Incompetent Councils

The Labour-run Slough council, a Berkshire local authority declared a a section 114 notice in July l (bankruptcy) last year 2021 .....

Slough Borough Council

..... as a result of its £760m borrowing debt (much of it channelled into property investment), and a cumulative budget deficit of at least £174m by 2025 - I can't recall a UK local authority going bankrupt before.

Its All Greek To Me

The Greeks, like all of Europe, and especially the other Mediterranean countries are fanatical about football ('soccer' USA) ..... 

Greek Football Is Passionate And Violent

..... they attend matches and support their clubs with often fanatical (and sometimes violent) passions.

The Scourge Of Nations

That inflation rates have risen worldwide .....

Predicted World Inflation Rates 2022

...... under the twin pressures of the post Covid recovery, and the oil/food price rises due to Russia invading the Ukraine, is now obvious to us all. In the USA its dropped to 5%, 8.6% in the EU, but in the UK is still 10% .... however all the major countries expect it to drop steadily in the summer  .... but in some parts of the world this sudden rise is not a recent phenomena, but is a persistent issue.

African Backsliding

I suspect that many western politicians often privately (they would never dare do it publicly),  wonder why sub-Saharan African states are so often such basket cases. 

Some African States Have Been Basket Cases For Sixty Years ......

The answers they may determine to this question, are no doubt many and varied, and usually not discussed publicly ... especially in these race sensitive times.

White Saviours

Apparently there should be no white human faces presenting reports from any black country that Comic Relief is throwing money at ....

'Saint' Bob In Africa ... Satirised Mercilessly.

...... because black Labour politicians such as David Lammy think it reinforces racial stereotypes and creates the image of the 'White Saviour'.

Pampered Peacocks

Those naughty Saudi Royals have had a bit of a rude awakening.

How The Mighty Are Humbled - For Now ....

One of their own, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has had dozens of people - including 11 of those errant Princes arrested.

Londonistan Thrives

Over the years, I have posted a number of times on the apparent infiltration and corruption of the political processes by an Islamic clique in Tower Hamlets, London.

• In March 2010 I posted that an investigative journalist had suggested that a major London mosque, run by extremists, had also taken over the local Labour Party in Tower Hamlets.
• In November 2013 I also posted on the re-emergence of Rotten Boroughs in UK politics and that leading the way was Tower Hamlets. Included in the post were serious allegations of both vote rigging and financial mismanagement.   
• Finally, in June this year I alluded to the electoral malpractices that meant the European election results were delayed for 3 days because of dubious goings on at the vote counting stations in Tower Hamlets ~ including apparently threats and intimidation to the counters.  

The fact that a clique originally used the local Labour Party to achieve all this, has meant that both the national Labour Party, and successive governments just apparently ignored it. What was even more worrying was that all the local checks and balances, that are supposed to stop local political corruption without the need of a government intervention, apparently failed under the system of political correctness.

The Mayor Shows His Affiliations

Well finally it seems that this last voting scandal has finally embarrassed the powers that be (possibly because it was reported on overseas), in to some sort of action.

Lutfur Rahman, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets has finally (the string of allegations he has rung up is impressive), been served with High Court papers under the Representation of the People Act 1983, alleging that his campaign as an independent for the 'Tower Hamlets First' (prior to 2011, he was in the Labour Party) was a fraud, with claims of people voting who were not entitled to (not for the first time in that borough), and promises of council housing given to the Bangladeshi and Somali communities in return for their votes.

Flag Flying Is Popular In Tower Hamlets .....
The ISIS Flag (or Rayah), Was Later Taken Down By A Catholic Nun

Apart from the claims of straightforward corruption, the allegations also include the claim that he used 'spiritual influence' (presumably backed by the Mosque), by telling 65,000 Muslims that if they voted for the Labour party (they don't vote for Liberals or Conservative, so no need to mention them), it would be a 'sinful act' and that 'Allah would punish them'. The threats also included the promise from a few friendly Imams, that Muslims who voted for the very halal Lutfur Rahman, would be rewarded in paradise for this 'virtuous and Islamic act', and he backed this up with an earthly pleasure, by holding banquets for various Muslim groups. These are all unproven allegations and the case will be heard in court in the Autumn.

