Why does life so rarely match expectation?

I was ruminating on this today for the most ridiculous of reasons. My wonderful Mazda MX6 has just registered 100,000 miles ie. taxed the left-most column of the odometer for the first and probably only time. I knew this was coming of course and I had visions of the odometer clicking over to the magic 100K as the car roared through the Cotswolds, sturdily climbed some challenging hill in Wales or accelerated to some wonderfully illegal speed down the M1 motorway. I thought it was a red letter moment for my car and should be celebrated accordingly. Instead the odometer clicked to the magic figure as my sleek lovely car coughed its way through crawling traffic on the outskirts of Birmingham. I was a bit disappointed really - not for the first time in my life, and it made me think how many rather more important milestones never go according to plan.



Think of your first adult kiss. You want it to be under some leafy bower where romance is in the air. You are nervous but manful. You grab her tightly and press your lips to hers and she melts in your arms.

No. She is the one you don't fancy - and sadly neither does anyone else - and she grabs you at a party when her mum is in the kitchen making sandwiches and kisses you so hard she sucks out the only false tooth you have after being kicked in the teeth at football. Exit left in embarrassment.

A little later in your life and its real sex. You imagine you will walk in hand in hand through a park in mid summer, melt into each others arms and take her gently, confidently and manfully on a warm lawn covered in rose petals. Fraid not. Its the entry behind the chemists shop on a cold night in January. She's in the mood and your 'machinery' is struggling to survive the cold.
"For Christ's sake," she mutters impatiently, "It's not THAT hard to find! Haven't you done this before?"

The first job interview where you wow the panel of interviewers with your charm, confidence and wit, finally exulting in the praise ringing in your ears. "The obvious choice", "charming young man", " a natural" come to mind. Er no. More the hasty and slightly embarrassed confab where 5 of them then leave with a muttered goodbye and the 6th, usually a woman of middle years says "I'm afraid that on this occasion we felt you did not have the appropriate qualifications for our needs." Then she leans forward and says, with a jaded smile "May I offer some advice. A loud check sports jacket may be alright for church fetes but if you want to get on in business could I suggest your mother buys you a suit!" Exit once more in ignominy, the only consolation being to draw her face on the toilet paper in the company loo and then apply it to the area fit for purpose.

Then as you eventually progress, however slugglishly, through life you try your hand at politics and stand for the local Council. Your first political speech will of course be a total resounding triumph, the assembled throng standing as one and clapping you off the rostrum while you modestly take the plaudits. Well not quite. You get a question on housing benefit you should have anticipated, haven't done the homework and you stare like a buffoon at thirty or so people eagerly awaiting your wisdom. Then coughing theatrically you beg to leave for 5 minutes to 'clear your throat' when in fact you have suddenly been struck by an attack of nervous diahorroea and hope you can make it that far.


But in the end I guess you struggle through and realise after 60 years that life ain't so bad and you seem to have come out of it pretty well. You've also hidden most of this from the general public and they all think you are a totally self confident individual who has sailed serenely from one challenge to another. This is quite reassuring because you begin to realise that if you've fooled them, then all this time they have probably fooled you.

Then it all comes into perspective and my disappointment that my odometer hit a milestone in the middle of a traffic jam all seems very silly indeed!

Blair - cowardice or contempt ?

One of my favourite columnists, Matthew Parris, said on TV last night, "Just when you think there is no action Tony Blair can take which will sully his reputation further, he surprises you!."



He was talking about the debate on the Iraq War in the House of Commons, a debate reluctantly granted by the Government, yet one which concerned, not so much the past and the rights and wrongs of it, but the future of Britain's role there, what it should involve and what kind of timetable should be set for withdrawal.

A vital debate, one might think, for the future of Iraq, for our troops there, for the whole so-called 'war on terror'. However the man who got us into Iraq, whose almost autocratic control of his own Party ensured that he got his way with the consequent dire results, chose to stay away from Parliament.

Instead of standing up and robustly arguing the policy for which he, and he alone, was responsible, Tony Blair chose to ignore the debate and instead go half a mile 'down the road' to talk to the Confederation of British Industry. He left the argument in the hands of his Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett.



Predictably, and correctly in my view, political pundits right across the spectrum referred to this decision as a slap in the face for Parliament and a complete abdication of responsibility.

Was Blair frightened to appear? Was he afraid of the criticism his past actions and his current inertia would undoubtedly draw from all sides? Frankly I doubt that. Blair is a skilled parliamentarian who has survived some regular ordeals of fire without flinching.

