The Coffee House Wall – 25th/1st December

Posted on November 25, 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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273 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 25th/1st December”

  1. Malfleur November 25th, 2013 – 00:35

    “…why don’t we first try to recover our sovereignty from Brussels, re-establish our constitution and people it with good men who make good laws and ENFORCE them?

    Then we can listen to Haydn without palpitations.”

    You are on a haydn to nothing with that argument at present malfleur.

  2. Noa (11:40)

    “You are on a haydn to nothing with that argument at present malfleur.”

    Yeah and he was also probably Brahms and Liszt when he wrote it!

  3. To distract us from the appalling rig-up and appeasement perpetrated over the weekend in Geneva, I proffer another of the backed-up funnies from the NN:

    An elderly lady was somewhat lonely and decided she needed a pet to keep her company. So, off to the pet shop she went. She searched and searched. None of the pets seemed to catch her interest, except this ugly frog. As she walked by the jar he was in, she looked and he winked at her.

    He croaked, “I’m lonely too. Buy me and take me home … you won’t ever be sorry.”

    The old lady figured, what the heck! She hadn’t found anything else. So, she bought the frog. She placed him in the car, on the front seat beside her. As she was slowly driving down the road, the frog whispered to her “Kiss me and you won’t be sorry.”

    So! She figured, “What the heck!” She kissed the frog and immediately the frog turned into an absolutely gorgeous, sexy, young, handsome prince, who then returned her kiss.

    Suddenly she felt herself transforming from a very old lady as a result of the kiss.

    Now … can you guess what she turned into?

    Come on … guess!

    *

    *

    *

    *

    Yep! She turned into the first Travelodge she could find. whereupon the Prince turned into Lenny Henry.

    And that fairy tale has nothing on the one that Hague, Kerry, the Frog, et al brought back from Geneva.

    Go! Netanyahu!

  4. … and that was because she mistook a Premier Inn for the Travelodge (before some smart arse points out the wrong advert is quoted in the joke).

  7. “Revealed: Couple ‘who held three women as slaves for 30 years’ were leaders of Maoist communist sect based in Brixton bookshop”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513089/Revealed-Couple-held-women-slaves-30-years-leaders-Chinese-communist-sect-based-Brixton-bookshop.html

    And all along we thought it was a Better Off Out offshoot, aided by the Centre for Policy Studies! 🙂

    They are lucky to be in a Maoist sect in the UK: they could have been in one in China.

    But, on the other hand, they could have been living it up as part of the Maoist sect in Brussels, led by Barroso, an ex Portuguese Workers’ Communist Party/Reorganized Movement of the Party of the Proletariat member!

  8. I have been catching up on the reader comments on the Dominic Grieve story (he has since retracted the few syllables of commen sense ever to leave his sly, lawyerly lips).

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512221/Pakistanis-UK-fuelling-corruption-says-law-chief-Attorney-General-warns-politicians-wake-threat-posed-minority-communities.html

    I was struck by two posts on that Daily Mail thread:

    ralph, up in the mountains, United Kingdom,

    Our heroic little local newspaper, The Dewsbury Press, very regularly highlights and backs up with undeniable proof the voting fraud, the extremely generous grants that are paid to groups that don’t even exist and then surprisingly go missing, the corruption.

    Week after week this newspaper highlights this into the public domain and points its finger at the police, council,inland revenue, lottery fund and guess what, they all sit back and brazen it out without so much as a comment to defend themselves.

    They just don’t care.

    Fawning round the community is all that matters, keeping them on side.

    The powers that be are seriously frightened. [END]

    And this one:

    in a town near u, gotham city, United Kingdom, 2 days ago

    I once saw a USA style bumper sticker on a very flash customised car saying the following “you have your queen, but we have your country” and guess who the driver and passengers were!

    nice to see a politician speaking out on this issue !! face facts !! they cant even play cricket without tampering with their balls [END]

    I understand there is much love for the monarchy here, but why is it that I can see crystal clear what the UK’s interlopers also see crystal clear: that the institution of monarchy is not protecting the people of the UK at all, but is helping their demise.

    So much so, in fact, that people put the slogan:

    “You have your queen, but we have your country”

    on bumper stickers and T-shirts:

    https://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22you+may+have+your+queen+but+we+have+your+country%22

    Prince Charles reveals he’s been having Arabic lessons for six months so he can read the Koran

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293234/Prince-Charles-reveals-hes-having-Arabic-lessons-months-read-Koran.html

  11. I see the UK’s mainstream media has finally woken up to RBS forcing small firms into special measures so that it can then charge them thousands, run them into the ground, buy them for a song and then flog them at a whopping profit.

    That’s why Hester left the bank.

    None of it is new to readers of The Slog. Or to readers of Private Eye.

    This is a short post from October 2012 – over a year ago – outlining many of the cases The Slog reported.

    Hester knew that report was coming and legged it.

    http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/breaking-allegations-of-systemic-fraud-in-rbs/

    The ‘glitches’ referred to are when the computers stop working – it generated millions in profits.

  12. Malfleur, your link to the Haydn’s parrot story was top notch, thanks. The composer has always been one of the barbarian’s favorite, the six quartets are indeed sublime, helping Baron’s recovery as ‘we speak’.

    Here’s a link to an interview about the future of the Republic. Long winded, plenty of self-promoting plugs, but overall it fits Baron’s view quite well.

    http://w3.newsmax.com/a/aftershockb/video47a.cfm?ns_mail_uid=80910244&ns_mail_job=1547422_11252013&promo_code=15B7F-1

  13. Joany @ 18:40

    Everyone jumped on Fred the Shred for doing the stuff Hester stopped doing or reversed. So which way should the bank turn?

    Look, Baron has no idea about the individual cases the news bulletins are carrying today. We’ve only heard from one of the parties to it, and there may have been mistakes, but again, one cannot ask the banks to weed toxic assets out of the balance sheet, then ask them to keep the toxic assets intact. It ain’t doable.

  14. banks are dinosaurs. peer to peer lending is the way forward

    check out funding circle and funding knight

  15. The Koran’s written in an archaic Arabic, not that many people can master it, more to the point, it’s not just learning the language, it’s the meaning of the words that has to be mastered, too, and that has changed over the centuries, even experts cannot agree on what the words actually meant when the scribbles took Mo’s bleating down.

    Given Charles’s intellectual capacity (five O-levels, two A-levels – history B, French C, 2:2 degree in history, Cambridge) can he really tackle it? He must be hankering to follow in the steps of the deluded Lawrence of Arabia, but without the sword.

  16. alexsandr @ 19:17

    You may well be right but peer2peer landing may be as disastrous in the end as has been the idea of ethical mutuals. The Co-op may be just the tip of the iceberg. Just be careful. The banks are fugging bastards, they are though fugging bastards one has a feel for.

  17. That, though, is not the allegation, Baron.

    The allegation is not that they were supporting zombie firms.

    I know what you refer to: extending a loan for the sake of it.

    You are very quick to dismiss the individual cases and settle for the spin of ‘we can’t extend and pretend’.

    No-one believes in extend and pretend.

    What is alleged here is that Hester had a bankrupt zombie bank whose balance sheet he was prepare to quickly rebuild by fair means – or foul.

    What happened in these cases is that there were small breaches; for example, failing to report small sections of financial information.

    At that point, RBS triggered special measures clauses in the contracts – the special measures were extortionate on those firms to the point where the owners could not hope to repay the bank.

    The Shariagraph is trying to put the same spin on it as you, but, as ever the readers seem to put the Shariagraph’s writers right.

    This is one comment from a Shariagraph reader describing the sorts of case the DTI uncovered. Far from being a ‘zombie’ firm, this is a perfectly viable business that RBS kept going – once it had swiped it from the owner:

    David Burdon

    ‘A client of mine went down in August 2009 when RBS foreclosed on them for – apparently – requesting to renegotiate their mortgage repayments on a factory 9 months after an MBO. The client owed me £2,500. They owed the largest private creditor £30k and the HMRC something north of this. Everyone lost their money except, you’ve guessed it – RBS.

    ‘6 weeks later the managers re-opened the same factory, now 100% owned by RBS.’

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100247526/dont-bet-the-bank-on-vince-cables-latest-assault-on-rbs/

    This story here from the Mail website illustrates the point again.

    An asset is deliberately made vulnerable by the bank, then undervalued by RBS, which then puts a massive mark-up on it when selling it in the real world. This is no ‘toxic; asset:

    Eddie Warren and his wife Cheryl lost more than £1million, their livelihood and their marriage after borrowing from RBS.

    The couple bought the Bold Hotel in Southport in 2007 for £3.7 million, using £1.2million of their own money and taking out a loan from the bank.

    A condition of the loan was that they had to take out an interest rate swap to protect them when base rates increased, but this led to them paying high fixed interest on their loans and an additional £120,000 a year in penalties as rates tumbled. After the hotel was placed in RBS’s Global Restructuring Group it was valued at just £1.8 million. By the autumn of 2011, the business was pushed into administration.

    RBS property company West Register bought the hotel for £1.4 million several months later.

    The bank claims the business may only just break even when it is sold but Mr Warren says it could soon be worth £4 million as the property market recovers.

    He said: ‘They stole it. Even if the property market was depressed it would be worth £3 million.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512791/Banks-ruin-firms-just-make-killing-RBS-Lloyds-branded-unscrupulous-profiteers.html

  18. Lawrence Tomlinson, the report’s author, explains the very simple modus operandi:

    ‘We’re really concerned that the businesses aren’t really struggling and are pushed over the edge.

    ‘And then these extra fees tip them over administration, and then you’ve got the loss of jobs but end up with RBS owning the property.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512791/Banks-ruin-firms-just-make-killing-RBS-Lloyds-branded-unscrupulous-profiteers.html

  19. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10470607/Vince-Cable-sends-dossier-on-RBS-treatment-of-struggling-businesses-to-financial-regulators.html

    Comments like this, underneath the Shariagraph story explain this is not about weeding out toxic assets.

    This is about underpricing jewels so you can grab them and flog them:

    Chris Rayner

    ‘Yup, our 13 year old multi-million pound business was forced to close by RBS.

    ‘Never missed a payment for any loan, company credit card etc etc. Now they are trying to force us to pay back under personal guarantees…

    ‘Hmm, no, you removed our ability to meet repayments that had never been missed on a customer that was and never had been in default!’

  20. Another gem of a reader at the Shariagraph:

    plymouth1

    rbs didnt get quite this far with us, but our account was transferred to ‘the special relationship manager’ because we held a commercial property loan; continual requests for management accounts, ‘further information’ requests by email, are monthly credit checks on the directors. Were still under SRM after two years; btw we haven’t posted a loss in 27 years.

    They did try and sell us an interest swap in 2007, fortunately we declined.

    [END]

    That refusal to buy an interest rate swap saved their business. They would have had to pay a fortune on that by now.

  22. Joany @ 19:32

    OK, Joany, you seem to know quite alot about it. Be careful though, not everything the banks do is evil, not everyone who who says he’s been wrong is an angel. A friend of Baron’s who also runs a small business (shop refurbishment, design), has been struggling for years, but had an overdraft hiked in the summer. He banks with Lloyds.

    You say: “The bank claims the business may only just break even when it is sold but Mr Warren says it could soon be worth £4 million as the property market recovers”.

    Well, it may be worse £10mn by the end of the decade. The question is should the depositors (amongst others) carry the owner until it does? Baron’s a saver, and he’s fed up getting pittance from his savings, in part because the banks have been carrying ‘the dead weight’ for too long now.

    Mr. Warren who also claims RBS bought his hotel for a pittance should have bought it himself. Why didn’t he? It was sold in an auction.

    Again, Baron isn’t defending RBS, the barbarian refuses to listen to, accept the argument of just one party to a dispute before he makes up his mind. Given the animosity towards banking it’s unlikely the cases will be resolved fairly, he reckons.

  23. It’s hard to feel anything but fury and disgust at the RBS dirty dealings – apart from anything else, we own a large stake in this seemingly criminal enterprise, yet they can use the lease of life that our (involuntary) largesse gave it to lay waste to such parts of the economy as it can get its poisonous hooks into. Who to blame – the bank’s bosses or our politicians for putting them in a position where they can do this and then letting them get away with it?

  25. Indeed, Michael.

    Warsi knew there was a vacancy for a Muslim woman somewhere in LibLab and her entire political career was founded on that box-ticking.

    We often think of taxi driving and restaurants as leading candidates for tax-dodging, but the biggest Pakistani trade of all for no tax is the drug trade.

    I have heard many stories about how modest-looking corner shops keep plenty of extras behind the counters once they’ve worked out you’re a local youth and not a copper.

    Prostitution wouldn’t be far behind. I suppose the tax-dodging angle on that isn’t talked about because people are so shocked at the ages of the girls involved.

  27. Obama’s triumphant-sounding announcement about “agreement” with Iran, is a powerful reminder of Neville Chamberlain’s return from Munich with his piece of paper, with his and Hitler’s signatures on it, made me, at first, sigh. To think that this so-called “agreement” with Iran will prevent a nuclear war in the Middle East is a delusion.

    But I’ve begun to have mixed feelings about it.

    Is its outcome going to resemble what came after Chamberlain’s piece of paper? Or is it Obama’s real intention to instead take the position that he and the U.S. have done their utmost to discourage war, but now that it has arrived, it is in the best interests of the U.S. to stay aloof from it? Cynical, sure, but Chicagoans are pretty hard bitten.

    It would be similar to the attitude of a good many people in Britain in 1939, who believed that declaring war on Germany was a mistake and that it would in the end (and in fact did) cause incalculable damage to Britain’s interests and, at the personal level, to it’s population.

    I should think that sensible countries (China for one example) would take that position too?

  28. Frank Sutton & Joany:

    A man takes up a 10-year mortgage, the condition of which is that he also takes up an employment insurance (he loses his job, the insurer pays). The man’s never unemployed. After the 10-year term’s over does the man have the right to claim the employment insurance premiums back? Does the mortgage provider have a moral duty to repay it?

    Who knew three, four years ago what will happen to the cost of money. Did you? If you did, tell us what will happen to interest rates in the next three years, please, underwrite your views in case you’re wrong.

    The banks, all the banks, after the easy money of the pre2008 era got overcautious, they wanted to avoid building up another mountain of toxic assets. Those asking for bank loans should have considered carefully whether they should take insurance rate swaps or not.

