BBC & ENGLISH HERITAGE

The BBC are hoping to sell their Television Centre which was built around 1960. After all they don't make many programs now as much of their output is dreary old repeats. But there's a fly in the ointment in the shape of our old friends English Heritage. EH want to have the building listed which may well make it more difficult to sell and if anyone does go ahead and buy there could well be restrictions on what they can do with it. A new doormat will probably need planning permission in triplicate. The main purpose of EH is to make life difficult for normal people at the expense of normal people.

BBC

Just watched the BBC 6 o'clock national news. A short bit (very short and easily missed) piece about the Tory win (and Labour disaster) in the Henley byelection was followed by a long piece about Gordon Brown's popularity going over the last year of his time as prime minister. Interesting in a way but decidedly NOT news. The trouble with these people at the BBC is that their noses are so far up the Labour bottom that their brains are fill of shit. What is so difficult about the concept of "news" as relating to events in the last couple of days? Their lapses into documentary means that real news is not being fully reported.

And then we had a piece about the costs of the monarchy - BBC employees are republican wallahs to the hilt. I suspect the present Queen and her likely successor, Prince Charles both have a sense of duty to the nation which would be totally lacking in (say) Tony and Cherie Blair as President and First Lady. And I have no doubt that this wretched couple would be an even greater drain on the workers' purse.

ZIMBABWE

Yesterday Gordon Brown was talking tough on Robert Mugabe. But just talking — no doing. A pity he can't be tough on the ruffians and scoundrels who roam the streets of our cities.

CIGAR BOX SOUVENIR

So the Metropolitan Police are on the case of yet another master criminal! A robber? rapist? murderer? fraudster? No, it's none other than the Mayor of London Boris Johnson. He visited Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion and was strolling round the looted rubble of Tariq Aziz's mansion. He then saw a cigar case lying with all the rubbish on the floor and picked it up and put it in his pocket as a souvenir. Hardly worth mentioning when one considers what else was going on in Iraq at the time. But he did happen to mention this in article he wrote. Someone from the Labour Party saw the article and realizing a great crime had been committed informed the Met. Of course they're only too happy to put manpower and time (= taxpayer's money) into this as it means the squad involved won't have to tangle with real villains for a while. And Tariq Aziz wrote to Boris telling him he was happy for Boris to have the case as a gift.

ENGLISH HERITAGE

The local council describes Birmingham Central Library as a "blot" and wants to pull it down. Freddie Gick, chairman of the Birmingham Civic Trust calls it a "brutalist incinerator" though he may have been influenced by Prince Charles who in the past likened it to an incinerator suitable for burning books. Step in English Heritage who want to have the building listed. That means like the pyramid of Cheops it will be preserved for all time. Except that whereas the pyramid lasted for thousands of years because the pharaohs employed decent architects the library is likely to keel over in less than half a thousand years unless endless amounts of public money are spent on it. The jobsworths at English Heritage are the ones who should be pickled in strong brine and preserved for a few years as an example to other meddlers. Go ahead Birmingham — call in the demolition crew.

WESTMINSTER EXPENSES

Well our MPs have now come up with a new fix for their problems with housing expenses. As we know they have been very reluctant to open their expense claims to public view led by Michael Martin. The fix is simple — just look at the maximum that can be claimed annually and add it to the salary of MPs on a no questions asked basis and irrespective of whether it is needed. The amount seems to be around £23,000 pa tax-free which is roughly equivalent to £40,000 pre-tax. Discussions are still taking place so it has not been finalised and I gather HMRC have been involved in the discussions because of the tax implications. As far as I can make out the amount just replaces the housing allowance so there will still be other expenses eg for staffing and secretarial help. Now most of our legislation comes from Brussels perhaps we could reduce the burden on a long-suffering public by cutting the number of MPs drastically.

BRITISH AIRWAYS

So Naomi Campbell has been given a community service sentence for "abusive" behaviour towards British Airways (BA) staff on on aircraft at Heathrow's Terminal 5 prior to take-off. Well BA, one of the world's worst airlines, had lost her bag. She was a passenger/customer who had paid £5000 for the flight. So quite frankly I don't blame her for getting upset. I would. And as long as police/courts/magistrates continue to arrest/prosecute/punish BA passengers who demand a reasonable service the more BA's obnoxious stewardesses will feel able to continue giving their passengers one of the worst services in the world. Of course our police service would much rather arrest a female model than the hoodlums who now rule our streets. What I really find amazing is that some people still opt to fly on this wretched airline.

CAIRNGORMS

Scottish National Heritage (SNH) is concerned about climate change on the Cairngorm summits. Mosses, liverworts, lichens and bryophytes generally are having a tough time. The insects they support ditto. And hence the birds such as ptarmigans and snow buntings. If they whole lot disappear it won't matter one jot. Just one less thing for SNH to worry about and one less reason for supporting this bunch of leeches on the public purse. When a few years ago they built a railway to (almost) the top of Cairngorm itself it fed into a cafe where one could spend money on refreshments and souvenirs. But the public couldn't leave the railhead area to walk the short distance to the very top in case they stepped on a newt or a ptarmigan. Neither could they walk down as some might be inclined to do. This is to help ensure that only important scientists can enjoy the hills to the full. Not quite true as anyone was allowed to walk up but then to spite them they weren't allowed into the tea area to enjoy a snack. Or, if they were tired, to go down by train. SNH is one of the quangos that exists to make life more difficult and less pleasant for normal people.

