Five-year-old boy accused of destroying forest cover
Published: Thursday, 21 December, 2006, 10:20 AM Doha Time

RANCHI: A five-year-old boy in Jharkhand appeared in a court after an arrest warrant was issued against him for destroying plants in a forest.

The case was filed in September 2002 when the child was only 14 months old!

Who says Maine bureaucrats aren’t as idiotic as bureaucrats anywhere else?

Oh yes and Snoopy has a got some info on Judith Regan who seems to think its alright to compare Jews to rats.

He claims the spiralling cost of the Olympics games is a “small price to pay” for the “feelgood factor”. I wonder if he lives in London where everyone is getting hammered by the taxes to pay for it. Why don’t they put a levy on all the Olympic athletes who have made millions from their athletics. It does get a bit grating to hear all these athletes telling taxpayers they should stop whingeing and cough up.

The one thing you can assume when anyone is talking about the Olympics and their cost they are lying through their teeth. The Olympics is a scam and only screws over the taxpayers.

No athlete deserves any public funding…ever.

There is a blog that is keeping track of the ins & outs of the race to head the UN. Whether or not that is a poisoned chalice is your call. Curruption shows up in the race for Sec. Gen as well.

The Telegraph asks if the dome deal between Prescott the government and Anschutz is really a fair deal for all or is it a fix to get rid of one of the white elephants of Blair’s time in Number 10. After this spring/summer’s revelations about Prescott and his antics at the Anschutz ranch very few people will probably believe it is not a done deal. Of course you could check out Greenwich Watch and read about all the machinations in that area of London.

On a disturbing case of murderer Min Chen and machinations of diplomacy.

There are more than half a million illegal migrants living in Britain, according to Home Office figures. Sheesh. Several things spring to mind: one, it makes a mockery of our supposed security laws against terror because among many of the folk moving into Britain, a handful may have hostile intent, and it also underscores the scale of organised crime now involved in smuggling people into the country, creating fake IDs, etc. It goes without saying on a robustly free market blog like this that immigration per se is a fine thing especially when the migrants entering a nation do not expect, and do not get, a penny of state subsidy and just get on with building a new life. I want to live in a Britain that enterprising people want to join. (Let’s face it, migrants are not exactly rushing to live in Belgium). But illegal migration on this scale can only undermine harmonious relations between ethnic groups and weaken respect for the law.

We don’t need an ID card system to fix this. All that is needed is that no immigrant to the UK gets access to state welfare for a minimum of five years apart from in dire emergencies. It is that simple.

Guido has recently been disturbed to learn that the fire services are appointing non-fire service “managers” to the top posts. His friends in the service are in despair over this, and those that have to deal with some of the appointees are looking forward to working under them with more than some trepidation. Of course, this is all a consequence of the “modernisation” programme dreamed up by the Bain report, which, Guido finds, seems to be nothing more than a “cherry picking” of all the more contentious issues from previous reports and agendas. The “evidence” on which the Bain report is based seems to be highly suspicious and unsupported by fact – for example the issue of addressing “Community Fire Safety”, which is something most fire services have been engaged in under other titles for years.

What brought Guido’s hackles to full attention was the report in the Times on Saturday on the appointment of a no doubt well meaning and generally nice woman to the post of Chief Fire Officer – or whatever it is now called – of the County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service. At least she sounded sensible and nice until he got to the bit about her fire experience – and then she got insulting. This is not about being able to deal with “chip pan fires”, it is about being able to take command of, and responsibility for, the fire defence of the area her Service protects, about protecting the lives and property of the people of the County. There may well be chip pan fires to attend, but to belittle the service by suggesting that attendance at one or two such fires would give her professional credibility is not just insulting, it betrays her complete ignorance of what the Fire Service is all about.

What the morons of the Durham and Darlington Fire Authority were thinking of when they appointed her to this post is beyond comprehension. Her experience of marketing and as a Chief Executive of a business forum is not suitable preparation for the position she is now arrogantly assuming she can learn in five minutes. The job does not come with a convenient “Executive Summary” she can scan and assimilate before making life or death decisions.

