Longrider

Via The Englishman, this egregious little story:

Consumers will have to satisfy themselves with four small portions of meat and one litre of milk a week to slow down escalating climate change, a major new report has warned. Meat and dairy production is responsible for eight per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, a new report suggests

The study also recommends a cut in consumption of low nutritional value foods such as alcohol, chocolate and sweets, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by their production, along with a return to wartime practices of shopping on foot, buying local products and cooking in bulk.

This is a real WTF!?! moment. I realise that these people are up to their eyeballs in their new religion and that religions have a nasty history of control freakery; but even the Inquisition would be gasping for breath trying to keep up with this lot.

It concedes that people are unlikely to make such changes voluntarily,

You don’t say? Of course, the solution is force; which is what makes socialism tick. Make no mistake, greenies are merely unreconstructed socialists masquerading under a false flag. They remain as misanthropic, spiteful, vindictive and hateful as ever.

Let me make one thing clear, though. No one – I repeat – no one tells me what or how much to eat. What I ingest is my damned business and no one else’s. I will continue to eat as much meat and dairy products as I please and they can go hang – preferably on the end of a length of piano wire.

Justin seems to have jumped on a popular bandwagon; the one that vilifies buy-to-let landlords.

And so, the nation owns Bradford & Bingley’s buy-to-let landlords and looks like it will do for some time. Seeing as nobody else wants them and they don’t seem to have much other uses, couldn’t we put them to proper work for the good of the country? You, know community service or something.

They could wear high visibility jackets so the public could see justice at work. We could send them rented door to rented door to explain to nurses, teachers and other key workers why there isn’t enough affordable housing to go around. Send the landlords to rural ghost towns to explain why the local economy is knackered and why the original residents’ children can’t afford to live in their home villages.

I’m sorry!?! I’ve always been puzzled by people who talk about affordable housing and then vilify private landlords. If the private landlord did not buy the property, maintain it and then let it, what would happen to it? It might – possibly – be sold to a private owner, but that’s no guarantee.

To put this into perspective, I am now a landlord. Unable to sell Longrider Towers, Mrs L and I opted for plan “B” – letting. Our mortgage comes to around £80 less per month than the rental income. Anyone who suggests that we are some sort of profiteering landlords is seriously mathematically challenged. Interest rate rises in the next couple of years will wipe out that difference and we still have to pay for any capital expenditure on the property. Longrider towers is, frankly, affordable housing. It’s just that it isn’t owned and let by the state. The rental is the market price for the type of property. Significantly less than the cost of a 85% – 90% or so mortgage.

There are, of course, landlords who do let with the sole purpose of making a profit. Why not? Justin bemoans the fate of the nurses and firefighters et al, but do they not go to work to earn a living? Of course they do. We all work to make a profit. Profit keeps the economy turning. Profit is not a dirty word; it puts food on the table and a roof over our heads.

Property letting provides a service. That service has to be paid for. The landlord is making a living providing that service. It is legitimate and fulfils a need. There are – as in the story Justin links to – landlords who are very foolish with their borrowing and that’s just tough titty frankly – I have no more sympathy with them, than Justin does.

An acquaintance of mine is a landlord. He buys derelict properties, renovates them and then lets them. If he did not do this, someone else would have to, or the properties would continue to moulder. So, what’s it to be? My acquaintance buying properties (and taking on the associated financial risks) and enabling people to live in them, or leaving them empty and derelict? Why should he not do this as a business? It is perfectly reasonable employment. It keeps a small army of builders, plumbers, electricians and decorators gainfully employed, too.

The rural ghost towns are not ghost towns because of buy-to-let landlords, they are – like the rural village I lived in during my teens – ghost towns because, among other things, there is insufficient work. There are a range of reasons why the young decide to leave rural towns and villages and seek their fortune in the city; it has been that way for generations and was certainly the case in my village. To blame it all on property prices and to blame property prices on people who are letting their property is disingenuous.

