200 words for Christmas

It is with great joy that I write the Christmas message and my message is all about Joy. We Methodist have a saying; Jesus, Others, Yourself aka Joy. So how can we be joyful at Christmas, how can we put others and Jesus first?

Well dear reader you can be joyous by being like Jesus, by reaching out to others. We are all faced, with people whom we have little time for or who asks a lot from us. It is all too easy to turn from them; to just send them some empty gift in shiny wrapping but I want you to give of yourself, give them some forgiveness, some mercy or some of your time. In short gift the gifts of true value.

It is all too easy to give gifts brought with gold and not give of ourselves. Well give of yourself, be like Jesus, and give the gifts of the soul; the gifts of his love, the gift of his mercy. These gifts seem so costly to us but they are free, they flow from the farther, through the son to us and as freely as we have received so freely we must give. So this Christmas don’t give joy live Joy

Theory of love

The economic theory of love:

Before we start I need to dispel a myth and that myths name is true love, we live in a global community of over six billion people 3 billion of whom we would choose to cohabit with. This equates to odd of three billion to one against of you ever finding your singular true love and yet when we look around we see couples all proclaiming true love or love.
Once we dismiss predestination, when considering the concept of love, we are left with something more splendid and that is rationality, often, slanderously referred to cold and harsh rationality but I wish to argue not only is it prudent to choose a partner based on a rational economic approach but that we do without thinking.

Unit of economy:
If we choose to see a relationship as a rational trading relationship (trading as it exists between two parties) we must ask what it they are trading is. Of course in the real economy we know it is labour value but what of the social economic sphere.
Well there to my mind seem to be two; there is a sexual element (one are society has always placed a fiscal value upon… old profession and all) and a more invisible unit of value that of the need for company or fear of loneliness.
Take for example a person who values sex highly but loneliness lowly; they would be free to pursue sex at all cost and on every occasion, as they would not care if this pursuit left them occasionally alone. Opposed to this person would be someone who values the fear loneliness highly; they would willing cohabit with someone who either is unwilling or unable to provide them with sex merely not to die alone (think about the elderly marrying).

Talk for yourself bub:
Thankful most people seek both – they seek sexual value and company return from their relationships. Mad, you say, not me, I am some secular Saint. I seek nothing from my relationships but the joy of my partner, who I pertain to love above and beyond myself. Really? Well then you are foolish. You are providing another with utility without return, which is unsustainable and eventually emotionally crippling. Think on this, if you sought no return on your trading relationships, you would be very unlikely to enter into one or emotionally bankrupt yourself.
No the model described below is not a one sides expression of selfish self-interest but the core of all human interaction; enlightened self-interested behaviour that creates a social good. We all seek certain returns from these relationships and are partners expect an equal return.


So we are face with a new conception of relationships, we are not lost, rudderless on a sea of “love” but empowered traders with something to trade in return for social commodities we ourselves have chosen to seek and glory to God that this is the way it is.
Given that all people seek the two essential commodities we must ask why aren’t all people attracted to each other, beyond and unequal valuing of sex and loneliness? Well the answer is simple; in the love market place not everyone is worth the same. In the human world the housebound, rude, unemployed person have a lower value from the stunning, socially adapt business person.
How much am I worth?
We all have a social worth and this of course differs from place to place, the ill-behaved business owner may be lauded in their own organisation but will never be wanted (though may attend) the diner party held by their peers. That is because though the business owners business skills make them tolerable in the one setting they are of less value to their fellow dinners.
Thus it is true in the economics of love; beauty is not an absolute value (as there lack a global market value) but a value derived by the local market. Thus western person attractiveness is derived by their fellows and by the media. In poor countries corpulence is valued and in wealthy nations thinness is valued. We should not be surprised by this. For it is a universal truth; that which is scares is valued and so it is with beauty that which is scares is beautiful and that which is common not so. So each participant to the market of love is assigned a “beauty” value a value which is wholly derived by geographical location.
Beauty makes up just part of our personal value; there are multiple factors which form the “personal” value; for example wealth is another important aspect. We all want accesses to resources, to possess to the latest doo-dad and ideally we’d not have to strive to do so. So it is to expect that the lonely business person would trade his economic value to another; who not only gains a direct commodity return from there trading relation but sex and loneliness relief.
Another and very important factor is social standing; via a trading partner one partner of low birth (who may be wealthy) you gain the status of their high birth (but poorer) partner. Indeed the aristocracy has partially sustained there position by trading there social status for wealth. There is, however another aspect of social standing. Historically it was seen as unnatural or sad to live along and you were expected to marry. Indeed to be accepted into certain social circles or obtain certain social standing marriage was required.
Thus people off set there loneliness value twice over (one offset by their partner and one offset by acceptance into a wider social circle). Indeed when we see the phenomena of homosexuals entering marriage. Obviously these trading relationships cannot fulfil their sexual need but did resolve there need for company and ensure there social standing. This relationship is not an equal one for either partner and it is of no surprise then that we see them dying out when the social stigma of homosexuality diminishes and a similar decrease in life long partnership as there social value equally diminishes.
There is a final and probably core aspect of a person’s value, that of an ability to care or conceive offspring. It is a fact that most humans seek to create offspring, it is part of are animal inheritance thus it should not be considered strange that someone able to easily conceive and willing and able to bring up and sustain children would be valued more than some on who is unable and unwilling to care for children. I sadly know of many women (and I believe it is mainly women) forced into unequal trading partners simply to fulfil their need for children (which is just another form of loneliness offsetting) and to assuage their biological needs. Again we should not be surprised at perfectly equal trading partnerships which are liquidated after this need to bear and raise children has been fulfilled as it suddenly devalues one of the parties and thus become unequal.
Individuality and your value:
Unlike labour value there is no real market place for love as I said at the start the idea anyone will ever find a perfect trading arrangement stands at odds of 3 billion to one against. Even given this the actual value we have at an individual level differs from person to person. At a top level the four aspects of personal value; looks, money, social standing and child rearing are held at the same level, however one person may care more for money then social standing or even hold reverse social standing (the trader who seeks the criminal). So that actual value are partner holds us in is solely determined by them and dose like all values alter over time.
The point is that we hold a value to our partner and this value is the deciding factor in a successful relationship. Thus the beautiful, social adept, fertile businessman will not marry the penniless, disfigured barren social reject even if (and I doubt this greatly) they had the same loneliness value. They would not forge a relationship because it would be unequal, the first partner would realise very quickly that others valued them greatly and would provide them more in return then there current partner.
It is also unlikely because there loneliness value would be unlikely to be the same the beautiful bui98sness person is attractive to a larger market share then the disfigured popper; thus all thing being equal would find it far easier to find a mate and thus value there loneliness or likelihood of prolonged periods lower than the disfigured pooper. In this way the four core aspect of personal value feed back into the two economic units.
So the ideal relationship
Well that is simple two people of near enough equal personal value (preferable who are poor in two aspect but rich in the two, the other partner is lacking)and who value sex and loneliness at a similar rate; for no relationship can last if one partner could do far better or on is more invested in it then another or one seeks more sex then the other, it will lead to partner whose need are not fulfilled to seek them elsewhere.
In the ideal relationship people need for companionship is fulfilled by trading there equal focus on loneliness and sex for company and sex and neither could easily or quickly find a better match. Both may perform different roles and bring different thing to the table but in the end the equate each other . No other form of trading relationship can survive and even when formed is not stable as I have said each of these values alter over time and so must be actively maintained by each partner.



Concluding remarks:
If we act like self-interested parties before we formed relationships it seems clear to me we will make better, stronger and more reliant relationship. We should not be ashamed or censored for are unwillingness to trade a substantial part of life for pitiful or lesser resources then we invest, no business would ever remain in this position and no rational person either.
The key is before we enter the trading relation, unfortunately we far too often rush into these relationship and then only once inside the trading relation discover that the ideal of love is scant compensation for a fulfilling equal trading relationship and divorce or break up soon follow; So dear reader think before you leap and for the sake of yourself and other think hard before you enter into any type of relationship contract.

Missing prophets

I read it is a student of ideas. It seems clear to me that the earliest Yahweh only thinkers were followed by others each altering the ideas first set down. Namely that Israel’s woes were due to social inequity and pantheism and regardless of its theological meaning the puzzle I have remains.

Event as I see them

The people of the lands of Israel have a chief god call Yahweh – intermixed worth other gods.
A small sect of Yahweh only thinkers establish themselves
Israel in continually conquered the profits are the results of the Yahweh alone movements response to this

Missing bit

Then somehow, somewhere Israel become Jewish (as in monotheistic and adherent to the laws)
This is historical fact
So my question is this why does the Yahweh alone movement not celebrate the king who brought this about, why do they not proclaim the events and causes that brought about this revolution?

