patriot and father first/ partison last

I promise I won’t restore the colonial status, as the once Great Britain has proven itself capable only of making pig’s ears from silk purses (complete with Value Added Tax of course)

(PS. There is no ‘O’ in Genius, but when I am President, slip me a few bucks and I shall make it so)

You’d probably carry the vote.

This heads off the rather distinct possibility of peeing my britches in my mighty exertions to control the laughter…

Neocons have instigated a brilliant political coup in the selling of the idea that true conservatism equates always to the pro-war position and the enforced exportation of contemporary style American democracy. But such is not the case and never has been.

There simply is no historical precedent for such a notion of conservatism. At bottom Dubya may be a decent human being (and a good deal smarter than his media enemies like to portray him), but he’s been hoodwinked by neocon intellectuals into implementing foreign policy that exemplifies severe overreach and which will, for some time to come, have disastrous effects.

All this unrealistic Wilsonian idealism needs to be jettisoned with considerable alacrity before our military interventionism and attempts at nation building drag us to the point of no return. It just can’t be sustained indefinitely and is counterproductive in the long haul. To think otherwise will prove to be ultimately self-defeating.

A western-anglo-socialist/femonazi gumnut, my friend. Big bossy sista, the schoolyard bully, always telling the other seven year old minions what to do. Creative in their punishments.

The Republicans are no better than the Democrats. America’s great ally, Great Britain, has a ‘Democrat’ gumnut and they have ruined Britain. Ruined it. King George Bush the Second’s great mate is Tony Blair, now outgoing and handing his crown over to the Brown Balls gumnut, passing onto the heir, just like Kings of old. You will get Queen Hillary, wife of ex-King Billybob the Oral.

From time to time I remind MND readers to visit Barry Beelzebub for an up to date commentary of life under the socialists. What he describes is what is America’s fate. Here’s a part. The small stuff. ————

Beware the 1980 Bees Act

AND SO we say farewell to dear Tone, the man who promised so much and delivered so little. Except in one area – that of new laws. Oh, and wars.

I haven’t updated my list lately, but I can inform you that when I checked back in August of last year, Mr Blah’s NuLabour administration had already introduced 3,000 new laws since he came to power – that’s around one a day. I have no reason to believe that the tidal wave of legislation has diminished since then.

I must admit that I had this weird idea that modern Socialism was all about personal freedom. I was obviously wrong. We are now more tightly controlled, aided and abetted by an indecent level of State surveillance, than at any other time in our history. Not even Oliver Cromwell made growing an unruly hedge a criminal offence. Mr Blah did.

We all know about the big ticket legislation – the hunting ban, for instance. But there are myriad other areas where you may find yourself innocently breaking the law. These include the importation of potatoes from Poland, the sale of ruddy ducks or grey squirrels, failing to label honey correctly or entering the wreck of the Titanic without the permission of the Secretary of State.

You can also be sentenced to six months’ chokey for organising an unlicensed concert in a church hall and under the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998, it is illegal to cause an … err … nuclear explosion.

And then there’s the spot fines – for putting the wrong kind of cereal box in your recycling bin, for eating an apple while driving or for being drunk on blue alcopops in the High Street on a Friday evening. (While this last one might be law, with the ludicrous “marched to the cashpoint” fines as a deterrent, it certainly has never been implemented.)

You might think that you’d be safe if you stayed home and hid behind the sofa. Unfortunately not. There are now 266 justifications government officials can use to forcibly enter your house. Some are sensible, for instance if you’re planning to cause a nuclear explosion. Others are plain daft. Under the 1980 Bees Act, the police can check your abode for the presence of foreign bees. So how they know which bees are humming Rule Britannia and which are the cheese-eating surrender bees?

What we have seen is a dehumanisation of public services. By the time we’ve taken on board all these new laws, and then factored in the jackboot of the Health and Safety Nazis, and multiplied that by the number of Turkey Army staff recruited into non-jobs, and larded the lot with the Data Protection Act and European Human Rights legislation, we’ve created a culture where to serve is to fail. More effort goes into not doing something than does to providing the basic services we should all be able to expect for our assorted taxes.

For a prime example, let’s pay a visit to the leafy, middle-class oasis of Cheltenham. There the council has decided on a new response to the perennial problem of dog shit. Once a member of the public calls the Turd Hotline (no, really) to report an illicit deposit, the Canine Crap Rapid Deployment Squad will race to the scene and spray-paint a red circle around the offending item. This is intended to draw attention to the “crime” and to shame the culprit. Or, more likely, its owner.

Seven days later the Poo Protection Team returns to the scene of the crime and, if the Mr Whippy is still there, another circle, this time of yellow paint, is added. A week later, the boys are back again, this time adding a white circle. By now, if the “installation” hasn’t been nominated for a Turner Prize, one can only imagine that it is dwindling somewhat in volume and potential smearability.

Finally, a month later and after having created a whole new series of neo-classical hopscotch grids across the Regency avenues of Cheltenham, the Excrement Enforcement Unit will move in and remove the poop (i.e. kick it into the gutter). Job done.

