Tuesday - November 18, 2008

UNSAFE AND UNWELCOME: COUNCIL BANS DOOR MATS.

If these are council homes, I can just about understand it.  It isn’t elf ‘n’ safety I bet.
It’s all about being sued should someone actually trip and get hurt.
Who owns the property? Ah, the city?  Lot-a-money there betcha.  S U E!!

Council bans welcome mats

Portsmouth News
By Rob Dabrowski

Residents in a block of flats have been told to get rid of welcome mats – because they are a trip hazard.
Council bureaucrats said the mats posed a ‘health and safety risk’.
And they have even threatened to take residents to court – with the threat of eviction – if their demands aren’t met.

Letters signed by Gosport housing officer Elspeth White were sent out after a council surveyor visited.

Three residents in Revenge House, at The Anchorage, Gosport, have been told to remove the rubber-backed mats as people could trip on them, particularly if they needed to leave in an emergency.

The council says the health risk is increased by narrow corridors.

Resident Ingrid Buckland, 62, has removed her mat for fear of the council taking action.

‘I just can’t understand all the fuss over these mats – it seems so futile,’ she said. ‘It’s just such a petty little thing and it has got out of hand.

‘I don’t know why the council is saying it might take action over a 99p doormat. I should think the council has bigger things to worry about than three doormats but I’ve moved mine because I don’t want to cause any trouble, it’s just not worth it.’

Gosport Borough Council says if the mats aren’t removed the tenants would be breaking the terms of their lease, which states no objects should be placed in communal area.

Officers will return later this month to check if mats have gone.
But the head of the council’s own housing board thinks it is over the top.

Cllr Keith Gill said: ‘I would be opposed to any kind of legal action. That would be heavy-handed.

‘This is sending out the wrong message and there are more important things that the council should be worrying about.’

Other council tenants in the borough could be sent letters if their mats are deemed to be dangerous.

But the council has not enforced a full ban, saying it would assess each mat on an individual basis.

Council spokeswoman Brenda Brooker said: ‘We, as a local authority and landlord, have a duty of care to all persons entering our communal areas and these should be free from any hazards or obstructions, likely to cause health and safety issues or prevent evacuation.

‘If people are aggrieved at the council’s decision that they should remove items which we consider pose a risk, we have a complaints procedure where they can ask for that decision to be reviewed.

‘Secondly, we would consider the health and safety risk that the particular problem presents and then would consider appropriate action, possibly involving legal action.’

Gosport council’s mat ban is the latest barmy health and safety regulation to be introduced, says the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Campaign director Mark Wallace said Britain was fast being turned into a nanny state with more and more mindless rules.

‘It is ridiculous that health and safety regulations have gone so far,’ he said.

‘If these safety officers don’t have anything better to do, then
clearly we have no need for them.

‘What started off as a national exercise in preventing serious harm has ended up as an exercise in how to boss people around.’

Tom Mullarkey, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, was also against the mat ban.

He said: ‘The application of common sense and balance is much more reasonable than the seeking of mindless increments towards absolute safety.’

However, the council’s own Lib Dem-run administration has opposed the move.

Cllr Peter Chegwyn, chairman of the community and environment board, added: ‘There’s no question of us taking legal action over something this trivial.’

http://tinyurl.com/6pzbey

Posted by peiper     on 11/18/2008 at 01:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • UK •  
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FATHER ARRESTED ON WORD OF WITNESS DEEMED “NOT FIT” TO MAKE STATEMENT. HUH?

And according to the keystone kops, the witless witness wasn’t in any condition to what ?  Not “fit to make a statement that night?”

I’m all for nailing adults who abuse kids to the wall and leave em there as a warning to others but this case is ridiculous. Or so it seems here anyway.

It this a case of guilty till proved otherwise? 

Father locked up in cell for smacking son
A father was arrested and locked in a police cell overnight for smacking his son’s bottom.

By Richard Savill
Last Updated: 12:48PM GMT 18 Nov 2008

Mark Frearson, a co-director of a parcel company, said he told off his son Harry because the seven-year-old walked away from him alone after dark while they were shopping together at a local store.

Mr Frearson, 47, found him in a nearby park 10 minutes later. “I called him to me and smacked his bottom for leaving me, telling him never to do it again,” he said.

But a witness called police and, three hours later, four officers and a specialist child support officer arrived at his house.

They told him that a child had been assaulted, and Mr Frearson replied that he had smacked his son once on the bottom.

“They asked my son what had happened and he said ‘Dad smacked me for being outside the shop’. The police then examined my son for any marks and there were none.”

The officers took Harry in a police car to his mother’s home. They arrested Mr Frearson on suspicion of assault, and took him to the police station.

“I was horrified and bewildered at the course of action being taken on some stranger’s action,” he said.

After about an hour, he claimed, officers told him they could not carry out an interview as the witness “was not fit to make a statement that night”.

Mr Frearson spent the night in a “freezing” cell with two blankets and was released the next day at 10am.

He said: “The first words said to me were ‘The witness has changed his statement’. The ‘witness’ had originally alleged I was kicking my son to the floor.

“I can understand the concerns of the police but they seemed far too ready to presume me guilty and then cause distress to my son by taking him from me.

“My ex-wife (the boy’s mother) told them the allegation was ridiculous but they proceeded regardless with what I considered their over-the-top reaction.”

Mr Frearson has made a formal complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

He said the police reaction was “massively over-the-top” and the experience was traumatic for his son.

Mr Frearson, from Plymouth, in Devon, said: “I find it shocking how easy it is to have someone arrested. To think that all this happened on the back of one allegation. I want an apology.

“I am still angered and bewildered at the events of that night. Why was I not allowed to stay in my own home until statements could be made in the morning? It seemed a knee jerk reaction.”

Mr Frearson said he wanted to know what state the witness was in, if he was unable to make a statement that night. “Whether he was drunk or drugged, I don’t know. Why has he not been arrested for wasting police time, and mine, come to that?”

Mr Frearson said the incident happened at about 6pm on October 28, while Harry, who lives with his mother, Kate, 33, from whom Mr Frearson is divorced, was staying with him during half term.

