I found the evening news on BBC somewhat unedifying yesterday. The judgement of the Supreme Court earlier in the day surprised me somewhat, but in her summing up, Lady Hale mentioned that the judgement had nothing to do with Brexit.

Well, she didn’t put it quite like that but that was what she implied. Why then was the self-styled Remain Alliance bouncing up and down on the steps of the court afterwards? I am sorry learned lady, but it was all about Brexit from start to finish.

There they were, beaming for the television cameras, Anna Soubry-doo, the green madwoman, the overweight pub bore from the SNP and Choccy Umunna, all of them celebrating madly like infants being let out of school early.

If this wasn’t about Brexit, what were they doing there? If this wasn’t about Brexit, why did Gina Miller bring her case in the first place?

Why otherwise, were they so violently opposed to Bunter Johnson suspending Parliament for five weeks? It’s not as if any of them have ever objected before to having more than a month off. Parliament rarely, if ever sits in September damnit! It normally breaks up in the summer and doesn’t reconvene till after the conference season in October, so what on earth is this mass hysteria about?

‘MPs are being silenced,’ is the general scream, but if only that were so. This rabble never shuts up. No, the real reason for this totally feigned outrage has to be that Bunter J was denying them a few extra days to moan and pontificate before the cameras about the Brexit process.

In their submissions before the court, the plaintiffs (Gina Miller, John Major and the Cherry woman from North of the Border) insisted they were simply interested in defending parliamentary sovereignty. 

Rubbish! The only reason Gina Miller is so keen on Parliament is that her best chance of blocking Brexit altogether lies with the overwhelming number of remain-favouring MPs who are determined to overturn the result of the referendum and to hell with the will of the People.

Miller if you remember, is the wealthy businesswoman who said that when she realised Britain had voted Leave, she felt physically sick. That is akin to what I feel now I’m afraid. How can this woman from Guyana and her wealthy backers, most of whom live elsewhere use the courts in a shameless attempt to block the democratic vote of nearly seventeen and a half million people – including me. Not just once but twice.

This is merely justice of the wealthy in which cases can only be brought by those with very deep pockets. They can afford the best lawyers and finance legal action right up to the Supreme Court. Risibly, they claim to be ‘defending democracy’ — the same dishonest excuse trotted out by fanatical Remainers in the Commons, including Squeaker Bercow who was unable to contain his smug delight at yesterday’s ruling. 

Has Bercow not been abusing his power over the last three years, making up the rules as he goes along? Have MPs not acted in contravention of long-established parliamentary tradition? We voted to leave Europe. Do none of these people remember that?

Can you imagine the outcry if a wealthy Leave supporter — financed say, by rich Republicans in the U.S. — decided to do a Gina Miller and challenge the behaviour of Bercow and Remain MPs in court? And can you imagine the howls of outrage if judges ruled that Bercow and his cohorts had acted illegally and ordered them to vote through a No Deal Brexit without further delay.

So how can the referendum result now be dragged through the courts like this? And it IS all about leave or remain damnit! All the rest of the insincere claptrap being spouted by Londoners is just that – claptrap.

Lady Hale may solemnly intone that the Supreme Court’s decision was nothing to do with Brexit, but the case was brought for nakedly political reasons and places unelected judges above elected politicians, including the Prime Minister.

This result was hardly cause for celebration by a handful of pathetically ineffectual politicians and BBC reporters. It was a disgraceful parody of justice in a country that really has gone mad.

Inside the London Bubble, this is being presented as a victory for parliamentary sovereignty, for justice and for democracy. Outside, where most of us live, we can see it for exactly what it is – a disgraceful, but well-executed Remain stitch-up.

They’re trying to drum into our thick heads that they know best and our votes are worthless. I am sorry but it is not justice, and it’s definitely not democracy. 

Nor is Labour’s promise to abolish private schools should – heaven forbid – they get into power. To see this arrant nonsense being defended by the moronic Diane Abbott – herself a shadow minister for something or the other – on the idiot box yesterday made me feel sick again.

As I said, the evening news made me reach for the Rennies and a paper bag. I can’t remember when I felt so little respect for a particular group of people.

The Abbott woman sent her own son to a private school for God’s sake, but she brushed that off by saying that ‘it was a long time ago.’

Her jaw-dropping arrogance — together with that of other members of the Labour executive who are also products of private education — seems to have done nothing to dampen the baying Labour mob’s enthusiasm for the idea. Nothing spurs them on more than the thought of sticking it to the so-called elite. Well I am sorry but I cannot agree. I went to a private school and one of my Bratlets goes to one now and the Lemon family are a long way from the Elite. If Labour really wants to tackle inequality in the education system, they could always try to improve the standard of State-run education.

Instead, Corbyn’s Cowboys plan the opposite — as well as getting rid of independent schools, they also propose abolishing Ofsted, the government body that monitors standards in education

Of the two ideas, this is perhaps the most sinister. Because if you remove Ofsted, you remove accountability — and with it all safeguards against poor practice. So failing schools will not be noticed and good teachers will have no way of raising standards. The Abbott woman sent her boy to private school because the educational choices in her own Labour-run borough of Hackney were so bad. She had to choose between being a good parent and a good politician — and chose the former.

