WOKE MADNESS

It just keeps getting worse this list of  'banned' words or expressions from the machinations of small minded, petty-fogging 'officials' with nothing better to do than invent racist connotations for almost every walk of life.

Here are a few samples:

Blackout

Blacksheep

Black market and

Blackmail,

Part of a list made up by a certain Nav Bhogal of the Pharmacists Defence Association's (no me neither) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Network  ( Honest, I'm not making this up!)

Mr Bhogal claims such words have 'negative connotations' and can be 'harmful' although he doesn't specify who to!

Other idiots with nothing better to do with their time heap further 'woke' ideology upon us, how about these:

'Ladies and Gentlemen', a term now banned by the British Red Cross, and the hospital below.

'Breast milk', now chest milk, 'birthing parents', rather than mothers and 'assigned at birth' instead of being born a boy or a girl.

These, as well as titles now frowned upon such as 'fireman' or 'policeman' are just a small sample of an 8 page guide issued by the James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth warning staff as to how they must deal with everyday expressions - and you thought the NHS was on its knees, struggling to survive but no!

It has the time, staff and resources to spend on such wokery, at the expense of nurses and hospital beds, and here was me thinking that's what they were supposed to do.

And it's not just such public bodies who have nothing better to do, the financial outfit of J P Morgan Chase instructs its staff to use the descriptions 'labour hours' instead of  man hours and 'workforce' rather than manpower.

It also wants terms such as good school and good neighbourhood replaced with 'well resourced' and of course it just has to have a go at blacklist recommending this be replaced with 'disallowed list', which I'm sure would be understood by everyone!

This invention of artificial racisms, of  finding fault where none is intended is a deplorable facet of modern life. I suspect Nav Bhogal would find a sexist, racist element which he would deem to be  'exclusive' and 'harmful'  in my addressing him as Mr - well tough shit MISTER Bhogal!

 

 MILK SHAKES AND NIGEL FARAGE

With regard to the sentencing of Victoria Thomas Bowen for throwing a milk shake over Nigel Farage I don't agree with the comments made by the balding, talentless hack James Whale who writes a column for the Daily Express.

He "can't believe" that Miss Thomas Bowan was spared jail by the judge - I can't believe that any judge with even a passing acquaintance with the sentencing guidelines could have imposed a 13 week prison sentence, albeit suspended for 12 months.

The guidelines for Common Assault in contravention of Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 where the offence was NOT Racially or religiously aggravated nor committed against an emergency worker are:

 HIGH CULPABILITY

·         Intention to cause fear of serious harm, including disease transmission

·         Victim obviously vulnerable due to age, personal characteristics or circumstances

·         Prolonged/ persistent assault

·         Use of substantial force

·         Strangulation/ suffocation/ asphyxiation

·         Threatened or actual use of weapon or weapon equivalent*

·         Leading role in group activity

 None of which apply so LESSER CULPABILITY at Category B applies.

HARM

What occurred can be no more than:

Minor physical or psychological harm/distress

So harm is at Category 2

Now the sentencing guidelines for Harm at category 2 and Culpability at category B                            has a sentencing range of a fine at Band B up to a high level Community Order, with a starting point of a low level community order - not a 13 week prison sentence with an attached condition of 120 hours of unpaid work, of itself equivalent to a medium level Community Order.

The judge's comments are illuminating -

 "In recent months I have dealt with several cases of unlawful attacks on politicians, whether online or physical. This is a dangerous trend. This was not just an attack on him, but in my judgement, an attack on our parliamentary democracy".

"The risks of face-to-face engagement with the public are just too clear, bearing in mind the murders of two other Members of Parliament in recent years."

So the judge is dealing with this simple attack upon who, at that time, was no more that a Parliamentary candidate NOT an MP as an attack upon the UK Parliament and democracy itself , ie akin to treason!

Which is manifestly ridiculous.

