On the other hand...

Well, this makes sense...

For many years, I was confounded by my blackouts, but the mechanics are quite simple. The blood reaches a certain alcohol saturation point and shuts down the hippocampus, part of the brain responsible for making long-term memories. You drink enough, and that’s it. Shutdown. No more memories.

On the bright side, I may be 37 but my memory tells me that I'm still about 24...

Your government: making you poorer

Over at Bishop Hill's place, I find that Gordon Hughes has submitted a report on the economics of wind power [PDF] to our lords and masters (on behalf of the GWPF).

The subject is wind power. It makes for horrifying reading.

His Ecclesiastical Eminence is not wrong: consider, for instance, this little snippet... [Emphasis mine.]

Meeting the UK Government’s target for renewable generation in 2020 will require total wind capacity of 36 GW backed up by 21 GW of open cycle gas plants plus large complementary investments in transmission capacity. Allowing for the shorter life of wind turbines, the investment outlay for this Wind scenario will be about £124 billion. The same electricity demand could be met from 21.5 GW of combined cycle gas plants with a capital cost of £13 billion.

Yes, alright, you'll have noted the qualifier of "capital cost" in that last sentence: however, if the government would stop fucking about and give the explicit go-ahead for unlimited exploitation of our shale gas reserves, the running costs could be considerably cheaper than otherwise.

After all, in just four years, shale gas has halved the price of electricity in the US.

But we, of course, are wedded to our ludicrous climate change targets, which Highes also comments on. [Emphasis mine, again.]

Under the most favourable assumptions for wind power, the Wind scenario will reduce emissions of CO2 relative to the Gas scenario by 21 million metric tons in 2020 - 2.6% of the 1990 baseline at an average cost of about £415 per metric ton at 2009 prices. The average cost is far higher than the average price under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme or the floor carbon prices that have been proposed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. If this is typical of the cost of reducing carbon emissions to meet the UK’s 2020 target, then the total cost of meeting the target would be £120 billion in 2020, or about 6.8% of GDP.

This is utter insanity.

If the lights go out, as Nick Drew observes, the government goes out. The Coalition will be screwed, but they will not be as comprehensively buggered as our economy.

This isn't the 1970s: if the power goes, then so does our entire infrastructure. Banking grinds to a halt, the internet is unreachable (and half of it down anyway), the vast majority of people simply will not be able to work at all.

But even if we do not have to start a series of rolling black-outs, the price of power has been climbing steadily. And power is required for everything these days: as such, as power becomes more expensive then so does everything else.

This government—and its predecessor—have been quite deliberately following a set of policies designed to impoverish everyone in the country. And, throughout all of the other insanities of this time, they have continued to prosecute this war against their own people.

Their aim is simple: to reduce power consumption—whether because of climate change or in order to avoid difficult decisions about building power stations, I do not know (although I have my suspicions).

The government's own report—you know, the one that showed that power would not be more expensive overall—relied on the country using half the electricity that it does now by 2020.

Reducing power consumption may be a laudable aim but it is, frankly, unrealistic in that timescale without a significant down-grading of our current life-style.

But I bet our lords and masters are going to be just fine and dandy, thanks. Even now, they are probably buying up portable generators and investing in every temporary power supplier in the country.

What a bunch of arseholes.

The government we deserve

Whilst your humble Devil has never been shy of excoriating the government, I am one of the few bloggers that has consistently pointed out that, actually, the electorate are a bunch of fascist bastards too.

It's hard to imagine that this is the same public which proudly bosts of winning two world wars, isn't it? Limp, effete, and cowering like timid rabbits at a small cloud of water particles which float for a second before disappearing into history.

As V said, "if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror."

Think about it. Understand it.

And change how you think and behave.

Stop trying to control people because you have been credulously sucked into the belief in any one of the fantasmagorical hobgoblins that the government and media have created in order to keep you stupid, scared and compliant.

In other words, stop being a cunt. Yes, you. Stop it.

Now.

Consultations—who gives a fuck?

A great number of bloggers are getting terribly worked up about the plain packaging consultation.

It is inevitable, of course, that because the government have not got the answer that they wanted from the "consultation" that they should "extend" the timescale to let all "stakeholders" respond.

None of this matters.

The power to "dictate the colour of cigarette packs, their shape, the trademarks displayed on them and any labelling" was handed to the Health Secretary solely back in 2009.

And you poor fucks think that we live in a democracy.

The consultation on this matter—just like the "consultation" on the display ban—is simply a democratic fig-leaf: the government simply wants to pretend that it is, in any way, answerable to the people.

Anyone who believes that our democracy is in any way "representative" is an idiot.

Successive governments have passed what your humble Devil called "mini-Enabling Acts" for years: the NuLabour government may have been the greatest transgressors, but that hasn't stopped the Freedom Coalition making full use of those functions.

When you are a disgusting authoritarian bastard, why would you not?

So, here is a prediction: plain packaging will be enacted. And it may or may not go through Parliamentary scrutiny. Regardless, it does not need to.

Many people—including MPs—whinge about how the EU is making our Parliament irrelevant. But, as I wrote some time ago, our Parliament does not need the EU to make it irrelevant: they are doing that themselves.

Once again, our MPs—either through malice or the usual fucking laziness—have voted to abdicate another part of the power that we lend them.

And there are hundreds of pieces of legislation with similar clauses. Parliament is reaching the point where it is simply irrelevant: the government could use these clauses to enact pretty much anything that it wants.

The government could suspend Parliament and carry on ruling as an oligarchy but it simply doesn't need to: why go to the bother of suspending Parliament and risking a revolution when you can simply by-pass the institution altogether?
...

Our jumped-up chicken Parliament is still running around and around—desperately pretending that it is somehow important—when, in fact, it has had its head cut off.

This is why—though there are a couple of decent MPs in the House—every single one of our lords and masters needs to be hanged.

For those who have not actively colluded in this state of affairs are, nevertheless, complicit in our enslavement.

Related posts:

• A jumped-up chicken of a Parliament
• Quietly, quietly, the illiberal creeps in
• Farewell freedom—it was nice knowing you
• Flattening the laws of England
• We need fewer MPs
• Eternal truths: the other and you
• Divide et impera

UPDATE: contrary to what Dick Puddlecote may think, this post was not intended to have a pop at him or any of the other folks who are throughly annoying the government on this matter.

The intention was to highlight the fact that successive governments have quite deliberately attempted to neuter Parliament, and remove themselves from democratic oversight.

But, surely, we have the right to throw these bastards out—that's the point of democracy, is it not?

Well, yes and no. As you might have noticed—if you have taken an interest in politics over the last few decades—the ratchet only seems to go one way, i.e. in the removal of our freedoms. And I don't give two shits about the colour of the rosette worn by the scum who do so.

So, if Lansley has the power to impose plain packaging on tobacco, then he will do so. And the next government will not remove that power.

If you doubt what I say about the freedom ratchet, simply compare the Coalition's liberties-championing rhetoric immediately after the election with their actual record in government.

All of this, of course, means that making your feelings known in the so-called consultation is extremely important. But it is also no shock that the government have changed the rules of the game because they didn't get the answer they wanted: and if they continue to get the wrong answer, then they will simply press ahead regardless.

After all, if the government does not intend to use these mini-Enabling Acts—and really wants to restore our freedoms and the relevance of Parliament (as the Coalition claimed)—then why do they not repeal them?

A taste of their own medicine

After the expenses scandal a couple of years ago, the few actual convictions belied the fact that the entire body of our lords and masters were engaged in widespread fraud, in a scandalous conspiracy against the taxpayers who they are supposed to serve.

Further, all three major parties in this country have proposed spying on our every communication for no good reason at all, something that surely breaks the Data Protection Act's provision that all data held should not be excessive.

Given these two vignettes, it strikes me as being utterly hilarious that one of these corrupt bastards should complain about HSBC demanding that they hand over "sensitive information" in order to prove that they are not corrupt.

HSBC has targeted MPs with demands for sensitive private information as part of a crackdown by the bank on "politically exposed" customers. The move has left some feeling they will lose their banking facilities unless they comply.

