Cameron backs Pakistan's bin Laden myopia!

Gripping viewing as Osama bin Laden is "taken out"

David Cameron is saying sweet things this morning about the Pakistani Government. He said it would be wrong to "throw up our hands in despair and walk away" and not engage with Pakistan. Well, that may be true in part but it does not absolve President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan of being singularly slack in detecting the whereabouts of a man they kept saying was not in Pakistan. David Cameron goes on to say we should support the "democratic forces" of Pakistan. There is virtually nothing democratic about the country. If I'm to believe that's a democracy then I say Barbara Cartland never dressed in pink!

How can we support democratic forces that constantly cause Christians and other minorities grief and misery? That kill opposition leaders? That rig elections? Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician bemoaned the lack of democratic decency in the country. Perhaps he should have a chat with Cameron?

Last year David Cameron was accusing Pakistan of looking "both ways" on terrorism. Most people murmured in agreement on hearing that. There will be muttering today rather than murmuring. He told the BBC's Today programme, "Of course there will be lots of questions about what sort of support system did Bin Laden have in Pakistan - and we need those questions answered - but as we stand today we simply don't know the answers.

"If we turn away from them and give up on them and say 'this is all too difficult and complicated because we don't always get what we want', you are left with a nuclear power in danger of massive extremism and massive instability."

So what are we to do? Go into Pakistan and run the show for them? That is not possible. However, 60 odd years of running things their way has not achieved much for most Pakistanis. It can't be a toss-up between a nuclear bomb and a group of nutters on one side and a nuclear bomb and a group of heavy-handed autocrats on the other. I doubt if we will ever get answers to the sort of support system Bin Laden had in Pakistan. That he got his groceries delivered is blindingly obvious. He had satellite TV, so he was watching something to keep his mind occupied. I mean, right next door to the military academy! "Keep it under your hats, fellas, but bin Laden's moved in next door!"

And Cameron's still linking the Taliban with al-Qaeda. The two may have links on occasions but are no better than hyenas grappling for morsels. One has to wonder who our enemies really are. It is said that the bin Laden family is made up of almost 800 kinsfolk. Osama bin Laden's father was a prolific breeder of humanity. Osama was his 17th child out of 54. And other bin Laden men contributed to the number. The Saudi Binladen Group manages all the cash that swirls around. It is a global oil and equity management conglomerate grossing $5 billion U.S. dollars annually, and one of the largest construction firms in the Islamic world, with offices in London and Geneva. According to an American diplomat, the bin Laden family owns part of Microsoft and Boeing among other companies. So what do we really know? Was Osama the only black sheep of this extended family?

Politics can get very murky indeed. According to this and several other websites "The Bush Administration gave the Taliban $43 million in May of 2001 for their destruction of Afghan opium crops in February. Drugs and terrorism go hand in hand. Afghanistan had been the world's largest producer of opium/heroin, claiming close to 70% of the world's total production. The amount of drug cash flowing into Wall Street and U.S. banks was estimated to be around $250-$300 billion a year. The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations. The U.S., directly or indirectly, helped to fund the WTC attacks. George Bush, Sr. was in charge of all U.S. intelligence and narcotics operations from 1981 through 1989. It was Bush (the elder) who directly nourished and nurtured bin Laden's evolution."

But aren't the poppy crops still flourishing? Aren't the banks still flushing drug money through the system? Until the right questions are asked the wrong answers will be given to us! David Cameron needs a set of pithily pointed questions that give proper answers. We deserve no less.

Too many lords a-leaping - the House is full!

The serried ranks of peers

David Cameron has been told by a cross-party group of senior peers that the House of Lords is "full" and he must stop creating new members. The prime minister has created more peers more quickly than any of his post-war predecessors, having ennobled 117 people in less than a year. The trouble is that the House of Lords is now seen as a kind of alma mater for old politicians from the House of Commons. They should be reminded of the late Mr. George Howard of Castle Howard fame. "There's nothing grand about the nobility!", he once said.

