A sign of the times.....

Nostradamus I ain’t but….

How predictable – 1
Belgium is a little country, with not much power to do much bullying. Traditionally a country with not a lot going for it, apart from chocolates, a fat detective with a curly moustache and statue of a small boy widdling. So how come they’ve outmanoeuvred the UK?

During this cold snap, how come no-power Belgium can buy their ‘next day’ gas supplies 5 times cheaper than us. I’ll just repeat that – Belgium buy their ‘next day’ gas supplies, 5 times cheaper than us.

I thought we lived in a first world country, big, powerful and forceful. Obviously not.

I thought we lived in a continental wide free trade economy. Obviously not.

I thought Brussels had outlawed this sort of selective price selection - which is coincidentally the capital of Belgium. Obviously not.

My summation is that either we are governed by a load of incompetent idiots for whom the context of ‘next day’ is about 24 hours too long. OR, Tony Blair and his acolytes are using this natural incompetence as a way of getting his next generation of nuclear power stations programme through the Commons. Or both.

How predictable – 2.
‘Flu vaccines in England run out and Patricia Hewitt, Minister of State for Health cries "Don’t blame me or the NHS, blame the GPs, it’s all their fault!"

She blames all the GPs in England for actually doing what the Government’s own advertising campaign implored them to do and give out flu jabs to anyone who wanted them. Of course, anyone who wants a ‘flu jab – my advice is to head for Scotland. They’ve got loads. Why? Because they have a NATIONAL government who are committed to their own electorate – democracy in action.

Eh up – ‘chaos theory’ buggers up predictability model.
Did I just hear correctly? Michael Howard during PMQs has just chastised the PM and Patricia Hewitt for including the UK flu jab totals – when only in fact talking about England – he said "The department of health cannot tell the difference between England and the United Kingdom".


Blimey!

Interesting

An article from John Sentamu, Archbishop of York on how multiculturalism has betrayed the English - check it out.

If John Sentamu, a black Ugandan can say it's 'OK' to be English - then why can't Gisela Stuart, a white German, do the same?

(Probably because she's a bigoted old hag)

Murder by degrees.

The violent death of a WPC in a bungled bank robbery in Bradford has inevitably elicited carefully considered knee jerk reactions from those that should know better.

As usual, when one of our police officers gets shot, the great, the good and Michael Winner demand the reinstatement of capital punishment. As usual, there seems no problem rolling out brigades of police officers, forensics and back up to investigate the crime. The news footage on Friday and Saturday was a case in point – wall to wall police officers at the scene of crime.

They rounded up 6 suspects in London on Sunday. Within hours they headed north on the M1, destination Bradford. The police had instigated a rolling road-block – which means no cars were allowed to overtake the police convoy. They couldn’t anyway, police cars braced the entire 3 lanes of the motorway.

The size of the convoy was huge – 7 armoured police transit vehicles and a cocktail of 8 assorted high powered Beemers, Volvos and Range Rovers. 15 vehicles in all. Headlights blazing, blue lights flashing – and that’s not counting the local motor bikes and panda cars clearing the way in the urban sprawls at the beginning and end of the journey.

Lord Stevens, former Metropolitan Commissioner of Police has demanded the reinstatement of the death penalty for the murder of Police Officers.

Now I’m not demeaning this awful crime. I’m desperately sorry for this woman’s family – especially her kids. But I’d like to think that if an ordinary member of the public had been murdered, shot in a bungled robbery – all the stops would be pulled out to find the killers.

But I know they wouldn’t. Innocent people, including kids routinely get shot in all of our major cities without so much as a single hand wring from Lord Stevens. According to him and his ridiculously ill thought out statement, police officers lives are worth more than your average citizen – and that just isn’t right is it?

Some people are so unlucky aren't they?

The city of Hull has been voted the worst place to live in Britain.
Mind you, with people like him as a neighbour, that's hardly a surprise....

Smug John, doing his best to turn the whole of England into Greater Hull

Bringlish watch / edition1

Bringlish, adj. 1.How the establishment like to index 'Englishness' under 'Britishness' . 2) A title of convenience.

