The news that the collected wit and wisdom of the EU now weighs in at 80 tons of print (per language!) ought to terrify you as much as it terrifies TMP.
That amount of detailed documentation covers impositions on every aspect of your life and means there are now so many rules, regulations and laws that any EU "enforcer" is pretty much guaranteed being able to find one or more breaches whenever it suits them.
We have all suspected for a long time now that any irritable policeperson examining a vehicle can almost certainly find something wrong with it (when did you last check your tyre pressures?) to cause the driver a lot of trouble. Simply requiring the driver to present documents at a police station (the so called "producer from") assures that Mr Plod has made him or herself felt in the life of an otherwise blameless subject.
Oops, I nearly said "citizen".
The process of politicians churning out endless law to empower the state to intrude and interfere has been out of control for quite a while now. Who wants start over and write a constitution of no more than ten pages?
Perhaps the first paragraph of which should limit employment by the public purse (central and local) to no more than 15% of the workforce. The proposition that the remaining 15% of bureaucrats are then required to reorganise the state around identifying and tackling the real priorities would be refreshing, don't you think? Top of the list being what to do with many millions of redundant former state employees, and their millions of square feet of vacant offices.
Otherwise Parkinson's law will always prevail, and the work of public bodies will expand to occupy the people and time available.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Yet more surveillance; and some answers at last?
News that the ability to order phone tapping access has been extended by a stroke of the Home Secretary's pen to include everyone from tax authorities to lollipop ladies in the name "anti terrorism" will not come as a surprise to TMP readers. It is of course part of an EU policy that has been enacted without debate or discussion.
Now then, brace yourselves.
A brave bloke called Brian Gerrish (a former naval sub commander) has stuck his head above the parapet in an effort to "out" what he believes is a sinister conspiracy reaching into all aspects UK public life, that should at the very least make you think. The story is told and illustrated on Google Video, and you must look at it ...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=187314750971510938
Gerrish is a credible presenter (formal naval commander) and he sets out how a sinister and secretive left-wing organisation called "Common Purpose" has been steadily chipping away at the establishment for 20 years using well proven mind management techniques and infiltrated their "disciples" just about everywhere. The ~20,000 people thus far "trained" by Common Purpose do not appear to be of particularly high intellectual quality, just suitably malleable for manipulation by their cause. In other words, the perfect "Apparatchik" material.
TMP accepts that the enormity of the implications of this may be a bit too "invasion of the mind snatchers" for many observers' comfort, and the attention from the more extreme edges of UKIP doesn't help - however, the individuals being identified, interconnected and named aren't all rushing off to sue for some reason..?
Gerrish's propositions go a long way to explaining many of the absurdities of recent times, and ought to be enough evidence to require a full and detailed enquiry into the actions and backing of Common Purpose before many more of the EU's privacy invasion directives are implemented by stealth, like the phone tapping extensions.
Even if just 10% of Gerrish's assertions turn out to be true, then this could still be the conspiracy story of the century. It does provide interesting explanations for several aberrations such as the Dome debacle; the Camelot monopoly and generally how so many otherwise talentless inmates are now in full control of the asylum.
Could it be true?
Now then, brace yourselves.
A brave bloke called Brian Gerrish (a former naval sub commander) has stuck his head above the parapet in an effort to "out" what he believes is a sinister conspiracy reaching into all aspects UK public life, that should at the very least make you think. The story is told and illustrated on Google Video, and you must look at it ...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=187314750971510938
Gerrish is a credible presenter (formal naval commander) and he sets out how a sinister and secretive left-wing organisation called "Common Purpose" has been steadily chipping away at the establishment for 20 years using well proven mind management techniques and infiltrated their "disciples" just about everywhere. The ~20,000 people thus far "trained" by Common Purpose do not appear to be of particularly high intellectual quality, just suitably malleable for manipulation by their cause. In other words, the perfect "Apparatchik" material.