A Labour MP who is a longstanding customer of HSBC contacted Guardian Money to say he had been asked by the bank to disclose information about his finances, including accounts he has with other banks, and his "sources of wealth".

At first he thought it may be a "phishing" scam, where fraudsters try to obtain people's private details by masquerading as their bank or an official body, but the letter was genuine, and was followed up earlier this month by a phone call. The MP, who declined to be named, says he explained to the bank that the information being sought was "inappropriate", and when he asked what would happen if he didn't co-operate, the suggestion was that his account may be closed.
...

The answer, it transpired, is that HSBC has decided the MP is in a category of high-risk customers known as "politically exposed persons", or Peps. Even though, according to HM Revenue & Customs, he definitely isn't one of those. And he hasn't been singled out for special (mis)treatment. It is understood that every MP who banks with HSBC is being quizzed – and, presumably, other public figures, too.

Aaaaaaaaahahahahahahaaaaaaa! Ahahaha. Ahaha. Ha!

How nice it is to see these thieving, snooping, authoritarian arseholes getting a taste of their own medicine!

But, of course, on a more serious note, you might be wondering what the fuss is about? After all, surely an MP is a politically exposed person—how could they not be?*

Luckily, retired international lawyer Tom Paine can supply us with the answer to that little conundrum.

When practising abroad as an international lawyer, I often had to raise with clients dealing with companies associated with local politicians the delicate issue of money laundering. You can imagine how the politicians concerned reacted when informed that English legislation required enquiries as to their past, and contractual provisions as to their possible future, misconduct. I rather tired of apologising for it. I can't quantify how much business was lost because of these laws, but let's face it, the counterparties had other, easier choices.

As I never had to deal with UK politicians, I did not realise until this morning that they had exempted themselves. Here is the HMRC guidance mentioned in The Guardian article (my emphasis);

In some situations you must carry out 'enhanced due diligence'. These situations are:

• When the customer isn't physically present when you carry out identification checks.
• When you enter into a business relationship with a 'politically exposed person'. Typically, a politically exposed person is an overseas member of parliament, a head of state or government or a government minister.
  Note that a UK politician isn't a politically exposed person.
• Any other situation where there's a higher risk of money laundering.

Yes, that's right: as with the tax on benefits in kind, our lords and masters have exempted themselves from the rules which apply to others.

Once again, that old saw of "one rule for us and a different one for them" seems utterly appropriate.

This must stop. An MP is quite obviously a politically exposed person: further, MPs have proved themselves to be a body of people who are entirely untrustworthy every respect—those who are not actively thieves or liars are criminally stupid.

So, when this anonymous Labour MP whinges that his "financial integrity" is being questioned, my response is "well, whose fault is that? Cry me a fucking river."

And, given their plans to spy on everything we do, when this same anonymous Labour MP then asks...

"Why should they want this information, unless there's some indication that there is something amiss?"

... my reply involves motes, beams and "how the fuck do you like them apples, you totalitarian piece of shit?"
So, bravo to HSBC for giving me an excellent belly laugh this morning.

And perhaps this anonymous Labour MP might take a lesson from this; perhaps this Labour MP will drop his anonymity and start campaigning vociferously against the Coalition's plans to monitor our communications?

Or, more likely, he will continue to complain in the Tea Room and quietly continue to use his expenses to steal money from his constituents.

Either way, I am thrilled that he has been insulted and inconvenienced—it is the very least that he deserves.

Diesel exhausts do cause cancer

Yes, this is the announcement from the University of the Blindingly Obvious World Health Organisation (WHO).

Exhaust fumes from diesel engines do cause cancer, a panel of experts working for the World Health Organization says.

It concluded that the exhausts were definitely a cause of lung cancer and may also cause tumours in the bladder.

Whilst smoking has been the bete noire for lung cancer for some decades, the habit's portrayal in the media as the prime cause of lung cancer has never made any sense. Comparing per capita lung cancer rates with per capita smoking rates has seen the data move in opposite directions: whilst rates of lung cancer have increased, smoking has decreased.

Obviously, that is not to dismiss smoking as a significant factor in lung cancer cases, but it has long been obvious that there must be another, far more pervasive, causative factor—and car exhausts have always been a prime candidate (especially since tetra-ethyl lead was replaced with benzene as an anti-knocking agent).

As such, the WHO's announcement hardly comes as a surprise.

However, given that this shocking health risk has been confirmed, I now look forward to the WHO-driven lobbying for a ban on diesel car advertising—accompanied by health warnings on diesel car doors, a ban on driving diesel cars in public, diesel car display bans and plain paint jobs for diesel cars.

Because, with smoking, it is all about the health aspects, right...?

But director of cancer information Dr Lesley Walker said the overall number of lung cancers caused by diesel fumes was "likely to be a fraction of those caused by smoking tobacco".

Um. Yes. Possibly. Although, given the lack of evidence for health effects from second-hand smoke, quite possibly not.

Baby boomers

Here's a neat little pointed slice from the wife, commenting on Chris Dillow's observation that the roof of today are a bit tame and tedious... [Emphasis mine.]

If you [baby boomers in general, and Chris Dillow in particular] want angry, empowered youth, then don’t spend the first 25 years of their lives teaching them that the bland, unquestioning, isolating conformity which suits your desire to retain cultural and social dominance is for their own good.

Your methods of upbringing are what created today’s 23-year-olds who fret over whether they can afford to buy a house in Barnes. Your parental indulgence is why others of your children still live in your council house with three kids of their own, no spouse, and no job.

You didn’t teach them to see the value in standing up for their future because you didn’t want them to do that—because it might hurt yours. You’ve told them all of their lives that somebody else would sort out their problems, take their part, and make the world right for them; you’ve taught them that dependence has no cost and entitlements have no price and one’s desires are automatically others’ debts to pay—why should they not believe you now? You have no right to complain. You promised them the earth; they’re just waiting patiently for you to provide it for them.

Quite.

Watching your fall

This is the massively-foreheaded face of our enemy. And—look!—isn't it a stupid face, a weak face, a detestable face? But don't be deceived—this man holds you all in utter contempt. Mark him: he is the enemy of all free-born British people everywhere.

Oh look—here is proof positive that no matter who you vote for, the cunt politicians always get in.

The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon.

Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time.

The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it.

As The Mail points out, this kind of monitoring was thrown out when Labour proposed it—not least because the Tories and LibDims thought it was absolutely beyond the pale.

In 2006, Labour was forced to abandon similar plans in the face of fierce opposition from Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and privacy groups.

Well, how the tide has turned, eh?

Does anyone remember this interview from 2011—a mere year ago?

Early in our interview, he says disarmingly, "I need to say this – you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

He hasn't changed his views since we met five years ago when he was home affairs spokesman for his party and I was beginning to get to grips with the attack on liberty and privacy by the Blair government. We were both astonished then at the range, depth and stealth of the campaign and the surprising truth that few people seemed to notice or care about Blair's authoritarian project, which did so much to reduce the citizen's standing in relation to the state. Clegg is passionate on this: "It was the outright derision towards the criminal justice system… and extreme disdain for due process. For Blair the criminal justice system was an impediment to keeping people safe."

Five years after that meeting it seems extraordinary that he now occupies such a pivotal role in government and is in a position to lead the restoration of civil liberties. Were it not for his performance in the TV debates during the election campaign, which put the Lib Dems in the game, and the need for the coalition partners to find areas in which they could bond, it is certain that this Protection of Freedoms Bill would not exist. Although I have some concerns about what has not been included in the bill, it is true that the conditions that brought it into existence are near miraculous.

Yes, that is Henry Porter's interview with Nick Clegg, from February 2011. It is entitled—ironically, it now seems—Why we should believe Nick Clegg when he promises to restore liberties stolen by Labour.

Predictably, the BBC have interviewed David Davis and he is not in favour—although he does not condemn Cameron and his merry band of twats as "a collective sack of shit".

