Scoudrels

This is the picture being used by the BBC for all their David Abrahams connected stories.



In case you've been on Mars for the last week, Abrahams (right) is the guy that has been donating to Labour funds illegally under false names. The guy standing next to him is Peter Watts, who was forced to resign this week because it emerged that he (Watts) knew Abrahams was making donations in false names, though he didn't realise it was illegal, yeah right.

Now here's the thing; over and above the fact that Watts looks drunk and Abrahmas looks like he belongs in Southpark (where the hell is his neck?), both are clearly wearing elastic bow ties. I say "elastic", but they could in fact be the clip-on variety, the important point being that neither man appears to be able to tie his own. How much time and heartache could have been saved simply by publishing this picture a few months ago? I could have recognised them for the scoundrels they so obviously are just by their clear lack of bow tie ability. I mean honestly, look at Watts. What's that jaunty 45° angle all about?

The British woman in Sudan convicted of the heinous crime of naming a teddy bear Muhammad has been jailed for 15 days. The British government is attempting to get her released (though they seem more preoccupied with domestic damage control right now) but protests are now taking place calling for the death penalty. Grow up people. It's a stuffed bear.

There are other things I sort of want to mention, but it's late, I'm tired. I think it can wait for another day.

Caught Red-Handed

The government has been caught red-handed accepting illegal donations totalling more than £650,000 from someone using a number of false names. The donor, David Abrahams, is a property developer with a controversial history. Most damaging to the government is the revelation that one of his development projects was refused government permission, and then miraculously granted permission some time later after one of these anonymous donations was made.

Additionally however it would appear that Abrahams once stood as a Labour MP, but was deselected when it was discovered that he hired a woman and her son to pose as his family to make him more electable (allegedly). It also seems he routinely uses a false name "David Martin" in some circles, and there is even a dispute about when he was born. He claims to be 54 years old, but some documentation puts him at 64 years old. It has also been alleged that he has some links to controversial Palestinian groups, and he appears to have been thrown out of the "Labour Friends of Israel" group.

Abrahams' exit from this Labour Friends of Israel group appears to have involved one Jon Mendelsohn, also a member of the group and currently working as the PM's chief fundraiser. Mendelsohn and Abrahams apparently don't like each other, and Abrahms has dropped Mendelsohn right in it this week by announcing that he (Medelsohn) was aware of the donations being made in false names.

The PM has been called incompetent. But I don't think that this is down to the PM, at least not just the PM, this is down to the Labour party. And it has nothing to do with incompetence come to that; this is about corruption. The Labour party has been accepting donations from someone deliberately hiding his identity. This breaks a rule the Labour party put in place only a few years ago. For this to happen, a large number of people within the Labour party must be corrupt.

Currently four people within the Labour party have admitted knowing that the illegal donations were being made. Peter Watt (who has resigned over the matter and was the Labour General Secretary), Baroness Jay (who ran Hilary Benn's deputy leadership campaign and advised him to turn down a dodgy donation), Hilary Benn himself obviously, and Jon Mendelsohn (Brown's chief fundraiser). Mendelsohn is claiming he knew because Watt told him. I don't think we know how Baroness Jay knew or why she told Hilary Benn, or why neither of them told anyone else.

You know what annoys me most about this whole scandal, it's the fact that no one seems to be concerned about the fact that 25 million data records went walkabout last week and still haven't been recovered. All the column inches are filled with party funding scandals. I'm not saying that the funding scandals are not important, I just wish it had all come slightly staggered with the other crises so that the public could get a real feel for the depth of crap into which we, the general public, appear to have been dropped by this administration.

Summaries

Things I find astonishing today:

That Peter Watt, Labour's general secretary, did not realise donations made to the party in someone else's name would be illegal. I could have told him that. You'd think the party that made the law would know, wouldn't you?

That David Abrahams claims he did not realise that donating to the Labour party in someone else's name would be illegal. I could have told him too.

That Peter Watt claims to be the only party official who knew the party was receiving donations under false names. This is just plain wrong. Baroness Jay certainly knew because she warned Hilary Benn about it.

That Hariet Harman claims she took the money from Janet Kidd "in good faith" without knowing that the true donor was David Abrahams. Come off it Hariet, Hilary Benn worked it out, and your husband is the party treasurer.

