Free Speech Goes AWOL

Old Holborn highlights a rather worrying development this afternoon regarding the on-going, and now getting very tedious, racism row between footballers' Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra:

Manchester United's game with Liverpool was preceded by the police confiscating several thousand copies of the Red Issue fanzine because of a spoof cut-out-and-keep poster showing a Ku Klux Klan hood on its back cover [seen above].

Leaving aside the fact that normal laws don't often apply to football fans, the Police's justification for such actions are deeply sinister indeed (my emphasis throughout):

The police's match commander, Ch Supt Mark Roberts, said:

"Officers are now seizing the fanzines and in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service we will take appropriate action against anyone either found selling this particular fanzine or provocatively displaying the image in public.

Let's be clear that no complaints by the general public were received regarding this image, instead the Police have taken this action upon themselves:

"Officers have also been made aware of a T-shirt on sale outside the ground that is also deemed to be offensive. We are also seizing these items and anyone found wearing one will be required to remove it and hand it to police.

Deemed to be offensive by whom? Oh just the Police, so...

"At this stage we have arrested one man in relation to the T-shirts on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence and we will be continuing to work with the clubs to minimise the impact of the image, which we consider to be offensive.

"I have taken this cause of action as both items are potentially offensive and we cannot be in a situation where hundreds or thousands of people were displaying offensive images at a football match. The consequences of taking no action could have resulted in public order incidents inside or outside the ground."

To minimise the impact of the image? So a situation now arises where the Police can now confiscate arbitrarily, reading material because they deem it offensive even if no-one else did. And unbelievably and with deep irony the image confiscated is actually accusing Suarez, and by extension Liverpool, of racism - criticising and ridiculing his recent racist comments.

So, in a bizarre, ridiculous and very surreal twist, what is in effect anti racist material is impounded by the Police on the grounds of being potentially a racially aggravated public order offence.

One wonders what Ch Supt Mark Roberts would do if these chaps had been British.

The Decline of Veto Boy

I know polls are only a snap shot and it's the trend that matters, but I can't resist:



The Sun goes on to say:

And Mr Cameron's apparent U-turn last week over that could explain his party's dip in the polls. He returned from a Brussels summit having failed to stop the other 26 EU members signing a new treaty. That led to claims from his own backbenchers that he had not protected Britain's interests.

Oh what a web we weave...

This Is What A Death Spiral Looks Like

As the Greek Euro tragedy continues - futile attempts to prevent the inevitable default - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from the Telegraph writes of the enormous cost to Greece as a consequence of current policies:

This is what a death spiral looks like.

It is what can happen if you join a fixed exchange system, then take out very large debts in what amounts to a foreign currency, and then have simultaneous monetary and fiscal contraction imposed upon you.

Germany discovered this on the Gold Standard when it racked up external debt from 1925 to 1929 (owed to American bankers) in much the same way as Greece has done.

When the music stopped – ie, when the Fed raised rates from 1928 onwards – Germany blew apart in much the same way as Greece is blowing apart. This is not a cultural or anthropological issue. It is the mechanical consequence of capital flows into a country that cannot handle it, as Germany could not handle it in the late 1920s.

By the way, Greeks work an average 42 hours a week, one of the highest in Europe. Just want to put the record straight on that.

'Reassuringly' the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi tries to play down the crisis by insisting there's no 'Plan B':

“ Having a Plan B means you’re defeated already.”

But of course Draghi is wrong, there's always a Plan B. In the absence of proper contingency plans, the default Plan B is always that it goes 'tits up'.

HMRC

I can only agree with Trooper Thompson's comments here regarding Harry Redknapp's trial yesterday:

Now, check out this quote from the same article:

Chris Martin, from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), said outside Southwark Crown Court that the taxman had 'no regrets' about pursuing the case.

He said: 'We accept the verdicts of the jury but I would like to remind those who are evading tax by using offshore tax havens that it always makes sense to come to talk to us before we come to talk to you.'

How creepy is that?

As someone who runs a small business and had run-ins myself with HMRC - indeed they've resumed proceedings against me again last weekend after 8 months of 'silence', for money I have proved I don't owe - the above quote neatly illustrates the impunity and arrogance with which they act. Despite a jury's verdict they make it clear they don't agree with it and that's it's wrong.

Unfortunately the malaise of unaccountability runs deep within our country.

Wembley

Some readers may have noted that my football team have booked themselves a place in the final of the 'watch-the-paint-dry' trophy. This strangely has left me with mixed feelings. Yes it's great to be in a final and have the opportunity to win some silverware, but it also means paying another visit to the new Wembley.

