David Davies MP blog

Knife Crime photo opp

2007-08-26T23:29:00.001-07:00

Desperate to prove they are doing something about the rising toll of deaths from guns and knives the government have resorted to the old idea of an "amnesty." This will enable a few aging war veterans who collected a "souvenir" and some farmers who forgot to renew their shotgun licenses to hand over guns that would never have been used for any kind of crime. Some of the younger "wannabe" gansters may also find that their weapons, usually replicas, are handed in by angry mothers.

This will be enough for the amnesty to achieve its real objective - photos of a smiling Minister in front of an impressive looking array of guns claiming that the government have "taken action".

But make no mistake the serious criminals will continue to roam the streets without any fear of being stopped and searched, (human rights) and knowing that even if by some chance they are found in poossession of a gun or knife the sentence will be minimal.

The toll of death will continue to rise.

2007-07-09T01:38:00.000-07:00

Iraq alone was reason enough to remain seated. It has been an unmitigated disaster for all concerned and it is time for politicians who supported the war to stand up explain and apologise.

I was in the Welsh Assembly at the time, and not required to vote. But when asked I reluctantly supported an invasion believing what I was told, which was that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

If the evidence looked a bit weak, like many others I assumed that the Prime Minister knew something the rest of us didn’t.

He did. He knew that claims about WMD were at best an exaggeration and at worst plain fiction.

When it became clear that there were none we were told that it was all about removing an evil dictator which Hussein certainly was. However if removing evil dictators were the basis of our foreign and defence policies our troops would have already invaded virtually every country in sub Saharan Africa and quite a few elsewhere.

A bloodbath will now unfold regardless of whether we stay or go. Hundreds of young British soldiers have lost their lives as have hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi “police” who we have trained appear to be little more than paramilitaries in uniform and have been involved in the kidnapping of British citizens.

Whether we stay or go the country is doomed, why should the lives of any more British soldiers be lost.

But let us not think that the war has led to the current bombing campaign by Islamic terrorists. Those responsible would be letting off bombs regardless because their real goal is not the removal of British troops from Iraq , but the imposition of an Islamic state or Caliphate across the Muslim World and Europe .

Organisation sharing this aim have been recruiting in British Universities since the early 90s.

Meanwhile decades of state sponsored support for multiculturalism have enabled many people think that they can retain their own language customs and culture and live in ghettos in certain British cities whilst making no effort whatsoever to interact with the indigenous population. This has been the crucible in which Islamic extremism has been formed.

Governments have been afraid to tackle the Islamists for fear of being called racist. This is been made easy by all manner of government policies which will pay for the translation of documents into any language, legal aid for those who don’t like British laws about matters such as the veil, and a benefits system which recognizes polygamy. Throughout every area of public lifer there is an unwillingness to challenge minorities whose behaviour falls below accepted standards for fear of being branded a bigot so whilst domestic violence units in police forces rightly clamp down on drunks who beat their wives, honour killings and female genital mutilation continue unchecked.

The time has come for British citizens of all colours and religions to say as one that anyone who wanting to live in Britain should be prepared to respect the culture and way of life. Those who don’t should be strongly encouraged to go elsewhere.

No standing ovation from me

2007-07-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

It is not true that "all" Conservative MPs rose to give Blair a standing ovation. Many stood and did not clap. A few did not stand at all.

This man has presided over the collapse of private pension funds, allowed immigration to spiral out of control, is releasing criminals from prison because he can't find enough space for them and led us into a disasterous war in Iraq on a false pretext.

I did not stand and I certainly didn't clap.

The (Inter) National Health Service

2007-06-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

A few years ago my Hungarian girlfriend, (now wife) woke up needing a doctor. “How much will it cost?” she asked. I laughed at the preposterousness of the question. “This is Britain I said it doesn’t cost anything” But she persisted in asking for cash “Of course they don’t charge you.” She said but “I’m not British” “I don’t pay any taxes here” “I haven’t got any health insurance” and so on. In vain I patiently explained that regardless of all this, there was not the slightest chance that she would be billed for using our NHS, indeed I doubt whether our GP surgery even has a till or a means of collecting money. So certain was she that no country would be so stupid as to allow anyone to walk in and use its health service, that I had to give her twenty pounds before she walked down for her appointment.

Herein lies a major problem afflicting the NHS, or rather the Inter- National Health Service. We will treat literally anyone in the world who happens to be passing, with not a thought for their right to receive very costly treatment, which has been paid for by British taxpayers.

The government funded “Visit Britain” website which is supposed to generate money for our nation, actually advertises to the world that “you are eligible for free emergency treatment in the Accident and Emergency departments of National Health Service hospitals.” ! It goes on to state that foreign visitors (with many exceptions) will be charged for after-care. But of course nobody ever pays. An official might make a half hearted attempt to chase up a large debt from someone living in the third world who has given a false name and address. He or she will fail.

Other countries do it differently. We Brits are expected to have our own health insurance when travelling outside of the EU. The travel section of the Foreign Office website makes it quite clear that even if not compulsory, for a number of countries it is “absolutely essential” as their own healthcare systems are so poor. Bizarrely we have reciprocal arrangements with some of those very countries!

We cannot expect doctors and nurses to refuse treatment to those in need just because they have no right to it. Nobody would want to see people dying in the streets though lack of medical treatment, not even when they have flagrantly abused the system - for example by arriving here 34 weeks pregnant from the other side of the world in order to have their baby in an NHS hospital, as many do.

A simple measure would put a halt to much of this abuse. We should insist that absolutely everyone arriving here from outside of the EU, should be in receipt of a verifiable health insurance document which could be checked by immigration officials.

At a stroke we would put an end to a great deal of freeloading on our public services.

The idea is so simple it needs to more than a sentence to sum it up. It would be fair and would do no more than to bring Britain into line with the rest of the world. It would save the NHS tens of millions of pounds each year which could instead be spent treating British patients.

The phrase “free at the point of use” is usually associated with the Beveridge report which led to the establishment of the NHS. Had they foreseen the era of cheap international travel those writing it would surely have wanted to add the words – “to all who are entitled.”

I never did find out what happened to the £20 I gave the future Mrs Davies. It certainly didn’t go to the GP.

2007-06-18T01:29:00.000-07:00

The Falklands Veterans Parade yesterday was a moving tribute to those who fought, and died for British people living on British Territory which had been invaded by a fascist dictatorship. Not only did the war liberate the Falklands but an unexpected bonus was that it led to the fall of the Junta and heralded democracy in Argentina. Yet as the BBC reported this morning more veterans of the conflict have lost their lives through committing suicide since the end of the war than in the conflict itself.

It isn’t surprising given the disgraceful way we treat our soldiers. Those returning from Iraq with physical injuries have been put into civilian hospitals and subjected to verbal abuse from so called “British” citizens. Those bearing the mental scars of war are reliant on charities like Combat Stress. Led by former submarine commander Toby Elliot it does a superb job but a reliance on voluntary donations means that it can’t help as many as Cmdr Elliot would like. Those who return unharmed are often housed in substandard accommodation for a few months before being sent off on the next six month tour. Those on frontline duties do not even receive the equivalent of the minimum wage.

A former member of the SAS told me last week that an injured mate of his had been treated at Selly Oak hospital alongside a wounded member of the Taliban who was claiming asylum. The wounded British soldier was eventually discharged with permanent disabilities, left the army, and struggled to find the money to have his home adapted. Meanwhile the ex-Taliban member will have been fed housed and nursed back to health by the British taxpayers and if his claim Asylum claim is accepted he will be entitled to claim for full social security benefits backdated to the day he arrived in the UK.

The brave young men and women who put their lives on the line for their country deserve far better from their political leaders.

Pots and kettles

2007-06-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

No doubt the Prime Minister enjoyed delivering homilies to African leaders on the importance of holding fair elections, rooting out corruption in high places, and not declaring war on your neighbours. I wonder how many despots hid a wry smile as they thought of the political rows Blair left behind him - such as anger at widespread postal vote fraud, honours being handed out for cash and the ongoing disaster in Iraq.

The Blair Legacy

2007-05-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

As our Prime Minister tours Africa in a desperate bid to ensure that he is remembered for something other than anarchy in Iraq he may care to consider the following random headlines which I have spotted in the last two days:

Overweight prisoners will be receiving their own personal fitness instructors, (paid for by the taxpayer of course)

Prolific thieves will be let off scott-free if they say “sorry” and promise not to rob for “a month or two,”

The lights in an abandoned school are being kept on 24 hours a day because the local council are concerned that burglars might injure themselves if they break in at night,

Millions of pounds are being spent paying the salaries of civil servants who don’t have a job, although some have now found work in special unit which has been set up to think of jobs to give the to the others,

“Academics” have decreed that schools which teach the benefits of marriage are “anti-gay”.

In light of all this (and much else besides) it is not entirely obvious to me why my own political party wish to make such a big show of attacking grammar schools.

Well done John

2007-05-16T05:35:00.001-07:00

You will not hear me praising the Home Secretary very often but the decision to increase the number of police officers who can use tasers is good news all round.

Good news for the police because if you are confronted with somebody threatening violence you need to be certain that you can deal with the threat. Officers currently have to rely on CS gas and batons which are not 100% effective.

It is also good news for the criminals because being dealt with by a taser is far safer than being hit over the head with an iron baton or being sprayed in the face with CS gas or pepper spray.

Copy of Mail on Sunday article.

2007-05-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

For those who don't read Mail on Sunday I have decided to put online a copy of an article
which they published last week.

I put my hand into the rucksack and pulled out a metal object concealed in a sock. Before the thought “what’s this” had flashed through my mind I realised. “Gun” I yelled putting it down. I ran over to the youth who we had just pulled over for a ticket offence. My partner had already turned him around to face the wall and I grabbed him while the cuffs were snapped on. Police officers are taught to deal with finding guns and knives, but I hadn’t expected to be finding firearms just a week after completing initial training to be a Special Constable with the British Transport Police.