That Gordon Brown is claiming no knowledge of the scandal. His chief fundraiser Jon Mendelsohn sure as hell seemed to know, and was sending letters to Abrahams. And Gordon seems to have turned down a donation from at least one of Abrahams' aliases. Why would that be? And of course Baroness Jay knew, but apparently didn't tell him, very odd.

And While we're on the subject of Baroness Jay, how the hell did she know about the illegal donations when everyone else is claiming ignorance? And why didn't she tell anyone (or did she)?

Something I simply don't understand this morning:

The Catholic League in the US has urged people to ban their children from, watching new film, The Golden Compass, because of it's atheist message. Isn't religion about pursuing truth? I'd have thought alternative views to one's own were an important part of that pursuit. Wouldn't it broaden one's knowledge? Are you scared of what you might find out. Threatened that your world order might be upset perhaps?

Something I achieved this morning:

On the train I memorised the order of an entire pack of cards, looking through it just once, in about 10 minutes.

All I Want is to Keep My Family Together

Last week was stressful for many reasons. One reason was a presentation I had to do. I'm funny with presentations. I get worked-up and nervous for days leading up to it, and then I'm fine on the day. I never have a problem with impromptu speeches or demos, just prepared presentations. Anyway, that went all right eventually.

Then there was the dragon's immigration issues. She has to pass an exam to prove that she has a knowledge of being British. She was very stressed about it. We've spent the last 3 or 4 weeks going through the study book. She passed of course, but it was a little nerve wracking. Now we have to apply for a permanent visa, as her temporary one expires next month. We have to undergo all sorts of invasive procedures. They want all my payslips, bank account details, and letters addressed to us both at the same address. That was difficult. Then there is the little matter of he £750 fee. It could take 4 - 14 weeks to process. I'm hoping we can get it sorted before the end of next month so she can go back for Chinese New Year, but it could go wrong.

I don't understand it. All I want is to keep my family together. We have to live somewhere and we chose here, because it is my country. I don't understand why my wife has to be subjected to this indignity. I don't understand why I should have my privacy invaded. People from Europe can just walk in. It doesn't matter if they have criminal convictions, or any connection with the country or not. They can even claim benefits. We've never claimed anything.

The Australians have the right idea. To get into Australia you need a number of points. Points are awarded for educational qualifications, marriage to an existing passport holder, relative living in the country, money in the bank etc. We should do that in this country. If you don't have enough points, then you have to make them up with tests.

And on a completely different note...

The Oxford Union has invited both David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak at a free speech event. The move is controversial because both are convicted criminals and commonly considered to be racist. Irving, a historian, was jailed for denying the holocaust took place, though he has since back-peddled slightly, and Griffin, leader of the BNP party, was convicted in 1998 for inciting racial hatred after writing for an anti-Semitic publication called "The Rune". The libertarian part of me (big part) wants to concede that they are foul and offensive people but should still be allowed to speak. It's a free country after all. There is a part of me however, that is deeply offended by this because in reality, the Oxford Union is not doing this in defence of free speech, it's doing it to be deliberately provocative.

The real downside to this is that there will be protests, huge publicity, and these clowns will get exactly what they want from the event, exposure. For me, the best that could happen would be that no one would turn up.That won't happen of course. Both these men will get to have their say, and there will be fallout. Irving is just a nutter. He's not trying to cause mayhem, though he must realise he is. Griffin is a bastard that simply grabs every opportunity to spread disharmony and then blame racial minorities for the ensuing riot. The world would be better off without these people, particularly Griffin. I'm still thinking about this.

Ooops

HM Revenue and Customs have lost computer discs holding personal information for 25 million people receiving child benefit. That would be essentially everyone in the country with children under 16. That would be me. Of course, there are many questions arising from this incredible piece of incompetence, like how did it happen for instance, and exactly what has gone missing. But for me, the real question would be, how can we trust them with the 60 million records that will be generated by the id card scheme?

I'm going to write to my local MP expressing my horror and disgust at the situation.

Generations

Look at this picture of Dumpy. Aside from the fact that he is of course outrageously cute, this picture is significant for other reasons.