Okay that is very commendable but the blatant hypocrisy of a party that wants to rob future generations of the chances they enjoyed themselves, all in the name of blatant class warfare is difficult to take.

I have railed against the politics of Zimbabwe for over thirty years. My country is definitely a failed state due to political corruption and inefficiency. Now my adopted country – well, not quite but the country in which I live – is going the same way for the same reasons.

I wonder if I can book a moon flight any time soon?

When will this hypocritical witch hunt ever end? A double murder charge has been brought against a former British paratrooper over alleged atrocities on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972. 

Now in his sixties, he is known as Soldier F. Every Prime Minister from Blair to Mother Maybe has vowed on taking power that Britain would end the hounding of former soldiers, yet nothing has been done. In fact, it was Blair who personally pardoned the IRA terrorists while still allowing the soldiers to be investigated and persecuted.

Each one of those Prime Ministers should hang their head in shame. We can only hope that Bunter Johnson might actually do something.

Three cheers for eighty-one year old Doreen Jones who fought off a cashpoint thief who was trying to steal her pension money.

‘No, you’re not having my money. I’ve worked hard for that,’ the former factory worker told the young female thief, before grabbing her by the collar and flinging her across the pavement.

‘I was brought up in the War,’ she said. ‘I learned how to fight in the air-raid shelters. They picked the wrong one when they picked on Doreen.’

Good for you My Dear but I am just glad you didn’t hit out with your walking stick, or in these ridiculous times, you would be in court facing assault charges.

I have a sneaking admiration for many of the youngsters protesting so vociferously about climate change at the moment.

Okay, a lot of them are far too young to have a clue as to what they are protesting about and others are only to pleased to have a reason for playing hooky from school, but others really believe in what they say and whether I agree with them or not, who am I to dampen their enthusiasm?

But have they really thought it all through I wonder? How many of them realise that  their perfect world would mean never travelling in a car or catching an aeroplane, never eating a Big Mac with chips or any other meat for that matter and no more disposable fashion — just bicycles, vegan wraps and endless yards of sackcloth and ashes.

Is that really what they want?

Mind you, on that subject, I and millions of others like me will have to be brought up before a court of law if that eminent and very rich buffoon, Michael Mansfield has his way.

Moneybags Mansfield as he is known is the well-connected QC who has made millions from defending a number of famous faces, some of which he actually managed to get off.

Today this idiot, obviously in search of the perfect world mentioned above will urge the Labour Party conference to make the eating of meat into a crime. Ecocide would you believe – a crime against humanity.

Is there perchance, one iota of common sense left in these people? I have to go into town today and the first thing I shall be looking for is a nice piece of steak.

Sorry Mr Mansfield, I am sure you are good at your job, but you really have lost your marbles if you think anyone but the total loons of the Labour Party would even listen to such claptrap!.

I don’t know about you but I generally avoid putting money in charity boxes. However if there is a RNLI box handy and I have change to spare, I will occasionally relent and donate to them. They are brave men and women who do a great job.

Demand for the RNLI’s services is presently at record levels, with its lifeboats launched 8,964 times in the UK and Ireland during 2018.

But – and this will make me hesitate before donating to them again – the charity intends to increase its annual spending on ‘foreign projects’ by £400,000 this year. Its overseas spending has now soared from £1.13 million to £3.3 million over the past five years.

Tory MP Nigel Evans, who sits on the Commons International Development Committee, said: ‘The fact the RNLI are cutting staff in the UK but boosting spending on these international projects begs the question of what the priority of the organisation is? They are risking the reputation of the charity.

‘I would say 99 per cent of the British public giving money to them have not the faintest idea it’s being diverted to projects overseas.’ 

He is right damni! I did not intend my money to go to anything but the crews and lifeboats operating here. It is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and there is no International in the title.

In fact, the RNLI has been accused of becoming obsessed with political correctness in recent years, leading to resignations among volunteers. The entire crew at St Helier, Jersey, resigned after the coxswain was sacked following a dispute over a launch. The coxswain at Arbroath was sacked after failing to prevent a prank in which a crewman bared his buttocks.

And two crewmen from Whitby, North Yorkshire, were dismissed last summer after tea mugs were found decorated with ‘inappropriate material of a sexual nature.’

For heaven’s sake! These are men doing a difficult and dangerous job. This sort of humour, puerile though it may seem is merely letting off steam.

The charity also came under fire after advertising for a £42,000-a-year ‘safeguarding officer’ to promote ‘health, safety and wellbeing.’ In other words, a well-paid – with our donations – pen pusher.

The RNLI has talked about trying to ‘influence policy-makers and partners’ and lobbying the United Nations to reduce deaths at sea. It has a ‘national team of health, safety and environment advisers’, and a ‘diversity leadership group’ tasked with promoting the ‘International Day Against Homophobia.’ What on earth has any of that mumbo jumbo got to do with rescuing people in trouble off the British coastline?

