The Coffee House Wall – 8th/15th April

Posted on April 8, 2013

This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Conservative Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.

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298 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 8th/15th April”

  1. So, vegans, druids and other assorted nut jobs are by law to be accommodated in the work place. And they wonder why we are being overtaken by the Indians and Chinese, only a fool would set up shop in this country.

  2. It was raining this morning. “Good” I thought – makes a change – but no; it’s started snowing again. This is getting boring.

  5. Rant? You want to know what a rant is? Hear how Michael Savage talks his way for instance to: Anyone who is cultured in America today should be investigated by the FBI. Anyone without an STD should be injected with a mild dose of one, so that the others with venereal disease will not feel picked on by those racists who do not. Why is China a police state that Bloomberg, Woody Allen and Obama love so much? Because of the white man. The dumping of opium on the Chinese by the English brought out the meanness in the Chinese. Why are the successive US administrations like The Sopranos? Listen on, but first prepare a bottle of good Armagnac and a small glass, and settle in for an hour or two,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mTfoElZ0Ms

  6. A 17 year old as a police commissioner? Give me strength, why not go the whole hog and give the job to a foetus? at least one of those would be unlikely to be caught out effing and blinding on Twitter and would make as much sense. I fear there is no hope for this country, or for the rest of the Anglosphere which is being debased and debauched by a disloyal and catastrophically ignorant elite.

  7. stephen maybery

    “…a disloyal and catastrophically ignorant elite”

    Michael Savage would call them “a criminal gang”. Time to stop pulling our punches!

  8. Speccie reporting maiie thatcher has died.

    Brace yourselves for inappropriate stuff from the left.

  9. News just came through to this Asian capital that Lady Thatcher has died;
    A woman who loved and fought for her country.

  11. So now a lot of people in the north of England can have the party they have been waiting for. !!!!

  12. So now a lot of people in the north of England can have the party they have been waiting for. !!!!
    The south may have a different opinion.

  13. The reputation of Oxford University will forever be dirtied by its refusal to grant her an honorary degree.

  14. John Birch

    The death of Lady Thatcher is regretted and mourned no less in the North than the South.
    She was a great lady, one whose courage and fortitude are sadly missed by our nation today.

  16. What’s going on, this is a major event which is going to divide the nation.
    You will be on one side or the other, there is no middle ground.

  17. RIP Iron Lady. Shame about your treacherous, spineless successors who stabbed you in the back and have moved the Conservative Party to the left of the political spectrum, serving up our sovereignty on a plate with obsequious genuflection to the unelected, totalitarian bureaucracy comprising the motley conglomeration of peoples our nation had previous conquered or rescued, or both. History will be kind you, but will excoriate your successors, the traitors.

  20. Margaret Thatcher always remained true to her traditional Methodist roots…..and Methodists don’t believe in gambling;not even raffling a cake at the Church bazaar.The scource of our present discontents comes from the world-wide financial gambling (fueled by champaigne and cocaine–both of which Methodists disapprove of) that is a product of the ultra-montane `Thatcher-ism`promoted,especially,since 1997.

  21. Frank P – 14:11 A fiting tribute for one of the great figures of thte 20th Century – Winston Churchiill and Margaret Thatcher … and indeed, one of the great figures in British history. We were indeed fortunate to see two giants at the helm in the last century.

    The only way we can truly pay her honour, is to get the hell out of the EU Gestapo and leave the sleazy Europeans to themselves. Again.

    I turn to my letters in the mornings, before looking at the news, and my closest friend, an American, had sent me a heart-felt letter informing me of her death. It was only then that I turned to The Telegraph.

    RIP, valiant lady.

  22. Frank P, if you are really a determinist then Mrs Thatcher is not worthy of any praise and her successors are not liable to any condemnation because they are all, as I am, just a collection of atoms and energy, part of a universal mechanism that is simply playing out a predetermined course. Indeed you would be wrong to be irritated at this post because I cannot do anything but post it. Indeed there is no reason for your being irritated by anything since whatever happens is what will happen.

    That you consider Mrs Thatcher worthy of praise, as I do, shows that you are not in fact a determinist and do believe in free will.

  24. It must be remembered that Mrs Thatcher was very active in taking us into Europe and signed the Single European Act. She was gravely mistaken in this and caused great harm to us now. If she had not taken this course we would not have had to endure decades of Brussels bureacracy. And it is not clear that she was at all enthusiastic about sending the Falklands Taskforce. My understanding is that the Admirals set sail despite her lack of commitment and forced her hand since she was politically unable to recall it when it had sailed.

  25. The left are getting tied up a treat, at the top the mealy mouthed platitudes at the bottom glee.
    Going to be an interesting week or so.

  27. Michael Savage was banned from coming to England two years ago because of the extremism of his views…

  28. Well I always felt safer when Mrs T and Ronald Reagan were at the helm. They were probably the last of the grown ups.

    The bile has already begun from the “compassionate and caring” left. It must be embarrassing for their leaders who will have to conceal their true feelings to appear half decent. Still, they are very skilled when it comes to hypocrisy and two-faced deceit.

  29. PfM 8th, – 15:21

    Clearly we read different literature.
    I always understood it that the cabinet dragged her, kicking and scratching, to the table to sign the SEA. And it was the cabinet who attempted to rugby-tackle her when the Admirals, looking up from the backs of their fag-packets, confirmed it was feasible.

    For socialists, the unforgivable thing she did was prove they were wrong; that the high-falutin’ theories they generated among their dreaming spires weren’t worth a sh*t in the real world.

  30. John birch 13:14 and 13:16.

    “So now a lot of people in the north of England can have the party they have been waiting for. !!!!”

    Was it worth writing once; never mind twice, she was our greatest peace time Prime Minister and was loved and respected by millions here in the north.

    The fact that dyed in the wool Marxists, Socialists and other fellow travellers hated her is beside the point, they unfortunately will always be with us but today we have lost a remarkable lady.

  31. Peter from Maidstone
    April 7th, 2013 – 08:25 (and now April 8th, 2013 – 15:21 – you persist!).

    Even though it is no longer the ‘small wee hours’, I am compelled by all those predetermined events, which have transpired since your riposte to my ‘free will’ tease, to challenge your assertions; because you have constructed so many strawmen, that I fear the sparks from other fiery posters may inadvertently fall upon them and ignite the whole website if not indeed kick off another big bang – so forgive me as I douse the effigies with the cold water of rebuttal

    Stand by for a fisking:

    “If you are a determinist of the absolute sort you describe then you have no right to complain about anything.”

    Sez who? I not only have a right, the inexorable forces and precedents compel me to do so – when I do.

    “There cannot be any morals in such a view.”

    Nonsense. I live my life based on previous experience and have every right to judge ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actions and events according to my own perceptions of the effect of those actions and events upon others. I happen to be spontaneously a very moral man without reference to arbitrary rules laid down by others, though I accept that exemplary conduct of others may drive my own thoughts, feeling and actions. I also obey the law of the land, not through ‘God-given choice’, as you would suggest, but by the imperatives of reason and pragmatism. I simply can’t help it. Your ‘morals’ and mine could well be similar. I attribute mine to innate forces of reason, you defer to the scriptures. There’s the only difference.

    “Indeed there is no basis for feeling angry and miserable about anything. Your feeling angry is no more real than your discovery that people do good. None of it is real at all.”

    Oi! WTF do you think you are? You cannot deprive me of the right to ‘feel anger’ or ‘discover good’ simply because I feel that we are all driven by precedent. Previous experience provokes those feelings. I don’t ‘choose’ to feel such emotions. Nor do you, unless you are being disingenuous.

    “There can only be morality when there is a choice, and when there is an external authority. Otherwise morals in an atheistic world make no sense at all.”

    Bollocks! According to your mentors, maybe. But in my mind mutual self interest, whether personal, tribal, national or international provokes an automatic morality according to the zeitgeist; the contingencies and exigencies of existence. We are all shaped by myriad prior events. You were got at by a God Botherer. I wasn’t. I saw him coming. It wasn’t ‘choice’ that made me reject his message or the heavy breathing behind the message. It was instinct and self preservation that provoked my rejection. I enjoy the poetry of language and literature, but accept it for what it mostly is – metaphor, allegory or propaganda; sometimes a mixture of all three Out of it essential truths may emerge, but none of those truths have so far convinced me of anything beyond the ‘unknowable’. There is too much to cope with within the ‘knowable’; why waste time on the ‘unknowable’? And unless you come up with some hard evidence – back to the strasse, boyo – as my old tutors would insist. [“Where’s the evidence – and don’t gimme any of that ‘gut reaction’ crap. Dickie Du Cann may be defending the case!”]

    “There are as much fairy stories as the existence of God. Since all that can matter in a world run on Darwin is selfish self-preservation. But even that has no meaning in an absolutely determined world.

    I never mentioned Darwin. But as you do, he did some good research that is interesting to contemplate. Some of it flows through my veins – some passed through the alimentary canal. Had he not been constantly attacked by the God botherers in an age where much depended on the approval of the priesthood, he may have refined his research even more. He had a lot to cope with; the precedents which flowed into his benighted existence render his application and determination heroic in my book. But like the rest of us, he suffered from limitations and ignorance – two of the constants of human experience. But he made some inspired guesses which seem to have stood the tests of time.

    “I do not believe that you really believe that. Darwin has already been debunked by atheist and desist scientists. Determinism is rejected by the very fact that we get up in the morning and decide what pants to put on. “

    I sometimes spend the whole day in my dressing gown, if the latest buggeration of the seven blind bastards of fickle fate is too much to bear; it often is! 🙂

    “A person who really and absolutely believed he lived without any choices would kill himself or become utterly evil.”

    So now I’m a liar, as well as a Godless heathen? Rubbish! I feel compelled to survive for as long as I can; I have no choice in the matter and despite staring into Freddie Neitzsche’s abyss for most of my life, so far it has not sucked me in. I think I remember dipping my toe in the Styx a coupla times in the adventurous days my youth, but the reflexes of the old Deterministic instincts saved me.

    I have met many good people in my lifetime who did not need to comfort themselves with a god and who lived exemplary lives according to most of your Ten Commandments (and lets be honest – they were plagiarised from prior tributaries of time – with a few nasty vested interest clauses added).

    I have also met many good people who use the scriptures as a personal guide for good. But unfortunately many who seek to foist their God on others are on the make – for power, territory, money or sexual exploitation. I have nonetheless always accepted that the Judeo/Christian religion has been a prop for western civilisation and provided solace for those cannot face the prospect of mortality, or indeed need an explanation for just ‘being’. I see no point in fearing the former, pro-tem it’s inevitable; as for the latter – enjoy it best you can – but behave yourself. Whichever way it crumbles, remember – it already has, or you wouldn’t know about it.

    I am a determinist at heart, Peter, my insurance policy is with agnosticism.

    To complete this little frisking of your admonition, I would ask the indulgence of the regulars who have seen this before; it fits the bill. Particularly the Old Bill:

    THE LAST WORD.

    On completing his tract the philosopher purred,
    “This treatise will alter the way that God thinks.”
    God heard, but demurred; then averred “That’s absurd!
    In fact I believe your philosophy stinks.”

    The philosopher bristled, “But this is unique.
    The words travelled straight from my heart to my quill.”
    “You danced when I whistled.” said God in a pique.
    “Please learn to accept that your work is my will.”

    “If that is the case,” said the sly slippery sage,
    “For my ‘odorous conjecture’ you carry the blame
    If you prompted the words that appeared on my page.”
    God grinned. “Yerrss! I know. But that’s part of The Game”

    Btw Peter – Mrs Thatcher was a determined determinist – she couldn’t help it, but in many ways was a conduit for many things that proved good for this nation – in hindsight.

  32. I didn’t like many of her policies, such as selling off council houses, which were property of the State, but concede she was a great leader, the greatest Britain had since Churchill, and it has been downhill all the way ever since. The rot set in with John Major, culminating with Mad Gordon Brown and now that twerp Cameron. May she rest in peace, or if that’s not her idea of heaven, have vigorous debates in that Big House in the sky.

  33. I didn’t like many of her policies, such as selling off council houses, which were property of the State, but concede she was a great leader, the greatest Britain had since Churchill, and it has been downhill all the way ever since. The rot set in with John Major, culminating with Mad Gordon Brown and now that twerp Cameron. May she rest in peace, or if that’s not her idea of heaven, have vigorous debates in that Big House in the sky.

  34. Another woman in the news today, but a horse of a different colour. That evil woman involved in drugs, is to be executed in Bali. I hope the execution actually is carried out as it will send a chilling message to those who ruin lives without conscience. I wish Britain could be so independent in its dealings with criminals when the crime is so bad and the evidence so clear.

  35. Anne 16.47
    Anne a lot of people don’t realise that the labour party were selling council houses before mrs thatcher made it her policy.
    Before she came to power houses where I live we’re sold to raise money to build new ones .

  36. From the DT:

    “Labour chiefs warn: Do not gloat over Baroness Thatcher’s death”

    There can be only one reason why they should feel the need to issue such a warning.

  37. Frank P 8th, – 16:46

    In the light of such an elegant exposition I can only quote “Wayne’s World”…
    “We are unworthy.” 🙂

  39. Anne 16.47
    Anne lets hope her earthly problems are gone and she’s giving departed lefties a damn good ear bashing in the next world.

  40. I was always an admirer of Thatcher, especially over her dealings with that reptile Scargill, and am very sorry to learn of her death. The present “leadership” if it can be so called, are not fit to wipe her shoes. Oh how we could do with another Thatcher. May she RIP.

  41. John birch
    April 8th, 2013 – 17:15
    John it’s bad to sell council houses because the people who bought them, at subsidised cheap prices, speculated by selling them at high sums. They should have been made to repay the taxpayers. The stock of public housing was reduced and the money obtained through selling property could only buy a smaller quantity due to higher building costs, etc.
    John birch
    April 8th, 2013 – 17:34
    Bless her, she went out in style at the Ritz. When my time comes, I would be delighted to ascend (or heaven forbid, descend) from there. A great figure who gave Britain back her pride.

  42. Do you remember the spitting images scene where a waitress at the meal table asks mrs thatcher what she wants, she asks for steak and the waitress asks what about the vegetables.
    As the cabinet are looking at the menus she says they’ll have the same as I’m having.
    Cruel , cruel, but bloody funny.

  43. PfM and Frank P

    What the Wall has needed and now has is a fiesty exchange, a big bang, on the relative merits of Determinism and the existence of God.

    I look forward, from the relative comfort of the fence on which I sit on this issue, to the forehands, backhand returns, smashes and lobs of two masters of the game.

    Different in style as Connors and McEnroe, yet equally fascinating.

    And on a different matter, an obituary to a great fighter in the dirtiest game of all, from one of the good guys.

    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3193/the_left_hated_thatcher_because_she_thrashed_them

  44. John birch 17:28

    David 16.38
    “David I believe you but why is that not reflected in votes.”

    John I live in West Yorkshire and my MP is a conservative, as they are in many other electoral wards but labour does hold sway in all of the old working class and mining community’s wards.

    The answer to your question, is I think; that there are many more working class people in the north.

    The town council that I served on for fourteen years had for many years a mixture of political opinions in the fifteen seat council because all stood as local individuals but one year labour decided to field fifteen candidates and so the liberals and the conservatives followed suit, since that day all fifteen seats have been 100% held by conservatives.

  45. What on earth is going on at the Spectator Coffee House, all of the threads on Margaret Thatcher are being closed to new comments, some after only a small number have commented, one with only two comments.

    Madness.

  46. David Ossitt
    April 8th, 2013 – 19:40
    Hello David,

    I haven’t looked in the other place for ages. Sad, as it once gave me such pleasure. You are correct, just 2 comments and both by that ass, telemachus! There is another comment page on Mrs Thatcher, but I couldn’t be bothered to read more telemachus or whatevers!

  48. Don’t say we were not warned:

    “What would Thatcher do?

