Combining work and 'leisure'.

Crikey; have just realised how long it is since I updated this blog but I do have a good excuse.
Without the support of a publisher to help promote the idea that it really is time to take matters in hand and stop the rot (understatement of the millennium) I made up my mind back in August to take on a small shop in my home town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight, and combine work and pleasure under one roof. I work as a Hand Engraver to the Silversmith's Industry by trade, which is an interesting job but when all is said and done, is merely the way I earn a crust and pay my way. Pleasure/passion/duty comes from writing and is way more important to my way of thinking because of the topic. Britain, its condition, and what future generations stand to inherit drives this project and I guess many will agree that subject matter is pretty damned important!

So anyway; alongside working normally in order to pay the mortgage etc, I have also been grafting away to sort the shop out. Only a sign above the door and some stencilled wording on the windows remains to be done and will be by this time next week. A very nice man is coming to measure up on Tuesday and once done, the new 'work and pleasure premises' will be up and running. I am pleasantly surprised at the amount of people already aware of the place before signage is even up, and before any advertising has been published. Come on in and pick up a copy of Sheep No More for goodness sake or get it as an eBook from Amazon!! Income from sales will earn credibility and this will ultimately allow the project to begin developing towards realising its true potential. Working towards saving the inheritance of our own children and their children; could there be anything more vital?

Politicians under the thumb.

We are just one year away from Alex Salmons dream coming true and the Union being torn apart. This won't come about as a result of him being right, but because the counterargument against fragmentation is not being cranked up and rammed down his throat as it ought to be.

The NHS is indeed being privatised by stealth because Cameron and Co are under the spell and control of big business interests determined to have their wants and demands served by their political concubines. These require access to the public funds that come with the lucrative contracts they are hell bent upon gaining.

Ditto the Royal Mail, a great national asset rich in terms of real-estate and that will soon become the property of the financiers who even now are drooling at the prospect of getting their hands on the deeds of ownership.

These are massive 'nation destroying' issues our political masters are actually presiding over rather than fight against as we are entitled to expect. Cameron & Co don't represent the best interests of Britain and its people at all, but the sorts of vested interests that have that sad and pathetic breed by the balls. Not a single worthy man or woman in parliament as far as I can see, none with the backbone to get on a soapbox and scream blue murder about our nation being wrecked. 

Royal Mail sell-off / Vectis Radio

Between 12-1pm on Tuesday 20th August, the first of regular slots will air on Vectis internet Radio www.vectisradio.co.uk
A number of subjects are in the pipeline to be tackled and the first will be privatising of the Royal Mail.

In the studio will be the show host and station controller Ian Mac, also Arthur Reeder who is an authority on the history of the Royal Mail and yours truly. It is fair to say that all three of us are against the relentless selling off of every scrap of family silver our nation once possessed and the surrendering of commercial sovereignty that has inevitably gone with all the assets stripped out. Now it's the turn of the RM to be sold for a one-off cash infusion to the exchequer under the command of a breed of witless politicians incapable of seeing beyond the ends of their own noses.

The number for the studio is 01983 240666 and people with a strong opinion are welcome to call. If you work for the Royal Mail and have a view you may like to call in and have your say. Should your call be pro the sell-off, you'll need to have your argument well sorted.

Garlic Festival / interesting attitudes

The weekend just gone was the annual Garlic Festival that takes place on the Isle of Wight when food with a garlic theme, entertainments such as Darth and his chums stomp about to light-heartedly menace children, bands play, people sell their wares and various crafts are on display. It's a good weekend and much fun is had by all.

 

This year as last, I took a small round table, a box of books and some paper flyers with the hope of drumming up interest for the project. Some old friends were met it's always nice to catch up, and some very interesting and at times fairly intense conversations were struck up with new faces. I found that most of the people spoken to of my own generation were pretty much onside the moment they knew what my project is about, which is in a nutshell, no faith at all in Britain's leadership to do the right thing by ordinary people and families, and the need to stop the rot for the sake of all. 

 

Speak of the need to put the country back on its feet and the natural reaction is to ask 'what would you do about it?' At which point I would reach for my folder to show the person my 3 diagram depiction of a healthy versus an unhealthy economic model. It is the series that opens the SNM website and depicts a human body with the arterial system and vital organs, and the analogy with Britain and its economy. In a nutshell... fully functional vascular system pumping oxygen, nutriment and fighter cells to feed and fight off disease around a human body = good health. Within the analogy the UK landmass is the 'body' and the economy the 'vascular system' whilst cash flow is 'lifeblood' and the major institutions such as education and the NHS are 'vital organs'. In diagram three 'fiscal tumours and leaks' are added such as benefits culture and payments to the EU, and without exception, everyone I showed it to instantly got it and said it works. The analogy is just one amongst a host of devises and ideas promoted within the book and that demonstrate that this project is about walking the walk as opposed to merely talking the talk.  

 

Two attitudes come across were especially interesting. I had the privilege of speaking with a number of students working towards various degree courses, politics and business studies standing out. They got it I'm pleased to say, and that is the most rewarding result of the weekend for me. Our young and what they are set to inherit from my own generation that has screwed up so badly, is the whole point of this exercise. Their generation is on the verge of taking control of the nation and they need to go forward with open eyes and minds, and if they do... (I was going to type 'things can only get better' but thought better of it) The reaction gained from switched on young people tells me where a prime target audience for this project is... students, schools, colleges and universities.

