Longrider

Seumas Milne in comment is free:

But it’s also clear that the kind of progressive coalition and policies that Livingstone favoured - on transport, housing, privatisation and redistribution - are a good deal more popular with voters than the rudderless triangulation currently on offer from Gordon Brown.

Having been trounced because they steal from those who earn and give it to those who don’t, or piss it up the wall on special interest minorities and quangos, because they snoop and pry into our private lives, bully and fine us for petty misdemeanours – because, frankly, they are poisonous bastards, the way back is…

…more of the fucking same?!?

Fuck me, but they are thick.

I notice, too, that Milne is trying the same misanthropic and patronising tack displayed so admirably by Neil Harding and blaming the press. No, you thick fuck, people are not so stupid as to vote on the basis of a headline – they voted the way they did because the Labour party has treated them like shit.

Jesus, but the so called progressive left in this country is a monster to behold. They didn’t get it wrong – the voters, blinded by the evil press barons got it wrong. Listen, chaps; you got it wrong. The voters rejected your candidates. Some genuine introspection – should you be sufficiently intellectually honest  – will provide you with an answer. Don’t blame the press, don’t blame the electorate, don’t blame “posh” people. Blame yourselves, for there is no one else.

The police – despite being told to fuck off on a fairly regular basis, despite being told that a DNA database of the population will not magically make their lives easier, still keep coming back with their desire to impose a totalitarian state:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.

So, because a child might commit an offence in adult life, they should be tagged by the police. And you thought Minority Report was a piece of fiction. To these control freaks, it’s an instruction manual.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

Some experts believe is it possible to identify future offending traits – theoretically. And on the basis of this theory we need a debate on tagging children with the aim of turning them into suspects before any offence has taken place. I’m sorry, but am I the only one who finds this morally bankrupt suggestion abhorrent in its entirety?

Sure, let’s have a debate. It should go something like this:

Control freak: Let’s tag children who might commit an offence in adult life.

Public: Go fuck yourself. Leave our kids alone (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Unfortunately, such is the political climate we now live in, these nasty little fascists are given a credence they do not deserve.

‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’

If that comment doesn’t send a chill down your spine, then you have no concept of the horrors of a totalitarian society. Go read up on 20th Century European and Soviet history. Ask yourself what would those regimes have done with this technology? How would a child so identified ever shrug off the stigma? Also, bear in mind that they will be suspects forever, never knowing when there would be a knock on the door and the police waiting to cart them off to the station to “help with their inquiries”.

A disruptive child does not necessarily grow up to be a criminal. We once had this quaint concept of innocent until proven guilty. The idea of pre-crime, of identifying children and treating them as suspects for the rest of their lives is deeply, deeply repugnant in a civilised society. Gary Pugh is a monster; no other epithet adequately fits.

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place.

Oh, my, how generous of him to consider the little matter of parental consent and stigmatisation. These two things alone should rule out his nasty idea. If Gary Pugh was remotely mature, he would have ruled this idea out as antisocial – indeed, sociopathic – and said no more about it.

I would humbly suggest that come the revolution, we reserve a length of hempen rope and a lamp post for Gary Pugh. The man is evil – and that is not a word I bandy about lightly.

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There’s a footnote at the bottom of the article regarding Oyster cards:

Concern over the issue of civil liberties will be further amplified by news yesterday that commuters using Oyster smart cards could have their movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services.

Sigh… This is a damn good reason not to have one. And I never will.

Every day, I find this country more despicable. Not the people, not the place, but the malignant control freaks who run it. The sociopaths who want to treat us all as suspects and spy on our every move, who use the bogy man of terrorism to scare us into compliance.

There probably isn’t enough rope…

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Update: Doing the rounds, I see Mr E and Tim have both commented on this story. Their views are predictably similar to mine.

Via the Devil’s Kitchen, I am reminded – rather unfortunately – of the arrant bastard that is Julian Le Grand. This obnoxious control freak thinks that he understand the principles of libertarianism and has proposed what he claims is “paternal libertarianism”. Setting aside for a moment that this is an absurd oxymoron and the professor is merely an example of the latter syllable; what, exactly is this fetid little cunt proposing? (yes, I know this one first surfaced last October, but I was looking the other way at the time).