Example number 1.
Smart alec host of cerebral quiz show, Qi, actor and all round know all, Stephen Fry doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.

He was on BBC Breakfast this morning, being interviewed about the launch of the interactive DVD version of the quiz show. He waxed lyrical about this and that. Oscar Wilde was clearly alive and well. He then waffled on about having the gift of being able to speak English – and how blessed he was in being born British….. Then he got a bit carried away and quoted Cecil Rhodes. He said all waxy and lyrical-like "And what was it Cecil Rhodes said ‘to be born British is to win the lottery of life"……

Sorry, Stevie mate. Not quite right is it? Rhodes didn’t say that did he? He actually said "To be born English is to win the lottery of life"……

Fry clearly bottled it – fearing a bit of a backlash if he uttered the ‘E’ word. Far better to go for England’s uglier alter ego – Britain.

But maybe, being born British qualifies Fry to a 10 quid prize – as opposed to the jackpot pay-out for being Blighty born……. And that makes me a millionaire!

Example number 2.
Back page of Monday’s edition of The Daily Express.
Pictures of Becks celebrating England’s win over Argentina and English golfer David Howells winning the big comp in the far east - and beating the mighty Tiger in the process. Alongside, Marcus Trescothick was pictured smashing a cricket ball all over the place in Pakistan - and English rugby union’s Mark Cuerto crashing over the Aussie try line. There was also a pic of a guy from Leeds scoring a try for the GB rugby league team… a GB team that is almost exclusively English.

So that’s 5 fantastic weekend sporting success stories – 4 exclusively English – and one English in all but name.

Daily Express’ headline? ‘Unstoppable – Beckham bullish on British glory weekend’….. and obviously accompanied with the regulation Union Jack graphic…

Funny though, I didn’t see Scotland’s glorious 1-1 draw with the USA mentioned in the ‘glory weekend’….

The word is spreading.....

Watching the lunchtime edition of ‘Look Northwest’ – the BBC’s local magazine programme, I was heartened by two aired items.

The first was a Labour MP for Rochdale complaining about the creeping regionalisation of the NW – the latest episode being the proposal to have all the ambulance services in the area housed under one single authority. The MP actually said that ‘the people’ do not want a regional approach – so why is the government doing it?

SUMMARY - Blimey, New Labour sheep sees real agenda light.

The second? A group of direct action heroes from an organisation called ‘CountyWatch’. Two guys, both in their 50's have spent the last few days taking down the ‘Welcome to Lancashire’ signs from the current county boundaries and relocating them to the pre ‘70’s border. The BBC followed them around, dutifully recording their acts of noble vandalism.

When asked whether or not they felt any guilt, they gave a great account of the validity of their case.

SUMMARY – the awkward squad is growing faster than fat-arsed Prescott could ever imagine

'The Wake' will go public - 2/12/05

'H' will be doing his utmost to persuade 80 political students at one of our seats of learning that the current democratic deficit in this country is totally unacceptable. I have a feeling I have a lot of work to do - as I think they are under the impression that English nationalist = shaven headed facist......

This old style, compassionate moderate left winger and passionate democrat will endeavour to put them right.

‘Stealth Regionalism' – the new, New Labour must have …

David Miliband, Minister for local government and Blair’s preferred dauphin has been busily finding out ways to get the ‘R’ strategy in England back on track. ‘Super councils’ are apparently the answer.

Super councils will run straight across county boundaries, sometimes amalgamating several into one new leviathan.
Super councils will eradicate traditional English shire counties – all 34 of them (you know, the ones that have been around for as long as 1,500 years)…….
Super councils will take power away from local communities – the district and county authorities will disappear, to be replaced by a unitary option…..

In a leaked report, Miliband was apparently concerned that the current two-tier system led to ‘confusion’ and created ‘fragmented leadership’……..

The Wake’s reaction to this b/s hyperbole is complete and utter homicidal anger. It’s nothing to do with supposedly making things more effective or more efficient. It’s got everything to do with dividing, emasculating and ruling my Country.

