Watford Parents Only Have Themselves To Blame!

'Prove You're Not A Paedo' screams the headline in The Sun today, a brutal yet concise summing up of the absurd situation that has been allowed to develop in Watford as the council seeks to ban parents from their adventure playgrounds on the grounds that they cannot be trusted with their own children.

This state of affairs would be laughable if it wasn't so malignant. The very fabric of our society is being ripped apart under a sustained assault on our right to live our lives as we see fit with as little state intrusion as possible. The plain fact of the matter is the state does not agree with us, it wants our compliance and our control. To be good citizens we must adhere to the rules and laws that the state sets out for us. Common sense is gone, burnt on the same funeral pyre that is consuming our civil liberties and right to privacy.

I can't help wondering though how many of those parents complaining this morning voted Labour or Lib Dem at the last election, national or local? For all their complaining, I am sad to say that those parents in Watford who voted for either of the two leftist parties are just as culpable for this travesty as Dorothy Thornhill (pictured), the Lib Dem Mayor of Watford who has defended the decision, and the council officials who decided to push this through. Those parents only have themselves to blame. Unfortunately, I have a sad feeling that many of them will not learn their lesson. And before they know it, it will be too late.

And it certainly blows a hole in any claims the Lib Dems may make about being the party of 'civil liberties'. If this is what it's like to live under a Lib Dem controlled council as Watford is, imagine the damage they'd do if put in charge of the country. Labour and the Lib Dems, two cheeks of the same arse!

Watford Parents Only Have Themselves To Blame!

Move Along, Nothing To See

Some days I don't know why I bother. In common with other bloggers I come across snippets of news that will have a profound effect on all our lives and yet they're not being taken up and debated in the msm, in fact not mentioned at all. It's impossible to fight something which is cloaked in lies; it's like fighting a will-o'-the-wisp, a Scotch Mist or a shape-shifting alien.

The latest is INDECT (Intelligent information system supporting observation, searching and detection for security of citizens in urban environment - yes, really!) The scope of this project reveals growing governmental preference for systems capable of locking people up not for what they have done, but for what they might do. This ties in with yesterday's post on ISIS, the previous posts on the EU & the NWO plus the leaked EUISS Report also has something to say about it. (These boys do like their acronyms don't they? I've got another one for them: SNAFU).

Open Europe has been reviewing projects currently in receipt of EU funding. They've identified INDECT as having potentially far-reaching effects for anyone living or working in Europe. The main objectives of this project, according to its own website, are:

To develop a platform for: the registration and exchange of operational data, acquisition of multimedia content, intelligent processing of all information and automatic detection of threats and recognition of abnormal behaviour or violence, to develop the prototype of an integrated, network-centric system supporting the operational activities of police officers.

In addition, it aims "to develop a set of techniques supporting surveillance of internet resources, analysis of the acquired information, and detection of criminal activities and threats."

There are two controversial aspects to this research. First is the extent of data collection and second is the proposition that law enforcement agencies will in future be able to model potentially criminal and anti-social behaviour and therefore focus on individuals before crimes are committed.

It's all very similar to another EU-sponsored piece of research, ADABTS (Automatic Detection of Abnormal Behaviour and Threats in crowded Spaces). According to the website it "aims to develop models for abnormal and threat behaviours and algorithms for automatic detection of such behaviours as well as deviations from normal behaviour in surveillance data."

Brilliant! The idiosyncracies of human behaviour are to be reduced to algorithms and monitored by computers. Suddenly, the small steps are combining and becoming 'a giant leap for mankind'.

Even I find my own views on this alarmist and extremist. We either comply or fight; I don't see any in-between option - and that scares the hell out of me.

Cross-posted from Calling England

Move Along, Nothing To See

"Multilateralising Multipolarity"

Sometimes I feel as if I don't exist at all except as a blip or a statistic in someone's in-tray, to be dealt with when they've finished their tea & biscuits, but this leaked document from the EUISS makes it clear that it's up close and personal:

'What Ambitions for European Defence in 2020?'

From the foreword:

"Let it be stressed again that the distinctiveness of the European Union greatly depends on its sustained preference for soft power instruments, for persuasion rather than force. Deviation from this rule, in particular when confronting non-military, non-security challenges of a ‘societal’ nature, be they social, economic, energy or environment-related, would kill European distinctiveness altogether. Reliance on hard power to meet ‘soft’ challenges – a rough equivalent of ‘disproportionate response’ – would not only be inconsistent with the lessons learnt from the European experience, but a sure recipe for alienating partners and pushing the goal of global governance well out of reach."

 This leaked 175-page .pdf was produced by the EU Institute for Security Studies, an EU policy think-tank. It covers long term EU security strategy, including the problems of hierarchical class society, with the elite of the world on one side, and the so-called 'bottom billion' on the other.

To avoid "global systemic collapse", the document suggests that the "full spectrum of high intensity combat" be used to protect what is called "globalisers" from "localisers". Localisers, (making up 80% of the world population) include the "bottom billion", states in the Middle East and the so-called "Alienated Modern States" like North Korea. Globalisers include not only members of the OECD and "Rapid Transition Societies" like China and Brazil, but also "Transnational Corporations"—the "Fortune Global 1000".

The paper discusses "barrier operations shielding the global rich from the tensions and problems of the poor". "As the ratio of the world population living in misery and frustration will remain massive, the tensions and spillover between their world and that of the rich will continue to grow. As we are unlikely to have solved this problem at its root by 2020 - i.e. by curing dysfunctional societies, we will need to strengthen our barriers. It is a morally distasteful, losing strategy, but will be unavoidable if we cannot solve the problems at their root."

