ALL CHANGE PLEASE...

I'll be honest, I was sorry to see Blair leaving Downing Street yesterday (27th June 2007). In spite of some of the gaffes he made during his ten years in office I quite liked the guy. The people who regarded him as Bush's poodle should remember that there is a bit of the British Bulldog inside all of us here in Blighty. It is highly probable that Bush would have nuked Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan off the face of the planet if Blair hadn't been stood behind him holding the leash. There are some amongst us who probably think that is no bad thing and I would be lieing if I said I hadn't considered it an option on a couple of occasions but there is a right way to do things. That is not to say that the right things were done but then I don't believe in appeasement either. It is right that Blair should become the Middle East Peace Envoy. He is for my money probably the greatest Statesman that this country has seen since Winston Churchill and I hope that history eventually treats him kindly.

It is worth noting that the Middle East was a British problem since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which paved the way for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and didn't the British Government obtain control of Iraq from the League of Nations at the end of the First World War? I seem to recall from my school history lessons that British troops were involved in the ongoing struggle between the Turks and the Arabs (also during the First World War), which gave one T.E. Lawrence fame as Lawrence of Arabia. The Americans have been trying to resolve the issues in the Middle East for as long as I can remember. It is time for a British Statesman to have a go at sorting it out; we did foul it up after all, rather like we fouled up Northern Ireland and we are talking about the same person who managed to set things on the right path out there. Give the Man a break.

On a different tack, 10 Downing Street is now under the control of a Stalinist control freak with delusions of grandeur and OCD. Gordon Brown has no mandate from the British public to sit in the seat of power that he now occupies. It is bad enough that we are funding the Scots to the tune of around 5000 pounds a person and that Scottish MP's are allowed to vote on matters of state that only affect England. Everything that we have to pay for the Scots get for free. The Scots already have their own First Minister sitting in their own parliament. They don't need another one sitting in the English Parliament. It is time for a change in the Law so that if a sitting Prime Minister resigns his or her a position the reigning Monarch has to dissolve Parliament and call for a General Election. There is something very wrong when someone can assume the ultimate position of authority in this country unopposed and unelected.

Go back to Scotland Gordon. We don't need you this side of the border.

WASTED MONEY AND NATIONAL PRIDE

I was somewhat astounded to see a policeman drive past me today in a brand spanking new 07 reg BMW X5. Police forces across the country are regularly complaining that budget constraints prevent them from doing their jobs and providing necessary resources yet Sussex Police have managed to add yet another luxury vehicle to their ever expanding fleet of luxury Sports saloons/estates and SUV's. An X5 is not a cheap vehicle in standard road trim and I shudder to think how much public money has been wasted on purchasing this bazza'd up Bavarian Land Rover rip-off. I suspect that it isn't the only X5 to have been added to the Sussex Police fleet either. I can understand that Sussex Police will have a need for a certain amount of off-road vehicles but they are already in possession of Land Rover Defenders for that kind of work. A BMW X5 is a symbol of how much money you've got to waste on a vehicle to go posing around the town, and Sussex Police don't have any money to waste.

I think it is fair to say right now that I have a problem with local authorities spending public money on over-priced, German-made vehicles. Call me jingoistic if you will but we had a national car manufacturer in the shape of MG Rover who built a car that was considered by the people in the "know" to be quite a good car, and that was the "75". The Touring estate was an ideal base for a general purpose emergency response vehicle that would have been usable by all three emergency services. To be fair to the Fire And Rescue, and the Ambulance Service, they both seem to run fleets of quite ordinary cars like Ford Mondeos and Vauxhall Vectras but the Plod seem to consider themselves special and have to have the most expensive luxury cars they can lay their bent hands on.

Central Government could have saved MG Rover if the Home Office had had control of the budgets for new police vehicles instead of allowing the umpteen police forces across the country to spunk money away like it doesn't matter. If you go to Germany you will find that the Polizei drive German-made vehicles, go to France and the Gendarmes drive French-made vehicles, go to Italy and the Polizia drive Fiats. Come to Great Britain and you will find we are not so great after all because the Plod drive round in cars made anywhere but Great Britain, and we don't have a national car manufacturer anymore. "And why not?" I hear you ask. Because our glorious leaders took what was left of our national motoring heritage and sold it down the river to a German rival, specifically BMW who asset-stripped MG Rover and left it to the wolves.