    It’s a particularly interesting question right now [16th Nov 2011] because we are currently seeing one of Thatcher’s fears becoming a reality: the emergence of a German-dominated Europe. Famously, both Thatcher and President François Mitterrand feared German reunification would create a Germany that would be too powerful. But Mitterrand thought the introduction of a single European currency could help control Germany; Thatcher, on the other hand, believed it would only increase German power in Europe. It is now starting to look as if history has proved Thatcher right in this respect.”
    http://ecfr.eu/blog/entry/what_would_thatcher_do

    Nearly a year and a half after this article was published, around two decades after the situation being described took place, and while it is being brought to us on TV, the radio and over the internet as I write this, IT IS HAPPENING, HERE, NOW!

    Remember, the Continentals WILL save the Euro!

    Even if it kills them, it will be worth it!

  49. AWK – Re Bali and the execution. It will be carried out. The Asians are steelier (more realistic) than the soft-headed left in the West. The woman broke a law that carried the death penalty. So be it.

  50. Verity
    April 8th, 2013 – 21:01
    Pity we cannot send Philpott and the terrorists living the high life in our gaols to Bali. It would be worth paying Bali to house them, since somehow I don’t think their life spans would be that long. 🙂

  51. Agreed, AWK. I lived in Indonesia and they do carry out the death sentence on people who are stupid enough to court it.

  52. A very nice eulogy for Baroness Thatcher from Alexander Boot; a moving tribute. Pop over and read it folks, you won’t be disappointed. A timely antidote to the poisonous Gerry Adams on Sky News, whittling on about ‘The Maldives’.

  54. Actually, comments seem to be closed on all Telegraph blogs. There must have been a high level of toxicity from the tender, loving socialists.

  55. RIP Maggie.

    A naughty friend suggested for her headstone “Here lies Margaret Thatcher, grocers daughter and the only person to have screwed more miners than Jimmy Savill”

  58. A glowing Thatcher tribute from Krauthammer & Co on Fox News Special Report tonight; unlike the mean spirited, disrespectful leftist carping from the UK msm.

  59. Noa … Yes, I have mentioned this link. That is the Nigel Farage most people have never seen. He is absolutely brilliant and incredibly quick-witted.

    What is more, I read that Labour voters are flocking to UKIP as well! Incredible! But Nigel has such a quick and clever sense of humour that people are drawn to him. Not only does he address their real concerns … he makes them laugh and feel good about themselves.

  61. Lady Thatcher, Maggie, defined my life. As a rebellious, slighly wayward, left leaning young male, she exploded into my life and gave it clarity and meaning. She explained the world in simple but profound terms. I listened and learned. She gave me reasons for my whys and what fors my sense of injustice. She gave me clarity, certainity & direction. Death is invietable, but even so, I am today devasted.
    Thank you Mrs T.

  62. Hi Verity- It’s not the same link as the one you mentioned in the Daily Telegraph, which lasts for about 5 minutes.
    Nigel speaks for about half an hour on a wide range of topics.

  65. I hope Mr Farage will attend the funeral of Baroness Thatcher; he could become her first viable replacement if his PR people play their cards right; cometh the hour, cometh the man.

    David Cameron tried to steal her thunder today, but failed to go off, like the damp squib he is. May 3rd could start the ball a’rolling big time for UKIP. EUROPE must become the issue in all future elections – local and national. Farage has the potential. I’m in! Not because of what the party is now in its formation, but because of its potential to change the face of politics across Europe. Farage is young enough and capable; no more bookie’s titfer though, Nigel.

    I remember in my early twenties when I decided I needed a trilby to make me look a bit older,

  66. I hope Mr Farage will attend the funeral of Baroness Thatcher; he could become her first viable replacement if his PR people play their cards right; cometh the hour, cometh the man.

    David Cameron tried to steal her thunder today, but failed to go off, like the damp squib he is. May 3rd could start the ball a’rolling big time for UKIP.

    EUROPE must become the issue in all future elections – local and national. Farage has the potential. I’m in!

    Not because of what the party is now in its formation, but because of its potential to change the face of politics across Europe. Farage is young enough but mature and capable; no more bookie’s titfer though, Nigel.

    He should have a word with The Dirty Digger, too, who is still a kingmaker, despite Leveson – maybe even because of Leveson.

  68. Frank P

    I agree. Mr Farage has the opportunity to show he has the qualities necessary in a statesman in his oration to Lady Thatcher.

    One of my UKIP colleagues was out canvassing tonight in the local elections. He advised that the houses that canvassed showed 12 UKIP, 12 not-UKIP, 4 ‘don’t know’. That’s about 45% for UKIP.
    I’m sure that’s an over-estimate as many people say anything to get back to Coronation Street etc but, even allowing for that, it probably suggests an underlying 25-35% – a solid base given that we haven’t started leafleting yet.

  71. Noa, I have been brought up not to argue with my elders, (and betters), but if Frank will not take my comments personally then I am certainly willing to argue with him on this matter.

    I take note of his initial position which is described in his own words…

    Either way, every moment is a gigantic accumulation of rivulets running into the watershed that is NOW, before the blinking of the eye that tranforms NOW into THEN. That nanosecond contains no choice, it is loaded with imperatives, either perceived or instinctive – maybe even both. Some say that there is no ‘now’ – that ‘now’ is just a memory of then. If that is so, how can there be choice? What price free will? What you will do is surely determined upon on what you or others have already done?

    I note particularly that Frank states that our experience of the present contains no choice. It is on the basis of this comment that I responded saying, and I’ll extend my views here, that there can be no morality, no love, no hate, no good or evil, nothing commendable. nothing even human in such a view. It is no good Frank saying that he makes his own mind up about morality etc. He manifestly cannot if he really believes that our lives contain no choice.

    Indeed if all of the universe is simply a vast mechanism of atoms and energy playing out a predetermined course, as Frank seems to describe, then there is no distinction at all between Mrs Thatcher and myself, my dog and my car. All that is becomes simply a vast atomic structure without differentation. Indeed there is no I which can be said to exist. I am just part of a single universal structure in which atoms and energy come together in a predetermined manner and then fall apart again in an equally predetermined manner. But this I which I mistakenly think has some subjective existence is no more real than any other collection of atoms and energy. All that exists is the universal mechanism working out its predetermined course.

    But it would seem that Frank does not really believe that because he goes on in later posts to talk about morals. There can of course be no morals where our existence contains no choice. If our existence contains no choice then we cannot say that Hitler was evil. Indeed our very mental processes are illusory because we act as though we were deliberating, that is developing an outcome based on evidence, whereas in fact, as determinism proposes our life contains no choice.

    It would seem that what Frank wants to assert is that the choices we make are dependent to some extent on other choices we and others have made. Now that is not determinism at all, and is not at all consistent with the idea that we have no choice at all. Indeed it is just stating the obvious. I am 2-3 stone overweight because choices I have made in the past. And these previous choices affect my present choices. But I am manifestly not bound by them. Perhaps I am not at that peak of physical fitness which is required of policemen. But if I determined now to overcome my lack of fitness and put effort into losing weight and becoming fit then I COULD become a policeman. Because of choices I have made in the past, and which others have made for me, I do not read latin. But I can choose to commit myself now to learning latin.

    Because of choices and experiences made in the past I tend to be rather shy and anxious around new people, but I have certain responsibilities which often require me to deal with new people and so I choose to overcome my natural diffidence for the sake of some greater end.

    Indeed our natural experience is that we constantly have choices, real choices, in the present moment. I could really decide to delete this comment, or I can decide to press Reply. The position of absolute determinism is not how we experience the world, since it does seem to us that we exist as genuine subjects, and that we do have real choice.

    No-one doubts that past experiences and choices can constrain present choices to some extent, but no-one would doubt by the very experience of their lives that we are not so constrained that we only have one choice at any time, and therefore do not have a choice at all. We cannot speak about morality of any sort unless there are choices. Hitler is evil only because he always had choices. If he could not make a choice because all was predetermined then he is a victim of atoms and energy working out the universal mechanism of the universe. But Frank does believe in morality therefore he does believe in choices. Frank does appear to believe in his own subjective existence, and that of Mrs Thatcher, therefore he cannot believe that all that is is simply a vast network of atoms and energy without meaning. If he did think that then he could not be said to think at all, since there can be no deliberation where all is predetermined, and we understand thinking as being entirely a matter of such deliberation. In a predetermined universe all consciousness is an illusion. We become no more than a small unit of a vast machine with no real subjectivity. We cannot say ‘I think therefore I am’ because we must deny that we think at all. All that happens is that the predetermined exchange of energies and the predetermined movements of atoms takes place without the consent or even knowledge of the illusory collection of atoms and energies which we call a person but which has no real existence.

    At this very moment I posit that Frank can choose to respond or choose not to respond. His reponse may well be coloured by his previous experiences and choices, but I do not believe that his response is predetermined so that he has not choice in what he says. If he has no choice then his response is meaningless because it is due only to the movement of atoms and energy stretching back to the big bang. If he has a choice and can say this or can say that, as I believe is our common human experience, then his present choices are real though coloured and constrained.

    If we have choices then we are moral agents, not entirely free of course, but I don’t think anyone suggests that, but free enough to be considered responsible and liable. Otherwise every complaint here on this site is meaningless, and worse than that, is entirely illusory and without any more meaning than the orbit of a comet or planetoid.

  72. Frank P April 9th, 01:42.

    I agree Frank; however I quite like the hat better that than going bare headed when the weather is freezing.

    Each time the US presidents are sworn in they stand there like price fools in subzero temperatures without a hat.

  75. Peter from Maidstone
    April 9th, 2013 – 12:16

    I would hope so Peter, because there will be people there not fit to lick the ground she walked on.

    For a start, I understand that the vile war criminal Blair will be there, as well as the one-eyed Scottish bigot – two twats who did their very best to destroy her legacy. No doubt, for political reasons, walking turds like von Rumpy, Baroso, Hollande and Herr Merkel will be invited but lets hope that moral black coward Obama, if invited, can’t make it in case he upsets the Argentinians.

    And I see no reason why the left should be the only ones allowed political malice, so let us all hope Hatton and Livingstone contract serious and painful illnesses (as total pricks, prostrate cancer might be apt) dying in agony, alone and ignored, left at the tender mercies of the NHS as they die screaming, lying in their own filth like so many that have suffered under the socialism they worship.

    As for Galloway, let us hope one of his little sheet heads spot him for the dhimmi he is and simply slit his throat.

    Mindful of the ongoing debate and as an avowed atheist, I might be converted if the wrathful God smote every shitty socialist that tries to set foot in London next Wednesday.

  76. Saw with disgust the coverage of Lady T on the breakfast news, the usual parade of Trotskyite shites, including that venomous bitch Anne Scargill, who could scarcely string together a grammatical sentence. Say what you will about lady T, she made this country great again. I have spent most of my life as an expat, I remember vividly the embarrassment when in the sixties, one had to confess ones nationality, people would laugh in ones face, and be told that Britain went down the pan years ago. After the Falklands war that all changed, once more we were respected.

  77. Clear memories 13.14
    I take great exception at you calling the one- eyed Scottish bigot a twat.
    At the very minimum it’s super deluded two faced hypocritical cowardly twat.
    And if it wasent for the lady’s on this site we could say what we really mean.

  78. John birch@April 9th, 2013 – 14:56

    i object to the use of the word ‘twat’.

    I have spent many happy moments close to twats.

    please can we use ‘odious idiot’ instead.

    ‘two faced hypocritical deluded odious idiot’ works for me.

  79. Peter

    Some of the most pleasurable memories of my childhood are of the autumn harvest, when I was allowed to assist with the chores arising from the ravaging progress of the combine harvester. To be part of honest toil of the sons of of the soil was part of progressing towards manhood – long before I became embroiled in the affairs of The State – important to all young chaps of yesteryear when the work ethic was inculcated with mothers’ milk.

    So the smell of straw from your last two posts was evocative of happier times. Thank you.

    As it is, all the points you raise in your latest post were covered in my response to your penultimate one, which you obviously failed to comprehend, so it would be pointless to reiterate them in circular argument. Anyway, in the unlikely event that anyone else who follows this blog is still following this exchange, I would not wish to bore them, or insult their intelligence with repetition.

    As for the implied criticism that I ‘take things personally’ when criticised – well, if you knew me personally, you would know that a smile always lurks in the back of my eye, even when I snarl. And because I am a determinist, I realise that your faith, along with my lack of it, predicates our respective obduracy – so it is pointless either of us being ‘offended’ by the other, because we are each driven by the impetus of the past which drives us inexorably into the future, regardless of what you perceive to be choice and I perceive to be inevitability. Incidentally determinism doesn’t preclude having likes and dislikes or expressing them. You arrogate unto your faith far too many exclusive privileges.

  80. Frank, you are too sensitive if you think that my expression of a desire not to offend you means that I expect you to be offended. It is just part of a polite discourse which includes wishing to argue a point but not be understood as attacking a person. And please don’t take that reference to polite discourse as a suggestion that you do not engage in such.

    I don’t see that any of my points were made of straw. On the contrary you have just repeated that you believe that everything is inevitable. If it is inevitable then there can be no likes or dislikes, just the predetermined outcomes of mechanical processes which, as I stated quite reasonably, mean that human existence and identity is completely illusory. This is only the necessary outcome of your repeated statements that everything is inevitable. If it is inevitable then you do not exist as a person, as an acting agent, any more than a planet following a necessary orbit is not a person or an acting agent.

    I have no idea why you mention faith? I deliberately did not. I don’t see that rejecting determinism is only the result of theism. It is the result of human experience. But you would say that I have to write exactly these words without any possible choice. Therefore how can you reasinably say that I arrogate anything to my faith? I cannot arrogate anything at all. I can only do what is inevitable, therefore in a real sense I do not exist at all, and nor do you.

  82. The UK’s first youth police and crime commissioner, Paris Brown, has resigned from her post.
    The 17-year-old, who was appointed last week, said she was “quitting in the interests of the young people of Kent”.
    Kent PCC Ann Barnes said it was “a very sad day”.
    Miss Brown was appointed to the £15,000-a-year post six days ago by Ms Barnes, who had said she would stand by her.
    A cheap little chav earning a salary a responsible man or woman would be happy to receive. The hard-faced, peroxide blonde Barnes who appointed her, should follow her protege’s example. What has happened to the once respected, tough British police force?

  83. Only 16% of the electorate voted in the Kent Police Commissioner elections in 2012. We weren’t given a choice as to whether or not we wanted one. But the turnout suggests that Ann Barnes, the lucky winner, has no popular mandate at all. In fact she won about 8% of the electorates votes after second preferences were taken into account. She certainly has experience as the Charwoman of the Kent Police Authority but she has about as little electoral authority as is possible. That being so, it is disingenuous for her to have stated that installing a teenage girl as a Youth Commissioner is a fulfillment of her electoral programme since she has no mandate to carry out any such programme. In fact 92% of the 1.28 million electorate in Kent chose not to support her.

    In fact I have posted on her PCC forum suggesting that the central issue is that the people of Kent did not and do not want an elected Police Commissioner.

  84. Peter from Maidstone
    April 9th, 2013 – 16:32
    Peter, I’ve been doing some simple research on this lady. Seems she put up £70,000 of her own inherited money towards her election campaign. Wonder what drives her?

  85. Anne, yes I said on her forum that I had no criticism of her particularly. She does seem a genuine independent. But she has no electoral mandate and the people of Kent have not asked for or been asked if they want an elected Police Commissioner. Manifestly we do not. She does seem to have splashed out her own money on her campaign.

    Interestingly enough she had campaigned against elected PCCs as a waste of money which suggests she has some good sense.

    A critic might say, perhaps unjustifiably, that with a salary of £85,000 she might hope to recoup those election campaign costs.

  86. Peter from Maidstone
    Appears that like all mortals she is a mix of good and bad. Perhaps she had an overdose of hubris, and invested her late father’s £70,000 in a glorified form of vanity publishing.

  87. AWK – 1600 hours – Superb. Agree with every word. Now the person who had the idea to appoint a police “youth commissioner” or whatever absurd term she had thought up, ahould be made to kneel down and put her head on the block. A fantasist is the last thing the police service needs.

