Longrider

Mark Boyle wanted to walk from Bristol to India. Without any money. Ho hum…

A man who planned to walk from Bristol to India without any money has quit, after getting as far as Calais, France.

Why was that?

Mark Boyle, 28, who set out four weeks ago with only T-shirts, a bandage and sandals, hoped to rely on the kindness of strangers for food and lodging.

But, because he could not speak French, people thought he was free-loading or an asylum seeker.

I’m sorry, but… Excuse me while I chuckle…

I’m not going to get into things like ‘didn’t he think of this’ before crossing the channel? The French generally being French speakers and all that cannot be relied upon to converse in English – and, freeloading is exactly what he was planning to do. Nor am I going to use the term ‘common sense’ as it clearly does not apply in this case – if it did, Mr Boyle would at the very least armed himself with a phrase book and French dictionary. And that’s only France, what about all those other countries and languages he will encounter along the way? They don’t all speak Albion’s tongue.

Mr Boyle, a former organic food company boss, belongs to the Freeconomy movement which wants to get rid of money altogether.

Well, if his walking expedition is an example of his planning skills, I won’t be holding my breath.

I wonder sometimes how some folk survive the day…

DK reminds me of something rotten in the state of Europe that has been festering away for a number of years now; the banning of motorcycles.

The goal of stopping deaths on the roads has been set by a number of countries including Norway, Australia and Sweden, where the programme has been called “Vision Zero”.

But Norwegian safety expert Rune Elvik said for it to happen, policy makers should consider the radical step of banning motorbikes.

“If they are serious about these lofty road safety ambitions that have been announced then I think such a discussion is needed,” he said in an interview with Motor Cycle News.

“Motorcycling would definitely not be allowed.”

Over the years that I have been riding, I’ve come to accept that control freakish politicians who think that my safety is their concern and that for my own good, I should not be allowed to ride, are an occupational hazard. Fifteen years or so ago, we had the infamous twat, Martin Bangemann to contend with. This was the man who wanted to legislate for leg protectors on all motorcycles. What this brain dead prick didn’t appreciate – because like all politicians, he was preaching from a position of ignorance – was that in the event of an accident, the rider is safest parting company from the bike. Leg protectors as proposed would have made that more difficult, making, therefore, the bike more dangerous in the event of an accident. Vigorous lobbying from rider groups such as the Motorcycle Action Group and the British Motorcyclist’s Federation eventually killed it off.

Rune Elvik’s biased comments contained in a report for the European Transport Safety Council were noted by the Motorcycle Action Group late last year. In December it was presented to the Flemish parliament for consideration, but MAG Belgium with the support of MPs presented the FEMA (Federation of European Motorcyclists Associations) agenda for motorcycle safety as an alternative. The consequence of this was that the Flemish parliament rejected the ETSC report in favour of the FEMA one. There’s no direct link to this story, but if you search on “Rune Elvik” on MAG’s site, you will find it easily enough it.

So, although I’ve not discussed it here before, I am aware… It’s just that my attention has been taken by more pressing items. It doesn’t mean that I don’t see this as a serious threat; just that from a pragmatic position, the imposition of a ban on a whole section of road users is fraught with practical difficulties making it an unlikely proposition in the short to medium term. And, FEMA have an effective track record when dealing with these people – they’ve had plenty of practice.

For a ban to work, firstly, they will have to put motorcycle manufactures, factors, parts and accessories manufacturers and vendors out of business. Will BMW and Triumph take this lying down, I wonder? That’ll do the economy a power of good, no doubt. Then they will have to confiscate our bikes en masse. We may be a minority, but we are a big enough one to make a nuisance of ourselves. There would inevitably be mass ride-outs in major cities throughout Europe in protest. What will they do? Arrest all of us? And what about those police riders? Will they be banned, too?

