Category Archives: bloody stupid idea

Pity poor Armando.

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I feel sorry for poor old Armando Ianucci. Without doubt the current series of the Thick of It has been a triumph, it really has been one of the best things I’ve seen on TV in a long time. However I think he’s about to be surpassed as a scriptwriter. How can he compete with our very own Prime Minister?

It’s the only explanation for the total boneheaded stupidity we’ve seen coming from him and his immediate circle these past few days, with the exception of the explanation that our PM is totally boneheaded and stupid – a variable I am not about to dismiss.

Not only has there been the re-statement of his marriage to the EU in the most recent summit in Brussels (and there are so many summits nowadays that I’m starting to suspect that the whole continent is shaped like a giant bar of Toblerone) whilst he pretends to us that he might have had enough. . .

Actually. . .

Given their history, does it seem fair to draw a comparison with him telling the EU he loves them, and him telling us that he’s getting a bit sick of it, and a Tory MP telling his wife he loves her whilst he tells his bit on the side that he’s thinking of leaving the missus? That would make the British public the bit on the side, seems quite accurate to me.

Anyhow, not only that, but there’s been the whole Gideon on a choo-choo episode, swiftly followed by the ‘resignation’ of Mitchell for being a disrespectful potty mouth to the police, although he didn’t swear (as he claimed in PMQ’s), but he did (as he claimed to the Police Fed). Is this a Tory MP coming out with the equivalent of no, but, yeah, but, no, but, yeah? Had it been some lad clad in a kappa tracksuit called Jayden, or something, being a disrespectful potty mouth to the police, then a custodial sentence would have been called for by Dave and his party.

There was also the episode whereby the PM, it would seem, made up energy policy on the hoof and in the heat of battle. Energy suppliers must offer customers the lowest tariff? Really? And how long has the Conservative party been in the business of telling private business what they may offer? If you really want to have a pop at the utilities, ask them how their repeated price hikes are consistent with their record profits, ask them how it is possible for the rise in wholesale gas prices to be reflected immediately yet when the wholesale price drops it is not reflected at all. Ask them how it is they get away with acting in a fashion which is little better than a cartel. But first you’d better ask your MPs how many of them have, or have designs on, a non-exec post. Don’t want to do anything to upset your old mates, do you?

No, not content with overseeing the absolute disaster of a week, I see in the Telegraph today that he’s had an even more stupid idea.

Owners of private prisons who fail to stop prisoners re-offending will be fined, under new plans to be announced by David Cameron.

*golf clap*

Really?

So, let me get this right, some scrote gets nicked, prosecuted and convicted. He is then sent to prison. Now, unless I missed a memo, the prisons themselves don’t get a choice over which villain they get, do they? There isn’t an 11+ for crims, is there? I can only imagine the uproar if private prisons came with a selective policy.

So, let us assume that is John McScrote’s fifth spell at Her Maj’s. How the hell are they supposed to stop re-offending? The public sector prisons haven’t managed it, so how are the private sector ones supposed to?

You really want to fine a prison because one of the people you sent there has been a bit naughty for the umpteenth time? It’s your government that’s only making people serve half their sentence. It’s your government that has made an open prison down here more like a bloody pop-in centre, where spending the night seems to be somehow optional (Just Google Blantyre House, I’ve stayed in Pontin’s camps with a more hardline chalet policy). And you want to fine prisons because someone they were told to put up for a few weeks has been naughty again?

Why stop there? Why not fine the Acme jemmy and swag bag company for burglary facilitation?

Under the slogan ‘Tough But Intelligent’, the Prime Minister will signal a tougher approach to law and order by declaring “retribution is not a dirty word”.

Tough. But. Intelligent.

Just reflect on that.

Tough. But. Intelligent.

No, me neither.

It is real ‘quiet bat people’ stuff.

Poor old Armando, at this rate the Bafta for best satirical comedy will be picked up by Dave&Gideon Productions (Westminster) Ltd. He doesn’t stand a chance.

What fresh blue hell is this?

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I’m just in from the pub.

