Spinning idly in the wind

One of the chief architects of our destruction: "I don't care about energy bills, because I don't pay mine—you do, you fuckin' mooks."

Christopher Booker's latest piece in the Telegraph should have every person in Britain gnashing their teeth at the rampant stupidity of this Coalition's energy policy—specifically the utter lunacy that is embodied in off-shore wind farms.

Last week, the BBC ran a series of reports by its science correspondent, David Shukman, on the Government’s plan to ring our coasts with vast offshore wind farms.
The nearest thing allowed to criticism of this policy came in an interview with the Oxford academic Dieter Helm, who we were told had “done the sums”. What, Shukman asked, had he come up with? The only figures Helm gave were that the Government’s offshore wind farm plans would, by 2020, cost £100 billion—scarcely a state secret, since the Government itself announced this three years ago—plus £40 billion more to connect these windmills to the grid, a figure given us by the National Grid last year.
Helm did not tell us that this £140 billion equates to £5,600 for every household in the country. But he did admit that the plan was “staggeringly expensive”, and that, given the current extent of “fuel poverty” and the state of our economy, he doubted “if it can in fact be afforded”.

Even shorter on hard facts, however, was Shukman’s report on a monster new wind farm off the coast of Cumbria, where a Swedish firm, Vattenfall, has spent £500 million on building 30 five‑megawatt turbines with a total “capacity” of 150MW. What Shukman did not tell us, because the BBC never does, is that, thanks to the vagaries of the wind, these machines will only produce a fraction of their capacity (30 per cent was the offshore average in the past two years). So their actual output is only likely to average 45MW, or £11 million per MW.

Compare this with the figures for Britain’s newest gas-fired power station, recently opened in Plymouth. This is capable of generating 882MW at a capital cost of £400 million—just £500,000 for each megawatt. Thus the wind farm is 22 times more expensive, and could only be built because its owners will receive a 200 per cent subsidy: £40 million a year, on top of the £20 million they will get for the electricity itself. This we will all have to pay for through our electricity bills, whereas the unsubsidised cost of power from the gas plant, even including the price of the gas, will be a third as much.

Booker also points out—reinforcing what your humble Devil has been saying for years—that wind power is inherently unreliable and, as such, we would need to build a MW of conventional power for every MW of installed wind power.

Or, of course, the lights go out.

This would be stupid enough were we forced to duplicate our power capacity at gas- or coal-fired prices; that we must build wind farms at 22 times the cost of conventional power plus the gas- or coal-fired power stations is nothing short of insane.

And, ultimately, we are going to have to pay for all of this. And we are going to pay through the fucking nose.

The trouble is that the government knows damn well that people will not stand for massive rises on energy taxes; as such, the government and the EU have forced the power companies to carry much of the cost—thus making the energy companies out to be total fucking demons*.

As Matthew Sinclair points out in this superb rant to the Freedom Society (whilst promoting his book, Let Them Eat Carbon), most people are simply not aware of the vast costs being imposed on the power companies by our Lords and Masters in the name of the discredited Climate Change scam.



It does appear that the energy companies are, however, protesting somewhat. Bishop Hill recently submitted a Freedom of Information request on a meeting between the government and the Electricity Retailers Association (ERA).

Here's an odd thing. Some weeks back I noticed that Gregory Barker, the Climate Change minister, had met with representatives of the Electricity Retailers Association to discuss "information on consumers' bills".

To me this seemed rather odd - why would electricity retailers need to discuss the information on bills with ministers? Perhaps Mr Barker wanted to insist that some information was passed on to consumers?

An FOI request later, I discover that the meeting was at the request of ERA itself—it appears that they asked to speak to ministers about a number of issues—Fuel Poverty, the Green Deal, the Community Energy Saving Programme and the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target. Putting this together with DECC's record that "information on consumers' bills" was discussed, I conclude that ERA wanted to make the costs of these government programmes transparent.

Unfortunately, I can only infer this because according to DECC, no record was kept of the meeting.

The Grauniad recently ran a fucking ludicrous story about how climate change might lead aliens to eliminate us because our carbon emissions would lead them to assume that the human race was "out of control".

Personally, I think that these self-same aliens might well kill us all.

But only because they would look at the fucking colossal idiocy enacted by our governments (and the rampant apathy of their citizens) and decide that the human race is too fucking stupid to be allowed to live.

* Alright—worse demons than they actually are.

Unlawful rebellion

Here we go—another day heralds the foundation of another libertarian group blog. It is hardly surprising, really; some time ago, Tom Paine discussed the idea that group blogs might be the way forward—an idea that he reinforces with his introduction to Orphans of Liberty.

Whilst I wish the best for the Orphans, but they are fighting a real problem...

I don't know what it is about libertarians but any groupings—whether Alliances or Parties—seem to lead to discord and disagreement. I don't know why this should be—perhaps it is that the nutters seem to be able to shout the loudest.

One of the most vociferous bunch of people around at the moment are the so-called Freemen on the Land. Whilst I enjoy watching their antics, I have always wondered just how sound a legal basis they have for their assertions. But perhaps Captain Ranty's post at Orphans of Liberty might give some kind of indication—especially the section on Lawful Rebellion.

Lawful Rebellion

This is a different kettle of fish entirely.

Lawful Rebels take their guidance, and their instructions, from Magna Carta 1215 Art. 61, which gives all Britons the right, (actually, the obligation), to rebel if the monarch violates her Coronation Oath. She has done so, by herself or by proxy, over three thousand times since 1953. The Labour government tinkered (illegally and unlawfully) with the House of Lords when they passed a Bill of the same name in 1999.

They disallowed (some) hereditary Peers from taking their seats in the HoL despite them having Letters of Patent. In so doing, they diluted the power of the HoL as an Upper Chamber, and as a result, a Barons Committee was formed in 2001. Some 80 Peers got together and selected a Quorum. In turn, the Quorum delegated four Peers to trot up to Buck House to inform Madge that they were dischuffed.

They gave her 40 days to put right the wrongs, (she did not) so they gave her a further 10 days to deliberate the Second Affidavit (known as an Opportunity To Cure), and, although she acknowledged the Barons Committee, she did not correct her oath violations.

Now that all conditions for Lawful Rebellion are met, the way is open for ALL Britons to revoke their allegiance to the monarch and swear it instead to the Barons Committee. Like them, I also sent my First and Second Affidavits to Madge, and more recently I sent a letter to the Barons Committee pledging my allegiance to them. Article 61, never revoked amended or rescinded, gives me the right to ignore any and all statutes issued by the monarch and her government. I am instructed to "..distrain and distress" them in any way I can. Which includes, but is not limited to withholding taxes, and generally being a pain in the arse. I am doing just that.

As you might expect, your humble Devil enjoys watching people make a pain in the arse of themselves—especially when their target is the state—but how much legal basis is there for Lawful Rebellion.

Well, in a nutshell—none.

Why? Surely Magna Carta—that great charter signed by King John I in 1215—is the cornerstone of the liberties of the British law.