Shootings and stabbings on the streets of London have now become so commonplace that the press only bother to report the worst examples. Burglaries muggings and other violent crimes are simply a fact of life. I believe that the breakdown in law and order in Britain is one of the biggest issues to confront us.

Like most MPs I regularly call for something to be done but admit that I have been a little vague as to what the “something” should be. Debates rage about “red tape,” the need for more officers on the beat, and levels of arrests. Few MPs have ever been police officers so the level of debate has not always been as high as it should be.

Becoming a Special Constable has enabled me to see policing from a first hand perspective. I hope to use this knowledge to improve legislation and raise the level of awareness about policing matters amongst colleagues in Parliament. In return I have committed to doing two eight hour shifts each month as an officer. I have a busy life and a family and two young children, but I believe that eight hours is a small price in time to pay for the knowledge which can be obtained. After three months in uniform and a month on patrols I cannot pretend to have all the answers to dealing with crime but I can certainly offer some insights.

The first thing I have learned is to forget any notion that the justice system is “victim focused” as the jargon likes to put it. In reality the only people who appear to have rights are the criminals. One of my training days was spent in the custody unit of a busy London police station where my duties alternated between helping other officers to wrestle violent suspects into cells, without hurting them and answering their frequent demands for cups of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Of course the paper monster still had to be fed so each request was written up in a special book noting the beverage requested followed by another entry to confirm that it had been supplied.

On another occasion I arrived at Kings Cross to search and remove a family of East European bag snatchers. Until my arrival they had claimed to speak no English but as I began searching him, bag snatcher number one began to complain in fluent English that he had been hit by the lady whose handbag he had tried to grab, and that it “wasn’t fair” !! Back at the station his English was forgotten so an expensive translator was found for him, along with a lawyer who will doubtless ensure that he is not put to any inconvenience by the British justice system.

This leads me on to the next lesson learned. We could double or triple the number of officers on the streets but it will have no effect on crime unless the courts are prepared to deal with persistent offenders by locking them up.

A gang of robbers operating out of a London station were recently arrested and bailed. The police argued that one of their bail conditions should be that they could not enter a railway station. This was deemed to be far too onerous so the gang were released and the robberies continue.

We neither lock up nor deport foreign criminals. At present there are organised gangs of pickpockets from various countries working on the London Underground system. As a police officer I can log on to the force intranet and see their names addresses and long lists of previous convictions. The fact that it is possible to have so many convictions and still be free to walk the streets tells you all you need to know about justice. As for deportation forget it. Even those who commit the most heinous crimes are rarely sent home – too many public ally funded lawyers are readily available to argue that it would breach their “human rights.”

One of the insights I have gleaned is the shocking depravity which some are happy to live in. At quite a few stations you will be treated to the spectacle of able bodied youngsters, presumably on benefits, consuming alcohol day and night. In some areas where a by-law prohibits public drinking we remove their booze and pour it away. A few weeks ago I did just this to a particularly obnoxious group of punk rockers. As I poured their confiscated cider into the gutter one of them came over shouting wildly at me. But instead of the expected tussle followed by an arrest he got down on to his hands and knees, and with his tongue out he began licking cider up from the gutter of a street in one of the less salubrious parts of North London.

But what has shocked me a lot more than the actions of individuals like him is the realisation that the current wave of shootings and stabbings is a direct result of rules made by fellow MPs, which have made it all but impossible for the police to stop and search suspicious individuals.

Partly as a result of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry the police have to have “reasonable grounds” to search someone for drugs or weapons and the grounds have to seem reasonable to a court not the PC.

To give an idea as to how difficult it is to find “reasonable grounds” take the following example. A youth is stopped at a tube station for trying to push through the barriers without a ticket. We radio through his details and are warned that he has recent convictions for dealing drugs and carrying weapons.

You might think that there are reasonable grounds for searching this person, after all he has just broken the law, but as we have no evidence that he has a weapon or drugs on him we have no grounds to search. If the youth was arrested then a search could take place but these days, a growing number of crimes such as fare evasion and shop lifting are dealt with through “process” not arrest. This means that the offender is written to and asked to pay a fine or appear in court. (many don’t and little is done but that is another story) As there has been no arrest there can be no search.

The youth I stopped with the gun was only arrested because he refused to answer a few simple questions. Had he been a little savvier he would have been free to continue his journey through central London with two firearms

When a search does take place it has to be accompanied by a laborious process of form-filling, which I have described in detail on my blog.

As a result youths know that they can arm themselves with knives and guns with little risk of being caught. Black youths are being murdered at a horrendous rate on the streets of London, usually by other black youths and nothing can be done because we have made it almost impossible for the police to carry out searches in areas where knives are routinely carried.

We should trust those officers to carry out their duties properly. Scrapping the stop and search paperwork would be a good start. The police should be able to go into “no go” areas in large numbers to carry out stop checks of suspicious youths targeting those with any previous convictions.

However arresting criminals is pointless if the CPS fail to prosecute, or the courts are simply going to put them back onto the streets with some laughable community sentence.

The prison population urgently needs to be doubled to ensure that all persistent offenders are taken off the streets. Sentences should be served in full without any remission. This would allow the public some respite and give the police an opportunity to carry out preventative work rather than simply reacting to crimes. It would also enable the prison authorities the chance to spend time getting criminals off drink and drugs and helping those who want to gain useful qualifications.

The most important lesson I have learned is that the horror stories which one reads about the collapse in law and order on the streets of our major cities are, if anything, an under-exaggeration. Things are far worse than people realise and much of the blame can be laid at the door of politicians like me who have slowly been tying the hands of the police in bureaucratic red tape and preventing them from doing their job.

There is some good news. The vast majority of police officers want to be out on the streets catching criminals not tied to their desks. I want to help them achieve this by improving legislation which goes through Parliament. If the government don’t want to listen then I have learned one other very important lesson. Any fit and able person who can commit eight hours of spare time once a fortnight can do something to make their streets a little safer, by joining the Special constabulary.

ENDS

Coilitions PR and Democracy

2007-05-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

If it hasn’t achieved anything else, devolution in Wales and Scotland has at least acted as a visible demonstration of the follies of adopting any system of proportional representation.

No “government” has been formed in Edinburgh or Cardiff because no single party has overall control. In most future elections this will be the norm. A long drawn out process of haggling over who can have the most ministerial seats will now ensue.

One Plaid Cymru spin doctor has suggested a novel solution for Wales - all of the parties going into a grand coalition together. This would be excellent news for the politicians and a disaster for the public.

Our system of democracy is based on the idea that while one or more party governs, one or more party will provide opposition. Asking difficult questions and exposing waste and incompetence.

If every party is in government there will be no opposition except from a few independently minded back benchers who are prepared to put their principles before their careers.

The fall of Lord Browne

2007-05-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

Telling lies in Court is something that cannot be condoned under any circumstances and the position of Lord Browne as Chief Executive of BP became untenable when it became clear he had done so. Yet I am surely not alone in feeling some sympathy for him. I have never met Lord Browne, and as readers of this blog will know I have no time for the ridiculous antics of the militant gay lobby who demand, and get, large sums of public funding in order to promote their agenda.

But Lord Browne has never gone around acting like Dafydd from Little Britain. He has spent much of his life building one of Britain’s most successful companies. He has never commented on his own private life, or anyone else's, so it is beyond me why anyone would have a genuine interest in the people with whom he spends his rare moments of free time.

Time to talk to Iran

2007-04-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

The history of the Cold war between 1945 and 1988 is a powerful demonstration of how talking to one's sworn enemies can eventually result in peace. Nixon talked to China in the 70s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher extended the hand of friendship to Gorbachev in the 80s.

In the 90s, and against all odds, South Africa made a peaceful transition to majority rule when De Klerk and Mandela started talking. More recently a fragile, if somewhat imperfect, peace has descended in Northern Ireland following the decision by the British Government, encouraged by the Americans, to talk to the IRA.

Could some of these lessons now be applied to Iran?

In 1953 Britain and America organised a coup which removed their democratically elected President, Mohammed Moussadeq. Our respective Governments replaced him with the Shah who ruled as a hated dictator for the next 26 years. The Shah was thrown out in a revolution and replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini. Shortly afterwards Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. During the ten year war which followed both Iran and Iraq received military supplies from Western governments. It is therefore not surprising that the Iranians distrust the West. Yet following the attacks on the Trade Towers the the Iranians made overtures of support to the US which were subsequently rebuffed.

With Iraq on the brink of self destruction and Afghanistan descending further then ever into lawlessness, the time has surely arrived for Britain and the US to review their hostile relationship with Iran by offering to talk to them without any preconditions.

Iran is far more complex than the religious theocracy run by a President and an Ayatollah which is the image usually portrayed. In their Parliament and elsewhere powerful voices call for change. Many in high places want peace with the West and better working relationships. Seventy percent of the population are under the age of 30 and are showing signs of becoming increasingly distanced from religious hardliners. It is imperative that we reach out to those who want better relationships with the West instead of playing into the hands of the hardliners on all sides.

Claim your Harem Allowance

2007-04-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Polygamy may be illegal in Britain but apparently that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t recognise it and give financial support to those with multiple wives. This is the view of the Department of Work and Pensions who have been forced to admit they pay out an allowance to each “wife” in a polygamous marriage.

Why knife crime is out of control

2007-04-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

It was so easy a few years ago. A police Officer sees spots a suspicious looking youth, perhaps someone with a conviction for carrying knives, and asks him (usually it is a male) to turn out his pockets. If nothing is found the youth is free to go on his way.