No, don’t worry, I was the very model of temperance, it was a catch up with a few friends, and to drink I have to be in the mood to drink. Of the three big evil vices which threaten our very civilisation – smoking, meaty fatty foods and booze, I could give up the booze the easiest. I won’t though. My alcoholic libation was limited to a nice glass of merlot this evening.

Well, almost. There’s a brewer down this way called Shepherd-Neame. Britain’s oldest brewery. You’ve probably seen the very imaginative and not a little controversial advertising campaign promoting their Spitfire ale, their bottle conditioned beer is a staple of supermarkets nationwide.

They’ve just got the licence to start brewing Samuel Adams beer in the UK and this has now made its way to the pumps. Now, I’m not a big beer fan, I’m a Kentish lad and as a result my heart belongs to proper cider, Kent makes the best in the country and is second only in the world (in my opinion) to the Bretons, although the Breton stuff can be a little wine-like for some tastes. Don’t believe the Hereford, Somerset and Cornish hype, when it comes to English cider, Kentish is the business.

I digress. Despite not being a big beer fan I did remember quite liking Sam Adams when I visited Boston and took a sneaky little taster, very good it is too. But when tasting the beer I was told something by the barman that left me quite astonished. I had to ask him to repeat it, as I was certain that I’d misheard him.

What did he tell me?

He told me that they were prohibited from serving it in pints. At first (re)hearing my mind went back to a pub of my youth in a beautiful little Kentish village called Biddenden. The village brews a superb cider (and makes a very nice wine as well), imaginatively named ‘Biddenden Cider’. This stuff is nectar, but it is rather potent, and this pub wouldn’t serve it in more than a half pint unless your face was known. But surely this beer, this American beer, couldn’t be as potent as the Kentish cider that gets you drunk from the feet up (don’t have a session on the Biddenden when sitting down, your head will be as clear as a bell, but your feet will not respond to any instruction you give them)?

No it isn’t as potent, and that isn’t the thinking. There has, I’m told, been a bit of legislation passed to prevent us looking like extras from Hogarth’s Gin Lane (and yes, I believe that Beer Street is more apposite). This in effect means that any new beer product launched onto the market will be limited to servings of a maximum of 2/3 of a pint.

I knew nothing of this, and was quite taken aback. Does anyone out there in blogland have any more information? It seems to me to be one of the most stupid items of legislation to have ever sprung forth from the prolapsed rectum that is Westminster. I’m also betting that the next step will be that any existing line that has even the merest alteration to its recipe will qualify as a ‘new product’.

First they came for the smokers. . .

Oh no you don’t.

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This whole Cruddas thing. I don’t understand the faux shock from Labour, demanding to know who has had access to No. 10 as a result of these fund raising exercises, once again it is a prime example of the raven calling the crow black. Do we recall the affair over the Hinduja brothers, for example?

We know the main political parties and their leaders get up to all sorts of shenanigans in order to attract the funding that keeps them in the manner to which they have become accustomed. We also know that it is utterly rotten.

I saw a clip of Sir Christopher Kelly, the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life (or should that be pubic lice?) on the BBC this morning, Mrs. Snowolf always puts BBC Breakfast on in the morning, she says it’s so she doesn’t have to see the news before she departs for work, and from what I gathered he was suggesting that it is the system that is broken.

No, it isn’t. What is broken in the morals and ethics of the people who benefit. Now I know that many politicians would point out that cases such as this are very rare and the majority of political donations pass without any controversy. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, just ask the people who want to participate under the British flag in the shooting disciplines what they have to do to train, all because of one or two isolated incidents that means nobody is allowed to own a handgun, for any reason, whatsoever in this country. You’ve penalised the majority for the behaviour of the minority, it’s what politicians do.

Undoubtedly the system needs tightening up. I see nothing wrong with the leader of a party giving dinners as fund raisers, to a large group in a corporate setting. However, when the line is blurred between the leader of a party and that leader’s role as PM, and the dinners take place in the residential area of No. 10, then I start to have a problem. It ceases to be a meeting between a party leader and a generous donor, and becomes a meeting between the head of government and an individual who is buying his time. That ain’t on.

