I squirmed when I watched clips of Squeaker Bercow’s ‘performance’ in Parliament yesterday. This little man – in every sense – really did scale new heights of pomposity and self-justification and it was horrible to watch.

He was never going to permit Bunter Johnson’s deal to be put to a vote – especially once it became apparent that the Government might just have cobbled together enough support to get it passed. So he waffled and blustered and it seemed largely irrelevant which reason he plucked out of the air to nullify the wish of the People. If it hadn’t been this one, it would have been another.

At one point, Bercow said that he wouldn’t allow a vote because Parliament had already voted on a similar motion and some arcane rule prevents the same question being put twice. How can that possibly be the case? Can we now expect him to stop MPs putting forward amendments calling for a second referendum and continued membership of the customs union – both of which have already been rejected on numerous occasions?

Somehow, I doubt it.

What really makes me mad though is the repeated bleating of Bercow and his fellow Remainers that democratic accountability demands that Brexit is subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.

What a load of cynical claptrap!.

This rotten, corrupt Parliament has shown nothing but contempt for democracy over the past three and a half years. Having promised to respect the referendum result, the majority of MPs have done their very best to overturn it. The only reason they are insisting on Parliamentary scrutiny now is because that’s the best way of preventing Brexit ever happening.

It is an appalling thought but I fear we could be in for another three years of this dreadful nonsense. Because of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, brought it by Twister Cameron, there needn’t be another General Election until the summer of 2022. Labour isn’t going to back an election it would undoubtedly lose, so the only way a general election could be triggered is if the Government is defeated in a vote of confidence and Corbyn’s Cowboys refuse to move one.

Despite agitating for a ‘People’s Vote’ or a ‘confirmatory vote’, the Opposition in general is scared stiff of letting the people decide. Among those demanding a People’s Vote are a couple of dozen MPs who have resigned from the Tory and Labour parties recently and either joined the Lib Dems, set up Change UK, or are sitting as independents.

Chocky Umunna for instance is on his third party in the past few months as is the good doctor from Totnes, Sarah Wollaston.

Not a single one of these flip-flopping no hopers has had the decency to offer themselves back to their constituents in a confirmatory by-election, even though they now represent a different political party to the one they were elected to represent.

So I think we can take whatever they say about a People’s Vote with a large bucket full of salt.

I read through Bunter’s deal yesterday and was not impressed. It is much the same as the one Mother Maybe put forward but has a few minor tweaks here and there. I don’t really understand the triumphalism we are seeing in some quarters, but I suppose it is a deal of sorts and that is what our erstwhile MPs have been braying about.

Good deal or bad deal, it is probably the best we can expect in the circumstances. It is a deal damnit and if it does get through, at least this whole sorry farce will come to an end. I would have preferred to leave without a deal I’m afraid, but the MPs have vetoed that. Yet when they are presented with a workable deal, they throw it out.

Where oh where is the sense in that? Are these people really part of the same world the rest of us live in or have they all been lobotomised?

I didn’t watch the documentary last Sunday about the Royal Biscuit and his Yank’s trip to South Africa. Had I done so I would doubtless have been as appalled as seem many of the media commentators.

It seems that instead of detailing the problems faced by ordinary people in Africa, most of the programme focussed on the problems being experienced by the Biscuit and his Bride. They both seem worried about being in the media spotlight but I’m afraid that comes with the job. We taxpayers keep this couple in their luxury lifestyle and if people want to know what they are doing and how they live (I certainly don’t!) then they must put up with it or forfeit their reliance on the taxpayer.

I had a certain amount of feeling for the Biscuit when he was a wild student at Cirencester and again when he went off to Afghanistan with the army. Since meeting the Yank though, he seems to have metamorphosed into a whining, self-pitying grouch and I only wish the pair of them would head off to America and get out from under our collective noses.

Mind you, it might not be a bad idea if the entire Royal Family (except perhaps for Queenie) disappeared from the scene. Think how much money could then be diverted into the NHS and other essential services.

I have nothing against some of the Royals but I am a Republican at heart and fail to see why I should pay to keep them living in luxury and in the Biscuit’s case, taking flak for not treating him as he feels he ought to be treated.

I am sorry his Mother died early but that was twenty years ago and I wish he would stop reminding us of the pain he is apparently still experiencing. Most of us have tragedies in our lives and some of them are ongoing, but we just get on with things and make the best of life as it stands.

It is high time the Royal Biscuit and his Bride stop telling us about their hardships and worry more about the people they are supposed to be worrying about. She claims to be doing a great deal of good for various charitable causes, yet all she seems to care about is herself and the same applies to her royal husband.

What a weekend it proved to be. There were two fairly one-sided rugby games on Saturday and two far more nerve-wracking ones on Sunday but the four semi finalists were much as predicted when the tournament started. It was a little sad to see Japan bow out, but they had already covered themselves and their country with glory and had they beaten the Springboks, I would have been even more disappointed.

The politicians meanwhile continued their idiotic and ever-more-meaningless squabbling. Super Saturday as it was billed beforehand didn’t get us any further forward as that pompous prat Olive Oil Letwin brought forward yet another bill to delay Brexit and was supported by enough of them to ensure a majority, albeit a slim one.

Bunter Johnson – probably sensibly – then decided that debate over his Brexit deal could wait for a more auspicious occasion.

