Last year’s predictions: how did I do? And 2013 predictions

Well, I got three out of my five predictions right.

At the beginning of 2012 I forecast the following:

1. One Eurozone country at least will leave the Euro and, shock horror, it won’t lead to the end of the world but instead that country’s exports will rocket.  I got this wrong. Greece is still hanging on to the Eurozone helped by billions of Euros from German taxpayers. How long will this charade go on to save the embarrassment of Angela Merkel and José Barroso? Greece WILL leave the Eurozone eventually, it’s just a matter of when. Other Southern European countries will then follow.

2. Boris will win a second term as Mayor of London. I got this right. Well done Boris but may he never win the Conservative Party leadership!
3. The Olympics will be a success but paranoid security requirements will cause chaos in and around London (if you work in London and can work from home from July to September then do so!). The Opening Ceremony will be a bit embarrassing compared to Beijing but, hey, I guess that is the price you pay when you cannot force thousands of acrobats to train 18 hours a day, seven days a week (without pay) in preparation. I got this a third right. The Olympic Games were a success; in fact, they were more than a success: they were the best ever Games in the Modern Olympiad. I was wrong about the security: it worked miles better than any airport and the guards were polite (rather than acting like jailers at Belmarsh). The transport system also worked because hundreds of thousands of Londoners left the Capital for the entire period of the Olympics and Paralympic Games. I was very wrong about the Opening Ceremony: it was the best show I have ever watched. Danny Boyle should have been knighted for managing to encapsulate Britain’s glorious past so perfectly. It is a disgrace he did not get any New Year’s Honour. UPDATE: it has been reported, Mr Boyle turned down a knighthood to stay as “a man of the people”.
4. Obama will hold on to the Presidency, just! As we all know, he won. But he leads a divided America. Half the United States population did not vote for Barack Obama.
5. Ed Miliband will still be Labour leader by the end of the year (which will be great for the Conservatives). In fact, it was a good year for Ed Miliband. He has cleverly shored up his core vote before moving his tanks on to the Conservative lawns with his talk on “One Nation”. The Labour leader will desperately be hoping the British public will forget he and and his sidekick Ed Balls were on the bridge at the time of the financial meltdown in 2008.

I’ve had a think about my predictions for 2013 (six this year!). Let’s see how I get on:

1. One main prediction for this year is it will be pretty boring. But after the sporting and patriotic events of 2012, a change is as good as a rest. That’s not to say we won’t get a little excited about the Royal birth in the Summer. Hey, I’ll toss a coin and predict the baby will be a girl.

2. Both Coalition parties – Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – will perform very badly in the England County Council elections in May. Cameron and co. will put it down to “mid-term blues”. I will put it down to another nail in the coffin for the Conservatives’ chances of winning the General Election in 2015: Opposition and a leadership contest will be that bit closer for the Tories. On the yellow peril front, the sharks will start circling around Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg but he’ll be safe in 2013.

3. UKIP’s stock will continue to rise. The party will do well in the County Elections. Nigel Farage’s troops won’t necessarily win many seats but they will deny the Conservatives a bundle. This will be another milestone on their journey to European Elections victory in 2014.

4. The economy will hardly grow this year. The only thing which will change is more debt will be added to the already huge pile, which currently stands at over £1 Trillion!

5. Andrew Mitchell will return to Government (probably not until the year-end) and serving police officers will be charged with misconduct in a public office.

6. Chris Huhne will escape a jail sentence when the charge against him is watered down.

Happy New Year.

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Census 2011 reveals immigration numbers are higher than we thought

Mass Immigration: UK population up 4 Million

The Office for National Statistics a couple of weeks ago started to reveal the results of their number crunching from the Census of every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom on 27th March 2011.

The mainstream press and programmes like the BBC’s Question Time touched on the immigration figures in particular but the numbers only told us the depressing state of affairs we knew already: mass immigration was left unchecked by the Labour Party for a decade.

The population of England and Wales has increased by 3.7 million since 2001 to 56.1 million with 55% of this increase (2.1 million) due to migration, two-thirds from non-EU countries. When Northern Ireland and Scotland are added into the mix the United Kingdom population stands at 63.1 million, up 4 million since 2001.