This has no real ramification of the highly dubious theological value of the prophets but is to my mind a very interesting question.
My thought is that the Yahweh alone movement did something it was ashamed of in order to achieve its ascendency.

Glass and Stegal

After world war two wise senators set about to prevent the economic instability which has blighted the American economy and which had made any reconstruction of German impossible and thus has sped up the Second World War.

They sought to separate out the consumer banks (those which provide our loans and accounts) from those they called casino capitalist, the short sellers and share dealers. Indeed they very correctly argued that loaning people money to “invest” in short term share gain causes share bubbles and very shortly afterward cause share crashes leading to massive economic conflagrations; which in turn led to social disharmony and occasionally war.

It is a pleasing accident of history that the names of these two senators so closely parallel the era of glass and steal towers which there division brought in. For as Capitalism can benefit from war, it is true to say it flourishes under stability.

Glass and Stegal stood as long as the Keynesian economic model was dominate; as long as government direction of macroeconomic policy was widely accepted, however, in the 1970 this dominance ended. Western material economic progress ran to a halt and western economies were left becalmed by stagflation and the “red menace” was still on its relentless march.

So the opponents of Keynesian grew stronger and strong and as they gained more and more influence, they slowly very slowly dismantled the protections offered by glass and stegal. They in short followed Marx’s prediction that capitalism can bear not limits and sought to remove all limits to its own free movement and one of those targets was the glass Stegal act.

It was not difficult to erode the boundaries, it was always odd that a companies which owned both retail banking division and higher risk divisions (and they all did) would operate without collusion between the two parts of it. Unless you disallow any connection between the two parts it is invertible, regardless of regulatory bodies that the organisations will erode these boundaries internally; even with a total division the economic interest of the high risk bankers would be to buy out the retails banks, so they can better flog their products and gain accesses to their funds.

I have no issue with the banking reforms, its seems wholly prudent to me to separate out retail baking from higher risk financial services, however, unless it is international it will fail, unless it is total it will fail; even then it will fail. Not because it is a bad idea but because it is an obscure limit on capitalism which the majority will never concern themselves with in the good times and only partially care about in the bad.

The economic conflagration and you.

So you dear reader are like me; employed in what seems a prosperous and thriving company, your income has not fallen and if you have any debts the rates you are paying to service them will have most probably dropped. So what is there to fear from the global economic conflagration and why is everyone so upset about it anyway.

There is an excellent book / poem (yeah you read right poem) called the grumbling hive, in this piece the author describes the entire economy like a hive of bees, millions of individuals bees labour and strive and the outcome of all the millions of individual action is the market. I sometime think that the global economic system looks to us as the hive must look to the bee. Oh we sort of know we are a part of it but when we look upon it we see something gigantic disorder and almost wholly detached from us.

So why should us lowly bees care about the giant economic hive. Well let’s start with are employed status. We receive money for are labour, we buy things with this which in turns provides other with their labour and the whole labour circle is entered in. The trouble is we only buy, when we feel it safe to do so. I.e. if consumer confidence is low people don’t like to buy stuff.
Yes, yes, all fairly basic stuff so what causes a recession, well first what is a recession. Every nation calculates the amount of business they generate called GDP, if GDP falls for 6 months (2 quarters) then you’re in a recession and they are common. Now there are many causes for recession; if we look at the most recent it was caused by massive levels of debt.

The current economic conflagration is caused by national government effectively buying this debt from the banks. Nations which were already in debt, incurred more debt to buy these banks and their bonds. Therefore national debt increased and the amount government paid for this debt effectively rested on their credit rating. As you know the better your chances of paying back the cheaper you can borrow; well it’s the same for nations.

So the amount nations had to pay (an amount funded by tax) increase at the same time due to lack of credit in the economy and decrease demand due to falling consumer confidence, unemployment level rose and thus tax take decreased. The worse this paradox was the worse a nations credit rating and the more likely they be unable to pay their debts (some owned to foreign banks) and thus the more likely these banks where to fail and thus the worse consumer confidence and higher loan rates.

This circle of contraction is normally slowed by the birth of new businesses and a expansion of government spending. The expansion of government spending is impossible as they have increasing problems merely servicing there debt and the growth of new business have been effected by the banking crises, which lead to a glut of credit in the system and a lack of consumer demand caused by economic uncertainty and high employment.

Prophets

I awoke before the lord of host sat before, with all nations bowing before him, he was sitting as a judge before them sorting the wheat from the chaff.

The lord spake:
I have held my judgment from the tribes of the earth for my eon, my son convinced me to hold my hand for they had been saved by him and by the work of my grace but I look upon the tribes and I cry bitter tears, I have freed then, I have saved them and they cut me to the bone with their sins. Look child, look at the wounds they have inflicted upon me.
Two angles spake

“I am Guantanamo and I am Some , we have been exiled from your world, we have been taken and whipped, we were rapped and tortured to satisfy the lust of evil men. No man looks upon us, not even with shame for what they have done to us”.
“Lord what do you want of me, I have innocent against your angelic host. I have never seen them or heard there cries; I am blameless for your injuries for I have kept your laws and venerated your son as you commanded Lord. What do you need of a mortal man like me
And thus the Lord spake.

You have walked in the desert for too long, you have been your own master for too long, you have blinded yourself and left the people to their own fate. You have closed you heart to my word and close your hand to me and I have burned you for it, I have burned you with the flame of the sprit to make you pure, to reform you as my vessel so I give the word to give to my people. You will leave the desert and enter the world of man once more.
I awoke once more in the world of men with the news of the word within me and it burned like the sun within my soul, even if I had not wished to shine this light unto the people I would have or yhr flesh cage would have weekend and burned off.

This is what the lord said unto me:
The lion has fallen, the great beat of the west has finally fallen, it has been rotten from within, it has been poisoned by the Lord. Look oh Israel, look at your great guardian rot and fall, look how he is laid low before the earth because he has forsaken the law.
Oh Israel he roared his fealty, he erected temple unto me but he never worshiped there; he worshiped in shrines to himself. To has erect shine upon shrine to himself, he has made a mockery of the shines he erected unto me, yah he has made them a physical sign of his hearsay and faithlessness .

You oh faithless Israel have placed you faith in bows and horses, in the ore of the earth and not in the maker of the earth. I have lifted my vengeful hand from you and gifted you food so bountiful that no man could go without and yet the poor are still with you the wealthy man still lords over them and you still horde your earth gains as proof of your lack of faith in me.

I will make you weep Israel your lion will be consumed by ants, your neighbours who you have turned into enemies will sweep you into the sea, they will sweep way your insetiouse leaders and blinded priests. Your nation was born in blood and has wallowed like a pig in blood and it will be swept from the face of the earth in blood.

I found my voice and spake thusly.

Lord there our good people, people who care for the poor and house the homeless; there are those who have carried the cross of Christ before them and whom have kept your laws. There are more than fifty good men in every town of every tribe on earth. I beg you lord of Host spare us for these men.

The lords final judgement:
Good men! Do not speak unto me of good men! There are none, they serve evil men; they serve evil forces and corrupt leaders. Age after age after age of the poor and the disposed all caused by the whim of evil men and whom do you blame me. Your good men visit their sins upon me, not only do their sins scare me but they perjure me.

They dress as innocent men but dress there temple to me like whores, there children dress like whores and there whores like children. The good men, the evil men who am I to tell them apart, even the good men worship themselves m, worship their own false wisdom, even these men make my gospel the whore of man. Nay there are no good man, there is no decent man, nay I say.

So my hand will be withdrawn, my spirit will be withdrawn from the world of man least you treat it like my angles and make a whore of it. My judgement will be seen though the tribes who have forsaken me, without the lion they will consume themselves, they will be like savages again, evil will build upon evil, dead body will pile upon dead body. You will see it and proclaim surely the holocaust was but naught compared to this.
Yeah on Israel you will lament at this cannibalism, you will reap the fruits of the evil and greed that you have sown and tended in lieu of my temple and regarding my law. Woe oh Israel as you see your inescapable fate. This is the judgement of the lord.

Conservative Vs fascism

My dear brothers the ideals (limited as they our) and the practices of conservative are under attack. They are under attack from the embittered, power crazed neo cons who instead of respecting money they worship it. From the other side a new threat to civilisation has arisen, one so huge that the last time it arose it dimed the light across Europe this threat is the far right.

The far right is are bastard son; the market worshipers like to fain they have nothing to do with us, that they our left wing. This is based on their “left wing” economics. Well whilst I concede there economic stance is not that of the market worshipers this does not make them left wing. The far right is not collectivist nor is it international in any meaningful sense. Indeed the fascist often reduces politics to us or communist dichotomy, or in there modern from it’s either us or the end of western civilisation (effectively the same argument). Given this choice brothers we know, whose side we would fall on but this dichotomy is false.

