Where is the Conservative Party?

I cautiously welcomed David Cameron as leader of the British Conservative Party. I thought he might bring some energy, ditch the old-fashioned fuddy duddy school prefect type “tell you what you do” nonsense that IS conservative, and provide an electable alternative to New Labour. Britain is one helluva nanny state, you seriously cannot believe how much the media and politicians regard government as the solution to almost anything. There are regulators for just about every sector, deregulation means reregulation, and the state is there to hand hold them all so people don’t do anything that might harm themselves – while taxing ever more and more.
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Cameron might have sold a Conservative Party that wanted to reduce nanny state, and start to wind back the nauseating bureaucracy that is UK central and local government. Well maybe, there is a little bit of that, but the latest policy takes the cake on outflanking New Labour on the left. It is a tax on aviation. The purpose is to cut the number of flights and tax more polluting aircraft (which is ridiculous since most airlines optimise fuel efficiency with their fleets for obvious reasons, traded off against capital availability).

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The Tories want to tax domestic flights, and to tax international flights on the basis of everyone being permitted one shorthaul (European) international flight a year (return), beyond that you pay. Consider first the bureaucracy of a ration book system for flying, but mostly consider why this is to happen – to combat climate change.
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Reason has gone out the door on climate change policy in the UK, the two main parties believe in unilateralism with absolutely no evidence of any benefits from their climate change policies. Taxing aviation will do nothing besides give David Cameron a new source of income, though he says he will cut other taxes in exchange – which is shuffling money around. Especially as it is another tinkering of tax in the form of "a new transferable tax allowance for couples with young children". Typical politician, wont cut basic taxes - just hand out little lollies - like Dr Cullen.

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Taxing aviation will do absolutely nothing to change temperature around the world, it wont change behaviour (airfares are too high relative to the taxes talked about for it to matter or be factored into travel decisions) and at worst will see a shift in airport hubbing away to other countries in Europe. Heathrow is the best airport hub in the world, and this may reduce its competitiveness.
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However, besides all that, it is absolutely galling to see the Tories propose a ration card type tax on aviation as if to say “you’ve flown once, now go off and sit in your flat and think of England – you’re not allowed to fly more unless you can pay – and we all can, rah rah rah”.
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UKIP is a hopelessly incompetent alternative protest vote, and I want rid of New Labour, primarily because of ID cards, but also because I don’t believe Gordon Brown can bring anything essentially new and exciting to free up Britain – quite the contrary. However, vote Tory and pay aviation taxes makes me go cold. Where has the party of Thatcher gone?

Britain's independent nuclear deterrent

As I write this the House of Commons has voted for the replacement of the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines, carried only because the Conservative Party almost entirely is voting with the Labour government – as nearly 100 Labour MPs have voted against it. 409 in favour, against 161.
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The arguments put in favour of Trident are that it is inappropriate for the UK to abandon its nuclear deterrent when nuclear proliferation (Iran, North Korea) continues, potentially posing a serious threat to its security. Another consideration is that while Russia is no longer an enemy, it is not exactly a very good friend – the risk that Russia could once again have ambitions eastward cannot be foreseen 25 years in advance. Indeed, anyone who 25 years ago would have forecast a quasi-genocidal war in Sarajevo would have been looked at askance. In addition, having a nuclear deterrent puts Britain with France and the US, as the three leading Western defence powers. While the UK could certainly expect the US nuclear umbrella to be used for its defence, abandoning its nuclear deterrence would send a negative message to the US, and greatly harm bilateral relations.
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Those against Trident believe it is a waste of money (£15 billion) that could be spent on social services (note they NEVER argue for tax cuts, funny that), but are primarily driven by two motives. First is a utopian vision for nuclear disarmament, with the naïve belief that if the UK disarms, it will encourage non-proliferation elsewhere. Those opposed to Trident are part of the so-called “peace movement” and claim to want a nuclear free world.
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Let’s look at nuclear disarmament, which has happened on a grand scale since the end of the Cold War, with the US, UK, France and Russia all substantially reducing their nuclear arsenals since the late 1980s. This happened not because any one party unilaterally disarmed, but because the USSR – a regime far too many in the “peace movement” either supported or whose sins it ignored – was defeated economically, politically and philosophically. Had the nuclear disarmament called by the very same type of people in the 1980s occurred, the Soviet Union would not have been brought to its knees – something that far too many in the so called “peace movement” didn’t like (ignoring the Soviet launched imperialist wars in Afghanistan, Korea and the Middle East).
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Further nuclear disarmament or the termination of nuclear programmes has occurred either because a threat was removed (South Africa) or a threat was real (Libya). North Korea pursued a nuclear weapon because it lost the Soviet nuclear umbrella and needed a tool of blackmail so its bankrupt system – and it seems to have worked. India and Pakistan had the capability for many years before “turning the last bolt”, but the sub continent’s nuclear deterrent has worked. Iran on the other hand is pursuing nuclear weapons as it embarks on its own ambition to obliterate Israel. Israel’s nuclear deterrence is just that – it has also largely worked to defend it since the Yom Kippur War. None of the almost all fascist Arab states dare touch it – and Israelis wont dare remove their greatest tool. Meanwhile, on its own, and subject to few protests from the so-called peace movement, China builds up its nuclear arsenal. However, that’s apparently ok (don't see Chinese flags burnt or major protests outside Chinese embassies).