The charity said two per cent of its income went on overseas projects and this did not have any impact on its domestic rescue services. How can that possibly be so? Its Panje Project in Tanzania sends trainers to teach swimming in areas where drowning rates are high. 

Its work includes giving out burkinis, that I gather are swimming costumes with a head covering, long-sleeved tunic and trousers to protect the modesty of Muslim women. How can teaching Tanzanian Muslim women how to swim benefit people who get into difficulties around the shores of Britain?

They also provide free creche facilities in Bangladesh, which apparently stops children playing by rivers and reduces a child’s risk of drowning by eighty two per cent. 

Rubbish! All children love rivers, whatever nationality they are.

In 2016, these politically correct windbags announced that the RNLI was providing training to Greek, German, Dutch and Swedish organisations to help save migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece.

A spokesman told the Media, ‘Providing the very best service in the UK and Ireland remains our priority but we also wish to use our expertise, knowledge and influence to help others save lives across the world, particularly where drowning rates are high.’ 

Sir, charity begins at home. I don’t really care about children in Bangladesh, refugees crossing from Turkey to Greece or the Muslim ladies of Tanzania.

No I won’t merely hesitate before donating again. I will walk straight past the RNLI tin and find something that caters for projects closer to home – perhaps. It is more likely that my cash will remain in my pocket.

Footage has recently emerged of the LibDem, Swinson harpy arguing for a referendum on EU membership way back in 2008. Has this pathetic little woman got even a modicum of shame? Then she was strident in favouring an in/out poll and criticising the EU for being inefficient, old-fashioned and cumbersome. Now she is adamant that if her party wins any general election, Brexit will be revoked the very next day.

Her deputy, the hapless Ed Davey was on Question Time last night and every time he mentioned ‘democracy,’ the audience burst into gales of laughter!

Oh for that cheerful little gingernut, Charles Kennedy. He might have been a boozist, but at least he wasn’t a raving hypocrite like the current lot.

What with cases being heard in the Supreme Court, former prime ministers causing trouble left, right and centre and Brexit negotiations going on, the turmoil in Britain continues. However, the Rugby World Cup started today so for a while, I will pay less attention to politics and more to the game of rugby.

Well done Japan for starting so well, although one of their tries was scored by a man called Labuschagne and he pronounced it the correct way too – not like the Australian cricketer who we were watching last week.

But with three cracking games on tomorrow, including the big one between the Boks and the All Blacks, I shall be glued to the idiot box and the politicians can carry on with their posturing and silly games.

What is it about the modern Liberal Democrats? If they are indeed liberal, so be it. That is probably a good thing. They certainly don’t seem too democratic though.

Their current stance on Brexit, put stridently forward by their new leader, the Scottish harpy, Jo Swinson is completely undemocratic. Okay, they are unlikely to ever be elected to power, but Ms Swinson talks about herself as a possible prime minister of the future and tells us that as such, she will throw out the democratic vote of seventeen and a half million people and make sure that Britain remains in the European Union.

How can that be justified? I am sure most Lib Dems are nice people with all the right intentions, but let’s remember that their party in recent years have not been particularly nice. It has become surprising ruthless and adept at twisting the rules and forgetting all the promises made.

Do you remember how during the 2010 election campaign the Libdems repeatedly promised to abolish tuition fees? Oh yes, they were aiming at the young voters but as soon as Crafty Cameron tempted that Pratwinkle Clegg into forming a coalition government, they promptly agreed to treble the ruddy fees.

Even by the dire standard of modern politics, that took one’s breath away and would surely have won any awards going for cynicism. It was the action of a sanctimonious party even more shamelessly inconsistent than its larger rivals. The Harpy is part of that horrible tradition. With her soft Scottish accent and youthful features, she seems as straightforward a woman as you could hope to encounter, but she is as cynical, devious and slippery as the worst of them. Not only is she happy to kill off the 2016 referendum result. She openly admits that she will. Yet there was a time, although she has chosen to forget it when she was herself in favour of an EU referendum.

On Sunday, she declared sententiously that she couldn’t ‘forgive David Cameron for calling the referendum’. Yet in 2008 she proposed an In/Out poll from the LibDem benches, and criticised Brussels over its undemocratic procedures.

How on earth are we expected to trust these people? They really are a bunch of conniving criminals at heart. I am beginning to wonder if the politicians of Africa are at least more honest in their corruption than this lot.

I can well imagine that the head of the Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service (not a brigade anymore) is a liberal democrat too. He has dropped the TV character Fireman Sam as the service mascot thanks to alleged ‘negative feedback.’ 

This ‘feedback’ says that the character is not ‘inclusive’ enough and might discourage women from joining. What utter poppycock! Isn’t it amazing how ‘negative feedback’ from politically correct fanatics gets listened to, while the rest of us can whistle in the wind if we have any concerns about the emergency services? 

I am a mere man but I am sure most women don’t want to be firefighters. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be a nanny damnit! Yes I know some men would and some women doubtless crave the thrills of firefighting but it just is not a natural thing.

When he was Home Secretary all those years ago, Jack Straw (bless him) set a target of fifteen per cent women in the fire service by 2009, a giant increase on the figure at the time, which was one point four per cent. 

