There are interesting questions being asked of Mr Cameron on blogs by the Tory Party faithful.

The issue is where and from whom are they getting their funding. The essential question appears to be

"Why are Juniper Trading Equities Limited based in Geneva but registered in the British Virgin Islands, Lanners Services Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, The 'Medlina Foundation' of Liechtenstein and Ironmade Limited all lending millions to the Conservative party."

Politics 2006.

It is an interesting time when Scarlett of the Dodgy Iraq Dossier is rewarded in the recent Honours list. At the same time the Prime Minister freeloads on a former arsonist and we are all party to the disgraceful murder of Saddam.

It can only get better in 2007. Or can it?

A New Star.

At a time when the French have sent off their own cosmic exploration rocket to find a new star the BBC have discovered their own.

The reporting of Kate Silverstone from Iraq has been relevant, objective and informative and has also highlighted the shabby treatment of those we expose to death in the cause of the political imperative of the present Government. The fact that serving soldiers need to go public, on the lack of resources available to those who offer the final sacrifice, emphasises the disgrace of how we treat our armed forces.

Honours in the United Kingdom.

A knighthood for Bono is a further example of the total irrelevance of the whole charade.

If we must endure the award of these meaningless baubles to mainly irrelevant people can we at least ensure that those rewarded reside in the United Kingdom for taxation purposes and that we do not make non-UK citizens part of the whole Gilbert and Sullivan experience.

Plain English.

It is the time of year for awards. The Plain English Campaign's Annual Foot in the mouth award was to The British supermodel, Naomi Campbell. She allegedly said in June "I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

There was also a Golden Ball Award to our near neighbours Eastleigh Borough Council for a Notice given under the Building Act 1984 -

'Hereby in accordance with the provision of the Building Act 1984, Section 32 declares that the said plans shall be of no effect and accordingly the said Act and the said Building Regulations shall as respects the proposed work have effect as if no plan had been deposited.'

Merry Christmas.

Independence in Politics.

The public dissatisfaction with all political parties is at an all time high. The great danger is that, because of the deception and outright dishonesty practised by the discredited traditional parties, democracy itself will fall into disrepute.

At one time many elected local government members were independent. Given the limited powers of local authorities today, where funding and what they can do is largely prescribed by Whitehall, it makes little sense for local Councils to be organized on party political lines. What is required are more independent Councillors. They would at least be free of the political machines and the whipping system that directs how they will vote on particular issues. Neither would they be subjected to pressure by the extremists who tend to run the local party political machines.

We are coming to the stage where nominations will soon be called for the May 2007 local government elections. There is an urgent need for an increase in the number of people willing to stand as Independents. Maybe then the electorate, given their present general dissatisfaction with politics, will be attracted back to voting. They will at least have the opportunity to elect a representative who is not a prisoner of the political machines and who is free to vote in the best interests of their constituents.

Poetry and Humour.

The problem with approaching middle age (!) is that sometimes I listen to Radio 5 in the early hours of the morning (circa 4 a.m.). Last night there was an item with Felix Dennis who has published his third books of poems. Poetry is not normally my bag but these poems are a beautiful commentary on contemporary life. The book is entitled 'When Jack Sued Jill - Nursery Rhymes for Modern Times'. I commended it to everyone. At the risk of being sued for breach of copyright I will nevertheless give a taster -

ASBO, ASBO, little law,
How we wonder what you're for.
Chavs and yobs who love to fight
Terrorise us every night,
Toothless, useless little law,
How we wonder what you're for!

There is more of this particular poem and many more but you should either buy the book (£9.99) or borrow a copy from our excellent Libraries.

Curiously enough in Waterstone's it is in the Humour Section and not the Poetry part. It should be in both.

I do not make New Year Resolutions since I go into a deep depression when they are broken. Nevertheless as this is 21 December 2006 I have promised myself that I will blog daily from now on. It seems to me that blogging is an acceptable form of talking to oneself.

Today was bitterly cold and maybe the beginning of a hard winter promised earlier this year. As I did not have a proper winter hat (the umpteenth having been left somewhere) I ventured out in one of those terrible tea pot warmers the younger generation wear. When I passed the local beat bobbies they remarked that the hat would keep me warm but hoped I was not going out to do a bit of mugging. I said not today as I was concentrating on doing a bit of nicking. None of this was true of course but in considering such a dialogue I feel I am in touch with contemporary life.