It is good to know that in a world stalked by the spectre of terrorism, AIDS, superbugs from Asia, the pension crisis, etc, that legislators have their minds on what really matters to people.

Take this piece of insanity from Texas. I hope the gorgeous cheerleaders of that fine state tell politicians where they can put their puritan cravings, so to speak.

I don’t have much time for ex-BBC journalist and Spectator regular Rod Liddle, who has always struck me as a rather louche character, but this article in the Spectator about the scandal of postal voting is dead-on. It stinks to high heaven. Britain’s forthcoming poll on May 5 is starting to resemble Florida 2000. I hope the Tories have hired plenty of lawyers.

Guido has learned of a number of disturbing developments in the nation’s fire services, not least that the new “rank/roles”, coupled with the much vaunted “Integrated” Personal Development scheme, are discouraging qualified fire service officers from entering the fire safety and prevention specialist roles. This is because their “managers” have decreed that they will lose their place in the queue for the ever decreasing number of promotions open to uniformed personnel. So instead, this vital role, one where, with the so-called “risk based” approach to take account of, requires a degree of professional judgement and expert knowledge of fire, is being handed out to “under represented” minorities and “other discipline candidates” (a euphemism for “no fire knowledge or experience”). Apparently those now in charge of our decimated fire services, the so called managers, are of the opinion that “any monkey can do fire safety as long as he sticks to the guide”!

Now which “guide” would that be?

The “great hunting ban” has started off with a huge and pathetic whimper, not the politically successful bang that nu-labour had hoped for. Those “dyed-in-the-wool Labour” MP’s yelled ‘down with animal cruelty’ but admitted not so privately it was ALL about ‘getting the toffs’, and the public will have found out it was not just the toffs who had the courage to do what they’ve always done but also the many more who have also been an integral part of the Hunt and whose livelihood depends in great measure on that Hunt – and can hardly be classed as toffs!

In this case, class warfare hit the ‘class’ who are anything but toffs harder than anyone else.

Some of Maine tax law is full of shit. Quite literally in fact.

Here is an absolute cracker from Dave Barry’s 2005 calendar, which I keep on my desk at work. This entry for Feb. 4 has had me grinning like a lunatic for much of the day:

“When word got out about the extra projects in the war bill back in 2003, Senator John McCain, a big spoilsport about this kind of thing, raised a stink. He said that even if these projects were worthwhile, they had no business being in the war bill. Or, as he put it, “The sea lamprey does not, pose a clear and present danger to national security.” Various House members also criticised the senators for using a national emergency to avoid normal legislative scrutiny and make taxpayers pay for flagrant pork, although, to their credit, none of them pointed out that Flagrant Pork would be a good name for a rock band.”

Hey fellow G.o.D members, would it work?

Pure genius. You should read Barry’s blog every day to realise the amount of pure, unadulterated barminess there is in the world.

As you all know by now, Guido has his sources! This little gem of “clarity” arrived in his mailbox just begging to be published. Guido thinks it does not need any further statement on his part. [The ‘author’ of that item may possibly be a distant cousin.]

Welcome to Mr Blair’s wonderful new world of Cool Britannia! Out with the old, out with respect, destroy the Army, Navy, Airforce, the Police, the Ambulance, the Health Service, and the Fire Service. Pull down the Churches (unless it’s the one Mr Blair likes to be photographed in with his wife) and replace them with Mosques. Replace British law with the Sharia, let’s shop ‘til we drop on Sundays, but stop for the Muslim prayer calls five times a day.

Oh, and let’s let the yobs pull down the War Memorials and sell the bronze name plaques for scrap.