By 2017, years of effort had got the figure up to five point two per cent of firefighters in England. But to achieve this the requirements for height and strength have had to be greatly watered down.

Apart from ensuring that we have far too many undersized men in the fire service, I reckon this is political correctness gone mad – again!

It won’t be long before the Royal Biscuit flies out to Africa with his Tame Yank. It is supposed to be a ‘family visit’ but they are taking with them a private secretary, an assistant private secretary, two programme coordinators (I wonder what they do?) a personal assistant. a social media manager, three – yes THREE – communications secretaries, a logistics something or the other, a director of royal travel, a nanny and a hairdresser.

That is not to mention the Gingernut’s squad of personal protection officers. The smarmy couple have announced on Instagram that they will pay for the hairdresser. How thoughtful that is. They also announced that this time they will be taking a commercial flight rather than a chartered jet. That isn’t really surprising, I don’t suppose there is a private jet out there that is big enough to carry all that lot.

And all for a ten-day visit. The mind boggles I’m afraid and the sooner this drain-on-the-taxpayer couple move as promised to America, the better.

Sunday morning and there is a great deal of snivelling guff being spouted by politicians on both sides of the world. Let’s take the funeral of Robert Mugabe first. It took place in Harare yesterday amid much pomp and ceremony and was attended by most African leaders but few ordinary Zimbabweans. The politicians spouted the usual arrant nonsense about the man, but their words did not reflect reality.

Firstly, Mugabe did not initiate the armed struggle. The first small batch of would-be ‘freedom fighters’ sent for training from Rhodesia were sent to Ghana in 1959. This was a group of six led by Mark Nziramasanga. J.Z. Moyo came for the passing out ceremony. When Moyo reached Accra, he discovered that a Zimbabwean was teaching at the Teachers’ Training College there. He recruited him and that of course was our Bob. The first steps towards armed struggle, then, were made before Mugabe even joined the movement.

Secondly, Mugabe did not found ZANU. He joined it many months after its formation. ZANU was founded by Sithole, Chitepo, Nkala, Takawira and others. ZANU was a dissident organisation set up with the aid of the CIA and MI6. The liberation struggle could have been conducted very well without ZANU because the first genuine liberation movement was in fact, Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU. They were trained in conventional warfare so had they been left alone the course of the war could have been completely different.

Nor was Mugabe ever an ally of the ANC. Quite the opposite in fact. In 1982, well after Independence, ZANU made an agreement with the apartheid government in South Africa not to allow Zimbabwe to be used as a rear base for Mkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC. Thereafter ZAPU, the Soviet-backed ally of the ANC was crushed through the genocidal operation known as Gukurahundi, which was overseen by the current president of Zimbabwe, E.D. Mnangagwa. So the reality is that Mugabe and Mnangagwa actually collaborated with the apartheid government.

Mugabe only became an anti-imperialist in 1998 when he sent troops to defend the Democratic Republic of Congo against the US-backed invasion by Uganda and Rwanda. Prior to that he was given an honorary knighthood by the British government which sickened Zimbabweans all over the world and even told us all how much he liked watching cricket.

Mugabe did not even send the so called War Veterans on to the land in the year 2000. That was their own decision and once it started the displaced youth and criminal fraternities already running amok in Zimbabwe were allowed to join in. Admittedly Comrade Bob gave them his full support but he didn’t start the carnage.

Nor was Mugabe a true-blue Marxist as he claimed. He was a Jesuit-trained Catholic.

I could go on but suffice it to say that Mugabe was a hypocritical tyrant who looted a proud little country and those equally hypocritical leaders such as Ramaphosa and Mnangagwa who shed crocodile tears about his passing yesterday were lying through their teeth.

In this country, we have the Liberal Democrats partying in Bournemouth at their annual conference. After all the noise they have been making about not being able to discuss matters politic – particularly Brexit – in Parliament, what are they doing there damnit?

Yesterday a lady called Christine Jardine initiated a debate on prison reform. The motion was that ‘The provision of healthcare, education, training, work opportunities in prisons must improve, as must access to sport, art and music. Prisoners should also have access to IT, subject to appropriate content controls.’ 

Miss Jardine said: “How can you get a job, how do you sort your life out without being online? It’s the key to everything. You have to think about what the purpose is of having people in prison. Do you put them in there just to punish them, or to help them rehabilitate? Too often in the past in this country we’ve actually made things worse with prison.”

She also said it was important for prisoners to be able to apply for Universal Credit ahead of their return to society. I don’t receive universal credit despite being permanently broke and having committed no crime. I would remind this worthy lady that there are not only criminals who are suffering – as indeed they should – but there are victims and it is the victims who should be thought about first.

To make matters infinitely worse, Miss Jardine’s remarks come in the wake of a dramatic fall in the proportion of suspects being brought before the courts.

Home Office figures reveal that only 7.8 per cent of crimes end up with a charge or summons. This is down from 17.2 per cent five years ago. Almost half of crimes are written off with ‘no suspect identified.’

This is a sad reflection on the criminal justice system as a whole and the police in particular.