He said: “I can hardly ever remember smacking my children. I have two older children. I don’t smack a child to hurt them, but to show they have done wrong. There is a difference between smacking and hitting.”

Devon and Cornwall police said it could not comment as a formal complaint had been made.

http://tinyurl.com/6fvb39

Posted by peiper     on 11/18/2008 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • Miscellaneous • UK •  
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   Sunday - November 16, 2008

Iraqis accused of murdering British troops get thousands of pounds in legal aid .

Thought this whole thing rather Moonbat like although maybe not bizarre given today’s legal system.
Bet the Brit taxpayer really happy to fund this. yeah right. 
gotta go, running behind. Hope I can post more later.

Reinforces the thought, First we kill all the lawyers.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, and Ben Leach
Last Updated: 10:42PM GMT 15/11/2008

Two Iraqis accused of murdering British prisoners of war have been granted thousands of pounds in legal aid to fight being handed over to the Iraqi authorities to face trial.

Faisal Al-Saadoon and Khalaf Mufdhi are accused of killing Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp in cold blood during the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.

The British government wants to hand the two Iraqis over to the Iraqi government for trial. But their British lawyer has launched a High Court legal challenge saying such a trial would breach his clients’ human rights.

If he succeeds, the men, who are currently in British custody in Iraq, could be brought to the UK to face trial. Senior British Government officials are concerned that the two men will claim political asylum if they are tried in the UK.

The challenge, to be heard this week, has angered the dead British soldiers’ relatives and opposition politicians.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and a former infantry commander, said: “ It seems totally wrong to me that these men are being given legal aid. Would we have given legal aid to Nazis who committed war crimes in the Second World War – of course not – this is arrant nonsense.

“What the hell is the point of fighting a war to try and establish democracy in a tyranny and then show a complete lack of trust in the new regime by failing to deliver alleged killers for trial? If these men do not stand trial in Iraq it would make a mockery of the blood spilt by British troops in fighting this war.”

The murder of SSgt Cullingworth, 36, and Spr Luke Allsopp, 24, both members of 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) provoked a storm of outrage in the UK, with Tony Blair claiming that the two men had been executed by the Iraqi Army.

The soldiers were travelling as part of a convoy which was ambushed by Fedayeen militiamen on the outskirts of the town of Al Zubayr in southern Iraq on March 23, 2003.

While half the convoy escaped, SSgt Cullingworth, who was married with two sons, and Spr Allsopp, were taken to a local Ba’ath party headquarters and then to an Iraqi intelligence base, where they were shot dead.

Photographs taken of the soldiers at the compound as they lay dying, surrounded by a baying mob of Iraqis, were later shown on the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera. The soldiers’ graves were discovered a month later and their bodies were exhumed.

The judicial review of the men’s case has been launched by the firm Public Immunity Lawyers who have been funded through legal aid.

Phil Shiner, of Public Immunity Lawyers, believes that Mr Saadoon, 56, and Mr Mufdhi, 58, would not get a fair trial in Iraq and could face the death penalty if found guilty. He also believes they would be tortured and abused by other inmates.

Mr Shiner told The Sunday Telegraph that the Iraqi Higher Tribunal, where they would be tried, was a “politicised court” established by the US-led coalition to try senior members of the former Ba’athist regime, and had already ordered the execution of several regime members including Saddam Hussein.

Mr Shiner, who confirmed that the judicial review was being funded by legal aid, will claim that to try the alleged killers in Iraq would be a breach of their human rights under the Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

He said: “The IHT have a track record of sentencing people to death and we, the UK, have a policy of not handing over people to a jurisdiction if there is a risk of the death penalty being applied.”

The Sunday Telegraph understands, however, that senior officials in the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice have been given assurances at the “highest level” that the two accused will receive a fair trial and treatment, whatever the outcome of the case.

It is also understood that one of the families of the British dead have written to the Iraqi court and asked for clemency in the event that the former Iraqi soldiers are found guilty. 

(proves there’s ALWAYS one out there, doesn’t it?)

Margaret Cullingworth, 83, the mother of Simon Cullingworth, who lives in Ruthin, North Wales, said: “They should be tried and brought to justice in their own country. It was a horrible crime. We could have accepted it if they had been killed in battle but they were prisoners and were murdered.

“We do have confidence in the UK authorities and believe they will do the right thing. Simon’s widow has been left to bring up the children on her own and she has found it very hard – we all have.”

A spokesman for the MoD said: “The Secretary of State for Defence and the Foreign Secretary have received assurances from the Iraqi Government that Mr Al-Saadoon and Mr Mufdhi will be treated humanely when they are transferred to Iraqi custody. The assurances have been considered and found credible, and they have agreed that the two suspects can be transferred to the Iraqi authorities, provided that the UK courts finds this lawful.

http://tinyurl.com/6kpvts

Posted by peiper     on 11/16/2008 at 04:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists • UK • War On Terror • War-Stories •  
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   Saturday - November 15, 2008

Here’s a sure Moonbat award. Schools forced to seek pupils’ views on discipline.

The lunacy never ends.  They just keep on finding new things to be really silly about.  These ppl need real jobs I think.
Oh right.  Who’d hire em?  Forgot.  The state of course.

Schools will be forced to ask pupils’ permission before imposing rules on discipline, uniform and the curriculum under new legislation.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Last Updated: 9:25PM GMT 14 Nov 2008

In a move branded “crazy” by head teachers, all state schools will be legally obliged to consult children on major policies, including health and safety, food and equality.

Baroness Morgan, the Children’s Minister, insisted schools must do more than simply solicit pupils’ views on “what colour to paint the walls”.

The rules will be introduced as part of the Education and Skills Bill currently being debated in Parliament.

But the disclosure sparked outrage among teachers who said it would be “open to abuse”.

There were also fears it could trigger a raft of legal action as pupils and parents sue local authorities claiming children’s views were ignored.

(and of course that would NEVER happen)

Lord Elton, the Conservative peer, insisted pupils’ opinions had to be taken into account but said: “I am sorry that it has to be in legislation. We are a litigious nation, and it would be very unfortunate if we were to have a rash of cases of parents saying, ‘You were not listening to my little Johnny’.”

The Liberal Democrats tabled an amendment to the Bill in the House of Lords requiring school governors to “invite and consider pupils’ views”.