The destruction of the British Fire Service is gathering pace. Guido has learned that the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service has decided unilaterally to abolish Ranks (nasty elitist things suggesting Upper Class pretentions!) and adopt the ludicrous “Role” titles which now make “Officers” into “Managers”. There is a catch to this, of course. Anybody can be a Manager, no previous experience is required, you apparently can apply as long as you can produce a “portfolio” to show you are competent.

Before all you potential “Managers” start sharpening your quills and grinding the ingredients for the ink to fill in the application forms, you need to be aware that this initial step is for existing uniformed personnel only. The other catch is that two ranks are now combined into one role – so everyone who is an existing Station Officer and everyone who is an existing Sub Officer is now a Watch Manager. The Station Officers used to manage a Station and several Crews, but the Station Management role is now a civilian one so the Station Officers’ roles are to be downgraded. Given that there are now around three times as many post holders as there are posts, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority has come up with a magnificent wheeze.

All existing Station Officers, all existing Sub Officers, and any interested Leading Fire Fighters or Fire Fighters can apply for the post of Watch Manager. Every candidate will undergo an assessment of their qualifications, portfolio, and their attitudes – the flyer stresses that the Authority are seeking to appoint “people with the right attitudes to modernise and move the Service into the new model” – which means in effect that experience and real ability will not be high on the agenda. Ability to speak “New Speak” and toe the party line will.

On a more dangerous note, the self assessment form contains a question which is in clear breech of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act – it requires the candidate to answer the following: “Are you a member of any organisation not open to the public, which has secrecy about rules, membership, or conduct?” Clearly, by implication, a refusal to answer will result in the applicant automatically being denied consideration for the post.

Guido learned via the Gray Monk of a peculiar move in the Home Office. Not being one to take things entirely at face value, he has checked with some other sources embedded within the Halls of Shame called Queen Anne’s Gate – and it has been confirmed. The male toilets in that monument to folly have been emasculated. The urinals have indeed been enclosed and taken out of use. What strange line of reason or logic has given rise to this?

Not only has this been the case in QAG, but it is also carried over into the new office block – no doubt changed from what was originally installed at great expense – and the men’s “facilities”, as my informant delicately calls them, are urinal-less. The motives behind this are unclear to my informant; speculation is that it is considered demeening to some religious groups now being recruited to the staff to have to stand and relieve oneself “exposed” to the gaze of other men. The other, and perhaps more sinister reason suggested is that it is the first step towards a “unisex” approach. This has already been tried in several of the worst run NHS hospitals – with predictable results! The claims of harrassment, attempted interference, and other highly inappropriate behaviour are strenuously denied or simply swept under the nearest carpet. The victims are more or less accused of “provoking” their attackers. Notably, of course, the Civil Servants responsible for this disasterous policy are, when in need of medical care, safely ensconced in the nearest BUPA Hospital. Not for them the indignity of mixed sex wards or shared toilets. That is for the bourgoise, the despised taxpayers, and their collective families.

There is another strand to this. It is the declared intention of the now embedded feminist “equalities” officers in every Whitehall department – and my informant warns that this is a serious political agenda – to inflict, through recruiting targets and “filtering” of applicants, a balance of 50% female and ethnic minorities in the upper management and across all lower grades, to all white males. This has already been exposed in other forums, and Guido is aware that the London Fire Brigade (again, my embedded spies!) has targets for “feminization and ethnicity” which are so stringent that it will mean no white males being recruited for the next ten years. It may well be that this position will be reviewed in the light of the recent settlements in the Staffordshire Brigade – settlements made to avoid having this sham exposed in court – to silence two men who had taken the Brigade to a tribunal for unfair selection and discrimnatory promotion practice. The full story is revealed on this website ...... it makes very worrying reading.

All, it seems, is not as Mr Blair and his coterie of nasty, little-minded oiks would have us believe. The ban on fox hunting has absolutely nothing to do with the suffering of the fox as the various undercover members of the Labour Funny Bunny Wing would have us believe. It has everything to do with “Working man an’ ‘is whippet racing, beer suppin’ versus the nasty toffs” than anything else. No less a person than an aide to the Country Side Minister, has been unable to contain his pride at this great “victory” for the “masses” over the “minority” who have ruled this country and made it great to everyone’s benefit, but who, to quote the ignoramus aide, “have tried to keep people like him in their place.”