 

The other attitude encountered was less convivial. On four occasions I noticed someone skimming through or reading properly the flyer or back of the book and sought to strike up a conversation with them only to get the brush off. A man and woman strutting about wearing blue 'Team NHS' t-shirts were especially snotty which was mega disappointing as I would have expected such people to get it. Maybe they got the wrong idea, that my suggesting we ought to repair this broken country got interpreted as right-wing so maybe of the worst sort of nationalism? For the benefit of the dismissive to the point of being rude  I'll state the aims of this project...

 

Not right-wing, not left-wing, but slap bang down the middle. A system designed to work for the majority. Unity, cooperation in the common interest, democracy and meritocracy. The word meritocracy speaks for itself. Gender, race, class religious affiliation not important. Plain enough?         

From sideways on and from underneath to get around lazy thinking

Yesterday (6.8.2013) I spent an hour and a bit at Vectis Radio discussing some of the subjects I should like to get my teeth into once the regular slot begins in two weeks time. My intention in a nutshell, is to tackle issues not from the usual bull at a gate perspective, but sideways on and from underneath, in order to get under the surface and figure out what has really gone on. We have so many problems in this country, many of which are festering for lack of understanding; which is the reason I put so much effort into the writing of my book Sheep No More.

Close to the end of the phone-in Clare who is to the right of Mussolini called. After a bit of toing and froing the subject under discussion became 'industry' and how Britain is now so industrially feeble in comparison with the past. Clare came out with the bog standard argument to be heard from one end of the nation to the other over the past three decades. 'It's all the fault of the Unions' Arthur Scargill and Red Robbo etc who did all the damage and should be cursed for it.

Irresponsible Trade Unions undoubtedly did do enormous damage, but it was thirty years ago when wildcat strikes were being called over disputed tea breaks and resulted in Thatcher pulling the teeth of the movement. Other than funding the Labour Party and occasionally jumping up and down a bit to little or no effect, the unions today are a spent force.

In the years since, thousands of British workforces have been thrown on the scrapheap and millions of jobs have been decanted abroad. The country has had its skills base pretty much trashed, we're awash with imports, run an out of control benefits culture because redundant workers and their families still have to be fed, watered and housed, and the economy is a complete, total and utter basket case, regardless of what Cameron and Osborne would have us believe. Economically we're in a shocking mess, which cannot be down to trade unionists post 1984 when the miners were pummelled. Forget shallow, consider the following 'tools' commerce has employed in the quest to get at the truth...

Cheap labour was identified abroad, the exploitation of which would allow a massive increase of mark-up, to benefit management and shareholders.

Corporate use/abuse of the benefits system as nothing could be easier than to 'dump' an inconvenient British workforce onto the system and then employ your new cheap as chips workforce abroad.

Pay the bulk of your British workforce the minimum wage and advise them how to go about claiming tax credits, meaning that the exchequer subsidises big business methods.

Employ tax avoidance methods using loopholes and tax havens elsewhere to avoid paying corporation tax.

Zero hours contracts whereby workers are entitled to no sick pay, holiday pay or maternity leave.

Internships whereby people desperate to kick-start a career are forced to work for nothing.

And remember... We're talking 'Big Business' here, the leading lights of which went to the same public schools as our political masters and they conduct much of their business on the same golf courses and masonic lodges as our leading politicians (and I don't have a problem with freemasons by the way, I'm just telling it like it is). Be aware also that when membership of the EU is concerned the people who have the most clout are the very same ones who've used all those damaging tools to rip the heart and soul out of Britain and its communities whilst making fortunes for their greedy selves. Think about it, paraded in and out of TV and Radio studios are senior businessmen who tut-tut at the idea of leaving the EU because doing so would damage their business interests. Well I for one want the country to be run in the best interests of the people, not some bunch of sharp suited spivs and foreign shareholders.

In case you're wondering I am no socialist and I'm not too bothered about trade unions. I simply want my country to be put back to rights and for our kids to have a future. Achieving that makes it necessary to get the blinkers off and view reality, as opposed to putting in no effort to get beneath the surface. All the fault of the unions? Very lazy thinking that!      

Cunard... Invensys... Sunseeker... pigs & troughs.

Cunard, the subject of my last posting, is a graphic example of the rampant asset stripping to have afflicted Britain over the past thirty or so years. Today another piece of our once proud commercial heritage ships out as Invensys who make control systems, is snapped up by the French outfit Schneider for £3.4 billion. A month ago Sunseeker was sold to the Chinese for £300 million, it being a highly successful company whose products are in demand by the rich and super-rich the world over, it being a company that did not need to be sold and ought not to have been, but was, for one simple reason. Britain's senior commercial and industrial management has morphed from the best in the world when the country was strong and stable, to now becoming the worst of any 'advanced' nation, to the point that these people blight our nation. Always alert for an opportunity to asset strip, they'll dive into a trough of foreign cash the moment it is slid beneath their insatiably greedy snouts, regardless of the consequences for workforces, communities, and national interest. We were told in advance that Schneider intended to sack much of the British workforce once it took control and that they are after the research, patents, and market share, and yet that clearly understood knowledge cut no ice with those doing the selling. As for our worse that useless politicians... standardised silence, as always.

