Saturday 31 May 2014

Nice job

It was heart warming to see after my last post that people turned out for the funeral of World War 2 pilot, George Thompson.

World War Two Pilot Funeral

Hat tip also to James Higham for tweeting to promote the call.

There's little to say other than thank you to those who were able to go and say thank you to one of our greatest generation. I have lots of thoughts on this, but they're not for here. Not today. Just to say that we should be happy at this small sign, this small glimmer, of hope that the real Britain is still alive.




Wednesday 28 May 2014

Pass it On.

Another one of our greatest generation has passed from our midst.

Public-urged-to-attend-funeral-of-war-hero

George Thompson who served his country in the RAF has died with no relatives and very few friends. The local RAF association have asked for members of the public to attend his final sortie.

His funeral will take place Friday May 30th at 3.30 at Hutcliffe Wood Crematorium.

I am just trying to do my bit to spread the word so that those who can attend and remember the passing of those who stood in harm's way to protect us may do so.

Please feel free to pass this notice along.

Thank you.

Monday 26 May 2014

Palpable Fear

Well, the results are pretty much finalised across Europe and it's clear something is happening. Although I think some of the pundits are getting ahead of themselves, playing numbers games, it's evident the apple cart has been upset.

I suspect someone's worst fears are coming true. They feared it before the election. I've been critical of  UKIP and remain so for a variety of reasons. However what went before the elections in terms of the slew of stories and adverse publicity being run endlessly, looked like a coordinated stitch up job. Someone wanted them stopped.

Yet it failed. What happened spoke to something I've often talked about. What the result started to demonstrate was that in the right mind, the sovereign people can make all the best laid plans of the self regarding elite irrelevant. It seems apt that last night, the TV laid on V for Vendetta. At the end in which the best laid plans melted into nothing, because the people chose not to heed the message and followed their own minds. Just as in the movie, this weeks voters, just swamped the barricades and made their game irrelevant.

There are some worrying signs across Europe with the rise of some more extremist elements, with some very dark views. I worry about that and I hope they fizzle out as I have no truck with extremism of any ilk. However I think some of their rise was inevitable and their success is the product of hard left thinking. For many years good, ordinary decent people of all social classes had concerns about the way things were going in their nations as groups looked to smash the nation state concept. Those good people tried to ask fair questions about the people coming into their nations only to have political correctness shout them down and treat them like pariahs to cower them into submission. They left it open for those with darker ambitions to exploit those good people as the seemingly only open outlet for those ambitions. It didn't have to be this way if fair and honest debate had been permitted. But it wasn't and now we see what we see.

What will follow I cannot say, but I suspect there are lots of frantic calls, meetings and murmurings today and in the days to follow. My fervent hope is that what follows will be for good and the start of a return to legal, decent, open and honest democracy.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Absolutely lost for words.

Had a quick trip round the blogs earlier and stopped by AM's place. After reading This story I felt a comment was in order to add to the debate.

I've since been back and seen an additional comment added. It seems in the vein of some of those others criticising AM for making observations about the paucity in the depth of thinking UKIP are demonstrating around the really meaty stuff about the EU.

I was going to re-comment but having seen the argument that Farage can't tell you the plan because the EU and Cameron will fix the law to close the route off, well to be honest I was totally dumbstruck and it soon became apparent that I couldn't respond without a descent into swearing. So I didn't bother.

I don't get this argument that basically says don't criticise Farage and UKIP for not having all their bases covered on Europe. I mean why not? It's not like Europe and the EU is an accidental battleground for them. They didn't just stumble into it.

They picked Europe as their battleground.

So if they're short on arguments and ideas that add up why the surprise when people ask questions and why have a pop at those asking questions?

Tuesday 13 May 2014

That should do it

Some years ago the comedian Robin Williams appeared in a move where he was delivering some of his stand up routine. In it, he delivers a great little line.

" I love the British police. When they see a criminal, they shout "stop, or I'll shout stop, again""

 I thought of the sentiment when I read about the kidnapping of the Nigerian girls at the hands of Islamist group Boko Haram. The story is terrible. There's hardly a redeeming factor in the whole story story. Even the international anger has been slow off the mark. The mainstream press has finally latched on to the story, covering their disinterest with some odd sub narrative about the story being slow to emerge, which is odd given that bloggers had been asking for a while why the story hadn't gained mainstream press traction.

What's particularly niggled me is the campaign "Bring back our girls". Not because it exists. I think in many respects it's a good thing. What's niggled me is what it says about our modern politicians. There seems to suddenly a never ending queue of them itching to get in on the photo pop with a piece of cardboard with the slogan on it.

It's all just so very like them, no matter how well intentioned. Hash tagged slogans will not bring them back and posturing won't hunt the kidnappers down. But that's the modern way of running the world for these people. The image, the slogan and shallow gestures feel like doing something to these people. It fits right in with them because hard thinking and hard action are well, a bit too much to deal with and it's just not what they signed up for when they boarded the gravy train.

Strangely enough action has come along at the hands of the very people that these same shallow politicos lime to queue up to criticise - Israel. They've put some people on the ground to help the hunt by bringing some of their specialists to bear on the problem. But that's them. They have a habit of getting to the nub of the issue.

Saturday 10 May 2014

Outrage I tell you, outrage.

