Drinks Industry Appeasement

Over at the Kitchen, The Filthy Smoker has laid out a comprehensive debunking of the myths on alcohol use/abuse promulgated by various public health deviants, and incubated by the inherent laziness of journalists.

Away from media hysteria and the medical lobby's hyperbole, the facts are plain: we are drinking less than we did 100 years ago, more than we did 50 years ago and less than we did 5 years ago. We are middle-weights in the European drinking league and the fact that we have a lot of knob-heads causing problems in our towns and cities at the weekend is because there a lot of knob-heads in the UK. The reasons for that is a whole other story, but it has nothing to do with advertising, happy hours or the price of lager.

As TFS' calm, referenced piece points out, the scope is there for the drinks industry to destroy all the puritan hysteria should they so choose.

So why are they folding their 'full house' in the face of the evidential equivalent of a pair of deuces from the healthists?

As an industry, alcoholic drinks makers and its marketers are fast becoming among the most demonised groups in the country, responsible for some of society’s worst ills - binge drinking, anti social behaviour and a growing public health crisis.

Or so some in Westminster and charities such as Alcohol Concern would have you believe.

Considering that Westminster and Alcohol Concern are one and the same, this should come as no surprise.

A group of MPs, as part of the Health Committee’s inquiry into alcohol misuse, took the Advertising Standards Authority and industry body The Portman Group to task over the effectiveness of the existing regulatory system in protecting the vulnerable from the ills of alcohol.

Although an evidence gathering committee, it was clear what some of its members would like to see - further exploration of additional scheduling restrictions, or perhaps complete prohibition.

Yes, you've spotted it. It's another step in the successful template laid out by anti-tobacco, as I explained in January.

3) On the back of junk science, nobble the opposing industry with advertising bans - Tobacco advertising completely banned, alcohol advertising is subject to very strict rules ... so far.

The similarities between what is being perpetrated on the drinks industry and what has been achieved by the antismoking nutters are uncanny.

The drinks industry too, represented by Portman Group chief executive David Poley was also pursued, and he fielded inferences that education, via industry funded charity Drinkaware, was not enough to curb alcohol abuse with health warnings on bottles and cans suggested as possible necessary additional measures.

As are the defences put up by their spokesmen.

Poley argued that it was “completely wrong” that education doesn’t work, adding that the “predominant affect of advertising is the encouragement of brand switching and not consumption.”

Heard that one before? You should have done, as it was the exact same defence used by the tobacco industry prior to the full advertising ban in 2003. And guess what? It didn't work.

89. Most of the tobacco companies have sought to challenge the Government's commitment to introduce an advertising ban in advance of the date for implementation set by the EU directive. The argument they have repeatedly advanced is that tobacco advertising does not increase consumption, it merely persuades smokers to switch brands. However, looking through the documents that the agencies themselves produced, this view is completely discredited.

As was also the case with tobacco advertising, the current self-regulation by the industry itself is simply not enough for the bansturbators. So why the drinks industry believe that more appeasement will work is hard to understand.

Project 10, the as yet little known about industry movement, which has been described as the alcohol industry’s equivalent of “Change4Life” is a good place to start. Due to be launched this year, the project is a good opportunity for the industry to engage with the Government, the current one or next, and avoid more stringent legislation.

I've got news for the brewers and distillers. You're wasting your money. Warning the public about the dangers of your products isn't going to stop these dimwitted miserablists. To them, such measures are merely an admission of guilt.



Take a tip from the tobacco industry, whatever you do is doomed. Government's 1965 agreement with tobacco was swept away once their emphasis changed, back in 2003.

88. The evidence we have reviewed from the advertising agencies leads us to conclude that, once more, voluntary agreements have served the industry well and the public badly. We recommend that any future regulation of marketing should be statutory ...

And don't think it will end with just banning advertising. One exemption in 2003 was point of sale displays. The reason being ...

