Tuesday 9 June 2009

BNP Egg Humiliation

There's been very little to laugh about in the news recently, but the sight of BNP leader, Nick Griffin, receiving a richly deserved egging has got to be the highlight of the week.

I understand the frustrations that lead people (albeit fairly thick and / or unpleasant people) to vote for the BNP, particularly when, in times of real economic hardship, we are finally presented with inescapable proof that our elected representatives are little more than self-serving scroungers. They wreck the economy, borrow cash by the truckload, admit that taxes will need to go through the roof to pay it off, and then are caught out fiddling their own expenses.

OUR money lining THEIR pockets, while we get to do a real job to pay for it. Infuriating, even to those of us who have long suspected that the entire system was bent. But the BNP is not the answer. No matter how they dress up their poison in superficially reasonable arguments, it's still the same old poison.

You only have to check out the picture gallery and video in this Daily Mirror article (or in just about every other news source) to see the truth behind the BNP. Mr Griffin's pompous swagger as he begins to address the gathered ladies and gentlemen of the press, his initially superscillious sneers and then increasingly nervous squints at the egg-lobbing protesters and his massively undignified high-speed waddle to safety amid a bunch of sinister-looking minder types say it all.

The BNP may have acquired more hair than the average skinhead, and learned to wear a suit (possibly only after intensive training!) for the cameras, but underneath it all lurks the classic fascist - brave and uncompromising when they feel secure, but a scampering, quivering coward when faced with even a little opposition.

For all its apparent success, the BNP remains a protest vote. Very, very few people would really want to see this disgusting group holding any significant power within the UK. BUT, if the leaders of the main parties don't start looking very, very carefully at the issues the BNP has hijacked in order to appear respectable, it might happen almost by accident.

Needless to say, that would be a bad day for everyone in the UK, and one I hope never to see. There's even a fairly vociferous argument in favour of banning the BNP altogether, but I don't think that's viable. No, the best way to see off this vicious apology for a democratic political party is for the other parties to offer a better alternative that really appeals to the ordinary man and woman in the street.

We care about things like post office closures, British jobs for British workers and the undue influence of the EU in our affairs. We want politicians to get their snouts out of the trough and start doing what they're paid for. Not much chance of that with Gordon Brown Trousers clinging on to power, but maybe, just maybe, Crazy Cameron can get his head around the idea - before we end up with Nick Griffin's mob running the country.

Billy Seggars.

Tuesday 21 April 2009

The Naked Gnome Caper

What is it about garden gnomes that so gets on the nerves of a certain, small-minded kind of person? I'm starting to think that, in not particularly liking or disliking the things beyond considering them to be a non-functional waste of space, I'm in a minority of one.

Last November, with a delicious irony that I couldn't resist mocking, the Diocese of Bath and Wells banned gnomes and similar "unnatural creatures" from its churchyards, while retaining the usual plethora of equally unnatural angels etc.

Today it's the turn of Bromsgrove District Council, in the West Midlands. According to the Telegraph, this bustling, go-getting local authority has so effectively solved all its local service difficulties as to have enough time on its hands to address the horrifying social impact of ... naked garden gnomes.

It seems that Sandra Smith, of Hunnington, has, for the past 15 years, kept three unclothed garden gnomes in her front garden. In all that time, they haven't bothered anyone, and have, allegedly been nothing more than a bit of fun that have raised a chuckle amongst children and adults alike. That may well be so, although I am saddened that anyone should be so devoid of entertainment as to find garden gnomes amusing, with, or without clothing.

Now, however, a neighbour has complained that the starkers statuary is upsetting her brats. The neighbour - who remains anonymous in the Telegraph article, I suspect out of realisation that she's going to sound like a complete and utter clown - says of the offending gnomes, "They are childish and I think it's pathetic that they are in a front garden in full view of everyone."

Childish and pathetic? Yes, quite possibly, they are. But so, in my opinion, is anyone who would complain about them, and then talk to the media about it. Consider - the basis of the complaint appears to be that the gnomes are upsetting this woman's CILDren. Yet she complains that they are CHILDish. Surely, they can't be both childish and unsuitable for children?

With that sort of reasoning power at her disposal, it's no great surprise that the youngsters in her care are haven't learned not to be "upset" by the gnomes - if that's all it takes to rattle their cage, they're going to be in for one hell of a shock when they get into the real world.

Besides, how can a garden gnome be "naked"? It's a made thing, not a person. You might as well complain about naked lawnmowers or pianos. Oh, that's right, the Victorians did, didn't they - covered up furniture legs, lest they encourage impure thoughts, while being a bunch of randy buggers on the quiet.