Ministers said the change, which received cross-party support, would be added to the legislation. The Bill is due to be debated in Parliament for the last time next week.

Baroness Morgan said it went further than existing rules which require schools to “have regard” to pupils’ opinions.

“Governing bodies must do more than simply solicit pupils’ views,” she told the Lords. “Through regulations, we intend to require governing bodies to invite views on a core set of policy matters. As a minimum, schools should seek and take account of pupils’ views on policies on the delivery of the curriculum, behaviour, the uniform, school food, health and safety, equalities and sustainability, not simply on what colour to paint the walls.”

She said schools would be exempt from discussing staff appointments or the school budget with children.

Guidance is expected to be drafted - and sent to schools - setting out the full detail of the rules.

The move follows the introduction of new-style Ofsted inspections, in which pupils are asked to rate teaching standards and conditions in their own school.

Many schools already include children on interview panels when appointing new staff.

But John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the latest move went too far,

“This is crazy”, he told the Times Educational Supplement. “I am a strong supporter of pupil voice, but schools are increasingly consulting pupils because they think it is the right thing to do, not because Government tells them to. I am annoyed and furious that yet another in this continual stream of legal and educational duties is being placed on schools.”

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said: “This is completely unnecessary and will be open to abuse.”

http://tinyurl.com/5f7l5u

Oh Heaven help England.  The English won’t.

Posted by peiper     on 11/15/2008 at 09:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Education • Insanity • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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   Friday - November 14, 2008

shopkeeper could face a murder charge.

This is another report on the previous story. This one from the Daily Mail.
Kinda doubtful they will prosecute the shop owner though.  Least I hope they don’t.

Instead of running the full story here, I’m going to post the criminal record of the late and unlamented scum who tried to rob this guy.  I sure do hope it hurt a lot.  Payback ya might say for all the pain and agony he caused over eight or nine years.  And I think the Criminal Justice System here sucks, like it does at home.

That ONE miserable rat could cause so much over so long does NOT say much for any system that allows it to continue.
There is always with no exceptions ever, a point in time when anyone can predict that a criminal will not reform and can’t be reformed because he doesn’t want to be.  He likes what he does.  He should have been snuffed years ago and this spot of bother would not have happened.

Shopkeeper faces murder charge after turning knife on career criminal during carjacking
By JARA NARAIN and JAMES TOZER
Last updated at 15:35 21 February 2008

A shopkeeper could face a murder charge following a fatal struggle with a knife-wielding raider.

Tony Singh fought back when Liam Kilroe, a career criminal, ambushed him in his car after closing time.

Kilroe, who was trying to steal Mr Singh’s takings, staggered away with a stab wound from his own knife and died in a pool of blood.

The 25-year-old was on the run after being charged with two robberies.

Police called to the scene found Mr Singh in a state of shock, still sitting in his car and nursing serious knife wounds to his back, face and neck.

However, the officers arrested the 34-year-old and are preparing to send a file to the Crown Prosecution Service.

A murder charge would carry a life sentence on conviction.

The case resembles that of Tony Martin who was charged with murder after shooting Fred Barras, 16, during a raid on his Norfolk farm in 1999.

He was convicted of manslaughter and served three years in prison.

http://tinyurl.com/6cgd22

Posted by peiper     on 11/14/2008 at 11:58 AM   
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shop keeper kills would be knife wielding robber.  scratch one gremlin. score one for the good guy.

Nothing to say.  The shopkeeper said it best. And good for him.  I hope he won’t be in any trouble.

Shopkeeper who fought for his takings killed knife-wielding robber in struggl
Russell Jenkins
The Times

A shopkeeper told an inquest that he fought off and killed an armed robber who came at him like a “mad dog” trying to steal the day’s taking. Tony Singh, 34, was ambushed by Liam Kilroe, 25, a wanted criminal, in February outside his Lifestyle Express store in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, as he tried to get into his car after work.

The robber threw a brick through the shopkeeper’s car window before shouting that he was armed with a knife and was going to stab him. Instead of handing over the £2,000 takings, Mr Singh fought back. Mr Singh was slashed across the face and stabbed in the back during the ensuing struggle. They fought for the blade, exchanging blows and head-butts on the ground.

By the time police arrived Mr Singh had subdued Kilroe, who was either dead or dying. Officers arrested Mr Singh on suspicion of murder and, although he was subsequently released on police bail, he feared that he could face a murder charge for some days before the Crown Prosecution Service declared that he had acted in self-defence.

Mr Singh, a popular figure in the community, was renowned for working long hours trying to build up his grocery and off-licence business. By contrast Kilroe had a long record for violent crime and was wanted by police at the time for evading trial for two similar armed raids on shops.

Mr Singh told the coroner at the hearing in Preston of the moment when his car window was smashed and Kilroe threw himself through the shattered window with a knife screaming: “Give me your f****** money.” He said: “When I saw the knife, I jumped out. I did not get a chance to run away. He was on me like a dog.”

At one point Kilroe headbutted the shopkeeper and yelled a threat that he would kill him. Mr Singh said: “I grabbed his hand in case he stabbed me somehow. I fell and he got on top of me and bit me. He had headbutted me and I fell back on the floor and he had the knife in his hand. He kept shouting ‘give me the money’.

“He gave me a mighty blow. I fell and took him down with me. He was on the floor and I was on the floor and I managed to get on top. He tried to get me off, I gave him a couple of blows and I was trying to keep him on the floor.”

Mr Singh said that Kilroe tried to stab him “like a mad dog”. However, by the time police arrived Mr Singh had control of the knife, which he was immediately ordered to drop. I was trying to restrain him but he was struggling and trying to throw me off,” he said. “I was panicking.” He added: “At the hospital they told me that if the cut to my head had been any deeper I would have been dead. I was also stabbed in the back. It was like he was on something.”

Earlier the inquest was told that when Mr Singh had Kilroe pinned to the ground, he punched him repeatedly in the face. It appeared to one witness, Deborah Barker, that the shopkeeper had “lost it”.

Mrs Barker said: “The children came upstairs and said, ‘there’s a fight outside and Tony’s involved’ and so I came straight downstairs and by the time I was out the door Tony was on top of the other man. I was telling Tony to get off him because he was going to hurt him and Tony was screaming ‘The f****** b****** has tried to rob me!’. He said he had stabbed him or something.