POS advertising of tobacco products specifically does not "seek out" new consumers, principally because of the controlled retail environment in which tobacco products are usually sold. It is typically read or seen by those who are already seeking out tobacco products

Somehow, between 2003 and now, POS displays have become 'agressive' and 'powerful' and are being banned by the very same government. In short, they changed their minds. POS does 'seek out' customers, apparently.

It really is time that the drinks industry stood up for itself and was more positive in its defence. Their current back-sliding in the hope that the prohibitionists will just leave them alone, is naive in the extreme and simply won't work.

SCREW EM

Here we go again. An incredible over-reaction to a negligible problem, and as usual, it's the law-abiding who suffer. In the aftermath, life takes another step into the realm of joyless paranoia for everyone involved.

Schools bar parents from sports day... to keep out paedophiles

Parents have been banned from attending their children's sports day in an extraordinary measure to protect pupils from child abductors and paedophiles.

More than 270 pupils from four primary schools took part in the event - but there were no spectators because the organisers said they could not prevent 'unsavoury' characters from sneaking onto school grounds.

The decision to bar parents was made after a risk assessment concluded that Sandy Upper School in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, could not 'guarantee the children's safety' when it hosted the athletics day.

Those who decided this are unrepentant.

Paul Blunt of the East Bedfordshire School Sports Partnership, which ran the event, said the 'ultimate fear' was that a child could be abducted.

He said: 'If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children.

As pointed out in the comments, is not that last sentence particularly chilling? All adults are now considered to be paedophiles and have to be 'supervised'. Even when just turning up to watch their children.

A child might be abducted? This, as is common practice with those who overthink tiny dangers, is the 'nuclear' scenario designed to sell a ludicrous measure to a staggered public. It has no basis in fact, it is merely the excuse. The righteous are well aware of the persuasive qualities of a scare.

There is, of course, no previous example of such an occurrence at a sports day - I wouldn't fancy the chances of a sex case who attempted to abduct a kid in front of the parents of 270 fellow children, would you? If I were a nonce, a school sports day would be the very last place I'd trawl for kicks (the kicks would end up being exclusively aimed at my head, for why). And even if such an outrage did happen, it would be because there was inadequate corralling of the pupils (sorry, students) by the teachers themselves, rather than staff supervision of parents, which would be at fault.

Where do these ridiculous people get the impression that paedophiles are lurking behind every tree and lamppost in the country, just waiting to pounce on some stray child?

Why, from charities such as the NSPCC, of course.

In May, the NSPCC ran a newspaper ad campaign to coincide with the Baby Peter case telling all and sundry that ...

The latest research reports that 1 in 6 children are sexually abused before they reach the age of 16.

Seems a tad alarmist, I'd say. That's because it is (remember that this is the same organisation who asserted that home schoolers were to be viewed as probable child molesters).

Let's number-crunch for a bit. There are approximately 30,000 on the sex offenders register, this figure appears constant whichever report you read. The NSPCC's own figures estimate the child population to be in the region of 12 million. As such, thus far discovered sex offenders must be screwing around 67 kids each to reach their ratio of 1 in 6. If they are less prolific, let's say they only manage to fiddle with 10 each, we are talking about 170,000 undiscovered paedophiles roaming around looking for young flesh.

Actually, there are probably more seeing as having sex with a bicycle, and being an inquisitive guitarist with The Who will get you listed, as will countless other transgressions which fall way short of abduction and buggery.

No fucking wonder everyone is scared!

But then one must take into account that the NSPCC is not so much a charity anymore, but a business operating in a crowded charities sector. They take hundreds of millions of pounds every year and roughly half of their income is spent on encouraging more donations.

To do so, the basics of marketing dictate that you must create a need for your product. The 1 in 6 figure is exactly that. It is trotted out at regular intervals, including the Baby Peter ad, and is a main plank of the Stop It Now campaign document [pdf]

The latest research reports that 1 in 6 children are sexually abused before they reach the age of 16.