TMP accepts that the enormity of the implications of this may be a bit too "invasion of the mind snatchers" for many observers' comfort, and the attention from the more extreme edges of UKIP doesn't help - however, the individuals being identified, interconnected and named aren't all rushing off to sue for some reason..?
Gerrish's propositions go a long way to explaining many of the absurdities of recent times, and ought to be enough evidence to require a full and detailed enquiry into the actions and backing of Common Purpose before many more of the EU's privacy invasion directives are implemented by stealth, like the phone tapping extensions.
Even if just 10% of Gerrish's assertions turn out to be true, then this could still be the conspiracy story of the century. It does provide interesting explanations for several aberrations such as the Dome debacle; the Camelot monopoly and generally how so many otherwise talentless inmates are now in full control of the asylum.
Could it be true?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Brown Declares October Election
Please excuse us.
Yes, TMP is using its awesome powers of prescience, since the words have not yet passed Gordon's quivering lips; but let's face it - it's inevitable. He has peered into the financial abyss opening up under the UK economy that has been built on good old socialist "never never" sand for too long.
He knows the may never get a better chance to fool enough of the people one more time, but there's just a possibility the British people can be reminded of the top reasons to boot him out before he and his gang of neophytes can do much more damage to the UK. TMP wishes it could be more enthusiastic about the most probable alternatives, but we really are now at that dreadful moment where ANYTHING is better than the prospect we face for yet another 5 years or toment.
1) The economic stability of the past 10 years was built on the platform of the last conservative chancellor, Ken Clark. Brown's best ever move was to hand control of interest rates to the BoE, but he only did this because he knew that Tony Blair simply would not be able to resist the temptation to play politics with them. And then they both set about and spent the legacy.
2) £40bn on health and almost nothing to show for it but smiling £100k+ a year GPs.
3) Any rational immigration debate has been cleverly disorganised by the simple fact that no one seems to know how many people have just turned up in the UK and remained. But let's say it's about 3million - roughly the size of the present so-called "housing requirement" - and the number of swing voters to win an election.
4) Numerous sneaky and pernicious stealth taxes on everything from insurance to travel.
5) More CCTV and surveillance systems than any country in the world, including totalitarian regimes.
6) No more North Sea Oil - but no long term energy strategy other than more taxes on anything deemed ungreen ...and fingers crossed.
7) An education system that now seems to operate on just two levels - churn out kids stuffed into faux university places to study non-subjects; and those who can't even spell the ASBO they are destined to receive.
8) Almost half the workforce on faux jobs created for the public payroll; mostly in roles like Health and Safety and council inspectors of some sort or another - because of the need to justify so many pointless graduates, and keep them from embarrassing the unemployment stats (and doing damage in the real economy...).
9) Arrogant and scornful disregard for the widespread desire for an EU constitution referendum.
10) Active disdain for the English majority of the UK. After years of successful gerrymandering, McLabour has fiddled a system that gives the casting to vote to any minority likely to prop up the Labour party.
11) Iraq: Brown happily paid our money to help pave this road to hell - and is now busily trying to to look like it was nothing to do with him.
12) The BBC's descent from independent global authority, to an over-funded plaything of the left that does the government's bidding. Who can forget Radio 4 presenter Jim Naughtie when he said "if we win the next election..."
Would an astute electorate actually need more reasons than those to tip the responsible party onto the street? We shall find out, but meantime, TMP is scanning the property websites of those countries that have become all too popular bolt-holes for those enterprising Brits that once made up the backbone of our society. Save us a plot...
Yes, TMP is using its awesome powers of prescience, since the words have not yet passed Gordon's quivering lips; but let's face it - it's inevitable. He has peered into the financial abyss opening up under the UK economy that has been built on good old socialist "never never" sand for too long.
He knows the may never get a better chance to fool enough of the people one more time, but there's just a possibility the British people can be reminded of the top reasons to boot him out before he and his gang of neophytes can do much more damage to the UK. TMP wishes it could be more enthusiastic about the most probable alternatives, but we really are now at that dreadful moment where ANYTHING is better than the prospect we face for yet another 5 years or toment.