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There is an argument that since the end of the Cold War, Europe is at peace and no longer needs nuclear weapons. This is incredibly naïve – while many ex. communist states are now EU members (indeed almost all European ones are now), Russia is not. Russia remains a state to watch. Britain’s nuclear deterrent keeps Russia from doing anything silly.
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A nuclear weapon free world will only come will all those holding nuclear weapons at present are truly open liberal democracies, with no sectarianism and no states vowing to wipe them off the earth, with no terrorists seeking to fight jihad, and no rogue states engaging in blackmail. That means an end to Islamism, an end to Marxism-Leninism, an end to kleptocratic fascism. In other words, a truly free world of secular peaceful states.
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Unfortunately the so-called peace movement grants moral equivalency between the UK, Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. The UK has never seriously threatened its nuclear weapons in anger, Russia (as the Soviet Union) not long ago sought to eliminate freedom and liberal democracy in the West.

Now is not the time to be naïve and pander to the one eyed hypocrisy of the so-called peace movement, which seeks as a priority disarmament of open free liberal societies, but has little interest in disarming closed, authoritarian states. Stupid or another agenda? You decide.

Accidents at Penrith station

What did they fight for?

So you risk your life for your country, for freedom and your local RSA has a few pokie machines that you like to put some money in from time to time for a bit of fun as you sit with a beer with some mates of yours. You’ve looked into the eyes of danger, maybe even directly into the eyes of those who would strip away what freedoms we have for the sake of racial superiority, the great people’s revolution or the emperor. You know how to handle your own money, shit, you handled a gun or even a plane or a boat. You can look after yourself, you helped look after the whole country and its allies. However few bother to give a damn.
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People like the snivelling little upstart who is the gambling inspector. Maybe he was some young whippersnapper, dressed smartly in his Hallenstein’s suit, with his nasally whiny voice pointing out how your RSA doesn’t have a gambling licence and had failed to pay the problem gamblers levy (you can’t remember the last time anyone there had an addiction, except for Jimmy but hey it was only when he had had a few, and was remembering his best mate who he had to leave for dead). Looking into the eyes of that little bastard, what does he know? He wouldn’t even get his shoes dirty, and I’m sure he’d cower if you threatened to punch him.
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Maybe he was in his 50s, one of those who is just a bit too young to have been in Vietnam, with his grey shoes, his polyester suit, large tufts of hair either side that he wets and pulls over his bald spot, sneering and officious with no respect. He thinks you’re just a bunch of gun loving old bigots, and don’t understand your responsibility to society – what a bloody arsehole – never worked a productive day in his life.
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Both of them are the sorts I thought I’d fought to avoid, like the joyless telltale at school who ran to teacher because someone was smoking behind the bikesheds. Sticklers for rules, couldn’t turn a blind eye to those who did more for the country in one week than they will in a lifetime. No respect. No fucking respect.
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Like Director of Gambling Compliance, Mike Hill – Director of fun regulation more like. How about the prosecuting lawyer, Mark Woolford, wonder what sort of kick he gets out of prosecuting an RSA and removing a source of fun for its members. He doesn’t believe that they have private property rights though and that people who gamble take the risk themselves on the RSA’s property. It doesn’t matter as he gets paid far more than the members even did. I wont blame Judge Lindsay Moore, though he didn’t need to have the machines forfeited – they do own them after all, not the state, though give him his due for discharging the manager without conviction. He was just doing his job.
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That Green MP Sue Bradford is into all this though, remember her, the one who went to Maoist China, the same government whose soldiers would bury our guys standing up in holes in the ground to be prisoners in Korea. What does she know,

Helen Clark confronts food miles

It's about time and I'm very pleased, but more needs to be done. Publicity is needed in the UK on this, it is still almost invisible that there is more to carbon emissions than how far food has travelled. For every day you delay, is another day when UK media bleets on this lie, like it has today here, here, here and here.
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Amazingly, a green oriented site has actually started to talk a bit more sensibly about this quoting the Lincoln University study.
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How about the Nats having a policy?