UKpopdems Comment Pane

Jon Venables

2010-03-09T12:35:00.002Z

This shocking case and its heart-wrenchingly sad history shows up almost everything that is wrong in the British Justice System. It's not so much the secrecy surrounding Jon Venables re-incarceration, although that itself has been badly handled and poorly explained; it is that Venables was let out in the first place by a mad piece of European law that gives more rights to murderers than to victims and their immediate families. European law is framed by bureaucrats who have no feeling nor caring about what people actually want and expect. Bureaucratic law that goes against natural law is bound to be held in contempt by ordinary people, and especially victims and their families. What Britons want is that the perpetrators of the most evil and heinous crimes are locked behind bars for life and even, let's be frank, suffer the death penalty themselves. Even that would be more civilised than what was offered to their victims. In these cases there is no rehabilitation, only the ultimate mercy of their Creator.
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Cameron - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

2010-02-28T14:36:00.002Z

The Conservatives must sit around their conference tables wondering how is it possible? How has the huge electoral advantage that should rightfully be theirs disappeared? It's no secret and it does show up the youthful inexperience of Cameron and his clique. You see, there is no Conservative vision, only point solutions that don't seem to string together. Nobody really knows what Cameron stands for and the voting public are trying to tell him in the only way they know how; in the polls. The Tory slogan, 'a vote for change' is not nearly good enough. Britain is already experiencing change under Labour; change from a prosperous, first world state with strong social values; to a ruined, ragged appendage of the EU, where prosperity, society and democracy are in terminal collapse - that's change, but who wants it? Cameron needs to claim that Britain and the British people will be better off at the end of the Conservative first term and explain how it will be done. Being different is not what people want. There is a traditional expression that is very valid in these circumstances; 'better the devil you know'.
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When is assassination justified?

2010-02-22T11:42:00.002Z

Is it ever justified? We know that most people in Britain would bring back the death penalty for truly heinous crimes where there is no doubt about guilt. We also know that official justicial processes can be incedibly long and ineffectual, and that the wealthy and powerful can tie the whole system in knots to their advantage. We know that many evil people will never be brought to justice and they'll get clean away with it. And we know that truly evil and violent organisations and individuals have absolutely no compunction about assassinating (murdering) anyone if it suits their purpose. Today, legal killing can only be undertaken in direct defence of your own life or the lives of others where there is real threat. My own view is that this CAN be extended to include groups and individuals who proclaim or carry out violent death, where it can be publicly shown that the threat is imminent or has already been carried out, and where the perpetrators cannot be brought to justice in reasonable time. I say it CAN be extended, but should it? I honestly don't know.
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How Ali Disai got away with it for so long

2010-02-13T16:23:00.003Z

For pretty well ten years Ali Disai has been a known bent copper but got clean away with it until now. He got away with it because he calls himself Black and ran rings around weak police management. Among its many damaging acts, Labour has deliberately divided Britain into Black and White, with Blacks of all shades having more rights than Whites. This is what gave Disai his power - Black can accuse White of racism for any reason, and upon hearing this accusation White must shrink away and cave in. But White cannot accuse Black of the same racism because this accusation itself is racist. It's madness. Britain is one of the least racist countries in the world and we should face up to the modern fact that there is no Black and White, just people. Each one of those people must stand up for their own actions as individuals and prepare to be scrutinised properly and without prejudice if their behaviour falls short. More important, we must eliminate any self-serving groups that want to prolong racism - like the Black police association, race relations commission and any other organisation of any colour that seeks to promote divisiveness.
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Iran - nuclear or not?

2010-02-07T18:09:00.002Z

Iranian history shows a proud nation; an independently minded nation. As Persia, a long time ago, Iran had a powerful, civilised empire. Now it feels small and slighted and weak. So what does it do? It kicks out defiantly trying to regain kudos. And it has a budding dictator at its head who needs to puff himself up like a parody of Mussolini. Unlike Pakistan and India, who at least have some very small justification for nuclear defence to keep each other at bay; Iran has absolutely no need for nuclear weapons, none; and at heart it knows it. So what is the answer? Well, not war; war is the LAST resort. No, what do you do to get someone to give you something, but the someone is in need of a lot of puffing up. Well you puff them up and make them feel big, make them feel they gain personally by being your friend. Do it right and things will work out the way they should. It's not rocket science.
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Britain out of recession?

