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30 May 2010
Silly Secularist Makes Year's Most Stupid Statement
by Ian R Thorpe

The arrogance of scientists gets more gobsmacking as time goes on. Terry Sanderson, President Of The National Secular Society says: �I look at it this way. If science disappeared from human memory, we would soon be living in caves again. If theology disappeared from human memory, no one would notice. Theology is a completely and utterly useless pursuit. It is self-indulgence of the first order. It grieves me that public money is spent on theological colleges while real education struggles to gain the funds it needs to maintain itself.� OK, it's an opinion but look at it another way and science, we see, is responsible for all the world's ills. Just think, without science there would be no global warming, no overpopulation, no oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. If Newcomen had not invented the first steam driven pump deep seam coal mining would not have been possible and we would not have coal fired power stations belching out pollutants. We would also have very limited amounts of electricity but

Read full post Silly Secularist Makes Year's Most Stupid Statement
More on Tewrry Sanderson: Silly Secularist Of The Year

29 May 2010
David Laws And The Lib Dem Closet
by Ian R Thorpe

Strange that the party responsible for pushing through the law that decriminalised homosexuality should have had three senior MPs in the past decade who preferred to stay in the closet. Or is it? The gay Mafia is so active in politics a desire to stay out of the limelight they generate is understandable. Mark Oaten, Simon Hughes and now the highly promising Chief Treasury Secretary David Laws have all damaged their political careers by trying to keep their sexuality secret

So why are Liberal Democrats quite so coy about coming out of the closet?

Could it be perhaps that as Liberals they are simply exercising their right to treat their sexuality as a private matter? Why should people feel pressure to come out? Is there the same pressure on people who like to indulge in a bit of mild to moderate S & M, some casual cross dressing or a little fetishism to share the details of their private life with the world.

If Laws is forced to resign we will lose a man who was starting to look like a very competent Minister at a time when the new government needs all the competence it can get. What he did may or may not have been wrong, it was certainly unwise. But consider, after outing himself as gay he would be forever a gay Member of Parliament, a gay finance minister. David Laws has, has he not, a right to be judged on his ability not his sexuality.

And for the record we have already had a gay Prime Minister although he stayed in the closet until his death. Not that it did him any good, he was still a crap Prime Minister.

29 May 2010
Reason, Order and Logic Are Not Always The Answer
by Ed Butt

The old science vs spirit argument is raging again at Comment Is Free ( Is reason always right ). The author of the article makes a good argument and in pile The CIF Scientific Thought Police to shout down anything that questions their God, Science.

I liked one of the comments though as it sort of slaps all down those who believe this vague, ill defined thing called science is always right:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with REASON and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Gautama Siddartha (Buddha)

Science, which means formal and universally accepted knowledge, is a fine tool for many aspects of business, commerce and industry but the arrogance of modern scientists in deluding themselves that nature can be controlled and subjugated poses a bigger threat to human civilisation than any in nature.

28 May 2010
Health Fascism With Teeth
by Ian R Thorpe

Ian with his satire hat on as he lays into another of those stupid health scare stories Open In A New Window

28 May 2010
How Long Do You Work For The Taxman?
by Ed Butt

The Adam Smith Institute publishes an annual report showing how far into the year we must be before we stop working for the taxman and make some dosh for ourselves and our families. A more interesting perspective from the Taxpayers' Alliance shown in this post at Devils Kitchen show how much of each working day we spend making money for the state.

Either of these should be enought to shut up those idiots of The Progressive Left who are screaming against public spending cuts.

If the fuckers are so ken on paying tax why don't they just give all their dosh to the government and live on jobseekers allowance while holding down a full time job?

27 May 2010
Orthodoxy Imposed By Stealth: Big Brother And Your Shopping Habits
by Xavier Connolly

Just because the perniciously authoritarian Labour government has been kicked out don't think the march to authoritarianism has been halted or even slowed down. We are still being pushed towards "orthodoxy" every day in every way. Look around your town, where do people get their main shopping. Now if you are lucky enough to live in a semi rural area as all of us do here in the Ribble Valley you will be able to go to an ancient market town like Clitheroe where there are still old fashioned butchers, craft bakeries, greengrocers with a colourful display of fruit and veg in the window and outside the shop. There is an independent bookshop, a wine merchant, an old fashioned tea and coffee merchants from which the most delicious scents of freshly roasted coffee emit, the world's foremost designer sausage shop and a thriving open market.

Highly individualistic, idiosyncratic (pricey) furniture is on sale in two local shops, there are many delights. The town has a small Sainsbury's and a branch of E. H. Booth, a regional supermarket chain that keeps Waitrose out of the area. Those who can afford to shop in Clitheroe are fortunate.

Contrast that with the larger towns of East Lancashire, Blackburn, Burnley and Accrington. Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl, Netto. The bookshops, independent butchers and craft bakers are long gone, replaced by multitudinous pound shops and charity outlets. The big naional chains are represented but small local businesses have been squeezed out by what could be seen as a conspiracy between the local authority and central government. The traditional town centres have been usurped by out of town retail parks where cheap, utilitarian and shoddily samey are the norm. The problem with these retail parks is they are not well served by public transport so the argument that the low prices offered by the chains benefit the poor is proved false because anyone who cannot afford a car or taxi fare cannot get there.

Meanwhile certain people, mentioning no names, continue to drive their two litre car twenty five miles each way to a favourite clothes shop and spend more on a tie than a suit would cost from Matalan or George. The poor are not raised by this cult of cheap nor are the affluent constrained.

The Government has recently changed direction and has been promoting "the digital economy" and helping online businesses to attract our custom. Do people not see the attack on liberty here. With nothing to buy in shops only cheap, unserviceable crap we are isolated, pushed into shopping online, solitary consumers hunched over our computers instead of going out and associating freely with other human beings. And so it goes on. Keep a gooid grip on the real world or you may find you have lost touch with reality as so many almost did in the debt fuelled consumer boom of the past decade.