To many the solution is simple, outlaw private donations and make the parties publicly funded. This seemed to be what Sir Christopher was advocating on the telly this morning, in not so many words, during the clip I saw.

Well, no. Firstly I already fund more parties than I want to via my taxes through the ridiculous Short money system.

Secondly, and on a more general level, if I want to donate to a party, I’ll decide which party it is, thank you very much. Really do we expect Labour supporters to sit back and see their taxes go the Tories? Or vice-versa? No, didn’t think so. You can’t take money from people under threat of going to prison and then dole it out to a political party that may represent the complete antithesis of what that person believes in.

Thirdly, as soon as you bring in public funding you put it in the domain of the Treasury and the Chancellor, and you can bet the public funding levels will go up and up and up, the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows that they love to dream up reasons for taking more and more of our cash, are we really suggesting that we give them another reason? A reason which sees them as the sole beneficiaries? Come on, they already set their own wages.

Fourthly, it is not equitable, because you can bet that the amount of cash allocated to each party will be based on bums on seats in the House or shares of votes. It will see the big three freezing out all the others, and the LibLabCon will grow ever fatter, complacent and arrogant on the back of our enforced largesse. It really will be the old boys’ club, Christ on a little purple tricycle, the big three are indistinguishable enough at the moment, just wait until they can dictate what funding, if any, the little boys will get. It’s simply not on, UKIP, the Greens, SNP, PC, BNP, English Democrats, all legit political parties, will be starved of oxygen and shut down. You’ll be paying to hear the voice that decides what voice you get to hear, this is madness. On this ground alone the idea should be forgotten, unless every party gets the same.

It isn’t the system that’s broken, it’s the people operating it. What’s the solution? I’m not entirely sure. If people want to get around the spirit of a fair system, if not the word, they will find a way. It is not the system’s fault, the failing is in the operator. One thing I do know is that we must not, cannot, go to publicly funded parties.

Oh for the love of God (part 3405).

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Bloody bankers bloody bonuses.

Right, point one. It is no business of the government or the population what a private business pays its employees. None. At all. Institute what amounts to a maximum wage and those top earners, many of whom will own those businesses, and those businesses are likely to be multi-nationals, will simply pack up and piss off. The result? People out of work, tax take down, benefits bill up. Bloody cut it out, unless you want the private sector to start setting public sector pay and conditions. No? Didn’t think so.

Point two, and I don’t know how often I’ve said this. The bankers are not the only ones with blame in our current bloody mess. Yes they made poor decisions, but nothing they did was against the rules in the UK or the EU. It’s all very well calling for someone to end up behind bars, but no laws have been broken. Indeed most of the actions carried out by the banks were done as a result of incitement from the government. Blair, Brown and Miliband were stood on the sidelines cheering them on. Let us not forget, this was a government that had abolished boom and bust. Brown was right, now we only have bust.

If I hear one more person say that the banks performed so poorly that they had to bailed out I’ll. . . I’ll. . . I’ll douse a kitten in petrol and set it aflame. OK? They did not have to be bailed out. Savings up to some huge amount were protected, and anyone who has much above six figures in one bank is a bloody idiot. Banks fail, or rather they used to. It was the politicians who went running with our cheque book, the bankers did not rip it from them. The shareholders did not exercise significant enough control over the boards that they bloody elected. Well you know what? Tough. You lose. But they didn’t, we did. Because politicians are morons who think they can solve any problem when the truth is they cause more problems than anything else in this world.

Point three, the game changes once a company finds the majority of its shares in public hands, that is bought by the government with money taken from me and you without so much as a by-your-leave.

Now, it seems staggering to me that any individual, especially a de-facto public servant can be looking to trouser the very, very thick end of a million quid in bonuses. If I were going to sign that sort of deal off I’d need to see some pretty fucking impressive and compelling evidence first.