An argument, if ever I heard one, for a cull of the political classes! If this is the sort of mindset that is now in power, we have a duty to the world to remove it and erase it from the gene pool.

It would certainly seem to Guido that the problem for the last century or so is that the steady rise of the political class, that is, those who have never actually successfully done anything other than be Union Representatives, Town, Borough, County, and City Councillors, moving up to Members of the various Quangos and Assemblies before landing in the well-buttered pews of Westminster, is the single most damaging thing to the aspirations and advancement of the “masses”. I was once told by a political analyst whose intellect and ability far outshone those he observed that the sign of the true dictator was the one who used “masses”, “people”, “working classes” and “class” while pratling about “democracy”, “upliftment”, “job creation” and “freedom”. Beware, he said, the man who uses these terms in stating his intentions – he is a liar and a thief, come to steal liberty, oppress all who dare to disagree with him, and to destroy all opportunity except for those in his circle of confidants.

Doesn’t that sound remarkably like the system now in operation in this country?

Coupled with the steady rise of career politicians – and most of the Labour Benches are stuffed with men whose only connection with the working classes may be their origins, it is certainly not connected with their current status and/or incomes – is the increase in the numbers of Civil Servants, who, as I have remarked before, have become a dangerously unaccountable and powerful political force in their own right. This is not good for the supposed democratic process; indeed, it may well be the death of it.

The Fox hunting ban is merely the thin end of a very large wedge. Labour is famous for its use of greed and envy in promoting its communist agenda. What has been lost on these inner city coffee-swilling yobs is that the Hunt (and Guido is not a rider or a hunter) is now not the preserve of the wealthy alone. The local hunt has more “working men” and I really do mean men and women who worked damned hard for every penny, most at blue collar trades, than it has Landed Gentry. In fact, the local Master of the Hunt is a builder. You don’t get much more “Working Class” than that!

This obsession with Class has been fostered by the Labour oiks in their effort to promote themselves as the “party of the people”. Well, hopefully more of the electorate will start to see through the sham. This is not a “party of the people”, this is an old fashioned, 19th Century party of rebellion and Marxism. What they refuse to see is that communism, Leninism, and Marxism included, has failed everywhere it has been tried, and it fails always for the same reason – it benefits only the small ruling minority and places everyone else in chains.

The Medieval version of the Labour Party vision was the King and Nobles dictating how everyone else lived. The modern vision is the wonderboys of the Blair Cabinet and the Civil Servants dictating how everyone else lives. At least under the Medieval Kings I had the chance to find another Master. Under this shower of useless and parasitic shite I do not.

The truth is now out. Damn the fox – get the huntsman! Who will be next? The motorist? The householder? The Pensioner? The ordinary citizen who fails to vote Labour? If Gordon Brown has his way, it will be all those who earn a living – for depriving him of the opportunity to dictate how much they earn.

Time to eject them and show them exactly who is the ruler around here.

According to a recent newspaper report, our Illustrious Leader’s Deputy is a real disaster zone. Two Jags is a sufferer from a syndrome which is known as “Reverse Midas Syndrome”. Everything he touches turns to dross! So far, since this current shower of incompetents came to power, he has created one expensive disaster after another. Take transport – he “initiated” (aided and abetted by that other bunch of money wasters – the Civil Service!) several expensive programmes which would “reduce the number of cars in private use”. Yeah, right; a few years in, and at great expense, it has all been abandoned and very quietly reversed.

Then there’s his spell in charge of the Department of the Environment – responsible for Building Regulation – and his waivers of Planning Refusals, sprinkler protection, and so much more. And he’s still in charge of this function. His latest plans and approvals will almost wipe out the green belt land in the South East as he permits his chums to build all over it. Now he’s in charge of Local Government, The Regions, Health and Safety, Environment, and God alone knows what else – Prescott probably doesn’t – so we have his pudgy little fingers dabbling in Fire Service modernaistio, more nannying regulations on safety and standards for just about everything, and that greatest folly of all – The Regional Assemblies.

