ABORTION IS A NASTY BUSINESS.

The result of the Irish referendum on the vexed subject of abortion has been hailed as a great moment though it is, in reality, another step on the march down the road to a universal throw away world.

Abortion is a nasty business, involving the destruction and disposal of a living foetus. It can be painful, both physically and mentally, for the woman concerned and can have long term health implications for her. Given that contraceptive devices and medicaments are available almost every where and that women can obtain these free from their GP and even directly over the counter in many cases, there should be little demand for and yet there is.

In cases of incest or rape, or when to continue a pregnancy might be dangerous to the health of the mother, abortion may well be the right answer; abortion may also be justified when the foetus can be shown to have severe abnormalities, whether physical or genetic. However, I can see no justification for abortion as little more than a means of contraception.

If young men and women cannot control their sexual urges or, at least, be bothered to take advantage of any of the freely available contraceptive devices and medications, then the outcome should be on their own heads. The state pays out considerable sums to make contraceptives available free of charge to women and yet it also pays for these same women to undergo 'abortion on demand' when they are too carefree to be bothered with taking advantage of them. It simply makes no sense.

In Ireland, matters have been driven by adherence to religious strictures and their system has probably been in need of change, although the 'abortion on demand' that will now be available can never be justified. People must surely realise that actions have consequences, that they are responsible for the outcomes of their own actions and must live with those outcomes. Sadly, as long as the 'nanny state' continues to provide safety nets such as freely available abortion, this will not happen and our young people will never grow into responsible adults.

MARK CARNEY - TOO POLITICAL BY HALF.

Given that he's meant to be an apolitical figure, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and a pal of former Chancellor of the Exchequer and arch Europhile Gideon "George" Osborne, seems to be making a lot of politically sensitive comments.

At every opportunity, Carney appears to be spreading the gloomiest possible prognostications about the outcome of Brexit. Ignoring that the Bank's financial forecasts seem to be changed every few weeks, Carney has recently told us all that Brexit has already cost every family in the country £900 and will cost unspecified further sums; added to this, he's also made suggestions that it may lead to the Bank having to create even more 'funny money' and also keeping interest rates at historic lows in order to 'shore up' the economy. Rather more quietly, he has acknowledged that a successful outcome to the Brexit negotiations could be highly beneficial to the economy, although this has not received the same publicity as his other comments and he doesn't seem to have produced any forecasts around such an outcome.

Carney and his ilk have always been opposed to Brexit and are continuing to do whatever they can to sow doubt and even fear in the minds of the people who voted for it. His statements about the economy and the potential effects of Brexit are not in the way of being 'real' but are based on the various forecasts which the Bank and others make on a regular basis; how these organisations distinguish between the potential effects of Brexit, a US - China trade war, problems in the Middle East, the situation between the US and North Korea and many other international issues escapes me. In fact, there are so many matters which could be affecting our economy that to attribute specific outcomes to specific events is nonsensical.

Economic forecasting is fundamentally impossible to get right and the frequent changes to the forecasts issued by the Bank of England, Treasury, IMF, OECD, IFS and many others demonstrates what a waste of time the whole process is. The truth is that economic forecasting is simply a tool used by politicians and their acolytes to promote and support their own policies and points of view; to use an old adage "there are as many economic viewpoints as there are economists".

As Governor of the Bank of England, Carney has every right, even a duty, to communicate his views to the Government but his public pronouncements have been highly political and well beyond anything which any of his predecessors would have considered. It can only be a good thing that he will be leaving his post in June 2019; it's a shame it won't be sooner.

ISRAEL MUST CHANGE ITS WAYS.

The appalling action of the Israeli authorities in ordering troops to fire on unarmed civilians on the opposite side of the border with Gaza, killing more than 50 and wounding many more, has been rightly condemned by the United Nations and many others. Appallingly, the United States has supported the Israeli action although how they can do this is a mystery.

Ever since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, there has been nothing but misery for the Palestinian Arabs who were driven from their homes by the incoming Jewish immigrants. Israel has developed as a strongly right wing, militaristic and jingoistic state which has ignored international law and human rights conventions. At every opportunity, it has expanded its territory and has implemented a form of apartheid against its Arab population; it continues to occupy land gained in the 1967 war with Egypt and, in further opposition to international law, it continues to build new settlements on this land which is, in every legal sense, land that belongs to Arabs.

