Time for a Change?

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Now that the dust has settled on UKIP’s spectacular success in last week’s local elections the major parties must be wondering about the significance of  that success. Many will explain that it was simply a protest vote against the Government, a regular mid-term occurrence, of course. Maybe it was, but that doesn’t explain why the official opposition, Labour, did equally badly? Maybe this time, it was something more than a simple protest vote.

Maybe this time it was an indication that people really are sick and tired of the traditional ruling parties, they are sick of the same old dogma, the same old posturing and the same old lies.

Maybe they are tired of the ruling liberal elite who have no idea of what is going on beyond the confines of their cosy metropolitan coffee shops and wine bars but who condescend and patronise the rest of the country as if they and only they know what is best for us all.

Maybe they are tired of the political correctness and over regulation that together stifle any attempt to succeed in business and create a better life for their families.

Maybe they are tired too of the arrogance, incompetence and corruption of the European Union and the endless delays and broken promises by our politicians in giving us a vote to decide on continued membership of that Union.

Maybe they are sick of unrestricted immigration being forced upon the country without consultation, where people with no connection to this country and who have made no contribution to its well being are given houses, state benefits and unrestricted use of the NHS at the expense of British taxpayers who have contributed to the welfare state throughout their working lives.  Maybe they are sick of being called nationalistic or racist when daring to question the wisdom of such a clearly foolish policy.

Maybe they are tired of seeing our state schools churn out hordes of illiterate, ill-educated children with no hope of a decent future.

Maybe they are tired of the fact that the NHS and all other national institutions are clogged up with incompetent and inefficient bureaucrats.

Maybe they are sick of seeing the rights of offenders being put above those of their innocent victims and of seeing criminals given ridiculously lenient sentences where, too often, they are free to reoffend at will.

Maybe that is why they voted against the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Parties.

Maybe they have finally had enough and are ready for a change.

If the result of last week’s elections exposes one truth, it is that if politicians wish to remain in power they need to listen carefully to the needs of the people who elected them into that power in the first place. Listen to them and don’t treat them like children, to be humoured and sent away with a pat on the head and a packet of sweeties.

Benefits for All?

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Ian Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions certainly opened a can of worms last week when he suggested that wealthy people in receipt of  state benefits should hand them back if they don’t actually need them.  A non-UK citizen following this story from afar would probably scratch his head in bemusement and  wonder why it is that the State would hand out benefits to wealthy people in the first place.

As for Mr Duncan Smith, he doesn’t seem to have much knowledge of human nature if he really thinks people will voluntarily hand money back once the State has placed it in their bank accounts. Some may do but the vast majority? No chance. That said, I understand his thinking and I’m sure many people will agree with much of what he suggested.

The obvious problem with benefits for all – universal benefits – is that some people will quite clearly have no need of them. It strikes me as ludicrous that a multi-millionaire pensioner can still receive a bus pass, winter fuel payment and even a state pension when he needs it about as much as an Eskimo needs a fridge freezer! It is surely all a question of degree. The whole point of a welfare system is to ensure that the State does as much as it can to eliminate poverty and suffering among its disadvantaged citizens, drawing a line below which nobody must be allowed to fall.

I can see that pensioners, having worked hard all their lives and having dutifully paid their taxes and national insurance, should reap the benefit of that hard work by receiving benefits from the State once they have retired. Quite right too, it is they who have helped create the nation’s wealth, such as it is. It is all a question of degree and I use the example again of a multi-millionaire receiving benefits. That is not what the system was planned for.

Surely the obvious solution to this problem is to have a proper system of means testing so that no benefits are paid to anybody with a yearly income of over £100,000, for example. Something needs to be done however and our politicians need to engage in meaningful debate rather that just simply slag each other off and point score. We are in a recession and we can’t afford to waste a single penny. It’s not just politics, it’s common sense.

