Bashar Assad - Mass murderer of Syria

Up yours too!

This is the face of a cocky mass murderer. Happy to live in both sides of parallel universes. Kill two hundred people one day. Dine with two hundred cronies the next. Live in luxury whilst your people live in squalor. Say what you like but deny your people any say.

Syria should have better than this. They want better than this. Bashar Assad is not a nice man. He is a two-faced little creep. What courage it must be to stand up to such a nasty man! All they want is democracy, the chance to elect their leaders. And many are prepared to die for that chance.

I do hope that when it comes they never let complacency enter their hearts and minds. Don't look to the British for guidance. Most stay away from polling stations in their droves. In some places that has been recorded as over 90%, particularly for the AV referendum. Would the Syrians like a referendum on voting choices? You bet they would!

Bloody Syria!

Says it all!

President Bashar al-Assad has unleashed his so-called security forces on Syrians seeking no more than democratic freedoms. What he aims to achieve heaven only knows. The time has gone when it was the way to sit up late into the night dreaming up fantasies about how to crack down on the people. Assad is no better than his father was. However, it may not be too late for him. As the democracy genie is out of the bottle in the Arab world he is fighting a losing battle. His best bet is to agree to democratic reforms and stop this killing. He may yet emerge with some dignity intact. If he continues to assert that those in rebellion of his autocratic regime are "terrorists" he will lose credibility faster than water leaving a bath tub. The whole of Arabic people are clamouring for freedom.

Syrians have as much right to live with democratic freedoms as anyone else. Assad and his cronies are living in some historical time warp. He needs to wake up to reality!

BNP 'Koran burn' candidate Sion Owens due in court

Sion Owens, the BNP candidate in question

A BNP candidate for the Welsh assembly is due in court on Monday after police were passed a video appearing to show him burning a copy of the Koran. Sion Owens, aged 41, has been charged with a public order offence.

How can it be a public order offence when the act took place in a privately owned garage? Do South Wales Police believe in this prosecution or were they put up to it by the Crown Prosecution Service? Or maybe politicians keen on silencing the BNP?

It is a prosecution that makes a mockery of democracy. Let the debate begin for the Welsh Assembly on the hustings and not in the courts!

Yasmin Alibhai Brown misses the freedom point

"I'm speaking my mind!"

In an article in the Independent, Yasmin Alibhai Brown calls for a democracy where free speech is limited. Limited no doubt by her fellow thinkers and not by those who disagree. She mentions Oliver Wendell Holmes but then pushes that point further. Incitement to racial or religious hatred is whipping the crowd up to create a clear and present danger. Burning a Koran in a privately owned garage, as the BNP candidate did, is absolutely not the same thing. There was no danger created.

In a democracy free speech does upset people. I am upset by attacks on the traditional integrity of Anglicans by liberal Anglicans, but I don't want them silenced. Monty Python was accused of blasphemy, but like the curate's egg, I liked the show in parts. The parts I didn't like I didn't watch. Frankie Boyle is sometimes plainly outrageous and offensive but I can see that the man has a comic talent and can be genuinely funny. His critics should be the ones to tell him he's off limits, not the state.

There are so many words that offend. However, it is not the role of the police to try to stamp out the BNP by suppressing free speech. The way a democracy works is to debate the issues and use the ballot box.

Mubarak, the robber of Egypt

I see in the Daily Mail today that Mubarak and his family have stashed away £25 billion over the last 30 years. Did he think he earned it all? Was there a salary as president? How much time was he spending on running Egypt and how much time was he in his counting house?

When the new democratic government comes in they should ask the rogue with the Just for Men hairdo where the cash is. The Swiss bankers have already got twitchy and put a stop on him writing cheques.

And is the US government going to stop the gravy train for the Egyptian military? How much of the US taxpayers' tax dollars have passed through Mubarak's chubby fingers?

It's going to be a summer of questions. I do hope the answers are easily understood!

Mubarak falls off the wall, with slight bump and heads for the beach!

I wonder what it must be like for a dictator's mindset. Over a million people crammed into a square all baying for your blood, the rest of the country wishing you'd clear off and your erstwhile cronies fingering their rubber daggers. It's ridicule, hatred, pity, distaste, indifference and much more all rolled into one for the people. But surely Mubarak didn't think anyone still thought him fit for the presidency? What on earth was going through his mind?