“They were covered in blood, and he was going hysterical.”

Dr Alison Armour, a consultant pathologist at Lancashire Teaching Hospital, concluded that Kilroe died as a result of a single stab wound inflicted with moderate force using a knife with an 8cm blade.

She said: “Based on the fact that there was no bone injury this was a stab wound of moderate force. You cannot infer how the knife was held, the position of the hilt or any other matter.”

Dr James Adeley, Lancashire coroner, is due to deliver a verdict today.

http://tinyurl.com/68nbw3

Photos at the link above.

Posted by peiper     on 11/14/2008 at 11:46 AM   
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THE LAND OF THE RISING SCUM?  HATE TO THINK IT BUT MANY BRITS SADLY AGREE WITH LITTLEJOHN.

Welcome to Britain, land of the rising scum.... We’ve cornered the market on welfare layabouts, drug addicts and feral gangs.

By Richard Littlejohn
The Daily Mail

The first time it properly dawned on me that the game was indeed up was about 20
years ago in Blackpool, where I was covering the Labour Party conference.

As I made my way from the Clifton Hotel, opposite the main pier, past Yates’s Wine Lodge towards the Winter Gardens, at approximately 9.30am, I had to step into the road to avoid a family walking four-abreast on the pavement in the direction of the sea front.

They were all breakfasting on fish and chips from polystyrene containers, washed down with what I seem to remember was Irn-Bru, in the case of the children, and Special Brew, for the parents.

The whole family — mum, dad, son, daughter — was dressed in matching turquoise shell-suits and imitation designer-label trainers. They all had earrings. Each wore a baseball cap.

The father’s cap was distinguished by a plastic dog turd stuck to the peak, beneath a logo which proclaimed: ‘S***head.’

I can remember thinking to myself, as I watched them window-shopping at the pork butcher’s: ‘What chance have these kids got?’

The other thought which occurred to me was, given that the children were aged, at a guess, eight and six, and this was late September: why weren’t they at school?

Now I know what some of you are thinking. Don’t rush to judgment, Rich. They could have been a blameless, sophisticated couple, who had taken their children out of their fee-paying convent school for the day to treat them to a field trip to study the varied marine life to be found in the Irish Sea off Blackpool, and had decided to dress down for the occasion.

Feeding them fish and chips for breakfast was simply a way of giving them an authentic working-class day-trip experience to broaden their horizons and drum home the message that not everyone starts the day with organic muesli from Waitrose.

(Waitrose, a very upscale market chain. The family also owns large tracts of property, generations old.)

The novelty baseball cap could have been an ironic, post-modern take on the nature of unbridled consumerism or a witty protest about societal stereotyping.

Then again, they could just have been scum.

You know what? I’ve just thought about it again. I’m going with scum. Sorry, but there’s no other word for it.

For all I know, those children could have grown up to become brain-surgeons.

My guess, though, is that they’re both living on benefits in some scruffy council garret, halfway up a burned-out tower block, surrounded by raggedy children who look pretty much like they used to on their jolly outing to Blackpool.

Only the fake designer labels have changed.

We’re now on to second- and third-generation scum, sustained by a patronising and non-judgmental welfare juggernaut. We’ve always had what sociologists prefer to call an underclass. But not on this scale and never so visible.

A quick glance at the news is all it takes to confirm the worst. In Haringey, North London, the child of a dysfunctional ‘family’ is tortured to death under the noses of social services. When the tragic Victoria Climbie died in similar circumstances on the same manor, we were assured it would never happen again. I wrote at the time that it could and it would. It has.

(note to Drew.  am not posting the story or pix on the torture killing of baby but did snail mail the article and photos. I’m not used to being shocked, but I still am after seeing and reading .)

The £100,000-a-year, hatchet-faced harridan in charge of the social services washes her hands of the death, refuses to resign and boasts of providing a ‘three star’ service,
backed by pie charts, graphs and a perfect paper trail of criminal incompetence and wilful neglect.

Somewhere out there, there’s a baseball cap with her name on it.

Frankly, I can’t bring myself to read the details of this horrific case, other than to note that the father was an SS freak and the mother spent all day in pornographic chat rooms on the internet, when she wasn’t smoking in the street. What did they do for money? What do you think?

In Yorkshire, a ghastly-looking woman and her gormless boyfriend’s uncle are on trial for abducting her daughter and attempting to extract a reward for her safe return. They look as if they have stepped straight out of Little Britain, in which Matt Lucas and David Walliams’s Burberried chavs captured perfectly the gruesome reality of so much of our modern landscape.

(this is in reference to a woman who with accomplice had her own daughter kidnapped and cost the state over £3 million pounds in the search while she went on TV begging for her daughter’s return. The plan was to have the accomplice free the kid and then discover her and save her thus collecting some $100,000 in reward money. The child was kept tied to a long strap in an apartment for 24 days. )

The women are the worst of the lot, giving birth to a procession of bay-bees by different, transient fathers and expecting — nay, being encouraged by — the state to pay for their upbringing.

The Government’s preferred solution is to keep on throwing money at the problem, hiring legions of social workers and ‘parenting skills advisers’ to keep the scum in check, while importing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to do the jobs our indigenous idle are paid not to do.

It doesn’t work and things aren’t going to get any better. It’s at least 20 years too late.

The game’s up. 

Note to readers.  I have edited the story a bit and the rest is at the link to the Mail.
The situation really is as bad as described by this reporter.  And heaven only knows what isn’t discovered.  It just seems that for an island with some 65 mil onboard, the scale of horrific doings by some very bad people continues almost unchecked.  My brain can’t cope with or understand how any human being can use a 17 month old baby as a punching bag.  I can’t comprehend why the people who do this should not be put to death in the very same manner.  http://tinyurl.com/5mm2ze

The reference to Little Britain is a supposed comedy show with a couple of gays homosexuals, one of who is in drag and very gross in size and looks.  The left wing Guardian newspaper claims the show had become a huge hit with Americans.  I sincerely hope not.
It’s my understanding and I could be wrong, that after previewing in the states, it bombed.  Now then, an expression here that goes, “ he or she or it went down a bomb” means they’ve done well.  Maybe when the Guardian heard that LB “bombed” in the states they mistook that for success.
The lead is degenerate, disgusting and his schtick is a twisted scowl.  Note guy in pink dress on left.  That look is all he does.  Well, not exactly.  He and former boyfriend who got married, recently became the first queer couple to divorce.  Well ........ so much for loving vows..

