The Aged P

Why The UK Telegraph Can Only Sneer At Trump

Reading the Daily Telegraph and/or The Spectator, both (reputedly) right wing organs one could be forgiven for thinking nothing much has happened during the period leading up to the Presidential election next November – except for a weekly sneer about Donald Trump. You just wouldn’t realise that for half a year several people have been jockeying for the Republican Party nomination.

Of course within a few days, starting with the Iowa caucus, there will have to be some column inches but the hacks will be operating in the dark without a compass. They have no bearings.

They have no bearings because, of course, reporting US politics is almost always a cut and paste job for the Brit hacks. They check the US media, find out what the pundits and the consultants and the academics are saying – then they alter one or two words and phrases and regurgitate the message to UK eyes.

Only the 2016 race is not going to plan.

It was all going to be so simple. Back in the early summer the Republican Party establishment had it all sussed out. The summer and early autumn would thin the ranks. “Outsiders” like Trump and Carson would flare brightly for a few weeks and then flame out. The young bloods like Rand, Walker, Rubio and Cruz would tear each other apart for the “conservative” vote and then former governor of Florida Jeb Bush, rich with big donor cash and the support of regiments of consultants led by so called “genius” Karl Rove, would come through the middle. By October the media and GOP establishment would be crowning him the unofficial nominee and all would be set for the dynastic clash of Bush v Clinton in November 2016.

Except it didn’t pan out that way at all. Despite all those consultants and over $100m in donations and the support of the official conservative media Jeb never lifted from the ground.

Instead Donald Trump has stolen all the oxygen. Despite weekly predictions of demise from the punditocracy Trump polling lead has been consistent. Attacks from the left and right media have regularly missed the target. Not a single big name media figure has come out in support – and it seems that a lot of ordinary Americans don’t give a damn.

This is why in the Telegraph/Spectator the cover has faded. They can no longer cut and paste what the pundits/consultants/academics are saying because there is very little to cut and paste. Since early December the “experts” have clammed up, scared witless by public mockery of their failed predictions. There is a subdued sneering at Trump but that is all.

What has never appeared in the Telegraph/Spectator is a serious analysis attempting to explain the phenomenon of Trump. It is sometimes put down to anger and frustration amongst older white males but if you look at the thousands who attend the Trump rallies there are a lot of younger folk as well – and women.

There is some evidence of support from previously Democrat leaning blue collar workers and elements of the black community, constituencies in which none of the other GOP hopefuls could hope to gain any traction.

Pennsylvania, anyone?

Of course nothing is certain and casting political runes is ever an unpredictable game. But even if Trump was to eventually fade post February US politics can never be the same. As someone has said he has not only ignored the rule book – he’s ripped it up and written another,

But of course, nobody in the Telegraph/Spectator said that. They feel much more comfortable and cosy with their heads stuck up their own derrieres….

“It is not the task of the criminal law to censor offensive utterances”….At last – a judge with common sense..

Evangelical Protestant preacher Pastor James McConnell from Belfast is, unlike many 21^st century public figures, not a man given to nuance. Such a character, naturally, fits awkwardly with the modern state which increasingly seeks to discourage vigorous and robust debate. Hand in hand with the legions of the easily offended who patrol social media to hunt out and silence anyone who upsets their sensibilities our political and judicial masters are happy to enact and enforce laws to metaphorically cut out the tongues of those refuse to avoid giving “offence”

Thus Pastor McConnell, as a result of a sermon he preached to his congregation in May 2014 that was also streamed over the internet was charged with improper use of a public electronic communications network and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network.

The state sought to punish him for making this statement.

‘Today we see powerful evidence that more and more Muslims are putting the Koran’s hatred of Christians and Jews alike into practice. ‘Now people say there are good Muslims in Britain, that may be so but I don’t trust them. Enoch Powell was right and he lost his career because of it. ‘Enoch Powell was a prophet and he told us that blood would flow in the streets and it has happened.

‘Fifteen years ago Britain was concerned of IRA cells, right throughout the nation they done a deal with the IRA because they were frightened of being bombed. Today a new evil has arisen. There are cells of Muslims right throughout Britain. Can I hear an Amen?

‘Right throughout Britain and this nation is going to enter a great tribulation and a great trial. To judge by some of what I have heard in the past few months you would think that Islam was a little more than a variation of Christianity and Judaism, not so. 