At some point we are going to have to bite the bullet and set about fixing 'Broken Britain' and journalists have a vital roll to play in that regard. Question these people. Highlight the fact that Britain's senior political and commercial leaders have effectively 'divorced and separated' themselves from the populous, with disastrous consequences for the national interest and for all of our children's future. If any journalist would like some help with material I should be very happy to assist. Check out chapter 9 'Deindustrialisation' of my book Sheep No More for starters. Within it the forces and attitudes at work are exposed and made sense of from the perspective of Mr Ordinary. Sussing out what has gone wrong with Britain really isn't difficult. Truly!

Cunard's 175th Anniversary. Celebrate, or hold a wake?

Hey everyone; Cunard is to hold its 175th Anniversary and we've all got to jump up and down with excitement, whoop whoop!! The heritage of this great 'British' company is to be celebrated and school children are to be advised as to how proud they must be.
I'm all for the teaching of history but lets not conveniently leave out recent history.

Facts:
Cunard is now owned by the Carnival Corporation of the USA. What happened was straightforward. The US giant placed before British management and shareholders a trough brimming over with dollars and the slavering pigs in question couldn't contain their drooling and dived in. Result; Heritage betrayed and this vital piece of our commercial sovereignty prostituted. In 1982 Thatcher requisitioned Cunard ships to transport British soldiers to the Falklands; this could never happen again because the asset is no longer sovereign and Carnival would say 'on yer bike' if pleaded with by todays politicians.

No British built ships are in the Cunard fleet and the country is now incapable of constructing such a high value/high skill product. With no orders to fulfill the skills have simply withered away through lack of employment.

British crews sacked decades ago in favour of cheap labour, a minimum number of Brits are employed for window dressing purposes. A career in the Merchant Navy once so commonplace is now a rarity.

Cunard re-registered the fleet to Bermuda supposedly so as to be able to conduct weddings onboard, nothing to be with tax of course; heaven forbid folks should suspect such a motivation!!

Foreign owned, foreign flagged, foreign built, foreign crewed, what heritage is it exactly we're supposed to be celebrating? A broken and betrayed heritage and that's a fact. Carnival bought Cunard for the highly desirable and profitable trading name and that is all. Lets not pop over to Southampton with our Chinese made plastic Union Flags and bunting because no celebration is warranted. A wake would be more appropriate. Let us indeed teach our children history; RECENT HISTORY. 

RIP Ford vehicle production UK. The last Transit.

This was the moment yesterday (25.7.2013) when the very last Ford vehicle of any class or description came off the production line in the UK. Ford's once healthy two sided relationship with Britain has now become a one sided relationship as every vehicle they sell here will from now on be an import.

What's the difference between Ford and other manufacturers that have never made so much as a nut and bolt here? The likes of Mercedes, Fiat and Citroen have always enjoyed a one sided relationship and all along British consumers have been aware that their money once handed over will leave the country and improve standard of livings elsewhere. Where Ford is concerned the relationship was until 1972 when the process of abandoning Britain began, the healthy one spoken of, with the company investing heavily and fairly in skills and communities. Today Ford supports a number of European economies, notably Germany where the cost of labour is higher than in the UK, and they take advantage of cheap labour such as in Turkey where all Transit production will now be based.

Type into a search engine 'Ford Transit' and top result will be the sales pitch for the new model. They don't say that it's made in Turkey but just bang on about how great it is. Profitable as well, because the labour making it is so cheap whilst the van itself is the most expensive it has ever been! These are mega-hard-bitten businesspeople that don't give a damn about people and communities but who are driven solely by greed. ... everything we do is driven by you... the slogan used to go 'everything we do is driven by greed' ought to be the update.

As to why the poor sod driving the van in the picture has a grin on his face? Got a gun in his back probably; smile for the cameras you limey bastard or else.    

  

Sheep No More's No1 influence.

The weekend just gone was the annual Larmer Tree Festival, a music and cultural event I have attended most years since 2000. At my first visit thirteen years ago, I sat on the grass on a glorious Sunday afternoon as a band called Show of Hands came on stage and started to play. Two guys, Phil Beer and Steve Knightly and I have to say the songs blew me away because of the power of the lyrics. The words of one in particular seeded itself into my own consciousness and has been there ever since. 'Cutthroats Crooks and Conmen' is about schools that have to fund raise not to buy luxuries but basics and the chorus runs... thieves and crooks and conmen running this jail, is there anything left in England that's not for sale. After the gig I pretty much ran to the merchandise tent and bought a cd titled 'Live at the Royal Albert Hall'. Over the years since, the band has released a good many cd's and all they ever seem to do is get better with each and every one. The records are loaded with political and socially aware songs carried along by great melodies and musicianship, and are not left-wing as might be assumed, but purely based upon rationality and common sense.

If required to account for how, what, where and when the idea for Sheep No More first got seeded, I would say it was on that particular day whilst sitting in the sunshine with my family. Steve Knightly writes the songs, so therefore he has to rate as the single most influential force to have steered my own thinking in the right direction. On Sunday last, Steve played a solo gig at this years festival and afterwards I had the privilege of meeting him and presented him with a copy of Sheep No More. He was pleased to accept it and we had a bit of a chin wag.

I worked incredibly hard on my book just as he works to craft his amazing songs and get the words spot-on. It was good to meet a kindred spirit, especially one so important to this project and I really hope he enjoys my book. Actually there's plenty of material within it that could inspire a new song or two, and who knows, maybe will at some point.

It was rewarding to meet this great lyricist and shake him by the hand, and as usual his performance inspired a prolonged and well deserved standing ovation. Good man!