However in the meantime Mr Rahman has made no move to step down until the case is heard .... something that would be expected of the Mayor in any other area of the country, which is a sure sign of how far from 'British standards' these backward ghetto communities have been allowed to drift ..... but the Labour Party, who must have been aware of what was happening over the years did nothing. Possibly as he was the Labour leader of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council from 2008 to 2010, but they finally acted, when he allegedly used ghost voters to try and win the selection as Labour Candidate for the post of directly elected mayor. He was finally rejected from the process, and left the Labour Party to stand as an 'Independent' in 2010 .... he won, but with further allegations about his methods, including claims that he threatened council officers.

As one national newspaper commentator put it. "We spend far too much time protecting the culture of those who join our country. And far too little defending the culture they have chosen to replace".

UPDATE April 2015:

Mr Rahman was found guilty of numerous malpractises by the Electoral Court. However apart from ordering a new election and barring Mr Rahman from one election, he has got off easily. Corruption in public office should result in a prison sentence, and its a surprise that in this example it hasn't .... or perhaps its not a surprise at all. The end result of this leniency is that Rahman's confederates are carrying on with the same illegal racial claims ..... we are fools.

 

UPDATE April 2022: Mr Rahman was re-elected by Muslim voters of Tower Hamlets and he and his all male Muslim cronies are back in power again .... we reap what we sow.

  

The Future Belongs To Us

Poor old Mexico .... drug cartels everywhere you look, engaged in a low level civil war with those same cartels that is seemingly endless, and has cost tens of thousands of lives, and yet unbelievably that isn't its biggest problem.

SNTE Union Protects Its Interests

No, it is in fact a very bloated, very corrupt trades union. One that has had a massive influence over the  way civic Mexico has developed for the last 70 years, and will also develop in the next 50 as well.

 

Being Your Own Worst Enemy

I can't help thinking that the saying that 'you get the governments you deserve' is true ..... 

Top Row Imelda - Imee - Ferdinand 'Bong Bong' Jr - Marcos
Bottom Row Joseph - Jinggoy Ejercito - JV Ejercito - Estrada

...... So the Iranians for example depose a Shah, but replace him with a Militant Mullah and his corrupt religious acolytes, who have become millionaires while the people suffer as a result of their policies.

 

The Court Of The Mad Hatter

In a sign that South Africa really is now just another Black African nation, it announced that Zenani Mandela-Dlamini (a Daughter of Nelson Mandela), has been been appointed as ambassador to Argentina.

Practising For The Court Of The Mad Hatter

Nepotism is running rampant in South Africa these days .... the new royalty is being created as we watch.

 

Still she will be in good company, with El Presidenti Kirchner ruling the roost, in a manner that an African politician would be proud of ..... the court of the mad hatter is being assembled.

In The Heart Of Darkness

Talking of failed democratic states and elections, the ironically named 'Democratic Republic of Congo' prepares for just its second general elections in four decades - when the citizens of this ever failing state come out with statements such as "the state is dying but not yet dead" or "the state is ever present but completely useless", or "when you are rock bottom, you can still dig deeper", you realise that not much is expected in this exercise of 'democracy'.

DR Congo - Compared with Europe.

 

This country is two thirds the size of Western Europe, with all the resources in land, mineral wealth and natural resources than you can point a pointy stick at, yet the Failed States Index lists it as fourth in the list of the critically failed category of states. 

 

When you read that Zoe Kabila, the current President's brother, ordered his Republican Guard escort to beat up two police traffic officers because they did not give his 4x4 priority, you can see that the words "free and fair" are not going to apply here ..... to elections or anything else.Given its size and resources the DR Congo should be a very prosperous country, but decades of war, military incompetence and brutality, corruption and absolute economic mismanagement have left it desperately poor.