By 'latest research' they mean a study in 2000[pdf] of just under 3,000 18-24 year olds, conducted by Pat Cawson. It was published by the NSPCC and they have been quoting that figure ever since. You won't be surprised to learn that Pat Cawson is Head of Child Protection Research at the NSPCC and, as well as her NSPCC salary, has a tidy sideline in selling books on the subject.

Cawson's study didn't just focus on what most people would term as abuse, but also consensual kissing and hugging between under 13s and those 5 years older than them (I hate to brag, but by those terms, I was 'abused' by a girl when I was 12 who kissed me lustily. I bloody loved it). It also encompassed activities where the child might have been asleep or unaware, and we're not talking being touched up here, merely being watched. Not only that, 30% of those asked couldn't be bothered to reply so the study is fundamentally flawed straight away. Plus, of the 16% who the NSPCC class as being abused, only 6% actually said they felt they were.

It's clear that the 1 in 6 figure is astonishingly over-stated as regards the dangers that parents fear from paedophilia. Saying that 1 in 6 kids are being 'sexually abused' is a sound-bite to strike the fear of Ian Huntley into any parent, and I venture to suggest that the NSPCC fully intended their figures to be taken that way.

As with other forms of charity fear-mongering, the lie is spread with their tin-rattling chums and is twisted to ignore the loose definition of the abuse being desribed.

Result? Parents banned from sports day. And it has to be re-emphasised.

All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children

It's getting to the point that we need a charity ourselves to protect us from the wolf-crying of money-grubbers who are destroying the fabric of life in this country, merely to inflate the coffers of their bloated payroll.

So, I've been thinking about this as it is not just the NSPCC who take the piss. Regular readers here will have seen the misapplication of funds endemic in Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation, but all the major charity names are at it. Enriching themselves on the back of skewed studies, massaged statistics, scare stories and shameless tapping of the public's pathos and goodwill for financial gain.

As a result, I was thinking of starting my own charity - Stop Charities Ruining Everyone's World with Egregious Mendacity (SCREW EM) - I reckon it's a goer.

I've even thought of a slogan/ad mantra.

Just give £2 a month and we can eradicate these greedy fucks forever. Together we can beat the blight of charity cash-trousering on the back of misery and fear. Give a national charity chugger a direct debit mandate, and their commission will feed them with McDonalds for a day, give them the tools to shoot their supervisor in the head, and they will live a lifetime not bugging you on the High Street garnering funds for their marketing department to lobby politicians into ruining your life.

OK, it might need to be made snappier, but it's a start.

So, Can We Call It A Failure Yet?

Because it is.

From 2 years ago.

Implementing the smoking ban in England will cost taxpayers, restaurateurs and pub landlords at least £100 million more than the Government originally budgeted.

The Department of Health estimated that the bill for the ban, that comes into force in a month's time, would run to £1.6 billion.

While this takes into account paying for advertising, falling tobacco duty and hiring extra staff to police the ban, the Government has said it will be offset by the benefits to the NHS as smoking diseases fall.

I know we are well aware of it now, but this would tend to suggest that the government are a bunch of ideological, self-indulgent morons with no clue as to human nature, and with no capability to number crunch the experiences of other countries which have suffered comprehensive bans. For crying out loud, the one just over the Irish Sea had all the info they needed, and they speak English there (sort of), no excuse of a dodgy translator. Yet our elected fucksticks couldn't see what was right in front of them.

£100m over budget you say? Made up by savings to the NHS you say?

Wouldn't savings sort of require less people to be smoking post-ban?

The ban on smoking in public has failed to increase the number of people quitting, a report revealed yesterday.

The proportion of men who smoke has actually risen since the ban in July last year while there was no change at all among women.

The figures, coming after years of declining smoking rates, are a massive blow to Labour's public heath policy.

The best bit of this, is that the Labour spin machine would normally be cranked into action to explain why an increase in smokers actually translates into a reduction in costs to the NHS.

Unfortunately, their preferred method of pumping out bogus shite is via the route of state-paid charities. And one of them really fucked that exit strategy up the arse with a broken bottle last month.