And you know, the British squabbling over belonging to the European Union is not really anything new. Had Margaret Thatcher remained in office, and not been replaced by the inept John Major (the only thing to be said for him was that he enjoyed cricket) she would have vetoed the process of ever greater union, and Britain would not have been faced with the traumas it is facing today.

Margaret Thatcher though, was ousted by plotters – and here the continuity of British politics becomes ever more evident. They are still feverishly plotting around the Houses of Parliament. All sense of honour or will to represent the People has been jettisoned and a little surprisingly – for me anyway – the only one who is showing any strength of character is Bunter Johnson himself.

Apart from the puffed-up political popinjays in Parliament, everyone else is by now desperately tired of it all. The referendum result was decisive and whichever way people voted, most of us just want it done and to move on to other things, such as running the country perhaps. Wouldn’t that be nice?!

Opinion polls confirm this – if anything they suggest a strengthening in Brexit support and a wide and growing degree of acceptance of a No-Deal Brexit if that finally proves necessary.

Bunter J’s proposed deal will certainly play well in the country at large as Britain gears up for an early General Election. The immediate future, depending on the antics of political posers, on uncertain parliamentary arithmetic and on the shameless partisanship of Squeaker John Bercow is somewhat unpredictable. Bunter’s deal may or may not survive but the British people do in the end have the final say.

And when they speak, it looks increasingly likely that Mr Johnson will be returned as Prime Minister with a working majority and a mandate to restore the standing of a sovereign Britain.

Of course the LibDems were in fine voice over the weekend, but don’t you think there should be a wholesale renaming of political parties to reflect their respective stances.

If there is a Trade Descriptions Act for products and an Advertising Standards Authority, in what world can there be a party that calls itself Liberal and Democratic when its manifesto promises to overturn without another referendum the democratically expressed will of the people?

The name, Authoritarian Anti-Democratic Party might not have the same electoral appeal, but it is much closer to the truth. They have cynically disowned the referendum result and completely forgotten the unequivocal words of their late leader, Paddy Ashdown on TV. As the referendum results came through way back in 2016, Ashdown solemnly told us that as democrats, his party would fully accept the verdict of the people.

I did not have a great deal of time for Mr Ashdown but at least he was honest – as far as any politician can be so. His words at the time were, ‘Those who asked for this, and I was the first leader ever to ask for a referendum in 1989-90, have said so because they believe in the act of democracy.

‘I will forgive no one who does not accept the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken, whether it’s by one per cent or 20 per cent. It’s our duty to serve the public and make sure our country does the best it can with the decision people have given us… When democracy speaks, we obey.’

It seems particularly tragic that the current harpy leading the LibDems, Jo Swinson has completely refused to heed the words of a far more honourable leader than she will ever be.

I think it is a wee bit ironic that Lewis Hamilton, the many times Formula 1 motor racing champion is imploring us all to give up meat to save the planet.

This pratwinkle’s car does five or six miles to the gallon on a good day damnit, but he whitters to his adoring public.

“Extinction of our race is becoming more and more likely as we overuse our resources.”

Where do these people find their theories I wonder? Does any sport ‘overuse resources’ as much as motor racing? Perhaps I will give up on meat when his two hundred mile per hour Mercedes is fuelled with carrot juice.

But not until then!

Well, for all his foppishness and ridiculous mannerisms, Bunter Johnson has done exactly what he promised to do. He has come up with a deal to get Britain out of the European Union. This should surely be a reason for us all to celebrate – shouldn’t it?

Regretfully, I don’t know and although I am cautiously optimistic, I quail inside at the thought of the proposed deal being thrown out by those ridiculously self-important MPs tomorrow.

There they all were on the idiot box yesterday; Corbyn frowningly telling us that he could not possibly vote for this deal because it let us down by not attending to ‘workers’ rights’ – this comment coming not after careful perusal and consideration of what was proposed, but twenty six minutes before the details were even made public.

That fact alone strips Corbyn’s statement of any shred of credibility.

Then we had the Poison Dwarf from Scotland and the Lib Dem Harpy plus squawking Soubry Loo, the smugly overweight Scottish Blackbird and the former Conservative moaners giving us all the usual twaddle. It was sickening to listen to I’m afraid. Tomorrow they will have a chance to debate the deal. Let them wait for that debate, listen to what is said, consider the options and cast their votes accordingly. Then they can tell us all about it and explain why they voted the way they did.

But I fear they will all be busy again today with their grave pronouncements of gloom and doom. What on earth has happened to the calibre of politicians in this country? I had no great faith in Bunter when he came to power, but like Trump across the pond, he has backed up his bluster by doing what he promises.

I have no issue with that and just pray that a few more than usual of the career politicians in the House of Commons will actually give due consideration to the way they vote tomorrow.

Or is that asking too much of the modern political class?

At last it seems that Londoners might be rebelling against the mass tyranny of Extinction Rebellion protesters. Hoo – ruddy – ray!

Yesterday, ordinary commuters – those hard-working people who spend their lives trudging backward and forward to work and over the last two weeks have repeatedly found themselves thwarted by smug do-gooders protesting about the state of the planet, finally fought back.

One of the protesters was Mark Ovland, who gave up his full-time Buddhist teacher training studies this year to join XR as a ‘full-time protester.’ Full-time waste of space, would be a more appropriate description. I wonder who is funding his protesting lifestyle? Probably all of us.