Unfortunately not.

Magna Carta was actually revised a number of times—from 1216 until its last ratification in 1423—but the first time that Magna Carta was incorporated into British law was in 1225. By that time, a number of the clauses had been amended or specifically omitted—and Clause 61 was one of the clauses that was removed in 1216.

When researching this, I found a useful translation of Magna Carta, with the omitted [*] and extant [+] clauses marked very clearly. For those that are interested, the only remaining extant clauses—those that have not been subsequently overwritten by other laws and statutes—are as follows:

1. FIRST, THAT WE HAVE GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. That we wish this so to be observed, appears from the fact that of our own free will, before the outbreak of the present dispute between us and our barons, we granted and confirmed by charter the freedom of the Church's elections - a right reckoned to be of the greatest necessity and importance to it - and caused this to be confirmed by Pope Innocent III. This freedom we shall observe ourselves, and desire to be observed in good faith by our heirs in perpetuity.

13. The city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs, both by land and by water. We also will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs.

39. No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.


40. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

And that's it.

Now, one can see that any copper trying to nick your cash is, in fact, in breach of Clause 39 and it is entirely possible that various agencies—from the Legal Aid to your thieving lawyer—could be accused of breaching Clause 40. Other than that, however, Magna Carta does not actually protect you from an awful lot. If you want to know when these clauses were removed or superceded, Wikipedia has a comprehensive list.

Now, I am sure that many people would say that they don't recognise many of these superceding laws, but they overlook the simple fact that Lawful Rebellion—as defined by Clause 61—does not apply because it was never incorporated into English law in the first place.

So, if you want to indulge in rebellion, by all means do so—but do be aware that your cause is not supported in law.

Any law.

Fly away, you Union cunts

I am not a fan of everything that Margaret Thatcher did, but she should go down in history as a hero for her breaking of the Unions. Had she not done so, not only would our economic situation be far worse than it currently is—more akin to 1978/79's Winter of Discontent—but you could be facing the daily intimidation that is being doled out to some BA cabin crew.

The emails, posted late on Friday evening, were chillingly concise and their content clear: "If any of you go into work tomorrow, your life won't be worth living,'' one read.

Hours earlier, as the news spread among British Airways cabin crew that last ditch talks between the airline and the hard-line union Unite had failed, a tirade of malicious text messages had been fired off to specifically targeted staff – those brave enough to have voiced contempt for the union militants – telling them they were "scrum" [sic] and "scabs" if they crossed the picket line to begin their shifts on Saturday.

"Suzy" wasn't surprised when copies landed in her in-box and on her mobile phone.
...

Inside Heathrow, [Suzy] says, menace and unease are everywhere. When BA suggests a new service Unite generally instructs its members to ignore it.

"Ridiculous things,'' Suzy says. "We were asked to distribute hot towels on short haul. Unite said no. We got on board and everyone was in a state.

"Do we give them out or not? Usually workers—quite rightly—fear not doing what the boss asks. But we are just as frightened not to do what the union asks."

In the 1970s and early 1980s, this kind of treatment would apply in almost any job; the majority of the workforce was unionised. In some businesses, the unions operated a "closed shop": if you weren't part of the union, you lost your job (or would never get it in the first place).

Last year, British Airways made a loss of £401 million: the airline is currently losing more than £1 million—every, single day. No business can carry on like this.

At the very least, these silly cunts are going to have to realise that they certainly can't carry on partying like this.

I must say that I am very impressed with BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh: not only because he has stepped up to the plate and made public statements personally, rather than through some press officer, but also because he has obviously got down onto the shop floor, as it were, and talked to his staff and customers; he has reassured customers and supported those staff who, like Suzy, are facing down Unite.

Suzy and her colleagues say they are more than happy to work harder if crew numbers are reduced. "We are just glad to have a job in this climate. And we already have more crew than the recommended CAA minimum.

"Becoming an air hostess was my dream as a little girl," she says. "I've always been proud to wear the BA uniform. It means I work for the best.

"But yesterday I stopped at a filling station to buy petrol and, before walking in to pay, I put on my coat. I know the public has no sympathy for us.

"Who can blame them? And I couldn't be sure what sort of reception I would get in a BA cabin crew uniform. How sad is that?"

It is, indeed, very sad. But the choice is clear: Willie Walsh must be allowed to sack those who strike, and those cabin crew who disagree with Unite's bullying must stop their union dues.

This isn't the 1800s: much of the support for workers that used to be dealt with by the unions is now enshrined in law. The unions are not only redundant, but actively malignant. It is time for the union bosses to be deprived of their big, fat pay-cheques and thrown onto the dole queue.

Note that I am not saying that they should be made illegal, or that the state should destroy them: I am simply saying that ordinary workers who do not want to be bullied and threatened because they disagree with the actions that a union is taking—actions that could potentially bankrupt the employers, thus ensuring that all of the workers lose their jobs—should stop paying their union dues.

As a happy by-product of the utter destruction of the unions, the Labour Party would go bust and we could all sleep easier in our beds, knowing that our money and our freedoms were not being handed over to thugs in order that maleficent politicians can continue to line their pockets with our money.

What's not to like...?

UPDATE: I see, via Timmy, that not only have we been lining the unions' pockets through the Union Modernisation slush Fund—also known as The Labour Party's Money-Laundering Fund—but we have also been subsidising them through staff placements.

Ministries and Government agencies spent more than £17 million paying staff to carry out “trade union activities” last year.
Some departments are paying staff to work full-time on trade union business.

And some full-time civil servants spend three days a work carrying out union activities and still receive a full salary from the Government.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are being stitched up by our government: our freedoms are being sold down the river to vested interests, whether those interests be the unions or big business.

It's time to make these politicos pay for their treachery: is it too much to hope that, after the General Election, we are faced not with a Hung Parliament but a Hanged Parliament...?

As CACC collapses, the Tories continue to fuck up

Professor Philip Stott has an excellent piece questioning the wisdom in George Osborne's announcement that Nicholas Stern would be helping them to draft their environmental policy. Amongst other things, Professor Stott resurrects a particularly cutting quote about the Stern Review which I thought would be good to place here once again.

"If a student of mine were to hand in this report [the ‘Stern Review’] as a Masters thesis, perhaps if I were in a good mood I would give him a 'D' for diligence; but more likely I would give him an 'F' for fail. There is a whole range of very basic economics mistakes that somebody who claims to be a Professor of Economics simply should not make. [...] Stern consistently picks the most pessimistic for every choice that one can make. He overestimates through cherry-picking, he double counts particularly the risks and he underestimates what development and adaptation will do to impacts.”

[The environmental economist, Dr. Richard S. J. Tol, Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Dublin, Professor at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and Associate at Hamburg University.

James Delingpole headlined the news that the Tories were consulting Lord Stern in the following manner:

Cameron and his suicidal eco-rats clamber aboard sinking ship

Hardly a ringing endorsement, is it? Similarly disbelieving ejaculations came from EUReferendum, and Professor Stott opines...

