The British Political System - A pastiche of personal ideas with some selected other views ...

Speaking in very round terms, the British electorate is divided into three main sections. 40% traditionally vote Conservative; 40% vote Labour and 20% is divided among the Liberals and the smaller political parties.

Given this scenario it is obvious that the two main parties effectively cancel each other out. This therefore gives the balance of power to the remaining 20% of the electorate, which comprises many and various self-interest groupings such as the vociferous lobbies representing the various women’s groups including feminists, black activist and racist groups including immigration reformists, religious groups, homosexual and lesbian groups (the so-called ‘pink vote’!), anarchists, Marxists and communists, environmentalists, environmental groups and out of favour far right wing groups.

It will be seen from this list why our ‘elected representatives’ and government ministers appear to be pandering to interests against the wishes of the majority of the electorate. It is the sure way to election victory to secure without too much effort, the traditional ‘guaranteed vote’, plus the largest proportion of the ‘floating vote’!! In order to secure this proportion the electioneering would-be politicians have to pander and make promises to the members of these small groupings, which in turn become more and more demanding and outrageous with each successive election. The party that gains the most votes from this disparate section of the electorate - wins the ballot!

Unfortunately we no longer enjoy the clear political distinctions that we once did. The Labour Party who were once committed socialists, have emerged in their new existence as ‘New Labour’ and in their determination to achieve government shifted all their emphasis to the middle ground of politics, where unfortunately the Conservative Party have also settled. After 17 years in power the Tories were in disarray and with the socialists effectively adopting the majority of their policies, they really didn’t have a clear alternative policy on which to fight an election. How much better it would be for all of us, if the two main parties went back to their original doctrines; the Tories to Conservatism on the right of the political spectrum, the Labour party to socialism and to the left, thus leaving the centre ground of politics to the Liberal Party. This would then effectively give the electorate a clear choice again, and the complete difference between the main parties would require the ‘splinter groups’ to make a choice, and they would then quite clearly lose the inequitable influence they enjoy at the moment.

Politics is riven with political correctness at all levels, encouraging once loyal and decent people to spy on one another and to find fault simply for the sake of being difficult and pedantic. Political correctness has somehow insidiously become the bane and torment of all our lives, and yet we feel helpless to oppose it. This because there is always someone willing to take the high moral ground in any given situation, which is always ridiculously difficult to counter effectively without getting into a ‘slanging’ match. It is the insidious advance of this clammy monster, which inhibits us all from criticising a system, which rewards minorities so effectively, to the disadvantage of the majority. It is not too dramatic to suggest that Orwell’s 1984 ‘Big Brother’ has well and truly arrived and is controlling our lives in a most unexpected way.

Recent horrific events in the village of Soham highlight yet again the British public’s probable desire to have the return of capital punishment for punishment of the really evil in our society. Yet our elected representatives continue to assert that they know better, and the prospect of the death penalty being reintroduced is in all likelihood   decidedly poor.

The younger generation, the issue of parents from the liberal 60’s and 70’s, have been effectively brainwashed into believing that homosexuality is an acceptable alternative lifestyle and is to be considered normal. This is in direct contrast to the other half of the population, that was brought up to bitterly oppose homosexuality, as a perversion and a quite unacceptable practice. Indeed it was a most serious crime up until 1967. How can a succession of weak governments, following more and more outrageous demands from this group of people – particularly to legally bugger a 16-year-old boy, expect a very moral older generation to simply change its mind and now accept this abomination as ‘normal’?

Of course such views expressed so bluntly will outrage a certain mindset and will be condemned as the demented outpourings of a rabid homophobe, who is most likely a latent homosexual. Such is the difficulty in presenting a coherent opposition to many of the unacceptable practices, which have sprung up in our society. Many of us simply yearn for the return to moral values and acceptance that marriage and the family unit is the basis of a decent society.

In the matter of what appears to be an out of control immigration policy, who among us is not horrified at the ineptitude of our elected representatives to deal with the outrageous abuse of our country’s generosity and hospitality. Yet any opposition to this out of hand situation, which present the most serious problems for the future, is greeted with hate labels by woolly-minded liberals and rabble-rousers, and inevitably described as racist! How can it be racist to want to control the number of people that are admitted to an already overcrowded island, and an overstretched economy?