When the government passed laws which enabled dropping a cigarette butt to be punishable by a higher-than-average fine 2 years ago, their press release to the Telegraph mentioned a highly-objectionable figure.

This is one of a series of measures being introduced by the Government that will stigmatise what is normal practice for 10 million smokers, and - it is hoped - slash the NHS's £1.7 billion bill to treat smoking-related diseases.

Only £1.7bn? Small beer compared with the £5bn it now costs us 2 years later. Step forward the British Heart Foundation.

Treating disease directly caused by smoking produces medical bills of more than £5bn a year in the UK.

Where are the savings, HMG? If there was even a single £1 coin saved due to the Health Act 2006, you'd be screaming it through every avenue your preferred method of propaganda, the BBC, have to offer, yet there is nothing. Total silence. Just a massive increase.

We see the £1.6bn you have spent on it. We see the increase in smoker prevalence, and with it, the increase in burdens on the NHS, according to your logic. We still haven't seen one single life saved, but we have seen the wholesale destruction of the hospitality industry as nearly 4,000 pubs have closed their doors forever since July 1st 2007.

And if you'd only looked over the Irish Sea, you would have seen that this would happen. Smoker rates were always going to go up (Hint: The Irish ban started on April 30th, 2004).

The number of smokers reportedly fell from 33 per cent in 1998 to 27 per cent in 2002, but jumped alarmingly to 29 per cent last year, according to a survey published by Ireland’s Department of Health.

In fact, you could have looked to the North, as the same happened there too (The Scottish disaster started in March 2006).

In 2004 the number of young smokers in Scotland had fallen to just 25% but by 2007 that figure was 31%.

David Gordon of NHS Health Scotland is co-lead of the Scottish Public Health Observatory.

He said: "Smoking rates have fluctuated without showing any sustained trend between 1999 and 2007.

This isn't a UK phenomenon, it is worldwide. It's a simple fact that smoker bans make more people smoke more fags.

There are no savings (how laughable that fantasy from the DoH seems now), merely losses. It could and should have been foreseen, but the £1.6bn was spent on it anyway.

There are now more smokers, more costs to the NHS, and a wilful destruction of the fabric of British pubs never seen before in the history of our country.

"Ah, but it was brought in to protect bar staff, Dick", I hear you say. I bow to you in that respect. It has been hugely successful in protecting a vaste swathe of bar staff from the right to earn money in a profit-making pub.

I'm sure they are blissfully happy that Labour and the Illiberal Dems thought of them so kindly ... while they now dutifully queue to sign on at the Job Centre.

Smoking ban: Epic fail.

Nosebleed Time

I swore I wouldn't do this, but ...


Thank you to everyone who reads the psychotic drivel here. I only transferred from the blogosphere commentariat to writing my own because Hazel Blears was threatening to hassle anonymous bloggers and I wanted to be one more stubborn bastard for her to contend with (and because Ian Parker-Joseph egged me on).

I don't exactly know what I am doing right or wrong, only that I wouldn't care if no-one read it. I'd only be ranting the same at the TV, radio, or PC monitor anyway. So why not just type it out instead? Nice to know I'm not alone in my thinking via your comments, though.

I promise this will be the only time I use the label below. Honest!

Righteous Cockwaffler Of The Week

Remember Alan Maryon-Davies, health hector supreme?

Well, he's talking out of his brown starfish again, this time on the potential target areas for upcoming NHS cuts.

Even now, with 15 months of the good times still to go, the planners are looking to see where they can make so-called 'efficiency savings' - cuts to you and me.

My worry is that, if history is anything to go by, the first things for the chop will be preventive programmes such as stop smoking services, healthy eating initiatives, physical activity promotion, alcohol education projects, mental health work and safe sex drives.

These are all 'soft targets' for the axe-swingers.

That'll be because they waste skiploads of tax money but deliver negligible financial or health benefit, Alan.

My plea to the army of health service planners and commissioners is simple; hands off prevention. Find your savings elsewhere.

That's right. Keep the legions of NHS non-jobbers and just close down a hospital or two instead. We wouldn't want the NHS to actually allow people to live life as they themselves see fit, now would we?