  90. Kent Police Commissioner

    So if this Barnes woman bought her way into the job of politically correct police commissioner in the county of Kent, then we conservatives know what we must do to recoup the ground we have lost in the culture war – buy it.

  91. Verity
    April 9th, 2013 – 17:40
    Thanks, Verity, I appreciate your support. Last night the scum in Brixton, Bristol and Glasgow had a real Hate-Fest. To use your words FANTASISTS! Mrs Thatcher never deprived them of work nor hope, failure was engraved on their genes at birth. Drunken looters who believe the world owes them a living. I don’t envy the police at the forthcoming funeral. I just hope it’s not a damned if they do and damned if they don’t scenario.

  93. Re this young girl who was inexplicably appointed a “police commissioner”, a couple of questions:

    1. Does any other police force in Britain employee a teenage “commissioner”?

    2. Did the person who appointed her happen to have known her previously, and if so, in what capacity? And where was the job advertised? And how many hopefuls turn up to apply?

  94. Brixton is one of the areas where violent demonstrations took place in celebration of Mrs Thatcher’s death. I know Brixton well, I worked in the area, which has a very high percentage of black people, of Caribbean and African extraction. I found them as people everywhere, some fine people and others not very nice. However, the majority, and I worked with many, were vibrant, intelligent and very dedicated workers. Therefore I was interested to see that the film on TV News showed 99% white people. This makes me wonder whether they were marxists especially shipped in to cause havoc. Rather like the audiences shipped in on “QT”.

  95. Frank P – (8 April, 14:15) –

    The URL in your posting (linking to a site called “Before It’s News”) is certainly ‘interesting’ but isn’t “Before It’s News” a bit far out?

    Quite aside from it’s reporting that a North Korean satellite is on a course that carries it over the east of the USA & suggesting that it is carrying a nuclear device that will be detonated at an immense height and shut down all of the Eastern U.S. by means of an electronic pulse, there are all sorts of other appealing snippets – like a dinosaur skull having been discovered on Mars and Hopi predictions coming true. Another one is about a number of North Korean submarines having left their ports and headed off somewhere in the Pacific. And there is a report about some sort of secret transmission from North Korea being detected.

    Yet another report that your URL lead to was about some sort of huge American Radar type dome on a floating platform that was being towed somewhere. The report suggests that it is not just an advanced radar device, but is capable of transmitting impulses that can cause earthquakes at a distance. It includes a hint that it’s capabilities have some link to the ideas of Nikola Tesla. I’ve often been fascinated by Tesla’s inventions, but the idea of causing earthquakes at a distance by electronic means struck me as laughable.

    But…. what should I see in today’s news but a report that there has just been a considerable earthquake in Iran –

    http://news.sky.com/story/1075822/iran-earthquake-strikes-near-nuclear-plant

    The earthquake cannot of course been cause by any sort of American device. Even the Iranians cannot possibly believe it. They know it is implausible, because not long ago, one of their very own clerics declared that earthquakes are caused by the behaviour of immoral woman – right?

  96. anne wotana kaye.

    “This makes me wonder whether they were marxists especially shipped in to cause havoc. Rather like the audiences shipped in on “QT”.”

    I agree, tonight’s news showed demonstrations in Scotland a smallish group of students or young layabouts all worse for drink.

    Funnily enough I was told by a miner many years ago that in his community you dare not speak out against Arthur Scargill, he said that it was best to hide your true opinions, this was born out tonight when BBC Look-North television visited an old mining village where one of the women interviewed said that she bought her home under MT and this was a good thing but that one had not to mention this.

  97. David Ossitt
    April 9th, 2013 – 19:47
    David, the unions are the biggest enemy of the working man and woman. After six years in the army, my father took a job in a factory producing women’s coats. He was a master craftsman, but after six rough years, wanted to have a job with a decent wage and time to relax with his family and no headfaches. The Shop Steward from the Garment Maker’s Union tried to put pressure on my father to join the union and contribute to its funds. “After six years of fighting Hitler, I’m buggered if I’m now to support tinpot dictators”! father said, picked up his cards and walked out. After that, he returned to being his own boss, and despite all the hassle felt he was better off.

  98. Anne
    Your father was a brave man . It wasent easy to stand up to shop stewards in those days.

  100. Verity, there were 164 applicants for the role of Youth Commissioner, and these were processed and interviewed in the usual manner I would expect. If there is a Police Commissioner the this sort of development is entirely within the remit of the job. The issue is that in Kent at least there is no support for such a role. At least Ann Barnes is not party political and had chaired the Police Authority for 6 years and so had some experience.

  101. John birch
    April 9th, 2013 – 20:29
    It’s not easy today either. The NHS have a union that is the Stasi and the Gestapo all rolled into one.
    Verity
    In a way it’s sad, since when he was alive we spent all our time fighting.

  103. Cyprus, having been plundered, seems to have slipped out of the news. But maybe that bank shakedown hasn’t just hit Russian kleptocrats… here’s something I found on facebook:

    Dear all,
    We urgently and kindly request your help for Cyprus. We need food, medical supplies and clothing. Thousands of people in Cyprus are now suffering and need our support. Children are going to school hungry, mothers cannot feed their infants and our elders are suffering dearly.

    The “Love Cyprus Campaign UK” was organised to help our fellow Cypriots with the participation of a number of charity organisations and valuable individuals that have embraced our efforts to ship humanitarian aid to Cyprus.

    The food and household goods collected will be shipped to Cyprus FREE OF CHARGE by Cavenco Shipping Company. The provisions collected will be the sent to the Communal Distributions (Κοινωνικά Παντοπωλεία) in all the main towns of Cyprus.

    We will be collecting clothes, foodstuff and other products in various stations in London (please see attached document for the full list of products that we will be collecting and the location/collection times of the “stations”).

    This is an urgent call – the campaign has started from Monday 08/04/13 and will continue until Monday 29/04/13.

    Volunteers of Love Cyprus Campaign UK
    (The collections are here, if you were wondering):
    Britannia centre
    London, North Finchley,
    Britannia Road, N12 9RU
    Monday to Friday 11:00 – 18:00

    Snappy snaps
    18 Thayer Street
    London W1U 3JY
    Monday to Friday 8:30 – 18:00
    Saturday 10:00 – 17:30

    CYTA UK Ltd
    8-10 Ashfield Parade Southgate
    London N14 5AB
    Monday to Friday 9:00 – 17:00

    I’m not particularly promoting this – just a reminder that EU actions do effect ordinary people.

  104. Well, they should tell their government to get the hell out of the hell hole of the EU. So should the British … and I think they will come election time and Nigel’s UKIP gets a lot of seats in local government and also seats in Westminster. I’m going to guess they will get 30 seats.

  105. Ok, this is really p*ssing me off now…Why are so many people being allowed, without challenge, to lay the charge of being divisive at Lady Thatcher’s door?
    Surely the charge should be aimed at those who, despite having been proved in error, refused to admit their error and continued to fight her until…even now. They, if they weren’t reactionaries of the worst sort could, having been bested, have come to her and her government and said they were ready to work together and move forward. Instead, they have given their communities an awful reputation for recalcitrance, such that any companies, wanting to invest in new factories in the UK, take one look and say, “No-o, thanks very much but we’ll try elsewhere.” You only have to look at some of the largely empty enterprise parks in the North East sitting next to unemployment blackspots to start asking yourself what is so deeply unattractive about such places.

    Yes, Nissan moved into Washington, but nobody recalls the two years of tortuous, long drawn-out negotiations with Unions and the Council that were needed before the first sod could be cut. And guess who was sitting behind it all, supporting and encouraging them and keeping their eyes focussed on the goal? Yup…a Conservative government!

  106. Telegraph today.
    Sir jonathan miller, the theatre director, has said that he hated Lady Thatcher’s odious suburban gentility and sentimental , saccharine patriotism, catering to the worst elements of commuter idiocy.
    Sounds like a nice bloke. !!!

  107. Ostrich (occasionally)@April 10th, 2013 – 10:05

    They become more shrill as they lose the argument.

    look at the crap they issued about welfare. But the people have decided they are wrong.

  108. John birch
    April 10th, 2013 – 10:27

    Telegraph today.
    Sir jonathan miller, the theatre director, has said that he hated Lady Thatcher’s odious suburban gentility and sentimental , saccharine patriotism, catering to the worst elements of commuter idiocy.
    Sounds like a nice bloke. !!!
    ===================
    He was a wimp and as we called it sixty-odd years ago, a DRIP. I recall Miller at a youth club in St John’s Wood. He wore a bow tie that lit up, and even in those unsophisticated circles it was considered “not cool”. But his worst sin was allowing Mummy to call for him, to make sure he got home safely. There may have been an Oedipus element there, but I don’t know for sure, but there was certainly something very distasteful.

  109. I suspect few if any here read the daily mirror but if you happen to be in a pub which has newspapers just take a look.
    Just having a pint in celebration at good news at the hospital visit this morning.(nothing too serious )
    Not a single article of support for anything at all that Lady Thatcher did.
    No surprise, but always interesting to see the opposition attitude .

  110. Jonathan Miller’s sneering remarks (mentioned above) follow a shrill undercurrent of disdain among the English ‘intelligentsia’ for their own country that goes back decades (I think George Orwell said that England was the only country to be despised by its own intellectuals).
    Miller’s venom is pure snobbery. The lingering resentment of Lady T in devastated post industrial areas is at least based on something substantial, even it is misdirected.
    But Ken Livingston’s claim that all our problems today are the direct result of Lady T is absurd, and a poor reflection on all those in power since she left office – 22 years ago, twice the time she was in power.

  111. Jonathan Miller: a trained medical practitioner who deserted his profession in order to join the luvvies and culture warriors in their quest to enlighten us. I remember him once on Television gratuitously announcing “what does it matter what orifice men stick their willies into in pursuit of sexual satisfaction?”

    Had he stuck around the hospital wards a little longer he may have noticed the effects of AIDS and Hep C. But of course – I forgot, that was all down to dirty needles and heterosexual actiivity. Nothing to do with the disgusting, promiscuous habits of sodomites, a disproportionate number of whom populate the arts and theatre.

  112. Noa

    Anyone who watched Newsnight last night will have seen the segment (between 30 minutes and 40 minutes in), devoted to the ‘Newsnight Political Panel’, comprising Danny Finklestein (Cons), Miranda Green (LibDem) and Baroness Morgan (Lab) – gently steered into the BBC message by the patronising Paxo.

    They discussed (in the wake of Baroness Thatcher’s death) how politics in the UK is likely to proceed henceforth, particularly up to the next general election.

    Noa, I hope that you and your co-UKIP-ers noted how studiously everyone, including Paxo (of course) avoided making any mention of UKIP in their discussion. Not one whiff of oxygen provided. It cannot have been accidental. There simply must have been an agreement in the green room prior to the broadcast to airbrush UKIP out of existence. Some satisfaction in that? I would think so – they are obviously afraid – very afraid. Take heart Nigel; keep ’em on the back foot.

    For those that missed it:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rw1d1/Newsnight_09_04_2013/

  114. AWK 12:09 – I never knew Jonathan Miller, but that didn’t stop me from loathing the self-righteous, self-congratulatory prat. Of course he would hate Baroness Thatcher. He never emerged from adolescence. He’s still in the rebelling stage in his senior years. Thanks for letting us know that he is the nasty piece of work many of us discerned from his work.

    What has he done in these last few decades, by the way?

    Frank Sutton, I share your bemusement at the over-emotional “intelligentia” who, despite their lofty and spacious (I almost wrote “specious”) brains seem to be unable to grasp how people outside their precious little circle think. They all prop each other up, sniggering, like the very naughty boys they are.

    I am guessing here, but I think the genuninely talented John Cleese would not share by the egregious Jonathan Miller.

    John Birch, above, not really interesting “to see the opposition attitudes” as we have been familiar with these “atttudes” for decades. We know they didn’t like Margaret Thatcher … in some cases because they thought she was uppity and acting as though she was “above her station”. Those, my friends, are the real, genuine, sniggering, slime-laden. slithering snobs.

    Who would you rather have had as Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher or Jonathan Miller? Frank Sutton, above, notes, “Miller’s venom is pure snobbery”. Indeed it is, and what a bizarre motivation, when you think about it, snobbery is. Weak, weak, weak.

    Frank P … yes, I had forgotten Miller is a trained medical practitioner. Can you imagine going to him for professional advice expecting objectivity in his diagnosis? Yech!

    Thanks, Frank. I was a UKIPer before I left England and long before it was on everyone’s lips, even if those lips have been hammered into a sneering expression by their owners.

    Big, big surprises due in the next election. David Cameron will be gone… a one-term pretend prime minister who couldn’t make up his mind who to copy next (Blair or Thatcher, Blair or Thatcher, oh, God, don’t torture me like this!) … but I mean important changes.

  116. Frank P … that was an absolutely glorious clip! Thank you! I am still on my first cup of tea and it buoyed me up enormously! Also sent to various expat Brits littered around this heavily mainly Us and Canadian expat region.

  117. Verity
    April 10th, 2013 – 14:38
    Imagine if he has remained a doctor? To alter the Great Bard’s famous words – “That is the stuff that nightmares are made of” 🙁

  118. Verity/Noa.

    If I were one of the Tory MP dissenters I would be working away with like-minded cohorts to link up with UKIP, then break away from he Cameron-Clegg clique and appoint Farage as leader of a new Party. With what’s left of the right wing of the Tory Party and the UKIP it could be far more successful than the attempt of the ‘Gang of Four’ when they tried to change the face of UK politics in their breakaway from the Labour Party. The time is ripe.

  119. Frank P 10th, – 14:55

    They won’t. They haven’t the balls. They’ll triangulate and focus-group it to death, adding in the fear that, by introducing a new party between now and 2015 many of them might lose their comfortable seats and actually have to go out to work, so they’ll allow the status quo (good band, that!) to continue, in the hope that post 2015 there’s a short interregnum led by a castrated Milipede while they sort themselves out with a new leader. It’s deja vu all over again.

  120. Frank P@April 10th, 2013 – 14:55

    I suspect the tory right will keep their powder dry till the see the UKIP vote in the council elections next month, and the euro ones in 2014. if the UKIP still has momentum, expect the fun to start.

  121. Frank P — Oh, absolutely agreed!

    Ostrich (occasionally) — Yes, you are right. But that doesn’t mean that all Tory MPs are behind this damp rag. There will be many who see the sense in Frank’s idea.

    Apart from sensible and patriotic programmes, Nigel has one advantage that is hard to exaggerate … he is an immensely likable man. He is also immensely quick-witted, which makes him popular on the hustings.

  122. Frank P – 14:09
    It’s the calm before the storm.

    Frank P – 14:24
    Brilliant! Her legal mind wasn’t wasted.

  123. Frank P 10th, – 14:09

    What a wonderfully fatuous irrelevant and faux ‘discussion’! What a bunch of scared little boys and girls they (and their masters) are.

    You are so right. The fact that UKIP wasn’t so much mentioned while at various points the goons said that all 3 parties weren’t quite sure how they would approach 2015 and – to cap it all – the electorate didn’t know what they wanted, but, according to them and the Beeb, there is no other option extant was priceless.

    Very very encouraging – this geezer sez vote UKIP or any other party but the 3, or get out and spoil your vote. Whatever you do don’t acquiesce to those goons arrogance.

  124. http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/4/10/letter-to-the-times.html
    A letter in today’s Times:

    Sir, Lord Hunt of Chesterton says that the cold weather is consistent with our expectations of climate change, and that in the UK the trend is likely to be towards colder winters (Apr 2).

    This is a surprising claim. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its last report that the lowest winter temperatures are likely to increase in Northern Europe and that the duration of the snow season is very likely to shorten in all of Europe, and snow depth is likely to decrease, at least in most of Europe. Sir John Houghton, Lord Hunt’s predecessor at the Met Office, has declared that we will get less snow, “in line with what we expect from global warming”.

    If we are to expect more cold and less cold and more snow and less snow, one is left wondering what kind of weather is “not consistent” with man-made climate change.