Swedish Revolutionary Proletarian Retail Outlet">Swedish Revolutionary Proletarian Retail Outlet
Charlotte Gore on how "orthodoxy" the only state of mind tolerated by The Thought Police in Orwell's 1984, is being imposed on us by stealth.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Out of order Xav, I did not spend more on a tie than a suit can be bought for in a cheap outlet. It was a shirt, the tie only cost �30. And my car is more fuel efficient than many 1200cc models. You're an effing engineer you should know about power to weight ratios.)

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26 May 2010
The War On Booze Has Just Begun.
by Ian R Thorpe

We have said for a long time that once smoking had been made a social crime the Thought Police would start on alcohol. And we were right. Follow these links to see how the war on booze is being stepped up. Turning The CorkscrewDick Puddlecoat attacks the latest Politically Correct Thought Police Scheme to plaster big health warnings over the lables of wine, beer and spirit bottles. We really are marhing towards a 1984 style regime and it will not matter which party is in power. It is always the same self righteous, superior, patronizing people who run the country.

Worse, we read an item at Nanny Knows Best that told us one of those charity/quango hings, Drinkaware commissioned a survey of 1,000 people about drink problems and their booze consumption habits.

The results show 520,000 people go to work each day with a hangover.

Every day? Fuck me! That's over half a million people who are having more fun than us.

The purpose of all this of course is to stop people costing the NHS money by getting sick and dying, money that is urgently needed in the war for Malawian shirtlifters' rights.

The true folly of all this poltically correct bullshit is that while the anti - sex- drugs - booze and watching Mock The Week On Dave League of purity might save a little in the short term by preventing a few boozers needing hospital treatment in the long run, when nobody is allowed to die of anything, the pensions bill will be so huge all the developed nations will go broke and the sub turd burglars of tropical Africa will have to do without our help.

In The Future You Will Not Be Allowed To Die

25 May 2010
Blair's New Job
by Ian R Thorpe

Tony Blair has a new job (hint to coalition leaders: pass a law restricting ex Prime Ministers called Blair to one job and you will solve the unemployment problem.)

Mr. Blair's new job is as a consultant to a Silicon Valley company Khosla Ventures that is involved in ~~stealing taxpayers money~~ developing environmentally friendly technologies. Their recruit will be helping to persuade government's to pour vast amounts of taxpayers money into these whacky and unpoven ideas, or as the job description says, "to develop mutually beneficial global relationships."

Blair said of his new job: Solving the climate crisis by reducing carbon emissions is more than just an item on a political agenda, it requires imagination, creativity and vision.

That should be right up our Tone's street then, he is one of the most creative liars in recent history.

We must ask however how will our former Prime Minister find time to do his new job when he already has so many and is still occupied 24/7 insisting there are Weapons Of Mass Destruction stashed somewhere in Iraq. When asked about the remuneration for his latest role all Mr Blair would say is: "It's not a pro bono role."

Mind you neither was being Prime Minister. As he already commands a seen figure salary for his consultancy job with Wall Street bankers J. P. Morgan - Chase, receives an undisclosed sum for his function as Middle East Peace Maker and earns �400, 000 per speaking gig we can bet after paying the new recruit Khosla Ventures will not have much change from the $1billion they recently raised for research and development. Still Khosla are going to be rolling in it. CEO Vinod Khosla says instead of simply trying to reduce emissions his company will be looking for "clean alternatives for oil, coal, steel and cement.

Right so. They are obviously planning to put a giant pie in orbit abound the Earth and have a squadron of flying pigs running a shuttle service to it. Sounds about right for something Tony Blair is involved in.

24 May 2010
Pain in Spain, Damage To Denmark as Green Fraud Exposed
by Xavier Connolly

Green Economy Crisis Spreads To Denmark
A few days ago we linked you to an article about the crisis brought about by the mandatory greening of Spain's economy. Now the other "green beacon" nation, Denmark has revealed its committment to clean, green, sustainable power far from boosting the national economy and creating jobs has exacerbated the effects of the global financial crisis in Denmark.

Spain's Much Praised Green Economy Model Discredited Spain's Green Economy model that had "progressive" world leaders and opinion makers creaming their pants has been exposed as unviable, built on unrealistic mathematical modelling as as having contributed to Spain's debt and unemployment models. So why do idiots like Cameron and Obama still want to copy it?

So long as we are restrivted to curently available technologies green power does not work. We told you so.

23 May 2010
Not Listening Cicero, La la la la la la la
by Ian R Thorpe

�The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.�
- Cicero, 55 BC Wonder if he knows we're still not listening?

22 May 2010
It's Life Craig, But Not As We Know It.
by Ian R Thorpe

American Biologist Dr. Craig Venter(stein) claims he has created artificial life in a test tube. Venter and his team have built an artificial genome and implanted it into a bacteria. Naturally the team, because they are Americans remember and Americans are addicted to four things; hyperbole, the internet, recreational drugs, fast food and.... American are addicted to five things.... Among the many things Americans are addicted to as well as hyperbole are fame, success and money. Therefore we should reduce everything they say by a factor of 1000.

OK, what is a realists assessment of what Venter has done?

Well he has not created life for a start. He has merely taken a living organism and meddled with its genome. Geneticists have been doing this for many years in their research into preventing hereditary diseases. Next, can his creation truly be described as "life." Just as computer scientists in their eagerness to convince the world of the possibility of true artificial intelligence have tried to redefine intelligence, to equate thought to an ability to parse and filter vast amounts of data very quickly, so Venter's team have adopted a very restricted definition of what life is. They have created a self replicating organism but laboratories have been creating self replicating polymers for some time so again nothing new.

To put Venter's modus operandi in perspective this is the greedy, money grubbing twat who tried to patent the human genome after claiming (falsely - but he's fucking Yank, all mouth and no trousers) to have been the first to decode it. For the record the multinational team that were actually the first to decode the human genome decided not to try to patent it because it belongs to the world and indeed understanding of how our genes work could benefit all human kind greatly. Venter was only interested in how much money he could make from his "invention" so we think that proves he's a total piece of shit and we should all sue the greedy fucker for a billion dollars each for trying to steal the blueprint to our genes.

