the grass roots membership which seems to be of a similar extremist nature as is he, while the bulk of his fellow parliamentarians are either opposed or else so hungry for power that they'll agree to anything to achieve it.

Today, Corbyn has issued an apology for things anti-Semitic, suggesting that this is confined to his party while omitting to mention that it involves his own behaviour as well. Last week, Corbyn sacked a man who had stood against him for the party's leadership, Owen Smith, on rather flimsy grounds. Over the last few months, various others who have been perceived to be anti-Corbynite have also been removed from posts within the party and it's been suggested that anyone who doesn't tow the party line should be deselected as MPs. There appear to be clear moves afoot to remove anyone who isn't a Corbyn supporter.

This is behaviour typical of a Marxist state. The leadership simply removes its opposition by any available means. It changes the rules of elections and makes it difficult for any opposition to mobilise itself. It diverts, prevaricates and muddies the waters so as to make it difficult for the few remaining opponents to get a firm grip on anything concrete to use as a basis for voicing their concerns. As is happening today in our universities, views which are disapproved of are not allowed to be voiced.

Corbyn is a Marxist and it seems that he doesn't like Jews. He wants to turn the United Kingdom into a Marxist dictatorship with all of the attributes of Stalinist Russia. If he, or anyone like him, ever becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom it would be disastrous, not just for the supposedly 'better off' but for the whole population. Corbyn lives in a weird notion of a Utopian world that never has, and never will, exist because it will always end up with a Stalin at its head. 

Of course, if that's what you want, Vote Corbyn; otherwise, vote anyone else, literally ANYONE ELSE. You probably have until 2022 to decide which world is best for your children.

AUSTRALIAN CHEATS CAUGHT - THIS TIME.

In the sport of cricket, 'ball tampering' is not only against the rules, it's the height of unsporting behaviour and cheating. Shockingly, the Australians have admitted that they have been guilty of this in the course of the current test match against South Africa.

It seems that  a group of leading players, including the captain, Steve Smith, got together during a lunch interval and decided to engage in this heinous activity. Unfortunately for them, the actions of the main perpetrator, Cameron Bancroft, were caught on film and the plot was revealed.

Bancroft has owned up, has been charged with misconduct and will undoubtedly suffer for his actions. However, Captain Smith, while admitting to the scheme has insisted that he will not resign his role and there seems to be no action proposed against him at the present time. How can this be ?

Smith is one of the world's greatest batsmen and has proved himself to be a fine captain, until now. As an admitted cheat surely, the Australian cricketing authorities must nonetheless remove him from his post with immediate effect, and also remove him from the team regardless of his prowess with the bat. To do anything less will be for them to condone cheating and to render every Australian player and every Australian performance suspect.

As an afterthought, how can we be sure that such cheating did not also occur during the recent Ashes series in which the Australians defeated England 4 - 0 ? 

Once a cheat, always a cheat !

postscript :

It seems that the world of cricket, and politics, has realised that this appalling behaviour has to be dealt with. Smith has been relieved of the captaincy and David Warner of the vice-captaincy, temporarily for now but surely for good once things are settled. To his credit, the Australian Prime Minister has made a fairly believable appearance as a man who finds it all very embarrassing for his country. Smith has been banned for one match by the ICC and will undoubtedly find that he has lost the captaincy and, quite possibly, his place in the team for, at least, a few games more than that. Additionally, the situation of the national coach, Darren Lehmann, is surely 'dead in the water'.

Pundits, commentators, reporters and all of the rest seem to be of one mind - this can't be allowed and the guilty must pay. Let's see if politics, of all sorts, allows that to happen.

RUSSIA MUST BE FULLY OSTRACISED.

Russia's response to British actions over the attempted murders of Sergei Skripal and his daughter shows just how pathetic actions are.

Having determined that the only realistic source of the nerve agent used in Salisbury was from a Russian government agency, Theresa May announced that the UK would expel 23 Russian diplomats. Today, Russia has responded to this by expelling 23 British diplomats, closing the UK's consulate in St Petersburg and ending the activities of the British Council in Russia. It seems probable that the UK will now announce further measures which will be equally useless.

