#EUReferendum #VoteLeave My two pennies worth on the EU referendum

For the benefit of anyone who may be influenced by the opinions I express here, I must point out that I am well aware that I will be dead before the worst results of this country leaving or remaining in the EU become apparent. It's a factor which influences my vote in only a minor way but one that is only fair to point out. One further, slightly anarchic, influence is that I would dearly love to see this country's reaction to MPs should they refuse to enact the bills necessary to enable a departure. There is a faction within Westminster which is threatening to do exactly that, believe it or not.

Should it not already be obvious I shall be voting to leave the EU. I voted against joining in the first place and nothing I have seen since has altered my opinion one single iota. It always gave me an uneasy feeling about joining an organisation which was the concept of the pre-war Nazi party. A feeling that Angela Merkel has signally failed to dispel.

I have said elsewhere that I simply do not see the point in forming a small club wherein the benefit lies in exclusivity and then inviting every Tom, Dick and Harry to join as well. Particularly when Tom, Dick and Harry are unwell and wholly unable to pay their way. I am always willing to hear another opinion on this and if anyone can assure me that Albania, Serbia and the other East European proposed entrants will be able to pay the £350 million per week that we pay then I might change my vote. But nobody that I've heard can do that and so those countries and Turkey will be a constant drain on EU resources. There will be bailouts and then refusal to accept the fiscal measures required by the bailouts and then further bailouts to fund the original bailout terms. We've seen it all before with Cyprus and Greece - the figures these countries now owe the EU are astronomical. Anyone with the slightest common sense could have foreseen this happening and surely must question the wisdom of remaining in an organisation run by the kind of people who could not. I have always said that the key factor for assessing the viability of a country is whether it has a sound industrial or commercial base. Granted when Greece was a major shipbuilding country you might have made a case for its membership but it had lost that status to the Pacific rim countries long before joining and Cyprus never had any real economic basis for membership in its entire history. It may grow a decent grape, olive and citrus fruit but this even in conjunction with tourism is hardly a sound commercial justification.

It isn't long ago that Cameron (the lying git) told us that he had obtained an agreement from the EU that we should no longer have to contribute to a bailout fund for any member state if we had vetoed it. Then along came the Greek economic disaster and the next thing is - we are forking out £600 million without the option. Now there are are currently five further countries being talked about as new EU members - Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania - of which four are already economically unsound or in no position to become so. The fifth, Turkey, is an undesirable member for other reasons. So when those four go belly up you can multiply that £600 million by four which is, of course, £2400 million or nearly 2.5 billion squids. Can we afford that kind of outgoing when there will not be any kind of benefit in return? No we cannot, and there is no possible argument about it.

I say there is no argument but I suppose some would say that other East European entrants such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia have not had any kind of disaster but my response to that is that it is only a matter of time. And you can add Portugal, Malta and Poland to the list of possible defaulters while you're about it. Even if I'm wrong we will still have to fork out hundreds of millions in those ludicrous pre-accession assistance agreements and £640 million for Turkey under a recent deal.

In short I think that the economic prognosis for the EU in the coming years is pretty dismal and I haven't even mentioned the flood of immigrants/economic refugees/asylum seekers which will place a further burden on our dwindling national resources.

Yes I know my reasonings are oversimplified and unsophisticated but they really are all I have to go on. Not much less, in fact, than the majority of the other voters have I suspect.

Now we get to my more personal and esoteric reasons for wanting to get out.
The first of these is that I am instinctively repulsed by any cause supported by David Cameron. I think he is a greedy, self-serving mountebank of the very worst kind. He doesn't even have a nodding acquaintanceship with the truth and the further away from his influence the better this country will be. The fact that his cronies who have supported him with the REMAIN faction have been rewarded in the Queen's Birthday honours list makes me feel infinitely depressed. It devalues the awards given to those people who have actually earned them and is an insult to Her Majesty and this country.

The second reason I have for leaving is that most of those I have seen encouraging and supporting the REMAIN side seem to have personal or business reasons for doing so. I mean if you run a business which depends on European co-operation for its day to day running and commercial success then you might well vote to stay within the Union. But don't write articles in the press or appear on television declaring to one and all that staying in the EU is beneficial for everybody else. This country has stagnated industrially since joining. We've lost coal mining, shipbuilding, motor manufacturing and the steel industry. And this wasn't entirely the fault of the trades union or politicians as a substantial portion of the blame must be laid at the doors of feckless 'captains of industry' who put short term profiteering ahead of the best interests of the workers and of the country as a whole. Why should we believe them now?

