Dave is absolutely right to have made a start on addressing the Radical Islam issue in the UK

Having criticised Dave for well over a year on the need to stop denying that Radical Islam poses a major threat to our way of life in the UK, it is right, I think, to now give credit where it's due and to welcome his speech today and the upcoming initiative aimed at addressing the 'poison' of extremism.

I have been saying for a long time that, sooner or later, we will have to ask British Muslims whose side they're on, by which I mean do they accept the absolute authority of UK law over the religious teachings of the Qu'ran and some of their community leaders. This is, it seems to me, a fundamental requirement of British citizenship and living in this country.

That is not to say that being British or living in the UK means they have to renounce or give up their religious beliefs, just that they have to practise them in an environment wherein UK laws take precedence over their 'holy book'.

In our modern secular democracy we simply cannot have the rule of law by which we all live, undermined or ignored by adherence to religious beliefs that do not coincide with our way of life. We didn't ask you to come here, we allowed you to come here and I think we should therefore expect you to accept the values of our communities which are founded upon living within long-established and democratically arrived at laws and practises.

That may sound blunt but where has our tolerance got us so far? It has often been thrown back in our faces in a way in which our 'tolerance' has been used against us to introduce Islamic 'intolerance' into our society. I think, and hope that Dave's speech today was the start of our saying, as a society, that enough is enough.

Mr Blair's drive for multiculturalism has simply not worked either for indigenous Brits or for incoming families who seem to have been swallowed up by existing Muslim communities in which fundamentalism and conflict are far too commonplace because we have allowed certain beliefs and practises that are contrary to our views, way of life and laws, to thrive unchallenged for fear of our causing offence. This is just mad.

It has led to the current position in which Islam, in our towns and cities throughout the land is effectively promoting the breaking of our domestic laws. We have polygamy, child brides, forced marriages, honour killings, electoral fraud, female genital mutilation on a massive scale and the grooming of vulnerable 'white trash' and often underage girls which is a nationwide disease. To top it all, we have young men - and families - returning to the Middle East to fight against our values by supporting ISIL. And our teachers and security forces get the blame for this? This is also entirely mad.

And these behaviours certainly cannot be accurately described as the actions of 'lone wolves'. They are Muslim community-based practises that whilst illegal in the UK, have largely been ignored by the police, our media and politicians for fear of offending Muslims. You've guessed it, this is also entirely mad and I think that Eric Pickles' letter last year; some comments from Dave and Prince Charles more recently and today's speech have been building towards addressing.

And about time too.

I happen to think that this is a situation which also lets down ordinary Muslim families who come to our country as well. I think that most genuine Muslim families who risk everything, pay over everything they have in order to come to the UK, do so seeking a better way of life in a freer, better governed country; one which offers better healthcare, education and opportunity than the one they left.

Instead our 'tolerant' 'PC' society has effectively meant that on arrival, they are quickly subsumed into exisitng Muslim communities wherein many of the practices and religious bullying they were fleeing from have been allowed to become established - and they're effectively then back where they started from.

And then we do get the so-called 'lone wolves' committing terrorist atrocities in host countries around the world as young Muslims are exploited and radicalised just as they would be in their countries of origin. When all hope of achieving a better life has effectively been extinguished.

In trying to welcome people, to accommodate them, to create an environment of 'tolerance' we have instead created an environment in which incomers are being exploited and bullied, cowed by the teachings of Mohamed and the Qu'ran, here in the UK, to the point where they are not much better off than they would have been staying in their country of origin.

Bullied and cowed by extremists in their communities - and not sufficiently protected by UK laws because of our mad PC outlook and the turning of a blind eye by our police, politicians and media - so that even if they abhor what is being done in the name of Islam right here in the UK, they are almost powerless to stand up to it.

I think 'Moderate Muslims' do need to stand up and be counted; do need to declare their allegiance to the UK and our laws and way of life and that we need to make it a whole lot easier for them to do so.

This is essentially what Dave is now trying to achieve. There's a long way to go but at least he's made a start and has stopped denying that there's a problem within our society. The next step must be to enable these 'moderates' to stand up, to declare their views and to let us know, unequivocally, whose side they are on. And they must stand up and do so, once this facility is in place. The sooner the better.

If they fail to do so then I think we might have our answer as to whether 'Moderate Muslims' actually exist.