Israel is a rogue state which justifies every vicious and brutal act by reference to the Holocaust and its supposed 'right to exist'. It is hardly surprising that the Palestinian, and other Arabs, have tried to fight back against invaders who have, in their eyes, stolen their land and now oppress and even murder them. That it has been a shockingly unbalanced fight is apparent from the relative numbers of casualties on the two sides which results from the vast difference between them in terms of available armaments and military training.

It is gratifying that the United Nations and other international organisations have condemned the latest Israeli atrocity but it seems unlikely that Israel will take any notice; while the United States continues to support their every action, Israel is effectively immune to international pressure to med its ways. Nothing will change in the Middle East until the United States changes its positions and the butchers of Israel are brought under control.

TIME FOR 'NO DEAL' TO TAKE CENTRE STAGE.

Today, there is to be yet another attempt to stop Brexit from happening at a gathering presided over by three of yesterday's people.

David Miliband, when he was rejected by the Labour Party in a leadership fight won by his brother, abandoned the UK for a lucrative job in the United States; Nick Clegg was ignominiously rejected by the constituents of his former Sheffield constituency and Nicky Morgan, after a less than sparkling ministerial career, was sacked from her role as Education Secretary by Theresa May.

This unholy trinity are all ardent 'remainers, determined to try to stop the UK from ever leaving the European Union in any meaningful way. They want the UK to stay within the, or some form of, customs' union and also the single market, an approach which would see the UK be subservient to the EU while having no voice at all over its decision making. In effect, it would prevent Brexit from happening and the UK's position vis-à-vis the rest of the world would be even worse than it is now.

The only reasons that this bunch of losers has any audience are that the broadcast media largely opposes Brexit and that the UK's government has yet to state its own position on the future trade relationship with the EU. While various alternatives have been touted, there has been no agreement within the Cabinet and the EU has basically rejected every suggestion out of hand; they continually refer to the Irish border and, more recently, Gibraltar, as 'problems which must be resolved. Indeed, on the question of Gibraltar, it seems that the Spanish government has been given an effective veto over whatever the UK puts forward unless there is an agreement to substantially increase Spanish influence and control over that enclave.

The EU needs a deal every bit, possibly more, than does the UK. It is long passed time that the UK government took the bull by the horns and told the EU that enough is enough. As has been said many times by all and sundry, 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed' and the EU is desperate for our money, not to mention our continuing trade. If the EU continues to be unwilling to accept what the UK proposes and continues to do all that it can to put obstacles in the way of a sensible agreement, then the UK has only one option left.

'No deal is better than a bad deal', so NO DEAL it must be, whatever Miliband, Clegg and Morgan might say.

EUROVISION SONG MAYHEM - CHICKENS WIN.

It seems that the Eurovision song contest produced its usual load of tripe last night with the added thrill of a nutter managing to get on to the stage to grab the microphone from the UK's contestant. How exciting !

This annual joke was won by an entry which apparently involved the singer and her dancers waving their arms around rather like chickens trying to escape from their battery; no longer does the song matter, it's all about the 'show'. Thankfully, I doubt that the winning entry will ever be heard of again except on the more puerile radio channels and on television programmes re-running absurd moments of supposed entertainment.

As for the UK's entry, it came 24th out of the 26 entries. I've never heard of the singer and I doubt that many others over the age of 25 have, but it appeared to be the usual screaming effort of modern British pop. It would be sad if the whole thing wasn't so pathetic.

THERESA MAY PORTRAIT VANDALISED

It's reported that a portrait of Theresa May displayed at Oxford University had been removed from show due to its having been defaced by a variety of graffiti. Presumably, left wing students have objected to the presence of a picture of a right wing Prime Minister.

The university authorities have claimed that the portrait has been taken down to protect it from protests by students and was "absolutely not done to make a political point". However, it seems clear that a political point has been successfully made by the left wing bigoted students whose vandalism has not only been tolerated but has been kow-towed to by the university. 

Rather than removing the portrait, why has the university not taken a stand against this kind of political censorship ? It seems that our universities, which used to be places of learning, discussion and for the sharing of all points of view, are now institutions in which the students determine what is, and is not, acceptable. Speakers are prevented from speaking, lectures are bowdlerised to prevent 'offence' being caused and unpopular views are banned; statues are removed and now portraits too, all to pander to a relatively small number of ultra-left wing yobs.

