Category: Politics

Boycott Halal

Burger King Arrives in South Africa

The above article made me spit. Increasingly halal foods are being forced upon us without our knowledge and certainly without our having requested them. By us, I mean non Muslims. I can understand that it makes sense economically for halal options to be offered to Muslim diners, but there should be a choice. Certainly many supermarkets in South Africa have kosher sections. But to ban pork products entirely from restaurants, supermarkets and even airlines, is taking things too far. Leaving aside the methods used to slaughter animals to satisfy halal standards, foisting the regime on the rest of society sends the wrong message to Muslims who will believe that they only have to complain loudly and aggressively enough and they will have their way in all things. Soon it  will be Sharia Law. It really has to stop now. Continue reading “Boycott Halal”

Cry ‘God for Harry, England and St George’!

And raise a glass for William Shakespeare too, despite the misery he has inflicted on school-children for centuries. For today is our National Day. The Harry I refer to is of course Mr Rednapp, the architect of Spurs’ excellent season and now the undertaker for QPR. Because that’s what being English is all about. Highs and lows. Effortless superiority, born of experience unequalled among other tribes of man. They come and go, but like old Father Thames, the English go on for ever. Cheers!

Where’s Gordon?

Former Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Sir John Major and Prime Minister David Cameron attend the funeral service

The media, even here in socialist Vikingland, are banging on about the cost of Maggie’s funeral – twenty new pence a head allegedly. So I thought I’d set the record straight, just to comfort the serried ranks of soon-to-be-late prime ministers who might feel obliged to decline the same honour in the interests of national thrift.  Continue reading “Where’s Gordon?”

NIMBY politics

HMS AstuteIt’s rather a facile option for small countries to declare themselves ‘nuclear free’. Denmark has done it and the SNP will do it on behalf of a ‘free’ Scotland. But such posturing ignores the realities of life in the 21st C. (Every day for example Denmark may choose to buy electricity from neighbouring countries which run nuclear power stations – only confirming the hypocrisy of its policies.) Militarily, the western alliance (or NATO) ‘protects’ both territories by dint of their membership (unless the Scots go 100% neutral) and uses nuclear weapons to secure such protection. So when Iran and North Korea threaten Europe, as well they might, will the Lilliputians expect special dispensation from nuclear attack or eventual occupation? Maybe,  but only total political neutrality will guarantee that. That’s the dilemma. They surely wish to be seen as supporters of European values and defenders of their own – but not, it seems, at any price or ‘in my back yard’. And would any rogue state misguided enough to launch a nuclear attack respect the nuclear neutrality of such defenceless people? I doubt it.

April fool?

There is a report in the Telegraph today which, if it was not April 1st, I could well believe to be true, given the Fascist tendencies of this and the previous government.

It says that the Government are to appoint a “Lights Tsar” department, whose members are entitled to demand entry to your house and turn off any lights that are left on in an empty room. How I hate all present day politicians, even when they are not responsible for something!

The article can be seen here although, thanks to the Telegraph’s new paywall, you may not be able to see it.

The dangers of banking

A lot of financial experts and other commentators are up in arms about the Cyprus Solution, which slaps a 40% ‘fee’ on savers with more than 100,000 euros in a couple of local banks. ‘Poor, unsuspecting savers’, allegedly. Many of them are British pensioners lured to Aphrodite’s Isle by a mouth-watering 5% tax rate; and even more are Russsian emigres from whom (à la Russia’s President Medvedev’s enigmatic quoation from Lenin) “the stealing of what has already been stolen continues”. Unknown

Now I’m not anti-capitalist, nor pro-communist but I do wonder how this arrangement is remotely less acceptable than forcing innocent tax-payers to pick up the tab for the profligacy of bankers; because the thing about banks is that we usually rely on them to stay in business and not to mess with our money, but when they fail, we the savers bear some responsiblity for having chosen to let them use it. It’s a business arangement gone wrong – between consenting partners, not between banks and their ‘victims’.

Of course I sympathise with the British pensioners whose retirement bubble has burst so spectacularly – surely the Bank of Cyprus, if not the Laiki bank, was ‘reliable’? It probably was, for many years. But if I were a eurozone taxpayer I would strongly resent having to bail it out when tens of thousands of depositors, attracted by the offer of tax holidays in the sun, held on to their funds.

Oh! Canada

This stared out as a comment on Christopher’s post about his recent visit to La Belle Province, but it got so long and convoluted I decided not to clutter the comments there with its length.

I worked in Canada from mid 1969 to late 1978 living first in Ottawa then nearby across the Ottawa River in the Province of Quebec.  I worked for a subsidiary of Bell Canada (the telephone company) and my wife worked, first in the public service (Department of Finance) then on Parliament Hill for a couple of MP’s.

There had been festering discontent in Quebec regarding separation for years, probably ever since Confederation (1867) even the choice of Ottawa as the capital (1857) was flavored by the divide and was one of those many English compromises that almost worked.  Choosing Toronto (the largest and a very English city) would have put the capital too close to the US border and memories of “Manifest Destiny” and the unpleasantness of 1812 were still a factor, choosing Montreal would seem to be giving control to the French, also remembered for their recent aggression in Europe, so Queen Victoria herself announced that the capital would henceforth be Ottawa (formerly Bytown, named after Colonel John By who built the Rideau canal system as a defense against the US in 1812).  Ottawa was conveniently located almost exactly halfway between Toronto and Montreal and as a wag of the day reported was “a slumbering sub-arctic lumber village”.

Continue reading “Oh! Canada”