Zeroes and Heroes

Two aircraft landed in Southern Britain the other day at two different Airports :

The first carried a group of over paid, under achievers who complained they were tired and missed their families after two weeks in five star accommodation.

The other carried the coffins of 7 fallen soldiers who had spent months away from loved ones living in tents in a war zone, giving their lives for their country. Who are the Hero's ??, I know where my priorities lie. R.I.P lads.

Remember these soldiers earn 15k to 30k a year not a day. If you believe that the England team should donate their wages to Help the Hero's then please cut and paste and forward it on

Just in case they need help in donating here is a link to:

British Troops In Afghanistan winning Hearts & Minds

I received the following as a Chain Email with the subject line Keep this going; only takes 30 seconds which if it had not been from a trusted address would have been deleted. Instead I am republishing it here in the hope it will find a wider audience:

It is always good to see pictures like these. It proves they are BIG softies really:

Proof of 'abuse' by our Troops:

Armed Troops Force Afghans to Seesaw Until They Talk


Afghan Child Bites Soldier In Self Defence After Obvious Torture!


Soldier overheard to say 'Talk or I'll tickle you till you pee!' - More Evidence Of Failed Intelligence Policy.


Soldier Attempts to Eat Afghan Child!


Clear Evidence of Forced Labour by Troops!


Soldier Caught At 'Tickle-Torture' To Extract Intelligence!


Soldier forces child to hang by fingertips!


No Comment Required!

May the good Lord bless every one of our troops wherever they are!
PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING - EVEN IF YOU HAVE PASSED IT ON BEFORE!! Prayer wheel for our Armed Forces,
Please don't break it

Railways, Roads and Runways - Politics overriding National Interest

Over the Weekend I spent some time reading the Institution of Civil Engineers Report: Rethinking Aviation. This once again reminded me how pathetic British Transport Planning has been for the last 45 Years due to Party Political Interests being considered overwhelming important and the National Interest usually not only being an incredibly poor second, but often a even poorer third if a Cabinet Minister's constituency, or an important marginal is under threat. Couple this with Treasury and most other elements of the Senior Civil Service's distaste for spending money on infra-structure (bearing in mind where most of the Senior Civil Servants live, it is amazing any Infra-structure Projects, Major, or minor are ever progressed in the NIMBY dwelling Home Counties) and perhaps the current situation was inevitable.

My views on this subject have (at least in part) been covered in earlier posts notably: Politics of (Rail) Transport (October 2008) and High Speed Trains and Heathrows Third Runway (February 2010) and even in my Aviation History PDF Article on The Airlinks between Gatwick and Heathrow (Published back in August 2006 in the section: Current Situation and the Future - page 9).

My Post of October 2008 ended with the following:

Transport is too important nationally to be a political football. We have wasted at least 40 years, please, don't waste the next 40!

Well we are now over halfway through 2010 and I see no evidence that anything has changed for the better, just another change of Government pandering to populist politics! In my post of February 2010 I used the above Quote as my Highlight opening and then continued with:

In France where there appears a separation between National Interest and Party Politics so lacking in Britain, there has been a consistent integrated National Transport Policy, especially in regard to High Speed Rail for 40 Years. So the recent British political consensus on the need for High Speed Rail links and this cross-political support for some major projects has been a welcome 'chink of light'.

Unfortunately that Chink of Light was just the Head Lamp of onrushing Party Politics. So one of the first acts of the Coalition Government was to stop the third runway at Heathrow, Oh Good the National Interest loses again to doing what is popular rather than right! But then they are only continuing a tradition that stretches back to the mid-1950s and has continued regardless of the Party in Power.

In simple terms France (and Germany) make Strategic Plans that are then rolled out over decades, being updated as technology and national requirements change, but the basic plan survives all the changes in Government and proceeds on the basis of National, than Political Interests. In Britain, all plans however well structured and designed to meet long term national needs are not implemented as a structured package of complementary projects, at best they are cherry picked for short term political advantage and then argued over for years. Even if a small part of one plan finally makes it to being implemented, it sits in splendid isolation, locally of benefit but usually totally irrelevant to the overall National Requirement.

Railways, Roads and Runways are vital elements of National Infra-structure and the National Economy (to which you can add Ports, Shipping and thinking 'Green' the Inland Waterways) and should cover all regions of the UK in a unified long term plan. Almost every European Country thinks in these terms and those like France and Germany who have kept to their strategic plans have benefited whilst in Britain even the phrase 'Transport Policy' is an oxymoron as it is just one element in the Political Playground which has more in common with a primary school playground than mature considered policy making for the United Kingdom.

