Been there, done that. Been had.

All politicians bluster. It’s what they are good at. But I really have difficulty in coming to terms with either the naivety or sheer lack of historical knowledge the average younger supporter of current Labour demonstrates. Especially when comparisons currently made with Greece are vociferously defended on the basis of Greece not having its own currency and central bank, one of the planks (yes, joining the existing 650 in Westminster) for us remaining outside the Euro.

Older supporters need to remember and younger supporters really need to look back at the 70’s and educate/re-educate themselves. And they need to do it now. In 1976, Great Britain was the equivalent of Greece!

Ted Heath’s defeat in 1974 resulted in a Labour government with a very narrow majority. This majority completely disappeared thanks to disastrous Labour policies not dissimilar to those proposed by Jeremy Corbyn and his loosely-screwed shadow IKEA cabinet. Yes, Harold Wilson and the cuddly superb photographer and altogether good egg Denis Healey had just been lumbered with the oil crisis that thanks to OPEC followed hot on the heels of quite an economically enthusiastic 1973. And unlike the current harridans of Same Old Labour who blame the Tories for everything and anything detrimental that happens, the OPEC-caused crisis was, in fairness, completely outside Labour’s control.

BUT. While the big oil consumers introduced what in modern terms is called “austerity” to cope with this sudden oil price rise, Dennis Healey decided to spend his way through it (we’ve recently been back to the future on that one with Labour Manifesto 2017). First Labour year at the helm back then saw spending increase by just over 30%. The following year a further 28% increase. Budget surpluses of the previous decade and a half quickly turned into a 6.5% deficit, with public spending over 45% of GDP. As the USA held back the effect of (oil-induced) inflation to 11% and Germany held it to 7%, we dashed off to hit almost 27% inflation by September 1975. Newspapers of note around the world were starting to write their UK obituaries.

We were bailed out by the IMF.

So when Mr Corbyn stands up to politicise the next major music festival, you might be wise, or in fact very wise to note the above before shouting the usual tawdry “nasty party” nonsense. And the ‘Youff’ might be better placed to ask exactly where the money for all his vacuous promises is to actually come from. 

But more importantly, the Youff need to read their economic history books about the events of 1974/5 as well as consulting (“compare and contrast” is, I believe, the educational parlance) their history books in relation to Militant and the current anti-social infestation that is Momentum. 

And someone please tell Mr Corbyn that Trident is not just chewing gum.

I'm sick of stupid, partisan and monster raving loony protesters in stupid pink hats

Sister Solidarity. Pussyhat Project. 

What a load of total and utter bolleaux (pronounced like 'gateaux').

Now they are protesting about the poor Muslims from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – banned for 90 days from entering the USA by President Trump, when all that links these wonderful bastions of democracy and respect for human life is their love of terrorism/piracy.

What is shameful are the 500,000 dead and 12million displaced normal Syrian citizens aside who the Pussycrap Sodhilarity Sisters don't seem to give a monkey's nut about. All they want to do is strut around in their stupid pink hats looking as gormless as they in fact are. Yes, the ban will no doubt effect normal citizens of these aforementioned countries, but they should be doing more themselves to stamp out terrorism. They have only themselves to blame. No one else. Why are these thoroughly idiotic (some quite despicable actually) people chiding Mr Trump for trying to do something to protect his citizens? The 9/11, 7/7, Bataclan and other terrorism activities weren't exactly carried out by members of a Presbyterian Mothers' Union group who got diverted from their knitting by finding a bag of AK47's and Semtex lying around as they went about their day out to help the elderly of the community. 

Such unbelievable hypocritical double-standards have been demonstrated by both politicians and the dumb and dumber 'Wimmin' who are in essence complaining about a democratically elected person they just don't happen to like.

The silence from these lunatics has been deafening over the years where Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are concerned. These cesspits don't allow entrance to anyone who has even an Israeli visa/entrance/exit stamp on their passport. And despite trying to cosy up to Israel because of the threat from the happy-clappy mullahs of Iran, Saudi Arabia still bans Jews (although I believe this may be now on the wane) on the feeble pretext of perhaps desecrating the tomb or making the areas around the tomb of the Prophet unholy. They don't like people to enter the country wearing any clothing made by a Jewish firm. Yet they happily cry out 'wolf-wolf' to Israel to help them with their mutual Iranian 'problem'. The Saudis have finally realised that while  Israel is first on Iran's take down list, Saudi Arabia is a very firm second.