Those days have long gone. Partly as a result of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry the police are unable to stop and search someone for a weapon without “reasonable grounds” for suspecting they have one. If reasonable grounds exist (and they must seem reasonable to a Court not the police officer) then the PC has to decide under what powers of the law he is legally entitled to carry out the search and inform the suspect. Then a long form will be filled in. It should take eight minutes to do so, but if the suspect is not cooperating, or doesn’t understand English or it is belting down with rain and the paper and biro have got wet the whole thing will take much longer. Then the search. Then when the officer is back at the station the information on the form has to be re-entered onto a computer system. Then the officer responsible for looking after completed stop and search forms must be found, wherever he is, so that the completed form can be handed over to him. Both officers may require signatures to prove this has happened. The nominated officer will have to ensure that the form is passed onto another office where it will be kept handy for 12 months in case the person searched exercises their right to a copy of it. This isn’t all. The entire process of searching form-filling, computer entries, hand over, will all have to be recorded in the Officer’s notebook.

The result is that the phrase “turn out your pockets” is no longer heard. Black youths are being murdered at a horrendous rate on the streets of London, usually by other black youths and nobody appears able to do much about it. The only hope is that the many responsible members of the black community, the youth club workers, church leaders etc stand up and demand an end to the stop and search restrictions which were put in place by white politicians responding to allegations of police racisim and have led inevitably to carnage in the midst of the communities they thought they were helping.

2007-03-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

It is quite right that we should remember the abhorrent slave trade. We should also remember that British democracy abolished it and that the Royal Navy enforced abolition at the cost of many British lives. I support groups like Amnesty International which are using the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery to raise awareness of people smuggling but I cannot join the self-righteous politically correct “apologies” for slavery which are being demanded by and from people who had nothing to do with it.

Why not demand that modern day Germans make an annual apology for Hitler? Or that the French apologise for Napolean and Louis the 14th? Meanwhile present day Turkey could apologise to most of Eastern Europe for the Ottoman Empire and perhaps the North Africans to the Spanish for Andalusia. Not least of all various Africans – the present day descendents of those who sold slaves to British traders, should also be apologising, though to whom I am not sure.

It would all be too ridiculous for words if it were not for the fact that many African governments, and their western apologists, are playing on this collective outburst of false guilt to try and divert attention from the fact that Africa’s current diabolical state is not due to slavery, but to corrupt dictatorial nature of its present day leaders.

Leaving on a jet plane

2007-02-18T15:57:00.001-08:00

Here is a link to a website which reports on what is being said each day by Tony Blair through his spokesman at the morning press conference. On 3rd May last year it was a litany of pathetic whining to try and justify the failure to deport dangerous Somali criminals back to their country.

Specifically the spokesman said it was to dangerous to fly planes into the country. Personally I would have thought it would be incredibly easy to deport people to Somalia. You simply fly them to Kenya and drive them North to the border then wave them across. Better still pay a Somali driver to pick them up on the border and take them to the nearest town. Easy.

Basically I would have readily accepted the excuse about not flying people into Somalia in planes and looked for alternatives.

How naïve of me, because when they needed to the Government had no problem flying a plane straight into Somalia at very short notice. Unfortunately they weren’t deporting rapists muggers or other violent criminals (human rights etc etc) Instead at a reported cost of £50,000 the plane was sent to rescue a number of young “Britons” who had voluntarily gone into this benighted country and were apparently fighting with terrorists linked to Al Qaeda.

Safely back in Blighty they were released after a bit of perfunctory questioning. They are now able to organise their next sojourn to a Jihadi frontline safe in the knowledge that our government will willingly go to great expense to charter a jet to fly then home at the drop of a hat if they get into any difficulties. Doubtless they will also be entitled to generous backdated benefits claims for the time spent away.

Ah well at least we have now established that the Foreign Office can fly planes into Somalia. No doubt we will now see some of its citizens who have come here and broken our laws being deported back there.

Or am I just being naïve again…..

IND Scandal

2007-01-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

Another scandal concerns the Immigration and Nationality Department who are answerable to, yes you guessed it, the Home Office.

I was told nearly a year ago that the IND have paid out vast sums of money to Asylum Seekers and the lawyers who lodged spurious compensation claims against it.

Keen to find out if this could be true a tabled a question on the matter last June. After some fudging I was told in October that a Minister would write to me soon.

Needless to say I never heard another thing.

The House of Commons library rang and asked for the statistics but were told they could not have them so in December I submitted a Freedom of Information request which has not even been acknowledged.

I shall update readers on my progress.

New Home Office blunder

2007-01-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

It would be easy enough to regurgitate the news of the latest Home Office scandal brought to you by the government who were going to be tough on crime etc. Instead I shall draw attention to some more scandals which have not yet come to light.

The hundreds of escaped prisoners who the Home Office can't find (last week's scandal)are not living out in wilds like nineteenth century Australian outlaws. I predict that most are back in their old haunts claiming the full range of benefits which the government makes available to those who don’t wish to work. How could this be you ask? Surely when National Insurance numbers are handed over by someone seeking benefits a check is done to ensure that they have not escaped from prison?

At the very least the authorities would have thought of checking the NI numbers of escaped convicts to see if any had re-entered the system as benefits claimants wouldn’t they?

I have written to Ministers to ask this obvious question. I believe the answer is that checks are not made.

Stand by for headlines about a captured prison escapee who was found to be openly living at his old address and claiming a wide range of benefits whilst doing so.

More law and order blunders on the next blog.

2007-01-15T14:10:00.000-08:00

An amusing story reached my ears today. Last Saturday the Conservative Party in Wales held a conference at the Metropole Hotel in Llandridnod Wells in Mid-Wales. Delegates arriving at the hotel were greeted with a sign welcoming members of the Conservative Party and the “Chopper club.” It transpired that a motorcycle gang had also booked an event in the hotel for the same day.

I am told that this led to some unlikely scenes in the bar in the early hours with leather clad bikers and besuited Conservative activists putting the world to rights over a few ales.

Happy New Year Happy New Arrivals....

2007-01-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

I have just returned from two weeks with the in-laws in Hungary where we all had a good laugh at claims that Romanians and Bulgarians won’t want to flock to Britain. £300 per month is a typical wage in Hungary or Poland for a young person so it's not surprising that Poles and Hungarians have flocked to the UK in their tens of thousands.

However the standard of living in Hungary and Poland, although lower than the UK is far high than in Romania or Bulgaria. The Romanians have been pouring into Hungary for years looking for a better standard of living which is why we all laughed at the suggestion from the UK government that they won’t want to travel further West. Contrary to what the government thinks we can expect many thousands to come to the UK.

The CBI is pleased. Their spokesman made two points. Firstly that the vast influx of low paid workers doing menial jobs is keeping down inflation. This is certainly true. Wages are kept low therefore keeping production costs lower. No doubt this is a very good thing for the CBI. She also said that "Their (migrants) taxes help pay for our public services and our pensions, long after many migrants have returned home"

This is patently ridiculous. Every individual to some extent places a burden on the state. We use the NHS, our children have to be educated, we make use of roads, litter collection services and a range of other services which are paid for by the state out of taxes. To contribute so much in taxation that you make a net contribution to state finances "long after (you) have returned home" would only be possible if you were earning an enormous sum of money. Far more than the £5-£6 per hour the average Eastern European barman is likely to be on.

The plane from Hungary was full and Romanian accents were much in evidence so presumably the rush to get to Britain has already started.

Christmas Message

2006-12-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

In spite of the frantic last minute shopping, the Christmas parties and much else besides, most of us are at least vaguely aware that there is a deeper religious significance to Christmas.

Many figures in positions of authority seem rather troubled by this. The Government play down Christmas sending out cards wishing people “seasons greetings.” Thousands of pounds are spent on government celebrations of Divali or Eid but nothing on Christmas.

Where government leads Councils often follow. Some discourage Nativity plays in the schools in case adherents of other religions are “offended” or rename Christmas “winterval.”

It is not just the politicians. Last month British Airways were put on the spot when it was revealed that they had suspended a Christian employee for wearing a small crucifix. Meanwhile various theatres were happy to mock Christian beliefs by holding performances of “Jerry Springer – the opera” even though we all know that not one would have dared showing a play mocking other religions in the same way.

We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that the pressure to play down references to Christianity comes from other religious groups. Indeed some Muslims have been more vocal in defending the right of Christians to celebrate their faith than some leading churchmen. Instead it is the British establishment in all its various forms which is behind the attacks on the religion which, like it or not, has shaped this country and which still exerts a positive influence on those brought up here – whether Christian or not.

I have decided to make a stand. As a regular Church goer I do not seek to impose my beliefs on anyone else but I am not going to hide them away either. My new years resolution is simple it is to do more to stand up for my own religion.

On that note may I begin by wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

High level talks with leaders of UK and Hungary !

2006-12-17T10:39:00.000-08:00

It’s a nice headline but the truth is a little more mundane. With a Hungarian wife and a knowledge of the language I was quickly made vice-president of the Anglo-Hungarian Parliamentary group and was nominated to stand in the line- up to greet the Ferenc Gyurcsány PM of Hungary on his recent visit to Westminster. “It would impress my mother-in-law if I could have my photo taken with him” I said “help yourself he won’t mind at all” I was told. To my surprise he walked into the room with our very own Tony Blair. Not to be put off I launched into a Hungarian greeting then, in English, turned to the small group and said that I was just going to have quick photograph with the “Prime Minister.” Everyone assumed I meant Mr Blair who looked a bit surprise when I headed for Ferenc. He in turn diplomatically insisted that we all pose together. Thus I have a wonderful photo with no real story to attach to it.

However I was not alone in the line-up for there is one other Parliamentarian who can speak Hungarian - Baron Anderson of Swansea otherwise known as Donald Anderson - Labour MP for Monmouth between 1966and 1970. What are the chances of the only two Hungarian speakers in the Houses of Parliament having both represented the same constituency?