  125. I am not convinced that there is any substantial group of Conservative dissenters. Of course it is useful to the party to have the appearance of a dissenting group because this meets the needs of one consituency of likely Conservative voters to feel they are represented. But if they were really patriots they would already be actually working to subvert the left-wing majority of Conservative MPs. There would be constant briefing against Cameron, some would have lost the whip, others would be supporting UKIP in the local elections etc etc. None of this is happening.

    They will wring their hands, they will go on about politics as the art of the possible, and they will continue to do what they think is necessary to keep hold of their large salaries and career structure.

  126. Robert C:

    Any kind of weather is consistent with climate change. And of course, we must not forget that weather and climate are not the same thing. It’s quite possible for the climate to get warmer while the weather gets colder.
    And vice versa.
    How?
    It just is, that’s all!

  127. Here is another CAGW article, or rather examples of how the truth does not get into the public domain:
    http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/met-offices-private-briefing-document-for-the-environment-agency/

    Following the wet summer in the UK last year, the Met Office provided the Environment Agency with a briefing document, giving an overview of the weather. This was discussed at the September Board Meeting of the Environment Agency, which Met Office officials attended.

    As far as I know, this document, which I obtained through FOI, has never entered the public domain. It is brutally honest in admitting how little the Met’s scientists understand about what affects our climate, and, in particular, what caused the unusual weather last year. This is in stark contrast to many of the hyped up claims, made in public statements in the recent past by, among others, the Met Office themselves.

    The full document is reproduced below [in the article], but there are four particular areas I wish to focus on.

    In each of four cases the author of the article shows how the information in the unpublished Met Office document is not being allowed into the public domain:
    1) Drought
    DEFRA and Environment Minister, Lord Henley appear at odds with the facts. The problem of drought in the UK is not getting worse and the 2010/12 drought was not exceptional.

    2) Jet Stream Changes
    Research is ongoing and no firm evidence has been forthcoming, yet it hasn’t stopped Julia Slingo, the Met Office Chief Scientist, telling the Telegraph that there is a trend towards more extreme rainfall events and that it seen around the world, in countries such as India and China, and now potentially here in the UK.
    It hasn’t stopped the head of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, informing us “We are experiencing a new kind of rain and that instead of rain sweeping in a curtain across the country, we are getting convective rain, which sits in one place and just dumps itself in a deluge over a long period of time.
    Or DEFRA warning us that “The climate is changing. This means we are likely to experience more flooding”.

    3) Very dry weather to very wet weather and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)
    The shift from very dry weather to very wet weather in 2012 is still under study, though there is a suggestion that it could be linked to disturbed weather patterns over the Indian Ocean and tropical Pacific caused by a strong MJO – a large scale tropical phenomenon – in March. Understanding the initiation of an MJO event is, however, largely unpredictable, and remains one of the great unsolved challenges of tropical meteorology.
    It is a pity that their public statements do not admit that they do not understand is.

    4) Decline of Arctic Ice
    There have been many attempts recently to blame just about every bit of bad weather on declining Arctic sea ice, including Julia Slingo to a Parliamentary Committee last year, yet the Met Office Hadley Centre, working with climate research centres around the world, states it is making strides in determining how the odds of extreme weather happening have been influenced by climate change and that it is very difficult to do this type of analysis with such highly variable rainfall events, so it may take many years before we could confirm how the odds of this summer’s wet weather happening have been altered by greenhouse gases.

    In Summary (from the article):
    The Met openly admit that neither they, nor climate science in general, have any real understanding about the basic processes that affect our climate.

    It is surely time that they, DEFRA and others admitted this in public, instead of continually repeating the same old speculations that every bit of bad weather is linked to global warming.

  128. The four numbered paragraphs have more detail in the article which is by Paul Homewood, dated April 8th, 2013, and is entitled:
    Met Office’s Private Briefing Document For The Environment Agency

  129. Let’s concentrate on changing the political climate, perhaps when someone with sufficient maturity reaches No. 10 the AGW scams can be reversed and a few major perpetrators of the fraud can be banged up. Problem is the three ‘main parties’ 🙂 are all up to their waists in the villainy. So there’s another string to the bow of Farage, if he plays the right tune.

  130. Frank P — Yes, the prioriity is getting a leader into office, not another sleazy little political opportunist which all but Farage are.

    I am absolutely baffled that anyone voted for Dave Camoron. Utterly baffled that it wasn’t immediately apparent to them exactly what he is … a cheap, greedy, fairly dim, political opportunist. All you had to do was have one shufty at his weak, greedy, vacuous little face.

  131. Interesting comment from Nick Robinson on the noos just now: “…not just the ‘Heir to Blair’ as he allegedly once said…in private.”

    Why’s he suddenly being so circumlocutory? I’d have thought, knowing it’s become a millstone around Cameron’s neck, he’d be rolling it towards the water, rather than loosening the rope.

  132. I wonder why David Cameron ever thought that the soubriquet “heir to Blair” would play to Tory voters. It sounds more like a threat.

  133. I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about determinism. It seems to me that Frank P is entirely right. If the materialist worldview is correct, and there is nothing but the matter and energy of the universe, then everything must take place inevitably as the outworking of the initial state of the universe and the action of various laws of nature. One philosophy professor writes that he cannot be blamed for the quality of his lectures since they are entirely inevitable and created without choice, and he adds that properly speaking he cannot even be said to exist, since independent free agents are not possible in a materialistic and deterministic universe in any sense that we would seem to recognise.

    Another philosopher points out very reasonably that we cannot expect the determinism of the universe to cease at the edge of our skulls. And reasonably, if we understand that a meteor hurtling towards earth from some distant galaxy has actually been working out an inevitable path from the very beginning of the universe, so we must accept that the motion of atoms, and the changes of energy states in our brains are also entirely and inevitably the consequence of motions set into place at the beginning of the universe and are no more a matter of any choice at all than then motion of the meteor.

    With such a view it has been interesting to see how determinist philosophers try hard, and entirely fail, to make any space for morality, or indeed for love and hate, which are simply chemical states in the brain and have no meaning beyond the local motion of atoms and energies. Those who are most honest admit that everything we perceive can only be an illusion since WE do not exist as agents. Far from being the subject of experiences we are in the loosest sense, since we cannot exist, merely the object of atomic processes which have been played out inevitably since the beginning of the universe. Determinist philosophers admit that there can be no such thing as knowledge, nor the evolution of ideas, since the motion of atoms and the changing flux of energy is not intelligent and not knowledge driven, in some manner we (whatever that can mean in such a world) appear to have knowledge. But none of it is real.

    It does seem to me that our very human experience rejects this reasonable, rational and necessary determinism which a materialism requires. Determinism requires us to recognise that we are not distinct persons, nor do we inhabit a world of discrete objects, but we are (in the loosest sense) a slightly dense accumulation of various atoms and energies in a vast universal mist or soup of atoms and energies of varying densities. In the required worldview of deterministic materialism I am not a person sitting in my living room watching Eggheads. Rather I am localised in one tiny area of the universal soup. A few feet from me there is a source of changing energy levels and particles of energy are pouring out towards me. These impact on the area of the soup I have the illusion represents me, and they cause a variety of energy changes especially in the area of atomic soup I imagine is my brain. Due to some energy discharges an area of atomic soup I think of as my arm raises and causes a movement in the area of soup which I imagine is the atmosphere around me. Atoms at the boundary of what I imagine is my body are constantly separating themselves while energy and other atomic particles are constantly being absorbed. There is no clear distinction when viewed as a single atomic and energy mechanism between what I imagine is me and every other aspect of the universe. This is what determinism requires of us if we are only atoms and energy moved by the beginning of the universe in an inevitable manner without choice.

    There can be no reason at all for imagining that the human mind is exempt from the same processes which cause the motion of a meteor.

    Now I can’t help thinking that philosophers tend to ask the wrong questions, with the wrong premises and are constantly being proved deficient. Aristotle assumed that circles were perfect and that everything orbited around the earth. It took a thousand years for his false metaphysical premises to be challenged by what astronomers observed and experienced. In fact the orbits of the planets are elliptical and the earth, together with the other planets, orbits around the sun.

    Since everything we experience teaches us that we do have choice, and can make moral decisions, and can change our futures, then it seems to be manifestly clear that we do not believe in materialistic determinism at all. But if there is only the universe of matter set in motion by an initial condiition and working inevitably to an end state, then we have to accept it, and with it the utterly illusory nature of our existence. If material determinism is true then we are like a movie screen on which the representation of a life is being played out – but it is not life itself and does not represent the existence of real persons and agents.

    Therefore it would seem to me that whether or not we want to introduce theism, and there is no immediate need to do so, it does seem necessary to consider that materialism is deficient, as not representing at all our existence. Frank P, for instance, is still posting about politics, but if he really believed in materialistic determinism then he would accept that there is no value in his posts, or mine, or anything we think we are doing. We are not doing anything – it is just happening without meaning.

    What is required, to make sense of our human experience, is that in some manner our human identity is not coterminous with our brain, as a physical organ entirely subject to the outworking of the universal mechanism set into motion at the big bang. Until recently almost all human beings believed that human identity was seperate to but united with the physical nature of human existence. It is a particular form of modern philosophy which has proposed that only that which is material exists. This has an attraction to those who wish, for a variety of reasons, to deny the possibility of any non-material aspect to the universe and existence, but it creates the problems which this issue of determism raises.

    i. Nothing we do can be considered to have any meaning in a materialistic universe.
    ii. Everything, including the illusion of self and thought, is a matter of atoms and energy moving in an inevitable manner.
    iii. There can be no identity, morality, thought, choice, love or hate in a materialistic universe.

    But even those who don’t wish to adopt even a theistic worldview shrink from accepting these necessary aspects of determinism. We all recognise that there is an I which does choose and deliberate and exists and has relationships with other Is. Now there are a variety of ways of dealing with this reality.

    i. A material determinist can act as if he did not believe in material determinism while promoting it as a philosophy, especially in anti-theistic argument. This is rather a schizophrenic way of acting. Indeed it would be expected that a true material determinist would withdraw from all discourse as being essentially illusory.

    ii. A material determinist can consider this position to say something important about the nature of much existence, but wish to definitely consider that there is some other, perhaps unknown, aspect of reality which modifies a materalistic view and therefore allows for an acting agent.

    iii. A person may reject a simple materialism and with it the determinism which such a view requires, and believe positively that there is a material element to human existence which definitely allows for a non-material but real agency and therefore a real human personhood that is localised in the human body but not entirely coterminous with it. This does not necessarily require a theistic approach but it does require a commitment to a non-material aspect of reality which introduces a modifying and independent element to the deterministic model.

    I do find it difficult to perceive any meaning at all in the worldview required by materialistic determinism. In such a view Hitler is the same as Mother Theresa. Both are simply collections of atoms and energies in the vast and unitary mechanism of the universe working itself out inevitably from a starting condition. I can understand that there are those who will adopt a materialistic view but live as if they did not believe it. This is problematic and not very reasonable nor rational. It is just the same as believing in God because it is comforting. It is a fairy story. If you believe only in the outworking of the big bang as a material inevitablity then it seems we must accept that our life is utterly without meaning or value and all feelings and thoughts are illusory.

    But I don’t accept that as a reasonable premise, even without introducing theism. And I haven’t mentioned the fact that many modern atheistic scientists consider it impossible that the complexity of even the smallest aspects of life could have arisen as the outcome of the mechanical processes initiated at the big bang. We all live our lives with a clear belief that there is something more to our life than simply the mechanical and inevitable working out of a process in which we play no part as a subject at all.

    So, adopting a non-theistic viewpoint for a moment, it would be more reasonable, since it reflects ALL human experience where materialistic determinism requires the utter repudiation of all human experience as illusion, to posit that there is an as yet unstudied dimension to the universe in which matter and physical energy do not exist at all. But in which there is the means of a real, though unexplained at present, personal energy to be localised and united in some manner with the localised human body in the dimension of atoms and physical energy.

    This is not a fairy tale and I have not even mentioned theism. But it certainly, it seems to me, represents a much more reasonable and rational hypothesis than materialism and materialistic determinism, which it seems to me have nothing at all in common with our human experience. Materialism seems to me to be like Aristotle’s influence on astronomy. It is entirely based on a particular philosophical premise which is intended to support a particular, in this case anti-theistic, agenda. It is not scientific at all because it explains nothing and in fact requires that the very scientific process is bogus, an illusion, the mere movement of atoms and energies and nothing to do with thought and investigation at all.

    The idea of a dimension of identity seems to me to be eminently reasonable. The personal identity is then able to be an external and independent agent working on and in the human being to which it is united. It could even be considered that all living things had some identity of various sorts in the dimension of identity and acted upon the material form with which they were united. Such a view provides, without further argument, the possibilty of a non-theistic world (which naturally I reject for other reasons) but which also overcomes the absolutely objectionable aspects of materialism and material determinism, which is that it does not represent our experience and sense of values and morality at all.

  134. P from M … I am going to read this later on, this evening. It looks interesting enough to read slowly and thoughtfully.

  135. Thanks Verity, I have been lying awake all night the last few nights thinking about this. BTW I seem to possibly have caught a form of pneumonia on my recent trip to the Middle East and am on antibiotics, and I seem to have given whatever horrible chest infection I have caught to my wife. So pleasant thoughts sent in our direction would be appreciated.

  136. Positive thoughts coming the way of you and Mrs P from M! , P from M!!

    Where were you in the ME?

    I will write again when I have had a thorough read of your post.

  138. Peter 19.48.

    I have never had a visit to the middle east without becoming ill.
    Even when only eating in a radison blue hotel in Alexander .
    But in all the visits I made to china, north south east and west I never had any problems at all.

  139. John Birch – I’ve beeb to the ME three times. Mind you, I was in that haven of civilisation, Jordan.

  140. I washed my hands, was OCD with antiseptic hand gel, and visiting during Lent was able to avoid anything but bread and beans. I half think it was the coming back to winter conditions in the UK which messed me up.

  141. I might just add that my visits to china were well off the tourist trail. I went to where my work was, and I had street food and small cafe meals that were far from our idea of clean.

  142. Peter from Maidstone
    April 10th, 2013 – 19:48
    May you and your wife have a speedy recovery,

  143. John Birch, I meant to say above, indeed the point of the post, was, I’d been in the ME three times and had never been sick! That was the point of the post and I forgot to put it in!

  145. Away from the serious aspect of this site, I was in china down near the Vietnam border one evening , walking down the food street when I spotted oysters being cooked over coals.
    The shells were loaded with crushed garlic and smelt delicious . I had 6 and thought I’ll pay for this tomorrow , had them , went back for 6 more , had them and a few beers . Went to bed and next day felt great.
    (to my surprise )
    I think it’s the high heat that kills any problems.

  146. Verity, I should have been more specific about where I always got ill. It. Was Egypt every time , not allways in other middle east countries .

  147. Malfleur April 9th 03:48

    It is sometimes difficult to keep believing when faced with a barrage of counter information but my resolve was strengthened by this article, thank you.

    Frank P has posted forcefully on this topic too. This has always smelled, to me, like a cover-up and I cannot believe that BHO was not complicit in this appalling loss of American life.

  148. PfM

    Sorry to hear about the ailments afflicting you and Mrs PfM, vicious little critters these viruses.

    Re- your determinist article, I am afraid I always struggle with this type of philosophical argument and hence am unable to contribute. I fear I don’t have the focus or mental capacity!

  149. PfromM – I am afraid I have to agree with Redneck, above. However, may I bring one thing onto the floor, a cat will decide, on a sunny lazy day, whether to go after a mouse or a bird that it sees. It bases its decision on how comfortable it is in the sun, how hungry (or not) he is, and whether he feels like hunting for the pleasure of stalking something. I believe the decision to hunt or have another 40 winks in the sun is dependent on how comfortable it is. Nothing more.

    To carry forward your argument, you would have to believe that every single animal that hunts, decides at any particular moment whether to hunt or not. You would also have to believe that when you get a mosquito bite, it was fate. Does fate really concern itself with mosquito bites as well as the movement of the planets?