Anyway, Ovland was booted off the train roof by a furious-looking bloke in a tracksuit top. Even Buddha himself couldn’t save him from falling into the maw of the crowd.

He could have been beaten to a pulp by travellers driven mad by the fact they had missed their connection, had not other commuters formed a protective ring of padded jackets around him.

I wonder if he even thought about thanking them?

Watching footage of the action, I wanted to cheer the angry commuters to the rafters. At last ordinary citizens were doing what the police have so dismally failed to do this year, which was to stop one of these XR events in its tracks. One has to wonder why this XR mob are always treated with such kid gloves, even as the city grinds to a halt around them.

For example, one thrilled-looking granny who had glued herself to the top of a train yesterday had a safety helmet popped on her head, a harness wrapped around her body and clearly a nice chat and a laugh with the police officers who unglued her. How pathetic the forces of law and order have become. Do they care nothing about their citizens being prevented from going about their daily lives by these hooligans?

The demonstrators put themselves in harm’s way. They should not be treated by the police like naughty children while law-abiding citizens are expected to suck up the disturbance without complaint. The right to protest must surely end when you violate the rights of others to go about their daily business. That is not protest, it is civil disobedience.

There is no way that holding up commuters is going to make them sympathetic to your cause — surely Extinction Rebellion and their pathetic celebrity eco-terrorist chums must see this is a warning of what I hope is to come? Certainly, my patience ran out long ago. I suppose there are reasonable points to their cause, but they preach an apocalyptic rhetoric of death, claiming billions of people are going to die soon because of climate change.

What a load of claptrap! Billions? Come off it. Co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Roger Hallam even promises that ‘your children are going to die of starvation’ unless the economy is completely transformed in five years.

They talk of imminent catastrophe, mass suffering and deaths, but science doesn’t back this up. Hallam has also said it is ‘great fun taking down capitalists’. So at least he’s honest about that.

The mood among the protesters darkened during the week when the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed Ali. One protestor explained:

“It was supposed to be Greta,” He said to the camera, “she was overlooked by a panel of white men because Norway is a fossil fuel country.” This statement went unchallenged by the reporter, who probably didn’t know that the panel member announcing the prize was in fact a woman. Dr. Abiy won because he brought peace to a region wrecked by war for thirty years and to suggest that Ms Thunberg deserved it more was just plain daft. Greta Thunberg, whether she likes it or not, is the movement’s global figurehead and thus protected from scrutiny or criticism by its supporters, none of whom really have any idea as to what actually goes on in the world. She has brought chaos and fear rather than peace to the world, unlike Dr Abiy.

The alarmist language is bad enough, but a lot of goodwill is being washed away by the hardline stance taken by these cretins and the utter ghastliness of many of their supporters. The well-to-do grandparents, the trust fund kids, the anarchists, the Octavias, the Ruperts, the Buddhist students, the unwashed, the unemployed, the bored, the Benedict Cumberbatches and all the other luvvies spring to mind.

Once, XR fought against public indifference. Now, they must contend with public rage. Good. I am firmly on the side of the public.

I read today that Sainsburys has become the first British supermarket chain to stop selling fireworks. What wonderful news. If there was a Sainsbury store around here, I would change my allegiance immediately.

The company has apparently made the decision amid concern for pets and older people – as well as frustration at antisocial behaviour. The paper says Britons spend more than £20m a year on fireworks. That is twenty million quid going up in smoke while charities still beg us all for money. My concern is not necessarily for pets or old folk, but for the soldiers returning from war zones and being subjected to terrible memories by the horrifically realistic sounds being made by modern fireworks. Unfortunately other supermarkets will continue to sell them.

I often rant about the iniquities of television, but I shall be glued to the idiot box as I call it for the next two days. With four absolutely cracking games of rugby scheduled in Japan, I will be difficult to move.

Hopefully I will be ranting again on Monday and the weekend promises to give me a great deal to rant about.

See you on Monday.

A couple of weeks ago we had the unedifying sight of a British diplomat breaking down in tears as she ‘apologised’ to the Maori people for an episode in which Captain Cook allegedly killed a few of their distant ancestors.

How much more appropriate would it be if anyone associated with government in this country would apologise to the people of Zimbabwe for knowingly – and I use that word advisedly – consigning them to the rule of successive despots and ultimate misery and starvation.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was an evil man who in his time was feted and lauded by the British establishment. His successor Emerson Mnangagwa is if anything worse. I heard his rule described yesterday by a Zimbabwean still living in the country as ‘silent genocide by design.’

The situation in my country is now beyond desperate. Health care is non-existent, mainly due to the corruption practised by a cartel-controlled government run by a handful of political thugs. They have no idea of empathy – and I am quoting directly from my Zimbabwean contact’s letter – and no sense of responsibility; neither are they accountable to any laws except their own corrupt and criminal rulings that have turned Zimbabwe into a veritable looters’ paradise.

Think on it. The one thing that Zimbabweans dare not do nowadays is fall sick. Yet it does not help that prevailing conditions in all spheres of life are a recipe for illness. Zimbabweans live in a highly stressful environment wherein unemployment runs at ninety-five percent while the price of fuel and transport rockets by the day. Basic foodstuffs are unaffordable for the ordinary citizen, while a lack of electricity and dirty, untreated water are between them making people highly susceptible to cholera outbreaks.