It has been remarked that the influx of retirees from the other place has coarsened debate, led to rancorous tones on occasions and even led to animosities. It also means that, a couple of peers short of 800, the House of Lords is packed to the gunwales. This is crazy. The House of Lords was once almost all made up of hereditary peers. Then Blair came along - "Well, yeah, look, but!" - and got rid of all but 92. This was to assuage some kind of democratic deficit he'd imagined in a dream. No doubt as an antidote to his democratic deficits at the ballot box, by being elected on only 20% of the total electorate's support.

The House of Lords works best when it is not interfered with or abused from without. Life peers should be appointed for their expertise, advice they can give. Time-serving is not a big brownie point here. I'm in favour of the House of Lords as it is currently. It is accessible to the general public. Maybe that's why the House of Commons is suspicious? Anyone can write to or communicate with a peer. In fact, not having a constituency makes for a completely different way of dealing with political interaction. There are peers from theatrical backgrounds, farming, educational, scientific, legal backgrounds. Yes, you get that in the House of Commons, but not without a rigid party line being attached.

I think David Cameron should be wary of pushing more in. If it's some odd idea to sink the ship, he might find a mutiny on his hands before that happens. Leave well alone, sir. This ship is built to last!

Andy Coulson resigns as Cameron's spin doctor

So there was some fire behind his smokescreen? Andy Coulson has gone because he can't give 110% to the job. I suspect it's because a load of court cases are piling up and he will have to appear in each and every one, giving his usual denial that he knew nowt!

Transparency awaits another day!

Passports pass the pricey point!

Today David Cameron announced the spending reveiw of defence. It was all about keeping us safe for the best price. How best to defeat the enemy and all that. Sounded OK as far as it went. But I get a sneaking feeling that in this modern age of terrorist warfare, where the odd bearded wonder is the actual problem, not a whole army of well disciplined foes, that it is the "man on the Clapham omnibus" that gets to pay for it all. And in more ways than one.

Only yesterday I was thinking again of renewing my passport. Can't go anywhere foreign without one, not these days. So much for the single market of the great European experiment. I would like to pop over to France but have to fork out £77.50 for the privilege. Now, OK, that boils down to £7.75 each year for a ten-year passport, but it's the reasons behind why the Passport Office is in charge of such inflation-busting price rises that gets me.

I saw this on Wikipedia and immediately thought that both the terrorists and the mandarins have a hand in weedling cash out of the citizen. If there were no terrorists it is perfectly plausible to think that the cost of renewing a passport would be no more that £25. But there is a whacking great premium because of Osama and his gang, fraudsters and official inefficiency. My last passport was issued in the USA by the Washington Embassy. I now see that in similar circumstances today I would be stiffed for £124!

From Wikipedia -

The cost of obtaining a standard passport over the years has increased greatly. While consumer prices in the UK have increased by 24% from early 1998 to 2009, the price of a passport renewal increased by 269%.
£77.50 - 3 September 2009 - an increase which the Government said was necessary due to a falling number of passport applicants, and also to pay for enhanced passport security measures. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said that people were paying for the price of introducing ID cards.
£72 - 4 October 2007 - due to an increase in the consular premium added by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
£66 - 5 October 2006 - for the introduction of the latest generation passport, anti-fraud measures and interviews for first-time applicants.
£51 - 1 December 2005 - to reflect the cost of implementing key anti-fraud measures.
£42 - 2 October 2003 - to pay for new anti-fraud measures.
£33 – 21 November 2002.
£30 – 14 January 2002.
£28 – 16 December 1999 - to fund a major overhaul of the Passport Agency following the summer crisis.
£21 – 26 March 1998.
£18 - November 1992.
The above fees apply for passports issued in the United Kingdom by the Identity and Passport Service. Passports issued outside the UK by the Passport Section of a British Consulate, Embassy, or High Commission currently cost £124.

If the spending on defence could get rid of Bin Laden and the spending on security could get rid of fraudsters, we might get our money's worth on passport production. Otherwise we will not get the value for money that David Cameron talks about. Just more shelling out for a poor return.

Agony aunt Claire Rayner dies at 79

Claire Rayner has died at the age of 79 which as it happens was the same age my mother died. In my mind she came across as familiar to me as she was the spitting image of one of my father's cousins. Not only in size but her voice was very similar. However, her public persona was nothing like that of Cousin Margaret.