When ever a person from one of the minority groups runs into a problem the first thing they do is to invoke the race issue, or the female issue, or whatever grouping they lay claim to, so that the situation is never judged on its merits but rather on the colour or sex of the complainant, who invariably wins the day because of the unwillingness of decent people to fall foul of the strident exponents of such policies. 

It cannot possibly be right to encourage by acceptance, the proliferation of single mothers raising children from a number of different fathers. Children need role models and despite the views of emancipated career women, the most successful unit in which to successfully raise children, which after all is our main role in life, is the seminal family unit.

Because of years of poor guidance and example, people have become incredibly selfish. Everyone is so aware of his or her individual rights, and yet no one appears to be aware of their responsibilities.

Political Correctness (PC) is the communal tyranny that erupted in the 1980s. It was a spontaneous declaration that particular ideas, expressions and behaviour, which were then legal, should be forbidden by law, and people who transgressed should be punished. It started with a few voices but grew in popularity until it became unwritten and written law within the community, with those who were publicly declared as being not politically correct becoming the target of persecution by the mob, if not prosecution by the state.

To attempt to point out the odious nature of Political Correctness is to restate the crucial importance of plain speaking, freedom of choice and freedom of speech; these are the community’s safe-guards against the imposition of tyranny, indeed their absence is tyranny. Which is why any such restrictions on expression such as those invoked by the laws of libel, slander and public decency, are grave matters to be decided by common law methodology; not by the dictates of the mob.

The declared rationale of this tyranny is to prevent people being offended; to compel everyone to avoid using words or behaviour that may upset homosexuals, women, none-whites, the crippled, the mentally impaired, the fat or the ugly. This reveals not only its absurdity but also its inspiration. The set of values that are detested are those held by the previous generation (many of whom who fought lived and fought through the Second World War), and perversely these very values have been subverted and become revered by the new generation.

Some of the restrictions are quite ridiculous yet who among us is not now aware that any word with ‘man’ in it is studiously avoided? Take the word chairman, which is essentially non-gender specific. Replaced now by ‘chair’ or ‘chairperson.

The overbearingly smug attitude of the ‘enlightened’ may well force us into a unwelcome censored silence – but they can’t stop us thinking. It can’t be too long before this ponderous pendulum ceases its crazy swing and begins to balance back the other way. Many of us hope it won’t be too long, as time is running out for many of us!

The rules for life have been evolving for many thousands of years so how can it be that enlightenment over the past 25 years can turn the wisdom of all those previous generations upside down, and establish a new order so quickly?

My love, my life, my love my wife!

By: Parlousuk

Her face will always be with me, it is a dream divine
She was my love, I loved her so, and she was only mine
And I can see her lovely smile, just as and when I care
For she is ever in my mind, and the memories we share.

It was a lovely summer’s day, the sun shone oh so bright,
The blue skies were so glorious, and were joyful to my sight,
And then I saw her, young and free, a beauty to behold,
There was no doubt; she was mine, for joys to come untold.

We quickly came to friendship, and then as lovers too
Our lives were quickly so entwined, as lovers often do
We soon became inseparable, we vowed to never part
Our minds were tied; we loved as though, we only had one heart.

And so the future opened up, our lives stretched out ahead,
We shared a home, we shared our thoughts, we shared a double bed!
Ere not too long, we soon shared more, we had a baby son
And then we had a baby girl, to add more to our fun.

The days and weeks and then the years, all sped past in a flash,
We thrived on love and did so well; were never short of cash,
We were the envy of our set, we could not want for more
But then as if a cloud appeared, a couple moved next door.

To cut a painful story short, my love began to stray
She was quite taken by this man, I was not asked to stay,
She got court order from a judge, who banned me from my home,
And I was left un-domiciled, to start to write this poem.

The artless lover took my wife; he took my children too,
He took my pride, he stole my life, I knew not what to do,
For I still paid the mortgage, the school fees and the board,
And I still had to pay for me, and so my bank debts soared.

I really did the best I could, to try and to win them back
But he was firmly in control, despite my various tack,
And what had once been such a love, now quickly turned to hate,
Whatever plans I had for us, quite soon became too late.

And so it came before the court, where I would get my chance,
To tell the court what went before, my future to enhance,
However, that was not to be, the mood was clear against me,
It did not look too good for me, I found disconsolately.

And so it came to pass that day, when all was said and done,
I had no home and not a wife, nor daughter or a son,
But strangely and ironically, I was no better yet
For no matter what had happened, I was deeper yet in debt.