This idea is so extreme that certainly in the short to medium term, it is unworkable. Far more likely will be a slow stranglehold approach. Already we are a smaller group than we once were. A generation before mine saw bikes as a stepping stone to getting a car. Now they are more of a leisure vehicle – I am in a minority, using as I do, my bike for daily transport. All they have to do is make getting a bike license more difficult and expensive, thereby putting off potential riders before they start. Oh, wait…

And, as DK points out, there are other practical issues at play:

My mole informs me that this, like many other things, does not need to be worried about yet. There is, my mole says, an unusual logjam of legislation; in other words, there is not nearly the volume of legislation emanating from the EU Commission (they are the only ones who can initiate legislation, remember) as there usually is.

So in the short term, nothing much will happen. In the medium term, they will make life increasingly difficult for us and MAG, BMF and FEMA will have their work cut out fighting a rearguard action. The long term aim then would be that we will fade away. It will be that much easier to impose a ban when there are next to no motorcyclists on the road rather than the awkward brigade we currently have. The smoking ban worked because most of those people affected tended to think it was a good thing. A motorcycle ban will not get the same level of agreement – indeed, quite the opposite.

So, we remain vigilant.

Nanny is at it again:

Salt pots on the dinner table should be removed to help improve children’s diets, a government minister has said.

Asked about cutting salt in children’s food, Baroness Thornton said “great progress” had been made, but much of it boiled down to taste.

Children got used to seeing salt at meals and peers should commit to “no salt pots on their tables”, she said.

Why can’t these meddling bastards just shut the fuck up and leave us alone? As a child, I was used to salt and pepper on the table and still like the odd sprinkle of salt. This is no one’s business but mine. If I want salt on the table, I will damn well have it and I’ll not be deterred by “and what about the chiiiillllddrreeeen?” bollocks either. Parents are responsible for ensuring that their progeny understand the principle of moderation in all things; not the government. It is none of the government’s fucking business.

Labour peer - and crime fiction writer Baroness Rendell - had demanded to know what the government was doing about reducing salt intake in children’s food.

What they should be doing, is nothing whatsoever, but given the interfering busy-body nature of this bunch of control freaks, that is a hope too far.

Jesus, but I hate these bastards more than I’ve ever hated anything in my life.

If I burst a blood vessel, it won’t be a consequence of too much salt in my diet, that’s for sure.

The Public Accounts Committee has apologised for that fraudulent claim by the DVLA that 38% of motorcyclists are tax evaders:

The influential Commons Public Accounts Committee of MPs has apologised to motorcyclists after wrongly suggesting 40% of motorbikes were untaxed.

Well, well, well. That doesn’t happen very often. Just a reminder of where that figure came from:

The DVLA sent people out to take down the registration number of every passing vehicle and they then checked this against the tax database. This yielded a figure of 16 per cent evasion for bikes. They then ran this through a computer model working on the assumption that untaxed bikes are ridden less and arrived at a figure of 38 per cent.

To those of you who may be struggling with this; they made it up.

So, the DVLA plucked the figure out of their collective arseholes, and the committee swallowed it unconditionally. Now that they’ve been caught out, the Public Accounts Committee have had the decency to apologise. Damn right, too.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh blamed the error in last month’s report on the Department of Transport, saying it now estimated the figure at 9.8%.

At the time he accused motorcyclists of “cocking a snook at the law”.

I was somewhat caustic with my remarks regarding Edward Leigh. While I accept the apology and note it in his favour, I would point out that he should have damn well realised that something was amiss before he made his intemperate and insulting remarks about his employers.

Mr Leigh added: “The department did not, however, give us all of the information we needed.”

Well, there’s a surprise. The DVLA is serially incompetent. A casual bystander would have smelt the proverbial rodent at a thousand paces and asked some awkward questions. They would have demanded all of the information before jumping to conclusions and making those remarks. Sorry Edward old bean, you were a fool and your apology, while welcome, does not mitigate that fact. When dealing with serial liars and frauds, you should expect them to be manufacturing the figures and approach them with extreme caution. You didn’t and that was entirely your fault.