But Miss Jardine bless her, also demands that women should not go to prison at all except for the gravest of offences. “If a woman hasn’t committed a really serious crime, is there a better way of dealing with her, is there a better way of supporting her and her family – why is she in prison?”

In this rabidly feminist society that should surely lead to protest but I don’t suppose it will. Women want to be seen as completely equal to men and that is as it should be but why then should they not be punished – and prison should be punishment – on equal terms as their male counterparts?

Or am I being hopelessly naïve?

In much the same vein as the spoutings of the hapless Miss Jardine, the Probation Service defends the release of Britain’s most prolific female paedophile after just ten years, by telling us that it has banned Vanessa George from three counties where her victims and their families live. What utter madness is that? Since George has refused to name thirty of the infants she abused, there’s no knowing in which counties they and their loved ones have ended up.

As one of George’s own family said: ‘It’s probably safer in prison for her.”

And for children too but then they are merely victims.

How can anyone take the rantings of the Lib Dems and their strident leader Jo Swinson seriously. She talks earnestly about democracy but now wants her party to be the ‘anti Brexit party.’

That is not what the majority of people voted for so they are being totally undemocratic. But that is the way of modern politicians I’m afraid. It is no longer what the people want but what they want.

I know which party I won’t be voting for when and if we finally get the general election that Corbyn, Swinson and all the other opposition parties have been calling for and now don’t want.

But the sun is shining and the Moor looks spectacular when that happens, so I must get on with my day – chained to my desk I’m afraid. Perhaps I should commit a serious crime or become a politician.

Life would definitely be easier.

I really do not understand why one particular paragraph up there should be twice the size of the rest but I am too much of a technological dodo to correct it. Sorry.

I came home to the Moor fairly late last evening after spending a week in Darkest Gloucestershire. It was a good week apart from the death of my oldest friend, who cracked her head in a fall. Janice and I were close friends for over fifty years despite there being thousands of miles between us for lengthy periods. I will miss her badly.

Driving down the M5 last evening I was struck by the number of illuminated signs that seem specifically designed to distract drivers from the chaotic hazards of motorway driving. There was even a series of the ruddy things warning freight hauliers that they might need different paperwork if they are heading for Europe after 31^st October.

I passed at least four of those particular monstrosities and on each occasion, my eyes were drawn from the road ahead to the ruddy great sign looming above me and giving me a fatuous message. I am sure every single haulage contractor in the land knows full well that things are going to change after that day. Everyone else does damnit, so why oh why do hundreds of thousands of totally unconcerned motorists have to read such damned silly warnings. It is bad enough in daylight, but at night one really cannot avoid this nonsense.

We want safety on the roads, not propaganda!

I read this morning that Balliol College wants to ban Bunter Johnson – himself a former student at the college – from even setting foot on the premises. Why oh why don’t modern students concentrate on studying. Someone, be it parents, the students themselves or the tax paying public is paying for their years of study and this is all being wasted in stupid protests.

As for Bunter himself, I have mentioned before that I had huge reservations about him but at the moment, I rather admire him for standing up to those idiotic parliamentarians who seem so determined to ignore the will of the People and put an end to Brexit once and for all. They displayed their limited intellectual capacities for all to see when they burst into protest choruses in the Chamber itself at the time of proroguing. Labour sang The Red Flag, the SNP sang The Scots Wha’ Hey and the Welsh contingent – all four of them – sang Bread of Heaven. All it needed was Caroline Lucas with her harp and broomstick but she was mercifully silent.

And we are supposed to look up to these people and entrust them with our future? I have more faith in the kids at Princetown Primary School damnit. Did you know that it is the highest primary school in the country? Well it is so you have learned something not very useful today.

I was talking about Rhodesia and Ian Smith the other day – actually  it was an aside in my piece about Mugabe – and I mentioned that despite him being proved correct on every count, Smith had never received an apology from Britain.

I was subsequently directed to a 2016 piece in The Spectator magazine in which a British politician claimed friendship with Hannes Wessels and made mention of Darrel Watt and others of that endangered species, the white Rhodesian male. He said that a great disservice had been done to all Rhodesians and that successive British governments should hand their collective heads in shame.

Let me quote from the article.

Here’s Stephen Glover on the death of Ian Smith: ‘The BBC yesterday gave his corpse a final kick. If the insane Robert Mugabe has ruined Zimbabwe, where there is starvation and an inflation rate of several thousand per cent, the fault is Mr Smith’s, whose reactionary policies allegedly paved the way for this monster…’ The good Mr Glover goes on to say how he had believed much of the anti-Smith propaganda before seeing the real Rhodesia for himself. Once in Salisbury, he found a well-ordered society which, despite having been subjected to 13 years of international sanctions, was much richer than any of the independent African states he had visited. In his hotel there were many black guests and no evidence of apartheid. He went on to write that however flawed Ian Smith might have been, his sins paled beside Mugabe’s.

Many African countries are poorer now than when they received their independence, despite the billions they received from a guilt-ridden Europe, yet it is Europeans who turn a blind eye to the war and genocide practised by African leaders, and to this day condemn the whites of Rhodesia and South Africa for no other reason than the colour of their skin.