The only thing I can think is that politics for some is a cause for insanity. Are most of the world's leaders insane in some way or other? Berlusconi must have a few insanity cells in that numbskull of his. Anyway, Mubarak had enough mentality left to realise he'd be better off kicking the sand in Sharm El Sheikh than he would be studying the script for another TV broadcast to the nation!

And I wonder if the Americans are having sleepless nights. All this came about because of Wikileaks emboldening the Arab subjugates. Washington has paid billions into Mubarak's coffers, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to his regime's cruelty. They sound a bit jittery and nervous now he's gone. Could be that a democratic Egypt will reveal the nasty truth about renditions, special or monetary ones.

Mubarak is the dimmest man in the world!

Hosni Mubarak must be the dimmest man in the world. Virtually the whole of Egypt thinks he is past his sell-by-date for whatever reason. He thinks otherwise. Just on that level only he is not fit to be in power. Has he read history? If he hasn't he should be given a few good books to thumb through. His best bet is to go with a bit of dignity. Leave it any longer and he will be joining the likes of Mussolini in ignomy.

I saw John Kerry, erstwhile US presidential candidate who is in Davos, waxing on about Mubarak. His waffle and double speak did him no favours. Democrats should be democrats for all and not suggest that a tyrant can be tamed just to suit American foreign policy. On that note alone I'm glad John Kerry never got to be president.

Reload, said Sarah Palin, and one nutter did just that!

I cannot for the life of me understand why so many Americans are infatuated with the hairbrain solutions that Sarah Palin offers them. I know she looks and sounds like your average mom dishing out cookies and desserts to adoring kids. But most of what she says publicly has not much intellectual stimulus in it at all. Using metaphors about guns she tells supporters to "target" Democrats. She exhorts them "Don't retreat - instead, RELOAD!" I bet she thought that immensely funny at the time. Perhaps her porcelain smile has been wiped from her face now?

We can only hope that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords makes as full a recovery as possible. She was doing a very brave thing. Meeting her constituents in public. That surely is the stuff of democratic politics. The local sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, speaks volumes when he says, "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry. That may be free speech. But it's not without consequence." It's not free speech with any meaning, just prejudice and bigotry.

The consequence outside this Safeway store (some irony there!) is a grave tragedy for American democracy. The likes of Sarah Palin need to think before they speak. If not all she will be is a common rabblerouser.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345460/Sarah-Palin-Arizona-sheriff-blames-political-vitriol-triggering-unstable-Safeway-gunmans-massacre.html#ixzz1AXZ5SeBU

BNP in new court battle over membership

It seems to me that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is on a crusade to impede democracy and stifle debate. They have an idea that, by going after the BNP, they can get the party to implode under a mountain of court costs. So they have come up with the ridiculous notion that loads of ethnic minority people should be allowed to join the BNP. All this in the name of equality. Of course, it has nothing to do with equality or discrimination. It has everything to do with trying to outlaw those you find objectionable.

The EHRC is alarmed at the 1 million voters who support the BNP. So by killing off the party they hope to change the minds of those voters. An absurd notion, but only those with absurd notions run the EHRC. If the BNP goes, another will take its place. Far better to debate and show why the BNP policies are not right.

If this ridiculous court case results in a form of entryism, then there will be all sorts of bogus demands, such as women forcing themselves into the Catholic ministry. It is a can of worms unleashed by those who are no better than Pharisees.

Mindsets are not changed by draconian laws. If that was so, then the glorious German Democratic Republic would still be up and running.

Teacher who spoke at Tory conference ‘suspended’ by Head

This story is admirably told on Archbishop Cranmer's blog. Read it and weep! Oh and he mentions that "the sponsors are the Church of England". I'd think that had very little relevance to the subject matter. Will Rowan Williams being saying anything today?

All over bar the shouting!

Looking back on this election, it's certainly been eventful. We've now got "three main UK parties", as the BBC insists on calling them. I really do think the BBC has no right to try to influence public opinion with these "slipped in" changes to the venacular. If it wasn't for them we'd still be saying Bombay, sex and all the King's horses. As it is we've been fobbed off with Mumbai, gender and all of this and all of that. Let's hope a Conservative government will give the corporation some corrective treatment.