I think they do - and more importantly so does Dave.

But if it turns out that they don't at least we will have been able to identify and recognise the problem we face and can then go about sorting it out. In this instance (i.e. that they don't) it will be difficult but not nearly as difficult as if we carry on ignoring and denying that we have a problem.

In the end the question, 'whose side are you on?' is one which needs to be answered by all Muslims in 'the West'. And for their own good as well as ours. Our freedoms and theirs rest on the answer, one way of the other.

Thanks for reading.

So, tell me about France?

I have to declare an interest here. I love France. I aspire to live there some day. My sister lives there and I would be off there in a shot, if I didn't have to work or earn there. The lifestyle is wonderful, the traffic (outside Paris) is negligible. It's a wonderful place with great food and wine and culture. I genuinely think it is a close to nirvana on the planet as we can currently get.

It might be a bit boring to those of you who seek 'action'. If you consider the UK for example where in this and the past few weeks, we have Wimbledon and the Ashes. Henley. Ascot. The Open starting next week. Cowes week. etc etc.

But 'en France' you can wake up, go to the local patisserie and have fresh croissants for breakfast. No traffic. No deadlines. Just joy. And serenity and relaxation. What's not to like? What's not to love?

And it will go on like this forever. Thanks to the EU.

Except that it won't.

The most recent figures I can come up with (2013) on net contributions to the EU, put Germany at £13.8 billion, France on £8.4 billion and the UK at £8.6 billion. Some other Northern European and Scandinavian countries pay in a few quid. Interestingly Italy contributes £3.7 billion.  And then the rest - like Spain £3 billion, Poland £12 billion and Hungary £4.6 billion are net recipients.

You can view the overall packages here.

It might also be worth remembering that the UK was 'forced' to pay an extra £2 billion at the end of last year because we were doing well, particularly when the EU included the black market and the UK sex trade in its calculations even though they could not be verified in any way.

So, as I started out by saying, tell me about France? Germany has its industrial might, its industry, its exports of cars in particular but also machinery, it has a thriving ship-building industry. It is essentially the world's industrial zone in terms of high value-added products as opposed to low tech industry which now comes out of China. The UK by contrast now makes a few sandwiches, a few diggers in Staffs, has a thriving - and globally competitive but foreign-owned - automotive industry and is the word's banker, insurer and legal services provider.

The UK economy is not perfect - we don't make enough to create real wealth - but we are the world-leader in spivs and crooks and financial commission-takers. And while I might not be a fan of this model, it is a very strong generator of income and money.

It makes us a powerhouse on the world stage. How sustainable it is is a moot point but right now? It's strong and we cannot survive economically without it.

So what has France got to offer in this globally competitive world?  Wine? Cheese? Some military technology? Government owned car manufacturers like Citroen, Peugeot and Renault?

And yet France is the third biggest contributor to the EU after Germany and the UK?

I'm sorry but this just doesn't stack up. Google how much France gets back from the EU and you'll find that there is not a page which answers the question.

I cannot prove this theory (which is maddening) but I am convinced that France gets much more money back from the EU than we are being told. I think that France is very close to being a net recipient of EU money. I think this is the price Germany pays to have France on board to support its (Germany's) attempt to take-over Europe this time.

At which point you stop reading and think I'm a conspiracy theorist nutter of course.

But you should look at a few facts first if you are interested in this stuff. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is currently 47% of the EU budget. Farming. Food production, is what the EU currently spends 47% of its money on. This is not to support efficient agribusiness in the UK or Germany but to support the French small farming, subsistence farming culture and economy. France could not hope to fund this inefficient farming system on its own so it is subsidised to a massive degree by the EU.

And it is why France is so wedded to the EU. Without it France would be a basket-case economy like Spain or Italy of Greece. And it is why Germany is allowed to wield so much power in the EU - because it has the support of France which could not survive economically without the EU.

It's fiendishly clever. Germany has France docile and the only other European economic powerhouse - the UK - effectively paying £28 million a day towards its take-over of Europe.

Just 70 short years since the last unpleasantness and the UK is now paying for Germany to achieve what we fought against, and France has been rendered powerless to oppose it.