There are no medicines in hospitals, no rubber gloves, no bandages; nurses and doctors are ill-quipped and grossly underpaid. They can’t do their work and with the ever escalating cost of living, struggle merely to survive and keep their families from starving. They have tried striking in protest but Mnangagwa and his thugs ordered them back to work, even if they have to work for nothing.

The general populace is being mercilessly squeezed daily; the cost of basic food and accommodation is now out of reach for the majority of people; the rate of inflation is being conservatively pegged at three hundred percent but realistically it is inching closer to six hundred percent. People are disenfranchised, hopeless and desperate, so much that the suicide rates have increased to alarming levels, but the government could not care less. Emmerson Mnangagwa is busy globetrotting around the world in private jets like an A list celebrity or a British prince who shall be nameless, speaking at health seminars while he is grossly neglecting the little that is left of Zimbabwe healthcare.  

Why on earth do the great and the good even listen to the man? They must surely realise what is happening.

What is really sad is that it is not lack of resources plaguing Zimbabwe; it is greed and the untamed corruption which is ravaging the country. There are enough in the way of natural resources to keep the still small population going. The trouble is that those resources are being stolen and grossly mismanaged by the people in power. Since Emmerson Mnangagwa, Perenc Shiri and their cronies came into power, they have misappropriated literally billions of dollars which should have been used towards services and infrastructure in the country.

People are dying in their homes because they cannot afford to eat, they cannot afford treatment when they are sick and they have no clean water to drink. Neither can they afford transportation to wherever they may need to go. Foodstuffs in supermarkets are there merely for display since no one can afford to buy them. If this does not spell a silent genocide then what is it? Can the world afford to adopt the wait and see approach and hide its collective head in the sand for much longer? They have done it for decades because they are afraid of being called ‘racist,’ but surely the time has come for action.

People do matter even if they are poor folk on the other side of the world. Oh I know that various aid agencies are pouring money into the place, but most of it is stolen by high placed officialdom while the ordinary people teeter ever closer to the abyss.

I am often told that the fault lies with the people of Zimbabwe themselves and to an extent it does – but only to an extent. Zimbabweans are gentle people and despite a cruel war, have always been so. I was working in the tribal lands during the very first election in 1980 and cannot blame the ordinary folk for voting Mugabe into power. They were cowed and fearful of reprisals if they voted any other way. The British monitors led by Lord Soames knew this but did nothing to assist. I believe that was probably because again, they were afraid of being branded racists.

But now the situation is totally out of control and it is time for Britain as the former colonial power to actually do something. They have to oust the present government and put somebody reasonable into power or govern the place from outside. I know that neither option would be deemed politically correct in this pathetic day and age but Zimbabweans are dying en masse and they are still the responsibility of the people who put Mugabe and then Mnangagwa into power.

 There is always a great deal of bleating in this country about the necessity for ‘human rights.’ Okay, but what about the human rights of Zimbabweans, few of whom can afford to leave the country of their birth and the place they have always known as home.

Come on Mr Johnson and all you prattling world leaders. Do something or you will be responsible for yet another genocide, this one committed purely for greed.

I had a shock last week in that I was suddenly and unexpectedly taken into hospital. It was a little traumatic but it reminded me that there is another section of society that few of us ever think about.

I suppose I am a crusty old toppie but I was put in a ward with five other very old men and endured a truly horrible night. At least two of the other fellows were off their trollies, so the noise level was considerable throughout the night. The nurses were subject to constant abuse but kept calm and smiling throughout. They called even the most abusive of patients ‘Darling’ or ‘Sweetie Pie’ and spent the night rushing to attend to everyone.

When I arrived in the ward my details and needs – I had nothing with me – were noted down by a lovely Irish lass called Noreen and she told me initially that she was about to go off duty. She was still there and still smiling three hours later!

During the course of my long life, I have spent little time in hospital but this was a reminder of how people – particularly long term patients – suffer and how much the nursing profession does for us all. It seems so sad that the majority of folk out there ignore their needs and instead of helping them – and other caring professions – prefer to spend their time demonstrating somewhat fatuously against climate change, human rights in outer Somalia and similar outlandish causes. All that energy they are expending could be better directed at getting more pay and better conditions for nurses,

After all, if any of those demonstrators, currently holding Londoners to ransom get hurt, they will need the nurses to keep them alive and comfort them in their pain. I have to admit that I won’t really care except for the extra unnecessary work being inflicted on the nurses and doctors.

As for me, I was fortunately reprieved when a big deal consultant – he hardly looked old enough to shave – decided that any further tests could take place without my being incarcerated with the ill and nutty old men.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thanked the young man profusely and fled!

There is so much in the Media about hate crime at the moment. Apparently, most police forces spend as much time, if not more on investigating such offences as they do on criminality, so what should happen to a man who posted on Twitter the following words: ‘I dearly wish a reactivated IRA would successfully blow up that scumbag Johnson and his evil cabinet?’

That must surely constitute a ‘hate crime’ by any definition and given what happened in Brighton in 1984, it has to be especially revolting? 

If you remember that incident, the IRA, by planting a bomb in the Grand Hotel, murdered Sir Anthony Berry, Eric Taylor, Lady (Jeanne) Shattock, Lady (Muriel) Maclean and Roberta Wakeham. 

Many others were severely injured, including Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret. It was a planned and premeditated terrorist outrage and recognised as such by all but the most ardent IRA sympathisers.

