Why aren't we being offered a clear choice for the future of Britain by our politicians?

We're told that the coming General Election is the most important for a generation. Trust me they always are.

But we're not being offered a clear choice based on differing visions for the future of our country by the people who would be our representatives. Why is this?

Well in large part it is because they have become so far removed from the reality of our every-day lives and so focused upon their own short-term employment prospects, that they simply don't give a toss about the electorate or the future success of the country. It's about keeping their cushy jobs or securing a cushy job and has nothing to do with improving the lives of their constituents.

They are all terrified by the prospect of standing up in front of a real audience and having to discuss real issues. They only ever appear in front of a carefully hand picked 'positive and supportive' audience. It's a shambles and an affront to democracy in my opinion. They have no interest in our views and only during an election will they pay even lip service to what we think - and ignore anything remotely difficult in the (correct) belief that it will go away after the election.. - or not 'go away', just become a problem they don't have to worry about because there's absolutely nothing we voters can do about it.

These people are not working for us, they're working for themselves, but we're picking up the tab. We're effectively paying them to ignore us. How stupid are we?

Anyway, that's all true and quite interesting in a detail kind of way but the point I want to make here goes beyond this bullshit. I think that we're not being presented with a clear and different 'vision' (or 'choice') for the future of our country, based on differences in political stance, because it's pointless to make such an offer.

And it's pointless because while we're a member of the EU, there is simply no point in having a 'vision' for our own country.

We cannot, under the yolk of the EU, have any kind of vision for where we want to be as a nation.  The only 'vision' we can have is as a bit-part player in the great European programme - or pogram as it might better be described.

As one of 28 members - and the 2nd largest net contributor of only 11 net contributors - we have an 8% share in the project, an 8% level of influence but it's not even that because we're ignored, sneered at even, by Brussels. By unelected Eurocrats. Sneered at even though we pay their massively inflated and cushy salaries. And they make the laws and we have to abide by them and they ignore our concerns and we pay for this. We are totally fucking mad.

And this means that we cannot have a vision about where we're going as a country, as a nation, as a people. Because we're paying massively for these fuckwits to decide on our future, whether it suits us or not.

We're not being offered a choice about our future as a country in this coming General Election, because whatever we vote for will be irrelevant if it doesn't meet with the approval of the unelected EU.

If we stay in the EU we will have to give up the pound as sure as night follows day, and we will be subsumed into the EU - or let's tell it like it is, the German philosophy. And what hope, what freedom, what democracy we fought for twice in the last century will have been completely in vain.

If you think this is good, I'll respect your views - that is what freedom means after all. But if you think that this will be a good thing for the UK, for us Brits, you are sorely mistaken.

Instead of having a long-term vision for the UK - a nation of enterprise, endeavour, fairness and honourable behaviour; a nation with unsurpassed positive relationships with important and growing trading nations around the world, places like Canada, India, Australia, the USA, China; we are actually being tied in to the inward-looking, slow-moving, protectionist, backward and shrinking/failing trading bloc that is the EU. A bloc that is doing more than any other to stop Africa from trading its way into the first world because it might be a threat to the French subsistence farming way of life.

Being in the world's largest trading bloc is not a boon for UK trade, it's a brake on our ability to trade with the rest of the world - something that our success as a nation has always been built upon. The EU represented 78% of our overseas trade in 1974 when we entered the 'Common Market'. It's now 45% and falling and as the Eurozone's biggest customer they simply cannot afford not to trade with us. There would be no blocking tariffs on UK trade with Europe if we left the EU because they have much more to lose than we do. There would be no significant job losses if we left, indeed there would be major job opportunities as we would be free to trade with the rest of the world - and the US (although it won't publicly admit it) would be much more keen to trade and work with us as a free trading partner with a strong entry into European (and Asian) markets if we could provide them with much easier access to European markets than they currently enjoy with the creaking machinery of the EU.

If we stay in the EU our destiny will be as a bit-part player in a failing trading bloc, without any real influence just massive bills for little or no benefit. If we get out we have a strong chance of becoming a great trading nation once again and we would not have to pay for the turn-around of corrupt and backward nations that are now joining the EU. We would be able to control our borders and in so-doing, be able to plan our infrastructure and the provision of services that we all need. We could once again have a positive (and I would say correct) attitude towards immigration: It would be an asset to us, not a problem.