    The ex-hotel owner wasn’t forced to take up the loan, he must have consulted his lawyer (if he didn’t, he’s bonkers), he knew what he was signing up to. Things didn’t work out, he lost. He is penniless. If he feels he’s right, the bank wrong why doesn’t he go to the law, he can get legal aid. Why trial by the MSM?

    You see, Baron doesn’t like the banks even more than you do. They’ve lost him a large chunk of savings (the time may come, he’ll tell you), but he also believes that the way to resolve disputes is via the law, not by the mob baying for blood, the politicians entering the fray hoping to win votes. This is capitalism after all, we cannot all win, losers are as part of the system as winners.

    If the court decision goes against RBS, let’s hit the bastards hard, but not before.

  29. What an excellent link, Peter.

    That is the way to do it: once and for all.

    You do not toy with Islam: you show it the only thing it respects.

  31. Do you know how much does it cost to run the institutions of the Commons, the House of Lords, the Strussberg’s monstrosity?

    The answer was hidden on page 34, the Atticus column of the ST in about half an inch column.

    £392mn for the Commons (£600,000 per MP), £87mn for the Lords (£110,000 per peer), and wait for it, £1,318mn for the European Parliament or £1.79 per MEP.

    Revolting.

    Before 1911, MPs were not paid, the first salary was £400 after that year, today’s equivalent is £42,000.

  32. The Mail has picked up a story from another paper.

    The story carries many interesting things.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513320/I-sleep-command-How-middle-class-girl-got-drawn-life-gangs-sexual-exploitation.html

    But not the color of the participants.

    It refers to the female ‘victim’ as ‘a middle-class young woman’.

    Hmmm.

    That is sometimes newspaper innuendo for a white girl dating a black man.

    At the bottom of the Mail’s story is a link to the source:

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/beaten-up-raped-and-made-to-hide-drugs-the-middleclass-girl-who-was-the-lowest-of-the-low-to-a-gang-8962363.html

    ‘These are the poignant, rueful words of Kate, a white English 24-year-old who got drawn into a gang and is currently being counselled by the Nia Project, a charity based in Hackney that helps girls recover from sexual exploitation in gangs.’

    Ah, yes.

    The writer oh-so tellingly tells us the color of the girl: white.

    And then – in the rest of the story – oh-so conspicuously fails to tell us the colour of the boys.

    I think I can work it out for myself.

  33. @Baron 25th – 19:21

    “Given Charles’s intellectual capacity (five O-levels, two A-levels – history B, French C, 2:2 degree in history, Cambridge) can he really tackle it?”

    A rhetorical question, but it begs another: He knows he has no chance of ever becoming fluent in arabic, whether modern (is there such a thing?) or archaic, so why’s he doing it? Or saying he’s doing it? Over to the professors of rhetoric.

  35. With the knowledge that British Intelligence running Al Qaeda in Britain and the rest of Europe, the reasons for the move of Tommy Robinson and Kev Carroll from the leadership of the increasingly effective anti-islamterrorist English Defence League becomes clear – an offer that could not be refused.

    Also explained, possibly, is the brainless opposition to Mr. Robinson by some on this site.

    Meanwhile, even the DT lumbers into action:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10471056/French-spies-and-a-neo-Nazi-plot-to-kill-Abu-Hamza.html

    Abu Hamza – an MI5 man,so it is said…

    The conspiracy by our security services is a conspiracy against the British people.

  36. Who were those three stooges who appeared before a parliamentary committee recently. one of whom is best known for his speedo swimsuit? More names for the list to be compiled by our Committee of Public Safety and our policy of: identify, try, punish.

  39. “Also explained, possibly, is the brainless opposition to Mr. Robinson by some on this site.”

    AS opposed, one suposes, to the unquestioning support to this bilthering idiot and supergrass, by those who should know better.

  40. I still cannot tell whether Robinson ever was genuine-turned-stooge or was always a government stooge.

    The most convincing thing the EDL ever did – and that may really have out the wind up the auhorities – was to establish a Jewish section, a Sikh section and a gay section.

    The key thing for the authorities – aided and abetted by Big Media – is control of image and the Press didn’t like to write about things like that, because it would have undermoined the image of aggression always attributed to the EDL.

    The other thing that suggests the EDL may have been genuine was its refusal to ever embody itself as a political party. That, I think, was done so that people would not be afraid to join by being smeared as political.

    It didn’t matter, though, when marches were held, councils told employees they were not to be seen near the marches. That, I think, was what not being embodied as a political party hoped to avoid.

    Whatever the truth, the EDL was ineffective.

    I cannot believe that people in Britain still keep bank accounts with big banks that deal in sharia finance and some that even offer high street retail sharia accounts.

    That, before any street marching, ought to be the first port of call for any campaigning.

    Sharia finance = zakat = Islamic terrorist funding.

    And people in the UK are supporting it on their local high street.

  41. Lee Rigby murder trial;reports from Old Bailey . Mr Justice Sweeney has given permission for the reporting of the fact that the trial will begin in the next few days,after completion of legal submissions. (Sources:Dominic Casciani,BBC Home Affairs Correspondent and Vikram Dodd,the Guardian.)

  43. “Well, I’ve become an octogenarian and if I have acquired any wisdom at all, it consists of taking at face value the threats of one’s enemies. There’s a kind of pathology at work in the world that refuses to believe. Somebody says “I want to kill you,” you say, well, you can’t possibly mean that.” — Norman Podhoretz1

    China and the forthcoming war in the East.

    http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2013/11/china-attacks/

  44. Noa @ 17:17

    Three things in the cloak of a devil’s advocate:

    Way back in the 60s, 70s last century China used to issue warnings to the US when American aircraft flew over her territory. Today isn’t half a century ago what with China catching up with the Republic, but the point is didn’t China lose respect issuing warning after warning (altogether hundreds) never did anything to stop the overflying. Issuing warnings again may end similarly.

    China has no history of invading other countries, the opposite holds.

    Without the US, EU markets with insatiable appetitive for consumer trinkets China would sink to what she was before, a giant of a country near penury.

  45. dg @ 14:53

    You reckon then the time’s right for a wholesale return into His Kingdom? Judging by the behaviour of the crowds it feels people want anything but. Only the creed of Allah seems to be on the march.

  46. Radford NG @ 13:00

    Is the delay because of legal submission or because the authorities fear his ‘pals’ may be planning something?

  47. Joany @ 12:35

    Isn’t the embracing of Islamic finance by the banks a way of controlling the flow of money into the coffers of the jihadists? You go to Southall, the offices of the Western Union, other money handlers are full of customers busily transferring cash offshore, no checking, no nothing.

  48. Malfleur @ 00:06

    Baron has never been keen on conspiracy theories, cock-ups, yes; Plotting, double-dealing, perfidiousness? Hmmm

  49. Lee Rigby murder trial. Judge Nigel Sweeney told the court the trial could start on Friday at the Old Bailey following the conclusion of legal submissions . The details of legal arguements over the past week can not be reported. (Source:Esmeralda Weatherwax;New English Review)

  50. Noa November 26th, 2013 – 17:17

    “Well, I’ve become an octogenarian”

    You had me fooled for half a minute Noa, there was me thinking our much loved Noa can’t be in his eighties then I realised the whole post is from that quote by Norman Podhoretz.

    I would go a little bit further than ‘Norman Podhoretz’ in that whenever someone says to me on a given subject trust me, I never ever do.

    By the bye, very early in my career (early twenties) a wise man gave me a sound piece of advice, this was, that whenever you had cause to fire an employee, be it for bad time keeping, tardiness, incompetence or whatever you should always say “I am having to let you go, ‘you do know the reason why, don’t you?” and to then shut up and wait for their reply.

    On at least 50% of these occasions the employee will often burst into tears and answer with the self-incriminating, well I did intend to pay it back, or I only borrowed it, or some such.

  51. Baron November 26th, 2013 – 18:36

    “China has no history of invading other countries, the opposite holds.”

    Would Tibet be the exception?

  52. Baron
    Chinese invasions…
    Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Tibet, Vietnam.

    Not to mention the Manchester, Melbourne, London and San Francisco Chinatowns…

  53. OK, point taken, Noa and David, but the Chinese and/or Vietnamese incursions have a pedigree as long as Anno Domini. This isn’t to excuse it, it just that these two nations have always poked each other, and the bigger brother got most of the action. The barbarian is prepared to stand corrected but wasn’t the latest dispute (70s?) about a small piece of land that legally was China, but Vietnam ran it? The islands are disputed territories, about half a dozen nations claim the Spratly islands.

    In regards to Manchester and the rest, well, one may as well argue the Irish invaded this country, too, but spread around.

  54. ‘Isn’t the embracing of Islamic finance by the banks a way of controlling the flow of money into the coffers of the jihadists?’

    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-executive-resigns-senate

    Baron, given that HSBC – a bank with a rather large presence in the UK, I believe – turned a blind eye to money in its own coffers going to drugs lords, rogue states and terrorists, and that it has admitted as such, I cannot have any faith at all that it will follow the money trail out of its bank when zakat is creamed off to go to Islamic ‘charities’ masquerading as a front for Islamic terror funding.

    So the answer to your question is a categorical no.

    See the hyperlink above for more detail.

    Given that there is a strong track record of zakat being creamed off for Islamic ‘charities’ only to be found later to be funding Islamic terrorism, no reasonable person could ever have faith that sharia finance was not being used to fund Islamic terror.

    With the greatest of respect, you seem rather naive about the abilty of Western authorities to keep a grip on sharia finance.

    Will Melanie Phillips persuade you otherwise when she explains: “‘Sharia-compliance’ is not like, say, compliance with health and safety rules. Sharia is the Islamic system of jurisprudence which does not acknowledge any legal authority other than itself and demands adherence to its own precepts.

    “As UKIPDaily comments:

    “‘For the Sukuk to remain Sharia compliant, it necessarily surrenders itself away from the jurisdiction of the UK civil courts to the Islamic courts.’”

    I must say, Baron, that generally speaking, you have a very charitable view of bankers and Islam, which given the track record of fraud of the former and the devotion to taqqya of the latter seems more than a little naive.

    When the two join forces, I suggest a reasonable person would spot double trouble.

  57. Baron – yesterday – 19:25
    “You may well be right but peer2peer lending may be as disastrous in the end as has been the idea of ethical mutuals.”

    🙂

  59. Much interest here in the ‘sport’ of ‘knockout’.

    The USA is, despite Obama’s efforts, still trying to cling on to civility.

    And this is what happens to ‘knockouters’ who get caught: they get shot.

    A defence unavailable to anyone in the UK, who can only hope some PC judge will pass a derisory sentence on their attacker.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/21/Teen-Playing-Knockout-Game-Gets-Shot-Twice

    It’s worth noting too, as the trial of Lee Rigby’s alleged attackers opens, that any similar scenario is unlikely to happen in the USA without a fightback in the street.

    For the sake of civility, the UK needs to let its citizens arm themselves to protect themselves from criminals, whether sanctioned or unsanctioned by the evil state.

  61. Frank P @03:11

    Re: Phillips vs Phillips

    Melanie really cleaned “Baron” Phillips of Sudbury’s clock.
    (“Baron” My Arse!) He’s a LimpDem, I believe.

    Re: [shivers]

    Im reminded of some lines from Lehrer’s song:
    “We’ll all go together when we go,
    suffused with an incandescent glow…”
    and
    “Down by the old maelstrom,
    they’ll be a calm before the storm …..”

    Until then, keep warm!

  62. Hello, I’m going to be getting into big trouble this week
    Can you please save the contents of my website to your computers?
    It’s because I’ve been criticising Daniel Finkelstein of the Times and his SDP friends in the Coalition government
    Please print out the information from my website and share it with your friends
    Because they’re comign to China to shut me up very very soon
    I sent it to the Times editor
    But now my email hushmail has been blocked
    Please get the info out to your local councillors and journalists etc
    They’re trying to silence a big scandal here
    Please help me
    Please

  63. trying to explain whats happening to my friend:

    i disagree with daniel finkelstein, a well known journalist who works in london. he is a social democrat. social democrats are the people that made it easier for people to get divorced. so of course i dont like them very much.

    you know that conservative lost 4 times in a row. so for 20 years they have lost again and again.

    Right yes

    well, daniel finkelstein was their adviser, and he was giving them bad advice.

    Right okay

    so ive been arguing that conservatives shouldnt take daniel finkelstein’s advice seriously

    Ohhh right

    I see

    AND because it’s on the internet. and everyone is on the internet. a lot of journalists have seen my writings. and they

    have started picking up the same idea that daniel finkelstein has too much influence and power over that party.

    Ohhh I get it
    my website has a collection of his articles that go back 20 years. and they show that he was always a left winger. he
    always believed in ‘social democracy’ not conservatism
    you see now there is David Cameron as Prime Minister. George Osborne is chancellor (looks after money), William
    Hague (foreign secretary, spies mi5 etc), michael gove (education, schools etc)

    Right so what’s happening

    david cameron is a nice guy, he’s a posh clever bloke. he’s the window dressing.

    do you know what a MENTOR is?

    Erm not really but go on

    TEACHER / TRAINER

    now Daniel Finkelstein was the mentor of the chancellor and the foreign secretary. they have worked together for 20
    years, back to when they were all 20/30 years old

    I understand the window dressing bit

    George Osborne and William Hague are famous politicians, but they’re not speaking their own ideas. They are frontmen
    for Daniel Finkelstein. He’s the brains behind the government. He’s very powerful
    Okay I see
    do you understand that he is good friends with George Osborne and William Hague and those two control england’s
    money and england’s MI5/foreign affairs
    U wouldn’t be surprised
    well the information on my website is very bad for him. if it spreads around and people agree with it, he will just be a
    normal person again, not as powerful as he is now.
    Ohh fuck I see
    That’s worrying what’s your plan now
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/24/osborne-hague-baron-finkelstein-pinner-danny
    Osborne and Hague cheer arrival of Baron Finkelstein of Pinner
    http://www.theguardian.com
    Michael White sees red ermine-trimmed cloak transform Times columnist into cross between Sir Gawain and Ron
    Weasley
    now he is a Baron, he is more powerful. also do you see the names Osborne and Hague. it’s because he is their teacher
    Okay so your website is damaging to them Ooo
    you have seen schindler’s list the movie? then you can understand why is scared see?
    I can’t remember the film
    well you know what nazis are. we all know they are the bad guys.
    my great grandfather fought in the war and shot one of their planes down.
    they are bad.
    but daniel finkelstein is very scared of my website. in his mind, it reminds him of hitler.
    Fuck man that’s really das
    Sad*
    i want to change the divorce laws. and his social democracy ideas are the ones that support divorce
    It’s fucked up you have to be careful
    yes
    it’s too late
    so you know im in china now
    Just leave it take its course yeah go on
    well david cameron is bringing a big group to china in december to do a trade deal
    so
    im pretty sure that they’ll be trying to shut down my website at that time
    Fuck sake
    Ooo okay so go on tour
    no can do
    Erm can you ring me sometime
    download a film called the gatekeepers
    hope so give your email address i cant use facebook next time
    davidgalea@hushmail.com
    need to go can you save this conversation?
    I’ll email you okay
    done?
    save this information, print it out if you can
    bye
    Speak soon got all

  64. Daniel Finkelstein was right at the heart of the ‘modernising’ project, all right.

    How many journalists get to become Lords?

