The rules of the game no longer apply

I completely understand why some people want an in/out referendum, why they wanted it yesterday, why they want it today.

Some people just want to get out: I completely understand that but I don’t share that view, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.

Those are Cameron’s words.  Translated this is what they mean:

Instead of being your elected representative in Parliament, paid handsomely from your tax pounds to carry out your wishes, I will uphold the cynical and destructive democratic deficit in this country; and do all in my power – straining every sinew of my body – to treat you with naked contempt and put first the vested interests of the political class here and across Europe.

You can vote Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour and it won’t make any difference.  We all think and act the same way.

Enough people will still keep voting for the three main parties to allow us to claim a mandate to act as an elected dictatorship.  You will continue paying your taxes, obeying the laws handed down for you to observe, abiding by our diktats, suffering the consequences and discomforts of our actions that are there only to serve the establishment and power brokers who control the fortunes of the political class.  So why is there any need to listen to you, let alone do what you ask?

I want this country to be ruled by the EU. Nick Clegg wants this country to be ruled by the EU.  Ed Miliband wants this country to be ruled by the EU.  That’s the way it is and that’s the way it’s going to be.  And you are stuck with it because we have bound you so tightly in rules and regulations, assisted and enforced by unelected and unaccountable placemen in various departments, agencies, quangos and commissions who are also funded by your taxes.

As a result you play the game by the rules we and our paymasters choose.  This is the post-democratic age.  You only think you have influence.  You have no power.

Dear reader, if you want power then it has to be taken back.  Our servants have made themselves our masters.  They will not give power away.  Rejecting these people is not enough, we have to defeat them.  The game has to be played differently.  The rules of the game no longer apply.

Yet more ‘media plurality’ hypocrisy from the Guardian

The ever dwindling band of Guardian readers were subjected to one of editor Alan Rusbridger’s reality-warping, self indulgent rants of vested self interest on Sunday.

In his piece ‘The overwhelming case for plurality’, Rubbisher ludicrously says that his media plurality meme:

‘is not just about Rupert Murdoch – allowing media power to be concentrated in the hands of a few multibillionaires will impoverish society.’

So how do the Guardian’s lavishly paid mandarins, who continue to churn out excuse after excuse to set aside the BBC’s domination of the media landscape, walk their talk?  In a classic piece of ‘do as we say, not as we do’ the Guardian Media Group sold its GMG Radio enterprise, which includes the stations Smooth Radio and Real Radio, for around £70m to Global Radio.

The outcome is that Global Radio now controls over 50 per cent of the UK commercial radio market.  How very plural.

One can’t help but wonder what the Guardian’s reaction would be if Rupert Murdoch controlled over 50% of UK commercial radio.  Clearly plurality remains the hollow excuse for the assault on News Corp and the left wing media’s continuing efforts to neuter BSkyB as a rival to the BBC while chipping away at News International’s newspaper business.

Amnesia afflicts Wiltshire Police

October 2011

As reported by the BBC:

… Chief Constable Brian Moore urged the public not to call with things “clearly not matters for us to deal with”.

Mr Moore said cutting down on the number of irrelevant calls from members of the public was also essential.

“Don’t waste my time,” he said.

“Don’t call us for things that are clearly not matters for us to deal with.

“We don’t have the time to do that – we never have had but we particularly don’t have now.”

… The chairman of Wiltshire Police Authority, Christopher Hoare, said they were working “to ensure that the public only call the police when they need them for policing work”.

… Kate Pain, from the Wiltshire Police Federation, said officers want to get back to “core policing” and “can’t do everything for everybody”. […] “So as a result of the cuts and our restructuring we are going to have to be quite clear in our message about what is and is not a police matter.”

The message seems pretty clear. Cuts are reducing the ability of the police to perform their role.  OK.

June 2012

Now fast forward now to a piece in the Daily Wail:

School truants are being hauled out of bed by police and escorted to classes in a patrol car.

Officers are clamping down on truants by calling at the homes of any pupils who fail to turn up to school without a reason.

If they are still in bed, police get the parents to wake them up before driving them to lessons.

Clearly those deep, far reaching, unprecendented cuts are having a major impact on front line policing. That or Wiltshire Police have forgotten all those things they were saying last year before telling the public how officers are being deployed to round up children and masquerade as school bus drivers.

So what are we going to do about it?

Perhaps the Failygraph has some uses.  On Monday it devoted space for a common sense op-ed by Fritz Vahrenholt, formerly an active supporter of the IPCC and its CO2 theory, who now declares himself ‘not convinced that humanity is causing catastrophic global warming’.

While the ground Vahrenholt covers will not be new to readers of this blog, EU Referendum, Watts Up With That, and numerous other sites, it does at least provide for some incisive comments which add some value to the debate.  Standing out among these was this contribution:

This is the challenge the world faces.

The whole climate change industry is grounded in politics, not science.  Leading sites such as Watts Up With That and Bishop Hill continue to produce some excellent content, but to no real end because they are attempting to challenge a political endeavour masquerading as science, with science.  The only way to tackle the political and corporate vested interest agenda is politically.  Engaging the opposition on its faux ground of science simply diverts attention from the real activity that needs to be stopped.

As Tayles says in his comment, ‘they aren’t about to give up the fight that easily’.  He/she is spot on.  The justification for political and corporate actions will simply morph into something else.  Global warming will make way for another imminent threat that, surprise surprise, will also just happen to require solutions necessitating centralised political control beyond democratic accountability and structures, wealth transfer, higher energy and bills, rationing of essentials such as water and power, vast sums of taxpayer money gifted in ‘subsidy’ for lucrative mitigation activities, and so on.

Given this the only question that remains is, what are we going to do about it?

Playing catch up

It’s been quite a rollercoaster these last few weeks.  A combination of lots of work and now the birth of young Developing Mind (now my son and heir, Infant Mind) has kept me away from the computer screen.  But hopefully blogging will increase as the Mind family settles into its new routine around our new pride and joy.

A quick scan of the papers this morning suggests I’m not the only one playing catch up.  The Daily Wail is telling its legion of readers:

Britain’s ability to meet its water needs is at a ‘critical point’, according to a report.

It says water use should be drastically reduced and bills increased to penalise over consumption, as increasing temperatures and a rising population stretch resources.

The Institute of Civil Engineers said the Government’s water strategy does not recognise the ‘urgency’ of the situation.

If you are feeling a sense of deja vu reading that, you’re not going mad, this is what the Failygraph was reporting back in March.

Of course, I could begin a comprehensive fisking of the report’s conclusions – making the blindingly obvious point that this group of engineers might better occupy their time thinking of new engineering solutions to the problem, such as developing new reservoirs or water transit networks.  But that was done already by Richard over at EU Referendum months ago, back when the story passed for news – and again when he exposed the mendacity of the politicians and corporations.

It might be more productive if our great engineers stopped shilling for politically driven policy dogma and repeating the contradictory climate change effect on water nonsense that sees the need to build bigger flood defences because climate change is going to make it rain more on the one hand, and the big state and water companies telling us to pay more for water because climate change will make it rain less on the other, and got on with engineering.