May 2009

Yokel has just noticed that Nightjack has just fenced off his blog, unless you have a Wordpress sign on. So the time has come to put up Yokel's copy of the page that everyone should read.

First off, go to Sgt Custerd to see why the officer can't "Just have a word with him". You see, the Police only do Arrests and Prosecutions. They are forbidden by law, it seems that RIPA might be to blame, from exercising any form of common sense.

Then you will know why you are being arrested. This is what to do about being arrested from Nightjack. (If anyone spots Nightjack making his blog available to ordinary folks again, Yokel will happily point that link back to him.)

It is frightening (but a sign of the times) that one has to behave like the "evil poor" in order to get the System to work correctly. Yokel was going to use the words Criminal and Justice with System. But it seems that there is no Justice, and although the System may be Criminal it won't like being told, so Yokel won't.

In amongst Yokel's junk mail today was a publication extolling the virtues of BS10012:2009 as "the first standard for Data Protection. Specification for a personal information management system".

Yokel wonders whether we need to have a special collection for HMG to enable them to buy a copy. We know that there isn't any dosh left in the Treasury after Gordon and Alistair have been naughty boys and pissed it all up the bankers' wall.

A quick visit to the BSI web site tells us that it will cost non-members a cool £100 (half price for members). So the gift of a copy to HMG shouldn't make too much of a dent in the average citizen's purchase programme for piano wire and hemp rope.

In the media feeding frenzy that has accompanied the rather conveniently timed exposure of the rotten heart of this rotten parliament, it seems that quite a few other stories have been "buried" in the manner of Jo Moore in 2001.

A quick roundup of the stories that have worried Yokel over the bank holiday weekend:

Already obvious to the rest of us, confirmation that Pravda's science coverage is evangelical, and adheres to a pre-determined party line. You can guess the causes it espouses!

A group of wealthy Americans met secretly on 5 May to plan the reduction of the world's population. Secret, because they didn't want to be thought of as an alternative world government! And that was followed by a group of the wealthy and powerful from all over the world who met in Greece about ten days later. That was the annual Bilderberg meeting that has been alleged to have pulled a few strings in recent years. For example they are said to have orchestrated Margaret Thatcher's removal from office because she would not agree to Britain's sovereignty being subsumed into the EU.

This surveillance society thing won't go away at all. Even Pravda are doing a bit about it. A bit of the story hits one person's local rag. And the database state's keeping of records on us all shows no sign of slacking off. Accompanied by the erosion of whatever civil rights we can be be persuaded to give up. Of course, after they have gathered up lots of data, we can all be sure that it is in safe hands, can't we? Not only do they lose sensitive data, they lie by omission to cover it up!

Building on the "benficial crisis" that is this rotten parliament, we have some politico wanting to further entrench the role of the Party in selecting our representatives for us. Yokel wants to see single member constituencies with Single Transferable Vote, which gives the voter a continuing say in the election even if his first choice is ruled out early in the count.

The campaign against Christianity continues. But we knew it was coming.

In just the same way that the first year of the 1939-45 war was described as phoney war, so the first year of this depression has been a phoney. Sure it has hit some people hard, but now that the credit rating of the British Government has been called into doubt, it can only get MUCH worse. Another "beneficial crisis". With one reported view that it would be best for "an intense but shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.”

And finally the "You must be scared" story. Its a shame that we have learned to cope with AIDS, that Asian bird flu didn't do anything but give Bernard Matthews a lean Christmas one year, and now this Swine flu thing just isn't living up to expectations. In the month since the scare started, some 137 people in the UK have been infected, and none have died. Over the same period on the roads however, if we have continued at the same rate as last year, a few short of 250 people will have been killed on the UK's roads. Fortunately Yokel is not the only one to question the sense of proportion of those who should know better.

Yokel is relieved to see others holding similar views.

Yokel had been puzzled as to how the EU would abolish the Westminster Parliament once it had become surplus to requirements when the Lisbon Constitutional Treaty was brought into effect later this year. For such abolition would have to be done in a very careful and gentle manner to avoid provoking the English to rebellion against the Brussels government.

Then it slowly dawned on him that the Telegraph had been chosen to drip feed the poison that would cause the English to demand the abolition of their own Westminster Parliament. Now we know that it was an ex-SAS officer who passed the information on to the Telegraph, a paper that has shown a steadfast trend of late to be a NuLabour Government stooge. Just how the ex-SAS officer came by the disks has yet to emerge, but the Metropolitan Police won't be looking for the culprit as it is not in the "public interest"!

Then we have the focus of the story on "MP's expenses", and trying to draw a parallel with the expenses that employees claim for out of pocket expenditure on their employer's business. But the focus is actually on the Additional Costs Allowance, a nasty little trick to provide a tax-free increase to MPs' pay during times of formal pay restraint, and one that was introduced in the early 1970s, ie over 30 (yes, thirty) years ago, and which was widely known about by the MPs themselves, and by the lobby hacks who fawn all over them.

Which begs two points. Firstly if it is a legitimate allowance, then it is not the MPs who should be harassed by the press but the governments that introduced and operated it. After all, it is said that the Commons Fees Office was known to ring up MPs and tell them that they had not been claiming enough! Secondly, why explode the system now? The dust has not yet settled enough to know the answer to that, but there must be something nasty going on, that the "powers that be" do not want the British public to know about until it is all irreversible.

In an attempt to comment on this affair, Nadine Dorries (Con) has made some rather strong assertions on her blog. It matters not one jot whether you agree with her assertions or not. Be worried that the Telegraph's owners have used the British law of defamation to gag her, and have her British hosted blog taken down. Of course it is currently still available in the Google cache, which has been copied by a number of concerned bloggers. One of the first things that happens in an old style Coup D'Etat is that the newspapaers and TV stations get a visit from the would be government, and are closed down unless they toe the new Party line. These days, we already have a very compliant press and TV, so that just leaves the bloggers to be shut down.

We live in worrying times.

Once we have become used to doing exactly as we are told, the government has another treat in store for us. Chemical & biological warfare alerts. Fears of dirty bombs.

Several years ago, the County Fire Brigades (or whatever they are called under Political Correctness these days) had systems foisted on them by their (EU) Regional commands to address the fear that "you might have been sprayed with something that is no good for you so we must decontaminate you". And staff trained in how to use them. Inflatable tents to process the people getting them all to strip off completely, and walk through the showers. No chance of ever seeing your old clothes, or the possession you were carrying, ever again. The Nazis used to pretend that the gas chambers were showers and "de-infestation" units, didn't they?

Mark you the last time the London Regional Resilience Team had an exercise with this kit at Bank Tube Station one Sunday, the whole procedures went horribly wrong!

Can't be the time for them, just yet then.

But at Kingsnorth, G20, and many other excuses, the police are giving plenty of their officers practice in containing, surveilling, and detaining large crowds. Might be a handy skill to have, when people don't want to be stripped and showered and have their possessions confiscated.