A nation run on fear and repression is a broken nation; it has failed. Oh it my stagger on as a Zombie nation held together by fear and blood but one day that will not be enough, one day there will be no one left who will fear death because death would be sweeter than life in the zombie nation. On that wonderful day what is left of your nation will consume itself and if you have been co-opted by the almighty state you will live just long enough to see the noose being place around your neck.

So why dose fascism our bastard child cause such harm? Well instead of respecting the central tenants of conservative thought, perverts and destroys them. The first conservative tenant that fascism perverts is love for one’s nation. We promote this because the nation is colourless, it is classless, it is natural to love and to serve and die for. Anyone who is willing to die for his nation is by their blood your fellow in that nation , anyone who suffers or strive to make that nation greater by the meanest of means is your brother under God and under the flag you pertain to serve.

The fascist pervert this clean and saintly love into a hate a hate not for the real enemies of the nation, those who would incur upon her sovereignty and impose upon it but imaginary internal enemies. They make the nation exclusive for a certain type of person, they base nationality not on loyalty or the truth held in the heart of men but on blood but brother blood is cheap, blood is not loyal. Indeed so deeply held is this insanity that they would harm their own nation by killing or expelling people because of their race treason but I say brother no such thing exist. It is treason to weaken your nation through hatred, it is treason to kill those who like you enjoy the simple love of the nation they are the traitors.

The Second tenet of conservative thought is the centrality of God and of the weakness of man. It is the most central of central conservative principles that man is only saveable by the blood of Christ and that he remains unredeemed in this life and only is made perfect in the life here after. Now I am well aware we no longer live in faithful times, however, even the atheist who lives by morals not elected by him can be said to be living in proper accordance with Conservative principles.

The fascist believe that the state and thus man can and should determine its own morality. Man is debase and what sane man would follow morality written by the most debase, the most double dealing aka those obsessed with power and would renounce God to do so. It is clear to any man of good sense knows that any morality coming forth from such a source will be self-serving and only serve to empower the demi-god that has issued it forth. Indeed once the hand of man is freed from the golden chain of God’s law it can never lead to freedom or reason but to fear and anarchy.

The third principle is the idea of balance – Conservative ideals are based on the four pillars see http://piemandmu.blogspot.com/2010/09/principles-of-conservative-thought.html for a longer exploration of these pillars, these pillars keep the state, economic, community and morality interconnected but separate from each other. Fascism destroys these pillars and seeks to replace them with just the one, the pillar of the party. The free pillar of the community is taken over by party organisers, the free pillar of the market is hijacked by central planners and even the church is brought into line.

So what you may ask, where is the harm in this, unity is strength. Well division is weakness but that is not the same. Man wants to live at peace and in freedom, he wants a gap between him and others but the merging of all the pillars of civilisation into the party robs him of that, it robs him of his freedom to think beyond the party, believe beyond the party or even exist beyond it. Indeed you could ask what is the point of existence within such a stifling atmosphere, you could ask your selves what would become of your nation, your community your soul if you give everything over to one man, one ideal one party.

Famine

I have been accused by some of not caring about the famine in the horn of Africa; I have indeed been accused of promoting euthanasia in relation to my position on it. Well I intend to lay my views out and allow others to draw whatever conclusions they want.

First the issue at hand; due to weather conditions, a lack of infrastructure and overpopulation the peoples of the horn of Africa have quite simply run out of food. This is nothing new of course, the idea that a famine suddenly erupts is a myth. Nations which slip into famine do so due to long term structural reasons. One of these structural reasons is the west give Aid first and invest latter, another is of course the having of children to provide in there old age and another is the extension of advance medical care and treatments to these areas.

I refuse to condemn these laudable and Christian pursuits or lament about the law of unintended consequences but these are the facts. Malthus laid out that any population is kept in balance with the resources it can command by sickness, war, infirmity and worse of all starvation. Due to external influence of these nation we have targeted the outward manifestations of these pressures and thus increased the population but we have done nothing to increase in command of the “necessities of life” leading inevitably to famine.

So what should the we / the west do? Well to my mind a country that slips into famine should be treated like we treat a failed economy. The IMF do not keep them just above oblivion with never ending aid payments, they force them to accept hard hitting structural changes. When a nation go bankrupt the international community steps in and sets it’s failed economic polices straight. Indeed one cannot get IMF funding without handing over economic sovereignty for some period of time.

So, who dose this apply for resource bankrupt nations? Well of course we give them short term aid but it has to come with strings. We need an International Food Fund to act like the IMF would. Forcing though the deep structural changes requited and imposing population reduction strategies these nations badly need. They need our help to reduce birth rates, increase food production and distribution and they should have it, so what I am arguing for is the end of aid and the birth of structural reform.

A letter to my MP

Dear Mr Wilson.
I wish to say a few words before I get to the reason for this letter. The first is I am a good and true conservative. I joined the party at the tender age of thirteen and have never wavered from my steadfast and true support. Indeed I have suffered both physically and mentally for my support as during my younger years the party was devoutly disliked but I sir, I remained true.

I say this so you can understand my deep displeasure at the parties wilful attack on me and those of my kind, you see Sir I am dyslexic and Dyspraxia and I ask nothing Sir, nothing but a computer for my exam and to be left alone. I accepted a long time ago that despite my MA in political theory and BA in public policy that no public body would ever accept me due to the discriminatory English and maths test they alone see fit to impose and I have sought not to rectify this imbalance.

For I, sir, I am a conservative it tooth and claw. I am a fellow of Burke I will hear no nonsense speech of human right or acts which try and indivertibly fail to enshrine them. My view is that of the great man himself “the liberty of mischief and never of good order”. I was aghast to see the last government wasting hours institutionalising pseudo constitutional laws in a system not equip to processes them and t wasting further hours equalising the marriage laws (where a simple amendment would have served the equal purpose) whilst freely stripping those unprotected freedoms which are the foundation of any decent state.

So I am left stuck when are education secretary further discriminates, belittles and discriminates against dyslexic by further increasing the English and math standards required for teaching, alongside increasing the standards we are supposed to achieve. In doing so he has set standard I and my fellow disabled could never hope to reach.

Indeed this emphasis on English and maths though terribly popular amongst a people hardly renowned for it (i.e. the media) further stigmatises an already stigmatised class of people. I am sure you know who may of my fellows rot in prison – mostly due to their own fault but hardly helped by the almost total lack of positive role; models dyslexic teacher being akin to unicorns . Indeed beyond a few business people most dyslexics school life will be harsh extra English and ignorant teacher blaming us for are disability.

Then when we graduate, we are further belittled, we are refused to become teacher to help are fellows, we are prevented from joining the civil service (as there is a numerical and literal test) and thus can be of no aid there and we are excluded from the media and from other occupations.

I ask you how many dyslexics have failed to achieve their full potential because of the closed minded attitude which elevates spelling test above MA’s? How many other disabilities have to endure test which take no account of their disabilities, how many are asked to take lower wages, or excluded from the civil service due to a genetic mutation?

Therefore Sir I ask the party this one thing, outlaw this discrimination, rid are state of it, or we will be forced sir to seek justice in Europe and the ECHR. I ask the party to stand up for good decent people who only wish to see their children do well and wish not to treated like a social disorder. Indeed I ask nothing more than any minority for the government to waste a little time on us.

This letter and any further to it will be put on Twitter, for though, as no doubt you can tell, my grammar is awful. I have a considerable following and I would like them to see, despite some recent unfortunate comments the conservative party will always protect the weakest in are society and enforce the rights and liberties of those who have done nothing to forsake or be undeserving of them.

Philip Davies

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/01.htm#d2e63

Philip Davies : I went to visit a charity called Mind in Bradford a few years ago. One of the great scandals that the Labour party would like to sweep under the carpet is that in this country only about 16%—I stand to be corrected on the figure—of people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities have a job. The others are unemployed, but why is that? I spoke to people at Mind who were using the service offered by that charity, and they were completely up front with me about things. They described what would happen when someone with mental health problems went for a job and other people without these problems had also applied. They asked me, “Who would you take on?” They accepted that it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who had no mental health problems, as all would have to be paid the same rate. Given that some of those people with a learning disability cannot, by definition, be as productive in their work as someone who does not have a disability of that nature, and given that the employer would have to pay the two people the same, it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who was going to be more productive and less of a risk. The situation was doing the people with learning difficulties a huge disservice.