I well remember, in the days of TVam, Claire Rayner sitting on the sofa waiting for her turn to talk. It was in the days when Aids was a novel topic with various pundits taking sides and telling us of dire consequences if behaviour didn't change. Then Claire was asked about the subject of safe sex. It caused her to propel herself up from a rather comfy position to sit with one bottom cheek on the sofa. As she moved she said, "Listen, a lot of silly stuff is said about condoms!" and proceeded to pull one out of her hands, as if my magic, and begin demonstrating how to use the thing safely. Much to the consternation of the team that day, it seemed. I thought "Hold on a minute, I'm having my breakfast" and pondered whether I was more surpriseded by the talk of condoms at that hour or the sight of Claire sitting ungainly and precariously on the edge of a cheap TVam sofa, sideways to the camera. If the message merited a direct approach, nothing sat in her way - literally!

She was, she claimed, an ardent atheist. She did a lot of good and no doubt her rather interesting life, dealing with the subtleties and senses of the human condition, shaped her thoughts and beliefs. She's either now in sublime oblivion or tackling some kind of Elysian shock therapy. She told her relatives she wanted her last words to be, "Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him." So maybe the latter is her preferred option.

Your country needs you, says David Cameron

David Cameron today has given a rousing speech in Birmingham about the future and how we all tackle this debt problem.

The "beating, radical heart" of the government was shifting power away from the centre to ordinary people, allowing them more choice over services, greater transparency about state spending and greater ability to get involved in running and shaping local services in their communities, he said.

"We are the radicals now, breaking apart the old system with a massive transfer of power from the state to citizens, politicians to people, government to society," he told the conference. Cameron also warned banks that they must "repay the favour" from taxpayers who had bailed them out by restoring lending to British businesses. "There's another way we are getting behind business – by sorting out the banks," he said. "Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it's time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain's small businesses again."

I do hope he's got the bottle to deal with these money-changing leviathans. Business needs a government that will be capable of instilling confidence in society. No good having a Big Society if those making it up are all quivering at the knees. Sorting out the banks? Well let's get to grips with what these gamblers are doing whilst sitting at their computers all day, schizophrenically counting bonus bucks as they watch thin air money whizzing past their eyes.

Transparency, honesty and accountability. Maybe this is the chance for the Rev.Stephen Green, formerly of HSBC, to stand up now, as his country needs him, to purge banking of its Las Vegas promiscuity and return it to an honourable estate.

David Cameron is Prime Minister - It's A Brand New Day!

It's all worked out quite well. A new and stable government. One which will, I think, prove to be just the thing to get us moving along in this second decade of the 21st century. When David Cameron gets to the House of Commons and sits on the government benches, he will be facing Harriet Harman as Leader of the Opposition. It will all be so very different. Iain Dale said tonight on Sky News that he hoped the years of spin by Mandy and Campbell (as Austin Mitchell dubs them) were over. No more spin, no more subterfuge. It's a brand new day!

Cameron to be PM by 9 PM!

David Cameron will be prime minister by 9 o'clock tonight. And the New Labour project goes into oblivion. Great!

The only show in town

Gordon Brown thinks he has done a fine thing. Admit defeat of a sort but suggest that all parties are losers. Tell the nation he will quit as Labour leader but say he will stay on as prime minister until the progressive coalition has had a chance to "secure the economy". Then give some kind of rousing speech at the Labour conference, wish his successor well and depart for a cushy job like top bottlewasher at the IMF. That's the game plan. It's eagerly being taken up by the likes of Peter Hain, always the opportunist.

Thankfully such minds as David Blunkett's are coming out against it. So is John Reid. Labour could join up with the LibDems and form a minority government, with the Nats acting as whipping boys in order to secure votes in the House. Perfectly possible, but exceedingly unstable and likely to anger the electorate.

Far better for the Tories and LibDems to form a stable coalition and knuckle down to deal with the deficit. And I hope we won't all carp and criticise when they take difficult decisions. We don't want to end up like Greece or worse. So the only show in town is the Cameron and Clegg coalition. Anything else is a non-viable non-starter.