The picture was taken in my parents' house this past weekend. That clock that you see there in the background, that belonged to my grandparents. I remember it on the wall of their house when I was a child. The chair there is even older, that belonged to my great grandfather, dumpy's great great grandfather. I remember that also in my grandparents' house. And that vase you see on the top of the chest there belonged to my mother's great Aunt Beartrice apparently. I never met her, but my mother claims she didn't like her much. I'm not sure how that came to be in the possession of my parents. That would of course be Dumpy's great great great aunt. So I really like that picture. That's six generations of family history in that one shot.

There is at least one thing that my mother owns that goes back even further. It's a silver salver presented to my mother's great great grandfather (I think). It's at least 170 years old and I used to polish it with my grandmother when I was a child. Maybe I'll try and get a picture of that next time I'm there.

The EU is Corrupt

The EU budget has not been approved by the European Court of Auditors this year. In case you don't know what that means, it means that the EU can't balance the books. An excellent article by Daniel Hannan in today's Telegraph explains it very well. Hannan seems to suggest that some 60% of the budget fails to meet approval. Some is being used fraudulently, some is being used improperly, huge amounts just disappear. According to Hannan, the amount being lost in "outright graft" (I'm assuming he means bribes here) is rather larger than the annual British net contribution to the EU. I don't know what our "net" contribution is, but apparently our gross contribution is more than £12 billion a year.

£12 billion ladies and gentlemen! Let me put that in perspective. That's £200 a year for every living person in Britain, for the privilege of being European. Let's assume that half of the population are tax payers. That's £400 each. And that is one third of my bleeding council tax bill. That's getting the car serviced twice. That's a whole wardrobe of clothes for my son. That's 8 weeks' groceries, 100 packs of 36 nappies, 8 weeks' commuting expenses, half an air ticket to Taiwan, or two new radiators and a skip to remove the crap from our garden. And this is the money they just lost last year.

And you know what the really hysterical thing is? It's not the fact that I'm forced at gun point to pay this bloody money. It's not the fact that I receive bugger all in return from Europe. It's not even the fact that all Europe seems to do is pass legislation that makes my life more difficult and expensive. No, the really hysterical thing is that this is the 13th consecutive year, yes 13th, that this has happened. Every year, for the past 13 years, the auditors have come out of Brussels unable to tell me where my money has gone.

The EU commission is trying to shift blame to member states. They tried the same trick last year. They claim that the member states are being allocated funds, and are not documenting how they are used. If that's the case, I have a radical plan to stop it - don't give them any more money. Better yet, if they can't account for money they have already received, demand it back, and don't give them any more until you get it.

The EU Budget Committee president, one Terry Wynn, seems to think that no real problem exists. According to Terry, "It is like the auditors for the supermarket chain, Tesco, doing the audits and saying, overall, the books are in order but they know there is shoplifting going on somewhere yet cannot say exactly where". No Terry, it's nothing like that at all. It's like the Tesco auditors going in and saying "£10 million was allocated to pay for fuel for the delivery vans, and they only used half of it. We don't know where the other £5 million went, but there were a lot of really great staff parties last year".

Deep Smag

The Home Office is in reasonably deep smeg this afternoon, after leaked emails reveal that a huge number of illegal immigrants have been placed in security roles. In fact the leaked emails show rather more than that. They show that the Home Office was trying to keep it quiet because there would be significant fallout if the media got hold of it. And today they have.The last Home Secretary was Charles Clarke.

I always thought Clarke was a fairly decent chap. and when the last scandal hit the Home Office, he was very open an honest. I felt quite sorry for him when he lost his job. I don't know whether I like Jacqui Smith. I think one has to be very suspicious of women that use unconventional 'cute' spellings of their names. I fell the same way about "Toys R Us". She's lost her chance to be open an honest because she's known about this since the Summer and the evidence suggests, very strongly, that she's tried to bury it. She has to make a statement to the house this afternoon. I'm not a betting man, but I suspect she's in for a mauling.

The Telegraph comes up with some incredible statistics today. Apparently there are 400,000 people in this country now, who have entered the country illegally since 1997, applied for asylum and were turned down. That's 400,000 people who have been told to leave, and haven't. And that is just the people we know about. That number does not include the people who arrived in the back of lorries, or the people who arrived on vistors' visas and never went back.