Russia today is much the same as it was as the old Soviet Union. It is an effective one party dictatorship, run by a cabal of extremely ruthless autocrats and remains largely immune to diplomatic sanctions. Despite its endemic cheating in sporting events, it has been allowed to host both the summer and winter Olympic Games and will host the FIFA football world cup later this year. It's super-rich oligarchs are allowed to invest in British football teams and to buy some of the most expensive property in the UK. Their vast hordes of stolen cash have been allowed to flow through the London money market as well as other major financial centres and, effectively, they have been permitted to do whatever they like, wherever they like.

In the last few days, the UK has received strong messages of support from the USA, Germany and France but it is surely time for more than words and symbolic gestures. It is time for real action which will hit Russia where it hurts, that is, in its pocket and its pride.

All members of the civilised western world should boycott the football world cup and Russia, and all of its citizens, should be banned from all international sporting and cultural events; Russians travelling to other countries should be subject to the most stringent immigration checks and all Russian money and assets held in western countries should be frozen until their owners can prove that they have been acquired from entirely legitimate sources and activities. Travel to Russia and all trading with Russian companies should be subject to the most stringent controls. 

Russia is a rogue state run by people who have no interest in democracy or the rule of law. It is a part of the world which has now shown itself to be wholly "beyond the pale" and should suffer international ostracism for its sins.

CORBYN REVEALS TRUE SELF.

So now we all know just where Jeremy Corbyn's loyalties lie.

Rather than support the UK government over the little matter of the use of a deadly nerve poison on the streets of a British town, Corbyn seems far more interested in supporting his tyrannical mates in Moscow and trying to make cheap political points. His sickening failure to stand up for his country, as well as his shocking performance in the House of Commons, has even caused many of his fellow Labour MPs to sit up and take notice, with several making it clear that they find his actions over this important issue insupportable.

Corbyn cares nothing for his country, only for his extreme political views and ambitions and the power that he hopes to gain over all of us. Please God he never gets the chance to put his policies into action.

SERGEI SKRIPAL : MORE RUSSIAN DIRTY WORK ?

Theresa May has told the UK parliament that she and her government are now almost certain that the Russian authorities are behind the appalling murder attempt in Salisbury last, when Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an extremely rare nerve agent.

Mr Skripal is a former spy who became a double agent, working for British intelligence against his Russian employers. His duplicity was discovered and he was arrested, tried and imprisoned by the Russians before being released under the terms of a 'spy swap' program in 2010. Since then, he has lived in Britain and has seen his wife die from a disseminated cancer in 2012, his brother die a couple of years ago and his son die from unknown causes while in Russia in 2017. Skripal and his daughter were seemingly poisoned with a highly toxic nerve agent, probably while enjoying a meal at a restaurant in Salisbury. 

Few laboratories in the world can possibly have manufactured the poison in question and it's known that the Russians not only have the capability but also invented it. The evidence points strongly, almost overwhelmingly, towards them as being the guilty party. All that remains is to find conclusive proof that the Russian authorities knew about the attempted assassination.

In November 2006 the Russians murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London by administering a dose of the radioactive element Polonium. Russia has also been implicated in other suspicious deaths including that of Boris Berezovsky who was found hanged in 2013. Now they are heavily implicated in the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and the British authorities have been looking afresh at the deaths of Sergei's wife and son to determine whether there are any grounds for suspecting that either of these was suspicious.

Despite all of this, Russia seems largely untouchable. Mrs May has talked of taking action against them but it is likely that this will be no more than a few expulsions of diplomats which will be answered by the Russians with expulsions of their own. What will not be affected will be Russia's participation in assorted global events, notably the football world cup and Olympic Games. While they provide support for the vicious government in Syria, invade Crimea and threaten Ukraine as well as sponsoring murders on the streets of Britain and no doubt elsewhere, our sporting authorities will happily ignore their actions. The world cup in Russia will proceed as though nothing has happened and Russia has already been welcomed back into the Olympic fold despite its history of state sponsored cheating.