As I said at the start of my remarks, the national minimum wage has been of great benefit to lots of low-paid people. However, if the Labour party is not even prepared to accept that the minimum wage is making it harder for some of those vulnerable people to get on the first rung of the jobs ladder, we will never get anywhere in trying to help these people into employment.

Philip Davies: I made my position clear in my earlier remarks but, given how uninteresting I am, I forgive the hon. Gentleman for perhaps nodding off during that section. I did make it clear at the outset that I did not agree with the national minimum wage in principle. I said I thought that what somebody was prepared to work for and what somebody was prepared to pay was a private matter between two people and it should not be interfered with by the Government. The big difference between him and me is that I would much prefer the person with the learning disability to be given the opportunity to get a job, do something worth while and contribute in a way that they want to, whereas he would prefer them to be sat at home, unable to get a job in the first place. He may think that he is taking the moral high ground by believing that it is far better for these people to be sat at home unemployed without any opportunity, but I do not

Philip Davies: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what is an outrage. It is an outage that in 1997, 47,000 people had been on incapacity benefit for five years or more, but by the time his party had ruined the country that figure had risen to 1.5 million. That is an outrage that he should be reflecting upon. He should think about the fact that so many people were either priced out of the jobs market or were just out of that market as a result of his Government’s policies. That happened either because of the national minimum wage or because the benefits system penalised people for going out to work. That is the real outrage, rather than what he is pointing out.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, it is very easy for everyone to try to sweep such matters under the carpet, but we would be doing this place a great disservice if we did. I am appalled that Labour Members, who supposedly—as they claim—represent the most vulnerable in society, are perfectly happy for those people never to be given the opportunity to get a job as a consequence of Labour’s policies either on this matter or on benefits.
Mr Leigh: My hon. Friend is making an important contribution and it is important that we have thi

Philip Davies: The point is that if an employer is considering two candidates, one who has disabilities and one who does not, and if they have to pay them both the same rate, which is the employer more likely to take on? Whether that is right or wrong and whether my hon. Friend would or would not do that, that is to me the real world in which we operate. The people who are penalised are those with disabilities who are desperate to make a contribution to society and who want to get on the employment ladder, but find time and again that the door is closed in their face. If they could prove themselves earlier and reassure the employer who took them on that they would not cause a problem in the way the employer might fear—I am sure that there are a lot of myths out there and that many of these people would be just as productive as those without a disability—they might well move up the pay rates much more quickly. At the moment, they are not getting any opportunities at all.

We all know that some employers break the law and pay below the national minimum wage, but it strikes me that the only way employers are likely to get away with that is if they employ illegal immigrants. If an employer is employing a British citizen or someone who is here legally and tries paying them below the minimum wage, legal action can be taken against them, they will face a huge fine and the employee can do something about it. If that employer is employing an illegal immigrant, the power rests with the employer, because they will judge that the illegal immigrant will not take up the case officially. If they do, their illegal status in this country will be exposed and they will be turfed out of the country.
One consequence of the national minimum wage is that it encourages illegal immigration into this country. Illegal immigrants know that they can get employment below the national minimum wage and are happy to do so because it is probably higher than the wage they would earn back in their country. They also know that they will have no problem getting a job because some employers will be crying out for someone whom they can pay less than the national minimum wage. I am not sure whether any research has been done on this, but I would be interested to know how much illegal immigration into this country has come about as a result of the introduction of a national minimum wage.

Whatever the effects on employment of a minimum wage are in general, its effects in a recession must be worse. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch may well have made this point before I entered the Chamber, as I was a few minutes late, but people will recall that at the start of the credit crunch, or recession, a couple of companies—my hon. Friend, who is more knowledgeable on this than I am, will correct me if I am wrong, but I am sure that those companies were JCB and Corus—told the people working there that the wage bill needed to be reduced by 20%, so either 20% of the staff could be made redundant or everyone could take a 20% pay cut. One way or another that wage bill had to be reduced. If I remember rightly, the workers in those places—JCB sticks in my mind in particular—got together and voted to take a 20% pay cut. They made that choice themselves. Rather than being made redundant, they chose to take a pay cut.
Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is right and reinforces my point. Those people decided they would prefer a 20% cut to risking a 20% chance of being made redundant.

Blue NHS

I have been asked to write a position piece on the NHS, I believe the position is the position of the conservative party, if only I knew what that position is. There are those within the party who want shot of it all, some like myself who care for its founding principle; “Free at the point of us” and others who support the current centralised model (I’ve never met anyone who dose but someone must).

So let us start from the start with Beverage. One of the five giants Beverage sought to slay was sickness and lameness contributing to enforced slough. In order to do this Beverage nationalised a swath of local hospitals and instigated the construction of more. He poured gold down the throats of the consultants and general practitioners to bring them into the service and united all of health providers under the one giant organisation. All of this paid for and funded via taxation and American loans

We were not alone in building a united health service, indeed all the continental powers followed are example but with one key difference. Instead of forcing all health providers under one roof, they simply provided a system where health providers could be paid and regulated via the state. This model was not as monotheistic as the NHS and yes it provided a role for the private sector to profit from health care but it did ensure a system of insurance based public private provision which is the most common in the world.

Indeed one must ask themselves an important question why dose no other nation of earth have the NHS and yet preserves the all-important ability to provided health free at the point of use well logic concludes that it is because a nationalised health service is not required. If you agree with me then you must conclude that though Beverage’s principle of health care free at the point of use is still key in the 21st century the method of its delivery should not be held in such regard.

Dear Mr. Giggs

I write to offer you my condolences for the hurt inflicted on you and your family by the disclosure of your private life. I must admit I was one of those who broke the injunction and I would like to explain why.

Firstly I have no truck with sectarian factionalism rife in sports and I disclosed your identity not because I disliked your club or liked another. I also care very little for your status in are national life, I have no normative view if this is a positive or negative thing, Indeed, it is your unimportant status that has worried me the most.

You see Mr. Giggs I actually believe you have the perfect right to privacy, I see very little public interest in your personal life, however, I do believe the best judge of this is the market (if it sells newspapers) and not the courts. I also care very little about the life of the lady in question but I care a great deal about her freedom to speak and the functioning of law.

You see, Mr. Giggs your little injunction made the freedom of speech and the freedom of press secondary to the freedom of privacy (not from the state) but from the populace. You and you alone reduced the freedom of people to think, write and speak as they would otherwise choose. You chose to do this via a method used by corporations and who knows else to protect themselves from the proper function of a free media and the free judgment of people.

We were rapidly approaching a situation where people where going to charge and possible imprisoned in secrete and for breaking an injunction they could not know about on about an unknown person. This would mean people would be disappeared for breach of secrete laws and I am sorry Mr. Giggs your privacy is not worth that! Indeed I am sure if you weighed the harm this revelation has had upon your children against the harm a state empowered with such a system could inflict upon them I am sure you would have leaked your own name.

Why I believe:

I am a 23 stone virgin, with the social skills of a drunkard. I am innumerate and severely dyslexic and dyspraxic. I have been bullied and mocked most of my overly long life and sometime because of my faith but yet I still believe. I believe in the full Christian doctrine; not only in some vague distant God but in a personal saviour who loves me and shed his mortal life for my salvation so you may ask why?

Well I want you to remember a film; the 1950 version of “war of the worlds”. In this the female lead explains to her eventual hero that when she is scared she runs into a church, indeed her uncle a minister tries to make peaceful contact with the alien and dies at the very start of the film. When she is separated by a crazed crowed from her protector and he goes in search of her, she is found in a church. Other church’s full of the injured and faithful are destroyed but theirs is just spared as germs kill off the Martian threat.

The point of this forgotten moment is that the church is a place of safety if not for the physical from then for the more important spiritual aspect of it. It asks and answers a key question. If you were dying or some disaster was befalling you and those around you where would you go? If you could no longer run away where would you make your stand?

I know where I would run to, I would run to Caversham Heights Methodist church and I pray my beloved minister would be there and I know what I’d choose to be doing, singing the old hymns and looking after the scared, faithless and injured. In these day of utter darkness I would shine at my brightness and the light of the Lord would shine from every church in the land as a beacon of hope maybe not for the salvation of the mortal world but salvation in the best world, God world.

Oh brothers and sisters I would die just as you will but I will die in faith and joy not hiding or zoned out on drugs, sex or booze. My death will be no less painful or horrific but then reward of a life spent in God’s service and the protecting hand of God will make it all the better when I go onto the choir immortal whilst others in the fear and desperation sell their souls cheap for the illusion of physical security and survival.

It may not be the best reason for faith in God but it was my first step along the path of salvation and redemption. The knowledge of the eternal church is a great joy to me, it is my faith in time of trouble and in the end we must all have somewhere and I can think of no better place than a temple to the Lord of love and mercy. I can think no brighter place to confront the darkness then in the house of the Lord.