In the case of this new "breakthrough" which as we said is no different to things other less vain, less egomaniacal biologists have been doing for a while Venter hopes by fooling politicians and bureaucrats into believing that by reinventing the wheel he has made a scientific breakthrough that will transform the future of humanity for which he hopes to net a cool $1 trillion. One Trillion Dollars - do you see any similarities with Dr. Evil here?

We should dismiss this fraud now, ridicule his false claims and belittle his bogus science. He's just a wannabe celebrity in a white coat. Or a practicioner of scientific onanism maybe

21 May 2009
The Perfect Economic Storm - We Told You So

by Ian R Thorpe

John De Roe is not about today, it being a beautiful late spring day here in the north of England. It's only fair though to make sure he gets the credit he deserves as the sticking plasters of quanitative easing, stimuli and bailours can no longer cover the festering wounds in the global economy. John, a former bank manager in a local bank back in the days when banking was a respectable professon, has been warning of the true state of the global ecoomy ever since we started The Daily Stirrer. We would have liked to help more people but only about 2000 a day look at our humble publication and the mainstream media have ben sticking to the orthodoxy demanded by the "inner party" and enforced by the Politically Correct Thought Police and talking up the non existent recovery. Consequently many people who pinned their hopes and their savings on recovery are now kissing their future goodbye. Forward this DailyStirrer article you all you friends by emailing our link (right click link & copy shortcut to paste into your email) The Perfect Economic Storm so they can see how accurate we have been, as is demonstrated in all the posts below and many more...

Interesting Times
The folly of lending money in the bond m,arkets at 0.5% interest only to borrow it back from banks at 3.5% interest. This is what our governments have been doing in effect. Are you surprised we're up shit creek? Piigs Might Crash And Burn
A recent warning of the current financial meltdown in the Eurozone posted in The Daily Stirrer as the G20 leaders were claiming their timely action had averted such a crisis. The words of politicians re cheap because there are no principles, only expedients in politics. The words of The Daily Stirrer however contain jewels of wisdom crystalised by experience. They are as valuable as any commodity you could possibly own because they could help you hold onto what you own
. Next Financial Crisis
We had already told you what would happen in finance, here we tell you why it had to happen.
Magic Money
How conjuring money out of thin air led the world into economic meltdown. When money can be produced out nothing then no value can be attached to anything.
Bond Villain Targets Britain
Some insights from the biggest trader in the global bond markets on how bond trading works and how the economy of Britain, over reliant on domestic consumption, the housing maket and financial services is particularly vulnerable to international speculators. Debt Crisis Menu
A roundup of our posts on the debt crisis, stock market meltdown and the plunge into global depression.
Jobs Crisis Menu
Creasting jobs in public service, keeping people in full time education longer and forcing earlier retirement was only ever going to temporarily mask the real unemployment rate. This is a roundup of posts on the employment crisis that has run parallel to the economic crisis.

Economy Returns To Growth Sort Of
Public Debt Nightmare
Burgeoning public spending deficits is driving smaller nations to a situation where the income of government is not adequate to service its debt.
Unbalancing The Economy
How to skew the economy in order to create the illusion of growth through out of control public spending and placing artificial values on assets.<
> Real Unemployment Rate
How to gague the real unemployment rate and expose the official statistics as complete fabrication.

Where do we go from here. Read The Daily Stirrer and we will show you the way out of this swamp.

20 May 2010
A Conversation With The Council
Dizzy Thinks - recommended by ~Ian R Thorpe

Politicians may promise change and governments may come and go buit bureaucracy stays the same forever. Read Dixxy Thinks' account of a converation his wife had with the council refuse that proves yet again to the bureaucratic mindset procedure always trumps common sense. Yet still the dark forces of the "progressive left" tell us we need more government, not less.

True Colours Start To Shine Through
Trixie - recommended by John De Roe

This excellent, shoe loving blogger provides as good a critique as any on the new coalition government's plan to massively increase capital gains tax and how it will depress the economy while driving more money offshore to tax havens. Bloggers get it, you'd think a conservative Chancelloor like George Osborne would too. People don't like handing over half the money they make to government.

19 May 2010
When The Cutting Starts
by John De Roe

The election party has wound down, the last revellers have staggered off into the cold light of dawn and the hangovers are beginning. While Nick Clegg speaks optimistically of the dawn of a new political era and the biggest shakeup in Britain's democratic process since the Great Reform Act of 1832 the Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers moving into jobs in the Treasury are holding ice packs to their heads and reaching for the Alka - Seltzer.

Chancellor George Osborne has already launched an audit of the departed Labour government's spending commitments to try to rescue more that the already identified �12billion "efficiency savings" from the hungry maw of out monstrous deficit. It will be a difficult task to reduce spending in non essential areas sufficiently to make a hole in the �163billion (and growing) annual deficit without starting to cut the kind of high profile and electorally sensitive areas of health, education, policing, pensions and care. In normal circumstances to attack such a deficit would be a daunting task but the British economy having been under attack for three decades by governments determined to undermine the nations great providers of real jobs, industry and agriculture, really has no solid base on which to build a recovery. Labour's answers were typical of the folly of socialism. In the final years they borrowed money by issuing bonds to fund public sector jobs keep young people and many older ones in full time education and thus off the unemployment statistics and while publicly making noises about getting many people off disability benefits and back into work really created a labyrinthine benefit system that made it virtually impossible for the disabled to make that leap from dependency on the state into employment, earning at least a portion of their income. But what benefit is there to public finances if the people being pushed into work are being paid from public funds? The Conservatives too must shoulder their share of the blame. The years of Margaret Thatcher's Premiership saw a wholesale destruction of the industrial base particularly in the traditional heavy industries that drove local economies in the industrial areas of the North West, North East, Yorkshire, The Midlands, South Wales and Central Scotland. Much as the South Eastern bourgeoisie hate to admit it, until the 1980s it was those areas that supported the British economy, the millions of mid income range skilled jobs in factories, mills, mines and workshops gave The Treasury a much bigger and more reliable source of income than the money jugglers of the financial sector would ever provide. That part of the economy was sacrificed however to Mrs Thatcher's desire to wage war on a few powerful trade unions, the Miners, Engineers, Printers and Transport Union. The problem leaders of our "new politics" now face is how do we get people back into real work, work that is funded from profits rather than tax revenues raised by the government. Labour pumped money into the economy but it only went to those companies that contracted to provide public services at vastly inflated prices. There was no industry to pump money into. Traditionally an upturn in the construction industry signalled the start of a recovery. Many years of using inflated house prices to underwrite personal debt which funded consumer spending thus masking a decline in earning in real terms has left us with an overpriced housing stock. First time buyers, the young employed, are priced out of the housing market and so construction is depressed. Small tinkering with property taxes aimed at boosting house sales are insufficient to make a significant difference. Naturally the banking and finance sector scream for a return to the status quo, yet more of the wild, irresponsible speculation that led to the crash of 2008 in the first place. But how would the banks, unable to unravel the tangled web of dodgy trading and work out who owes what to whom, ever finance another round of speculation? By borrowing from governments of course. And how would governments raise the money to lend to the banks. By borrowing it. That road can only lead to an inflationary spiral with commodity prices for essentials going through the roof. The hangover from the years of madness is a real bitch. It is going to take more than a couple of Alka - Seltzers to cure it. RELATED POSTS:
A Coalition For Cuts
Jobless Economy
Jobs Crisis
Interesting Times
Magic Money
Bread and Circuses
Economy Of The Living Dead
The Future Is Cancelled
Minimum Wage Folly
No Real Jobs In The New Economy
Stating The Obvious Will Not Rebuild Our Economy
Holy City
Chasing Bubbles
18 May 2010
Anti English Vendetta
recommended by Xavier Connolly