2010-01-26T12:09:00.002Z

The figures are in; after a year and a half of the deepest recession since World War II, where Britain's wealth shrank by a massive 6%, we are now back in growth mode. Yeah, by the tiniest possible margin of 0.1%. Anyone with half a brain can see political manipulation all over this figure: Labour wanted growth and our cash paid for their political trick. One sign of growth is improving employment figures and Brown got it; by hiring thousands more public sector bureaucrats, all soaking up what little wealth we have left. Another sign of growth is more spending. Yes, you've guessed it, Brown got it by pumping even more billions of borrowed money into the markets to keep everyone consuming. Britons will be chained to that debt for generations. And all for a lousy 0.1% growth. Labour doesn't care; if it can just repeat that same trick with our money for one more quarter, Brown thinks he is in with a chance of winning the election. After that? Well, let's put it this way; fancy a job in Poland, or even Albania?
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China vs Google

2010-01-17T13:26:00.002Z

Is the threat from Google to pull out of China the first step in trying to bring that country into a Western world view? China today can be looked on as a sort of Victorian society - a right wing bureaucracy/meritocracy that is desparately trying to hold power back from the people and maintain the status quo. But the people see wealth in their reach and want to grab it, so they are moving rapidly to the heart of wealth and the benefits it can bring - to the cities and manufacturing heartlands. Can China turn into a modern Britain, or a modern United States, or will it deepen into a tyrannical dictatorship? The answer is what they do with their increased power. Victorian Britain turned slowly into a modern social/liberal democratic bureaucracy in the European mould, valuing peace. The US is still a raw, spoilt teenager prepared to use its vast wealth and energies to get it's own way - but there are just the beginnings of signs of possible social/liberal maturity on a pseudo European model and an understanding of the value of peace. Unlike Britain and the US, China has been damaged by past humiliation and conquests and revenge lingers; google's brash pulling of the Chinese tail could exacerbate this. What China needs above all is true respect in a way that leads it to a peaceful, liberal maturity that gradually quenches its hurt and need to hit out. It's not easy but it can be done.
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The Central Grit Directive

2010-01-09T12:09:00.002Z

Here we go; this is the Labour government in action. Britain has an unexpected cold snap and grit is running out - so far so understandable. What does Brown do? His natural reaction is to activate a central committee to decide who gets the grit - it's called the 'salt cellar' - some joke, surely! I predict a 'Minister for Grit' being appointed next week, and once his/her team of bureaucrats and their minions are in-place, bonus targets agreed, grade and pay levels and terms of reference adjudicated, it won't be long before they can begin a thorough review of grit allocations. As this is an emergency the grit review publication should be before Parliament towards the end of March ready for immediate allocations of grit stocks in early Summer, unless elections delay proceedings, of course. Yeah, that's a tick in the box for centralised effectiveness - big payouts all round - Way To Go! In a nutshell this is what's wrong with Labour and how they have destroyed Britain - by laying a stultifying blanket of centralised bureaucracy over the whole country. Nothing works as it should and people cannot be seen to be 'just getting on with it' as individuals. No wonder many Britons drink to excess, it's the only illusion of freedom we have.
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NHS leads the battle against public sector cuts

2010-01-02T13:05:00.003Z

Hospitals are beginning to say that illness through alcohol is breaking the national health service and that these self-inflicted problems should be paid for by the people who indulge. And I can see many right-minded individuals, who do not see themselves as wild drinkers, nodding in agreement. I see it differently. What I see is this: the public sector is simply gearing itself up for the massive cuts to come as the country struggles with Labour inflicted debt damage, and the NHS is no exception. The public sector, for so long wastefully expanded, is the target now and it is beginning to use its vast strength to defend itself. The NHS is saying - OK, instead of saving money by cutting NHS waste and NHS bureaucracy, government should leave us alone and selectively cut the numbers of people we treat; today they say those are the abusers of alcohol. You can bet that tomorrow it will be drug addicts, the obese, sportsmen and women, meat eaters and anyone else who lives a normal life rather than one that is dictated by the health police - a possible new NHS department that can be created out of the savings from not treating people. Fantasy? Wait until the police, home office and 7 million other public sector employees start to flex their muscles.
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Climate change conference failure

