MARTIN McGUINNESS

Martin McGuinness was a murderous thug who found a way to avoid the retribution that was due to him for his evil past by 'engaging' in a so-called peace process.

As a leading member of, and active participant in, the IRA, McGuinness had a hand in countless terrorist outrages, brutal torture and murders. In any sane society, such a man would have been hunted down, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to eternity in prison. In the fantasy world of 'political reality', none of this happened and McGuinness morphed into a political figure, respected, at least outwardly, by his political allies. Following his death today, the BBC has behaved as though this man was a political giant, giving over a huge part of its news broadcasts to him. Politicians, and ex-politicians such as Tony Blair, have rushed to heap praise on him.

The truth is that he was a monster and the world is well rid of him. A 10 second mention on the news and a note at the bottom of page 8 of the Sun would have been more than he warranted.

GEORGE OSBORNE - HOW MANY JOBS ?

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is now using his connections to get himself an assortment of jobs in addition to his existing role as Member of Parliament for Tatton in Cheshire.

A week or two ago, it was announced that he has found himself a highly lucrative role as an 'advisor' for the financial services company 'Blackrock'; this reportedly involves a commitment of 4 days a month at an annual salary of £650,000. Now, he's been appointed as editor of the London Evening Standard, having never before worked as a journalist; his pay for this has not yet been made known but he will, apparently, actively edit the paper for 4 days a week. On top of these roles, he plans to remain as a Member of Parliament, a job which surely requires a greater amount of time than will be available to him.

Osborne's salary as a backbench MP is close to £75,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayer. One would have thought that, for this money, his constituents would expect him to commit the vast bulk of his time to them. Clearly Osborne has a different view of the world and is far more interested in feathering his own nest than in bothering with the duties of his public office.

George Osborne and David Cameron thought that they were some sort of celebrity politicians, destined to be in charge for many years. As soon as he didn't get his own way, Cameron quit for more rewarding avenues, showing just how committed he was to public office. Now Osborne, having lost his job as Chancellor, seems likely to take a similar path and will no doubt be concentrating on adding to his already substantial wealth.

People of this type are the worst that we have - arrogant, self-serving, sneering, petty and vindictive. Cameron is gone and the sooner Osborne's constituents kick him out the better. 

YET ANOTHER AFRICAN HUMANITARIAN CRISIS.

The more one hears from the United Nations, the more one is inclined to believe that it must be the most useless and ineffective organisation ever invented.

Some high official of this talking shop has recently been in the news begging for more billions to be made available to help to alleviate the effects of yet another African famine. How many times this same situation has arisen over the last 40 or 50 years I cannot recall, but it is most certainly an annual event at the very least.

Time and time again, the UN tells us of some humanitarian crisis that is afflicting somewhere or other, most often in Africa. Time after time, it asks for billions of pounds, dollars, euros, francs and anything else that may be available. Time after time, the money is produced and the problem is seemingly solved, until the next time, which inevitably rolls around within a year or so. Why do we do it ?

Rather than tackle the underlying causes of these recurrent crises, the UN keeps throwing OUR money at them in a generally uncoordinated and pointless fashion. Rather than digging wells, irrigating land and making it productive, it provides food; rather than taking action against the despots, fanatics and money-grabbing rulers of the affected countries, it allows them to continue starving their people in the expectation that the rest of the world will come to their aid. Rather than taking action to prevent the endless wars and revolutions that are the root cause of many of these problems, it does nothing.

The United Nations was a grand idea dreamt up by politicians after the Second World War as a replacement for the equally useless League of Nations which was invented after the First. For it to actually do anything of any consequence it has to gain the approval of so many competing factions that it is toothless; very often, action against any particular country is rendered impossible due to the need to garner support from countries which see themselves as next in the firing line. Tyrants and their brutal regimes remain in power and their people starve, while the rest of the world is expected, at the behest of the United Nations, to continually fork out billions to stave of catastrophe.

Juts like the European Union, the United Nations is a talking shop. It's top officials are always selected from countries of no account, who consequently have no real power or authority, while the real power remains with the governments of the most powerful countries, inevitably the USA, Russia, China and 2 or 3 others. The UN, just like the EU, costs vast amounts of money and is largely useless; both organisations have to kowtow to their most powerful members but neither can do anything of note; both are dragged down to implementing nothing more than the lowest common denominator.

This time, the UN is asking for something like $4bn; one wonders how much it has had over the years and how much more it will demand in the future before people realise how hopeless their approach is. 

SELF-EMPLOYED SHOULD STOP WHINING.

There's been a huge furore about Chancellor Hammond's proposal to increase National Insurance contributions for the self-employed from 9% to 10% and then 11% by April 2019. As well as being accused of breaking a manifesto promise, Hammond is being painted as an oppressor of these supposedly wonderful and hard done by people.

While the question of manifesto promises may or may not be an issue, the matter of the self-employed being 'put upon' deserves more consideration than has been the case so far, at least by the media. In truth, the self-employed receive huge tax advantages not available to the employed and also now receive most of the same benefits. How are they 'hard done by' ?