For the moment all we really need in terms of 'vision' for the future of the UK is one in which we get out of the EU. It has failed as a project financially, economically and culturally and is actually more likely to cause conflict in Europe, the abolition of which was its initial raison d'etre. Outside of it we can trade and work with our friends in European countries and around the world on our own behalf instead of being dictated to by failed politicians from Luxembourg, Italy etc. How did it come to this?

Time to go and when we do, the vision for our successful future will take care of itself. And our votes at a general election will have real meaning for us all.

Thanks for reading.

Dave's referendum 'carrot' is entirely illusory

OK the first thing to say here is that I am, by instinct, a Tory. To put it succinctly they try to fix problems whilst Labour tries to hide or ignore them. Labour is the sort of person who hides problems in his bottom drawer for as long as possible and then when they are found out, when they can no longer be hidden, walks away and leaves others to sort out the shit he has created.

I think that sums it up quite accurately if you think about it?

However as far as I am concerned getting the UK out of the EU is a much bigger deal, much more important and frankly I'd vote for a B&Q cactus instead of Dave if it would better secure that goal. Because if one really thinks this through, it will be largely irrelevant who one votes for in the UK in 10 or 20 years' time if we stay in the EU. If we do we will, as night follows day, have to accept the Euro and ditch the pound and whilst that might be an unavoidable economic reality, it will be much more than that in terms of our sovereignty and hard fought for freedoms as one of the world's leading - and path-finding - nations.

We are currently the world's 5th or 6th largest economy. Subsumed into the EU we would have 8% of the voting influence within the only shrinking trading bloc in the world. And we'd be (currently are) unable to make trade deals on our own behalf with friendly countries like the US, Canada, India, Australia and many parts of Africa. Instead we'd continue to support the EU whose tariffs are effectively blocking Africa from trading its way into the first world.

But here's the thing:

Dave is trying to keep people 'on side' by offering a referendum on our membership of the EU. He's trying to keep the antis (like me) on side by hinting that a referendum could just possibly mean Brexit. And since none of the other parties are even contemplating offering us voters a democratic say on our membership (even though the EU now has massive - but totally undemocratic - influence on our daily lives), he's taking credit and making political capital out of this.

But it is entirely illusory.

Dave will not tell us what his renogitiations will be, what powers he wants back for the UK. What he deems to be absolutely sacrosanct in terms of what we need to achieve. The EU is currently in crisis because net recipient Greece might leave. The consequences of the third biggest net contributor (UK) leaving would be catastrophic for the EU. If Dave threatens it with any kind of credibility or seriousness, they would simply have to accede to his (our) requirements. No ifs or buts. They would have absolutely no choice.

Dave holds all the cards here. And he won't play them. He tells us that we need reform of the EU (and so does Miliband and Clegg without having any clue as to what those reforms might be), but he won't make it happen, even though he clearly could if he wanted to.

Greece would clearly be better off outside the Eurozone: Able to devalue and rebalance its economy. 65% of young people in Greece are unemployed - they have nothing to lose really. The only way is up for them. And Spain, Italy, Portugal, Eire and most importantly France are in the teeth of the same dilemma. The EU folding would be a disaster for France (but not the others) since it keeps France's medieval subsistence farming economy going when France itself could not dream of affording to achieve this. But it will eventually have to face reality. The EU is just putting this off as the price for keeping France onside alongside Germany which is effectively raping Europe. A strong term I know, but accurate nonetheless.

The others - the PIGS as they are collectively known - would devalue and pretty soon prosper again, just as Iceland who bailed out its people rather than the banks, has done.

Dave needs to come clean and tell us what is really going on: What is going on is that for some reason (Common Purpose is at its heart I think) Dave has no intention of doing what's right for the UK. Which is getting us out of the monstrous EU. He's holding out a carrot that is entirely illusory.

The latest 'we'll bring forward the referendum to 2016' offer is also illusory. It's like a 'snap' election - brought forward not to being our chance of having a say closer, but because he (they) think that an earlier referendum would be more likely to achieve a 'yes' verdict than a longer drawn-out campaign that would allow us Brexit advocates to win the argument. It is not about enabling Brexit earlier, but to make a stay in vote more likely. This is totally disingenuous of Dave.