Yet it seems that the constabulary we are led to believe religiously patrol Twitter for signs of political incorrectness, failures to respect the transgender community and so forth are not particularly interested in this particular outrage. It took them more than a month after the offending tweet was posted on August 20, to even visit the author, a Mr Mark Powell who tweets under the name ‘Markhayo.’ 

And there was no heavy-footed dawn raid, of the type so often favoured by the modern constabulary. His house wasn’t suddenly flooded by officers going through his bedroom, as happened to Field Marshal Lord Bramall after a mad fantasist accused him of child abuse.

No, he received a letter from a police person saying, with almost unbelievable feebleness and a clear signal that he was in no danger of prosecution: ‘I apologise for the unsolicited nature of this letter, and do not wish to cause you any undue alarm; however, I do need to discuss some sensitive issues that may concern you. I would like to stress that this letter has not been sent as part of any criminal proceedings, nor are you in any trouble whatsoever.’ 

It sought to arrange a ‘convenient time to meet.’

What a load of pusillanimous claptrap!

Of course, the worthy Powell immediately displayed this letter on Twitter, saying the police had been ‘very civil.’ But he hadn’t been. He boasted that he’d sworn at the officers and refused to withdraw his words. He later apologised for the swearing in an email to the officers concerned but repeated that ‘I shouldn’t be sorry to see this Cabinet of traitors blown up by a rejuvenated IRA.’ He then posted that email on Twitter.

If I had posted some of my strongly held beliefs on Twitter or whatever, I would be quickly hauled over the coals and prosecuted, of that I have no doubt. That is probably why my daily rants are so gentle and surely can’t cause offence – can they?!

A Tory councillor from Aylesbury called Gary Powell (he denies any relationship) did contact Scotland Yard about the matter but was told by a staff officer to Commissioner, Cressida Dick that the National Digital Exploitation Service and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office had deemed the tweet to be an offence. However, because it was a single incident, nothing was done except ‘words of advice.’ So there you are. You can call for the IRA to blow up the Cabinet, and nothing will happen to you, provided you only do it once.

Someone should tell Norman Tebbit, who knows exactly what it is like to be blown up by the IRA and is never afraid of speaking his mind. He might have some words of advice for Dame Cressida ruddy Dick.

What a horrible disgrace to the modern police force – sorry ‘police service’ – this woman is but I am afraid Cressida Dick, who was appointed to the highest coppering post in the land despite a string of well publicised failures is all too symptomatic of the ineptitude that the modern police personify.

I haven’t ranted for a day or three I’m afraid, mainly because I have been shaking my head in bemusement at the antics of the world around me. Has the human race lost it’s marbles altogether I wonder? London and other major cities around the world are closed down by a bunch of ‘protesters,’ all of whom carry mobile phones and few of whom will ever abandon their laptops, Xboxes (whatever they may be) or any other accoutrements of the modern world. Nor I suspect did any of them walk from their homes to the place where they are demonstrating against the ‘carbon footprint’ left by humanity.

One of the newspapers published a photograph yesterday of the litter left for other people to clear up by a small group of these anarchists – which is what they are – and it was horrific to behold.

Yet what are the police doing about it? Very little I’m afraid. Oh they proudly tell us that they have made eleven hundred and something arrests, but will the Courts hammer these people with imprisonment, heavy fines or lengthy periods of community work? I very much doubt it. ‘Slap on the wrist’ justice will be in action again.

As the former Speaker, Betty Boothroyd – now Baroness of something or the other – said this week, ‘I used to demonstrate with the best of them but in those days the police controlled the demonstrations. Nowadays, the demonstrators seem to be controlling the police.’

She hit the nail on the head I’m afraid. Her remarks came after officers had reportedly asked meat traders not to beep their horns when arriving at the  eight hundred yearold Smithfield market in the early hours of Tuesday morning so as not to wake the sleeping demonstrators inside.

All I can say as a former copper is that it has all descended below the description of pathetic.

On the radio yesterday I listened to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond. He was talking about the way forward for Brexit and claimed that ‘a large percentage of the country voted leave, an almost equally large percentage voted remain but even those who voted to leave don’t want to leave without the deal they were promised.’

I am sure the man believed what he was saying – senior politicians surely would not lie! – but he was wrong. I ticked the leave box on the referendum ballot paper and there was no mention of a deal. There were but two boxes – one for leave and one for remain.

Is this not typical of the modern politician. This man spent a number of years in charge of Britain’s finances, but he cheerfully twists the facts so that he can remain in the limelight that he so obviously misses.

I read a piece yesterday about two young people with much the same aim in life but totally contrasting public images.

On the one hand is Greta Thunberg, a sixteen year old Swedish environmental activist who shares her anger, frustration and anxiety about the climate with the world. She is neither a scientist nor an economist. She offers no practical solutions to the economic devastation her ideas would cause. Admirable passion I suppose but her ideas if she has any are wrong. Yet she has become a major media star and is tipped for a Nobel peace prize.

On the other hand is Boyan Slat, a twenty-three year old inventor who designed the world’s first ocean plastic clean up system at the age of sixteen. He now leads a group developing advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. His solution involves no economic destruction and again, I admire his passion but unlike Miss Thunberg, the Media are not interested in him and he continues his work almost totally unrecognised..

Does this not epitomise the imbecility of our times? Miss Thunberg is idolised and feted by bemused world leaders for her empty words while Slat is unrecognised for his actions to really save the planet.

