Society Is Off The Rails Under Labour

It seems that handing down heavy jail sentences on smokers is the new black this week.

A man who pushed a woman on to a live railway track after a row about him smoking has been jailed for four years.

As Leg Iron pointed out in a well-argued piece last month, the most recent recipient of Her Majesty's pleasure wasn't the instigator of this particular contretemps. Nor, it would appear, did he mean for his 'victim' to end up falling from the platform.

On the track, as she lay there, Ms Buchanan could see him standing over her and she thought he might do something else. 'But in fact he jumped down and dragged her back on to the platform.'

The actions of an attempted murder or could it be, just maybe, that all he wanted was for her to go away? Could it be that he did not intend to push her off the platform at all? She was, after all, the initiator of the altercation on both occasions so she must accept part of the blame, surely?

Still, he's a smoker so take him down, officer. And may God have mercy on his evil habit of not enjoying being hectored by a vindictive old bat.

Oddly enough, Mrs Buchanan wasn't the originator of the row that led to a working man being banged up, either. It's more than probable that had this obscene government not declared war on smokers throughout the country with daft and illogical laws, this incident wouldn't have happened at all.

But emboldened by the state's absurd over-reaction to any whiff of tobacco, her moral superiority was unconstrained, and her finger-wagging nature unleashed upon the untermensch.

There is zero health risk from second hand smoke on an open platform, nor will such a threat ever be found, but Labour's anti-smoking laws have never been about health so banned it is anyway, thereby heralding a green light for every holier-than-thou, busybodying prodnose in the land to interfere in the lives of others for their own righteous satisfaction.

And when retaliation occurs, the state steps in.

The result is a 33 year old, formerly employed, carpenter being put up in prison at our expense, and a now unemployed management consultant, after apparently suffering a stress disorder, no doubt claiming disability benefit.

To paraphrase and tailor that oft-quoted Francis of Assisi quote to fit this Labour government ...

Where there is harmony, may we bring discord. Where there is truth, may we bring error. Where there is faith, may we bring doubt. And where there is hope, may we bring despair.

Liberty? Don't Look To The Big Three

Henry Porter has been ploughing his admirable furrow on civil liberties again. His description of Labour is beyond compare.

It is also a very dangerous government – it has attacked liberty and rights like no other administration in the past hundred years, and it will continue to do so unless stopped by the electorate in 70 days' time, for the one area which requires absolutely no skill at all is the creation of new offences, the erosion of ancient liberties and filling our lives with endless checking, vetting and surveillance.

He is also particularly unimpressed with the Tories.

Cameron has spoken about these things in the past but this great issue is not apparently big enough to be one of the main themes of an election campaign in which so much is obviously at stake. The only conclusion to draw is that the Tories believe either this is not important, or that the public don't think it is important. I am not sure which puts them in a worse light because the first displays shallowness, while the second a lack of leadership.

All cracking stuff ... but why on Earth does he think the Lib Dims will do anything about it?

God knows who is going to speak for liberty in the coming weeks – let's hope the Liberal Democrats do [...]

Henry. Nice article and all that, sunbeam, but per-lease. There are paltry dribbles of liberal in the parliamentary Lib Dems. Ban comes before aardvark in their dictionary.

The schizophrenic tendencies of the party have been settled and the clash of personalities resulted in ... a whole load of liberal members led by gutless social democratic drones.

That's my future classic liberal event invites screwed, I suppose, but Roy Walker and all that.

Dick Out And About: Smokers As Outdoor Fire Hazards

More evidence of psychotic anti-smoker tendencies (with video) (link).

Impossible To Resist

We recently found out that the wife of one of Mrs Puddlecote's acquaintances had sneered at the Puddlecote habit of re-filling plastic water bottles. The reasoning being that it causes cancer, apparently. So adamant was she that, at the weekend, her 'public duty' was to thrust a printout of this page into Mrs P's hand, with all the alarmist phrases highlighted in dayglo green. Some chemicals were even neatly double underlined in black.

"I'm extremely worried about cancer", she gushed, "you should throw your bottles away and not let your children drink out of them".

Now, this hectoring ball of festering panic lives in a flat above a print shop from which the smell of ink fumes is significantly noticeable. So, this afternoon, Mrs P handed her a printout of this page, which I had kindly printed off, highlighted, and appropriately underlined.