To quote; “The people have had their say – but we’re not going to dismantle the Assemblies. And the move to regionalise will continue.” In other words, bugger you damned voters – I’m going ahead with this, anyway! The man is also responsible for that fiasco called the Dome – and the ludicroius “multi-faith” celebration of Christ’s millenium! It stands empty and unusable still – at a cost to the taxpayers of 33 million a year! On top of the 700 million it cost initially – and which the government stole from the lottery “Good Causes” Funds. Good, isn’t it?

So how much longer is this cretin to be left playing with our future and our money? He has three homes, one his own, one a Union-provided house in London, a Flat in the former Admiralty buildings, and a Country House (Dorney Wood) provided by the taxpayers. He has two Jaguar cars of his own and the use of the Ministerial cars – and a pension from Parliament that will be almost as good as dear old Tone’s.

Not bad for a former Wine Steward on the Cunard Liners – albeit one who was so busy with Union business he scarcely had time for his job. But it is time to show him and his pals in the Cabinet the door. They have become too arrogant and far, far too used to throwing our money around as if it were theirs. It isn’t – and it’s time they went!

Parliamentary pensions have always been generous. They can afford to be – their pensions comes directly from the taxpayer whether we like it or not. Not for them the worries about investment returns, downturn in fund performance, or even length of service in the fund. Nope, the pension enjoyed by the average bit of lobby fodder is not only generous, it’s protected, and all you have to do to get it is be elected, serve a term in the House of Conivers, and then retire.

For the rest of us mortals, pensions are much more difficult. Since the raid by the Treasury on the income from investment into pension funds – taking almost 8 billion a year out of them – most pension funds are struggling to pay their pension commitments. This is not helped by the poor performance over a number of years of some investments and by the growing number of people forced to take “early retirement” due to poor performance of their companies – all now in the hands of bean counters and lawyers who barely know what the Comapny is called, never mind what it actually makes.

The Government’s response? Make everyone work until they are 70! The Boardroom response? Close the pension fund. Wipe it out and make any new employees take out private insurance cover. Then, of course, you solve another problem which frees up even more money to waste on more Whitehall Wankers doing nothing and even more money to take as expenses and unearned perks for the (dis)Honourable Members. Because you have private pension provision you no longer qualify for any State Benefit or aid as you become aged and infirm and need constant care. You’re rich! Pay for it yourself – can’t allow you to pass on the benefit of your hard earned money, property, or investments to your children, now can we?

The news this week that our Wonderful, Caring, Immortal and Infallible Leader, the Humungous Tony Blair PC, MP, and Barstool will be claiming a Parliamentary Pension – in the event of losing the next election – of almost 180,000 per annum (for the rest of his natural), makes Guido’s blood boil! The thought that this will be added to the money he has already relieved us of – lining his pocket very generously at our expense – and to the earnings – again at our expense through the Legal Aid scam – of his QC and Judge wife, makes it positively obscene.

And before anyone points out that Mrs Thatcher gets it as well on top of her husband’s (the ubiqitous Sir Denis) income – he at least made his money the way the rest of us have to – by working for it and not from Government (ie – taxpayers) contracts, either!

Is Guido the only person recently who has been forced to look at the pittance he will receive as a pension – the reward for a long career in a difficult and often dangerous career – and wondered why he has to contribute almost 40% of his salary to support this thievery while enjoying almost no return for it? Surely not!

Time to call a halt to this scam and make these parasites share our lack of rewards for hard work in the same pension and investment system as the rest of us! I think there will be a rapid retreat on the tax raid on funds – and possibly even a shortage of passengers looking for the gravy-train trough to get their snouts into.