1) The economic stability of the past 10 years was built on the platform of the last conservative chancellor, Ken Clark. Brown's best ever move was to hand control of interest rates to the BoE, but he only did this because he knew that Tony Blair simply would not be able to resist the temptation to play politics with them. And then they both set about and spent the legacy.
2) £40bn on health and almost nothing to show for it but smiling £100k+ a year GPs.
3) Any rational immigration debate has been cleverly disorganised by the simple fact that no one seems to know how many people have just turned up in the UK and remained. But let's say it's about 3million - roughly the size of the present so-called "housing requirement" - and the number of swing voters to win an election.
4) Numerous sneaky and pernicious stealth taxes on everything from insurance to travel.
5) More CCTV and surveillance systems than any country in the world, including totalitarian regimes.
6) No more North Sea Oil - but no long term energy strategy other than more taxes on anything deemed ungreen ...and fingers crossed.
7) An education system that now seems to operate on just two levels - churn out kids stuffed into faux university places to study non-subjects; and those who can't even spell the ASBO they are destined to receive.
8) Almost half the workforce on faux jobs created for the public payroll; mostly in roles like Health and Safety and council inspectors of some sort or another - because of the need to justify so many pointless graduates, and keep them from embarrassing the unemployment stats (and doing damage in the real economy...).
9) Arrogant and scornful disregard for the widespread desire for an EU constitution referendum.
10) Active disdain for the English majority of the UK. After years of successful gerrymandering, McLabour has fiddled a system that gives the casting to vote to any minority likely to prop up the Labour party.
11) Iraq: Brown happily paid our money to help pave this road to hell - and is now busily trying to to look like it was nothing to do with him.
12) The BBC's descent from independent global authority, to an over-funded plaything of the left that does the government's bidding. Who can forget Radio 4 presenter Jim Naughtie when he said "if we win the next election..."
Would an astute electorate actually need more reasons than those to tip the responsible party onto the street? We shall find out, but meantime, TMP is scanning the property websites of those countries that have become all too popular bolt-holes for those enterprising Brits that once made up the backbone of our society. Save us a plot...
Saturday, September 22, 2007
The Sun King 2.0
Well, it appears that Alistair Darling (wisely) reads TMP blogs, because he seems to have acted exactly as instructed by the last blog entry, albeit just late enough to have added to the crisis, and been forced into a new position of widening the scope of government backed guarantees for banks.
Although the terminally pompous Mervyn King was duly queried for his somewhat unhelpful and irrelevant academic approach, he survived. Arguably now is not the time to see his fat head roll, but surely it must once the dust has settled?
Despite the deposition of President Blair, Westminster still has the courtly air of privilege and insider intrigue that was once associated with medieval monarchies, and it's tempting to draw parallels with Louis XIV, although this particular Sun King radiates for a while longer from Threadneedle Street. Get out your knitting, it's time for Madam Guillotine to be sharpened up.
However, the unholy alliance amongst the political and governing classes that means no one needs resign for acts of gross folly, stupidity and incompetence any longer, prevails for the time being, and all the guilty are still accumulating their fat state pensions very nicely, thanks.
The cocooned existence of this endlessly self-seeking Westminster coterie is at the root of the country's dilemma. As never before, they are shameless to a man and woman. This lot will do anything to keep their jobs. ANYTHING. The Westminster Cabal (WC) that remains immune from the sort of responsibility and challenges that face the rest of us in the real world is a growing and real problem.
Frustrated as rarely ever before, the shire parishes are now holding local referenda so that their beleaguered inhabitants feel that they are at least able to do something to show their displeasure at the way the government continuously rides roughshod over the wishes of the "misguided majority" and belies any notion of democracy, at a time when the "official" opposition is busy preparing David Cameron - one time Boy Wonder, rapidly transformed into the Boy Blunder - for the swift exit he now deserves.