    I tend to believe in the randomness of events, which accounts for the terrible unfairness of people who are dealt a short hand and for ne’er-do-wells who win the lottery. I think there is a stronger argument to be made for randomness.

  152. BTW – Frank has not “explained” any such thing. Humans have been arguing about, or discussing, these possibilities since the beginning of time, or even earlier.

  153. Unfortunately I think you do Frank a disservice. If there is only matter and energy then he is right and science provides no other possibility than that everything is already fixed. Nothing to do with karma. Everything to do with the laws of nature.

  154. Karma is the law of nature.

    And I wouldn’t dare do Frank a disservice! He is far too clever!

  155. Peter from Maidstone April 10th, 2013 – 19:29 “Determinism in a materialist worldview”

    If you say that, in a materialist worldview, there is nothing in the universe other than matter and energy, you should continue with a logical conclusion: a human being is only matter and energy. So where is the spirit, the soul and the mind? Where is the beauty, where is the intelligence, where is the anger? Where is the questioning? 🙂 Where is the humour? ::)

    Please do not treat scientists as guaranteed sources of wisdom about the human condition, especially Physicists, as I have been one in the past, and the burden is too great. What we can do is reassure people how little we know about the physical world and, in our defence, we can offer some understanding and a never ending supply of questions.

    We understand that matter is made up of atoms, which are made up of elementary particles such as electrons, protons and neutrons, neutrinos and photons. What is often forgotten, even by Physicists from time to time, is that these particles are only detected by the effect that they have on their surroundings. While we create models to help us understand what they are, and how they behave, they are only our ideas of what we might be studying. However, from this we can build up a picture so that each particle can be considered as made of other, smaller entities: a sort of a mathematical puzzle.
    Unfortunately, that is where where now! Everything can be explained, not very well, as a set of mathematical puzzles. When gravity and quantum mechanics in included, it becomes even more complicated!

    So I think that starting with a materialistic world, in trying to understand determinism, will only end in a conclusion that excludes anything to do with our humanness.

    In a sneeky way, having a God that has created us in his image does get around this problem. We can then take responsibility for our own actions and the actions of those for whom we are responsible, such as our children.

  156. Just to confuse you even further Peter, here are some thoughts that passed through my head in the small wee hours some time ago after some happen-stance or other had driven me into a a fit of introspection. I managed to pen them into tangible form before they disappeared into the mists of time (as most of my musing did before I was sucked into the blogosphere by a mixture of fate and Melanie Phillips).

    Stuck with Id.

    As the years slowly pass, does my inner-self alter?
    Does my Id start to skid as my faculties falter?
    Or is “I” a constant: a personal number
    That I cannot change? Can I not disencumber

    Myself from my self … be a different entity
    From the one that’s inside me: that innate propensity
    To do this or that because, well, that is me?
    Or can I just change and then set myself free

    To go on a journey to different places
    Where “I” become “You”, among friendlier faces?
    Or am I just stuck with my face and my fate?
    Can I make myself better? Or was that too late

    From the day I was born, or even before,
    When the Mover & Shaker, the Ultimate Law,
    Arranged the components that formulate me
    And decided that I’m not a dog , nor a tree?

    If I were you Peter, I wouldn’t delve too deeply into the whys and wherefores of fate; stick to your faith, or you’ll finish up as barmy as me. But I was forgetting, of course; in your Universe you have a choice to do as you please, so perhaps you will … or perhaps you won’t.

    But then … that will depend upon all the thoughts, feelings and actions of yourself – and those with whom you have interacted, preceding that point of departure. Then you will ‘decide’ and thereby become God.

    Oft have I plumbed the chasms of my sacred soul
    To seek the source of Wisdom’s line;
    To feel the shape, detect the spasms, of Nature’s whole:
    The abstruse secrets of old tight-lipped Time.

  157. Btw I noticed that the horsefaced Paxo was at it again on Newsnight last evening. I suspect someone drew his attention to my post at 14:09 yesterday about the airbrushing of UKIP from the Newsnight ‘Political Panel’ on Tuesdsay.

    So last night they discussed UKIP alright! He and the old harridan Margaret Hodge suggested that it comprises mainly refugees from the BNP.

    I suggest Noa that you watch it if you haven’t already. It will be on BBC iplayer tomorrow. You’ll be amused – and perhaps Nigel would like to address it with an appropriate You Tube response. Malfleur would enjoy it also, as Tommy Atkins clips were included. Paxo managed to corral them all into the ‘far right’ sheep pen. He was getting his own back, perhaps, for the occasion when he was made to look a right J. Arthur by Mr Harris during a previous Newsnight debacle – sorry, debate.

  158. I wonder whether Paxo and Allegra Stratton emanate from the same stallion or the same dam? There is an uncanny resemblance. Suitably saddled I’m sure both could negotiate the Aintree fences without clipping ’em.

  159. The vibes have just instructed me to hit the sack – you’ll be pleased to read.
    Nighty-night!

  160. The whole religion issue is nothing to do with science or arguing that science can or can’t disprove God. It is all down to faith. Does one have faith (not ‘believe’) that there is a God. And there is a huge difference between God and religion. All religions are man-made constructs, based upon faith.

    Each construct believes it is the true religion – based upon faith in the myths upon which it is based. Some are more viable than others but none possesses truth, only faith.

    By and large, I am happy, as an atheist, to align myself with and live in accordance with the majority of the moral constructs of the Judao-Christian religions where they of themselves align with personal freedom and self-determination, which is the prevailing current position of much of the democratic areas of the planet. However, I would be much happier if the majority of religions were formally constrained and some subject to lawful prohibition.

    As ever, Dawkins gets it clearer.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=iBV3eqvQPJs

    You might also watch his masterful demolition of the Noah myth.

  161. Clear Memories. You don’t appear to have read anything I wrote since religion did not enter it at all.

    The fact you think Dawkins can achieve anything of intellectual weight is disappointing. Indeed you seem to repeat his own much repeated but always deceitful position that faith in God is of a different and bogus character compared to faith in science. In fact trust (which is what faith is) is only ever properly built on evidence just as all human experience is aware. Dawkins is incredibly stupid.

  162. When next Wednesday is over and Thatcher is finally laid to rest, the reporting of the BBC on her death needs to be fully considered. The endless parade of toadying lefties and their steady dripping of bile has been obscene. The appearance of terrorist Gerry Adams, who’s organisation failed in their attempt to murder her but killed and maimed some of her colleagues and friends, was particularly loathsome. This must be done soon and certainly before the death of the Queen if serious damage to society and civil unrest is not to be the long-term result.

    If Cameron wants to be remembered, he could do no worse than go down as the man who scrapped the licence fee. There need be little warning and no need for any major discussion, simply place a bill before the house removing the need for a licence to receive transmissions and allow a free vote. Thereafter, cancel all state funding and force the BBC to defend their position. As they have now demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that they do not support the elected government nor the wishes of the majority of the population of the UK, force them to seek support in the market place by requiring a subscription to watch their output.

    The licence is a tax that hits the poorest most as it is not means tested. Given the choice, most people won’t pay and the metro-centric soft-left will soon find their mouthpiece, along with their anti-government heroes, singing a very different tune when faced with the real world of consumer choice.

  163. Verity@April 10th, 2013 – 22:31

    Umm

    Then there is the theory that every event is a reaction to something that has gone before. The cats decision to hunt will be affected by when it last hunted, and the size of its catch.
    This then gets extreme with the idea that a hurricane is started by a ripple caused by a freak yachting accident on the other side of the planet.

    I think we should not confuse randomness with our inability to predict things.

    Just a thought.

  164. Alexsandr, if materialism is true then EVERYTHING that happens, including the illusion of our existence and thinking is ONLY the motion of atoms and energies set on an inevitable course by the Big Bang. There is no such thing as randomness in materialism. All that happens must take place, including every thought. We have no choice at all if materialism is true.

  165. Peter from Maidstone@April 11th, 2013 – 09:31

    I assume you think that is uncomfortable?

    I am OK with that. I find it a better hypothesis than that a deity created everything. I spose that is where we have to agree to disagree.

  166. If it is true Alexsandr, then you really do not exist. Nor does love. Nor does thought. In my much considered post I never mentioned theism. But no-one appears to have bothered reading it.

    You are not OK with anything because you cannot exist as an acting agent in a materialistic world. You are only the pre-determined movement of atoms and energy set in place by the big bang. There is no YOU to feel OK. That is a fact if materialism is true. My response did not mention God.

  167. Peter from Maidstone@April 11th, 2013 – 09:55

    my head is exploding. I’ll stick to computer programs. They are predictable!

  168. Then I don’t see how you can casually assert God does not exist if you will not accept the necessary consequences of the materialism you do accept?

    I don’t mean to appear to be argumentative but if only matter and energy exist on inevitable trajectories from the big bang then nothing has any meaning. It cannot have. It is just the predetermined motion of matter and energy.

    If anyone really believed that then how could they live – knowing that their existence was illusory and without meaning?

    Ignoring the consequences of the view you adopt is not reasonable for any of us and would appear to be nothing more than the belief in fairies which Dawkins deceitfully derides.

  170. Alexsandr – 10:30 ‘I’ll stick to computer programs. They are predictable!’
    Ha ha ha ha ha!

  171. PoM – sorry, I disagree. Faith and Trust are similar, but not the same and science does not need faith nor trust – it is based upon fact, upon truth and is demonstrable. The basis of any scientific theorum is that it is demonstrable and repeatable.

    One can believe in God, put your trust in God but you cannot prove there is a God. It is faith.

    Nor do I assert God does not exist, just that He cannot be proven to exist. And until He is proven, then his existence must be a matter of faith.

    And I choose not to live my life dependent upon an unproven fact.

  172. Clear Memories, the idea that science does not require faith is dismissed entirely by scientists (of which Dawkin’s is not an example). Of course science requires faith, it requires the constant exercise of faith. The very foundations of mathematics, for instance, are recognised by scientists as requiring a complete exercise of faith. The basis of the scientific method requires a constant exercise of faith.

    You cannot even prove that the universe exists without the exercise of faith. And the very presumption of materialism actually requires that you accept that you do not exist at all but that everything that exists is merely a predetermined outworking of atomic movements caused by the big bang.

    You need to read some serious scientists and dump Dawkins if you think that science does not always require faith. If you would like me to provide references to serious atheistic scientists who are well aware that science requires faith then I can do so. But Dawkins is not a scientist.

    How can science proceed without faith that an experiment repeated under the same circumstances will produce the same results? How can science process unless there is faith that the one performing science is truly an acting and free observer?

    And of course God can be proven. Who has deceived you into thinking that he cannot be? The idea that my faith in God is not based on reason and evidence merely shows you don’t know what you are talking about. Indeed the rapid development of modern science is increasingly leading atheist scientists to become theists (not Christians) because materialism fails to represent what science observes. A true scientist modifies his thesis based on evidence. A scientist who hangs on to materialism just to avoid belief in God is not a scientist.

    If you want to see faith in action in science then look at Climate Change. Every aspect of climate change science is a matter of faith. But all study o fthe origins of the universe is based on faith as well. It cannot be examined to subject to experiment. The same for the origins of life. All are entirely a matter of faith since none of them are demonstrable and repeatable.

    You really need to read some serious, even atheistic, scientists. Dawkins continues to live in the heady days of the late 19th century. Science has moved on and realises that it knows very little and what it does know does not explain the important questions at all.

    You show me where it is proved by repeatable experiment that the universe had no intelligent cause? Indeed you show me how science has proved that something can come into existence from nothing at all? It hasn’t. And so your views are a matter of faith, in your terms.

    Two books I’d recommend you start with. One by a Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Cambridge, and the other by a much more thoughtful and insightful atheist than Dawkins will ever be, are:

    God’s Undertaker
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365682414&sr=8-1&keywords=god%27s+undertaker+has+science+buried+god

    There is a God
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304/ref=pd_sim_b_5

  174. ‘There is no way from us to God not even via negativa not even a via dialectica nor paradoxa. The god who stood at the end of some human way, even of this way, would not be God. ‘

    – Karl Barth

  176. “…Mrs Thatcher’s greatness lay in refusal in duck the battles she knew were necessary. She marched towards the sound of gunfire instead of cowering from it. And in the process, she rebuilt the greatness of our country.”

    Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express.

  177. In re-building a strong and independent United Kingdom, which has the greater role to play; a belief in the existence of a God, or in any or all of mans’ philosophies?

  178. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307367/Margaret-Thatcher-death-party-teacher-Romany-Blythe-unrepentant-revealed-NHS-breast-implants.html

    This moron teacher, filled with venom and silicone (her breasts are fake), claims “They danced in the streets when Hitler died, too.”

    I think this moron is wrong. I don’t believe the Germans did dance in the streets when word got out that Hitler was dead. Does anyone know, so we can writte in and correct her?

  179. The discussion going on about Determinism, and about the nature of the universe and of whether God has anything to do with it & even whether He exists, reminds me of a church where I attended a wedding many years ago. I’ve forgotten what sect it was.

    In very large letters in the wall facing the congregation was this statement –

    “GOD IS ALL THERE IS”.

    (I think that meant that the entire universe everything else that exists is a part of God.)

    Does anybody have any comments on that idea?

  180. I am concerned that if people do not have a philosophy then all they are expecting of the UK is some immediate gratification of essentially selfish desires – not necessarily animal. If people don’t know what they believe then how can there be any confidence in what they want to achieve and why. When people say ‘There is only matter and energy!’ and then refuse to face the consequences of that belief, then it is difficult to believe they will face the philosophical effort required in any other less important sphere of life.

    We are then left with – I don’t like foreigners. I want to spend all my money on myself. I like watching TV. None of which are really philosophically based.

    I am not sure the issue is immediately theistic. But a consistent and positive philosophy is surely required. There are many scientists who have become theists in recent decades but that doesn’t mean they believe in a personal God. Just that an external intelligence is required to explain science.

    If people don’t have a philosophy that they are committed to and which they are willing to make an effort to consider then they are surely not much different to all our politicians and all of life becomes a matter of appearance.

  182. Noa (17:03)

    You’re right; trouble is she underestimated the treachery of her footsoldiers while she was ‘marching towards the gunfire’ and they shot her in the back. That’s what comes from having a Bayswater brothel owner in your cabinet!

    Leo McKinstry is a good writer; pity he works for the rag owned by the shitty, short-arsed porn pedlar.

  183. Taken baldly it is pantheism and is not Christianity. The universe is NOT God. But it depends entirely on God. And many scientists believe that a universe without God does not represent the evidence they are finding in science. Many of them are not Christians at all.

    Again, I have not introduced God. I have asked that the necessary facts about materialism be faced. If matter is all there is then there can be no meaning in anything at all.

  184. P from M – Yes, I think you’re right. She said, “They” danced danced in the streets when Hitler died.

    Anyway, she’s a nasty piece of work, and all the silicone she has had pumped in seems to have made its way to her “brain”.

  185. Peter (17:33)
    No, Peter, she is equating the assumed joy of some Germans at the death of a dictator, with the joy of some Brits at what they consider to be the death of another ‘fascist’.

    She is of course talking twaddle. The Germans were defeated, bedraggled and utterly fucked after the Allies had done with ’em. There was no dancing – except to dodge the shrapnel, the bullets and the bayonets. Perhaps she is talking about the women who were forced to dance naked before the Russki squaddies, before they raped them. I met a few of those in Austria, seven years later.

  186. Frank P, no, I think you are wrong. What evidence do you have to suggest you are right? The view I posted is the one that suits the evidence best. Germans did not dance when Hitler died. British people did.

  187. Peter from Maidstone – 17:38
    The scientific process involves continually moving around the circle of investigation, which includes: propose a theory, design and carry out an experiment to test that theory, ponder over the results, draw some conclusions and then amend the theory based on those conclusions or, if the results were truly amazing :), create a brand new theory! Throughout the process, there should be open discussion and frank (note lower case) exchanges to ensure that as much progress can be made as possible.

    (The open discussion and frank exchanges were easier when science was conducted by gentlemen (and a few exceptional ladies) and sponsored by those with money and an interest in enlarging Man’s knowledge base and not trying to increase their political power or size of government grant.)