Anna Raccoon wonders why the Politically Correct Thought Police are always on hand when an English person utters the slightest criticism of the non English but are quite happy to tolerate the overt anti - English bias shouwn by people of other nations against the English.

Vendetta by Anna Raccoon

18 May 2010
There's No Money Left
recommended by Ed Butt

Burning Our Money Blog explains why the country is even more broke than we thought we were. Far be it from us humble bloggers at The Daily Stirrer to blow our own trumpet but we have been telling you this since our blog started to publish

17 May 2010
Legacy Of Labour's Rogernomics
by Ian R Thorpe

I read today of the first signs that government by the Conservative - Liberal Democrat "coalition for change" will change nothing except the names at the top of the news.

Coalition finance ministers are warning that "crazy spending commitments" made by Labour during their final months in power have left the British economy in a worse state than anybody could have guessed. Your Daily Stirrer writers of course and other Libertarian freethinkers in the blogosphere were reporting throughout that period exactly how bad the situation was but what do we know? We're not politicians. Now that Conservative and Liberal Democrat economic experts have been able to look at the books they are saying public expenditure will have to be cut much more deeply than was predicted and the cutting will have to start from yesterday. It's that bad (but the blogosphere told you that). Anyway wen the cuts bite it will all be Labour's fault.

So that's the new politics for you:

"We're fucked Nick, the punters will not accept the cuts, what shall we do?"

"Blame it all on Labour Dave, always blame the other lot who were in power before us."

It brought to mind something my daughter told me of on her return from a year in New Zealand, Rogernomics.

The Roger in question was Roger Douglas, finance secretary in the New Zealand Labour Government in the 1980s. Douglas implemented Thatcherite economics so draconian he thoroughly rogered the nation and his party. New Zealand Labour was made so unpopular by Rogernomics they did not return to power until the introduction of Proportional Representation enabled them to become part of a coalition government.

There we see the way forward for the new leader of the UK's Labour Party after Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have so comprehensively rogered the nation. Embrace proportional representation and learn to work in a coalition rather than claiming to have inherited the divine right to rule from the monarch, abandon the use of working class tribalism to frighten people off voting for the party they actually support be it Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP or The Monster Raving Loony Party and learn to collaborate with coalition partners rather than stabbing them in the back.

16 May 2010
Rebellion Of The DHWFs
by Wat Tyler (Burning Our Money) - recommended by John De Roe

Wat Tyler at Burning Our Money blog has been giving it rice with his calculator and worked out how much it is going to cost the ConDem-ned coalition to clear up Labour's economic mess. And he reckons the burden will be too much to bear for the DHWFs (Decent Hard Working Families) who pay the bulk of direct and indirect taxes. Wat predicts a middle class tax rebellion. But then Wat has a track record for that kind of thing (Wat Tyler - Peasants Revolt). I hope to see the masses on Middle Class voters advancing along Whitehall towards Parliament weilding their pitchforks and cudgels menacingly.

Seriously though, few people including those running the new governing coalition have really understood the depth of the financial mire the Labour government of 1997 - 2010 have left the nation in. In the good years early in their first term they balanced the books by selling of national assets as the Thatcher government had, thus leaving the British economy denuded of its manufacturing base.

Then to create a feelgood factor they relaxed financial controls to make it easy for people who were not earning great money to enjoy lavish lifestyles by running up unsupportable personal debts and also raised welfare benefits beyond what the Treausry could afford from its tax revenues. And so the deficit economy was begun.

Finally when the "spend and spend" economic model went pear shaped the Labour government embarked on a programme of such gobsmacking irresponsibility no intelligent person can comprehend how they ever thought the nation could avoid going into an inflationary spiral on a par with Zimbabwe.

What form will the middle class rebellion take? Wat Tyler thinks something like the American Tea Party movement might arise. I feel the bigger danger is Britain will slide into self destructive apathy and nihilism.

15 May 2010
The Scottish Question
by John De Roe

SNP leaders Alex (Rab C.) Salmond wants �700 million from British taxpayers as a way of showing that we respect Scotland's separate national identity. Cameron should respectfully tell him to fuck off and here's why.

Ever since the Labour party became the second party on British politics Scotland has done very well out of the English taxpayer. I am not being anti Scottish although if we allowed comments here I'm sure I would be attacked by thousands of aggrieved Scots citing the atrocities of King Edward 1, the Highland Clearances and random references to chilly jocko land and deep fried Mars Bars as evidence that England's innate racism is directed mostly against the Scots.