Hannes Wessels was born in 1956 in what was then Salisbury and grew up on the Mozambique border. He left school to become a combat soldier and saw lots of action. His book A Handful of Hard Men is a paean to the greatest soldier he got to know well, Captain Darrell Watt, of the Rhodesian SAS and Special Forces. Watt won all his battles but eventually, thanks to Lord Carrington and gang, lost the war. For 12 long years in the cauldron of war Captain Watt never lost a battle, exhibiting Spartan-like bravery and better than Spartan-like ingenuity in combating far, far superior forces. The Rhodesian SAS amounted to just an incredible-to-believe 250 men. In the book Wessels recounts harrowing incidents perpetrated by Zanu and Zapu (Mugabe and Nkomo forces) soldiers on black and white civilians, and even on their own recruits.

Which brings me to the big lie. The pro-black propagandist Christopher Hitchens once made fun of Ian Smith’s facial scars, scars acquired when he was shot down while serving in the RAF against the Luftwaffe. Smith had left Salisbury and volunteered to fight for kith and kin. The BBC never mentioned the fact that Smith volunteered — it wouldn’t, would it? — and Hitchens made fun of it. Such are the joys of siding with the politically correct.

Darrell Watt and his brave band of 250 were a fluid and volatile unit that performed every imaginable fighting role: airborne shock troops, sniper duty, sabotage, seek and strike, you name it, Watt performed it. And managed also to survive. Like the great man that he is, he is now saving wild life on a continent that is being plundered for profit. Hannes Wessels studied and practised law briefly, then became a professional big-game hunter for 20 years. He is now a conservationist and lives with his wife and two daughters north of Cape Town in South Africa.

Although I might sound like some ghastly celebrity phony who declares pride in knowing a scumbag like Russell Brand, I am very proud to be a friend of Hannes Wessels, and to praise a work about brave men who we, the West, betrayed so cruelly. We definitely wish our disintegration as we continue to support rapacious, vicious, corrupt and murdering maniacs such as Mugabe and others of his ilk in Africa, while continuing to paint civilised white men like Watt and Smith as the unacceptable past. Shame on us in general and shame on white liberals in particular.

It was an interesting and well written article, entitled In Praise of Rhodesia which left me feeling that perhaps all British politicians aren’t hypocritical, politically correct pratwinkles, intent only on chasing their own aims and making as much money out of the taxpayer gravy train as they can and to hell with the voters who put them into parliament.

And who was this British politician who impressed me so? Why none other than our esteemed prime minister, Bunter Johnson.

Perhaps I might not vote for the Brexit party after all..

What can I possibly say about the scenes in Parliament yesterday? The witless rabble who were elected to serve the people, but seem to have completely lost their marbles were scuffling like primary schoolkids (I am possibly being unfair to the kids) and one MP was allegedly knocked to the floor. This is the sort of thing that is expected to happen occasionally in banana republics or some of the less developed African states, but in the Palaces of Westminster?

Surely not!

These people really have lost the plot and whether you voted remain or leave, I am sure you will be as angry about their behaviour as I am.

And it is not only over Brexit that they seem to have lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent. This week a masked gunman managed to shoot himself while obviously engaged in a crime. He was banging on the window of a car in South London when his shotgun discharged.

Good riddance was my immediate reaction, but his local MP, a lass called Ellie Reeves obviously didn’t agree with me. She immediately issued – or whatever one does with such things – a tweet saying, ‘Shocked and saddened to learn of the fatal shooting in Sydenham. My thoughts are with the victim and his family.’

Mine aren’t, Ms Reeves and I don’t suppose too many sensible folks are ‘shocked and saddened’ either. As any soldier will tell you, guns are made to kill and if you carry one around for whatever reason, you are risking your own life as well as the lives of others.

Besides, the man was wearing a mask so he was hardly on a mission of mercy!

Thankfully and at long last, Squeaker Bercow announced yesterday that he is stepping down. I watched excerpts from his speech on the six o’clock news and felt vaguely sick.

Bercow is probably the main reason behind the complete loss of morals or decency in Westminster. Labour’s Hilary Benn (I encountered his father when I was a very young Bobby and was not impressed!) gushed yesterday that Bercow ‘will be celebrated as the backbenchers’ friend and supporter when the history books come to be written.’

What absolute taradiddle Mr Benn. Bercow was the most biased, unfair and profligate speaker there has been and when the said history books come to be written, he will go down as a man who corrupted Parliament almost on his own.

His retirement is almost certainly due to the fact that the Tories – and he was one originally – decided that they had had enough of his shenanigans and announced that they too would scrap tradition and put a candidate up against him in the next election.

I only hope that his successor from whichever party he or she comes will be firm but fair without resorting to being rude and that he or she will do the job of the Commons Speaker to the best of their ability.

It could possibly happen I suppose but I am not holding my breath.

Talking about losing collective marbles, I read a piece this morning that made me clap my hands to my head in total despair. Yes I know the climate is changing and hopefully the days are getting warmer – although I have seen little sign of that yet – but a new report, doubtless produced by some chinless wonders with fancy degrees has warned that cricketers may have to start wearing shorts during matches because of the said climate change.