Was it therefore the metaphorical 'up yours!' finger in the direction of his critics? A gesture of boredom with the whole thing? A state of mind which says 'I've been there, done that and I'm leaving the job soon. I can't be arsed to go through all this crap again!"

Sadly I suspect the latter, but either way it was an unforgivable decision to make for a responsible leader. If that's the state of mind Blair is now in then it would be sensible for him to step down now.

Should the Catholic Church abandon its faith to suit the Government?

Consider the following Old Testament sentence from Leviticus 18:22

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

This simple sentence is one which the Roman Catholic Church, from its very inception, has believed to mean that a man should not lie, as in perform sexual congress with, another man, for God has decreed this to be an abominable act.

Now the purpose of this post is not to endorse either the Roman Catholic Church view of sexual acceptability, or that of the British Government or for that matter that of homosexual couples.

It is however a question of how reasonable is it that religious organisations should be compelled to follow every judicial edict. In this case the British Government has ruled that Catholic Adoption Agencies do not have the right to refuse homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents. Frankly I think this decision is outrageous and is rightly being challenged by the head of the Catholic Church in England, the most Rev Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster.



Many members of the Government, civil rights groups and of course, gay organisations are screaming that the Archbishop's threat to close Catholic Adoption Agencies if they are forced to abide by this law as 'blackmail'.

I don't see it as anything of the sort. I see it as the Head of the Catholic Church passionately asserting the Church's beliefs and telling the UK government that if an agency under the auspices of the Church is forced to behave in a way contrary to the faith of that Church then what value is there in faith and belief?

I am not a Catholic. I am not even religious. I am NOT anti-gay. I in fact support the Acts of Parliament designed to give homosexuals equal civil rights under the law. I believe that any agency sponsored by the State or local authorities should fully conform to this - and that includes considering homosexuals as adoptive parents.

Where I disagree, and it's a classic example of the Government wanting to have its cake and eat it, is to allow the continuation of Catholic Adoption Societies, because their hard work, experience and undoubted commitment are valued - but to insist that they fly in the face of everything they believe, and have always preached, in the area of acceptable sexual conduct in the eyes of God, by inviting homosexuals to adopt children from their agency.

I believe the Government has two choices to make. It either makes an exception for Church based adoption societies in this area, or it legislates to ban faith based Adoption Agencies from continuing work and insists that all adoptions are through state based agencies. Either is a morally arguable case but the present stance of trying to force the Catholic Church into a position which is total anathema to them is simply unreasonable.

I'm living in a madhouse called England!

Consider this for a way out film script:-

1) Overweight, unsightly, totally talentless and utterly brainless young woman, Jade Goody, from Bermondsey in South London is plucked from obscurity and filmed for weeks living, literally, in a glass house on television.

2) During that time she is filmed nude, threatens to 'smack up' another resident of the house, announces that the city of Cambridge 'is in London' and thinks Saddam Hussein was a boxer.



3) As a result of this combination of talent and charm, she becomes a national heroine and receives product endorsements making her worth £8 Million!!

4) She returns to the glass house, as she is now a 'celebrity' and there meets an attractive Indian 'Bollywood' actress, Shilpa Shetty. Before long the Indian actress is treated to an obscene racist rant which prompts 20,000 telephone calls.



5) The news of this rant flies across continents to the home of the actress, in India, and people come out in force with placards on the street demonstrating against 'this example of British racism'.

6) Britain's next Prime Minister' Gordon Brown, is on an official visit to India at the time to talk about economic co-operation and a nuclear non proliferation agreement. Instead his visit is hijacked by the demonstrations and he has to make a speech on Indian TV imploring viewers in England to vote the Bermondsey girl out of the TV house 'in the interests of racial harmony'.



Questions are also raised in the British Parliament where the current Prime Minister is obliged to add his voice to those decrying racism in all its forms.

7) As a result, big Bermondsey girl and Indian actress get together in a much hyped TV press conference to express their respect for each other!


Dunno about you but it seems to me like a Monty Python sketch gone barmy! How can we get to the stage where reality TV in the shape of 'Big Brother' occupies the minds of not only 3/4 of the nation, but who stays and who goes from the 'Big Brother' house is reported as part of the main national news.

How can our politicians, paid to go on serious state visits out of taxpayers money, get hijacked into an involvement in some idiotic spat between a brain dead slapper and an over opinionated Indian prima donna!.