This state truly is "The Heart Of Darkness"

Little Thief Loses Assets

Teodoro (or Teodrin) Nguema Obiang Mangue is the son of  the corrupt President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.

Corruption Buys A Lot Of House

 

As discussed in the past, he's as corrupt as his father and has amassed a huge fortune in monies stolen from his poor countrymen.

 

Moral Uncertainties

Now I don't know what its like in the rest of  the world, but in the UK and increasingly in Western Europe, many of the football franchise have been bought up by foreign owners .... they then pump millions (or even billions) of pounds into the clubs in the chase for glory. The latest of this breed are the Arabs who have bought Manchester City FC, and another group who apparently have done the same to Paris St Germain (PSG) in France.

My question, isn't whether having wealthy owners, who then pump money into a club is right or wrong ... its whether its right or wrong where the money originally comes from. Up until now these oligarchs were usually from Eastern Europe or Asia, and were maybe a little bit dodgy, but if they were allowed to make their money in their own countries, who was anyone here to complain about that?

Now though, we are increasingly seeing Sheiks or Princes from Arab countries, whose wealth is arguably stolen from the citizens of those lands .... these Princes were nothing more than the leaders of tribal bands before the first world war ... and little better between the wars. So the question has to be asked, who 'gave them' the oil wealth of nations, to spend as they wished? Sadly the answer was the British and French, who failed to give these countries democracies, but just handed them out to Arabs that they 'could work with' i.e. puppet leaders.

But is it morally correct that a bunch of appointed hereditary rulers can pump a billion pounds into a Western sports franchise such as a football club? Surely, the money should be pumped into the education and welfare systems in those countries, and not frittered away on baubles and playthings?


                                 From owning this to owning this in sixty years

Well maybe that's what the inhabitants in those benighted lands think as well. The recent 'Arab Spring', which has seen pro-democracy protests across most of these lands, may not have been directly created by the wilful misuse of state funds on football clubs, but its surely more than coincidence that this unrest and complaints about the rampant corruption of these Arab states, started after the Sheiks started spending big on high profile 'vanity purchases'?

Sometimes the wheels of history are turned by the smallest of engines ......



Rainbow Dream Corrupted

Each passing month seems to show that the state of South Africa is slowly becoming as corrupt as all the other Black African states ....


Aurora Mine,Orkney South Africa

the latest sign of this is the news that a South African gold mining company has been breaking the labour laws and asset stripping the company while stealing off the workers.

BRIC's Float On UK Aid Money

The BRIC countries are those whose economies are considered to be some of the world's fastest-growing second world economies - China, India, Brazil and Russia ...... they have called for Russia (where the rule of law is non existent, as BP and many other companies have found to their cost), to be allowed into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where no doubt like China, they will steal industrial secrets at a national level, and ignore all copyright laws. Oddly, South Africa, which is not one of the world's fastest-growing second world economies ... rather more third world in fact, has started attending these summits .... obviously there are 'geopolitical reasons' for this, but even seasoned pundits were unable to work out why.

However they are marked by one other common factor .... They nearly all are, or were until this year, recipients of foreign aid from the UK ... you can't make this up. We are actually helping to create the countries that will displace us in the world, while our own economy grinds through yet another major recession (what ever happened to the end of "Boom and Bust" in Britain?).

• China, India, and Russia all have bigger space programs than the UK
• China, India, and Russia are all nuclear weapons holders

In fact when you look at the UK's aid program generally its surprising who we give lots of money to:

Its interesting to note that:

• Misspending on the Military instead of their own people (Pakistan stands out in this regard, where education spending is pitiful, but military spending is huge - but Burma must also be a dubious aid recipient in this regard), is not a deterrent to UK taxes being passed over.
• Nor is rampant corruption (Pakistan has this as well), but virtually all these countries features at the wrong end of the world corruption index tables, and finally
• Democracy ..... most of the aid countries have very poor democracy and human rights records, but we reward them with aid money.