David Taylor of the Motorcycle Industry Association is still unhappy with the way that the DfT gathers information.

He added: “The DfT should be embarrassed and should apologise to the vast majority of powered two-wheeler riders who clearly do pay VED.”

Agreed. I’m not holding my breath, though…

I see the enviroloonies are at it again.

Energy Saving Day, a 24-hour initiative aiming to reduce the UK’s electricity use, begins on Wednesday evening.

A coalition of environmental groups, religious leaders and energy companies is asking people to curb climate change by turning off devices not in use.

This update on the Iraqi interpreters from Dan Hardie:

Do you like reading fine words? Here is the Prime Minister on the subject of Iraqi ex-employees of the British Government, speaking in the House of Commons on October 9th, 2007: ‘I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of our civilian and locally employed staff in Iraq, many of whom have worked in extremely difficult circumstances, exposing themselves and their families to danger. I am pleased therefore to announce today a new policy which more fully recognises the contribution made by our local Iraqi staff, who work for our armed forces and civilian missions in what we know are uniquely difficult circumstances.’

Fine words. What about deeds?

A small number of Iraqis - fewer than a dozen, according to people close to the operation who are in contact with me- were removed from Iraq in the early autumn of 2007. Since the Prime Minister’s admirable declaration of October, how many Iraqi ex-employees have been evacuated from Iraq? According to all the Iraqis that I am in contact with: none.

Here are the words of an Iraqi employee in Iraq, emailing me, today: ‘I am still in Iraq…I hear nothing from your Governmet yet!’

Here is what this man was told on February 3 by a conscientious British Civil Servant, out in Iraq to arrange the evacuation of Iraqi ex-employees and clearly shocked by the lack of progress: ”I’m sorry that everything is taking so long to complete. Please note that we are waiting to hear what happens next from London and I can assure you all that I will personally contact you as soon as I receive instructions from London to confirm the next arrangements.’

Here is why he is hiding: ‘They (the militia) keep asking my relatives and my family’s neighbors about me and they keep moving in my family’s street and keep their eyes on our home… they told them: anyone know anything about A__ he should tell us immediately and also they said: we will never give up until we catch A__ .’

And here is what the Right Honourable Bob Ainsworth, Minister of State for Defence, wrote to David Lidington, MP, about this same man on 16th January: ‘Mr Hardie expresses concern over the handling of a claim for assistance by a former employee of British Forces, Mr A_ …. Mr A_ is eligible for the assistance scheme, and we have passed his details on to the Border and Immigration Agency who will take forward his request for resettlement in the UK via the Gateway programme. Assuming that there are no problems with Mr A__’s immigration checks he should be able to leave Iraq by the end of January…’ I added the emphasis, and I can also say that I have it in writing from the MoD that there were no problems with Mr A__’s immigration checks.

The Border and Immigration Agency is the Home Office Agency handling the last phase of the operation to resettle Iraqi ex-employees. And it is the BIA, according to every source of information that I have, that is delaying the evacuation of the Iraqis.

It is also supposed to be the Home Office that is co-ordinating the provision of housing to those Iraqis who do get resettled in the UK. In the House of Lords last month there was a debate on Iraq at the request of Lord Fowler, whom I had briefed on Iraqi ex-employees. Lord Chidgey, later backed by the Earl of Sandwich, asked a very pertinent question of the Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch Brown, and he did not get a good answer: ‘…on the resettlement of Iraqis at risk under the Gateway Protection Programme, the Minister will be aware that its success is dependent on a sufficient number of local authorities participating. There is considerable concern that this is not the case at present. Will he advise what steps the Government are taking to ensure that local authorities will come forward?’

There are many operational and logistical difficulties in the way of an operation: I know that. But the Government has known about these people for at least six months, and has been publicly committed to helping them for over four months. That is enough time to plan for the difficulties- far more time than you usually get in a war.

The Home Office is dawdling while people are threatened with death.This is either incompetence in the face of a crisis, or it is a deliberate policy of putting bureaucratic obstacles in the face of fugitives. Neither is acceptable.