Ford... From a healthy two sided relationship to a one sided piss-take.

On my mind for much of the day has been Ford's abandonment and betrayal of Britain and the reasoning behind the move. The nature of the 'deal' Ford had with Britain and its people has changed in the most fundamental way, having gone from healthy and good when the company respected our country, to the unhealthy and bad version they operate according to now.

When at its best the relationship amounted to a partnership. Ford invested heavily in jobs, skills and communities here, the company was a powerful force for good, and the British economy benefitted enormously. Hard to believe now is that not so many decades ago, everything Ford sold in Britain was made in Britain.

Today the executives at Ford view Britain as a cash-cow they can get away with milking to the nth degree whilst investing the bare minimum that can be got away with. Skilled workers have been unloaded by the tens of thousands onto the benefits system so that Ford can take advantage of cheap labour elsewhere which means in reality, British taxpayers are being used to supplement Ford's ruthless business methods. Its not just them obviously, because using and abusing the benefits system to unload a workforce deemed inconvenient has been standardised as business 'tool'. Where once Ford maintained whole communities in exchange for the loyalty of consumers, now they just want our money, which is an entirely one sided deal. Shameful.

  

By this coming weekend ALL Ford vehicle manufacturing in Britain will cease when the Transit factory in Southampton closes.  Stark is the contrast between today's sorry state of affairs and forty years ago when my own father worked for Ford as a junior manager and was proud to do so. Back then everything Ford sold in Britain was made in Britain and the company was a powerful force within our country both economically and socially. These days Ford manufacture their products wherever they can find the cheapest labour to exploit and then they sell them to British consumers and companies for the highest prices they've ever been able to. Never has the product range been more expensive to buy and never has the company been able to make so much money from what they clearly regard as being an undefended and vulnerable cash-cow of a country.

Politicians of other nations make the effort to defend their own best interests; here in contrast, our lot shrug their shoulders and declare 'free market forces must not be questioned' and they refuse to do so.

Bearing in mind how many hundreds of thousands if not millions of vehicles Ford sell in Britain each and every year, that many are the products of cheap labour, all are highly profitable for the company, that Britain's skilled workforce is on the scrapheap effectively, our benefits system cannot possible sustain so many non-productive claimants, the nation has been systematically stripped of its manufacturing skills and the economy is an outright basket case; is it not time to at least begin questioning the 'wisdom' of the political and economic system we live under? The recreation of a breed of politicians and businessmen capable of fighting Britain's corner, surely cannot be beyond our currently cowed wit can it? Surely not. 

Family matters.

Three weeks since I last posted which is down to family matters that became all consuming of my time and attention. A close family friend died and then a few days later an even closer family member, both deaths were unexpected and came as a shock, and to make matters worse, my mother has entered a new phase of her life which is causing a great of family worry. At the age of eighty she's undergone major, but not life threatening surgery which has seriously affected her mobility. She's one of these old girls with a fiercely independent streak and declares " the only way I'll be got out of my own home is feet first in a box". The trouble is, the house she lives in is about as unsuitable as can be for a person with mobility problems and who has to use a zimmer frame to get around. Steps and tight corners and a large garden on a slope that was, and still is her pride and joy but that she can no longer maintain. Where she lives is quite isolated which is made all the worse by the fact that she's the last of the older relatives that once lived close by but have since all gone over to the great beyond, whilst all of the younger members have moved away. She is blessed with good neighbors and a few elderly friends all keeping an eye out and they will phone me when something is up, at which point it will take a minimum of four hours to get to where she lives by road.

Here's the really worrying bit; following the operation which involved a week in the hospital followed by two more weeks in an NHS recuperation facility, I collected her and spent a week (last week) looking after her needs and doing repairs etc around the house. I also spent time looking into her finances (as much as she would allow) one aspect of which was found to be deeply troubling. She's one of the old school that always looks for the best in people and finds it hard to accept that an 'official looking' item of mail might in actual fact have been sent by a crook. Her mail comprises almost entirely of scam letters promising £10,000, £20,000, £Half a million to the person that just has to reply to a mailshot and add their name to some scam lottery or other. Some purport to be sent out by legitimate sounding 'charities' and ask for a monthly contribution, and sorry to say, my old mum is gullible and easily drawn in by the bastards. I've a whole sack of this stuff I brought home and am working my way slowly through, whilst checking the many and various outfits out via the web. This week mothers brother is with her and he's finance savvy and going to gain access to her bank statements with her permission, to see exactly what has been going on and if necessary talk to the bank about defending her accounts.

Having an elderly relative, especially one so close become vulnerable health wise (both physical and psychological) and who is putting his or herself at risk the way my own mother is, could hardly be more troubling. My deepest sympathy to anyone with a similar problem to deal with. And here's a simple tip that may be of help if you fear a loved one of your own is falling prey to such scams. Type into a search engine the name of the so called 'charity' etc and see what comes up. It may be that they've covered themselves with a legitimate looking website and are able to quote registered charity numbers and the likes that may, or may not be genuine. Then type the name of the outfit into a search engine again but this time follow it with 'scam?' So ... 'XXX scam?'... and see what enlightening information comes up. You may be surprised and shocked at what you see, but it's good to be wised up.     