As a reminder—because memories are short—David Davis resigned his seat in protest against the 42-day detention law. At the time, he gave a speech outside Parliament, announcing his intention and the reasons for his action. Please, go and listen to it: everything that he said then applies now.

Despite David Cameron's pontifications and Nick Clegg's protestations, this government is leading our country down precisely the same dictatorial route that NuLabour did.

In a couple of decades, when people asked what went wrong with Britain, they will identify David Cameron's victory over David Davis as the decisive factor—when the man of spin won over the man of principle.

And, given the Coalition's activities over the last few months—on booze, and smoking, and surveillance—then I issue this edict: if you are a member of Labour, LibDems or Conservative then you are a traitor and an enemy of the British people.

You have marked yourselves as fit for nothing but a public hanging—and one day we, the people, will ensure that is what you will get.

UPDATE: Norman Tebbit asks why the vote for all of the Big Three collapsed in Bradford...

More than ever before the mainstream party leaders need to be asking themselves why their one time voters have joined the ranks of the 'None of The Above' moment...

Well, Norm: I think that this latest news answers your question—does it not? It is because the Big Three are all the same: they are the enemy class, united in a conspiracy against the ordinary people of Britain.

So why on earth would those same people connive at their own destruction by voting for their executioners—do you think we are stupid...?

UPDATE 2: is anyone else surprised that EU Referendum can point to an EU motive behind this travesty?

Now this may be a coincidence, but don't we have a Data Retention Directive, otherwise known as Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006?

Isn't this the directive which requires member states to oblige providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks to retain traffic and location data for between six months and two years for the purpose of the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime?

And didn't the EU commission last year start a review of the rules, with a view to proposing an improved legal framework? Wasn't that then followed by a proposal for a comprehensive reform of the system?

Then, a few months later, up pops the UK government with some proposals of its own. Are we supposed to believe that this is a complete coincidence? Does anyone believe that, with data retention being an occupied field, the British government is working entirely independently, and has not consulted with the commission on this?

Yup: it seems our Mother of All Parliaments EU regional government is simply obeying the instructions of its puppet-masters. Well, what a surprise.

Can we leave yet?

Treat kids as money boxes...

Regular readers will know that some of the benefits that your humble Devil gets most angry about are those surrounding children.

There are two strands to this ire. The first is a simple indignation that I—a childless man whose lifestyle is not only unsubsidised but heavily taxed (and sometimes illegal!)—should be forced to subsidise the lifestyles of those who choose to have children.

The second is based not on petulance but on a real concern for the kind of mentality that child benefits induce. Let me elaborate...

This year, it was reported that some GCSE students were visited by Michelle Obama, and one of them found herself inspired.

... before meeting Mrs Obama, Talitha didn’t see the point in school. She hung out with kids who didn’t take work seriously and was ready to throw her life away—to become a "stereotypical baby-mum", as she told the Times.

Why? Why would you saddle yourself with an expensive, time-consuming, helpless human being? Yes, all your friends may be doing it—but why are they saddling themselves with an expensive, time-consuming, helpless human being?

Because they will be paid for doing so.

More importantly, why should a visit from a strong woman convince Talitha that her hitherto chosen route may not be, y'know, entirely fulfilling.

Because using another human being simply as a way to gain money and a council flat is a pretty low ambition. And not just "low" as in morally suspect, but "low" as in "a pathetic way to waste your potential".

No, I'm not doing down those who choose to be mothers because they want to care for a child: I am condemning those who want to have a child because they cannot think of any other way to fulfil themselves—or, in too many cases, to make a living.

And of course critics tell me that no one would actually have a child simply for the money—that would be awful. Well, yes—yes, it would.

The 36-year-old woman is accused of shaving her son’s head and eyebrows and forcing him to wear a bandana to school to make it look like he was receiving chemotherapy.
It is alleged she then swindled the authorities by claiming a carer’s allowance, tax exemptions and a disability allowance for the boy, who is now aged nine.
Gloucester magistrates’ court was told how the mother allegedly forged doctors’ notes and prevented the boy and his seven-year-old sister from taking part in school activities by leading them to believe they were too unwell.

Of course I object to the £100,000 scammed out of our taxes by this pathetic excuse for a human being. But more, I object to the way in which she treated her poor children—she made them suffer simply so that she could get more money.

But what do you expect when our entire benefits system is set up to encourage people to pimp their children?

Quote of the Day...

... comes from The Appalling Strangeness because he's absolutely fucking right.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a whole host of laws that need to be repealed in order to enhance life in this country, and I would love to see that happen. But before it does, we need to stop the fuckers in Parliament adding to the sum total of legislative bollocks in this country. And as our starting point, suggesting that new restrictions on the press and public inquiries into the alleged misdeeds of News International are fucking pointless when what they did is already illegal.

I used to level this particular argument at NuLabour; and then I levelled it at Boris when he enacted his ridiculously authoritarian Tube booze ban; and now, it seems, I need to spell it out to this supposedly liberty-loving Coalition...

We don't need more laws: just ENFORCE THE LAWS THAT WE ALREADY HAVE.

You cunts.

Typical!

For a number of years, your humble Devil and various other demonic minions have been tracking "fake charities"—organisations that claim to be charities but, in fact, take massive amounts of state cash in order to lobby those same governments.

Greenpeace was, in fact, one of the very first organisations that was added to the FakeCharities website—indeed, it was one of those "charities" that inspired it. It is entirely fucking typical, then, that Greenpeace is not currently on that site because we are currently re-investigating their accounts and revising their details.

Why is this fact absolutely bloody typical?

Because—as EUReferendum gleefully points out—Greenpeace has lost its charitable status in New Zealand. And why?

Greenpeace New Zealand's political activities mean it cannot register as a charity, the High Court has decided.

Greenpeace appealed against a 2010 ruling by the Charities Commission which found its promotion of "disarmament and peace" was political rather than educational and while it did not directly advocate illegal acts, Greenpeace members had acted illegally.

In his judgment Justice Paul Heath found the commission was correct in its judgment and turned down the Greenpeace appeal.

"Non-violent, but potentially illegal activities (such as trespass), designed to put (in the eyes of Greenpeace) objectionable activities into the public spotlight were an independent object disqualifying it from registration as a charitable entity," the judge said.

Obviously it could not have happened to a nicer bunch of people.

Snigger.

Marred by his own hypocrisy

Andrew Marr: a face only a mother and two desperate, lackwit MSM slappers could love (occasionally).

You would have to have the sense of humour of a socialist not to laugh at the recent travails of Andrew "arsehole" Marr.

BBC presenter Andrew Marr has revealed he took out a super-injunction to protect his family's privacy - but says he will not pursue it any further.

Mr Marr told the Daily Mail he was "embarrassed" about the gagging order he took out in 2008 to suppress reports of an affair with a fellow journalist.

"I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists," he said.

Really? Then why did you do it—is it because you are a disgusting hypocrite?

Yes.

After all, this is a journalist who questioned and harried MPs (as long as they weren't NuLabour ministers) over stupidity, corruption and hypocrisy—and yet who tried to gag his fellow hacks from reporting on his own faithless behaviour.

After all, it wasn't as though Guido hadn't let us all know some time ago.

At the time he believed he had fathered a child with the woman, but later found out through a DNA test this was not the case.

Yes, Andrew Marr spent seven years allegedly paying child support to Alice Miles—only to find out that she was, apparently, quite as unable to keep her genitals in her knickers as he was.

That alone made me laugh for nearly half an hour. I wonder if Marr will be asking for his money back...?

Lest we forget, of course, this is the same Andrew Marr who decided to have a go at "socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed" bloggers.

As such, I thought it worthwhile digging around The Kitchen archives (not least because some 6,000 people seem to have had the same idea) in order to dig out my encomium to this "nightmarish Fraggle".

Andrew Marr, however, is a bald, jug-eared, media whore whose pathetic and slavish devotion to NuLabour may or may not be influenced by his employment by the extortion-funded BBC and his marriage to Jackie Ashley, the raddled-looking harridan daughter of a life peer who writes for both The New Statesman and The Grauniad.