What a top drawer, 24 carat cunt you are, Alan. Why not do your bit for cost-cutting in the NHS by perforating the roof of your mouth with a powerful shotgun.

And remember that this is the deluded cock-gobbler who once said:

"I'm a Libertarian by nature"

Like Pol Pot was a philanthropist deep down, presumably.

Who Exactly Are The Denialists Here?

What is it with this increasing insistence on silencing opposing views by the righteous? If one's argument is 'overwhelming' and 'beyond debate', why should it be necessary?

ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show

Records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published 'misleading and inaccurate information' about climate change

The world's largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming

Stop right there. The reality of global warming? That is just the hack's opinion, surely. The fact that there are 'sceptics' as mentioned in the headline must surely mean that there is some doubt from sections of the public.

Is that a pre-determined agenda I sniff?

This is the BNP argument all over again. If you are so sure about your case, debate it in the open and convince us. If, however, you merely dedicate your efforts into stifling all dissenting voices, we are obviously going to think you're talking bullshit.

According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, both the NCPA and the Heritage Foundation have published "misleading and inaccurate information about climate change."

Well, Bob, considering your job title, you would say that, wouldn't you. I venture to suggest that if they are correct, you might be out of a job. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it.

Not what we could call an unbiased source then, are you?

On its website, the NCPA says: "NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth's current warming trend is [sic]** still unknown, the cost of actions to substantially reduce CO2 emissions would be quite high and result in economic decline, accelerated environmental destruction, and do little or nothing to prevent global warming regardless of its cause."

The Heritage Foundation published a "web memo" in December that said: "Growing scientific evidence casts doubt on whether global warming constitutes a threat, including the fact that 2008 is about to go into the books as a cooler year than 2007".

Interesting. That appears to be evidence-based and a cause for debate on the matter. What say you, Bob?

Ward said: "ExxonMobil has been briefing journalists for three years that they were going to stop funding these groups. The reality is that they are still doing it."

In an article on the Guardian website, Ward writes: "I have now written again to ExxonMobil to point out that these organisations publish misleading information about climate change on their websites, and to seek guidance on how to reconcile this fact with the pledge made by the company. I believe that the company should keep its promise by ending its financial support for lobby groups that mislead the public about climate change."

No, Bob, I meant what of their claims? Care to rebuff them with evidence and stuff? Instead of just trying to make them shut up? Come on, you're the expert with overwhelming proof and all that.

OK, maybe not.

We can surely only take this to mean that you don't like to get into discussing the specifics for some reason known only to yourself. For God's sake man, the Guardian journo made a better fist of it than you, and you get paid for promoting your cause. If you shy away from doing so in favour of just criticising the funding behind those with whom you disagree, how can we possibly believe your assertions?

This avoidance of proper debate is increasingly common amongst those who insist their opinion is incontrovertible. They always concentrate on attacking the funding of the opposition rather than engaging the arguments presented to them. Why so coy?

One might even call them denialists.

** Subtle pedantic condescension by the Guardian guy there, hope you noticed.

Elf And Safety Wars

More intense nannying courtesy of the Telegraph. There is so very much wrong with this that it's almost beyond parody.

Family told to remove trampoline 'because it could be used by burglars'

A father claims he was told to remove his daughter's small trampoline from their shared garden – in case burglars used it to jump through his neighbours' windows.

I don't know about you, but I'm hearing the Benny Hill theme tune as I write this. It's a 12 inch high, and 3 feet wide trampoline for fuck's sake. One can almost imagine the little bald guy, clad in striped shirt and mask, bag over his shoulder complete with stencilled 'SWAG', bouncing in fast motion only to be splatted against a pebble-dashed wall.

Wait, though, it gets better. Obviously, it goes without saying that the father's housing association ordered him to remove this lethal device owing to it being a 'safety hazard'. It is what we have come to expect. But get this bit.

"It's complete rubbish anyone would use it to help them break in," the health and safety inspector said.