This above is aside from the 16 countries in the graphic below who are always first in the queue (especially Pakistan - er, how about your founding in 1947 where over 1 million were killed and millions displaced?) to accuse Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, of Apartheid, as they quite happy break the piss-poor UN's rules on international border access. 

 

Israel allows that which few Muslim middle eastern counties allow for non-Muslims in relation to elected officials and residents who are not Jewish - they can rise the public service (and private business) ranks and own land in Israel. Yet non-Muslims are prevented from doing this in virtually all Muslim Arab countries - you try, as a non-Muslim, building a church or temple or owning land in Saudi Arabia and see how far you get before being invited to participate as the main attraction in a stoning! You try being Palestinian in Jordan and try to buy land or become a doctor, lawyer, architect or banker and just see how far you get!

And then there is the Jew-hating boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, run by a Tel Aviv-living, recent Tel Aviv University graduate (who paid to attend Tel Aviv University and gain his degree while calling for others to boycott Israel, rather than study at a University in Doha or in his beloved Gaza) and Qatari multi-millionaire, Omar Barghouti, which seeks to ban Israeli products and people from institutions in the West. He is about as hypocritical as one can get.

 

By all means protest, but let the protests be consistent. It is always about total and utter double-standards and Palestinian blame-culture when it comes to Israel.

And this is what turns people like me into a seemingly raving right-winger when in reality I am not. It's the lack of any fair play whatsoever that gets me going.

So a new year begins . . . . .

Well you can't call me anything but observant, I can spot a New Year months away- and one has to wonder what's ahead, although one does wonder what has been behind!

Detractors and demonisers of Israel seem to have the memory (and by and large the matching IQ) of a goldfish. They witter on continually about "occupied land", "Israel the oppressors", "Apartheid Israel" and other blame-cultural and blood-libelous horsedung, while NEVER referring to:

1. The 1967 and 1973 wars that, had the Arabs not started them in the first place, there would not have been a need for a so-called consequential 'occupation'. Will the UN now push for Pakistan to give itself back to India from whence it came with the loss at the time of over 1milion lives and 12million uprooted from their homes in 1947?
2. Referring to Israel as an Apartheid State when it is so clearly the ONLY fully-fledged democracy in the region. The lack of basic human rights let alone the oppression in some of the surrounding countries is astounding and totally defies description. And the one that cries the most 'wolf', Israel's Western neighbour Blame-Cultureland, does not even admit Jews (except donkeys such as Miriam Mygoolies and other similar self-blaming dregs of humanity on their publicity-seeking and career-rejuvenating ventures).
3. Professional, acknowledged and previously censured anti-Semites such as Jenny "Acid" Tonge and piddle-with-the-wind Wishy Washy Warsi are allowed to remain as ennobled members of Her Majesty's United Kingdom when they have so plainly crossed the divide between legitimate criticism of Israel and whipping up, encouraging, or in Tonge's case, actively acting as professional ambassadors for Jewhate
4. The political rules state that public officials, whether MP's or Councillors have a duty of care to put the requirements of their constituents first and foremost on their priority lists. Yet the likes of MP's Richard Burgon, Grahame Morris, Shabana Mamoud and others such as Alan Duncan, John McDonnell, David Ward and numerous councillors from the likes of Leicester Council spend an inordinate amount of time not only demonising Israel and whipping up anti-Jewish sentiment, but many actually waste taxpayers money visiting (only) Gaza and the West Bank, further  acting as ambassadors for blame-culture, Israel-demonisation and Jewhate
5. The detracting anti-Israel brigade and the UN have NEVER questioned the commonly acknowledged fact that the Hamas leadership, since taking over (been elected, ha ha) Gaza, has misappropriated over $10billion of world-donated funds. Also, that they have spent most of the past 10 years living in 5-6 Star luxury in Doha, Qatar, is never questioned. The Hamas Charter, with its Jew-murdering content has similarly never been questioned by the likes of the UN who are so quick with their partisan resolutions against Israel while the rest of the world get away scot-free with far more serious abuses of their own.
6. (Added, thanks to RS) The disgraceful UN resolution that "Zionism is racism" fiasco, while people get their knickers in a twist when it is suggested that Islam might not perhaps always be the religion of peace it's cracked up to be. This probably goes quite a way to help explain why the charitable, people-loving, life-loving, culture-loving, western culture-respecting, peaceful members of so-called Islamic State have the word "Islamic" in their title. They just spell their version "pieceful" - human pieceful - but hey, it's more fun demonising Israel to take peoples' minds off all of that. Besides, we have the new hip, meaningless phrase, "post-truth". Let's man (or woman) up and face it and look at all the Jews who have driven planes into buildings, blown themselves up on buses, in trains, on the underground, in restaurants and how many have run rampant with guns in public places, at rock concerts, on marathon runs all in the name of Kind David. ET phone home.