He also links this trivial offence with the murders of two Members of Parliament in the past, which this offence has absolutely no connection with, but this judge thinks fit to punish Victoria Thomas Bowen for the actions of others.

Whilst James Whale's comments do no more than illustrate his ignorance of the judicial process the "dangerous trend" referred to by the judge is not the throwing of a milk shake but the lamentable lack of justice exhibited in the sentencing of Victoria Thomas Bowen.

 

 SHAMIMA BEGUM.

 

The current political turmoil in Syria has once again raised the topic of what will become of Shamima Begum.

Readers will recall that in 2015, then a 15 year old schoolgirl, she and two other east London schoolgirls absconded to Syria to join the Islamic State terror group.

 

Since then it has been reported that one of the girls, Kadiza Sultana has been killed and the fate of another girl, Amira Abase, is unknown. Meanwhile Shamima Begum remains in an armed camp somewhere in northern Syria.

 

Whilst at liberty in Syria she reportedly married the  23 year old fellow IS member, Dutch born Yago Riedijk and bore him three children, all of whom died in infancy.

In 2019, the then UK Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, made an order depriving Begum of British citizenship, something he was only able to do because Shamima was born in the UK to parents of Bangladeshi heritage, the reasoning being she therefore enjoyed Bangladeshi citizenship, it being illegal to deprive someone of citizenship if this would leave them stateless.

However, the Government of Bangladesh stated that Begum did not currently hold Bangladeshi citizenship, was not born there and had never lived there, and would not therefore be allowed to enter Bangladesh.

Whether or not Bangladesh would welcome Shamima into their country is irrelevant to the decision regarding nationality.

The Citizenship Act 1951 of Bangladesh gives two ways in which nationality may be obtained.

Citizenship via jus soli, that is by right of birth within the territory doesn't apply to Shamima as she was born in the UK, however she does enjoy  "Commonwealth Citizenship" by virtue of Bangladesh being a member of the  Commonwealth of Nations.

But the Bangladeshi Citizenship Act gives a second way in which citizenship may be gained, and that is via the concept of jus sanguinis ie citizenship by right of blood.

Put simply this means one may acquire citizenship regardless of whether they were born in Bangladesh or not, provided at least one parent was and as both Shamima's parents were born in Bangladesh the statement made by the Bangladeshi authorities seems to be perverse, and not in accordance with Bangladeshi law.

All the various appeals that have been made on Shamima's behalf  have failed to overturn the Home Secretary's decision, both that she presented a threat to national security and she would not, as a result of the parents birth place, be rendered stateless, the final word being that of the Court of Appeal in February 2024.

So legally it would seem the UK government is on solid ground but.............is there a moral aspect to this case?

Do we all, as citizens ourselves, owe some responsibility for the actions of our fellow citizens? We educated this unfortunate child, we were responsible as a society for teaching her right from wrong, are we morally justified in doing a Pontius Pilate, washing our hands of her, and leaving her to her fate?

 

There is one other consideration I would make, and that is forgiveness. We are taught "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and within a Christian society, and yes I know Shamima isn't a Christian, but forgiveness is an essential element of Christian belief.

We say in the prayer that Christ taught us "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us", is there no space in our hearts for forgiveness of this misguided young woman?

 THE NOT-SO LIBERAL LIB-DEMS

A report in today's paper caught my eye, the case of Natalie Bird.

Ms Bird was the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Liberal - Democrats in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Before I get into the story it's worthwhile considering what being a liberal democrat means, or rather should mean:

liberal

adjective

1. willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas.

2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.

(my under-lining)

Oxford English Dictionary

Ms Bird, an abuse survivor who supports 'safe spaces for vulnerable women' was seen in a meeting wearing a top emblazoned with the words:

Woman

noun

adult human female.