But, Andrew Marr is at least correct when he accuses bloggers of ranting. After all, whilst many of us are very angry about how our country has been systematically destroyed and our futures mortgaged by his favourite party, we are—alas—unable to use taxpayers' cash to get our points across. This leads to a certain amount of frustration and, inevitably, more than a soupcon of cathartic ranting.

But, as Anna Raccoon shows, we in the blogosphere can do some genuine good by providing crowd-sourcing and expertise to those oppressed by Andrew Marr's favourite little technocrats.

Furthermore, many blogs provide an invaluable insight into certain professions because they are written by people at the sharp end—people who genuinely know what is happening on the ground, or have a specialist knowledge of the subjects that they write about.

Which, for me, provide far more useful information about the true state of affairs than Andrew Marr reading some generalised crap—written by some underpaid graduate with a 2:2 in English Literature—off a fucking autocue. No amount of ridiculous arm-waving, Andrew, can substitute for a coherent piece written by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Still, I suppose that Andrew can write with some authority about super-injunctions, eh? It's just a pity that the same does not apply to honesty, truth, faithfulness, straight-dealing and not being a cunt.

Budget for Growth: not oiling the wheels of business

A few days ago, in my comment on the Budget, your humble Devil pointed out that raising the tax on the oil companies was completely fucking stupid.

Quite simply, with fuel prices lowered, people will buy more of it—demand increases. But Osborne is going to tax the suppliers of this good, so that they produce less of it. Is the man a complete moron?

Well, that didn't take long, did it?

One of the world's biggest oil companies, Norway's Statoil, has halted work on two North Sea projects because of the huge tax hit on oil fields in the Budget.

It comes after smaller companies such as Valiant Petroleum warned that they are re-evaluating new projects, since the Chancellor increased tax by 12 percentage points to more than 62pc.

There have also been reports that oil majors have withdrawn plans to sell billions of pounds in North Sea fields nearing the end of their lives, leading to fears they will be abandoned with oil still in the ground.

Statoil, the Norwegian state-controlled company, said on Tuesday it will "pause and reflect" on the future of its Mariner and Bressay fields to the south east of Shetland.

So, what we are faced with is a decrease (however small it may be in the grand scheme of things) in the supply of oil just as the Chancellor has dropped the price of petrol.

And that drop in price is supposed to be paid for by this increased tax on North Sea oil producers. Only the tax increase will see said producers actually producing less. As Timmy says, this is a very neat demonstration of the Laffer Curve in action...

Whether this will actually lead to a decline in tax revenues overall is moot at this point: it certainly won’t lead to a reduction in short term revenues. But it will definitely lead to a reduction in the amount of oil pumped up over the decades and so is quite likely to lead to a reduction in the long term tax take.

And do note that no one is trying to dodge a tax, no one is trying to pass it on. It’s simply that the imposition of a tax has made previously viable activity now non-viable. We’re, in that long term, poorer because of the tax.

Leading to the conclusion that George Osborne is a total fuckwit because he won't raise the revenue that he expects from the producers.

On the other hand, it might be that George Osborne is, in fact, possessed of a near-fiendish Machiavellian cunning...

Because what may happen—especially with the current uncertainty in the other areas of the oil-producing world—is that these announcements are enough to put an upward pressure on the price of oil. This will then raise the price of petrol at the pump, enabling Osborne to wibble on about "greedy oil companies raping the British consumer".

Then, as the price of oil goes up, the Treasury—collecting fuel duty and VAT (a percentage of the price)—gets even more cash than they would have raked in from the 1p duty anyway. In this way, the government can rim its citizens for more cash whilst looking like the good guy.

Actually, of course, I don't think that Osborne has the intellectual nouse to pull that kind of cunning stunt—it's just that he's a stunning cunt.

Quote of the Day...

Andrew Lansley: no Ellsworth Toohey, but still a disgusting illiberal bastard.

... is from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, used by the Adam Smith Institute in a discussion about the new anti-smoking proposals put forward by that utter cunt, Andrew Lansley.

Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy—and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace—lie on a bed of nails—go into the desert to mortify the flesh—don't dance—don't go to the movies on Sunday—don't try to get rich—don't smoke—don't drink. It's all the same line… Kill the individual. Kill man’s soul. The rest will follow automatically.

This advice on how to rule the world is given by Ellsworth Toohey—one of the most brilliantly repulsive characters in English literature—to one of the protagonists, Peter Keating (a man who compromises his talent and ability in order to gain success and is thus damned).

Andrew Lansley is not like Toohey or Keating—he is neither magnificent nor corrupt enough to resemble either character. But he is the Coalition minister who has done the most to swell the contents of the massive coffer that is my swearbox, by being an utter bastard.

Lansley is now continuing to be a total and utter bastard through these new proposals concerning the sale of cigarettes.

Tobacco displays in shops will be banned in England as part of a package of measures to discourage smoking.

Instead, cigarettes and other products will have to be kept under-the-counter from 2012 for large stores and 2015 for small shops, ministers have announced.

A consultation will also be launched on whether manufacturers should be forced to put cigarettes into plain packets.

I could rant and rage about this, but why would I bother when spiked! has already done the job for me...?

As Patrick Basham and John Luik have pointed out elsewhere on spiked, the evidence that banning tobacco displays will cut smoking rates is pretty much non-existent. In fact, smoking rates have often gone up after such measures were introduced.

Indeed, the belief that making something more mysterious and more illicit is going to discourage young people from trying it demonstrates remarkable ignorance. Smoking is one of those rite-of-passage activities that allows an older child to demonstrate that they are, in fact, a grown-up. Moreover, having spent the past few years treating adults more and more like children, the government has inspired an adolescent-like ‘fuck you’ attitude to health campaigns from many people, where smoking becomes a tiny show of passive resistance to being constantly lectured about what to do.
...

In reality, the major parties are slugging it out over who can be the most illiberal. While both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats made some positive noises about rolling back the state prior to last year’s General Election, in office they have been an absolute match for New Labour in terms of interfering in our private lives. You couldn’t call it unexpected. When the ever-so libertarian-sounding Boris Johnson became London mayor, his first act was to ban the drinking of alcohol on London transport.

Your humble Devil was absolutely incensed about this at the time, and wrote a couple of pieces: one excoriating Boris and the other slamming the commenters who agreed with him. As I said at the time...

Boris, as The Nameless One points out, is now the most powerful Tory in the country and his policies are going to give some indication of what a Tory government might be like.

And Boris's very first act is to implement a policy that is more authoritarian than that of NuLabour's representative. It is a policy that involves more government interference in our daily lives (and if you think that this is the end of such policies then you are even more stupid than I thought).

Regretfully, I have been proved right again; it gives me little comfort.

It seems that spiked! also have no illusions on this score...

While there have been some small, but welcome, shifts in policy on the vetting of those who work with children and on some specific civil liberties issues, the reality is that personal autonomy and freedom are all but disregarded in British politics today. Instead, we are all seen as ‘vulnerable’ in one way or another, with the state stepping in to watch over us. The effect is to exaggerate fears and to undermine constantly our sense of having the capacity to cope with problems as they arise or make decisions for ourselves.

This creates a situation where the authorities will step in to regulate and restrict everyday life on the flimsiest of pretexts. So, as Sally Davies suggests, our children need to be protected from evil tobacco manufacturers luring the young and vulnerable into a life of addiction through, err… a neatly laid-out tobacco display case.

Defending the right to sell tobacco in a particular manner is not going to send the masses to the barricades. But the implication that we are so feeble that we cannot be trusted to protect our health in the face of some coloured boxes is a very good reason to oppose this ban. It also shows that any Lib-Con pretence to being defenders of personal freedom has long since gone up in smoke.

Indeed. Or, as the Daily Mash so eloquently put it...

Tories to treat you like children too

IT is not just the Labour Party who wants to treat you like a three year-old child, it has emerged.