And beyond that, the policy itself is being used to keep out Iraqis who can prove that they worked for British forces, and who can prove that their lives are at risk as a result. One man, Hamed, worked for British forces on Shaibah Logistics Base for over two years, as the Government accepts. He was threatened by the militias, and gunmen went to his house, so he moved his family to Syria and slept on the base’s floor.  He continued to work for the British. Hamed finally was given ‘notice to quit’ Shaibah when the base closed, and fled to Syria, where he cannot legally work and where he and his family are safe (so far) but hungry. The British Government knows who Hamed is. A British Army NCO who knew him has confirmed every detail of his story to me, saying that he knew that Hamed had reported the threats against him to the military authorities. The Government has written to Hamed to reject any claim for help, since he was ‘not directly employed’ by the military.

Another man, Waleed, was directly employed by the military, in 2005 and 2006.  He worked as an interpreter for one Army unit for its six month tour, during which time he was fired upon and chased by militiamen as he made his way to the base; he started work for a second unit, after which he received a threat on his mobile phone detailing where he lived, what he did, and what would happen to him if he ‘collaborated’ any more. He was also hunted in Iraq, and has also fled to Syria. A British Government letter, which I have seen, informed him that he would not be assisted since he had not worked for the twelve-month period specified by the Government’s policy- which, alas, the militias do not seem to respect.

We got the Government to admit to its moral responsibilities. Now we have to get them to match their deeds to their words.

Please write a letter to your MP. His or her address is The House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA. If you don’t know who your constituency MP is, go here and type your postcode in. When you’ve sent a letter, follow it up with an email: his or her address will normally be SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk - for example BROWNG@parliament.uk

Two or three days after you have written the letter, call the Parliamentary switchboard on 0207 219 3000 and ask for your MP’s office. Repeat your concerns to the secretary or research assistant you speak to (and be nice: most of these people work damn hard for little reward), check that your letter has been received, and politely request that the MP ask questions of Ministers and reply to you. In your email, your letter, and your phone calls, you must be courteous: insulting an MP or a research assistant will discredit this cause. Talking points for the letter are below:

• The Prime Minister announced a review of British policy towards its Iraqi ex-employees, due to the threats of murder they faced, on August 8th 2007, and he announced a change in that policy on October 9th, 2007. The Foreign Secretary made a more detailed policy statement on October 30th, 2007.
• Nearly four months later no Iraqis who have applied under the scheme have been evacuated from Iraq.
• Not one Iraqi ex-employee living as an illegal immigrant in Syria or Jordan has been resettled under the scheme.
• A debate in the House of Lords on DATE contained several references to resettlement being blocked by the failure of the Home Office to provide housing in the UK. The Home Office has had between four and six months to plan for this eventuality: it is inexcusable that they have not done so.
• Would the MP please put down written Questions to the Home Secretary asking why the Home Office is unable to live up to the Prime Minister’s publicy expressed commitment to rehouse Iraqi ex-employees whose lives are at risk for having worked for British forces?
• Would the MP please write in private to the Home Secretary, and to the Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne MP, asking what provision their department has made to implement a policy decided in early October, and further asking them if they are aware that lives are at risk and that rapid action needs to be taken?
• Would the MP also please write to the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary asking how many Iraqis who are ex-Employees of their departments have been resettled, and asking why Iraqis who are at risk for having worked for British forces are being abandoned for having ‘worked for less than 12 months’?
• Can the MP please forward these letters to the Prime Minister, who personally approved the change in policy.
• And finally, can the MP please reply to you with details of any Government response.
• If you want: you can give your MP my name and email address (danhardie.blog@gmail.com ) and tell them that I am in contact with a number of Iraqi ex-employees inside and outside Iraq, none of whom have received help from the Government, and that I would be happy to brief them with confidential details of these cases, either by telephone, email or in person at their Parliamentary offices. They should feel free to contact me.
• When you get a reply to your letter, email me (again, at danhardie.blog@gmail.com ) -it’s very important that I know which MPs are sympathetic and what the Government is telling them. And email me if you have anything else that needs saying. Thank you.

