RULE BRITANNIA !!

Boris Johnson is absolutely right when he says that the British should stop being embarrassed about our past. The truth is that we should actually embrace it and laud it, for if it was not for the British much of the world would still be largely uninhabited jungle and the majority of its people would still be heathens, savages, headhunters and cannibals.

Perhaps that's a bit extreme, but then the constant stream of anti-British vitriol which has been spewing from the media and assorted left wing sources in recent times demands a response. Did the British take Christianity and education to much of the world ? Certainly. Was it the British, admittedly along with others, who 'discovered' the Americas, Africa and Australasia and introduced the inhabitants of these lands to new ways that have led to vastly improved lives ? Of course. 

I do not say that this has been achieved without some negatives along the way. There was the slave trade, near annihilation of indigenous peoples, brutality, war and much more, but this is all part of the same historical story. Without the negatives there would have been no positives. Should modern sensitivities now preclude celebration of our nation's past, as those who have tried to remove much loved items from the "Last Night of The Proms" would wish ? 

History cannot and must not be rewritten; that way is the way of the dictatorships of countries such as the Soviet Union and China, not to mention NAZI Germany. Tearing down statues and changing the names of buildings and streets because some 'take offence', is itself, offensive. Cecil Rhodes may not have been a very nice man, to some modern eyes, but his vast wealth has been used to achieve great good. Do those who want his statue removed from Oriel College in Oxford also propose returning the legacy that he left ?

Our nation's history is a chequered one, with both highs and lows, good and bad, but it is our history and, warts and all, it should be celebrated as such. There may be lessons to learn and explanations to be offered but to attempt to ban elements of it or to limit discussion to one narrow point of view cannot be allowed. Yes, we must admit that it was not all perfect, far from it in fact, but neither was it all bad. 

Remember the bad and learn from it, but celebrate the good, loudly and from the roof tops. Britain is a "Land of Hope and Glory", Jerusalem has been built in "England's Green and Pleasant Land" and Britons certainly "Never, Never, Never Shall Be Slaves" !

HARPER'S LAW MAKES NO SENSE AND WOULD BE UNJUST.

Let's imagine a situation.

I, a pensioner, pop into my local bank. I discover that another customer has had a heart attack and is being treated by a paramedic, having first been attended to by a nurse who'd been using the cash machine. A police officer, having seen the paramedic enter, had also come in to find out what was going on.

Moments later, 3 nasty oiks turn up, brandishing knives and guns and demand that the various cashiers hand over all the money in their tills. Of course, the police officer interferes with their plans and he is assisted by the paramedic, nurse and myself, who join together in confronting the would-be robbers. One of us is killed as a result.

According to the suggested "Harper's Law" if it's the police officer, nurse or paramedic who dies, the miscreant would receive a more harsh sentence than if it was me. That is not justice and demonstrates a fatal flaw in the notion that certain professions should have greater protection under the law than the rest of society.

The correct way to deal with criminals is to give them penalties and sentences that offer genuine punishment and deterrence. The current practice of releasing offenders part-way through prison sentences makes headline stories of seemingly harsh penalties - 30 years, life etc., - misleading and often meaningless. Placing supposed rehabilitation above retribution may make sense in some cases but it does not in more serious ones. The nonsense of 'victim impact statements' is nothing but a sop to the 'woke' generation and those who love their 'day in court'. None of it is necessary and none of it should be part of our legal process.

Assault is assault, murder is murder. The sentences handed down to offenders should be appropriate to the offence, regardless of the societal standing of the victim. A vicious assault on an elderly person during a robbery is surely no different to an assault on a police officer in the performance of their duties - or should we also have a "Pensioners' Law", providing for harsher sentences for those found guilty of crimes against the elderly ?

It is nonsensical to try to segment society for the purposes of determining criminal severity and sentencing. Once it starts, where does it end ?

JIMMY ANDERSON : VERY GOOD BUT NO G.O.A.T.

There is no doubt that Jimmy Anderson has been a great performer for England's cricket team over the last 15 or more years, but the claims that he is the "greatest of all time" is the usual nonsense spouted by those who are blinded by a need to laud the achievements of current players over those of former years. Sadly, the assorted pundits on the Sky cricket channel, only one of whom was born before 1968, are so blinded.

Anderson is close to becoming the first fast bowler to take 600 wickets in test matches, a notable achievement, but what is ignored is that he has also played many more matches than any other bowler of his type. In fact, his nearest rival in this respect is his usual bowling partner, Stuart Broad, who is some dozen or more matches behind, while no one else is within 25 matches; the great Australian fast bowler, Glen McGrath, played more than 30 matches fewer but managed to be within 35 or Anderson's total of wickets, suggesting that there is more to being the greatest of all time than simply the number of wickets taken.