Cameron won on points and poise

David Cameron won the debate last night. Not by a mile, but he did OK. A school report would say "much improved this term!". Nick Clegg came second and Gordon Brown limped in a reasonable third. To be fair to the PM, I think he did better than some said he did.

All three seemed to get through OK. However, all clammed up on questions they didn't want to answer. Transparency has some way to go it would appear. Linked to truthfulness, of course.

Cameron was much more relaxed. Nick Clegg had moments when he looked like he was piggy in the middle. And what on earth happened to Gordon Brown's make-up. I thought Phyllis Diller may have had a hand in it.

It's still a three-horse race with several loose horses cantering along beside.

David Cameron and the wisteria bill!

So there I was, talking about David Cameron and his expense claim for wisteria removal and, lo and behold, he's still giving answers on the subject. Answers that don't quite assuage the public, if the London Evening Standard is anything to go by.

Cameron says, "I took the decision that because of some of the very bad things that had happened, I thought it was very important to show some leadership ... so I paid back one very important claim, which was a claim for household maintenance which included the famous wisteria on the house because, of course, the chimney didn't work so I couldn't actually heat the house." But does one fireplace heat a whole house? It's all a bit schoolboy-in-front-of-headmaster stuff. I'd have preferred him to say that he should not have claimed for the wisteria removal in the first place, that he was sorry, that he would pay the money back and that a line would be drawn in the sand. A new start.

Instead, he is still trying to prove a point. He claims leadership but has been quite brutal to others by suggesting they were that much more wrong. How is the duck house or the moat clearance any different. I'll tell you what I think. I think he thought it a good time to get rid of the likes of Douglas Hogg and Sir Peter Viggars. Make them look like stale bread in the Modern Conservative Party.

It really won't do. There is NOT ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE between Douglas Hogg's moat and David Cameron's chimney. Both got a thorough cleansing at taxpayer's expense. I just think it is all wrong to scapegoat those who can be thought of as dispendable politically.

Nasty intolerent liberals come bubbling to the surface

I've now found out what Tory election candidate Philip Lardner said. This is it, probably in part, but I took it from the BBC's website.

"As your MP I will support the rights of parents and teachers to refuse to have their children taught that homosexuality is 'normal' behaviour or an equal lifestyle choice to traditional marriage. I will always support the rights of homosexuals to be treated within concepts of (common sense) equality and respect, and defend their rights to choose to live the way they want in private, but I will not accept that their behaviour is 'normal' or encourage children to indulge in it. Toleration and understanding is one thing, but the state promotion of homosexuality is quite another."

David Cameron has apparently gone ape about this. Why, may I ask? There are very many people who do not think homosexual activity is normal or correct. Are those who think so to be expunged from political life. I say to David Cameron, get a life yourself. A proper political life that allows diversity of opinion. Otherwise you are fast becoming a just another no-it-all liberal who is exactly the opposite of liberal.

Chris Bryant says "These comments are completely unacceptable and betray the nasty, judgmental truth behind the Tory camp". Really? This from a man who posed in his underpants on a gay porn site looking "for fun". I'm afraid I can't take Bryant seriously.

This action over Mr. Gardner is political intolerance. It is political censorship. It is very un-British. It is a kind of selective political brainwashing. David Cameron should look in the mirror tonight and ask himself if he is becoming just a tad too precious. Oh, and he still hasn't explained that wisteria removal to my satisfaction!

Conservative candidate pilloried for views!

Woe betide anyone thinking of standing for Parliament with traditional views. Especially if these views touch on the subject of homosexuality. If any candidate so much as squeaks, the politically correct hyenas pounce. Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, Philip Lardner, has been suspended for what are considered "deeply offensive and unacceptable" comments about homosexuality. He apparently posted them on his website. I haven't seen them so don't know how "deeply offensive and unacceptable" they were. But what I do know is that there is an insidious undercurrent of Stalinist put-downs every time someone of traditional values expresses an opinion on the subject.

