How long is a week in politics? (Or should that be a weak in politics?)

Haven’t posted for a few days. Been too busy watching from the sidelines as our glorious leader and his pox ridden government do a passable imitation of a collective hari-kiri (Have you got that mental image of John Prescott’s guts spilled out all over the place? Gaaaaghhh – Euro tripe mountain discovered in Hull, shock!)

The Blair 'tower of babble' is falling to earth faster than the price of a three-bedroom semi in Oil Sites Avenue, Hemel Hempstead. The joints have rotted away, the spun web of deceitfulness and the cement rendering mixed with purest bullshit is cracking and flaking. The edifice is crumbling to a mendacious dust.

Everywhere you look, the Blair regime is in flight. First team ‘Blair-nosers’, Reid, Jowell and Hewitt unmercifully slagged off by a Commons Select Committee for thinking of their own egos rather than the health of English bar staff workers. The Committee described their ‘compromise’ solution on smoking in pubs and restaurants as ‘bizarre and unworkable’ – and at odds with the rest of the UK who are instigating total bans within the next two years. The silence from the Glasgow pitbull is really quite deafening. (Maybe he's having a quiet drag round the back?)

The totally embarrassing, yet deeply satisfying spectacle of our very own ‘deep-throat’, Education Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly being intellectually stripped naked before the Education Commons Select Committee was something to see.

Boy, did they put the boot in? There she was squirming in her seat. Was it the hair shirt itching away under that twin-set ‘Opus Dei’ exterior? Did she get off on the masochistic martyrdom of it all? Watching it on the telly – it sure looked like she was a victim of Torqamada’s Spanish Inquisition, no mercy was being shown, Kelly looked like exactly what she is – a no talent lap dog with a weird religious bent (just like Blair)..... It was like she hadn’t been briefed, didn’t know what to say and hadn't read the script – she just wasn’t expecting it.….. But as Michael Palin once said in a Monty Python sketch, "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"


Committee members prepare to give Ruth Kelly a damn good seeing to.

Then fatty Prescott just couldn’t keep it in any longer. Over the past few months, it’s clear that the Old Labour bile has been rising within Prezza’s twisted giblets. Glottal has been shooting up from the very bowels of Prezza’s pancreas, just there, next to that half digested meat 'n' tater pie scoffed in a hurry at that visit to 'MeatProdCo' last July. Something was bound to give. On Sunday it did. He blurted it all out, bits of carrot included, all over Tone and Ruth’s great Education experiment. Prezza’s not happy. He doesn’t like the prospect of selection in secondary education. After all, Prezza himself was a victim. Believe it or not, John Prescott failed the 11+, shock! That last statement has the same predictability value as ‘Bruce Forsythe wears toupee, shock’ and ‘Cherie Blair is a money grabbing opportunist after all, shock!


A small quantity of Prezza's Old Labour meat 'n' bile pies.

Even the arch Scottish Iago-creep that is Gordon Brown wasn’t immune from the ‘wheels coming off’ virus. It was great to see mega oil conglomerate Shell, deciding not to invest any more cash into the North Sea oil fields if Brown goes ahead with his recently ‘thought out’ billion pound tax on them. I’m no fan of big business, but I’m no fan of arrogant Scottish control freaks shoving extra taxes on companies at a moments notice purely to cover their own financial incompetence either.

The absolute nadir moment of the week for the Blair regime however, was watching UKIP’s Euro MP, Nigel Farage utterly condemn Blair to his face yesterday as "A cheese eating surrender monkey" after his abject performance at the Euro budget summit. What’s more, the insult was delivered via the state of the art communications system in front of the entire European Parliament, full to the rafters with every Euro MP available. The look on Blair’s face was an utter picture. The sudden realisation that, ‘yes, Tone, the entire nation really does hate you – period’ suddenly seemed to break through the façade that is ‘Tony Blair – religious missionary’….

And that was the act that sort of started the week of catastrophe. Tony Blair’s attempt at 'hard ball' with Chirac and the EU budget reforms. Over the past 3 months, Blair has shifted his position on the rebate issue. From, "No negotiation – period" to "We’ll only negotiate if it’s linked with reform of the CAP" to "We must play our part in the development of new member nations" to "This is not total surrender of any kind"……. Oh yes it is Tony. And what’s more we all know it is, (smoke and mirrors have just completely sold out at Toys’R’Us)…


A surrender monkey chewing on a nice piece of Wensleydale

What do we want? An English Parliament. When do we want it? NOW, NOW, NOW!