‘Islam’s ideas about God about humanity, about salvation are vastly different from the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Islam is heathen, Islam is satanic, Islam is a doctrine spawned in hell.’ 

Words, claimed the prosecution, deliberately designed to offend Muslims.

Not so, said the Pastor.

no way I was out to hurt them – I wouldn’t hurt a hair on their head. But what I am against is their theology and what they believe in.

But, from the moment he was charged he remained defiant and said that he would not stop preaching the Christian gospel even if the price was finding himself behind bars.

Certainly there were expectations that the state’s aim of shutting him away in a cell would come to pass in this age of tender feelings. But a miracle happened – or rather an equally unexpected manifestation – a justice with common sense in the person of District Judge Liam McNally.

‘The courts need to be very careful not to criminalise speech which, however contemptible, is no more than offensive. ‘It is not the task of the criminal law to censor offensive utterances. ‘Accordingly I find Pastor McConnell not guilty of both charges.’

I rejoiced at that judgement. I might or might not agree with the Pastor on what he said. But I would be outside the courthouse clapping the verdict. Not because I supported his sermon – but because I supported his right to preach it. Just as I would be perfectly entitled to then stand up on a soapbox and rip into everything he said.

It is incredibly illiberal for the state to police hatred. Hatred might not be big or clever, but it’s only an emotion. And officialdom has no business telling us what we may feel — or think, or say, or write. Allowing the state to monitor belief represents a brutal reversal of the Enlightenment itself. John Locke, in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), set the tone for the Enlightenment as an attempt to ‘settle the bounds’ between the business of government and the business of morality. ‘The business of laws is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for the safety and security of every particular man’s goods and person’, he wrote. That ideal is now turned on its head. Across Europe, governments ‘provide for the truth of opinions’, and in the process they silence those they don’t like and patronise the rest of us, reducing us to imbeciles incapable of working out what is right and wrong, and of speaking out against the wrong.

A small but significant victory in the fightback against a censorship being imposed by those who consider themselves morally superior to the rest of us. But we must resist the temptation to sheathe our swords.

There will be many more Pastor McConnells to defend…..

I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK………

A savage cri de coeur from “Lady Magdalene”  in the comments below a typical piece of political boiler plate penned by resident Telegraph hack Tim Stanley bloviating about “politics in 2015”. He’s on the usual DT “polyfilla” duty – filling up a few square inches in a slow news week but Lady Magdalene’s riposte is a searing indictment of  the political class and the parasitic media leeching from its gorged flesh.

Will there ever be a day of reckoning?

 The modern UK The Establishment and their lackeys in the mainstream political parties created did not have the consent of the British people.

If challenged (not that the media will EVER really do that) they would claim they had a mandate for the following:

1. Membership of the EU 2. Post WW2 immigration (ie up to Blair’s election) 3. Uncontrollable mass immigration (post Blair) 4. Devolution, which ignored the majority English population 5. Multi-culturalism

They would claim a mandate because they won a General Election in which the electorate, pre EEC, were offered two very similar parties. And post EU were offered a “choice” of two virtually identical ones. FPTP prevented anything else and if, by an electoral freak it did, there was always the House of Donors and Cronies to ensure that nothing significant changed.

Our so-called “representative democracy” is nothing of the sort. It doesn’t represent the wishes of the people. It legitimises the wishes of The Establishment.

Well now the serfs are revolting ….. at least, a significant percentage of them are.

Cameron got a majority based on 24% – less than a quarter – of the electorate. 75% rejected what The Establishment was offering.

And it’s going to get better (or worse) depending on your point of view.

Because a sizeable proportion have rejected what The Establishment wants for their country and they’re going to continue doing it..

I simply cannnot understand why ANYONE would want their supposedly democratic country to be governed by an unelected, unaccountable cabal of utterly corrupt and incompetent foreign bureaucrats ….. or the likes of Merkel, Hollande and other foreign politicians.

I want my country back. That’s all I’ve been voting for for 15 years now, and if we lose the EU Referendum, it’s all I’ll be voting for for the rest of my life.

I REJECT the UK The Establishment has created. I wasn’t asked. I didn’t want it. And nothing is going to change that.

Amen to that, say I……..