In any sane world those responsible for the vandalism of Theresa May's portrait would be sought out and punished. All speakers, however unpopular their views, would be welcomed and history, however much it 'offends' modern sensibilities, would be embraced, discussed and learnt from. Sadly, it seems that we do not live in a sane world but in one dominated by a loud-mouthed bunch of bigoted hypocrites who refuse to accept any views but their own.

Oxford University, once one of the finest in the world, should be ashamed of itself.

TAX THE OAPs TO HELP THE KIDS - REALLY ?

David Willetts used to be touted as the brains of the Conservative Party though now he appears to be closer to the Jeremy Corbyn view of the world than to anything remotely right wing.

Having been given a peerage for services rendered, Lord Willetts is now chairman of something called the 'Resolution Foundation', one of the myriad of leftish think tanks that trot out daft ideas with alarming frequency. Today, this foundation has published its thoughts about the supposed 'intergenerational contract' between the young and old and has come up with some pretty crazy suggestions.

Primarily, it wants 'the young' to be given £10,000 each, presumably out of the public purse, and, to pay for this as well as providing more funds for the NHS and maintaining 'social cohesion' it wants pensioners, presumably those supposedly rich ones who have houses, cars and yachts stashed away everywhere,  to pay more tax. If this isn't a Corbynite approach, I don't know what is.

That there are financial disparities in our society seems undeniable but is this really the way to solve them ? When I was in my youth, I was encouraged to save at least some of my money rather than wasting it all on whatever the fashion of the day was; I had a paper round for over 4 years and then a 'Saturday job' at a local shop. I didn't insist on a 'gap year' to go wandering around the world spending every last halfpenny that I could scrape up and, when I left university, I found a job. In passing, I didn't get more than a pittance of a grant for my time at university as I undertook a sandwich course, working for 5 months during the period from April to September for my first 3 years of study.

No one gave me £10,000, or its 1970s equivalent, and I lived with my parents until I'd saved enough for a deposit on a flat. I paid my way throughout, even having given my mother a portion of my original earnings as a paper boy and I never found myself in debt. I paid my taxes like a good little soldier and made National Insurance and pension contributions and, now that I'm retired, I still pay my taxes on the pension that I saved for; when I die, I have little doubt that the state will take as much as it can from what I've saved over the years. If any government says I should pay still more tax, I'd seriously consider emigrating.

Today's younger generation, sadly for them, seem to have little financial sense and saving seems to be a concept too far. Satisfying their every whim and desire appears to be their main aim in life with possession of the latest electronic gadgets and designer clothes and round the world trips higher on their agendas than thinking about their futures. Finding a job seems to be of little concern to many until they reach their mid-20s and saving for a pension doesn't even register with those who deem owning the newest I-Phone of more importance. Of course, those who attend university, often to undertake courses of little value to themselves or anyone else, complain about the mountain of student debt that it incurs, but rarely mention that this isn't debt in the normal sense of the word. This is a magical debt that only crystallises if their later earnings reach a minimum figure, otherwise it is simply written off. 

It is true that house prices have risen faster than in the past and that buying one's own home may now be more difficult in some ways but it's also true that today's younger generation do not have the usurious interest rates to cope with that were commonplace in the 1970s through to the 1990s; no 15% interest for them today and loads of government assistance on offer too. The real problem is nothing to do with pensioners not paying enough tax, it's that the young are financially illiterate; they are impatient, wanting everything to be handed to them on a plate while making little effort themselves. This 'I want to all and now' generation needs to be told a few home truths.

They have been molly-coddled for far too long. kept in school, college or university for so long that they remain children into the mid-20s. They never experience real responsibility and are incapable of dealing with it when it comes along. Giving them £10,000 each, as proposed by the Resolution Foundation would be to simply give them another pot of cash to squander on useless frippery. Taxing pensioners more to pay for such largesse would simply reduce the ability of parents and grandparents to provide better and more targeted help to their children and grandchildren. 