On the other hand – the porcine aviators are on the taxiway – and cleared for take off!

The dangers of an entrenched government are seldom mentioned, but are insidious and malevolently increasing in exponential fashion, threatening the tattered remnants of what used to be our freedoms.

Even if you are happy with the bans that have been so thoughtlessly enacted to date, your turn may still come. Cherish your freedoms while you can. They may not last for ever.

As they say, RTWT; consider with great care before you vote the next time round.

To hypocrisy that is… He seems to believe its the state’s job to pry into every subject’s personal business. On the other hand when he is shagging a married woman he gets a bit miffed when the press tries to expose it. There are even reports he has banned the BBC from covering it.

His choice of mistress seems to explain the decline of a once great magazine.

“George W. Bush is known for liking bold, sometimes even risky, initiatives—ideas like sending a man to Mars, or revamping the US immigration system, or overthrowing the dictator of Iraq. But is the president really ready to take on the American tax system? A comment Tuesday at a town-hall meeting in Florida has reignited the long-simmering debate in conservative circles over whether Washington should rethink the way it levies taxes. When a supporter asked President Bush about scrapping the current tax code and replacing it with a national sales tax, he replied favorably: ‘I’m not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it’s the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.’ Since then, White House spokesmen have not ruled out the idea.” (08/12/04)

This bit of sanity comes via Rational Review. Let’s just hope that they keep on with it. Of course, they could do worse than my flat tax plan.

Two interesting news items have recently aroused my ire – the first, an item in yesterday’s Scotsman regarding the “trimming” of civil service posts (reported in the news as 70,000 jobs, a far cry from Mr Brown’s 120,000) and the fact that there are no proposals to axe any of the “spin doctors” this arrogant and incompetent government have recruited. To add insult to injury, it would appear that there are no plans to axe any of the expensive and incompetent Senior Civil Servants from their featherbedded and protected positions of control, either.

So, all the “cuts” are scheduled to happen at the lower end of the scale of salaries and perks where the savings will actually be pretty minimal. Add to that the fact that the Civil Service is still creating jobs at a phenomenal rate and you can see that the supposed “cuts” are no cuts at all, but rather a re-arrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic! The fighting troops are cut back and already have problems recruiting to fill natural “wastage” of servicemen and women leaving the forces, and yet the offices of the army of penpushers in MOD HQ in Whitehall is being refurbished for a sum equivalent to the cost of a new Type 45 Destroyer. Nor is this all, the army of penpushers in the MOD is increasing and now outnumbers the total strength of the Army and is 20% greater than the combined RAF and Royal Navy strength. So no “cuts” there then – unless you count the ones being made to the actual services themselves.

And then there is that second item…

This item in the Grauniad makes me think that maybe, just maybe, people are starting to sit up and take notice of the way things are running. It must be said that it may not be the end, it may not even be the beginning of the end, but it may just be the end of the beginning – to quote one W S Churchill.

It would seem from the comments to my last posting that some, at least, have misunderstood the thrust of my argument. This was not about any one party; it was about the general loss of democracy across the board. No party will ever fully represent the ideals and desires of the electorate; the trick has always been to identify which one offers something closest to the voters’ own vision of good governance. It is that which has now been lost. The myth of “Parliamentary Democracy” is just that, a myth. It is no more democratic than was, say, the Politburo in the USSR. On the surface it appears to be an elected group who represent their constituents, but in fact it is a permanent group of career parliamentarians and their equally permanent cronies in the civil service who determine the what, how, when, and by whom of all matters of governance.

But wait…..there’s more !!

Every day there is further proof that we are no longer a democratic society. But surely, you ask, we have elections; we have the opportunity to eject one set of politicians and elect others. We, the people, have power over Parliament, they represent our wishes. Do they? Or do they merely pay lipservice – and rely on the gullibility of the electorate to fall for their propaganda and “give-aways” each time the elections come round?