    One important point to note is that, as the scientific process repeats each stage, the participants usually get better at what they do, their observations sharper, their thinking more challenging. So, for those who continue, and repeat the process several times, they will begin to have a deeper understand what they are studying.

    Returning to the immediate question, by assuming that everything in the universe is either mass or energy, it ensures that man’s humanness is eliminated from any following discussion, no matter how many times the circle of investigation is conducted.

  188. I see that Question Time this evening is a Thatcher special. Inevitably, one of the guests is Polly Toynbee. We should, perhaps, follow the priesthoods’ advice to Irish brides and brace ourselves.

  189. RobertC, I am well aware that the ordinary materialist view (which is Frank’s and many other casual atheists) entirely removes every aspect of our humanity.

    This is one reason I believe that it manifestly fails to suit the evidence however much some people will say it is scientific. Scientists do not stick to a theory when it doesn’t suit the evidence, which reveals that many scientists are not very scientific and are actually committed to atheism for various reasons rather than following the evidence where it leads.

    I am not a materialist. My lengthy comment explained one way in which it might be possible to retain atheism (though I do not believe that is possible on other grounds) while also holding to a material universe.

    My own view is that there is more to our humanity than simple matter and energy and this is why we are able to be acting agents. I am trying to ask those who insist on a purely material existence to face up to the inhuman consequences. It does not seem many are willing to do so. Even Frank does not, since he would not speak of Mrs Thatcher being stabbed or shot in the back if he really believed that all human activities were entirely illusory. The fact that Frank posts is surely evidence that he does not really believe what he says – that his life has no meaning, value or purpose, even real existence, at all.

  191. When Hitler dies, Eamon de Valera signed the book of condolence in Dublin’s German embassy. Not sure if he danced as well.

  192. Science rest foursquare upon truth and demonstrable, repeatable facts.

    And you could use no more inappropriate example to support your arguments than the myth of Climate Change. It is not based on science; there is no demonstrable truth to it; there are no facts. AGW is akin to a religion where its adherents, with no demonstrable basis, insist it is so because they say it is so. They rely upon computer models and then, when the real world contradicts their careful constructs, they change the programme!

    And no-one has deceived me into thinking God does not exist. Your faith in God (and I respect your right to an honest opinion) cannot be based upon evidence, for none exists. As far as I know, there has been no demonstrable and repeatable evidence for the existence of a God – any God! Pointing to something in the physical world that we do not yet understand or cannot explain is not, I contend, evidence of a God. It merely highlights the limit of our knowledge at this time.

    As for the study of the origins of the Universe being based on faith, I disagree. And I disagree, because I don’t know. As far as I know, there is not yet a proven, demonstrable theory on the origin of the Universe – which means, to me, that all theories are equally valid until proven otherwise be they based upon Genesis, The Big Bang or the Giant Serpent.

  193. Clear Memories (00:55)

    Yes, your concise and limpid summary is accurate and I don’t disagree with it at all in essence. Forgive me, though, if I quibble just a tad over the terminology: I would have thought that your willingness to admit that you don’t know, as indeed none of us will ever know, the origins of the universe (if ‘uni’-verse it be, or what preceded it/them (if indeed anything did) would probably label you, as I label myself for easy reference, an agnostic, rather than an atheist – the latter being a term that has now become an ‘ism’ and, in some cases, an unpleasantly adversarial one .

    I accept that evidence of the existence of Peter’s God outside his own head (or the heads of like believers) or any other God for that matter, is absent. Those that do believe, obviously do so as a result of acquired faith, either inculcated through religious education (brainwashing), or through a sense of the ‘spiritual’which we all feel when we are confronted by the beauty of the natural processes, including the exposition of ideas from the mind of men and the deeds of gifted individual (the eye of the beholder a qualifier, no doubt). Superstition is also a big component. And fear of death.

    I can understand that you reject the likelihood of there being a God in the generally understood definition of that term, particularly one that , allegedly and patronisingly, awards a miniscule section of His Creation ‘free will’, as some sort of experiment, then stands by while the priesthoods of all ‘religious’ denominations use his improbable existence to cow the superstitious or otherwise gullible members of humanity into not exercising that free will at all, but adhere to their differing creeds under pain of eternal damnation if the refuse.

    I reject that alleged phenomenon, too; but my curiosity continues thereafter. Because I don’t know what the First Cause was, or even whether there was a first cause, I am prepared to keep an open mind and continue to look for evidence of something tangible and describable. Thus I comfort myself as an agnostic, rather than an atheist. I simply don’t know.

    I also understand why you would consider most religions inimical to humanity; the history of all (well – perhaps almost all) religions as bloody and oppressive. Like you I do not need a vengeful or even loving God to make me behave pro bono publico; in general I’ve tried to do it all my life and with some success in the eyes of (some) others. Not all, I might add. When I have failed to do so, either through sins of commission or omission I have oft been rueful and tried to make amends whenever and wherever I could.

    As for my ‘determinist’ stance: I have no idea what Peter is going on about. He seems to have not heard of such a notion before – and skidded off to swat up on ‘noted philosophers’ and ‘noted atheists’ and ‘determinist professors’, plagiarised their bullshit, and then attributed their words to me and drawn inference from them which are complete gobbledegook, not to mention disingenuous at best and downright falsehoods at worst.

    He then blandly accuses me of unfeeling theism and amorality, simply because I don’t believe in his perception of the Great Scheme of Things; even going as far as suggesting I don’t exist at all because I happen to think that all things, including human thought and actions are part of a chain reaction and that the perception of ‘free will’ is merely a part of that process, as is everything else that we all believe – sometimes in the absence of any proof whatsoever.

    I do not follow a creed invented or practised by other ‘determinsts’; it is something I rationalised from experience – merely a word that I use, like agnostic, as shorthand.

    I never joined any ‘ism’ in my life; I’m not even on the square, which is a novelty for an ex-copper. 🙂

    I do not insist that my hunch about the switchback we’re all riding is right. And I’m not seeking disciples or converts – just tossing in a thought for discussion and trying to be cogent in my explanation of my own mystification about life in general.

    As I implied in other posts, Peter’s strawmen in his responses to my rather lighthearted polemic, would feed all the bulls that produced all the bullshit that he just spent the last three days reading, including my own semi-insane efforts to make sense of life. If I had thought my meanderings would cause him three sleepless nights, I would have desisted. I thought his own faith could stand a few questions and that he could stand a nudge and a wink. The torrent of scorn that he attributed to my whimsical posts is disappointing, I must say.
    What a fucking verballer! I met some masters of the art in my time, but he takes the cake.

    Btw, gimme the skinny on this “Giant Serpent’. That sounds interesting. 🙂

    Save it until tomorrow though, I’ve just had a bellyful of Question Time and This Week and my mind is reeling with cause and effect – not to mention more than my daily quota of bullshit – and I’m off to bed.

    As a last word before I pray to the great God of Determination to instruct the seven blind bastards of fickle fate to whizz a coupla good scenarios in my direction – for a change; I ought to reiterate, CM, that I have always accepted, like you, that Judeo-Christian religion did contribute much good to the civilisation that we grew up in. But it did so because, like everything else, it was already written in the stars. It too had no choice. I’ll deal with Islam on another occasion, for that is a camel of a different colour.

  194. Errata:

    in para 1: close brackets after: (if ‘uni’-verse it be

    in para 7:

    for “He then blandly accuses me of unfeeling theism and amorality”
    read: “He then blandly accuses me of unfeeling atheism and amorality”.

    Apologies.

  195. Hold on to your trousers, or they’ll steal them as well:

    “…Cyprus has agreed to sell gold reserves to raise around €400m. (Photo: Alamy)

    First they purloin the savings and bank deposits in Laiki and the Bank of Cyprus, including the working funds of the University of Cyprus, and thousands of small firms hanging on by their fingertips.

    Then they seize three quarters of the country’s gold reserves, making it ever harder for Cyprus to extricate itself from EMU at a later date.

    The people of Cyprus first learned about this from a Reuters leak of the working documents for the Eurogroup meeting on Friday.

    It is tucked away in clause 29. “Sale of excess gold reserves: The Cypriot authorities have committed to sell the excess amount of gold reserves owned by the Republic. This is estimated to generate one-off revenues to the state of €400m via an extraordinary payout of central bank profits.”

    This seemed to catch the central bank by surprise. Officials said they knew nothing about it. So who in fact made this decision?…”

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100023990/emu-plot-curdles-as-creditors-seize-cyprus-gold-reserves/

  196. Frank. That post of yours is about the most complete load of boll&%s I have ever read. And it makes me despair of anything being achieved in our present circumstances because it is such manifest cobblers. When it comes down to it you don’t like being crossed on anything and get pretty nasty.

    So you’ve opened your mouth and poured out all the crap you can think of to try and offend or upset (me?). Really? Is that the extent of the thought you thnk should be applied to questions of rather great importance? On that basis why should I be confident you have thought about anything?

    The idea that the only evidence I could possibly have for the existence of a God is in my head is so manifestly false that it can only be considered a deliberate lie. And even in your own post you go on to assert that they might be space in your own world view for a theistic origin to the universe.

    Don’t blame other people for the consequences of your own position and your own posts. It is YOU who said that we have no choice and that everything we do is inevitable. This is indeed the necessary result of materialism. If bare materialism is true then RobertC is correct. We have never loved, never thought, never acted, never been human at all and all of this is an illusion. You are doomed to post utter crap about theists because you can’t help doing so. To love someone is not an inevitable chemical chain reaction caused by the big bang. It is to choose to give oneself to a person. But you do not believe we have ever chosen, therefore you have never loved and can never love. That’s difficult, but that is the consequence of your belief. A belief that is entirely unprovable and untestable, but which you believe with faith.

    I proposed a couple of books to you which presented modern scientific evidence by modern scientists for the existence of God, you didn’t want to read them. I guess that you have no choice about that either and your refusal was inevitable.

  197. Frank – I would only take issue with one point, I do not accept I am an agnostic, as I do not believe there is a God or Gods.

    Just because I don’t know how we are here does not automatically create the position that it includes a God in the formation. I rather go along with your line re free will. Certainly, no religion has produced any evidence I would accept that their God exists. Further, most religions, by their actions or beliefs, would put me off accepting any God they believe in.

    My daughter is a medical Doctor and has no truck with any religion and those that take the ‘trust in God’ line get very short shrift from her.

    As she says, she sees so much suffering that she refuses to accept any good deity could be involved. Those that claim their God created everything are asked to justify the germs, bacteria and viruses that she has to spend her life dealing with. Those hiding behind the defence of “God moves in mysterious ways” get a few very short words, usually ending in off, when she is treating those suffering from cancer, especially when in children and especially when it is a virulent form.

    As hers is a rural practice, she sees some shocking things. She spent a recent weekend putting a two year childs skull back together, after a horse kicked out, sufficient so the child could be flown to the nearest major hospital. What kind of God allowed that to happen? What kind of God would seek to punish the parents for some sin they committed in that manner? Suffer the little children? Don’t even go there.

    I have no problem with those that believe in a God and if it comforts them, all the better (for them). If it causes them to do ‘good works’ to the benefit of others, all the better.

    But the minute they use their God to justify some horrific act or action, I cannot be bothered to waste my time with them. And when their piety becomes an act of malice, intended or otherwise, then they forgo all tolerance. And when their beliefs and faiths lead to death and destruction, they can hardly blame those of us who do not share their faith from opposing them, with violence if necessary.

    By the way, the great serpent is part of the Australian aboriginal belief system, a way for a simple people to make sense of the world they saw around them.

  198. Clear Memories – 00:55 ‘there is not yet a proven, demonstrable theory on ….’

    Scientists need to be able to accept a theory, work with it, even if they do not believe it, and make some way to understand why the proponents of the theory believe it enough to support it. Then, instead of becoming an activist to that cause (as the Global Warming activists have done), they then need to be able to be critical of it and see if it can be improved. Or, shock horror, realise that it is a better theory to their own! Even then, they should not believe it to the extent of rejecting all other possibilities! Believing means using the approach, or thinking, to help decide what needs to be done, not selling your soul. Even though this can be done, it is optional, assuming you think you have a soul.

    Originally, Philosophy encompassed most thinking and, over the years, since the Ancient Greeks, fragments have ‘fallen off’ the original pile of knowledge and become disciplines in their own right. It can be seen with Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Biology, itself, has split into many disciplines such as Biochemistry and Microbiology.

    Looking before a split occurs the thinking does often appear a little archaic, if only because very little was clear to those at the time, yet they had many of the questions, yet so few answers or even the frame work in which to understand the phenomena.

    This is just as true with the ancient religions. Genesis is the best they could do. When something better is found it can be used, yet I fear it will be so complicated, what do we tell the infants when they ask?

    I have been quite happy to assume Newtonian mechanics, yet I know that the model of reality it used is wrong. Not just a bit wrong; it is TOTALLY wrong. Yet, for me, it gives pretty good answers as I don’t travel at speeds close to the speed of light.

  199. ‘I hope Thatcher’s death was degrading and painful’: Sick tweets of Scotland Yard sergeant who now faces the sack

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307705/Margaret-Thatcher-death-I-hope-death-degrading-painful-tweets-sick-Scotland-Yard-sergeant.html#ixzz2QEq3mwqh
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
    ——————————————–
    With the dire state this country is in, with a traitorous Establishment, I wish that on the day of Mrs Thatcher’s funeral, the Argentine would invade the Falklands. Then perhaps we would be able to separate the goats from the sheep. After the caddish exhibitions from the BBC, various marxist MPs (Glenda Jackson amongst others), now we have the Police, which I have always suspected of a vile agenda.

  200. Strange … but True !!!

    ‘[Mick McGahey] was the subject of phone tapping by the UK security service MI5 whose transcribers found him difficult to understand because of his accent and the effects of alcohol consumption.’

    – Wikipedia

  201. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307935/Mother-67-died-hijab-caught-alight-gas-hob-injured-times-similar-accidents.html

    This is wonderful – we no longer should seek to ban these antagonistic political costumes – we should encourage them!

    But they must be made safe. Perhaps manufactured from asbestos? Or possibly woven kevlar or some other exotic (and extremely expensive) fabric. Triple-layer Nomex a la Formula 1?

    A British or even EU fireproof standard? Or how about explosion -proof, perhaps more accurately explosion retentative.

    Nah, bollocks. If the dumbfucks from the desert want to set themselves on fire with their kit, lets leave them to it.

  202. Verity @ 11th, 17:13

    What is quire cheering about that clip of the anti-Mrs T ‘party’ was how small it was. A lot of noise generated by a horn, tom-tom and a sound system to cover up the desperate attempts to look gleeful from a pitifull small scraping from the bottom of society’s barrel. Desperate (and hilariously faux) stuff.

  204. AWK – Your post above is the first time I’ve read Glenda Jackson’s name in decades!

  205. Hexhamgeezer (13.43)

    You are right; the useful idiots destroy their own purpose; it’s the only sign of hope in the current bleak political climate. Let’s hope they don’t destroy us all as a side effect.

  206. Clear Memories April 12th, 2013 – 13:14

    This brings to mind a thought that I have whenever I see (never in my neck of the woods) a young woman wearing a Burqa, being able to see only that which is directly ahead; they are extremely vulnerable to attack from the sides and rear especially so from something highly combustible.

  207. AWK1 (10.11)

    Incredible stuff. One wonders what his ‘backroom’ role was?
    Unfortunately he can now resign on full pension and cry all the way to the bank. I think the illustration to the piece tells its own story. Unfortunately the story itself achieves a purpose – undermining a once respected public service. But at least he’s no longer able to do it from the inside.

  208. According to The Mail, Obama could lead the American delegation of mourners at the funeral. Please, God, no!!! Henry Kissinger should lead them.

  209. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/at-long-last-the-mainstream-media-are-paying-attention-to-global-warming-sceptics/

    another nail in the coffin for the so called mainstream politics and media.