If there is any intergenerational unfairness, it is more about what I didn't have and what the youngsters today see as essential. Today's spoilt children, teenagers and even 20-somethings have no concept of how lucky they are compared with the generation that grew up during the 1950s and 1960s; things that are taken for granted today were often not available to us. From kitchen appliances to televisions and DVDs, not to mention laptops, I-Pads, and mobile 'phones; cars were a rarity and waiting for the bus, or walking, was the norm. Going on holiday meant a week in a boarding house in Southend, Blackpool, Margate or some other English resort, rather than a world tour. No central heating and ice on the INSIDES of the windows; no one delivering your weekly shopping because you couldn't be bothered to go to the shops yourself and much more. Oh, how I pity today's youngsters with all their problems, hard lives and insecurities !

Lord Willetts may once have been nick-named 'Two Brains' but it seems that neither is currently working.

WEALDSTONE IS NOT THE PLACE I KNEW.

The latest reports of extreme violence on our streets over the weekend include a shooting in Southwark, 2 shootings in Wealdstone and another in Lewisham. The Southwark victim died although the others seem to have survived, so far at least. However, one does wonder just what is going on.

I don't know much about Southwark or Lewisham other than that they are south London boroughs; Wealdstone, on the other hand, was very familiar to me as a child. This was the local shopping area, mostly concentrated in one long street, and where my mother did her everyday shopping. It had an array of shops including an old fashioned Sainsbury's, Boots, Timothy White's and the Co-op, as well as clothes outlets, a toy shop, barbers, newsagents and lots more. It was a peaceful neighbourhood on the outskirts of the main shopping centre of Harrow. It was home to the famous Whitefriars glass factory and to a large Kodak site. 

As soon as I was old enough, probably around 9 or 10, I was sometimes sent to buy a few bits and pieces, walking the 1½ mile long round trip on my own and with no thought of there being any danger. The only reason that Wealdstone had ever made it into the national news was because of a terrible railway crash there in 1952; 112 people died and hundreds more were injured when 3 trains collided in what remains one of the worst rail disasters ever in this country.

The last time that I visited the area, I hardly recognised it. Inevitably, road lay-outs had undergone some changes which were confusing at first but the most noticeable thing was that the small town was not remotely as I had known it. Whitefriars and Kodak had long gone but also gone were the old traditional British shops and gone were the faces that I recognised. Instead of being a white working class area, it was now populated almost entirely by immigrants; the character of the area had changed out of all recognition. Now we read that it has changed in other ways too, with 2 young boys, aged 13 and 15, being shot there.

The passage of time brings changes but this is too much. Over the last 50 years we have seen parts of our country change so dramatically as to be unrecognisable while drug dealing, knife and gun crime seem to have become endemic in some areas. Harrow and its environs used to be a better than average location, having its famous school at the top of the hill but, apart from the continuing presence of the school, it is no more. I no longer wish to go there even though the first 35 years of my life were spent there and I have many fond memories of those years.

In a way, my past has been taken from me and replaced with something with which I have nothing in common. Some call this 'progress' but can an outbreak of muggings, knifings and shootings really be called 'progress' ? In my book, it's a step back to the dark ages and, however unpopular his views may still be, Enoch Powell was right.

CRISIS IN MASCULINITY ? WHAT TWADDLE !

The BBC makes a programme which it calls "The Big Questions" in which presenter Nicky Campbell acts as the facilitator for a group of presumably specially selected panellists. Today's edition posed a pretty ridiculous, not to say pretentious, question "Is there a crisis in masculinity ?"

This is not a programme that I usually watch but today I decided to give it a go - big mistake. The studio panel seemed to be comprised of, on the one hand, people who don't like either being men or simply don't like men, and on the other by men who had either little to contribute or had some pretty weird and extreme views. There didn't seem to be a normal man amongst the lot of them,, barring one who did actually say that he couldn't really understand the twaddle that was being discussed.

I gave up watching this rubbish after 30 minutes or so and I won't be wasting my time in this way again. However, for what it's worth and in case Mr Campbell is still trying to answer his own  question, there is no crisis in masculinity. What there is, is a media obsession with sexuality, 'equality' and the terrible way that men have supposedly treated women over the ages. This garbage has, of course, been hyped up by a mixture of left wing feminist, lesbians and man-haters, with assorted homosexuals and others who claim to have 'gender issues' or problems with 'identification', jumping on the bandwagon.