By trade I am a Hand Engraver, meaning that I carve metal with chisels called 'gravers'. If you've ever watched a wood carver at work you'll get the gist of what I do, but with metals as the raw materials of my trade instead of timber. It's a craft unchanged since ancient times in that Roman, Viking and Anglo-Saxon craftsmen coached in the trade would recognise the tools scattered around my workbench and be able to use them, and the same applies in reverse, in that I would be completely at home using their tools, because the trade really hasn't changed at all, despite the passing of so much time. I don't even need electricity other than for the labour saving devise of a polishing motor, because natural daylight is the most important tool of the trade and that comes free!

For several years I have worked from home which enabled me to spend several hours each morning, Sunday included, writing my book and getting it all clear in my own head. The trouble is, working from home and in pretty much isolation with only the radio for company, isn't much good when you need to be able to promote such a labour of love as Sheep No More is. So I'm about to make a substantial change to my work routine by taking on the small shop as pictured in the photo above and using it as both a workshop and a base from which to push SNM as hard as I can. The next time I put a picture of the shop on here it will look quite a bit different. The sign will be a combination of 'Pete Harris, Craftsman Engraver' & 'www.sheepnomore.co.uk'.

Engraving is what I do to make a living but the project is my passion because it's about the future and what our children and their children in due course, will be inheriting from us!     

In the wake of soldier Lee Rigby's murder in Woolwich.

Most people will recognise the character on the left as Abu Qatada, infamous Jordanian terrorist the legal trade has used as a business asset and made a mint of taxpayers money from whilst fighting extradition to his place of origin where serious charges await. Qatada's pal on the right is Anjem Choudary who is a known associate of one of the Woolwich murderers and who refused to condemn the barbaric killing of our soldier countryman Lee Rigby on national TV news bulletins. The pair are pinups for the Islamists they lead, followers being mindless specimens that hang on every word they utter, who justify acts of barbarity carried out by others on the say-so of their leaders, and are even inspired to carry our new atrocities as happened on Wednesday.

We have a massive problem with ultra aggressive Islamism in Britain that isn't being tackled in any serious way. Nutcases feel they can make threats at will and rely on the cloak of legal protection they enjoy, as provided free of charge to them, the treacherous, but at vast expense to taxpayers. Our government needs to get heavy both with the cancer of Islamism and with the legal trade that ought to protect Britain, its people, democracy and civilisation, but which has mutated instead into a purely greed driven money making machine. Bad politicians, civil servants, journalists and senior business people are more likely to get dragged out into the cold light of day and questioned publicly now than they were a decade ago, and we need the same to happen to legal trade operatives putting their own nation in danger for money. Those people are the most destructive breed of businesspeople in the land and its high time they were required to answer for their antics and conduct and without the option of saying no, 'how dare you question us, we are your superiors'.

Can you imagine if David Cameron were free to pick up his telephone, call Special Branch, order a few big coppers to proceed to the nick in which Qatada resides, escort him to Gatwick where a chartered aircraft awaits, in chains and very much in public, fly to Jordan where the authorities there have been informed he is on the way, and finally kick him out onto the tarmac where he is placed under arrest whilst a TV camera records the event for public consumption globally. Such a welcome spectacle would give the British reason to breathe a sigh of relief and would send a very clear message to the bad guys. All of a sudden the boot would have shifted to the other foot, and if it were to be made crystal clear there will be no more pussyfooting around those dabbling with terrorism but they will be very firmly dealt with from now on, this long festering tumour would be on course to be isolated and stabilised. That's something Brits desperately need to see happen, and doing so would turn the heat source off beneath the cauldron of fear fascists are currently stirring up. Peace and stability is what we all want for our country, and it shouldn't be that hard to achieve, only lack of courage stands in the way presently.

As to what the Jordanians do with Qatada when they get him? He's a terrorist and deserves what ever comes his way. As for the legal trade who will of course be jumping up and down because there business asset has been removed from them, they have serious questions to answer concerning the endangerment of Britain. Lee Rigby lost his life to a pair of maniacs that had been inspired by the likes of the 'pinups' at the top of this page. We'll never get at the root cause of this problem until the British Government has the courage to cut off the head of the snake, and those two amongst a small band of cancerous individuals are it.          

Final though on the matter... Lee Rigby's murderers would have been surrounded by human rights lawyers all fighting to get the gig before the pair even arrived in casualty which is sickening.




     

Scrapping of 'The Ark'

Taken through the mist, the picture shows HMS Ark Royal being towed out of Portsmouth at the start of her final journey to be torn apart in a Turkish scrapyard. Taken out of service in 2010 as possibly the highest profile victim of Cameron's austerity, it is estimated that to have kept her in service for the further decade she was more than fit enough to complete and until her replacement would be ready, would have cost the public purse £100million. Her compliment of Harrier Jump-Jets had been pretty much given away to the US Marines for peanuts when the ship was taken out of service. Kept in employment had the small amount of wit necessary to view the bigger picture been applied, could have been sailors, airmen, and countless skilled men and women who work in the craft industries necessary to maintain such an asset. But this is Britain, a land blighted by the miserable quality of its politicians, people incapable of sufficient vision to view the importance of maintaining national heart and soul. Witless ministers waste our tax money hand-over-fist on negative forms of expenditure whilst oblivious to the bigger picture, the 'Bloody Sunday Inquiry' being a clear example of waste, when lawyer businessmen were free to fleece the taxpayer of a near identical figure (£100million) over the decade they managed to string the case out over with their cleverly applied perpetual arguments and with taxpayers picking up the bill.