The next reason for am immediate exit from the EU can be seen on the left. Yes, Neil Kinnock the dismal Labour Party leader who failed twice in succession to be Prime Minister. All the time as Labour leader he was vociferously against EU membership but he changed his tune when he was unaccountably offered a role as an MEP and he and his wife Glenys, who also took a role, have milked the system ever since. Between them they are reckoned to have amassed £250 million in pensions and other benefits mostly funded by us the taxpayer. When Glenys retired as an MEP she was elevated to the House of Lords where she immediately became one of those peers who enter the house by one door claiming their £350 payment, and straight away exit by another door.
I won't bore you with the activities of their son Stephen and his strange marriage to a former Danish MP who fiddled the Danish taxpayer with the same criminally deluded sense of entitlement as her parents-in-law.

Another personal reason can be seen to the left. How Obama had the cheek and audacity to come here 'advising' the British public to vote to remain in the EU is a mystery and source of constant peevishness to me. And then to threaten us with becoming a back number on America's list of trading partners. It is blatantly obvious that his real reason, far from any economic grounds, was to keep us in partnership with the European Defence Force and thus maintaining the power and influence of NATO.

One final point to consider is that George Osborne (a man whom I put in almost the same league of mendaciousness as David Cameron) has said today that in his first budget after a Brexit vote he will put 2p on the income tax and impose austerity spending cuts. I don't know what makes him think he will have the authority to do that after an exit vote. MPs will probably force a vote of 'no confidence' in Cameron which will mean a general election. In any case a true Brit would never give in to that kind of blackmail - we leave that to the French, Spanish and Italians.

Well that's about it really. As I said before, my ashes will have long been blowing in the four winds before the worst effects of a vote either way will become apparent (I hope). But I shall just add that if the country votes to stay within the EU and when people are queueing for basic supplies, having to wait months for a doctor's appointment and having their state pensions unpaid, you won't be able to say no one warned you.

You'll have to excuse me from this "Je Suis Charlie" stuff

Right at the beginning I have to say that I haven't actually seen what the French cartoonists are supposed to have drawn, and for which they died, so I am assuming that it was supposed to be funny. And as Charlie Hebdo is alleged to be a satirical publication (and since it is French) I assume that to mean it just takes the piss out of stuff.

Now let me also say that I believe wholeheartedly in freedom of speech. If you have an opinion about something, you must be free to express it without fear of retribution or penalty. But I am utterly against any kind of hypocrisy in the way that freedom is applied.

So let us imagine that Charlie Hebdo was a UK based publication and that its main subject was cartooning the black community or gay rights or some other minority. Let's face it, Charlie Hebdo would certainly not have got past the first publication before it was closed down. So where would the cries for freedom of expression have been then? Muffled under the "incitement to racial hatred" and "discrimination" laws, that's where.

I am not suggesting that the Jihadist's response to the Charlie Hebdo piss taking of the Muslim religion was anything less than evil murder. But nor do I believe that taking the piss out of someone's religious beliefs can be equated to freedom of expression in this age of political correctness gone mad.

If you give some people the right to do that then you must give others the right to take the piss out of blacks, gays, transgenders, the Irish, Welsh or whatever on a public forum. Where would it end?

In an ideal world of course you could do that with impunity. But we're stuck with discrimination laws and "yuman rights" etc so you cannot. So are we supposed to believe that the Muslim faith is some kind of under class to which the normal laws do not apply?

The sloganising of Je Suis Charlie strikes me more like a call to facism rather than support for freedom of speech.

I don't believe that sloganising or mass protests, like the one in Paris over the weekend, ever work or have any real significance. The simple truth is that terrorists do not speak the same language as the rest of us. They only understand violence and that is the only way they will be stopped.

As for "Je Suis Juif" Isn't it only a few years since Tony Blair's jingoistic slogan suggesting that; "We're all Palestinians now" after some Israeli atrocity in Gaza.

So for these reasons and many more - Non, je ne suis pas Charlie. Nor am I "Juif"

It's appalling that there has been no resignation at the Department for Public Prosecutions over the Michael LeVell case

Two Years of the Coronation Street actor's life have been taken from him because of the incompetence of Alison Levitt QC, the principal legal adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions for England.

