Longrider

NO2ID notes that early adopters of the ID cards scheme are not to be reimbursed for their foolish purchase.

Approximately 13,000 people have already bought ID cards, which were introduced on a voluntary basis last year.

The cards – which can currently be used to travel in Europe without a passport – will be invalidated and individuals who paid £30 for them will be forced to purchase a passport instead.

Chris Grayling, the former shadow home secretary, had signalled that there would be refunds for cancelled cards. But he was denied the post of Home Secretary, which went instead to Theresa May.

The Government will now say that it cannot afford the estimated £500,000 cost of making and administering the refunds at a time when it is announcing £6 billion of cuts.

Given that each of these early adopters actively colluded in the previous administration’s scheme to tag the rest of us against our will, I have no sympathy. They should have used some common sense (and decency) and followed the same path of resistance as the rest of us. They chose to go into this scheme knowing full well that both opposition parties were promising to scrap it. They chose to tread the same path as Boxer. They are part of the problem; the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” useful idiots of the Labour party. Call the wasted thirty quid a tax on stupidity and gullibility if it makes you feel better.

As the title says, really.

As I commented back before the election, there is to be a great repeal act – and jolly good, too. Goodbye to the repressive surveillance database state and the spying on ordinary citizens by a suspicious mistrusting political elite.

On the other hand…

For, in their latest Coalition Programme for Government [PDF], the ConDems have decided that one of their very first acts will be yet more controls on alcohol.

Oh, for crying out loud… They just don’t get it, do they? Binge drinking is not new. Problem drinkers are not a recent manifestation. Problem drinkers will drink to excess no matter what is done with pricing – they will make savings elsewhere and put their money into the booze, much as my grandfather did in the thirties. Indeed, my grandmother had to meet him coming home from work on payday to get the housekeeping before it was spent in the pub. Binge drinking, new? Pull the other one.

And, as Timmy points out there are other consequences of such ill-conceived legislation.

I’m absolutely certain that they’ve not thought this through.

So, booze wholesaler goes bust (or offie, pub, supermarket, village shop, whatever).

The liquidator comes in and has to shift the stock swiftly in order to get cash back for creditors before rents and storage costs eat any further into the pittance they’re going to get.

How do you shift stock quickly? You discount it of course.

This is now illegal.

Think that’s too extreme?

Yes, frankly, I do. It is idiotic. I have been inclined to sit back and see how this new coalition pans out before wading in with too much criticism, not least because much of what they have been saying is right – particularly on civil liberties – but this plan is straight out of the New Labour book of fuckwittery.

It is interesting to note Tesco offering up its support, like those grouse who stretch their wings with the coming of the warmth of August on the gentle moors. Naturally, they see profit for themselves so that’s all okay then.

Tesco says polling for the company found excessive drinking and the anti-social behaviour it causes is one of the public’s most serious concerns.

Well, if those people polled really thought that, they won’t buy low priced alcohol, will they? And they would willingly buy higher priced alcohol from Tesco on the grounds that they were doing the decent thing, wouldn’t they?

Hypocrisy has a foul stench about it, as does ignorance and control freakery.

You may recall me mentioning that we were going to adopt a feral queen following the death of Ptolemy. Well, there was a complication; she was pregnant. We really could not take on more kittens. We hoped that she would have them somewhere and we could have her spayed at a later stage. That didn’t work out too well as she decided to have them in our house – quelle surprise. Unfortunately for her, the birth was extremely difficult as the first kitten had expired and was severely deformed. Consequently of the five kittens born only the last, a little silver grey tom, was born alive. Given that, we’ve dubbed him “Lucky” – and he is. Now two weeks old, he and mother are doing fine. We’ve had Minnie chipped and rabies jabbed ready for the journey to the UK. Unfortunately, Lucky simply cannot come with us as we have to wait for six months following a successful blood test and kittens cannot have the inoculation until they are six months old. We’ve spoken to the mayor and hopefully, Lucky will find a new home in the next few weeks.

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Update: A more recent image taken at two weeks.

I’ve always considered the term “socialist worker” to be an oxymoron. After all, these parasites have plenty of time to attend demonstrations and poke their noses into to other peoples’ disputes rather than actually, you know, work.