There will always be a need for the private rental sector as the council and housing association stock will never be sufficient and not everyone can find the wherewithall to fund a mortgage – while they can fund the monthly rent.

BTW – the nation does not own Mrs L and I and it never will. So, Justin, fuck your community service, okay?

Keen to dispel the “itself‘n’safetyinnit” culture that surrounds Health and Safety advisors, IOSH are not only sponsoring but are entering a team in the conkers championships:

Keen to shrug off their spoilsport image and further dispel the myth that they make children wear protective goggles for the playground game, health and safety officers have also entered a team in the tournament.

After years of being derided for banning such jolly pastimes as sweets being thrown into the audience at theatres and balloon modelling by clowns, the supposed killjoys have said enough is enough.

Ray Hurst, IOSH president, said he was looking forward to showing that health and safety workers were not spoilsports at the championships, which take place in Ashton, Northamptonshire, on October 12.

Good for them. Much of the derision that surrounds the risk averse culture that we now live in stems not from safety advisors, but those who are scared witless of being sued or who simply do not understand the common sense approach to risk management:

“We do not, and never have, required children to wear goggles to play conkers,” Mr Hurst said.

“These decisions are being taken by people who have limited knowledge of health and safety and who haven’t sought the advice of a health and safety expert, or are simply scared senseless by the perceived compensation culture.”

“Health and safety doesn’t require goggles at conker matches, and it doesn’t ban goggles from swimming pools.”

Precisely. When the working at heights regulations came in a couple of years ago there were scare stories about window cleaners being put out of business because ladders would be banned by the regulations. They are not and never were. The regulations, like all modern safety legislation merely places upon the employer a requirement to asses the activity and manage it appropriately. For short jobs (such as window cleaning) a ladder is perfectly acceptable, providing that ladder is suitably secured. This, frankly, is common sense.

You may – quite reasonably – decide that there is far too much regulation. I would agree with you. The Health and Safety at Work Etc., Act (1974) says all that needs to be said, quite frankly. Much of the subsequent legislation merely expands upon its basic principles. We could have a debate about how much of this stuff is needed and how it has contributed to undermining common sense; but, health and safety advisors are not the ones banning conkers or insisting that children wear goggles and other such nonsense.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website, it was a headteacher who came up with the idea of children wearing goggles to play conkers, and subsequently other schools banned the game on health and safety grounds.

Quite. By all means criticise our risk averse culture. By all means condemn the plethora of unnecessary legislation, but get the target right.

It seems that every day brings another shyster out of the woodwork. Despite my warning about attempts to SPAM me contained in full view on the contact page, the bastards still try. This, from Alex someone or other:

You have been invited to join the private link exchange services (beta) by The Webmasters Kit Team.

Click the link below (or paste it into your browser) to get set up: (link removed)

…

We appreciate your interest in our link exchange services. Once you successfully register using the link above, you do not need this e-mail anymore.

Simply log in through (link removed)

All the best,

Alex Malinovsky, WebmastersKit.com Central

Alex, I do not have any interest in your spammy little service. Go fuck yourself.

Via The Englishman, this little horror story in El Reg:

Britons should be subjected to random carbon spotchecks and intensive surveillance of their diets, transport and waste disposal habits, says the Government’s architecture and design quango in a new report today.

The word “monitoring” occurs 19 times in the 32-page publication by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). If the proposals in the report What Makes An Eco Town?are implemented few aspects of life will go unrecorded.

There was a time when I would have thought this some weird jest, a Jeremy Beadle moment. Unfortunately, this is no joke; it is the evil that is socialism; totalitarianism writ large. No factor of our lives is to be omitted from the inspectors’ beady gaze.

CABE says the strict monitoring is needed to ensure the carbon footprint of the eco-town dwellers remains at one-third of the British average, which is the requirement for what’s called “one-planet living”, the quango says.