The world is getting more crazy by the day, and it's not just these two strange neighbours who have a thing about gnomes. Surfers show up on this blog looking for all kinds of garden gnome related oddness. Full sized garden gnomes are a favourite. Garden gnome statistics and gnome facts and figures are popular, too. I don't understand the attraction, and I probably never will.

Billy Seggars.

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Mervyn King - Unlikely Hero

Goodness me! It's been almost two months since I updated this blog, and I never even noticed! That's probably because there never seems to be anything genuinely new or unusual in the news these days.

I don't think many people can have missed the rapid descent of 21st century Britain into New Labour lunacy, and so my commentary seems a little redundant. Besides, what is there to say? Each day, Gordon Brown-Trousers or his chosen minion announces a new scheme designed to mask the government's utter incompetence until after the next election. Each day, the public groans, shakes head and struggles on through the economic chaos created by that same power-mad group.

We know the schemes won't work, can't work and could only be imagined to be useful by someone totally out of touch (Hi Gord!). We also know that we, the taxpayers, are going to be lumbered with paying for this mess for decades, no matter whether Ken Clarke piddles around with inheritance tax or not.

But today is slightly different. With our derranged PM overseas on yet another jaunt aimed at pestering simillarly clueless world leaders into joinining him in a further fiscal stimulus farce, Mervyn King has risen like a rake from the long grass to smack Gordon Brown-Trousers in the face (ughhh). Speaking to the Treasury Select Committee, the normally reserved Mr King made it very, very clear, in language even the Prime Minister can understand, that Britain simply cannot afford yet another round of borrowing to finacne tax cuts and public spending - aka fiscal stimulus.

And quite right too! It's excessive borrowing that's gotten most people - including this joke of a government - into this mess, and the way out does not lie though more of the same. Only a fool would think otherwise, which is probably why, in a speech to the European Parliament, Gordon Brown-Trousers said, "We can together deliver the biggest financial stimulus the world has ever seen, the biggest cut in interest rates, the biggest reform of the international financial system, the first international principles governing banking remuneration, the first comprehensive action against tax havens and for the first time in a world crisis, new help for the poor."

Madness! Sheer, raving financial lunacy! And it doesn't stop there. He also said that the world should abandon the "old Washington consensus" of lightly-regulated free markets and introduce a new European form of capitalism reflecting morality and values. Morality and values? This from the man whose senior ministers (and quite a few juniors, too) are constantly accused of bening on the take, fiddling expenses, claiming for second houses that belong to sisters, parents etc? And who recently recalled and enobled a man who was forced to resign from Tony Blair's cabinet, not once but twice, following allegations of financial dodgy dealings, and who is still facing similar questions now he's back?

As for the European Parliament, it's hardly known for moral values, let alone its ability to effectively regulate anything. On the contrary, it's famous for being a cash sink, where faceless officials obtain lots of money for doing very little - and nothing that anyone would actually want them to do!

No, Mr Kinng couldn't have timed his warning better, both in terms of the looming Budget and as a means of humiliating Gordon Brown-Trousers. How could I possibly resist cheering this valiant little banker on? Go for it Merv, show everyone what a clueless imbecile the PM is - but, if I were you, I'd avoid going near any woodland for a while. Remember what happened to David Kelly when he made the previous PM look stupid!

Billy Seggars.

Thursday 5 February 2009

Gordon Brown "One-eyed Scottish idiot"

Jeremy Clarkson is definitely going up in my estimation. He's funny, doesn't mince his words and is almost certainly in deep shit yet again, worse luck.

What's he done this time? Only referred to Gordon Brown-Trousers as a "One-eyed Scottish idiot" according to the Telegraph. Me, I can't see anything wrong with that - sounds like a perfectly accurate description of our unelected, power-mad, utterly incompetent Prime Minister, who spent 10 years as Chancellor but didn't see a recession coming, thinks he's saved the world and believes the world is in a depression.

Speaking of our Great Leader at a press conference in Australia, and comparing him to the Aussie PM, Clarkson apparently said, "(In the UK) we've got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything's fine and he's saved the world and we know he's lying, but he's smooth at telling us."

I doubt there is anyone who would fail to recognise our dumb (British jobs for Britis workers! And Italian workers, and ...), cowardly (Can't call an election in case I get a reduced majority!) Prime Minister from that description, but the New Labour spin machine is, of course, in well orchestrated uproar. Gordon Banks, Labour MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, branded the comments "unforgivable", but then he would, and his promotion is probably already in the pipeline.