And so it does continue on, there is no happy end
I am at loss to know from here, I’m going round the bend,
I do believe my love is lost, but she really went too far,
She got not only house and kids, she got my favourite car.

And thus it’s clear that’s all I’ve got, the picture of my love,
Which I carry in my mind you see, on high and just above,
But you will know that I’m not pleased, I’m really quite bereft
For the image of my love dear friends – is all that’s bloody left!

Copyright © parlousuk 2001

The Scandal that is Global Warming

The planet Earth is a tiny, by comparison, piece of shrapnel, which we think was part of the resultant debris from a huge spontaneous explosion billions of years ago, which detonated in the vastness of the void that we know as Space.

That piece of shrapnel (Earth), together with the unimaginable number of other pieces of shrapnel, is hurtling outwards at enormous speed into infinite space. In the course of that flight, it is circling another vast piece of shrapnel (the Sun) which is still molten and glowing brightly with heat, upon which Earth relies for its very existence.

The inhabitants of Earth (Mankind) cling to the surface of the planet, having evolved from the environment that gradually developed in the prevailing and constantly changing conditions. There is neither rhyme nor reason how all this happened as it is all way beyond mankind’s puny comprehension.

The early inhabitants admitted that it was all way beyond their understanding and in their ignorance and fear could only believe that a Supreme Being (God) had created them. They believed that this God was omnipotent and worshipped Him in a number of ways, in order to please and serve Him.

Mankind utilised the natural resources of Earth to provide for it, and evolved to a formidably sophisticated level, which is essentially an observation made by mankind itself. During that evolution Earth was subjected to many natural disasters and came close at times to being obliterated. Despite all setbacks, Mankind survived until in the 1960’s the female of the species, who hitherto had been subjugated by the male of the species, declared further emancipation.

From those humble beginnings feminism emerged, together with political correctness and social engineering. These enlightened people and times bred a new knowledge of Earth that had previously been largely overlooked. It became clear to what became the Green Lobby that the climate on Earth was changing, and the changes were due to mankind’s despoliation of the planet for personal gain.

Thus began a movement, which was/is very controlling and overbearing, to reduce man-made emissions of Carbon Dioxide (CO²) , and which would brook no opposition to its green agenda. The process made certain individuals very powerful and in the process also made them very wealthy. The cost to the rest of us was to be a lowered standard of living, and a huge increase in taxation to pay for the proposed reduction in CO².

The debate as to the validity of the claims made by scientists is on-going, but in the rarefied atmosphere of the halls of academia, it appears not to have occurred to those claiming global warming, that those facts which describe our precarious existence in the great unknown scheme of things, may indicate more valid reasons for what is happening to our planet.

It should be very clear given the vastness and enormity of our existence, that there are matters way beyond our comprehension and control. The best we can do is to use our collective resources to adapt to the inevitable changes as they occur.

If the global warming lobby get their way, they will have visited upon the citizens of the world the greatest confidence trick of all time. History will be their judge, but that is cold comfort to those of us who are currently subject to their tyranny.

They had a Dream!

The triumphalism since the election of the first black American to the office of President of the United States, has me puzzled and bemused. This is not the great popular miracle that some would have us believe; it is once again the predictable result of behind the scenes manoeuvring by cynical professional politicians.

Given that a deeply unpopular Republican administration was coming to the end of its tenure, it was clear that there would inevitably be a lurch to the political left. The feeble best the Republican Party could do to counter that likely inevitability, was to nominate an old man who if elected would be hard pressed to complete a first term, let alone go on to complete a full eight years in office. They chose as his running-mate a vacuous and inexperienced woman of toothsome appearance who added little to his prospects of achieving office.

Meanwhile, a relatively small number of influential power makers in the hierarchy of the liberal, left-wing, feminist, politically-correct Democrat Party, artfully chose two candidates, one of whom would inevitably become the new President of the United States. They chose carefully according to their radical agenda, thus ensuring that the new president would be a ‘first’ whatever the outcome. The election was always going to produce either the first woman president, or it was going to result in the first black president to be elected. So the way had been paved not by popular appeal or by the preferred choice of the American people, but by manipulative and calculating party politicians.

There was an almost unavoidable backlash against their preferred candidate, as the weaknesses and unreliability of the unpopular Hillary Clinton, who is obviously a deeply flawed and rampant feminist, with a blurred perception of real-life events, began to emerge. She was further hampered and overshadowed by her well-connected yet meddling priapic husband, former President Bill Clinton.