What the fate of the Ark represents is national decline, and that we ought to be moving heaven and earth to put the brakes on. At the nucleus of the decline in question is politics and I say that because worthy MP's and Ministers ought to be capable of distinguishing the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. Some joined-up-thinking wouldn't go amiss and the place to apply it in the first instance, would be in order to distinguish the difference between positive versus negative forms of expenditure.    

Oportunity to kill two birds with one vote

Nothing shames us more than fiddling whilst Rome burns whilst the future for generations to come goes down the tubes. Getting our act together in order to gain for our children a decent future ought to be priority number one, but instead we're like a nation of dogs chasing our own tails, which is a pointless activity and gets nobody anywhere. The political version is to argue around topics vital to the life of our nation in never ending circles, which allows them to fester and cause maximum damage. We need to stop behaving as though being our own worst enemy was something to shout about and sort the decision making process out, and on that front I've a practical offering to make.  

On18th September 2014 Scotland will vote in a referendum on 'independence' and the breakup of the UK is set to follow, simply because the nationalists are being allowed to call all of the shots currently, including the perverse idea that children with no experience of life and who courtesy of their natural immaturity can be manipulated to the advantage of the politically cynical, should be persuaded to vote. Blighting the whole of the UK meanwhile, is the issue we have with the EU and that is absorbing an enormous amount of time and effort. That matter is a festering boil that needs to be lanced so that we can get on with the job of generating for all of our children a fighting chance of a decent future.

I propose that on 18.9.2014 everyone over the age of eighteen gets to have their say in a double referendum on the matter of independence. We all get to choose between continuing membership of the EU, or the reassertion of full independence and sovereignty in all four countries of the UK, and in Scotland, the electorate vote on Alex Salmond's intended fragmentation of the UK as well. The Scots will have to think long and hard about the best way to cast their votes, because if they get separation from their cousins in the south and west, Scotland could end up with the exact opposite of what Salmond claims to be aiming for, namely full-blown subservience to the EU with the German Chancellor as Scotland's ultimate puppet master, whilst England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be on course to regain their independence; provided of course the vote goes the correct and intelligent way. I value freedom and independence and it's a fair bet many wised up Scots will share the view. 

If we were to make our politicians listen to common sense and do the right thing by putting wheels in motion to make this happen, Alex Salmond will have been bowled a googly he'll have one heck of a job to dodge. Clearly the arguments will need to be made powerfully and without faltering, but the prize could not be more vital. Saving the United Kingdom, re-establishing independence, and arrival at the point where those two festering issues have been put to bed, thus allowing us to concentrate on the future of every British girl and boy. If you agree that it makes sense, how about we start bending politicians ears and refuse to tolerate them cocking a deaf'un? Please feel free to share this posting wherever you think it may do some good.  


   

Made in China

Featured on the BBC news service yesterday was the rebalancing of the Chinese economy that all commentators agree has to be a very good thing. Their service sector is now larger that the industrial sector by a few percentage points, although manufacturing is still growing a great deal faster than anywhere else on the planet. Chinese consumers are buying Chinese made goods which is viewed as balance having been brought to their economy.

Whether or not we like the way the Chinese government runs its affairs, human rights and abuse of the environment being just two questionable features of their 'system', economically speaking the evidence of having a plan of action and sticking to it speaks for itself. The working classes are employed in manufacturing where they are able to contribute fully to the life of their nation and know that they count. There is now a vast middle class and they support the jobs of their countrymen, as well as buying high grade products from the Germans who occupy the top of the market where manufactured goods are concerned. As for the rich, they just carry on stashing their millions, much of which is obtained from British consumers and even more from Americans.

If you're old enough, cast your mind back to the 1960's which is when I was enjoying my childhood, and if you weren't anywhere close to even being a twinkle in your old mans eye back then, just take my word for it that the following is true. Fifty years ago the country was about as creative, balanced, safe and stable as it ever has been. This was the period before the trade unions took leave of their senses and set to holding the government and industry to ransom, which was the catalyst for the monetarism that became the governing philosophy of the land from 1979 onwards. Currently Britain's economy is anything but 'balanced' it is a complete and utter basket case, still reliant on casino banking, stripping out of the last assets not already given away, and cheap imports despite the evidence of exactly how unintelligent, unsustainable, and socially destructive that model for governance is. Maybe it's about time to get the blinkers off and to learn the lesson from our own past and China's present?     

Walk the Wight

By way of a change from the usual politicking I indulge, this post is of a more personal nature and is about Sunday the 12th of May's 'relaxation'. An annual event on the Isle of Wight is a 26 mile sponsored walk in aid of the Earl Mountbatten hospice. It starts at Bembridge in the east and ends at The Needles in the west and took just short of ten and a half hours to complete, but that does allow for three twenty minute stops along the way for bacon butties and tea. For the first half the weather was fine and dry although rain was forecast for the afternoon. The met office was right and once past stage five at Mottistone the weather closed in. A few miles of horizontal rain was endured and my boots filled with water from the top! Ten miles later the end came as a welcome site and it was a joy to get those heavy and sodden boots off. Today my feet are mighty sore but it was for a good cause which makes the discomfort worthwhile. Big respect to all of my fellow walkers.

I've just heard government mouthpiece Grant Shapps claim for the umpteenth time, a million jobs have been created since 2010. Lets do some contrasting and comparing...