If the newspaper report is correct then the so-called liberals at Wakefield denounced her as a "far-right bigot", and "an illiberal terf", which is apparently shorthand for  a trans-exclusionary  radical female. She was promptly de-selected as a prospective candidate, suspended from the party, excluded from a meeting by that shining example of liberalism, the local party chairman Dr Peter Williams and barred from standing again for 10 years.

Such actions, if true, cast the Wakefield liberals in a very bad light indeed.

Let's look again at what being a liberal means - willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own.

 Which seems to be exactly the opposite of the Wakefield Lib Dems who had the brass-necked cheek to label Ms Bird as being illiberal - talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

 If theses reports are correct then it is the Wakefield LibDems have shown themselves by their actions to be those who are truly illiberal.

illiberal

adjective

1. opposed to liberal principles;  restricting freedom of thought or behaviour, intolerant, narrow-minded, unenlightened, puritanical

 Oxford English Dictionary

Ms Bird is suing for compensation and the so-called Wakefield Liberals and the LibDem president Mr Mark Park have admitted liability, it remains to be seen what this crass illiberal action by these intolerant, narrow-minded, unenlightened people will cost them., but whatever it is it won't be enough and of course Dr Peter Williams and the Wakefield liberals won't have the decency to apologise to Ms Bird and resign.

 TARIFFS

I've just watched yet another 'meet the press' event held by president-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago where, amongst other things, he once again reiterated his belief that 'tariffs' was a beautiful word.

He continues to preach the nonsense that once he imposes tariffs on countries such as Mexico and China that these countries will then pay the USA billions of dollars for the right to import goods into the country, and America will grow rich on the proceeds.

NO THEY WON'T AND NO IT WON'T!

The USA, nor any other country, can compel another country to pay it money - it just doesn't work that way and either Trump is a deluded fool, or a liar, it must be one or the other, there is no third way.

When a government imposes a tariff on imports it does so upon those it has jurisdiction over ie its own citizens.

To give a simplified example that even a moron like Trump should be able to understand - a US company, let's say Walmart, imports a washing machine from China and pays the Chinese manufacturer $200 for the product.

The US government has imposed a 50% tariff on Chinese imports so Walmart have to pay the US treasury a $100 import duty when the machine arrives in the USA.

The washing machine has now cost Walmart $300. It wants $20 for handling, advertising  and transportation and $10 profit on the sale making the sales ticket for the washing machine $330, which is $100 more than it would have been without the Trump tariff.

China pays nothing - zero - zilch - nada - not a single cent! The American citizen buying the machine pays instead!

So either the customer pays more for a product than it would otherwise do, or can't afford it so doesn't buy it at all.

Either way, the result is a financial disaster - inflation increases, Walmart's profits plunge, it lays off thousands of workers, closes stores as no-one can now afford its goods, living standards decline, and of course it is likely that those countries whose goods Trump imposes a  tariff on will retaliate by imposing tariffs on US goods imported into those countries, meaning they will become more expensive and less likely to be bought, leading to more US factories and farmers losing their markets - more closures, more job losses - it just gets worse, and he thinks this is a beautiful word?

Well Trump thinks so, safe in his protected environment, but for Mr and Mrs Average American I'm not so sure but hey! This is what they voted for so can't complain, they will reap as they have sown and, I suspect, will live to regret it.

 COURT DELAYS

The government is bewailing the fact that there is a huge back-log of cases going through the courts and are proposing some radical moves to reduce the numbers awaiting trial.

Before getting into a discussion on these 'suggestions', currently being advocated by the former lord chief justice Lord Thomas, it's worthwhile considering how the government got itself into this mess in the first place.

Since 2010 the government has closed over 50% of court house across the country and reduced the number of magistrates from over 25,000 to less than 10,000 in the same period.

Between  2022 and 2023 government spending  on the provision of justice was over 30% below what  it should have been to keep pace with inflation, population growth, and the economy. 