A noble sprite

A noble sprit embiggens the smallest man:

If you know which town hold this as there motto then you can probably already answer the following question?

What longest running show has a female character who is the mother of three children, one of whom shot a man and another of whom was imprisoned in juvenile detention for fraud. She herself has a gambling addition, has a conviction for theft and DUI and even has had a mental break down and a semi dalliance with a bowling instructor whilst married. Still confused, well if I were to tell you she has a tall blue plume of blue hair and her surname is Simpson you may guess what this piece is about: “The Simpsons” (please add in signature theme tune).

There is one program I hold above all: “The Simpsons”. I have every episode of DVD, I own every book explaining every episode of every series and I have written a blog and every episode of every series of “The Simpsons”. To me the Simpsons is not just a show it is a real family, they really are a part of my life.

So why do I love the Simpsons so? First they are a Christian family; they have a minister and go to church weekly, just like me. Secondly they have a less than perfect life, in a less than perfect world rather like the world we live in and of course I adore the surreal adventures and snide comments on a world that has lost its direction.

What make the Simpsons the Simpsons and what it has lost a little in its latter years, is the side jokes; which are often funnier and more biting then any which are part of the main story arc and yes all Simpsons have a proper story arc, the characters are believable and endearing and they are also just as flawed and debased as we all Are. Indeed Reverent lovejoys flexible faith and rocky marriage, reminds me of several ministers I have known and Ned Flanders clearly studier and more devoted faith is another aspect of church life I have experienced. Indeed it is often true that the congregation is more orthodox then the minister.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, jeeze this is only a show; well it maybe to you but to me it’s a whole world of people all of whom I know everything about . I have watched faithfully since it began and I will remain loyal until the bitter end because in the end who of us can see hurricane Neddy episode of the Simpson and not reflect on our place in the world and are views on faith and God and how many shows can say they achieve this?

Save the UK

With the march of the Nationalist in Scotland and the growing regionalist sentiment running rampant in this country, as embodied by the EDL and the English democrats; it is time for those of us who love the union, to do anything we can to defend it and hopefully strengthen it .

The first and the most important thing is that devolution has failed, all it has managed to do is exacerbate existing nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales and empower those voice in England obsessed more with tax revenue then national unity. Added to this the main parties have been eradicated in Scotland, which is exacerbating the West Lothian question and our political elite has no answer to this question apart from appeasement, slowing down but not ending the slow drifting apart of our beloved nation and union, So what is the solution?.

Solution one, national federalisation: The subtler nationalist voices our asking for a federation of nations, now there was only one country in recent history with such a set up and that was Yugoslavia. Indeed all nations where the federal structure mirrors large almost national divides (Switzerland, Belgium) either act as disparate nations or are themselves in danger of drifting apart. Federation at the national level for the UK is not a solution to the problems, a federation based on national boundaries is doomed, especially when one nation is so much larger and so much more powerful both electorally and economically then the three smaller nations.

Solution two: appeasement and greater and greater devolution. This solution is the current solution and I say solution out of sheer politeness. As we have seen, as our political elites (and I mean the Tory party and the labour party) have either retreated to their safe places or ignored Scotland. Scotland has turned to its own nationalist party and our nation is increasingly divided between its regions, with the political elite unable to claim to truly represent that nation anymore. This is not a solution, it is surrender, and it is an end of our nation as a meaningful concept and the end of the union.

The true solution: We and I mean hear the Tory party and the political elites and also the nation as a whole, we must adopt a radicle view, in the name of saving our nation and union. First we need to create a political system removed from the national boundaries. We need a system which empowers are historic, sub national regions. We need to push power to the people, empowering g the parish level and the community. The full detail of my personal plan is found hear: http://piemandmu.blogspot.com/2010/10/yorkshire-as-federal-state.html but the point here is not to adopt my ideas but to put those of us whom wish to save the union into thinking mode. We need a solution which empowers people and a new solution for our regions, which threats them with respect and entrust them with powers.

dating

I am a committed Christian but still quite a joker I love to laugh and hang out with friends and family. I do not drink, smoke or gamble of course, but I still know how to have a good time. I must admit I do have a very dark sense of humour but I enjoy most forms of comedy. I am always honest but always kind to those around me.
I like to socialise with friends and you can often find me on a social networking site, but some time I also like to kick back with a good book.
The kind of women I am looking for: a fun honest feisty who respects my beliefs. I am looking for a long term relationship but would accept simply increasing my circle of friends

What we want from our electoral system:

It seems to me that one of the issues with any reform of our electoral system (beyond the facts that is duller then dirt) is we don’t know what we want. So I have decided to outline, briefly the various and sometimes contradictory aspects we would like to have.

1st: We want a system that ensures effective government; we are often not entirely certain was gridlocked government means in effect but we know it is bad and everything it brings is bad.
2nd We want a system that has the checks and balances between it and no longer overly empowers the executive. In short we want and end to electing a dictator

3rd We want a system that means MP’s work hard for their constituents and that all constituents have an equal voice.

4th We want the national vote to be reflected more in the arrangement of are legislature. No more majority government with 38% of the national vote

5th We don’t want any system which would help extremist parties

6th We want expert in our legislature

7th All members should be elected

8th We want a greater popular voice in are electoral system, more use of referenda – recalls and direct democracy

9th We want responsible and well thought out, long term government

10th We want parties to stick to their manifestos and serve our interest

11th We don’t want to fund parties

I could go on and on and on but I feel I have made my point. We cannot have it all, we cannot have a proportional – equal waited system which give the populace a voice and ensure there are safeguards against extremist parties and that we still have a powerful politics. We cannot have more popular participation and ensure sensible and decent laws. We have to make a choice and as no one beyond the political world really cares I doubt we will

Giving up

I am leaving twitter for forty days and forty nights; I am also giving up chocolate for the same period (the later will be far hard then the first). Great you may say; forty days without your holier then though preaching, misspelt and often insane tweets and you may loose some weight in the barging. Why should I care what you do?

I suspect none of you will care, less read the bible passage about Jesus and thus Christianities first lent “Mark 1: 12-15”, for those interested and I do not intend to expound of the symbolism or temptations Jesus faced. No this piece is not for the faithful but the; well lets call them the rest.

We live in a world where consuming is seen as a good, often even selfishness is seen as a good (“because you worth it”) and where the market actively sells temptation. There are too few voices raised against this obsession with self indulgence and almost none that proclaim the virtues of self restraint and of less but there is one: the voice of lent.

As a Methodist I do not “have” nor am I encouraged into giving anything up for lent and yet I do. I do it to one remind myself of sin but also as an act that reminds me that a balanced life is a life of restraint and of forging today’s pleasures for tomorrows lesser but deeper pleasure. I also do this because I want to give something up, I want to acknowledged that my life is not perfect and that it is too full and often too busy and that it would not kill me to drop a little of it.

In the time freed up by forsaking my beloved followers on twitter I intend to read more books on accesses in order to become better at my job but to also read more of the bible, a sort of secular & religious trade. I of course could do this any time but I find lent focuses the mind and enables and empowers the reforming and reducing if the indulgencies which have come to dominate our lives.

I will not come back to twitter a better man, beyond better skilled in accesses and better schooled in the bible but I will come back having placed it back into its proper, non essential perspective. I of course intend to keep on with both the fomentation studies after lent – reducing my time on twitter, having, hopefully, learned that my life is none the poorer with less tweeting and a lot more reading.

So I encourage you to follow suit, use lent as a time to clean out lives cupboards and reassesses the importance of those activities which dominate our modern life’s. Use lent as a spring board to a smaller but better life. A life filled not with things and activities but purpose and utility. So this lent give something you want up and who knows what may take it place.

So I will leave you now for my forty days in the desert and only my giant ego to tempt me back into the fold. So I will say goodbye and God bless.