Kaboom! One of those punch the air, throw your head back, bellow with laughter, whilst screaming 'Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh Lord, YES!' moments.

Sow and ye shall reap, fucktard. Just like a psychic who doesn't foresee being run over by a bus, did he not recognise the likely risk that leaving a toy out in the open might result in a letter, from a numpty of his ilk, dropping on his doormat?

Don't go just yet though. It's not the end of the fuckwittery.

A spokesman for London and Quadrant, the housing association ... denied that risk of burglary was a factor.

Oh really? Has this spat between an over-protective organisation and one of their own kind, more to offer us?

Well bugger me sideways with a rolled-up risk assessment - indeed it has.

"The trampoline is in a communal area on our land and our only concern was that when it is left unattended other children could use it and may hurt themselves," he said.

It's a kids toy. Designed for kids to use. Safely. In fact, a health and safety inspector (like Daddy-hard-done-by here) was probably despatched with a spinning light on his head to check every tiny aspect of the design before it was even allowed to be photographed for the Argos catalogue.

And if a kid did use it, and was injured, so what? Either their parents should have been supervising them, or, and admittedly this is an incomprehensible concept to these people, the parents trusted their kids to exercise responsibility and to accept the consequences should they not do so.

In short, it's absolutely nothing to do with the housing association whatsoever.

Add in the fact that this is no doubt another instance of the 'anonymous complainant' setting the whole comprehensive waste of time, effort, and money in motion, and we have an archetypal snapshot of a miserablist nation jam-packed full of odious, self-important, unthinking fuckknuckles.

Anyway, I've been writing this for too long and the kids should be in bed. Got to call them in from the garden as playtime is over and I want my steak knives back.

Save Our Pubs And Clubs: The Video

"A fair change that won't be bad for health, won't enforce anything on anybody, and will actually help our pub and club trade ..." Mark Littlewood, Progressive Vision

"Basically, the way it's going, I'm going to have to shut down soon." Simon Esner, Butchers Arms, Luton.

One to be spread far and wide, methinks.

If you haven't signed up to the campaign yet, you can do so here.

H/T Taking Liberties

EU Work Out The Bleeding Obvious

"July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot," said Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

"We don't need to regulate this sort of thing at EU level. It is far better to leave it to market operators."

You don't say! With intellect such as this at our disposal, the £40m per day we pay to the EU is obviously a snip.

"The changes also mean that consumers will be able to choose from the widest range of products possible. It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the 'wrong' size and shape," she said.

Do you know what? That had sort of crossed our minds too once or twice in the past 20 years.

Good grief.

Time For Lie 'B'

What does one do when your entire set up is geared around lying, and one of the lies is detected? Go to lie 'B', of course.

National Trust-accredited 'Outstanding lying cunt to be preserved for English historical posterity', Alan Johnson, today donned his sequin-encrusted, spandex drainpipes and has been dazzling the media judges with his genial, see-I'm-not-as-authoritarian-as-the-others, foxtrot of mendacious guff about ID cards.

Mr Johnson added: "People who worked airside were resenting the fact there was compulsion involved.

Now we can have a much more constructive discussion about the issue if we remove that one element of compulsion."

So they won't be compulsory, then. Ever. Apparently.

Bollocks.

Sorry, but if Labour, by some miracle, do manage to forge enough postal votes persuade enough of the gullible to give them the keys to the economy, which they have irrevocably broken, at the next GE, the emphasis (aka coercion) on ID cards will merely shift sidewise.

I mean, for Chrissakes, haven't we learned how they work yet? By 'we', I mean the pleblic and the fucking newspapers. Didn't the Iraq balls-up highlight their methods enough?

WMDs? Did we say WMDs? We meant regime change actually. Sorry.

There's even a clue in the way the ID cards fiasco was pitched to, and finally rejected by, BALPA members.

... the government announced there would be an 18-month trial, for airside workers at Manchester and London City airports only.

But the pilots union Balpa had complained that its members had effectively been forced into signing up for the cards.