What is wrong with us ? What is wrong with our sportsmen and women ? Surely to ignore the actions of this rogue state is to condone them and I, for one, find it shocking. Russia should be exiled to the outer reaches until it learns to behave like a civilised nation and any suggestion that we carry on sporting contacts as if nothing has happened should be condemned utterly.

BIG BUSINESS BEATS BIG GOVERNMENT

On the subject of Brexit (yawn !!) it occurs to me that those who favour staying in, or not leaving, the European Union are mainly those who love central state control of our lives but hate big private corporations, while the opposite is the case for those who want us to get out of the EU as soon as possible.

Politicians of the left and others who have a vested interest in maintaining their own highly privileged careers and lifestyles love 'big government'. They see themselves as being somehow above the common man (or woman, to be politically correct) and love the complication and confusion created by the existence of huge volumes of rules and regulations; in such a situation, they have control as most people have little idea about what is going on. At the same time, these arch control freaks hate 'big business' because they find it difficult to control; they surround it with vast tomes of regulations and see it as little more than a cash cow, to be milked for all it's worth.

Conversely, those on the right of politics and others who believe in individual freedom love 'big business' but hate 'big government'. They see 'big business' as being the engine which drives the economy while 'big government' is a monster which simply gets in everyone's way and serves to stifle investment and innovation. 

Actually, both arguments have a degree of merit, though, in my view, the approach of the right is far more meritorious than that of the left. 'Big government' is undoubtedly bad as it creates a client state in which individuals rely on it rather than themselves to deal with life's problems; it leads to higher taxes and more government expenditure, much of which is wasteful and inefficient. At the same time, 'big business' needs a degree of control to ensure that it does not simply exploit the population and that it does conform to societal norms on issues such as the fair treatment of its workforce and product standards. However, the left ignores the simple fact that there does not have to be 'big government' in order to exert the necessary control over 'big business'.

Sadly, these opposing views are largely irreconcilable. The European Union is fundamentally left wing and protectionist, has a vast unaccountable bureaucracy and is autocratic in its outlook; it operates more like Soviet Russia than anything else, paying lip service to democracy while issuing diktats to its members. Regarding Brexit, its representatives continue to issue thinly veiled threats and ultimatums to the UK from their ivory towers, and bleat on about the need for the UK to obey its rules and regulations for ever and a day. The EU is the ultimate in 'big government' and is at war with those from 'big business' whom it considers to be failing to pay enough tax or obey its rules; at the same time, the EU pays its officials large TAX FREE salaries and expenses. Hypocrisy or what ?

Finally ridding ourselves of this monstrous organ of state control will enable the UK government to be more democratic, more innovative, more outward looking and less bothered about the minutiae of daily life than is the EU. It can only be good that we leave as soon as possible, regardless of what the doom mongers have to say about it.

VINCE CABLE - ARROGANT AND OFFENSIVE.

Vince Cable is not only a bitter old man whose time has passed, he's also an arrogant and offensive one.

At the Spring Conference f his much-diminished party, the Liberal Democrats, Cable characterised those who voted to leave the European Union as being "driven by nostalgia", presumably meaning rather that than any good sense.

He is reported to have said that many older people voted to leave the EU because they longed for a world in which "passports were blue, faces were white and the map was coloured imperial pink". His comments were apparently his own logical conclusion to the fact that while many older people voted to leave, many younger ones voted to remain.

Cable gives no credit to older people for their greater experience, but characterises them as simply living in the past. He accepts the views of younger people, filled with enthusiasm and optimism but lacking experience and any real understanding. In truth, he's an old man pandering to the young in the hopes of gaining their support for him and his causes.

I can't say why others voted to leave the EU, though I doubt very much that the colour of passports or maps had much to do with it. Undoubtedly, the vast influx of immigrants did have some bearing with some people but the principle reason why I voted to leave was to get away from the overbearing, bureaucratic, anti-democratic, unaccountable sink of corruption that is the European Union. Cable, of course, loves all these characteristics, being a life-long, left wing academic and politician for whom the will of the people is no more than a passing whim to be ignored whenever it doesn't accord with his own exalted point of view

Cable's words yesterday are rude and offensive, dismissing as they do a large proportion of the population as being jingoistic and racist. He is a man driven by a desire to achieve his own ends at any cost and he clearly believes himself to be far superior to the rest of us in terms of understanding, knowledge and intellect. How he can believe this when he is nothing more than the leader of the rag-bag remains of a once great political party escapes me.