My Sympathy is reserved for the Victims of Raoul Moat.

I have to admit to being in total agreement with Prime Minister David Cameron's Comments in Parliament:
'It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story. I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community. There should be no sympathy for him.'

My sympathies are reserved for:

1. The little girl he assaulted (who didn't get much Justice).
2. For the family of the Man he Killed,
3. His ex Girlfriend
4. Policeman he shot and Blinded
5. For the Children he fathered, because they will have grow up with stigma of his actions.

But for Raoul Moat, I will only say it is probably for the best he took his own life.

As for Facebook and the tributes to this evil Man, I think the following lifted from the BBC Comments and posted by the Elizabethan neatly sums it up:

The sympathy of those misguided few,
Who hero-worship troubled souls anew,
That quite forgot his former sentence served,
That he attacked a child is quite absurd!

Yet what be more important to this crowd,
The price of freedom that it be allowed,
That he did shoot a policeman in the head,
Be of more worth than innocent men dead.

The question I have are these sad and probably sick people who had adopted Raoul Moat as a Hero also going to express sympathy to those whose lives he destroyed? I doubt it...

Crime & Punishment UK - Getting Emotive

That 'jolly nice chap' Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector of Probation has issued what his probably his last report (CIoP Report 2009-2010) before he steps down next year and in the process has raised a storm of controversy.
In the foreword, entitled What Price Public Protection? - No Trite Solutions he has taken the opportunity to raise some serious, but in his own words 'emotive issues'. The media has rightly picked up on these 'emotive' issues and I suggest both The Telegraph and Mail Online articles are worth reading if only to compare the coverage.

So what are these 'emotive issues'?

• Is the public prepared to accept the 'cost' of having more prisoners managed in the community, in terms of a proportionately small amount of reoffending, in order to achieve the 'benefit' of substantial financial savings, and knowing that people are not being expensively locked up for longer than they need to be?
• Describing prison as a "rather drastic form of crime prevention", he said it was time to consider dealing with more offenders in the community. He raised the "emotionally charged topic" despite accepting that risks to the public cannot be eliminated and that prison does reduce crime.
• He even said any "individual incidents" that result should not be viewed as a failing system.

The responses from various organisations were hostile:

• David Green, director of Civitas, a think tank, said it was "not his job" for Mr Bridges, who earns £96,000 a year, to comment on policy."I would have thought the probation service is sufficiently dysfunctional for him to find enough to do without adding to its problems by calling for the release of 2,500 dangerous criminals," he said. "In the end it does not come down to costs, it comes down to justice and public protection. He has taken a narrow view of this, a shallow view."
• Lyn Costello, of the charity Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, said she was "disgusted" by the comments. "You can never bring finance in to dealing with justice," she said. "If we are going to become a country that puts money before human life or a safe and peaceful life then I do not want to live here."
• Simon Reed, vice chairman of the Police Federation, said: "What price can we put on justice? I thought part of the criminal justice system was to punish and rehabilitate. It appears to be doing neither."
• Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is insulting to victims of crime and law abiding taxpayers who pay for the prison system to suggest that the public should accept an increase in crime if they want savings to be made."

Taking all of this 'on board I decided to look back at my major post on the subject of
Crime, Punishment and Politics - UK (November 2006) Whilst some of the points like Border Controls and seizure of Assets have been improved, much remains relevant.

However I have decided in this post I am going to raise some 'emotive suggestions' on the cost of Prisons and Reoffending:

• Always Deport Foreign Prisoners at the end of their sentence and inform the country of origin of their arrival - whatever danger they are in being returned to their homeland, is more than balanced by the lessening of danger to citizens in this country. This to be enforced even if their home country has and routinely uses the death penalty.
• While on the subject of the Death Penalty, hold a referendum to reintroduce it into the UK for second offences such as Murder and offered as an alternative sentence to those convicted to life without parole even if their first offense
• Those granted Asylum, regardless of their offense should be stripped of their British Citizenship and departed to their country of origin as per 1) above.
• Every privilege granted to a Prisoner must be earned by Good Behaviour and all TV, Radio should be delivered via Cable with what is made available determined by the Prison Authorities
• If a prisoner causes disruption, or is found to have contraband material, then all privileges are removed and have to be re-earned
• Bring the Scottish Prison System into the English/Welsh System and distribute certain types of prisoner across the System.
• Provide mandatory Education Classes for British Prisoners with Literacy Problems and mandatory treatment for Drug and Alcohol addition
• Provide large scale and almost open prison standard half way houses in all major cities for parolees who would otherwise be homeless. Paid work to be provided for those unable to find, or be placed in a job. Further Education being offered as part of the paid work providing attendance and effort can be proven.
• Prisoners who perform Paid Work, should receive the current Minimum Wage from which is deducted 50% to defray Prison Costs,
• Reverse the Care in the Community approach to those with Mental Health Problems and as this will take a long time beginning by building (or converting existing buildings) to secure institutions and moving these people out of prison and then over a decade moving down the scale of danger to sheltered accommodation for the non-dangerous. Yes this will cost money, but these people should not be in prison, but at the same time cannot function in normal society, leading them into crime.
• No one wants a prison on their doorstep so my suggestion of the Commissioning the design of offshore prisons for non-terrorist convicts should be considered. These to be built in British Yards to a Standard Design, which provides reasonable single occupancy cell accommodation for each convict (e.g. toilet, washing facilities, piped radio and small picture TV centrally controlled - no personal radio or, TV allowed), Intensive CCTV Coverage of all communal areas used by convicts, monitored from a secure control room and able to link pictures and information to a central incident room at the Home Office. Again this will cost a lot of Money but as a long term plan should be seriously considered, especially as eventually this could release land currently used for on-shore prisons.
• Overhaul the Parole Service, so that it provides proactive monitoring and has a zero-tolerance approach to non-attendance. Also overhaul the remit of Parole Boards, on the basis that the Danger to the public is the primary and overriding consideration.

Hopefully the above will result in a storm of controversy and I look forward to comments!

ASA Continues to investigate Cardell Media Ltd

Back at end of the first Quarter of 2010 a Mail shot began appearing in the letter boxes of smaller Businesses across Britain, in this case from Cardell Media. Small Business receive Mailshots all the time, so nothing unusual in that.
But this one not only resulted in a complaint to the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) but also a number of Business Owners decided to air their views via their Blogs.

The reaction to the Blog posts was rapid, with Cease and Desist notices arriving by Courier with at least some originating from the San Diego, California firm of lawyers: Preovolos & Associates. Interesting as the Mail shot originated in the UK, was posted in the UK - 2nd Class Stamp it appears being used and Cardell Media is UK based and whilst some of the Blogs may have been Hosted on US based Servers, most would have been either UK, or European Server Sites, so exactly what, if any legal, weight these Notices have, is a question I would appreciate being answered.

These Notices frightened off many bloggers who removed their posts, others either held out (whilst blogging the receipt of the Cease and Desist Notice), or removed the post and then blogged why they had removed the Post!

The ASA also moved rapidly and they concluded that the marketing techniques were in multiple breaches of CAP (Committee of Advertising Practises) and have advised Cardell Media to stop all marketing of this nature, as of April 2010. Complaints were upheld in respect to the advertisements both making unsubstantiated claims and not making clear it was marketing material.

The full ASA Ruling can be found here: ASA Adjudication on Cardell Media Ltd

But fast forward to July 2010 and The Register reports that a remarkably similar Mail shot to the one which the ASA has already Adjudicated on, is once more appearing in the Letter Boxes of Small Businesses across the UK.

Extract from 'The Register' News Item:
A spokesman for the ASA told us that it was well aware that Cardell Media was ignoring its earlier ruling. He said:
'We've not had complaints but our investigators do follow up to check companies are following our rulings.  We're working with various partners to try and get this stopped. We can also look at other sanctions - like getting their mass mailing discounts removed and work with other regulators and trade bodies.'

We've (The Register Staff) emailed and left messages at Cardell Media with no success.
END Extract from 'The Register'

I shall be most interested in following what further action the ASA takes, if any, against Cardell Media Ltd.

How Dare the EU Block Abu Hamza US extradition

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered a halt to the extradition to the US on terror charges of radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and three other men.

Excuse Me...Whilst I loathe the 2003 Extradition Treaty between the USA and UK because of its imbalance, this Treaty was entered into by the Elected Government of the Sovereign United Kingdom. I don't remember voting, for, or against this law being subordinate to bunch of European Judges.

Abu Hamza, jailed in the UK for soliciting to murder and racial hatred, and three other British men complained about the length of sentence they may face if convicted in the US. Their cases will be delayed for further submissions to the Strasbourg court. Meanwhile the men will remain in Custody in the UK.

Once again the 2003 Extradition Treaty is actually being used for the purpose the British thought it was supposed to serve.