Posted by peiper     on 11/14/2008 at 09:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Homosexuality • UK •  
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   Thursday - November 13, 2008

blundering store gives booklet on sex positions to eight-year-olds in error. with illistrations.

For you folks back home in USA.  Sainsbury is a major supermarket chain here.  Also market/ department store and I think (not 100% on this) they have some big holdings in states.
They are generally more expensive then say their rival, Tesco. A mega as in HUGE chain of stores.

This is almost funny when ya read it but I can see where mom and dad aren’t laughing.

Oh yeah, maybe I should explain although I doubt I need to.  To “chat up” someone here is to try and pick em up. I never hear that expression back home though.

‘Try something new today...’ blundering Sainsbury’s gives booklet on sex positions to eight-year-olds

By Andrew Levy
Last updated at 2:02 AM on 13th November 2008

They probably expected a goody bag of some sorts as a going home gift after the primary school trip to Sainsbury’s.

But what the 42 children - not to mention their parents and teachers - did not expect was to be given a book with explicit illustrations of sexual positions.

And the advice under the dozen drawings, which feature in a section about saving water by ‘bathing with a friend’, reads: ‘Save water. Have fun. Just get out before everything becomes wrinkled.’

Other inappropriate suggestions in the £5 book from Sainsbury’s - whose advertising slogan is Try Something New Today - include encouraging readers to shave in intimate places, streaking, talking to strangers and handing out your phone number to five people on the street.

Inappropriate: Two of 12 ways that children were shown how to ‘have fun in the bath’ in the Sainsbury’s leaflet.

The book, entitled How To Change The World For A Fiver, was mistakenly given to the Year 4 pupils, aged between eight and nine, from Burton End primary, Suffolk, during a visit to the supermarket in Haverhill.

The blunder came to light only when a father heard his daughter giggling with friends as they flicked through the pages.

Engineer Andrew Dodd, 37, whose daughter Laura is eight, said: ‘I was furious. It was extremely inappropriate and irresponsible to give to children.

‘On the “Having Fun in the Bath” pages there were little drawings of about 12 sexual positions.

‘But the worst bit was where it encouraged you to go and talk to strangers. It’s the opposite message to what you should be giving to kids. I don’t think the school realised what was in the book.

‘The teachers were as horrified as we were when they saw it.

‘Laura thought it was funny but thankfully she didn’t really understand it.’

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: ‘This was a well-intentioned mistake. It is a very nice book about how to make the world a better place but it is not targeted at children.

‘The books were given to store staff by head office because they mentioned the company’s positive environmental activities.

Blunder: Sainsbury’s said they made a mistake giving children the book, which also encouraged readers to shave intimate places, streak and chat up strangers

A few spare copies were left over in the store which were given as presents to the visiting children.

‘The cover looks like a kid’s book. This was a mix-up and we would like to apologise for any distress caused. It certainly won’t happen again.’

But Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, criticised Sainsbury’s for not making basic checks before handing out the books.

‘This would be offensive to some adults, let alone children,’ he said. ‘This wasn’t a mistake. It was an unacceptable failure on Sainsbury’s part.

‘Young minds are the most malleable and this incident has robbed a large number of children of their innocence. They should be ashamed.’

The book was produced by a company called We Are What We Do, which says its mission is to inspire people to change the world one small action at a time.

It also produces children’s version of How To Change The World For £5 which is called Teach Your Granny to Text and has been sent to primary schools across the country.

Sainsbury’s is sending Mr Dodd’s daughter a £30 voucher to spend in the store.

http://tinyurl.com/564dh6

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2008 at 05:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous • UK •  
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   Tuesday - November 11, 2008

Roadside snack vans threatened unless they offer healthy food .

THE NANNY STATE IN ACTION AND IT’S ALL FOR YOUR OWN GOOD SO STOP THINKING FOR YOURSELVES YOU MINDLESS NOTHINGS. JUST TRUST NANNY AND ALL WILL BE WELL.

Tuesday is usually a busy morning and day for us and so I hadn’t expected to post this early. However, this is soooo bizarre and soooo stupid it defies belief. It also defies logic of course but since when did logic ever come into play with those running a nanny knows best state.

I think in the USA they’re called catering vans. Yes? No?  Been so long away from home I can’t remember.  But these food and hot coffee dispensing vans that are often found at construction sites and in our case at boot sales (flea market to yanks except mostly ours here in Winchester really are boot sales.  Meaning folks selling things from the trunk of their cars or back end of an SUV. There are some professional sellers but mostly just folks getting rid of old treasures in attic and BOOKS. )

Well, I can just imagine some burly construction worker on a break begging for a salad and yogurt.  These health dictators drive us nuts with their plans and pronouncements. A pox on em I say!

Roadside snack vans threatened unless they offer healthy food
Roadside vans offering greasy snacks will be shut down if they fail to offer healthier alternatives, according to new rules.

Last Updated: 3:58PM GMT 10 Nov 2008

A woman prepares to bite into a burger. Roadside vans offering greasy snacks will be shut down if they fail to offer healthier alternatives, according to new rules.
Roadside takeways in Guildford, Surrey, must offer at least one healthy option besides burgers.

The snack vans, often found in busy lay-bys, must now offer soup, salads or low fat yogurts with their artery-clogging kebabs.

They must also limit the amount of mayonnaise served - because it has been branded a “very high fat product”.

Environmental health officers will inspect menus during routine hygiene checks.

And traders who fail to meet the strict new standards in Guildford, Surrey, will be refused a street trader’s licence when it comes up for renewal each year.

Councillors at Guildford Borough Council this week reviewed their street traders policy for the first time in seven years and insisted every menu has at least one healthy option.

The list of recommended food includes low fat grilled sausage with wholemeal bread, chilli con carne with lean mince and jacket potato with a selection of fillings.