It is said that the self-employed receive no holiday pay or sick pay, something which is blatant nonsense. What they do is to build an additional amount into their basic charges to allow for the fact that they expect to have holidays and, perhaps, some days of sickness. They are also permitted to set a variety of expenses and costs against their income tax bill; items such as clothing, cars, travel costs, office equipment and materials and even the costs associated with rooms in their homes can be offset against tax, something which the employed can do none of.

While the employed make a contribution of up to 12% of salary in respect of National Insurance and their employers usually make a further contribution of 13.8%, the self-employed have historically paid far less, most recently just 9% plus £2.80 per week; part of the Chancellor's package includes the fact that the small  weekly payment is being discontinued. There are certain benefits to which the self-employed do not have access but does that really justify paying less than half of the National Insurance paid by the employed and their employers PLUS having a vast array of tax-deductible allowances ?

Of course it doesn't. The self-employed choose their status, pay less National Insurance and receive considerable tax advantages. They can choose when to work and when not to work, unlike the employed. Basically they have it easy, far too easy in many ways and they should stop whining about a minor increase in the contributions which they make and which still leave them far better off than most of the employed.

DRUNK WOMEN HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO THEMSELVES.

It's not that unusual for a judge to be criticized but usually it's because they've said or done something that's blatantly wrong, unfair or unreasonable.

Yesterday a female judge, Lindsey Kushner QC, made an entirely sensible comment at the end of the trial of a man who'd been found guilty of rape and whom she was sentencing to 6 years in prison. She said that women were entitled to "drink themselves into the ground" but that their subsequent "disinhibited behaviour" could put them in danger. She warned women that being extremely drunk potentially put them in danger of being targeted by rapists.

Inevitably, Judge Kushner has been attacked for her words. An organisation calling itself 'Rape Crisis' has accused her of being outrageous and misguided though exactly why is unclear. Surely women have a responsibility to themselves and cannot expect to be mollycoddled by society; if they want to get drunk, that's their choice, but they also have to accept the potential dangers that follow. If a drunk wobbles into the path of a bus or lorry, or trips on a kerb, or simply falls over and breaks a leg, whose fault is it ? Surely it's the drunk's. If a drunk women finds herself being molested it may not be her fault entirely but she may well bear some responsibility for her situation as a result of earlier behaviour.

Judge Kushner is exactly right and all women who are out on the town, getting drunk and being 'on the pull' should take note.

HOUSEHOLDS WORSE OFF - OR NOT ?

It is quite amazing how figures can be manipulated and distorted to produce pretty well any answer that those doing the manipulation want to arrive at.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has just issued a report in which they claim that typical households will each be £5,000 a year worse off by 2021 than they would have been had the financial crisis of 2007/8 not happened. They attribute this to an 'income squeeze' over the intervening period. Fine. Given their accepted expertise, they are bound to be correct, aren't they ?

Actually, it depends on just how one looks at the figures and events.

Incomes, and general wealth, in the period immediately prior to the cataclysmic events of 2007/8 were greatly inflated due to the uncontrolled and ultimately disastrous lending encouraged by governments and happily entered into by banks and other financial institutions which saw only profits ahead. Once this 'froth' was removed, the true state of affairs was revealed and a more realistic picture emerged. In simple terms, we had been paying ourselves too much and were enjoying a level of 'wealth' which was largely illusory.

A correction was inevitable and would have occurred sooner or later; that it happened in 2007/8 is now history. The IFS may well be mathematically correct in their claims but they have clearly failed to take account of the underlying economic weakness at that time and the fact that real incomes could not be sustained at an inflated level indefinitely; consequently, their conclusions have been presented in the wrong light. Their projections for 2021 do not show, as they claim, that households will be 'worse off', instead they show a far truer picture of the real position once the financial profligacy of the pre-crisis period is excluded; they should not be seen as a consequence of the effects of economic policy since.

The IFS and it's parent body, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation' are left-leaning organisations which have an interest in promoting the causes of the supposed 'poor' and 'disadvantaged'. As such, their reports are not immune to political bias and should be treated with a degree of scepticism, at least in so far as their bland conclusions are concerned. 

Beware experts, no matter how respected and lauded they may be.

KIM JONG-NAM : VICTIM OF VX.

It seems that the death of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un, was due to the use of a deadly poison. It also seems that the particular poison, VX nerve agent, is something which is most unlikely to have been available to anyone not closely associated with a national government.

The use of VX is outlawed by the United Nations which classifies it as being a 'weapon of mass destruction'; the tiniest amount absorbed through the skin is fatal within a few minutes. How this substance came to be in the possession of Kim Jong-nam's killer's is, of course, unknown but is certainly the subject of huge speculation. Given the vicious and murderous nature of the North Korean leadership, it must be likely that this killing was, in effect, a state-sponsored assassination for reasons unknown. Perhaps Kim Jong-nam was suspected of plotting against his half-brother or perhaps Kim Jong-un was simply continuing his campaign against anyone who may conceivably be a threat to his position.

Whatever the answers, it is surely time that China stopped supporting the appalling regime in North Korea and that the United Nations condemned them utterly. In a world which has far too many nasty rulers, Kim Jong-un must surely be the nastiest.