The most shocking statistic was almost 3 million people in England don’t speak English! This is a recipe for distrust and community segregation, fuelled by the continuing obsession local authorities (including Ipswich Borough Council) have with flawed multiculturalism policies. The key for any harmonious society is integration not segregation but this doesn’t fit with the liberal bigot’s world view where everyone must be pigeon holed so they know who to patronise and who to denigrate. A classic case in point was self-styled “enlightened” liberal Will Self on BBC1 Question Time on 13th December peddling the same old bigotry that anyone who questions immigration numbers are racist.

So because whole swathes of the silent majority were too scared of people like Will Self calling them a racist the Labour Party were left unchecked to implement their political project of mass immigration. Now that is no exaggeration. Andrew Neather, former special advisor to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, revelaed to the Evening Standard in 2009 that mass immigration was a deliberate political strategy “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.”

Apology of sorts: Ed Miliband

I believe in integrating communities not segregating them as this leads to a more harmonious society with less distrust of others. On that premise, it was quite wrong the Labour Party allowed 3 million people to live in England who cannot speak English. Some of these people are even nurses in our hospitals. Were any checks done to see if someone can actually communicate within the country they want to WORK and live in? Of course not. The Labour Party were too busy waving people into Britain to end the discussion over multiculturalism and to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”. This was social engineering on a grand scale. And Labour knew this, hence Ed Miliband’s semi-apology last week once he knew the game was up with the release of the Census 2011 figures.

There is nothing wrong with immigration, per se, as long as it is controlled. Australia and the USA manage a perfectly good immigration system through a points system, which amongst other things ensures you can speak English before you are handed a work permit. Why didn’t we?

Due to Labour’s deliberate policy of mass immigration for purely political purposes, we now have overcrowding on our trains, in our classrooms and on our wards. There isn’t enough money to pay for the burden an extra 4 million people have placed on public service provision and on top of that we have whole  cities – like Bradford – where communities are segregated (Northern Ireland-style) as if different countries existed within them. This is a toxic mix which the liberal metropolitan elite in London may be proud of but it only feeds distrust and friction up and down the land.

The most depressing aspect of uncontrolled immigration is the deflation of wages for non-skilled and semi-skilled jobs. You’ll always hear the Director of the CBI or business chiefs extolling the virtues of mass immigration. I wonder why? Businesses only care about making and keeping money in profits. Immigrants are in many cases desperate for a better life and that motivates them to work hard, for longer and – most importantly to your businessman – FOR LESS. So lots more lolly for the same business “leaders” to spend on private tuition fees for the kids, a bigger house away from those crowded town and cities, and cheaper nannies and gardeners! If I was a rich businessman (and if I didn’t have a conscience) I’d be quite keen on mass immigration as well!

And of course, the negative side affects of mass immigration – bursting transport systems, 30+ children per class, nurses who don’t speak English when your wife is giving birth etc – don’t bother a rich businessman as they don’t have to worry about such things if the children are educated at Tonbridge or Eton, or when its Bupa and Nuffield all the way for healthcare, and isn’t public transport for the plebs??

It’s a mess and I don’t pretend to resolve the effect mass immigration has had in Britain in one blog post. The only hope is it will add to a sensible debate on immigration and will help to put pressure on the Coalition government who are still doing too little to control immigration today.

The Left want to abolish our free press

Envy of the world: British press

Why is anyone surprised the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party want to bring in state regulation of the media in the UK? For my international friends who consume news which hasn’t been preoccupied with Hugh Grant’s case for privacy or Steve Coogan’s protestations about the press writing stories about his latest girlfriend, unless of course he is trying to sell comedy show tickets that is, our illustrious prime minister in an attempt to distract the public from his own cosy relationships with news editors and proprietors decided eighteen month ago to have a judge-led inquiry into media ethics.

Anti-free press: Lord Justice Leveson

Well the said inquiry has now reported. And low and behold a member of the liberal judiciary – Sir Brian Leveson – decided state regulation of the media would be a good idea. Just as I suppose it is a good idea in Zimbabwe, Syria and Russia? Hmmm.