What Clarkson's bosses at New Labour's propaganda HQ, formerly known as the BBC, have to say is probably unrepeatable, but you can bet they're not pleased. Trouble is, Clarkson's popular, and he's captured the public's opinion of Gordon Brown-Trousers perfectly. If he's sacked or disciplined, it will just go to prove that the BBC is now in New Labour's pocket, so I expect he'll be allowed to stay for a while yet.

Unlike the unforgivable, disgraceful behaviour of Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross, this is not a prank gone wrong but an expression of a widely held and pretty accurate opinion of the British Prime Minister. We're ashamed of him, despair of him and can't wait to get rid of him - how is that contrary to the view expressed by Clarkson?

It isn't. In fact, so common is Clarkson's view that he might yet find himself Prime Minister. I'd vote for him any day!

Billy Seggars.

Monday 2 February 2009

Mandelson Calls British Jobs Protests Xenophobic

The Telegraph reports that "Wildcat strikes across Britain are threatening to escalate after Lord Mandelson dismissed workers' concerns and claimed the protests may be "xenophobic"."

How dare that cheeky, arrogant, good for nothing, doubly-disgraced wast of time dismiss legitimate concerns, and the free discussion thereof? What does the slithering bugger know of an honest day's work? Compare the image of him standing, pristine and pompous in the House of Lords, with that of those he denounces, huddled in the snow, pressing home their point.

Who would you trust to tell the truth? A twice-resigned minister who still needs to explain away his presence in a suspiciously expensive London pad, or a bunch of skilled workers standing out in the cold? Would YOU stand out in the cold if you had paid work to go to, especially in this economic climate?

No, and neither would anyone else. The fact is that things are getting a little uncomfortable for the government, and composures are starting to crack. First it was Brown-Trousers, shitting himself as he blustered that these very legitimate protests are indefensible. Then it was Mandelson, wheeled out to pour snake oil on troubled waters, with assurances that everything was hunky dory. Now it's becoming clear that nobody believes him, and he's getting a little bit ratty.

In the Lords he said, "Membership of the European Union, and taking advantage of the opportunities for trade presented by the EU, are firmly in the UK's national interest. Free movement of labour and the ability to work across the EU has been a condition of membership for decades."

Mistake. People are increasingly of the view that membership of the European Union isn't worth spit to the UK. It imposes upon us a lot of bloody stupid rules and regulations, costs us a lot of money and means that European workers can compete with British workers for British jobs, at a time when there aren't enough to go round. Or, as Mandy seems to be saying, in order to subject ourselves to the expense and inconvenience of being an EU member, we must first allow EU workers to take our jobs!

Further, when people have the temerity to point this out and - shock, horror! - to object to it, he brands them xenophobes. BIG mistake. The British people are not, on the whole, xenophobic. Yes, there are some racist dimwits out there, but racism and xenophobia are not the same thing, or even close to being the same thing. Xenophoboa means, very broadly, fear of strangers or foreigners, and, for the avoidance of Many's cringing, lilly livered doubt, John Bull is not afraid of anyone.

We are, however, annoyed. Very, very annoyed that British jobs are going to foreign workers while British workers look on without a job to go to. Mandelson has done very nicely for himself out of Europe, having made a killing there after his second humiliating departure from the British government. His friend and former boss has barely disguised ambitions in that are, and his current boss thinks he's some kind of superhero - superzero more like! So it's not surprising that our alleged leadership want to keep their collective snouts very firmly in the EU trough, and bugger the consequences for Britain and the British people.

It won't do. The British government, and members thereof, are supposed to stand up for the interests of British people - they are our elected representatives! They are not suppoosed to make vaguely sympathetic sounds about "understanding concerns" and then tell us to get used to the situation, before going on to call us nasty names when we object.

Anyone with any right to represent the British people - and, remember, Lord Sleaze was appointed without winning a democratic election, by a Prime Minister who also wasn't elected and who ran away from his first opportunity to gain his own mandate - does not persistently describe legitimate concerns as "unofficial", hinting that they're in some way illegitimate. That's the talk of a collaborator, a traitor to the Btitish people whose loyalty to the European cause supercedes everything else.

Mandelson has made his position crystal clear, and now there is no way for him to retain even the pretence of legitimacy. He must resign, now, and take his bloody awful boss with him.

Billy Seggars.

Sunday 1 February 2009

British Jobs For British Workers

"British jobs for British workers." That is what Gordon Brown-Trousers, our unelected dictator said. It is not a difficult sentence to understand, even for him, and doesn't offer much scope for wriggling out of the sentiment.

But he's trying. Oh BOY is he trying. Apparently, contrary to all appearances, those four little words don't mean that jobs in Britain should go to people from Britain. Oh no, not by a long shot. He says he really meant that people would be given the skills to compete against other nationalities.