Bowlers abilities can be measured in various ways - wickets taken, runs conceded, 'strike rate', meaning the regularity of their wicket taking, but all may be dependent on the number of balls bowled. McGrath, for instance, took a wicket every 52 balls, Anderson's average in this respect is every 56 balls. McGrath conceded 0.42 runs per ball, while Anderson'c record is 0.48, and McGrath's average runs per wicket was 21.64 while Anderson's is 26.83. On a combination of these measures, McGrath beats Anderson, as do numerous others, including former English fast bowlers Trueman, Bedser, Statham, Willis and Snow; even these illustrious predecessors are well adrift of the best performers, the West Indian trio of Marshall, Garner and Ambrose.

Anderson is good, even very good, and his longevity is a credit to both him and those who have looked after him over the years, but to claim that he is the "greatest of all time" is just idiotic. Times change, conditions change and there actually was cricket before Sky became involved. Trueman, for instance, not only took his 307 test match wickets more efficiently than Anderson, he also played regular county cricket and amassed a career record of over 2,300 wickets; Anderson plays little other than test matches and one day games, and has around 1,350 wickets to his name in all formats, even though he has played for a similar number of years.

Media pundits really do need to be more careful in their proclamations of brilliance and their use of superlatives. Routinely describing events as being incredible, fantastic, phenomenal, and the rest, simply demonstrates a lack of language skills; constant references to players as being 'great' similarly demonstrates a lack of appreciation for, or knowledge of, the history of the game. 

CHANNEL DEATH IS DOWN TO THE FRENCH, NOT THE UK.

I am sick to death of hearing about the hordes of migrants attempting to gain entry into the UK from assorted places in France. The latest news, a hard luck story about a teenager whose body has been found on a French beach, has been reported by the media as if our government has almost total responsibility for both the death and the boy's supposed plight, without any reference to the responsibilities of the French, the boy's own country and all of the places through which he must have passed on his way to the English Channel. 

Am I being hard hearted and uncaring ? No way ! On his journey across Europe, this boy had opportunities galore to ask for asylum in umpteen countries, and yet he failed to do so. Once in France, he became their responsibility but that country basically ignored him and left him to continue his attempt to get to the UK, wholly illegally. Under international law, the boy had no right to request asylum anywhere other than in the first 'safe' country to which his flight took him; having arrived in France, it was the responsibility of the French government to look after him, accommodate him and provide him with sanctuary. But of course, they did not, seeing a far better option of letting him try to reach the UK, where he would be a drain on our resources rather than theirs.

That the boy has died is sad, even tragic for his family, but it is nothing whatsoever to do with this country or its government. He had no right to come here and the responsibility for his death lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the French. Why oh why does our media insist on using such stories as nothing but a cudgel with which to beat OUR government ? The answer to that question is, of course, obvious.

Our leftie-liberal media hates the "evil Tories" and will do anything, use anything to try to denigrate them. Surely it is time that our government fought back and made clear that all migrants intercepted trying to cross the channel will be returned to France, irrespective of age, sex, colour, nationality or any other damned characteristic that might be used to justify their attempt to enter the UK. 

Britain is far more crowded than France and is, to all intents and purposes, full. The NO ENTRY signs should be put up and rigorously policed.

A-LEVEL RESULTS HIGHLIGHT GOVERNMENTAL SHAMBLES.

The COVID-19 epidemic has revealed much about our country, its government and its people, little of it good.

While there have been stories about phenomenal fund raising and the dedication of health car workers, the real stories involve the utter shambles at the heart of the nation's administration and the appalling "couldn't care less" attitude of far too many of our people, especially some of the younger ones.  While the government has issued guidance which has often been less than crystal clear, many younger people have carried on as if the epidemic simply did not exist, gathering in huge parties, on the beach and, more recently, in public houses and showing utter contempt for the rules and the rest of us.

Things were not helped by Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself catching the virus and spending time on the seriously ill list, but that is now history. What is now most worrying is that there appears to be little central control of the government's approach to managing the epidemic; diktats are issued at little or no notice and withdrawn in the same manner. The latest unbelievable mess over 'A-Level' results must surely mark a new low in this catastrophic saga, and yet ............. .

Over the last few months, our National Health Service, heralded by every government since 1948 as the "envy of the world", has been virtually closed for all but COVID victims and the most seriously ill; it has been shown to be very good at dealing with one problem at a time, but has failed spectacularly in its principal job of providing healthcare to all whenever needed. Its sister organisation, the named Public Health England, has proved itself to be utterly incompetent on almost every level, from sourcing protective equipment to producing statistics. Indeed, the numbers that have been spewed out by PHE and the Office for National Statistics, yet another pompously named and utterly incompetent body, have been withdrawn, revised, rebased and reissued with such obtuse associated guidance and little or no audit trail as to make them almost meaningless. 