The terrible performance last week of the Blair Government is the final straw. The practice of spinning and burying bad news is obvious and apparent to everyone. It has contributed so significantly to the general distrust that everyone has for politicians yet they appear to be the only ones who do not hoist in the fact. The reappearance of Mandelson to hasten the death of Blair's premiership seems most appropriate.

I fear my earlier suggestion (that we should consider the 12-1 odds that Blair would be gone by the end of the year) will be a lost bet. The sooner he goes the better but given his messianic beliefs he will of course hang on causing further and greater damage to the interests of the Labour Party and the Country.

Iraq.

We now know there is not to be an enquiry about Iraq at the moment. The day however is not far away when there will be. There has already been a suggestion that the membership of any enquiry should be Privy Councillors and/or other Members of that ill defined Club called 'The Great and the Good'. The membership is likely to be decided by those with a vested interest in the outcome.

I am reminded of the words of a former colleague who said " Bill, the thing to remember about the Great and the Good is that in most cases they are neither". There may be exceptions but we need to evolve a system that enquiries are left to those best able to conduct them. Given the independence of the Judiciary in this country I hope that Membership of any Enquiry will be restricted to Judges and leave other members of the Great and the Good to continue to slumber on the Benches of the outdated second Chamber. The choice of the actual members of the enquiry should not be in the gift of the ruling party but should be left to the Chief Justice.

Mr Blair's departure.

The present odds on offer are

Jan - May 2007 5/4
June - Dec 2007 5/4
2006 - 12/1

The Republicans may loose both The Senate and The House of Representitives next month. Such losses would really make Mr Bush a lame duck President. It would also introduce an open season on Mr Blair. To this add the imminent approach of Inspector Plod and the running for cover of Mr Levy and the position of Mr Blair is even more vunerable.

The present odds of 12/1 for Mr Blair to depart this year begins to look attractive. I would not suggest we all put our mortgage or even our savings on this outcome but it might be worth venturing next months beer money.

United Nations & The Middle East.

It is interesting that Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, on his Middle-East Tour is not only visiting Lebanon and Israel but also Iran and Syria.

Could it be that he read my earlier blog of 6th August 2006, published incidently as a Letter to the Editor of The Times.

Perhaps not!

Great pity though that Mr Blair and Dr Rice have not taken the advice although whether either of them would be welcome in any part of the Middle East is debateable.

Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East.

If we are concerned, as we should be, about a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East we should be concerned that at the moment the only nuclear power in the region is Israel. The probability that Iran will develop a nuclear arsenal should be of less concern.

In the decades following World War II the doctrine of mutual destruction of each other by the main nuclear powers ensured that such weapons were not used. In deed the only time they have been used is when the United States was the only nation who possessed them.

If there is any logic in that history the development of a nuclear weapon by Iran is likely to ensure that they are not used rather than present an additional threat to peace in the area.

The alternative is to persuade Israel to give up her nuclear weapons. It is only those who believe in Father Christmas who would argue that they are not possessed by Israel.

The Middle East Chaos.

There is a lot of activity at the moment at the United Nations to get agreement on a form of words that is supposedly the first step to stopping the chaos. The agreement between the United States and France may be forthcoming and other nations may row in behind this agreement. We will then end up with a piece of paper to odd to the pile of many other resolutions ignored by every side going back over fifty years.

The major player in the Middle East is Iran and how we can expect to arrive at some sort of peace without involving it and, to a lesser extent, Syria beggars belief. The tragedy will continue until we stop this simplistic talk of an 'axis of evil', imposing democracy whether people want it or not and engage realistically with those who are the major players. When we see Mr Blair and Dr Rice jetting off to Tehran and Damascus we can then realistically hope that a solution might, just might, be possible.

What happened to Britain’s role in the world?

There is currently a series of letters in the Times about this. It is an obsession of the British that they must have such a role and that in Foreign Affairs "We should punch above our weight". It is at the core of our mediocrity as a people and as a Nation.

