Oy vey ... Ed Milliband Is The New Labour Leader

Ed Milliband has just been elected leader of the Labour Party, with 51% of the votes over his brother David who had 49% in the final round..... Diane Abbot got just 7.5% in the first round and was irrelevant (as we predicted).


Never Mind The Quality ... Look at the Percentage!

 A brief biography shows that PC politics is still alive and kicking in the Labour Party ....

• He's got a 'partner' and child but hasn't bothered to get get married. 
• His father was Marxist theorist Ralph Milliband who entered the UK illegally on forged papers.
• Has only been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005.
• He is of the Jewish faith.  
• He only got to win with Trades Union support.  

Surely the fastest rise to the top of the tree ever .... five years from entry into Parliament to leader of the main opposition.

Of course this raises a few questions .....

1. How will the Muslim voters react to the Labour Party being led by a Jewish leader? .... could lose a few votes there I would guess.
2. How will the Muslim World react to the Labour Party being led by a Jewish leader, especially if he becomes PM? .... badly I would think.
3. Will his late fathers Anti-American and Communist articles come back to haunt him?
4. As he's got a child, but never got married, what sort of social example does he give? 

I guess that only time will tell, but I suspect that the Labour Party may just come to regret this outré choice .... there must be a risk that anti-semitism (which is is alive and kicking amongst some of the Labour working class and the Labour voting Muslim communities in the UK), will impact votes .... the fact that the Labour Parties relationship with Israel  has been frosty recently may only complicate matters.

No Home For Old Soldier

A British soldier has been refused housing help in his home town because he has been living outside the town ...... fighting in Afghanistan!

Lance Corporal Craig Baker, his wife and young sons have been left homeless, and left sleeping on the floor at his parents’ house in the town of Bracknell ...... but this is PC Britain, and a Afghan refugee, who at the very least will also have failed the same test, will get a council house.

Mother of seven, Toorpakai Saiedi, from Afghanistan is currently housed in a £1.2 million house in Acton, west London, at a cost of £150,000 pa to the tax payer - she gets state benefits of  £170,000 pa ...... her contribution to Britain? Zero, her connection with this country? Zero. Her chances of coming off benefits and working? Zero.

Her reason for being here ..... the benefits.

Her son Jawad, said  'When the council chose to put us here we did not say no. If someone gave you a lottery jackpot would you leave it?'

Oddly this story is covered by BBC radio today, but ne'er a word on the website ...... hmm, I wonder why?

New Labour, Old Policies

The Labour Party is electing a leader today ....... you would hardly know it had been going on, from the lack of coverage by the press .... apparently, according to Lord Kinnock (a leader who failed at the national polls), the party is revived and "ready to regain the trust of the people", with  increased membership.  They now 'get it' and can resume leading the British people to a better future.

This sort of blindness is not exclusive to the 'Welsh wonder', in fact all of the candidates and their supporters have been speaking in similar terms.

Talk about hubris!

• Not one mention of the Blair / Brown years or wars.
• Absolutely no apology for the reckless spending that's hamstrung the economy.
• No discussion of the social and economic consequences of mass third world immigration into the UK.
• No promises to never impose a prime minister on the UK without an election (oddly they would still be in power if they had done this at the time). 

In fact no acknowledgement that the Labour party has in anyway had a hand in creating the unhappy mess that's the UK.

It's been one of the strangest sights of this summer, watching the Labour Party act and sound as though it hadn't been in power for the last 14 years, and that it wasn't just  on the 6th of May that they surrendered power (Yes, just 20 weeks ago) ..... I

Full UK Scoreboard   Party Seats    Gain   Loss   Net    Votes            %       +/-%

Conservative                     307                    100        3      +97     10,726,614    36.1    +3.8
Labour                               258                     3            94     -91       8,609,527   29.0    -6.2
Liberal Democrat             57                        8           13      -5         6,836,824   23.0   +1.0

They got over 2 million less votes than the Conservatives, and less than 2 million more votes than the Liberals, but they 'get it' now ...... so that's OK then.

Food Price Riots (Again)

While I was off, the news included food price riots in Africa ....... this should be no surprise, but interestingly I noted that all the coverage blamed the Russian drought, flooding elsewhere; and even rising living standards in the third world ..... but not one mention of the Elephant in the room, World Population Growth in the 'third world'.

Until that issue is addressed, the issue of too many mouths, and not enough food will come back ever more often. Oddly the latest riots were in Mozambique and in Africa, there is vast scope for agricultural expansion but for corruption and incompetence.

Food Riots in Mozambique part of over population trend?

Zimbabwe is a good example of these twin evils, which mean Africa, which could be the bread basket of the world is one of the trouble spots.

However Malawi for example has shown that some simple reforms can turn an African state from a food aid recipient, into a net exporter (or at least self sufficiency) ..... so it can be done.      



Malawi has reformed its agriculture 



The Bulgar Blues

I have just got back from a trip to Bulgaria ..... the land where Berbatov is God!

I stayed at the Continental Parkhotel ..... an odd mix of crumbling concrete 'palace to the people', and newer build.  But to be fair the room was fine and actually faced a small forest. The resort is called "Sunny Beach" and is one of those purpose built resorts i.e. no old town, so no reason to stay open in winter ..... the whole resort closes from October until April and is inhabited by security guards.


My room to the right behind trees!

The Beach was lovely (at least at this time of year) and there was a a very rickety beach bar called the 'The Ship' nearby ...... there are several of these, and this is the small one before the village of Nessebar peninsular.


I was camped daily just to the far bottom right of the beach shown here.

I should imagine that the resort is hell during the peak season, but during mid September it was fine, with all bars open and sunshine all the time.  

Like most of these sorts of resorts, its completely bypassed any cultural aspects and headed straight down market with Disco's and Euro pop blasting out until the small hours (and thats just the restaurants!). However to be fair, by luck I ended up at a quiet hotel and could pick and choose between noise or not.

The biggest problem facing the resort and all Bulgaria, is that they hope to join the EU and the Euro, and their economy isn't set up to deal with the inflation this will bring ...... another Greece beckons. I was told that corruption was rife in the local and national government, with the Local and Russian Mafia's operating in many areas, so all the indicators of a third world economic and social state ..... perfect for the European Union.