Has Lord Snooty’s Sidekick Gone Stark Raving Bonkers, Readers?

So, what has happened to the Tories? Have they taken leave of their senses? Why on earth was Osborne even approaching Lord Stern in the first place?

Well, quite possibly they have.

But Osborne’s lack of political judgment and timing go even deeper. One cannot believe that the Shadow Chancellor has been so stupid as to make this now seemingly-unfounded pronouncement at the very moment when the Global Warming Narrative is collapsing on every front, political, economic, and scientific; when, in the US, even President Obama is retreating from from the cap-trade bill; when most of his own Tory party are highly critical of the whole ‘global warming’ scenario; when polls show that the public everywhere is increasing in its scepticism; and, when The Sun is once again flaring forth ...

On February 1, that Old Tory trooper, Lord Tebbit of Chingford, writing in the Conservative house rag, The Daily Telegraph, warned that “'Camp Cameron' should worry about the steady erosion of the Tory lead in the polls” - the latest YouGov product has the Conservatives on 38 per cent, down two points on last month. I am sure Tebbit is correct, and I can further warn Boy George that this latest nonsense over Lord Stern will not have helped one iota.

Indeed, Britain is now screaming out for a leading political party that will begin to talk real economic sense on climate change. That way, there might actually be some votes in the topic.

This is an argument echoed today by Burning Our Money; but as Wat Tyler also points out, there really isn't a credible alternative.

It's very difficult all this, isn't it. The horrible fact is, there isn't actually anyone we can vote for who will stop this happening. Sure, there are people we can vote for who will promise to stop it, but that's a different thing - under our grotesquely unfair first-past-the-post Westminster system of government, such people will never get the chance to actually implement their promises. Tyler's constitutional reform package includes separation of the powers and a directly elected President, but absent that, our real world choices are indeed very limited.

Which is why we will be out campaigning for the Tories again this time. They sure ain't perfect, and we share many of the Major's concerns, but in terms of forming a government to replace Brown's disaster, they're all we've got.

This is, of course, a damning indictment of our electoral system—but also of the people in this country. The simple fact is, in a weird fucking conundrum, that the only thing that keeps the major parties in power is the fact that people think that the major parties are the only ones capable of gaining power.

So, whilst Jackart may maintain that the Tories are simply the "shit that stinks least", do not be under any illusions that the Tories will, nevertheless, be utterly shit.

Yet more IPCC bollocks

This has been a good year so far, certainly in the opinion of your humble Devil. The decision to prosecute even some of the thieving MPs is a small victory for those of us who have long maintained that those fuckers were stealing our money.

But far greater vindication, as far as I am concerned, has come in the slow but steady collapse of the climate change alarmist camp; as someone who has been calling "bullshit" on this scam—in writing at least—for five years, watching the destruction started by the leak of the CRU documents has been a joy to behold.

Whilst some of us swarmed over the emails and the data—delighting at the revelations about dirty tricks and shoddy statistical analysis that revealed the truth of our suspicions—EUReferendum was leading the charge against the High Priest of the IPCC. As Richard North showed, Dr Rajendra K Pachauri has redefined the word "compromised"—his nexus of power and money inextricably bound up with his position as IPCC Chairman and entirely dependent on the alarmist AGW position.

It is really the kind of investigative journalism that Private Eye used to do so well: on this topic, however, the Eye has dropped the ball. Or, rather, as The Englishman points out, they never even picked it up.

If you will allow me to digress for a second, the Eye's refusal to acknowledge the existence of blogs—a blindness born of a hatred and contempt that borders on the pathological—has combined with its pathetic online presence (such as the lack of an online archive) and its fortnightly release to render the magazine increasingly irrelevent. It is rare, now, to find a story in Private Eye that has not already been substantially covered—often in a rather better and more interesting way—by blogs. Private Eye will continue to be bought by many, but it is becoming more and more of a luxury for political anoraks, rather than the necessity that it once was.

To return to the general subject of this post, EUReferendum's most valuable contribution has been in the revelations of "mistakes" in the IPCC reports themselves.

Because, whilst Pachauri himself might be hopelessly compromised, true believers of the climate change faith could still point out that the genial Indian did not actually, personally write the reports and that the "scientists" who did so nevertheless knew what they were talking about.

Or, to put it in terms that an idiot could understand because it was an idiot who wrote it, here's Sunny Hundal on why the IPCC is good.

The IPCC [sic] contains hundreds if not thousands of graphs and claims — and yet one or two slips were used as an excuse to rubbish the whole thing.

Wow! The "IPCC" has hundreds of graphs. Well, fuck me: they must be right, eh?

What Sunny hasn't grasped—or, rather, wilfully refuses to grasp—is that if one or more claims are suspect, then they are all suspect. As I pointed out in a longish post entitled A Credibility Gap, if the IPCC has been cooking the books, then the entire catastrophic anthropogenic climate change (CACC) argument falls apart.

This kind of revelation strikes at the very heart of the CACC foundations because without the IPCC there is no catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.
...

The trouble is that whilst climatologists might have a rather better overview of these studies than myself or Bishop Hill (who are, after all, merely amateurs with a day job to hold down), it is very unlikely that they have actually read all of these studies.

And the politicians certainly haven't.

All of these people rely on those at the IPCC whose day job is to study and collate these reports to draw the evidence together.
...

Think of the process as a massive inverted pyramid with the downward-facing point as the raw data and the ever-increasing mass on top as the multiplicity of reports based on said data. Obviously, if the data are wrong, so are all of the models, reports and prognostications based on them.

Similarly, the faith in CACC is based on the credibility of the IPCC simply because people do not have the time to do what the IPCC does, i.e. to collate and assess the many hundreds of reports on climate. And the IPCC is increasingly compromised.

It is not only that the IPCC has made "mistakes": as far as Glaciergate is concerned, it goes rather further than that.

Evidence is building that IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers were going to melt by 2035 was not only a deliberate fraud, but efforts were made to cover it up when the figure was challenged.

Some of the pieces of the jigsaw are already there in the public domain, starting with Ben Webster's piece in The Times on Saturday – which we analysed in this post. This made it clear that Rajendra Pachauri was appraised of what he now claims was a "mistake" by an Indian science journalist, last November.

But the story is taken further by Jonathan Leake in The Sunday Times today, under the heading: "Panel ignored warnings on glacier error". There, he reports that the leaders of the IPCC had known for weeks and probably months about the "error" and had even convened private conferences to discuss it.

There is a lot more: your humble Devil has not been able to keep up with the pace of stories released by EUReferendum, but it appears that the IPCC knew that the claim was false, but it was kept in the reports in order to drive increasing levels of funding to Rajendra Pachauri's TERI Institute.

Further embarrassment for the IPCC has come in the form of Amazongate, again exposed by EUReferendum and enthusiastically taken up by the MSM.

From Jonathan Leake in The Sunday Times we get an article headed: "UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim," - one of several on climate change in today's edition

It tells us that a "startling report" in the IPCC report claiming that that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest "was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise."