Junk Mail

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Isn’t it incredible, the amount of junk mail we receive these days? Even with a fairly high filter level my computer inbox still needs to be cleared on a daily basis and as for unsolicited letters, well, I don’t think that our large corporations and organisations have really taken on board worldwide concern over the decimation of the Amazon rain forest.
BT write to me on a regular basis,  both by letter and email, inviting me to sign up for a broadband contract which is very nice of them, except for the fact that I actually signed up nearly 2 years ago, in June 2011! After continuing to receive further weekly invitations to sign up I sent off an email saying that I was already with them but, of course, it had no effect.
 I suppose I should now telephone BT and put them straight but why should I? It would be ok if I could speak to a human being but communication these days is preceded by a journey through a minefield of questions and pressing of buttons as we attempt to negotiate an automated answer service. I appreciate that this isn’t the right attitude but like all of us, I have better things to do.
I also heard from British Gas this week, again by letter and email, asking me to book my annual boiler service and again, it’s good to know that they too have me in their thoughts. However, unless somebody has, without telling me, reduced the length of a year from twelve to four months I don’t think my annual service is actually due until next January!
I ignored their first two requests but when the third arrived I thought I would play them at their own game. So, I dutifully entered my full name and special code into my website account to book a service and guess what happened? I received a message straight back informing me that my service was not yet due!
I’m sure we all have similar tales to tell, not just about BT and British Gas, but about a whole host of modern companies and organisations who boast and advertise constantly about how efficient they are. What can we do about it, I wonder? Probably nothing, is the sad answer.

Old Fool

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Whilst in Florida last month I picked up a newspaper and read a report on a homicide in a nearby town called Brandon. Apparently, a man woke up in the middle of the night and, feeling  thirsty, went downstairs to get a drink of water. On his way to the kitchen he heard some noises coming from the lounge and decided to investigate. As he looked through the lounge door he saw his wife having sex with another man. He immediately turned around, walked back upstairs, grabbed his gun, returned to the lounge and coolly shot the other man five times, killing him outright. He  then rang emergency services saying he had caught his wife and another man “fornicating” and had shot the man dead.

The killer is a 71 year old retired lawyer with no previous convictions of any type, his 41 year old wife is his ex-next door neighbour and the dead man was apparently her regular lover, a 32 year old ex-jailbird and small time criminal, whose address, appropriately enough, was Lovers’ Lane!  The lawyer was said by friends to be a usually well-balanced and easy going guy, though his record of 5 times married perhaps shows him to be a man of questionable judgement and something of a slow learner! He married his wife only two weeks after she had been arrested for firing a gun at her lover – yes, you’ve got it, the same one as above!
It’s a sad story but, other than the shooting, is all too common. What on Earth was the old guy thinking of when he married a woman, not only 30 years younger than him but one who was clearly likely to be a lot of trouble? Why would any older man think that a woman that much younger than him would find him attractive in the first place? Maybe he was a good looking guy in tip top condition. Maybe, he was, but he was still 71 and a healthy woman in her early 40s is surely likely to be more attracted to a well turned out guy nearer her own age than a well turned out guy in his early 70s.
I don’t know all the facts of the case but I suspect that the husband, as a retired lawyer, was fairly wealthy and  a decent catch for the younger woman. When will men learn? Although in fairness, it sometimes happens to older women too. Before marrying somebody much younger than themselves wouldn’t it be wise to ask the question – “If I was broke and living in a rented flat would she still love me and want to marry me?”  If the honest answer is “No”, which I suspect it would be 99 times out of a 100, then he should steer clear.
The saddest part of this story (apart from the death of the opportunistic lover) is that a man with a previously clean record and in the final stages of his life is now in all likelihood going to spend the rest of that life behind bars. What a shame, but, as the saying goes, there’s no fool like an old fool!