Come to think of it, this ‘to make things more efficient, we must make things bigger’ strategy has become a bit of a recurring theme over the past few weeks from various Labour ministries.

A couple of weeks ago a report stated that the existing police forces in England are to be rationalised down to less than half the current number. English health authorities are scheduled to have similar amalgamation fever bestowed on them - lucky us eh! Now if I didn’t know better, I’d say there just might be a bit of backdoor regionalisation going on.

Miliband, Blair, Prescott, Brown et al. Why do you hate us so much?

Plans at advanced stage for Team GB footy team……

Following the Scottish FA’s failure to play ball and the likelihood that the Welsh FA are about to decline the offer – it looks like the preposterous proposition of a GB football team playing in the 2012 Olympic Games is thankfully dead in the water.

Don’t you believe it! In my opinion, the formation of a Team GB is more certain than ever - as a direct result of the Scottish FA (and all the aggressive political baggage it would have brought with it) declining to offer any players to compete.

There are just the nervous Northern Ireland FA and the brown nosing English FA left to try and form a team. You can be assured the N.I. FA will follow the other two Celtic nations and decline. So how could the ‘Team GB’ project go ahead"

Simple. It’s what the political numpties have always hoped for. All 'lukewarminess' will have been banished, courtesy of the Celtic awkward squad vacating the table. The field will be free for the pathetically grovelling Chief Exec', David Davies and the rest of the English FA falling over themselves to co-operate with the Raj. And as the British Government have buried England constitutionally and politically, equating our country with ‘regions of Britain’ then in their opinion an all-English team, made up from the regions will be a perfectly satisfactory conclusion. Remember the Tour of Britain cycle race – Teams Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Team Britain…….. Team Britain was in reality, Team England. Remember when Rhona Martin and her 3 team members won the curling gold medal, they all came from the same very small curling club in Scotland.

The only way to stop this stupidity is for the English FA to suddenly develop a backbone and tell Tone, Seb', Colin and co' to sod off. And as we all know, when there is the sniff of a Knighthood in the air, backbones tend to be made of custard (soggy, no rigidity and yellow in colour).

BBC FiveLive phone in, starring David Davis….

A lesson in 'fobboffery' to an English nationalist….

This morning, between 9 and 9:30, Tory leadership candidate, Double Dee took phone calls from the general public.

The very last question, just before 9:30, was from a guy called ‘Sean’. He introduced himself to DD, and said he met him on a train platform station some time ago. Apparently, Sean was on his way to an English Constitutional Convention meet at Westminster – DD remembered him. Sean asked him 'here and now' to commit himself, should he become Tory leader to right the constitutional deficit in England and give us an English Parliament.

Cue bluster, waffle, the need to avoid an expensive second tier of English MPs, commitment to ensure only English MPs vote on English legislation – and as DD said at the end – "That’s the way to solve it"…..

I’m sure Sean would have come back, but he’d been well cut off by the BBC hatchet crew.

Well Dave, it bloody does not ‘solve it’ at all. You’ve ratted, like I always knew you would. The lofty utterances made 4 years ago about England having it’s own Parliament are but a distant memory in the stinking sea of mendacity that politics wallows in. Dave, it’ll come back and bite you, guaranteed.

For Double Dee, read Double Cee - as in crossed.

If you want to hear what Sean said and the waffle Davis blathered, then here it is. (When you get to the page, click on Davis' mug shot and the BBC radio player will open. Please wait till it buffers then drag the slider up to almost the end of the scale. Sean’s question is the last of the set, so it’s right at the end.

Tony Blair –footy pundit.

Well, did you see him on Saturday’s edition of BBC’s ‘On the Ball? The big cheester, the maestro of the body swerve, the guv’nor – Bite your legs Tony ‘Blairo’ Blair tucked in alongside ‘Motty’ ‘Lawro’ and the boy Manish Bhasin. As creative a midfield that you will ever see.

Blair looked a bit out of sorts. After all, a big responsibility had been placed on the nimble-footed, midfield dynamo’s shoulders - he’d just confined the legend, the old caber-tosser himself - Alan ‘Dour-Git’ Hansen to the subs bench.