The fact is the over - representation of Scotland and particularly the solidly Labour voting central industrial belt distorts British democracy. If we agreed to the next demand for full independence for Scotland not only would Mr. Salmond and his nationalist friends crap themselves at the thought of how their country might fare economically with the intravenous drip of English money withdrawn, the Labour leadership would crap themselves too.

Without that Scottish block vote Labour would have little chance of ever winning another election for the Westminster parliament. Even the "Vote Liberal Democrat and get The Conservatives" would not work. The English by and large are slightly left of centre but have little taste for Labour's brand of populist authoritarianism. Indeed it is only the tribalism of the working class vote in English industrial conurbations plus the outrageously gerrymandered constituency boundary changes enacted by the Labour government that ruled from 1997 to 2010 that would maintain Labour as a political force of any significance.

Although English voters lean slightly to the left we should not write off the Conservatives as a bunch of right wing, free market nutters. The Thatcher era was an aberration. Apart from that, since the Great Reform Act of 1832 more social reforms, more acts to emancipate the lower classes have been enacted by Conservative Governments that any other. And I say that as a Liberal.

This attachment to Conservatism might seem perverse if as a nation we are the fairness loving social libertarians we like to think. It is however not a contradiction at all. As liberals we do not like to see the poor or minority groups being discriminated against but as libertarians we do not like governments telling us what to do, how to live. And we certainly do not like Labour's paternalistic attitude that causes the party's governments to treat the electorate like dull witted children who must be constantly protected from the consequences of their folly.

English people do not have much time for the politically correct do - goodery of Labour activists.

So long as Scotland remains a disproportionate force in\Westminster however, the voters of England will not get the kind of liberalism they want. While Labour can rely on Scottish tribalism they can ride rough shod over English libertarian feelings to impose their will on the nation.

14 May 2010
The Death Of Nanny State
Anna Raccoon recommended by Ed Butt

The excellent libertarian blogger predicts and celebrates the imminient death of Nanny State as the Con Lib coalition shape up to start snipping away at all those politically correct stupidities Labour politicians traditionally love to lavish taxpayers money on...

13 May 2010
That Little Matter Of The Oil Spill
by Xavier Connolly

While the other guys have been having fun sounding off about the duplicity and hypocrisy of politicians, your truly has been watching the goings on in the Gulf of Mexico where there has been an oil spill after a bubble of methane gas blew the lid off a deep sea oil well.

This spill being off the American coast than the White House incumbent being a "progressive liberal" not only would you think this spill heralds the end of the world but from looking at some comment threads you on news blogs of the "progressive left" one might think that President Obama's politics are a bigger factor in stopping the leaking oil than the skills of the oil well engineers, geologists and technicians.

First let's deal with the "end of the world scenario. There have been bigger oil spills in locations that made them more difficult to operate on. Discount the propensity of that benighted nation for hysterical and what we have is a very run of the mill disaster. These things happen, we deal with them and unless America is involved everybody keeps calm and carries on.

What about the ecological effects. Will this wipe out marine life in the Gulf Of Mexico as the "progressive left" proclaims? Probably not. Oil is a natural substance and is rapidly broken down by nature. Paradoxically it is full of the ideal nutrients for the micro organisms that break it down so the oil spill will in the medium term help marine life.

There will be heart rending scenes on television of sea birds and marine mammals but those species have survived much worse ecological disasters.

Finally will it be possible to stop it? Yes but due to the depth of the well head, about 18000 feet under water I believe it is not going to be easy. Not easy is nothing new to engineers especially those whose job is to fix problems. If fixing problems was easy they wouldn't be problems.

Is this spill then a reason for shutting down the oil industry as the greens and the progressive left are claiming? Hmm, look where those claims are coming from, look who funds the scientists supporting such idiotic claims, follow the money and you will find it leads back to people peddling some very dubious alternative energy technologies. Given how much modern society depends on fossil fuels it is simply not feasible to shout down the oil industry or even curtail oil exploration. Green Technologies are a good twenty years away from being able to supply the needs of modern societies and even at that range the success of green power depends as much on a radical change of lifestyle as new technologies coming on stream.

12 May 2010
I'd Get A Lawyer To Look At That If I Were You
Anna Raccoon recommended by John De Roe

Give a Labour politician a sniff of our cash and they have this overwhelming urge to splash it all on a 3 legged nag, usually as the result of a dare. Even when he�s halfway out the door he couldn�t resist the temptation to blow a cool 25 billion because his mates in Europe said it�d be great. Trusting soul that he was he went straight over there popped 25 billion in the slot, while his Euromates sniggered behind their hands, pressed the button and all he got out was a single piece of paper on which the word �Thanks!� was written in Read more: Get A Lawyer To Look At That

11 May 2010
Unempoyment Rises In US Despite Confusing Statistics
recommended by James Dahlberg

Unemployment Facts in the USA
The Daily Stirrer has reported on the weird and contradictory unemployment statistics issued by the UK government. In this article Citizen Wells finds the same kind of confusion concealing a picture far worse than anyone imagined in the USA. It appears the situation is much the same in the UK but I'll let the British guys comment on that.

The situation is much worse than statistics suggest. When will politicians realize they can't fool all the people all of the time?

10 May 2010
Will Cameron Seduce Clegg With PR Offer?
by Ian R Thorpe

Electoral Reform and the introduction of a voting system in which every vote counts has long been the goal of the Liberal and later the Liberal Democrat parties. Although most people have believed a Lib Dem alliance that could deliver electoral reform could only be made with Labour because Labour are traditionally the party that makes fairness a major plank of its election manifesto.

What political pundits and social commentators forget however is that Labour has traditionally benefited much more from the discredited first - past - the - post system than the Conservatives. Even in this latest election campaign Labour were looking set for a crushing defeat until in the last week they invested heavily in fear and panic tactics to scare potential Lib Dem voters back to the shelter of the red umbrella. The irony is Gordon Brown probably swung as many seats for the Conservatives with his anti - Liberal drive as he did for his own party, thus denying himself any chance of forming a stable coalition government.