However clever he may think he is, he's actually nothing more than a nasty old man whose principle aim is, and always has been, to feather his own nest, with little thought for anyone else. Surely it's time for him to stop annoying, and offending, us with his particular brand of Euro-drivel.

FAT IS FAT, IN ANYONE'S LANGUAGE.

There are times when I truly believe that I'm living in some sort of lunatic asylum.

Yesterday's 'Daily Telegraph' carried a report about a school in Milton Keynes, the head teacher of which wrote to parents about the health of their children. He is reported to have said "Our children, overall, are fatter and more obese than other children in Milton Keynes". He went on to urge children to walk to school, adding "They could really do with a lot more exercise".

I suppose it is not surprising that, in our crazy world, the head's words have caused an outcry. He has been accused of 'fat-shaming', a term entirely new to me, with one parent apparently saying "It is simply not acceptable for the head to 'fat-shame' our children, especially when this is supposed to be a Christian school". What Christianity has to do with being fat escapes me, but the head did write again apologising if his use of the word 'fatter' had caused offense, before going on to explain his position. 

In support of his views, the head, a Dr Humphreys, explained that while on entry to the school, at age 4, some 15% of children at the school were deemed to be overweight or obese (as measured by their BMI), by the age of 11 this proportion had risen to 43%, 9% higher than the national average and something which caused the head to be concerned; for me, that the national average shows a third of children to be overweight or obese at the age of 11 is, itself, terrifying. 

Shockingly this kerfuffle has been commented on by a Denise Hatton, chief executive of the YMCA and founder of something called the 'Be Real Campaign'. Ms Hatton has criticised the head's choice of words and gone on to say that where language is used incorrectly it can have a devastating effect. She added "The comments made by Dr Humphreys are not helpful especially when delivered from a trusted adult. We have to ensure that schools are a place for young people to feel confident in their bodies, not shamed into losing weight".

Now I may be old fashioned but I've never read such utter drivel as voiced by Ms Hatton, nor seen such a perversion of reality. Whether children are overweight or obese is largely a matter of fact and not opinion. For anyone to suggest that Dr Humphreys' words were 'unhelpful' or his language 'incorrect' is astonishing; all he did was to tell the unvarnished truth, something of which we hear far too little in these days of insane political correctness. Far from the nonsense voiced by Ms Hatton, both schools and parents have an absolute duty to ensure that their children are fit and healthy, not fat and unhealthy because of some ludicrous notions that they have to be protected from ever being told the truth about themselves.

I find it absolutely incredible that Dr Humphreys is being pilloried for trying to encourage better care for his children, that parents have been 'offended' and that someone in charge of the YMCA should spout such rubbish in support of his opponents. What on earth has happened to basic common sense, not to mention an understanding of the real world in which at least some of us still live ?

MY CALORIES ARE MY OWN BUSINESS !

I am increasingly concerned by the way in which our supposedly 'free' society is being told what to do.

Over the years, the 'health fanatics' have managed to get smoking, and smokers, not just vilified but banned from many arenas. No longer are cigarette manufacturers allowed to advertise even their names, let alone their products. Today, many of the same do-gooders are working to ban the use of e-cigarettes, the relatively harmless replacement for the real thing on all manner of spurious grounds.

Fair enough, smoking is a proven killer and it may not be such a bad thing to take steps to reduce its impact on society, but those who were so active in the campaign to have it banned have now turned their attention to many other areas of our lives. These health fascists, who believe that they know best how the rest of us should be living our lives, want to stop us drinking alcohol, eating sugary foods, eating 'too much' meat, and now even things like the size of a pizza are under attack.