By definition a democratic society is one which enables the individuals in its electorate the freedom to rise or fall. It creates a system where the able are empowered to achieve, and in so doing, to assist those who need it. Ideally the State is small, and it provides a stable platform for all by ensuring the security of its citizens from external enemies, from criminals, and from excessive interference in their affairs. This is entirely the opposite of what we now live with. Taxation is rising, defence is being undermined, interference in the citizens private affairs is at an all time high and getting worse. Hectoring parliamentarians deign to pontificate on our morals, our ethics, our topics of conversation, and to interfere in our families, in our relations with others, and in our enjoyment of the fruits of our labours.

The model on which our Parliament is based traces its origins back a long way. It has evolved slowly over at least a millenium to its present form, but it was always the premise that it was there to provide stability, to ensure fairness, and to defend the realm. Once before it presumed to be the sole ruler – and the results are still with us. Under Cromwell, “that unruly house” was first reduced (by Cromwell himself) to a “rump”. and when even that proved to be too contentious and unruly – he abolished the remainder and ruled as an absolute dictator. As the “Lord Protector” he was certainly at least as bad as the King he murdered. Mr Blair, a great fan of Cromwell, is in the same mold. He would dearly love to reduce Parliament to a group of sycophantic poodles who will sigh, and smile, and agree with every word he says. And he has almost succeeded.

I am saying that we are no longer a democratic society. The Victorians “invented” the present “Party” system and it has now proved to be the monster many in Disreali and Gladstone’s times thought it would be. Elected “members” of the hallowed “Other Place” are supposed to represent the electorate of their constituency, yet they seldom, if ever, bother to consult anyone other than the Party Apparatchiks who run their “surgeries”. Most don’t even enjoy the support of more than a fraction of their constituencies’ electorates. So how do they decide how to vote on any given issue? By following the “Whip”, of course; like good little sheep they file through the lobbies to be counted on whichever side their Party Whip tells them to be. Very occassionally one sees a low life MP defy the Whip and vote against the Party Line and that should be a moment to rejoice. All too often, though, ideology is all that matters.

Monday saw the neo-Stalinist Labour Party at its most vindictive. Last Friday talks between employers and the Fire Brigades Union had reached a point where agreement was a matter of tidying up the language on the long running pay deal. Then the nasty, vindictive, and entirely petty wreckers on the employers’ side moved in – and now the agreement is in tatters.

I am not a member of the FBU and would normally say that my sympathies lie rather a long way from their normal political and rather anarchic agenda. Today I am right behind them, although I would probably vote against any strike purely because I have never seen my time in the Fire Service as a “job”, but as a “vocation”. And, yes, I have managed to climb the promotion tree and enjoyed a career in the process. That is perhaps why I am so disgusted by the employers’ side deliberately wrecking an agreement for purely political reasons, and it simply re-inforces the contempt in which I have held them for some time. These are not people with the interests of their communities at heart. These are not the actions of people of honour or of good faith; they have the typical attitudes of jackals and hyenas – incompetents who resent the professionalism of a service they haven’t the balls to be a part of, but want to reduce that, instead, to their own usual levels of mediocrity.

Let me make it clear that I have not arrived at this position lightly. Too many years of watching these cretins wrestle with budgets they do not understand, policies they create out of ideology which they know will cost millions, and are unworkable or destructively damaging, but couldn’t give a damn as long as their petty demands are met. In one Local Authority area the Chairman of the “Public Protection Committee” – in law the body responsible for providing you and me with both a fire service and a police service, moved into the Headquarters, set up an office suite between the two service heads, and insisted that the mail to the Chief Fire Officer and to the Chief Constable be opened by his secretary and copied to him. Not only was he not authorised to do this, but he was, as an out of work miner, utterly incompetent to take or make policy decisions on the matters these professionals deal with every day.