    That was his reward all right. For services rendered.

    He was an off-the-books spin doctor-cum-policy wonk, dreaming up the drivel that would play well with the BBC/Guardian axis. And he was a Newscorper to boot – Murdoch always likes to have his ear right inside the nucleus of Labour and the Tories. Boy did he get that with his boy Danny.

    There has, in fact, over the past month or so been a ‘cleansing’ of the Tory party’s website – much of the archive has gone so it’s more difficult to retrieve what politicians have said in the past.

    Quite important for a political party that has broken so many promises in the past decade – and which has sold the UK down the river since it ejected Enoch Powell.

    It doesn’t surprise me to hear that other digital cleansings are under way.

    Mr Cameron has a lot of bodies that need burying before the next election.

  68. I do hope so alexsandr – I want Labour and Tory noses rubbed in their own emetic filth until they pass out never to be seen again!

  69. Joany: “I must say, Baron, that generally speaking, you have a very charitable view of bankers and Islam, which given the track record of fraud of the former and the devotion to taqqya of the latter seems more than a little naive”.

    Hmmm, you reckon it’s being naive? Baron reckons, even if he says so himself, it’s more akin to pragmatism. The barbarian happens to be a conservative in the mould of his great guru Edward Burke, believing that one’s merely informed by principles, one’s behaviour, actions are guided not determined by them. Circumstances must be taken into account, often overriding principles transiently, if the suspension of one’s beliefs results in their ‘long term’ survival.

    Still, you’ve joined us only recently, and Baron hates to bore the others repeating what he said many times before. So here goes only briefly:

    On the banks: If there was fraud, there should have been prosecutions. Baron would unquestionably endorse the court’s verdicts, sentences.

    More to the point, in the 80s or around, we messed up the lives of millions by abandoning the old, dirty industries of manufacturing, switched the resources to services, choosing banking as the one to go for big. Then the politicians came up with the idea of ‘no-boom-no-bust’, and that of wealth sharing, loans for everyone even people whose credit rating was zero, their arselickers, the central banks, kept the cost of money low, the debt was piling up.

    The whole insanity imploded, of course, as it should have done, but the politicians remain, the watchdogs escaped any scrutiny only the ‘bankers’ get the blame. Baron likes it not abit.

    The blue veined barbarian doesn’t bat for any banker, group of them, you think one or two or many are guilty, go to a lawyer, take them to court. If found guilty Baron’s in favour of hanging them, he’s fighting for banking as such, not any individual within it.

    He believes the post-war prosperity of the West stood on two legs that of cheap energy and that of credit creation. That’s a given for him. Currently, we are doing everything we can to make energy as expensive as it goes, and into the bargain keep kicking banking. Well, the outcome will be clear, and soon. You’ll see.

    I spare you Baron’s take on Muslims except to say that not that long ago we armed Muslims, they took orders from us, infidels, to kill other Muslims and the Koran, the hadiths and the taqqya were then the same as today.

    The resurgence of militant Islam towards the infidel West has FA to do with the Koran, the scribbling, rituals and stuff, it stems from first, the big money the top Muslim fruitcakes get for the ‘liquid gold’ we buy from them. This gives them power, re-kindles their world Cali[hate dreams, and second, our losing self-confidence in our societal construct, embracing the bleating of the ‘the-white-race-is-the-cancer-of-human-history’ Sontags’ Saids, Alinskys and co.

    Both the oil buying and the loss confidence in our culture, belief system are of our own doing, nothing to do with Muslims at all. We can stop the former, regain the latter and they, the Muslim fruitcakes, are a toast. Unlike the parrot ‘not resting, but truly dead’ even though the Koran, the rest of the Islamic faith will stay as it has always been.

    Abit clearer, is he, the barbarian?

  70. Please save this message to your hard drives in notepad or wordpad or whatever writing software that you have:

    Now I’m a poor student living in China studying Chinese. And I love China very much.

    Well I went to school at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf and it was almost like hacker HQ at that time. About 5 or 6 students were elite masters of the phone systems and lunix boxen. I preferred assembly language and still do. Some people I know could do absolutely amazing things with satellites, road signs, trunking phone lines, etc and they were only 15-17 years old. Now when the government is going for my website, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the same people that I knew at school and in the web chatrooms. So I don’t think the gov knows what it’s doing. They might have clever crackers and people good with encryption but they don’t understand the hacker culture or motivations. They’re going to be about as loyal to the coalition as an Iraqi policeman. There is no reason for them to support a coalition which lacks democratic legitimacy. They will support a Labour government.

    Next is the server for my website http://www.britishreactionary.co.uk which is hosted in Frankfurt, Germany. Now the special thing about Frankfurt is that it is a special network hub for monitoring data in Germany. My server has an old version of linux running on it which hasn’t been updated properly. The security is lax on it, very easy to hack. But because it’s in Frankfurt whoever touches my server will be monitored by that Frankfurt hub. In other words the people who control that hub were originally hackers who grew up on line chatting in chatrooms. It’s too late, they will already have received such data talking about Kaiser Wilhelm II and be very confused by it but they will surely have plenty of hard drive space. So this is a chance for the ideas of monarchy to spread through Germany. And they will wonder why uk gov wants to shut the site down. What’s so special about hereditary monarchy that it’s not allowed to be talked about?

    We all know the story of a poor student with political ideas who was oppressed by his own government. Now imagine if the tables were turned and the other government could say “haha, now you are oppressing a poor student.” And then if it turned out that the documents that he had collected suggested that one specific democratic country that nagged every other country to adopt a democratic system was actually a country of three parties with identical social democratic beliefs? What if the BBC praised an eccentric artist and called him a dissident then rubbed his country’s nose in it every day? What if that country found its own eccentric musician from Britain? What if they used him to smash back at the BBC? Now you see how the Coalition thinks. Actually it doesn’t think at all. It has tactics without strategy. Power without legitimacy.

    Now what if that poor student was a Welshman who had enjoyed his education in the Welsh language? Now going for that student and trying to shut down his website would be like pouring petrol on a fire. Think ‘Oppressive English government tries to crush Welsh speaking student who wishes for divorce law reform’. Because Roy Jenkins and Leo Abse were Welsh. And they brought in easy divorce and child centered reform. And the company that divorced my parents was Leo Abse & Cohen so I have a particular grudge against proponents of divorce, such as the SDP’s Roy Jenkins and the SDP in general because of divorce. And my grandfather was strong in the Labour party as a smelly socks socialist. Again, the coalition hasn’t thought it through before going for me and my website.

    Now I have been writing a fictional book, there is a sample on my site. It’s called Do Animals Go to Heaven? It’s a retelling of the story of King David. It’s a story about some British and Chinese people who survive an Apocalypse and try to retain their culture while avoiding murderous thugs. It emphasies moral and mental success over the physical. Now I have been doing research for my book on light infantry because four of the characters are soldiers. Their names are Nelson, Welly, Wingate, and Tommy. All the information is publically available from the internet. But it’s not easy for everyone to understand. I have the books of Martin Van Creveld and some collections of works by Americans who tried to reform the Marine Corps. It’s available to anyone at any bookshop or google. But if the coalition starts saying to other countries that they want to shut down my website, you realise that the first they will do is check the logs for my IP addresses. They will check all the websites that I have been viewing over the past few years. They don’t even need to see my pc, the logs will already be on their own country’s computers. And they will have many interesting ideas from the famous intellectuals Professor Martin Van Creveld and Mr William S. Lind to peruse and read at leisure. Plus they will have the logs of all the newspaper articles that I have read and they will be sure to analyse them in depth. Again, the coaliton goes for physical victories without thinking through the consequences. So they’re going to make a silly mess of this for certain.

    I believe in God and I believe that the members of the current coalition government will find redemption. If they need advice on their policies then I will be happy to offer my advice for free. But please leave my website alone.

  73. Baron (14:14)

    You excel yourself, Sir.

    Bravo! I await the reaction with interest.

    As for dg. Don’t reject the facts, folks, by suggesting that his assumptions, drawn therefrom, may be muddled. A bit like the piano sketch of Eric Morecambe and Andre Previn:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7yb-JncKow

    Preview: “You’re playing all the wrong notes…”
    Eric: “No, I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!”

    Best ever skit from the daddies of ’em all. Even though this one owes a debt to Les Dawson.

  75. Baron – 14:14 ‘bankers?’
    A good read, but I must take you to task about:
    “… in the 80s or around, we messed up the lives of millions by abandoning the old, dirty industries of manufacturing, switched the resources to services, choosing banking as the one to go for big.”

    I graduated, in a Natural Science, in the mid-seventies and expected to be working within the Science/Engineering disciplines: remember Harold Wilson’s White Heat of Technology”. Even in those days I didn’t believe it would be a panacea, but I did expect that it would exist!

    How about having a career in the British Motor industry? Remember British Leyland! I wanted to be a Scientist because I thought that professional Engineers where always on strike! I wasn’t sure, but the BBC were always saying Hugh Scanlon, was bringing ‘his men’ out on strike. Who in their right mind would join a company like that? Where there was Engineering there were strikes. Why would designers want to work there? Anywhere as long as it wasn’t a British Engineering company.

    In those days, no one with any idea of the big picture would have wanted to get into a job that had anything to do with manufacturing, especially someone who didn’t go to the Comp! The old, dirty industries of manufacturing were controlled by the Unions, which were controlled by politicians based in foreign countries that wanted to bring down Britain.

    Luckily computers came along to rescue me!

  76. Baron, Big Oil may be responsible for handing money to Saudi Arabia.

    But how do you jump from that to acquitting The Koran of instructions like this: ‘Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.’

    Those teachings were there – and acted upon – before the oil.

    And they’ll be there – and acted upon – after the oil has gone.

    Yet you assert: ‘The resurgence of militant Islam towards the infidel West has FA to do with the Koran’.

    You could have fooled me.

    On the bankers, I am well aware that the bankers were not watched over properly by the watchdogs and the politicians.

    I do not, though, draw your non-sequitur that this absolves the bankers at all.

    The bankers, politicians and watchdogs are all in it together – if you hadn’t noticed.

    The reward for turning a blind eye in high office is a job afterwards.

    You mention the Blair/Brown era of ‘no-boom-no-bust’ – and the reward for Blair afterwards was a load of work with JP Morgan.

    The banks do not fear the watchdogs and regulators because there is a revolving door between the two.

    Hector Sants’ reward for turning a blind eye to all the chicanery he oversaw was to walk out of watchdog the Financial Services Authority and into a cushy little number at Barclays.

    As with Blair’s relationship with JP Morgan, it was a nice little ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ deal.

    The fact that the politicians and the regulators are in the pocket of the bankers doesn’t absolve the bankers.

    In the same way that oil money doesn’t absolve The Koran of its instructions.

  77. RobertC @ 19:06

    The rant wasn’t meant to be judgmental, Robert, well, not overall. Baron merely said what had happened. You right, the manufacturing was being messed up by the unions, interference by the state and stuff, but the point Baron was trying to make was the ‘crowding out’ did lead to closure of manufacturing capacity in a big way. North Sea Oil came in as a substitute, then services.

    Glad to hear computers have saved you even though the ‘white heat’ got generated mostly in Japan and the Silicon Valley. Baron was only a user, what he can claim is he ran Visicalc amongst the first, he brought it to the UK from New York a week after its release, and then the 1-2-3. You remember? These were the days, ha?

  78. Joany – 19:06 “The bankers, politicians and watchdogs are all in it together”

    Maybe, but if you had a school that was renowned for poor behaviour, would you say that all the pupils were in it together, when some were forced to attend because it was the only school available to them?

    Surely, it would be the Head and, to some extent, the Staff, that should be admonished. They children can only respond to Authority, which would have been absent.

    Similarly, Gordon Brown did everything possible to sabotage the financial industries – even going as far as persuading Lloyds to buy HBOS!

    It is not to say that some bankers did not help, but having spent 20 years in an industry, with a mortgage to pay and a family to support etc, how do you expect the average Joe Banker to change the system without being disciplined – especially when the British Public had voted for it!

    Look up Paul Moore, a director of HBOS, who lost his job for challenging the appalling judgments at that organisation!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moore_(banking_manager)
    ” Following the revelation that Moore had been fired by Sir James Crosby, formerly CEO at HBOS, Crosby re-signed from his subsequent post of Deputy Director at the FSA.”

    That does say it all. It was the Regulators who were useless!

    I expect we will get the same blame directed at all Scientists when the Global Warming Deceit is shown to be an expensive way to throw away money, and the Old die of frostbite into the bargain!

    There are many Scientists who have spent a lot of effort putting the opposite view, but the BBC have banned them appearing on any of their media channels!

  79. Joany @ 19:06

    But the Big oil is handing the money to the religious zealots only because Baron, you, the rest of the West burns the stuff in cars, power generation, flights…

    The massive reserves the Muslim countries posses is both a blessing and a curse. The imaginative ingenuity of the West is likely to come with an alternative to oil, and when that happens, and happen it will, the Arabs will go back to traveling the sand dunes, racing camels.

    Your theory of the Koran being the culprit what with the hadiths of hate is a proper theory in Popper’s terms, it can be falsified, and Baron reckons he can do just that. Thousands of Muslims enlisted in our Indian Army, took orders from white infidel officers, killed other Muslims. The followers of Allah fought on our side in WW1 and WW2. Some got awarded for bravery. A Muslim chap, the sepoy Khudada got the Victoria Cross in 1914. He and other Muslims read the Koran with the hadiths you quote, hit their head five times a day towards Mecca….

    If it were the Koran holding the key to the clash between us and them, Baron would despair. But it isn’t, it’s the cash we furnish the religious fruitcakes with because of our insatiable hunger for oil. When they didn’t have it they behaved well. When the oil either runs out, or we’ll find something to replace it with, they’ll behave differently again.