But, and it is a big but:

Point four, old wossisname at RBS is contractually entitled to this bonus. For the leader of the opposition and the union leaders to come out and demand that the government breach that contract, a contract which it must be pointed out was negotiated and signed by the Labour government, is unbelievable.

The unionists, sat there with indignant snarls on their faces are the same people chasing HM Government through the courts over what they claim are breaches of contract regarding public sector terms, conditions and pensions.

Well, which is it? Is the government obliged to honour contracts or is it not? If it is, then all these bankers must get their bonuses (and it isn’t as if they’re getting cold, hard cash, these are future shares, dependent upon results until they mature, so it is the interest of the evil capitalist baby killing rapist bastards bankers to ensure they get the job done) this also means that the government must abide by the T&C’s of public sector contracts. If it is not obliged to honour contracts then the bankers can have their bonuses ripped away, but there must not be a murmur when the same is done to civil servants (and I write as a civil servant).

Now of course the unionists would have you believe that the civil servants are different. They are an exception. And this, dear reader, is one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism and socialism; the law is absolute up until such time as it becomes an inconvenience, then the chosen ones are an exception. Under socialism the law is a tool to form society as required, not a blind force applied with equality and without fear or favour.

Boris has waded in and said that Hester’s contract should be ‘re-negotiated’. Errrm, Boris, I think he’ll say no, then what are you going to do? Come on, you’re a smart chap, you got a scholarship to Eton, you know better than that. Can we not just stop the political grandstanding and actually employ some thought here?

Speaking of grandstanding, for Miliband to be banging on about a contract that was signed when he was in the bloody treasury is chutzpah of the highest order. Really Ed, did you think we wouldn’t remember where you were three short years ago? Or are you going to stick the knife into Gordon and old badger eyebrows? Go on, you know you want to.

He really is remarkable, not only is he worse than Cameron, which is no mean feat in itself, he’s even worse than Clegg, a man who has in a year destroyed an entire political party. At least Clegg has had the sense to keep fairly schtum about this, but Miliband, well, so dim is this man that he doesn’t notice the bandwagon is in the area, even though its band is playing ‘Happy Bandwagons Are Here Again’ at great volume. It’s only once it’s gone past and is half a mile down the road that he realises he should have jumped on, because this morning he was banging on about. . . Terry’s Chocolate Oranges.

Yes, while everyone was talking about the big story, Ed was talking about confectionery. The BBC reported it breathlessly as usual, although it soon slipped down the order paper. Do go and read the article, it really is quite remarkable. To show that he isn’t at all out of touch, he thinks that WH Smith sells fruit. Yes, really.

The whole thing stems from something similar that Cameron was bleating about when he was in opposition. And Ed, just because David did it in opposition doesn’t mean you have to. It was stupid then, it’s even more stupid now. If David had put his winkie in a food blender in opposition, would you do it now? Actually don’t answer that, because if you really think that forcing WH Smith to sell oranges because we’ve ‘got to change the rules’ is a good idea I can see you reaching for the magi-mix.

For the love of God, can we not just lock the bloody lot of them in the Houses of Parliament and wait for it to sink? No-one would miss them.

I tried, but I couldn’t.

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I tried to come up with a more ridiculous idea than this. I tried really hard. I’ve been pacing up and down the living room all evening trying to come up with something even more boneheaded than this suggestion, I’ve worn a hole in the carpet, I’ve failed.

I’ll just let this, I struggle to think of a term which doesn’t go from dim, through absurd, racing through insane before stopping at inspired as it completes the cycle breaking through the divide at the back. I’ll just have to use inspired.

I’ll just let this inspired idea speak for itself.

[Bob Crow] The General Secretary of the militant Rail, Maritime and Transport union was booed as he outlined his idea for a 1p tax on each email during an appearance on a late night comedy show. 

Errrrrm.

No. I’m speechless.

Pass the matches.

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Sky News are reporting that Pastor Terry Jones (and I keep expecting this to be a stunt to announce the reformation of the Python boys) from the seemingly inappropriately named ‘Dove World Outreach Center’ has given the New York imams a two hour deadline to talk to him about the building of something that isn’t a mosque on some land that isn’t quite Ground Zero or he’ll. . .

