Rasputin and Litvinenko - Parallel Deaths?

My tale concerns mystery, intrigue, secret services, and lots and lots of poison. It could be the fact that the police have handed over to the CPS details about Litvinenko's murder, but it's not. It is about things that happened in Russia a long time ago, about Rasputin. And, perhaps, about how the tables may have turned, but Russia is still fundamentally the same as it was one hundred years ago.

Rasputin, a long time ago, became friends with the royal family, Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra, grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. Through their son's illness, they became friends with Rasputin, who could, it seems "heal" the patient through his holy powers. I will not pass judgement on what method he used, or whether it was divine intervention, but his life was very interesting for a holy man.

He enjoyed, it seems, to engage prostitutes. But on one encounter, when the police looked inside an apartment that he was sharing with one, he simply stayed with her for a bit, and then left. Hence, Rasputin the monster was probably made up, but he did enjoy the celebrity status that his relationship with the Tsarina brought.

Anyway, two enemies of Rasputin (NOTE: They were enemies of Rasputin, but also related to Tsar Nicholas) decided to kill him. He died eventually, and his death is as much of a mystery as his life.

If we look at what happened with Litvinenko, he was in Putin's sphere of influence as a FSB agent. He therefore held a lot of influence. He met some Russian secret service agents (enemies perhaps of Litvinenko but friendly with Putin), and then he died. I am not trying to blame the Russian secret service, but look at the parallels.

Rasputin was a man that many wanted out of the way. Same with Litvinenko. They both held a lot of sway. They both got assassinated by the secret service. There were implications that the British secret service was complicit in Rasputin's case. There appears to be Russian secret service involvement in this one, but the scene of the country has shifted.

Some more parallels. Russia was an autocracy. Now, it still is, but it pretends to be democratic. The people are rebellious. Corruption is rife in the higher echelons. The secret service effectively runs the place. The Duma is subservient. If Russia doesn't westernise quickly, it could easily face the same fate as 1917.

As you can probably see, I am a great believer in the idea that the past dictates what the future shall be. We need to learn our lessons from what has happened previously. And in Britain as well as Russia, people haven't.

Why Isn't Reid Sacked?

John Reid, who seems to be mentioned here more than any other New Labour politician, has made another one of his characteristic statements:

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Writing in the Guardian, Mr Reid said "being home secretary is my biggest challenge" and he would not resign.

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Considering that after just one such "challenge" - the deportation of foreign prisoners, Reid's predecessor, Charles Clarke, was on the receiving end of this statement from Blair:

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"I felt that it was very difficult, given the level of genuine public concern, for Charles to continue in this post."

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Considering Reid has had a grand total of six resignable issues, why hasn't he been sacked by Blair? Well, in Reid's own words:

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"If you renovate a house you start by taking the wallpaper off, it is then you discover more problems," he said.

And Mr Reid said he should be judged not on the challenges he faced, but by his response to them.

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Considering, again, that Clarke said a couple of identical things, how is it possible that Reid is still in the job? He's had six months to "take the wallpaper off." If we were to believe that the Home office was not really "fit for purpose", we would like to believe that Reid has been doing something in the last six months.

This is the precise problem. Home Office inactivity. Reid was told about overcrowded prisons, about the release of dangerous criminals, a long time ago. Where was the action behind the scenes to prevent this happening? And seeing that Clarke was sacked as outlined above after a very insignificant problem, whereas Reid has got away with much much more.

One can only draw one conclusion from this; Blair wants to split the Home Office in two, for whatever reason. Reid has had orders to do this. Therefore the best way is to make as many scandals as possible, as shown by Reid's inactivity over prisons, to facilitate this split. As a reward, Reid can take control of the anti-terror section.

I hope that the Government does not want to put the British in danger in this way, but it would not be surprising.

European Union (Information, etc.) Bill

This bill appears to be implementing the directive that all places should fly the EU flag instead of the Union Flag:

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make provision for information to be made available in various public places
relating to the activities and organisation of the European Union; to make
provision for the flying of the flag of the European Union on various public
buildings; to provide information to further the establishment of twinning
arrangements between towns in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the
European Union in accordance with the European Union’s town twinning
support scheme; and for connected purposes.

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Apart from some decent clauses, such as

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Information and statistics relating to the European Union shall be provided	5
free of charge on the internet.

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it's pretty dire stuff. It's a two-part bill, part one relating to statistics, and part two saying that all public buildings shall fly the EU flag. Which leads me back to my biggest gripe with the EU.