    On the incestuous relationship between the political class, the banks, the agencies of the State you right, it also was Baron’s point except that he doesn’t see the bankers as the ones calling the tune. They are all the same, all guilty as charged, yet only the bankers, or rather banking because this is how the unwashed view the issue, gets vilified, the Blairs, the Kings, the Sants escape public opprobrium, get promoted. Lunacy this.

  80. Baron@November 27th, 2013 – 20:16 and Joany @ 19:06

    we need to wean ourselves of arab oil and gas. That means 1 thing. fracking.
    why are we buggering about.
    Lets frack now and tell the arabs where to shove their oil.
    (The yanks have!)

  81. Baron – 19:40 ‘Manufacturing’

    I didn’t take it as a judgement, but I do question the description of what forces drove the change. It wasn’t the Powers That Be closing down manufacturing capacity at all. A lot of tax payers money went into trying to keep it going!

    Manufacturing capacity closed because the only people willing to work for those companies would be ‘the Unaware’ and Second Raters! If you were top of your class, would you have gone to work at BL, with Red Robbo, if you were an Engineer and had a choice? Get an office full of second raters and nothing new will be created, apart from political intrigue and financial loss!

    I knew someone who was so fed up working at one of these Centres of Wealth Destruction that he ended up commuting, weekly, to Germany! There was contempt for Quality and the Customer in equal measure!

    It then follows that these companies’ products become ‘tired’, then useless, then unmarketable! I think that is what you are calling being crowded out’.

    North Sea Oil took over because it was there, it was the feed stock for industry, people like me saw it, not as a substitute, but as a better future, away from the Unions and Politicians. It gave me expertise that I knew was marketable worldwide.

    It also meant we could afford to buy a house in our Twenties!

    Yes, those were the days my friend!

  82. Baron – 20:16 ‘Koran or Oil?’

    Their Oil Wealth has given them the resources to follow their ‘Instructions’ in the West.

    The Common Man used to be loyal to his Lord of the Manor, but he will not return having tasted the power of ‘Organised’ Labour and the ability to demand, and receive, State Benefits!

    Similarly, the Middle East will not return to Civilisation, having tasted the power of destroying the Twin Towers and seeing how those in the West have no understanding of what it is to have a culture. It is the second that is the most dangerous!

    We are living in a different world. The Genie is out of the bottle!

  83. I went into manufacturing. It was not unionised. It was fairly good fun. The last company I worked for, an Anglo-Finnish manufacturer, is still in business. My father was in private manufacturing and my brother still works for that company. In fact all my siblings have worked there at one time or another.

  84. Great news for all Jewish people in England. David Cameron tweets…

    Happy ‪#‎Hanukkah‬! The Jewish community makes such a great contribution to our national life – I’m looking forward to lighting the candles in Downing Street tonight.

  85. Robert C, you are quite right that not every person who has ever worked in banking is evil.

    Far from it.

    The best commentary I read and hear on the subject comes from ex-City and ex-Wall Street people.

    I know the UK had the infamous Geraint Anderson’s Cityboy column until his motor accident, which woke up many people as to how corrupt the City of London is.

    The most famous ex-banker to expose the banks for what they get up to is Max Keiser, whose half-hour show can be caught three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays.

    http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/

    My language about the bankers is positively twee next to his descriptions of JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein as ‘financial terrorists’.

    Keiser worked enough years on Wall Street to know all about their dirty little secrets.

  87. ITV East news bulletin at 18.00 hours, the first item: Cameron newly found toughness on future immigrants, followed by a TV crew interviewing an old lady in Moorgate, most likely desperate to get a PC take on Cameron’s sudden macho stance. The reporter asks: ‘What d you think about the Cameron speech?. The lady, half turning away from the camera says: ‘It’s the election coming, isn’t it’. Then she turns away completely muttering ‘it’s too late anyway’. And she right.

    The open door policy was a Labour’s idea, but the Tories did BA to reverse it. It is an entirely a middle class issue, Baron reckons, a mutant of the old colonisation except that the travelling got reversed. Instead of the sons of the middle classes going east to Africa, Asia, Far East, providing employment for the indigenous populace, the indigenous folk from those distant lands travel to Britain to do jobs for the middle classes here. The addition of the East Europeans makes it even more palatable to the professional classes. Is that much more satisfying being served a latte, having a house cleaned, children looked after by a graduate from Poland than a local from Somalia. As the jobs of the lawyers, top managers, journalists and people like that who vote mostly for conservatives aren’t under threat, why should the Tories interfere?

  88. Peter from Maidstone @ 20:55

    The boy does it all the time, but only to some. How likely is it he will also congratulate Christians at Christmas.

  89. Baron, I am middle class. I don’t want lots of migrants here working. My children, with degrees and willing to work hard, cannot find work. My children cannot afford to purchase or rent even the low cost accommodation in town. It’s certainly a middle class thing. We are left to pick up all the costs while a vast class of British people are unemployed. You are mistaken I fear if you think the votes of a handful of lawyers and top managers matter or achieve anything. It is the support of 9 million migrants that is valuable to our political class.

  90. Baron, too, began his dimly non-illustrious career in manufacturing in a small shed in Thornton Heath, south of London mixing flour with some poisonous compound. The stuff was used to kill rats, other vermin. Seven of us, three back guys, two Irish, an Englishman of about 60, and Baron, weekly wage £9/3sh and sixpence, but it was possible to buy Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, the barbarian’s chosen weed, in ones, twos.

  91. Baron not all, or most, manufacturing is quite so primitive, at least not now. I made chips in a wafer fab with a clean room environment. And I spent 18 years as Production Controller and then IT Manager in another modern facility.

  92. Peter from Maidstone @ 21:48

    Peter, point taken, but tell Baron, if the newcomers were to take the jobs of the movers and shakers rather than those like your kids would the Tories stand by, let it happen?

  93. Joany @ 21:13

    “…Writing in the Wall Street Journal (“Confessions of a Quantitative Easer,” November 11, 2013), Andrew Huszar confirms my explanation to be the correct one. Huszar is the Federal Reserve official who implemented the policy of QE. He resigned when he realized that the real purposes of QE was to drive up the prices of the banks’ holdings of debt instruments, to provide the banks with trillions of dollars at zero cost with which to lend and speculate, and to provide the banks with “fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions.”

    This vast con game remains unrecognized by Congress and the public. At the IMF Research Conference on November 8, 2013, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers presented a plan to expand the con game.

    Summers says that it is not enough merely to give the banks interest free money. More should be done for the banks. Instead of being paid interest on their bank deposits, people should be penalized for keeping their money in banks instead of spending it.”

    Read the whole article at:
    http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/11/27_Paul_Craig_Roberts_-_The_US_Is_Being_Destroyed.html

  94. I know, indeed, Baron that Muslim troops were involved in the World Wars.

    I recall ‘Baroness’ Warsi infamously using the same argument against Nick Griffin on Question Time.

    But were they fighting pro bono?

    Or were they out to earn a living?

    People will tend to put food in their mouths before they get round to trouble-making.

    Your argument was most famously dealt with by Winston Churchill:

    ‘Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.’

    It’s a very famous passage and I am sure it was what led to Barack Obama removing the statue of Churchill from his office.

    Obama would not have a face looking back at him that told him this home truth:

    “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!

    “Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

    “The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

    “A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity.

    “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

    “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

    “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

    Sir Winston Churchill; (Source: The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London)

    You either go into this with open eyes or Lawrence of Arabia-style naivety.

    His naivety ended up with him being raped by a bunch of them.

    That, metaphorically speaking, is what seems to be happening to the free world.

    Yes, they certainly have the means now more than they ever did.

    Yes, some parts of the free world are culpable for this. And, indeed, the oil money is funding Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism.

    But this is an explanation.

    It is not an excuse.

    You offer an explanation for some of the things fuelling Islam’s resugence.

    But you offer no excuse for its followers.

    In the end, Muslims who follow Islam are morally culpable.

    They cannot be excused that.

    A curse on the oil money that helps them, of course.

    But those who follow this know what they do.

    Especially when they are in the West and are not acting under duress.

    These converts in the West to Islam know exactly what they are getting into.

    If Muslims living in a place such as Egypt can find the courage to become Muslim apostates then there is simply no excuse for moving to the West and preaching moral equivalence between the host culture and Islam.

    It is Muslim apostates who can be excused.

    Like those apostates who run this website, as they put it, ‘telling the truth about Islam’:

    http://www.islam-watch.org/

    They accept culpability for those instructions – and reject them.

    In the Middle East they do so under life-threatening conditions.

    Culpability for belief does come into it – as the apostates will tell you.

    No excuses.

  95. Peter from Maidstone @ 21:57

    Ain’t it a coincidence, Peter, Baron used to follow (write reports) on Japanese companies that made the gear you must have used – steppers, diffusion chambers, slicers (Disco), testers (Advantest) and stuff like that.

  97. Indeed, Malfleur, Andrew Huszar’s name has cropped up a lot in Max Keiser’s expose shows a lot recently.

    You do get good people in banking who are unwitting dupes. In this case, Huszar realised the game and walked.

    Those King World News audio interviews you post are often gems, pulling apart the smoke and mirrors between the politicians and the bankers.

    Another obvious example is Mark Carney. He is part of the Bank of International Settlements – the uppermost tier in the world banking cabal – and an ex-Goldman Sachs employee and yet he is parachuted into what is a de facto political high office in a country he has nothing to do with.

    In power terms, only the chancellor and prime minister are above him.

    He is in the UK, I believe, because of the City of London’s importance for what is effectively money laundering before cash reaches America, where the rules get tougher.

    A lot of American banks need offices in London, where the rules are more lax, before the books can be put back into more respectable shape in the USA.

    He is part of the BIS.

  98. Joany @ 22:06

    Baron has no quarrel with Winston’s observations. Those who follow the Allah may well have been what he said they were, still be the same, that’s not what the argument is all about. It doesn’t answer the question why they’re making such progress now, didn’t make any when Winston was around.

    Look, we’re all guessing, looking at the evidence, trying to pick up what’s important, what just noise. Let’s just wait, see how it all pans out.

  99. ‘The politicians are very happy that the movers and shakers increasingly be made up of migrants. Just look at the names of heads of various organisations, of top lawyers etc etc.’

    Indeed.

    ‘Hideously white’ as the BBC calls the indigenes.

  101. Malfleur & Joany:

    the QE offered a way out of a total collapse of the financial system and with it a societal implosion of biblical proportions. There, of course, will be a price to be paid. Whether we can pay it remains to be seen.

    And the chap Keiser is a nutter, he kept telling everyone to get out of cash into gold when the commodity was around $1800, predicting it will touch $3000. Well, it may well do, but as things are it’s around $1400. As the Dutch say ‘man can predict everything but the future’.

  103. Peter – quite so!

    Baron – I would not suggest anyone watch Max Keiser’s show as a place to pick up financial tips!

    It is currently tipping Bitcoin, with the caveat that people may lose all their outlay if it goes wrong.

    Keiser is not a nutter. He is an ex-Wall Street banker and his show offers many insights into the tricks the bankers and politicians get up – and particularly how they collude.

    His CV gives him the experience to commentate.

    I never bought into gold myself, always following the rule that once people invite you to a party it’s already too late, but gold had a very good run for those who got in early.

    For those interested in the demise of gold, some of his shows this year have looked at some of the very strange market manipulation.

    The episode on the home page in fact has a guest on talking about strange 20-second stop logic moments in the gold market when it has to be frozen.

    20 seconds is a very long time in high frequency trading and more than enough time for a few Arthur Daley’s to make a killing. It’s all very odd.

  104. Joany

    The rule I follow, call me crazy if you will, is that if people invite you to a party, there’s going to be a party.

  107. You can’t say that.
    There are many truths that cannot be uttered in modern Britain.
    Rod liddle in the spectator .
    Well worth reading.

  108. Frank P, what a brilliant piece by Steyn.

    As ever, one laughs and laughs and laughs.

    And then one has to realise the seriousness and venom with which these people are prepared to defend Islam.

    With a straight face, they line up to lie through their teeth.

  109. Two pieces on the Shariagraph. One puff piece by that ghastly Brogan man spinning for Johnson. The readers kick seven bells out of him.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100248107/boris-johnson-margaret-thatcher/

    Not everybody in the UK can leave university, like Boris, call up a chum on The Times for a job, make up quotes for said job and still survive as a journalist and have a job in public life. Johnson got the sack for that, but unlike most journalist trainees soo secured another job.

    Making things up tends to disbar most people from journalism, but not Johnscon. Oh no.

    Is that ‘intelligence’ or just cliquey nepotism and back-covering?

    Same for his Darius Guppy physical beating phone call.

    ‘Intelligence’? Or just sheer arm’s length physical bullying through an elite netweork so Boris Johnson’s fingerprints were never on it?

    The man’s trying to court UKIP voters with the promise of grammar schools. Stick it in the same tray as Dave’s referendum, Boris. The public have heard it all before. Go away.

    And this. No comments allowed. Says it all. What a sham of a paper the Shariagraph is:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100248091/peter-griffiths-and-the-tory-racism-of-the-1960s-killed-rational-debate-about-immigration/

  110. Joany 27th, – 22:42

    “I never bought into gold myself, always following the rule that once people invite you to a party it’s already too late, but gold had a very good run for those who got in early.”

    Mafleur 27th, – 23:14

    “The rule I follow, call me crazy if you will, is that if people invite you to a party, there’s going to be a party.”

    Yes, but a party for whom? The people who got in early, whose invitation to others is now shoving the price even higher, so that when they bail out at (hopefully) the peak, that peak is much higher that it otherwise would have been.

  111. That’s sort of it, Ostrich.

    A lot of people puffing about Bitcoin happen to be people who hold lots of them; they cannot be trusted as disinterested parties.

    Type “Bitcoin frauds” into Google and see what you get!

    Back to the party analogy, I’d put it like this: all the free drink and food will likely go early.

    Don’t be arriving when all the free stuff has gone and you have to stump up for gasoline and an expensive trip to the liquor store!

  112. Baron – yesterday – 14:14
    “More to the point, in the 80s or around, we messed up the lives of millions by abandoning the old, dirty industries of manufacturing”

    PfM- yesterday – 21:57
    “Baron not all, or most, manufacturing is quite so primitive, at least not now. I made chips in a wafer fab with a clean room environment. And I spent 18 years as Production Controller and then IT Manager in another modern facility.”