WHAT!!!!

One of the proudest moments in my not unillustrious cricketing career was the day I was allowed to take the field in long trousers – and that was in a very hot country.

But the ‘Hit for Six’ report which has been given to the World Cricket Committee recommends developing helmets, gloves and pads that keep players cool as well as having more ‘hydration breaks.’

They already break for drinks far too often damnit. These are or should be top class athletes. Surely, they can take a little bit of discomfort without endangering their health. In fact if they concentrate a little more on the state of the game they are involved in, they won’t have time to worry about feeling a little thirsty or peckish.

But this almost unbelievable report warns that heatwaves, droughts and storms are already hitting the sport around the world and the impact of climate change is set to rise. 

‘A rise in heat and humidity poses risks to players, umpires and spectators, while drought could hit the grass pitches the sport relies on.’

Unutterable rubbish!

I learned my cricket on matting wickets so I can’t see that even drought will affect the game too much, but I suppose these people were paid well for spreading gloom and despondency among cricket supporters.

Have I said it before – the human race is rapidly going bonkers!

I had a double reason to celebrate yesterday. It was my Sister’s birthday and five years ago on 7^th September 2014, I staggered into the ancient island town of Chinde in the mouth of the Zambezi River.

That was the end of a 3200 kilometre walk and I was but three months short of my seventieth birthday so I think I was probably justified in feeling rather pleased with myself. I can remember gorging on fat Mozambique prawns and the local gin – pretty awful in cold blood but a real treat then – and finding it difficult to accept that it was all over and I had become the first man in recorded history to walk the entire length of the Mighty Zambezi.

Back in 2014, I had dinner surrounded by a film crew and my two friends Moffat Banabasssi and Isiah Tito but last night, I ate alone and can’t remember what I had! I did raise a glass or three though, to Little Sister, to Moffat and Isiah, to Timm Kroeger and his film crew, to my Zambian sponsors and all the people who helped along the way. Then I toasted the Mighty Zambezi and of course, Myself.

That is probably more than ‘a glass or three.’ No wonder my teeth are vaguely itchy this morning!

For me, the memories of that walk will always be with me and I am reminded of both the hardships and the wonders involved every time I give a motivational talk or public presentation on Walking the Zambezi.

If you haven’t read the two books I wrote on the walk, you really should. Halfway through I brought out Cowbells Down the Zambezi and after it was all over, In Livingstone’s Footsteps. Both are doing well.

So am I for an old Toppie but as that was five years ago, it follows that seventy-five must be just around the corner. Have I got time for another little adventure I wonder?

We shall see.

I think everyone knows that the NHS is overstretched. Possibly the greatest need throughout the service is for funds to deal with mental health, especially for young people, with suicides among teenagers at a record high. So why on earth are precious resources being spent on providing counselling sessions for fans of Bury Football Club who are allegedly experiencing ‘emotional distress and upset’ after their club was kicked out of the football league.

How can there be any justification for that sort of nonsense? So those poor distressed fans will have to find another team to support. Soldiers suffer from post traumatic stress disorder as do victims of serious trauma. Football fans do not, at least not from the game of ruddy football. Talk about an own goal by the NHS. This is an own goal for sheer ruddy stupidity.

Sorry, I had to get a bit of a rant in.

So Robert Gabriel Mugabe is dead. Social media yesterday was full of hate-fuelled rants and expressions of joy at his demise, but I feel that his death is both a travesty and a tragedy. He died in a luxurious hospital, surrounded by his family, but if there was any justice in this politically correct world, he would have died alone in a prison cell or better still, at the end of a rope.

If ever the leader of a nation deserved to appear before the Hague for genocide, it was Mugabe but in the British newspapers today, he is inevitably described as a freedom fighter who went wrong.

That is arrant nonsense I’m afraid. Mugabe did not fight for his beliefs. He snivelled and stole his way to power and was aided and abetted throughout by the British and Americans as well as the Chinese. Ian Smith warned the British what would happen if they gave the country to Mugabe and his cronies. Smith was proved correct in every detail but I have never read or heard a word of apology from the Brits.

Mugabe massacred many thousand Matabele innocents (I was in Matabeleland for much of Gukuruhundi and was told to ‘wind my neck in’ when I complained about events taking place) but the world ignored it and continued to laud this bestial leader for fear of appearing racist.

No, I am glad Mugabe has gone but I wish it had been in different circumstances and his passing will not help Zimbabweans, still suffering under a similar, if not more brutal leader in Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Successive British governments have a great deal to answer for.

I have always looked on Oliver Cromwell as a puritanical, humourless leader and in my youth, would always identify in my daydreams with the dashing cavaliers rather than the stern-faced roundheads, but oh how this country could do with a Cromwell now.

I am not going to go into the debacle that is the current British Parliament as other far more learned scribblers have held forth in the newspapers today, but let me just quote from Cromwell’s speech to the equally corrupt parliamentarians of 1653.

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches and would like Esau, sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes?

Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do. I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!”

His words could apply equally to the snivelling wretches who sit in Westminster today. They too have ‘grown intolerably odious to the whole nation’ but we don’t have a Cromwell to do anything about it.