A class piece of work by the airline pilots union, who to their credit, are going to continue to point out to their industry that these baubles (because that's all they are without compulsion) should not be used as a bar to members who don't sign up.

But Labour are spending £5bn on this. Does anyone truly believe they are going to just cut their losses and carry on regardless in pushing a pretty-looking card, which costs a shitload of money to own, if they intend it to be entirely voluntary, and therefore ... err ... irrelevant?

Nope. After all, this shower own half of the banks. It's not going to take much effort to utter a few quiet words in a handful of strategic ears to edge us towards ID cards becoming the 'preferred' (ie obligatory) method of over-the-counter identity.

Customer: But you used to accept my debit card as proof of who I am.
Customer Service Wonk: Not anymore, Sir. If you really need that loan/overdraft/mortgage/insurance**, I'm afraid we insist on an ID card.

Shafted, I think it is termed.

'Jive Bunny' Johnson did reveal, again, a plank of Labour's MO, though. Not that many will have noticed it during their brief time away from Facebook or Heat magazine, I expect.

Mr Johnson said they should not have been sold as the "panacea for tackling terrorism" which he said had been responsible for "messing up" the debate.

For 'panacea', read 'excuse' and you have Labour policy and lying persuasion wrapped up in a walnut husk, and decorated with a pretty red bow.

Like the panacea for tackling paedophilia is business-crippling wholesale CRB checks. Like the panacea for tackling road deaths is extensive average speed cameras on deserted country roads. Like the panacea for tackling anti-social behaviour is making the middle classes stop drinking wine. Like the panacea for tackling smoking rates is destroying businesses with absurd legislation. Like the panacea for tackling obesity is forcing kids to eat shit they don't want to at school. Like the panacea to fix a failing welfare system is rewarding the feckless with the tax receipts of the working. Like the panacea for tackling crime is to record the DNA of law-abiding citizens.

And, dare we say it, like the panacea to tackle an economy on its fucking knees is to throw stellar sums of money at bloated public services which the country simply can't fucking afford!

Messed up the debate? Labour have deliberately messed up every debate the country has faced in the past decade by their insistence that they, and their state-sponsored righteous chums, know better than 44 million voters.

They don't talk to us anymore. They don't bother listening when we object. They simply follow their own path. If polls confirm public approval, they shout it from the rooftops, if the public disagree in their millions, they sweep it into some sub-committee or delete the evidence entirely from the debate.

The public have been bent over the political Prius in the parliamentary dogging spot, being gang-fucked by the Labour front bench, for so long now that it's beginning to get very sore down there.

Forgive me, then, if I don't volunteer for sloppy seconds on the promise of a proven, incompetent, liar whose agenda is merely that he wants to take control of the shagging rota.

** Delete as appropriate, natch.

UPDATE: Laugh out loud fuckwittery in the same article. Apologies for not incorporating it earlier.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said:

"This is another nail in the coffin for the government's illiberal ID cards policy"

... says one of the prime movers in the incredibly 'illiberal' Social Democrats.

Seriously, can anyone point to anything 'liberal' that the Parliamentary Lib Dems haven't opposed? They have their truly liberal elements in Progressive Vision and Liberal Vision, but none of them ever get to hear the division bell. It would be helpful if the yellow menace would dump their fence-sitting, fuck-faced, media-friendly cocks in favour of representatives who were ... I dunno ... liberal, perhaps?

Lord-a-Frolicking

Via The Lords Blog, comes an internet joke from the peerage.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, as a person over 60, I am continually bombarded with spam emails? They are always the same and are usually about penile extensions, Viagra or inkjet cartridges. Do I look like a man who requires inkjet cartridges?

Ho, ho, ho.

This is the same Lord MacKenzie who has fair pissed off the righteous in the past.

Lord Mackenzie, a former chief superintendent who advises the Home Office on law and order issues, claimed he had been out of the country at the time and had not been driving the car.

The decision infuriated road safety campaigners

Amy Aeron-Thomas, director of Roadpeace, said: 'It might not have involved a gun or a knife, but at 45mph, Lord Mackenzie's car would have killed any pedestrian in its path.'