Just remarking. Happy New Year to all.

Call me sexist, but . . . .

I am fed up with mobi-morons walking the streets with their heads stuck in their phones.

It's so much that I'm fed up with the mobi-morons' sad lives that they have to glue to their phones 24-7. No. It's more to do with the fact that as someone who doesn't walk around with his own head stuck in his phone 24-7, I fail to see why it should have to be me who has to watch out for them and give way to, or walk around them on the path in order to allow them to uninterruptedly maintain their heads stuck in their phones.

And why, as someone who is a little more senior, should I have to stand on a crowded tram so that some youngster who isn't aware of anything going on around them in the world that's not on their little 5-inch screen can sit there and Facebook, Angry Bird or hunt for Pokemons?

And the amazing things one notices while standing in a tram. Many of those on their phones  don't actually have anything constructive to do on their phones. They are actually searching for something to see and do on their phones.

It's the girls and young women who are by far the worst.

They just do not know how to put their phones away, even for 30 seconds. They have a persecution complex about the trash-puzzle magazine "Take a Break". And if they do put their blasted mobiles away for 30 seconds, second 31 sees them taking their phone back out again to check it - presumably to see whether World War Three has started,  the hole on the Ozone layer has enlarged or whether one of their witless friends has posted yet another picture of his penis on Snapchat.

The picture above shows five ladies waiting in the queue for coffee at an exhibition I attended. Typically like all ladies, they are HSIP; Heads Stuck In Phones. They simply cannot pack it in for a moment, even in a relatively speedy moving queue.

What is wrong with them?

Better to Fidel while Rome burns . . . . .

It would seem that Fidel Castro was not really a bad man.

He was " a huge figure of modern history", "a champion of social justice", a man who "stood up for something very, very, different" and "a giant among global leaders whose view was not only one of freedom for his people, but for all of the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet".

Now the aforementioned quotes weren't from Vladimir Putin. He simply stated that the late President Castro was a "distinguished statesman", the "symbol of an era" and a "sincere and reliable friend of Russia". Yep, so reliable that if Nikita Krushchev hadn't been made of such strong stuff, he would, at Castro's suggestion, have pushed the missile button and not just started World War Three, but actually wiped Cuba off the map in the process.

No, the first three quotes were from the most unsuitable UK Labour leader of modern times, Jeremy Corbyn, the latter, from the unkempt-haired president of the Republic of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, a giant amongst the rose bushes.

What these premium statesmen of the world political scene fail to realise is that Castro's dictatorship was an unmitigated and epic disaster of brutal and oppressive proportions. Free education and healthcare for all, yes, but with unbelievable poverty and food shortages and rationing. In fact, Castro was so good for Cuba, that over 1million Cubans exited stage left for Florida in the USA during his rule.

And in keeping with the plaudits handed out by both Mr Corbyn and President Higgins, independent media outlets were closed down wholesale, priests and homosexuals were dispatched to 'correction' camps and American rock music was declared the sound and work of the devil.

Put in a nutshell, it was nothing but a prime example of a first-class Communist failure. Which possibly explains why it ranks so highly in Mr Corbyn's top five regimes, presumably alongside his good friends in Hamas and the IRA.

Meanwhile back in England, and the BBC's Question Time programme of Thursday 24th November.  Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, himself not exactly a beacon of actinic light on the UK political stage, became unwell and was unable to appear. Not really such a bad thing (not that I wish him unwell), because all he would have done would have been to bleat on and blame the Tories for everything while forgetting Labour was in fact in charge during the 2008 financial crisis. Anyway, the BBC asked former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (2015) Chris Leslie to step in instead.

Back at Labour HQ, chains weren't as much rattled as flushed as hard as they could be, and Mr Corbyn's IKEA cabinet went into dowling and screws overdrive and very speedily sent one of their other stand-by leftie loons, Andrew Gwynne along to get in on the act instead.