A New Way to Fly

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Like many people, I’m tired of having to endure the ever worsening standards of passenger behaviour on British short-haul holiday flights. A couple of weeks ago I flew out to Tenerife with easyJet although, in fairness, it could have been virtually any holiday airline flight. The problem concerned a group of about 10 noisy women, aged, I would guess, from 25 to 55 years who, as they boarded the plane and walked down the aisle towards me, caused me to think, please don’t sit near me. Unfortunately, they did.
Most of them appeared to have been drinking and throughout the whole four and a half hour flight they kept up a loud and incessant racket, like over-excited infants on a school trip. They constantly leaned over their seats, shouted loudly to their friends in different parts of the plane, bumped into other passengers as they walked along the aisle and on a number of occasions swore loudly and made vulgar comments. They sang noisily at the tops of their voices and drank constantly. On separate occasions, two gentlemen nearby asked them to keep the noise down and for their trouble received a torrent of verbal abuse which continued for the rest of the flight.
In short, they were out of control and, as I mentioned to one of the cabin crew, their loutish behaviour was so bad that if carried out on the high street would undoubtedly have led to their arrests or at the very least, a police caution. Sadly, this kind of behaviour is all too common in modern Britain and whilst I would not wish to be a killjoy nor a hypocrite (having over the years enjoyed the odd drop myself!) I do feel that there have to be limits. Why should normal, decent, civilised people have their lives made a misery by drunken louts?
I’ve given this matter some thought and suggest that, rather than try Canute-like to stem the seemingly inevitable tide of bad behaviour, airlines should actually cater specifically for people who choose to fly in a state of intoxication and behave in a way that is unacceptable to most of us. I think they should create special booze flights where drinking is not only accepted but positively encouraged. All the hen and stag parties and other miscellaneous drunks could fly together on specific booze flights leaving the rest of us to travel in peace on normal standard flights. The booze flights could operate on a self-service, all-inclusive, eat and drink till you throw up basis for an additional figure of, say £50 per head, so that the airlines can still make a profit.
They could do away with cabin crew, lock the pilots behind extra strength, sound-proofed  security doors and just leave the passengers to it. Each booze plane would be specially fitted with plastic fire resistant walls and seats so that smoking could be allowed. In fact, why not do away with seats completely since most of these plebs seem unable to keep still during flights and none of them pay attention to the safety demonstration. How about adding a disco to help create that special party atmosphere?
At the end of each flight the plane could be hosed down in readiness for the next lot – a bit like the drunk-proof, plastic-floored black cabs used in our city centres. They could even have their own websites so that there would be no possibility of booking the wrong flights. How about offyourface.com, plebsontour.co.uk or flydrunk.com for example? The permutations are endless!

Clearly, all these suggestions are made somewhat tongue in cheek but I’m registering the domain names just in case!


The Bard and St George

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Though he died nearly 400 years ago, barely a day goes by without a politician or journalist quoting a line from the works of England’s most famous playwright, author and poet, William Shakespeare (the Bard, 1564-1616). Whether it be an uplifting speech from Henry V, a thought provoking snippet from Macbeth or a line from one of his sonnets, the works of Shakespeare have influenced literature like those of no other playwright before or since. I mention this because tomorrow, April 23rd, is his birthday and coincidentally, England’s national day, St George’s Day.

William Shakespeare wrote forty two plays and a vast collection of poems and sonnets which are still as magical and inspirational today as they were when he wrote them. Perhaps his greatest gift was the ability to understand, describe and portray the human condition. The characters he created embrace the whole spectrum of human behaviour. There are heroes and anti-heroes, warriors and lovers, beggars and thieves, honest men and cheats all dotted throughout his tragedies, comedies and historical dramas. 

He describes and analyses in great detail all the emotions and feelings known to man such as love, hatred, envy, jealousy, fear, greed, hunger and vanity. Many phrases that we today take for granted come from Shakespeare; phrases such as “neither a borrower nor a lender be”, “the world’s my oyster” and “ all that glistens is not gold” are all from his works. 

Four hundred years on the works of William Shakespeare are as relevant as ever and so, as we celebrate our national day tomorrow we should also drink a toast to one of England’s finest sons.