The Crown Prosecution Service had already decided that there was insufficient evidence to form the basis for a trial and they were overuled because of that woman's sinister obsession. How much public money was wasted on a trial that was doomed to fail right from the beginning and had more to do with politics than actual criminality? Although I don't want to see more public money spent, I really think that Michael LeVell should consider taking legal action against the DPP, the CPS and the police, jointly and severelly, for malicious prosecution.

Although Kevin Webster was never my favourite character in Coronation Street I will, nevertheless, be glad to see him back where he belongs.

The one good thing that might come of the #Syria vote in the Commons.........

.... is that we might at long last get rid of the vainglorious, pompous and posturing turd that is David Cameron MP. For surely, a prime minister who has been so soundly defeated in the kind of vote where he might have expected almost total support, can have no possible mandate to continue in power. And I'm very surprised he has not already gone. As for the snivelling hypocrisy being spouted in the media and in Parliament - well I have to laugh.
Paddy Ashdown must surely have blushed when he said last week that he has never felt so ashamed and his wife's blood pressure must have increased a point or two. And all that garbage about the 'special relationship' As far as I'm concerned the 'special relationship' if it ever existed ended with the support given by Americans to the IRA and that's not to mention the Falklands or even Suez. Perhaps now we'll be able to quit this absurd notion that has been a laughing stock for years and stop being regarded as the American poodle. We have not held a position of authority in world affairs for a long time now and we might as well get used to it. We don't have the troops or the finance to back it up.

As for the so-called justification for the moral bombing of the Syrian regime. Where is the evidence that it was Assad and not the rebels who committed the attrocity. The UN inspectors have been typically useless and as for the alleged intelligence documents - well we've been there before have we not? I've seen stuff on the internet that purports to be 'intelligence' and you wouldn't want to base a military campaign on it. Oh no wait, Tony Blair did, didn't he?

And lastly there is the feeling that any support for the rebels is support for Islamic fundamentalism and we certainly won't get any thanks from those bastards. No we're well out of it and we'll be even better if Cameron goes.

#News - Cowardly Cameron shutting the door to internet porn and opens one to internet crime

It is quite obvious that Cameron needs sme kind of populist target now that he has failed to get any significant legislation introduced regarding tobacco and alcohol. I say he failed but the fact that there is tax income on both begs the question of the sincerity of his efforts to bring about plain packaging and minimum pricing.

There is no tax income from internet usage YET so Cameron obviously feels on safer ground. Also, of course, he can pass on responsibility for curbs to the providers rather than have the expenses involved come out of government sources.

However, he has plainly failed to take into account a couple of the inevitable consequences of internet restrictions.
Firstly any filtering will slow down internet speeds to something akin to pre broadband days. It will nullify all the efforts to increase broadband speeds throughout the country.
Secondly it will open the door to a wave of internet crime hitherto unseen in Britain. Very few people will have ever seen an email from their internet provider before and therefore will have no idea what one should look like. So emails will arrive in the inboxes of the technically befuddled public instructing them to do whatever to their computers. Joe Bloggs, in his attempts to keep viewing his favourite porn sites, will be told that if he downloads this or that software he will be able to get round any kind of ISP controls. Of course all his personal information will be hoovered up by some kind of phishing malware.

And the worst thing about the idiot Cameron's foolish scheme, supported by the increasingly rabid Daily Mail, is that it is literally the thin end of a totalitarian wedge. Once the basic mechanism for controlling internet freedom is in place, it could be easily adjusted for any political or social purpose whatsoever.

#Syria - For all our sakes, Cameron should lock his wife in a dark cellar........

......and keep her away from politics and out of the media. It's an understandable kneejerk reaction, of course, if one sees children suffering to want something done to end it. But SamCam, as Samantha Cameron is known in the press, really needs to have the facts explained to her.

Arming those particular rebels will do nothing whatever to end the long term malaise in Syria and would even make it worse. Whatever Assad's faults (and he has many) at least his country had religious freedom. If the factions behind virtually any of the rebel groups ever came to power, Syria would be thrust back instantly into the dark ages of Islamic fundamentalism with all the evils of persecution, inequality and terrorism that it implies.