It's time we recognised this and stopped giving him credit for offering a referendum that will see the massive machinery of the EU and the UK 'establishment' campaigning for an 'in' vote, when what we really need is 'out'. And we need 'out' because unless we achieve that we will become voiceless puppets of the centralising, unelected, undemocratic Euro regime that is exactly what we fought against in two world wars in the 20th Century.

More importantly we need 'out' because that would almost certainly mean that the whole fundamentally flawed EU project would come tumbling down much to the benefit of our friends in Europe who are currently being economically devastated as a direct result of EU policy. This is not just about the UK's sovereignty and democracy, but about the very survival and possible future prosperity of most of Europe.

One of the founding principles of the EU, post WW2 was to make war impossible ever again. But by forcing peoples, cultures and economies into the same rigid financial straight jacket it is having exactly the opposite effect. It's time we - and our leaders who are just pretending that all's well, when it clearly isn't - admitted that the EU is an ongoing disaster. Free trade will prevent war, forced compliance with Germanic doctrine which is crucifying southern Europe will not.

Wake up for fuck's sake.

Thanks for reading.

Has the Party of Failure created a big enough 'client state' to win the election?

If one puts one's tribal political views to one side for a moment and looks instead at what's really happening in our country in terms of the economy, employment, prosperity and, at the heart of things, the motivation of the two main parties, it's difficult to see how Labour is still ahead in the polls.

Far be it from me to suggest that Dave and George have been great, but they did face a huge problem when they came in and despite Mr Clegg trying to fuck everything up along the way, they have got the country pointing in the right direction at last. Yes the debt has increased; yes some of the welfare reforms have caused pain and suffering (but has also got many people out of the poverty trap), but it's not all been great. It was never going to be given the problems we faced.

But at the heart of things the Tories have been trying to make things better: Encouraging entrepreneurship and the creation of enterprising small businesses, whereas Labour has also been trying (forever it seems to me) to create small businesses out of former big businesses. Instead of brushing NHS failures under the carpet the Tories have been trying to expose the problem and address it. Instead of lowering the bar to achieve good stats in education, they have been trying to raise standards.

Anyway the thing is this.

I think the Labour party is the party of failure. It does not represent or even respect people who work hard. It has deliberately created a client state where 'entitlement' to money has become the norm. Where you have the 'right' to a lifestyle of some considerable comfort, without having to work for it. The Welfare state used to - and should now - be a safety net to help people until they can get back on their feet.

It has now morphed into an entitlement and a lifestyle choice. And when you have a significant percentage of people working full-time but who need a top up from government in terms of benefits in order to have enough to live on, then the whole system is essentially fucked.

My overriding concern is that Labour has created a big enough 'client state' - which inevitably means a lack of ambition or preparedness to work - that can actually secure it (the Labour Party) an election victory.

In other words, that there are now enough people who are dependent upon the state for their income - and who will obviously vote Labour in order to perpetuate their non-contributory, I-can-live-quite-comfortably-thank-you-without-working lifestyle, to return Labour to office. And so to perpetuate the downwardly spiralling problem of a government that is anti business and therefore anti the very means by which we create the wealth and money that pays for everything else.

Just think about that for a moment.

Socialism has some great fundamental values but they just don't work in reality if one doesn't have the means to pay for them. It has always been something of a drag on run-away prosperity and has, valuably I would argue, meant that those who are less able, less lucky or less corrupt are not discarded.

But when one gets to the point where the less productive are running the show and can secure electoral success not by their beliefs and ambitions such as they are, but just by the numbers, we're in a downward spiral.

And that's a terrifying prospect.

Because it means that our government will be about what's in your unemployment package this week, rather than where the country and our kids will be in 10, 20, 50 year's time.

And if we go down this route, that will be precisely nowhere.

Thanks for reading.

The bottom line with Islam

We have a different mindset in 'the West' from those who support Islam.

Our view is that we observe the rule of law in the lands in which we live and we accept people who have different beliefs from our own as long as they have a live and let live attitude to what we do. It's a reciprocal arrangement. Do what you want behind closed doors or in your religious houses, but whilst I won't infringe upon your beliefs and activities, you must agree not to infringe upon mine.

That's just how we are. Generous, tolerant, friendly.

Now compare that approach with what happens in lands that are dominated and controlled by Muslims. Are Christians or Jews welcomed? Tolerated? Or persecuted and killed?

Are people who renounce their Muslim religion respected and wished well, or called apostates and killed?

And yet you advocate tolerance towards Muslims?