A radical plan to persuade people to stop smoking, take more exercise and change their diets was proposed last night by a leading Government adviser.

Oh yeah? None of this is anyone’s fucking business apart from the individual. Certainly it is none of the government’s business and it most definitely is none of the business of an unelected self-aggrandising busybody such as the execrable Le Grand.

In a speech to the Royal Statistical Society last night, Professor Le Grand said instead of requiring people to make healthy choices – by giving up smoking, taking more exercise and eating less salt – policies should be framed so the healthy option is automatic and people have to choose deliberately to depart from it.

Among his suggestions are a proposal for a smoking permit, which smokers would have to produce when buying cigarettes, an “exercise hour” to be provided by all large companies for their employees and a ban on salt in processed food.

The idea, dubbed “libertarian paternalism”, reverses the traditional government approach that requires individuals to opt in to healthy schemes. Instead, they would have to opt out to make the unhealthy choice, by buying a smoking permit, choosing not to participate in the exercise hour or adding salt at the table.

What the fucking, fucking, fucking, fuckitty, fucking… NONE of this, NONE of it is any of his fucking business. Get a permit to smoke? Just who the fuck does this arsehole think he is? It is none of his bloody business whether people smoke or not. The hubris of the man is staggering beyond belief – indeed, so angry am I that I have difficulty finding words to adequately express the rage. And I don’t smoke – never have. Any company that tried to “encourage” me to exercise would be given very short shrift – and I want salt on my food.

Mrs L does smoke. She likes the occasional roll-up. She will not be applying for a permit from the cuntish Le Grand, though. Not because this self-righteous turd plans to make the forms difficult for the proles in order to discourage them from making the “wrong” decision, but because she hasn’t bought baccy in the UK for years. She ether buys it on the cross-channel ferry or in France. What does this pompous demagogue plan to do, search everyone disembarking at Portsmouth or Dover? How dare he presume the arrogance to tell others how they should lead their lives, how dare he decide to “nudge” people in his preferred direction. Just who the fuck does he think he is, for christ’s sake?!?

Anyway, having been largely ignored last October, he’s at it again.

The permit might cost as little as £10, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night.

His paper says: “Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS.”

Le Grand said the proposal was an example of “libertarian paternalism”. The government would leave people free to make their own decisions but it would “nudge them” in the right direction.

Libertarianism means letting people make their own decisions, it does not mean manipulating them towards one’s own preferred solutions or making life so difficult that they make the “right” decision. Professor Le Grand is a cunt of the highest order – except that cunts are useful and Le Grand is not.

See also, Trixie, Dizzy and England Expects. 

What an evil piece of shit is this man Le Grand. Rope, lamp-post and spike, methinks (not necessarily in that order).

Footnote: I don’t often allow my language to get quite this bad (mostly) but this man takes the biscuit. I am incandescent with rage at his oversized egotistic hubris to the point of being almost speechless (but not quite).

Ruth Sunderland doesn’t drink and she finds it a problem:

My name is Ruth and I have a drink problem; the problem is that I don’t drink. Strictly speaking, it isn’t my problem. I’m happy to be a non-drinker, apart from the reactions it provokes in some other people.

I know the feeling. I haven’t touched a drop of the sauce since I was 19. I tried it, found it wanting, and decided that it wasn’t worth the bother. I recognise the sense of disapproval in others, though. I was once at a wedding and my refusal to toast the bride and groom with champagne caused a moment of embarrassment with the waitress insisting that I take the glass and my persistent (and increasingly angry) refusal. Unlike Ruth, I take the “fuck ’em” approach. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t judge those who do; so those who do had better not start judging me or they’ll get a somewhat acid response.

At a business lunch with a new contact who is eagerly eyeing the claret, I wouldn’t dream of admitting I don’t drink; instead, I’ll make a vague remark about having a lot to do later or accept a glass and leave it untouched, a trick I’ve used many times and never, to my knowledge, been found out.

I would never just come out and say: ‘Actually, I don’t drink’ without first making a quick assessment of how likely my new acquaintance is to write me off there and then.

