The Taliban's Trojan Horse?

If you have been bemused why the Archbishop of Canterbury has raised the possibility of sharia law being an "optional" way for Muslims to deal with their disputes in Britain then you will be even more horrified by the potential consequences.

Read this article by Martin Parsons on the Conservative Home blog to understand how we are already walking into pre-planned trap that has been laid by this weak and incompetent Labour government.

Not only are they selling us out to the EUSSR but they are actively preparing us to accept a major and tragic change to our centuries old and hard fought rights. Osama bin Laden must be laughing in his cave or wherever he is..... hopefully with his 72 virgins in tow!

We must get rid of this Labour shower - they have done enough damage - let's stop it now.

Born in the EUSSR!

Do you want yourself, your children and grandchildren to be citizens of the United States of Europe?

If not, then read this blog by John Redwood MP to understand why you have no choice in the matter.

Your Government is about to give away your centuries old right to be British. There is nothing you can do about it. Gordon Brown and his despicable, devious and mendacious administration have reneged on Blair's promise to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon (aka The European Constitution).

Don't it make you feel proud to be, well, er....a European?

What's Wrong With GB's GB?

Like the many tens of thousands of parents who support their children's sporting activities, I spent about four hours this morning being frozen to the bone whilst my rugby-mad son and his chums were competing in a "festival" (hah, where did they get that word from?).

But I am a bit of a rugby nut myself so it's not really such a chore to support these events where a couple of hundred youngsters have fun and, hopefully, improve their skills and develop their love of the game. All the people involved - the administrators, the referees, the coaches, the parents, the people who serve up the bacon butties, everyone - are volunteers and give up their time willingly to create experiences like this for their kids. Experiences that they will remember for a very long time.

It's also a good opportunity for the adults to interact and strengthen their bonds in this endeavour. (We always need volunteers to help out in organising raffles and cooking the bacon butties!) In between games there is always a chance for "administrators" like me to chat with other parents to persuade them to become even more involved.

Today I was dumbstruck by a conversation with one parent. She's a 50 year-old school teacher who doesn't see a future for her children in this country because of the high levels of immigration to Great Britain. She doesn't work in an inner city area but in a primary school on the outskirts of a small provincial town in the North Midlands - so no major influx of east Europeans (yet!) - and she's not what could be described as typical "middle class". She also sees this country as being dominated by people only interested in money.

What's happening? This is the sort of thing that was said in the Thatcher era, not when Gordon Brown (may God forever bless him) is our glorious leader. So, is this the way that "ordinary" people see Brown's Britain?

Well, the Coffee House blog links here to an article by John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday which asks "What does Brown stand for?"

I don't know about you but he gives me the "heebeegeebees"!

And if he and his ilk are re-elected I'll be joining my school teacher friend in advising my son to emigrate. I will probably go with him.

No More Rubbish Taxes!

We have weekly collections in my North Midlands town. One week it is non-recycleable waste (grey wheelie bin) and the next it is recyceable items (garden waste and cardboard in a green wheelie bin).

But we also have a fortnightly "blue box" collection of glass, metal and batteries (in a separate recyclable bag) as well as a "blue bag" for (news)paper - but not envelopes because of the glue!

However, we have to take all our plastic packaging to a recycling point. For us this is not really a problem as we can drop it off (about once a week) when we visit our favourite supermarket.

We also compost all the vegetable waste, tea bags, egg cartons, egg shells, etc that we can. It is all added to our garden soil which we use to grow flowers, shrubs and a few vegetables and herbs.

As far as I am concerned my family can do no more to recycle. The system in place in our town seems to work reasonably well. If we were to be charged extra by our local council for the quantity of waste they take away from our house I would regard this as just another attempt to apply a stealth tax.

Let's get all this "green" stuff in proportion. There are limits to what responsible individuals can do to save the planet.

Charles 1 and John Redwood

I commend John Redwood's blog yet again! This time it is for his piece on the anniversary of the execution of Charles 1 in 1649.

What a salutary reminder that we have had 11 years of the New Labour "revolution" and where it has taken us. Time for a modern-day "restoration"?

Interesting too that Charles 1 was born a Scot. They get everywhere don't they?

Truth Is The First Casualty....

If you watched Prime Minister's Question time today you would have heard Gordon Brown replying to a planted question from one of his London MPs by saying that Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate for the post of mayor of London, had called for a reduction in the budget of the Metropolitan Police.

Boris Johnson was in the House and immediately after PMQs raised a point of order with the Speaker refuting Brown's assertion. In fact, he said that he had called for the exact opposite of what Brown had stated - see it here, courtesy of SkyNews.

The Coffee House blog continues the theme of deliberately distorting facts and statistics. Under Brown the lies and spin continue. When will Brown learn that we can see right through him.....?

This Dead Man Should Be Escorted Off the Premises

Derek Conway has not broken the law but he has been shown to use public funding in a questionable manner. He has apologised to the House of Commons.