I recall the signaller striker of 1994. I was an active member of the RMT at the time and attended the pickets during the strikes. Despite the media coverage attempting to politicise the dispute, it was nothing to do with Railtrack’s privatisation, but was prompted by significant changes to our working conditions. In general, the deal Railtrack was offering was a good one, but there were some worries about job losses and a shift to longer hours working two signalling panels during the night hours instead of one. In retrospect, it was all a waste of effort and these days I take a different view of striking, but that’s another matter. There we were on the picket line – signallers in dispute with Railtrack – and along come the Socialist Workers to take part, offering “solidarity”. Frankly, the last thing we needed was the Socialist Workers’ solidarity. They were about as welcome as  a plague of boils.

I was reminded of this yesterday when the plague descended on the ACAS talks between BA and Unite. The images of this bunch of scum-bags was all too familiar. They have nothing to do with either protagonist in this dispute, but they felt it was perfectly fine to trespass on private property and disrupt the discussions, reducing the likelihood of a resolution before next week’s planned stoppages. Like some science fiction entity that feeds on negative energy, this cancer swoops like a flock of voracious vultures on unrelated disputes in order to disrupt and harass. Just look at the body language of these people and you will see what I mean. They are rent-a-mob scum. Clearly Tony Woodley didn’t feel that their solidarity was of any use to him and his cause.

Mr Woodley angrily remonstrated with the protesters telling them to “shut up”.

Mr Woodley was too polite, methinks…

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Update: The Quiet Man also comments.

Well, the modem is up and running, so I’ll be about again.

Things have been quiet here for the past week. My satellite modem has gone tits up. It may be another week before I am back on line fully. In the meantime, I’m posting this from an Internet cafe. Be back soon.

One of the refrains I’ve noticed – particularly from LibDem supporters – most especially in the discussion pages of the Guardian, is that they didn’t vote for the Lib Con coalition. Well, yes, no one did, but given the nature of the outcome, what subsequently happened was the best solution for a stable government.

In many respects it is the Libs who achieved most. After all, there are Lib policies now to be enacted by the new government and there are Lib MPs to be sitting around the cabinet table. So all of those people who voted LibDem actually did vote for this. It’s just that normally they don’t come close to seeing it happen. Yet still, within the pages of the Guardian there comes the incessant whine of those who do not understand the principle of compromise. They want it all. They cannot have it all. They want purity. They cannot have purity. What they can have – and have got – is some of their objectives achieved. The alternative is nothing. Better something than nothing for a reasonable, rational person. Those who want purity are not rational, nor are they being reasonable. They simply cannot enjoy the moment, an achievement way beyond the aspirations of the third party that lost seats in the election, a level of power that they could only dream of.

Had I been a LibDem supporter still, I would have been making the most of this moment as I know all too well that sooner or later it will end in tears. It always does.

There’s some interesting analysis of the Purple Revolution by IanB over at Counting Cats.

So who are this 38 Degrees mob? Wander for yourself round their website and you’ll soon see. According to their website (which as I write this is dreadful slow; looks like there’s a lot of PuRple Revolutionaries taking a look) is the former Head Of Activism at Friends Of The Earth, and the funny little cabal around him is just stuffed with left wing extremists with direct Green connections, apparatchiks from the watermelon network. And where’s their funding coming from? Well, they espouse a worthy desire to be funded by donations, but for now, sadly, they’ve had no choice but to be funded by Big Green Business. How sad for them. Notable names being Gordon Roddick (husband of Saint Anita, and co-creator of environmentally friendly snake oil merchants the Body Shop) and one Henry Tinsley, who made his fortune with a business called Tinsley Foods, but is now another snake oil merchant, being a director of of organic food company Whole Earth and an eager funder of far left causes, and “progressive” politics.

Ah… So it’s all about self interest, then? Why am I not surprised? And, frankly any movement that involves Billy Bragg tends to make me shy away.

Anyway, read all of Ian’s post, it makes for interesting reading.

You won’t often find me agreeing with Labour heavyweights, but it does seem that they’ve got the latest LibDem talks with Labour right.

Big Blunkett:

David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, gave public voice to concerns about whether Labour could trust the Lib Dems in a coalition deal, claiming they were behaving like “every harlot in history.”