Catholics are portrayed as being a suitable target for shutting up. If David Cameron believes so much in the family, why on earth try to silence people in such a manner. The people of North Ayrshire and Arran can make up their own minds. If they vote for Mr. Lardner, what will Cameron do with him? Put him on the naughty step, so all and sundry passing through the Palace of Westminster can see what happens if you speak your mind - and that mind is out of favour with the liberal elite?

This is very worrying. Are those who feel they have a contribution to make in public life to be silenced if their views are contrary to others? Homosexual practices are not acceptable to many as an ideal basis for a lifestyle. Are they to be pilloried for thinking this way? It is all rather Stalinist. I find it distasteful.

David Cameron gave some wishy-washy response to a question about the Pope's visit. So did Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg. They didn't exactly embrace weasel words, but I guess a fox wouldn't find such sentiments unhandy. If this instant attacking of traditional values doesn't stop, we will end up in some sort of 1984 mind state. Thank goodness for the internet. Some of us can speak up.

When Julian Lewis was attacked by that pompous prig Alan Johnson, his opinions were traduced big time. Johnson just abused the airwaves with something he thought passed for democratic comment. It was nothing of the sort. It was just plain bullying. Alan Johnson has the veneer of a nice man but essentially he comes across as a political bully. Julian Lewis made some points about homosexual relationships. Immediately he was pounced upon. Now everyone is entitled to speak their mind in a free democracy so long as it is not unlawful or inciteful. Also, I would add unpleasant. I can't see anything as such in what Mr.Lewis said. He went on to say "On the other hand (though no-one seems to have noticed), I voted in favour of the civil partnerships bill". Alan Johnson didn't notice.

No, Johnson seems to be an anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-free speech former trade union official who is far more comfortable trying to belittle his opponents by besmirching them than he is protecting their democratic rights. This election is certainly proving to weed out the political pharisees.

Let David Cameron be himself!

The Conservative Party has suffered too much in recent years from wannabee Warwick the Kingmakers running around spinning a yarn here and slipping in a soundbit there. Each leader since Margaret Thatcher was bundled out of office has been "advised" on speech delivery, body language and everything from hairstyles to walking styles. Now I hear, to my great delight, that the public are pleased to see the real David Cameron. The more they see and hear the better they like it. And who wouldn't? This is definitely not a political X Factor. The only x's we want are in a ballot box.

So, rather like the Queen of Hearts would say, "off with their heads", and let's do away with these backroom boys, and girls no doubt, who have put David Cameron in a straight jacket. A loosened up Dave is coming to town, folks!

Leaders' Debate - Who won it? Seems it was Nick Clegg!

Just dragged myself away from interminable political opinion making on ITV1. The last speaker being Lord Pearson who has been given a slot for his views. Much of all this has been hyped up and the people most excited about it all are the TV companies and the pollsters. I think the level of excitement offered by the three leaders was less energised.

When this was first mooted (a leaders' debate) everyone thought David Cameron had most to lose as he was the more telegenic and that Gordon Brown had most to gain. In the event both were deemed to have been outshone by Nick Clegg. I think Clegg did well and his natural approach is obviously appealing. David Cameron's political content was mostly sound but his body language seemed at times to give away his nervousness. Gordon Brown got it one fairly good strike about the Conservative posters of himself smiling and Cameron's controlled smirk seemed to suggest he was ill at ease over Brown's newfound Cheshire cat routine. But I think the most telling thing for me was at the very end when they all shook hands. Brown was keen to leave the other two and go to the audience as friendly host thanking his guests. Cameron and Clegg spent few moments in exchanging words. They seemed relaxed in each other's company. Whilst only a fleeting period and one can't read too much into it, it would tend to give a little bit of support to the suggestion that the two could work well in any coalition arrangement.

The pollsters are now crunching the numbers, but they all seem to agree that Nick Clegg was the outright winner. Which will mean that, as William Hague rightly points out, the LibDems will come under greater scrutiny. I hope it will be by proper debate than by a kind of musical chairs game.

Gordon Brown? Can he hang on?

All of a sudden the talk is not so much of us having a hung parliament but whether Gordon Brown can actually hang on. Hang on to what, exactly. The New Labour greasy pole? That's a tall order. No, it seems he may be able to do a kind of John Major 1992. This is all deemed possible by the British public settling for the devil they know, rather than plump for someone else, namely David Cameron.