    It looks like PfM also preferred a “clean room” to “old, dirty industries”. 🙂

    That is what brought down Britain’s “old, dirty industries of manufacturing”. The educated, aware and motivated did not want to work in it! Why work with politically motivated saboteurs, when you could work with people who knew they had to create wealth to put food on the table.
    But the demise of the old industries didn’t stop manufacturing happening in Britain. It did mean that the manufacturing became cleaner, more highly skilled, more profitable, better paid but were less likely to employ school leavers without any qualifications.

    I have read some articles about Detroit’s decline and many mention the fact that everyone expected that production line jobs were always going to be there for the uneducated, so many children stopped working at school. Those that continued were able to adapt, learn new skills and move to the suburbs when the unskilled jobs disappeared.

    The rest is history!

  113. Frank P – 01:21 “Article 1041 of the Civil Code states:”

    “Marriage before puberty by the permission of the Guardian …”

    Surely not! 🙂

  115. Noa November 28th, 2013 – 11:31

    “Fracking in the UK. It’s now doubtful that it will happen”

    Surely common sense will prevail, it would be criminal neglect not to maximise our use of fracking.

  116. When I worked in a wafer fab none of us had experience of such high technology but we were employed because we had an aptitude to learn and I was a shift leader even though I had no idea of the science behind what we were doing.

    In my last and longest job we had 300+ staff and three factories in the South East and most of the assembly staff were ordinary local people, certainly not highly educated. It was skillful work but could be learned by anyone with commitment to effort.

  117. Holding up more glasses than Backpool Pleasure Beach’s Hall of Mirrors, David Cameron continue to evade, deceive and doing nothing on immigration and the EU, whilst pretending to be a Eurosceptic.
    The EU debate is really about sovereignty, (national not royal) and not immigration, (which is about treason and destruction of the nation).

    For a true picture, not one through Lynton’s kaleidoscope, consider:-
    http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84516
    and
    http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/this-is-a-little-more-encouraging/

  118. The Daily Shariagraph lives up to stereotype today:

    1) Puff piece on Boris Johnson by Benedict Brownose, overlooking all the nepotistic, elitist cliquiness that got him to where he is and which has prevented his downfall as would have happened to other more intelligent but less well connected people. Also overlooks the fact that Johnson writes for the rag. I think it’s what they called a vested interest.

    2) Piece on immigration. No comments allowed.

    3) Piece by Sharia Oborne slamming into Israel.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10478464/Iran-nuclear-deal-ill-informed-friends-of-Israel-are-refusing-to-face-facts.html

    Sums that ‘newspaper’ up in a nutshell.

  119. David Ossitt 11:38

    “Surely common sense will prevail…”

    David,
    A study of the links will be unlikely to encourage your faith in common sense, a commodity, which, along with brains and cojones, is in very short supply in our politicians when it comes to contesting the directives of the Brussels nomenclatura.
    If you have shares in the nascent fracking industry, then consider whether ‘hold’ should move to ‘sell’.

  120. The Slog, who has been on to the client-destroying chicanery at RBS for months, stirs the pot of corruption again in a post today asking why police and politicians who ought to be in the know are so untroubled by this taxpayer funded criminality.
    Oh, and there’s a nice footnote about Boris Johnson, a man whose sense of entitlement would shame a sink estate-full of benefit claimants.

  121. Joany: Boris is paid £5,000 a pop for his telegraph scribblings. Really, he ought to be paying them as his pieces are little more than puffs for Brand Boris.

  122. Dominic Grieve highlights the electoral corruption amongst the Pakis. The next day he was grovelling, saying he did not mean it. I did not know whether to throw up or crack open a bottle. Her in Tower Hamlets we are all aware of the electoral fraud that is practiced, and you can be certain it goes on in other high density Asian area. Nobody can tell me that this is not known to the authorities. It is time that those in charge of the state started to defend British interests and to uphold British law. If that entails being called racist, then so bloody what?

  123. Meanwhile at the Old Bailey :-

    In Court 2 : Adebowale and Adebolajo were up `For Trial`this morning for the murder of Lee Rigby. Case adjourned till 10am Friday.

    In Court 12 : Trial continues of Coulson,Brooks (Mr.&Mrs.) and others. They are upto witness 39.

  124. This year Americans have been using an irritating compound verb with increasing frequency: to double down. We double or quits and I thought if anything we double up. It makes no sense to me to have a verb which seems to indicate an decrease of some kind when an increase is intended.

    Fir example “When tested, President Barack Obama has backed down abroad but doubled down at home”. (Newsday, Nov. 8th.)

  125. After a lifetime of smoking and enjoying tobacco, pipes, cigars but mainly cigarettes I stopped at my first attempt eleven years ago this coming February, now I limit myself to a very occasional pinch of snuff.

    If I had not stopped when I did I would not be alive today, I would not have survived major surgery that I had to have eighteen months after stopping.

    I would never encourage anyone to smoke but that said what on earth is David Cameron doing having parliament looking at legislating for all cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging?

    Where will this silly hounding of smokers end?

    I wonder why the tobacco companies do not challenge this madness in the courts.

    I play a game in supermarkets (not on every visit) this involves me standing at the tobacco counter until it is my turn and then asking the member of staff to roll back the shutters on each section in turn so that I can peruse what is available and then thanking them but not making any purchase.

    In my opinion these (usually grey) shutters instead of being plain should have example life-size photographs on the fronts of what is hidden behind.

  127. Frank Sutton @ 13:56

    You seem to take keen interest in the affairs of RBS (Baron has no ties with the bank, never used it for anything). Still, can you speculate why nobody harmed by the bank’s alleged criminality has taken it to the courts of law. The Slog, and everyone who’s responded to the piece, seems to think that everything the bank has done was evil. This blanket indictment cannot be right. More to the point, Baron’s a saver, he doesn’t have much, and what he has has shrunk noticeably, the interest has been pitiful, he had to use the capital, too.

  128. If I were to become a dictator tomorrow;

    I would round up the all top executives of the international tobacco cartels, their corruptees in government – and charge them all with conspiracy to inflict grievous bodily harm upon untold millions of credulous fools that have inhaled their products. Moreover I would seize all their assets and divert their massive wealth to treatment of cancer and emphysema and make it illegal to grow or retail tobacco in the future.

    Those who, under the banner of ‘freedom’, support these corporate poisoners and their cynical political beneficiaries, by thwarting the attempts of the medical profession to chivvy and shame the governments of the world into taking steps to halt the passing of this anti-social, filthy and suicidal and deeply addictive habit on to future generations of the children of the world, are beneath contempt themselves.

  129. Frank, a splendid find, the madamscherzo site, the kaki painting’s delightful, as is Perlman’s violin.

  130. Malfleur – 16:13 ‘double down”

    One definition is “to double one’s wager”. That is, they put down up to the original amount, so putting up to double the amount at risk.

    So, your example still doesn’t make any sense:
    “When tested, President Barack Obama has backed down abroad but doubled down at home”. (Newsday, Nov. 8th.)

  131. Baron (17:09)

    Then this exponent of the fiddle should delight you even more; you may even ignore the ancient recording, it hardly detracts from the virtuosity. Wonderful!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYHfS1urmGc

    If humanity emerged from the cosmic soup just to evolve to that one performance, it would have compensated for all the suffering, shit and corruption that came with it. Sublime.

  132. Baron, as I understand it, no matter how serious the corruption – and it has gone as high as fixing the Libor rate – none of the bankers has gone to jail yet.

    This, despite many admissions of wrongdoing and many fines.

    In the second half of this Max Keiser show Rowan Bosworth-Davies, a former fraud squad detective talks about his campaign to get the City of London’s criminals treated with the parity applied to all other fraudsters.

    Andrew Tyrie MP conveniently ‘lost’ Mr Bosworth-Davies’ evidence.

    If they didn’t lock up Fred The Shred, why would they lock up his successors?

    Banks are a law unto themselves, Baron.

    A law unto themselves.

    http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/episode-510-max-keiser-172/

  133. It is instances such as Andrew Tyrie’s ‘losing’ of evidence and Hector Sants’ ability to walk out of a shambles of a watchdog (the FSA) and, er, into work in a bank (fancy!), that shows how the bankers, politicians and watchdogs do not work in separate silos at all.

    They are all in it together.

    Rowan Bosworth-Davies also runs a blog, but for those of you short on time, this interview below (it starts at 13.15 on the timer) shows how the regulator provides a fug of smoke around the City of London’s frauds.

    Most usefully of all, though, is the information about arrests.

    Why are there no arrests?

    The answer to that – in a nutshell – comes at 20.48.

    There is ‘always a level of politcal oversight’:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czivvxlUR9Q

    Always a level of political oversight.

    It’s worth watching from 20.48 just to hear how it works.

    Bankers, politicians and watchdogs.

    Consider them all the three cups in front of the magician.

    Move them about and muggins the punter won’t notice.

    They are all co-ordinated by the same hand.

  135. try again 🙁

    Frank P@November 28th, 2013 – 17:07

    Frank, that is the first support for anti smoking i have seen on blogs like this. i despise smoking. it is smelly and dirty. I hate having to run the gaultlet of smokers outside my local hospital and the piles of discared fag ends, as the disregard the no smoking notices.
    I hate the thought my grand kids will take up this nasty habit.

    I think the number of outlets should be limited and an shop selling to underage kids have their licence to sell tobacco revoked.

  136. Frank P – 18.01

    Thanks for that David Oistrakh film. His achievement, equal to Beethoven’s, leaves all other fiddlers standing. Even Heifitz. There isn’t even the faintest whiff of ego about him. Fabulous. Cleansing.

  138. Frank P 28th, – 17:07

    “If I were to become a dictator tomorrow;”

    King James I/VI may have been described as ‘the wisest fool in christendom’ but his pronouncement on ‘baccy was right on the button.

  141. Baron – Like The Slog and others, I can only wonder why no-one with power – eg, politicians, police – have taken action against RBS. But I have heard that the erstwhile owners of businesses driven to the wall by the rapacious bank that we mostly own are jointly planning action.
    When I see the govt’s hands-of approach to the banks, I realise that they sees us in the same way the African Chieftains saw the tribes people that they wold into slavery.

  142. I received a begging letter from David Cameron today, asking for money to help the tories “finish the job”. This is my reply – have I been a bit soft?

    “Dear Mr Cameron,

    Given your abysmal record since becoming leader and since forming the coalition, I have no intention of donating a penny to your party, and it is highly unlikely that I will vote Conservative at the next GE.
    You show every sign of being driven by ill considered reaction to events – your “Green Crap” u-turn of recent days and your sudden discovery that immigration is a major worry being just two examples.

    Your continued pretense that you can negotiate with an unwilling EU – Barrosso himself has said that you cannot – and your half promise of a referendum show that you either have no idea of how the EU works, or you believe that the people of Britain don’t know.

    More and more of us know that your premiership and your coalition is a sham designed to sell out the people of this country, and will never vote for you again.

    Yours sincerely, etc “

  144. Joany – 19:15
    “Baron, as I understand it, no matter how serious the corruption – and it has gone as high as fixing the Libor rate – none of the bankers has gone to jail yet.”

    Joany, you need to look at the bigger picture.

    When we have statements such as “Libor is a private arrangement of the BBA [British Banking Association]” and, IIRC, this was the Bank of England’s view, I do not see how a broken private arrangement, like breaking Golf club rules, can invoke such serious accusations. I cannot see either, if the situation was that bad, how the Regulatory Authorities can escape censure, and keep their pensions!

    I am not absolving the Banks completely, but the Regulatory Authorities, if they were doing the job that we pay them to do, should have noticed and done something about it. Perhaps the Banks were only following orders!

    If the situation was as serious as you believe, each player’s position should have been made much clearer, and that should be the responsibility of Gordon Brown’s financial regulatory creations, including the SFA.

    He set it up, he “Saved The World, he changed the rules, completely, he created the mayhem!

  145. Funny sort of multi-millionaire that, that lets himself be ripped off for what is now quoted as £1.2m without even noticing. Are his millions so ‘multi’ that this sum is little more than petty cash? Or did he really let his eye slip off the ball that badly? Or was he fully cognisant of the whole thing, and is now just being an opportunist?

  146. Frank P

    “…Those who, under the banner of ‘freedom’, support these corporate poisoners and their cynical political beneficiaries, by thwarting the attempts of the medical profession to chivvy and shame the governments of the world into taking steps to halt the passing of this anti-social, filthy and suicidal and deeply addictive habit on to future generations of the children of the world, are beneath contempt themselves…”

    One man’s Stalin is another’s Alexander Fleming. I fancy the ever revovling one man centrifuge that calls itself David Cameron is once again tearing itself from its moorings, to impact noisily on the side of, crony capitalism!

    Many of these medical ‘saints’, thrugh faux charities funded by the taxpayers they despise, and the tax grabbing governments they ‘lobby’, also support the the full legalisation of drugs and only refrain from similarly dictating to us on alcohol because of the loss of votes their masters would suffer.
    Dictators all, I have direct experience of their attempts to suborn FOI requests through complaining about the questioner to their (public sector) employer.

    And ask yourself Frank, who ultimately, will benefit from the closure of the tobacco market to new entrants and the abolition of market differentiation? AT&T and BAT, in the process of seeing off the harmless e-cigarette competition are absolutely delighted (privately), at their success in government manipulation.

    Who will benefit the most from

  147. Frank Sutton 1:23

    Frank, why don’t you just tell him what you really think?

    Or does the writing paper just self-combust when you do?

  148. I am absolutely sick of the constant hectoring of the fag fascists who come perilously close to blaming all the ills which have beset mankind, from the expulsion from the Garden of Eden to the incidence of piles in the population of Western Europe, on the consumption of cigarettes. Of course, I have form on this subject having reached my venerable age (twenty on going on twenty), on a strict diet of red wine, fags and crisps.

  149. Read that Sheryl Cole has been awarded £1.4 million. I suppose she needed that to pay Banksie for frescoing her arse. Did no one think to point out to the self obsessed cow that to most blokes it would be like shagging a Turkish carpet?

  150. “Of course, I have form on this subject having reached my venerable age (twenty on going on twenty), on a strict diet of red wine, fags and crisps.” 🙂

    A guilty plea to reckless self abuse doesn’t make it any the less stupid. Or the exploitation of you by the corporate poisoners any the less wicked. I’m happy that anyone should chose their own brand of handcart to hell, provided they don’t ask those engaged in attempting to cure and give succour to people who have incurred illness and disease, not of their own making, to spend their time easing their discomfort from the pain of the final stages of the ride in said handcart to Hades.

