A shameful way to treat heroes

The sad suicide of PC David Rathband highlights once again the poor way in which we treat those who are injured while protecting us from terrorists, criminals and just waste of space losers like Raoul Moat.

Moat shot PC Rathband as the policeman sat in his patrol car. PC Rathband survived the murder attempt but lost his sight.

He found it increasingly difficult to cope and his wife leaving him added to his strain and torment. Finally, this week PC Rathband hanged himself.

His death is reminiscent of that of PC Philip Olds. The 29-year-old-traffic policeman had challenged Stuart Blackstock and an accomplice after a failed off licence raid in Hayes, Middlesex, in December 1980. Blackstock shot PC Olds shattering his spine, leaving him paralysed. Blackstock, a Hell's Angel who had a long criminal record, was cleared of attempted murder but jailed for life for wounding with intent to resist arrest

PC Olds was unable to come to terms with his disability and killed himself with a drugs overdose in 1986. Unbelievably, Blackstock was given £7,000 compensation after his prison status review was delayed. The European Court (who else?) found the 22-month wait for a decision on his prisoner category caused "anxiety" to Blackstock.

It is a similar story when it comes to soldiers coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq with limbs missing. They are poorly treated when they should get the best of care.

The treatment of injured public servants is a national disgrace.

The mysterious world of Facebook finance

The news, or rumour, that Facebook is about go public with an IPO started me wondering again. Where does its money come from?

I am still puzzled as to how Facebook is worth $100billion - or whatever the latest figure appears to be. Where does the revenue come from? Advertising? I had a Facebook account for a while and only once clicked on an ad. I have asked others with accounts if they click on the ads. No one has admitted to doing so. Obviously, my "research" is only empiric but of replicated nationwide would seem to infer that the number of ad clicks is not great. Additionally, the email account I used for Facebook (not my main address) has not been bombarded with spam relating to the subject of the one ad link that I did click - photography, in case you are interested - so Facebook is not selling email addresses.

So where does the revenue come from? Facebook is, at least in the UK, not allowed to sell the information its users input. Similarly, it cannot use the millions of uploaded photographs for commercial reasons so that is not a source of income.

Facebook doesn't sell email addresses; it doesn't appear to use the information or photographs stored on its servers. Despite the occasional rumour that it is going to start charging for use, it boasts that Facebook is free and always will be. A number of large companies ask us to become "fans" on Facebook so does Facebook charge companies for their pages? Even if it does (and I doubt it does) that cannot bring in that large a sum. Apart from raising their profile what good would it do for those companies? Does Coca-Cola or McDonald's, for example, need to raise their profile via Facebook? So, that's not where the money comes from.

Facebook appears to be the latest example of a dotcom company that is valued far beyond its true worth. Remember the 90s? Remember all the people who invested in dotcom companies and then got horribly burned when the bubble burst? I fear the same thing will happen to anyone who invests in Facebook shares, that is, of course, if Facebook does issue an IPO - and, of course, there is no guarantee that it will.

Diana's death taught the North Koreans to publicly mourn

Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Dear Leader, died of a heart attack on Saturday at the age of 69 or possibly 70 - as with so much about him his date of birth is unclear.

North Koreans have taken to the streets in an outpouring of grief that frankly looks ridiculous to cynical Westerners. Perhaps most of it is orchestrated by the government to show the world how much the people will miss the Dear Leader.

As I watched the footage on North Korean television I was transported back to August and September 1997 when this country was host to a similar situation - people crying over the death of someone they only knew from the television or newspapers.

In the days following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales you not only grieved but you had to be seen to grieve and if you didn't you ran the risk of having your head kicked in, as did some poor sod who decided to wash his car on the morning of her funeral.

Laugh all you want at the public mourning in North Korea and then watch the footage of Diana's funeral and tell me what is different.

We should honour our own...

In this country we seem to have almost an obsession with honouring foreigners and foreign towns that have nothing to do with us.

There is a statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square. Why? What has Mandela got to do with this country? As a member of what was a terrorist organisation, I don't understand why he is so honoured. I doubt if he lives to be 90-odd we would erect a statue to Gerry Adams. At least I hope not...