David Aranovitch, writing in the Times, appears to be auditioning for the Guardian, positing as he does, a highly illiberal approach to our liberty. Indeed, the every title of the piece sets the tone (but, so does my riposte…):

Ignore the paranoid fantasists

Ah, yes, the cry so often used by Neil Harding; those of us who oppose the database state are mentally ill. No, we are not mentally ill, we can see perfectly clearly the dangers inherent in the obsessive data gathering going on. Accusing us of being paranoid is merely a cheap trick designed to shut down dissent.

It has become an intelligentsia default position, or IDP for short, that we in Britain are - as one of my favourite intellectuals put it the other day - “sleepwalking into a surveillance society”. The Oxford academic and writer Timothy Garton Ash told a BBC interviewer that more information was now collected by the State on British subjects than was available to the East German secret police, or Stasi, from their army of informers.

Hmm… Anti-intellectual, too. That we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society is not some sort of paranoid fantasy, it is an observable fact. That this administration has not used it in the manner that, say, the East German one would have, does not mitigate the situation. We cannot know that future administrations will be benign. Better, therefore, not to give them the opportunity in the first place.

I hear this all the time. A very clever person said to me at the weekend that the ubiquity of CCTV meant that she felt “constantly watched”. This too is an IDP.

No, it is not – indeed, the term intelligentsia default position is a construct of Aranovitch’s and I’ll not recognise it as being a definition at all – it is a piece of bunkum this man has manufactured in order to undermine the position of those who disagree with him. It fits into the same camp as “islampohobe” – designed as it is to shut down debate. There is no such thing as IDP. The reason this “very clever” person feels constantly watched is because CCTV has become so pervasive it creates a panopticon effect. Those who dismiss this feeling of unease as paranoia display their own ignorance of human psychology – Aranovitch being one such.

It shouldn’t have surprised me then that last week a pitbull national radio interviewer failed to ask the most basic question of a woman who was arguing for the dismantling even of the DNA database that we currently possess.

He could have asked her about the case of the Dearne Valley rapist, for example. Between 1983 and 1986 James Lloyd raped four women and attempted to rape two others in South Yorkshire. He was never caught, his victims never received any kind of justice, nor was society protected from him. Until, in 2006, a cold case review led to the attacker’s DNA being closely linked with 43 samples on the national DNA database. One of those was Lloyd’s sister, whose DNA had been taken when she was convicted of drink-driving in 2000.

I’m inclined to say; “so fucking what?” to this piece of nonsense. One case does not make an argument for eroding the privacy of a whole population. It is disproportionate. Those of us opposed to expansion of the DNA database are not arguing for its removal, we are insisting that it should only carry information on people convicted of crimes. That is a reasonable position to take. As I pointed out a day or so ago, keeping the DNA of 60 million people will create unnecessary noise and lead to false positives and inevitably miscarriages of justice. To those who believe that it could not happen to them, it being a simple matter of someone else’s problem, there is a nasty shock waiting in the wings. Well, I for one, have no desire to be detained at her majesty’s pleasure for years on end awaiting the outcome of an appeal because plod got it wrong. Far better that they do not have my DNA in the first place, that way they can’t make the mistake and I get to keep my liberty. After all, we have this quaint concept of innocent until proven guilty. Not something Aranovitch seems to value.

The use of DNA evidence in tracing and - last week - convicting both the Ipswich murderer Steve Wright and the necrophiliac Mark Dixie was further proof, as far as they were concerned, of the benefits of as large a database as possible.