For me the new Wembley epitomises all that's wrong with modern football; the greed, the money, the corporatism, the buffoon-like administration by football authorities and also the woeful lack of imagination in new stadium design - in short I can't stand the place.

A visit to the old Wembley, particularly with your team, was one of the pinnacles of a supporters' life, it was one of the most magical grounds in the country -just walking down Wembley Way towards the twin towers raised goosebumps - the atmosphere inside often left me 'deaf' afterwards. However that's not to deny that the old ground had serious failings. There were many many faults; the lack of facilities, that the seats were too far away from the pitch, the view in many cases was atrocious especially towards the back where the roof obscured 2/3rds of the pitch, and the legroom...? What legroom - RyanAir's capacious by comparison.

So clearly the old Wembley was in need of a major revamp - a massive improvement in facilities yet retaining the old magic was required.  This was also the case with many stadia which the Bradford fire and Hillsborough showed up, with tragic consequences, the inadequacies of centuries old buildings which hadn't largely been touched since they were built. So the opportunity arose where we could build innovative, safe and exciting stadia. Some got it right like Sunderland, Huddersfield and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, but many went along with the "off the shelf, boring, MFI all-you-will-need-is-a-screwdriver" option. Wembley though is in a different league of its own. So what's wrong with it?

Well its dubious good points are that it's impressively large from the outside, but significantly smaller inside - like a Tardis in reverse, and it's efficient (and no, escalators do not belong in football grounds) and it has comfortable seats - yeah well so does my living room.

In summary it's a reasonably effective modern building. But then so is my local Tesco's, but I don't get excited when I have to visit it - I'm more concerned about the impact on my credit card. And that's the problem. Wembley is less a football stadium and more a soulless leviathanic credit card machine that has been dumped in North London. The fact that it should host football matches is clearly an afterthought. TV commentators often complain about the empty seats in the middle corporate box section - it looks an embarrassment but yet it is a fitting tribute to the current state of the game and to the priorities of Wembley.  The ultimate symbol of a game that has turned into an 'us and them'.

And then there's the arch. What's that about? Apparently it replaces the twin towers as the iconic feature of the stadium:

 The 2,000 tonne, 315 metre-long steel arch replaces the Twin Towers as the iconic feature of the...stadium.

Well sorry it doesn't, it just looks like a left over from an Alton Towers roller coaster ride. One wonders whether the FA went to Bolliger & Mabillard for its 'signature piece'.

Still, it only cost £798 million and was only a year late...

An Anniversary

A day after Accession day for the Queen - 60 years on - Your Freedom and Ours reminds us of a less happy anniversary - it's 20 years today since signing the Maastricht Treaty:

A somewhat less happy anniversary today: twenty years ago the Treaty on European Union, otherwise known as the Maastricht Treaty was signed. That, of course, was not the end of the story even of the treaty and its implementation but the date does need to be remembered. Members of the Conservative Party (if there be any left) might like to remind themselves as to which party was in government at the time.

Not only did Maastricht signal a great leap forward in European integration - making us all, including the Queen, EU citizens - and fostering the beginnings of UKIP but it lay the foundations of the destruction of the Tory party. They have never won an election since Maastricht was passed by Parliament.

'Weirisome'

The Environment Agency currently has a project to replace all five of the remaining old paddle and rymer weirs on the River Thames, three of which are Grade II listed structures. The EA justifies this by saying:

As owners and operators of the weirs on the River Thames, we are responsible for keeping them in good working order and safe for our staff to operate and maintain. We regularly carry out engineering surveys to identify areas on each weir that may need repair or replacement. 

We are replacing the paddle and rymer weirs because they can cause inherent long-term health problems. They can also have operational issues, be time consuming and potentially dangerous to operate. 

The new weirs will be operated more rapidly, safely and effectively. They will preserve the existing biodiversity and appearance of the river.

The proposed work has been controversial and very unpopular - much criticism levelled at the expense of replacing weirs that have worked for over a hundred years:

Villagers in Appleton and Eaton claim motorising the weir would be a waste of money and would removed a much-loved element of local history. “It will be a tragedy when they are replaced.

“Apart from the initial installation cost of an automated weir the annual running costs to provide power to the electrical systems and maintenance costs will be a small fortune.
“But now the Environment Agency seems bent on spending unnecessary millions to achieve the same result.

“It doesn’t make any commercial sense whatsoever.”