    Noa

    Sir Walter Raleigh has been responsible for more premature death than Stalin, Hitler and Mau combined. While I accept that most charity activity is a scam (also designed to exploit the gullible) involving massive theft and fraud and providing sinecures for clapped out public officials, justifcation for the size of the Royal Family and free publicity for show biz degenerates, etc. etc., none of that excuses the cynical deadly corruption of the tobacco companies; or the idiocy of Nigel Farage in using his boorish smoking habit to collect votes from the beleaguered band of gaspers who are determined to destroy themselves and pollute the atmosphere for the rest of us then clog up the cardio-thoracic facilities of every hospital in the land.

    The dangers of transference of the trade from the ‘legitimate market to the crime cartels’ is real; but then ‘if I were a dictator’ (heaven forfend!) there would be other measures for dealing with drug pushers that don’t presently exist. ;-).

    One heartening result from my provocative rant, is that 10 years ago there would have been a much fiercer response to it from the libertarians. So some progress is obviously being made. Also evidenced by smoke free restaurants and public transport. But BAT and their counterparts never stop ducking, diving and adapting. Bastards!

  151. Frank P @ 18:01

    Excellent, Frank, masterful, the music and the performer, both, Baron was imbibing the sound last night together with Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, over and over again, his musical menu for the night. The barbarian must be honest with you, he’s touched by the philistine what with having a selection of favourites, listening to them over and over again. Your offering happens to be one of the lot.

    And agreed, without music, any music the barbarian likes, life would be worth living only half as enjoyably.

  152. IRISHBOY @ 21:27

    We’re all different with different tastes, different likings, for Baron it’s Itzhak Perlman who cuts it, hard to say why. But should we not be glad we have many?

  153. Frank P @ 17:07

    Good grief, Frank, does smoking really sit on top of your list of priorities as a dictator? Hmmm. Baron happens to have a different list. Unfortunately time doesn’t allow him to expand on it.

  155. Fran Sutton & Joany:

    No banker has been charged, Baron reckons, because if they were they would talk in court, implicate politicians, others.

    And on the Libor scandal, have you noticed how the fury eased off when Barclay’s Diamond got the sack? They needed the bank in the fold, when the job was done, The Libor fixing no longer served any purpose, hence the calm-down, the fines.

  156. Radford NG @ 12:39

    You are star Radford, keep the reporting going. Baron’s off again, too busy for the day.

  159. Frank P

    I see my impersonal reasoning was ignored as you launched into an ranting attack on N Farage for some reason. Perhaps your inner ranter and demagogue presumably having decided that, whist my argument might be sound, you nevertheless wanted to condemn it by implication? Naughty!
    Let me summarise:-
    -this unlabbelled cigarette packaging is political chicanery of the highest or lowest, order, being cynically siezed upon by the nanny superior of the nanny state to advance only his cause, not yours.
    -it will not prevent or even reduce smoking, though it may increase it.
    -it will given the existing manafacturers a highly profitable market monopoly.
    -the NHS medicals employees, servants turned into our masters, will move from cigarettes to booze, widespread gambling, ignoring the dangers of drugs, to the grumpy ols complainers via the Assisted Dying Bill and its future amendments.

    So, the choice is whether the fags carry you off, or your pious ‘health advisors’ do it after you’ve reached your sell bye bye date.

    Your choice, Frank, at least for the moment. 🙂

  160. Frank Sutton November 29th, 2013 – 01:23

    “I received a begging letter from David Cameron today, asking for money to help the Tories “finish the job”. This is my reply – have I been a bit soft?”

    Hello Frank I would say that you have been remarkably restrained, a full list of DC’s lies, obfuscations and misdemeanours would take too much of your time.

    It is sufficient that the fools will lose most of us to UKIP in the MEP elections in May.

  161. Now it’s being reported the detail from today’s trial of the Scum who killed lee rigby makes you sick.
    How can the court accept a plea of not guilty with so many witnesses .
    Find the bastards guilty this afternoon and cut their fucking heads off at once.
    And that is my mild response.
    My real response is something even I would not want to be seen on this site.

  162. John birch 14.45

    Hear Hear. And do the politicians and journalists, every last one of them as far as I have observed, think we haven’t noticed the glaring absence in any reporting or comment on this case of any mention of “racism”, “racially aggravated attack” and all the other anti-white buzz phrases.
    As to the method of their execution, it should be something authentically Somalian. Just so we can’t be accused of enforcing our imperialistic culture of Western racist justice upon them.

  163. John Birch: the court doesn’t accept the plea of not guilty – that’s why they are on trial.

  164. After a few fairly spam-free months, the junk mailers are back in force. In spite of 100 plus invitations today, I still feel not the slightest urge to buy viagra. At what point will I finally crack and say, Ok I give up, I’ll buy your manhood enhancing supplement? My confident prediction is, never.
    What really puzzles me about this is the mentality of the junk-mailers – do they really think chucking hundreds of emails into my junk mail box is a good marketing strategy? Surely not – so why do they do it?

  165. I know that frank, and if something has been done with no witnesses and you have to prove guilt fair enough.
    But this is taking the piss .
    This is part of the overall plan .
    Wasn’t me. Costing us a fortune in court time and fees.
    The murder seen by many to take place now becomes a sick pantomime at
    Our expense.

  166. JB – Maybe there should be a new kind of justice, whereby people known to be guilty can be sentenced without the rigmarole of a trial. I’m sure there are those among our “leaders” who would welcome that!

  167. Frank, your spam problem reminds me of a card I saw in town yesterday.
    A harassed looking guy is saying
    I’m taking Viagra and drinking prune juice.
    I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.

  169. Frank 17.15
    Frank, I understand what your saying, but when the guy is on film saying he did it and why he did it the situation changes.

  170. Noa

    “pious health advisors”.

    Hmmnn…. good and bad in every profession and certainly a percentage of charlatans among the heirs of Hippocrates; but having been married to the NHS for almost six decades through the medium of my other half; and working for nearly a decade as a ‘post retirement’ career among ’em, during which time I witnessed the never ending parade of self-harm queuing up for every department within the hospitals under my guardianship, and experienced first hand the spite and violence emanating from the puffers, imbibers and injectors, when kept waiting, or asked to douse their fags on the wards or in waiting rooms, I have more sympathy with the medics and their apparatchiks than you, obviously.

    But I was really addressing the matter of those who, with full knowledge of the harm their products cause to humanity, nonetheless insist on not only defending it with their weasel words, but who also connive to replace their diminishing markets for the poison, within the West, by diverting it to the third world where the gullibility factor is more prevalent.

    As for our pal Nigel; the pint and fags shtick is wearing a bit thin with me, along with the other gimmick – the titfer tat. He has plenty of sound arguments with the overuse of props, imho. And he should set a better example to those of a tender age who may not yet have been seduced into the filthy habit (or even under a filthy habit – so to speak).

    Anyway, I thought I allowed you fair dues over the charity issue and the possibility of a criminal market replacing the current tobacco barons. Didn’t realise you would take my side-swipe at Nigel as a ricochet on you. Not meant to be, guv’nor. Didn’t realise you were your brothers keeper. 😉

    Baron

    Glad you enjoyed the Ruski fiddler – one of my favourites, ever.

    I’d be interested to know what your first priority would be in the “if I were to become dictator tomorrow” fantasy. Btw, I was just addressing the plat du jour, rather than thinking too deeply about what would be the first move in such opportune circumstances – and I had just been watching a BAT exec. trying to justify his trade on TV. Lying douchebag.

  172. JB – I’m not sure what you would like to happen. The revealing part of the trial will be the defence.

  173. Frank, the thing that makes me despair is the cost of all the nonsense we have built into systems.
    It’s as if someone else is paying all these bills.
    But it’s us, the taxpayer .
    The poor don’t pay.
    The rich avoid paying.
    As usual it’s the same group of people who pay the bills .
    The cost of what I call nonsense in this country is staggering , ( and , yes we will
    Have our own opinions as to what they are )
    But I am sure we will agree that invented problems requiring invented jobs to solve them that involve no wealth creation, only a bit of economic activity cost us a fortune.
    Court room time has expanded to fill the money available.
    Just like so many non jobs.
    Most of these people wouldn’t last a minute in the real world.

  174. John birch:

    If the thugs pleaded guilty there would have been no trial, just sentencing by the judge. What Baron’s waiting for is the length of the sentence, wishes we still had capital punishment for capital crime on the statute books. Rats of the human variety have no right to remain a part of a civilised world.

  175. Frank Sutton @ 17:15

    You’re right on the idea of sentencing ‘people known to be guilty without a trial’. It would be easily mis-used by people who have already curtailed many of the old legal safeguards our ancestors used to enjoy.

  177. John birch November 29th, 2013 – 14:45

    “Now it’s being reported the detail from today’s trial of the Scum who killed lee Rigby makes you sick. Find the bastards guilty this afternoon and cut their fucking heads off at once.”

    Hello John, I find myself disagreeing with your method of punishment, first let them be found guilty in due course and then sentenced to a public hanging in Wembley Ariana.

    Let this be an all ticket event with the proceeds to the Army Benevolent Fund, it would be a sell out.

    By the bye I haven’t had time to read it in full as yet but Rob Liddle is in a flap in this week’s Spectator, he points out that there was a time when politicians would apologise for telling an untruth but for Dominic Grieve the government’s chief legal adviser to apologised for any offence caused when he said corruption was “endemic” in some ethnic minority communities, in particular Pakistani, a statement that is entirely TRUE is just not on.

  178. Frank P

    Fair do’s, we’re all entitled to a rant now and then. And, should you wish to comment on NF, that’s your right. There are worse than him and if he wants to put himself in a cancer or liver transplant ward, well, at least he’s helping to keep some of the NHS’s equivalent of the Red Army in gainful employment.

    As to your question “…I’d be interested to know what your first priority would be in the “if I were to become dictator tomorrow” fantasy.

    Having given it due thought I would rescind all current laws and abolish the civil service before returning the governance to a newly elected bi-cameral Parliament.

    That should stop them interfering in everyone’s business for a few months.

  180. Frank P @ 17:34

    What you describing in the lament about the patients the NHS has to mend is one of the unintended consequence of the ‘free-at-the-point-of-delivery’ service. If we all had to pay a part of the cost before the cure was administered one would not find many of the self-inflicted body abusers, the ‘puffers, imbibers and injectors’ asking for it, or even needing it because they would have behaved differently hence avoided the need for cure. Of course, there would have to be exemptions, reduction of the fee for the unemployed, the disabled…

    Not many people know it, but in the USSR, the communist bosses had a similar idea of a ‘free-at-the-point-of-delivery as they proceeded building the brighter future. Bread was free. Do you know what happened? Not only did people buy the stuff to eat, feed the animals, but also to brew alcohol, built huts. The policy got scrapped within months, only selected eateries in central party establishments served it kind of free, a woman would give a customer few slices, one had to ask for more if one were hungry.

  181. There are still reporting restrictions on that trial.

    They’re not giving it the coverage in the UK media they would give to any other beheading – not that they happen every day – because the subject is deemed politically sensitive.

    I find it difficult to get angry at the alleged killers because the root causes of all this lie with LibLabCOn and the mainstream media who – for years – have helped cultivate jihad in the West through mass immigration and multi-culti.

    When will they be in the dock?

    The politicians’ and media’s faux “we’re on your side” act is as tedious as it is insulting.

    It is a decades’ old lie.

    Shut up, Establishment.

    Just shut up.

  182. Frank P @ 17:34

    When Baron seizes the reigns of power as a dictator, here is what he’ll do.

    Weed out the statute books of every piece of legislation enacted by the ghastly Blair, or that which originated in a place other than the House.

    Privatise the BBC.

    Abolish all quangoes, unless what they do can be justifiably absorbed within departments run by elected MPs.

    Free the judges from any ‘guidance’, instruct them to only ‘follow the letter and spirit’ of the law.

    Leave the EU.

    Stop immigration, deport everyone who answers ‘no’ to the two questions he set up to adjudge if a person is worthy the privilege to be British.

    Refurbish the timber framed hut he lives in (bringing it from the 17th century to the 19th would do), and retire.

  183. Radford NG @ 19:19

    It’s hard, near impossible to comprehend what possesses someone to become capable of such an act. All of us have a capacity for hate, but could what the two did be explained by mere hate? Reading the transcript makes one despair.

    Baron has said it before, we’re unlikely to win the clash until we destroy the preachers of the evil, those who install the poison, create the executioners. Going merely after the latter, the supply of inhuman thugs willing to do what the two did is unlikely to even abate.

  184. Baron

    An admirable manifesto; you wouldn’t need to effect a coup with that game plan. You’d get a landslide victory in an election. And the promise to retire once the job is done, rather than clinging to power like a barnacle on a ship’s hull, would be the clincher.

  185. Rod Liddle likes to joke so he writes with understatement: ‘Is there something within the religion or ideology of Islam which somehow encourages, or merely facilitates, extremist Muslim maniacs to maim or kill non-Muslims? I think there probably is.’

    And one of the alleged killers says ‘I did it for God’, as well as citing The Koran.

    Why do people underestimate belief?

    That is why you cannot replace the culture of Christianity with equality and diversity.

    You cannot put Islam on a par with Christianity or hand it moral equivalence, since Islam itself does not, never has and never will – in all its centuries – ever recognised anything other than its own superiority.

    The alleged killers in Woolwich are converts.

    Does that not tell people how powerful belief is?

    Why do people not take Islam at its word?

    It is not joking.

  186. Joany – what can you tell us about reporting restrictions? I noticed there was a failed e-petition requesting restrictions, one what strike me as confused grounds. I guess this isn’t what you were referring to.

  187. Woolwich: no commentary or opinion is allowed while the case is sub judice, of course, but it strikes me that if some group wishes to declare war on the streets anywhere in Britain, then whoever arrives to deal with it should win the war with the necessary lethal force, thus obviating any civil proceedings

  189. http://www.duncanlewis.co.uk/crime_news/Lee_Rigby_murder_trial_begins_at_Old_Bailey_%2818_November_2013%29.html

    ‘Journalists in court will face reporting restrictions while evidence is being heard in court. Any breach of reporting restrictions could result in a charge of contempt of court.’

    I have no idea what that means Frank S.

    That’s the problem with reporting restrictions, you often can’t work out what’s being restricted.