We are told it is not a country.
It has it's own national anthem.
It has it's own flag.
It has it's own passport.
It has it's own civil service.
It has it's own borders.
It has it's own army.
It has it's own government.

In what sense is it not a country?

Citizenship Is An Excuse For Brainwashing Children

Alarm should be raised over a report which recommends an extension of citizenship lessons. The Education Secretary says that:

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Education Secretary Alan Johnson has said schools should "play a leading role in creating community cohesion".

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Now, lets look at this. "community cohesion" is a term here meaning getting communities closer together. OK, but if you look about what is actually being proposed that children will study:

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New topics for citizenship

Immigration

Devolution

Slavery

British Empire's legacy

The European Union

Rule of law

Democracy

Equality

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Now, how many of these are relevant to bringing communities closer together? Very few. An easier, cheaper and better way to do what Mr. Johnson says would be to have community projects that schoolchildren spend their citizenship lessons working on. Sitting in a classroom learning about the EU is hardly beneficial to the community.

It is this total lack of decent explanation by the government that makes me think that there is an ulterior motive. I have already, normally around May 9th, made my views clear about EU "education" days, having experienced a couple myself.

NOTE: This is not some idiot mouthing off about government education policy. I am currently at a secondary school. It does actually affect me, and many of these "citizenship" things I have actually taken part in.

I have compared this EU day with the Soviet "education" programme, whereby children got brainwashed into the Communist way of thinking. I would therefore like to logically extend this comparison to encompass citizenship day too.

If you look at the report, Britishness is mentioned. But what will actually happen, I predict based on previous experience, that the Government of the day will hand down to schools a pack of work which basically outlines government policy on these issues. On the EU day at school, the sheets visibly supported the EU, with condescending remarks that "some people believe that..." to show the eurosceptic position. If UKIP were in power, then the packs would be markedly different, but the same principle would apply.

Britishness is only being taught in English schools. Have I missed something somewhere? Only the english are being indoctrinated with these silly initiatives.

Therefore, I believe that the best way to proceed is to take citizenship, Britishness, whatever you want to call it, out of the school syllabus. It does not belong in schools, where what you actually get taught is based on the government of the day and the whim of the teacher. Schools are not political organisations, so party politics, which these lessons amount to, should logically be excluded. Instead, people need to work out where they stand themselves, instead of being poked into a thoughtspeak line of thinking in these lessons. This is where blogs, news sites, and party websites come into their own. This is how I found out all I know about politics, and I'm not the only one who has done this. Some argue that we should have been taught about this at school, to save us having to find out. But how can you be taught whether grammar schools are better than comprehensives? Whether catholics should be allowed to opt out of pro-homosexual legislation? It can't. You must find out for yourself and come to your own conclusion. Indoctrination of children must end before it has begun.

This is a long post, so I'll get off my soapbox now. Thankyou for your patience.

Maths Exams And Bible Quizzes

I have a maths exam today, so no real blogging will take place. It's D1, which when some of the readers of this page were at school, probably masqueraded under the name of Applied Mathematics. It's basically Linear Programmes, Simulation, Networks, Graph Theory, Critical Path Analysis and Algorithms. In an hour and a half.

On a completely different topic, I have completed a quiz:

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You know the Bible 88%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

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Not quite as good as ben here, but not disgraceful.

EU Laws Are Illegal, but Labour Doesn't Care

Departing from my usual source of the BBC, but never mind. This is something that the BBC would never consider reporting due to it's criticism of New Labour:

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A leaked letter from Geoff Hoon, the Europe Minister, shows that the Government turns a blind eye in Brussels to possible illegality because it can be used as a trade-off in EU negotiations.

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Yes, that's right. The Government lets the EU break it's own laws to have itself granted favours. Despicable behaviour. Given this, it's amazing how New Labour have managed to get such a bad deal for us in Europe, now that their main bargaining tool is out in the open.

I knew that the EU was bad - I've visited it - I guessed that the Government was colluding with them to destroy Britain, and now it's confirmed. Blair doesn't care about small problems of legality, and anyway, if this was raised in the ECJ, because the courts are probably in the pocket of the Commission, any hope of a judicial recognition of this is impossible. So they do this because there is no mechanism for bringing them to justice.

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Every month, ministers such as Mr Hoon were "cosying up" to the integrationists in Brussels and waving through new EU regulations, even though they knew some of them might be illegal.