The biggest cheerleaders for Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendation are the Left. Naturally. Don’t people realise the core ideology of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats is the suppression of the masses so they, the elite, can lord over them. Just like Stalin. Just like Hitler. Both men of the Left.  

Now, I wouldn’t go as far as to say Nick Clegg should be compared to mass killers of history: he wouldn’t be capable of such organisation and leadership. No, but Nick Clegg is a socialist, who loves to keep the masses in their place, feed them welfare benefits with a little note telling the poor beggars who to vote for if they want the handouts to keep on coming. Clegg is the same as Labour leader Ed Miliband except Miliband and his political father, Gordon Brown, didn’t even try to hide their sinister ideology.

So, it is quite natural for them to want to suppress the press: it is an extension of their command and control of the people. It will make it even easier to ensure the public hear only what the liberal elite want them to hear. It all helps to keep you and I in our place whilst the “politburo” gets on with the business of power.

As you will have gathered I am wholly against Leveson’s recommendation that a “independent” regulator is set up and is “underpinned” by legislation. That’s a fancy way of saying the state should control the media. What was the point of Britain going to war twice and bringing down communism if we now have idiot politicians agreeing with such a dangerous recommendation from a not so bright judge? Got to be a bit careful haven’t I? In a couple of years time writing the last sentence might get me thrown into prison!

Privacy on his terms: British actor Hugh Grant

This is the reality of the Leveson Report. Politicians who are in bed with those poor little celebrities who want to be able to use the press when they have a book to sell but want them to go away when they are getting up to immoral activities are being pressurised by these same people into shutting down the free press in this country, a press which has been free for hundreds of years. This is how far our political system has sunk.

It was good to see David Cameron say he was against state regulation of the media because only the Government can table legislation in the House of Commons. But he has his hands tied as he is in Coalition with a political party who came eighth in a Westminster election last week: the last Party that happened to was the SDP and they were wound up shortly afterwards. So, the Liberal Democrats who have crashed out of the political mainstream are going to be able to dictate the law of the land?

Worried: Can Cameron prevent state regulation of the media?

If Cameron lets these yellow peril pygmies ruin our democracy by removing one of its core pillars – a free press – we are no better than Syria or Zimbabwe. 

We are living in dangerous times. Only true leadership and a party which stands up for Britain will save us. Which party is this? Considering the Conservatives came behind Ukip at the Westminster by-election in Rotherham last week, the public are not so sure.

The Left show who the real fascists are

Fostering row: Labour run Rotherham Council

The Labour Party in Rotherham didn’t so much shoot themselves in the foot today as put a pistol to their temple and blow their brains out. Ed Miliband couldn’t move quick enough to the nearest TV camera to disown his own Party at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council. I haven’t seen such a rush to head off the incoming missile since Yasser Arafat sped to the nearest hospital to give his blood to the United States on 9/11.

In case you’ve missed the furore, Labour controlled Rotherham Council’s Director of Children and Young People’s Services, Joyce Thacker, ordered the removal of three children from their foster parents because of their membership of the UK Independence Party. This is not tabloid hyperbole. It is 100% true.

The ugly head of the Left in this country, who have been trying to destroy (and in many communities have succeeded) the traditional family for the past forty years forgot the first rule of running an oppressive regime: don’t make it too obvious you are running an oppressive regime.

The UK may be a democracy but let’s face it, as Winston Churchill said, it’s the least worst political system there is. Up and down the country we are run by hyper-politically correct fascists (otherwise known as Labour-run local government Councils) who wouldn’t be out of place in the higher echelons of the Stasi in East Berlin during the Cold War.

If you think I am exaggerating, let me repeat what a Labour council did in West Yorkshire, England: they had three children removed from their foster parents because they were members of a legal mainstream political party which doesn’t share the views of the Labour Party.

Mainstream: Ukip Leader Nigel Farage

The leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, said it was “political prejudice of the very worst kind”. As politicians of all parties piled into attack this loony Left decision, including Labour leader Ed Miliband who said “being a member of a political party like Ukip should not be a bar to fostering children”, Rotherham Council started to backtrack in a very unapologetic way. The Council said they were still right to remove the ethnic minority children but they would allow the husband and wife to carry on fostering but only “white children” would be placed with them. It is if we are back in the 1930s when fascism was rife or perhaps fascism was defeated in Europe but then it was reborn in the Labour Party?