Indeed not. And whilst this modern Coalition government are too stupid and vapid to try to stamp out individualism—to "kill a man's soul"—in order to rule the world, they feel entirely justified in doing so simply because they are dreary hypocritical Puritans who cannot resist their authoritarian desires.

As Pater so succinctly put it in an email to your humble Devil...

I am a non-smoker but the government's announcement that it is to force tobacco under the counter is a most dispiriting development. After years of meddlesome interference by New Labour in the private lives of British citizens, it would appear that the Coalition's only wish is to continue down the same dreary and self-righteous road.

It makes a mockery of Cameron's recent pronouncements about the value of small government and of his pre-election promises to get government off the backs of ordinary people.

If this is the direction of travel, I for one am heading off towards the Libertarians. I hope that this profoundly wrong-headed and illiberal piece of legislation is thrown out by the Commons.

They are all tediously evil bastards: isn't it time that we hanged them all...?

Why don't EU stop posturing?

Your humble Devil has finished performing in Barnes Charity Players' triumphant production of Terrance Rattigan's Flare Path (a production of which, starring Sienna Miller, is about to start a run in the West End); as such, it is time for me to ease myself back into the sordid tedium of commenting on the deeply sordid political scene.

Scanning through the blogs, I was heartened—if not entirely convinced—by my friend Mark Wallace's assessment of the politicos' current attitude towards the EU.

When The Freedom Association launched the Better Off Out campaign in 2006, its aim was not to convert every MP overnight but to demonstrate that the doomsayers were mistaken.

By proving that the sky did not fall in on the heads of Philip Davies, Philip Hollobone or Douglas Carswell, they started a process of erosion that has seen many other MPs feel free to speak out on the topic. There are now 21 MPs as well as numerous MEPs, councillors and Members of the Northern Irish Assembly who are signed up.

Davies, Hollobone and Carswell turned marginal seats at 2005 into hefty majorities in 2010 despite or because of their EU views – they drank from a supposedly poisoned chalice and they are in hearty health.
...

To change the politics of the EU debate, we need to sweep away a deeply entrenched system of perception and assumption. The cracks are showing in Parliament, the stubborn obstructionism of our opponents is starting to break down, Fleet Street’s unanimity is broken and – crucially – there are signs that there may be sales and votes in the issue.

Make no mistake about it, the plates are shifting.

Perhaps so, especially since Mark links to a James Forsyth report that Oliver Letwin has even mooted the idea of a referendum on our membership of the EU.

Constantly being told what you can and can’t do by Brussels is driving Ministers and No 10 deeper and deeper into the Eurosceptic camp.
Oliver Letwin, Cameron’s mild-mannered and cerebral Policy Minister, has become so frustrated by this constant interference that he has told colleagues he thinks Britain should leave the European Union if it won’t give us all the opt-outs the Government wants.
Letwin is not alone in thinking this. In one department, a recent meeting between a Secretary of State and a junior Minister ended with the pair agreeing that the only solution to the problem they were discussing was to get out of the EU.

If true, this is indeed something of a turnaround for that turn-coat Letwin; long-time readers might remember that, in 2007, I reported on an email conversation I had with Oliver Letwin—a conversation that was updated, after an incredibly spineless reply from Letwin, in June 2007.

In essence, Letwin delivered three reasons for being in the EU, all of which I rebutted in a long reply; Letwin's considered response was that "we shall have to agree to differ". If even he is considering a referendum then we may have turned a corner.

However, I think it very unlikely that this is the case—I have neither seen nor heard anything in the last four years to make me think that Letwin has changed his mind on this issue.

No, I think it far more likely that this is the first in a series of bargaining gambits: having seen their naive leader get shafted—and made to look like a total idiot—over the EU budget, the Tories have decided that it is time for them to play at being tough. This idea is contained within one of the paragraphs quoted above... [Emphasis mine.]

Oliver Letwin, Cameron’s mild-mannered and cerebral Policy Minister, has become so frustrated by this constant interference that he has told colleagues he thinks Britain should leave the European Union if it won’t give us all the opt-outs the Government wants.

This is a warning shot across the bows to the EU and the other member states—it is most emphatically not a "cast-iron" guarantee of a referendum. Nor is it even a particularly convincing gambit.

The EU will simply call Letwin's bluff, we won't get the opt-outs—and Ollie will not call for a referendum.

Apart from anything else, the Tories are in a Coalition with the deeply EUphile Liberal Democrats, and they simply don't have enough clout to push anything at this stage.

The Tories try to keep their newly hardened Euroscepticism under wraps when dealing with their Lib Dem colleagues, who remain committed to the European project. But even the Lib Dems have been shocked at how much influence Brussels has on decisions that should be taken at a national level.

Indeed. However, whoever leaked this particular news to Forsyth must be gunning for Clegg...

Nick Clegg was appalled when officials told him that the EU wouldn’t allow VAT to be set at a local level.

It is simply inconceivable that Nick Clegg—an ex-MEP, a party leader and general policy wonk—is unfamiliar with the constraints on the setting of VAT levels. It is entirely conceivable, however, that the Tories are setting Clegg up for when the inevitable backlash over the VAT rise finally hits home.

Whilst I would like to believe that Mark is correct in his assessment of the EUscepticism of our MPs, I suspect that the Tories remain as wedded to the EU project as they ever were. Although, believe me, I would be happy to be proved wrong on that...

Youth unemployment

Youth unemployment has, apparently, reached a record high.

The latest official statistics showed that youth unemployment rose by 66,000 to 965,000 in the three months to the end of December, the highest level since comparable records began in 1992.

The youth unemployment rate was 20.5%, compared with a general unemployment rate of 7.9%.

Well, as both Timmy and the ASI point out, it is not as though we didn't warn you—the National Minimum Wage prices low value workers out of jobs.

And for the reasons that I have outlined above, the National Minimum Wage "achievement" should be thrown as Gordon—along with the rotten fruits and turds—when he is finally driven out of Downing Street.

And the unemployed should be on the front line because, of course, the NMW has had another effect: someone whose labour is worth less than £5.80 per hour will now never, ever get a job. And that means that they cannot get either the experience or finance to better themselves—and that means that they are condemned to a life rotting away on benefits, a seam of potential destroyed.

Of course, the above was written a little time ago: the NMW now stands at £4.92 per hour for 18 to 20-year-olds and £5.93 for those 21 and above. Which means that, of course, anyone who's labour is worth less than those figures—plus, of course, 12.8% Employers' NICs—will never get a job.

This applies particularly, of course, in more depressed areas of Britain—which also have the highest levels of general unemployment—because £4.92 (or £5.93) per hour is much higher relative to other wages in the area. Just as with the National Pay Deal, the National Minimum Wage takes no account of the differences in living costs in the various parts of Britain.

And, naturally, the situation is only going to get worse when the 2% rise in National Insurance kicks in—it is, after all, a direct tax on job-creation at a time when the economy is struggling. Brilliant.

Of course, young people could work for free—and, luckily, on W4MP (a recruitment site for MPs' bag-carriers and political party wonks) you can see many, many opportunities for young people to do precisely that.

It appears that MPs and political parties view researchers as being utterly valueless.

Or is it simply that MPs and political parties want to be able to pay the going rate for these jobs, i.e. nothing, whilst preventing businesses from doing the same...? Yes, I think it is.

Anyway, Timmy sums up the solution to this problem very neatly...

Us bastard capitalist neoliberal pig dogs said that the effect of a minimum wage would be to push the lowest skilled people out of the employed, into the unemployed, part of the labour force.

We now have that minimum wage and in our first proper recession since we have had, we’ve got 20% unemployment among the least skilled, the young, as opposed to 8% more generally.

We said this would happen and lo and behold, it has come to pass.

The solution is therefore obvious: abolish the minimum wage.

Quite.

And he ought to know...

It seems that—unlike some advocates of liberty (David Davis: I'm looking at you)—Douglas Carswell MP has become even more forthright since the Coalition gained power. In yet another of his routinely stinging posts, Douglas neatly sums up all of the things that the ConDems have absolutely failed to do...

Yes, the talk is bold, but how much has public policy really altered since May?