MINISTERIAL SECURITY

So Hazel Blears, a Cabinet minister, has had her laptop stolen from her office. Reports suggest that apart from information about her constituents there were also files of sensitive government information which should not have been on the computer. Perhaps the solution is to require that every computer belonging to an MP should carry unencrypted files detailing their expense claims for the current session of Parliament. And similarly all bags and briefcases that they carry on public transport or into public places should contain paper hard copies of same. As this is one class of data that many MPs do their utmost to keep under wraps the hope is that they would then exercise a greater degree of care.

MEPs

Yesterday the Sunday press reported that the EU allowances of yet another Tory MEP are being queried. Den Dover may have channeled allowances of up to £750,000 into the family firm MP Holdings which he used as "paying agent" and "service provider". A report in the Sunday Times deals mostly with the purchase of two cars but I would be interested to see where the rest went.

GRAVY TRAIN SCOTLAND

So MSPs have decided they need larger allowances. Most people of course have to persuade their boss or their company for more money (whether basic salary or allowance). But MSPs just do it. Their budget for employing staff is to go up from £45,000 to £62,000. And because Scotland has a form of proportional representation they have decided that all MSPs will get the same whether a constituency MSP or a "list" MSP. The independent review thought that the former (who are elected, whilst the latter are just party jobsworths) should get more because they have a bigger workload — after all if a constituent has problems it is their constituency MSP they are likely to contact. But the MSPs have decided that all should be equal — no second-class coaches on this gravy train.

GRAVY TRAIN FOR MEPs

MEPs seem to make good use of their expense allowances and it seems that David Cameron is a little concerned about what might emerge. He wants the 28 Conservative MEPs to come clean but almost half of them are resisting (Daily Telegraph 9th June). Today the same paper reveals that a Labour MEP paid his boyfriend £8000 per month in 2002. He now pays £30,000 annually to the man personally but it is unclear what happens to the remainder of the allowance. Since 1999 he has claimed over £760,000 and it is believed that it was given to his boyfriend, now civil partner, to administrate. Scumbags.

POLICE TARGETS

Good to see that a senior officer has criticised target-driven policing which is sometimes allowed to replace common sense. Peter Fahy (Chief Constable for Cheshire) says police should concentrate on real offenders rather than getting ticks in boxes by dishing out easy cautions. He says that minor playground incidents are sometimes ending up with criminal charges when in former days they would have been dealt with informally or ignored altogether. Another senior officer is reported as saying "the only league table that really counts is what people in our communities think of their police force".
A recent Policing Review by Sir Ronnie Flanagan mentioned a child being arrested for throwing a slice of cucumber from a tuna sandwich at another child. And a peacock damaged a car by pecking at rubber seals. I don't think peacocks can be arrested in this country but the form-filling and box-ticking must have taken up time which would have been better spent elsewhere. The owner is lucky it was a peacock and not a newt (or at least a great crested newt). In that case our nature conservation quangos would have demanded a 100 yard no-go zone cordoned off around the car until the newt had eaten the lot or gone off to find a better home.

CRAZY WORLD

Reading last Saturday's Daily Telegraph I had to check the date wasn't April Fools' Day. On page 3 we see that the scum at English Heritage bought and upgraded a mansion house for over £7 million and are now selling it for around £4.5 million. This quango employs thousands of people to spend taxpayers' hard earned cash on pointless projects.

Another page tells us of a plan to stop the branding of cigarettes. All packets will be printed in plain black and white. I remember when I was a youngster going through a spell of collecting fag packets - the red and white Craven A packs, green Woodbine that you could buy in packs of 5, Camel, Senior Service, Kensitas and literally hundreds of others. As another anti-smoking initiative is to put cigarettes under the counter instead of on open display I don't see how the pack design makes any difference. Just means that shops may have a problem finding space and their staff will be bending down rooting in dark cupboards. No longer will a customer be able to spot the brand he/she wants and point it out - "Look, it's up there on that shelf near the right, the dark red packs".

On page 5 we read that a taxi driver has been unable to renew his licence because his command of grammar doen's stretch to the proper use of apostrophes. He seems to think that knowing his way round Bournemouth and being able to handle late-night drunks is a more important skill but the jobsworths at Bournemouth soon put him right there.

And at the other end of the UK at Falkirk in Scotland a major retail development worth over £100 million has been delayed for 25 weeks because a janitor claims to have seen a great crested newt - the furthest north such a creature has ever been recorded. In spite of an intensive search no-one else has been able to find either the creature itself or even a suitable habitat for it to live. Scottish National Heritage are on the case spending taxpayers' money to ensure that evolution does not take it's natural course.

When I got to page 10 and saw the headline I thought common sense had won in the end. "Somebody had to face the firing squad" it declared. But no, it was another cruel joke. English Heritage, Bournemouth Council, SNH, and the smoking police are still alive and kicking.