Missing in action:

2006-12-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

Defence Minister Derek Twigg has admitted that a dozen weapons have been stolen during the last year including six 5.5m rifles which are the standard issue automatic weapons used by most British troops. This is more than a little worrying especially as over 200 rounds of ammunition have also been purloined. I wonder if Mr Twigg would now care to tell us what he intends to do about it.

A world gone mad

2006-12-07T13:55:00.000-08:00

For those who still feel that the British establishment are not completely bonkers here is the story of a convicted child rapist from Somalia who can expect up to £50,000 as "compensation" because he was "wrongly" held in prison while the authorities tried (and failed) to deport him.

For once words fail me.

Agriculture cuts and civil service gobbledygook

2006-11-03T10:45:00.001-08:00

According to the Wales Office’s Annual Report, the Welsh Assembly has cut spending per head on agriculture on Wales to £64 a year, a massive drop from the £106 reportedly spent in the previous year.

I raised the matter with Welsh Secretary Peter Hain MP, in the Welsh Affairs Committee last week. Mr Hain told me that the anomaly was down to the new payment scheme. I pointed out that the scheme should not have led to any reduction in spending in the first few years, let alone one of nearly 40% in a single year.

At this point, a civil servant interjected to give the explanation I needed. Here is the quote from Hansard:

“when the Government issues resource accounts as opposed to statements of cashflow, it recognises liabilities, future liabilities when they occur. The effect of that is that when you get a change in the scheme, there appeared an item which was the recognition of future years more than one year ahead and that, therefore, gave an artificial increase in the year in which that was recognised, not affecting the cash payments, but affecting the recognition of the future liability looking more than one year ahead. This is the difference between accruals accounts and cash accounts.”So that’s clear enough!

Actually I wont pretend I understood the answer but one thing is clear.

Either the original figure of £106 per head was simply there to mislead the public or the agricultural budget has been severely cut.

Whichever it is this is bad news for Welsh farmers.

Faith schools regulations

2006-10-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

It seems likely that there will be cross party support for a move to force all faith schools to reserve 25% of their places from different faiths.

This will happen because of concerns that a few Muslim schools are not doing enough to educate their pupils about other religions, and may be fostering an attitude of separateness.

Of course we can't single out Muslim schools so the new rules will have to be applied to Catholic and Church of England schools which, at least on mainland Britain, have always been paragons of moderation in their attitudes towards religion.

Undermining the ethos of Catholic and C.of E. schools might, just, be worthwhile if as a result no Muslim school could become a breeding ground for extremism. But we will not get this desirable outcome.

If the rule is introduced there will be no shortage of parents from a variety of faiths, and none, wanting to send their children to a Catholic or C of E school because these schools usually maintain high standards of discipline and education. The 25% of places they keep for non worshippers will be quickly filled.

Conversely few, if any non-Muslim parents will want to send their children to a Muslim school. They will not fill 25% or even 2.5% of their places with non-Muslims because the demand will not be there outside of the Muslim community.

The government will therefore have the option of facing the wrath of the already angry Muslim community by shutting down their schools, or turning a blind eye and allowing them to retain their religious hegemony.

My money says they will turn a blind eye. So this new rule will undermine schools that have never caused a problem, whilst the leaving unaffected the very schools which were the original cause of the proposed change in law.

Praise for Jack Straw

2006-10-06T01:31:00.000-07:00

In a first for this blog I pay tribute to Jack Straw MP for having the courage to point out that Muslim women who insist, or are told, to wear the veil could be exacerbating tensions within our community. Around a quarter of Jack Straw's constituents are Muslims so he must have a greater understanding of issues related to Islam than most. I hope that instead of condemning him out of hand he will be listened to with courtesy by people on all sides of the religious and political divide.

The hypocrisy of the fulminating Imams.

2006-09-22T01:12:00.000-07:00

In an academic lecture the Pope quotes the words of a 14th century Christian emporer and incurs the wrath of the Muslim world. “Moderate” Muslims demand an immediate apology. A British citizen Anjem Choudray turned up outside Westminster Cathedral with a baying mob calling for the Pope to be executed.

If anyone feels that the Muslims who are complaining have got a right to be offended then read the following quotes from senior Muslims about Jews and Christians. They are of a far more offensive nature than anything said by the Pope, but the Imams who demand respect for their own religion are not in the least bit interested in what offence is caused to others.

Sheik Abdullah El-Faisal, an Imam from South London, said:

“Kill the pagans (Christians) wherever you find them. You can use biological warfare and chemical warfare - weapons of mass destruction - providing you use them against the soldiers of the disbelievers.”

And:

"Should we hate Jews and when we see them on the street, should we beat them up? You have no choice but to hate them. How do you fight the Jews? You kill the Jews."

Abu Izzadeen, spokesman for British Islamic Group “The Strangers”, said on the first anniversary of the July 7th bombings that:
…the 'kuffar' (non-Muslims) they had murdered were 'animals' and 'cowards'
He has also said that: 'all Christians and Jews are going to hell fire'.
He has also said that the 7/7 bombers were “completely praiseworthy”
Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi has said of Jews and Christians:
"Oh God, destroy the usurper Jews, the vile crusaders (Christians) and infidels".
And also of the Jews:
“There is no dialogue between us and the Jews except by the sword and the rifle” http://www.aina.org/news/20060918162544.htm

Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais one of the imams of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the most holy mosque in Islam, has used his sermons to call for Jews to be killed. According to the CIA, he has said:

“Yesterday’s Jews are bad predecessors and today’s Jews are worse successors. They are killers of prophets and scum of the earth. God hurled his indignation on them and made them monkeys and pigs and worshippers of tyrants.”

He also said:

'(Jews are) the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet killers ... pigs and monkeys.'

Imam Fawaz Damra, the spiritual leader of Ohio's largest mosque, said during a 1991 speech:

"(Jews are) the sons of monkeys and pigs"

and that

"terrorism and terrorism alone is the path to liberation" in a 1989 speech.

Dr. Mustafa Najem, an Islamic cleric in the Middle East, has said on Palestinian television:

“The Jews…are the brothers of monkeys and pigs…Allah has warned us against their evil and their arrogance …Mohammed, who waged a Jihad against the Jews…The Jews…are Idolaters, heretics, whose faith is false.” http://www.zoa.org/2003/02/britain_fires_m.htm

Palestinian Imam, Sheikh Ibraham Madhi said in 2001:

We must always remember who the Jews are…and their corruption in the world…they are cursed…These are the Jews against whom we fight, o beloved of Allah…They are cursed with the curse of Allah in this world and in the hereafter…Our belief is that this war, between us and the Jews, will continue to escalate until we vanquish the Jews and enter Jerusalem as conquerors.”

Abu Abdullah, a London –based associate and spokesman for Abu Hamza said he would “love” to kill British soldiers in the Middle East.

If you are a Jew or a Christian and are offended by these comments don’t bother to protest outside your nearest Mosque because unlike Choudray, you almost certainly will be arrested.

Eastern Europe immigration

2006-08-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

A report out tomorrow from the Home Office will apparently suggest that on acquiring its EU status vastly greater numbers of immigrants from Poland Hungary and other eastern European countries arrived than were expected.

What did the government expect? Immigration results from differences in living standards and there is a big enough gap between those in the new EU states and the old ones to encourage large numbers to try their luck.

What should concern the government now are the vast numbers of Romanians who will shortly be following in their footsteps.

Living standards in Romania are far below those in next door Hungary and tens of thousands are chomping at the bit to get out. As soon as its membership of the EU is concerned they will make for Britain where they will take jobs that should be done by British workers and push down wages for everyone at the bottom end of the employment ladder.

They will soon find that Britain is a treasure island when it comes to a range of benefits from child allowances (even for children back in Eastern Europe) to the NHS not to mention a range of fringe benefits such as being able to insist that cash strapped local authorities translate every trivial document they produce into your native tongue.

Rather than debate immigration from Eastern Europe or elsewhere in rational matter the political left prefer to shout “racism.” No doubt any reading this will do so. My response to them is that I personally am married to Hungarian and our children are being brought up bilingually. We fly to Hungary several times a year and (unlike many immigrants to the UK) I have made an effort to learn the language so that I can “integrate” when we are there.

My issue is one of practicalities no prejudice. If we encourage vast numbers to leave their homes and come to the UK we will damage the economies of the countries they leave behind, we will undermine the public services of the towns where they congregate, we will be handing a blank cheque to unscrupulous employers who want to pay the lowest possible wages and we will stoke up prejudice from British citizens who are unable to find work because their jobs have been taken by new arrivals.

This is not a situation that any true friend of Eastern Europe could possibly want to see and pointing this out is not racism but plain common sense.

Manifesto suggestions

2006-08-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

The excellent Conservative Home website has come up with the novel idea of allowing its readers to submit brief policy ideas which can be debated and voted for online, presumably in the hope that they will end up in a future Conservative Manifesto.

I have put forward my first idea which follows below. Comments are welcome.

Policy Summary
All prisoners to serve in full the sentence handed down to them in the courts.

Policy Explanation
It is well known that few prisoners serve the sentences that they are given in court, but most people are unaware of how lenient the system actually is.

Most prisoners are automatically released half way through their sentences. Many are released on a tag prior to the half way point being reached. A criminal sentenced to four years imprisonment can be released after just over one year and seven months. A prisoner given a two year sentence may be released after just over seven months behind bars. Those who are not automatically released half way through their sentences will usually be successful in gaining early release by a parole board.

The term “life imprisonment” is completely meaningless. Over 50 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment since 2000 have already been released. Some of these “lifers” served less than 18 months behind bars.

Under this proposal all forms of early release would end. There would be no automatic early release, no tagging, and the parole boards would be disbanded. Prisoners would serve their sentences to the day.

Political Risks and Opportunities:
Risk: Prison discipline would deteriorate.
Response: Prison governors use a range of carrots and sticks to maintain discipline – moving prisoners between different prisons, on different regimes, and allocating better or worse jobs.