The empirical evidence is that there is no part of British life, with the possible exception of the BBC, where we can lay claim to being intrinsically better than other nations whether it be in public services, architecture, sport or any other field of human activity. There is absolutely no evidence that somehow the United Kingdom is uniquely qualified to play a special role in the World.

The problem is that whilst we continue to believe that we have and that somehow we have an entitlement to a seat at the top table we continue to dissipate our efforts to develop a decent and honest society in Britain, squander our resources in wars, independent nuclear deterrents and other follies de grandeur.

In the meantime Mr Blair gets on another aeroplane and we have the ridiculous media managed spectacle of him and Mr Bush marching purposely at a press conference and failing miserably to demonstrate that somehow Britain by definition has to be part of an alliance that has the answer to problems we in part created by our arrogance.

Citizenship and Tax avoidance.

There was an interesting article in today's Mail about super commuters who make their millions in London but reside for taxation purposes in Monaco. Sir Philip Green, Sir Stelious Haji-Ioaannou were mentioned.

It has always seemed to me outrageous that anyone should enjoy the benefits of UK citiizenship and not pay the entrance price to the club. Not residence for taxation purposes should preclude such people from participation and let us not have the hoary arguement that they created jobs. Certainly jobs were created but they fail to mention they also benefitted substantially from these jobs. The difference is that those working in the jobs paid taxation whereas the founders wwho enjoyed the main benefits did not.

It is also interesting that two of the best known non residents have knighthoods. That is bad enough but of more interest would be a list of the Members of the House of Lords who are non-resident and what their involvement with political parties was prior to their enoblement.

I must ask Guido to consider investigating.

Appropriate Sentencing.

Yesterday an elderly woman was given three months in prison for refusing to pay £800 Council Tax.


The juxtaposition of this and another item in today's Times highlights the conflict about appropriate sentences. "Council Tax rebel jailed for three months for owing £800" and "Judges threaten to quit over attacks on their lenient sentencing".
There was nothing lenient or appropriate about the three months given to Mrs Rooney. The criticism in this particular case should be the lack of perspective and over reaction in such a savage and inappropriate sentence. There were a number of options. If this was Mrs Rooney's first offence an absolute discharge could have been considered. At the very least the sentence should have been a suspended one.


It is little wonder that the jails in the United Kingdom are filled to overflowing when such ridiculous and excessive judgements are made.

Membership of Political Parties.

The extent to which Leaders of the main political parties should pay attention to the views of their members is debateable. The membership (for instance) of the Labour Party is less than 200,000 where as there are about 44,000,000 registered voters in the United Kingdom. That is to say members of the Labour Party represent less than half of one percent of those registered to vote at a General Election. The position in the other main parties is no better.



Accordingly the strategy of Leaders paying lip service to the dinosaurs in their respective parties is understandable. To have any hope of winning policies should be attractive to the majority 99 per cent of the registered voters.

The uncouth and vulgar Jonathen Ross.

Although a committed anti- Thatcherite I was appalled by the latest obscenities about Mrs Thatcher by Jonathen Ross when he interviewed David Cameron. Ross is the unfunny man of TV and should be sacked. The saving of 18 Million pounds he is to be paid could be used to reduce the licence fee. Clearly the BBC have more money than they can sensibly use.

- Bill Kearns, Southampton, England

Honours in the United Kingdom.

If we must endure the largely meaningless award of honours can we at least ensure that those rewarded reside in the United Kingdom for taxation purposes.

A new Administrative Capital for the United Kingdom.

The present water shortage and the government plans to make it worse by building thousands of new homes in the South East calls for a new United Kingdom strategy.

The South East based on London is the administrative, financial, commercial, tourist and artistic capital of the United Kingdom and has to provide housing, commercial accommodation and services for all these activities. There is nothing Government can do about the latter activities (nor should it be allowed to) but it can do something about London and the South East being the administrative capital of the United Kingdom.

The problem of overcrowding and excessive demands for accommodation and services in London and the South East requires a radical decision that would move Whitehall, Parliament and the Royal Households to the provinces. London would remain the centre of the other activities. The parsimonious movement of a small amount of Government Offices and Agencies to the provinces is gesture politics and does nothing substantial to resolve the central problem.