Well, he doesn’t say. But the threat is clear.

It reminds me of the episode of the Young Ones when they wake up in the morning to find a nuclear bomb in the kitchen, and Rik threatens to appropriate it if Thatcher doesn’t do ‘something’, for ‘the kids’.

Of course the wild eyed wavy arm brigade across the Muslim world have shown that they don’t like the idea of their book being burned in a disrespectful way, by burning the American flag and other stuff in a disrespectful way. It’s kinda like Argentina playing Germany, you want both sides to lose.

Anyhow, he’s an idiot. Indeed he’s a nutter so nutty that even Westboro Baptist Church would probably look at him and say ‘this guy’s nuts!’

You want your book burning Mr. Jones? Fine, then burn away old chap, burn away. But if I were the Commissioner of Gainesville Police Department or the Sherriff of Alachua County, then I would be pointing out to him that if some odd looking dark skinned chaps with entertaining beards turned up with an impressive selection of automatic weaponry, then I probably wouldn’t be too bothered about finding out what they were up to, nor would I be responding to any panicked phone calls from the Dove World Outreach Center with any sense of urgency.

So much stupid.

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There are some ideas which are a bit stupid. Like trying to unscrew a plug with a paring knife.

There are some really stupid ideas. Like sitting on the branch of the tree you are about to cut off with a chainsaw.

Then there are some catastrophically stupid ideas. You know, the sort of idea which starts with Pa Prescott looking at his missus and saying ‘I’m feeling frisky, let’s have an early night.’

Then you transcend that level of stupidity and get an idea which is so monumentally, incomprehensibly bad, that it defies all belief.

This idea is thoroughly fisked by Thaddeus over at Anna Raccoon’s place, and involves the idea that obviously the current PAYE system isn’t working, as evidenced by the recent balls-up. The solution? Even though the Revenue is responsible for the chaos, it is clear that it isn’t their fault, so the whole thing has to be changed. This is a good one. Rather than having your employer taking the tax from your salary and passing it on to the treasury, your employer will cut out of the system and your wages will be passed, in totality to the revenue who will remove their cut and pass the remainder on to you.

What could possibly go wrong?

Do head over and read the whole thing. It’s kinda important.

The One That Is Thinking The Unthinkable. . .

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Since I posted this morning, Captain Ranty’s posting about the changes that will come to pass at midnight tonight have been weighing heavily on my mind.

I come to think about how we can possibly extricate ourselves from the mess we’re currently in.

The changes that the Cap’n outlines will not happen overnight, just as with everything we’ve seen since the Cold War, it will be a drip, drip effect. The end of the Cold War was a bloody big surprise to everyone on both sides of the wall, no-one really saw it coming. Solidarity, Glasnost etc, etc, it was all supposed to be an evolution, not a revolution. A closely controlled PR exercise, the sort of model the Chinese have followed in their reforms. Giving a little ground, a few minor idealogical alterations but making sure that the powers that be are firmly in the driving seat.

The EU will not want scenes that we saw 20 years ago in Berlin and certainly won’t want scenes that we saw in Bucharest when the crowd turned. It will be on the statute and will lie dormant, the first few uses will be for minor infractions, the third or fourth charge on the sheet, precedent slipped in under the radar. Our murderers will use stealth and patience, not shock and awe.

It is easy to throw about phrases about the removal of trial by jury, habeas corpus and so forth. But when you stop to consider the cold, hard facts it is chilling in the extreme and it installs in me a sense of despair that this can and will be done to us.

I like bloggers like Constantly Furious, like Old Holborn and Devils Kitchen, their rage is an energy, but I wonder about the focus. I know OH has had issues with UKLP that have resulted in his departure from the party, but I find myself asking what these minority parties are for.

By minority parties, I don’t just mean us in UKLP and the English Democrats, but also people like UKIP. UKIP may be knocking on the front door, but they certainly aren’t in the hallway yet.