John Redwood, a leading Eurosceptic, said the Government was "carelessly giving away" Britain's right of self-government over many areas without proper debate or explanation to Parliament or the people.

Graham Brady, Conservative spokesman on Europe, said it showed an "arrogant disregard for democracy and the rule of law".

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Just to summarise, new EU laws are illegal, but Hoon doesn't care, because he gets, in effect, bribes for keeping silent. Ministerial corruption, if ever I saw it.

The BBC's Views On Real News...

On the 6 O'Clock news yesterday, what was the first story to be mentioned? Was it the fact that a bomb plotter studied chemistry? Was it the letter bomb sent to a company in Abingdon, Oxfordshire? Don't be silly. This is the BBC, so the most important story was the licence fee increase. To quote "The BBC is disappointed at the rise in licence fees." Such reporting, putting the petty BBC squabble above real news like those stated above, is not likely to raise the BBC up in our already low estimations.

By refusing to accept that there is any important news that doesn't concern them, they are placing themselves in a very dangerous position. There can be no justification for including this above the terror trial and deaths in gales. Those are REAL news, not the licence fee debate. Indeed, such a petty thing need not be on the news at all, or if it has to be, appended on the end.

Another Donation For Labour...

Mr Mittal, a well-known Labour donor, has donated an extra £2m to the Labour Party. At a time when Tory donors are threatening to walk out over the party's weak euroscepticism and join UKIP, it's hard to find someone to bankroll the party.

However, with Mittal:

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Mr Mittal was not among those who bankrolled the 2005 election campaign, and there is no suggestion that he has sought any honours in return for his support for Labour.

In a statement, Mr Mittal said: "I am a long-term supporter of the Labour Party and the work it has done in the United Kingdom to improve the overall prosperity and prospects of the country since coming to office in 1997."

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And Blair writing a letter to the Romanian government to support Mittal's bid for the nationalised steel industry had nothing at all to do with his most generous donation of £125,000 at the time. So much for "hasn't sought any honours". He hasn't true, but he's got other rewards.

An Anglo-French Union Was Proposed In 1956

Instead of Britain joining the French-led EU, it could nearly have been the other way around:

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So, when Eden turned down his request for a union between France and Britain the French prime minister came up with another proposal.

This time, while Eden was on a visit to Paris, he requested that France be allowed to join the British Commonwealth.

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As a eurosceptic and an imperialist, I think that this solution is infinitely better to the EEC. To start off with, the Commonwealth does not make laws without the agreement of all states. The EU does. The commonwealth does not interfere in nation states, just requires that they are a democracy (sort of) and that they accept her Majesty. The EU is the epitome of interference.

However, academics have had other thoughts:

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Seeing these words for the first time, Henri Soutou, professor of contemporary history at Paris's Sorbonne University almost fell off his chair.

Stammering repeatedly he said: "Really I am stuttering because this idea is so preposterous. The idea of joining the Commonwealth and accepting the headship of Her Majesty would not have gone down well. If this had been suggested more recently Mollet might have found himself in court."

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True, it is preposterous, but at the same time, Europe as a continent could have come out many times for the better, if it was placed under British stewardship in the Commonwealth, a loose grouping of states instead of a tight, federalist country with no escape under the rule of the French.

The pro-EU BBC notes:

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Instead, when the EEC was born the following year, France teamed up with Germany while Britain watched on. The rest, it seems, is history.

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Indeed.

Home Office Minister Thinks Brits Are Criminals

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There are concerns about the flow of information from countries outside Europe, by Mr McNulty also said there were problems with some European countries.

"As I understand it, for example, there have been since last May no notifications of any UK citizen causing any crime at all in Spain or Greece. And just intuitively that doesn't sound right."

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Sadly, it's probably true.

The Honourable Members Like A Bit Of a Laugh

An easy target in the Commons has to be Lembit Opik, after his cheeky girl revelations. It turns out that Northern Ireland Questions must have been a hoot when Opik stood up to speak:

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MPs shouted: "Who's a cheeky boy?" as Mr Opik rose to speak at Northern Ireland questions.

He responded: "I think Honourable Members should leave any cheeky business completely to me."

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But he crossed the line between humour and vulgarity in his next contribution yesterday:

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Later, during Prime Minister's question time Mr Opik faced more laughter when he rose to ask a question about motor neurone disease.

Before asking the question, he said: "Not wishing to be cheeky, Mr Speaker, I thank the House for being so happy that I am so very, very lucky.