The simple truth is that it would be better for Syria if the UN helped President Assad put down the various rebel groups and bring an end to the violence in that way.

What is the plan exactly when fighter jets escort a passenger aircraft to a landing?

Obviously I mean when a terrorist threat has been suggested. These situations are occurring quite often now in the wake of 9/11 and I'm curious to know what exactly can be achieved by scrambling a couple of fighters to intercept. Of course it's better than doing nothing but how much better?
There seems to be only two possible courses of action:
1) Force the aircraft to land. I don't think a terrorist intent on killing is going to obey whether he is control or merely compelling one of the crew to fly.
2) Shoot the hijacked aircraft rather than permit it to crash into a highly populated area. Who in this country have we got that would have the balls to order that? Hundreds of innocent civilian passengers on the plane would certainly die plus an untold number on the ground. It would be an enormous catastrophe and I just cannot imagine the scale of the repercussions. The country would be bogged down for decades with endless public and government inquiries, legal wranglings and so on ad nauseum until the very crack of doom.
I really don't see the point in doing something merely for it's own sake when nothing at all can be gained from it. But I'd just like to see inside the head of the person who thought of it in the first place. TELL ME THE PLAN MAN.

Today we have lost a part of our national identity with the death of Baroness Thatcher

I often think that you can judge a person by the people who dislike them just as well, if not better than, by judging them by their friends.

Consider, for example, what was said by Sinn Féin politician Danny Morrison in 1982:
"Margaret Thatcher is the biggest bastard we have ever known"
To be hated and feared by scum like the IRA is praise enough by any standard.

Nor was she a friend of the E.U. She believed that the role of the European Union (then the European Community) should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition and not as a means of centralising government. I cannot imagine that we would have anything like the problems we currently have with the European court of human rights were she still in power. Abu Qatada and his ilk would be long gone. She was certainly no friend of terrorists whatever their nationality or religion.

I cannot imagine the kind of mess that David Cameron and his bunch of milk sop, u-turning and half witted cronies would have made of the Falklands invasion in 1982. Margaret Thatcher was no friend of aggressive, bully boy tactics.

I have always considered that the increasing power and consequent demands of the trades union has played no small part in this country's economic decline. And Maggie was certainly no friend of unions. When she came to power 1979 29 million working days had been lost due to stoppages and strikes. By the time she left office in 1990 the number of days lost were fewer than 2 million. It is also significant that union membership fell by 25% in the same period.

Of course her support of the highly unpopular community tax was a mistake but, what the hell, nobody's perfect!

All said and done, I would say that Margaret Thatcher had a lot in common with Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. She was certainly someone you would want on your side in a crisis.

RIP Baroness Thatcher - much admired and already greatly missed.

More banking bullshit from Business Secretary Vince Cable

Royal Bank of Scotland was today hit with fines of almost £400million for its part in fixing inter-bank lending rates.
Business Secretary Vince Cable warned the government-owned bank should pay the fines to UK and US regulators from bankers' bonuses and not leave the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

But he seems to have forgotten that the bankers bonuses only exist because of profits resulting from the taxpayers bail out.
No bail out. No profits. No bonuses. Simples.

The government's unhealthy plans to limit immigration from Eastern Europe

Immigration minister Mark Harper thinks that limiting access to free healthcare is seen as key to preventing a fresh surge of immigrants when controls are lifted at the end of this year.

It remains unclear how the proposals would work in practice but it is likely NHS staff would be asked to check healthcare entitlements when immigrants first came into contact with the NHS.

This is one of the most stupid ideas I have come across in an age of stupid ideas. Can he really imagine one of our cherished hospitals turning away a sick person of whatever nationality or financial means?
Millions of pounds, in debts incurred by foreign nationals, have already been written off by the NHS.
And he has a bloody cheek putting the responsibility onto our already overworked and underpaid healthcare staff.

No, the real key to limiting immigration from Eastern Europe is simply not to let the buggers in in the first place! A job which should not be given to the UK Border Agency which has so far proved to be utterly feckless, incompetent and not fit for purpose.

It also concerns me that the government might give any credibility at all to Bulgarian Ambassador Konstantin Dimitrov who plays down fears of mass immigration to the UK by pointing to the low levels of migrants to Ireland when that country opened its borders.