Cutting the deficit? Ministers say so, but not the maths. Borrowing is up. Like pretty much every other post-war government, this one seems to be using higher taxes and inflation to solve its debt problems, rather than seriously curb state largesse.

Political reform? All those interesting ideas, mooted at the height of the expense scandal, including recall and open primaries, seem forgotten. Instead we’re to have a referendum on AV—which was in neither Coalition party’s manifesto.

Bonfire of the quangos? It’s gone out.

Localism? Maybe. But what about localising the money?

Great Repeal Bill? Try googling it.

Europe? This afternoon the government will announce we’re opting into yet another EU proposal on criminal justice. Plus ca change.

Welfare reform? Full marks. But is this a change of policy or an acceleration of the reforms Labour’s James Purnell piloted.

Defence? We carry on cutting what we need, while spending on ruinous contracts we can ill-afford.

New politics? Same sofa.

Indeed. What is, of course, most worrying is the Coalition's failure to get to grips with public spending. And I declare this a failure not primarily because the government is continuing to add to Britain's massive debt—although it is—but because the debt is apparently the raison d'etre for everything that the Coalition does.

For instance, do you think that the Coalition has not ripped up enough of NuLabour's draconian laws? Are you wondering where your Freedom Bill is? Or maybe you are concerned about the fact that, far from "repatriating powers from the EU", the ConDems seem to be conceding as many as possible (possibly to beat the deadline on their own referendum lock)?

Ah, well, you see, the Coalition would love to do all of these things but they simply don't have time: the public debt is a ticking bomb and if Nick and Dave don't spend the majority of their time trying to sort it, then we will all—quite literally—go "boom".

Of course, those of us who are interested in liberty thought that the colossal fuck-up that NuLabour made of the finances might be a blessing in disguise. After all, a cut in public spending means smaller government; and if things really are that bad, then the government is going to have to cut public spending, right?

Wrong.

As people like John Redwood MP have consistently pointed out, despite all this talk of "cuts" the government will be spending £92 billion per year more of our money by 2015.

And, as Redwood notes again, public spending (and borrowing) is up substantially (in November, the Coalition spent 10% more than Labour did in the previous November); he also summarises the Coalition's debt reduction strategy.

The figures remind us that the deficit reduction strategy relies on higher tax revenues, not on spending reductions overall. Whilst some individual areas have been cut in real terms and some even in cash terms, the overall trend of current spending growth this year has been one of strong growth in cash terms, with a real increase of around 3% depending on your choice of inflation index. Capital spending has been reduced, which takes a little of the pressure off the deficit. With the exception of October, the growth rate of spending has been accelerating over this financial year.

The main weapons to tackle the deficit will be the higher VAT rate, higher fuel duties, higher National Insurance, and the estimated increased taxes from growth and inflation. As the higher taxes come due, so the questions about value for money and the choices made over public spending will become more insistent from a public worried about the impact of the taxes on living standards.

And this is the absolute crux of the matter—the ConDems have absolutely no intention of reducing spending. Nor do they have any intention of reducing the size or scope of government. No, the Coalition's strategy is to avoid any meaningful cuts in public expenditure and, instead, to plug the gap in the public finances through tax rises.

Worried yet?

It gets worse. For some time now, Cameron has been stressing that the Coalition wants to stimulate growth in the economy and that this will also help to bring down the deficit (and remember that the Coalition are only aiming to eliminate the yearly deficit: they have no strategy for reducing the actual debt itself).

In October, the massively-foreheaded wanker who now leads this country was banging on about a...

"forensic, relentless approach" to ensuring the UK's future economic growth."

We don't need forensics, Dave: we know what delivers growth—low taxes and less regulation.

Unfortunately, the Coalition are unable to undo large amounts of the regulation without leaving the EU—which they are not going to do—and, as we all know, they are increasing taxes like it's going out of fashion.

So, to summarise—the Coalition are doing very little about civil liberties, are spending more, raising taxes, and fucking economic growth.

What a triumph.

And I haven't even touched on the barking insanity of their energy policy yet...

Quote of the Day...

... comes from Shuggy, as he tries to get to grips with "nudge" economics.

To avoid injury, people should not attempt to iron their clothes whilst still wearing them.

See, you were thinking of doing this but now you've been 'nudged' in the right direction. It's all very 'Big Society'. Think I'm getting the hang of it now. It's like the small society, only more stupid...

Naturally, he's referring to Richard Thaler's suggestion—accompanied, of course, with a not-so-veiled threat—that people should abandon rounds in favour of running a tab.

Richard Thaler, a professor at Chicago University, suggests that groups of three or more should set up a tab to be split at the end of the evening to stop each member of a party feeling obligated to buy a round for everyone.

Prof Thaler, a key adviser to the Prime Minister on behavioural economics or "nudge" policy, said of buying rounds: "It is just a tradition and it has this unintended consequence.

"So if I was giving advice, I would say if there were more than three of you I would run a tab. These are the kinds of things that policy makers and publicans should be thinking about."

Uh huh. Yep, it's "just a tradition" and we wouldn't want to hang on to any of those in this country, eh? Plus, as Shuggy also points out, only an American—and some of our more lippy doctors—would consider three pints to be "binge drinking".

Mind you, Thaler does make one useful point...

Prof Thaler questioned the usefulness of the minimum drinking age of 18. He suggested that some councils should see whether they could cut the legal age.

I quite agree: I think that people should be encouraged to drink in pubs from a much younger age—16 as a minimum, or lower when accompanied by a responsible adult.

"What are the limits on the abilities of councils to experiment? Could they raise or lower the drinking age?" he said.

Well, not as the law stands, no. And, if they did have the ability to change the law, the gits in local government would almost certainly raise the age rather than lower it. Because they're idiots.

So, given that Thaler's good suggestion is unlikely to come to pass, let us hope that his other suggestions are similarly ignored.

Prof Thaler is author of the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth And Happiness, which heavily influenced the Prime Minister in opposition.

Oh. Shit.

UN persecutes sceptics

A number of commenters have berated me for not focusing on the coming General Election—to which my reply is "what's the fucking point?"

It's an argument that I'm sure EUReferendum would agree with, but even were we not in the EU, Britain would, no doubt, still be affected by the attempts at forming a burgeoning world government.

As a taster of what's to come—whichever bunch of statist wankers are running the British government on May 7th—Climate Skeptic has helpfully highlighted this piece of delight from the UN.

A campaign to declare the mass destruction of ecosystems an international crime against peace—alongside genocide and crimes against humanity—is being launched in the UK.

The proposal for the United Nations to accept "ecocide" as a fifth "crime against peace", which could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC), is the brainchild of British lawyer-turned-campaigner Polly Higgins.

The radical idea would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry.

Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute "climate deniers" who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change.

"Ecocide"? Why not just go the whole hog and refer to it as the fucking Gaiacaust?

It's typical though: here they are, losing the battle on the facts, on the science—and simply because we sceptics keep inconveniently telling the truth and now, after fuck knows how long, we are finally being heard. So, what's their solution?

Is it to re-examine the facts, to carry out more studies and to do more, you know, actual science? Nope. Regardless of whether or not their position is based in any kind of reality, these people hold their cause as an article of faith.

And what do these morons do when you faith in under attack? That's right... Pretty much the same as the Catholic Church did with the Spanish Inquisition—prosecute and destroy those people pointing out that the evidence shows that the Earth goes around the sun.

This is yet another indicator of the totalitarian nature of these disgusting Green cunts, and just goes to prove that the only thing worse than a fanatic Gaia-worshipper is a fanatical Gaia-worshipper who is also a bastard lawyer.

And if this comes to pass, will any of our political parties protect our freedoms?

Will they fuck.

Den of liars

(nb. I am not the Devil's Kitchen)

Years of lies and half-truths from the temperance movement culminated in a parliamentary debate on Wednesday. Regular readers will know how the supine media, the fake charities and the quacks have been drip-feeding the public scare stories and bogus statistics about the pretend alcohol epidemic since—oh, let's think now—shortly after the smoking ban. In all that time, barely a word of truth has escaped their lips and on Wednesday it all paid off. The venal cretins in the House of Commons fell over themselves in their rush for legislation.