Risk: If judges know that sentences will be served in full they may simply compensate by reducing the sentence they give.
Response: This could happen but at least we the public would know exactly how sentencing operates and if sentences are too lenient the government of the day will be put under pressure to find ways of increasing them.

Opportunity: People are angry. In South Wales last month, a child rapist was released early from prison only to recommit the same offence. This policy would prevent many such offences from taking place, make our streets safer, deter habitual criminals and restore some much needed public confidence in our system of justice.

Costs:
The intention of this policy is to ensure that criminals spend longer in prison. In the short term there would be a significant cost. More prisons would need to be built more prison staff taken on. It might be necessary to gain their support and cooperation by giving prison officers a rise in pay.

However these costs will not be as high as they appear.
By keeping people in prison large numbers of crimes will be prevented. There is a significant cost to investigating these crimes, bringing defendants to court and paying their legal fees. There is also a financial cost to the victims which is passed on to us all via the insurance companies. In addition it should be remembered that many prisoners, on leaving prison go straight on to benefits, therefore the real cost to the government of keeping people in prison is less than it first appears.

In the long term this policy could actually lead to a reduction in prison numbers and therefore costs. Sentences are so lenient at present that they offer no deterrent to hardened criminals. Increasing the length of sentences served could act as a deterrent and reduce the number of people willing to take the risk of committing crime.

However in thinking about financial costs we should also remember the cost in human misery paid by those many people, including young children, who have been raped murdered or seriously injured by criminals on early release from prison. We can prevent crimes like this from being carried out by prisoners on early release, and I would be happy to pay to do so.

The Middle East Crisis

2006-08-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

Like many others I have been giving a great deal of thought to the Middle East. I am not going to try to compete with the millions of words being written about the crisis.

Suffice to say that Israel will probably win the short term military battle but in doing so will lose the long term public relations battle.

That will be a sad day for all who believe that the Jewish people have a right to a secure homeland.

World Vision – No Vision

2006-08-03T02:26:00.000-07:00

I was shocked and appalled to find last week that a constituent who sponsors a young child in Zambia has been censored and his correspondence with the boy deemed “unsuitable”.

The man, an ex-Major who served in Africa during the Second World War fighting the Nazis in terrible conditions, made many close friends during his time on the continent and maintains close ties with the region.

He sent the boy pictures of his African comrades with a letter explaining the bond he made while serving in the army and the fond memories he has of people he met while stationed in Africa.

The photographs were returned to him by World Vision, the organisation that arranges sponsorships opportunities, with a letter saying that the photographs were “unsuitable for the child” and that the attached letter had been “rewritten” to remove any reference to the photos.

I seem to remember that this type of censorship and disrespect was the hallmark of the very people that my constituent was fighting against while stationed in Africa. Sadly it seems fascism is alive and well, but instead of motivating armies it is now motivating pen-pushers and bureaucrats to sideline our national heroes and try to bury their memories and cast aside their heroism.

Another nail in the coffin of freedom of speech.

How to find the missing prisoners

2006-07-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

Large numbers of dangerous prisoners are in our midst and (surprise surprise) the Home Office can't/wont do much about it. I suspect that a simple way to round up most of these fugitives would be to run a check on how many of them are claiming welfare benefits. I recently asked the DWP what checks they make to ensure that new claiments have not escaped from prison. The response was that they didn't know but would try to find out and come back to me. I am still waiting so I think we can safely assume that checks are not made and that rather than hiding out in the wilds somewhere many escapees are openly residing in their former abodes and cheerfully cashing their dole cheques each week.

2006-07-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

In Israel the other week an English radio station rang my mobile phone desperate for me to go to the nearest landline for an immediate interview on the Government’s prison policy. I politely informed the presenter that it would be difficult as I was standing on the Israeli-Lebanese border with the army overlooking a Lebanese village held by the fanatical Hezbollah militia. Undeterred and uninterested she insisted that the sound quality was good enough to go ahead using the mobile. Asking my military escort for a bottle of water I was instead given a can of lager and between slurps I managed to conduct the interview. Looking back I realise that this was one the most bizarre situations I have experienced in seven years of politics.

Prison a good option - for tax defaulters

2006-06-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

The government's hypocrisy over prison sentencing has been well pointed out in the following comments which come from a former porbation officer who was fired for trying to do his job properly:

The case of the 69 year old tax protester being imprisoned demonstrates four things:
1) Apparently there are sufficient places in prison. If there were not, the government has used a place to imprison someone who represented no risk of harm to the public in lieu of allocating the place to a dangerous offender who should have been removed from society for public protection.

2) Community sentences don't work. If the government believe that the Probation Service's "Interventions" programmes are so successful at reforming offending behaviour, why was this woman not considered? I suspect that many of the junkies that Josephine Rooney have complained about blighting her neighborhood are offenders being "supervised" in the community. Had Rooney been offered the support of a compassionate criminal justice system, it's almost certain that she would have seen the "error" of her ways and paid the fine, being yet just another in a long string of successes at reforming offenders.

3) The government's actions in jailing Rooney for (3) months for failure to pay a 798.97 tax bill belie their position that jail is just too costly. I believe that I read somewhere that the cost of incarcerating an offender for one year was over 70K. If that number is correct, they will have squandered 17,5K banging up the pensioner.

4) they agree with you partly that there should be no mitigation for certain offenses. Rooney will have to serve the FULL (3) months of her sentence in custody, but a violent offender will be cut loose at the halfway point. Her case clearly indicates that the government doesn't believe the BS that they're peddling to the public.

Equal rights for all

2006-06-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

Regarding yesterday’s blog which also appeared in the Wales on Sunday I have received the following complaint which has gone off to various organisations. My responses are in brackets.

Complaint against:

David Davies MP for Monmouthshire and the Wales on Sunday newspaper

Re: Article published on page 10 headlined ‘A crude form of justice’ published on Sunday 26th June 2006.

I am absolutely appalled by the article written by David Davies about the story of the young man Jody Dobrowski, who was savagely beaten to death by two men in London. In the article David Davies categorically states that the only reason the long prison sentence was imposed was because the victim was gay, this is totally and completely unacceptable and homophobic. (One may or may not agree with the statement but why does this make it "homophobic" or unnaceptable?)

There is absolutely no basis for this comment, (Oh yes there is look at what Stonewall say )it has no basis in fact whatsoever. ('It's absolutely right that murder motivated by hatred of minority communities should be treated with this sort of severity.'said Stonewall Chief Executive - but what about the majority community?

In stating this David Davies has clearly made an issue yet again of someone's sexuality, (Not at all he was the victim of an unprovoked murder and it was right that those responisible should be severely punished) he claims in the article that he wants these types of sentences handed out regardless of whether the victim is gay, straight black or white. (Quite true and what is wrong with wanting equal rights for all victims)
If this is the case then why make an issue of this case? (Because it demonstrates that we are not equal before the eyes of the law) It can only be for one reason and that is because the victim was gay. He goes on to say that if the victim had been heterosexual then the sentence would have been much shorter. This is preposterous and outrageous, and he doesn’t seek to back this up with any facts or examples of other cases,(This is another quote from Stonewall: "The 28 year sentences were increased to reflect the way in which the killing was aggravated by homophobia")
just a further attempt by David Davies to divide homosexuals and heterosexuals with bigoted insinuations. (Divisions between homosexuals and hetrosexuals are more likely to increase if the law puts more value on the lives of one group than the other)

The article he has written is a complete contradiction and straight out of the mouth of someone espousing the principles of the BNP, (Now you're gettting hysterical) he claims to want long harsh sentences for these types of crimes (yes I do) but then complains its because the victim was gay,(no I wasn't I welcomed the sentences) this is absolutely disgraceful, would he made a similar statement if the victim was black,(yes ) highly unlikely but if he had he would have been condemned as racist (doubtless by someone else who hadn't the comments properly) and quite rightly so. Essentially a young man was brutally murdered, the murderers got a long sentence, what’s his problem? (None at all as I kept saying) If he’s insinuating that long sentences are handed out to those who only commit crimes against gay people, then let him produce the evidence, (see above) this article is as unintelligent as it is crass.

I believe this article is offensive, mis-leading and homophobic, it will reinforce the very negative attitudes towards gay people in society, it also contradicts the attitude of the new leadership of the London based Conservative Party. In allowing the article to be printed I believe the Wales on Sunday have fallen below the standard expected from a national newspaper in terms of responsible reporting, in this instance I believe the WOS have been irresponsible and insensitive.

ENDS

Justice for all

2006-06-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

In a rare victory for common sense two men who murdered a random stranger were given long prison sentences last week. Hopefully they will never be released, but they will at least spend a minimum of 28 years in prison. One thing concerns me. The sentence was only this long because their victim was gay. Had he been heterosexual the sentence would have been much shorter. Is this fair? The random murder of strangers is a horrendous crime whether the victim is gay or straight, black or white. Equality before the eyes of the law is a basic principle and I expect the law to protect my fellow citizens regardless of their skin colour or sexual orientation. If a gang of thugs carry out a brutal attack on an innocent passer-by then they should face life behind bars regardless of their twisted motives. A thousand years ago the Anglo Saxon tribes who inhabited these isles operated a system called Wergild by which the penalty for a crime was determined by the social status if the victim. Today, with a murderer’s penalty being dependent not on their crime, but on the victim’s minority status, we seem to be regressing to a similarly crude form of justice.

Engerrland Engerrland Engerrland

2006-06-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

I don’t follow football. I have attended one match in my life, and I would struggle to name more than two members of the English team. This is, you will agree, a shocking confession from a politician - after all we are constantly meant to show how “in touch” we are. But there is hope for me yet. My neighbour Dave is a fanatic who will organise parties and bar-b-ques around the games so I will no doubt be enjoying a few of the matches. And this Welsh speaking descendent of Glyndwr will certainly be cheering for England. What is it with us Welsh that we have to perpetuate hatreds that go back hundreds of years? It smacks of chippiness and a sense of inferiorority. When Wales play rugby against France most English people cheer for Wales. And so they should. It’s about time we grew up a bit and started displaying a little more self confidence.