Having been away a fair bit recently, I decided I would do a bit of catching up on some missed tv, deciding to give the once over to a show called Coppers. Watching it was like reading some of the old Inspector Gadget blog, looking at some of the slice of life on camera.

I thought about the show, when I read the story of the owner of a field who has marked out a path across a field he owns with two rather utilitarian fences either side of. The Daily Mail picked the angle of the story it wanted to take which seemed to be one of bad landowner, blocking the path from use by the public.

I wasn't sure what to think having read the blurb. Obviously I'm a bit hobbity when it comes to the romantic notion of freely wandering the shires. Except when required to report the facts, they have to spell out a different story, than what they told in the blurb.

It seems that the path isn't blocked at all. At the heart of the story is a sense of entitlement. First people tried to block the purchase by the owner, fearing development. Once he got it, the story suggests they asked him to keep the unofficial path and he refused. Erm no. It seems they didn't just want a footpath. They wanted access to the whole field for dog walking. It's here that the problem comes. It seems the owner has an issue not necessarily with the dog walking itself, but that the dog fouling has spiralled out of control. This is a problem because he wants to use the land for animal grazing and the dog fouling can cause problems with that. I've since learned that amongst the parasites and bacteria often present in dog faeces is one thought to be responsible for abortions in cattle.

So what we really seem to have is a benevolence that has been abused. It seems there was an unwritten "fair usage" agreement. Act responsibly and there's access to something with no public right of way. It seems to some that isn't enough. Once again, we see people for whom the boundaries require constant expanding and extra imagined freedoms thrown in. Ones in which they behave how they wish and the consequences to be borne by others.

The story also tells the reason why the face is a triumph of function over form. As the landowner points out, had it been barbed wire, people would have complained about themselves, their children and their dogs getting caught and injured on it. Yes he could have place a simple farm type wood fence on it, but let's be honest, it wouldn't have taken long with the mindset that prevailed, that people would be ignoring that fence and the key problem would probably have continued as for some reason, too many have lost the ability to conduct themselves freely whilst acknowledging that it should be in balance with a sense of personal responsibility. For too many, it's become I want, I should get, with no boundaries and everyone else should mop up the mess I make so I can move on to my next abuse of personal freedom.

That's why the spiral goes downward.

Saturday 3 May 2014

Some advice for UKIPers (and independents) - Part One

A number of the blogs have continued to point out some of the gaping holes in what UKIP are doing or are offering. It's a shame, but only in the way that many of the responding comments seek to attack what started out ultimately as advice and suggestions to get the organisation to a point where it could be genuinely effective and have a serious credible offering.

My hope is that the attacking comments are a vociferous minority and that somewhere amongst the UKIP fraternity there are others who too are shaking their heads at the various own goals, missed sitters and who are bewildered at the party's struggle to turn the public dissatisfaction into seats. Right now you have a problem and it's this. The whole thing is too much Nigel. The identity of the whole movement is bound up in him. That wouldn't have been too much of an issue had the media not decided he was a target for scrutiny, which they have now done. They're after him and they've rattled him a couple of times and they will dig until they have something they can really hit him with. The problem is that if they hit him they will hold him below the waterline and he'll take the whole ship down with him. That my friends, is you and all you might have struggled to achieve. My question is that something you can live with?

I'm not saying get rid of Nigel, so the naysayers can leave that argument off the table. I'm saying you need something additional.

So here's my advice - get visible locally. To an outsider looking in, you're virtually invisible beyond Nigel and the problem with Europe as a concept is the electorate have a habit of thinking it's something they're a million miles away from, so why should they pick you. They haven't made the connection between Europe and their everyday life. To make headway you need to do several things. Get involved with the everyday life and problems of the electorate, bridge the gap between Europe and them, get some serious numbers backing you visibly and have a local offering so that if Nigel goes down your fortunes are relatively unscathed.

Where I live we have a odd set up that in part demonstrates the potential for getting involved. Here, the Tories and the Lib Dems have been the constant tussle. This went on way before the coalition. Labour historically can't get a sniff but I know there are lots of labour folk around here. I know some of them even vote for the Conservative, even the ones who would have Thatcher for the Kennedy assassination if they could. The reason? They're visible locally and not just for politics. They've established themselves as community faces and their fortunes are not tied to actions of their national party activities so much.

You've got to get your local branch and your candidates (council, Westminster, whatever) visible. That said you can't just rock up around an election time with a rosette on asking for a vote. It won't work because it doesn't work. You need to get started now, just getting involved with local causes and initiatives. Become visible. If there's a local litter pick or something like that, get in on it and get talking to people. Stop letting the press tell your story, tell it yourself. Find the local problems and start helping with them.

To be truthful, this piece of advice is not just for UKIP. It's generally aimed at anyone who shares my dream for a restoration to legal and honest democracy. One which alters the dangerous course we're currently on. History has shown where our current stitch up politics tends to end up and out of that rises extremism of the very darkest nature that plumbs the depths of human depravity. I yearn for a day when we can all be optimistic about where our nation is headed and this thread is therefore aimed at anyone who wants to work for a thriving and stable United Kingdom, playing an influential and stabilising force in the world. So if a potential Mia Love is out there thinking about standing as an independent in some future election, what I have written here and hope to add to, applies equally to you.