Dick Puddlecote has already filleted the debate in expert fashion but, as the psychiatrist said of Basil Fawlty, there is enough here for an entire conference. The campaign for minimum pricing is being led by Kevin Barron MP, an anti-smoking weasel and temperance nut who has been well briefed on demonising the drinks industry and playing the think-of-the-children card. While regurgitating every myth about alcohol, he accused everyone else of making myths of his myths:

Kevin Barron (Rother Valley, Labour): A myth is widely propagated by parts of the drinks industry and politicians that a rise in prices would unfairly affect the majority of moderate drinkers.

It would, you devious fuck. Even assuming you would keep the minimum price at 50p unit—which I seriously doubt—everyone would pay more for their drink.

It would effectively mean that a woman who drinks the recommended maximum of 15 units a week could buy her weekly total of alcohol for £6. Of course, probably not everyone drinks industrial white cider only.

Well, precisely. But we soon will be if you get this illiberal and illegal law through.

Unlike rises in duty, minimum pricing would benefit traditional pubs—the on-trade, as Greg Mulholland suggested—so, unsurprisingly, it is supported by the Campaign for Real Ale, which also gave evidence to the Committee.

CAMRA can suck my balls, the thick-headed, narrow-minded, pot-bellied, do-it-to-Julia cunts that they are. It's only a matter of time before the head of CAMRA gets off a plane saying that he has a piece of paper in his hand. As Mr A points out at Leg-Iron's place, CAMRA should be a verb:

I wonder if "doing a CAMRA" will become an accepted phrase for stupidly rolling over, attacking your potential allies and cosying up to the enemy when they are clearly out to get you, like the term "Quisling" did?

Sorry Kevin, you were saying...

We are all concerned about the closures of public houses in this country.

Are you concerned, Kev? Are you really? Let's see shall we?

How Kevin Barron voted on key issues since 2001:

Voted strongly for introducing a smoking ban.

I thought not.

They are closing for many reasons, not necessarily just the price of alcohol...

No one look at the elephant. The room is going to be just fine so long as we don't look at the elephant.

According to calculations undertaken by the Treasury at the Committee's request, for our report, if the duty on a bottle of spirits had increased since the early 1980s at the same rate as earnings, it would now be £62.

That statistic reeks of bullshit, but let's go with it. Surely you're not proposing that the price of a bottle of gin should be £62?

Neither I nor the Committee recommend an immediate leap to those levels of duty on spirits, but we should certainly make a start.

Are you fucking insane?! Your ultimate goal is to make a bottle of spirits cost £62?

We think that a start should be made. We recommend that duties on spirits be returned in stages to the same percentage of average earnings as in the past.

Ride my face to Chicago, you're really serious! Listen Kevin, waste of eggs and semen that you are, tax on alcohol has risen above inflation since the 1980s. If alcohol is more affordable today, it is because the working wage has risen and living standards have improved. These were—as your daddy might have told you—the aims of the Labour movement before it became infested with paternalistic cunts like you.

Being able to afford things was once since as a good thing, even by the pricks in your party. If you start setting a minimum price for everything you don't like, just because the working class can afford more than a crust of bread and a copy of The Morning Star, you will be doing it to everything. But then you'd like that wouldn't you, you sordid, totalitarian lefty cunt?
And what do Cameron's hip young Tories have to say on the matter?

Robert Syms (Poole, Conservative): I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 earlier in the week about marmalade.

Next!

John Grogan (The turgid member for Selby, Labour): A couple of years ago, I suggested that Sir Terence Leahy was in danger of becoming the godfather of British binge drinking, given the low prices at Tesco. Some alcohol was being sold more cheaply than water.

Liar. Next!

Howard Stoate (Dartford, Labour): When I was last in Washington on a Select Committee inquiry, I was refused alcohol on the grounds that I could not prove that I was over 21 as I did not have my passport with me. I was not sure whether to feel flattered or insulted.

Fascinating. Next.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour): My hon. Friend is obviously very youthful looking. No one challenged me, I have to say, but other staff were challenged, and the age limit was rigidly enforced.

Look, dickheads, we're trying to have a debate here. Have you got anything other than feeble anecdotes to contribute?

Indeed, not so long ago, two British sisters were on holiday in Florida, one over 21 and one under. Their holiday flat was entered by the local police who found them both drinking. The older sister was sent to prison for corrupting a minor-that is how seriously it is taken. I am not suggesting that we should be so draconian, but there are countries that take the issue a bit more seriously than we do. We have a long way to go.

"A long way to go"? Cops bursting into houses arresting people for drinking. That's what we're working towards, is it? God, I hate you.

Anne Milton (Shadow Minister, Health; Guildford, Conservative): I know a little bit about Canada, which has quite vicious laws on alcohol. Instead, it has a significant problem with cannabis misuse.

A salient point, at last. Crazy drinking laws in North America have only led to endemic, tedious pot smoking by the under-21s. A bit of an unintended consequence there?

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour): In Sweden, they have had serious problems with alcohol.

Yes, yes. Another avenue of sanity has opened up. Time to grab the bull by the horns. Sweden has the highest alcohol taxes in the whole EU but serious problems with alcohol. Riddle me that, fuckers.

No? Nobody? No one even going to respond?

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour): There is an argument even for raising the minimum drinking age. In America, it is 21, but it is much lower in Britain. That is something that we should consider, and in time we may do so—but not at the moment.

You people really are the pits.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour): The minimum price argument is overwhelming. The Chief Medical Officer said that it should be a minimum of 50p per unit of alcohol. I would be happy with that.

Let's be very, very clear about this. Liam Donaldson has been the most deceitful, scare-mongering, incompetent, unhealthy, dishonest, unscientific, pus-filled, overweight, pasty, waste-of-space turd polisher to ever rise to the high office of Chief Medical Officer. From the smoking ban to minimum pricing and from bird flu to swine flu, there is not one thing this pernicious ball-licker has touched which hasn't turned out to be based on a shit-heap of lies. When the crank dies I will cry tears of joy, so do not even think about quoting him as an authority on anything.

It would also save a valuable cultural feature of our society—the great pub—which is suffering greatly at the moment from cheap alcohol being drunk elsewhere.

Can't think of anything that might be making pubs suffer, Kelvin? Maybe a little ban that you, too, voted for? So, how can we find a way of forcing people back into the pubs that your smoking ban has crippled?

We should make all cheap alcohol sales techniques, such as happy hours, illegal, and enforce that rigidly.

More bans. More bans will make everything all right. We're only ever one ban away from Utopia.
And then we have the voice of the esteemed medical profession, Dr Richard Taylor, to give us the measured and rational facts upon which less learned members of the house can base their judgement on what is, after all, a complex issue.

Richard Taylor (Wyre Forest, Independent): Dr. Stoate did not do this, but my job in these debates is to terrify people.

So speaks the medical man. Of course your job is to terrify people. You are, after all, not only a doctor but a politician, and therefore—in your own eyes—God almighty.

If women drink heavily at the end of pregnancy, their babies can be born addicted to alcohol and will have to go through the withdrawal process. That is absolutely horrendous... Alcohol in excess is a drug of addiction. It is a poison in excess, leading to comas and things that, in the past, have led to deaths in police stations... Alcohol is not a stimulant; it is a narcotic... jaundice, cachexia, a grossly swollen stomach and distended veins, and vomiting blood...

Christ, that balanced and objective overview is enough to make anyone give up drinking. You are, I presume, a teetotaller?

However, I am with everybody else: not consumed in excess, alcohol can bring a great amount of pleasure, and I would never miss out on the House of Commons claret, for example, or several of the other potions that we can have here.

Gloating about the claret in the subsidised House of Commons bar while you scheme to rob the public of yet more of its hard-earned money. I hope your constituents tear you limb from limb.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour): To reinforce my hon. Friend's point, I studied and taught economics, so I know about a thing called a demand curve, which shows that if the price is raised, consumption goes down.