I left school in 1972 and walked straight into an apprenticeship. Had I not liked that job it would have been the easiest thing in the world to move on, because my generation was in demand by industry. There was very little excuse not to be in full time work because jobs were plentiful, the 'Tax Credit' didn't exist to subsidise lousy wages and the need to require employers to pay the 'Minimum Wage' didn't apply because bosses knew their  people would walk if not paid reasonably. I finished my apprenticeship in '77 just two years before a certain person declared that Britain was now to be looked upon as 'Post Industrial' and run a 'Service Economy' in which Brits need no longer get their hands dirty.

Today we push 50% of school leavers into higher education which conveniently keeps them out of unemployment stats for three years. The government sponsors six month 'apprenticeships' after which a young person will quite likely be shown the door and the next taken on, which has to be as demoralising as can be imagined for those concerned. Graduates take 'Internships' for no pay with highly profitable corporations in an attempt to kick-start a career, this coming after the running up of a demoralising debt, the price of gaining a degree. Others are forced to accept zero hours contracts that actually require them to put in a full week made up of compulsory overtime and whereby sick pay, holiday pay, and maternity leave are denied and a person can be dismissed with ease. On top of these unhappy circumstances comes the tax credit scheme employers are able to manipulate whilst paying lousy wages that must then be subsidised into a 'living wage' using taxpayer funded money. As for the minimum wage, that's a bad joke and those laughing least and being used as slave labour are the under 18's. We've millions of kids abandoned to existing on sink estates and attending sink schools and an underclass devoid of a work ethic has been bred, a 'National Feature' that didn't exist when my working lifetime began.

Mr Shapps... you speak weasel words sir. 

This ladies dad, ex Chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson has stated publicly 'we need out of the European Union'. Obviously I agree but the timing is interesting. Less that a week after UKIP's taking of 25% of the votes at local elections, the Tories have got in a panic, phone calls have been made, and Lawson has been chosen as the man to wrestle the issue back from Nigel Farage & Co. Next up, Euro fanatic Nick Clegg in an even bigger panic, makes the bog standard claim that 3.5 million British jobs depend on our staying in, which is 'A' false, and 'B' amounts to a threat of what will be done to us if we leave, which is no way to run any sort of a relationship worth being in.

How about we come at this so called threat to our jobs from another angle... How many German jobs do we support bearing in mind that country dominates the marketplace for high-end engineered products and a great deal more? It's my guess that 3 million or so German jobs rely upon what they sell us. How many French jobs likewise? Italian? Spanish? Lets grow up, bury this specious argument and accept that the Germans and French etc are not going to cut off their noses to spite their own faces on the matter of jobs; lets get real. If on the other hand some of the jobs in question are those of the tier upon tier of bureaucrats come to blight business and daily life over the 40 year long period during which this failed experiment has been allowed to run; those we would be better off without. 

As regards the picture accompanying this posting, I was going to include a snap of Lord Lawson but he's no oil painting, his daughter though is. Bet she's glad her mum provided the genes for her looks.

Don't tolerate failure, fix it.

If the system you live under is broken don't tolerate it, fix it.

Plainly we have a big problem with a ruling political elite that doesn't listen to the electorate, couldn't care less about our hopes and fears, and will continue to serve its own wants and demands until made to do otherwise. The dismissal of this unworthy breed has to be the most desirable option, but in order to do so at a ballot ideally sooner rather than later, a workable alternative must become available.

Very often I am struck whilst observing conversations and occasionally partaking on social media, that weather a contributor comes from a left-wing or right-wing point of view and perspective, we generally all want the same thing ultimately. Stability, peace of mind and an absence of fear is what nearly all want, so that we can get on with the job of bringing our kids up to fulfil their potential and enjoy a reasonable quality of life. If I'm right (and I'll eat Bernard Manning's pants if I'm wrong) agreeing to cooperate and having the intelligence to meet on the common ground to the benefit of the majority, is the best option we ought to aim for. Some will disagree and insist that until the country is run exactly as they want it to be, prejudices and all, they'll continue to jump up and down and make a lot of noise. I reckon their sorts are a minority that will never go away entirely, but that in a stable and refocused country will become such an insignificant minority, they can be safely ignored. Agreeing to cooperate is the key.

  

Sheep No More and how ordinary people like myself might go about fixing 'Broken Britain' may have dominated my thoughts for a number of years now, but the events of the past couple of months and the last week in particular, make it feel as though a significant beginning is upon both me and the country I care about. Other than a minority of overly insulated from reality twits atop the pecking order, individuals whose attitudes highlight them as being central to 'the problem' and therefore irrelevant to the cure to its many ailments the country needs, most of us know we cannot carry on as we are but must find a way out of the mess we're in. Obviously I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, and searching for sensible answers to our many problems is what SNM exists to do. Of course we can get ourselves out of the mess bad leadership has allowed us all to sink into. 'More of the same' is not acceptable when we're capable of so much better.

Two months ago I was asked to consider standing for a seat at the County Council election held last week and agonised as to what to do for the best. I really would have liked to have given it a shot, but in the end decided no, because of the time and effort needing to be invested. Had I stood and enough of the electorate placed their trust in me, promoting SNM would have been forced to take third place to earning a living and serving on the council and to be frank, promoting this project is where my heart is and where the contribution to society I can make has the most potential, provided that is, the formula is correct and can be made to work. Only time will tell on that score.