    But is a great correction on the cards? What with people being in favour of welfare cuts, leaving the EU and now denying global warming. Are the great unwashed waking up to the fact we have been duped all these years?

    or am i deluded and clutching at straws?

  210. David Ossitt – Yes, those burqa-clad women are vulnerable to attack. Easy targets, and yet around 98% of rapes are on white or Asian (not used as a synonym for Paki, but the intelligent and prettty races … Chinese or Japanese), not burquaed muzzies.

    The burqua’s against the laws in public in France. Perhaps we have a finer sense of aesthetics and prefer that they cover their faces.

  211. Incidentally, the commie press trying to conflate pakiland with Asia is either ignorant or hopes their readers are ignorant. Fortunately for them, most people are accepting of the new nomenclature because they have never been beyond Lanzarotti.

    Pakistan was formed out of the northernmost state of the Indian sub-continent. No one ever refers to Indians as “Asians”. Or Saudis or Lebanese. Just the pakis get cloaked by the entire continent of Asia, because editors — especially BBC editors — are aware of the contumely in which the pakis are held in Britain. So try try to disguise them with the intent not of reporting the news, but to fooling the British public.

  212. Verity@April 12th, 2013 – 16:03

    Pakistan also included west bengall when first created but that left and became Bangladesh.

    Paki was always a term of abuse so evan pakistani has overtones, which is why people use Asian as an euphamism.
    (As an aside the first syllable should have a short a sound, it isnt parkistan)

    They were talking baout grooming girls for sex on Toady this morning. At least they mentioned the men involved as Pakistani, but the interviewed bloke would not accept that agencies should target Pakistani men, who have treating women as subservient to their goats as part of their ‘culture’, as likely groomers in case a white groomer got through the net.
    FFS

  213. Frank P 12th, – 14:37 & Hexhamgeezer (13.43)

    I hope you’re both right. What I’ve found quite depressing this past week is the sheer nastiness in our society that bubbles up a the slightest provocation.
    Tiny minority they may be, but giving them such a broad platform must have our friends abroad gawping in sheer bewilderment, not that we allow it to be publicised, because that is evidence of a free society, but that in the last 28 years we haven’t been able to educate this sub-human rabble…indeed, FFS, we’ve allowed at least one of them into a position where she ‘educates’ some of our children!

  215. “http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307480/Margaret-Thatcher-witch-song-insult-BBC-play-Ding-Dong-The-Witch-Is-Dead.html”

    Thatcher would regard these people with utter contempt. They are living down to their image as the type of people who almost managed to destroy our country before Thatcher got the reins in her hands.

  216. Frank P
    April 12th, 2013 – 14:49

    AWK1 (10.11)

    Incredible stuff. One wonders what his ‘backroom’ role was?
    Unfortunately he can now resign on full pension and cry all the way to the bank. I think the illustration to the piece tells its own story. Unfortunately the story itself achieves a purpose – undermining a once respected public service. But at least he’s no longer able to do it from the inside.
    =========================
    Frank P: Frank, I am seldom shocked, but this article disgusted me. I resorted to irony, but it is dreadful how the once great British Police have fallen into the arms of marxists. Can this creep not be arrested for incitement? What he wants done to May is surely incitement to gross violence. Now he will get what he wants, a big pay-off. He should in all fairness be denied any severance pay or pension rights.
    Verity:
    Verity, far from me wishing rape on anybody, but I think Glenda Jackson would welcome it, whether from either gender, as I doubt that any two-legged mammal could actually touch her with the proverbial barge pile.

  218. In this week’s Speccie, Fraser Nelson says that UKIP is considering dropping its logo of the ₤. This would be a mistake. UKIP and the ₤ are fused in people’s minds. They shouldn’t through away this advantage which took them so long to achieve.

    What do other Coffeehousers think?

  220. I’ve never met David Cameron (barf) or whoever is Leader of the Opposition, but I have met Nigel Farage and have talked to him on the phone on several occasions and the man is charismtic. There is an air about him that makes one want to engage with him. Unlike, say, The Rt Hon. Dave Blancmange-Face or Gordon Brown, say, or whichever Milliband is the Labour Leader.

  221. Now here’s a chap who really knows how to work the credulous to good advantage, apparently quite legally:

    http://www.vice.com/read/ive-owned-the-moon-since-1980

    Or are they really so credulous given the direction humanity is being propelled at the moment?

    Thanks for that Gerard. It got the chuckle muscles going after a week of funereal foreboding and navel gazing about the world to come. Perhaps this will become a half-way stage to Heaven: a sort of Planetary Purgatory.

    Psst – anybody wanna buy a coupla acres of Io? Good foundations there for building castles in the air!

  222. Verity (16:41)

    No doubt Noa will fill us in about the motivation for that; I hope the rumour is wrong; at the moment the extention of the £ is surely one of the raisons d’etre of UKIP; why change the, unless there is a change of policy regarding that?

  225. Frank P (17:41) … Please, no! I don’t want that image put into my head! No-o-o-o-o-o …! Besides, he is not a fit person to declare war. He would be worried whether he would get dust on his tie. I think the only person, and they threw away their chance, who would have taken firm, considered action, would have been Maggie (whoops! Sorry! … Sarah) Palin.

  226. Frank P: When they discover Life on Mars what’s the betting Monsanto have the patents!

  227. Frank Sutton (19:35)

    Bwaahahaha. Spot on!

    Verity (17:15)

    Sorry – that was ve-ery indelicate of me. But I’m glad you got the metaphor and agree that his would be too small to impress!

  228. Frank Sutton 19:35 – “When they discover Life on Mars what’s the betting Monsanto have the patents!”

    And Obama is the neighbourhood “organiser”.

  229. Verity 12th, – 16:41

    “UKIP and the ₤ are fused in people’s minds…What do other Coffeehousers think?”

    Not sure it’s a good idea if you want to spread your appeal beyond being a one (or two) issue party.

    As the election approaches all the parties are going to start subtly modifying their brands, like whores flashing the latest in fishnet stockings, each trying to con you into believing that they’ve something better at the end!

  230. Tom Utley in the Mail perhaps sums up best the posturing of all the left-wing, intellectual pygmies (led and aided and abetted by the BBC)

    “…. quite enough ink has been wasted on the disgusting displays of rejoicing over Lady Thatcher’s death by the ignorant exhibitionists of the Left.

    The fact is they don’t hate the real Margaret Thatcher, the great and good woman who did more than any peacetime prime minister for the ordinary people of Britain, whom she cared about and believed in so passionately.

    Indeed, they know nothing of her, refusing even to think about what she did for her country, since myth and caricature suit their argument better than the truth.
    What they are actually ranting at is her Spitting Image puppet — and that just makes them look profoundly stupid.”

  231. UKIP logo looks like a shop sign for a Poundshop rival, or maybe one of those Cash Converters type shops, plus horrible colours, and combines with Nigel Farage’s Jack the Lad physog to create a shoddy image the party could do without. If they’re going to update it they must do it pdq, to give any new look time to bed in before the next GE.

  232. They’re just attention-seeking scum and sleaze. Look at them! And there are very few of them. It is the lefty publications that have bigged them up. But they are horrible little nobodies grabbing their five minutes of sordid quasi-fame. Worse still, no one cares about their considered opinions.

  234. If I were UKIP I would adopt an updated version of Maggie’s torch, or somehow steal the designs that one would normally associate with the Tories, and do it quick before the Tories get fed up with their stupid tree.

  235. I hear that a punk record called “I’m in love with Maggie T” has been re-released for the first time since the 1980s in an attempt to close down that awful “Witch is dead” song. I think everyone here should download it. You don’t have to listen to it, but how wonderful it would be if it was the most popular record for a week. It would be cold water all over the efforts of the unwashed to discredit the great lady. I am sure that Mrs T, who never shied away from a good scrap with an ultraleftie, would heartily approve.

  236. Well, Maggie dies, and the Left surpass even themselves with their narcissistic, vile, self-proclaimed victimhood which flies as ever in the face of all facts and all demonstrable reality, yet still they wreath themselves in self-regarding goodness of heart and generosity of spirit. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until I see it countered, Socialism is a pathology not an ideology.
    The Lefties have no compunction with their lies, but just as bad is their amnesia (an intrinsic part of their pathology perhaps) and one thing that nobody has mentioned this week is that the supposedly heartless divisive bitch, on hearing that Harold Wilson was living in very straitened circumstances, decided that she should help and did so in a way that would preserve not only his personal pride and the dignity of the office of British Prime Ministers not by making an ex gratia payment of any kind, but by deciding that all ex-Prime Ministers should by right have a pension.

    Let those who can come to London on Wednesday, and honour Maggie and themselves with a quiet presence.
    Leave the shouting to the perverts.

  237. Both your comments … 01:16 and 01:23 … demonstrate a misunderstanding of what UKIP is. What it is not, is imitation Tory. Why, therefore, would they want to assoicate themselves in the voters’ minds as Conservatives? Especially as the Tories are failing so signally to hang onto their vote.

    The pound is the perfect logo. It signals something we all care about … Britain standing alone for its currency … and its independence from the fascist EU. It does not connect with any particular party … so forget trying to make them look Tory, because they don’t! Their appeal is across the board. Dump Europe and their vile, dangerous euro thingy. Dump Europe and its interference with our ancient laws and rights. Dump Europe, except as a trading partner, like Australia, the US, China, whatever.

    We are not part of Europe. The pound sterling stands alone. Screw the euro, the EU and Mr Van Rumpoy.

  238. I meant to address Dean Street above. Apols to all. Plus, Dean Street, I will gladly download the song if you will tell me how to!

    Well said, Irish Boy: “Socialism is a pathology not an ideology.”

  239. Verity (02:20)

    I agree about the logo; the Sterling symbol is historical and should be unassailable and I say that as one who was once paid in £sd, measured my schoolboy carpentry in inches feet and yards and bought apples by the pound weight. I also agree about Tory turncoats that have moved to the left. But Farage should hoover up the traditionalists and real conservatives from the old conservative party, the eurosceptics anyway, who are dissenters against the Cameroon clique and conlib pact, then get us out of the EUSSR pronto. Cameron’s schmoozing gestern mit Der Fraufuhrer was sehr schlecht. Proves he has no intention of retrieving our sovereignty, or providing an in/out referendum, but rather effecting another sub-rosa carve up with Angela.

    Mind you, she’ll wipe the floor with him, but his leftie wife will undoubtedly help broker such an inimical deal. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back waving ‘a piece of paper’.

    “I have in my hand a piece of paper signed by Frau Merkel….” He’s certainly taking the piss in our time.

    So the quicker UKIP develops the better, there are more important things to do than piss around with the logo. Well I can dream, can’t I? Even a determinist has his dreams, as the GSOT unfolds, develops and envelops. And Cameron certainly can’t help it; hubris drives every fibre of his oily corpus.

    A fitting transubstantiation of The Iron Lady: Farage the Barrage. Let ’em ‘ave it Nige! (May as well add blasphemy to my sins – I’m already cattled, and in Oblivion, WTF?).

  241. Verity – 02:20 ‘£’
    Frank P – 03:57 ‘£’

    Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws”

  242. Dean Street
    April 13th, 2013 – 01:33
    Hi, Dean
    Everyone must do as they wish. Me? Sorry, but I cannot join in this form of warfare. Too gentle for the filthy pervs. I just hope that ‘What goes around comes around’.

  243. IRISHBOY
    April 13th, 2013 – 02:04
    Bravo! I agree with Verity. Wonderful. “Socialism is a pathology not an ideology.” Equal to a saying by Oscar Wilde, and rather than using pop songs, this should be spread as far and wide as possible. I repeat, a brilliant motto!!!!

  244. Oh the irony of it! That the complaints from the Left about the cost of Mrs T’s funeral should be the first instance in my lifetime of them calling for reduced state spending!

  245. Is the ‘I’m in love with Maggie’ song in fact a peon of praise? I could be wrong. but I’ve feeling it’s meant ironically.

  251. People of all parties (except those committed to the loonie Left and internationalism, whatever that is) respond to the pound sign for all kinds of reasons. UKIP would be daft to drop its strongest and most potent symbol. This includes the labourer as well as the banker. UKIP gives the blue collar worker a home to go to (other than Labour which has, in any case, betrayed him by giving his country, and al he holds dear … via the BBC … away.

    The pound is the most potent logo that UKIP could have and anyone who thinks they should get something new and twinky … like Dave’s tree, for example … is nuts.

  252. People of all parties (except those committed to the loonie Left and internationalism, whatever that is) respond to the pound sign for all kinds of reasons. UKIP would be daft to drop its strongest and most potent symbol. This includes the labourer as well as the banker. UKIP gives the blue collar worker a home to go to (other than Labour which has, in any case, betrayed him by giving his country, and al he holds dear … via the BBC … away. The same goes for patriotic Conservatives. We all want our country back, and Nigel is the only one asking for help. He will lead us into battle, if we let him.

    Anyone who has seen videos of him trashing the egregious Mr Rompuy in the European “parliameent” knows that Nigel can see ’em off if he gets the votes to put him in power.

    The pound is the most potent logo that UKIP could have and anyone who thinks they should get something new and twinky … like Dave’s tree, for example … is nuts.

  253. I wonder what has impelled The Mail to use wannabee Americanisms. I have noted in the past few weeks that they have started using “mom” for “mum”. Today, they referred to something (don’t remember what) as lowering student “grades” instead of marks.

    What on earth is the point?

    The days when anything American was considered trendy and cutting edge are long gone. Slang crosses borders of the Anglosphere easily enough, and why not? – but changing ancient usages of the language for the sake of it is another matter.

  254. A slyly derogatory article by Fraser Nelson in the Spectator; painting UKIP as a one man band and resurrecting the old canard that it is about to change its £ logo.

    e.g. “…It may be hard to imagine Ed Miliband in a pub. But it’s hard to imagine Farage out of one. And will this be a barrier to its progress: that it looks and sounds like a protest party?”

    Its difficult to know how many of the current parties MPs’ and Lords would survive without their tax payer subsidised shebeen, also known as Parliament.

  255. I can’t be bothered with Fraser Nelson’s schoolboy digs (and he is married to a Swede, among the most dedicated drinkers on the European continent), but to those who say Nigel is UKIP, it is very clear that there is a lot of talent in the party to have brought it this far … to the point where it is a national contender. Nigel would not claim to have done this all by himself.

    For one, the excellent individual who posts thither and yon under the name of Boudicca would appear to be on the team, and she is a very effective communicator. There will be others we don’t know about, but who are quietly, and abley, inching the message forward.

  256. It is understandable that Romany Blythe, the red flag waving silicon enhanced Socialist Worker would celebrate the death of Baroness Thatcher.
    The Brighton Dance Teachers of Brighton suffered appallingly as a consequence of their unswerving support for Comrade Scargill’s striking NUM miners.
    Obviously the memories of instructing trainee Corps du Ballet starving of Wigan and Bolden colliery lads in the mysteries of plie, releve and saute by the glow of the picket braziers light created bonds of solidarity outliving the pits themselves.

  257. Verity. 15.51

    Spot on, Verity.

    I’ve been extremely impressed by the sheer capability and dedication of the people I’ve met in UKIP. Not so much the public figures, though of course Nigel Farage is a fast rising political star, but by the people who make things tick.
    In Lady Thatcher’s day these would have been the men and women with their shoulders to the Tory party wheel, heaving, pushing and dragging the apparatus over the winning line.
    As an unctuous Cameron scorned them they left in increasing numbers to go where their efforts were appreciated.
    And the Daily Mail reports today that the Conservative party funders are now shifting allegiance as well.
    But the most important thing is that we are also taking significant support from Labour and the Lib Damned as well. I happily work with both ex-high Tories and Labour stawarts, and we are wielding a self-confident, powerful and dedicated political team together.

  258. It cheers my heart to read your words, Noa, and that some claim that UKIP is a one-man band tells me there are a lot of alarmed and malicious Tories and Labour die-hards out there.