Amidst all this, Brown surely cannot resist the temptation to call an election; there may never be a better time to fool enough of the people for the last time. He knows better than most that his government is living on borrowed time, and that the next year will bring nothing but more pain to expose the catastrophic follies of the past 10 years.
And speaking of courtly excess, although we thought we had done away with her at last, we still have that dreadful woman Cherie Blair popping up in the media all over the place, telling the rest of us to eat cake - and buy her book.
Now then, where's that sharpening stone?
Although the terminally pompous Mervyn King was duly queried for his somewhat unhelpful and irrelevant academic approach, he survived. Arguably now is not the time to see his fat head roll, but surely it must once the dust has settled?
Despite the deposition of President Blair, Westminster still has the courtly air of privilege and insider intrigue that was once associated with medieval monarchies, and it's tempting to draw parallels with Louis XIV, although this particular Sun King radiates for a while longer from Threadneedle Street. Get out your knitting, it's time for Madam Guillotine to be sharpened up.
However, the unholy alliance amongst the political and governing classes that means no one needs resign for acts of gross folly, stupidity and incompetence any longer, prevails for the time being, and all the guilty are still accumulating their fat state pensions very nicely, thanks.
The cocooned existence of this endlessly self-seeking Westminster coterie is at the root of the country's dilemma. As never before, they are shameless to a man and woman. This lot will do anything to keep their jobs. ANYTHING. The Westminster Cabal (WC) that remains immune from the sort of responsibility and challenges that face the rest of us in the real world is a growing and real problem.
Frustrated as rarely ever before, the shire parishes are now holding local referenda so that their beleaguered inhabitants feel that they are at least able to do something to show their displeasure at the way the government continuously rides roughshod over the wishes of the "misguided majority" and belies any notion of democracy, at a time when the "official" opposition is busy preparing David Cameron - one time Boy Wonder, rapidly transformed into the Boy Blunder - for the swift exit he now deserves.
Amidst all this, Brown surely cannot resist the temptation to call an election; there may never be a better time to fool enough of the people for the last time. He knows better than most that his government is living on borrowed time, and that the next year will bring nothing but more pain to expose the catastrophic follies of the past 10 years.
And speaking of courtly excess, although we thought we had done away with her at last, we still have that dreadful woman Cherie Blair popping up in the media all over the place, telling the rest of us to eat cake - and buy her book.
Now then, where's that sharpening stone?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Mortgages: the White Man's Burden
Well, don't say TMP didn't warn you. The unholy alliance between the UK financial industry, the housing industry and government to bleed cash from UK consumers through painfully overpriced housing has probably claimed a victim. Whether or not Northern Rock survives its current cashout crisis, the company can never be the same, and confidence can only be restored when it is taken over by someone who plainly cannot go bust. (If such an entity still exists at all?)
Chancellor Darling could have simply said "there is nothing at all to worry about - the BoE will underwrite the entire savings base of Northern Rock". Despite the current crunch, NR is one of the best run building societies with generally low risk mortgages that bear no relation whatever to the type of "sub-prime" lending that triggered the US crisis, and about to post a £500m profit to prove the point. In the world of real politics, no government could possibly allow the NR to default on its savers with all the consequences, so let's just deal with it.
However, an unelected civil servant with more practical power and immediate influence than the government, Mervyn King at the Bank of England, just could not resist the opportunity to be sanctimonious and complicated the process with a typically pompous remark about "moral hazard". TMP suspects that the pot just called the kettle black.
Moreover, NR could justifiably claim that when it got into trouble through its market borrowing tactics it was only doing what the government proudly exhorts the UK financial industry to do - namely prove to the world that it's cuter and more creative than any other.
This remains a gathering storm that could and should have been avoided by "real" old-style politicians. It belies the inexperience of the fresh-faced Brownies, and a curious deference to Mervyn King who had nothing to do with the Blair-years period of economic stability - because the outgoing Tories, lead by a former bank manager (albeit with a charisma bypass), had already done all the hard work.