This is "Amazongate" writ large, where the IPCC launched the scare story that even a slight change in rainfall could see swathes of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland – and the source turns out to be a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists.

They had based their "research" (Leake's quotations) on a study published in Nature which did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. This weekend WWF said it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.

The detail is familiar to readers of this blog, and some might note a small addition at the end of the piece which says: "Research by Richard North", in what has been a fruitful partnership.

Indeed it has—and the revelations have come thick and fast. Essentially, vast swathes of the IPCC ARA4 seem to have been based not on properly researched, peer-reviewed scientific papers, but from deeply biased, unscientific and poorly presented reports by such notable organsiations as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an article in Climbing magazine and, in one case, from a Geography Student's degree thesis.

In other words, far from being the last word in science, the IPCC ARA4 is a collection of third-hand anecdotes and poorly researched reports from organisations with an axe to grind.

And tonight Richard has released another long report into another aspect of the IPCC ARA4 which has already been dubbed—with wearying inevitability—Africagate.

Following an investigation by this blog (and with the story also told in The Sunday Times), another major "mistake" in the IPCC's benchmark Fourth Assessment Report has emerged.

Similar in effect to the erroneous "2035" claim – the year the IPCC claimed that Himalayan glaciers were going to melt – in this instance we find that the IPCC has wrongly claimed that in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent by 2020.

At best, this is a wild exaggeration, unsupported by any scientific research, referenced only to a report produced by a Canadian advocacy group, written by an obscure Moroccan academic who specialises in carbon trading, citing references which do not support his claims.

Unlike the glacier claim, which was confined to a section of the technical Working Group II report, this "50 percent by 2020" claim forms part of the key Synthesis Report, the production of which was the personal responsibility of the chair of the IPCC, Dr R K Pachauri. It has been repeated by him in many public fora. He, therefore, bears a personal responsibility for the error.

In this lengthy post, we examine the nature and background of this latest debacle, which is now under investigation by IPCC scientists and officials.

It is a lengthy post—even by Richard's standards—but is well worth reading in full. Essentially, the IPCC and Pachauri have been cherry-picking data from various reports that are themselves not peer-reviewed—or in any way independently verified. Or, in some circumstances, unsubstantiated data from unreviewed reports have been used in the IPCC reports, which are then cited in similar reports and substantiated figures and then the IPCC uses those same successor reports to bolster the credibility of its own baseless "findings".

In short, the entire system is corrupt; evidence is being, effectively, fabricated; far from being the last work on the science of climate change, the UN's IPCC has been sticking to what that body knows best—corruption in the service of vested interests.

Still, in what seems to be a bit of a departure for UN staff, as least the bastards aren't pimping kids.

The process started with the confirmation of data corruption at the UEA, and the somewhat unorthodox practices of the CRU team; with The Club being so intimately involved with the IPCC, it was only a matter of time before interested parties followed the trail to Pachauri and the UN's climate body.

Now, the credibility of the IPCC, and its reports, is shot to pieces. Whilst true believers like Sunny Hundal continue to screech and wail, the evidence of corruption is swiftly overwhelming the anyway flimsy evidence for CACC.

You may take it from your humble Devil that vindication combined with Schadenfreude is one of the sweetest feelings in the world. Now, maybe, we can persuade our foolish politicians to get a grip and stop killing people with their environmental madness.

Although it might be quicker to hang them all and start again...

Osler and Phillips: two prats in a pod

The lovely Bella Gerens has a long, comprehensive and detailed fisking of an article by Mad Mel Phillips—loony, Christian, illiberal nutjob—and a post by David Osler (barking mad, illiberal, Communist bigot).

The whole thing is well worth a read, especially so that you understand how the wife reaches this (possibly surprising) conclusion...

David Osler, you are both ignorant and blind.

In short, Phillips already lives in the kind of country that is the only conceivable outcome of the brand of rightwingery she herself represents; she might at least be that little bit more graceful about it.

Yeah, she does; and you live in a country that is one of the milder forms of the brand of leftwingery you yourself represent; you might be a little more graceful about it, and thankful that it hasn’t turned into any of those hideous tragedies you mentioned above. Because you’ve both gotten exactly what you wanted: a culture of liberty and individual responsibility demolished, and a society of restriction, coercion, and collective punishment raised up in its place. The two of you are a hell of a lot more alike than you are different.

She's not wrong...

Not just mad, but bad too

So, did we pay for that sofa? Nadine Dorries: mad, bad and irritating to know.

As regular readers of The Kitchen will know, Nadine "Mad Nad" Dorries is something of a laughing stock around these parts.

Of course, were she not one of the 646 bastards who rule us, she would simply be another mad old bag-lady with whom no one wants to associate—but since she is one of those crooks, she thus falls under the purview of your humble Devil. And, to be fair, I think that this is a good thing, because few things please me quite as much as showing up these corrupt arseholes for the fuckwits that they are—and, in that area, Nadine is a gift that just goes on giving.

A few days ago, Nadine thought that whingeing about how her daughter—who has just graduated—faced "a grim future" was a good use of Commons time. To be fair, it was probably more relevant than most of the shit that she witters on about—and it was certainly more based in fact.

Luckily, as one of the 646 makers of law in this fine country of ours, Nadine is in a position to help her daughter. Nad could lobby for a reduction in the stupidly high maternity payments to women, perhaps, or campaign for a lowering of NICs rates—both measures would help to create more jobs for women everywhere.

Unfortunately, Nadine couldn't be arsed; plus, of course, her poor daughter couldn't just wait around for the months or years that it would take darling Dorries to sort out these positive, job-creating measures.

So, Nadine found another solution (a tip of the horns to Old Holborn for flagging it up).

Shameless Nadine Dorries has handed just-graduated Jennifer an estimated £28,000-a-year taxpayer-funded job in her Commons office – weeks after complaining that the girl couldn’t find work.

MPs will be banned from employing family members under reforms following the expenses scandal. But Dorries, forced to apologise after revelations about her expenses, took on 22-year-old Jennifer before the new rules came in.

Eldest daughter Philippa, 24, has also previously worked for the Mid-Bedfordshire MP.

Nice work if you can get it, eh? I wonder if this is the daughter who "broke down in tears" when discussing the effect that the expenses scandal—and, presumably, the revelations that her mother was a thieving cow—had on the Dorries family?

Who knows? Or even cares? Except for the fact that I wonder if said daughter will break down in tears over these revelations...?

But then the 52-year-old installed Bournemouth University graduate Jennifer as full-time maternity cover for her House of Commons PA.

And despite some of the brightest graduates in the country vying for jobs in Parliament, she insisted her children were the best for the job.

She said: “They go the extra mile. My constituents love Jenny and Philippa because when they speak to them they know they have my ear.”

Riiiiight. So, how soon before Jenny and Philippa start setting up a lobbying firm, eh? All people would have to do is to pay JenPhil Lobbying and they'd get the ear of an MP—albeit one who is a Grade A Barking Nutjob (you'd have to be to employ your daughter so soon after the expenses scandal, wouldn't you?) with a nice line in smearing opponents.