Free Pass For Fish

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Don’t you get tired of all this bad news? Anarchists and football hooligans on England’s streets, terrorist bombs in the USA  and the constant worry of Armageddon emanating from North Korea. Surely there must be something good  to report?  Well actually, there is and it concerns fish. Yes, really.

I’m lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of England, not far from the ancient River Goyt  which ambles peacefully through the gently rolling hills of the Peak District on its journey towards the mighty River Mersey. Some time ago I noticed some construction work taking place on the banks of the Goyt and assumed that a new bridge was being built. But no, it transpires that the Environment Agency are building what is known as a fish pass adjacent to a 7 foot weir as part of a nationwide programme to allow fish to move freely up and down our rivers and streams.
How wonderful, I thought! How refreshing that the Government has decided to use taxpayers’ money wisely for a change. Something actually beneficial to the country as a whole instead of ill-conceived urban development schemes, centres for 13th century Islamic art, welfare schemes for disabled Romanian lesbians with learning difficulties and other examples of politically correct nonsense that seem to have become the norm!
For too long now our countryside has been neglected by the urban-obsessed mandarins of power so this move is very welcome. I’m looking forward to watching the fish funnel into their pass on their way to exploring the scenery upstream.  The trouble is, nature being what it is, I imagine the local heron is looking forward to it too, stood statue-like in readiness as an easy meal comes cheerfully swimming around the corner!

Maragaret Thatcher – An Appraisal

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The funeral of Margaret Thatcher takes place on Wednesday and what should be a dignified and solemn occasion is threatening to be anything but. As the security forces brace themselves to counter the threats posed by protesters the rest of the world looks on, I’m sure, in a state of amazement. What is it about our late prime minister that elicits such strong emotions?

Clearly, even though the Conservatives won the 1979 election with a sizeable majority the appointment of Britain’s first female prime minister was not met with universal acclaim. I suspect that a fair number of women disliked her because, well, she was a woman and we all know how competitive the female sex can be amongst each other. Men with misogynistic tendencies no doubt  disliked her too because they would never take kindly to being lectured by a mere woman. The British generally hate being told what to do, it’s in our cussed nature and Mrs Thatcher’s, at times, domineering manner and headmistress-like demeanour were certainly not appreciated by all.
For many of us though, putting her mannerisms and policies aside for the moment, the fact that she, a grocer’s daughter, and far removed from the established ruling elite, defeated the system and all its considerable obstacles to become the first woman prime minister was nothing short of remarkable. Even now, the odds against a woman making it to the top of her profession or calling are still heavily stacked against her.
Irrespective of her character, it was Mrs Thatcher’s policies that effected the divide in society which clearly exists to this day. She stood for free enterprise, hard work and standing on your own two feet. She believed that the little person, given encouragement and free from restrictions, could make it big. Think of Lord Alan Sugar, from uneducated London barrow-boy to multi-millionaire in just over a decade. She was the opposite of the money for nothing-do nothing-the State will look after me section of our society who are naturally among her most fierce critics.
She believed that people should try to make their way in life free from the interference of the State. In short she was the complete antithesis of Socialism, Communism, Marxism and their various spin-offs. She posed a direct threat to the anti-democratic trades unions who had brought our country to the verge of bankruptcy during the strike infested winter of discontent in 1979.The fact that she defeated the unions and reformed their dictatorial ways by introducing a secret ballot is surely to her credit.
Her opponents constantly remind us of how she closed down mines and collieries and caused the collapse of various industries nationwide. Well, my recollection is that those particular industries were losing money and were no longer viable. If you are running a business at a loss economic common sense, if nothing else, is going to tell you to do something about it. Unemployment is always sad but is it the duty of the State to provide people with work? Further, if those industries were closed down unnecessarily and money was there to be made why didn’t Tony Blair’s Labour government reopen them when they came to power in 1997?
Margaret Thatcher didn’t get everything right, the poll tax was a glaring example of that and towards the end of her final term she seemed to become more out of touch and less tolerant of her government colleagues, believing always that she was right and they were wrong. In the end her political demise was as inevitable as it was necessary. So what then of her legacy?
I will remember Margaret Thatcher as an honest decent woman who spoke her mind, rare traits in a politician. A woman who defeated the mighty trades unions and got Britain back to work and competitive again. A woman who, ignoring all advice and displaying more cajones than most of her colleagues, decided to retake the Falkland Islands from a foreign aggressor and succeeded against all the odds. A woman who stood up to the injustices of a corrupt European Union and won us a rebate which we have to this day.
A woman who along with her close friend, the American President Ronald Reagan, did more than any other western politician in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union. A woman who, resisting the clamour for more sanctions against the cruel apartheid regime of South Africa, preferred negotiation which eventually led to reform and the release of Nelson Mandela, a fact that Mr Mandela himself has not been slow to acknowledge. 
Most of all, I will remember a woman, an extraordinary woman, who beat the system and won three general elections for her party, a woman who loved her country and made many of us feel proud to be British again.
Mourn her if you will, despise her if you must but whatever your stance, be assured that we will never see her like again. I just hope that enough decent true Britons line the streets of her funeral procession on Wednesday and that they, with dignified mourning, deny the anarchistic mob their moment in the lime light. The lady deserves nothing less. 