A report to the council’s licensing committee said: “In accordance with the council’s health promotion programme, it is recommended that at least one healthy meal choice be provided for customers.”

The report added: “It is important that the use of mayonnaise is limited since this is a very high fat product.

“It could be offered to the customer to add himself as a choice.”

Grant Harris, who has run the Skip’s Catering food van from a lay-by on Guildford’s A281 for five years, thinks his customers will continue to eat burgers and chips.

He said: “Our customers are mainly scaffolders, builders and lorry drivers and they are not going to want this new food.

“The sandwiches and jacket potatoes are more suited to a sandwich bar.

“The rules seems to be going over the top with political correctness.

“Some of the things the council is suggesting I serve would cause a bit of a problem - I just can’t see people wanting them.”

But Clifford Bell, head of environmental health at the council, wants motorists to move away from high calorie, high-fat food.

He said: “It remains for the trader to design his menu around the principles of healthier catering, such as grilling rather than frying.

“The aim is to give consumers a wider choice and move away from the sole provision of high calories, high fat fast foods.”

Vans operating on private land will not be affected.

http://tinyurl.com/6j5np5

Posted by peiper     on 11/11/2008 at 04:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Insanity • Jack Booted Thugs • Nanny State • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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   Monday - November 10, 2008

FER ALL A YOU GUN TOTIN’ WILD WEST BUCK-A-ROOS BACK IN THE USA,

Here’s about the shortest post I’ve ever done and sorry no link but it comes from The Telegraph originally.

By that I mean, that’s where I found it.  Ya ready?

AIR RIFLE USED TO CONFRONT TEENAGERS

HA. EXCEPT THE DAMN THING WASN’T LOADED BUT NEVER MIND.  AN ARREST WAS MADE BY THE KEYSTONE KOPS.

A grandfather has been arrested after using an unloaded air rifle to confront a gang of “youths” who had fired rockets at his house.

He was given a caution for possessing a fire arm with the intent to cause “FEAR OF VIOLENCE.”

-end-

So, what do ya think people?  Justice served? The youths must be shaking in their boots. From laughter.

This isn’t even funny.  So it’s simply a caution.  It should have been a medal he was given.

Posted by peiper     on 11/10/2008 at 03:15 PM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Crime • Daily Life • Firearms • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US, PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US, PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.
Heck, I didn’t even get that far.

Due to a family medical history, every four or five years I have to go through the
bother of a Colonoscopy.  Routine and thousands are done every year and I’ve had this done in the past.  But to be honest, I have a few concerns.

When my GP gave me the paperwork to call the hosp. unit , Gastroenterology,
I was given a password.  Huh?  I need a password to call and make an appointment?
Yup.  Seemed weird ta me but hey.  If that’s how it’s done.  Stupid sounding password though but okay.

So I called and the appointment was made to ‘consult’ with the doctor who would then schedule the procedure.  Well, it was almost nine weeks before I got to see the doctor for about 15 minutes.  I was then informed that I would get something in the mail in six weeks informing me of the time and date when they would do the exam.
Ok … whenever.

I have an appointment for a medical exam on the 20th of the month.
So here’s the routine and I’ll tell ya but just between us.  I’m not sure I have much faith in these folks.  I’m certain it’s only me but …..  so here you are.

You get a letter finally setting the date and time with a request to call and confirm your appointment.  If you don’t, the appointment will be given to someone else and there’s a time frame in which you should confirm the date. 
Hmmmm, you consider that option.  Maybe you can get away with doing nothing for another year.  You really don’t want to go to the bother of this, especially when you sign that god awful paper that tells you about the things that can go wrong. 
But with a family history of Colin Cancer, always better to be seen and checked because …. ya never do know.  Right? 

So then, you call this number they’ve given you to confirm.  The line is busy. Wait a few minutes and call back but the line is still busy.  This goes on for about five or so minutes and then suddenly when you call back for perhaps the third time, bingo.  It’s ringing.  Oh joy.  It’s still ringing.  Ring-Ring-Ring.  It goes on.  And on.  No automated pick up that tells you how important your call is to them (not that you’d believe it anyway) and no request to please stay on the line.  Ring-Ring $£!!#~!*

Say wait a minute.  Did you even dial the correct number?  A quick glance at the number showing on your phone screen confirms you have dialed correctly.
Ring-Ring-Ring and by now you say aw the hell with it.  Hang up and wait about fifteen minutes and making sure you’re dialing the right number with eyes on the screen …. Bzzzzzzzzzzy!  AhhhhhhGDit %$!!£”%*.  So you wait some more and call again.  Surely this time.  Ring,ring,ring,ring, but you have to hang up this time because you have a desperate need to use the loo (bathroom to us yanks) and you can only keep your legs crossed tightly for so long.

AH … THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES!

Now back to the damn phone which by now you regard as a mortal enemy to be overcome by whatever means.
Ring,ring,ring,ring and another dozen of the same and still nobody answers.
You get to thinking, maybe your call to confirm your appointment is only important to you and this confirms that.  Ring,ring.

Well finally you’ve had enough and so call the hospital’s main switchboard and ask if there’s perhaps another number for the Gastroenterology dept., as the number you are calling doesn’t answer.  By this time about a half hour has passed.  You ask if maybe you’re calling after hours in error.  You have to ask that because of all the stuff they sent in the mail, the instructions, the powder you’re to mix with water and drink before the exam, the paperwork and the map and the warning about mistakes etc., there are NO hours of operation listed therein.

No, I haven’t called after hours the switchboard tell me, and they do have another number for that department and will call it for me and wait on the line.
Whatever … (they never did give the other number though. Hmm, maybe it’s a secret.  Maybe they’d give it out if you send in a cereal boxtop. ) RING! Ah, success!
Someone has actually picked up the phone.  But ,,, they don’t say anything. After a slight pause they finally say …. “Yes?” In other words, they don’t answer with a dept. name.  You know.  Like for instance, “Hello, Morgue Dept.  How may we be of service?” You drop em we cart em. haha.