The US is seeking to extradite Abu Hamza, the former head of Finsbury Park mosque in north London, since 2004, saying that he had attempted to set up a terrorism training camp in Oregon. The three other men facing extradition are Babar Ahmad, Syed Ahsan and Haroon Rashid Aswat. Mr Ahmad and Mr Ahsan were allegedly involved in raising funds for extremists. Mr Aswat is accused in relation to the alleged terror camp.

In all these cases the request is reasonable as these men will have their 'Day in a US Court'. But despite the fact they have not even faced trial in the USA, the EU Judges feel that these men have a reasonable argument in that:
They face a very long sentence in a "supermax" prison in Colorado and these very long sentences and the conditions of the prison, ADX Florence, would breach their human rights.

So everthing is being delayed whilst these Legal Eagles see more detailed arguments on
the prison conditions and the effect of the length of sentences. The UK government must submit further arguments to the court by 2 September about why it should be allowed to extradite the four. Sorry No - Two British courts have already approved the extraditions and that is that - The EU Court should keep out of this.

Now I might have a smidgen of sympathy if they were going to serve their sentence in Ikeja Jail, Nigeria, or were going to enjoy the pleasure of serving time in an Algerian Prison (but then again probably not).

But my real ire is that the British Government is being told what to do by a group of Judges who obviously live in a world completely Separate from the real one and more concerned with the rights of those, who given the chance would impose laws that would trample over everyone's Human Rights!

Our 'beloved' Home Secretary Theresa May said: ""We note that the European Court of Human Rights has decided that all the applications are partly admissible. We await the court's
judgement on the case. In the meantime these individuals will remain in custody."
Gosh Theresa you are a real wimp aren't you. Tell them we will extradite and that is that!

Treaties can be torn up, and it is time the EU Human Rights Treaty was!
However the 2003 Extradition Treaty also needs to be urgently renegotiated, but that has been covered several times in the blog!

Abid Naseer - Extradite Him - Part 1

Back in May Abid Naseer won his appeal against deportation from the UK back to Pakistan despite the Judge noting that he: "posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom". But despite this, he was NOT deported because of Human Rights Issues (See: Judge Determines Man is a Security Threat, but will NOT deport Him!).

However it appears that this Terrorist is not just a threat to the United Kingdom, but has also been involved in Plots against the United States and therefore the US Justice Department issued a Warrant for his arrest in relation to the failed plot to bomb the New York subway and requested his extradition under the 2003 Treaty US-UK Treaty (Nice to see it being used properly).

So Abid Naseer was arrested and taken to London for a late night court appearance on the 7th July and remanded in Custody until 14 July to allow Mr Naseer to consult lawyers over a possible bail application. The actual Extradition hearing will not take place until 8 September, when a judge will decide if Mr Naseer, 24, can be extradited. After this Home Secretary Theresa May will have the final say.

My views are naively simple:

1. He should have been deported back in May, his Human Rights are much less  important than the Human Rights of United Kingdom Citizens
2. Whilst I loathe the 2003 US-UK Treaty on Extradition for is imbalance, on this occasion it is being used for the correct purpose and he should be extradited by this Weekend, not dragging the process out to September.

I have a feeling this might 'run and run' hence Part 1 in the title:

External Links:
BBC: Terror suspect Abid Naseer held on US warrant
Independent: Terror suspect Abid Naseer arrested over US warrant
Telegraph: Terror Suspect Who Couldnt be Deported is Arrested.

Internal Links:
Judge Determines Man is a Security Threat, but will NOT deport Him!
May 2010

UK-US Extradition Treaty & Certain American Politicians Support for Terrorists
August 2006

Summary of England's Performance against Germany

I have been looking for some way of summarising my view of England's Performance against Germany in the World Cup. But every time I attempted to do so it descended into an unprintable rant.

Fortunately Grahame LJones of the LA Times in his article:
There's no disputing that England deserved its loss to Germany
has come to my rescue with the following:
The sad truth of the matter is that England's players, with few exceptions, are an arrogant, ignorant and unpleasant lot. They are paid far too much by their Premier League clubs, where their true allegiance lies, and their ability individually and collectively in an England shirt does not match their swagger.
Excellent Grahame Thank You Sir!

His comments on British Tabloids are also worth reading,

A final note, as those you can be bothered to read my ramblings know, I consider myself British not English and believe in all sports the National Team should be made up of Players from all parts of the UK and not individual teams from the 'Home Countries'.