CRIME PAYS

Many people were killed during the troubles in Northern Ireland. The families are now to be given some compensation — £12,000. Or at least that is the proposal. And so are the families of the murderers. Some killed by their own bombs, some shot by government troops. A banana republic idea that could only be made by people unable to differentiate between right and wrong.

ADOPTION

Here we are back in so politically correct banana republic Britain. A couple have been looking after two of their grandchildren — a 5 year old boy and his younger sister. Apparently the mother had a heroine addiction. Naturally the old couple (well he's 59 so hardly a dodderer but suffers from angina which is being managed and his wife is diabetic) love the grandchildren and can be relied on to provide them with a good, loving and caring home. Edinburgh social services have decided that because of their medical condition and possible death sooner rather than later they cannot be regarded as totally suitable. So they are taking the children away and having them adopted by a homosexual couple. Of course being a deviant doesn't guarantee everlasting life and one or both could fall under a bus tomorrow. To borrow a phrase I read recently of all social groups the one which is most dangerous to children is social services.

CORRUPT PEERS

So four members of the House of Lords have been accused of using their position to enrich themselves. Basically offering to influence legislation in return for money. Naturally they deny it and we shall have to wait for more information before sitting in judgement. But I am not surprised. The old (post-war) House of Lords was a mixed bag of characters with some peers being convicted criminals, drug addicts, rogues, colourful characters as well as a good number having a wide experience of life in business, the armed forces. Of course many chose not to sit in the House or did so only on a few occasions. I suspect that although the ones who did sit were also a cross-section of humanity (apart from their blue blood of course) they were probably skewed towards those with positive characters and many served their country well.
Now the House consists mainly of people elevated from the Commons together with other placemen chosen by the government. They are not elected. As the Commons has a large number of rogues, slime dogs, scum, scoundrels it is obvious that a chamber derived from such a source will be equally squalid. Ad so it has proved.

FOOD LEFT-OVERS

So WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) is going to send people out knocking on doors and telling them how to use up food waste and scraps rather than throw it away. A very laudable aim but smacks to me of yet more nanny state. At first it will be a pilot scheme trial but doubtless they have ambitions to expand. WRAP of course is a quango so employs dozens of quangocrats with nothing better to than dream up ways of annoying the general public and spending the taxpayers' hard-earned cash.