SPECIAL STOP-THE-BALL COMPETITION

Using you skill and judgement, try and imagine where the ball might be in this action picture modelled by Blairo and Lawro.

Blairo tried hard to impose himself with a couple of early touches. Right from the off, he was given the opportunity to ‘put the record straight’ regarding the scurrilous allegation that he’d seen geordie baggy-trousered legend, ’Wor Jackie Milburn' doing his mesmeric goal poaching for the ‘Toon when Tone was barely out of his tartan nappies….

It was all so natural. It almost looked as if they hadn’t rehearsed the act at all, that much. Blairo said in answer to an ‘off the cuff’ enquiry from the boy Manish about how he was somehow ‘misquoted’. Quick as a Michael Owen run bearing down on Johnny Argentina’s goal, the boy Manish said "Yes, I think we just might be able to find a tape of that interview you gave on local radio all those years ago"….

Cue frantic search. Was the boy Manish offside? Was he lurking at the far post? Was he as reckless as Paul Merson in a betting shop? – What if the boot-room boys can’t find the radio clip?


Blairo tells Crooksy, Dour Git and Jug Ears how he scored the winning goal in the 1962 World Cup Final.

The search lasted all of half a second. The tape rolled, the camera zeroed onto Blairo’s throbbing, glistening forehead. He was sweating and –oh my God, he was wearing the notorious grey away kit. Would Motty and the boys be able to pick him out with a long cross-field ball? Fortunately Blairo could be seen for miles, thanks to the massive dark slicks of sweat oozing out from his armpit zones…. What would Fergie have said? Not much probably, I don’t think the former wife of Prince Andrew knows anything about footy kits.

Anyway, the tape droned on. The lady interviewer asked young Blairo who his footy heroes were when he was a kid…. Now this was a critical question. Every kid who has ever been to a footy match will ‘know’ footy players. I went to my first footy game in 1963. Liverpool v Spurs. I can name the full Liverpool footy team that appeared on that day, over 40 years ago – Lawrence, Moran, A’court, Milne, Yeats, Stevenson, Callaghan, Hunt, St John, Melia, Thomson…… I can also name most of the Spurs team – Brown, Jones, Henry, White, Greavse, Blanchflower, Smith, Mackay………

It was 2 nil to Spurs at half time, Liverpool banged in 5 in the second half and ran out winners 5-2. You just do not forget stuff like that – especially when you are a kid. It’s hard-wired into your brain…..

So just who were Blair’s heroes? He admitted to going to watch Newcastle in the ‘60’s on a regular basis. But when asked, he couldn’t name one, not one Newcastle player from that era. Instead, he stumbled and flapped and flanneled. He said he ‘admired’ the players that came after Jackie Milburn – a player of the ‘50’s right up to Malcolm MacDonald – a player of the ‘70’s – and that was it!

As far as I’m concerned that proves it – Blair knows jack about footy. He didn’t have a clue who his ‘idols’ were.

What a bloody fraud – I would have stuck with the ‘I saw Jackie Milburn playing’ lie – and not bother sitting there on the orange sofa listening to all the footy greats of the ‘60’s he couldn’t name…….

Stop Press – Tony Blair to appear on BBC ‘Holiday’ programme to ‘set the record straight’ about the scurrilous story that young rebel and Fidel Castro admirer, Tony Blair stowed away on a plane to Cuba – but ended up in Mexico instead, saga.

BBC busily editing tape to conclusively show that Tony specifically said that he did not stowaway, anywhere…

Email to Customer Services at Ottakar’s / WH Smith / Waterstones

Hello,

I notice you are stocking ‘The Angry Island’ by AA Gill.
Can you tell me, do I find it under ‘R’ for Racist or ‘B’ for Bigot?

"Yes, I like the English – but I wouldn’t want to father one of them"……

Another example arose this week of a Scot living, working, making a tonne of cash in England – but when push comes to push s-l-o-w-l-y, he’ll be heading north, with his wife, just so his kid will be born in Scotland.

John Gordon Sinclair, he of ‘80’s Brit flick movie, ‘Gregory’s Girl’ and the old Tesco adverts has got a charter plane on stand-by somewhere in the South East of England.