There's a saying in Yorkshire, or at least there was. It's "There's nowt so queer as folk". This queer just means odd or peculiar and not the more recent usage. In fact, I haven't heard the word queer for ages, so perhaps nobody in Yorkshire says this anymore. Perhaps they should. We should all sit up and wonder if we are not all going a bit peculiar. How can a man who Richard Littlejohn describes as being sociopath have any chance? In fact, Littlejohn says in the Daily Mail, "For the entire time that New Labour has been misleading, bullying and cheating the British public, Gordon Brown has been at its dark heart, first as chancellor, then as prime minister. Brown's Britain is a failed state, led by an unelected Scottish sociopath and a gruesome gang of crooks, liars, political pygmies and smearmerchants. He has bankrupted the country, smashed our once gold-standard private pensions system, sold out our sovereignty to Europe and destroyed the special relationship with the U.S. over the release of the Lockerbie bomber for the sake of a squalid, sectarian squabble with the Scottish Nationalists. We have a ruinous welfare culture which rewards the feckless and a taxation system which punishes enterprise and the traditional family. Economically, he peddled us a false prospectus and has succeeded in beggaring the country for generations to come."

So, who could possibly think of voting Labour? Apparently quite a few. What on earth could they possibly get out of it? Well, I suppose plane-grounding strikers, a train-stopping union, bonus-grabbing bankers, climate change zealots, gravy train europhiles, equalities quango merchants and grumpy health service know-it-alls could make up a coalition of the politically corrupt and try to hallucinate the nation.

On, and there's talk of Blair going on the election campaign trail. The cherry on the cheesecake?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1261026/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-The-pygmies-sleazebags-whove-wrecked-Britain-I-nearly-Labour-MP.html#ixzz0jYld2fTY

Cameron's patriotic moves

There was a time in the Sixties when certain opinions were commonplace. One such opinion was that the Labour Party was nothing better that a Trojan horse for the Soviet communists. After all, they sang the Red Flag and they wanted to nationalise most things. Many were closet republicans, a lot were ban-the-bombers and they were keen on dismantling the traditions of the state. In short, they were not patriotic and needed to be defeated. Then the Berlin Wall collapsed and the soviet empire went with it. It seemed little point singing the Red Flag with such gusto, and opponents were less charged by Labour Party views.

Tony Blair and his New Labour control freaks decided that all the commie stuff had to go. If he controlled the party it could look like a new party with fresh ideas. Not really. The icing on the cake changed but the rotten fruit inside just got re-hashed.

Now we have Harriet Harperson pushing so-called equality laws on us, we have a meddlesome mattie in charge of the Charity Commission and quango chiefs all on the fiddle or the cover-up. New Labour is a frightful mixture of control, sleaze, hypocrisy and whitewashing episodes.

So is David Cameron right in saying that it is his patriotic duty to try to remove these people? I suppose it depends on what you think Britain should be and remain as being. A conservative's view of patriotic duty is in honouring and maintaining the institutions of the state. If that duty is challenged by those who want to destroy the institutions, then it is a patriotic duty to stop it. We do live in a changing society but too much change is detrimental.

When it comes to the voting, though, we may have a result that in no way reflects our views. According to the YouGov poll published in the Sunday Times, the Conservative lead over Labour has narrowed to two points. It suggests that 37% would vote Tory, while 35% would opt for Labour and 17% for the Lib Dems. This, the Sunday Times says, could give Labour 317 seats, nine short of an overall majority, with the Tories on a total of 263 MPs. So Gordon Brown could remain prime minister (with some backing from minor parties) even though he did worse in the voting. Do we really want that?

35% would vote Labour it says. But how many does that 35% represent of the total electorate. If the stay-at-homers are the largest group, then active Labour voters are a real minority. Perhaps that's why Harriet Harperson is so keen to promote minority causes. She knows she's a minority in a minority which in turn is in a minority. It's like a television camera looking at its own monitor. All you get is a load of television sets leading to oblivion!