But what sensible Bulgarian would voluntarily go to a country which is on the verge of bankruptcy and is riven with terrorism and crime?

More frightening still is that Downing Street says that:

The Government is determined to prevent potential damage to the labour market from a fresh influx of migrants, but acknowledges Britain will have to operate within EU rules on the right to free movement. The Government is also examining the idea of an ad campaign telling potential migrants in Romania and Bulgaria that British streets are not necessarily ‘paved with gold’

Eh! Pardon moi. Might it not be better to say that the streets of Britain ARE MOST DEFINITELY NOT paved with gold rather than 'not necessarily' Or just refer them to any British old age pensioner who would be able to furnish them with the truth of the matter.

It's time we stopped thinking of the holocaust as some kind of holy cow.

If people are not allowed to express opinions openly about it then we are in danger of becoming some kind of Stalinesque state; the very kind of state that breeds similar attrocities.

David Ward, the Lib Dem MP for Bradford, is facing disciplinary action after accusing Israel of atrocities against the Palestinians in Gaza similar to those perpetrated on Jews by the Nazis.

Of course you only have to notice that his constituency is Bradford to realise that his motives may be political rather than the result of genuine personal belief but that is hardly the point.

Surely it is better to regard the holocaust as a sad and deeply regrettable part of history and use it to inform our political choices rather than use it as an excuse for the Israelis to behave as they do towards the Palestinians without public criticism.

What is happening in Gaza is effectively genocide by other means.

In or out of Europe, neither makes much difference to an old fart like me

The single benefit about being old is that I am free to express nearly any opinion while safe in the knowledge that I'll never have to live with the consequences of being wrong. Which is possibly the way that Cameron feels about promising an in/out referendum on the EU. Maybe he anticipates losing the next election and will never have to comply with yesterday's promise.

I have never been in favour of EU membership. I simply cannot see the point of an exclusive trading club which permits membership to virtually all comers. My EU would never have permitted Greece to join nor indeed Spain and Portugal. Nor Cyprus. And it would have also been a definite NO to any of those East European financial disaster areas. Any country whose economy is based on tourism, service industries or winegrowing would have been precluded.

Nor indeed do I see the point of joining any organisation in which we would be the only member making the slightest attempt to stick to the rules. Just look at what has happened to the fishing and farming industries. Only a fool would not have seen that Spain would totally ignore any rules on fishing and that France would try to destroy British farming.

Whatever! It's too late now. And I suspect it's too late to contemplate withdrawal. Nor do I think that it is a particularly good idea to place such an important matter in the hands of Sun and Daily Mail readers.

However I wish that Cameron had based his promise on what's best for the country rather than on fear of UKIP and his own backbenchers.

I think Miliband has been rather cunning by coming out against a referendum because someone had to take that stance. He would have gained nothing at all by being in favour and at least he has provided those against with a party for whom to vote in the next election.

With any luck I won't have to decide which way to vote as I might well have croaked my last before 2017.

How can Bolton council afford to pay KPMG fees?

It seems that Bolton city council can afford to retain the auditing services of top London accountants KPMG.
This has come to light because a 66 yr old man took the council’s auditors to the High Court to claim that some of the authority’s income had been obtained illegally. He lost and now may have to sell his house to pay the costs.
A sad case but I would really like to know why a town council needs to employ such a top flight firm or can afford to do so in such straightened times.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that there may be anything underhand in Bolton council's dealings but if a company has any dodgy dealings then it would be well advised to employ an accountancy firm who can cloak the misdeeds in a shroud of respectability.

It seems that the UK Border Agency is to take up gardening.

And they might as well because they are no bloody good at guarding.
Apparently the UKBA is to place some large concrete planters outside the Lunar House headquarters in Croydon. They fear terrorist attacks from car bombs being driven into the entrance and the concrete blocks would deter that.

I don't know what reason they imagine a terrorist organisation would possibly have to commit such an action seeing that they signally fail to prevent terrorists from either entering the country or to remove them when their visas have expired or even when the courts have ordered their repatriation.

Perhaps they are afraid of UK citizens who have tired of paying for their inefficiency.

But I think that they would be as well to place the plant pots strategically in the entrance channels at Heathrow and Gatwick where they could hardly be less effective effective than the present system.

This is a typical concrete planter installed for security purposes. And it seems to me that it's size and shape suggests an alternative use. How about a sarcophagus for the Home Secretary -Mrs Theresa May MP.