France is getting more back from the EU than is being stated. The EU's books have not been signed off by auditors for 20 years. There is a massive sleight of hand at play here. France is powerless to resist and as we have seen in Greece, Germany via the EU has rendered most of Europe to be entirely dependent on German banks.

We've almost lost this fight. But if we - the UK - were to vote to leave the EU it would stop it in its tracks. Without the Eurozone's biggest customer and second biggest funder on side the EU will fail. Countries will be able to take back their sovereignty, devalue their currencies and prosper in their own right instead of being under the yolk of Germany.

There is still a chance then. It might be painful for France in the short-term, but it will be life-saving for most people in Europe. France will take a hit initially but it is currently living on an unsustainable model and borrowed time. I think most French people know this. And they'll bounce back because they are great people and have a wonderful country. And I'd still love to live there.

So long as it is not ruled by Germany. 

Thanks for reading.





 

If 'the establisment' don't get a grip on social media soon, they'll have to do what we want

I've blogged about the need for a reconnect between the voters-and-taxpayers and those who spend the money supposedly on our behalf in the past. Here and here

In most of these blogs I was putting forward an aspiration (or hope) that social media would help to achieve what I see as a fundamental requirement: That government and the establishment - and these are both the same thing and different as I will explain in a minute - should actually do what they were established for, which is to do what we want and need them to do on our behalf - things that we cannot do ourselves (because of scale) or cannot be arsed to do ourselves because we're getting on with living our lives. Essentially my hope was that it (social media) would enable a reconnect between what the people want and what is actually delivered by the governments we elect and to whom we give power to deliver our aspirations, meet our needs and consider our issues.

I have to admit that in the past (these blogs) have been about what should happen rather than what I thought would happen. I fervently hoped that social media would provide a voice for people but overall I felt that this would probably be a forlorn one. I was wrong. Social media is now a strong - and inexorably growing - source of power for the individual and it is achieving a significant and growing influence on how we are run. It really is starting to become a vehicle for 'power to the people' and not in a leftie way as that phrase suggests (although the left has as much opportunity to make use of it as everyone else), but in a truly empowering way.

OK just to get the 'government versus establishment' issue out of the way first if I may? Government is short-term. It tinkers with policy and makes changes on either side of quite a thin dividing line. The differences between Tory and Labour are sometimes significant but always within limits. The 'establishment' is the general direction of travel upon which we are embarked. Government comes and goes and tweaks, sometimes successfully, sometimes not; 'establishment' continues to grind along in a general direction for the country. Governments tinker they don't actually change much.

Anyway.

In my previous blogs I was hoping that social media might help to change the world - I was that ambitious for it but without actually believing that it would.

I have news: It is changing the world. It is getting our voice heard and it is reconnecting the voter - the humble voter like me and you - with the governance of our country. They cannot ignore us any more. They cannot hide shit on page 16 of the daily rag and hope we'll forget about it in a day or so.

Dave cannot hide his EU 'reforms' behind a 'we know best, trust me' mantra any more. Because we're interested, informed. Promises are remembered and revisited. No 'ifs no buts'. No bullshit.

They cannot any more 'do' government 'to' us. It has to be 'with' us. We hunt out hypocrisy. We share our knowledge. We form groups of like-minded people and we demand to be heard. We don't, any more just accept what we are told. The BBC's influence is diminishing massively. Because we have information from the whole wide world to factor in to our views.

Scrutiny and influence. We're almost getting to the point where our government and the establishment will have to do what we want - and pay - them to do for us.

It's fucking nirvana if one believes in democracy - and of course that must be the case for our politicians and the ruling classes because if they didn't believe in democracy they wouldn't have a job.

It's utterly delicious. 'Keep them in the dark and make sure they continue to pay their taxes (to 'us')' is no longer viable. We're not in the dark any longer. You may instigate laws that enable you to spy on us 24/7, but you need to be aware that you work for us and the internet and especially social media makes this a two-way street.

You can't run and you can't hide. We pay for you and, therefore, we expect and demand that you do actually work for us.

Knowledge is power and the balance of power is now becoming re-aligned in favour of ordinary people.

And this is a great thing. A wonderful thing.

We need to fight to maintain it because I have no doubt that the 'establishment' will try to fight back and regain their power. I think the genie is now out of the bottle and they will not be able to do so. But don't expect them to just roll over. Watch this 'freedom' closely. We all must.

Thanks for reading.