Still, it's a good thing that Nadine is so anti-abortion because otherwise she'd be really short of staff...

UPDATE: over at Liberal Conspiracy, Chris Paul has some more details.

I reported last Wednesday that Jenny Dorries has been asserting that she was being paid around £50,000 plus jolly good perks, that this was being excused by her MumP as being because she is covering two jobs, and that Jenny was also reporting that she didn’t have a political bone in her body and was also often completely out of her depth. Those JD remarks and similar were made quite some time earlier. Soon after Jennifer got the job or at least rocked up to work. Freely disseminated to friends and strangers alike.

The £28,000 figure is an estimate reported by the Mirror crew. They also say the range for Office Manager / Senior Researcher (which is the job title Philippa has been reported under) is 18 to 39 (or something like that). It is in fact 21 to 40.

On the scale they reported £28k is about the mid point of the scale for SENIOR workers. Jenny Dorries doesn’t have a Politics degree, isn’t interested in Politics, doesn’t have an MA, and was written off by her own MumP as unlikely to be worthy of a job in these straightened times.

There is even more on this over at Chris's Labour of Love blog.

What percentage of our laws are made by the EU?

This is a question that your humble Devil has pondered for some time, even before my involvement in UKIP, I would hear various different numbers bandied about—9% (only the number of Statutory Instruments, which does not include Directives and Regulations), 50%, 75% or, the latest, 84% (this last based on a German study).

Luckily, the ever-excellent but, alas, all-too-infrequently posting Nosemonkey has looked into the matter with his customary attention to detail—including debunking the 84% figure.

His conclusion?

No one agrees on how much legislation and regulation stems from the EU. The 9.1% figure stated by the House of Commons Library is too low, as it only covers Statutory Instruments, not ALL laws; the higher figures of 84%, 75% and even 50% claimed by the likes of Hannan, Farrage and Cameron are based on miscalculations, misunderstandings, or sources unknown, and often derive from parts of the EU other than just the UK - and so with no hard evidence to support them must be dismissed as either too high or inapplicable to the British situation.

What is the true figure? No one knows. So any claims that state hard and fast percentages should - if we’re being intellectually honest - be treated with equal suspicion.

If no one knows—including the Commission that proposes the laws* and the EU Parliament that passes them—then how can they do a cost-benefit analysis on the laws that they foist onto us?

As I pointed out over there, Commissioner Gunter Verhoegen, in an interview with the FT, estimated the benefits of the free trade area to EU businesses, to be €200 billion a year—but the costs of EU regulation, to those same businesses, to be €600 billion per annum. Another commenter, however, maintained that even Verhoegen's word could not be taken at face value (no surprises—he is a politician after all—but one would have thought that Verhoegen, at least, might have a good idea).

In fact, this conclusion is extremely worrying for anyone that cares about good law. After all, many of the EU laws passed—especially in the area of Environment—are aimed at getting people to change their behaviour through economic means. If no one has done a cost-benefit analysis on these laws, how can they know if they will, indeed, change said behaviour?

Come to think of it, this fucking insane lack of cost/benefit analysis would explain an awful lot about some EU laws...

UPDATE: thanks to commenter Jonathan Miller for a clarification.

DK, you seem to have confused the origin of the various legal instruments.

Statutes (primary legislation) and statutory instruments (secondary legislation) are UK 'laws'.

Regulations and Directives are 'laws' enacted by the EU.

The UK enacts EU Directives by way of statutes and statutory instruments.

Regulations are enforceable in all EU states, overriding national law. They don't need to be transposed into statutes/statutory instruments.

...so the calculation should include Regulations, Statutes and Statutory instruments, but not Directives.

Jonathan Miller

Yep, mea culpa: it's been a while since I refreshed my memory about this shit.

* Yes, I know that, technically, the EU does not make "laws"—only Statutory Instruments, Directives and Regulations that need to be enacted into the statutes of member states. However I am calling them "laws" merely for the sake of convenience.

Brown lies and lies again...

... but the worrying thing is that he seems to believe the falsehoods that he is spouting.



Like Prodicus, I find this interview slightly alarming.

That interview, from start to finish, is extremely worrying.

He seems... dazed. Is he on calming medication? Not only does he appear genuinely not to understand questions (which is different from merely refusing to answer them) but he plainly has no grasp of political reality. His party must be frantic with worry, trying to work with him in this condition.

I cannot remember ever seeing a less reflective, less self-aware and less realistic man holding such high office. The word 'delusional' has often been used as a glib jibe, not least by me, but it seems really to be objectively valid now.

Not only is this strange man inflicting a desperate scorched-earth policy on this and future generations, simply because he is at his wits' end and there is nothing else left to him, politically. He also has his finger on the nuclear button.

The Prime Mentalist is close to totally losing his marbles: any day now, he's going to go on a mad rampage through the House of Commons with a fucking AK-47...

Harpy Harperson: a wee bit confused?

A confused old lady, earlier today.

It seems that Harriet Harman is already backtracking.

Harriet Harman to fight for leadership if Gordon Brown is forced out

Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, would block the coronation of a unity candidate and fight for the leadership of the party should backbenchers attempt to force Gordon Brown from office before the next General Election, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

Which is something of a far-cry from her categorical statement earlier today.

"I don't want to be prime minister and I don't want to be leader of the party."

I wondered if she protested too much: it seems that she did.

Either that, or she is losing her tiny little mind. Which might be funny...

Banning websites

To get a flavour of the kind of disgusting little people that we libertarians are up against, why not have a look at this post from a... er... gentleman who tried to have the UK Libertarian Party website banned in the Netherlands (a tip of the horns to Bella).

I have asked the Netherlands Interior Ministry to censor the website of the United Kingdom Libertarian Party, www.lpuk.org, and the party's blog at lpuk.blogspot.com. The website is registered to the party's leader Patrick Vessey. The censorship is partial: I asked the ministry to add the sites to the national police blacklist. That means they would be blocked by several providers, including the largest in the Netherlands.

And on what grounds has "Paul" got for trying to block these sites?

The request is based on the central defects of libertarianism, which it got from its parent ideology liberalism. Primarily, the claim of absolute truth and universal validity for their own values, and the conviction that they are morally entitled to enforce these on others, against their will, and by force if necessary. Specifically, the request gives as grounds for prohibition of the website, that

1. the United Kingdom Libertarian Party presents libertarian values, including an absolute ownership right, as if they were an absolute truth.


2. the party seeks to subject others, against their will, to a libertarian society and to libertarian values.


3. the party openly advocates a "libertarian government" that would rule over non-libertarians, and subject them against their will to libertarian policies, using the powers of the state.


4. the party seeks to deliberately harm others, by depriving them (against their will) of the protection of the state, for instance by the abolition of minimum wages


5. the party is reactionary, and its goal is a harsh Victorian society, where the poor are dependent on private charity


6. it advocates a return to the gold standard


7. the party advocates the maintenance of a national state, and of national sovereignty


8. it advocates the detention of asylum seekers.