Just think about that for a minute. That is the whole quote. I haven't edited it. He actually interrupted a debate in the mother of all Parliaments to recite the most elementary piece of information in the field of economics. That he felt the need to do so says something about him or it says something about the stupefying ignorance of his fellow MPs. I fear it may be the latter.
And then there's this asshole:

Pete Wishart (Perth & Perthshire North, Scottish National Party): Let me clarify: everybody in Scotland is for minimum pricing, whether they are health professionals, chief police officers and the licensing authorities. The only people against minimum pricing in Scotland are the Labour party in the Scottish Parliament, the Liberals in the Scottish Parliament and of course the Conservatives, as we would expect.

That's quite some support you've got there, Pete. Everyone's on board except the Labour party. And the Liberals. Oh, and the Conservatives. Apart from that, everybody.
And what do the Conservatives think about all this anyway?

Anne Milton (Shadow Minister, Health; Guildford, Conservative): In 1947, we drank 3.5 litres of alcohol per head in this country; now, the figure is well over 9.5 litres.

So what? As Dick Puddlecote has pointed out, we were under the yoke of rationing in 1947. Is that Tory party policy now?

The British Medical Association believes that we have some of the heaviest levels of alcohol consumption in Europe

In that case, the British Medical Association are lying cock-suckers to man. World Health Organisation figures show that the UK drinks less than the Czech Republic, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Hungary, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Finland. That puts us firmly mid-table, no?

Minimum pricing is regressive in that the capital made by increasing the price of alcohol will go straight to the supermarkets and shops that sell the alcohol. Instead, why not tax the alcohol so that the profits of any increase can, as the report says, go back to the Government.

Aside from the fact that this woman has no idea what the word 'regressive' means, you have to admire the Tories for being up-front about it. They want to screw the punter just as much as Labour, but they're going to make damn sure that it's the government, not the retailers, who get the money.
So, not a cigarette paper between the Tories and Labour on this issue, as usual. In a three hour debate, only one voice of sanity emerged from this den of liars and thieves. In these dark days it is only proper to give credit to a man who exhibits some balls and principles. To that end, I give you Philip Davies MP...

Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative): Given the Chairman's lack of complaint about his own colleagues appearing and intervening in the debate, I suspect that his concern with me is not that I am contributing to it after having arrived late, but simply that he will not agree with what I am about to say. I am afraid that I am going to disappoint him again.

The report is certainly a useful contribution to the debate on addiction—not, unfortunately, on addiction to alcohol, but on this Government's and the Health Committee's addiction to the nanny state. They have already helped to dismantle the pub and club industry with their smoking ban. Pubs are closing at the rate of 50 a week—many because of the ban on smoking in public places—and the same fate is being felt by many clubs, such as working men's clubs. It seems that the Health Committee, not satisfied with dismantling the pub and club industry, now wishes to direct its fire in other areas, such as at cinemas and commercial broadcasters, to try to close down those industries. Many sports will also be adversely affected if its recommendations are introduced.

Do my eyes deceive me, or is this fellow bang on the money?

All that would not be so bad if I thought that, in the end, if after all the Committee's recommendations were introduced, its members would say that they were satisfied. The problem, however, as with all these matters, is that the report panders to the zealots in society who are never satisfied. I guarantee that if all the recommendations were introduced, Committee members would, within a few months at most, come back with further recommendations because the previous ones had not gone far enough. This lobby is impossible to satisfy.

How did this fellow sneak into Parliament? Security!

The problem with the political classes generally, particularly in this House, is that when they are faced with a problem—there is no doubt that there is a problem with excessive drinking of alcohol—the solution that they propose has to be constituted of two particular themes. The first ingredient in any solution that politicians propose is that it must show that they are doing something; they have to be seen to be doing something. The second ingredient, which we always see, is that the proposal must not offend anyone and must be superficially popular. Once again, that approach applies to many of the recommendations, most of which would not make a blind bit of difference to excessive or under-age alcohol consumption.

Goddamn. That was good. I think we're going to need one less lamp-post. Naturally, the government's response was dismissive and patronising.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour): It is clear that the hon. Gentleman and I come from polar opposite positions, but he is making the classic freedom speech. He is saying that we have the freedom to do what we want, without intervention from the state.

"The classic freedom speech". That's what centuries of political thought boil down for these fascists. John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill—it's all just a bit of verbal jousting to them.

The same speech will have been made against the breathalyser, crash helmets, the compulsory wearing of seat belts and a whole range of traffic regulations that are designed to save lives. Freedoms affect other people, not just the person exercising them.

No. No. No. Wearing a seat belt and a crash helmet does not affect other people and never has. It was with those laws that the rot set in. I've quoted it before and I'll quote it again, but when Ivan Lawrence spoke in 1979 to oppose compulsory seat belts, he predicted exactly where this would all lead:

Why should anyone be forced by criminal sanction not to hurt himself? That was never, at least until the crash helmet legislation, a principle of our criminal law. Where will it end? Why make driving without a seat belt a crime because it could save a thousand lives, when we could stop cigarette smoking by the criminal law and save 20,000 lives a year? Why not stop by making it criminal the drinking of alcohol, which would save hundreds of thousands of lives?

When will we realise that laws not only cannot cure every evil but are frequently counter-productive? Here the harm done to our criminal process may well exceed any good that the law can do. We can see that in advance, so why do we persist with it? If there was a law which made it a criminal offence to smoke or to drink alcohol, neither of which, of course, do I advocate, just think of the amount of bereavement that would be saved, the number of hospital beds that could be put to better use, and the time and energy of our doctors and nurses which could be more usefully employed. Yet we do not consider doing that. What is it about the motorist that requires him to be singled out and subjected to this sort of legislation?

The harm to justice caused by this legislation will be far more substantial than we think. When will we realise that every little infringement of liberty, for whatever good cause, diminishes the whole concept of liberty? If life is the only criterion, why did we sacrifice so many millions of lives in two world wars? Why did we not in the Second World War lie down and say "Because millions of people may die, we should let our liberty be taken away before the onset of the Nazis?" The answer is that more important than lives is the concept of liberty.

Since I have been in the House I have seen the cogent arguments and the telling pleas of hon. Members on both sides of the House persuading and succeeding in persuading the House that it is only a very little piece more of liberty that we are withdrawing and for such great benefits and advantages. As a result we have far fewer of our freedoms now than was ever dreamed possible a few years ago. In the end we shall find that our liberties have all but disappeared. It might be possible to save more lives in Britain by this measure—and by countless other measures. But I do not see the virtue in saving more lives by legislation which will produce in the end a Britain where nobody wants to live.

And he was dead right. If people had opposed that little law back then we would never be in the situation we are now, with authoritarian scumfucks like Kevin Barron citing is as a precedent to justify the state fixing prices. And once we accept that the state should fix prices for our own good, what will come next? Even now, with overwhelming evidence that these bastards will never stop, the basic principle of individual liberty is drowned out by the spastic yelps of the temperance zealots. Even now, a photo of some tart pissed up in a town centre carries more weight than centuries of hard-fought liberty. Even now, there are people thinking that it's only the cider-drinking plebs who will lose out from this bullshit law. From making it a crime to not wear a seat belt to banning happy hour in one generation. Silently but inexorably, the state marches on.

Never mind that, think of the children. You don't want babies being born addicted to alcohol do you? What kind of a monster are you? Look at our statistics. Feel my sincerity. Alcohol is cheaper than water. Is that what you want? Is it, eh, murderer? Won't somebody please think of the children?!?

No one heeded Lawrence's warnings in 1979 and no one will heed Philip Davies in 2010, because it's just one little law, isn't it? It's not as if thousands of little laws add up to one big tyranny, is it?

Richard Taylor (Wyre Forest, Independent): When parents are not providing adequate control, the nanny state has a place, if it is thinking of the good of all the people.

Fuck you, Taylor, and fuck your nanny state. I wish nothing but harm on you and your kind. Nothing.