I don’t normally use jokes in my rants – probably because the times we live in are hardly jokeable about, but I was sent one that has a certain amount of cynical truth behind it, even if it is there to make people laugh. As everybody doubtless knows, my country, Zimbabwe is in a state yet again of economic chaos and the joke was entitled, The Current Banking Crisis Explained by a Zimbabwean.

The story goes like this:

Young Tendai bought a donkey from a farmer for one hundred Zimbabwe dollars. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the following day, but he drove up at the appointed time and said,

‘Sorry Son but I have some bad news. Your donkey died last night.’

‘Well give me my money back,’ Tendai retorted but the farmer shook his head.

‘Can’t do that I’m afraid. I have already spent it.’

Having thought for a moment, Tendai came up with an idea.

‘Okay then, just bring me the dead donkey.’

The farmer looked a bit bewildered.

‘What on earth are you going to do with a dead donkey?’

‘I am going to raffle him off.’

The farmer said, ‘You can’t raffle a dead donkey!’

‘Sure I can,’ said Tendai. ’I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’

A month later, the farmer met up with Tendai and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’

Tendai said, ‘I stuffed him with straw and raffled him off. I sold five hundred tickets at two dollars each each and made an overall  profit of  eight hundred and ninety eight dollars.’

‘Didn’t anyone complain?’ Asked the farmer.

 ‘Only the guy who won, so I gave him his two dollars back.’

Tendai now works for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

As I said, it was meant as a joke but to my cynical mind, it is sadly redolent of the times we live in and it doesn’t only apply to Zimbabwe.

Politicians certainly don’t seem to change their spots. I suppose there are a few honest ones among them, but in general they are a shiftless, hypocritical bunch.

Take David Miliband for instance. When he was running to succeed Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party (he was eventually stabbed in the back and deposed by his brother) he railed about the immorality of bosses who pocketed fortunes. He insisted with considerable passion that the scandal of exorbitant wage packets and fat cat bosses had been ignored for far too long. He was particularly scathing about ‘grasping bankers’ and ‘greedy business chiefs.’

Yet nine years later, this son of a Marxist academic, who still sometimes rails against inequality, has joined the fat cats himself. Today, he swans around the world demanding more support for humanitarian causes and hobnobbing with actors, billionaires and royals as the grandly titled President of the International Rescue Committee.

Rescue from what damnit?! Apparently, this is a respected New York-based charity, founded at the suggestion of physicist Albert Einstein in 1933 and funded to the tune of £107 million over the past two years by British taxpayers.

Yet this august body’s latest tax data reveals that, with breathtaking hypocrisy, Miliband has seen his pay package swell to an astonishing $911,796 (around £741,883) — nearly five times the salary of the job he wanted as British Prime Minister.

It has gone up over the past two years by £195,314, almost seven times the average annual salary of those hard-pressed British workers helping to fund his globe-trotting high life.

Could this pompous pratwinkle not do the job for a mere half-a-million pounds or so? After all, his predecessor in the post struggled by on $380,000 (£309,400) a year.

Yet Miliband is not alone. 

The top twelve officials at the charity saw their pay surge by £1.1 million over this period to more than £4 million between them.

This is surely hypocrisy of the highest order, sadly all too typical of many big charities. It shows contempt for the hard-pressed taxpayer — and, even worse, for some of the world’s most desperate people. This money was donated for them damnit, not the likes of Mr Miliband.

Three months ago, Miliband gave a passionate speech in London attacking ‘the arrogance of power’ and complaining about the lack of accountability in what he called the ‘age of impunity.’

It was seen at the time as part of a campaign, fanned by his mentor Tony Blair, to entice him back to Britain to head a new centre party funded by donors dismayed by the prospect of Labour being taken over by the hard left.

Now we can see why Miliband didn’t really want that job as he enjoys the glitzy high life in New York. But what makes this even more disturbing is that he and his money-grabbing charity chiefs in Manhattan are far from unique.

They are symbols of a rotting aid system being corroded by an invidious form of corruption as torrents of cash flow from the poor deluded British public to make politicians feel good by hitting an absurd target ignored by many rich nations.

It seems to me that despite their self-promoting rhetoric, charity bosses like Miliband and private sector consultants are milking the public’s commendable wish to help less fortunate folk around the planet. This is surely corruption of the worst possible sort?

Politicians make earnest pledges of action, dole out billions donated by us, then do nothing to stop the waste. Many like Miliband leave politics after ranting about this sort of corruption, then jump on the gravy train themselves.

I did smile a little cynically when I read about Dr David Mackereth being sacked as a government claim assessor for refusing to bow down to the ‘trans’ fanatics by saying he would not call a six-foot bearded man Madam.

Now would anyone possessing an iota of common sense but a tribunal ruled that his defiance constituted a ‘lack of belief in transgenderism.’

Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister virtually abolished Christianity in this country and successive leaders since have done nothing to restore it, but these modern ‘isms’ have become the new, highly intolerant religion of Britain.

Don’t conform at your peril. The fanatics are out to get us all and they make the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition look like kindergarten teachers.

They call themselves liberal but intolerance for any views other than their own is their creed.

Oh God, they are at it again. Yesterday the eco-terrorists from Extinction Rebellion drove up to the Treasury in an untaxed – and presumably uninsured – former fire engine and attempted to spray four hundred gallons of fake blood in some sort of weird protest.