"And I should point out that the other sister is still single," he added.

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UPDATE: Chemistry Lessons Offer Insight Into The EU

Further to the previous post, in Chemistry today, I noticed that a sheet on sulphur in fuels mentioned that there is an EU target, expired last year, of having no more than 50 ppm sulphur in fuels. We therefore had a look on the EU website to try and see if the target was met.

There was, of course, no answer as to whether the target had been met. As I have NEVER been able to find out anything from a supposedly "open europe", this was not surprising, and probably means that the target has been conveniently forgotten. We did find the original directive though, and it did mention "reasonable progress", whatever that means. This directive also contained a target, put in in 2003, which extended the target to a slightly lower amount before 2009. And this is the point of the post.

Another tactic of the EU to targets is, when a target will not be met, to extend it a bit so it does not appear to have failed. If, by some amazing chance, the 30% target does get put forward, we shall have to watch out nearer the time for sleight-of-hand tricks like this from the Commission.

30% Emission Reduction Will Not Happen

The European Union has come up with it's latest outlandish statement about climate change, that they want emissions reduced by 30% before 2020. OK, good for them, is the first reaction, but delving a little deeper offers some clues as to why this will never be achieved:

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But at the latest UN climate meeting its attempts to get new targets debated met with failure. The Commission is now likely to urge that all developed countries across the world adopt a goal of cuts in the order of 30% by 2020.

If other developed nations demur, the Commission will argue that Europe should set itself a less stringent unilateral target.

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So let's get this straight, a global consensus on climate change is impossible. Therefore, when talks fail, a less hard target will be set. At the UN meeting, less stringent targets were proposed and not agreed to, so proposing an even bigger target is madness. But madness is why the EU is here. So why announce the eye-catching scheme in the first place? It's good propaganda.

If the EU can make itself appear big on climate change, by proposing measures that it has no intention of keeping, then it's a sword with which to batter eurosceptics, with the blanket illogical set of statements that THE EU SUPPORTS LOW EMISSIONS, YOU DON'T SUPPORT THE EU, THEREFORE YOU DON'T SUPPORT LOW EMISSIONS. This school of thought fails to take into account the fact that the EU isn't the only government that supports low emissions, blanket continental policies don't work, hem hem CAP, so it's much easier if each individual country sets their emissions targets separately.

And then there's the idea of competition in the energy market:

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Some countries have historically preferred a more joined-up approach to the power business, while new entrants to the EU might argue the free market, competition-based model is not appropriate for them.

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What was I saying about it being better for each country to go their own way on policy?

Far Right MEPS To Gang Up

On first sight, this sounds quite threatening, but to quote from the BBC website:

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Far-right members of the European Parliament are preparing to join forces and form their own political group.

Such a move will give them more access to funding and positions of power. It is expected to happen next week.

Their leader is likely to be Bruno Gollnisch, a member of the French National Front currently awaiting a verdict on charges of Holocaust denial.

They had lacked the necessary 19 MEPs from five countries - but that changed when Bulgaria and Romania joined.

Romania has five far-right MEPs and Bulgaria has one.

The two countries joined the EU on 1 January - ironically, a move which the far right opposed.

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As almost all right wingers are eurosceptic, this makes three groups in the European Parliament who think that it should not exist: The Movement For A Europe Of Nations, UKIP's Independence and Democracy grouping, and this right wing one. Not to mention the Tory-Czech Movement For Democratic Change, to come into existence c. 2009.

There is now an abundance of eurosceptics in Parliament, so surely we should be approaching a sizeable minority of delegates. Now, if they were consolidated into a giant supergroup, eurosceptics would hold the biggest bargaining tool in Brussels - the balance of power between the EPP and the Socialists. Think about all of the conditions that eurosceptics could make the EPP in return for support - a budget cap, destruction of the CAP amongst others. But this will never happen.

It is hard enough getting two tories to agree on the same thing, but try to get UKIP, the Tories and Mussolini's grandson to agree on anything. Nigh on impossible.

But what was our socialist, oh so responsible green MEP doing at the time? Well, getting arrested, as it turns out:

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About 30 politicians had gathered to continue demonstrations outside the Faslane submarine base on the Clyde.

SSP MSPs Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie and Frances Curran were escorted from the base after a protest at about 1100 GMT.

Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly member Leanne Wood, Green MEP Caroline Lucas and Dutch socialists MP Krista Van Velzen were also removed by police.