Q&A

Q: “I am getting seriously fed up with the Government which, when faced with
some charge of culpability, invariably picks up the same stick and beats the
previous government with it”:

A: I am confused why you’re annoyed now? Labour did this for 13 years and to some extent the unpopular policies pursued by any government our a response to the failings or misfortunes of the proceeding government. Also they say this because governments are actually powerless to control the situations in which they find themselves but have to continue the myth of their power by blaming bad situations on the last government. In the end you got to blame someone or the public simply blame you


Q: “What was their view on the regulation of banks and in particular of
their speculative investment operations? Did they make their position
unequivocally clear at the time”

A: In the words of Homer Simpson; “short answer no, long answer no”. I am unaware of any pro regulation talk (beyond some criticism of the tri partied structure – basically bashing the FSI) within the tory party (or anti regulation); it was a non-issue until the crash. Vince cable did warn of a crash unless more regulation was brought in but no more detail than that. Indeed looking at both manifestos I see almost no commitment to more regulation (beyond a lib-dem pledged to separate the retail and casino banks a pledged they shared with UKIP) and I see no more regulations being proposed moving forward – though they may separate them (along the lines of the now defunct Glass–Steagall Act in the us)

Q:“What would they have done about the failure of Northern Rock and the
near collapse of HBOS and RBS? Would they have let a bank fail? What would
they have done to protect innocent retail banking customers, who simply
relied on those institutions to look after their money prudently”

A: Right: On northern rock – official line at the time from the Tory party was let it fail (not sure on the lib-dem side) and the same was true for the others (though not for very long). As for the innocents involved with the banks even before the banks collapses any deposit below fifty thousand was protected by the state. I, however, do believe Gordon Brown should go down for almost single handily saving the international economy buy the scope of government action which forced international action to save the banks

Q: “Did they have a view on the demutualisation of what were formerly the
big Building Societies”

A: I have no idea I would imagine they had a no policy, policy but they all did – you must remember in order to do this the depositors had to vote in favour of it – so it would be indecent for government to interfere


Q: ”My point is that unless they were absolutely clear in their opposition to
the policies of the previous government, they are complicit with it. And
that brings me back to a point I raised with you on a previous occasion:
should not 'the books' be opened much more to joint scrutiny by the Commons?
Without such transparency we will inevitably encounter, at some point in the
future, further obfuscation such as we have now. 'Blame it all on the other
lot' is a feeble privilege we can well do without”

A: I am not sure what book you are referring too – all commons debates are recorded in Hansard as are the votes of all MP’s. the fact is that generally no one cares – indeed this last election was marked by a non-campaign – a campaign which went out of its way to disengage with the voters – both side purposefully avoided discussing any of the issues and descended into blaming each other.

A con:I do disagree on one point: The last government is one hundred per cent responsible for the polices it under took regardless of the polices advocated by the opposition – the opposition cannot be held accountable because they have no real power and are just playing politics in the waiting room of power. Also I do not believe the coalition are blaming the crash on the last governments banking polices butthey are holding them accountable for the deficit cause by the last governments over spend something which is directly there fault and was challenged (albeit very late) by the now government.

A con – con: So yes the entire situation we are now in is not the last governments fault but some of it is and even if the opposition did not realise this; it is not really there job to do so; it is the government job to govern the country and accept the responsibility for any failings. The blaming of the government is partly polices and as old as the hills but is also partly a true picture of who is to blame for any nations situation
.

Cbbies and the big society:

Scene: Two ragged and economy puppets stand in front of a cardboard image of parliament; the first puppet is called Symon and the other Paul

Paul: I don’t understand what the big society is?”

Symon: “well it is an idea that a society, “whatever this means” can only be worthwhile as long as it provides service to its members and that in the overly romanticised past there was no need for the state”

Paul: “Boo! Hiss, down with the state!”

Symon: coughs. “As I was saying, that the state & market single handily replaced this idea, community provisions were replaced with state centric organisation and by multinational companies which destroyed the communal bonds upon which social provision rested”.

Paul: “Why did people sit by anD do nothing, why did they not fight for their communities?”

Symon: “some did, but the state is mighty and the economy is even mightier and man is weak, some men renounced the old faith of community and God for money; others for the dream of social advancement and other still where simply swept aside by the crazy lust of the state. The old order was severely injured and the old loyalties which held society together weakened and sometimes broke”.
Paul: “so how will the big society help, is it not too late?”

Symon: “societies are far more naturally stable and ran then clever people like to think and they are and where never a product of a centrally driven statist project; societies are by their very nature organic and spontaneous things; indeed there glory lies in their natural origins and the love people naturally feel for them and it is due to this love that they offer additional services”.

Paul: “Well that seems like a good basis to run – you know love”.
Symon: “yes; love, mercy, community loyalty and a spirit of collective need are all good things, trouble is there often severely lacking epically in poor areas and those who do use these services are subjected to community judgment. I am all for encouraging and simplifying community participation but unless you are willing to reinforce the social and religious order that under pinned the classical solicits of the past you get a mongrel half helpless neutered version; Unable to provide services to all without the heavy hand of the state mutilating community freedoms and without poorer areas receiving less services”.

Paul: “the why are they doing it?”

Symon: “well sometimes when we see no resolution to our issues we seek salvation in the past. The state has failed us, the market has failed us and though community might be slightly better than both it will fail us. Politicians have been brought up with a collective delusion; that there is a perfect system but there is not. People are incompetent and are systems fail because of it. The state it power mad, the market is prone to destructive fads and the community relies on discrimination .

Paul: “So what can we do”.

Symon: “We can continue in pragmatic faith; try small corrections and live and work on a small scale. We can work hard in are communities to make them the best we can, bring people to God and the hope and order a faithful life brings about and we can renounce the ideals of utopia and ideology”.

Matthew 25:40

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (NIV)

40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (King James)

I have never actually read the king James’s bible, mainly due to my dyslexia making reading old English difficult and also because I don’t have too and you can’t make me. Goggling these words of Jesus, however I came across the King James’s version, which to my mind is far more profound than the NIV version.

So what Jesus is saying hear; well to my mind it’s very straight forward, whatever you do to the least in society you are doing TO Jesus or in the name of Jesus. I repeat again, whatever we do to the least in our society we are inflict upon Jesus and do in the name of Jesus; when we exclude them we are excluding Jesus and in his name.

Now I am sure my more learned readers are screaming that it does not mean literally “inflicting” the same treatment upon Christ and that this is a metaphor at best and not what the passage means at worse. Well I am not theologian and I’ve not read it in Greek or Aramaic but I think the idea that the often hateful actions we often accidently inflict upon the least in our society we do unto Jesus is one so compelling and frightening and overwhelming that it is worthy of exploration.

So the first issue who is the least; “Cricky” there are much more complex than those defined in the sermon on the mount and ranges from the poor to those who are the least because they are unacceptable to are society or are moral code (I am thinking of paedophiles and drug addicts). When I hear the word least I first think of economically least aka poor.

I then recall a saying a vicar once taught me: “It is those who are least “deserving of mercy” who most require it and are thus most deserving of it”; I know this saying is a paradox but to me it solidifies the concept of least. The least are often those who is it acceptable to represses and relegate to the dark corners of our society; the least are then often people who have done something to, in some way, deserve there lowly position.

Dear Mr Osborn:

I am not a wealthy man and I have just returned to work after a rather extended period of unemployment and I am very happy in my private sector job. I know there is much in economics you cannot affect and I see this government sell UK PLC like no other in my short life span. I am also a proud and loyal conservative party member and it is this spirit I write this letter.

Are you think or what; even the most basic grasp of economics explains that there is only so much money in circulation; this is even true globally and yes before you start I know we have to both reduce the deficit and the massive debt mountain and yes I know in this parliament marked the highest level of nation debt since the second world war and I know we cannot stand square in the face of globalised economics and our debtors.

So acknowledging all of this it does seem to me, with the greatest respect; that your time line should be flexible; debt is a feature of modern societies as is the state and it is not the worse fate for a government to minimise unemployment by building infrastructure projects or indeed decelerating the cost cutting measure and extending plans and aims. I know you are a proud man Mr Osborn but you cannot allow the economy to suffer for your pride.

I do honestly believe that cutting corporation tax is the best route to a sustainable recovery but I don’t believe we could not slow down just a tad for this first hard year, a year of stagflation, the British illness. I do not believe we could not ensure fewer job losses not in the name of economics per say but in the name of faith in the economy and it is the confidence people feel about the economy which is at least as important as actual economic factors .

So I beseech you Mr. Osborn be flexible on your time table, be pragmatic rather than steadfast but know we still believe that your solution of pro-business tax cuts is the best solution then what ever the current labour position is. I still believe you and are party is the party of stable economics and I hope you do not fail in this most sacred of tasks.

CBB’s Vs big society:

Scene: Two ragged and economy puppets stand in front of a cardboard image of parliament; the first puppet is called Symon and the other Paul
Symon: Today children we are going to talk about the big society and you;
Paul: That sounds awful complicated Symon, sound adult
Symon: Well it is Paul but we are all part of the big society even are wonderful listeners but before I explain that let me tell you a tale;
Scene opens on a yea oldie medieval scene
Symon: many years ago lived a knight called Thatcher and a dragon called Sacrgil – they simply could not get along and fought across the lands of Albion, the knight was a good women and was faithful to her god known as the free market, the knight and her God finally rid the land of the evil dragon but her god was capricious and extracted a cost for his assistance and this cost was the social fabric of Britain a fabric already torn and damaged by the dreams of past knights who worshiped the fallen God of the state.

