Question time 08/03/2018 Worst Ever Episode.

Well, it happened: Question Time dredged the political landscape this week and came up with a panel that (except for Liam Fox) was incomprehensible, incoherent and unable to make any sort of valid point.

Let's start with Liam Fox: Conservative MP and one-time secretary of state for defence. Probably the most coherent on the whole panel. Certainly the only person able to make a coherent steament of fact and make a point.

After Dr Fox, it all spirals drastically downhill...

Laura Pidcock: Labour MP and token northern class warrior. Just the sort of died-in-the-wool Labour idiot that I left the North to avoid. Appointed by rota rather than ability.  Lots of leftist babble that makes no sense. Housing is a human right and insecurety of tenure supresses the ability to join in industrial action. Fuck me, she's stuck in the Seventies, even though  she probably wasn't born then. Most likely indoctrinated by parents.. Seems to want the North stuck in a stereyotypical time warp. Probably wants to bring Lowry back from the dead to paint it all.

Prue Leith: TV cook and cake-baker, old and seemingly a little bit senile. Tended to wander off the point, or try her hardest to get there without wandering off topic or her voice trailing off as she lost the plot.

Roma Agrawhal: Engineer, hopefully not structural. Out of her depth in poitical debate, but made up the numbers of females for IWD with the cachet of being an engineer and young and a minority. Boxes galore ticked for the BBC inclusivity department.

George the Poet: Described as a spoken word artist. It would be fine if he could actually get the words out. Seemed to errr and aaahhhh for longer than actual coherent words came out of his mouth. Can't say what his political views were. They appeared left of centre, but not sure.

Even David Dimbleby got in a dig when talking about the lack of time available for the programme, saying maybe they should just have the audience and remove the panel. The audience were certainly lucid and intelligent in the main.

Question Time was a waste of air time. I'm not sure what's going on at the BBC but bloody hell they need to up their game and it really won't take much. Anything was better than last night.

Maybe they wanted to steer away from Brexit, so had a non-Brexit loaded panel.

Next week is Keir Stamer, the Labour leadership stalking horse and the worst head of the CPS they've ever had.  I'm sure television suppliers are rubbing their hands with glee at the replacement sets they'll be selling next week. Why is it I always want to punch or thrown something at the smug git?

International Women's Day.

To me it's interesting that such a thing as international women's day has to exist. All my life I've treated women as equals. In the past there have been very awkward moments when I've been on buisiness lunches with female colleagues and the " what will your wife say?" question came up.

In my head there never was a need because there was nothing overtly sexual about grabbing lunch together. The question wouldn't arise if it was two male colleagues out for lunch, so why should it for two colleagues of the opposite sex? And in the interests of fairness, I can disclose I've gone out for lunches with Gay colleagues and the question still didn't arise.

Even though feminism has made great strides forwards, it will take a long time, maybe a couple of generations of women to feel fully equal to men.

And when i mean equal, I mean fully equal on their own terms, not on arbitrary terms specified by someoune ho says they are a feminist.

A great excample is sexual fantasies: there are a great number of women that dream of being dominated by men. That they have the freedom to explore that side of their sexuality is good. It is not exploitative, or demeaning, it is what the woman chooses to do for excitement.

A feminist would have a fit trying to explain how submitting to a man is demeaning, disgraceful, etc. without understanding the wioman choosing to explore the fantasy has the power. She is making a choice and is exploring sexual desires she wants to explore.

In the BDSM commiunity there is a phrase "consensual non-consent" where the woman wants to be overpowered and wants it to feel real. That's not to say it is real, it's just a scanario she and the male she chooses to do the exploring with are working through.

One of the vocal feminists would not understand how empowering that is to a woman. I get fed up of feminists telling other women what they should and shouldn't do, how they should and shouldn't behave. What they are saying is that other women have to conform to their boundaries, conform to their standards of behaviour, which is just as bad as if a man was telling a woman the same thing.

Equality is freedom. It's having the freedom to choose any career you like, explore any lifestyle you like, with whom you like and where you like. It doesn't require the premission of anyone, including feminists to live your life the way you see fit.

But by the same token, you cannot expect (for instance) to have a level playing field with males if you don't play the game the same. If you take 5 or 10 years out of your career then don't expect to have the same wages as a male or female that hasn't taken time out of their career.

Equality and empowermant comes with responsibility and respect. Promoting one side of the coin whilst ignoring the other is just promoting a new inequality.

Where I wish feminists would turn their attention is to those countries that institutionally degrade women. Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries where the rights of women just do not exist, where women are required by law to dress a certain way. They should condemn Sharia courts in the UK where communities treat women as second-class citizens against the law of the land. They should condemn traffickers that trade women like objects for real (not sexual fantasies) and bought and sold for cash and enslaved. They should condemn countries where the life of a girl is worth less than that of a boy and a girl can be killed with impunity.

Anyway, to all women everywhere, happy International Women's day.

Now when is International Men's Day? In the spirit of equality and promotion of man's rights you understand.....