So is the newly elected president the popular result of the democratic process and a victory for the will of the people?  Quite frankly, articulate and credible as he has emerged, I don’t think the majority of Americans would have voted for this man if there had been other choices under other circumstances at the outset.

However, he has been inaugurated and now has to live up to all that adulation, optimism and expectation. The United States and the rest of the free world need a strong and authoritative American president. President Obama started with a clean slate and the goodwill and hopes of countless millions of people. He has got off to a shaky start and it needs to improve if he is to live up to those high aspirations.

Is it me?!

Once again the by now infamous Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT), has thwarted the Home Office by refusing to deport a convicted criminal who is coming to the end of his prison sentence.

An Iraqi immigrant who nineteen years ago knifed to death two consultant surgeons, is due to be released from a maximum security hospital  unit in the very near future. Tribunal judge Lance Waumsley ruled that Laith Alani could remain in Britain indefinitely. Waumsley, in summing up, stated that to deport Alani would be to infringe his human rights, and that he would likely prove to be a continuing danger to the people of Iraq if he was returned to his native country.

The impact of this ludicrous judgement, upon the population of the UK, has clearly been completely discounted. Isn't it time that these unelected liberal left-wing placemen were ousted and common sense, which apparently is not so common, was used as a yardstick to regulate our lives?

This judgement would appear to prove that the inmates really have taken over the loony bin! 

We are what we eat!

Despite all the protestations to the contrary, unless we have some alarming and serious medical condition, our bodyweight and physical appearance is regulated by a strict correlation between the amount we eat and drink, and the amount of energy we expend.


Energy intake is best described, and managed, by the number of calories we ingest on a daily basis, aggregated  over a period of time in order to reach an average. We all have a maintenance diet which will keep us at the same weight and body-fat content, if we eat the same number of calories daily, and expend the same amount of energy each and every day. This for men is approximately 2200 calories, and for a woman approximately 2000 calories. These are essentially only guideline figures as we are all different and metabolise our food and drink intake at different rates.


Using a similar all-embracing generality, if we eat 3500 calories in excess of our maintenance diet, we will increase our bodyweight by one pound (1lb). Thus, 500 calories a day eaten or drunk in excess of our maintenance diet, will result at the end of seven days (1 week) a weight gain of 1lb. Equally, if we exercise in excess of our maintenance requirement, we will burn extra calories by the amount of exercise we do and its intensity. Thus, 500 calories per day expended in the gym or other physical activity, will reduce our weight by 1lb over the course of a week.


This basic information is remarkably accurate and should be used as a guide to achieve your ideal weight and body-fat composition. 

"To sleep, perchance to dream- ay, there's the rub." Wm Shakespeare - Hamlet

The greatest antidote to having a happy life, is the overwhelming and ever-present spectre of our mortality. I once gave some profound advice to my children, by telling them not to ask any questions - as there were no answers.


What I meant was, that life is such a wonderful but bizarre experience, and yet love it as we do, the entirety of our existence is essentially and hopelessly beyond our comprehension. I have relentlessly spent much of my life looking for reasons for our existence, if only to seek comfort from the harsh reality that inevitably it must cease, and probably with no conscious recollection for all eternity.


I say 'probably' because I have become what I have coined as a hopeful Agnostic. This means that as the result of such a 'bizarre' experience as life, and it being so far from our ability to comprehend, that anything is possible, even to the existence of a supreme being - or God. In fact, if their is not a God then we are all doomed, for the alternative is too awful to contemplate.


The prospect of dying and never again to have any awareness or conscious thought, is particularly frightening. It effectively means that all we do in life is without purpose, and that all the wonderful and loving relationships we have formed are meaningless.


And so I pray each night, to a God in whom I don't really believe, in order to seek comfort and to try and make sense of what has happened to me, given that I have been dead once and must return again to I know not where.


That may be my comfort, for this life is so profound that it can be very frightening, and to not be aware is to be released from that continuing dread.

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TswE_dN4qW0

 

In the song 'The Long & Winding Road', Paul McCartney wrote about his journeys to his then Scottish home. I believe those lovely words could equally describe those of us searching for hope, and could well be a plea for someone to be waiting for all of us at the end of our journeys  ... wouldn't that be nice?