Bollocks! It is proof of no such thing. David Aranovitch appears to think that CSI is a documentary programme. DNA is useful as a form of evidence. It can, at best, demonstrate that an individual was at the crime scene. It does not “prove” guilt. The larger the database, the more noise is introduced. The more likely that innocent people will be pulled in and questioned for no good reason. It will make for lazy policing. And, I cannot reiterate this enough – such is the faith that people have in DNA, juries will convict the innocent because their DNA at the scene “proved” their guilt.

This officer was then accused by Ms Chakrabarti, in a display of genuine chutzpah, of “using high-profile cases like the murder of Sally Anne [Bowman] to showboat”, and a spokesman from another group, Justice, spoke of the “grave injustice” of using the Wright case to argue for the taking of samples from “innocent” people.

The only chutzpah I see here is from Aranovitch who demonstrates his own lack of rectitude with each dismal line that he writes. The man is an idiot and Chakrabati was spot on.

But what of the trade-off? Garton Ash hinted that there was one when, in a recent article, he rather uncharacteristically told “nanny” that she could “eff off to East Germany. I’d rather stay a bit more free, even if it means being less safe.” In the case of shrinking the DNA database that preference would certainly leave Lloyd still unpunished for rape and Steve Wright quite possibly could have killed again.

See? We must be “safe” no matter what the cost to innocent people who may be locked up while the guilty go free. Garton Ash is right, the illusion of safety is not worth the loss of liberty and only a terminally ignorant fuckwit would think otherwise. Step forward, David Aranovitch, you win this month’s Neil Harding award for totalitarian fuckwittery. Well done. Now go fuck off to some totalitarian hell-hole that practices the type of illiberal behaviour that you appear to wish imposed upon the rest of us. Oh, and while you are at it, have you nipped down to your local nick and volunteered your DNA? If not, why not?

So would Garton Ash really rather be freer and less safe to the extent of having less chance of catching a rapist or murderer?

Yes. Absolutely. Unequivocally. Rather free in the jungle and taking my chances than life in a gilded cage.

It’s a brave position, but he and other upholders of the IDP should now be asked to spell it out.

It is not brave, it is pragmatic. It is a realisation of just what the alternative means. And I did just spell it out.

Then we would see that one problem is how to assess the rights of victims of crime, as well as potential victims. How do we measure my right not to feel discomfited by CCTV or DNA testing, against that of, say, Justine Kelly, who was 18 - one year older than my oldest daughter - when she was raped by Lloyd, and who said that seeing him sentenced “and facing a life sentence has helped me to finally feel at rest”.

This is a non sequitur as well as an appeal to emotion. Such decisions should be devoid of such consideration - that is how law is supposed to work. There is no “right” not to be a victim of crime. If we become victims of crime, then it is reasonable to have in place a criminal justice system that identifies the perpetrator and punishes them. Removing them from society if necessary. A nationwide DNA database is not only fraught with technical difficulty as pointed out by one of the commenters on this article:

DNA testing does not profile the whole genome, just a few markers on it. That means it is not infallible - there’s about a one in 10 million chance of two strangers having the same DNA match. That chance is much higher for people who are related especially siblings and parents/chlidren. So stick 60 million people on a register and for each crime you’re going to throw up 6 matches from random people unconnected to the crime and probably a few more from relatives of the individual. All but one of whom are innocent but will inevitable be treated as suspects - not because they were seen near the scene of the crime, or had a motive or connection with the victim, but simply on the basis of a random DNA match.

A point Aranovitch appears too stupid to comprehend, but is massively disproportionate – the general population is no more inclined to be criminally minded than any other population.

As it happens I don’t feel “watched” by CCTV

Well, bully for you.

and I think it is a paranoid fantasy to imagine that we are “under surveillance” in the way that informers kept the Stasi up to date with the conversations of their subjects.

Ah, yes, the old Neil Harding trick again – we are all mentally ill. It is not paranoid fantasy; it is observable fact. We are under surveillance. Some of us would rather that we were not. Where we go, with whom we go and what we do when we get there is no one else’s business.

I also believe it is perverse to shun biometrics that merely give real effect to ineffective measures we have long taken in this country, such as insisting on car numberplates and passport photos.