Indefensible: Rotherham Council’s Joyce Thacker

Joyce Thacker popped up on Radio 4’s Today programme to defend her decision and said Ukip didn’t agree with multiculturalism. Well, she should read a newspaper other than The Guardian every now and again because even Prime Minister David Cameron thinks multiculturalism is a failed policy which creates segregation not integration.

And talking of Dave, he moved this evening to retract his own comment from 2006 that Ukip were “closet racists”. We really are entering a new world of politics aren’t we.

Ukip could not buy publicity like this. The coming days will see their membership boosted.

Cuts, what cuts?

Foolish: Unionists protesting against the “cuts” in Central London

This weekend my wife and I were visiting London to meet with a friend who is over from the Falkland Islands, who I went to university with. Whilst we were in the capital, we decided to visit the Churchill War Rooms in Whitehall. But as we ascended into Westminster from the Jubilee Line it is then when we came face-to-face with the mob, complete with waving Red flag. RMT socialists in fluorescent tabards wearing “Toryspotting” t-shirts were wandering menacingly around Westminster tube station and drunken marchers were accosting police in the subway to Whitehall. Lovely.

I have got no problem with people peacefully protesting – which after all is a right of a subject citizen in a free society – but it is the sheer ludicrous nature of the protest, organised by the TUC (who else?) and later addressed by Labour leader Ed Miliband. It was an “anti-cuts” march. But what cuts are they protesting against? Far from cutting, this Coalition government has INCREASED public debt by £120bn this financial year alone! Sure, spending has been marginally reduced, but only to the 2005 boom year levels. This weak government has hardly scratched the surface.

The UK owes over £1 trillion. The UK is not some abstract entity: it is me, it is you, it is your partner, it is your child, it is your neighbour. We were promised a bonfire of cuts by both Labour and Conservatives but we have a pilot light of tiny cuts, and instead of taking the brave decisions required,  Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander have decided to impoverish the next generation. Currently, every man, woman and child in the UK owes £16,951 of public debt and climbing. By 2016, the country will owe £1.5 trillion to our creditors, 35% of which are from other countries. This is REAL money which WE must PAY back or in the case of the UK which our children and grandchildren must pay back through ever higher taxes in the future.

These people getting in my way on Saturday should thank themselves they are not Spaniards – now that is a country which has had to make real cuts with unemployment at 25%. Spain was also bankrupted, like the UK, by socialists. But now a conservative government are taking the tough choices to put this southern European country back on an even keel and to save Spain’s future for her children. Compare this to Blighty where the public sector is still bloated with pointless diversity officers and five-a-day coordinators still taking up space and taxpayer’s money in local councils up and down the country.

Most of the public sector workers marching in London on Saturday will retire on index linked final salary pensions which private sector workers could only ever dream about. The vast majority of private sector workers either a) don’t have a pension or b) are solely reliant on the stock exchange performing well when they retire. In other words instead of a guaranteed pension paid for by the taxpayers of the future (yes your children and grandchildren will pay for your pension Mr Public Sector Worker), a private sector pensioner will retire on the money he or she has saved from their wages of today in the form of a saving account which has been gambled on the stock exchange in the hope they will make enough gains to feed themselves in their old age. If the money is not put in today, there will be no money in the future, unlike with a public sector pension. Is that fair?  Perhaps, the private sector employees should march on Whitehall!

Real economic meltdown: Greece descends into rioting this year

At the moment, all you see on the streets are “woe is me” public sector workers, paid more than private sector workers in many cases, marching for even higher wages and even safer pensions. But eventually the penny (pun intended) will drop amongst the silent private sector majority and then we may see even more on the streets. But let’s hope for the country’s sake, a real political leader will be in charge by then. If not, take a look at Greece for a vision of the future. Now, I wonder who my friend from the Falkland Islands would like to see back in charge of Blighty?

Ed Miliband is the Captain Smith of the Labour Party

In today’s Daily Telegraph, their superb and supremely intelligent columnist Fraser Nelson pretty much sums up my own views on British party politics today. He describes the woes of both Labour and the Conservatives. Fraser’s characterisation of Labour’s key players in the parliamentary party is spot on with his main premise that both Ed Miliband and David Miliband are Labour losers who are not the answer to any question the Labour Party is asking.