Apart from the closely packed safe Labour seats in the industrial clusters on the north west, midlands, Tyne Tees region and inner London and the distortion of the electoral map caused by Scotland being vastly over -represented at Westminster, areas where Labour has exploited working class tribalism to retain huge majorities, the colour of the electoral map is overwhelmingly blue. Labour knows this of course and has exploited what one independent candidate in 2005 described as the "they'd vote for a dog turd if it wore a Labour rosette tendency" to its advantage. They have also show almost criminal self interest in adjusting constituency boundaries, pushing traditionally Conservative wards from seats winnable by the Conservatives into neighbouring safe Labour seats and moving solid Labour wards into seats vulnerable to the conservatives.

In other nations such behaviour would be decried as electoral fraud. Under a Conservative government it would be decried by Labour as electoral fraud. But it is OK for Labour to do it because in the Labour Power - At - Any - Price mindset the end always justifies the means.

We hope for a Lib - Con coalition, as I write it could be announced within minutes (but that would need another article) Those who are relieved we will not have another elected dictatorship such as the nature endured under Thatcher and then under Blair and Brown (John Major's government with a wafer thin majority and a faction of Thatcherite "bastards" in the Conservative ranks always had to show restraint.) We must also hope the Liberal Democrats will use their influence wisely and and bring about a permanent end to the Labour Conservative duopoly that has served the nation so badly over the past half century.

If David Cameron does seduce Nick Clegg and his colleagues with an offer of Proportional Representation the Liberal Democrats must be tough enough to make sure the Conservatives do not wriggle out of the deal. And they must be prepared to brink down Cameron and his Conservatives should they not honour their promises.

9 May 2010
Populist Authoritarianism, Fear And Panic
by Ian R Thorpe

The Labour Party may talk of socialism but their Nanny State tyle of ovrbearing governmental control freakery rather than protecting the weak according to the political philosophy of John Locke seeks to suppress individualism and impose uniformity by spreading fear and panic. This approach achieves equality by making all weak and dependent. Unfortunately it debilitates the nation
Read allPopulist Authoritarianism.
RELATED POSTS:
Nanny State Has Her Cake And Eats It
Ding Dong PTA Calling
Fear And Panic And HP Sauce
How To Be A Bigot
If Only The World Were Fair

8 May 2010
Clegg Could Redeem Himself The Liberal Democrats must consider their election campaign a failure, although the loss of momentum was more due to the main party's scare and smear tactics than Lib Dem mistakes. As a partner in government however the Lib Dems can show they are fit to rule.

Labour Loved The Lib Dems Yesterday Did Gordon Brown & Cool really think the Lib Dems were tamely going to keep them in power? They just did not know who the Lib Dems were, which shows why they were always unfit to govern.

All the Daily Stirrer writers have been labelled bigots during the course of the election campaign for daring to suggest New Labour's failure in education, immigration, the economy, jobs and health and their cynical use of obviously rigged statistics to try to mask their failures and incompetence and manipulate public opinion clearly demonstrated they are unfit to govern.

It is an opinion of course, an opinion shared by the electorate as it turns out. The Daily Stirrer has never questioned anybody's right to disagree with us or to express their point of view in their own online publications. Our not allowing comments on articles is a policy based on technical grounds, it is not denying people the right to free speech as has been blogged about us elsewhere. We deny nobody the right to express their opinion, all we are doing is choosing not to provide the public a platform on our pages. It is in fact the New Labour supporters who tell us we have no right to disagree with them who are bigots, as they would understand were they intelligent enough to look up the word's meaning in a dictionary.

In view of that attitude which is widespread among New Labour supporters their shock and outrage at the Liberal Democrats failure to prop up their dysfunctional party and its failed leader are hardly surprising. People with minds of their own, who have their own point of view and insist on thinking for themselves? Such bigots should not be allowed to enter politics.

7 May 2010
New Financial Crisis Will Lead To Autumn Election
by John De Roe

We're all being a bit lazy today after the all - nighter of election night. If you. like most people, are glad it is all over don't relax too much. The unfolding financial crisis in the Eurozone following the collapse of the Greek economy means we are almost certain be to back to election land in October or November to rerun the whole process.

In reality another election will solve nothing, the sovereign debt crisis is much bigger than the sub - prome meltdown or the failure of investment banks. The only way we will get out of it is by abandoning political point scoring, appointing government's of national unity, rejecting the idiotict notions of globalism and multiculturalism and getting back to nations running their own affairs.

From the decline of the Roman Empire to the present all attempts to unite many clutures, economic systems and tribal lifestyles under a single political entity have always failed. Why did anybody ever think now was going to be different?

So even while Conservative and Liberal Democrat Leaders are haggling over the terms of their coalition the new sovereign debt financial crisis that started in Greece and is spreading throughout the Eurozone and further afield is scripting the failure of their government.

Money Posts

7 May 2010
Need A Degree In English To Write Your Name?
by Ian R. Thorpe

An article in today's Guardian suggests free degree courses in English should be offered.

The study of our language and literature is so fundamental to society that everyone ought to have access to it, argues Alex Hay.

For English degrees, the future does not look good, Mr Hay tells us. The cost of a degree will skyrocket if the top-up cap is removed, while the money an arts graduate earns is all too often pitiful, with some undergraduates never breaking even after their hefty debts are repaid. Worse is to come. Academics are warning that the present "age of austerity" will lead to big cuts in university budgets, and so English and other less "economically viable" departments may well get the axe.

Take philosophy, for example. Middlesex University announced last week that it was going to shut down its well-regarded department in that subject. The official reason was, you guessed it, financial.

Why degrees in English?

I'm pretty ancient at 61 I know, but even when my kids were t school in the 1980s and 90s a GCSE O level was a good standard of basic English while A level in language taught them to handle gerunds, subjunctives, participles etc. and to comment on stylistic aspects of writing and in Literature introduced concepts of literary criticism.

Degree level English was a specialise area of study.

Has education really dumbed down so much that people now need a degree level education in order to be able to construct a simple sentence?

Or is this just another example of Academic empire building?