A colleague of Guido’s was hauled in before his Illustrious Leader Lady and warned that he is to be investigated for possible anything-ist attitudes and behaviour, whatever they are. His crime? Responding rather directly to a question from a friend about the ‘wit’ of someone in the friend’s brigade who had taken it upon himself to “modify” [read: nullify effectiveness – ed.] some protective equipment. This colleague is rather forthright – especially on the subject of half-baked and really idiotic ideas – and used irony (something he is very good at) to make his point.

Someone is obviously accessing, without authority, the e-mail system on the friend’s computer. We thought at first it might be their IT, but it isn’t. So…that narrows it down to someone on the station, or some clerical substitute for a fire fighter, who thinks it’s OK to read other people’s mail – the law says otherwise. The snooper, having found the e-mail and read it, admitting in an anonymous letter to the [ mistitled ] head of our organisation, that he/she [the snoop] had had to read the offending paragraph THREE times to understand it, then wrote to the head of our organisation suggesting that these remarks were made in seriousness, that said colleague had suggested that the person who had “modified” the equipment should be made to wear it at an incident involving certain chemicals (This is called Ironic Comment, folks) – and should be instantly dismissed for his “irresponsible and cavalier attitude!” Also, that the organisation should “review its recruitment policies to weed out such patently unsuitable people”. Oh, and he/she copied the letter to the Minister for Fire Services, pointing out that irresponsible remarks such as these “could be used to make political capital against the government” [again, anonymously-ed.].

Well, Guido has to say that he detests anonymous snoops. They deserve to be exposed as the nasty, mean minded, and filthy little oiks they are – then ostracised by all at the office; particular effort being made to ensure they know that you are taking steps to prevent them having access to your correspondence, files, or any other information. It is most unlikely to happen in this instance, however, and we are likely to lose one of the most dedicated and effective tutors we have. All because some oik has broken the law to spy on his/her colleague(s) and use the material for personal [politicial] gain.

What we have here is a misunderstood communication – having seen it, Guido can vouch for the fact that anyone who truly understood both the question and the response would instantly have seen the seriousness of the action which gave rise to it – and the irony in the answer. That makes him think that the anonymous snoop is most likely the moron who did the damage in the first place! And it also suggests that the idiot still does not comprehend the seriousness of his/her actions!

If Guido were the Chief Officer in this brigade he would now be instituting an investigation into the identity of the person who snooped. Why? Because they have broken the law and should be made to answer for it. They may have exposed a somewhat unwise exchange between two friends, but to do so they had to have accessed private data on a computer to which they did not have the right of access. The law in the UK provides some protection from our bosses snooping on our e-mail – it barely deters them because not many people know about it – but, it is still the right of the individual to enjoy private communication without prying. Recent court rulings have re-inforced this, here – the one exception being where the recipient or the sender is plotting a crime or transmitting material which is offensive or criminal in nature. Whoever it is should be exposed for another reason as well – they are patently a danger to the organisation, using a position which gives them access to information systems and files which may contain other sensitive information for the purposes of exposing it to interested groups or parties – why else make reference to its potential use “for political gain?”

This, probably more than anything else, exposes yet another lie in our wonderfully “modern” Britain. The new head is a woman, one who does not hesitate to use bullying tactics when it suits her and at the same time use the gender card to ensure that any man who falls foul of her ideas is labelled sexist. She tried it that morning. We will see what the Union has to say about this, but personally Guido hopes it exposes the entire sham

A free and fair society? Here? Try the other one – it has bells on it.

JFM’s friend, The Gray Monk, has worked himself [rightfully so] into a real lather over the latest transmogrification, in print, that is, of the polyfaced faade of one T. Blair. The blather put forth as the latest and greatest from NuLabour will surprise some, but not for long, for that spout of nonsense from that source will last about as long as a single ‘spotty shower’.

Oh, well, it would be nice if it were only for real, and the saddest thing will be that the Tories won’t realise, either, that those sentiments, put in place for real, are the only things that would ever give them a real chance, and the real people of the UK a chance at a decent life.

Thanks to idiotic paranoia of pagans those responsible for raping children have not been pursued. This is a disgrace and a travesty.