Epiphany

I've had an epiphany. Religion is a tool of political control. It doesn't matter whether the religion teaches truth, or not, and the user of the tool doesn't have to believe any of it. In fact, it's probably easier if he doesn't. This is not a new revelation to me, I've always believed this. Here's the new bit; once you renounce all religion and declare yourself an atheist, you forfeit your ability to use the tool. By way of an example, I strongly suspect that Tony Blair is an atheist, but he won't publicly admit that because he recognises the power of religion as a political tool. Mrs. Thatcher was the same.

This is why you should be able to trust an atheist politician. He has sacrificed the use of this very powerful tool of manipulation for ethical reasons. That's not to say that you can't trust a politician who claims to have faith. Just claiming to have faith is no indication that it will be used in a cynical way of course. But one who has renounced faith has put himself above the possibility of using religion to control the masses. Now, can you think of any openly atheist politicians? Funny, neither can I.

The Met Chief, Sir Ian Blair has come under fire once again, this time from the Independent Police Complaints Commission. They have claimed he attempted to hamper the investigation that was held as a result of the Stockwell shooting. Blair has refused once again to step down. The Telegraph this morning is reporting that the PM is coming under increasing pressure to sack the guy. Technically the PM can't actually sack him in fact, only the Home Secretary can do that. He could however put pressure on the Home Secretary, and he could replace her with someone that would be prepared to sack the guy. I honestly can't see how the guy is still in a job.

The cost of id cards appears to have gone up by £71 million in the last 6 months. That means the total cost for the implementation and running costs for the first 10 years is now creeping towards £6 billion. Yes, that's almost £1 for every living person on the planet, or £100 for everyone in Britain. And we have to pay for it. There are rumours that Gordon is planning to scrap the idea, but it has been denied. I don't think the queen mentioned it in her speech the other day though. That would be a humiliating climb down also.

What the hell am I missing?

The train was late again today and overcrowded. I had to stand because there were no seats. It wasn't really a problem, except I was next to two women who talked about nothing for the entire journey. How do women do that? I'm all for chatting and conversation, but these two actually talked constantly for 20 minutes, without actually saying a single interesting thing. They covered topics such as the colour of their shoes, the fact that the parents of one of them just sold their house, and several other fashion items. I amused myself by trying to memorise the order of 26 playing cards using the Derren Brown memory technique, equally boring to most people I admit, but nobody else was subjected to it. In case you are interested, I can memorise 26 cards almost perfectly with just one look through them. I feel I will be able to do an entire pack shortly.

I need to explain something about rubbish collections. I don't know how the rest of the world does it, but in my street, up until recently a lorry came round every Monday morning and picked up the bags of rubbish left outside by residents. For some reason, the corner of the street next to my house became a collection point. Perhaps 15 or 20 bags of rubbish would be left there on Sunday night, and get picked up Monday morning. It was a good system. In fact it's slightly more complicated than that because recyclable waste also gets collected weekly, and green waste like leaves and grass cuttings, gets collected every two weeks. But that's not important now.

The system has changed. It's not necessarily a bad change, but it's a change. Bags will no longer be collected weekly. Instead, from 12 Nov a lorry will come every other Monday to empty our wheelie bins. It's quite simple. It's only the Monday bag collection that will change. Instead of bags being collected weekly from the side of the road, a lorry will come once a fortnight, and empty a wheelie bin. The problem is that the council did not explicitly state when the last bag collection would be. I assumed there would be no collection the week before the first wheelie bin collection, and it turns out I was right. I know this because there is a huge pile of rotting garbage outside my house.

Call me touchy, but I'm not keen on other people's crap outside my home attracting rats and typhoid fever. I find it mildly surprising that all these people lack the brainpower to work out that bins may not be collected this week. I find it astonishing that these people havn't had the decency to reclaim their bags when they weren't collected. I've called the council. They've given me a number.

The Queen opened parliament today with the usual speech. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel she looks odd wearing glasses with the crown? I think I've mentioned this before. It's fine for religious leaders to wear the silly hats, but they all look like nutters when combined with glasses. I feel the same way about the Dalai Lama. Guys wear the hats or the glasses, but both together makes you look like a nutter.