2006-06-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

This week an answer arrived to a question which I had put to the Home Secretary admitting that over 50 people who had been sentenced to life imprisonment since 2000 have already been released back onto the streets. Nothing could better demonstrate the extent to which the public are being deceived over prison sentencing. Life should mean life, most people think it means ten years or more, but all too often it can mean less than five.

If our system of justice was working properly than Craig Sweeney, who had already been convicted of a serious sexual assault against a child and released from prison only to abduct another little girl would face spending the rest of his life behind bars. Instead he could be back on the streets within five years. Judges, parole boards and the Home Office are failing us.

You're out of touch m'lud

2006-05-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

The following letter was sent to the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips who has today called for more convicted offenders to be given community service orders or probation instead of prison sentences.

Dear Lord Phillips

I am writing to express my disappointment that you have called for fewer convicted offenders to be imprisoned despite that fact that this is the only sentencing option which has any impact on offender behaviour.

You state that prisons are overcrowded, but the obvious solution is to build more prisons rather than allowing prisoners back onto the streets where they can continue to victimise innocent members of the public.

Our newspapers are awash with stories of violent murders and rapes, whilst “lesser” crimes such as burglary are so prevalent they rarely even make the local papers. One of the prime causes of the breakdown in law and order is that offenders know that they have only a 1 in 20 chance of being convicted, and that if they are convicted their punishment is likely to consist of a few hours a week on a community service order (if they can be bothered to show up) or a half hour chat every week with a probation officer. Meanwhile they are at liberty to continue committing offences and most of them do so.

The few who are imprisoned are unable to carry out offences whilst in prison but of course they know that their sentences will be automatically halved. Many are released before the half way point on a tag. This cavalier attitude towards sentencing has been encouraged by various governments, and senior members of the judiciary.

I would simply like to you know that there growing numbers of people feel that members of your profession are completely out of touch with the violent reality of today’s Britain, and unaccountable to the people whom they serve, and that this is something which must change.

Yours sincerely

David Davies

A civilized society?

2006-05-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

The News of World has been doing a laudable job of campaigning against the secret bail hostels which have been springing up in town centres to house dangerous paedophiles.

Last Sunday the paper drew attention to the case of Robert Oliver, one of the beasts responsible for raping and killing a 14 year old boy. Oliver was jailed in 1989 for “life” but was out after just 8 years.

The real question is this: Why are these people ever allowed out of jail again? Why are their “human rights” worth so much more than the rights of the innocent who they raped and murdered? Reading this story it came home to me in stark terms that as a society we have plunged to a new low. So little do we care about the lives of our children that those who rape and kill them can be released back onto our streets after a few years in a comfortable prison watching television and making use of the abundant leisure facilities.

We no longer have the right to think of ourselves as a civilized society.

Bureaucracy in action

2006-04-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

One consequence of having young children (one of whom is an early riser) is that you find yourself watching children’s television programmes. The storylines I see through bleary sleep-robbed eyes in the morning may be a little far fetched but they have nothing on some of the real life problems I regularly confront in Monmouthshire.

Here are two examples I came across yesterday: On the road between Monmouth and Chepstow in the middle of the Monmouthshire countryside lies the little village of Trellech, population – a few hundred. A recent development has seen half a dozen houses built into a cul-de-sac. They are very easy to find at night because unlike the rest of the village, not to say the miles of open countryside which surround it, the narrow cul-de-sac is lit up by an array of piercingly bright streetlamps. The residents complained that they did not move into the countryside expecting to find their rooms lit up like a prison camp after a breakout so I made enquiries.

The developers didn’t want the expense of putting in streetlights every few yards but were told to do so by the Council. The Council don’t want the expense of paying for electricity every night to light up a cul-de-sac in an isolated village but say they are following government guidance. As a result at great expense a rural idyll is being lit up like Wembly Stadium on cup final night. One nil to the bureaucrats. I have been promised that next week someone from the council will be coming out to try and shield the houses from the lights which neither they nor the council want, but which a regulation states they must have.

The same afternoon I visited to a farm in Dingestow. Had the farmer not been good friend I would have located it easily enough from the stench of a decaying cow which had been there since Tuesday. Why was this bloated rotting stinking carcass lying a few yards from the front door of a respected farming family? Because Under EU regulations it is now an offence for farmers to deal with their own dead livestock. When a cow dies they have to wait from a government approved livestock collector to remove the carcass. The company with the contract for Monmouthshire are based in West Wales and various excuses had been offered for their non-appearance to date.
Only the EU could come up with a set of regulations that could allow this to happen. Only Britain would be stupid enough to adhere to them.

2006-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Two items catch my eye in today’s news. A whining rant from a race relations advisor “Professor” Ted Cantle. Cantle appears to be a big noise in race relations and suggested that blacks and Asians cannot be safe living amongst whites. Comments like this perpetuate the favourite myth of the grievance industry that racism is something caused only by whites and that only blacks and Asians can be victims of it. Cantle also complained that parts of the country are “unhealthily all white.” I wonder what would he have said had anyone described parts of London as being “unhealthily all black”?

Faith in our nation was restored when I read an interview with Rear-Admiral Amjad Hussain. Britains first Muslim Admiral told how through his own hard work and ability he was able to rise from being the son of a penniless immigrant to a senior rank in the armed forces where he has served his country with great distinction. I heartily congratulate Admiral Hussain our country could do with many more like him. And merely by his example he will do far more for race relations in the UK than any number of whinging white liberals like “Professor” Cantle.

2006-03-16T14:56:00.001-08:00

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For details pop round to Number 10 Downing Street and ask for "Honest Tone"
He's a pretty straight kinda guy....

Hurry now this sale is expected to end soon.

2006-03-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

David Miliband has denounced suggestions that the split between Tessa Jowell and her husband took place for political reasons. Given that Downing Street press officers were giving detailed briefings to Fleet Street journalists almost as soon as the news broke it is hard not to feel that something doesn't quite add up.

On the subject most Cabinet Ministers are refusing to say if they or their spouses have "offshore" accounts. I think it is a fair question to ask of MPs so I shall come clean and say that my wife has. It is a current account in her native country of Hungary with about £200 in it which we use when we go over to visit the in-laws.

If she ever announced over breakfast that someone had put £300,000 into it as a "gift" then I would certainly be curious enough to ask a few questions.

However things like this don't to us, nor indeed to the vast majority of people, only it seems to high ranking members of the political party which claims to be the voice of the British working class.

What would Keir Hardie have made of it all?

Hoisted by his own petard

2006-02-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

It is not without a frisson of schadenfreude that I read of Ken Livingstone whinging and whining at being suspended by an unelected group of busybodies for his offensive comments to a Jewish reporter.

Of course it is wrong that the wishes of millions of electors can be overturned by this organisation! But who is responsible for them and their ilk? – why people like “cuddly” Ken and who are usually in the forefront of politically correct lunacy.

How hilarious that instead of a punishing a right wing politician for expressing valid concerns about religious extremism, their first high profile case was against the sort of politician who was responsible for bringing them into existence.

Maybe the scales will lift from Ken’s eyes and we will see him writing articles for the “Campaign Against Political Correctness” website which does an excellent job highlighting the increasingly bizarre world in which we live.

2006-02-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

If Prince Charles had any influence whatsoever over Government policy there would have been no ban on fox hunting.

2006-02-18T02:58:00.000-08:00

Much is being made of the treatment meted out by British squaddies to some rioting Iraqis. What I find far more sickening than the video are the howls of hypocritical anger coming from those who ordered these men into Iraq in the first place.

Army infantry units are generally made up of tough lads often from what are now called “deprived areas.” When confronted with a baying mob throwing petrol bombs does anyone really suppose that they are going to retaliate by waving copies of The Guardian around?

I am not making a defence but merely pointing out that if we had wanted to avoid situations like this we should not have gone to Iraq in the first place.

Waste and incompetence in the MOD

2006-02-10T02:29:00.000-08:00

Buried deep in a report which itself was tucked away in the House of Commons library was a report on sums of money which the MOD have had to write off in the past year.

The total amount came to an eye watering £320 millions pounds – ie nearly a third of a billion.

This is money which could have been used to improve the pay of infantry soldiers or ensure that they are given the correct kit when being sent off to dangerous places like Iraq or Afghanistan.

Below I have listed just a few of the write offs and the reasons given.

• Two Warrior vehicles involved in a collision during a training exercise – cost £500,000

• Fire on an AS90 (self-propelled artillery gun) – cost £1,942,000

• Communication equipment on a remote site was stolen in 2001-2002 – cost £382,000

• Incomplete documentation on ammunitions movements in Afghanistan – cost £241,000

• Change in supplier for BOWMAN battlefield communications system – cost £51,000,000 written off.

• Withdrawal from Multi Role Armoured Vehicle Programme – total cost £56,910,000 written off.

• Cancellation of a “classified project” as a “saving measure” – cost £1,791,000

• Defective GPS chips in guided missiles – cost £1,763,000

• Food having to be scrapped due to cancellation of Marines’ deployment to Norway – cost £144,000

• Re-negotiation of NIMROD contract – cost 74,880,000 constructive loss

• Cancellation of training project for High G Force Centrifuge – cost £14,383,000

• Cancellation of Harrier Bombing System – loss of £12,896,000

• Scrapping of 45 “faulty” Lynx Metal Rotor Blades, which were found not to have been faulty after all. – cost £153,000

• Chinook Helicopters written down because they do not meet operational requirements – cost £205,000,000

• “Impairment” of an official building - £65,000,000

• Creating a new roof for RNAS Yeovilton because the one that had just been built impaired the pilots view of the runway! - £584,000

We pay our Defence Ministers and their civil servants very good salaries, give them a budget of £30 billion and charge them with responsibility for the nations defences. With this sorry record of incompetence I would not put them in charge of a fairground shooting gallery.