I do. I come straight out with it. “I don’t drink alcohol”. See? simple and to the point. People can like or dislike it as they choose. What I won’t do is apologise to them for my decision. It is, after all, my decision and it is my life, and I’ll damn well live it as I see fit and if people don’t like it, well, they can fuck right off.

Not that I would entirely blame them. Teetotallers are not an appealing bunch; you certainly wouldn’t want to be gathered round the non-alcoholic punchbowl with Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and while Adolf Hitler shunned the schnapps, Churchill was saving the free world helped by copious quantities of whisky and champagne.

Ah, well, Ruth, old bean, if you are going to fall for the stereotypes game, you deserve all you get. This is the daft logic that says all atheists want to put people into gulags; ’cos Stalin was an atheist. Don’t play their game. You tell them up front that you don’t drink and don’t apologise for it, and they can go hang if they disapprove.

Positive role models are thin on the ground. We’ve got Jonny Wilkinson, whose kick is powered by nothing stronger than soft drinks, and Tony Benn, who drinks tea, hourly, by the pint. There is Nicolas Sarkozy, who is said to be a non-drinker, which would mean that - impressively - he must have got up the nerve to seduce Carla Bruni with the aid of Evian alone.

But we don’t need positive role models. The decision to imbibe the juice of the grape or grain, or not, is a personal decision. No apologies are needed, no excuses required and no explanations or role models necessary. You do what you feel is right for you and others may do likewise. It’s called freedom of choice.

One reason people hate teetotallers is they suspect them of being proselytisers. In fact, it’s the other way round.

Yeah, I’ve noticed. So, fuck ’em. I recall many years ago a friend refusing to buy a round of drinks that involved something non-alcoholic. So, despite my preference, he bought me a pint of beer. It sat on the table untouched. He tried lacing a glass of orange juice with vodka thinking that I wouldn’t notice. That, too remined untouched. Eventually he got the message.

The drinking culture is deeply embedded and I’m conscious that for me, it’s relatively easy to opt out, because I’m old enough and settled enough not to be subjected to serious peer pressure.

Ah, yes, peer pressure. I managed. I was still in my late teens when I decided that I didn’t want to drink and I managed to resist peer pressure. It isn’t that difficult, you make your position clear and you stick to it. If your friends are any friends at all, they will respect it. If they cannot respect it, then they aren’t really friends, are they?

If I were single, a life without drinking would be unimaginable and that’s down to the double standards around women and alcohol.

Oh, please… Spare us the pseudo-psychological bunk. I was single – okay, so I’m male, but do you really, really think that the peer pressure was any less? I was a biker hanging out with other young, hormonally charged bikers. For fuck’s sake, I was under huge pressure to be one of the lads and drink beer. I didn’t like it and stuck to my guns. In the end, that refusal to bend won grudging approval.

A man who doesn’t drink is somehow not quite a real man; there is an aura of ruined glamour about alcoholics such as George Best that will always elude a sobersides.

Well, anyone moronic enough to believe that is a fuckwit and not worth any further consideration. I really don’t care what people think about my decision. It is my decision and my life. If people think it unsexy, then that is their problem, not mine. Frankly, if people think I’m unglamorous or unsexy, I couldn’t give a shit. They can go fuck themselves.

It is unfortunate that an article written by a teetotaller simply goes along with the stereotypes without challenging them; accepts that people see us as sobersides unable to let our hair down and enjoy ourselves without getting plastered. We can and do and that is the case Ruth should be making here.

I don’t drink because I don’t like it. I neither need it nor want it in order to enjoy an evening out. That does not mean that I judge those who do drink, nor does it mean that I buy into all the propaganda about binge drinking. If you enjoy a tipple, good luck to you – it’s your life, your decision and you must do as you see fit. All I ask is that you respect my decisions in the same way.

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Update Nice to see that the usual fuckwittery is in force on CiF. This piece of buffoonery in the comments from someone calling themselves JeanArmandDuplessis:

Of course teetotalers make healthy people nervous. If you are invited to a five course dinner and you only eat bread, people will encourage you to try some of the good stuff, and they’ll get flummoxed when it transpires that there’s no medical reason for your rude behaviour, you just decided on a whim only to eat bread.

Break social codes, and you’ll get punished. What did you expect?

Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick! It is not rude to decline alcohol. To compare non-alcohol consumption with only eating bread at a meal is idiocy of the first water – where do they dig these epsilons up from? No, I do not expect to be punished because I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t expect to have to justify myself to narrow-minded bigots like JeanArmandDuplessis; who, frankly, can go roger him or herself with the rough end of a pineapple.

I see that the silly season is upon us with stories of people fearing causing offence to other faiths. This time it is the nativity play:

Shepherds dressed in old sheets, Christmas carols and the competition to see who will play Mary and Joseph… nativity plays have been a feature of British primary-school life for generations.

But a survey has revealed that headteachers are watering down or ditching the centuries-old Christmas story in favour of secular tales to avoid upsetting pupils of other faiths.

Only one in five schools are ­planning to perform a traditional nativity play this year. They are now outnumbered by schools that say they will be either putting on a non-religious play, such as Scrooge or Snow White, or giving no performance at all.

Oh, for crying out loud! Every year we get people complaining that other faiths will be offended and nonsense about atheists waging a war on Christmas. There is no evidence to support these assertions. There is no evidence because it is a fabrication. No one is offended by children staging a nativity play. Have we seen mullahs raging against it? Have we seen street demonstrations demanding that children and their teachers be executed for offending someone or other? No, of course not.

I am not alone in making this observation:

Terence Copley, Professor of Educational Studies at Oxford University, said the idea that the nativity could offend other faiths was “crazy”.

“I have never met a single Jew, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist who has objected to the commemoration and celebration of the birth of Jesus,” he said. “In Islam, he is a prophet and his birth is described in the Koran. It is not other religions that are pushing for this at all.”

Quite right. Then, however, he gets all silly himself:

If we avoid Christmas we are pandering to a secular minority and allowing the event to become all about commercialism, presents and self-indulgence.

Bollocks. Atheists – or the “secular minority” are no more calling for a cessation of religious celebration than all those other “offended” faiths. No one is calling for nativity plays to be stopped. This is an artificial story created by Christians and it surfaces every year with depressing regularity. I’m sorry, but the poor little persecuted Christian act doesn’t wash. It didn’t wash the first time and it isn’t washing now.

Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other whether schools stage nativity plays – I was mildly unimpressed as a child and nothing has changed in the intervening years; but please, can we stop with the “other faiths might be offended” bollocks. They aren’t. And Christianity is not being persecuted by atheists for celebrating Christmas. Grow up and get over yourselves, folks, please.

And, on another note about Christmas:

Rounding the bend in Rose Crescent, I met a small boy and his father, coming towards me in the twilight, the child clutching his father’s hand, his eyes bright with excitement, craning his neck to see the lights and decorations, and skipping with delight.

“But don’t you think they are lovely?” he was saying, breathlessly. His father’s answer was cautious - he clearly did not want to disappoint: “Yes, I do think so. I just think it’s a bit early.”

Father is quite right. Anything earlier than a couple of weeks beforehand – and I’m stretching it, here – is far too early. Christmas is a two-day celebration. Frankly, it should start on Christmas Eve and finish on Boxing day. Bombarding us with tacky adverts, shelves full of Christmas wares and equally tacky street lighting from early October onwards is obscene.

So, despite being an evil atheist, I find the overt commercialism and self-indulgence off putting, too. That’s why I don’t celebrate it.

I didn’t hear Sarah Kennedy’s supposed gaffe although if I’m up and about I will listen in to her inane ramblings as inane ramblings are about the best I can cope with before the sun is over the yard-arm. Apparently Ms Kennedy stated that she had trouble seeing a black man in the dark:

“You know what happened to me yesterday. It was this black guy. It’s lucky he opened his mouth to yawn or do something and I saw him. He was wearing a black hat, black clothes and he was just invisible.”

This remark had the professional offence takers up in arms, sufficiently horrified were they that they saw fit to complain and they did so in their droves, so little else had they to do that day. And the Beeb, so willing to jump to the commands of the professional offence lobby that Kennedy has been “spoken to”.

Now, what exactly have we here? An anecdote recounting something that Kennedy saw the previous morning. Something very similar to what I saw the other morning – although in my case it was a cyclist on an un-lit road wearing dark clothing and without any lights or reflectors. Kennedy’s point was perfectly valid. It was a statement of fact. It seems that statements of fact are now “racist” and that people may not point out the blindingly obvious because to do so is “racist”.