Truly we have reached the Andy Warhol prediction of fifteen minutes of fame when we create celebrities from nobodies and discard them once the public becomes bored. That wouldn't worry me so much if the type of celebrity we create did not so often represent the boorish, thuggish and downright unpleasant side of England's national character. I hope that soon the public gets tired of reality television and that we go back to progammes made by and starring people of genuine worth

300 years ago today - how the English learned to pay and pay!

Today January 16th 2007 is the 300th anniversary of the Union between England and Scotland. One would think that such an auspicious date might be worthy of celebration in both countries but unfortunately this is not the case. Instead there is a fair chance that the anniversary will be celebrated later this year by the Scots choosing to take the first steps in breaking the United Kingdom apart - but I've bored readers with that elsewhere. Instead I just want to look at how the Union came about and what will be the consequences of its destruction.



In simple terms how did the Union come about? After all, previous attempts to unite the two countries had failed thanks to stern opposition in Scotland. By 1706 the atmosphere was altered and both countries saw the advantage of trying to make Union work, for entirely different reasons. For the English it was a case of trying to ensure that Scotland did not revert to a separate Monarchy and thus be in a position to plot with other countries against England, but for the Scots it was simply economic pragmatism. The independent Scotland had, in 1698, launched the ill fated Darien scheme to set up a Scottish colony in Panama, a scheme so disastrous that the nation virtually bankrupted its Exchequer. One of the conditions of Union was that the English would bale them out of the mire, which of course they duly did.

We have lived together more or less in harmony ever since, give or take a few pub fights and a bit of harmless football violence.

What are the consequences if the Union goes to the wall? Scotland believes it will be better off economically but in terms of services provided from the British Exchequer, the Scots receive more from the deal than the English do. It may well be that benefits for Scotland from the Act of Union have declined but its hard to avoid the impression, for me at any rate, that the Nationalists are capitalising on political disenchantment and, in the long term, that will be a source of much regret for the Scottish people.

What would happen with regard to security? Much of Britain's military hardware is located at Scottish bases. What happens to the British Army?

Economically I suppose there would be a battle over North Sea Oil even though its potential yield is declining.

I hope it doesn't come to any of this and I hope Scottish voters recognise the benefits of remaining in the Union, and I quote one view from historian Arthur Herman who wrote 'How the Scots invented the modern world'. He said 'It is daylight madness to suggest that the Act of Union was a bad thing for Scotland. Without it, Scotland's history may very well have ended up like that of Ireland - and that is far from a pleasant picture.'

Old Queens and ....Racists?

Maybe confirming Britain as a nation that loves its old Queens, it was good to see Dame Helen Mirren carry off a unique double award at this years Hollywood Golden Globes for playing both Elizabeth I on TV and Elizabeth II in the movie 'The Queen'.



Seems to have been a good night for the Brits for Sacha Baron Cohen also won an award for his role as Borat the spoof Kazakh journalist. Now Cohen is funny and the wit is very sharp but the character is really an outrageous racial slur. I wonder if Hollywood would have voted for him had his parody subject been one of the ethnic groups closer to America's heart?




Hugh Laurie, deservedly in my opinion, won an award for his portrayal of the quirky doctor 'House' in the US TV series. His acting in the series is first class and the American accent ain't bad either.




Anyway a good night and maybe,just maybe, Britain could have something to shout about at the Oscars? One can but hope for the British entertainment industry needs a shot in the arm and the whole country hasn't had much to enthuse over just lately.

No Direction Home

Maybe this will be perceived as a bleak post, but I watched Tony Blair's speech on Britain's defence policy today and, maybe it was the frame of mind I was in, but I have rarely felt closer to tears. Not at the speech itself so much, for that was what is now recognised as typical Blair, but for thr fact that it hammered home to me how much of a political island I seem to be stranded on and how many of the hopes and aspirations I had through eighteen years of Tory government have simply turned to ashes. Eighteen years of waiting and hoping and all Britain ends up with is another petty Tory - a tinkerer rather than a radical - when I had hoped for a Labour government which would kick over the traces of past thinking and embrace a new realism.

On almost very front, across almost every issue, Blair has failed this country big time. He draws conclusions which might be logical except that he starts from the wrong place. I remember the thrill of electing a Labour government back in 1997 and the delight of knowing that we had, under Robin Cook, an 'ethical foreign policy'. I was convinced that we would take massive strides in Europe under a new young forward thinking British government, not saddled with the memories of Empire. I was sure that Britain would become a place where people of all cultures and faiths would pull together because we had a leadership which would inspire the nation.