Make a note in your diary – and get organised for a London demo……

And if every English man and English woman joins in – it will be a day to remember, it will be a day to shake the complacency of the mealy mouthed establishment.

The 26th of March 2007 will be the 300th Anniversary of the Act of Union – the formal ending of the last Parliament of England in favour of the UK model.

It’s only a little over a year away – and it seems a perfect time to flag up all the injustices – and by then, I’m sure we’ll be pushing at an open door. This could be the big mo’ the movement has been waiting for……

Anyone who can get there should do, let’s make it bloody huge - let’s make history!

Time to declare….

I reckon it’s time for a national statement - our very own ‘Declaration of Albion’ don’t you think? Just like everyone else has...
So, inspired by the Scots declaration of national identity – the Declaration of Arbroath, I have prepared an English draft…..

The Declaration of Albion
If we should, by carelessness and too trusting of nature, give up by default what has belonged to us for centuries, and agree to make us and our sovereign country subject to the Scottish Raj or New Labour in general - then we should exert ourselves at once to drive them out as our implacable enemy.

For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we will eventually wake up and never, on any condition be brought under Scottish, Welsh or anybody else’s rule for that matter.

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself…..

(I’m trying to book Mel Gibson to make the speech)

Welcome to 'Warehouse blighted Blighty' – and the ‘spatial strategy’ as visualised by the Fat Control freak……

Good old Johnny Prescott. Not content with the 4 million new houses on brownish, (but mostly greenish) English land – fat boy wants to fill in the little bits of greenery that are left with monstrous warehouses.

Most of the Warehouse building frenzy will be taking place in the Midlands – and Prescott’s poodles in that part of the world - the ‘West Midlands Regional Assembly’ will, I’m sure be doing their very utmost to role over and betray the people that have elected them….. Sorry, really, really sorry, got a bit confused there – for a minute I thought I was living in some sort of ‘democracy’…

‘This weekend it emerged that the West Midlands Regional Assembly is considering plans for up to five "regional logistics sites" where several huge warehouses would be located side-by-side along major roads.

Under the plans, each site would cover 123-200 acres and would operate round the clock, generating 1,500 lorry journeys a day’…..

Hmmm, just how long do you think the WMRA will be ‘considering’ this proposal then? Until Prescott says he wants an answer – and the answer he wants is the ‘right’ answer, of course.

If you go to the great brown nosing talking shop that is the West Midlands Regional Assembly and have a look at their website – you’ll find lots of rubbish about partnerships, sustainable development this, regional concordat that, and the rather expressively and ludicrously titled ‘Regional Spatial Strategy’. Apparently, as it says on the home page, ‘RSS’ provides the detail of policies to ensure that physical development in the region will deliver renaissance for both urban and rural communities in the West Midlands.

Or, to put it another way, they’ll do whatever the Fat Controller tells them to.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Prescott you are an utter bastard – you are constructing a country fit for basket cases and a bloom of warehouses to put them in. It simply isn’t sustainable to build and build and build. The ‘Spatial Strategy’ is marketing bollocks for ‘let’s hoodwink the public with jargonese’ – because they’re thick enough to swallow it – and when they do twig it, we’ll all be drowning in concrete.

God, how I detest that man and his slash and burn agenda – as well as the fluffed up self importance brigade, who cannot wait to do his bidding for the promise of a gong or two and getting their towns twinned with Barbados. .

It’s all so predictable, innit?

I was watching a programme on Channel 4 on Saturday night – all about the ‘real’ story of the 4 Saints of the British Isles. Some guy I’ve never heard of introduced the programme, but never mind, I was sure Dr Robert Beckford would produce a dispassionate honest appraisal. Yeah, right.

Beckford waxed away as if he was on speaking terms with the 4 men in question. St Patrick was an educated man of letters, St David was a ‘home grown boy, St Andrew - a rallying saint for a noble nation ………. And poor old St George? Apparently, he’s been a magnet for racists, extremists and bigots…..