    UKIP is the rising star on the Brtish political firmament, and it gathers momentum. Every day in every week, the pendulum inches further away from the two major parties (I don’t count the Lib Dumps) towards UKIP. Why? Because UKIP is the ony party that is dedicated to furthering the goal of Britain becoming entirely free of the surrepticious chains to Europe forged by the other two parties, and making Britain independent again. And readopting the British Constitution and overning itself and its own currency.

    And what is more, I predict that once Britain flees the shackles of the gruesome EU, others will follow. I am guessing Denmark and Holland will be next, and Norway. Sweden is too far gone (not to Europe, but to the muzzies).

  259. “Cameron certainly can’t help it; hubris drives every fibre of his oily corpus.” (Frank P.)

    Lovely phrase! Brings to mind a picture of DC’s body dripping with oily globules.

    Regarding

  260. Regarding Maggie’s death-partying rejoicing creeps, Mags has the last laugh. Not only is she getting a grand send off at a ceremonial funeral attended by foreign heads of state and the Queen, but the taxpayers (who presumably include the afore-mentioned creeps) are paying for it. This will not bother the patriotic majority in the least, but will further enrage the leftie maggots. Highly amusing.

  261. That written further below is taken directly from ‘The Mail on Line’, I post it here only to comment on the utter madness of the penultimate paragraph.

    In doing so I have three points to make, first how can any organisation (other than the EU) have the audacity the brass-necked cheek to write such a contract of employment, second who wrote it or better still; who was the person responsible for authorising and approving it and finally how could Lord Hall sign it with a clear conscience because it effectively stops him from doing his job, that is to find and root out all that is wrong with the BBC.

    BBC boss Tony Hall will still be entitled to a huge payout if he fails despite only having to serve a six-month notice period, his employment contract revealed today as it was made public.

    Lord Hall was officially appointed director-general last week and said he would review the enormous exit deals given to executives.

    His decision to do so comes following fierce criticism over the £450,000 golden goodbye given to his predecessor George Entwistle when he resigned after just 54 days in the job – the money was double what he was entitled to.

    The BBC said at the time this was partly due to his 12-month notice period.

    Yesterday following the release of Lord Hall’s employment details, it emerged that although he only has to serve a six-month notice period – which makes it easier and cheaper for the BBC to get rid of him if he is sacked – he could still be entitled to as much as £225,000 if he is sacked or resigns, equal to half his salary.

    There is a gagging order within the contract which bars Lord Hall from making ‘any derogatory or unfavourable public remark or statement’ about the BBC during his time in office or within two years of his departure.

    The BBC Trust said it was publishing Lord Hall’s 17-page contract ‘in the interests of transparency’, the first time it has taken the step to proactively reveal the full details of employment of a BBC director-general.

  262. Frankly, these creepy celebrants (“Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead” … how infantile do you have to be to refer to the Wizard of Oz, a fantasy, rather than a real happeninng?), they are few and their are to be expected on the death of such a forceful personality on the right. I am pretty certain that Mrs Thatcher could have predicted this herself, if she could have been bothered with predicting the playground antics of morons).

    No one gives a tuppeny (British currency) damn to what level of tastelessness these little jumped-up jerks descend. They are better ignored. Let them cavort like Shakespearean fools at a banquet.

  264. Oddly enough, Noa, I had just copied a link to Gates of Vienna (because the blogger has been having what sounds like similar eye surgery to that a friend just underwent a couple of days ago) but after his recount of this, normal service was resumed and he writes, coincidentally, of mass immigration. As always, it’s an excellent read.

    http://gatesofvienna.net/

  265. PS – On the Gates of Vienna, flagged above, scroll down to The Cultural Enrichment News. You won’t be sorry.

  266. Frank P – 13:41 ‘Rothschild’
    🙂

    Verity – 15:51 ‘One man band?’
    The BBC are having to let more on to our screens, so the dam is been breached.

    Verity – 16:54 ‘these little jumped-up jerks’
    For a few days, they will displace Cameron as UKIP’s best recruitment machine in the UK.

    Membership increased past 25,000 on 10th April, so they are working well.
    “It passed 24,000 on 30/03/13.
    It has been growing at 1,000 per month since new year but now seems to be speeding up.
    1,000 new memebrs in 11 days.”
    http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=122221

  267. Robert C – thanks for that! And yes, for a few days they will surpass David Cameron as UKIPs best recruiting programme. A few days after the funeral, it will go back to being Cameron and Milliband as the prize UKIP recruiters. And the BBC, of course.

    We live in interesting times …

  268. Verity – 21:43 ‘UKIP recruitment’

    Cameron does his best in every way:

    Why is Cameron letting Labour, which last won 29% of the vote, gain 77% of the [politically active public] appointments?

    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2013/04/why-is-cameron-letting-labour-which-last-won-29-of-the-vote-gain-77-of-the-appointments.html

    “I, [Paul Goodman,] was told six months ago that Cameron recognises there is a problem, and has shaken up Downing Street to deal with it. But there’s no evidence that the purported change has had much effect. And regardless of your point of view, it’s wrong that a party which gained 29% of the vote in 2010 should win 77% of the appointments.

    ConservativeHome will return to this unfinished business after Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and during the coming months.”

    Yes, but will Cameron? And will there be any noticeable change?

  269. RobertC – Thanks for the news about Labourites gaining 77% of the politically active public appointments – under a Conservative/Limp Dumb coalition.

    You ask, will there be any noticable change? I hope not. We need to get the job done. I want him to continue to pick up bricks to go swimming with. He’s already up to his nose in the voter briny. There is only one place for the voter to go now, and that is UKIP.

    Long may Cameron continue to thrash around directionless and ineffective! The twerp has no idea how many former Conservatives are now willing him to fail.

  270. Verity

    It’s not just you and I.

    “…The signs have been everywhere this week for anyone who cared to look for them. First it emerged that Ukip is putting up candidates in more than 1,700 of the 2,400 council seats that are up for grabs.

    As the political betting guru Mike Smithson noted: “For Ukip to have the nationwide organisation capa­ble of putting up candidates in three quarters of the seats is a massive achievement.” It is indeed a great leap forward, giving many people the chance for the first time to vote for Ukip in a set of local elections…”

    http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/patrick-o-flynn/391572/Ukip-is-closing-in-on-a-massive-breakthrough

  271. Here is a dreadful story here that is appalling in so many ways. And I do mean dreadful:
    http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/12/kermit-gosnell-murder-trial/

    Firstly, a doctor at an abortion clinic in Philadelphia is on trial for capital murder, charged with killing a female patient and seven newborns at his inner-city clinic, though a witness at the trail has said that he had seen around 100 new born babies being killed, with allegations that babies born alive were almost beheaded when their spinal cords were cut.

    In addition, a woman working at the clinic has pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy and corrupting a minor, her daughter, now 22 years old, who was working at the clinic. The daughter, who has not been charged with any crime, started as a 15-year-old and went from answering phones to administering drugs and assisting in abortions.

    And then there is another angle that, while minor in relation to what has allegedly taken place, is frightening because of what it suggests about the distribution of power in that area. And I quote:
    ====
    The case is also provoking questions on why the mainstream media in the U.S. isn’t reporting on the case, which involves alleged murder, racism and the abuse of women.

    Conor Friedersdorf, writing in The Atlantic said, “To sum up, this story has numerous elements any one of which would normally make it a major story. And setting aside conventions, which are flawed, this ought to be a big story on the merits.

    “The news value is undeniable. Why isn’t it being covered more?”

    Kristen Powers, writing in USA Today, said, “Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke [for advocating insurance coverage of contraceptives], there was non-stop media hysteria.

    “Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn’t make the cut.

    “The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.

    Bloomberg News columnist Jeffrey Goldberg said there was “justifiable outrage” last year after the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a non-profit group fighting breast cancer, decided to cut $680,000 in grants to Planned Parenthood for screenings and education programs.

    “Where is that same assiduousness on the Gosnell case, a case that shocks the conscience,” Goldberg wondered. “This story — which if nothing else suggests that live births do, in fact, happen during late-term abortions — upsets a particular narrative about the reality of certain types of abortion, and that reality isn’t something some pro-choice absolutists want to discuss.”
    ====

    At least there are still some newspapers still willing to inform the public.

  274. Postergirl … Thanks for the link. That is one of the most gruesome (real life) things I have ever read.

  277. BBC ‘used LSE students as human shield’ in North Korea
    (See BBC web)

    Sweeney described North Korea as a “Nazi state” that practised the “most extreme form of censorship”.

    He added: “It’s more like Hitler’s Germany than any other state in this world right now. It’s extraordinarily scary, dark and evil.”
    =============================
    Strange the BBC compared NK to Nazi Germany, but failed to mention Stalin’s USSR!
    Furthermore, the wat the leftist students were used by their mentors the marxist BBC is amusing. This is what happens when friends fall out.

  279. It is amazing what gems are found laying within a newspaper article that are ‘hidden in full view’. Here is one in a Telegraph article:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9991927/Portugals-people-paying-the-price-as-PM-promises-more-austerity.html

    The article describes what it like in Portugal, now that there may be a second bale out: it is dreadful, with disbelief and despair rife. My little gem of a quote is this:
    One of 120 staff at the state-funded college, which has 1,100 students aged from 15 to 18, Mrs Palma has watched in dismay as the building has fallen into disrepair and morale has sunk. “It’s very hard to carry on. We want to teach, but it seems like there is no direction at all from the government.”

    She is a a PE teacher, and she wants some direction from the Government? She obviously needs encouragement, money to repair the school buildings, hope even, but direction from the Government?

    I expect no one is able to put a lick of paint on a wall because of the burdensome regulations and taxes, many of which will have been received with gladness from Brussels, all in the name of harmonisation, by the Portuguese themselves.

    No wonder the Troika has been able to conquer the Continent so easily.

  280. Especially for Verity and other Dedicated Followers of Fashion:
    Will David Cameron’s wife wear a hat to Mrs Thatcher’s wedding? It seems wearing a hat is de rigor, according to recently released official instructions. Perhaps these instructions were given as a tactful reminder to a certain lady…..

  281. Well, AWK, that is an interesting question. Samantha Cameron is obviously fearful of overwhelming “the little people” with her grandeur and fears that wearing a hat may too grand and the more excitable citizens may gnash their teeth in envy.

    She has lived her entire life without knowing that women everywhere in the West actively look for excuses to buy a new hat. She doesn’t know this because she has never had a conversation with an average British woman.

    I considered opinion is, she should purchase a black hat with a very wide brim, to hide her unusually plain face.

  283. anne wotana kay.

    “Strange the BBC compared NK to Nazi Germany, but failed to mention Stalin’s USSR!”

    Hello Anne I would think it par for the course, the un-elected Soviet that is the BBC, can call black white, truth lies and so referring to the Communist/Marxist state of NK as Nazi, is what to expect from these purveyors of mistruth.

    Come the day heads will roll, or is that just wishful thinking?

  284. David Ossitt — Just wishful thinking, I fear. It would take someone with the strength and will of Maggie Thatcher to close the whole roiling, stinking mess down.

    There is absolutely no conceivable reason for there to be a national broadcaster. During WWII, yes. Sicty-five years later, with the mind-boggling advances in technology, where people can watch any channel in the world at the click of a mouse, it is clear that the BBC exists for no other reason than to be the ministry of propaganda for the socialist/nazi state.

  285. David Ossitt
    April 14th, 2013 – 19:28
    Hello, David. We share the same wish. Maybe the angry Loonie Leftie LSE students will burn the BBC down……………….just hope all the cleaners, security personnel, typists and other people who actually work for their miserable wages are out of the building, and all the pervs, traitors and their minions are there.

  286. AWK – I have said many times on this hallowed cyberspace that before pressing the detonator, the authorities, or the citizenry, should ensure that all cleanoing personnel, canteen personnel and security personnel were out of the building.

    Then ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡POWWWWWWW!!!!!!!! The image of the Broadcasting House crumbling inwards fills me with mean-spirited pleasure.

  288. The BBC is just for practice and to ironing out any irritating little snags. Next up: the United Nations.

  289. Mohammad was an illiterate and an epileptic. (Google it.) A scribe wrote down the mutterings that issued forth when he was in the throes of an epileptic seizure, interpreting the words as best he could understand them. Also, he “married” little girls. He saw little Aisha being pushed on a swing by her mother and sent for her immediately. When they got to his house, Aisha was out of breath, her mother had been in such a hurry.

    Mo’ “married” her, although she was but five and thus unable to give any form of consent at all, but, gent that he was, he didn’t violate her her until she was (I think it was) seven and before that “she was too small”.

    When Osama bin Laden was killed by the Americans, he was sheltering behind one of his wives.

    An outside, from another planet, say, would be astounded that these lowlifes were being admitted to advanced ciilisaitons and catered to, but I don’t find it surprising. The islamics are a handy, and potent, weapon for the Left because they know we won’t fight back if we fear that, by so doing, we will be labelled (by the Left) “intolerant”, “narrow-minded” and so on. Personally, being labelled “intolerant” by the left is a badge of honour.

  290. Can you find some other way of dispatching the beeb? – Broadcasting House is a magnificent building.

  291. Frank Sutton … Unfortunately, we must make some sacrifices to free ourselves of the yoke and arrogance of the BBC. I am afraid the building is a price we have to pay. We do not want to keep this grim reminder of servitude, when everyone owning a TV was required BY LAW to pay them a tithe.

    I would like to see a new block of luxury flats put up, called Conservative Towers, Or maybe even UKIP Towers with a big pound sign on the doors.

  293. At last! Another MSM columnist joins Melanie Phillips in her quest to define the Long March – and name names of Leftist moles currently sucking on the State teat with sinecures, many of them shoe-horned into their boondoggles by the naive idiot Cameron.

    Quentin Letts writes a cracking expose (not bad for a witty theatre critic – cum Parliamentary gosspi coulmnist, eh?), telling hoi polloi what I’ve been trying to get into public currency since about 1965, as the Long March has now passed through the brisk trot stage and moved on to a gallop:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2308301/How-Lefts-grip-Britain-tightening.html

    Btw Noa; I joined UKIP yesterday and paid my membership fee. The first political party I have joined in my long life. I hope they will read this Letts article and start to formulate a plan to remove these termites from the infrastructure of our nation.

    After you’ve digested the piece by Letts, Melanie’s latest is also a seminal essay on the idiocy of Cameron and the changes that are taking place: too late I hope. The Tories blew it. I’ll never trust them again and we need a new real conservative party; maybe UKIP can develop into that.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2309077/Has-Cameron-learnt-Blairs-lesson-British-NOT-naturally-Left-wing.html

    Have a word with Farage the Barrage, Noa. He should try to recruit Melanie Phillips. She’d make a cracking Home Secretary when he becomes PM.

    There is something in the air ….

  294. Wow, Frank P!! You’ve excelled yourself … and that’s going it some! Melanie Phillips for Home Secretary in a UKIP Government is an absolute cracker of an idea!

    And yes, Cameron is a naive idiot, but I also sense someething rather self-promoting and vicious about him. Congratulations on joining UKIP!

    I’m going next to the Quentin Letts’ and Melanie’s pieces! What a treat at the end of the Coffee House Wall week!

  295. I’ve read the articles, Frank P – both of them stunnahs! Many thanks! I feel quite cheered up!

  296. Frank P
    Welcome aboard!
    Conviction politics or the political Alamo?
    Actually it doesn’t matter. We have to make the effort to save what’s left of Britain before the mainstream politicos sell, lease or steal the remainder from our houses and bank accounts to pay for their present and as yet unconceived inanities and insanities.

    And now you can tell him about your hatophobia yourself.;-)
    Never mind Melanie Philips. Some of your crackingly good posts in Coffee House and the local Norfolk UKIP weekly newsletter should get the blood of the Righteous flowiing fast through our veins.

    In fact, they should be syndicated.
    you

  297. cont’d

    “…In fact, they should be syndicated, your posts, that is”.

    And hopefully you’ll find is the best £30 you’ve ever spent.

  298. Absolutely cracking piece by Sultan Knish (blogroll high up on the right). Jammed with home truths for Obama and other cowardly Western leaders and yes, I am looking at David Cameron, his knees playing the castenets every time terrorism announces its presence.

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