What happened to all that? Well 911 happened of course and sadly resulted in a greater victory for the Islamists than they could possibly have imagined. It led to a right wing American administration finding a perfect opportunity to exercise a new thinking on proactive US involvement in the middle east, a course of action which has proved to be disastrously flawed, giving the fundamentalists propaganda victories by the score.

Worse, our Prime Minister, the 'JFK' heir apparent of a new British frontier, proved to be unequal to the task of showing true strength, and decided that his role was to support the US administration regardless of what they did.

At that point the Blair image began to unravel. The ethical foreign policy proved to be a pipe dream. British troops have been committed to a war we should never have become involved in. The ripple effect of the commitment to the disastrous and immoral war in Iraq spread to our own shores. Our fragile and stuttering multi culturalism, so prized by Labour idealists but which never had any nucleus of Britishness to cement it, exploded into angry distrust, a Britain darkly and silently divided, until the bombs made by British citizens blew up and killed 55 people on the London tube.

I look around me at Blair's Britain and I don't see a political home. I was sure that our forward thinking young leader, back in 1997, would see the benefit of being the King fish in a relatively small pool, driving the European dream towards social and economic harmony, committing us to being a key player in a European defence force where we took on responsibilities commensurate with our limited power. Sadly no. It seemed that 911 produced mental paralysis in our Prime Minister and thenceforth he was always content to be the British tail of the American dog and all that such short sightedness has led to.

When Blair goes we have Brown to look forward to - more of the same I suspect. Bullshit and sound bites. Even if I were to consider the Conservative Party (an absolute impossibility) that too is run by a cosmetic headline freak with no depth.

Nothing works. There is no belief any more, no sincere commitment to change. The entire problem with why Britain is stuck in a half way house of mediocrity in everything can be summed up in Blair's speech today where he is still trying to delude us, as he appears to have long deluded himself, that Britain is a world power - that in order to keep Blair smiling and smirking at the top table of world politics it is necessary to spend billions on a Trident replacement, it necessary to keep licking the American arse for as long as its government needs us - and we will be thrown away just as soon as it doesn't, it is vital that we spend billions that could be invested in making Britain's social fabric the envy of Europe on more and more military expenditure. It is sad, pathetic, fucking rubbish!

I see a Britain so unhappy, more so than I have ever known it. Our troops are angry and resentful that they are fighting in wars they don't really understand and are underequipped and underfunded to do so. Our police are angry because they are finding themselves more and more in the front line of cultural and social division. There seems to be no clear direction for our education services, for our health system. Our people are angry and divided over Iraq. Everything seems to be the result of some instant brain dump and a decision to throw money at a problem without thinking it through. No one trusts Blair any more - and worse, there is precious little faith in his successor, tarred with all the brushes with which Blair has sullied himself.

It is quite possible that, in a years time, the first steps will be taken to break up the United Kingdom if the Scottish Nationalists win, as seems likely, the local elections in May. Another destructive step in Britain's decline.

I sat in the pub thinking what a desolate political future lay ahead. I simply don't believe in anything or anybody any more. At one time the English could turn to sport when things were going badly on the political front but even that is now denied us. After the pathetic showing by our football team in the World Cup, the proverbial sour icing was finally laid on our cake by the performance of our cricketers in Australia.

One crack on a blog yesterday said it all for me. 'The remainder of the England cricket tour is under the sponsorship of WGAS - 'Who gives a shit?'

Kate Middleton is 25 today!

..and so what you may ask! Some might even ask who she is. Well this is a serious and thoughtful blog which tries to keep the issues pertinent to Britain's future always to the fore. Well Miss Middleton is Prince William's girlfriend and, it is rumoured, soon to be his fiancee and thus, one presumes the future Queen of England. So therefore I felt it was necessary to highlight Miss Middleton purely because of her presumed place in our constitutional scheme of things. So here we see young Kate in many guises and many moods, just to enlighten and educate, naturally.

So first we see Miss Middleton in more formal working attire:-


and then a couple of pics together showing Kate in club attire and then in her 'old togs' at home



A horse racing hat!!


Kate out clubbing




and of course every busy girl deserves a good holiday!!!