It seems to me that there is no coincidence in these facts, and that the West has got this issue utterly and fundamentally wrong  ... and that in fact we are giving aid for the wrong  criteria and we should only give aid to countries with:

• Good democracy records,
• Low levels of security spending, and
• High levels of Education / Health spending  

In other words as an encouragement to achieve the standards we want and a disincentive to acting badly .... the Corruption and Democracy Index tables should be the criteria for determining UK and Western Aid.

Corruption Stops Sumo Tournament

Talking of corruption and fatboys, as I have over the last few weeks then it was interesting to note that even that most 'honourable' of people, the Japanese, have found that betting money and sport just lead to one thing ...... corruption.


Heads Bowed In Shame?

That most Japanese of sports, Sumo, has been racked by a scandal of such consequence that its caused the major tournament, known as the "grand tournament" to be cancelled for the first time since 1946 (when Tokyo's main stadium was being renovated - possibly by American aerial renovators).

 

Beggars Banquet

Haiti dropped off the worlds news map very quickly after last years disaster ...... 

 

Haiti Earthquake Damage

 .... the reasons are the usual ones for this benighted country ..... violence, and corruption, and lets face it, ignorance.

Corruption Not Terrorism Threatens Most People

Sweden is possibly one of the most highly developed societies on Earth and regularly tops leagues for ethical societies ....... so imagine the shock to their self psyche when a story suggested all was not as squeaky clean as they believed ...... shock horror! The Swedish news headlines are dominated by a scandal in Gothenburg, with police investigating allegations that local government officials had accepted bribes from a major construction company.

Stockholm, Sweden

Now by most countries standards this would hardly be headline news, or certainly not for more than one day, but in Sweden, this is a shocking revelation ..... when you consider that outside of the first world economies (and there is a tie in with this fact), most countries are corrupt, with the very poorest societies also the most corrupt, then the Swedish problem is minuscule.

In fact some 56% of people interviewed by Transparency International said their country had become more corrupt in the last few years, which is a sad indictment on the state of the world. What makes this even more depressing is that most bribes are paid to the Police.

In Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and India more than 50% of people said they had paid a bribe in the past year - many of them paying off the police. Bur even so they are not considered the most corrupt institution .... Political Parties were regarded as the most corrupt institutions with 80% of people regarding them as corrupt. Political parties also topped the list in Transparency's 2004 barometer, with 71%.

Religious bodies experienced a sharp rise in people regarding them as corrupt - 28% in 2004 increased to 53% by 2010. And with one in four of those polled saying they had paid a bribe in the past year, its not hard to make the correlation between corruption and poverty around the world.

• In sub-Saharan Africa, 67% of bribes were to avoid trouble with the authorities.
• In the Arab world and Latin America most bribes were paid to speed things up.
• In Asia-Pacific, 35% of people bribed to get a service they were entitled to.
• In North America and the EU, most bribe payers said they could not remember why they had paid (about 5% of those polled said they had paid a bribe).

(90,000 polled over 86 countries for the results)

NB: Sadly this morning the Swedish are discovering once again that being a civilised country only  makes  you apparently a target for the new barbarians with two apparent 'jihadist suicide' bombers attaking them ..... but they are not alone in this regard, and even so, I would argue that more people are affected by Corruption, than by Terrorism. 

Another Day, Another Dollar ....... Stolen

Corruption is the biggest handicap to development in the third world  ...... the scale of it is mind blowing, and I have touched on it before, but occasionally I am still reminded of how massive it can be.

 

The Face of Corruption


Equatorial Guinea President, Teodor Obiang Nguema is as bad as any dictator on the continent .... in fact he may well be the most corrupt of them all, and that's some claim considering the opposition. 

Nigerians Do What They Are World Beaters At .....

By some strange quirk of fate, immediately after I blogged on the countries 50yrs of achievements, Nigerians excelled in their national pastimes of corruption, cheating, and drug dealing .....



Would You Buy A World Cup from This Man?

 ..... and all in connection to sports events.