Nothing to do with me guv!

2006-02-06T09:12:00.000-08:00

These were not quite the Home Secretary’s words when he made a statement about the lack of police action over the calls by some Muslims on the streets of London to murder Europeans. However this is what his statement amounted to.

The man charged with ensuring our safety simply told us it was a matter for the police and failed to point out that he is responsible for their actions.

The police have recently been able to arrest or detain elderly Christians protesting about homosexuality, a solitary anti war demonstrator, and an elderly gentlemen who had dared to heckle Jack Straw, yet they were seemingly powerless in the face of real incitements to kill.

I don’t blame the officers in the ground who were doubtless obeying orders from above. It is the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Ian Blair and his nominal boss Charles Clarke who should explain why they now appear to exempt some groups from upholding the laws of the land.

Not for nothing is Sir Ian known as PC Blair – although the letters stand for “Politically Correct” rather than denoting an ability to walk the streets of London arresting criminals.

apologies and hypocrisy

2006-02-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry - no blogs for a while, Government of Wales legislation and impending arrival of baby no.2 have eaten into my time.

I cannot resist the temptation to comment on the current rows about free speech viz a viz the cartoons which have offended the Muslim World.

Having now found them online I suggest that they are not in the least bit amusing and certain to cause offense - rather like "Jerry Springer the Opera."

Government Minister Jack Straw has praised the British media for not reproducing the cartoons but where was he when Christianity was being mocked?

Anti-Christian bias runs through many Government Departments. The Home Office spent £15,000 celebrating Eid and Divali and not a penny celebrating Christmas, meanwhile officials from the Department of Transport abandoned their desks to mark Chinese New Year and to go to an Asian Mela but Christmas was ignored.

teachers - get your own back

2006-01-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

Teachers are furious about a website which allows their charges to log on anonymously and give vent to their opinions about Miss or Sir. Now they are calling for the website to be shut down.

I fear this is a mistake. Shutting down websites is almost impossible - and having made this futile demand in the press even more people will hear about the site and log on. (as will I when I have finished writing this.)

Perhaps frustrated educationalists will decide to their own back by setting up your own website offering a "online reports" about their charges.

Life should mean life

2005-12-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

I cannot share the sense of triumph at the “double life” sentences handed out to the killers of Anthony Walker. In fact we can expect these two violent psychopaths to be walking the streets again before they are middle aged despite the “severity” of their sentence. Meanwhile an Asian gang, who murdered a passing white youth, escaped with a “normal” life sentence. Because they had already attacked other random passers-by some of whom were not white they “proved” that their crime was not racially motivated. This entitled them to a sentence that will be about half as long as that of the murderers of Anthony Walker.

I cannot bring myself to support a return of the death penalty (yet) but when it was abolished there was an understanding that those convicted of the most brutal murders would spend every day of the rest of their lives behind bars. This is not happening.

The murderers of Anthony Walker and Christopher Yates went up to an innocent passer by, and violently murdered them. The only appropriate punishment must be for them to live out every day of their lives in prison.

Apart from anything else this would protect members of the public from the danger they will pose when they are released. It will also deter other violent youths from carrying out motiveless attacks on strangers. But above all it would be justice.

What sort of artists run the MOD?

2005-11-30T03:18:00.000-08:00

The MOD has admitted spending £272,000 on a couple of paintings for its new HQ. In keeping with our times the paintings are modernistic blobs of colour and a spokesman was disparaging about the idea of putting “second rate” paintings of “dead admirals” on the walls.

It is probably expecting too much to think that the MOD might want to celebrate the deeds of admirals like Nelson who saved Britain from being invaded by the Hitler of his time. But a time when soldiers are being sent of to war without the proper equipment one might have expected them to have priorities other than new paintings.

The full article from the Telegraph is on this link.

Who's really soft on terror

2005-11-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

I make the following observations to those who have said that the Conservative Party are “weak” on terrorists following the vote against locking up suspects for 90 days without charges being brought:

• Several Conservative MPs have lost their lives due to terrorism many more have fought against it in Northern Ireland.

• Not one shred of evidence was given to us that 90 days was required. Not one single case was sited where holding people for 90 days would have made a difference.

• Blair could almost certainly have won a compromise of 40 days but instead preferred to lose then paint opposition parties as weak on terrorism.

• Having released numerous IRA terrorists from jail Mr "Tough on terror" Blair is about to grant an amnesty to IRA terrorists on the run. Meanwhile British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland in the 70s could face prosecution for carrying out their duties.

• Labour in opposition repeatedly voted against the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Blair has failed to do a number of steps which could prevent terrorism:
• Allowing phone tap evidence to be used by the courts.
• Repealing the Human Rights Act which Blair signed only to discover that it would prevent the government from throwing suspected terrorists out of the country or keeping them locked up until they left of their own accord.

New Labour – soft on preventing terrorism strong on preventing liberty

The lessons of November 5th

2005-11-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

400 years ago 70 years of religious strife culminated in the gunpowder plot. It came about because among Britain’s significant minority of Catholics were a tiny minority who were prepared to embark on treason and bloodshed.

Britain’s Catholics were badly treated. They were officially prevented from holding office or taking a degree and fined heavily for taking mass. Catholic priests faced a brutal death.

Yet despite this the vast majority of Catholics were loyal British subjects and went out of their way to show it. Prominent Catholic leaders condemned outright the Gunpowder plot because they were loyal to their country, and perhaps because they knew that bombing innocent people would create a backlash against them- as indeed it did.

400 years later our freedom is once again under threat from religious fanatics. Unlike 17th century Roman Catholics they are not oppressed, indeed the state has fallen over backwards to accommodate their needs. Whilst there are few who are willing to blow themselves up there are a significant number who appear unwilling to condemn outright their actions.

Those who govern the country should be aware that history teaches us that a country containing groups of people sharing no common loyalty is a country heading for instability and strife. Multiculturalism which encourages people to define themselves by their differences has to be replaced by an emphasis on integration and shared loyalty.

At every opportunity we should be saying to British people, it doesn’t matter if you are black white asian. Muslim Christian Hindu Sikh or Jew you are also British and with the rights that come with British citizenship also come responsibilities.

If we fail to do so, then like our 17th century forbearers we face many decades of religious strife.

Those education reforms

2005-10-30T02:27:00.000-08:00

Blair is making a big song and dance about his education reforms. In the Chamber this week Education Minister Ruth Kelly received cheers from the Conservatives and glum looks from her own side as she demanded more independence, discipline, parent power etc for state schools. It all sounds too good to be true, and it probably is. The real test is this. Will Labour MPs (and Prime Ministers) who profess undying love for the state education system be prepared to start educating their own offspring at local comprehensives? I very much doubt it but I would love to be proved wrong.

MPs were young once

2005-10-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

Conservative leadership contender David Cameron is quite right to refuse to say whether or not he took drugs at university. If he were to answer in the affirmative it would simply lead to a further barrage of questions on the lines of “what did you take”, “how often did you take them” etc etc until the only thing the public would know about Mr Cameron was that “he was the one who took drugs.”

It may come as a surprise to some, but MPs are no different from any other cross section of the general public. Many of them, (including, perhaps, David Cameron,) will have experimented with drugs at a younger age.

Personally I will not be voting for Mr Cameron, but my decision has got nothing to do with allegations about what he may or may not have got up to nearly 20 years ago, and if he is successful I doubt very whether the electorate will care come the next general election.

2005-10-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Right somebody mentioned council taxes. Thank you because I am getting a bit tired of talking about gypsy travellers. I was at the debate on council taxes which actually took place on Tuesday, as a result I missed most of the Conservative Party Conference which was a shame because this year was more interesting than usual.

The Conservative position on Council tax revaluation is that we would ideally support the reversal of re-banding which, as it has not gone ahead in England would be the fairest solution. We have been independently advised that this could raise some legal problems so until that has been clarified we will settle for a freeze at the levels being charged this year.

This would mean that nobody would go up by more than one band.

Aussies dont give a xxxx for political correctness

2005-09-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

I have always liked the Australian sense of humour and this article in today’s Telegraph goes a long way to explaining why.

In a splendid send up of the minority rights industry, students at the University of New England Australia have appointed a “heterosexual rights officer” whose job will be to “promote the welfare of heterosexuals.”

Ridiculous? Of course it is. But Mr Dave Allen, the holder of the post, knows that it is no more ludicrous than appointing "rights officers" for every other kind of racial and sexual group.

When not promoting “straight rights” Dave apparently spends his time on blokish activities like shooting and drinking beer. So tonight I raise my glass in his honour and wish him “bottoms up” or perhaps, given the circumstances, that should be “cheers.”

The lady in Cardiff Bay knows what’s good for you

2005-09-28T15:32:00.001-07:00

Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood exemplified socialist thinking in the Assembly yesterday as she condemned Conservative politicians for encouraging people to become property owners by buying their own council houses.

The Conservatives would now like to extend this scheme to those living in housing association properties thereby enabling yet more people to get onto the property ladder.

I pointed out to Ms Wood that surveys consistently show that these ideas are popular with those who are the main beneficiaries. Back came the rather sinister reply “Sometimes, what individuals want is incompatible with the greater good”

Indeed! How silly of the Conservative Party to think that politicians are elected to serve the people and to carry out their wishes. Leanne knows only too well that we are greater beings who always know exactly what is good for are electors whether they like it or not.

A full transcript can be found on this link

New website

2005-09-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

My new MP website can be accesed on the David Davies MP link.