2009-12-21T09:22:00.003Z

The failure of Copenhagen to find a binding solution to carbon reductions after so many years of trying and failing in the past tells me everything we need to know. It's clear as day that almost two hundred different countries with different priorities and different states of their economies can never be bound by any agreement on anything, let alone something as amorphous as climate change. I'm pretty sure ordinary folk look at the thousands of attendees, each flown in at great carbon cost to exhale tonnes of hot air, and they think that just stopping these conferences would help reduce climate change by at least a degree. It's time to get real and spend the money on practical research into local and regional climate change impact; and on the farming and crop technology to ensure the world is fed; and on the defences necessary to combat what is to come; and yes, reduce dependence on fossil fuel carbon because it is the right thing to do, regardless of what other countries do.
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Bliar Liar

2009-12-15T16:08:00.002Z

Tony Blair has at last come clean and told the truth - he made it all up about WMD and would have made up any other excuse in order to invade Iraq. He just wanted his own way and Bush's way to get regime change pure and simple. He knew it was illegal but he lied to the UN and, worse, he lied to the British people. A British Prime Minister lied and the lie killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children and almost two hundred British troops, each a devastating loss to their families. Now we know the reality, it is time for the war-crimes commission to convene and begin proceedings to prosecute both Blair and his paymaster Brown, and any other member of the war cabinet hiding the truth. I have long thought, with millions of others, that this labour government is one of the most corrupt (rotten) in British history; corrupt in democracy; corrupt in financial management; and now corrupt in its abuse of power. Perhaps the Queen can enact one of her few remaining powers and dissolve this Parliament on the basis it is not fit to govern.
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Globalisation with mistrust

2009-12-09T16:27:00.002Z

The post-trial story of Meredith Kercher's murder by Amanda Knox and co-convictee, Raffaele Sollecito, tells us so much about where people are coming from. Here we are in a fully globalised world economy that everyone accepts, but where narrow views and small-mindedness is the dominant part of everyday life. Americans don't trust the legal system of Italy and we British don't trust the legal system of the US (re: the extradition of hacker Gary McKinnon). The first thought is that whoever 'we' are, then 'we' are right and 'foreigners' are wrong: no matter that we're talking about some of the most free, democratic and civilised countries. Is it ignorance or intolerance or what? How can we work together to solve the evils of terrorism, poverty or global warming even, when trust for our neighbour is non-existent.
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Public Service Failure

2009-12-03T14:38:00.003Z

We learn today of more failure in the 'caring' services; this time in care homes, where it seems the people responsible just don't - well, care. Yesterday it was about failures in policing, with serious cases of violence and rape just left sitting on a desk somewhere inactive. The day before it was failures in child protection services, and lack of care in hospitals and...., the list goes on. The reason is that these public sector departments are not measured on caring about real people, they are measured on numbers - money, case-load, resources, reporting figures etc. None of this has anything to do with helping people in need or caring about how people are treated and, after all, that's the only thing that is important. I used to say that central control and bureaucracy were to blame, but unfortunately the 'uncaring' culture is slowly spreading its evil tentacles to the front-line where more vocational professionals who should be caring actually prefer an easy life and the bureaucracy allows them to get away with it.
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Brown's Global Warming Fund

2009-11-27T16:59:00.002Z

At the Commonwealth Conference Gordon Brown is proposing a fund of £10billion to be made available for those countries suffering from global warming but are too poor to help themselves; eight hundred million pounds is to come from Britain. This is cheering news to me and all UKpopdems supporters, because this is yet another UKpopdems policy taken up by one of the major parties - this time from our environment policy. The Labour, Conservative and LibDem parties know about UKpopdems and the commonsense values that we are proposing, so it is not surprising they filch some of the details of our policies, even if they are not willing to publicly recognise the source of their inspiration. What we need now is for one of these big parties to seriously look at our core vision that puts ordinary British people first to make sure their needs come before those of wealthy power brokers, bureaucrats and political hacks - some hopes.
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Public Political Bereavement

2009-11-23T17:24:00.002Z

I, like many millions of others, want to see the end of this ruinous Labour government that seems almost to have been sent as a kind of biblical wrath on Britain. We have been sent the equivalent of a twelve year plague that has brought us to such a deep low that it will take years to climb out of. But the alternative Prime Minister-in-waiting, Cameron, needs to be very careful. The sight of him milking a photo opportunity to the hilt at the Field of Rememberance shows clearly the difference between SAYING you care and REALLY caring. The people of Britain know the difference and have seen painfully for themselves that Tories did NOT care in the past. If Cameron wants us to believe that the nasty party is a thing of the past then he needs to ditch the advisers he's listening to and get some others who can show a genuine connection to ordinary people.
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Saying Sorry