From this list of reasons—many of which apply to any political party, including those in the Netherlands—one can only conclude that Paul is, in fact, quite insane.

I particularly like the bit about LPUK's "goal" being "a harsh Victorian society, where the poor are dependent on private charity", although I cannot see why that is grounds for attempting to get a website blocked. It's also somewhat amusing to see LPUK—a party whose policies some write off as being too radical—described as "reactionary".

And since when was it wrong to "advocate the maintenance of a national state, and of national sovereignty"? I mean, national states actually exist: wouldn't it be weirder if we were advocating none?

Anyway, it's when Paul tries to justify his application for censorship with a free speech argument that he gets really silly.

There is no reason why I should not seek to block or close a website on the grounds of its content. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to advocate and seek censorship.

Um... Sure. But once that censorship is imposed, then freedom of speech no longer exists: and if we are going to try to pursue this silly argument, then the application to apply for censorship on the grounds of free speech also no longer exists.

The formal rights to free expression in constitutions and treaties - for example article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights - are directed at states, not at individuals. Laws, not constitutions, are directed at individuals, and there is no law that prohibits me from seeking censorship in any form.

Well, you see, Paul, you are applying for the government, i.e. a state, to use its power to enforce the censorship of a website that breaks no laws. As such, you are, in fact, inciting a state to use its power to break the ECHR conditions that it has signed up to. Do you see?

Whilst there may be no problem with you, as an individual, applying for censorship of certain websites, you, as an individual, would have no power to ensure that said censorship takes place, i.e. you require the state to ensure that certain carriers prevent other users from accessing the websites. And, as such, there is a problem: the state is using its monopoly legal power to block said websites when no crime has been committed.

Politically, there is also no reason why I should refrain from seeking state-enforced prohibition, when others do it all the time.

Lordy. If we are going for a tit-for-tat argument, how about this one: throughout history, many political regimes have murdered thousands upon thousands—even millions upon millions—of their own citizens; in fact, throughout the world, there are governments beating up, starving and killing their own citizens—governments do it all the time. So, Paul can have no objection—were I a ruler of a country—to me enslaving, murdering and torturing thousands of my citizens "when others do it all the time".

And given that this is the case, and to further illustrate what a moronic line of argument this is, one could thus say that Paul is openly advocating torture, slavery and murder on a grand scale. Perhaps I should apply to have his website blocked?

But it gets even sillier...

If the United Kingdom Libertarian Party hosted child porn on their website, and if I complained about that content, and if the UK police and providers blocked access, then how many people would object? Would it get any attention from third parties, or from anti-censorship campaigns? I doubt it. So what is the difference if I complain about its libertarian content, and try to get that blocked?

The difference, Paul, is that the creation and dissemination of child pornography is illegal—not just in this country, but pretty much universally. Libertarianism, or the advocacy of libertarianism, is not illegal (yet).

Luckily, the Dutch government is not stupid and rejected Paul's lunatic application in short order. I like to think of the official in question looking at the application, and giving a little sigh as he shakes his head in weary incredulity.

Unfortunately, nutjobs like Paul never give up—they just move onto another target...

I have asked the Netherlands Interior Ministry to censor the website of the Adam Smith Institute, www.adamsmith.org.

What the good citizens of the Netherlands think of Paul's solicitous actions on their behalf is not, alas, recorded. However, I do think it worth pointing out to said citizens that Paul has taken it upon himself to decide what you, the citizens of the Netherlands, are adult enough to handle: in short, he is accusing you all of being stupid and immature.

In other words, my Dutch friends, Paul, like any good dictator, has taken it upon himself to decide what is best for you because Paul believes that he is cleverer than you. Paul believes that he knows how you should run your life better than you do.

And that, my friends, is why I loathe socialists.

Teachers rise

It seems that the teaching profession is as fucking blind to circumstances as always...

Teachers demanded a 10 per cent pay rise yesterday and said they refused to take “lessons in morality” from Government ministers over money.

The National Union of Teachers(NUT) voted to campaign for a £3,000 or 10 per cent salary increase, whichever is greater, because they said they had been underpaid during the boom years.

Being teachers, you will, of course, understand your humble Devil's reply to this demand...

Fuck. Off.

Apart from anything else, there is no money left: you fucks are going to be incredibly fucking lucky not to be facing a pay cut. As such, I suggest that you shut your fucking traps.

Dave Clinch, who proposed the motion, said young teachers were being forced to leave the profession because they could not afford to live, adding: “Teachers are being forced to grovel for money that’s rightfully theirs.”

No, you cunt, that money rightfully belongs to the taxpayer; it is the result of our toil, and you have fuck all right to any of it.

You certainly have fuck all right to any of my money, since I have not used, do not use—and intend to try to make damn fucking sure that I never do need to use—your services, you bunch of useless cretins.

How about we make your pay performance-related, eh? Here's a proposal: you can have a pay rise when not one single child leaves state education unable to read and write.

You fucking sort that—by, y'know, actually teaching—and we'll talk again.

In the meantime, fuck off.

UPDATE: if teachers want higher pay, The Englishman has a few suggestions...

Abolish LEAs and all rules and restrictions as to who can run a school.
Hand over the keys and deeds of every school to the governing bodies
Give 100% of the education budget to parents as vouchers for them to spend where they want to on education.

And then if junior teachers can earn £100,000 a year because they are worth it, great.

Quite so. But right now, what teachers are paid does not reflect their market value (either up or down). So, let's instigate a system which we know—from Sweden if nowhere else—actually works and improves outcomes for the kiddies (that is why we are doing this education thing, isn't it?).

Until then, and whilst it's my money their demanding, teachers can still fuck off.

Would you like some state slavery, or some state slavery?

Via the LPUK blog, it seems that the Prime Mentalist has found a solution to the fact that the state just doesn't have the money to keep people in compulsory education until they are 18: don't actually educate them (no fucking change there, eh?), but make them indentured slaves instead.

Gordon Brown has vowed to make every young person do 50 hours of voluntary work by the time they reach the age of 19.

What. The. Fuck? How can this arsehole possibly juxtapose the words "make" and "voluntary"? Oh, I forgot: it's NuLabour...

The Prime Minister said a pledge to introduce compulsory community service would be included in Labour's next general election manifesto.

Under the scheme, the work - which could include helping out charities in the UK and abroad - is likely to become part of the National Curriculum. It would be integrated into moves to make everyone stay in education or training until the age of 18 by 2011.

Writing in the News of the World, Mr Brown insisted: "It is my ambition to create a Britain in which there is a clear expectation that all young people will undertake some service to their community, and where community service will become a normal part of growing up in Britain.

"And, by doing so, the contributions of each of us will build a better society for all of us."

You fucking what? You disgusting, totalitarian fucking moron—this is fucking slavery, you one-eyed Scots cunt! How fucking dare you?

He went on: "That would mean young people being expected to contribute at least 50 hours of community service by the time they have reached the age of 19.