6 May 2010
Is Carbon Dioxide The New Oil?
by Xavier Connolly

Imagine a green fuel that could power our cars, keep the wheels of industry turning, and wean us off our addiction to oil - a fuel called CO2", says the lead paragraph of an article I read today.

Some scientists have come up with a scheme to convert CO2 into energy. The atmospheric gas is cheap, plentiful and...

Hang on, CO2? Isn't that they stuff they have been telling us is fucking up the climate. Hmmm, typical scientists, spreading fear and panic they when they have us all running round like headless chickens they change their tune. Could it be the sniff some research grants, Nobel prizes and guest spots on TV shows nobody watches might be the payoff for coming up with the most unlikely sustainable fuel imaginable?

Poor scientists though, they're getting hysterical prematurely as usual. You see to convert CO2 to useable hydrocarbons requires such an energy intensive process it will consume twice as much fuel as it will produce. Not long ago the science army made the same mistake when they became over excited about biofuel. Great idea but we would have had to stop growing food in order to release land to grown the fuel needed to fuel the machines that turn biomass into energy.

So its all a lot of hot air about nothing as is usually the case with science. Why will they not learn just to leave the clever stuff to engineers and technologists.

. Could Carbon Dioxide be the fuel of the future RELATED POSTS: To save the planet we need more CO2
Coal power stations get a reprieve

5 May 2010
The Power of Povs
by Ed Butt

As journalists in papers controlled by the Politically Correct Thought Police fell over themselves to praise Gordon Brown for a "barnstorming speech" full of platitudes and banalities borrowed from the scarcely literate Barack Obama we are busy turning our attention back to the real issues.

Brown's speech, far from being praised should have ben damned as one of the most schmaltzy, schlocky, bogus exercises in the politics of fear as you are ever likely to see outside the USA. What's more he was preceded on stage by an all female family of three povs who talked tearfully of how they could not get by on the mother and grandmother's combined earnings of over �500 a week (tell that to a pensioner on �59 a week) and how they had to eat lentils for a week in order to buy the girl's school uniform. As grants are available to the truly hard up (see this page from Tameside Borough Council we must assume that:
a) Brown's povs were three actresses hired in for the job
b) They are illegal immigrants who could not apply for a grant
c) There are spending all their wages on booze, ciggys and drugs
d) The kid is going to a private school and thus is not eligible for a grant

The secondary message however, in view of the message in Brown's speech being that only he can keep the economy on track, is that Labour have created a society in which a family of three people cannot get by on a household income of over �500.

Labour have overplayed the fear card, sending potential Lib Dem voters scurrying back to the Conservatives, now they are trying to guilt trip us into giving their useless, morally bankrupt government another five years in which their grred, incompetence and lust for absolute power can further damage this country for future generations. The have gerrymandered consituency boundaries, politicised the civil service and the academic community, introduce the teaching of a political agenda in primaryschools and abused power in the service of their pymasters in the international banking community. Could there possibly be a worse government than these arrogant duplicitous, despicable, self righteous scumbags? Even the odious BNP would be preferrabe to anybosy with a sense of decency.

Enough of that however, we shall have a frivolous weekend whatever happens in the election then your freethinking commentators will be back to writing on the problems that are not going to disappear just because their has been a change of government; jobs, the economy, the climate change crisis and the three even bigger crises the politicians and mainstream media are hiding from view.

Meanwhile lest you forget that The Politically Correct Thought Police are not going to go away in a hurry either, here's Dick Puddlecoat on Pushing The Green Agenda In Schools

4 May 2010
How Will We Be Governed Next Week?
by Ian R Thorpe

With the Labour vote in key marginals having entered its meltdown phase and Labour journalists and politicians already being enthusiastically engaged in the sniping, backstabbing and betrayal games that traditionally follow a Labour defeat the election looks to be all over bar the horse trading that will decide how many cabinet positions Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats hold in the governing coalition under Prime Minister Cameron.

So how will we be governed next week? A progressive government looks undesirable since "progressive" like "liberal" is a word that has been hijacked by Stalinist advocates of the all powerful central government. One wonders how these people who call themselves "progressive" can be so enthusiastic about authoritarianism. The traditional labels of left and right indicating respectively individualism, self determination and devolution of power and authority, suppression of dissent and hierarchically structured society and progressives should remember that both Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany ere based on the idea of an all powerful central authority controlling every aspect of individuals' lives.

We should be very wary of those who call themselves "progressive" then. All too often the only progression they are interested in is the progression of the Politically Correct Thought Police in their effort to control our minds.

Fortunately by this time next week, barring disasters, they will be gone, the unspeakably odious "New Labour" regime of the traitor and war criminal Tony Blair and the coward and bully Gordon Brown will be gone. The first improvement we hope to see is a lightening of the oppressive atmosphere that has weighed down the nation, no longer will we have to tolerate being described as bigots every time we question the official line of the Politically Correct Thought Police on Climate Change, Immigration, Mass vaccine against minor infections, Binge drinking, Obesity, Foreign aid, Minority rights or bogus statistics on crime, education and unemployment.

The next change we can hope for if a Conservative government is moderated by a strong Liberal Democrat influence is that fair will once more mean fair and imply that all people are treated equally rather than the interests of minorities being placed above those of the mass of people.

And thirdly we an hope for a return to sanity on jobs and the economy. Just as Margaret Thatcher failed to learn that we could not all make a living by selling financial services to each other so the New Labour Corporate State Stalinists have failed to learn we cannot exists as an economically powerful nation if everybody works in the public sector.

We can all hope for these things. Trouble is those who get carried away by promises of change can be Let Down By Hope.

What you may rely on however is that The Daily Stirrer will be right on the case of whoever emerges triumphant on Friday morning, questioning, challenging and ridiculing. No wool will ever be pulled over our eyes, we will never fall for the deception of statistics or the diversionary tactics advocated by King Henry IV in Shakepeare's play as he prepares his son to assume the throne:

Therefore be it thy course my Harry
to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels
that actions thus borne out may erase
the memory of former times

The minds at The Daily Stirrer will not be giddy and will not be busied with deceptions. We will focus like lasers on the actions of politics, business, religious leaders, bureaucrats and who ever seeks to serve their own interests while claiming to serve the public interest.