As the stereotypical and entirely predictable programme synopsis says – ‘The white racists and fascists who have appropriated the flag of St George would be astonished to discover that he is front runner as the ideal multicultural saint. Far from the genocidal warrior of Crusaders legend, he is venerated by Muslims as well as Christians….

I'm not sure many people do think of George as being a 'genocidal warrior' do they? I think most people know he came from the Middle East, along with St Andrew, Moses and Jesus. George was a Turk, tortured and killed by the Romans - as were a hell of a lot of saints. During the programme, I sort of got the impression from the Doc that all us thick English people think that George came from a sink housing estate in the Midlands. And as for the Doc's assertion that George has been appropriated by fascists and racists - I just bloody well despair.

One thing is clear ‘Dr’ Robert Beckford knows bugger all about anything – apart from being able to quote the p.c. New Labour directive on dissing anything representing the English or English consciousness.

Oh dear, an own goal from the Daily Mail.

In the sporting section of Wednesday’s Daily Mail, there was a nice graphic showing which teams had qualified for next year’s World Cup in Germany. Extra special attention was given to the top eight seeds – of which England and NOT ‘Team UK’ have been awarded the second seed spot.

Alongside each team was a little graphic denoting their country’s flag. Next to England was a Union Jack for God’s sake!…..

CONCLUSION
The plan to get 'Team UK' accepted into the population’s sporting psyche in time for the 2012 Olympic Games is well underway.....

Vagabonds, fakirs, footpads, n’er do wells and Jeffrey Archer need not apply

Filling in my application form to join the House of Lords recently, a little accompanying leaflet spelt out exactly what Lordshippyness is all about. The rather grandly monikered House of Lords Appointments Commission gravely spells out the very minimum requirements to realise a successful application.

The supporting literature, in Baronial black & white and headed ‘The Seven Principles of Public Life’ is unbending in the sort of talent they’re after.

The seven principles are –

Selflessness
Integrity
Objectivity
Accountability
Openess
Honesty
Leadership

Now maybe it’s the old cynic in me, but I reckon the best club in town – The House of Lords would be pretty well deserted apart from Lord Jesus of Judea and Lord St Francis of Assisi if everyone had to comply with these 7 principles.

And the prospect of people like Jeffrey Archer, Neil Kinnock and Margaret Thatcher qualifying for even 1 of the 7 is a fairly expansive leap of surreal thinking.

As predictable as a New Labour directive....

I got my long awaited reply from Anne Hogbin, the CEO of the Commonwealth Games Council for England, last week. The Council have just had a meeting to decide whether they stick with the current and entirely inappropriate ‘victory anthem’ for England’s medal ceremony at next year’s Games or change to what many consider to be the people of England’s choice. Regular readers may remember that I have been lobbying Ms Hogbin, trying to get ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ replaced by ‘Jerusalem’ as England’s victory anthem.

During my correspondence with her, I thought I had made quite a convincing case. LofHandG is a pretty jingoistic ditty, going on about Empire, subjugation of nations etc. I argued that Jerusalem was an aspirational song with an already proven national pedigree……

I was fairly hopeful, butI should have known better. This is what she wrote -

’Dear Mr. Wake,

The members of the Commonwealth Games Council for England met last week and one of the items for discussion was the Victory Anthem used for The Commonwealth Games.

I am writing to inform you that the members were unanimous in wishing to retain 'Land of Hope and Glory' as our anthem.

Thank you for your interest.

Ann Hogbin
Commonwealth Games Council for England, PO Box 36288, London SE19 2YY


A few days later, the Sunday Times ran a story about the England and Wales cricket board deciding to bin the singing of ‘Jerusalem’ before England test matches next season because it might insult, upset, stress out the opposition.

I think this is utter bollocks. I smell the dead, blighted hand of Noo Labour at work. The plain fact is, last Summer, Jerusalem became the unofficial-official people’s choice for an English National Anthem. No doubt this elicited catastrophic panic from the CEO of Noo Labour’s ‘Bringlish’ project.

I reckon a little bit of leaning has gone on here. A few words in ears to impressionable and creeping administrators has ensured that Jerusalem has suddenly suffered a McCarthyite fate and been declared an enemy of the people. – Not of course because of its stirring message of hope and aspiration, more due to the binding effect and sense of belonging it has on a people to their country.

And according to New Labour, that simply will not be allowed.