From a Conservative perspective, Fraser states what I have thought all along but not articulately very well that Labour actually did quite well at the last election, considering they were being led by the worst post-war Prime Minister. They have one of the biggest Opposition parties ever as a result. But this isn’t because the voters liked Labour, they just didn’t understand or like what the Conservatives stood for. This cuts back to my view on why the Conservatives lost the last General Election, which I have written about here. The fact Cameron could not win a majority in 2010 puts him in the bracket of the most electorally unsuccessful Tory prime minister in history – all my Coalition-loving Tories should question why we failed to win so many seats in the last General Election instead of thinking we won the General Election when we patently did not.

Fraser Nelson also has time in his article for a Tony Blair appearance. This section from his article is wonderful:

“One wonders what Tony Blair makes of all this. He visited Britain last month, and, like many foreign dignitaries on tight schedules, held a breakfast meeting with an invited audience. Carefully selected young Labour MPs were summoned and sat like groupies at the Cabinet-style table, as he held court.”

Enjoy the full article here.

The Left are living in cloud cuckoo land

Here’s a prediction: Labour are never going to win back power at Westminster until they elect a Blairite leader. Forget it Ed, yes both of you. Listen carefully: you two are never going to be in Government again.

Ed Miliband has spent the last 18 months opposing every single cut the Coalition Government has had to impose because Labour had done it again and bankrupted the country. The public have not exactly warmed to Labour’s message. Why would they? If your house is set on fire, you go to the fire brigade not the arsonist. It seems the dismal polls have started to hit home and so the Labour leadership has decided to change tack. But instead of hauling their limping ship back on to the centre ground the Labour Opposition (get used to those words being contiguous) get torpedoed by their own side: the unions. 

On Saturday, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls made a speech to the Fabian Society where he said Labour would not reverse Coalition cuts and he would also introduce public sector pay freezes to help tackle the deficit, which will still be an issue at the next General Election in 2015.

Then on Sunday, Ed Miliband popped up on the Andrew Marr show to say he agreed with his Shadow Chancellor, disagrees with the cuts, but will not be able to reverse the cuts if Labour won back power. So clear as mud then.

This quote from Mr Miliband’s interview with Andrew Marr pretty much sums up the Labour leader’s incoherent message:

“If Labour was in power now we wouldn’t be making those changes. We wouldn’t be cutting as far and as fast as the government.
“But when it comes to the next Labour government, if I was saying to you: ‘I can absolutely promise to restore this cut or that cut’, you would say: ‘Well, where is the money going to come for that?’

Jon Snow on Channel 4 News tonight reminded Ed Miliband that when he was running for leader of the Labour Party he said the government’s pay freeze was “an ideological attack on the public sector by the Conservatives”. So how does this tally with the Labour leader now being in favour of public sector pay freezes? There was a lot of bluster but no answer.

This change in policy has been too much for his paymasters and the union bosses were today dispatched. Mark Serwotka, the PCS public sector union, told Adam Boulton on Sky News this lunchtime that Ed Miliband’s leadership had been an “unmitigating disaster”. But this was nothing compared to the man who launched the torpedo personally: unite’s boss, Len McClusky. Writing in Labour’s bible, The Guardian, Mr McClusky accuses the Two Ronnies of staging a Blairite policy coup. Now, I’m not too sure about that. You could never call the two Eds Blairite. And considering the complete balls-up they have made of the policy change it was not exactly successful, unlike the real Blairites when it came to elections.

Ed Miliband does not get it: the only reason Labour won three elections in the row was because Blair at least gave the impression his party was economically literate. Then along came Brown and his crew, with Miliband and Balls on the bridge, and that put paid to the public’s trust in Labour on the economy. To add salt to the wound Miliband is dangerously in denial.  His Today interview with John Humphrey last Tuesday was astonishing. The Labour leader prattled on about how Labour did not spend too much and the deficit was caused solely by America. This rhetoric would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

I really hope Ed Miliband hangs on. Labour will never win an election whilst this fool is in charge.