Just as well I don’t live in an eco-town, then. I fully intend never to do so. The last thing I want is to live among a bunch of watermelons anyway.

Examples of monitoring include “the ecological footprint of the diet of 100 randomly selected residents”, and the number of shops selling local produce. Waste disposal and transportion habits will also be scrutinized.

Good God! is there nothing or nowhere that these evil little guttersnipes will not invade in their unremitting pursuit of absolute power? That’s a rhetorical question, it doesn’t need a reply, for we know what it is, don’t we? No one will ever be allowed to monitor what I eat. I will eat what I damned well please and the government, its agencies and quangoes and the watermelons can go hang – preferably from piano wire. What I eat is none of their damned business wherever I live.

El Reg injected a note of dry cynicism:

One statistic that won’t be recorded is the mortality rate from suicide caused by living in such a grimly regimented and obsessively monitored environment.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of dumb sheep who think this is a jolly fine idea and that government isn’t going anywhere near far enough.

As we have already reported, other eco-town restrictions include a 15mph speed limit for vehicles , and toilets that don’t flush. Residents would also be “fined” for leaving the eco-town.

Once again, we have the watermelons wanting to drag us back from the advances made since the industrial revolution to a dark ages existence. Well, they can live like that if they want to. I have no intention of joining them – and fined, for fuck’s sake, for leaving? What is this, Hotel California or Portmerion? Jesus! As someone whose work is peripatetic, I’ll be running up one huge bill. An unpaid bill, I might add. I do not pay fines for simply going about my lawful business, earning the taxes that pay for this government to piss up the wall on such fruitloopery.

This is yet another example of the evil of socialism and why I have come to detest it with every fibre of my being.

There’s been some rumbling about the sudden demise of England Expects in the land of Blog, unsurprisingly. Someone, somewhere decided to use brute force to silence an inconvenient and dissenting voice. Someone, somewhere doesn’t like unfettered voices exercising their freedom of speech. They don’t like what was said and used the might of the blogger’s employment contract to do the dirty deed.

There are two issues here; that of the contract betwixt employer and employed and freedom of speech and recent EU moves to stifle it. An idea supported by Marcel Berlins over at the Groan (quelle surprise – a Groan contributor is opposed to liberty). Marcel and the egregious Marianne Mikko object to the pseudononymous nature of blogging.

She proposes that bloggers identify themselves and declare any interests they have in the issue they’re writing about. Her concerns should be taken seriously. We, the readers of blogs, do not, and normally cannot, know who lurks behind the funny nickname. We need more information about the writers so that we can decide how seriously to take their opinions. Has she a personal stake in whatever it is under discussion? Does he belong to a dodgy or extreme campaigning body? Is she the sister of the owner of the restaurant she’s recommending? Does he bear a personal grudge? We don’t know.

Frankly, my immediate response to this gibberish is “so what?” or “Who cares?” The writing will stand or fall by the arguments put forward. Mr E puts it thusly:

My “credentials” are that I am a citizen of your much-vaunted Union, with the democratic right to say what I like about whomever I like. Those are all the credentials I need, or will ever need. It is not in your power to withdraw that right simply because you do not care for the way I exercise it.

I do not ask you to “rely” on me; I do not, even, ask you to “trust” me. I link to my sources and make it clear where the dividing line between fact and opinion is being drawn. For example, “you are a braindead Estonian fuckstick” is fact; “I think you should go and fuck yourself, you braindead Estonian fuckstick” is opinion. See?

As for a “quality mark”, I offer none such. The “quality” of my writing is entirely for the reader to gauge. If you think this is tedious, superficial tripe, I assure you you are not alone, and direct you to the “back” button on your web browser. You have not been charged for reading this blog.

That comment applies to this place. I have no intention of placing a quality mark on the sidebar. I will not publish under my own name, because I choose to write pseudononymously. That is my prerogative and it’s a prerogative I intend to defend.