Our society has been bending to the will of these nasty little fuckers for so long that no one questions them. An appropriate response to this pathetic stream of complaints would have been to ignore the complaints; to treat them with the contempt they so richly deserve. Frankly, if anyone gave me a ticking off such as Sarah Kennedy received, I’d have let them have both barrels and a hand grenade thrown in for good measure. In this country, we are supposed to be champions of something called freedom of speech – and freedom of speech means that you can recount an event without being gagged. There is no right not to be offended – if you don’t like what a radio presenter says, switch off or change to another station. True freedom of speech means that we tell the professional offence taking lobby that we have noted their complaint and are giving it the due concern it deserves – and then we ignore the fuckers!

Edit to amend typo - see comments.

This time of the year is perhaps the most miserable for me. It starts with Halloween and the obnoxious trick or treating that is about to start as I type. Sean Coughlan shares some of my misgivings about the whole thing:

Dressing up in a scary costume and cadging chocolate and money is an irresistible business proposition for any child.

But should we be encouraging them? Is it harmless fun or an irritating excuse to annoy the neighbours?

It’s an irritating excuse to annoy the neighbours, I’m afraid. If an adult behaved in this manner, it would not be regarded as harmless fun, they would be (hopefully) banged up for demanding money with menaces; for that is what this “tradition” is; demanding something on pain of punishment – blackmail, in other words.

Like all respectable people, the obvious tactic is to make out that it’s great fun and then pretend to be out when the next bunch call round.

Turn off the lights, duck under the windows and turn down the television - all to show that you’re not a killjoy.

Actually, I don’t give a flying fuck what people think. I leave the lights on and ignore the doorbell. Let them realise that I am not going to play their game. Was I asked if I wanted to play? No, it is assumed that we will indulge these demands, it is assumed that because it is children making the demands and it is a “tradition” it is all okay and that I should prepare for something that I have no desire to celebrate.

So why does it still rankle? Maybe it’s the way that Halloween has been hijacked by trick or treating. Halloween is an authentically ancient festival, about the links between life and death, the struggle between light and dark.

It rankles because I ask nothing more of my neighbours than to be left alone. I don’t want their progeny knocking on my door making demands backed up with menaces. If they want to celebrate in their own homes and without disturbing others; well all fine and dandy, be my guest.

Some of the people commenting feel much as I do – that this is a tacky US import that should have remained firmly on their side of the Atlantic. Begging is ugly, begging with menaces is uglier still. Dressing it up in fancy costume does not alter the nastiness that lurks beneath.

However, Sarah in Donegal thinks otherwise:

What a whiny report, I went trick-or-treating as a child, and was always welcomed into my neighbours homes as the tried to guess who was underneath the costumes. The attention recieved and the amount of effort that went into our costumes were far more rewarding than the actual “treats” and we went home to party games such as bobbing for apples. This year i will be welcoming any ghosts or goblins that come to my house, and be delighted to see how the kids react for the one night when they are allowed to “go against every rule in the parent handbook”

No, Sarah, it is not a whiny report; it outlines just what is wrong with this artificial festival – which has nothing to do with the Celtic Samhain and everything to do with crass commercialism and blackmail. If you want to welcome other peoples’ children into your home and have a celebration, then that is your choice, but don’t condemn those of us who object to not being asked beforehand and whose cooperation is assumed.

Emma from South Wales is equally vacuous:

I think that people should lighten up and remember that when they were kids they probably celebrated halloween too.

When I was a child, Halloween did not involve knocking on my neighbours doors demanding a treat – I was taught that such behaviour was wrong. So, go fuck yourself, I will damn well not lighten up.

Next week, our neighbours will be letting off fireworks for pretty much every night for around six days and rather than a few pops and whizzes, we will get deafening bangs that would put the Western Front to shame. God, but I hate fireworks. Then when that cacophony finally dies down, we will be bombarded with fucking Christmas – and I hate Christmas and all that it represents; tacky commercialism, artificial jollity and sanctimonious hypocrisy – bah! Humbug!

If only I could hibernate…