Oh what a bollockbrain this fuckwit is. Biometrics are not a holy grail. They are at best, a juvenile technology. The government’s own trials revealed that they were unreliable. Our biometrics belong to us, it is up to us how we use them. So, for example, I’m happy to use my thumbprint instead of a password on my computer, while I would vigorously oppose any attempts by government to obtain that information. It is mine, I share confidential information only with those who are trustworthy. Government does not come into that category – again, this is an observable fact.

“We should not hold information on innocent people,” says that unlikely IDPer, David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, lest we become “a nation of suspects”. On that basis let us burn our passports and smash our numberplates.

Well hello Arty McStrawman, it’s been a while since I saw you. Aranovitch appears to have been taking debating lessons from Neil Harding and makes as much sense. David Davis is absolutely right; the government does not need this information and should not be gathering it. That the state gathers some information is not an excuse for them gathering yet more. Such an argument is arrant claptrap.

As to innocence, well most of us are innocent. But Lloyd’s family never suspected him of rape, Wright’s wife was sure he couldn’t be a murderer, and Dixie’s friends had not an inkling of his capacity for extreme sexual violence. There has never yet been a would-be bomber whose family didn’t proclaim his normality.

This is a variation of the old nothing to hide, nothing to fear mantra so beloved of the hard of thinking. We must prove to the state that we are, indeed, who we say we are and prove to the state that we are indeed, innocent. Bollocks to that. I am under no obligation to prove any such thing.

A database of existing offenders in particular categories also means that certain ethnic groups are far more likely to be recorded than others, and therefore are far more likely to be successfully prosecuted in future. The Sheffield appellants case is partly based on a claim under Article 14 - the right to non-discrimination - of the convention.

This was why, in September 2007, Sir Stephen Sedley, one of the judges at the original appeal, argued that the existing system was “indefensible” and called for an extension of the database to all British citizens and UK visitors. For which, of course, he was immediately set upon. But I think he was right; and no, I won’t eff off to East Germany.

Sedley was wrong, too. You do not deal with discrimination by extending the discrimination, for fuck’s sake.

Well, no, effing off to East Germany won’t do much good, the Stasi ain’t there any more. I recommend North Korea, it should be much more to your liking. Much as I despise politicians (you noticed) journalists such as Aranovitch come a close second. I can tolerate ignorance and stupidity – but ignorance, stupidity and the blatant flag waving for totalitarianism in a national newspaper is a disgrace.

David Aranovitch, totalitarian idiot and fuckwit.

Joss Garman, writing about the Greenpeace protest at Heathrow in the Guardian’s Comment is Free displays this publication’s invariable disregard for facts:

Climate change is the greatest danger to the world today.

Is it? Is it, really? The evidence is mixed at best – and, frankly, the climate has changed before and will again. The world will go on and adapt. Until, that is, the sun goes super nova. It is the demise of the sun, not human activity that will do for the Earth.

Anyway, this is a peach:

Aviation already accounts for 13% of the UK’s climate impacts and we fly more than any other country in the world. Greenpeace carefully chose to demonstrate on top of a plane that had flown from Manchester to illustrate that so many of these destinations are reachable more quickly and in greater comfort by train - which is over ten times less polluting.

If you check BA’s flight times, you will discover that it takes an hour to travel from Heathrow to Manchester. Now, if you check National Rail Enquiries, you will discover that a journey from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly on a fast train takes three hours and eighteen minutes. How, exactly, is this quicker than flying?

When travelling to Edinburgh a couple of years back, I flew from Bristol – a journey of a little over an hour. By train this would have been six and a half hours. If I have to do the same trip again, I would fly again – my time is precious to me. The reason that domestic flights are popular is because they are quicker than travelling by rail – they can be cheaper, too if you book well ahead.

If Joss Garman is too stupid, lazy or ignorant to check even this simple fact, then the rest of his diatribe may be dismissed as bollocks.