Now you may well ask why on earth they didn’t do this on their first visit. Wouldn’t it have been far more cost-effective and, well, sensible? Isn’t their primary task to keep the streets clean for residents and tourists alike? Don’t be silly. The new motto of our council commandos is Punish the Public. They’re not interested in doing the things you want them to do; they’re far more concerned about stopping you doing the things they don’t want you to do.

This is the perverse culture NuLabour has created (along with hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs). It’s no longer about public service; it’s about public servitude. And what can we do about it? Nothing – just carry on paying the bills.

The cretinous jobsworths strike again

SO IF YOU walked into your local branch of Gregg’s for a mid-morning cheese pasty livener and saw, nestling amongst the iced fondants and chocolate éclairs, a confectionary item labelled “Pig Tart”, what would you think?

Would you think “Hmm … there must be pork contained within that delicious concoction of eggs, sugar, butter and pastry”, or would you think: “Oh look – they’ve called it a Pig Tart because there’s a little piggy’s face etched into the icing”.

Similarly, were you to come across something called a Robin Tart, would you really expect to find real robins on the list of ingredients? Of course not. You’re not a moron. Despite the nursery rhyme about four-and-twenty blackbirds, your life experience has equipped you with the gift of logic and the ability to reason. That’s why you don’t expect to find pieces of a swarthy Welsh sheep-botherer in your microwave shepherd’s pie.

Yet some cretinous jobsworths in the Trading Standards department of Dorset County Council have told baker Val Temple that she can no longer use the names Pig Tart and Robin Tart as descriptions of her pastries. There must also now be a long list of strictly accurate ingredients listed as well. Goodness only knows what they’re going to do about Fairy Cakes.

Now I actually listened to the bloke in charge of the Trading Standards department concerned on the wireless the other morning. While admitting that no-one would seriously expect to find beaks and feathers in their Robin Tart, he was resolutely immovable: “It’s the law … new legislation … people are paying more attention to their food … blah, blah … like it or lump it.”

Well it might be against the law (very little isn’t these days), but it’s also a complete and utter waste of public money and council time. But that doesn’t matter to the Turkey Army, Gordon Brown’s massed forces of Vote Labour Or Lose Your Job public servants. They have to at least try to justify their pointless and expensive existence, so off they go, finding out what makes people happy and then banning it forthwith.

The new Roundheads are amongst us, folks. Give it a year and we’ll all be wearing sacks knitted out of yoghurt and beating ourselves with twigs every time an enjoyable thought pops into our heads.

ANOTHER NONSENSE from last week was this demand for stricter legislation to stop parents giving children under 15 any alcohol – not even that thimbleful of wine with Sunday lunch. Why? How many drunken toddlers are running riot through Suburbia, disturbing gentle snoozing to Songs of Praise? Absolutely none. It’s the teenage hoodies swigging cheap cider outside the off licence who are the problem.

It should be a question of balance and common sense. I don’t presume that any of you would think it right to have a two-year-old sitting in his high chair with his mitts wrapped round a pint of wife-beater and singing “Roll Out The Barrel”, but what’s wrong with letting your well-behaved 14-year-old daughter (there must be one somewhere) have half a glass of Chablis with her vegetarian chops and tofu?

Doesn’t demystifying the alcohol experience lead to a more sensible approach in later life? Do these interfering idiots really want to see young girls puking up blue alcopops down the High Street every Friday night? I suppose it would help them justify the appointment of another three Vomit Containment Outreach Workers at the taxpayers’ expense.

IF WE’RE talking about confused consumers, then you’ll have to count me in. Walking around Waitrose the other morning, my eye was caught by something called Cat Milk. Yes, Cat Milk.

My first thought was “How on earth do you milk a cat? I do hope the poor sod who has to do it gets danger money.” I was then further baffled by the thought of who might want to drink it. It was fully three minutes before I worked out that it was milk especially FOR cats, not FROM cats. What an idiot.

Then I wanted to buy a razor. My current model has, I think, three blades. The new one I was eventually persuaded to buy has six. Yep, five on the front and another one round the back. A six-bladed razor, with a battery that makes it vibrate as well, just in case you’re too sober to shake for yourself in the morning.

I remember my dad’s shaving kit that he brought back from National Service and used until his death at a ridiculously early age. One plastic shaving mug, check; one badger bristle shaving brush, check; one safety razor, check: and when the blade went blunt – Eureka! – you just put in another one.

Now we’re surrounded by over-engineered nonsense that none of us can work and which is obsolete in a month anyway. Check out your kitchen cabinets. I bet you’ve got a once-used breadmaker, a redundant smoothie-maker and one of those Goerge Formby grills. I know I have.

Mind, it’s not just me. In front of me in the queue at the garden centre on Sunday was a young woman with her mother. They were trying to return one of those fancy sundials because, the woman stated, “The arm’s stuck. Look, it won’t turn round.”

Perhaps she’d been on the blue alcopops.

Isn’t that an herb?

You need to stop smoking it man.