Now, we learn an old soldier has lost a two-year battle to stop the local council renaming the Hemsworth bypass in Pontefract, West Yorkshire Sprockhoevel Way. Sprockhoevel is a town in the Ruhr. I'm sure it's a very nice town but what on earth does it have to to with Pontefract? Is there a Pontefract Strasse in the Ruhr? What do you think?

It's not the cuts, Ken...

Some things are cyclical. The planet warms up and cools down by itself; flares come back into fashion; a reality show winner will crash and burn and Ken Livingstone will pop up opportunistically to have a pop at the Tories.

There he was last night on Newsnight blaming the rioting in Tottenham, Hackney, Croydon et al on "the cuts". He bemoaned the "fact" that in Tottenham nine youth clubs have closed because of the Coalition government. Of course that's the reason Ken. It was obvious to anyone watching the rampaging mob that if they hadn't been setting fire to Carpetright or looting a Vodafone shop that they would have been down the local youth club enjoying a lemonade while playing a gentle game of Whist.

The fact is that, like Livingstone, much of what has gone on over the past three days is nothing more than opportunism. Opportunism to run amok. Opportunism to have a punch-up with the Old Bill. Opportunism to smash up a few shops and loot them while you can.

The people carrying out this mayhem are not doing it because of the cuts. They are not doing it because the police shot some gangster in the back of a taxi. They are doing it because they are greedy, stupid, feckless thieves who would prefer to live on money made by selling drugs or benefits or both, rather than get a proper job and improve the "community" they claim so passionately to care about.

As for Livingstone, well there's a mayoral election next year and there's nothing like going on television to defend "the people".

Bring on the water cannons - and if Ken Livingstone gets a bit wet, so much the better.

The answer is not blowin' in the wind

Wind turbines are a giant waste of hot - and cold - air. They don't work in the cold and if it is too cold, they have to be switched off in case they get damaged. Oh and if it is too cold they have to be heated thus causing them to cost more money than they actually save. Madness.

Now, we learn that they will be have to switched off for 38 days a year if it gets too windy because the National Grid cannot cope with a surge in power. At the moment, they are turned off for 25 days a year. Based on historic data, wind turbines will have to be switched off for 38 days every year when wind power production exceeds 35 per cent of installed wind capacity and demand falls below half the levels seen at peak time, National Grid said.

So are we abandoning this folly? No, we are pressing ahead to increase these eyesores seven-fold by 2020. Utter, utter madness.

Close our purse strings

Prime Minister David Cameron announces that Britain will donate a further £814million of taxpayers’ money to a child vaccine programme run by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, taking the country’s total contribution to £1.5billion. He told a conference at a five-star hotel (natch) in London that people should be "proud" of the Coalition’s pledge to increase aid spending by 34 per cent to more than £12billion.

As well as being more than five times the £274million pledged by the U.S., it is more than 30 times higher than Germany’s £44million and almost 50 times the £30million given by Spain. Japan gave just £5.5million, while China gave nothing.

Raj Shah, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that America could not afford to give more because it was facing a "very difficult budget environment".

No kidding? Our "donation" would be all very laudable if the country was not financially bankrupt. We simply cannot afford to be the world's nurse as well as its traffic warden.

Why do the "great and the good" love grandstanding with otehr people's money? Lord Coe told a radio audience that he believed most Londoners were happy to pay for the Olympic Games - he has obviously not spoken to the Londoners I know. We didn't want it and certainly don't want to pay for it.

Gordon Brown paid untold millions just so that he could have his picture taken with Nelson Mandela. Now his successor at Number 10, a millionaire many times over, is giving away more of our money at the time people are fearful of a double dip recession that will lead to more unemployed, more homeless and more misery.

Enough is enough. Charity begins at home, Mr Cameron.

Shoesmith's blood money

They just don't get it.

The hatchet-faced harridan Sharon Shoesmith who has unbelievably won her case for unfair dismissal sqawks, "I don't do blame" when asked if she feels any responsibility for the death of 17-month-old toddler Peter Connelly.

