Idiots - by Richard... Friday, May 20, 2011

Idiots - by Richard... Friday, May 20, 2011

Incompetent defence chiefs cost British forces their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan by squandering nearly £1billion on armoured vehicles that have not been built.

This is the narrative being thrown up by The Daily Fail and others this morning, telling us the Ministry of Defence "wasted a shocking £718million on plans for thousands of properly-protected battlefield trucks which were then scrapped or delayed".

Look behind the headlines and you will see FRES – about which we have written a word or two. But the MoD/Army narrative is that the MoD purchased a fleet of mine-resistant vehicles - including Mastiffs and Ridgebacks - to stop troops being maimed and killed. These were bought as "urgent operational requirements' using Treasury cash. But because they were built specifically for Afghanistan, they are unsuitable for wider use".

In other words, we are being told that FRES would have been a better option – which is pure, distilled BS. The mine protected fleet was bought instead of FRES – in the face of stiff resistance from the Army. Had the Army been given its way, there would have been carnage.

But FRES, as they say, is the narrative, and the MSM buys it hook line and sinker. The real story is here ... in my book, but we don't want anything like the truth sullying the minds of the public, so let's forget all about that. These people are idiots.

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Obama does something - by Richard...

I actually watched the Obama speech, the whole damn thing, in glorious Technicolor – how sad is that? This is the one where he said that the US fully supported the Middle East uprisings.

This I now know, because that's what The Guardian tells us in its headline. But it is not something I drew from watching the speech – which says something about him, or me. You can call me out as a liar if you like. I didn't so much watch the speech as looked at it: a moving figure extruding sounds that conveyed absolutely no meaning.

Cameron did something as well, exchanging a warm handshake with Bahrain's Crown Prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, outside No. 10. This "came on the day when President Obama delivered his first major speech on the Arab Spring", which he said would open a "new chapter in American diplomacy". "It will be the policy of the US to promote reform, and to support transitions to democracy," Obama tells us.

And this we know because The Independent tells us, which means that Cameron is out of step, or something. Or perhaps he's in step, and Obama is out ... the Boy doesn't seems to make sense either.

The funny thing is the man we must now call the Dead Obama Bin Laden or DOBL also gave a speech – from the grave, praising the "Arab Spring". But that was what Obama was supposed to be doing. These two ought to get together – is a séance in order? Cameron should have a word with him as well ... "hullooo, is anyone there?" That could make for an interesting threesome.

Perhaps we should just content ourselves with the undeniable fact that there is "an historic opportunity" out there to be seized. Maybe, that's what DSK really thought he was doing, and just seized the wrong bit by mistake.

The thing one really loves about all this though is that all these people are telling all these other people that they should have the right to govern themselves. Why is it that we can't have same thing? Perhaps we could get DOBL to make a video about it.

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The spotlight shifts - by Richard...

Now that DSK has resigned, he is no longer a player. What happens to him is now just theatre ... huge fun, but theatre all the same, set to drag on now that he has been indicted and bail has been granted. With his wife by his side (seen below arriving at the court), the heat is off for the time being.

Under terms of a revised bail package, Strauss-Kahn must post a $1-million bond, plus a $5-million insurance bond as a form of collateral. It is believed that he will remain under house arrest at his wife's Manhattan apartment residence and will wear an electronic monitoring device for 24-hours a day.

The man also has to pay for an armed guard to be present at all times. With his passport confiscated, making it impossible for him to flee the country, he has also waved his extradition rights. I guess he ain't going for a flight in that Airbus any time soon.

As to the broader issues, Edmund Conway thinks that DSK's departure was "another nail in the euro's coffin". But beyond the entertainment value, I am not so sure. These institutions tend to have values and dynamics of their own, to an extent independent of the individuals who run them.

On this though, I'm not going to be dogmatic, and am thus very much open to persuasion. According to the Conway thesis, without DSK at the IMF, the euro may have crumbled far earlier. His particular input was to allow the IMF bailouts of eurozone members Greece, Portugal, Ireland without insisting on restructuring, which would have spelled doom to the euro.

This is a point of view, and if halfway correct it means that the choice of successor is that much more important. In fact, that is now the real issue.

As to that successor, there seems to be a broad degree of agreement amongst the pundits that the need for a euro-supporter with a track record effectively rules out Gordon Brown – although it must surely have been in the realms of fantasy ever to have believed that he was in the running.

Where precisely we are going is, for the moment, speculation but, as the succession climbs up the agenda in importance, the relative higher level of publicity is going to remain with DSK rather than the beauty contest for his successor.

About this, though, we can hardly complain. Without DSK himself catapulting his post into the limelight, the succession would barely have had any attention at all. But then, as the lady once said, "it's a funny old world". And it gets funnier as each day passes.

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Open borders - by Richard... Thursday, May 19, 2011

I meant to do this and this earlier, two pieces reporting the rise in the number of people from minority backgrounds who live in England and Wales. It went up 2.5million in eight years, according to the Office for National Statistics.

An estimated 1.75million of the rise came about because of immigration, while 734,000 was the result of rising birth rates. The increases meant the minority population increased by 37 percent between 2001 and 2009. One in six of the population is now from an ethnic minority or white non-British background.

Thus does Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch tell us: "This is the legacy of Labour's mass immigration policy now appearing in the official figures. They have, whether deliberately or not, changed the face of Britain". He continues, "If immigration continues on anything like this scale, we are heading for a population of 70million in 20 years' time, absolutely contrary to the frequently expressed wishes of the British people".

For all that, there is nothing here we didn't know, or haven't seen on our own streets. But the appearance of brown men in pyjamas and women in hiccups and basques – or whatever – becoming the majority in some of our streets, is something new. And it is objectionable. If they do not want to integrate, they should go home, or be sent home.

But hey! In Witney on sea (not), where Call Me Dave lives and the only immigrants are those who run the local takeaways, this is not a problem. But, like it or not, the seeds have been sown. They are not going to like the harvest, even in Witney.

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