2009-11-15T15:12:00.002Z

Brown is saying sorry for the ruined lives of many thousands of innocent children who, in the last century, were thoughtlessly shipped to Australia where many were abused. I suppose it makes just a little difference to hear the Prime Minister apologise, but it won't reverse their years of hurt. Nor will a hastily scribbled note from Brown bring back the son who was sent to do his duty so bereft of equipment that the son had to buy his own. Something happens to men and women when they get power over others; you can see it in government, in local councils and in the public sector. They forget their responsibility to protect the weak against the strong - to do the right thing. Instead, they develop high-handed and self-important attitudes; they listen to the siren voices that tell them they know best how others should live their lives. That is when the weak suffer, because they cannot fight back.
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afghanistan - in or out?

2009-11-08T16:22:00.003Z

Labour has such difficulty explaining why Britain is fighting in Afghanistan yet there's a simple, but cold, reason: better war there than here at home. You see, put simply; Taliban = Al Qaeda = Terrorist atrocities in Britain. Afghanistan is like Northern Ireland but with a vastly different culture. It can be won but we have to endure it for the very long term - longer even than Northen Ireland; 30, 40 or 50 years. And we will not win just at the point of a gun: no, we need deep layers of intelligence to target just those who are leaders of evil. To do that we have to get the general population on our side, and to do that we have to make their lives better by bringing relative wealth and high levels of protection to each farmer, each village, each local chieftain - better than they can get from the Taliban. That will bring in the intelligence that will eventually destroy the Taliban and Al Qaeda. More troops, much more money and long-term commitment. You can see why Western governments are too frightened to explain it properly to their own people.
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Royal mail - it's the management stupid!

2009-11-01T15:56:00.002Z

In my time I have been a union organiser and one of the bosses. I can tell you that, without exception, every occasion of strife in the workplace has been due to incompetent, stupid, bullying or pig-headed management. Many bosses would love to get back to the nineteenth century where workers could be crushed or cowed if they did not do exactly as they were told. That's where some bosses should be today; in the trash-can of history. UKpopdems believe the gulf between workers and management should be closed and that everyone from top to bottom should be on the same terms and conditions. If the bosses get a raise and perks, the workers get the same raise and same perks. That's just the start; what's really needed is a partnership of responsibilities where directors, employees, customers, shareholders and suppliers all have the responsibility to look after each others interests. An end to conflict and the beginning of real wealth and well-being.
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Why the BNP furor?

2009-10-25T17:40:00.002Z

You have to ask yourself, why is that MPs and their party backers are so horrified at the rise of the BNP? The answer is that those same MPs and their parties caused it, and they know it: so the only defence they have is to scream abuse at both the BNP as well as the voters who gave the BNP the loan of their protest votes. Almost every person in Britain objects to non-EU migrants unless they add real value to Britain. Coming in their millions, especially those who are so culturally different, they are affecting not only the economy but also the whole social make-up of the country - and people simply do not want that. The same numbers over two hundred years and fully integrated, possibly; but not over two decades and totally non-integrated. No, the way to scotch the BNP is to sort this problem out and fast. No more immigration until everyone already here is fully integrated, both economically and culturally. And those preaching hatred and violence shoved out.
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My hero, Sir Thomas Legg

2009-10-20T17:36:00.002+01:00

How refreshing it is to have Sir Thomas Legg treat MPs like the naughty school children they really are. Maybe the expenses scandal is not entirely MPs own fault, but they all need to be squeezed and squeezed hard until they realise they are our servants, responsible to us the people, and not our masters responsible only for skimming off as much cream for themselves as they can. This is UKpopdems policy in action and it's very cheering to see it. And there's just a chink of light that UKpopdems vision for Britain is bearing fruit, albeit by other parties. There's economic pain to come and our hope is that one positive by-product may be the realisation that Britain needs a truly new form of politics where the people come first and MPs, bureaucrats and other state hangers-on come last.
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Child neglect