It is reported today that Public Health England, a ludicrously named government agency which prides itself on 'protecting' the nation's health, is said to be 'targeting'  pizzas, ready meals processed meat and takeaways in what is referred to as a 'new obesity drive'. This is, apparently, part of an initiative aimed at cutting the average calorie intake of individuals by 20% by 2024. For me this is dieting by government diktat and akin to the behaviour of a totalitarian state.

I don't deny that there are many obese people in our country today nor that being obese is a potential health risk, but I fail to see what our individual lifestyles, which do not affect others, have to do with government. If people are happy with eating 'junk food' all day, every day, fine; if some want to drink more than the government recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol each week, good for them. It is not the business of government to dictate what we each do in our private lives - next they will be telling us how many times we should have sex each week and in what positions !

That some people have problems of alcohol consumption or being overweight is undeniable, but the way to tackle such things is by education in the first place and by penalties in the second, not by imposing restrictions on the lives of the entire population. If people have been provided with the appropriate information and choose to ignore it, that is their look out; if they subsequently suffer health problems because of their lifestyle, they should bear the costs of putting things right, not society as a whole. At the same time, if I want to munch on a huge, sugary chocolate bar or a giant pizza, I should not be penalised either by price or by finding that my heart's desire has been withdrawn form sale because it did not meet government guidelines.

Minimum pricing on alcohol, sugar taxes, smaller but no less costly chocolate bars and sweets, smaller pizzas, bans on this, that and everything; is this the way for a 'free' society to live ? The nannies who always 'know best', like Public Health England and the Chief Medical Officer, Sally Davies (whose medical background is in the very limited area of blood disorders) must not be allowed to turn our country into one in which we all live the lives they tell us to rather than living our own and taking responsibility for ourselves.

The people rose up in huge numbers to tell the establishment what we thought about the European Union. Perhaps it is now time to do the same about this creeping intrusion into our everyday lives as well.

TIME FOR MAY TO STAND UP TO EU BULLIES.

It's reported that Donald Tusk, one of the bureaucratic 'big-wigs' in the European Union. has said that Theresa May needs to offer an alternative solution to the issue of the Northern Ireland border if she doesn't like the suggestion made by the EU. That solution is, of course, the effective annexation of Northern Ireland by the EU and has been roundly rejected by Mrs May.

There can be little doubt that the EU is deliberately being as difficult and obstructive as it can be. Its representatives must know that its proposal regarding the Irish border is utterly unacceptable to any government of the United Kingdom and, therefore, it's obviously nothing more than another attempt to cause the appearance of an intransigent Britain refusing to negotiate positively. 

What occurs to me is that there have been no realistic proposals of any sort on any issue from the European Union. They have consistently demanded that the UK has to make all of the running; they demand that, as it is the UK which is leaving the EU, it is for the UK to say what relationship it wants in the future. In truth, it is for both sides to offer possible ways forward, the UK having made it clear that it wants a positive and constructive future relationship.

Regarding the Northern Ireland border, the UK has made it abundantly clear that it does not want the current arrangements to change to any significant degree. However, the EU, with the Irish Prime Minister egging it along, has done nothing to assist in the achievement of this aim but has, instead, done everything it can to make the issue seem to be insoluble. Given that it is the EU which sees this border as being a problem, surely it is for the EU to make constructive proposals about how to solve it rather than trying to use it as a weapon against the UK.

Nothing demonstrates quite so clearly the appallingly bureaucratic mind-set of the EU's leadership than this issue. They are so hidebound by their voluminous rules, regulations and inward-looking protectionist policies that they can no longer see beyond the ends of their collective noses. They seem more than happy, in their cosy little bubble, to believe that they hold all of the cards in the Brexit pack. How wrong they are.

If Messrs Tusk, Barnier, Juncker and the rest keep pushing for the impossible the likelihood is that the UK will simply walk away. If that happens, all hell will break loose, not just in the UK but even more so amongst German, French and Italian carmakers, French, Spanish, Italian and German winemakers, French cheesemakers and many more. European exporters will suddenly find themselves faced with tariffs which make their products far less attractive and, with exports to the UK far outweighing imports from the UK, the EU will be the big loser.

All it needs is for Theresa May to stand up to these bullies and tell them how it is.