Well here’s how the conversation goes from there.
You:  Is this Gastroenterology?
Them:  pause …
You:  Hello?
Them:  Yes?
You:  Ah .. Enterology – Colonoscopy dept.? 
Them:  Yes.  (sounding very much put out and a bit annoyed. probably because they had to pick the phone up.  I don’t blame them at all honestly.  Who knows what I may have interrupted. Maybe something … you know … lets not go there.

Fine. It’s done. Your appointment is officially confirmed but you’re left wondering again if you really want to go through with this on the 20th.  It’s a real pain but in the end (lol) you know you must.

It’s taken over two months to get this far in the process.

Stay Tuned.  See the extended text because ..... 

Posted by peiper     on 11/10/2008 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Medical • UK •  
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BRIT PRIME MINISTER IS AT ODDS WITH OBAMA.

What? Is the honeymoon with Brit left over already?
Well friends, that’s what the front page headline reads.  No. Not the honeymoon part. I just asked the question.
Front page simply says Brown is at odds with Obama.
BUT .... The Telegraph being the usual idiot online place it is, there is no link to their own reporter or their own front page. Clever folks over there.

Going to several sources turns up nothing so I guess it’s a secret of some kind. 

So here’s the general idea and I’m not going to copy the whole article but will cover a few of the lines because it might be of interest to Americans reading here.

Written by Rosa Prince and nope, I can’t scan it to here at the moment and probably not at all with the stuff I have on hand here.

GORDON BROWN is in disagreement with Barack Obama on two major policy areas days before his first meeting with America’s President-elect.

Despite his desire to share in Mr. Obama’s popularity, the Prime Minister is prepared to risk incurring his displeasure by publicly warning America tonight not to adopt “beggar -thy-neighbor protectionism” as a solution to the financial crisis.

During their talks in Washington,DC this weekend, he will also make clear that the President-elect SHOULD NOT RELY ON BRITISH TROOPS to support his proposed “surge” against the Taliban in Afghanistan.


There is alarm in Downing Street over the protectionist rhetoric used by Mr. Obama in the Democratic primaries.

-30-

And that folks is the idea of it.  Sorry, no link.  Mr. Brown is urging Obama to be “internationalist” and not neutral yadda,yadda.

Posted by peiper     on 11/10/2008 at 04:08 AM   
Filed Under: • International • UK •  
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Does anyone remember the ‘stiff upper lip’ of the British? The fighting spirit?

I’ll answer that.  Not too many left who remember and those that are still here are rightly demoralized.

I had something else planned for my first post of this day until I ran across a comment from Lyndon and the link he provided to this. PLEASE go to the link and read the entire rant by this fellow.  He is right on target. He is correct and don’t think for a single minute we’re safe from the same mindless thing in America.  We’re already lost and doomed if you cave into the thinking that we’re “safe.” WE ARE NOT, damn it. So please take heed and pay attention.  The USA is NOT immune.

H/T LyndonB and much thanks for this.

Does anyone remember the ‘stiff upper lip’ of the British? The fighting spirit? The indomitable people who once ran a big chunk of the planet, and who could chase away armed guerillas with a walking stick and an angry voice? A people who, nevertheless, could laugh at themselves and had a great, if sometimes cruel, sense of humour? What happened to them?

Those people would never have set off a security scare because a schoolboy dressed up as the Joker and waved a plastic gun around. Those people would never have arrested a man in fancy dress because he had a plastic knife as part of his outfit (tipped by anon in the comments here). Those people would not have shrieked ‘Terrorist!’ at the sight of a plastic halloween skeleton. The first might have earned a caning, but not expulsion. The second and third should not even have raised an eyebrow. Neither should Old Holborn’s walk.

The people who replaced those real British are spineless weaklings who jump at shadows. Who call the police if they are slightly offended by a word or two. Worse, the police respond not by saying ‘It’s nothing, don’t worry about it’, but by harassing and usually arresting anyone complained about, no matter how trivial and all too often, no matter whether an offence has been committed or not.

These new people are quaking, trembling jellys. They are frightened by mere words, and terrified by a raised hand. They take offence at anything they’re told to take offence at. Those who consider themselves strong are those who have not yet experienced adversity because when they do, they run to the government for help. They cannot help themselves. They will not try.

Oh, there are a few real people left, for sure, but they are only a few. Most are now soft, weak loathsome creatures who stare at the unreality of reality TV from their well-pressed sofas and aim their rage wherever the Righteous tell them. The two minute hate. One day smokers, next day drinkers, next day hoodies, next the obese, next Eurasia… or is it Eastasia? Doesn’t matter. We are at war with the terrorists. We have always been at war with the terrorists.

These people who once called themselves the Great of Great Britain (can we still use that name for this country, or is it not considered sufficiently self-humiliating now?) are useful only for rendering into animal feed. They accept every word they are fed and have no problem at all with the doublethink required to accept it all. Coal-fired power stations will kill us all through global warming. We must build huge windmills everywhere to save the environment and we must not install new power lines underground because that would harm the environment. Snow in October? That’s caused by global warming.

http://leg-iron.livejournal.com/100224.html

While you’re at it, read some of the comments from Brits to this.

Posted by peiper     on 11/10/2008 at 03:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Nanny State • UK •  
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   Sunday - November 09, 2008

Waves of EU law leave us foundering.

Waves of EU law leave us foundering

By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/11/2008

One of the mysteries of our time is the perennial reluctance of so many politicians and journalists to explain how much of the mess we are making of the business of government in this country derives from the avalanche of new laws, policies and decisions pouring out of our hidden government in Brussels. Everywhere we look, businesses and other organisations are struggling in the miasma of confusion this creates, where it is no longer clear who is responsible for the laws they must obey, or what those laws are or are meant to say.

One recent example was the row which blew up over a ruling by Ofcom that one of Britain’s most admired charities, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), must increase its annual payment for using a dedicated radio wavelength, from £38,000 to £260,000. This meant that a quarter of a million pounds of the public donations that the RNLI relies on for its lifesaving work would be siphoned off as, in effect, a tax.

This was widely reported as an outrage in Scotland, though strangely ignored in England. But what somehow did not get mentioned was why Ofcom had imposed this staggering increase. It turns out that six years ago, with directive 2002/20, control of radio wavelengths was assumed by the EU. Under its interpretation of EU law, Ofcom decided that it would have to set up a complex new system to manage the wavebands allocated to public services such as the RNLI and mountain rescue teams, necessitating a huge rise in their fees.