And, with work soon to start on replacing the Northmoor Weir, we witnessed on this evening's local news - BBC South today - Tory MP Nicola Blackwood echoing similar views; arguing that she couldn't justify the expense to her constituents at a time of austerity, and complaining that no proper cost/ benefit analysis had been done.

Now, as anyone who follows the EU closely knows, anything to do with the environment, rivers etc will ring EU alarm bells - of the gigantic brass variety - particularly when "preserving the existing biodiversity and appearance of the river". And so it proves. Not only does river management come under EU Directive 2007/60/EC which:

...now requires Member States to assess if all water courses and coast lines are at risk from flooding, to map the flood extent and assets and humans at risk in these areas and to take adequate and coordinated measures to reduce this flood risk

But more specifically, as this Paddle & Rymer Weirs Replacement Programme Scoping Consultation Document makes clear the weirs fall foul of this EU required regulation (my emphasis):

The need for the project

The operation of paddle and rymer weirs is labour intensive. The Environment Agency has recognised that there are long-term health and operational issues associated with the operation of these paddle and rymer weirs, despite measures having been taken over the years to reduce the risks. A manual handling assessment (Williams 2009) concluded that there is a high risk of injury when operating these nine weirs because the guideline operational weights to be lifted/lowered as detailed in the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 are significantly surpassed. The issues were highlighted during the 2007 floods, and could mean that the weirs cannot be operated effectively during periods of flooding.

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 which is based on European Directive 90/269/EEC.

Unsurprisingly all of this goes unmentioned by the various local media outlets and not least also by Ms Blackwood. As a Tory A-lister - her eye is on promotion within the Cameron set - it simply wouldn't do to point out inconvenient EU truths.

Decline And Fall

If ever there was an event which shows up the infantile nature of our MSM it's when we have a bit of snow. News reports regarding snow could easily be summarised as; "there's been snow, there will be some travel disruption and here's where they are".

But no, particularly since the age of 24 hour news and digital technology, reporting the snow has turned into 'dire end of the world warnings' mixed with a cuddly multi-media slideshow of things covered in snow. This from the Telegraph:

 Or from the Mail

Just in case we don't know what stuff covered in snow looks like. We could of course just look out of the window if we really wanted to know. But despite this, the fact that it's just winter dominates the news, as epitomised by the BBC - it's headline news, consisting of reports showing people building snowmen and with copious reporters stand out in fields looking cold and telling us how cold it is. One dreads to think how the MSM would react if ever got cold enough to hold Frost Fairs.

Yet even the lack of snow doesn't stop them. A BBC reporter was standing on a bridge above the A1(M) at Gateshead on BBC Breakfast this morning, giving lurid accounts of heavy snow and traffic problems, while behind him not a flake could be seen and the A1(M) was flowing normally. And not just the BBC either, this from the Mail:

According to the caption below the picture:

Big Ben clock in London is seen in the river Thames surrounded by snow yesterday morning

Yeah I suppose there's some snow in there if you look hard enough.  However what makes this worse is the rise of so-called 'citizen journalism, where viewers and readers are encouraged to send pictures in - 1000s of pictures of stuff covered in...er...snow. This is the digital equivalent of having to sit through your Gran's holiday snaps. Nothing could illustrate this better than this example from the BBC:

The caption underneath reads (and I'm not making this up):

Snow has fallen on many parts of the UK. Caroline Hall, from Pocklington, near York, sent this photo of her VW Beetle "Spaghetti". "He is very cold," she says. "Going to have to go and check he is OK soon, poor thing. There is even snow on his little exhaust pipes!"   

That is not news. This is news:

This is not news, it's a fucking snowman:

If the snowman were to go around kidnapping young children and flying them off to Greenland, that would be news but it hasn't so it's not.

Copy 'n' Paste Journalism

If the Daily Mail are going to copy and paste information from a website you'd think that at least they would ensure the spelling is changed from American to English as not to give the game away:

Huhne The Loon Charged

After a rather lengthy process, the Euroslime, rabid-greenie, Lib Dem millionaire Chris Huhne has been charged with perverting the course of justice. If found guilty Huhne will certainly face a custodial sentence - previous politicians found guilty of this offence such as Jonathan Atkin and Lord Archer were sentenced for 18 months and 4 years respectively.

Arrogant, ruthlessly ambitious and nasty with an obsessive tendency to smear opponents as Nazis I doubt many tears will be shed at the demise of Huhne's political career. Indeed there will probably be the quiet popping of many champagne corks. Personally I think he should be locked up anyway for his dangerous, reckless and deluded energy policies. But at least this is a start.

It couldn't happen to a nicer chap.

Update: James Delingpole also doubts many tears will be shed.