* Above written yesterday, but never posted because I left it at work - doh!

I keep reading about a 22 year old woman who died shortly after giving birth to twins. A major factor appears to have been that she refused a blood transfusion because she was a Jehovah's Witness. It seems that the woman signed something before the problems began, and the hospital were legally prevented from giving her blood. Apparently her family could have overruled her initial wishes, but they did not. I'm unsure whether she would have survived if she had been given blood. It occurs to me that she made the decision to refuse blood products at a time when the chances of her needing them would be relatively small. I'm guessing that she was not able to reverse the decision herself by the time the issue had become critical. That would be why the family were consulted and refused to overrule the earlier decision.

I can't put myself in the position of the woman, because I have no faith. I can't even put myself in the position of her husband for the same reason. The closest I can imagine getting to this situation is having to make a decision about a surgical procedure of which I don't approve, but which would save either my life, or the life of someone for whom I was responsible. For instance, I'm passionately against circumcision of boys, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a doctor could have told me that my son required the procedure to save his life. If that was that case I'd shake the hand of the doctor and tell him to go ahead. I can't understand why the woman's husband didn't do the same thing, shake his hand and tell him to get on with it. I can't believe that he is now sitting at home, raising twins by himself, congratulating himself for doing the right thing.

And it's moments like this that make me think that maybe I chose atheism, not because it's logically sound, or it permits the most psychological freedom, but because I actually lack a fundamental something that permits this kind of thinking. What's more, half of me thinks that being born without this part is the greatest thing that could have happened to me, and half of me wonders what the hell I'm missing.

The London Assembly has passed a vote of no confidence in Met police chief Sir Ian Blair. He can't possibly survive now. He should have read this blog and resigned when I told him to. He has exhausted all possibilities. He took the case to court, and lost. He has ruled out an appeal, and he has lost a vote of confidence. He still has support from Red Ken Livingston, and Jaqui Smith, but that won't cut any ice in the long run. His race is over.

There are too many stupid people in this world

So today is Nov 5, the day we celebrate Guy Faulkes attempting to blow up parliament and kill the king. Seems like a good reason to celebrate to me. Or do we celebrate the fact that he failed? It was pointed out to me recently that current legislation forbids the glorification of terrorism, which makes me think that bonfire parties may in fact be illegal. It's also my mother-in-law's birthday, which is not so widely celebrated.

We spent most of the weekend in Devon with the parents. They have a garden about the size of Belgium, so we took a few fireworks down there hoping that Dumpy would like the spectacle. He didn't, which means we have to wait until he's asleep tonight and try again in our own garden, which is about the size of the average lavatory cubicle and currently full of the old kitchen wreckage.

I don't think I've written anything yet about the country's most senior policeman, Sir Ian Blair, who was essentially held responsible for the almighty cock-up which resulted in the death of an innocent man at Stockwell Tube station in 2005. Armed officers shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes in a botched attempt to apprehend a terrorist suspect who wasn't' even there. The force was made to look utterly incompetent. Blair should resign just for that, but I think the real problem was the way that he allowed false information to proliferate for many days after the event in an attempt to divert attention away from his staff's mistakes. This was not even mentioned in court as far as I know. Blair's excuse was, "I didn't know the wrong man had been shot for 24 hours". I don't believe that, and even if it's true, he should resign for because he doesn't appear to know what his staff are doing.

I dislike Ian Blair only slightly less than I dislike like the former Met chief Lord John Stevens. Blair is dishonest, makes huge mistakes, and doesn't take responsibility for them. John Stevens is a scheming liar, a power mad gun-nut, and his only redeeming feature is the fact that he publicly trashed David Blunket, who is only just beneath Tony Blair on my list of people who should be executed.

I got my Radio Amateur licence. I can now operate equipment over a range of frequencies with an output of up to 400 Watts. I'm thinking of building a repeater and landing it on the moon. The licence appears to be 23 pages. I have no idea what it's all about. I'm going to read it some time.

There is an amazing piece of misleading journalism on the BBC website today. A poll has been conducted involving 22,000 people in 21 countries. Questions were asked about how to solve climate change problems. The BBC report leads with, "Most people are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries. Four out of five people indicated they were prepared to change their lifestyle..."