On the Isle of Wight where I live, Independent Candidates have made a massive breakthrough taking almost half of the seats and have broken the stranglehold, bog standard, self-serving, jobsworth, mainstream politicians held, abused, and have messed the Island up with. I take my hat off to the sorts of women and men coming forward and getting involved in politics now, people who refuse to put up with and more crap, think for themselves, and wont be whipped. Good on you guys! Nationally UKIP have frightened the wits out the political establishment by taking 25% of all the votes cast. I'm not a UKIP supporter but I understand entirely where they are coming from as regards the EU and open borders, two major problems requiring the will of the people to be listened to and acted upon.

I have just completed a new booklet to compliment this project and that is currently being proofread, the community I am a member of has a spring in its step following the election result, Cameron is shitting a brick as a result of UKIP's surge and I am now ready to start pushing hard this project. Interesting times!

Mrs Thatcher's funeral

Yesterday the nation said goodbye to Mrs Thatcher and her fan club spent the day glorying in her life's work and 'achievements' as they occupied the news airwaves pretty much wall-to-wall. It had been my intention to ignore the TV and listen to the Radio 4 coverage whilst keeping my nose to the grindstone and working normally but in the event, I did give in and put on the TV up to the point at which the hearse drove away from St Paul's. I'm glad the service went off ok and without incident. Today the sun is out, and after many a good and telling conversation both in person and across social media since her passing was announced, I've a very positive feeling about what lays ahead as it seems many amongst us are not willing to settle for 'more of the same' but are prepared to put in the effort to identify a sensible way forward. The architect of Britain's disastrous monetarism has left the stage, her followers have lost their icon, the philosophy they've followed like sheep is bankrupt, and it's time to bury it alongside its champion and move constructively on.  

Passing of Margaret Thatcher

On Monday 8th April around midday, news of Mrs Thacher's passing was made public and resulted in saturation media coverage. Tributes from the 'great' and the 'good' poured over the airwaves and proved, as if we needed it; our political masters live in a different universe to the rest of us. The 'greatest' peacetime Prime Minister ever, and 'saviour' of Britain was claimed by politicians past and present and made me for one wonder, if those uttering the words are incapable of viewing reality? I don't doubt that she was a patriot and believed she was doing the right thing for the country; but it is the legacy that speaks volumes about the monetarism she unleashed and put her name to, and which has shaped the country we live in now. Her philosophy made the rich richer whilst the rest of us would be expected to lump it whilst the heart and soul of our nation was ripped out and trampled all over. It's my perception that 'Broken Britain' has been the result of a third of a century of continuous monetarism, which sorry to say, is the actual legacy the lady leaves behind. As for all the gushing tributes from the likes of Cameron and the previous generation of grandees; to my mind the strangely fascinating display serves perfectly to illustrate how insulated from the reality of their own creation such socially destructive people are, and therefore how vast is the gulf between the people and their political masters. RIP Mrs T, I've no doubt you actually did believe you were right.

A long and slow burner

The story so far...
The title Sheep No More came to mind more than a decade ago and before a word of the story itself had actually been written. The first attempt was crude and amateurish and was followed by 5 or 6 rewrites, none of which were good enough although each was thankfully better than its predecessor. In 2010, I stood as an independent candidate at the General Election of that year and was beaten by the Tory by some 30,000 votes! What those people thought they were voting for I really don't know, but what they got was more of the same. The very next day after the vote, I set to work on Sheep No More and spent the next 18 months getting it right at last. It was self published on Amazon and Feed-A-Read in 2012, which marks the first significant milestone of this project passed.
Several attempts were made at a website but the material was never right; until now. A new version of the website is now live, I'm very pleased with it, and its activation marks the second important milestone passed safely by. My next task is to promote the project and get the message that we ought to be capable of putting Britain back to rights out there. There's lots to do, and now that I feel the book and website are both sorted, there's no reason to hang back.

The picture by the way depicts what Britons need to do. Stop tolerating bad leadership, failure, abuses and affronts, get our heads up and fight our corner for the sake of future generations. A positive and cooperative attitude is required and can only do the country and us all a power of good.

No longer messing about, the time has come to get serious about promoting Sheep No More. It was uploaded to Amazon as an eBook in 2012 and can be obtained from Feed-A-Read in conventional paper and ink format, I have though not been in a position to promote it due to the pressures of everyday life, attempting to make a living etc. Time meanwhile, has been marching on.

Now a plan has been formulated that I will work my way through as necessary. Yesterday (Tuesday 19th) I visited web designer Netguides of Cowes and took with me a whole host of material to revamp the website. The emphasis will change from my banging on about 'the problem' to instead concentrate on practical solutions, which is what the final chapter of my book seeks to do. A constructive criticism of the present website made by a number of well-wishers, is that it is too wordy with nothing to break up the monotony of endless text. So now there will be pictures and artwork included to make it more attractive and all the wording will change, so I'm grateful for the practical advice readers put forward. As soon as the new site goes live, I shall start placing small adds in newspapers and in-house magazines for various trades and industries. In addition, a few hard copies of the book will be sent to people of influence with the aim of gaining their interest. There is a business plan to go with the book and project, the ultimate aim of which is to generate some decent quality, creative jobs for our young people, and it won't take that much momentum to earn the credibility needed in order to go looking for funding.

The picture is of yours truly presenting famous journalist and war correspondent Martin Bell with a copy of Sheep No More. He was on the Isle of Wight at the invitation of Independent Councillors to give a talk and see the beauties of the place and I was fortunate enough to be introduced.