The "ink" in a copier is a very fine black powder known as toner, or by its chemical name, carbon black. Carbon Black usually comes in a replaceable cartridge, and is classified a carcinogen, which means it is "capable of inducing cancer." Very special care must be taken when handling toner cartridges, and they must be disposed of properly, not, for instance, simply tossed into a trash can.

Honestly, you've got to read the rest as it's an object lesson in hysterical alarmism.

Mrs P calmly pointed out the difference in toner volume between a humble office photocopier and a hard-working print shop, and between a few hours in an office compared to living, breathing and sleeping directly above industrial printing equipment. The horrified intake of breath was reportedly heard in the post office five doors down.

I think the letting agents will be getting a call in the morning, if they haven't had one already, of course.

Does this make us bad people?

Shake 'n' Vac To Be Made Compulsory In Scotland

Finally, a reason to swallow my dignity and visit the kilties.

Unhealthy Scots told to vacuum and 'dance around the house'

If they make this mandatory, I might consider popping up to Subrosa's house for the show.

We've Seen It All Before

Phil Jones during his light toasting from the commons select committee.

Jones's general defence was that anything people didn't like – the strong-arm tactics to silence critics, the cold-shouldering of freedom of information requests, the economy with data sharing – were all "standard practice" among climate scientists

Hey, don't go off, jaw agape, just yet. There's more.

The most startling observation came when he was asked how often scientists reviewing his papers for probity before publication asked to see details of his raw data, methodology and computer codes. "They've never asked," he said.

Really? Why ever not?

"Most scientists do not want to deal with the raw station data, they would rather deal with a derived product."

Oh, I see where the concensus comes from now.

It's a result of a bunch of scientists regurgitating what they have read for the purposes of keeping the tax-funded grant tap running.

Listen, if any reader here is an expert in climate science, which I am not, then you are welcome to challenge my summation. However, I have seen exactly the same blind repetition of fake science in areas of which I am right bastardly expert, so you will also need to have a serious word with those who have perverted science for their own selfish ends for over three decades.

It's all been done before. The deception, the lies, the concensus. Debate is over after some shonky, totally fucked up study or other which is merely repeated by those with a vested interest and a generous funding stream. The evidence is overwhelming because demonstrable nonsense is spread around the world by press release before the truth can get its boots on.

I don't know much about climate science, but I disbelieve these fucks simply because I've seen this hideous truth-avoidance process before.

If the world does, in the next couple of generations, disappear up its own backside in an orgy of searing heat, flooding of anywhere beneath the summit of K2, and alligators gobbling up comely bikini-clad Swedish beach-dwellers, a fair proportion of the blame will lay with those who have previously shown contempt for the reputation of science by using its majesty for their own selfish, and dictatorial ends.

And if so, may God rot them all on a rusty spike, with crows picking at their purgatorial eyeballs.

Tax Disc Enviro-Fun

The Puddlecote Transport Company Inc bought a brand new vehicle last week. We taxed it today.

Four hundred and five fucking pounds!

For the purposes of comparison, this is the same size and is for the same purpose as the one we have replaced, the tax for which was only £210. I'm not into engines, I wouldn't know a cam belt from a suspender belt, but our vehicle maintenance guys reckon the emissions from this new acquisition are far cleaner, and its operation more economic, than any of our current stock. Yet government is charging us twice as much for the VED.

As environmental policies go, that doesn't make much sense to me.

Fortunately, it is to be used on a new contract we have won with a publicly-funded authority, where the price is set by our vehicle costs plus margin, so we'll just pass the increase in tax back to government via our price per mile.

These vehicles aren't purchased by us by way of choice. There simply isn't any alternative for doing the job which we are paid to do. If we could use a Nissan Micra to do a heavyweight task, the tax would be the very least saving we could gain. So we are being penalised for unavoidably running vehicles with large engines when the only other option is a hugely expensive conversion to LPG or some such (the cost of which will far outweigh the extra road tax).

I'm guessing that the reason this is the first time we have encountered this is that the tax hike is only on vehicles registered after a certain date. In which case, our public sector customers are going to suffer rising transport tenders in the future, which you will eventually see reflected in council or other taxes.

If the client is a private sector company, they will just pass the cost on to their customers. That is, you. Again.

Or we could just keep older vehicles on the road and let Gaia go hang.

It's all just a scam, isn't it?