Anyway, I digress! This election is, according to David Dimbleby, the closest in a generation. I'd go further and say it was the most different EVER. And that goes back to Simon de Montford's days. Never have so many parties been scrapping for votes in a system laid down for the followers of the Royalist/Cavalier/Tory/Conservative tradition or the Republican/Parliamentarian/Whig/Liberal tradition. These two main groupings have been splintered into a myriad shards. We've got more candidates than ever before, more parties with a serious chance of saving deposits than ever before. Voters are no longer blue or red or maybe orange. They are now green, pink, purple, violet, turquoise, brown, black or even rainbow coloured in political opinion as well.

Some MPs, I well expect, will be elected tonight on less that 33% of the constituency vote. Whoever becomes prime minister will probably not be the first choice of a vast majority of the country. I hope that whatever the result, we don't rush like demented lemmings into some so-called constitutional reform and destroy our centuries old representative democracy. A period of calm reflection will be needed. Forget those who say that a hung parliament will destabilise the markets. They destabilise themselves by themselves. Democracy will overcome the threats, bribes and backchat of those whose days are spent moving funny money around. If it is to be a hung parliament, or "balanced" as the BBC says, so what. We will either have a formal coalition or a minority government. Neither will bring down the country in a frenzied collapse of moral fibre.

Whoever goes to see the Queen needs only to command a majority of his peers in the House of Commons. I'm sure the new MPs will do their duty and decide whether to be on the Government benches or the Opposition benches. If the Opposition turns out larger than those on the other side, it's up to them to decide whether to vote down the Queen's Speech or not. I suspect it will all turn out fine.

Manic Street Preachers

Cumbrian Police know a thing or two about democracy, free speech and liberty. Yes, a thing or two! That's about the sum total of their knowledge. A 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Workington, Cumbria for years, has been charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships. The preacher, Dale McAlpine, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

The police took him to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked him in a cell for seven hours on April 20. Mr.McAlpine said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life. “I felt deeply shocked and humiliated that I had been arrested in my own town and treated like a common criminal in front of people I know," he said. Needless to say he got the full DNA, fingerprint and record-keeping treatment.

The police have no business rounding people up like this. Street preaching is not against the law. John Wesley was a prominent preacher. There have been many down the centuries. In fact, I wonder if it passed the minds of the Cumbrian Police to consider the greatest street preacher of them all. The New Testament is basically all about street preaching, or if not in the streets, on the hillsides, by the sea, and in the fields!

No doubt this will come to court. It will cause a rumpus. And the whole sorry saga carries on.

Are you Nick Griffin?

A most unfortunate episode happened at the Conservative conference. A councillor was stopped by a policewoman who wanted to be sure he was not Nick Griffin. The poor man apparently gets this a lot. Being mistaken for the BNP leader, that is. Now two things strike me as being odd about this story that I found in the Guardian. Firstly Lynden Stowe, who is the leader of Cotswold district council, was "made to produce identification and explain that any similarity between him and Griffin was merely superficial" before being allowed in. So if one looks like a severely politically-incorrect politician, is it the job of the British police to inquire whether thoughts go with the looks? Secondly, is Nick Griffin being tailed by the police during this election? If he is, I'd suggest the police keep well out of it. Let the electorate decide. We don't wan't prissy chief constables telling us who is or is not worthy of voting for. Any unnecessary involvement in the democratic process is bound to backfire. Illegal thuggery is one thing. Trying to prevent democratic discourse is quite another.

I was watching a video of the late great Arthur Worsley with his Charley Brown character. I've just had visions of Mr. Stowe being questioned by the dummy. "Go on!!!! ARE YOU NICK GRIFFIN??? Look at me when I'm talking - ARE YOU NICK GRIFFIN???" Well, it's one way to get an answer.

Stephen Gately PCC complaint rejected

The article written in the Daily Mail last October by Jan Moir upset quite a few people. In fact the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) received a record 25,000 complaints about the comment piece which was perceived by many to be homophobic. Now that the PCC has ruled it met the criteria of free speech more complaints are coming in about the PCC's judgement.

Free speech in Britain is being seriously undermined by certain interest groups that say you cannot express an opinion if that opinion is trenchant and totally opposite to a specific interest group. Any discussion of homosexuality that introduces opinions that see it as "not normal" is rounded upon as being "homophobic". Homophobia is only a perceived phobia against homosexuals and not against men in general or against similar things. So a person cannot be held to be homophobic about heterosexual men or twins or semi-detached houses. The English language is hostage to those who want to create their own words and meanings. Humpty Dumpty was not wrong.