So who should be surprised that with less courts, less justices and less money, cases are not being processed at the rate they were previously. Well apparently lord justice Thomas and the former high court judge Sir Brian Leveson, currently conducting a review into court provision, are surprised, and have some radical solutions in mind.

Although one solution that they will not consider for fear of upsetting their ex-colleagues on the bench is making the courts more efficient. Heaven forfend that Crown Courts aught to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.

I have, when I was a sitting magistrate, sat many times in Crown Court and have, without exception, been appalled at the general apathy and lack of purpose exhibited by the judges.

Forget all you've seen in Judge John Deed, that's about as realistic as Star Trek!

The reality is that courts are generally scheduled to start at 10am, but rarely, if ever do. By the time the judge has read some cases papers, which he could easily have done beforehand, dealt with some trivial matters held over from a previous day, which any competent clerk could do, it is nearer eleven by the time a case is 'called on'.

Assuming that all proceeds as it should the judge retires for lunch at 12.30pm, provided free in the on-site judge's dining room - no dashing into town for a sandwich for his honour!

Court re-convenes at 2pm and sits through until 4pm when the judge calls in a day and goes home.

Even with a smoothly run court with nothing to upset progress (a rarity in itself) that's an effective three and a half hour working day, or half that of any normal 9 to 5 office worker on a tenth of the judges salary.

If the ex-judge Sir Brian Leveson had any real intent to reduce the court back-log he could simply  suggest, and the government insist, that courts start prompt at 9am, work through until 1pm, take 1 hour for lunch and sit in the afternoon until 5pm, a total of 7 hours court time - or put it another way, a 100% increase on the present practice, which I suggest would go a long way to reducing delays.

But no!

No judge is going to suggest his ex-colleagues actually work for a living, instead the proposal is that for all but the most serious cases, which the Crown Court could supposedly manage at its current level of inefficiency, we abandon the centuries-old  right of a citizen to be tried by a jury of his peers.

Instead what is proposed is that there should be 'intermediate courts', a practice abolished in 1971 when the Quarter Sessions courts were  closed.

These courts would sit without a jury and instead be presided over by a judge sitting with two magistrates.

Leaving aside the abandonment of the right to trial by jury some interesting problems suggest itself to me, if not to the (supposedly) learned judge.

Firstly the government has closed 50% of the country's court rooms, so where will these courts sit? For every 'intermediate court' sitting in a court room would mean one less court room for Crown Court jury trials - how this would reduce Crown Court delays escapes me.

Secondly, every judge sitting in an 'intermediate court' is one less sitting in the Crown Court - same puzzle as above.

Thirdly, the proposal means taking two magistrates, and they will likely have to be the most experienced and senior magistrates, out of the magistrates' courts, where all cases, no matter how serious, begin their journey through the judicial system, bearing in mind that  in its wisdom the government has reduced the number of magistrates by 60% over the last ten years.

So to speed up Crown Court through-put they will reduce the number of available court rooms, the number of available judges, and make transit through the lower court slower by taking away a large number of the most experienced magistrates!

Umm! A good job the esteemed judge is not employed in a time and motion exercise.

 

 THE UNITED STATES ELECTIONS

I must say, right from the start, that I have a great respect for the United States of America and for its people.

Whilst I deplore their fascination with guns, there are more legally-owned firearms in the USA than there are inhabitants, they are on the whole a kind, generous and warm-hearted people. OK so they can be somewhat naïve at times, or perhaps it's more a case that we from older countries are a little too cynical, but they still have my admiration, except perhaps in that aspect of their Constitution, the Presidential Elections.

Because of the arcane system of each state voting for a candidate, and on the basis of the result sending a delegation to the Electoral College, who will then cast the State's vote for President, it is quite possible for more people to vote for candidate A only for candidate B to be elected President.

In 2000 George W Bush received less votes that did Al Gore, but was elected President by the Electoral College. The same happened in 2016 when Donald Trump polled 2.8 million votes less than did Hillary Clinton, but still became President.