    It is a basic principle of law – or at least it used to be – that justice must not just be done, it must be seen to be done.

    Not any more.

    Family courts operate in secret, as do many other parts of the civil courts and then there’s this: The highest profile case in the land and there are some parts of the evidence not allowed to be reported.

    I’m just too exasperated to be angry today.

    Spare me these wretched lawyers and politicians who are the people who unleashed all this on the people of the UK in the first place.

  191. I see that e-petition draughted by ‘A Matthews’ got one signature.

    The basis of that oddball petition seems very politically correct, almost a version of Jacqui Smith’s Laabour Party spin to protect Islam when Ms Smith suggested acts of Islamic terrorism should be described as being perpetrated by terrorist fanatics – pursuing “anti-Islamic activity.”

    A Matthews seems a rather disingenuous person.

    For what is about to be aired in court is what was aired at the scene.

    It was done in the ‘name of God’ and The Koran was cited.

    Certain politically minded people don’t want the public to know that. They want Islamic terror re-classified as ‘anti-Islamic activity’ to cover up the real intents of Islam.

    I had to check that A Matthews was not the man who runs Hope Not Hate, but that man is Nick Lowles, who is running a very detailed smear campaign against UKIP:

    http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/ukip/

  192. Thanks Frank P. I get the gist of all that but those are generic reasons for the imposition of reporting restrictions.

    There seems to be specific reporting restrictions here, intimated by this sentence: ‘Journalists in court will face reporting restrictions while evidence is being heard in court’ – I just wonder what has been invoked specifically in relation to this case?

    We cannot know otherwise we’d know what it is the judge wants not written about!

  193. Joany – thanks for the link. It’s from a solicitor, so it’s authoritative, but it is dated november 18, by which time the rial hadn’t started, so he is presumably referring to the fact that all court reporting faces restrictions. In what I’ve heard of the trial reporting today, no special restrictions seem to apply; I think it’s usual to say when special restrictions have been put in place.

  194. That’s true Frank, but the wording is very specific in its relation to ‘evidence’.

    No evidence was heard last week and in fact all that has happened so far is the prosecution’s opening speech, laying out their case.

    The first evidence to be called will be next week. That’s the first time anybody goes into the witness box.

    It’s all such a fug it’s very hard to untangle, but then that’s the point.

  195. I think the interesting part of the Woolwich murder trial will be the defence – presumably they won’t deny that they did it, so their defence must rest on something else. I’m not that familiar with court procedure – does anyone know whether the defence team have to confirm at the start of a trial tat they will indeed put up a defence? Do they have to outline what the defence case will be?

  196. Joany – the Duncan Lewis piece doesn’t cite a source for the reporting restrictions, which suggests that it is referring to the standard sub-judice rules. I’m not saying there aren’t or won’t be additional restrictions – I’m just saying that this doesn’t look like evidence of them

  198. Joany November 29th, 2013 – 19:51

    “I find it difficult to get angry at the alleged killers”

    I can and what is with the alleged? We all saw it on camera.

  199. Sorry – re my 0001:

    Police chopper down on roof of busy pub in Glasgow. No fire but many casualties. Thoughts with all concerned.

  201. Yes, David!

    That’s me trying not to get our host into trouble.

    The laws are a lot freer here in the USA but sub judice can be opaque in the UK.

    I use ‘alleged’ in the hope I do not bring problems for our host!

    Frank S, they do have to submit a defence statement to the prosecution. The trial is listed for three weeks. That’s a very short time for a terrorist trial, suggesting most of the evidence is not in dispute.

    I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long to hear exactly what the defence is.

  202. Frank P 30th, – 00:01

    Turbine engine, burning kerosene, relatively high flashpoint, cool night, little vapour around. None of this means ‘no fire’ but reduces its likelihood. This morning’s earwitness reports seem to be suggesting sudden seizure (possibly gearbox), otherwise it should have been able to autorotate down.

    But very sad for all the dead and injured, all just doing their job or enjoying themselves on a Friday night…I understand the band had time to joke, “I told you we’d bring the roof down.” before a second stage collapse occurred.

  203. Joany 30th, – 00:48

    “Allegedly”

    Just this week, on a FB page I read, on a different subject a legal eagle contributed, saying that in the UK using “allegedly” doesn’t get you out of anything, even if you can specifically identify the “alleger”.

  204. Ostrich (o) – 9.56

    Reminds me of the old story about Dr Paisley (best told using his instantly recognizable means of voice production) incandescent because of some slur against him saying, “There have been lies and allegations, and I will not rest until I have found the allegators.”

  205. Noa @November 26th 12:14

    “AS opposed, one suposes, to the unquestioning support to this bilthering idiot [Mr. Tommy Robinson] and supergrass, by those who should know better.”

    Do you have anything to back up either of these allegations? If not, one might have to include you in the “brainless opposition to Mr. Robinson by some on this site” to whom I referred.

    It seems that many of UKIP’s spokesmen, no more than the three main parties, are unwilling to face the threat of islam in Great Britain.

    Furthermore, anyone who has half an idea of how this naughty world works would quickly have recognized that Mr. Robinson had been comprehensively set up by the police and other rogue elements of English society. Of course it is easier to kick a man when he is down than face up to official thuggery. I might not have the necessary cojones to face the corrupt institutions that are destroying our country, but I’m damned if I am going to kick one of our few patriots when he has been downed by them.

    And it looks as though there are actually influential people in UKIP who feel the same way as I do.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10481892/How-Nigel-Farages-Ukip-chairman-marched-with-the-English-Defence-League.html

    (29th November)

    So don’t despair, Noa, just wait until it’s mainstream UKIP policy and then you will be able to cut your cloth accordingly and we will find you here vigorously defending the right of the EDL to freedom of speech and assembly.

  207. I note that the Daily Telegraph, from the articles published to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, believes in conspiracy theories no more than does Baron.

    No doubt in their book there has not been a criminal political plot since the assassination of Julius Caesar and possibly both the newspaper and our former former Czechoslovak colleague have their doubts even about that….

    What a charming world they gaze out on.

  208. Just as well of course otherwise one might have to draw the conclusion from the evidence that something much more sinister was going on today than a mere one-off hit.

  211. Interesting and controversial article this morning from MailonLine:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html

    Whilst flicking through the illustrations that accompanied the article on my android tablet, it inadvertently jigged on to this picture a quirk of MoL, (I think – but perhaps not so ‘inadvertant :-)):

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2515865/What-makes-Boris-run-Many-Tories-believe-Londons-Mayor-lead-election-victory–week-gave-tantalising-clues-REALLY-believes.html

    I was a bit sceptical about the Eugene McCarthy’s hypothesis until that picture appeared. My doubts dissolved somewhat thereafter. It would explain a lot.

  212. And then there’s Tim Yeo – discussed above; another obvious link, perhaps? Certainly clear examples of rapacious troughers, huffers and puffers. McCarthy should ask for DNA samples; he could well be on to something.

  213. Malfleur

    I applaud your determination to to lead us in opposing Islamic immigration into the UK, from the safety of the far East.

  214. Alexsandr 30th, – 12:58 & PfM

    “Tim Yeo desecleted”

    Aye, ‘s a pity that, since he’s hitherto troughed so well, this won’t put him on the breadline.

  215. Peter from Maidstone@November 30th, 2013 – 13:30

    no, nadhim zahawi is equally deserving.

    (He is my MP and I have to google ‘stratford on avon MP’ cos I cant remember his name…)

  216. Mark Steyn on the Geneva ‘Iran sanctions/nukes’ conference:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365132/surrender-geneva-mark-steyn

    “In Geneva, the participants came to the talks with different goals: The Americans and Europeans wanted an agreement; the Iranians wanted nukes. Each party got what it came for. Before the deal, the mullahs’ existing facilities were said to be within four to seven weeks of nuclear “breakout”; under the new constraints, they’ll be eight to nine weeks from breakout. In return, they get formal international recognition of their enrichment program, and the gutting of sanctions — and everything they already have is, as they say over at Obamacare, grandfathered in.”

    Read it all – 24 carat irony. And Mark, in his inimitable way, manages to round off the seminal piece with a musical coda:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIBTg7q9oNc

    Neat!

  217. Judy Brown

    “There is a trough in waves,

    a low spot

    where horizon disappears

    and only sky

    and water

    are our company.

    And there we lose our way”

    Tim Yeo lost his way

  220. If you didn’t want to be wholly descended from a chimpanzee, a female chimpanzee to be exact, what other animal would you like to push you up the “status ladder”?

    How about a male pig?

    ‘Humans evolved after a female chimpanzee mated with a pig’: Extraordinary claim made by American geneticist
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html

    Go on: squeal with laughter!

    Will we have to show deference to these two much maligned animals?

    It will amuse some, and others, not! 🙂

  221. RobertC – 15:29 ‘chimpanzee and pigs’

    Reading the last couple of paragraphs of the article, one does wonder whether this is a pastiche, in reverse, of Animal Farm:

    ‘… As every Machiavellian knows, good things can emerge from ugly processes, and I think the human race is a very good thing. Moreover, there is something to be said for the idea of having the pig as a relative.
    ‘My opinion of this animal has much improved during the course of my research. Where once I thought of filth and greed, I now think of intelligence, affection, loyalty, and adaptability, with an added touch of joyous sensuality — qualities without which humans would not be human.’

  222. I sent on the link below; that Frank P supplied us all with on the 28th, at-16:49, to a friend, recommending him to play the video of the violin players when he had scrolled down to it.

    He has just replied, asking what violins?

    I have tried the link myself and some of the pictures have changed and there is no longer the video link.

    Can anyone help?

    http://madamescherzo.tumblr.com/h/t Gerard VdL.

  223. Noa 30th, – 14:12

    “from the safety of the far East.”

    Not that safe; there’s a sizeable muslim minority in the Philippines.

  224. Malfleur
    I don’t normally bother repeating information I’ve provided previously but, in the case of your hero Mr Yaxley-Lennon Tommy Robinson or whatever his name is this week, mohammend probably, I’m prepared to make an exception:-

    Re ‘blithering idiot’, to which I add serial convicted criminal.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25110639

    And ‘snout/grass?’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2455642/Former-EDL-leader-Tommy-Robinson-help-police-track-racists.html

    Is your name on an EDL list, Malfleur? If it was, or is, the chances are it’s in the hands of plod now. Still, you’ll be ok where you are.

  227. RobertC
    November 30th, 2013 – 15:29 –

    After I stopped squealing with laughter, the thought occurred to me that those of us who used to be (or maybe still are) cannibals, consider our flesh to be so delicious that in some parts of the world it is known as “Long Pig”……

  230. Frank P @ 14:02

    The man still is Baron’s MP, and apparently he wants to appeal, but in this case the barbarian is making an exception, graciously allowing the Boy in no 10 to put the knife in. Enough of Yeo, he’s enriched himself enough, the fanatical support of his committee for the ecochondriacs will hopefully die with his political career.

  232. RobertC @ 15:29

    You shouldn’t be that dismissive of the chimpanzee-mated-with-a-pig theory, Robert, for some people it may hold true. Baron can think of a number of such individuals, for some as yet unexplained reason many of them have entered the politics, you know, troughing (a pig characteristic), mudslinging (a behavioural trait of chimpanzees)…..

  233. Frank P @ 14:23

    Yes, indeed, Mark’s wittily brilliant on the Geneva talks. Baron liked the point the messiah could have negotiated from the position of strength, Neville had no such option, a neat and very valid observation for it shows he, the messiah, has no intention to stand up to the religious fruitcakes. But then, what could one expect from a leader of the world’s most powerful Republic so embarrassingly submissive to one of the world’s oldest dictators. Just watch the video, it refreshes one’s memory, and you know what? Another couple of inches to the bow, and the earth may have shattered for the old tyrant.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CseUglupmZk

  235. Noa @ 14:12

    “I applaud your determination to to lead us in opposing Islamic immigration into the UK, from the safety of the far East.”

    Now let’s have a closer look at your statement behind the sarcasm.

    1. Islamic immigration into the UK should not be opposed by Englishmen outside the UK; or not opposed too vigorously anyway.

    2. Islamic immigration into the UK should not be opposed whether you are outside the UK, or even in it, if the opposition involves the English Defence League.

    3. It is safe to oppose Islamic immigration in the Far East, therefore anyone in the Far East opposing islamic immigration into the UK is a coward, well let’s say lacks manly virtue. I’m sure you didn’t intend to be rude or ungentlemanly.

    4. It is not safe for anyone to oppose Islamic immigration into the UK while in the UK, even if anonymously in the comment section of a UK blog, therefore anyone with that inclination should not express that opposition by expressing support for the English Defence League.

    5. Anyone wishing to express support for the English Defence League should only do so (a) inside the UK AND (b) on the streets, where his manly virtue can be demonstrated.

    6. As a corollary to 5., it is not acceptable to express support for the English Defence League anonymously online in the United Kingdom, real names might be acceptable especially if accompanied by home address, as this would be the necessary demonstration of the opposer’s manly courage.

    7. As a rule of thumb, anyone stepping over the line drawn by UKIP or the other political parties at something of a prudent, Falstaffian distance, in opposing Islamic immigration to the UK by expressing agreement with the positions taken by the English Defence League and its leaders past or present, is a bad man, possibly a waaaysist, lacking in manly virtue, and of course a nazi. And he probably smells as well.

    8. It is also a possible corollary that Nigel Farage lacks manly virtue because he does not openly support the Enmglish Defence League in opposing Islamic immigration into the UK. Chairman Dixon of Uxbridge UKIP appears to have passed the test though.

    Did I get your drift?

  237. Baron – 20:07 ‘chimp, man-pig or chump?’
    I wasn’t being dismissive. It’s only a theory, and I find it amusing!

    As it has been developed within the Scientific Community, I am sure everyone will automatically realise it is true without question. All that will be needed will be someone from the UEA to say that they have lost the experimental data, but they did manage to salvage some ‘adjusted’ data so that will be made into a film.

    Giving due reverence to pigs will will be hard for some, and even harder for others!

  239. Just when you think Social Services cannot get any worse, it does:

    [Italian] Woman has child taken from her womb by social services
    Exclusive: Essex social services have obtained a court order against a woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and for her child to be taken from her womb by caesarean section
    “Lawyers for the woman are demanding to know why Essex social services appear not have contacted next of kin in Italy to consult them on the case.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10486452/Woman-has-child-taken-from-her-womb-by-social-services.html

    It appears that the Essex SS took the matter into their own hands and didn’t discuss anything with anyone related to the mother and child.