Yeah, because the best way to get people to come together as a community is to ensure that a proportion of them are indentured slaves, isn't it? You stupid cunt.

The Prime Mentalist has, actually, gone absolutely fucking insane. On what planet, you lackwit fuckwit, does "a better society for all of us" include state slavery?

Fucking hell, why won't these cunts die?

That article, unusually, does not include any comment from a Conservative spokesman—I wonder why?

Oh: no, I don't. Because, lest anyone thinks that the Tories are going to be any better, your humble Devil would like to remind his readers that Cameron was just as keen on compulsory "voluntary" service.

In fact, you might recall that, according to Iain Dale, it was "A Tory Policy That Everyone Can Unite Behind". David Cameron happily announced the idea in The Sun in September 2007...

EVERY 16-year-old will be expected to devote their summer holiday to “patriotic” national service under radical Tory plans to be unveiled today.

They will give up six weeks to put something back into Britain.

David Cameron will launch his plan for a National Citizen Service with boxing champ Amir Khan.

Youngsters going into adulthood will be able to take part in a mini triathlon, military training or the Three Peaks Challenge.

Others will get the chance to work with old folk, charities and even travel overseas helping Third World countries.

Mr Cameron exclusively told The Sun: “This will make people feel proud about themselves and about their country."

Yes, Dave, because when I want to feel proud of my country, I definitely like to highlight state slavery as one of the best things about it. You fucking moron.

So, voters of Britain, given that you have—essentially—a choice between Labour or Tories, which would you prefer: state slavery or state slavery?

What a world of fucking choice, eh?

What fresh Weedgie insanity is this?

Despite the fact that the private sector is being hit hard by the recession, it seems that—surprise, sur-fucking-prise—there are no such problems in the public sector.

Workers at Scotland's biggest local authority, Glasgow City Council, will be paid a new minimum wage of £7 an hour, in a drive to tackle low pay.

Council leader Steven Purcell said the move would boost the wage packets of the lowest paid staff by more than £1,100 a year.

He issued a challenge to other employers to do the same.

The £7 Glasgow rate will come into force on 1 April - ten years since the national minimum wage was introduced.

Glasgow has some of the poorest wards in the country; it has vast swathes of people on benefits. However, crucially, something like 70% of the population derive their primary income from the state—so they will benefit hugely.

Two questions have to be asked, of course. The first is, "where the fuck is the money going to come from, you dolts? You are going to have to jack up Council Tax, aren't you? So you are going to pay people more, and then rip it back from them, you evil cunts."

The second question is, "are there Council Elections coming up soon, perchance?" Since those on benefits will not, of course, be paying any Council Tax, they will have no disincentive to vote this bunch of shysters back in; so, the inevitable rise will only affect "the rich", i.e. those who actually work for a living and, more crucially, those who actually create wealth.

And, in Glasgow, such wealth creators are in the fucking minority.

Hypocrisy, stupidity and the rewriting of history...

"No, no. Look, I am afraid that you're wrong: I am, in fact, this much of a cunt."

... it must be another piece of advice from Gordon fucking Brown.

"Only government can make the markets work in the public interest and not their own interest," Mr Brown told the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee.

Shut your fucking face, you devious fucking cunt: the only interest governments will force markets to work in is the interests of the politicians. And if you think that the politicians work in the public interest, you are the stupidest, most ignorant fucktard on this planet. And a twat to boot.

He added: "We believe that markets need not just money men but morals, that being fair matters far more than being laissez-faire and that banks must always serve the public, not just serve themselves."

You... You... I... Aaaaargh! Markets don't have morals, you fucknuts. A market is simply what happens when a collection of entities come together to trade—they do not have morals any more than a coven has morals. The only morals that a market has are the morals of those individuals participating in that market—and they are not homogenous, even though you stinking, corrupt, brain-washing, bastard politicians have been trying to achieve that aim for some time.

And as for banks serving the public rather than themselves... Have you never read Adam Smith, you thick cunt? Never heard of the invisible hand? Shall I quote the relevent passage to you, you pig-ignorant moron?

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.

Get it? No, I fear not. How about I bash it into your hideous, deformed, twitching fucking face with this utterly moral-free hammer?

In particular, Mr Brown wants regulators to insist that banks take a more "prudent" approach to capital reserves, setting aside more money during years of growth to protect them against possible slumps in the future.

Really. First, let me quote Timmy on what happened in the past.

Well, yes, but there’s still some small voice at the back of my head telling me that it was Brown, as Chancellor, who changed the tax laws thus discouraging the banks from "over provisioning".

Second, may I just say, "physician, heal thyself, you stinking cunt." How dare you lecture anyone—anyone!—on saving money in the good times against the bad?

Over the good years, you have taken our money—the product of our toil—and pissed it up the wall on buying votes and financing your pet projects; and now, when it has all gone tits up—something that you maintained would never happen again (not that anyone believed you then, for it was vainglorious hubris)—you have borrowed insane amounts of money—our future toil and that of our sons and daughters—to shore up your crumbling edifice and your waning popularity.

You fucking disgust me. And, also, I suspect that you are, in fact, certifiably mental; all of this stuff that you are railing against—you did this, you fuckwit! Only a madman could possibly airbrush his own history in such a way and believe that everyone else had forgotten it too.

Britain's Financial Services Authority will next month outline proposals for more "prudential regulation".

Really. Is that the sound of the bolt sliding home long after the thoroughbreds have fled into the dark night? Yes, I think it may be.

Fucking hellski...

Dr Angel has flown too close to the sun

Via the Libertarian Alliance blog, I find this piece of barking insanity in The Daily Mailograph...

Scientists claim they can fight global warming by firing trillions of mirrors into space to deflect the sun's rays forming a 100,000 square mile "sun shade".

According to astronomer Dr Roger Angel, at the University of Arizona, the trillions of mirrors would have to be fired one million miles above the earth using a huge cannon with a barrel of 0.6 miles across.

The gun would pack 100 times the power of conventional weapons and need an exclusion zone of several miles before being fired.

Despite the obvious obstacles—including an estimated $350 trillion (£244trn) price tag for the project—Dr Angel is confident of getting the project off the ground.

If Dr Angel's sun shield is successful he says the mirrors will last 50 years before needing to be replaced.

"What you are talking about is a project which will stop global warming for centuries to come," he said.

No, Dr Angel: if this stupid idea actually worked, what you are talking about is plunging the Earth into a catastrophic ice-age from which it wouldn't recover for at least 50 years. Or rather, the Earth will be absolutely fine: mankind would be wiped out.

You know, all of those great British post-apocalyptic sci-fi writers were right—aided by pig-ignorant, evil politicians, insane scientists will, indeed, destroy us all. The only bit that said writers got wrong was that the apocalypse would be delivered by nuclear weapons.

Fucking hellski...

Monty Don: fucking moron

What is it about people who are really, really, really fucking stupid—almost to the bounds of stretching the overly cynical credibility of your humble Devil—that the MSM are prepared to listen to their utterly worthless views?

I don't know who the fuck this Monty Don character is, but this must qualify as one of the stupidest things uttered in the last decade.