Just to finish up, I put the evening News on the television after I started writing this, just in time to see Mr Des Browne MP (Government Minister for Pathetic Excuses) climbing into the back of a nice new ministerial car. Surprisingly enough it was a BMW. It is not surprising that the people of this Country have very little national pride when even our egotistical Leaders don't have any.

EASTERN PROMISE(S)

I've had a few days to think since publishing my last posting and have reached a few conclusions with regards to the blatant kidnapping of British servicemen by Iran.

• Knowingly crossing an international boundary without permission with an armed force constitutes an act of war and that is exactly what the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have done.
• If British forces crossed into Iranian territory one has to assume that the airspace over Iranian water was also violated by the Lynx helicopter from HMS Cornwall (F99). If that is the case why was it not shot down by the Iranian gunboats that were supposedly protecting their own territory.
• The dhow that was involved in the incident has to have been a "plant" by the Iranians. It was moored close enough to the border in shallow water where HMS Cornwall couldn't get to it and the Iranian gunboats could. It was made suspicious enough for the commanding officer of HMS Cornwall to instigate a search of the vessel and as soon as the servicemen boarded the dhow the Iranians made their play. The whole thing was a setup from the very beginning.
• The Government of this country needs to make it very clear to Iran that they have committed an Act of War and that we are prepared to treat it as such.
• We are operating in the Persian Gulf as part of a United Nations Force. The UN needs to get behind this country and make it clear that the repatriation of British personnel will be done with force if necessary.
• It is already quite clear that Iranian Shia's are stirring up the insurgency in Iraq, and as soon as the UN forces are withdrawn from Iraq I fully expect to see the Revolutionary Guard cross the border from Iran. These two countries already have a history of conflict and it isn't over yet.
• History has shown over the years that promises made by countries like Iran are not worth the air that it takes to float them, and anybody who takes them at anything more than a few spoken words is bordering on stupid.

Just to finish up I sincerely hope that Mr Blair is not considering handing over the administration of this country to a new Prime Minister while this matter is unresolved. I notice in today's news that Gordon Brown is poncing around in Afghanistan introducing himself to people in anticipation of his expected takeover of the Premiership. His timing is particularly bad and this trip should have been cancelled until after the leadership election has taken place. Blair hasn't resigned yet and any move to do so under the current circumstances is going to be seen in the Middle East as a weakness to be used and played with to the full. In spite of his numerous failings Blair has a proven track record as a Leader and is capable of standing his ground when it is required of him, whereas Brown only has a record for juggling numbers and conning the tax paying public into thinking he's just done them a favour.

QUESTIONS FOR THE M.O.D. ABOUT THE SERVICEMEN CURRENTLY IN IRANIAN CUSTODY

• How did these servicemen allow themselves to be detained in the first instance?
• Were they totally unaware of what was happening around them?
• How can you miss the presence of five hostile patrol boats in your area?
• Why were these servicemen inadequately armed to defend themselves if they were only carrying sidearms as reported?
• HMS Cornwall must have been aware of the Iranian patrol boats in the area and surely must have been tracking their positions. Why did HMS Cornwall fail to respond to the threat as soon as it became apparent and at least provide some air cover until further assistance was possible?
• Were these servicemen in radio contact with HMS Cornwall and did HMS Cornwall alert them to possibility of Iranian interference?
• Was the dhow that was being searched for smuggled vehicles planted by Iranian security forces to enable this chain of events to take place, and were British forces reacting to a tip-off when the dhow was boarded?
• Iran is currently subject to UN resolution with regard to its nuclear enrichment program. Surely a cross-border raid to capture foreign servicemen to use as bargaining chips must constitute an Act of War and should be treated as such?

Would anybody from the MOD or the Home Office care to answer some of these questions or are we all to stupid to be told the truth?

POST-BUDGET THOUGHTS

It has been a few days since my last entry and the Budget has been and gone, giving me time to collate some thoughts on what has come to pass. The owners of gas-guzzler vehicles were taxed to the hilt as expected and used as scapegoats for all that is wrong with our environment, whilst Blue Chip oil companies who are responsible for the fact that we are all still using their products to run our vehicles have received a two percent cut in Corporation Tax... that seems fair to me. NOT!