For some reason that I fail to comprehend, our political representatives have fallen in line with this nonsense and we now all have to fall over backwards to pretend that men and women are 'equal', whatever that may mean, that homosexuality is a 'normal' activity and it's perfectly reasonable for people to 'identify' with a gender other than that with which they were born. The misdeeds of a very few men of dubious character, such as Harvey Weinstein, have been used to justify branding all men as rapists, paedophiles and worse, with the result that men are now more oppressed than women have ever been. Men are now routinely discriminated against and have to think very carefully before making any remark, or carrying out any action, to which 1 women in a thousand may object. The world has gone mad, with fact and truth replaced by a type of Orwellian approach which imposes a perverted form of language and logic on us.

Today's programme did nothing to identify any supposed crisis in masculinity although it did expose the highly confused views of at least several of the panellists. For the vast majority of people, men are men and women are women; they get on with their lives much as men and women have done for many years without suffering any crises of identity. The only people who are in crisis are the man-haters who simply can't come to terms with the facts of the real world of ordinary men and women.

Why the BBC gives a voice to these messed up loonies and wastes our money on such appalling programmes is the real 'Big Question'.

LOCAL ELECTION DISAPPOINTMENT FOR LABOUR

Despite the considerable hype which was drummed up over the Labour Party's expectations in the latest round of local council elections, they've ended up pretty much where they were before.

While elements of the media, notably the BBC, have been playing down the disappointing Labour results and making out that the Conservative's improved position is no more than was expected, the truth is that Labour have done pretty poorly and the Conservatives rather better than would have been expected given the arguments over Brexit, Windrush, general immigration, the NHS and lots more.

There seems to be little doubt that the 'Corbyn effect' has passed it's high point and the combination of a shift towards the extreme left and the recent anti-Semitism debacle have caused voters to have second thoughts about voting for Labour. At the same time, Theresa May seems to have overcome all manner of difficulties over the last year and given voters greater confidence in the Conservative Party and its future direction.

Inevitably, the spokesmen for all parties are claiming positives from the results but, in reality, Labour have disappointed, the Conservatives have shown considerable resilience and even some progress, the Liberal Democrats remain largely in the wilderness, the Greens are pretty irrelevant in most of the country and UKIP have almost ceased to be relevant at all. 

In the end, a lot of fuss about very little.

LORDS DEFY THE PEOPLE AGAIN.

The unelected House of Lords, a place populated by a mish-mash of former MPs, others appointed for their supposed expertise in an assortment of areas, and a bunch of Church of England bishops has had another go at thwarting the will of the people as expressed in the 2016 referendum.

Last night, the Lords voted for an amendment to  a government bill which would effectively hamstring the government in its negotiations over Brexit. The amendment requires that, should Parliament reject the final agreement reached between the government and EU, it would have the power to tell the Prime Minister to return to Brussels for further negotiations. This, of course, would also hand all over the negotiating strength to the EU.

In common with the House of Commons, the House of Lords has an inherent majority in favour of the UK remaining in the European Union and its members are also in the happy, for them, position of not having to worry about the potential for losing their seat at the next general election. They are, therefore, free to make as much mischief as they like. Consequently, we have had this, and other votes, designed to prevent Brexit from happening. The demand that the UK remains in the Customs' Union after Brexit is nothing less than a demand that it stays in the EU in all but name, while having no say in the EU's decision making processes. This new demand, if accepted by the House of Commons, would allow the EU to make all manner of demands on the UK regardless of whether or not they were acceptable to the UK, knowing that a 'no deal' scenario had been ruled out and that the UK would ultimately be forced to accept whatever was put forward or to enter into a period of stalemate in which the UK would be effectively bound to the EU while being legally outside of it.

Frankly, the Lords need to be put down. This unelected, arrogant and supercilious bunch of liberal minded establishment know-it-alls have no business standing in the way of the decision of the people. The people voted to leave the EU, customs' union, single market and all of the EU's other bureaucratic nonsense. This is what the people want and this is what they should get; it is for the government to negotiate the best deal it can with regard to the future arrangements between the UK and EU but it is not for the Lords, or anyone else, to keep inventing new ways of trying to reverse the referendum decision.

If these remoaners triumph, it will be a signal that elections and referendums are an irrelevance in this country, Our masters, who consider themselves to know what is best for the rest of we poor idiots, will have shown that they care not for what the people vote but only for the power that elections give them. Should a true Brexit be thwarted by these people, I will never vote for any mainstream party again - what would be the point ?