English Yokel

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.