While Mr Gwynne managed to get as far as the Green Room, an astute member of the Question Time team realised Mr Gwynne wasn't exactly Mr Leslie, and asked him to pack his flat-pack and screwdriver and leave.

Now in trying to get Mr Gwynne on the panel when the BBC had already decided the stand-in they required, isn't that all rather Castro-ish and Cuban of Mr Corbyn's shady and dysfunctional cabal, eh?

I'm not religious myself, but . . . . . .

I became totally disillusioned with religion many years ago as a result of something that happened to a very good friend of mine. He was subjected to total hypocrisy at the hands of some so-called religious sages that caused him untold grief when getting married. I'll go no further than that.

I became a fervent religious cynic some 20 years ago, and adhere more than ever now to Atheistic principles when I look back over the years where wars, murder, unrest and bigotry have all come about pretty well as a result of religion. That all these have resulted from one person's belief in the unprovable versus another persons belief in something different that is also similarly unprovable, to me, defies not only logic, but goes against pure common sense.

According to recent estimates, there are some 4,200 religions on earth at present. It is said that to believe you have to have faith, and to have faith you must believe. 4,200 religions means an awful lot of individual faith. And an awful lot of believing. That's 4,200 disparate groups, all following some inane belief, all without a shred of evidence or scientific proof to back up their claims. Cynics might remark that on a psychological level, this is actually not normal behaviour.

But on a more practical level, not all of the 4,200 can be in any way all be right!  In fact, "not many" can be right.

I'm certainly very sceptical of the more modern religions, those altogether recent offshoots from the long-established Judaeo-Christian religions. The Methodists, the Plymouth Brethren and many more besides. These very much smack of some strong-willed, big-mouthed people simply not liking their lot and deciding to start their own brand formulated on their own perceptions of what their religion adherence should be. Whether there was just an element of Indians wanting to become Chiefs, or whether, like Scientology or many of the other current evangelical and happy-clappy TV-religions, it was born out of a desire simply to make money, I'm not really too sure.

Cardinal Richelieu, the Spanish Inquisition, witch-hunting, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Islamic Fundamentalism are, as a few examples, not exactly the stuff people-enrichment initiatives are made of. Yes, those in charge make - or made - a good living, but the end-user is stuffed totally. And often terminally.

The famous 'mystery horror' film The Wicker Man, the original with Christopher Lee, Edward Woodward and Britt Ekland, portrayed a group of potty Scottish Islanders who sacrificed a man (police sergeant Edward Woodward in the original, Nicolas Cage in the remake) and an assortment of farm animals, by burning them to death in a wicker structure on a hillside as homage to a sun god in an attempt to avoid crop failure the following year. Meanwhile, on a purely scientific level, their land and location had been proven as not actually suitable to guarantee any form of sustained year on year crop-growing in the first place!

If you are looking for anomalies and things that don't make even common sense, let alone just sense, look no further than religion. Virgin births, reincarnation, dividing major seas. And taking 40 years to travel 1,200km, now that's a good one (that's about 80metres a day, or perhaps a lengthier 100metres a day if you take the Sabbath and High Holy days of rest into account as the Israelites were wont to do - I mean Olympic superstar Mo Farrah runs 20km in about an hour!) and help to preserve the mystery of religion. They mystery that people actually believe it all with a single shred of evidence.

Then there's building a boat from wood capable of accommodating two of every species on earth (I'm sure the two woodworms must have had a field day with that huge wooden boat all to themselves) to avoid the entire planet covered in water (er, excuse me science, but where did the water go to afterwards?). Or finding 72 Virgins in heaven awaiting the arrival of the latest human pieces from a blown-up and murderous homicide-bomber. I mean, if you were a respectable, attractive virgin, would you want to the the hand of a murderer - although being in pieces following self-explosion, I suppose it would be easier to take just the hand.

But where is the proof that 72 virgins are awating? And who reassembles the dismembered murderer so he can have his way with the 72? And if indeed it is his member that is the dismembered, and it doesn't make it nto heaven with the rest of his body parts, how does he indeed then have his wicked way? And anyway, to these holy former hit-squaddies, pure Muslim women aren't actually allowed into the company of strange men without their families' permission, so how do the reassembled murderers, who are altogether more strange than normal strange men, get access to the 72 virgins in the first place?

I'm sorry, but this is all unprovable nonsense, takes the 'have faith to believe and believe to have faith' get-out clause to somewhat of a rather cheap show-business level. "We can't prove any of it, but you'd better believe it or you'll be transported to hell". 