The fact that their stunt went wrong and they lost control of the hose, sending most of the liquid over themselves is neither here nor there. Why on earth were they allowed to drive their ramshackle vehicle anywhere near a government building and are we poor tax payers to pay for the clean up operation?

Where were the cops damnit? For all anyone knew this could have been a group from Al Qaeda, the New IRA or some similar terrorist mob and armed with firearms rather than hoses.

A number of the so-called protestors were arrested, but what good will that do. I do not suppose they languished in police cells for long. One eighty three year old – old enough to have a little common sense – laughingly told the media that this was his fifth arrest and he was protesting ‘for his four grandchildren.’

Will they appreciate his gesture when they are teased at school for their grandfather’s actions?

This group of loons even draped a banner over the fire engine reading: ‘STOP FUNDING CLIMATE DEATH’.

What on earth does that mean? Who is funding what?

I don’t often speak up for the government but they have already done what they could to placate this mob, pledging unrealistic targets for decarbonising the economy. What do these people expect ministers to do in response to another two weeks of disruption as has been promised — close all fossil-fuel power stations and ban all cars tomorrow? Let’s have two weeks without lighting or heating perhaps?

I am sure the deluded, hard line tree-huggers who turned out at the Treasury really do believe they can change the world, but so did the Baader-Meinhof gang.

I am sorry but I don’t believe in their fervent eco credentials. These people are demonstrating for the sake of it. ‘Look at me, Mum, I’m on Sky News! Aren’t I the bees knees?’

They don’t give a tuppenny damn for the misery their actions bring to millions of innocent people who just want to get on with their lives.

And of course, the irony is that ever since Bunter Johnson, as London mayor was forced by Mother Maybe to get rid of his water cannon, we can’t even turn the fire hoses on the so called protesters.

The plod won’t do anything so the ordinary people are forced to put up with this anarchic nonsense. All because they say they are trying to protect the planet.

Why didn’t Osama bin Laden think of that one. He might have been looked on as a revolutionary hero today, rather than a viciously unfeeling terrorist – fortunately dead.

And inevitably perhaps, that peculiar little Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg is tipped as favourite to win the Nobel peace prize next week. I am sure she believes in her cause and perhaps she might be right – although I don’t think so – in blaming previous generations for the state of the world, but she promotes anarchy, civil disobedience and fear rather than peace.

Miss Thunberg needs to get out into the remoter parts of the world and see for herself how lucky she is to live in a modern society like Sweden. Instead of which she is revelling in her new-found fame. When I first saw her on the idiot box a year or so ago, there was innocence in her eyes, but that has been replaced with the fanatical fire of a revolutionary terrorist.

It is all rather sad.

The new secretary general of CITES (the United Nations Commission for Trade in Endangered Species) is a lady called Ivonne Higuero and she has already stuck her oar in where elephants are concerned.

This woman, who has probably never seen an elephant in her life sees no problem with violently removing young elephants from their mothers and sending them off to a life of misery in far off countries.

On taking office, Higuero immediately dropped the established protocol of her office to endorse the sale of live elephants from Africa. Her endorsement was seen as an attempt to influence decisions that for the past year and a half have been debated in a working group of the CITES Animals’ Committee. This group have been attempting to control the largely unregulated trade in live elephants from Zimbabwe to Chinese zoos that cannot really house and care for them.

While having no background in elephant biology, Higuero stated that the elephants involved were old enough to be separated from their families because they ‘had small tusks.’

Ye Gods! This woman is dangerous, but then as I have said before, so is the entire organisation.

Let’s take the case of an illegal shipment of rosewood from Madagascar that was intercepted in Singapore five years ago.

The authorities in Madagascar confirmed that the shipment was illegal, but Singapore courts have now said the confiscated rosewood should be returned to the ‘businessman’ who imported the logs – the court ordered the twenty-nine thousand, four hundred and thirty four logs that authorities seized in March 2014 to be released to Mr Wong and his firm ‘as soon as was practicable.’ The wood is valued at something like $50 million.

The worthy Mr Wong said he was not an ‘importer,’ and that the logs were in transit, and should not have been confiscated. Where the illegal logs were supposedly in transit to was not questioned by the Singapore court.

Yes, I fear I am as confused writing this as you must be reading it!

But this just goes to show how little control CITES has over illegal trade. Of course, the case is daft as the trees have long been cut down and can’t be replaced. Madagascar took their time to admit the logs were illegally exported but now the court In Singapore says the logs should be returned to the businessman who arranged the illegal export.

How can this be? The only logical conclusion is that CITES is so riddled with corrupt inefficiency that it is not fit for purpose.

Okay so the Supreme Court has decided that the prorogation – where do they find these words – of Parliament was illegal. Whichever way you voted in the referendum, all of us must accept that but can we really have faith in British courts?

I don’t believe we can. Justice in this country has gone seriously astray and while I am often ranting about the police, far worse are the courts.

Last year, more than sixty rapes and killings were carried out by suspects on bail for other crimes. They were among thirteen thousand four hundred and fifty-six offences committed by so-called ‘bail bandits.’

Of those, nine thousand and seventy-nine cases were indictable, that means they were crimes so serious that they could only be heard in Crown Court. It has led to calls for the system to be overhauled to protect the public. The 2018 figures reveal there were thirty-one killings, thirty-five rapes, sixty-five sex offences against children and one thousand, five hundred and five burglaries carried out by people on bail. 