Season’s Greetings From The Aged P

Greetings from Worth in West Sussex. The church is 5 minutes from our house. Pic taken by Mrs P in 2010

David Cameron & Nicky Morgan’s Plan To Unleash Legions Of Ofsted Snoopers To Spy On Your Children’s Clubs & Groups

Yep-those UK Jewish/Mormon/Hindu/Christian/Sikh/Buddhist youth groups are all “radicalising” young terrorists….

Ofsted inspectors could be sent into Sunday schools, church youth groups, Scout troops and even bell ringing circles to search for signs of children being “radicalised” under new counter-extremism plans, church leaders and voluntary groups fear. The proposals, backed by David Cameron, could lead to thousands of “out-of-school education settings” having to be formally registered for the first time and facing inspections to judge whether they are promoting so-called “British values”.

That’s right – David Cameron and Secretary of Education Nicky Morgan are both pimping this grand plan to recruit legions of snoopers to sit in on your daughter’s ballet class or your son’s football squad training in case they are being given lessons to construct a clock bomb or a suicide vest;

Radicalisation

It’s the current buzzword on the lips of the great and the good. In walks a perfectly normal teenager, ears glued to ipod with that global look of adolescent sullenness. Teacher/coach/instructor mouths a few magic word, waves a wand and same teenager straightens up, dons a burka or bomb vest and is ready to hit the street to kill and maim a posse of non believers – then up stands Mr/Ms Ofsted Snooper, shoves a list of “British Values” in the teenagers face and – bingo – he/she reverts back into obnoxious acne scarred youthdom.

Well, that’s what Nicky Morgan thinks will work…

Before 1933 Germany was a nation full of clubs and groups for young and old…hobbyists, athletes, petlovers, drinkers, the lot. Within two years the Nazis had subsumed them all under the NSDAP umbrella. Nazi eyes and ears made certain that every one of those groups conformed to Hitler’s worldview and the individualistic and the eccentric were smothered under a blanket of brown mediocrity. The same happened in the old Soviet Union and those counti

These Cameron/Morgan proposals are exactly the same. Because our rulers are so terrified of focusing on the one community where a minority of fanatics are eager to recruit new agents to break our bones and bodies in order to bend us to their will they have to go through this charade of tarring us all with the same brush.

And they have the nerve to call Trump a fascist?

Give me strength….

Can’t connect to a Wi-Fi network from Amazon Fire TV Stick?

Can’t connect to a Wi-Fi network from Amazon Fire TV device even though you have entered your network code fifteen times and you are about to take out the Firestick and flush it down the toilet?

Try this

Make yourself a large gin & tonic with plenty of ice

Take a few sips and relax……

Pick up the firestick remote

Press SELECT and PLAY at the same time and hold down for at least five seconds

Enjoy the show as you seamlessly connect……

The Absolute Importance Of The Letter “T”….

It was one of those free seminars organised in a hotel by a pair of spivs financial advisors who desperately wanted us to invest our spare cash and mortgage our future via a crap financial product (aka “golden opportunity”) that gave minimal return but carried eye watering charges. Still there was free wine and a few nibbles so what the hell…

As the pinstripe suited spivs droned on the combined effect of central heating and generous helpings of cheap plonk began to drift me towards the arms of Lethe.  As my eyelids drooped I caught the phrase “diversify your portfolio” wafting over me from spiv #2 – then woke with a start at the sound of a different voice

It was Mr Geezer. That was not his real name…. he was Mick…or was it Vic…or maybe Rick? Anyway, before the meeting began he told the rest of us he was “something in Door Furniture” and could obviously solve all our hinge or letterbox problems with one sweep of a cordless drill and a few screws in conjunction with his loud Croydon accent and full frontal verbal assault.

“Yeah – diversify. That’s what I’m gonna do when I’ve saturated the Coulsdon/Purley door furniture market…leaving the boy to deal with that while I build up Garden Lighting”

By now spiv #2 was eager to get back into once in a lifetime investment plans but the global ambitions of Mr Geezer sparked our interest – probably in the same way as King Ferdinand’s attention was caught in the middle of Christopher Columbus’s pitch about the westward route to the Spice Islands.

“But isn’t Garden Lighting a bit of a jump from Door Furniture” inquired some timid soul (clearly frightened of falling off the edge of the world)

“Nah” said Mr G with a note of contempt “if Richard Branson can make a fortune in pickle and then set up an airline what’s to worry about?”

None of us had the heart….

UK Govt Rejects Immigration Petition..Says Don’t Worry – We Have Strict Controls….