Given the demise of England Expects, is it any wonder that there is a tendency to obscure one’s identity when commenting on-line? Those who write about their employment tread a path that can cost them their jobs if they say anything that the employer may object to. Now, the employer might have a legitimate point. But equally, the whistle-blower may be raising legitimate concerns; concerns that they would be less likely to raise if their identity was readily available.

I rarely write about my work – the occasional passing remark from the perspective of someone who works in the industry, but no exposés of Network Rail’s machinations.

Ahem…

The Landed Underclass offers a slightly different perspective on the England Expects episode. It’s a perspective with which I have some sympathy:

Hmm. How eurosceptique is it, exactly, to be ‘a paid official of the EU parliament’? To sign its contract of employment? To be unwilling to risk loss of earnings over what many people would consider to be a resignation issue?

Those who blog, as it were, from work should not be surprised if their employers, like those of a number of police bloggers, cut up nasty if ever they find out about it.

Quite so. Employers are becoming increasingly aware of blogging and the damage that it can cause them. If you say something about your employer that they are likely to find unpalatable, don’t be too surprised that should they find out, they kick up about it. Me, I’d put the blog on a brief hiatus while I sought alternative employment and then let rip on the blog again. But, then, not being too good at taking orders, I am employed by myself, so it’s unlikely to be an issue.

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Edit: I’ve removed some of the more intemperate remarks; because, as I said, I have no intention of indulging in exposés. I was angry yesterday. I’m somewhat more calm this morning.

On the morning of the 2^nd May 1997, I wondered how I would feel when the newly elected Labour government had run its course. They all do, sooner or later. The Tories, despite the wipe out would re-emerge eventually, much as I hated the thought at the time. So, in those euphoric early hours as I watched the likes of Michael Portillo humbled – and, let’s not beat about the bush here – thoroughly enjoying every moment of it; I wondered. How would it feel when Labour suffered a similar defeat at some point in the future?

Well, it looks as if I may be about to find out:

Gordon Brown is set to lead Labour into an election bloodbath so crushing it could take his party a decade to recover, according to the largest ever poll of marginal seats which predicts a landslide victory for David Cameron.

Eight cabinet ministers, including the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary, would be swept away in the rout as the Tories marched into Downing Street with a majority of 146, says the poll, conducted for PoliticsHome.com and exclusively revealed to The Observer. Seats that have been Labour since the First World War would fall.

The sheer scale of the humiliation is almost as bad as that endured by the Tories in 1997, suggesting it could take Labour a similar time to claw its way back to power. The party would be virtually extinguished in southern England and left with only its hardcore redoubts in northern England, the Welsh valleys and deprived inner-city areas.

My thoughts? Thank Christ for that! Oh, my, how times change. How the scales fall from our eyes.

Another politician, this time a Tory, pontificates on the need for yet more regulation:

Cyberspace does not lend itself well to censorship. But while policing every strand of the world wide web would be impossible, that does not mean it cannot be better regulated.

Better regulated. Now there’s a joke. By whom? How? And, ultimately, why?

There is something about the political mindset that when presented with a “problem” sees regulation as the solution. There is no need for regulation of the Internet. It is up to users to exercise their own common sense. Okay, not as common as is commonly supposed, but then the grand socialist experiment of the past four decades is partially to blame for that. That, however, is not my problem. Half-arsed politicians poking about trying to impose regulation whether “voluntary” or not is my problem.

I also believe that the internet industry should establish a self-regulating body. If the leading sites subscribe to an agreed set of standards, which can then be monitored and verified, then they will be able to reassure users, and parents in particular.

You see? not one jot about personal responsibility. No, we need regulatory bodies approved by politicians to make decisions for us about “inappropriate” content. The Tories, frankly are no better than Labour when it comes to arrant control freakery. A pox on all their houses.

One might, if one were to be less than charitable, point out that politicians are the last people to be lecturing the rest of us about standards of behaviour. One might…

H/T The Englishman.