Eventually the god of the market became so powerful and the cost of satisfying him so great that the people could no longer endure it and the God’s capricious nature turned vengeful and struck the people of Albion low. The knight was sent in to exile and a new knight was chosen to lead the land. This knight had no God beyond himself but kept doffed his hat to both the kings of the market and the state and so this knight rode the land even waging crusade in the name his vague Gods.

Eventually even this knight was slain and a knew night with a new God chosen to defend the land; the new nights name was Call me Dave; he had no God’s but call me Dave had a dream. A dream of being a night on the cheap, of protecting the land on the cheap and this was the idea of the posy or the big society. In Dave’s dream the people of Albion had nothing better and no greater wish then to work for him for free; they were tired of the state and fearful of the market and his solution to thise was tombola’s and parish councils.

Fairness:

It is a too familiar refrain that a government is fair or seeks to be fair and that every policy has at is heart fairness. It of course goes unspoken as to what nature or what end this fairness serves? I as a conservative do not believe any policy can be fair and that no institution of man could or will ever be fair. In addition I even question the pursuit of fairness as seeking to escape from an essentially unfair world.

Let us then look at coalition fairness or what I call shameless political fairness; the most obvious example of this is the tuition fee debate. Fees are paid post university and are based on post university incomes, which we all know but to ensure they are fairer still the coalition have waved the first two (2?) years tuition fees from the bill for poor (that is poor on attendance) students. They have also insisted that any university charging the full amount of fees must find room for student from a state dictated area to a state dictated level. This political fairness causes leads to two parables.

“The parable of the poor millionaire”:
Two students attend the same university. One is the son of a millionaire, who refuses to pay for his debts, this child is spoilt and inattentive to his studies; he gets involved in drug culture at university, he squeaks a pass and manages to find a £20,000 jobs as a favour to his farther. From his earning he is expected to repay the full loans and after thirty years he manages this herculean feat. On the top floor of the very same building sit the companies owner; he comes from a family to whom dirt poor would be too kind, he has strove and worked every day of his life and he gain his university place and applied his work ethic hear as well. Not only was his life improved thank to hardship fund but he was free of any significant debts, whilst at university he creates a safer version of hydrogen and become wealthier then avarice; still he pays no fee, regardless of his wealth it is the dirt poor millionaire’s child who pays for them.

“5 A stars”
Are second parable of fairness is a tale of two students, again one poor and one wealthy, both have dedicated themselves wholly to one end – getting to an elite university. They have both worked extremely hard both in there GCSE & A level the wealthier child has managed to get five A star A levels and the poorer student four A star and one A. Both of course have applied for Oxford but it is the poorer student who is accepted above the wealthier student because Oxford now have other non-academic criteria to fulfil. The hard working wealthy student of course goes elsewhere but losses out on some opportunities and the cashay of elite education his hard work has earned him in the name of fairness.

Now you may sneer and say this is the drivelling’s of a reactionary; that I am simply protecting entrenched privilege but I care nothing for privilege I merely want policy that makes senses. It is nonsense to give people free education based solely on their parent’s income and it is deeply unfair to deprive a hard working student of the just reward of their hard work to appease some mythical structural discrimination in the allocation of university places. I could not care less if Oxford had no one from the lower classes, as long as they took the top students in are nation regardless of class that is to my mind to be expected.

The voice of God:

I used to a useful man, a man with a purpose and a future and then I lost my job. Now I live at home with my poor parents and so for me the loss of my job was not some terrible financial loss, I had no dependents to look after so there was only the very minor guilt of living off my parents and so I was content to search for job after job.

I am a very dour Methodist and thus have very low living cost but even I eventually drained my own savings and was forced to claim benefits, something I do with utterly no enthusiasm but needs be when the devil drives an all. I was set the utterly puerile task of look for just three jobs a week and decided to set myself the far harder task of 3 a day; Ironically all to no avail.

It was an agency I applied for ages ago that offered me a job, after one very short interview I was offered a new post. It was a dramatic step down in pay and responsibility but I have always believed a job was a job and I have always believed that you should work if you can. So knowing very little I took the post. Well to my shock it was a data entry position, something my dyslexia did not empower me to but I swore to do my best and to my small surprised I was passible at it, unfortunately I had managed to annoy my manger.

Now I am not a weak man, life has somewhat harden me and I can take allot of stuff but even I cannot take manager who highlights the smallest of errors and who responds to every enquiry with aggression. I concede I was not ideal for the position and certainly did not possesses the readymade skill they required but I tried my hardest, slowly increasing the pressure on myself, silly making myself quite ill in the processes. I would have quit but I knew that I would lose all rights to benefits for six months and thus it was with grateful release that thanks to my boss’s campaign of criticism I was let go.

Now I was sick in body and mind, I was suffering from high blood pressure and a deep depression brought on by the seemingly downward turn my life had taken. Of course I was only aware of the sickness which was very minor and really exacerbated by the secrete sickness. Once again I lived of what small earnings I had gathered in my time in purgatory until they ran out.

So once again I joined the roll call of the disposed and trust me, if you’ve never been in the temple of despair aka a job centre, you should get down on your knees and give thanks. Then salvation, I was invited for a first interview at a firm offering an ideal position where I could use and build upon my existing skills and I hope be happy and helpful there. At the first interview the enormity of the gap between the starting position and the one I would eventually achieve was explained to me. I was lucky enough to be invited for a second one.

So I woke early that morning, before my alarm, and convinced myself that I was wasting my time, that the test (a standard part of a technically oriented 2nd interview) would show I was unable to function and I would be humiliated. This was the voice of self-doubt and of the depression into which I had slipped. This was the voice of the devil or my own personal version. I read many years ago that the devil hides in those corners of the mind that we dear or cannot look and so there rested mine, ready to leap out as the opportunity arose.

Thankfully alongside the devil there spoke another voice, a stronger voice. A voice that spoke of my duty to endure and attend, as if I were humiliated it was my own fault for over stating my ability and a voice that spoke of safety and of love. A voice that rose above the calmer to affirm not that I would be successful but that I should go anyway. This was the voice of God. It seems a rather mundane thing for God to involve himself in but as someone said God is in the detail.

Sometimes we expect vast angels and choirs and burning bushes to guide are path, we especially expect ever greater wonders the darker are situation is but sometimes it is just a voice of confidence or of duty that is the voice of God, God maybe great but often his voice is but a whisper. Anyway beyond the theology I did after a series of disasters that would have level lesser men attend the interview and was offered the job. I cannot know what will become of me or of anyone who reads this piece. I can just reaffirm that God loves them all, that God is with them and that they should listen for that voice of God so often drowned out.

Bretton-woods

I encourage you to read this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system because the post war miracle experience in the Western world after the second world war (and also in the USSR) was based upon the international economic regulations imposed by the Bretton-woods system. I will not in this piece explore all of the policies agreed on at Bretton-woods but the main economic consequence was the nationalisation of capital (or restrictions on the free movement of capital worldwide).

Now the irony of Bretton-wood was that the system which underpinned the free world was not subject to democracy and the bodies it created; IMF, WMF, UN and the EC (read the term of the Marshall funds) are above and beyond democratic control. On the issue of international capital control,the main aim of Bretton-wood was to prevent economic collapse and to prevent the west competing for business with other Western nations and to enable the nation state to properly tax and regulate business. Business where prevented from competing international via the aforementioned regulation of international capital movements (essential for truly global businesses) but they were also internally subject to heavy regulation and could not find new markets due once again to limitation on the free movement of capital.

Now I can think I can read you mind at this point, interesting but what does this have to do with me; well it has this to do without you. The welfare state was funded by two thing, one 60 years of UK debt and two British industries and UK capital held in place due to the strict international capital restrictions put in pace at Bretton woods. In short the Bretton woods conference enabled the high tax economies of the west by preventing capital from moving elsewhere and thus preventing international capital competition and we are posed with the funding of the same welfare state (enlarged due to increased population and technology) after a economics crash and in a world of free capital.

There are those out there who propagate a tax and spend solution to our economic difficulties and point out the irony of increasing benefit expenditure to save state funds by shedding public employees and they do have a valid point but it is a point from a very narrow standard point. The state is not going anywhere, it cannot leave this nation, and private capital aka business can. Unlike in the Bretton woods world, capital is no longer trapped in the nation state and wise and pragmatic state compete for this capital and this capital powers their economies; capital without which the public sector would run itself into a ground and capital and the resulting businesses they fund without which the economy cannot run.