Actually I do too, so long as those Muslims share my values of law abiding tolerance as set out above. So where are they? If they are in the UK, they're unique in the world.

Our tolerance is actually being used against us to promote intolerance. How does that sit with your PC outlook? 

Thanks for reading.

How will the Muslim Council of Britain respond to Prince Charles' comments?

This is what HRH Prince Charles is saying in tomorrow's Mail on Sunday.

I think he's entirely right to make his comment - I haven't read the full article but the headline and sub-heads are quite clear. And his comments come hard on the heels of Eric Pickles' letter to Muslim leaders in the UK of a couple of weeks ago.

I have been blogging on this subject for some months now and calling for the UK establishment to ask the question of our Muslim neighbours as to whose side they're on.

Clearly my shorthand for what the question we should be asking is not as nuanced or as diplomatic as Prince Charles' or Pickles' but it is essentially exactly the same thing: Namely that in a world where Radical Islam believes it is at war with us in the West, we need to know who is on our side in this country; who we can rely on not just to stand up for our views, laws and values, but, more importantly, not to undermine them at every opportunity.

The response to Pickles' letter - essentially a call for help in addressing this growing problem - was to reject it as incorrectly 'singling out' Muslims. They (Muslim Council of Britain - MCB and others) called it patronising and ignorant. In essence they rejected his premise that 'we should all be on the same side here, do you agree?'

The answer, then, wasn't a clear 'no' but it was very close. Prince Charles has now stepped in - and quite rightly in my opinion - to state what is clearly obvious to most of us: That if you choose to come and live here, to be welcomed, protected by our laws, provided with good healthcare and education for your kids and be respected - and treated equally - by everyone who already lives here, you must reciprocate by abiding by our laws and values.

Respect and tolerance must be a two-way street if we are to live together amicably, peacefully and prosperously. That's not draconian or controlling, but sheer common sense, surely?

Anyway it will be interesting to see how the MCB and others respond to Charlie boy's comments. And I don't think it's a 'throw away' thing. It seems to me this is part of a co-ordinated push by the establishment to put some pressure on. And it is the right thing to do.

Having studied this issue quite closely for a few years now I have inevitably reached some conclusions. I think our government is almost ready to reach some for itself. And like our government I am reluctant to make them public because they are not necessarily comfortable ones.

There are plenty of people on twitter and elsewhere who will tell you that Islam is a danger to us all, that it is anti-democratic, a religion of servitude, conquest and terror and not the 'religion of peace' that we are constantly told it is.

Having studied the Quran and observed the actions of Muslims around the world but also in the UK, I do tend to agree with this conclusion, but if I were to go 'all out' in support of this conclusion, I would be ignored as just another 'racist' nutter and conspiracy theorist. It is far better in my opinion to try to present the facts and issues in as rational a way as possible and in a way which affords 'Moderate Muslims' some benefit of the doubt.

I could (and of course will) go into a litany of criticism of Ialamic-belief-driven acts in the UK which see our long fought for laws being undermined. The track record is not good is it? FGM, vote fraud, forced marriages, honour killings, polygamy, child sexual exploitation on an industrial scale around the country, anti semitism, killings on our streets here and around the globe. Young Muslims going to Syria and Iraq to fight against the West having been brought up in the UK. The 'Trojan Horse' take-over of school curriculums. Sharia law embedded into local communities across the country with resulting 'no-go' areas and police and local authorities being intimidated therein into turning a blind eye to upholding British laws. In our own country?

Multiculturalism may, in theory, be a good thing for Britain, but this kind of multiculturalism clearly is not.

The question remains (just) whether there are any large numbers of 'Moderate Muslims' who abhor these practises and might be willing to stand up for the UK and its laws. And who might, therefore be on our side as opposed to being 'an enemy within'. If it turns out that they are an enemy within, that their belief in a book written by an illiterate goatherd 1,400 years ago when we thought the world was flat, supersedes our modern values, views and laws, then we have a massive problem as a country and as a society.

I think the UK government and Prince Charles are at long last starting to 'get it'.

I fervently hope that 'Moderate Muslims' in our society catch up very quickly and understand that this is a major danger to them and to all of us. If they (Moderate Muslims) don't exist - they may not be active in undermining our laws but by ignoring the problem they are certainly complicit - then we do have a serious problem and its solution will mean large-scale internment and deportation. I can't see any other solution. I know it sounds unthinkably draconian, but can you think of any other way to solve this problem if our neighbours are actively plotting to take over our lives?