The ensuing protest was so great that Ofcom has backtracked on its reading of EU law, deciding that, instead of raising its charges to the RNLI, it may now actually be able to reduce them to £20,000.

Not so lucky, however, is the Post Office which, it was announced last week, may have to close another 3,000 of its branches if, in 2010, as seems likely, it loses its contract to hand out pensions and other benefits which provide sub-postmasters with 12 per cent of their income.

Some of this won’t be of much interest to American viewers of this site so please let me explain as best I can, just a fraction of one of the problems caused by this Labour (read left)_ govt.
This thing about a contract to hand out pensions works thus.  Older folks who are retired and have a pension are issued a card, just like a credit card.  Each week money goes into an account and they can take that card to any post office either once a week, as we must do, or just once a month. They don’t even have to draw out all that’s in there but just what they need as they need it provided the funds are there.

Last year the govt. closed 2500 local and rural post offices including ours.  This village of 600 families has had a post office for well over 100 years.
Even before that but the last 100 have been continuous.  You can’t begin to imagine the honest hardship for many.  Not me personally, but many very much older folks.  Our post office was located in a place with parking for tons of cars because it’s located next to the village hall and playground.
I call it a playground because I can’t remember what the locals call it. Anyway, tons of parking.

Some older folks do not drive or can not drive btw, and the bus into the next village goes in once or 2wice a day.  For all practical purposes, we really don’t have a bus into the next village.

But the govt. now has us going into another village where parking is almost impossible and if I took a photo you’d understand.. Where our post office was self contained, this other PO is in a convenience store and the line between the store’s register and the line for mail etc. often merge. Of course the waits are longer as you may well imagine.  There was a meeting last year to “consult” with the ppl of the village before making a decision.
Well what a load of lying CRAP that was.  They already had the decision made long before the so called, “consultation,” which we all know is no more then tossing the dog a bone.  They are now set to close another 3,000 post offices around the country.

But the bastards have enough cash to fund muslims who “can’t be deported for humanitarian reasons” and they somehow found BILLIONS of pounds (dollars) for the 2012 Olympics.  I won’t even start on the lifeboat thing mentioned above. Least, not here right now. 

Again, what was not reported was the reason: the requirement, under EU procurement directives, that the contract, which cost the Post Office £1 billiion to set up, must be put out to tender. It is these directives which have already lost the Post Office its contracts to supply other public services, such as the provision of TV and driving licences which earned it £168 million a year, more than the £150 million which, by agreement with Brussels, it receives in state subsidy. By continually undermining its income in this way, the EU has played a key part in that closure programme which has already inconvenienced millions of customers and now seems set to get worse.

( Right.  When we get mail from the states, most often it is stamped, Deutsch Post. What does that say? And if any of you think that what happens here is not duplicated in the USA, think again.  Over a year ago a new way of weighting and charging for mail in the USA and including SIZE of whatever was being mailed, went into effect some months after being introduced here, and that was AFTER being introduced in Europe, as it was explained to me.)

It was also reported last week that vast quantities of packaging waste collected for recycling - paper, plastic and cans - may have to be stored in warehouses or piled up on old airfields, because of a collapse in demand for recycling waste from China and elsewhere. The hidden part of this shambles is the fact that how we collect and dispose of our rubbish is dictated by laws imposed on us by Brussels, which are supposedly intended to phase out the burying of waste in holes in the ground and encourage recycling.

A recurring theme of this column in recent years has been the colossal hypocrisy of the system thus devised to enable Britain to meet its EU “recycling” targets. The only way we have been able to pretend that we were meeting these targets was by cheaply shipping to Asia millions of tons of the waste we collect for recycling, using the same container ships that brought much of it to Britain in the first place. Much of this waste was not recycled at all, but simply consigned to unregulated dumps, But as I warned here in November 2006, “if countries such as China become less willing to take so much of our waste, we could find ourselves in serious trouble”.

With the collapse of the export trade that provided those container ships, that is precisely what has happened. Our monstrous bluff has been called. And in a year’s time, as waste piles up around Britain, we shall face fines of hundreds of millions of pounds a year from Brussels for failing to meet its targets.

Finally, a highly-enterprising British industry last week faced a crisis, thanks to a new tax introduced, so our Government insists, to comply with EU law. It turns out to be nothing of the kind.

OSS, based in Liverpool and employing 170 people, has in recent years invested heavily in the technology which enables it to collect 330,000 tons a year of used oil from 22,000 garages, factories and other workplaces round the country, and recycle it into Clean Fuel Oil, as pure as any virgin oil from a refinery.

When Brussels insisted, under its Energy Tax directive (2003/96), that recycled waste oil should be taxed, several EU countries, led by Britain, strongly objected. They protested that this would make recycled oil uncompetitive, thus losing a valuable resource and encouraging the illegal disposal of waste oil in ways that would be harnful to the environment. Brussels rejected their pleas, but allowed that the tax could be as little as 1p a litre.

Astonishingly, however, the UK Government then forgot all its earlier objections. Last week, claiming it had been forced to do so by Brussels, it imposed the same tax on recycled oil as it levies on other oil - 9.29p a litre. This raises the cost of recycled oil by 30 per cent, making it uncompetitive.

Other countries have imposed the tax at the minimum level Brussels allows. In France, recycled oil is taxed at only £12 a ton; here the tax is £105. As Andy McNair, the chief executive of OSS, puts it, this “would make it cheaper to transport our oil to France than to sell it here”. It is hardly surprising that, having been betrayed by our Government in this way over a business worth nearly £200 million a year, OSS executives were last week locked in crisis meetings wondering where to go next.

Similar crises are all too frequent these days, yet how rarely they are properly explained or reported by those whose responsibility it should be to do so. Oddly, the politicians and newspapers that fail to explain this kind of nonsense all claim to support Britain’s membership of the EU. If they are genuinely in favour of this curious form of government - and that, after all, is precisely what the EU is - should they not be rather happier to tell us how it works in practice, rather than so consistently hiding it away?

http://tinyurl.com/5mwues

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2008 at 08:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • UK •  
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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