There is of course allot of panicked talk about the flight of capital, caused by Britain’s shameful over reliance on the ever mobile financial services but capital though freed from international restriction will not flee from are economy as long as we offer a market for it and the skills it requires; largely regardless of tax rates and regulation levels, however, there are some very large organisations that will be put off or prevented from stating due to high taxes or over regulation and it is these businesses and these jobs which once trapped by Bretton woods will take off a fly if we try to use them to fund the welfare state.
Of course if we target there wealthy owners of capital or its movers (the share traders and currency movers) both of whom were ensnared by the Bretton woods would simply up roots and move, well some would and they would move their skills and there businesses with them. The point is again that Bretton wood enabled his taxes and regulations by preventing people moving their capital and thus making it easier to tax it. Without this it is economic suicide to peruse a moral which hunt against the very people who by their avarice fund the state and double economic suicide to chase away the capital are state so needs.

Eurosceptic:

I joined the conservative party over ten year ago because of its Eurosceptic stance. I have always seen the EU as an overly centralist, overly bureaucratic and often overly supra-nationalistic organisation. In short I do not like it and I would prefer it if the UK was not any part of its political arrangements but instead dealt with the EU via mutual trading relationship alone. I, however, recognise that even these trading relationship would require the EU some say in are laws.

I was never a Eurosceptic in tooth and claw, yes I oppose it but I also believe the EU is a trading power and represents a large trading power with which Britain must deal, ideally from a position of a wider trading network then we currently enjoy. Also a relationship based on mutual respect and co-operation rather than a relationship built of grudging anger and viscous Eurosceptic rhetoric that has marked Britain’s attitude to Europe since the days of Elizabeth the 1st .

What I see is thus not an angry, embittered and ill thought out total rejection of the EU that both UKIP and the irrational wing of the of the Eurosceptic wing would have, an approach that would harm not only Britain’s economy but Britain future prospects, as we would have really let the lunatic run the asylum.

Instead I believe we must build up a truly international trade centred foreign policy whilst tying to cement an anti-federalist majority within the EU and certainly finding trading partners for are post EU future. We must always seek to reform the EU into accepting more trading partners as well as seeking to create a unlimited trading sphere in which all nations may trade freely with one another, a sphere free from government interference and the massive globalised businesses which have dominated international trade and which has led to support for supra national governments.
My point is just as we should look toward trade as our salvation, we must not look towards supra national governments like the EU to provide this nor look toward supra national business to dominate it. Either of these futures is unfit for Britain and would see it diminishment as an international and sovereign power. The EU is not the sole emery here, it is transnational organisations and their massive powers and centralising tendencies.

Why vote conservative:

There are many reasons why to vote for the conservative party in the up and coming election the clearest is that we are the most honourable and honest party; this bi-election has been solely caused by the illegal activities of the last labour candidate, who cared more for his own election then the social harmony of your constituency.

Another reason is that the conservative party is the only party able to deal with crime; Ken Clark is busying himself to bring prison reform through particle prison based work system; making prisoners pay for both their crimes and there room and board whilst ending the shameful and waste of mass short prison sentences and removing the pointless and frequently broken ASBOS with the right of local community to physically ride themselves of bad neighbours.

In addition to dealing with crime and making prisons work the conservative party has also fought against the tyranny of terror by both fighting terrorist and fighting back an overly intrusive state that has overridden are traditional liberties with massive and overly expensive databases and the imposition of the surveillance society alongside illegal surveillance orders which in vain try to control are enemies but end up simply controlling the decent and law abiding citizens. Unlike some others, the conservative party will not sacrifice are diversity or are liberty in order to fail to curb terrorism but we will fight and tackle extremism in all its forms wherever it may rear its hate filled head.

It is also the conservative party that had saved and will continue to secure the private sector led, manufacturing led real recovery from the shameful overspend of the last regime and from the repercussion of the global collapse. We are doing this by localising power from distant costly QUANGOS and RDA to local development agencies as well as decreasing business taxes and regulations. Indeed Mr. Cameron has been busy creating new trade connections with the new emerging market. It is a notable achievement of the conservative lead government that we have lifted the poorest from paying tax and also are reforming wholly the welfare state to make work pay and talking to businesses to learn how to help them create jobs and to help them, help us out of this mess.

There are many, many other reason to vote for the conservative party; we are the only party opposed to the takeover of Britain by the EU, we are the only party without a particle and merciful immigration policy and we are the only party with an active and trade orientated foreign policy and the party of peace ending the wasteful war in Afghanistan. In the end you should vote for the conservative party because together we will remake Britain, we will make it strong and fair and free once again.

Letter to my MP

Dear Mr Wilson.

I would like a question asked about the lack of dyslexics rights asked in the house.
I was recently made redundant and I am once again looking for jobs, after having previously been denied jobs because they required handwritten work. I again face being denied the opportunity to apply for jobs because they require a hand written application or require a GCSE in maths (a qualification I could never pass as I am dis-calculate but a disability Excel enable me to copes with). Indeed in my employed life I was a data analyst.

The sheer amount of soft discrimination those of use with learning disabilities have to face is further complicated by the DDA which only covers server dyslexics (whatever this means) and only covers us once in employment. Even once at work I have been insulted due to minor errors in grammar with no hope of recourse and even the charities set up for dyslexics fail to seek further protection for learning disabilities under the DDA.

Yours sincerely:

Symon Turner (BA – MA)

Blue feminism:

I start this blog with an admission, I am a man and not only a man a single man with no experience of the world of women which according to traditional conservative norms makes me ideal to write about what passes for conservative feminism.

The first principle of conservative or blue feminism; women are just a precious and worthwhile in any society; Conservatism has often been terribly guilty of treating women as lesser then men, of lesser worth and thus deserved to be relegated to the domestic sphere. This normative assumption has been the curse of blue feminism and those women who agree with it further principle has had to wage war on the grounds of equality.

The second principle; is that the domestic sphere is equal in importance to the economic and political sphere. Without the domestic sphere there is no social sphere without the domestic sphere and there is no civilisation, worthy of its name, without the social and domestic sphere. It is not unworthy simple because it is an unpaid sphere of human activity nor is it subservient to the economic sphere as without an active and attractive domestic / social sphere what is the purpose of the economics sphere.

Are third and most important understanding is that women far from being temptress are moral guardians of the social sphere, it is they by there unpaid labour who create and maintain this space and it is they via their child rearing and social assistance and guidance to those in need who enforced wider moral norms. Indeed one of the worse crimes of modern feminism is by tearing women away from this moralising network, they have made them either immoral or victims of the evil lusts of man.

So blue feminism seeks first; via the organic separation of economics, to refill the domestic sphere and reenergise the social sphere as well as protect and empower women to take their full sovereignty over these spheres and are empowered together to once again take up there moral mantle and led the vanguard in the moralisation of our society.

Civil constitution

I want you to imagine you are the last man standing, the last man of power and authority left in what was once a powerful and dignified nation. You are a general and you have taken up arms in a civil war that left a third of your nation’s population dead, you served in an army that has committed genocide and you presided over a period of moral panic and kangaroo courts. You have removed a king, crowned and king and now as your final act you are now dealing with a foreign power to organise an invasion to depose yet another king. This is the life of General Wolf the man who saved Britain from anarchy and organised the glorious revolution.

I have said frequently you cannot understand the quagmire of British history, culture and especially democracy and what passes for constitution without understanding the civil war period. The first key point to understand is that the civil war was waged against a protestant king and waged for various and often confused reasons, this led to a period of no rule and then iron rule and via the death of Oliver Cromwell led without much thought to the restoration of the monarchy and its replacement (due to James 2nd active Catholicism) with Mary the 2nd which was the beginning of the limited monarchy we know today and is referred to as the glorious revolution.

Now the two acts which created the nation we know; the bills of rights was formed directly out of the civil war and the act of succession is a direct result of the glorious revolution. These two bills were of course passed by parliament (not a democratic one) but they are mainly a result of the peace settlement achieved at the end of this bloody and confused period. It is of course a terrible fudge a bigoted and confusing mess.

A mess it is now time to fix; Britain has always just added on and on to this rotting structure, further confusing the issues and this tradition has continued in the modern era, the era in which Britain is adopting supera national constitutional law, manly from the EU but also from the UN and other transnational organisations. In additions to these external pressures British governments are also trying to adapt to this new environment by passing psudo constitutional bills and even enacting a constitutional law courts all of which in my view has added an intolerable pressure on the rotting structure of British constitutional tradition.

It is time for a new formal constitution, a constitution which can stand equally alongside the constitutions of the EU, UN and other nation states. A constitution which is clear and which everyone knows and stand a reasonable chance of being enforced and a constitution which limits the power of the executive and also formalises the democratic procedures to follow, free from the vagaries of tradition. Most importantly of all, this constitution unlike the civil war settlement, must be subject to acceptance of the people as it is by our will that parliament sits.