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Socialists respect the law, my foot!

Quotation Of The Day

>From The Clocks by Agatha Christie:

"Must have been foreign," said Mrs Curtin. "Me and my old man went on a coach trip to Switzerland and it was a whole hour further on there. Must be something to do with this Common Market. I don't hold with the Common Market and nor does Mr Curtin. England's good enough for me."

For a book first published in 1963, it really is quite interesting. Food for thought, surely.

No Urinal Is Safe

Friday is when all the bizarre news comes out, such as a urinal thief:

The man is thought to have spent 40 minutes removing the white toilet bowl after ordering half a pint at the Royal Oak pub in Southampton.

He then stuffed the urinal in a rucksack and left the pub making sure he wiped his fingerprints off the door as he went.

Apparantly he made several trips to the loo, interspersed with sips of Fosters. You wouldn't believe that it is true, apart from the fact that it was all caught on CCTV.

What has our society come to, when people are nicking pub toilets? The world is getting stranger and stranger. Plus, it was the most-read story on th BBC site when I last checked.

Christian Union "Discriminates Against Non-Christians"

Such is the argument that Exeter University has employed in deciding to strike said Christian Union off the books of approved student groups:

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A statement on the Exeter University Students Guild website said: "The premise of the situation is that students felt that as students fund our societies and as our Equal Opportunities Policy states, all activities should be open to all students."

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Yep, the Union is open to all students. Although how many agnostics, atheists and Muslims are queueing up to get into the CU? None. So the statement of beliefs that the Christians have to sign, is in fact only being looked at by Christians. It's like a member of the Green Party joining a Conservative Future meeting group. It's just not going to happen.

It is my view that equal opportunities should only be applied when action is taken to deliberately exclude one group from a society. In this case, no-one is being excluded as the people likely to take offence have nothing to do with the society in question. The only people who are required to sign this paper are Christian, so why should there be a problem about a Muslim who cannot sign when he had no intentio of doing so in the first place? And what are the ramifications for similar Muslim groups up and down the country?

Some words from the Archbishop of Canterbury to finish:

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Dr Rowan Williams said the refusal by some student unions to recognise evangelical Christian groups looked like a "fear of open argument".

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And so it is. Brainwashing by the Liberal agnostics in high positions, who don't like to be contradicted.

My Top Referrers - December 2006

December was the month of record amounts of traffic for me. Still fairly puny though, so here is the breakdown for December:

1) Road To Euro Serfdom, with 45.8%. (New Entry)
2) Google, with 22.69%. (All searches, -21.06%)
3) Satura, with 11.76%. (+4.47%)
4) Rightlinks, with 5.88%. (-9.75%)
5) Strong Conservative, with 2.94%. (-5.39%)
6) AOL, with 2.52%. (More searches, New Entry)
7) MyBlogLog, with 2.1%. (New Entry)
8) Technorati, with 1.68%. (-4.57%)
9) Dizzy Thinks, with 1.68%. (-1.45%)
10) Yahoo, with 1.26%. (Yet more searches, -1.87%)

So there you have it. Due to a couple of links to my european parliament posts, referrals soared.

New EU Inhabitants

So the EU has expanded once again, to include two more states that, if you apply EU criteria, shouldn't be in. Yet they are, and no more can be done about it. The population of the EU is now half a billion, evidence, of course, that Brussels wants an empire.

The British Empire finished after the war. The Roman empire finished in aboutt AD 400. But the Brussels Empire shall never collapse, because it is, once in, impossible to leave. We can only leave if all other member states agree, rendering one of Harold Wilson's promises to the electorate, that we can leave whenever we want, as little more than a lie. Each promise that he gave with regards to the EU in 1975 is now not true, making the case for an immediate referendum on membership of the European Union even more strong. As the only man to have negotiated anything good from Brussels, he must have known about the Federalist Ideal. If he didn't, then he should have.

So where does this enlargement get us? Nowhere. There us no benefit to the UK of having these countries in. While we're at it, can we have a British - not an EU dummy - referendum on the enlargement, although how about an EU-wide referendum on the existance of the EU? The 2004 accessionees have started to wear off the novelty of being a member, and are starting to see the truth.

By the way, Radio 4's poll on the law that should be repeled was won by the Hunting Act 2004 (52%), wfh the European Communities Act in second, with 28%. Who says euroscepticism is the baby of a few crackpot far-right fascists?