Monty Don, the former BBC Gardener’s World presenter, said the UK could run out of food “within weeks” because the country is so dependent on imports and it was essential for the country to grow more of our own food.

He urged businesses around the country to follow the lead of the National Trust: “If every household, business, office or factory dug up a patch of land there would literally be millions of allotments made available. This is just the start of something really big.”

Yes, you fucking fuckwit: the biggest famine that this country has seen since the late 1360s. I don't know who you are, Monty Don, but I do know what you are: a stupid fucking cunt.

So fucking thick are you that I cannot be bothered to waste my precious time elaborating on your mental ineptitude; why should I, when Bella Gerens has already done it so fluently?

Monty Don? Ha! Monty Fuckwit more like...

Draper is a loon

There's an excellent article by Mark Wallace, on the subject of corporate tax, over at The Taxpayer's Alliance.

It is in part a reply to Derek Draper, who apparently rung the TPA offices and started making threats down the 'phone.

The point at which the call got really weird was when [Draper] announced “right, I’m going to write on my website that the TaxPayers’ Alliance wants individuals to pay more tax”. When I pointed out that that clearly was not my view, or the view of the TPA, and it was a lie to suggest so, he got pretty shirty, saying that he had “a history of taking legal action against people that slander me”. Bizarrely, he seems to think that threatening legal action is an appropriate way to silence people who object to him misrepresenting their position.

Derek Draper is, of course, a disgusting little man who spent some of the early years of the NuLabour government selling access to government ministers. Ironically and hypocritically, and as Mark points out, he and John Jonathan Mendelsohn did this on behalf of large corporates, in order to "create tax breaks for their clients".

On LabourList, Derek Draper describes himself thusly:

Derek Draper is a writer, psychotherapist and Labour Party activist.

A psychotherapist, eh? Well, given the bizarre and threatening nature of Draper's phone call to the TPA (and I'll take Mark's word on this, 'cos he's a friend of mine), there really is only one comment to make: physician, heal thyself. You fucking loon.

Barking insanity

Whilst everyone focused on the impotence of the cut in VAT, the MSM's pathetic inability to cover more than one issue at a time ensured that the most lunatic and damaging part of Darling's pre-budget announcement was lost—the rise in National Insurance Contributions (NICs).

As you will know, your humble Devil is very much not a fan of NICs. The whole thing is a fucking colossal, £100 billion a year Ponzi scheme; further, the benefits that it delivers to the average worker are bloody pathetic when compared to private insurance.

Not only that, but the government are now moving to cancel any benefits from NICs at all, and is moving towards forcing us to pay privately in addition to what they steal from us by force. The bunch of shitty cunts that they are.

So, NICs are not even any good at delivering what was promised. Inenvitably, of course, they also have even less desirable effects; the most pernicious is that NICs are a direct tax on jobs, because it is not simply the worker that pays 11% of their salary: the employer must pay a further 12.8% on top.

And, by the way, when this further contribution is taken into account, NICs costs a worker on the median wage double what the private option would.

Now, in a recession, businesses tend to have less money at their disposal; some go bust, others institute wage and employment freezes. In any case, more people tend to lose their jobs, and there are fewer jobs available.

As such, you might think that increasing the tax on employment during a massive recession might be looked on as a really fucking stupid bloody idea. No government in their right mind would actually do that.

Unfortunately, we are ruled by the Prime Mentalist—who, it is rumoured, is getting more and more unstable by the day (wet himself? Really?)—and his badger-faced sockpuppet, and those two fucking loons have decided to do precisely that.

Now, it seems, his Party—not all of whom are idiots, even if they are deeply, deeply unpleasant people—have woken up to the fact that upping NICs, even in 2010/2011, might just possibly be a really fucking mental thing to do.

Gordon Brown is facing a growing backlash over his plans to raise national insurance on employers, with senior Labour figures and business leaders warning that the tax increase will cost thousands of jobs.

The Government has set out plans to increase NI payments by workers and employers by 0.5 percentage points from 2011, after the next election.

The Tories have signalled they will fight the election on a pledge to halt the tax rise and business leaders are concerned that the £2.65 billion increase in employers' NI contributions will increase their costs.

There is now growing anxiety about the timing of the tax increases, with some experts warning that by increasing the cost of hiring and retaining staff at a time when Britain may not have fully recovered from the recession, the Government could push unemployment up.

Oh, really? Tha' think? You think that putting up the cost of employing people might actually have an adverse effect on employment—where the hell did you guys get that ker-aaaaaazy idea?

We are ruled by a bunch of fucknuts, we really are.

More importantly, why have the Labour Party only started to kick up a fuss about this now? The Pre-Budget Report was in—what?—November? Can it be that these useless fucking cunts just couldn't be arsed to listen to what the unrealistically-eye-browed Chancellor was saying? Or is it—given that these fuckers can barely be bothered to turn up to the House to do the job that we pay them way too much money to do more than twice a week—that they entirely missed it the first time around?

Fuck knows: it seems that they are all lazy, useless, corrupt cunts too busy snorting vast amounts of taxpayer cash to bother actually doing their jobs.

The only bright side to all of this is that the Labour Party will, hopefully, lose the next election and this fucking stupid idea will be shelved.

Not that tax rises in general will be: we are going to be feeling the pain, caused by the financial incontinence of this useless fucking government, for fucking decades.

Personally, I wish every form of harm and suffering on Gordon Brown: the man is, and always has been, the Cunto di Tutti Cunti©.

Fucking hell, but I really loathe that man and his stupid jaw-drop: with any luck, one day it'll just drop all the way—Marley's ghost-style—and he will have to wander around with a bandage around his head just to hold it closed.

And believe me, Brown's chains will be longer, heavier and far more burdensome than Scrooge and Marley's combined: my only hope is that he fucking dies and finds that out at the soonest possible opportunity.

The cunt.

Well, what a fucking surprise...

Via Samizdata, I can't say that I find the news that the state is propping up much of the country entirely surprising.

PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy, a new analysis has found.

The study of “Soviet Britain” has found the government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% elsewhere.
...

In the northeast of England the state is expected to be responsible for 66.4% of the economy this year, up from 58.7% when a similar study was carried out four years ago. When Labour came to power, the figure was 53.8%.
...

Across the whole of the UK, 49% of the economy will consist of state spending, while in Wales, the figure will be 71.6% – up from 59% in 2004-5. Nowhere in mainland Britain, however, comes close to Northern Ireland, where the state is responsible for 77.6% of spending, despite the supposed resurgence of the economy after the end of the Troubles.

Even in southern England, the government’s share of spending is growing relentlessly. In the southeast, it has gone up from 33% to 36% of the economy in four years.

If I were the Tories, I wouldn't get too complacent about winning the next election: NuLabour has built a massive client electorate. All that they need to do is convince people that the Tories are going to cut public spending massively and people will vote Labour in droves. I am no fan of Cameron and his merry wankers, but the idea of another Labour term fills me with horror.

Fucking hellski...