Another odd thought has just occurred to me. Isn't Lunar House also the H.Q. of Special Branch?

When Cameron says we would defend the Falklands, who does he mean by 'we'?

Once upon a time joining the armed forces meant joining a huge extended family which would look after you at all times. That meant, not only the guys around you in a hostile area but also the more senior members of the family in positions of power and authority. As the report in my previous post indicates this is no longer the case; at least as far as those senior family members are concerned.

Now it seems that a soldier must go into battle, be prepared to endanger his life in that battle, just so the politicians can argue afterwards what kind of battle it was and whether any of the opposing forces had their 'yuman rights' violated.

Well the plain truth is that it really doesn't matter what kind of battle it was you can still end up the same kind of dead.

Let me put it another way. A platoon of British soldiers in an advance recconnaisance party come across a squad of hostiles (it doesn't matter whether they are IRA terrorists, insurgents in Afghanistan or Argentinians). A firefight ensues and our guys prevail with several hostiles being catured alive.

A few miles back down the road more of our guys are advancing in battalion strength. It is obviously a priority to discover any fortified or entrenched positions, armoured vehicles, mined areas or IEDs may lie ahead.

Time is of the essence. So would our soldiers be justified in using robust interrogation methods to gain information which might save the lives of their advancing comrades and further the aims of the politicians back in Whitehall?

But it's not really a question a soldier has time to indulgently ask himself. The guys down the road are fellows he eats with, drinks with and who would unquestionly support him in the same circumstances. So he does what he has to do knowing that the enemy would not hesitate to do the same.

When he picks up his gun again to resume the patrol in ever more hostile country, he needs to know that his actions are not going to be picked over by politicians whose political aims are totally different from the ones who started the military action in the first place and 'yuman rights' lawyers whose only aims are the pursuit of personal wealth. It is simply not fair on him, or justifiable to his family, to ask him to ask it of him without that political and legal support.

However it seems that David Cameron expects our troops to go into action again at his request over the Falkland Islands. Of course it may just be sabre rattling by both sides. But this is what Cameron said yesterday to Andrew Marr when asked if the UK would fight to keep the Falklands:

Of course we would

.

By 'we' of course he does not mean himself or any of his cronies. He means a number of underpaid and under equipped service men and women whose jobs are utterly insecure and who he will stab in the back at the first hint of legal action in Strasbourg.

So I say, in the light of the way the UK government is treating former paras who fought in No. Ireland and his mistreatment of the soldiers enquiring into the deaths of six military policemen in Afghanistan, bollocks to the Falkland Islanders. If they are so important to Cameron he can bloody well fight for them himself.

Germany's new masterplan

I certainly hope David Cameron doesn't get wind of this as I suspect it is something that would appeal to his "caring" nature.

In fact I don't know why he hasn't already thought of deporting the elderly himself because there are only so many spaces available on his NHS care pathways (a dying person still occupies a bed) and he'll need something to do with the surplus.

Apparently researchers have found that an estimated 7,146 German pensioners are living in retirement homes in Hungary in 2011.

More than 3,000 were in the Czech Republic and more than 600 in Slovakia. There were also unknown numbers in Spain, Greece and the Ukraine, as well as Thailand and the Philippines.

They cannot afford the cost of retirement in Germany - a situation which also applies to pensioners in this country thanks to Cameron and his cronies.

It also seems that it is not only politicians in this country who are incapable of simple mathematics and logic.

Artur Frank, the owner of Senior Palace – which finds care homes for Germans in Slovakia – said:

It was wrong to suggest senior citizens were being ‘deported’.

Many are here of their own free will, the results of sensible decisions by their families who know they will be better off

Well when I was at school:
All - many = some
Therefore some Germans are not abroad of their own free will
And if not of their own free will then what? I can maybe understand going to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia because the beer is strong and cheap and the girls are extremely pretty. I can also understand Spain and Greece because of the weather. Maybe also Thailand and the Philipines for the warm climate although the food is abominable.

But who on earth would "voluntarily" go to the Ukraine? That sounds far more like being put on a train with a suitcase and prevented from getting off before your allotted destination.