She claims that her health has suffered because of her ordeal and that she had even contemplated suicide although she didn't look at death's door in the pictures taken on Friday.

Shoesmith claims that she took the case to court for "justice" not for money. So by this, can we take it that she will not be taking one penny of any offered compensation that she so richly does not deserve?

Prisoners have no right to vote

It has been a long time since my last post for which I apologise.

Should prisoners have a right to vote? No. Totally and unequivocally no. When someone goes to prison, they lose the right to vote and this is as how it should be.

A friend of mine disagreed. He said that anything that makes prisoners feel less disenfranchised is a good thing.

Aside from most prisoners not knowing what "disenfranchised" means, thanks to the appalling comprehensive school system, does my well-meaning but, I believe, naive friend really believe that most prisoners could care less whether they can vote or not?

Does he really believe that Chummy lays on his bunk in his cell on a Friday and Saturday night when his friends are out burgling or chatting up girls in pubs and bemoans the fact that he cannot vote?

More evidence we are not fighting a war on drugs

When drugs are discussed, many say that since the war on drugs has been lost, we should decriminalise all drugs.

My view is that the war on drugs has not been lost, it was never fought. A story that broke after Christmas gives credence to my view.

An email was issued to staff at Heathrow 0n 23 December, telling them not to "actively seek to identify any passenger with internal concealments".

The email, leaked by a whistleblower, also warned officers that if they did arrest smugglers, they would have to work a 24-hour shift guarding prisoners.

It read: "We would seek your co-operation in managing this situation by asking that you do not actively seek to identify any passenger with internal concealments for three days up to and including Christmas Day."

This is a disgraceful abrogation of duty and the person who issued it should be immediately sacked.

Last cut is the deepest

So Justice Secretary Ken Clarke is to drop the manifesto proposal that anyone caught carrying a knife would be subject to an automatic prison sentence.

The Coalition have now lost the moral high ground when it comes to law and order but is anyone really surprised that they are backtracking on yet another promise?

Is Ed too young?

So Ed Miliband is the leader of the Labour Party just five years after he entered the House of Commons. If David Cameron calls a general election in 2009 rather than the following year, Ed Miliband could become Prime Minister just nine years after he became an MP.

By coincidence, David Cameron moved into Number 10 nine years after he became an MP.

We are now ruled by a political elite that have never had a proper job in their lives (I exclude David Cameron's stint as PR for Carlton TV) and are getting younger and younger. Surely, those who seek to govern us should have had some experience of life before getting their hands on power or at least have a dozen or more years of being a back bencher before moving into government.

I have been looking back over the most recent PMs.

Gordon Brown was an MP for 24 years before he became PM.
Tony Blair had 14 years' experience.
John Major was an MP for 11 years before entering Number 10.
Margaret Thatcher had 20 years as an MP.
Jim Callaghan waited 26 years before becoming PM.
Harold Wilson took 19 years to climb the greasy pole.
Alec Douglas-Home took 33 years between becoming an MP and becoming Prime Minister but his spell was interrupted by going to the Upper House.
Harold Macmillan also spent 33 years before he moved into Number 10.

Some of these were good premiers and some bad but they all had 10 or more years learning the ropes. Our future politicians should take note...

Well done to Ed

I would like to offer my congratulations to Ed Miliband, the new leader of the Labour Party.

However, his victory is yet another example of where the "experts" got it wrong. A minute or two before the Labour lady announced the result, BBC political editor Nick Robinson predicted that Miliband major would win. Other "experts" claimed that as well and also said that Ed Balls would finish last when, in fact, he won the bronze medal.

So as Miliband minor takes over, beware the "experts" - they are usually wrong as they have been on Aids, climate change, bird flu, the Millennium Bug and so many other topics.

Cut back strictly gay projects

In the Nineteenth Century Oscar Wilde described homosexuality as "the love that dare not speak its name".

In the Twentieth Century Kenneth Williams commented that the love that dare not speak its name now won't stop shouting from the rooftops".