Apart from the bizarre electoral system it is a source of amazement to me how a convicted criminal such as Donald Trump can even be considered for President, let alone being elected as one.

Not only as he been convicted of four felony crimes of falsifying his business records he is accused, rightly so in my opinion, of illegally conspiring, with such as the odious one-time mayor of  New York Rudy Giuliani, to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election and encouraging, supporting and instigating an armed insurrection against the Government of the United States with the intent, amongst other crimes, to murder the then sitting Vice President.

Dress in up however you like, make as many excuses as you can, in any other civilised country of the world this would be considered as treason, and in some parts of the world would result in a death sentence - but with Trump?

Not only has he managed to evade prosecution for the last four years if he is ever in danger of being called to account he can now, as President, simply pardon himself!

He is on record has describing those already convicted for taking part in the January insurrection as " martyrs " and once in the White House will likely pardon those as well, but his actions do not stop there. He has, on national television, stated that he considers those Senators who conducted the Senate investigation into the insurrection should go to jail.

Not that they committed any crime, not that any court with any pretence of judicial merit would convict them, they have acted against Donald J Trump and as such should be punished by imprisonment.

How has a country based on democracy, freedom, and in Lincoln's words "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" sunk so low as to consider this criminal traitor fit to stand in the shoes of Lincoln, FDR and those presidents who truly did strive to 'make America great'.

To once again quote from Lincoln and his speech of  the 16th of June 1858 "A house divided upon itself cannot stand" and I pray that in time America will come to its senses and elect a president who will unite the country and re-establish those values it once held dear.

 A TREATISE ON GLOBAL WARMING

The whole issue of global warming is fixated on CO₂ emissions, that CO₂  is solely responsible for global warming. Assuming that there is any truth in that hypothesis let's consider CO₂ as part of the overall atmosphere.

Imagine the atmosphere as a football field and you are stood on the far touch line. You start walking down the field and you are in Nitrogen, penalty spot - still Nitrogen, penalty circle, Nitrogen again. Half-way line, still Nitrogen. Opposing penalty circle, yes it's still Nitrogen. Penalty box - wow! at last, Oxygen. Goal keepers box, still Oxygen. Touch line, 4 inches wide comprises the Noble Gases: Argon, Krypton, Neon, Helium, Radon, Zenon etc and some water vapour. Place an old penny on the far edge of the touchline - that's carbon dioxide!

Or put it another way, CO₂ accounts for just 0.04% of the earth's atmosphere while there is one hundred times more water vapour in the atmosphere, which is also responsible for global warming.

While we have no way to control water vapour we can control CO₂ hence the fixation on its reduction, but is there another cause of global warming? Is it a natural factor of the earth's evolution?

We know from archaeological  and written records that in AD100, or 1900 years ago, it was warm enough for the Romans to cultivate grape vines in Northumberland along Hadrian's Wall.

1400 years later, in Tudor times, the climate was so cold the river Thames froze so thick that it was possible to hold 'frost fairs' on the ice with bonfires that were unable to melt the ice it was so thick.

500 years later and the cycle has turned, the temperature of the earth has been warming up for generations and if history tells us anything it is that this cycle of global warming will continue for the next 1000 years, until once again grapes can be grown in Northumberland. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

The fixation with CO₂ stems from the certain knowledge that there is nothing we can do to halt the inexorable warming that will, in time, render parts of the world uninhabitable and that mass famine will result in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

But no government can admit that and must be seen to be 'doing something about it', and CO₂ emission is the one and only thing that is within our control, and we are conditioned to believe that everything is within our control.

We have lost the Medieval concept of 'God's Will', that certain events are beyond our control. In our 20th century arrogance we have become God and so can control the earth; it is a supreme arrogance that leads us down a road to ultimate failure and disappointment.

In time we will, because of the world-wide fixation on reducing CO₂ emissions, be 'successful'.