As I say the response to Prince Charles' comments will be extremely interesting.

Thanks for reading

Is not responding to Radical Islam's extreme provocation about strategy or fear?

One has to wonder what it might take for 'The West' to say 'enough is enough' as far as Radical Islam is concerned? (I'm including ISIS in this definition - if you know different/better, let me know).

If the televised beheading of journalists or aid workers is not enough, or executing cartoonists in their offices or Jews in a grocery store in France: Gunning down Canadian soldiers, holding people hostage in Sydney Australia, or the attempted beheading of a British soldier on the streets of London, isn't, then what is enough? Well there's always burning a man alive - and broadcasting the event via social media as happened this evening.

From the Radical Islam point of view this is clearly a tactic that is designed to shock, terrify and provoke people in the West. It's their version of 'hearts and minds' but typically, it's not about delivering food or opportunity or equality and democracy, but delivering terror.

However, if you think about it, all 'we' did in Iraq and Afghanistan was to deliver death and terror before we walked away having failed to embed any kind of civilised societal structures in those countries when we had the chance to do so. Well done Dubbya and Bliar.

However the extreme provocation we're currently witnessing seems to me to be Radical Islam's way of hitting the West as hard as it can given its lack of conventional military capability. And arguably it's working.

I think it's inconceivable that there aren't groups of Radical Muslims in the UK planning some kind of atrocity on our streets at this very moment. Some serious and credible plots have been foiled in the past couple of years but will we go on being 'lucky' forever? I seriously doubt it.

So why aren't Western governments doing anything about this threat? One of the sides involved clearly sees itself as being 'at war' with us, and yet we will not even admit that there is a real problem. Our politicians and main stream media (MSM) use terms like 'lone wolf' and 'this has nothing to do with Islam' when it's quite clear to any rational thinker that this has everything to do with Radical Islam and its interpretation of the Quran. That is what is driving this whole situation and yet we seem to be in denial. Why?

It seems to me that there can only be two possible reasons for this. One is that ignoring these barbaric acts and increasingly extreme provocation is part of an agreed strategy by the West in some way to starve these radicals of publicity and recognition in the hope that, eventually, they'll turn on themselves (even more than they already are) and disappear as a threat to us and our way of life. How's that going chaps? No wonder they want to control the Internet and social media. But that particular Genie is well out of the bottle now.

So it really cannot be that reason can it?

The other alternative is much less comfortable. It's fear pure and simple. Radical Islam is clearly trying to provoke a response from the West. It wants us to go to war against it. To declare war. Condemning 'in the strongest possible terms' yada yada is not really saying anything. They want us to declare war on Radical Islam. Why do you think they want this? Can you deny that this is really - and clearly - their goal? Why else are they making their barbarity so public and so taunting towards us?

It's because they want - are desperate to - provoke a war between the West and Radical Islam.

Now why would they want to do that? Given that we have military power, jet fighters, smart bombs, drones etc?

And why are we so reluctant to pick up their thrown 'glove on the ground'?

Modern conflict is not about two lines of troops and tanks facing each other across no-man's-land: It's become about terror on the streets and about enemies living within the communities they seek to destroy. 'Sleepers' perhaps or 'an enemy within'. Which if you think about it, is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to beat with conventional forces.

Does ISIS and Radical Islam believe it has enough 'sleepers' in place, in Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, the UK and the US to win this war? And is our reluctance to engage, in spite of the barbarity we see on an almost daily basis, because we think they might be right?

It's a bit of a doomsday scenario I admit, but are you sure I'm wrong? Can you explain why we won't engage in the light of a clear and present danger to our populations?

Remember one thing, these radicals see death as a glorious event. Martyrdom as an entry into eternal paradise. They don't fear but embrace death. And they cannot be negotiated with unless one is prepared to give total submission to Allah and to Islam. To pray (live) on our knees five times a day and for the rest of the day if we're honest.

And if we lose? I've posted this before but it's such a strong image imo.

I think we will have to fight to defend our values and way of life. I think many innocent people, Christian, Jewish and Muslim will lose their lives as a result of this battle which we didn't instigate and don't want. But if we don't fight for freedom, we'll lose it.

Time is running short and we will have to stand up to these barbarians soon. Sadly.

The alternative is not worth contemplating.

Thanks for reading.