Excuse me while I pinch myself to see if I'm really here. Two things seem certain in all this: (1) our views, our votes, don't count, and (2) the past 13yrs of Labour's authoritarian legislation are merely stepping stones.
Cross-posted, with edits, from Calling England

"Multilateralising Multipolarity"

The Price Of Experience

The European Union has long been angling for control of banking and financial centres and it's no secret that it would rather see Frankfurt or Paris more pivotal than London.  (Check out previous posts tagged 'Frankfurt').

Draft legislation published today gives more details of a 'banking super watchdog'.  If agreed, it will be implemented next year.  There is talk of a 'local watchdog' and 'local supervisor' so, for Britain, I assume that would mean our Bank of England.

The draft laws, which is the result of an agreement thrashed out by EU leaders earlier this year, also threaten to erode the authority of Britain, which is fighting to keep control over the centrepiece of its economy, the City of London.
The new European watchdog is given the power to order national supervisors to take specific action, in the draft. It leaves it up to the European Commission or EU executive to decide when they should be allowed overrule the local watchdog.
The draft law also allows the banking super-watchdog to intervene with individual banks if, for example, the local supervisor does nothing, EU officials wrote in the document.

As I've said before, the current trend towards devolution and localism is all very well but fits in too well with the EU's own blueprint for a new supranational state.  Once this legislation goes through, as it will, expect it to be closely followed by the Euro (with designs decided at 'local' level, of course).  Like it or not, we're in it up to our necks.

What is the price of Experience ?
Do men buy it for a song ?
Or wisdom for the price of a dance in the street ?
No, it is bought with the price of all Man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
Wm. Blake
Cross-posted

The Price Of Experience

Let Me Count The Ways

I came across this on a UKIP website. In essence it says that Jacques Barrot recently called for "citizenship in the fullest sense of the word" by introducing EU birth and death certificates. I couldn't find anything about it on Barrot's ec.europa.euwebsite but perhaps I searched more in hope than in expectation.

A European Union Sonnet, abused by me from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.
I loathe thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul conjures, on having in sight
Your acts of foetid disgrace.
I loathe thee to the level of every day's
Most irksome want from jobsworth parasite.
I loathe thee freely, while men strive for right.
I loathe thee purely, while men die to praise.
I loathe thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I loathe thee with a hate I seemed to lose
With shedded tears. I loathe thee with the strife,
Smiles, tears of all my days; and, if God choose,
I pray my child be spared from EU life.

It will take more than political parties to defeat the EU; it's going to take people.

Let Me Count The Ways

Gordon The Linguist

We discover today that Gordon speaks three languages: gobbledekook; claptrap and ... French. What's more, he's managed to combine two of them in one sentence:

"President Sarkozy, mon ami, you are truly a force of nature."

Following a meeting with Sarkozy, Brown gave us his version of the Kipling poem: "If we can get growth, if we can get unemployment down, if we can keep interest rates and inflation down, then there is scope to do the things we want to do, and that is to get money to the frontline services," referring to the need to avoid pay and job cuts in the public sector. [Note: Public sector.]

Both Brown and Sarkozy declared support for each other's economic policies yesterday prior to the G8 free lunch, sorry, Summit.

Gordon The Linguist

Back-door Legislation

Philip Johnson has penned a good article about Labour's tendency to re-announce & re-hash policy, constantly tinkering with laws like someone picking at pox scabs. He pays particular attention to how myriad Statutory Instruments are applied and how they affect the NIR and ID card legislation.

"Unknown to many (including, it sometimes seems, to MPs), these statutory instruments (SIs) are now the principal way that law is made. Most Acts contain powers that Ministers can then trigger at some point in the future by way of secondary legislation. They are required to table them in the Commons for approval and this is obtained from a delegated legislation committee that meets about twice a week to consider the various measures.

"What they do, according to an explanatory memorandum accompanying the SI, is to "outline how applications relating to the National Identity Register and the issue of ID cards should be made and the information that must accompany such application when they are being submitted… They introduce a requirement on an ID card holder to update subsequent changes to certain information held about them on the National Identity Register and report a lost, stolen, damaged, tampered with or destroyed ID card. They also establish the validity of an ID card."."

It's worth reading in full for a better understanding of how this damned disgrace of a government has eroded Parliamentary scrutiny and debate in the House and in so doing has undermined and stolen the voice of the people.
Article here

Back-door Legislation

EU's Joint Foreign Policy Exposed

Last week nine workers from the British Embassy in Tehran were taken hostage and this was the response from the EU:

EU foreign ministers demanded the release of the eight and said that intimidation of their [sic]diplomatic staff in Tehran would provoke a “strong and collective response”. Sources told The Times that if Britain was forced to close its embassy the 26 other EU states would probably follow suit.

(NB: There was initial uncertainty about the number of hostages.)

That, however, was when the rotating Presidency was held by the Czech Republic. On Wednesday the Swedes took over and the policy has undergone a not-so- subtle shift. Despite the fact that two hostages remain, the EU (led by calls from Germany & Italy) has adopted a 'wait-and-see' approach:

Confirming a split among the EU powers, Cecilia Malmstrom, the Swedish Europe Minister, told The Times: “We are listening, there are different views.”

So much for the 'one for all, and all for one' foreign policy approach of the EU. It's a mirage.
Times article 1
Times article 2
Common Foreign & Security Policy 1
Common Foreign & Security Policy 2

It's also interesting to note that everyone's favourite PM, who famously described himself as hailing from 'Northern Britain', isn't the only one unable to distinguish between Britain and England - Ahmed Khatami: “In this unrest, Britons have behaved very mischievously and it is fair to add the slogan of ‘Down with England’ to the slogan of ‘Down with USA’.” Muppet!

EU's Joint Foreign Policy Exposed