I support LPUK because I feel their policies are the closest to my own personal feelings, but what do I and the party want to achieve? At present we are an irrelevance, not even an annoyance. We are more akin to a pressure group than anything else. That doesn’t mean I don’t think we can’t grow, or that we can’t contribute something worthwhile, but that will take time.

Time is a luxury we do not have. I and many others have woken up to the situation far too late. Many continue to slumber and will not wake up until the knock at the door comes in the small hours one morning because of a joke they made at work, or something their child said at school.

We are blindsided with talk of climate change, terrorism, financial meltdown, a nuclear Iran and a myriad of other issues, real in degree and/or of no importance whatsoever. The real threat lies in Brussels in a flag with a blue background and a few golden stars.

This is not just a threat to the UK, but to every nation in Europe, whether members or not. I feel as anxious for the French, Italians, Slovenes, Hungarians and Maltese as I do for us in the UK. I am getting very, very scared.

So, what’s the big idea? How do we get out of it?

I think the UK is a very important part of the EU. Not just financially, but we are a litmus. Along with the Danes we are probably the most EUrosceptic nation in the Federation, if it can be got past us, it can be got past anyone.

It doesn’t help though, when our politicians stick ‘it’ up their jumpers and sneak it past us like a 15 year old with some vodka at a school disco. We have to stop this, and we have to get out.

Here’s the idea. We may need to work and come to an understanding with people we don’t like very much.

LPUK aren’t going to do it by themselves.

The English Democrats won’t manage it.

Jury Team can’t do it.

Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party won’t win.

The BNP, yes, the BNP, will never get the job done.

UKIP cannot get the seats they need to force the issue.

There are some very different parties there, most with mutually exclusive policies. However there is a common thread running through all these parties. One single policy on which they can all agree – complete withdrawal from the EU.

It’s a mad, mad idea. What if, what if these parties named, and others who want to withdraw from the EU, make a statement to the effect that no matter how different their other policies, they all recognise that the EU presents the most serious threat to our way of life, above and beyond any other issue, and that they will unite on a single platform to get power, hold a referendum – and when it is won and we get out – will then call an immediate general election with all the hating, backbiting, sniping and revulsion that we all love so much back on the agenda.

Controversial? Certainly. Unworkable? Probably. But we have to do something. We can’t carry on like this, or we’ll all be done for.

The One That Is Glad They’ve Figured It Out. . .

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For years now we’ve seen the (faux?) wringing of hands from the politicians about how to increase the turnout of young voters at elections, which sits at a very low level.

Fair play to the MSPs who seem to have cracked this issue and look like adopting a policy which will hopefully see voters aged 18 to 20 turn out in record numbers north of the border:

Controversial legislation to bring in minimum-pricing for alcohol in Scotland will be defeated by opposition parties.

The SNP government said its legislation to take it forward would tackle drink-fuelled violence and health problems. But Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems raised concern the measure, contained in the Alcohol Bill, was illegal under European competition law.

The bill also included proposals to ban drink promotions, powers for licensing boards to raise age for buying drink from 18 to 21 and a “social responsibility fee” for retailers who sell alcohol.

Yep, that’ll get them turning out in pretty short order, the thing is they won’t vote for you. They’ll be voting for the other guys. What was the percentage of the electorate who voted Labour in Glasgow NE? 17% or something like that? I wonder what percentage of the electorate in the average constituency is between 18 to 20 years old?

Still it’s not all bad news, the social responsibility fee sounds like common sense, after all they charge car manufacturers the same to deal with the fall out from road crashes, don’t they? No? Oh, perhaps this is the shape of things to come then. It’s still a good idea, as it will help bankroll the benefits of all those people who currently work in the production, packaging, distribution and retail of alcohol north of the border who will probably lose their jobs fairly soon as a result.

And what about those little tykes who live close to the border with the Auld Enemy? They’ll just get in their cars and head south to do the booze shopping. Is this just a sneaky plan to usher in the EU regionalist model? Will there be police and customs officers manning a control at every point of entry between England and Scotland looking for contraband grog?