His Missus is expecting a bundle of joy any day now – and rather than do the right thing and get her booked into the local hospital in London – he wants the kid to be born a Scots-person. OK, I can accept that, I suppose, - but if he wants the kid to be Scottish then why not take a few months off, move up to Edinburgh and book in at a city hospital there then? Sinclair’s loaded isn’t he?

Can’t do that though. Sinclair is making too much money starring in the West End musical - ‘The Producers’. So when the waters break and JGS gets the panicky ‘phone call, I hope the taxi, the pilot, the plane dash, the taxi at the other end and the 500 mile trip will all be worth it.

I wonder what Mrs JGS thinks – and if it’s a boy, will they call him ‘Mel’ in memory of Scotland’s greatest hero?

The letter in full......

A couple of people have emailed me asking if I would post the full unedited letter, partly published in yesterday's Sunday Times. The paper published bits of paras 1 and 4 - but that doesn't matter because the general response by outraged English people to Gill's article was just superb.

AA Gill’s ‘Gerald Ratner moment’…..

AA Gill’s piece on why he hates England and the English was some of the most verbally incontinent rubbish I’ve ever read. Almost cartoon in it’s caricature – it reminded me of Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army warning his platoon they could always spot a German spy because he would look surly, have a curled lip and his eyes would be too close together! What happened to objectivity? The standard of Gill’s reasoning was so low as to be off the scale. Where has he been living - on the Planet Vitriol? Oh no, he’s been making a fantastic wedge in good old Blighty – and then he insults us!

If this article is typical of the rest of Gill’s book, then I’ll pass. I don’t fancy reading anything else from this repressed bigot. Honestly, the standard of writing is barely above that of ‘Janet and John. I’m absolutely amazed he got the thing published in the first place – and frankly flabbergasted The Sunday Times have agreed to serialise such small-minded crud.

It really is a dumb marketing strategy don’t you think! You can only imagine the discussion in the editorial office of The Sunday Times "I know, I’ve got a great idea, let’s insult 85% of our UK readership! Let’s say that the English are rubbish – well, what harm can it do?"

Answer? Plenty. I‘m a proud man of England and I am getting heartily fed up of being ruled by a Scottish Raj. Heartily fed up of being busy-bodied by an obedient clack of Scottish Labour MPs forcing through English-only legislation (Foundation hospitals and Tuition fees for example), even though their own constituents, courtesy of the Scottish Parliament are free of such vindictive laws. Heartily fed up of being the only country in Europe without a national Parliament. But I’m especially fed up with being routinely insulted by a long line of Scottish and Welsh bore-mongers. I somehow cannot imagine Gill being allowed to, or even contemplating writing a piece entitled ‘I hate Israel’ or ‘I hate Pakistan’ – but if you’re English? Well, it’s open season, obviously.

The points he raised to ‘justify’ his bizarre hatred of the English include such breathtaking gems as ‘If the English didn’t queue, they’d be killing each other’. Not content with this stunningly inept assertion, he embarrassingly digs himself further into a hole with his ‘50 ways the English say sorry without actually meaning it’ comment. What is he talking about? Forensic and analytical it is not. Petty, vindictive and ignorant, it most certainly is.

For AA’s benefit, I’ve thought of another ‘sorry’ to put in his ‘bumper book of disingenuous sorrys from genuine Englishmen’ ….. Sorry Mr Gill, but your conclusions are childish, vulgar and just plain wrong - my 15 year old kid would construct a more convincing argument! The coup de grace in this whistle stop rummage into the English psyche is that apparently, we poor English are all so ‘angry’. Not a nice, comfy type of honest anger you understand, oh no. Ours is much worse, we have a nasty, surly, repressed ‘English’ type of anger.

I assure you AA, we are not angry – just fed up with people constantly rubbishing our country, whilst you and your ilk begrudgingly live within our midst and reap the benefits – and at the same time despise us as a nation. Meanwhile, your watery eyed, Rob-Roy rosy romantic vision of where you think you come from remains intact – courtesy of a dodgy Mel Gibson film and the enormous chip the size of Ben Nevis on your shoulder. .