3 May 2010
Politics Of Fear
by John De Roe

Other people must have noticed how the three main parties, having had their weakness on policy exposed and their failure to understand the true depth and nature of the economic and social problems that are dragging Britain towards the abyss are now resorting to the politics of fear.

With the Liberal Democrat vote confounding predictions that it would collapse both Labour and Conservatives are resorting to the fear factor. "A vote for the Lib Dems will mean five more years of Brown, and Labour tax - and - spend financial irresponsibility" wails David Cameron. Gordoin Brown responds by saying a Lib Dem vote will help usher in a Conservative that will cut public services and benefits while introducing tax cuts that will only benefit the rich."

Nick Clegg and Vince Cable rely on the "time for change mantra, pointing to the failures of the other parties over the past half century.

In truth we have, to quote Franklin D. Roosvelt, nothing to fear but fear itself. Voters should not be intimidated by this scaremongering. A Liberal Democrat Government could certainly do no worse than Labour from 1997 or the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997 but there is not going to be a Liberal Democrat government. In the event of a hung Parliament a coalition of either main party with the Liberal Democrats would have to be better that having either rule alone and the Liberal Democrats price for participating in a coalition, Proportional Representation would end forever the elected dictatorships whose governments have served the people of this country so poorly.

Do not be browbeaten by the politics of fear, it is the Labour and Conservative Parties and their leaders who have to fear a hung Parliament, not the voters. On Thursday May 6 use your vote wisely, vote for the party your conscience, common sense or gut feeling tell you will serve you, your community and your country the best. They will just have to put aside their hubris and find a way to work together.

When we observe the British Constitution instead of letting vested interests use scaremongering tactics to hijack it, there are few places in the world with a healthier democracy or national community than Britain.

2 May 2010
Epitaph For New Labour
recommended by Ian R Thorpe

I am not a Conservative but a Liberal through and through ad by that I do not mean a pinko Lib Dem. I destest Labour's authoritarianism as much as I detest the cynicism of The Conservatives. So I'm not a great fan of the Daily Telegraph. Having said that, the paper today carries a superb epitaph for the New Labour project which is surely dead with the Tory poll lead increasing while the Lib Dems score is holding up.

What has made New Labour so despised is their elitism, their sense of moral superiority and the way they have treated the people of Britain like children.
New Labour's Corrosive Legacy

Meanwhile former Labour MP Jackie Ashley writing in The Guardian says Power Has Rotted Labour But It Does Not Deserve To Die

The way The Daily Stirrer sees things, The Labour Party died after the 1992 general election, blown so spectacularly by Neil Kinnock with and ill advised triumphalist speech a week before election day.

New Labour, the love child of Old Labour's self righteous lust for power and the personal ambition and fascination with wealth and power of a new political class that progressed straight from University to a career in politics without gaining any experience of the real world was born rotten. John Smith had valiantly tried to kick some life back into the corpse of Old Labour after the 1992 defeat but his premature death opened the way for the solipsists and self aggrandizers to make their backroom deals that would take the party further and further away from its core vote.

The last man who could have saved Old Labour by challenging the cosy progression of leadership from Blair to Gordon Brown, the result of a deal hatched in an expensive restaurant long before the 1997 election victory, Robin Cook also died young. And so the "project" ruled, unchallenged except by its own arrogance.

New Labour was not rotten, it was corrupt, preferring to do its business in private, away from democratic scrutiny, preferring to rely on appointed "special advisers" rather than elected representatives. Eventually it became depraved as the leaders came to believe they were above the law. It is not a question of Labour not deserving to die, it has become a tumor that must be cut out and destroyed so the host body may live.

The corrosive legacy its successors must avoid is that authoritarianism, the addiction to power, that made Labour's rule so toxic.

More election
2010

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1 May 2010
Which way is the election going?
by Xavier Connolly

Greetings on this May Day or Beltane if you are of a pagan disposition. Apart from those who are preparing to dance naked under the moon tonight and the many people who will be obsessing over the outcome of a few football matches, the question sure to be on everybody's lips today is "Which way will the election go?"

The party leaders' debates are over now, overall the Liberal Democrats probably benefited from pretty strong performances by Nick Clegg although he was not the winner of the final round. David Cameron was solid but not convincing enough to give the Conservatives the breakthrough they were hoping for. As the unpopular leaders of an even more unpopular government Gordon Brown always had a mountain to climb. The fact that he is not by any stretch of anybody's imagination a "people person" did not make things easier for him.

Overall then, though the Lib Dems saw a massive boost in their polling scores the television debates did not produce and decisive change in the nation's mood.

What is happening then? The Daily Stirrer predicted that the Presidential format of the debates would focus mainstream media attention on party leaders when most voters concerns are more local. We have lost sight of the fact that in the UK we hold general elections to elect a Parliament of 650ish members whose job is to represent the interests of their constituents. It is not their job to represent the interests of the political parties that sponsor them or the wealthy donor that fund those parties.

Electors are far more aware of that than politicians like to think. Thus while the Liberal Democrats are picking up votes from Conservative and Labour, the Labour core vote in inner city constituencies and industrial areas appear to be haemorrhaging away to UKIP and the BNP.

The excellent UK Polling Report provides detailed analysis of recent polls. In the explainer to this ICM poll of Lib Dem target seats some interesting trends are revealed. Polls conducted in Conservative target seats have showed similar trends but the latest of these is rather out of date now.

More election
2010

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Daily Stirrer Archives

The Contraversialist Blog that aims to bring you the most provocative and fearless comment and opinion on news and the hot topics of the day. Daily Stirrer contributors write from the heart and shoot from the hip on all the topics that are making news. They will tackle business and politics, bureucracy, health society, science and technology. education, transport and any other issue where the media conspire with the money men to make sure the difficult questions are not being asked. Click box above to open our archive menu.

Daily Stirrer Archives

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Source: Summit News

Facebook labels 2+2=4 “misinformation”

Study says UK lockdown linked to thousands of excess deaths

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University free speech society told free speech a 'red risk', external speakers must be vetted

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