More evidence that David Cameron lives in a world of his own

He went on a so called 'morale boosting' visit to the troops in Afghanistan the other day.
You miserable deluded cretin Cameron! The only things guaranteed to boost their morale at this or any other time of year is
a) A decent bit of scoff
b) Letters and parcels from their families
c) A visit from a page three stunnah
And in their Christmas stockings; some weapons and vehicles that actually function as they should so they can go out and kill more frogs, boers,huns, rag heads.

I rather wish one of those squaddies had revisited the old military custom of 'fragging' - an opportunity missed.

And while I'm on the subject of stupidity:

This picture in the Mail Online was captioned:
'David Cameron sings carols alongside soldiers on the front line in Afghanistan yesterday'
If he had really been alongside soldiers on the front line he would have had his head down.
He was actually alongside front line soldiers. Slight difference.

It's time the media circus around the royal hoax and the nurse's suicide came to an end

There are far too many people getting involved for no apparent reason other than to feed their own hunger for publicity.

Chief among these vultures is Keith Vaz MP who seems to have appointed himself spokesman for Jacintha Saldanha's family. Quite why he imagines he is entitled to take on this role is a mystery. He has nothing in common with them except an Asian heritage, but there are a million other people of Indian descent living here (see the 2011 census), nor is he their constituency MP. So why is he involving himself? It might be that common political ploy of distraction.

He might well be feeling guilty about something else and maybe he thinks that by covering himself with self-imagined glory less notice will be paid to some other indiscretion.

Keith Vaz MP is not without a record for indiscretions of one sort or another. These include being suspended from the Commons for a month for making false allegations against a former policewoman; giving false information to the Commons Standards Committee; failing to register payments totalling £4,500; involvement in the Hinduja ‘cash for passports’ affair; interfering in an inquiry into his friend, the bent solicitor Shahrokh Mireskandari, without declaring an interest; being mixed up with corrupt policeman Ali Dizaei; and being forced to repay parliamentary expenses to which he was not entitled.

Please don't get me wrong, I quite see that Mrs Saldanha's family are entitled to all the support available and certainly answers to the questions about the behaviour of the hospital authority's responses to the hoax call. But I can't see that Keith Vaz is the person to provide that.

The arrival of the world's largest container ship symbolises much of what is wrong with this country

The ship is capable of carrying 16000 containers and the management of Southampton docks is apparently proud of the fact that it is one of the few dock facilities capable of handling it.

Fifty years ago when we had a manufacturing industry of our own we would have had no need to import such quantities goods from the far east. We could have made and exported our own ranges of shoddy toys and defective electrical goods. Alas no longer. And then we wonder why we're in such a parlous state!

Despite this I had to chuckle at the article in the Mail Online which stated that the Marco Polo at 396 metres is 51 times longer than the Queen Mary 2. If my calculator is working properly it means the Queen Mary is about 25 feet in length!

Furthermore the item also said that the ship was in Hong Kong the week before. Ah so! It managed to travel the 12000 miles at a speed of something like 1000 miles a day. So it's not only the world's largest but also travels at over 40 miles per hour! Hmmmm.

Perhaps the manufacturing base of this country is not the only thing wrong. Our standards of journalism could do with an overhaul. But we knew that already thanks to Leveson.

I'm a bit puzzled by the fuss about the Leveson Report

Unless I'm very much mistaken there are already laws and legal redress applicable to the main points of debate.

For example, it is illegal to bribe public officials and especially police officers.
Also it is currently a breach of the telecommunications act to hack into other peoples phones and emails.
And a great many lawyers become wealthy acting for plantiffs in cases of defamation.

So why does anybody in their right mind think that it might be a good idea to legislate us into the kind of facist, police state that we have been fighting on and off for several hundred years?

The simple truth is that the only people who really believe in gagging the press are people who have the most to lose. And if Hugh Grant resents press intrusion into his private life so much perhaps he should try to behave himself.

Of course I know there are far more serious cases of press invasion. But I believe that considerably stiffer penalties would deter the kind of criminal acts perpetrated in the Dowler case for instance. The threat of prison is more of a deterent to the likes of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson than it is to the average East End blagger.

Without freedom of the press we would almost certainly never have known about the MP's expenses scandal and maybe not even the Savile case.

Really all we need is for the press to be taught the difference between what is in the public interest and what is of interest to certain sectors of the public. Long terms of prison would give rogue reporters and editors time to reflect thereon.