What is required (and it is a fundamental and absolute requirement) is the wholesale removal of Central Government, its appendages and paraphernalia to a location (or locations) outside the South East. Such a relocation would at a stroke radically diminish the demand for property and services in London and the South East.

It is interesting that many countries (USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil and others) now have a commercial capital and an administrative capital and there is absolutely no reason why the United Kingdom should not follow their example.

Will it happen? I suspect not. Not until the problem has become even worse than it is at the moment and no doubt more expensive to solve.

27th May 2006

Excesses

The radical European-wide blueprint to curb football's excesses has much that is attractive.

Perhaps before it is tried out in football we should try out the arrangements on Members of the European Union and their excessive salaries and allowances. If that result were deemed to be a success we could continue by addressing the excesses in football. Subsequently we could consider applying the principles in other areas. Maybe the excessive salaries and benefits of business men, media types, pop idols, MPs and Cabinet Ministers could be curbed.

Such arrangements might go some way to diminish the growing gap between the overpaid most affluent and the poorest in present day Britain.

8th April 2006

Prince Harry

He apparently celebrated the end of officer training with a visit to a lapdancing club

And why not?


06 April 2006

The Blair and Brown Show

There is not a lot of gravitas in their present behaviour and others will presumable pay the price in the forthcoming May local elections.. They behave like teenagers and perhaps should be treated as such. Maybe a couple of ASBOS would be in order.

01 April 2006

Friendship

Our local Priest announced at the end of Mass that he was moving to another parish. He explained that it was not the consequence of an argument with the organist or that he had fallen out with the choir or any of the usual reasons. He said he had been called to his present church by Jesus and Jesus was now calling him to his new parish.

The mass terminated with us all singing with some enthusiasm - ' What a friend we have in Jesus '.

31 March 2006

Loans to Political Parties

The ludicrous and disingenuous statement that rich lenders made loans at commercial rates to Political Parties needs to be closely examined. The commercial rate will to a large extent be determined by the capacity of the borrower to repay. Given the parlous state of the finances of all political parties I would be surprised if any banker in his right mind would lend anything to them at Bank Rate plus 2%.

24th March 2006

Ryan Air

There is almost something charming about the flight that went to the wrong airport. At least the pilot like the Irish Government was going in the right direction. If only a few flights in the United Kingdom bound for Heathrow ended up at Gatwick.

23 February 2006

Royalty

The revolutionary HRH The Prince of Wales has found a new constituency. He has an opportunity to Lead those that wish to have it both ways. His wish to be a voice of dissent and also enjoy the privileges (but not the responsibilities) of his position is untenable. He could of course reasonably pursue the former if he gave up the latter

2 February 2006

Numbers in Political Parties

The extent to which Leaders of the main political parties should pay attention to the views of their members is debateable. The membership (for instance) of the Labour Party is less than 200,000 where as there are about 44,000,000 registered voters in the United Kingdom. That is to say members of the Labour Party represent less than half of one percent of those registered to vote at a General Election. The position in the other main parties is no better.

Accordingly the strategy of Leaders paying lip service to the dinosaurs in their respective parties is understandable. To have any hope of winning policies should be attractive to the majority 99 per cent of the registered voters.

01 February 2006

What worries me about Mr Blair, Mr Straw and Mr Bush is their concept that we can deny Iran or anyone else access to nucleur technology when we retain the right to have it ourselves. I know the legal position and the so called intellectual arguements but so long as we possess the technology it is difficult to offer an acceptable arguement that others should be precluded from possession. I suspect that the arguements being used by our Leaders bear a resemblance to those used when gunpowder and the self loading rifle were invented.

The solution I suspect, as usual, is to stop digging the hole we in the West appear to be in. We need a more relevant Western Foreign Policy for the Middle East.

There are some sound bites that strike a chord. The comment, on the State of the Union address by President Bush, that to say so was not the same as to do so seems apposite. It seems to me as a confirmed supporter of most things American and a disillusioned member of the UK Labour Party that we owe it to our friends in the USA to encourage them to come up with a more relevant solution to the present debacle in the Middle East. The possible denial of development aid to Palestine whilst at the same time continuing the present level of aid to Israel is perhaps one policy that should be re-examined.