The article was indeed strongly-worded. I did not read it then but have done since. Regardless of whether Gately was a homosexual or not, the article was prurient and disrespectful. My humble opinion, of course. If Moir wanted to write about such stuff she could have done it in a different context. But this raises the question of rights and privileges. It seems that certain sections of the community (community meaning us all and not an interest group) want their position to be outside the scope of criticism or discussion. But it is fair game to denigrate and abuse others because they are seen as "old-fashioned" or "reactionary".

I find it upsetting that the media in general finds it amusing to mock and denigrate religious symbols and sacred beliefs. But I'm not going to try to get the perpetrators arrested, or fined, or censured. Because I feel free speech, so long as it does not incite violence or physical hatred, is something to be cherished. If we do not have the freedom to speak our minds, then we need to accept we will become a cowering breed of pyscophantic followers.

Last night I was shopping and the supermarket was throwing away bagloads of bread (which happens nightly). I pointed out this to a girl who was filling a plastic bag full of donuts, bread rolls, anything that she could get her hands on. As I disapprove of this arrogant wastage policy of supermarkets I spoke up. The reply was "It get's recycled". One has to wonder whether as bread or as fertiliser for the next wheat crop. A fellow customer felt this was a standard reply that they have "been told to say".

Without free speech we get no change. We cannot highlight rights and wrongs. I trust we can continue to speak our minds without fear or favour, so long as it is with the pen and not the sword.

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.

A Sign of The Times!

The Times may have changed quite a bit since Murdoch got his hands on it but that's no excuse for the BNP to manhandle a reporter in such a way that he nearly got his nose ripped off. Dominic Kennedy is quite at liberty to write what he wants to write. If the BNP bosses think this behaviour is likely to get them votes then they are living in a dream world. If Nick Griffin thinks that the House of Commons will be a delight, he needs to tone things down. In the unlikely event of him being elected he better not let his goons near the place. Anyway, he will be on his own.

This picture is a good example of why nationalist politics is so odious. Mr Kennedy was only doing his job in a democratic environment. I'd give them a wide berth but then I'm not an investigations reporter.

Democracy in England - LibDems £2.4M Donation!

Here's a quango at work in the political arena. The Electoral Commission in fact. In a toss of coins they come down in favour of the Liberal Democrats retaining a dodgy loan of £2.4 million and get quite exercised over a UKIP donation of £363,697. The LibDems keep their cash because they could not be held to have realised that the money came from a convicted fraudster. UKIP on the other hand failed to realise that their donor was not on the electoral register at the time of the donation. Even though a district judge ruled that UKIP should only repay £14,481 after ruling the breach had been accidental, the Commission appealed to the High Court and won.

If they had dug a bit deeper with the LibDems one wonders what they might have found out. In any event it hardly seems evenhanded.

Gordon Brown's Afghan egg displeases curate's congregation

The curate's egg was good in parts. He was implying that something which is partly good can be ruined by the bad bit.

Right Reverend Host. "I’m afraid you’ve got a bad Egg, Mr. Jones!"
The Curate. "Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellect!"

We could say the same about Gordon Brown's speech this morning. He is still trying to persuade us that his nemesis, Alky Ada, is about to strike out in London on a savage rampage all due to the problems starting in Kabul. Cut off the Afghan terrorists and Britain is a safer place. It's all poppycock. He ruins a basically good premise by including untruths and speculation. Al Queda are in Pakistan giving grief to that benighted country. If they ever were in Afghanistan they have long since fled. Terrorists are not insurgents. Fine point, maybe, but the aims are different. It is the Taliban, a group of warlords and displaced poppy farmers, that are the anti-social scourge of the Afghans. We don't wish to seize the moment in Pakistan to go after Al Queda. Probably because we would get an uprising in Britain as well as in Pakistan.

So the Afghan war is about telling us we are fighting terrorism to make Britain a safer place. The Taliban are enemies of the democratising process of Afghan society. We are telling Karzai about corruption. Gordon Brown lectures him on good governance, suggesting that a government must not stand back and let corruption take place. Excuse me! What has Brown beeen doing in Westminster? Trying to hide MPs expenses, his own cleaning bills and Sky Sports subscriptions, by invoking parliamentary privilege, stifling freedom of information and redacting documents. Nice one.