Working Against Democracy...

There are several elements to this blog, so do please bear with me.

First off, lets state some political tenets that should be enshrined in UK democracy.

The first is that all political representatives (MPs) should be elected and not appointed. They should declare any and all items that could affect their impartiality so that electors can take a view as to whether they are fit to be voted for. Being a member of a party implies a certain partiality. Being a member or benefitting from certain lobby groups does the same. Being a member of a group that seeks to remain hiden should be made illegal. Whether it's the Masons or Common Purpose, the Scouts or Amateur Dramatic Society, it should be declared.

The second is that an unbiased house of Lords should scrutinise the Commons to guard against excesses of power and ensure democracy is fulfilled. The Lords, athough appointed should bear in mind the will of the people where indicated. Either by supporting the manifesto of a duly elected political party, or by respecting the democratic vote in a referendum of the people.

The third is that the population should be free to criticise their represenatives and as part of that process should be able to investingate what their MP is doing. The public should have the right to ask questions of their representative and there should be an assumption that questions must be answered honestly. Leading on from that, the press should be independent, free and unfettered and able to investigate politicians and publish any findings. The public have a right to know what their representative is up to at all times.

Finally, the courts, judicial system and Police Force should be completely independent of politicians and should work for the benefit of all, with impartiality. The courts should uphold the law without fear nor favour. The Police are the public, granted special powers by the good will of the people. They do not have special powers granted by any other means.

Given all of the above (and by no mans have I covered everything), you can understand that anything that work against them is anti-democratic.

For instance, The EU: give that none of the members of the EU commission, the body that has all the real power is comprised of appointed, not elected technocrats. This is exactly the reason I voted to leave. It's bad enough that they expect payment from us (effectively a tax), but when a body like the EU comissions starts to talk about taking all tax-raising powers away from democratically elected governments, then for me the alarm bells ring. How dare they impose those powers without some trade-off in the form of increased democracy?

Hopefully the EU becomes irrelevant in the UK thanks to Brexit, although there are those in government that are working against the democratic will of the people. Like in the house of Lords. The Lords are there to scrutinise government legislation, they are not there to thwart the will of the people. If they continue to vote against Brexit, there will be a reckoning.

The Leveson inquiry and the resultant limits on the press are worrying. Impress, the body that has been set up to regulate the press wants papers and other outlets to sign up to it's regulatory framework. I'm sure it won't be long before other bastions of free speech including blogs like this come under the remit of it's control.

Make no mistake Impress and any other attempt to control free speech is working against democracy. We need the freedom to take the piss out of politicians, or enlighten the public when they do something dodgy. We needs a press free from any form of control.

And before anyone whinges at me, I've been a whisker away from tabloid stories on a couple of occasions. One was put to bed after a quiet word by the MOD. Not involving me directly, but I was on the periphery. A second time involved a friend of mine in an er, "alternative" culture. I wasn't nice watching the things that happened to her and the fact her career and livelyhood were destroyed.

The fact the Police and Judiciery are straying from their remit to be impartial and especially the Police are moving into political territory are worrying. When the Police impose limits on speech and the judiciary back them up, there is a problem. The rules on speech are wolly at best and open to interpretation, interpretation that the Police should not be the arbiters of. I mean, a few crass comments on Social media should not become a hate crime. And as successive governments impose wooly legislation and the Police and Courts suffer from mission creep and use those laws for things they were never intended for, we have a biased and uncontrolled Police and an attack on free speech.

But take all of these together, there is a very real threat to democracy. Without the freedom of speech, without an independent and impartial upper house, without a free press to inform us, we are in danger of losing the freedoms and democratic accountability that out forefathers worked so hard  against the elite to win.

Democracy

It will be interesting to see in the next few days how the EU react to the speeches made this week by Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May.

Corbyn wants us to be members of "a" customs union, with no concessions. i.e. tied to EU legislation, ruled by the ECJ, unable to control immigration.

May wants to have a fairer system, but in essence we pay money to the EU in exchange for tariff-free access to certain service sectors and geographical areas. In essence free movement of money across borders for her chums in the City of London and we cough up to get the EU to turn a blind eye to the lack of border between Northern and Southern Ireland.

Both speeches were aimed at the audience at home, after all both are elected politicians and I'm sure they would like to be re-elected at some point, so they have to sound good at home.

However, the EU commission members are unencumbered by such petty things as an electorate. They do not have to answer to the thousands of European car workers that could lose jobs if we buy fewer European cars. They can and would quite easily allow the UK to crash out of the UK with no substantial trade deal in place. It's just tough for those European workers and after all, what are they going to do about it? It's not as if those workers can sack the commission members is it?

Nope, the commission will stick two fingers up to the European electorate and would quite happily allow them to lose their jobs. As an example just look at the youth unemployment in the Southern EU states. Do the commission care about that? Nope, not their problem, even if it is their rules and restrictions that have caused it.

Therin lies the problem with the EU: it is undemocratic at best and anti-democratic at worst. The response from Brussels I am convinced will prove that very fact.