Can’t disagree with that.

John Reid:

John Reid, another former Home Secretary, warned that voters would punish Labour if it tried to “cobble something together that was not in the national interest.”

Yup.

Jack Straw:

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary who has always been opposed to agreements with the Liberals, is said by colleagues to be “incensed” about the moves. One colleague even questioned whether Mr Straw would stay in the Cabinet in such circumstances.

Well, some spine at last.

And for the Tories, comes that delicious description from Boris Johnson interviewed on the BBC when he referred to it as ludicrous skullduggery. Ludicrous skullduggery is precisely what it is.

I do wish people would shut up about the British electorate having spoken and voted for a hung parliament. They did not. The electorate is not a homogeneous mass that votes collectively, it consists of millions of individuals who voted individually for the candidate they wanted to win or against the candidate they wanted to lose. They did not vote for some ridiculous progressive rainbow coalition of losers, just as they did not vote in sufficient numbers for a Conservative government. Still it doesn’t stop the odious progressives trotting out the line that most people voted other than Tory while conveniently ignoring that most people voted other than Labour, just as they did in the last election. To suggest that the electorate has spoken with one voice in tandem as if it is a unified thing rather than individuals speaking individually is mere collectivist claptrap.

Given the ludicrous skullduggery and blatant whoring going on, I guess we are seeing just how the LibDems’ beloved PR will work in practice. I don’t know about others, but it has firmed up my previously ambivalent position. So despite Billy Bragg and others campaigning with their purple coalition for PR; given a referendum now, I would definitely vote against, which is interesting. Once, I could have been persuaded. Now that the LibDems are in a position to exert some influence, to finally realise their dream, they demonstrate just how grubby, tawdry and underhand they can be; undermining the very cornerstone of their manifesto. In short, for me, they’ve blown it. Reform the system, sure, but PR, count me out.

Bella draws my attention to this little shit. Alfie McKenzie managed to commit electoral fraud and voted despite being only 14. Apparently, he isn’t sorry about breaking the law, he is merely sorry he got caught. Anyway, what does this learned, politically astute boy have to say?*

I’m a socialist, I’m really, really interested in politics.

Ah, an idiot, then. I used to be a socialist when I was younger. I was an idiot, too. The evidence head-butted my opinions with the velocity of an enraged bull charging at my red-ragtag socialist opinions, demolishing them utterly. I did the sensible thing; I changed my opinion.

As I said to my headteacher today, regrettably I’m only sorry that I got caught. I would be a Labour supporter, but I voted Lib Dem tactically: I would have been interested in a Lib-Lab coalition, but Clegg is in with Cameron right now, isn’t he? I’m not really a Cameron man.

Jesus! He isn’t sorry he broke the law. So, that’s a future citizen for you. Sod the law. And, Alfie, you are not a Cameron man, that’s true – but more importantly, you are not a man. That is why you are not allowed to vote, you lack the maturity to make a valid decision. And if we needed further evidence of that you provide it in abundance:

I was at the polling station by 10 past seven. I dressed really carefully, in my trenchcoat, with my glasses, and I was careful to wear my posh shoes. I put on a posh accent, sort of southern. I reckoned if they thought I was a Tory voter nobody would suspect me, because it couldn’t have made any difference in this constituency.

Twat!

It’s a shame that the police, despite looking into the matter, are not taking it further. An example would have been desirable. If nothing else to this obnoxious brat’s parents who demonstrated so little spine they might just as well be molluscs.

Half an hour later he was called out of class again and told the Sun was on the phone and wanted to speak to him. “I’d never speak to the Sun,” he said firmly, “I’m a Guardian reader.”

Definitely a twat. A law breaking twat at that.

His mother, Nadine Wiseman, is finding it hard to take a suitably stern line on her son’s behaviour. She said: “He’s fabulous – there’s never a dull moment with Alfie around.”

Nadine Wiseman is a stunning example of the stupidity inherent in Britain today. Although I recall similar expressions of indulgence from admiring parents when their precocious offspring behaved abominably when I was growing up. God help us, this stupid woman does have the vote and in four years her noxious little brat will be entitled to vote legally. Lord help us.

*Again, I realise that I am stretching the English language beyond its natural level of elasticity.