And that's another one. 'Hell'. Where precisely is 'hell' and has anyone proof of the place? Or are people just referring to their misadventures in a nightclub in Doncaster or Scunthorpe? But then North Korea has often been describes as hell on earth. Is that where all the naughty people of this world actually go. To the land of banned hairstyles and banned Western TV and music.

Many things "ist" seems to have quite anti-Jewish tendencies

Socialist, Corbynist, Entryist, Trotskyist and now Methodist. Where there's an 'ist' there ultimately seems to be the demonisation of Israel and ultimately of the Jewish people. That's against just 14million people in a world of 7.4billion (that's under one-fifth of one percent [0.2%] of the world's entire population).

Methodism, as a branch of Protestant Christianity, has it's roots in the 18th Century, so it's fair to say that it's not exactly an old religion. It stems, like many of the 4,500 or so modern"ist" religions of the world, from the disaffection with a long-established religion at the time by a small cabal of people, in this case, John Wesley (a leading anti-Semite of his generation!), George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley. Very much a case of it being that if you don't like the party and its party-goers, simply start your own party.

While Methodism may emphasise "social holiness", missionary zeal, charity and service to the poor and vulnerable, it certainly does not extend this mantra to Israel or, ultimately, to the Jews. You name it in terms of a partisan event that demonises Israel, and the Methodists seem happy to run to the fore and host it at one of their venues. And when publicised on social media, it attracts the usual blame-culture and apologist detractors, many of whom do not feature crosses in their avatar, but instead, the Palestinian 'flag' so beloved by indigenous, British-born, non-Muslim Jewhaters. The ones who are quick to get their banners out and shout at the world to boycott Israeli goods while they themselves hypocritically continue to use Israel technology and medicine themselves.

One such event took place during the 19th - 23rd September (2016) at the Hinde Street Methodist Church, near Oxford Circus in London. It was a World Council of Churches event in connection with the World Week for Peace in Palestine (wherever that may be; ask the Jordanians if you are unsure)  and Israel. It is very much about wanting Israel (and note, it's only Israel, no other country) to dismantle the land barriers they currently use for security to check whether workers or visitors from Israel's land borders are bringing in that which they should not, in particular knives, automatic weapons or homicide bomb belts. Israel does this because it has to. Pretty much in the same way as you have to divest yourself of everything when you go though any airport into the departure lounge. Or enter any Court building in the UK. They don't want you bringing weapons into their country or into a British Court, so why shouldn't a country - Israel in this case - that borders another which is governed by a recognised terrorist organisation (that's Hamas, in case you are either a Methodist or don't actually know - or in the case of the Methodists, apparently don't appear to want to know) be allowed to do the same?

However, the World Council of Churches has chosen, as usual, but on this occasion with the support of the Methodists, to single out only Israel. They have never, for example, homed in on other people barriers in the world, some of which function more to keep people in or out, (as can be seen in the image below), rather than to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks as Israel has to do on a 24/7 basis. Not once have they organised an exhibition hosted by a Methodist church to address these.

Lord George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury summed it all up perfectly. But then he, as an astute, intelligent and caring man, would do. And there is no better man to emphasise "social holiness", charity and service to the poor and vulnerable than Lord Carey. But then, he is after all a true Statesman. And a thoroughly deserved Peer of the British Realm.

This thoroughly detestable "You Cannot Pass Today" exhibition in London was nothing short of divisive and totally partisan Jew hate. It was an effrontery to Israel, to the Jews of the UK band to any moral, decent-thinking person who can see both sides.

Yes, Israel is by no means perfect (show me a county that is!), but this constant, partisan singling-out of the only true democratic country in a region that sees it totally surrounded by nothing but hostile countries full of people who want to see it destroyed and its people murdered, well this is as totally unforgivable as it is unjustifiable.

And it is ultimately nothing more or less that the despicable Jewhate witnessed throughout the Nazi era of the 1930's and early 1940's that saw 6million Jews murdered. And remember, when the Channel Islands were occupied by the Germans during the Second World War, local Methodist Minister John Leale was up there collaborating vigorously with the Nazis by identifying the names of the Island’s Jewish residents.

These lovely people, it would appear, have neither shame nor morals, and have a nerve to call themselves Christians. 

In actual fact they haven't really got a lot going for them full-stop, apart, that is, from their partisan hatefulness.