That is plain lunacy. Why on earth are these people, many of them with long criminal records being allowed to walk among us? The figures mean that more than one in every fourteen house burglaries, and one in every twenty murders was committed by a suspect bailed for another crime. 

Overall, almost forty people a day became victims of crimes committed by suspects bailed by the courts. 

Over the past three years there have been fifty-three murders, thirty-five manslaughters and two hundred and four rapes carried out by criminal suspects on bail. Don’t these appalling statistics worry anybody in the upper echelons of power or are they all too busy screaming insults at each other and hatching Machiavellian plots to thwart what the public voted for?

Of course, the ‘suspects’ I mentioned might have been on police bail where the plod have released them while further enquiries are carried out. It is probably more likely that they were allowed on to the streets again having been bailed by a court after being charged.

The statistics I have quoted were released recently by the Ministry of Justice, who seem quite proud of their successes.

I think there should be a major overhaul of the justice system and a drastic review into what is going on with the Courts. Every day we read about more and more cases where vicious and violent criminals walk free for one spurious reason or the other.

Why then should we really have any faith in the so-called Supreme Court? It was put into place by the Blair government and the reality is that they are not ‘supreme’ at all. While we are part of the EU, they can still be overruled by the European justice system.

As an experienced cop myself, I soon lost faith in the court system but this lot seem more ineffectual than the magistrates and judges of my day – and that is saying a lot!

I have never been much of an anarchist and usually have don’t envy other people’s wealth but suddenly I find myself feeling more than a little bit annoyed with wealthy folk in the capital city.

Quite apart from the pathetic debacle that is Parliament at the moment, my hackles rose when I read about householders in the posh St John’s Wood suburb of London complaining about the noise made by kids having football lessons on Sundays. Apparently, the sound of referees’ whistles disturbs their Sunday morning so they have prevailed on their council to close the facility down.

In that particular suburb, people like the Beckhams – he should know better – Elton John, Richard Branson and some ‘celebrity’ called Rihanna have their piles. Just who do these people think they are?

A bloke called Eliot Tang started a group called Rising Stars to tackle childhood obesity and not only did they run football classes for two hours on a Sunday morning but they also put on sports birthday parties in a local school. Over a hundred youngsters took part in the football, but in May, Mr Tang was informed by Westminster Council that his classes could no longer take place. He has not been able to find an alternative venue so the kids can go back to being twenty-first century layabouts, glued to their phones and far too fat.

I can remember being with a friend of mine when her young grandson appeared, soaking wet, covered in mud and grinning all over his face.

‘What have you been doing Josh?’ Granny scolded and his grin grew wider.

‘I have been having fun,’ Was his reply and although that was years ago, I have never forgotten it.

Childhood should be fun and modern children – and their parents – have forgotten this. Take Greta Thunberg for example. How has this young zealot so taken the world by storm? I suppose I have a sneaking admiration for her pluck and commitment to her particular cause, but however passionate she might be about the apparent dangers we are all facing, she is after all, still a child. The thing about sixteen year olds is that however impressive they may seem on the surface, they need protection and guidance, even if they don’t believe that themselves.

The worthy Miss Thunberg has a problem inasmuch that because she is somehow compelling and has Asperger’s Syndrome anyone who speaks out against her views is branded as a bully. So it is that the world at large and the fawningly hypocritical media is willing to indulge her unquestioningly.

Why? She is a teenager with a problem damnit! Watching her emotionally charged speech at the United Nations a few days ago, I could only wonder where her parents and those who ought to be guiding her path through life were.

Where her disciples saw an inspirational rallying cry, I could only see a somewhat distressed child having a teenage temper tantrum. She accused world leaders and my generation of failing her generation and threatened ‘never to forgive them’ if they refused to meet her demands

Anyone who has been a parent will know that feeling when your child throws a wobbly at you and slams the bedroom door in fury. ‘I hate you,’ they scream but nothing ever comes of it.

Real life is not as simple as this silly girl wants it to be. Yes, the climate is changing and this will doubtless have its attendant problems. But this has happened repeatedly through the millennia and life goes on. If Miss Thunberg and her supporters would stop blaming the adults – as all silly little children seem to do – she might consider that it is actually her generation that is the biggest problem. With their phones and allied technology, with their need to always be on the move and with their fondness for the good things in life, they really have made a mess of the lovely world we live in.

Climate change will always be part of this world, but the biggest problems that we face now are nothing to do with the weather. They are people and plastic. If anything good is to come out of this century, we must cut down on both. In a supermarket yesterday I bought potatoes and onions. Both were wrapped in plastic bags.

Why, why, why? This is a modern phenomenon and nothing to do with previous generations, no matter what the eco fanatics tell us. Plastic is choking the world and the more people we get, the more plastic is used. Empty spaces are being taken over to house the burgeoning population and nobody seems to have any desire to curb that population.

It is only in modern times that IVF has been introduced, which is fine for a few couples, but goes against what Nature wants. Some people are fertile, others are not. We have to accept that and not interfere with normality.

At the moment, all Miss Thunberg and her crusading eco warriors are doing is terrifying an entire generation of youngsters who now believe that we are standing on the edge of a frightening abyss that will probably end the world.

We are not damnit. Mankind has been here before.