  241. Joany

    American slander and libel law may be freer than England’s but see this great review of Conrad Black’s new book, A Matter of Principle, by Rebecca Bynum in the December edition of New English Review:

    http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/142269/sec_id/142269

    “Watching two days of Conrad Black’s trial is a demoralizing experience for anyone who loves America and loves the law. – Ezra Levant”

    The magazine also carries an article by Black itself which quotes a truism by Archbishop Spellman of New York which I only wish our own leaders and those of the United States had,but have not, engraved on their hearts: ““It is better to have strength and not need it than to need it and not have it”.

    (See the main web page by the way for Cloud Study at Sunset by John Constable)

  242. Malfleur

    All British citizens, wherever they reside, have an innate right to mourn the destruction of UK society; equally they have the absolute right to defend and make war in the protection of their birthright. If we do not, we are not worthy.

    The “sport” of “Knockout or Polar-bear Hunting” is interestingly assessed on takimag.com. Makes one ashamed to be a Redneck.

  244. Redneck

    We English are also deeply ashamed of being English.

    With reference to Conrad Black’s book cited above, we in England are however fortunate that, as Noa will attest from his careful study of the treatment of Tommy Robinson (or whatever Noa calls him), none of the catalogue of abuses obtaining in the USA and rehearsed by the reviewer sullies our own justice system.

  246. “Did I get your drift?”

    Oh indeed you do.

    You’re a vacuous windbag I believe, trying to lead from the rear, and whilst capable of a sly, indirect insult on the Wall, offering nothing substantive. Best that you stick to setting the world to rights from a great distance than actually doing anything.

    By the way, if you have views on UKIP or its policies, have, or find, the courage to express them to Mr Farage. In the meantime, the value of your opinions will be measured by me, against the inverse level of your misplaced admiration of Mr Yaxley.

  248. All the music links to Oistrakh and others are simply glorious! And a great comfort and distraction whilst I fret and sweat about the progress of my house sale and purchase (another statistic for those measuring white flight).

  249. Two hundred years ago (1812) you could shoot the Prime Minister on a Monday;be tried on the Friday;and hanged the next Monday!

    Spencer Percival was shot on Monday 11 of May by John Bellingham,who was tried on Friday 15th and hanged on Monday 18th.

  250. Baron
    Why is that necessary?
    Have you heard of acrostic poetry?
    Or Cinquain?
    Or concrete poetry?
    Or diamonte poems?
    Or Haiku?
    Or Tanka?

  251. Try haiku:

    accidentally
    stepping on my neighbor’s
    shadow
    he yells at me
    illegal alien

    Chen-ou Liu

  252. Radford NG @ 07:13

    But, my friend, hundred years ago we our criminal justice system punished the miscreants, retribution was at the core of it, that and a large helping of a deterrent, you know, look what’s likely happen to you if you do what this villain has done.

    Today, we’re proud to be enlightened, we switched from the musty retributive justice to a restorative one, we restore criminals to what they enjoy doing best in no time at all. Over 150 murderers who got released serving their ‘restorative justice’ tariffs murdered again. Recently, a guy managed to murder for the third time thanks to the same restorative justice, and who knows, he’s only 47, with luck we would murder for the 4th time before dying at your and Baron’s expense looked after in one of the establishments we still insist calling prisons. Lunacy, this.

  253. Fergus Pickering @ 07:41

    Poems that don’t rhyme don’t speak to Baron, those that rhyme are also easier to memorise like ‘Sexual intercourse began/In nineteen sixty-three/Which was rather late for me/between the end of the “Chatterley” ban/And the Beatles’ first LP.’

    Even the exceedingly Alzheimer infected brain of the barbarian can recite it, still.

    Only of haiku and tanka Baron knows (aren’t they the same, only either the number of lines differ? or is it words?), the rest of it no, but then the poorly educated Slav is a philistine, his tastes are rather basic, but that includes poems that rhyme, if even partially. Sadly, he cannot give you an exmple of the latter, it’s in a different language.

  255. Radford NG 07:13 – Tomorrow’s Monday – here’s hoping; we would probablybe prepared to overlook the ensuing stages.

  256. The Andrew Marr Show this morning as is now standard practice had two socialist lovies commenting on today’s papers.

    This horror was followed by Andrew Marr allowing Red Ed Balls the freedom to spout his bile and not once did he attempt to stop him or worse contradict his lies.

    When will we be rid of the lot of them?

  257. Shocking as the forced adoption case below is, the story does not go into the fact that all this is done for profit (adoption agencies are no longer run by the government but by private equity firms for as ronomical profits – the more adoptions, the more profits; how is that healthy?).

    It also does not go into the fact that in among these thousands of adoptions will be children singled out for paedophilia by the networkers in social services who have ‘networks’ outside official work.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10486452/Child-taken-from-womb-by-social-services.html

    The state – so keen to spy on the citizenry – should not be allowed to operate in secret when it comes to child care.

    It stinks.

  258. Robert C, apologies I had not read your post before I posted that link.

    I am glad the British public are waking up to this scandal.

    Let in the sunlight.

    Let family courts be open courts.

    Darkness only invites in nasties.

    Give a creep the chance to hide and be evil and they will.

    This idea that CCTV can save people is a nonsence when the law allows secrecy where it should not.

  261. Two pieces in the Shariagraph, both represent the Barclay brats spinning for the Tories.

    EU: Britain is moving closer to the exit

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10485773/EU-Britain-is-moving-closer-to-the-exit.html

    A piece that pretends Dave is real about leaving Europe!

    The only reason for Dave’s phoney promise and that pathetic propaganda article is because UKIP are on the scene.

    And this propaganda from Charles Moore:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10483858/If-were-a-nasty-country-why-are-people-queuing-to-come-here.html

    As the posters point out below it. It’s just the MSM – the FibLabCon’s puppets – pretending ‘We’re on your side, we discuss issues like this. We do.’

    You do when UKIP are a threat.

    Great comments battering the Shariagraph and the Tories underneath it:

    nyctreeman

    This conversation wouldn’t even be taking place if it were not for the tireless efforts of Nigel Farage and UKIP.

    The answer to why they are queuing up is simple … the leftist disease that has infected western culture can only survive by importing hordes of people who will vote for them in exchange for handouts and special treatment, and they’ve been remarkably successful for the last 40+ years in their coordinated campaigns, from propagandizing children in schools from the earliest age possible, placing their operatives in almost every media source, and creating a ‘tyranny of words’ culture which has successfully intimidated most people who are terrified of being seen as or accused of ‘intolerant thinking’.

    Newspeak in it’s purest form is what we have in Western culture today, and the punishment for violating the rules of this paradigm are quite severe, and the Ministry of Truth has unlimited powers. You can see the operatives of that Ministry right here in these threads, attacking anyone who defends the greatness of their Western nation and culture … with slurs, accusations of racism and bigotry, and if possible, relegating them to the status of ‘unperson’.

    Simon
    I reccomended you pal but to be fair Griffin was doing harder work than UKIP back in the early 2000’s and he was saying it like it is under threat of prosecution,many times and without recinding his position.

    He never got sent down,clever guy and an example to all English types that wish to avoid racial and religious persecution by Globalist,anti UK power structures.

    I really hope UKIP clean up at the Euro elections 2014 but Griffin and his party have done a lot of hard work to establish the current political dialogue on Europe and third world immigration.and are a great Pan European glue.

    Griffin should be returned by his North West constituents.

    The “Question Time” episode increasingly looks like a bizzarrre Globalist/BBC set up,watch it again,it’s a pure fix.

    nyctreeman

    Unfortunately for him (Griffin), he and his group have been successfully defined by the Ministry of Truth as a rabidly racist organization full of horrid people. Much of that had to with the timing and evolution of politics from the 80s to the 2000s, and much of it had to do with elements in his organization that presented the leftist controlled media with ample fodder to use against them.

    Here in Amorika, we call that being “Borked” … google it if you’re unfamiliar, but succinctly put, it’s being permanently branded … it cannot be undone within a generation.

    So while you are correct about Griffin working hard on this issue, his message never made it to the mainstream because of that branding, whereas Farage has managed to thwart all attempts by the leftist goons in branding UKIP as a fascist racist bigoted etc etc org.

    That may seem unfair, but it’s how the machine works unfortunately, and Farage has managed to walk this tightrope without being knocked off … and that is the most important thing, because we cannot win if we cannot get majority votes and cooperation from people that would otherwise be afraid to be associated with certain groups whether they agree or not.

    It’s a xxxxxy game indeed, but that’s just how it is

    And so it goes on.

    So many people’s lives have been ruined by cries of raaaacist.

    The truth is if Lynton Crosby had done his job and taken out Farage with a silver bullet, the Shariagraph would have run neither of those pieces and there wouldn’t be all this faux ‘We discuss immigration here on this MSM platform. We really do’ posturing.

    It’s all poopy pants propaganda because the people have stopped listening to the MSM liars.

    The are release valve articles: ‘Don’t lose the readers completely. Pretend we give a xxxx.’

    I wouldn’t bother with Charles Moore but I’d recommend the thousands of comments knocking seven bells out of his putrid propaganda.

  262. Baron @ 12:05

    The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
    The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
    Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
    And after many a summer dies the swan.
    Me only cruel immortality
    Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
    Here at the quiet limit of the world,
    A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream
    The ever-silent spaces of the East,
    Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

    etc

  263. this is another comment from underneath that Charles Moore piece:

    asitis Bob Evans

    When join yougov they ask a few questions before you do any surveys for them i.e. what party do you support if you say labour you will get a survey every week but if you say UKIP you will be asked only once every 3 months ….don’t believe me ? go and try it but use one home and one work laptop for different accounts because they do log IP addresses

  264. Noa, December 1st, 2013 – 00:32

    >>“Did I get your drift?”
    > “Oh indeed you do…. etc.”

    Ah, I note that it must almost be Christmas.
    🙂

  265. Some good news.

    And it is important.

    It is not enough for the people of the West to destroy EVERY political party that has led to their demise.

    They must also understand how their deceit has been effected for them by the mainstream media and destroy them.

    Don’t watch, don’t subscribe, occasionally read (if it’s for free!) but the media must be taken out too. And it’s so simple. You just turn your back:

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/11/27/cnn-and-msnbc-lose-almost-half-their-viewers-one-year#ixzz2lzIiV8Zk

    CNN and MSNBC Lose Almost Half Their Viewers in One Year

  266. “Joany” @ 20:21

    I’ve never seen a “Griffin” suppository applied by proxy before, and with such a display of ignorance too!

  267. Sorry if you misinterpreted my post, EC.

    I wasn’t endorsing Nick Griffin at all.

    I never have and never would endorse Nick Griffin.

    I mentioned both of those Shariagraph articles because I think they are only written in response to public sentiment.

    That conversation on the Shariagraph picked up on exactly what I was thinking.

    Read it again. It began: ‘This conversation wouldn’t even be taking place if it were not for the tireless efforts of Nigel Farage and UKIP.’

    I didn’t endorse everything that appeared thereafter, but I thought that strand of thought was the most significant.

    Why – now – is the MSM talking about this issue like this?

    Why are the politicians talking about it – only now?

    Something has changed.

    I think that’s important.

    Moreover, I importuned people to read other comments underneath that Moore piece.

    As I waded through them I came back to post another comment about YouGov because I was unaware its pollsters worked like that.

  268. What a wonderful week it’s been in the land that gave the world freedom – Social Workers steal an unborn baby literally from the womb, the powers-that-be insist the top is cut off a Xmas tree because it interferes with the surveillance camera and to cap it all, one the the states very expensive nosy parkers drops out of the sky onto a pub full of innocent Scots.

    I guess the only good thing is that you’re three state oppressors less.

    http://safeshare.tv/w/UAGOcLSuLX

  269. Perhaps I should not have copied the whole thread that included the responses to the first post, but I’ve just read it again and understand exactly why I posted it here.

    If you look at it on the Shariagraph you’ll see all the posts were in response to each other so that was how I ended up copying the other stuff (they were not in different parts of the Shariagraph’s Moore readers comments, they were all consecutive to each other).

    I think this (reproduced again below) makes a fairly accurate summary of the truth and was worth sharing.

    I hope this is what you take away from that conversation, EC, not the supplementary points discussed afterwards:

    ‘This conversation wouldn’t even be taking place if it were not for the tireless efforts of Nigel Farage and UKIP.

    ‘The answer to why they are queuing up is simple … the leftist disease that has infected western culture can only survive by importing hordes of people who will vote for them in exchange for handouts and special treatment, and they’ve been remarkably successful for the last 40+ years in their coordinated campaigns, from propagandizing children in schools from the earliest age possible, placing their operatives in almost every media source, and creating a ‘tyranny of words’ culture which has successfully intimidated most people who are terrified of being seen as or accused of ‘intolerant thinking’.

    ‘Newspeak in it’s purest form is what we have in Western culture today, and the punishment for violating the rules of this paradigm are quite severe, and the Ministry of Truth has unlimited powers. You can see the operatives of that Ministry right here in these threads, attacking anyone who defends the greatness of their Western nation and culture … with slurs, accusations of racism and bigotry, and if possible, relegating them to the status of ‘unperson’.

  270. Malfleur

    Your link leads to a statement with this powerful conclusion

    “Without question, the endurance of our nation depends upon the impartiality and integrity of our courts. Judges have a sacred responsibility to acquit the innocent as well as to punish the guilty. Indeed the greatness of any nation rests with how solicitous it is toward the rights of the accused so that it might ensure those falsely accused are not punished. In America today the wrongly accused are all punished, and punished severely as a matter of course. Such rampant injustice cannot continue to rot the inner core of our nation without eventually bringing us down to the level of the most oppressive governments in history. Justice does not mean only punishment of the guilty; it also means protection for the innocent, especially the falsely accused.

    To our everlasting shame, this is something we have forgotten.”

    Sadly our once great and free Nation now attacks those very entrepreneurial figures that made us great.

    The rot set in with the crypto communist Kennedy.

    When we returned to sound presidency with Nixon the Marxist forces conspired with the Democrats to remove this great man and land us with another crypto communist Carter.

  271. Pleased to see that you are all still there (just).

    Where is the Car Park Man?

  272. Joany, December 1st, 2013 – 22:31

    Sorry, as usual, it is perhaps I that should have made myself clearer. My remarks were primarily concerned with the comments of “nyctreeman” quoted from the Telegraph blog.

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