No, he didn't. If he'd meant that, he'd have said that people would be given the skills to compete against other nationalities, and we'd have known that was what he meant because that would have been what he said. Instead, we know exactly what he said - British jobs for British workers - and we know exactly what that means. It means that the British Prime Minister made a throw away comment designed to make him popular, without any intention of following through on the sound bite, and now that he's engulfed in an economic crisis of his own making that he didn't see coming, it's come back to bite him on the arse. Business as usual, in other words.

Obviously, I see no reason to assume that Brown-Trousers isn't lying again, just as he did over his humiliating decision to back out of calling an election. But, just for fun, let's think about his alternative interpretation. If, as both he and Lord Sleaze of Foy himself would have us believe, he really did mean that British people would be given the skills to compete against other nationalities, does that really help him out of the hole he's dug for himself?

No, it doesn't. It means that the British Prime Minister wants British people, living and (trying) to work within the borders of their own country, to have to compete on a level playing field with overseas workers. It means that those same British people, who are currently in financial difficulties and short of work - largely as a result of Brown's facile antics at the Treasury over the past decade - must sit back and stoically accept that the odds of them finding work in an already grim labour market are further reduced by increased competition from abroad. It means that the wages earned by those foreign workers will, at least in part, be shipped back home to their dependants, instead of being spent here in the already struggling British economy.

Where is the sense in any of that? I have nothing against foreign workers per se, but I cannot see how it is beneficial to employ overseas labour while local job seekers look on in increasing desperation. In claiming that he wanted to train the British workforce to compete successfully, thereby providing British jobs for British people, the ever more out of touch Gordon Brown-Trousers misses the point entirely. British workers should not need to compete for British jobs, and so do not need training for that eventuality.

Realising that he's been caught with his pants down, the PM is, of course, unwilling to back down or acknowledge that he's been treating the British people like fools again. No, instead he's trying to bluster his way through, calling the decision of some workers to stike in protest at this stupid situation "not the right thing to do and not defensible."

He just doesn't get it, does he? In a democracy, the right thing to do is what the majority of people want to do, and on this point the protestors have tapped a rich vein of resentment. Frustration has been mounting over foreign workers taking British jobs for some time, just as the electorate has been growing increasingly tired of Gordon Brown-Trousers' attempts to deceieve them. They know who is to blame for their current economic difficulties, and they really don't like his attempts to pass off his own incompetence as a purely global problem. Dissatisfaction is growing, too, with the ever more politically correct, nanny state attitude adopted and encouraged by this government and its minions.

Patient though they are, the British people are becoming restive, and this simple dispute could well be enough to push them into a state of rather more vociferous unrest than has previously been the case. High on their long, long list of grievances is mounting disenchantment with all things European, and many, many people are of the view that increased integration has been a mistake. Naturally, Peter Mandelson and his boss, Gordon Brown-Trousers (or is it the other way round?) still think Europe is wonderful. Mandy has been very quick to point out that so-called protectionism is bad and European rules make it impossible to give precedence to British workers.

So, according to the Sleaziest in the Land, it's European rules that mean British jobs don't necessarily go to British workers. Which, as I've already said, is a bloody stupid state of affairs. This being the case, it doesn't take much to follow the chain of reasoning through to its inevitable conclusion - if we can't have British jobs for British workers because of European rules, and if we really, really want British jobs for British workers (which we do), we must first get rid of the European rules. Since we can't easily do that from within the framework of the EU, because Gordon Brown-Trousers signed away most of our rights in the Lisbon treaty, we must first dump the EU, thereby releasing ourselves from EU rules and consequently ensuring that British jobs go to British people. Simples.

It won't be long before that previously unutterable suggestion is being tentatively mentioned by all manner of mainstream politicians, all of whom can see which way the wind's blowing. The government won't like it, and will be seeking to quell the British jobs for British workers protests by any means possible before it turns muttering disapproval of the Labour government into something much harder to ignore or control. If weasle words don't do the trick, expect to see the British government ordering British policemen to beat the living crap out of British workers who won't come quietly because they want a British job.

No wonder the number of soon-to-be-former British workers emigrating to Australia is up 31% on last year!

Billy Seggars.

Sunday 18 January 2009

Banking on Ken

Now that 2009 is well under way, it's clear that things are just getting worse and worse for the hard pressed people of Britain. Today, Gordon Brown-Trousers, our unspeakable Prime Minister, looks set to unleash another £300 billion of bailout cash to our banks, just weeks after tossing a mere £500 billion their way amid claims that he had saved the world.