The country is not behind this war because the premise is false. We are behind our soldiers and each and every one of them has put themselves where virtually none of us would go. But the government needs to do far better than come up with this travesty of the truth.

There are four countries in the world that the "West" has difficulty with. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. Not one is a fully functioning democracy. All have despots waiting to take over. All have simmering grievances. The peoples of each country want peace and prosperity. They don't care if it is with democracy or with a benign overlord. They just want peace. In that, Gordon Brown is right to say that the first duty of a government is the security of the nation. But he negates his good reasons by including fancifully bad ones.

Until the truth is out, this war will go nowhere. Until our objectives are crystal clear, we have only the curate's opinion to guide us.

Democracy? Did we ever have it?

I'm of the opinion that democracy doesn't really exist in the so-called "western countries". Free speech is a far greater asset and one which the authorities allow and support. But they are woefully scared of true democracy. Witness the antics of the EU hierachy, all hellbent on getting YES votes in referendums, the very polls they fought hard deny most voters in the 27 countries. Witness also the ridiculous way in which a candidate in the USA has to get vast numbers of voters to support his/her candidature just to get ballot access. All manner of hoops and hurdles are placed in the way of parties which dissent from the agreed two-party arrangement.

I think it was summed up for me when something remarkable happened in East Devon in 1989. Stuart Hughes, now a Conservative councillor, although a maverick one, was a candidate for his Raving Loony Green Giant Party. Having fallen out with David Sutch of the OMLRP, he ploughed his own furrow. He stood against a matriarchal Conservative and beat her. She waspishly queried the result, saying "What have they done?" and then rounded on Mr.Hughes by stating he better not lark around in the council chamber. She took defeat very badly. Many have done so in the past and no doubt will in the future.

Democracy is not that welcome in the corridors of power. Free speech doesn't bother them. I'm entitled, allowed, or whatever, to sound off on this blog. That's not going to twitch an eyebrow. But if I mobilised an army of voters to unseat MPs, then I would be in trouble. It's a form of poking my nose in where I'm not welcome.

Daniel Hannan has a good line in his blog entry yesterday. He says -

"It’s not chiefly about Europe – it’s about democracy. Regular readers will know that I have always seen the repatriation of jurisdiction from Brussels as a means to an end. Having got the powers back, we should pass them down to local authorities or, better yet, to individual citizens. I want decisions to be decentralised, diffused, democratised. I want open primaries, popular initiative procedures, elected sheriffs, self-financing councils, an end to quangos, recall mechanisms and, yes, referendums – lots and lots of referendums."

An end to quangos? I seem to remember a lot of us campaigned hard for that when Margaret Thatcher came to office. Democracy is yet to be accomplished in full, but it will be achieved because of the free speech of people like Daniel Hannan.

Harry Potter puts in for EU Presidency

Harry Potter as the new President of Europe? Well not exactly. It's not the fantastical character of cinematic and book fame but the lookalike Dutch prime minister. Jan Peter Balkenende is a man who knows about deals in smoke-filled rooms (actually smoke-free now due to the smoking ban). Each Dutch election is followed by a Jan'll Fixit arrangement. Seems the EU chief bottlewashers are dead against Tony Blair knocking on the door. At least they have some sense in that direction. So they've given Jan Peter the nod and the wink.

According to this Dutch website, the majority of the Dutch people want Balkenende to go to Brussels if he gets the chance so they are rid of him. That's the most-heard opinion apparently. Various polls indicate a majority of the electorate also want general elections if 'their' premier is picked.

Now that kind of rings a few bells. I hear the sound of Tony Blair's name being mentioned in likeminded tones. One has to wonder what it is about the political infections our national leaders pick up in Brussels. Old Biffo Cowan was implicated in undemocratic stuff in Ireland. Sarkozy is up to his tricks again, in cohoots with Frau Merkel (Tippytoes and the Hausfrau - what a combination!), trying to stitch up a deal over this EU Presidency thing. And Baldenende dismissed the Dutch NEI! as a temporary blip.

None of them is remotely democratic when it comes to keeping the EU Gravy train on its tracks. Chief among the democratic dissemblers are Blair and Brown. Both are cheats when it comes to giving the people a say. So it comes as no surprise that the Dutch want to give Harry Potter a good kicking. A pair of the finest clogs will do. To unclog the democratic deficit!