PEERS OF THE REALM

I see the MET, Britain's so-called premier police force, have decided not to follow up charges of corruption against four Labour Peers in the House of Lords. Well what a surprise! They seemed to think that Parliament would put so many obstacles in the way, as has happened in the past, that it wasn't worth the candle. We live in a banana republic run by a bunch of spivs and no way are our police going to get on the wrong foot with their political masters.

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.

HOKEY COKEY

I'm expecting the fuzz to come knocking on my door at any minute. This is for crimes I committed many years ago when I was barely a teenager. You see the local methodist chapel (Patmos Chapel) sometimes had social evenings. Often the night would come to an end with dancing the Hokey Cokey. Now I learn this is an anti-Papist hate activity. We certainly weren't made aware of that at the time although perhaps the insider elite knew what they were doing. My grandmother actually had a thing about "church people" (she meant Church of England) so perhaps she was in on the secret too. As Alan Cochrane has pointed out in his comment on the matter many thousands of people have enjoyed the fun knowing nothing about the alleged origins of the song. Now everyone does know perhaps some people will use it as an instrument of hate. At the next Old Firm match I wouldn't be surprised if it was sung with extra vigour. In case anyone missed the story the name Hokey Cokey is alleged to come from "hocus pocus" which in turn is a skit on the words of consecration "hoc est enim corpus".

Was a little amazed yesterday to see that we in UK are being advised to wrap our Christmas presents in cloth rather than wrapping paper. It seems a lot of gift wrapping paper can't be recycled and if people stick in the paper recycling bins the whole lot counts as being contaminated and off it goes to landfill. Well I think it probably is helpful to know that — it's certainly not made clear at the recycling receptacles in our local Tesco. I assumed the press got hold of this story from some guy in a government ministry with not much else to do. But no!! The message comes from an agency (quango) set up by the government. It's called "Waste and Resources Action Programme" — acronym "WRAP". Last year it cost the taxpayer around £80 million. Think about it. UK is almost on its knees, a total breakdown (well it's getting that way) of law and order, and the hard-pressed taxpayer is expected to trump up £80 million to pay a bunch of quangocrats to tell us how to wrap our prezzies. These are the sort of people the country can do without.