439,478 British citizens recently signed a petition asking David Cameron and his government to “stop all immigration and close the UK borders until ISIS is defeated”

This was the government’s response….

The UK government will not close Britain’s borders. It will ensure access for legitimate travellers and trade whilst operating its borders securely to protect the public from the threat of terrorism.

The UK government has no intention of closing Britain’s borders, as this would create more problems than it would solve. The UK remains ‘open for business’ for legitimate travellers and trade. However, we continue to operate our borders securely and to enforce our immigration laws. This includes carrying out 100% checks on arriving passengers in order to identify any criminal, security and immigration concerns. Given recent events in Paris, Border Force has intensified checks on people, goods and vehicles entering the UK from the near continent and elsewhere, undertaking additional and targeted security checks against passengers and vehicles travelling to France via both maritime and rail ports and a number of airports across the country.

Phew…that’s a relief….makes it sound as if our borders are like this

But then you read this

 The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate that in 2014, 8.3 million people living in the UK were born abroad, around 13% of the total population of the UK. Of these, 3 million were from countries now in the European Union and 5.3 million were from non-EU countries.

…and you realise our borders are really like this…

Tax Boss Really Shocked By Suggestion That Taxpayers Should Receive Good Customer Service

Lin Homer, Chief Executive of HMRC since 2012, is back in the news. It appears that we, her employers, are being unreasonable in expecting good customer service.

The boss of crisis-hit HMRC has urged taxpayers to contact them online rather than by phone to avoid huge waits.

Lin Homer apologised for her department’s ‘poor service’, but said she would respond failures by telling people to go online instead of boosting the number of call centre staff so people can get through by telephone.

It follows the admission that just half of calls to HM Revenue & Customs were answered between April and June, with some having to wait three quarters of an hour.

But then since 2005 Mrs Homer has frequently been accused of alleged incompetence in a variety of taxpayer funded roles

Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council 2002-2005

In 2005, Homer was criticised by the Election Commissioner for failings in her role as returning officer during a postal vote-rigging scandal in Birmingham in 2005

The petitioners also accused the city’s returning officer and chief executive Lin Homer of failing to discharge her duties in accordance with electoral law.

Judge Mawrey said that Ms Homer “threw the rule book out of the window” to deal with overwhelming numbers of postal vote application forms received.

He also  said fraud in the city ‘would have disgraced a banana republic’. He described Mrs Homer’s decision to allow postal ballot papers to be transported to the count in shopping bags as ‘the direst folly’.

Head of Immigration Service 2005-2011

She was then chosen by the Home Office to run what was then called the Immigration and Nationality Directorate – this time on £200,000, plus bonuses.

Already in chaos, it was on her watch in 2006 that we learned of the mistaken release of 1,000 foreign criminals. It later emerged some 450,000 asylum cases had not been dealt with but left in boxes at the Home Office. The new UKBA was meant to clear up the mess, and Mrs Homer became its first chief executive, on an astonishing £208,000 a year. But among a fresh run of scandals was the revelation that nearly 400 of the 1,000 foreign prisoners were told they could stay in Britain and dozens remained untraced.

2011 Chief of Dept for Transport

Mrs Homer was the Permanent Secretary at the DfT throughout 2011 when details of the new rail franchise business model were being thrashed out.

She was named by Sir Richard Branson last month as one of a handful of officials at the department whom his Virgin Rail team met during 2011 to voice concerns over the bid process.

Those concerns were ignored, said the rail boss whose warnings proved correct last week when the Government U-turned on its decision to award the lucrative franchise to his rival First Group due to an alleged catastrophic business model error.

The mistake is estimated to cost taxpayers £100million and the DfT has now been labelled “not fit for purpose”.

Her record of apparently gliding through disaster after disaster with immunity has not gone unobserved

Douglas Carswell MP (UKIP) “We seem to be governed by a clique of mandarins who bounce from one highly remunerated job in Whitehall to another and there doesn’t seem to be any proper democratic scrutiny as to whether they’ve done a good job in one role before they get the next one.”

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance  “The public bodies for which Lin Homer has worked all appear to have been plagued by problems and left taxpayers paying the price of failure.

You’ve missed the point, gentlemen. In 21^st century Britain if you are in government or politics, unlike almost any other aspect of life, incompetence is rewarded.

After all, it’s only taxpayers money, isn’t it….and at the moment Lin Homer is collecting it….

Pic h/t: This Is Money