Tory totty won't help Cameron!

Serious commentators are now wondering whether the Conservative Party under David Cameron's leadership can actually win this forthcoming election. All the pointers suggest he won't quite make it. Not that Brown will win either. My guess is that the Conservatives will get around 290 seats making it necessary to do a deal with the LibDems.

But the real message of the election will be the size of the vote for the minor parties and the size of the stay-at-homers group. If these combine to be more than two-thirds then our democracy needs some kind of medication - FAST!

Simon Heffer asks in the Daily Telegraph "Can anyone explain what the Conservative Party stands for?". Currently I'm not sure there will be many rushing to say they know. It seems that several ding-dongs are going on between A-listers and constituency associations. Internal democracy in the Tory Party is on a back burner.

Heffer says this - "We do have a number of respectable (and, in the shape of the BNP, non-respectable) fringe parties who will hoover up votes from the main ones. The BNP believes it can win a Labour seat or two, and it may be right. The Tories are also finding it desperately hard to gain footholds in big urban areas outside London, with their potential working-class supporters now in some cases edging towards the BNP." The Conservatives have no answer to this.

The trouble is that all the major parties have colluded over their expenses, over the economy, over immigration and over the management of government. The people of the UK feel hurt and aggrieved. They see bankers wallowing in bonuses only available because the dimwitted Labour government saw no reason to curb their greed. I hear angry mutterings in shops, walking about town and from people I use to think mild-mannered conservatives with a small "c".

Simon Heffer also thinks that UKIP can "damage Tory interests, notably in the West Country, where the agricultural and fishing interests have had enough of Brussels, and this damage is potentially huge." The Conservatives need to wake up to the fact that it is not just the Labour Party that the country is cheesed off with, but the whole system of sleaze and spin.

Maybe we need some body scanners for politicians. Get them passing through the warts-and-all machines. "Sorry, Mr.Cameron. Machine says you don't have a clue!" Now there's a thought.

Snow surprise then?

We need a big umbrella over Britain it seems. We can't cope with snow, we can't cope with rain, and we don't appear to be able to cope with hot days. In fact, whilst there is a minimum temperature for working conditions, there is no such equivalent for high temperatures.

David Cameron is now beaming down from posters proclaiming that he'll get us out of the mess we're in. Perhaps the best policy he could construct would be one containing lots of joined up thinking. Britain suffers from short-termism. Just getting by is no longer any good. We need to learn from our mistakes and try our very best to get it right. So let's have some policies that actually mean something and let's have them without spin.

It was refreshing to hear President Obama tell the intelligence community they had failed to "connect the dots", adding "That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it." I hope the British voters will not tolerate any politician who is incapable of connecting dots.

Bouncing Czech puts Cameron's current account in the red!

So the Czech's have signed, ratified and sealed the Lisbon Treaty. Democracy is the poorer, weasel wordsmiths are having a field day. David Cameron and the higher echelons of the Conservative Party are u-turning as I type. All manner of reasons as to why a referendum is now out of the question. Cast iron guarantees are being melting down tonight. EU alchemy is trying to make gold ingots out of this cast iron. Well, let them! They know no better.

My fear is that come the general election the two largest parties in Britain will be defending political records of scheming, subterfuge, u-turning, deception, and a wilful acceptance of the greed of mates and pals and the dismissal of those MPs of lesser worth and political value.

David Cameron's current account has suddenly gone into the red. UKIP must be sensing a real victory in that those who thought Cameron would deliver now find a man whose word is as worthless as the fictitious money transactions that the conniving banks were doing when they turned toxic sub-prime loans into the grandchild of the South Sea Bubble. Many Conservative supporters will drift away, others will run enthusiastically into the UKIP fold.

Politics needs a new start. No good lecturing the likes of Afghanistan's President Kazi, when the EU variety has far more corrosive arrangements for denying true democracy.

I sincerely hope David Cameron knows what has befallen him. Gordon Brown barged into Tony Blair's No 10 bunker to declare that he didn't believe a ****ing the then PM said. The people may well say the same next year about Cameron's referendum guarantee melting like a chocolate soldier in the desert.