I have a photograph in my wildlife collection that I took while walking the Zambezi. It depicts a group of baboons sitting on rocks in one of the gorges and I can remember the moment oh so well. The bobbos (bless ‘em) were shouting insults at each other – and presumably at me – without any of them moving from their particular rock. Each of them was obviously trying to look terribly important.

I often show the photo in my Zambezi Talks and compare it to the noisy and self-important banality of the weekly Prime Ministers’ Questions in the Westminster Parliament, but I listened to PMQs yesterday and can only apologise to the baboons. They were so much more restrained and dignified than the yammering rabble that was on display in the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ yesterday.

It didn’t seem to matter whether they were Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem or none of the above. Nor did it matter if they were Brexiteer or Remainer, all they wanted to do was shout each other down. I have been on this earth for a very long time but I don’t think I have ever witnessed such a puerile display of appalling manners and behaviour as I did yesterday.

If these are the leaders of a nation, there is no hope for the nation itself or for those of us who live in it. Let’s have Bunter Boris’ general election and get rid of the lot of them. They are surely a national embarrassment.

What sort of example do these bloated hooligans give to future generations? What sort of example do they give to the world damnit? And it is not just the reputation of Parliament itself. Britain’s standing in the world as a beacon of democracy is being dragged through the mud. Three years and three months since a Tory government was given a clear instruction to get Britain out of the EU and all its works, it still hasn’t done it. Now all they can do is shout insults at each other like a pack of baboons.

As for Brexit – I voted to leave and have never made any secret of that but I feel in my heart now that it is not going to happen. Bunter Boris has the right idea and gave me hope for a while, but I think his biggest mistake so far was employing a man who one former minister described yesterday as ‘a foul-mouthed thug’ as his chief adviser. I refer of course to Dominic Cummings who really does seem to think that he runs the country rather than the prime minister. Perhaps he does, but he reminds me too much of Anthony Blair’s chief adviser Alastair Campbell.

Campbell was the man who urged Blair to take Britain into Iraq on flimsy and blatantly dishonest pretexts and thereby caused the loss of a great deal of life. Yet Campbell continues to lord it even now and seems to be regarded by parts of the Media rabble as some sort of knowledgeable guru. He was and is but a thug, as does Cummings appear to be. If Bunter B has any common sense, he will get rid of the man before Cummings gets rid of him.

But I can only shake my head in wonderment at all the current hysterical clamouring for some mystical deal. A deal was not mentioned on the original ballot paper. It was a simple choice between leave and remain. Along with over seventeen million others, I chose to leave but three years and three months later, I am still waiting and no longer feel that there is much hope of my vote being honoured.

If these ridiculously bickering baboons – no I mustn’t be rude to the bobbos – let’s call these people members of Parliament although they do not deserve the appellation of politicians; if they really wanted a deal so badly, they would have voted for Mother Maybe’s dismal, defeatist withdrawal agreement. But they rejected that three times.

They don’t want a deal damnit! They want to cancel Brexit and remain as vassals to the European plutocracy. That is not what I voted for and I was on the winning side.

Now they’re planning yet another pointless postponement, even though they can’t agree on what they do want. Most normal people, regardless of how they voted in 2016, are sick to the back teeth of the squabbling, grandstanding and showboating. These clowns aren’t leaders. Surely there must be someone out there who can take charge?

It’s time for this grotesque circus to stop tormenting we voters and get out of town for good. Most of us just want Brexit done and dusted, so that normal service can be resumed and we can all get on with our lives.

But MPs still haven’t got the message. Project Fear is still in full swing. Parliament is still playing silly games. The goalposts have been moved yet again and doubtless will be again in the not-too-far-distant future. Will we, won’t we have another election? I don’t know. The Remainers have been screaming for an election (as recently as last Monday, Jez the Red was calling for one) or another referendum for ages, but now that it is on offer, they don’t want it. Even the Swinson Harpy of the Lib Dems has been crying for another referendum although she did publicly admit that if that also went the wrong way (in her view) she would not accept it.

‘Well Madam, an election is probably an even better indication of what the people want so why vote against it?’

All I can say to these plonkers is ‘why not have another election damnit? I don’t want it and nor do most of the public but the situation is becoming ever more desperate. Let the people have their say again if they must. You twonkers don’t seem to have any idea as to what you should do, so let us all tell you just one more time. Please don’t play the public for complete fools. You can keep on prolonging the agony, but we won’t forget all about it.’

At the moment the people of Britain no longer live in a functioning democracy. We live in a mindless madhouse with our leaders chasing their tails in confusion. Those baboons in the gorge were more refined and sensible than our current political masters. And the way things are going, there will never be an end to this madness. It will continue till we are all as insane as the politicians. It won’t be a great deal of fun but the strange thing is, I think the buffoons in Parliament are rather enjoying themselves.

As Private Frazer of Dad’s Army would put it, “We are all doomed – doomed!!

On that tack, I can’t even find a modern comedy programme that makes me laugh. Perhaps I should go home and live among the baboons. At least their politics make more sense.