In fact that four out of five people did not in any way state that they were prepared to make a single sacrifice. What they said was that individuals (not necessarily themselves) would definitely or probably have to make lifestyle changes to reduce the amount of climate-changing gases they produce. In other words, 83% of people agreed that greenhouse emissions would stay the same unless we use less dirty fuel. When it came to the question of whether people were prepared to pay more tax on dirty fuel, the number of people that agreed plummeted, which is a much better indication of what people are actually prepared to do.

Got a really weird note from someone on this entry. NO idea what the loony is talking about. I think it probably goes some way to confirming what I've known for a long time anyway. Nostradamus was all horse shit. And ont hat note, I think I'll retire for the night.

Out of my price range

Singapore Air is the first operator to fly Airbus A380 superjumbos. The airline has requested that passengers refrain from attempting sexual acts on the planes. It seems that first class passengers do have little suites with beds, and it is thought that this could be tempting. Seems a strange statement to make however. Surely passengers already know that they're not supposed to indulge on flights. That's what makes it exciting isn't it?

I heard a snippet on the news this morning about J K Rowling releasing the Tales of Beedle the Bard. This book plays a pivotal part in the Deathly Hallows book, as if you didn't know, and I was quite excited, until I found out that only 7 volumes have been produced, all hand written and illustrated by Rowling herself, and that only one is going to be sold, at Christies, with a starting price of £30,000. Slightly out of my price range. Oh well.

The case of the Lotto rapist is once again in the news. It's an interesting story. Iorworth Hoare was jaild for life in 1989. He bought a lottery ticket while on day release in 2004, and was released in 2005. The lottery ticket was a winner, and Hoare found himself £7 million richer as a result. The thing is, his victim wants to sue him now that he has moneyu. She claims he wasn't worth suing when he was convicted of attempted rape in 1989. The only problem is, current legislation syas that compensation claims must be made within six years. The High Court and the Appeal Court have both refused to let the victim go ahead with the action. The appeal now goes to the Law Lords and the legislation will be examined to determine whether it is fair.

Funny isn't it that this woman can't claim compensation after six years, but people like Jonathan King can find themselves in court trying to defend themselves against allegations from 30 years ago.

The real problem here is that the scum bag was walking around buying lottery tickets when he should have been in prison.

The government is having to make the embarrassing admission that it got immigration figures wrong and that there are far more immigrants than they told us. Pardon me if I don't look too surprised. There is a knock-on effect however. Local councils immediately started asking for more money from central government to pay for the immigrants. That means our council tax bills will go up to cover it. I don't quite see the correlation myself. My wife is an immigrant and costs the government nothing. And I do mean absolutely nothing. She takes no benefits at all. She is entitled to National health service care, but we do have medical insurance, so she doesn't actually even need that.

I'm somewhat torn. I can see that the government has let immigration get out of control, but I can't support any move that would potentially split my family up or force us out of the country. The dragon's 2 year visa is coming up for renewal soon and she has to take the Britishness test to gain her permanent visa. It's not going to be too much of a problem, but it's an annoyance, and it's an expense. She's scared about it.

My office is offering us flu jabs this month. I can't decide whether I want to take advantage of this or not. They only seem to be about 70% effective at best, and they only seem to last about 9 months or something. They make you feel sick as well I think. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for not much protection. I suppose it would mean I am less likely to get flu and therefore less likely to give it to my family if I caught it while at work or something. I'm thinking about it anyway.

Did I mention that I have applied to renew my radio ham licence? Well I did. Apparently I am entitled to a full licence because I passed the smart arse exams 15 years ago. I never used it for anything and it would seem that things have changed quite a bit since that time. There doesn't appear to be any morse going on anywhere these days. I can remember thinking I wanted to take the morse test and I even got up to about 5 words a minute or something before other projects got in the way. I was slightly concerned that I wouldn't be able to find my exam certificate to get a new licence, but it was there in my certificate folder, so I sent it off. Friend Big Pete just got his foundation licence, whatever that is, and he says that there is a club meeting just round the corner from my house, so maybe we can go along together and see what it's like. I must sound like a geek.