Now we have the farce of the 'A-Level' results. State school pupils in their hundreds of thousands have seen their predicted results downgraded, often quite dramatically, while public (=private) school pupils have seen the predictions of their grades virtually untouched. The government has, with crass stupidity, announced that the process for the determination of grades was robust and correct, followed by rapid backtracking from the Department of Education and the officiating body, yet another QUANGO which glories in the name of the 'Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation', or OFQUAL for short. This last named joke of an organisation has, for years, presided over steadily rising pass rates and awards of the highest grades, with no apparent regard for the ultimate unsustainability of its position, but has now come horribly unstuck when confronted by a genuine need for its services. 

Pupils have had their grades determined not on the basis of their own performance but by reference to the past performance of their schools and groups of fellow pupils. Thus, pupils from a top-performing school may well have seen their predicted results stand while those from schools with a history of poor performance will most probably have seen their predicted results downgraded, regardless of the actual merits of individual cases. For OFQUAL to say that those who are unhappy can appeal is nothing but a 'cop-out' while their issuing of various guidance which has been withdrawn for further consideration within a matter of hours would be laughable if it wasn't so shocking.

This 'moderation' process has been a disaster and will undoubtedly lead to the sacking of the Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, and quite possibly of its own heads, chairman Roger Taylor, and Chief Regulator Sally Collier, neither of whom will ever have been heard of before. If it was up to me, I'd abolish OFQUAL and the Department for Education altogether, issue some basic guidance on educational standards and leave it to the universities to sort things out by reference to international standards.

If COVID-19 has taught us anything beyond its immediate effects, its that our government and its hundreds of QUANGOS are inept and incompetent. The NHS is nowhere near being the "envy of the world", PHE is a joke, our education system is a mess and the ONS is a farce. Sadly, we also now know that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is no Churchill, in fact, I'm not even sure he's up to the job at all. What we need is a revolution in the way that our country is run. We have taken one tentative step away from centrally managed services by leaving the European Union, now we need to dismantle the elephantine and labyrinthine echelons of our own central government, letting some light and new thinking into the unbelievably musty corridors of Whitehall.

COVID-19 has given us the opportunity to do this and it's up to the current mob in government to grasp the nettle with both hands and give it one hell of a shaking.

COVID-19 : DOES ANYONE REALLY KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING ?

 As the COVID-19 saga continues, I am increasingly concerned that no one really knows the extent of the epidemic nor its true severity. The statistics published by Public Health England and the Office for National Statistics have been used to justify assorted government actions but have also been subject to numerous revisions and re-presentations. 

The figures originally published for the number of people tested were found to be of dubious quality and were temporarily suspended; now they have vanished altogether. The PHE figures for the number of proven cases have been revised several times and bear no relation to the number of estimated cases published by the ONS. Nowhere is there any reference to the number of reported cases being at least partially dependent upon the actual number of people tested. The number of deaths as reported by PHE have been found to be entirely unreliable, with all deaths of people who had tested positive at any time being included, regardless of how long before death the test had been conducted and what the actual cause of death had been; in fact, anyone who'd had a positive test but been killed by a runaway bus would have been included as a COVID-19 related death.

Most recently, the 'Coronavirus Dashboard', via which the ONS has been publishing national summaries, has been revamped in such a way that there is no way of reconciling parts of it with its earlier incarnation. The previously available daily analysis by local authority areas has been removed and replaced by what is claimed to be a more detailed analysis; in fact, this 'Middle Layer Super Output Area' (MSOA) analysis makes comparison with the earlier publications impossible as all daily instances of less than 2 cases being reported in each area are excluded - is this not utterly ludicrous ? Additionally, it also means that the MSOA figures cannot be reconciled with the higher level local authority (LTUA & UTLA) level figures.

It seems clear that those who are producing and presenting these assorted statistics have no idea what they are doing and certainly must be utterly oblivious as to what is needed and how they may be used. The shocking result is that the numbers are largely meaningless, often being confusing, misleading and even contradictory. I won't even get to the mystical 'R' number, which seems to be a work of utter fiction, designed principally to provide support for at least some of the government's actions.

These highly suspect statistics have been used to justify an almost complete shutdown of normal life and now to justify the wearing of masks in shops, cinemas, museums and assorted other places by a frightened population. At the same time, we now are encouraged to visit pubs and restaurants willy-nilly and without any face coverings, even though such visits are far more likely to bring us into closer and longer contact with others than the occasional trips to the supermarket. If this isn't confused and contradictory, I don't know what is.

Never has the phrase 'lies, damned lies and statistics' been of more relevance and never have statistics been used in such haphazard and illogical manner. The truth is that no one, including all the experts who regularly offer advice to the government and anyone else who'll listen, has a clue what is really going on or what is the best course of action. It's all very much a case of "suck it and see", followed by a large dose of "grin and bear it".