The public has been assailed for many years with the knowledge that at least one in 10 people are gay and thus governments of all hues have spent millions of taxpayers' money on what really amounts to homosexual propaganda: that a gay relationship is as valid as a heterosexual one; that gays should be allowed to adopt children; that the rights of gays should be paramount to the religious beliefs of many, etc.

Now, new research has revealed that Britain does not have one in 10 gays but that the real figure is more likely one in 100. The Office for National Statistics said that 1.3 per cent of men are gay and 0.6 per cent of women are lesbian.

Another 0.5 per cent consider themselves bisexual, according to the figures gathered from questions put to nearly 250,000 - the biggest survey possible outside a full national census.

This means that, in total, around 1.5 per cent of the population is either homosexual or bisexual.

The number is far lower than the estimate used as a basis for the distribution of millions of pounds in public money to sexual equality causes.

When the last government framed civil partnership laws, it accepted an assumption that at least five per cent of the population was homosexual.

Will the coalition scale back on lesbian outreach workers and their like and spend public money on schemes that benefit the whole public not a tiny but nonetheless vocal majority?

Root out the bad apples in the police

Sergeant Mark Andrews was jailed last week for an unprovoked attack on a 59-year-old lady. He was sent down for six months after he had been found guilty of actual bodily harm.

Now another man has come forward to claim that he, too, was assaulted by Andrews.

What I find surprising is that Andrews was not immediately sacked on conviction. Further two of his colleagues lied on oath when giving evidence for him. They were PC Mark McIntyre and Acting Sergeant Kate Smith. They alleged that the 59-year-old lady had been violent but Deputy District Judge Peter Greenfield said on sentencing Andrews, "You called two officers whose evidence I didn’t accept... I was so concerned about the evidence these officers gave me, I asked my comments to be brought to the attention of the Chief Officer of Wiltshire."

A police spokesman said, "Two officers will be receiving words of advice from a senior officer on how to present their evidence."

"Words of advice"? Isn't that more often called attempting to pervert the course of justice?

Since when was it the job of the local council to pay for toms?

August is the "silly season" in what used to be Fleet Street. Stories that ordinarily would not get a look-in are featured in newspapers.

Today, The Mail on Sunday runs a story that local councils are using taxpayers' money to pay for prostitutes, visits to lap-dancing clubs and exotic holidays for the disabled.

Labour (who else?) introduced a £520million scheme to "empower people with disabilities".

I am sure that the intention was not for this money to be used setting up people with toms.

That is precisely what is happening. One social worker said that if his client, a 21-year-old with moderate learning disabilities, was not allowed to visit a hooker in Amsterdam, it would be breach of his human rights. The social worker said that the 21-year-old was an angry, frustrated and anxious young man and that it was the social worker's duty let him use the money for sex.

Another man who apparently has a brain injury has sessions organised by an
occupational therapist that were designed to teach him to become sexually self-reliant after his wife left him and took all their money.

The 21-year-old man travelling to Amsterdam in September has never paid for sex before but intends to use his personal budget from social services to "try it".

"Who says he can't do what he wants?" his social worker said [I do]. "We can't place restrictions on a young man who wants to experience the world. [Why not?] He has been to two different sexual health and sexual awareness courses and basically wants to try it. Like anyone else wouldn't."

It's on day this that you realise that the country is truly in the grip of mad people.

The social worker adds, "Wouldn't you prefer that we can control this, guide him, educate him, support him to understand the process and ultimately end up satisfying his needs in a secure, licensed place where his happiness and growth as a person is the most important thing?"

What job is it of taxpayers to fund a 21-year-old's "happiness and growth"?

"The need is there. I identified it, I assessed it, and am going to be providing a service to meet it. By refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights. Put yourself in his shoes before you cut off his balls."

It's your balls that should be cut off Mr Social Worker for even considering this nonsense.

Another chap got a holiday in Tunisia, a subscription to an internet dating site, driving lessons and expensive art materials.

We really all are going to hell in a handcart...