There’s an Eliot Loch-Ness gag there, but I won’t insult your intelligence.

The One That Thinks It Could Make Quite A Difference. . .

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Ah yes, our old friends the BNP.

Right, I’m not going to give the usual caveat here. The little icons dotted around this page make it perfectly clear who it is I support.

Looks like old Harridan Harperson is going to get what she wanted. It sits nicely with the old warning about being careful what you wish for.


BNP leader Nick Griffin has agreed to ask his party to amend its constitution so it does not discriminate on grounds of race or religion, a court heard.

Now as far as I’m concerned, it is a party with its own values. They are values I do not hold therefore I won’t join them, just as a Labour supporter won’t support Libertarian values and therefore won’t be joining us. Fine.

Ahhh, yes, but black people can’t join the BNP. Their rules don’t allow it.

Well, fine. Their party, their rules.

I have a sneaking suspicion that not many black or Asian people would want to join the BNP, but discrimination is bad and it must be stamped out. The right of a hypothetical black person to join the BNP trumps the right of a very real BNP member to exclude them. I don’t understand how one person’s ‘rights’ can trump those of another, but there you go.

Let’s just suppose for a minute that the BNP relents and alters it’s constitution to allow ‘non-indigenous non-Caucasian’ people to join. What will the outcome be?

Will the BNP be flooded with ultra-nationalist Rastafarians and Taoists?

Doubtful.

Will the BNP find themselves hamstrung by a large faction coming into the party that is determined to work against their policies?

Possible, but then, the current BNP members will just leave and start up another party, so that won’t work.

No, what would happen is that the BNP would hang an ‘all welcome’ sign on their front door, secure in the knowledge that the people they don’t want to join, won’t join. And then, when they start to appear on Question Time (which could be quite entertaining tonight given the reaction to their name last week, either that or someone released a shit load of snakes into the studio), the Big 3 will no longer be able to point their fingers and scream ‘Racists!’ at them, as they will have the constitution to prove they are not.

Much is written in the Libertarian blogosphere about this government’s tactic of denormalising people, drinkers, smokers, the free of thought and will, but now Harman and her chums are doing something even more daft, they are normalising a party.

Eh? How’s this going to work? On the one hand you use legislation to enforce your will and values on a political party. Legislation that, if the BNP have any sense, they won’t break. So you can’t very well screm ‘Racist’ at them anymore, what does that leave you? It is obvious you’ll continue to do your best to ensure that they are shouted down at every opportunity, blocked from attending Parliament or debates and generally excluded, inspite of the fact that they are legitimately elected.

But of course, there’s no room for views you don’t like in your democracy.

The BNP will be able to point and give another example of the Labour mania for controlling anything their gaze happens to fall upon, and cries of ‘but they’re not very nice people’ is hardly going to cut the ice, is it? Did they go to war in Iraq? Did they use expenses to fund their own companies? Did they promote their biggest trougher to the Lords to allow him to bleed us dry until the day he dies? Did they go back on a referendum promise? Did they desert their natural constituency in order to cling on to power? Did they plan a smear campaign against opposition MPs and then whine when they got caught out?

No.

The problem is, all of you Big 3, but specifically Labour, just because most people find the BNP objectionable, it doesn’t follow that they like you any better, and at least the BNP are honest.

By enforcing normality upon them, you surrender your second biggest weapon against them and will do nothing more than generate sympathy for them, you will increase their membership as for many waverers using the law to force a political party to do as you want will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It isn’t the last straw for me, my camel’s spinal cord was severed about nine years ago, but for a number of people this will be it, for others it will be what you do tomorrow.

What I don’t understand is why you don’t use the most effective weapon you have against the BNP; just let them talk. Or is it that you’ve made such a horlicks of your time in power that you are scared that the people you have a God given right to expect to turn out for you, will look at you, then at them, then back at you, and say to themselves; ‘You know, this BNP lot aren’t as half as bad as Labour’?

If that is the case, then who is to blame?

a) The BNP
b) Those two Irish lads on the X-Factor
c) The Cybermen
d) You