Well, no, actually, he hadn't. He didn't save it then, and he isn't saving it now. All he is doing is pouring away hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Of course, he's used to doing that, what with robbing our pensions and flogging off gold reserves, so it won't come as any big problem to him.

It will be one hell of a big problem for the rest of us, though, long after the McBean is evicted from Downing St, either by ballot or pitchfork. We are going to be paying for his mindless folly for decades, and I'm starting to wonder whether he's just deliberately creating chaos for his successors, in the fairly certain knowledge that Crazy Cameron and his merry men will be taking over any minute now.

Even if he holds out for the full term, Brown-Trousers hasn't got a hope of staying in office. Ordinary men and women, without a particularly political bone in their body, are feeling the pinch. Even staunch Labour voters, who would normally make excuses for our apology of a government, are telling me they will be voting blue next time round. Of course, a lot can change in 18 months or so, and it probably will - for the worse. Real jobs, belonging to real people, are vanishing fast, and those who are still in work are very, very worried that will be next to go.

As far as I can tell from talking to the real people I meet on my daily rounds, the feared deflationary spiral is already here. People are unwilling to buy items today because they will be cheaper next week or next month. At the moment it's only applying to larger items over, say £150, but it won't be long before that changes. How long will it be before the pundits notice that it's now a reality instead of a feared bogeyman and start writing about it in those terms? Probably not too long, and when they do, the effect will snowball. The British economy is in very deep trouble, exacerbated by the antics of a token Chancellor, an idiotic PM and the Prince of Darkness, Lord Sleaze himself.

Speaking of whom, I see Crazy Cameron is set to announce the return of Ken Clarke as the Tories' Shadow Mandy. Not, I think, a brilliant move. True, Clarke was a pretty good Chancellor, he's promised to keep his pro-Europe views to himself, and he's a sharp orator. But is he any match for the fresh piles of steaming deciet deliverd direct from the Government's spin doctors, via Mandy? At first I doubted it, but it may be that his blunt, straight style is just the thing to counter the double talk. We shall see.

Billy Seggars.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Cats Amongst The Pigeons

Anyone who's lived in the UK for a few years will be familiar with the perennial "I saw a big cat" story that crops up in the media from time to time.

Broadly, it goes something like this: A fairly ordinary individual catches sight of something very much out of the ordinary but of a large and feline persuasion. Until recently, being an ordinary individual, they almost never had a camera about their person and so were unable to substantiate their claim. More recently, some of them have been carrying mobile phones with on board cameras, enabling them to (sometimes) grab a quick, indistinct snap of something that might be a cat.

Unfortunately, cellphone cameras being what they are, detail is lacking. Worse, handled by rank amateurs, they show nothing to prove the size of the alleged animal, or how far away it was. Even when the pictures are definitely cat shaped, there's nothing to conclusively prove whether we're looking at a tiger or Tiddles.

These hapless individuals dutifully report their sighting to the police, who may, or may not, take them seriously, and eventually the press get hold of the story. The pictures are produced, printed and instantly ridiculed by armchair critics who - quite rightly - point out that they don't prove anything. I imagine that the poor buggers who spot the creatures and report them become the butt of many a jolly jape, and live to regret the public spirited instinct that led them to open their mouths about what they saw.

All of which is, of course, human nature at its finest. We love scare stories, we like mysteries and simply adore mocking those who have been mysteriously scared witless by something they cannot now prove to have existed. Until today, that is. For, according to both the Telegraph and the Sun, the Forestry Commission - a Government agency, no less - has been aware of the existence of these beasts since 2002 and has said nothing.

It's taken a request under the Freedom of Information Act to lever confirmation of two positive sightings out of them, but it turns out that the sightings were made in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, during the three-yearly deer surveys of 2002 and 2005. Deputy surveyor Rob Guest caught sight of the big cats while using thermal imaging equipment, although he couldn't identify their species beyond "a large, full cat".

So there you have it. Anyone who's ever been mocked for reporting a big cat on the loose, particularly in the Forest of Dean area, can rest assured that they weren't, in fact, losing the plot, they were, in fact, right, and those big buggers really are out there - if that's the sort of thing that makes you rest assured, that is. Of course, there's still the question of compensation to consider. After all, many of these people will have suffered needless ridicule for up to 7 years, during which time a Government agency has been aware of the truth of their claims but has chosen to keep it secret. I'd have thought some sort of cash apology might be in order.

I'd also suggest that this is just one more example of how New Labour likes to keep secrets. What else haven't we been told? UFOs? Loch Ness monster? Gordon Brown-Trousers saves the world? Don't believe what they tell you - believe what they DON'T tell you!

Billy Seggars.