By Jove, do I hear some cad suggesting that the only reason I have chosen to celebrate Miss Middleton's birthday is because she is a tasty bit of totty and has nothing to do with her eventual place in our constitutional scheme of things. Egad Sir...I'll sue!!!!!

The cross Labour politicians always have to bear.

It has been announced that the former Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, is to send her son, who has dyslexia, to a private school where he will receive concentrated attention to help him overcome this handicap.





No one would begrudge the right of any parent to do the best for their children but, unfortunately, when you commit your professional life to serving the Labour Party, there is inevitable public scrutiny - no matter how unfair - whenever private decisions appear to conflict with public aspirations. Tony Blair has expressed his support - well he would, having sent his own children to private schools on religious grounds, and he has never been a creature of socialist dogma anyway - but unfortunately Ms. Kelly will have to face the spotlight of intrusive media 'digging' for that whiff of hypocrisy which the Press likes to throw at Labour politicians.

It has been said that its so much easier to be a Tory. Your beliefs revolve around the rights of the private individual to better him/herself within a capitalist economic system which has minimal interference from the state. So if you have the money what's the problem? "There is no such thing as society, only families" as Margaret Thatcher once famously said in defence of her 'God helps those who help themselves' philosophy.

Labour politicians with sick children and ailing grandparents may feel unfairly stymied by the fact that they are judged by different values - but they are values the Labour Party has embraced since its inception - that we produce a system of state health and state education which provides the finest standards that taxpayers money can afford. The truth is that special needs departments in schools, including that where I used to be a school governor, have been closing at a rapid rate. 117 Special Needs schools have been closed down by the Labour Government since 1997



If, for all the taxes we pay and the billions that go to fund our health and education systems, the service the State provides is NOT good enough for our political masters and mistresses who were in charge of developing these policies, particularly when they are closing schools for the needy, then maybe, despite the distress such pressure obviously places on the likes of Ms.Kelly, we are all entitled to ask - 'Why not?'

Cricket humiliation - Honours fiasco

Despite my optimism in an earlier post, the English cricket team has collapsed to a 5-0 defeat in the Ashes series in Australia - rolled over and died like a collective bunch of lily livered curs who should never have represented their country in the first place. They have made us a laughing stock! Harsh well, maybe but hell hath no fury like an Englishman humiliated.

Anyway that said, brings me to the main point of this article. The humiliating defeat only highlights the completely debased lunacy that is now our Honours system, these self same cricketers having 'earned' the MBE from a 'grateful nation' for narrowly beating the Australians last year.





It is not just with the advantage of hindsight that I found such largesse highly embarrassing and grossly inappropriate for I squirmed at the time that the Queen's Honours List could be so misused by a government scrabbling for cheap popularity at all costs. Well the chickens have come home to roost in devastating fashion, the jeers of the Australians cynically demanding knighthoods from 'their Queen' ringing in the ears of our demoralised cricketers.





Meanwhile we have to find a disused airfield somewhere in the Isle of Skye for the England 'team' to fly back to - and ensure that no rotten eggs are anywhere in the vicinity!!

Mad dog mania

Once again, following the death of 5 year old Ellie Lawrenson, gored to death by her uncle's pit bull terrier on Monday, the spotlight has turned on Britain's so called dangerous dogs. We have laws to stop people importing or breeding for sale four types of dog - American Pit Bull terriers, Japanese Tosas, the Dogo Argentinos, and the Fila Brasileiros and in addition laws which punish the owners of dogs which are 'dangerously out of control in a public place'.

Many people, including many dog experts are saying that Britain is taking the wrong approach with this and far more attention should be paid to the reasons why people own a dog and where they keep it, rather than singling out particular breeds. For example in the case of the tragic Ellie it seems by no means clear that her uncle broke any laws. The dog appears to have been a cross breed and the child's injuries occurred in a domestic house not in a public place.

One might well ask why a 5 year old child was left in the company of a Pit Bull terrier but the law does not cover that situation. The injuries from another dog attack are shown below



My own view is that there should be graduated licensing dependent on the type of dog you wish to own, far stricter penalties on the owner should that dog kill or seriously injure someone and very strict rules on the places where such dogs are kept. It is perfectly clear that many of these animals are kept as attack dogs and are a macho status symbol for the guys in the tank top shirts, the tattoos and the boots who walk round our housing estates with their pit bulls and Rottweilers in tow.



This seems to be yet another situation where Britain has introduced a half arsed law that cannot easily be enforced and doesn't solve the problem