CO₂ will be reduced, but the earth will continue on its cycle of evolution and get hotter and hotter, and one can only speculate what other  factor the green lobby and its acolytes will then blame. Few now have the courage to speak out against the received wisdom for fear of being dubbed a 'climate denier' and becoming a modern-day Cassandra, a prophet destined never to be believed.

A few, and they are a very small few,  are now beginning to speak out against the rush towards so-called 'nett zero' and who say that the cost to the UK economy alone will be 15 trillion pounds, that's 15 million, million, million pounds.

It is estimated that nett zero, if it is ever achieved, will result in a reduction in global temperature of two-thousands of a degree, or 0.2%! A figure so small as to be meaningless.

One thing is certain, man's over-riding arrogance will prevent him from accepting that warming is part of the natural evolution of the planet, which means no steps will be taken, until it is too late, to develop strategies to cope with the 'new normal'.

It is argued that the immense world-wide cost of 'nett zero' should be spent instead on the  development of drought and heat resistant varieties of crops, the construction of huge reservoirs to hold water and the managed retreat from low-lying land which will be lost through rising sea levels, adapting our environment to the reality of climate change.

Instead we will adopt the same method as the Dutch boy and stick our finger in the hole in the dyke and pray that someone will fix the leak before the dyke, and our world, comes crashing down about us.

 IMMIGRATION AND THE SMALL BOATS ''CRISIS'

I have for many years kept out of the debate about illegal immigration into the United Kingdom as it seems to be a topic about which everyone has an opinion, and no-one has a solution.

The main bone of contention it seems is the small boats crossing the English Channel from France, although in reality they make up only a small proportion of the number of immigrants, both legal and illegal, who enter the country every year.

In the year ending June 2024, 1.2 million people migrated to the UK and  479,000 people emigrated from the UK, meaning  the net migration to the UK was 728,000.

According to Migration Watch UK the number arriving illegally across the channel from France was, in 2024, 35,040, or a little under 3% of the total number of immigrants, both legal and illegal, into the UK.

However, because of the very visible nature of the cross-channel traffic, on the TV every night and in our newspapers daily, it has assumed an artificial significance greater than it actually merits.

If we are to reduce immigration into this country then we need to consider the 1,200, 000 people, equivalent to the population of Birmingham, who arrive here each year otherwise than in a rubber boat, and no-one is even talking about this, let alone doing anything about it.

Our tireless Home Secretary is obsessed with one thing and one thing only, her constant mantra that she will "smash the gangs".

Of course, she has no idea how to do this bar jetting around the continent begging someone else to show her the way. As anyone with even just one brain cell would know, United Kingdom jurisdiction starts and stops at Dover; even if we could identify a people smuggler operating in, say Syria, we have no powers to prosecute them, and I doubt very much it is illegal in Syria to facilitate emigration from there to anywhere else.

Which means the 'gangs' can safely laugh in Yvette Cooper's face.

There is, of course, a simple and effective way to stop all small boat crossings of the channel, something that is known to everyone involved, is perfectly legal and is used by Australia for  the very same purpose.

Instead of the Boarder Force vessels currently acting as a taxi service they instead turn the boats around and send them back from whence they came, oh and stop the RNLI also running a 'take you to England' service.

Every maritime nation, such as the UK, has an absolute right under International Law and the Law of the Sea to defend its territorial waters, and there is nothing the European Court of Human Rights, which our politician's are terrified of, could do about it.

When Russia wants to send a warship through the channel it is compelled to notify both France and the United Kingdom of its intention to violate territorial waters and is escorted through the channel by a Royal Naval warship.

Turn back the next rubber boat making an illegal incursion into UK territorial waters and no-one would try again.

Of course, that would require in our PM and Home Secretary both a will to 'stop the boats' and the courage to act,  attributes sadly lacking in both of them. Although I am no fan of Nigel Farrage or his rag-tag party he is the only politician advocating exactly that policy.