Oil companies are predominantly responsible for preventing new fuel-saving technology from ever reaching the market place. They have spent many years buying up Patents and designs to prevent technology that would have weakened their stranglehold on the market place from getting further than the drawing board. NASA sent men to the Moon using fuel cell technology forty years ago, yet we still cannot transplant that technology into a modern motor vehicle because of supposed astronomic production costs. I am obviously very thick because I cannot for the life of me understand what it is that makes a Hydrogen Fuel Cell so expensive to produce, particularly on the scale required to support the manufacture of motor vehicles. The only reason I can find for it is that the global economy that thrives on how many barrels of crude oil are sold each day would collapse overnight from the sudden loss of revenue. Governments would fall and a New World Order would arise where the oil baron held no sway, and America was no longer the voice of the planet.

On a slightly different tack but still looking at "Green" Gordons' Red Box of Surprises, it seems to me that a chance was missed to really make a difference to our environment and tax something that has no place in the modern world... the humble, indestructible, non-biodegradeable, plastic carrier bag. There is no excuse for anybody going shopping to come home with armfuls of carrier bags. It is high time that the bloody things were made illegal and people went back to using proper canvas bags that last a lifetime. Start charging a Pound for every plastic carrier bag that leaves a shop and everyone will start to think twice about using the damn things. I shudder to think of how much of our valuable landfill space is full of plastic bags that will never degrade, or how many plastic bags are burnt in local authority incinerators every day adding to the general atmospheric pollution.

So here we are. Next year it is going to cost me an extra Two Hundred Pounds to tax the car, and an extra Fifty Pounds in increased fuel duty to add to the Twelve Hundred Pounds combined(approximately) that I already pay the Government of this glorious nation every year for the priveledge(!) of owning a car. Gordon, if you're reading this I would just like to let you know on behalf of the car owning public that you're taking the F***ing Piss!

VEHICLE EXCISE DUTY - A FAIRER WAY?

Gordon Brown's alleged plans to tax 4x4's and gas-guzzling cars off the road are a complete travesty. It is apparently only going to affect some 225,000 motorists so what precisely is the Government expecting to gain from this ridiculous plan? Added to this is the photograph on page4 of The Times(20/03/2007) showing a woman holding a placard saying "no 4x4's on the school run". The amount of such vehicles on the school run is minimal in comparison to the amount of vehicles that are actually on school runs in the first instance, and Gordon Brown is the idiot who made it cheaper for families to own a second vehicle with which to do the school run by reducing the excise duty on smaller cars. It is these vehicles that clog up our roads on a twice daily basis, polluting the atmosphere and bringing our town centres to a standstill at a time when people are trying to get to work. It is a pleasure to drive during school holidays when the school runners are off the road and the normal daily congestion is non-existent. It is these vehicles that need to be taxed off the road and then this generation of couch potato children who can't walk any further than the car would have to learn to use their feet and walk to school.

We already have a system of taxation that charges us for the amount of fuel that we use in our cars and it charges us at the point of purchase in the fuel station. Approximately 90pence in every pound that we spend on petrol/diesel is passed on to the Treasury in some form or another. The vehicle excise duty as it exists should be scrapped altogether and replaced with a much fairer system of taxation. For example, introduce a personal annual mileage allowance. Is it fair that somebody who uses a Range Rover to drive 6000 miles a year should pay twice the amount for a Road Fund Licence as somebody who drives 35000 miles a year in a Vauxhall Vectra? No it isn't. MOT testing stations already log vehicle mileage so it wouldn't be difficult for the DVLA to use this data in tracking vehicle mileage for excise purposes. Mileage allowances could be purchased in blocks of 1000 miles and paid for through the network of pay points that we use to pay for telephone credit or gas credit, and the beauty is that nearly every fuel station has a pay point machine behind the counter. Any imbalance in our mileage allowances could be paid for prior to a new MOT certificate being issued and everybody is squared off and happy. It would probably save the DVLA some money as well because half the pen-pushers at Swansea wouldn't be needed anymore. We could then use the redundant office space by converting it into flats to help relieve the so-called housing shortage in this country.

I wonder how many of the 225,000 vehicle owners that will be affected by this taxation plan of Brown's will be voting Labour at the next General Election? Not many, I'll warrant. I know that I wont be voting Labour anymore and for a Government that has fallen 15points behind in recent polls that loss of votes could be the final nail in the coffin that buries this Government and consigns it to the pages of History. I have said in other places that I believe Gordon Brown is unfit to govern as Prime Minister and there is more proof of it with every day that passes. I don't see him turning down the use of a ministerial gas-guzzling Jaguar to make the short trip from Downing Street to the Houses of Parliament every day, but I guess that is what Politics is all about; Rhetoric and Hypocrisy.