For a while, the UK's overpriced housing industry was usefully sucking the spare cash and more from the legacy of the Tories overlooked economic miracle into "securitizable assets" and away from loose consumer spending. And the government has gleefully p*ss*d the rest up the vast wall of public employment and expenditure, whilst appeasing its core vote.
This was a very handy control on consumer liquidity for a Labour government staring the mother of all trade deficits and public spending inflation in the face; but then our creative financial services industry really took off, and the previously little used idea of remortgaging (remember when it used to be a last resort and something be ashamed of?) gleefully released all the cash (and more) back for consumer spending, anyway. Especially now that there is no incentive to enter old age with any capital wealth in England, you might as well spend it while you can.
Please don't forget that Government wields a massive influence over UK housing costs through its control of the planning system, and to a lesser extent through lax immigration control and social engineering towards ever more single parent households.
Meanwhile, the government has again shot itself in the foot and mouth. Who on earth can take anyone called "Debbie Reynolds" seriously? Albeit chilling words like "cull" and "slaughter" trip with consummate ease from her lips.
Overall, Gordon and his pack of Brownies must be thanking their lucky stars that David Cameron is on the margin and still spouting green claptrap such as charges for Tesco car parks. And no doubt he'll also be charging the evicted home owners to live in cardboard boxes that don't pass the HIPS inspectors' energy efficiency quota.
Chancellor Darling could have simply said "there is nothing at all to worry about - the BoE will underwrite the entire savings base of Northern Rock". Despite the current crunch, NR is one of the best run building societies with generally low risk mortgages that bear no relation whatever to the type of "sub-prime" lending that triggered the US crisis, and about to post a £500m profit to prove the point. In the world of real politics, no government could possibly allow the NR to default on its savers with all the consequences, so let's just deal with it.
However, an unelected civil servant with more practical power and immediate influence than the government, Mervyn King at the Bank of England, just could not resist the opportunity to be sanctimonious and complicated the process with a typically pompous remark about "moral hazard". TMP suspects that the pot just called the kettle black.
Moreover, NR could justifiably claim that when it got into trouble through its market borrowing tactics it was only doing what the government proudly exhorts the UK financial industry to do - namely prove to the world that it's cuter and more creative than any other.
This remains a gathering storm that could and should have been avoided by "real" old-style politicians. It belies the inexperience of the fresh-faced Brownies, and a curious deference to Mervyn King who had nothing to do with the Blair-years period of economic stability - because the outgoing Tories, lead by a former bank manager (albeit with a charisma bypass), had already done all the hard work.
For a while, the UK's overpriced housing industry was usefully sucking the spare cash and more from the legacy of the Tories overlooked economic miracle into "securitizable assets" and away from loose consumer spending. And the government has gleefully p*ss*d the rest up the vast wall of public employment and expenditure, whilst appeasing its core vote.
This was a very handy control on consumer liquidity for a Labour government staring the mother of all trade deficits and public spending inflation in the face; but then our creative financial services industry really took off, and the previously little used idea of remortgaging (remember when it used to be a last resort and something be ashamed of?) gleefully released all the cash (and more) back for consumer spending, anyway. Especially now that there is no incentive to enter old age with any capital wealth in England, you might as well spend it while you can.
Please don't forget that Government wields a massive influence over UK housing costs through its control of the planning system, and to a lesser extent through lax immigration control and social engineering towards ever more single parent households.
Meanwhile, the government has again shot itself in the foot and mouth. Who on earth can take anyone called "Debbie Reynolds" seriously? Albeit chilling words like "cull" and "slaughter" trip with consummate ease from her lips.
Overall, Gordon and his pack of Brownies must be thanking their lucky stars that David Cameron is on the margin and still spouting green claptrap such as charges for Tesco car parks. And no doubt he'll also be charging the evicted home owners to live in cardboard boxes that don't pass the HIPS inspectors' energy efficiency quota.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)