However, in the current climate he will be perceived as just another MP (worse, another Tory MP) on the make. After the sport we've all had over Hain et al in recent weeks ("no ifs, no buts") it's hard to see how David Cameron cannot take immediate action to distance the Conservatives from this episode of "sleaze". After all it has been going on for a number of years according to the report on the affair.

Derek Conway is a dead man. Have no doubt about it - he should not be allowed to retain the Conservative whip and should be persuaded to declare his intention to stand down as an MP. Nothing else will do. "No ifs, no buts".

But if he won't walk he should be assisted to clear his desk - I'm sure the Conservatives can even give him a black bag - and be marched out of the Commons by David Cameron, personally if necessary!

Update 1: Many bloggers seem to agree. Mr Cameron please take note.

Update 2: An unscientific poll agrees!

Update 3: David Cameron has taken the right action. Good judgement!

"No More Resignations" says a Brownite

No, not Gordon this time but his old mate Des Browne.

According to the BBC, Browne has said that there will be no more Cabinet Ministers resigning over the donations scandal.

Oh dear! I hope that means he knows that the revelations about Alan Johnson's problem are easily explained. But of course, that does very pointedly exclude Wendy Alexander who leads the Scottish Labour Party. Perhaps he's not so confident about her.

Unfortunately, it does include Harridan (sic) Harman. Let's hope Des is wrong on this one. After all, he is wrong about most things!

Arthur Scargill is Responsible For All Our Ills!

I was really surprised that John Redwood was in favour of the employee buy-out of Tower Colliery in 1994 when he was Secretary of State for Wales.

Even more amazing is that Arthur Scargill is nearly seventy years old. So you may think it's a bit bizarre to blame him for so many of our current problems - rising energy costs, higher inflation, higher transport costs, the rise of the Labour Party in the 1990s and Gordon Brown as our Prime Minister. But there is a link... trust me!

I worked in the coal industry for over 20 years and remember the Labour Government's attempt in the 1970s (I think it was 1974, to be precise, when Tony Benn was in charge of Industry) to develop a UK energy strategy. With the complete agreement of the then chairman of the National Coal Board - Sir Derek Ezra, as he was then - this was summarised as COCONUKE - coal, conservation and nuclear power. (Probably not the exact acronym but near enough!)

At the time, it was said that we had over 400 years of coal supplies - based on known reserves - and it gave great impetus to finding ways of burning coal more cleanly. I seem to recall there was a "fluidised-bed combustion" plant at Grimethorpe that carried out much of the early research into how sulphur (that causes acid rain) could be removed from the emissions. Other countries were also involved in this area of research and, of course, South Africa - forced by the international trade embargoes at the time - had already developed SASOL which was a coal-based process that supplied them with the fuel they needed to replace oil and its petroleum-like products.

As as result of the 1983/4 miners' strike in the UK the importance of coal in our energy mix was relegated to the bottom of our priorities and all the funding for developing its (cleaner) use was cut. No politician, or at any rate no Conservative politician, was inclined to give Arthur Scargill and his ilk the chance to hold the country to blackmail ever again.

Whatever you think about that political decision, it was undoubtedly a mistake not to look to the future. Now we are are relying more and more on foreign (Russian?) supplies of gas to heat our homes, generate our electricity and which dictates the prices we have to pay (because of the link to dollar-priced oil) to drive our cars, run our railways and fly our planes.

If Arthur Scargill had not led a large part of the mining workforce into that disastrous strike over the modest level of pit closures that had been proposed, we might still have had a sizeable UK coal industry. Many new ways of mining it and burning it in a more environmentally-friendly way could well have been developed. In the event, the strike precipitated an even more rapid close down of the industry than had originally been proposed.

If Joe Gormley had still been President of the NUM there would never had been such a damaging strike. He had once said: "My members now have mortgages, take foreign holidays and enjoy a better standard of living then ever before. I won't put that in jeopardy."

But the real legacy of Scargill's strike is that it created deep divisions between north and south, polarised politics and led to the creation of the NuLabour Party. The rest, as they say, is history....

Brown is a Dead Man Walking! He's a Has-Bean!

In a week when Polly Toynbee, that erstwhile arch-cheer leader for Labour, has written his political obituary there has been much musing about Gordon Brown's ability to cling onto power. She is unequivocal: "For political vacuity and ineptitude, Labour has really excelled this week". With friends like this.......etc, etc.

Of course, she was more concerned about the perception and the spin that Labour had managed to put on its difficulties.

In contrast, Fraser Nelson in the Spectator here demonstrates how Brown is now being found out for his woeful performance over the last 11 years. The Tories must ensure that this is at the forefront of their attacks on Brown's incompetent, corrupt and hopeless government.

Update: Now Matthew Parris at the Times has hammered in another nail to Brown's coffin.