2009-10-13T13:33:00.002+01:00

Looking after our children properly and making sure they grow up to be healthy, confident and well-educated young adults is one of the most important things government must get right. Yet in Britain it appears one-fifth of school teachers come across child neglect cases in their schools every month. That's tens of thousands of children whose mother's don't care enough about them to look after them properly and who can't be bothered to get help when it's needed. This would never happen in the UKpopdem world; actually could never happen: our children are the only hope for the future we have and whatever else happens they must be looked after right to adulthood. Everyone knows UKpopdems want to create a million new front-line resources working right there in your community and we'll bring back the old health visitor as part of that. It means direct help from caring, expert people for parents and anyone else looking after children. And you wont have to go looking for them, either, they'll be right there on your doorstep; not criticising or lecturing or form-filling, but giving practical support.
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David Cameron tells some of the truth

2009-10-09T15:29:00.002+01:00

David Cameron did a good job at the Tory Conference. He got close to telling us the truth about the pain to come. It was wrapped in the sugar coating of a sunny future, but it was closer to the truth than that offered by any other party, Labour or Liberal Democrat, both of whom have totally ignored the problem. Cameron's solution is close to UKpopdems solution, the dismantling of Britain's bureaucratic state on the one hand and the promotion of wealth creating business on the other. Where UKpopdems and Tories differ is this: we want to eliminate bureaucracy by natural wastage and they want to sack them, causing all sorts of personal and union strife. We want to add a million new front-line delivery jobs while they want a Thatcherite freeze and more out-sourcing, making fat profits for the already rich. UKpopdems wants the vast majority of public service delivery to be in-house; we believe profit and true vocational service make poor bedfellows where peoples' needs often come last.
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Ending anti-social behaviour

2009-10-01T09:29:00.003+01:00

Labour's last minute recognition of the dangers of serious anti-social behaviour by children has come too late. The promotion of liberal child rights over parental responsibility, coupled with police and social service inactivity, has led to the kind of feral invasion by the young as foreseen by several futurist pundits and science fiction writers. UKpopdems policy is clear on this issue; parents are responsible for their children and all violent behaviour leads to detention. In these cases detention means a month of intense educational discipline for both parents and children on the first occasion followed by close observation. Only UKpopdems can do this because we are pledged to create up to a million new front-line delivery resources serving directly in communities, together with the supporting infrastructure to make it possible. This is not a policy of repression, nor of squashing youthful high-spirits, but a recognition that all people in Britain want to end violent behaviour; a wish that UKpopdems must serve.
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Brown's Snubbing

2009-09-24T18:54:00.002+01:00

Oh, yeah: Brown was snubbed by Obama alright - no wonder there was panic at No.10. You see Brown, and Blair before him, have both set out to totally destroy Britain, the country I and millions love. They have been so successful in doing it and caused the UK to drop so far in the international league tables that we have almost no value left to offer the countries that really matter. It's only our presence in Afghanistan that stops Britain disappearing totally from view. The world's moved on and Labour's criminal, almost treacherous, deceipt of the British people over the last twelve years has done the work our enemies and strongest competitors could not do over generations. Soon Brown and labour will be gone and it will for whoever follows to sift through the wreckage in the hope of finding any firm foundations left on which to build a new, stronger Britain.
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The truth behind Labour and Tory cuts

2009-09-18T11:36:00.002+01:00

They won't tell you the truth because it's horrible and you won't vote for them if they did. The facts are these: there's a trillion pounds of debt and just to pay the interest on that lot comes to fifty billion every year: if we don't also start paying the capital on this debt to the tune of about another fifty billion a year then the world will stop lending to us and force Britain into bankrupty. Take into account much lower recession tax receipts and this country is looking at having to find over £100billion in cuts or new taxes quickly. Imagine! That's the equivalent of getting rid of the whole NHS and forcing each of us to get insurance US style! or eliminating the whole welfare system for those out of work and in need. Or in tax terms it means doubling VAT rates to 40%, or the same with the basic tax rate - from 20% to 40%. Can we trust any party to find real cuts? No way. Can we expect swingeing tax rises that hurt everybody except the super rich, bureaucrats and politicians? Oh yes! My guess is that it will be done with stealth taxes being hiked on the back of 'GREEN MEASURES': doubling transport costs, including air travel, doubling energy costs. Think of an indirect tax that could have a green label stuck on it and double it; then you'll be close to the real horror of what's to come.
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