Even the picture graphic fell into line in supporting Gill’s clichéd fantasia of England. Chavish thug with clenched fist smirking through a St George’s flag montage. What a stereotypical joke!

I’ve taken the Sunday Times for over 30 years – and quite frankly am reviewing whether I take it in the future. I really will not pay to be insulted with such a pathetically juvenile and ill-conceived piece of written drivel. I really do hope that Gill has just had a ‘Gerald Ratner’ moment, because this chippy, nastily racist and arrogantly self-centred little Scotlander deserves everything he gets.

Yours etc, etc.

Awards Ceremony - Increasing English Awareness catagory

And this year’s prize for doing more for English Nationalism than any one else goes to…..

A.A.Gill.

The Sunday Times rang me today. They’re going to use some of my letter, written in a frenzied anger on Sunday afternoon. They said that they could not print all the rant – just a couple of paragraphs. The reason they gave? Apparently, they’d been overwhelmed by indignant English people writing in to complain. In fact, the woman on the phone couldn’t remember when such a response had been as great….

A.A. Gill, my little chippy pal, you deserve a medal.

The Emperor says – "Give it to her"…. And lo, suddenly she is given it…

Good old Tony Blair, what a guy!
St Tone was up in my neck of the woods yesterday, accompanied by a few loaves and a couple of fishes, pressing the flesh, righting wrongs and looking for a Lazarus to resurrect (so what’s new?).

At the end of the day, he went to the BBC Manchester studios for an interview with pleasant, bumbling political reporter, Jim Hancock. Now, there has been a bit of a kuffuffle in the North West lately. The BBC local news programme, Look Northwest has been doing a bit of championing on behalf of a poor local woman who is suffering from breast cancer.

She asked her local health authority if she could have the new wonder drug ‘Herceptin’. ‘They’ being an English health Trust, and consequently having no cash to spare, refused to give her the drug. They fell back onto the fatuous argument that it hadn’t yet been cleared by ‘NICE’ – the Government drug agency for England…….. This is a thinly disguised excuse for not telling her it was too expensive.

All week, the programme has been following this woman’s increasingly desperate attempts to get the Trust to cough up. On Thursday night, we were treated to the grotesque mini drama of her at home, waiting by the phone for some health nazi to give her the thumbs up, or more likely, the thumbs down.

She waited and waited, the phone rang,some jobsworth was on from the Trust - ‘they were sorry but the Trust had decided they could not, on this occasion be bothered to stump up the cash’. They used as their excuse that those nice people at NICE hadn’t given it the ‘all clear’.

This woman was gutted. The health nazi said she could lodge an appeal if she wanted to. She said she would. I sort of got the impression that if they’d have said stand on one leg, pirouette and bark like a dog and then we’ll give it to you – she would have done it - and it had about as much dignity.

To be honest, I was really shocked, I cringed. Is that what we are reduced to? Begging on the telly for a drug. The very same drug, freely available in Scotland – for they don’t have such problems on funding – and hence no problems giving lame excuses about not having had clearance yet as per their English counterparts.

Anyway, back to the Tony Blair interview….
Jim Hancock started to tackle him about this Manchester woman. The problems in getting the drugs, the injustice of it all…. Suddenly, Princess Tony agreed. Suddenly, Blair had found his potential Lazarus. Hand signs set to ‘rapid.’ Facial expressions set to ‘honest John’. Voice set to 'high pitched hysterical', Tony was in his element. A just cause to hunt down – and Blunkett consigned to history.

"Of course" whined Tony "Of course this woman should get ‘Herceptin’. It’s only right and proper that her local Trust should supply her with the drug immediately"…..

And yea, verily, a bright light shone off St Tony’s bonce, and it was done. Within 10 minutes, the health nazi had rung the woman……. And hey, guess what? Money, drugs, clinic appointment and a fast delivery van had just been found under an old packet of humbugs…….

So next time you're ill. Just make sure you have a double dose of Honest Tone's - 'Blair's Patent Tincture' handy.