Except that it didn't, of course.

And he is also the same Lord MacKenzie who, after being linked with a prostitute in 2003, let his hormones get the better of him again soon after.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate walked out on his childhood sweetheart Jean and now lives with Debbie Glaister – described by his estranged wife as ‘a stick-thin Barbie-doll lookalike’.

Good Lord!

Helping Kerry McCarthy Out (2)

Kerry McCarthy was pushing the veggie agenda again on her blog last week.

I'm tempted to start lobbying for a Meat Free Monday in the Commons dining rooms. If there's one thing guaranteed to get Tory blood boiling - even more than a Bercow Speakership - it would surely be that.

Yes, it was tongue-in-cheek, and as illiberal, lefty, bansturbating hectors go, she isn't that bad.

However, as an advocate of forsaking meat, one would assume she would comment on all aspects of the campaign. For example, it was mentioned here a while back that she was slow in condemning PETA when it emerged in the Telegraph that they were slaughtering pets in their thousands.

Animal charity PETA accused of slaughtering thousands of pets placed in their care

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which boasts Paul McCartney and Pamela Anderson among its supporters, are accused of only finding homes for seven pets last year. Since 1998 more than 20,000 pets handed to PETA have been put down.

In 2008 official figures show that the charity put down 2,124 animals that had been given to them.

The charity, which collects over £25m in donations, does not run an adoption shelter.

She has also not noticed, it seems, the latest astonishingly heartless stunt perpetuated by the British arm of these truly sick individuals.

So, here you go, Kerry. Dick can help you out again (oo-err, Sid James is back).

On the same day that Kerry was talking up the joys of a vegetarian diet, PETA were boasting on their blog about the placing of this 'mahoosive' advertisement outside Glasgow's Southern General Hospital.


This is the same hospital which initially treated Jacqueline Fleming, the first British death attributed to swine flu. Oh yeah, and seeing as she was pregnant at the time, her baby was induced prematurely and also died.

The partner of the first person in the UK to die of swine flu suffered a second loss last night when his premature son died in hospital. William McCann said Jack, aged 14 days, died after a “brave fight” at the special-care baby unit at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Renfrewshire.

His partner, Jacqueline Fleming, 38, died at the same hospital on Sunday. Last night Mr McCann said: “Coming so soon after the death of his mum, this is an extremely distressing and difficult time for our family.”

Unfortunate coincidence? Nothing of the sort. PETA are quite proud of it, in fact.

Poorva Joshipura, director of special projects at PETA Europe, said:

"The billboard was placed by Southern General Hospital because this is an important health issue for Glasgow and indeed everyone on the planet."

If there are a more sick and deluded set of individuals than PETA, it would be interesting to hear of them. Yet the vacuous celebs such as Paul McCartney, Ricky Gervais and Pink still come flocking.

Flaying and dipping in salt is too good for such hideous creatures. What says Kerry? We shall have to be expert breath-holders to find that out.

Proportional Implementation

You can see now how fair British justice is, can't you? Kill three young people, get fined £640. Drop a fag end, get fined £400.

There's a fine deconstruction available of this story about self-aggrandisement at Cambridge Council, if you enjoy good writing.

"The council says butts are difficult for street cleaners to pick up, and they can be dangerous for birds and other wildlife, which pick them up thinking they are food".

Difficult to pick up, eh? Tell you what, take some of that £9 BILLION we give you every year and buy some street vacuum cleaners.

The whole piece is here. Enjoy (or get angry, one of the two).

Business Deal Of The Week

I'll bet Gary Lineker wouldn't go this far.

A prostitute in Oklahoma was so desperate for business that she was caught having sex with a man in exchange for a box of crisps.

She told officers that the man asked for her sex but did not have any cash so they struck a deal by which he gave her the crisps.

Seems fair payment for a feel of her grab bags and a bit of prawn cocktail.

Crikey! I appear to have turned into Sid James.