Dancing on the Grave

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The death of Baroness Thatcher last Monday at the age of 87 generated enormous headlines worldwide.  By any standards, Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister from May 1979 until her resignation in November 1990, was a remarkable woman and in addition, as many of her contemporaries have testified,  a formidable politician. As our country’s first and only female Prime Minister, she undoubtedly became one of the most important leaders of the 20th Century.

Expert political commentators and journalists have analysed Margaret Thatcher’s impact and legacy in fine detail over the last few days and there is nothing further for me to add. I do, however, have one comment. Having watched the televised scenes of her opponents openly celebrating and revelling in her death I cannot help but wonder how any civilised human being can behave in such a manner. Of course, the clue lies in the word “civilised”.
For sure, Thatcher’s politics and persona evoked all sorts of emotions in all sorts of people and her policies were certainly, as many have put it, extremely divisive. But, whatever your views on the lady and her policies there can never be any justification for the sick, disgusting behaviour witnessed this week. It brings nothing but disgrace on the perpetrators but worse still, it brings shame upon the whole country.

Screwing the System

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According to yesterday’s Sunday Times, nearly £70 million worth of injuries compensation has been claimed by police officers over the last 4 years. These figures were released by the Police Federation of England and Wales, the trade union of police officers, so they are hardly likely to be an over-exaggeration. MPs (the pot calling the kettle?) have expressed outrage at this latest manifestation of our corrupt “compensation culture” but is it really “news” in the true sense of the word?

Well, it certainly isn’t news to me. I can remember, when I practised criminal law back in the 1980s, that a large number of police officers, usually in their mid-forties, took early retirement because of a “bad back”. It was so common that it became a standing joke. In Greater Manchester the police even had their own “tame” consultant surgeon who would sign officers on to the sick and/or permanent retirement seemingly at the drop of a hat or maybe something more valuable. I can still remember his name but I’d better not disclose it just in case he’s still alive and sipping cocktails in his Caribbean villa!
From what I learned, it wasn’t just limited to Greater Manchester and a fair proportion of our guardians of law and order, nationwide,  have been taking the mickey for a number years. This latest scandal is simply a continuation of a long running story and has come to the fore because a Norfolk police woman is allegedly threatening to sue a garage owner for compensation following a fall at his premises whilst investigating a suspected  burglary.
What is it about our society? They’re all at it, not just the police. We’ve got  MPs fiddling expenses, local politicians in the pockets of property developers, tax-avoiding fat-cat businessmen hoarding billions of pounds in off shore accounts, and benefit frauds screwing the system. Is it any wonder that so many of our youngsters are so disenchanted and demoralised by the world around them?
I’m afraid it’s very difficult these days to be anything other than mistrustful and cynical. The truth of the matter is that, when judging people in positions of power and authority, the default setting is corrupt until proven otherwise. How sad.