Uganda visit

2005-09-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Apologies for not blogging for a fortnight. In justification I was in Uganda for a week with a small group of British MPs. “Junketing MPs” some may say, I would strongly beg to differ. Within Uganda approximately 1.2million people are living in refugee camps as a result of the rebel activities of the “Lords Resistance Army.” We visited one of these camps near the Sudanese border which was an experience that will remain etched on our minds for many years.

I was also able to meet with an inspirational constituent, Kate Rees from Llandogo who has spent 20 years helping homeless children in the country. We spent an afternoon at an orphanage with which she is involved. The desperate poverty and yet surprising cheerfulness of the children who were there was humbling.

The delegation consisted of 2 Conservative and 3 Labour MPs and 2 members of the House of Lords and I can honestly say that political differences will play no part in the report which we will shortly submit to Parliament.

The political situation in Uganda is somewhat complex but in brief we will be urging the Ugandan government to deal more effectively with the LRA insurgents and to begin re-settling the displaced people currently living within the camps. We will also aim to give practical support for the move away from a one party state towards democracy with multi-party elections expected to take place early next year.

upsetting the grievance brigade

2005-09-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. The legions of the politically correct failed to see the funny side of my application for a lottery grant to explore the traditions of the "settled" community. I have been branded a racist and several Assembly Members have now said that if I am not “disciplined” they will report me to the Commission for Racial Equality.

I am not quite sure why criticising a fatuous lottery grant and calling for everyone (including a minority of travellers who are of largely white European stock anyway) to obey planning regulations and clean up their litter could be construed as racist.

Mind you I half hope the threat is carried out as I would dearly like another opportunity to quiz the CRE about what they are doing to prevent racism and bigotry amongst all ethnic and religious groups within Britain. I am still waiting for them to sign my compact.

Assembly building "on budget"!!??

2005-09-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

A glossy publication from the Welsh Assembly and funded by the generosity of council tax payers across Wales arrives on my desk. It boasts that the “Landmark” new Welsh Assembly building will be finished this summer “on budget”. In fact, when it was first mooted in 1998, the estimated cost of the building was £10 million. Since then AMs became used to the regular announcements that costs had gone up - except for a period when worked stopped during a dispute between the architects and the Assembly Government. When the building is finished the price tag will be around £66 million – over three times the amount which Monmouthshire Council tax payers have lost as a result of the under-funding of their council. I wonder how many will feel that their money has been well spent!

Economic Development in Wales

2005-09-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

A recent poster campaign by the Welsh Assembly’s development agency summed up all that is wrong with economic policy in Wales. At one site, in Abergavenny, potential entrepreneurs were urged to set up their own businesses. My objection – the poster was entirely in Welsh in the heart of the most anglicised part of the principality! It might have pleased the Welsh Language lobby, not mention the advertising industry, but a serious entrepreneur would have concluded that those responsible know nothing about researching your target market.

Across the world there is a growing acceptance about the role of government in developing an economy. In summary this should be about putting in place a decent infrastructure – transport links, IT connections and so on.

Ensuring that the available workforce are healthy and well educated, that reasonable standards for employees are complied with, and reducing taxation to a level which encourages existing businesses to expand and outside companies to relocate.

Short term state help for those wanting to set up businesses is also important but will only be effective if the above conditions already exist.

Policymakers in Wales have largely ignored the most important conditions and AMs demonstrate their fragile grasp of basic economics on a regular basis. One day they will call for more to be done in the third world. The next day the same AMs will be condemning a bank for moving a call centre to India.

Let us ignore the fact that the jobs created in the third world by outsourcing are responsible for the increased living standards which politicians claim to want. Instead let us remember that companies go to India and China because they offer a better climate in which to do business.

In Wales major road building projects are on hold. The health service is a disgrace, well run local schools are being shut down and we are turning out an army of graduates who can now get a degree in “surf studies” but are unable to understand basic maths.

Company taxation levels are far lower across the Irish sea something which has surely played a far greater role in Ireland’s economic success than it’s membership of the Euro.

Here we have opted to keep taxes high and spend spend spend in the public sector. The workforce of the Welsh Development Agency alone has doubled over the last few years. Ministers believe that more “advisors” and “consultants” will equal more jobs.

This has appeared to work. Many jobs have been created in the last five years, but almost all of them are in the public sector and being paid for by the dwindling number of people who are actually contributing something tangible to the economy.

To be clear we should support and increase in teachers nurses and policemen who make a very important contribution to the economy for reasons already explained. But there is plenty of scope for saving money which could be spent improving the infrastructure, educating the workforce and cutting taxes, allowing Wales to compete with the rapidly emerging economies of Eastern Europe and China.

More PC nonsense

2005-08-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

A story in the Telegraph revealed that a £48000 lottery grant is being used to make a film about the "traditions" of gypsy travellers. The film will be shown to schoolchildren in Hampshire.

I have written the following letter to the chief executive of the Lottery. If my application is unsuccesful (as I suspect it will be) it might at least prompt them to think about the double standards they apply when handing out barrel loads of cash to groups who want preferential treatment.

Copy of Letter to Carole Souter Director Heritage Lottery Fund 7 Holbein Place London:

I am writing to you in the hope that you might see fit to consider my interesting, vital and culturally-relevant application for a grant from the “Your Heritage” scheme.

Following on from the £48,000 you gave for the production of a video aimed at giving schoolchildren a greater understanding of the culture and traditions of “Gypsy Travellers,” I am very keen to commission an equally “useful” and “informative” piece of film that will serve to educate said “gypsy travellers” on some of the ancient traditions and communal practices of another group of people, who we might called “settled folk”.

I use the term to describe that large group of people in Britain who opt to live their lives in houses or flats. Although large in number “settled folk” often face prejudice and misunderstanding from gypsy travellers when they come into contact with them.

I should like my film to focus on such issues as the importance which the “settled community” place on property rights, their rigid adherence to an ancient code which they refer to as “planning regulations,” and the time honoured custom of clearing up one’s rubbish.

Should time allow we could also include a section about the cardboard circle which settled folk purchase annually from post offices and use to adorn their vehicles - known as a tax disc.

The film could then be distributed to traveller sites across the country to give travellers an insight into the customs of the settled community. I am sure you will agree that this film will be as worthwhile and relevant as the one currently being made in Hampshire.

I look forward to receiving confirmation that you find this project acceptable and will ask a film maker to get in touch.

MPs holidays

2005-08-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my absence but even MPs have to go on holiday - though not for the "3 months " which the press accuse us of. Mine was a more modest fortnight on in Hungary. A hangover from the Communist times is that many Hungarian factories own a holiday home which groups of employees can book up.

Thus I found myself with my wife's extended family and two other families crowding in to a bungalow on Lake Balaton. In traditional Hungarian style the kitchen was in a separate outhouse and meals were eaten together outdoors with large quantities of home made wine.

On the subject of politics, which I couldn't resist broaching, there seemed to be a divide between the older and younger generation. The younger ones have embraced the "changes" while the older ones are unenthusiastic about either Communism or capitalism. I should say that this is based a straw pole of about 12 out of a country of 10 million people.

Back in Budapest I found to time to visit the "House of Terror"

This was the former HQ of both the Nazi and then Communist Party in Hungary. Now a museum it is a moving memorial to all who suffered and died under these two oppressive systems which have so much in common.

It should not have come as a surprise that many Nazis joined the Communist Party as soon as they realised that the war was lost.

Not so secret funding for militants

2005-07-30T01:46:00.000-07:00

A favourite accusation of the anti-war brigade is that the West is to blame for Islamic terrorism as, for years, our governments “secretly funded militant groups.” With the news that arrested suicide bomb suspects were living on generous British state benefits perhaps we should give this argument more credence!

Was Cherie watching?

2005-07-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Tony Blair was at his Churchillian finest last night when he appeared on the news condemning all suicide bombers. ( )

Let's hope Mrs Blair now shares these fine sentiments.....

Double standards

2005-07-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

What a shame that some of the people who have condemned the terrorist attacks have gone on to add a silent "but" demanding that we should understand the "anger that people feel about the situation in Palestine / Iraq."

Following the bombs a number of asians living in Britian suffered random attacks and verbal abuse. These have been rightly condemned by all commentators.

No excuses for this kind of behaviour have been made on the lines of "verbal abuse towards Muslims is to be condemned but of course we understand why people feel angry...we cannot separate these attacks from what has been happening in London....."

Those who cannot bring themselves to condemn terrorism without ambiguity or qualification are making matters worse.

Airport checks - no defence

2005-07-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

Can somebody explain to me the thinking behind suggestions of airport style check-ins or random stop and searches for people boarding the tube?

As someone who travels underground for upto an hour and a half 4 days a week I hope we do not adopt New York style security measures. A large queue of people standing in a line waiting to be checked would be a magnet for anyone wanting to blow up themselves and a large number of innocent people.

Even if it were possible to entirely eradicate the threat of suicide bombers on the tube they would simply go elsewhere – trains, coaches, shops football matches the list is endless.

One reason why these attacks are happening is because a significant number of British citizens feel no affinity for the country of their birth. If we don’t do something to address this problem then the atrocities will continue.

the fanatics must be stopped

2005-07-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of the bombing I hope the government will now take a look at those who have been responsible for whipping up the hatred which led to these attacks.

It is inconceivable that Winston Churchill would have allowed Nazi demagogues to hold rallies in British cities during the Second World War urging impressionable youths to join the SS. Yet here we are fighting another “war” the “war on terror” with apologists recruiting outside, and possibly inside certain Mosques in various British cities.

We know that the vast majority of Muslims do not wish to be associated with this, and many Muslim organisations have unambiguously condemned the attacks. I hope they will now go further and work to silence the irresponsible voices in their community or make it abundantly clear that those voices are not representative.

An attack on democracy

2005-07-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday saw Parliamentary politics at its childish worst with insults flying backwards and forwards across from all sides of the Chamber as John Prescott stood in for the Prime Minister at the weekly question time session.

By contrast in the wake of the horrifying events which are unfolding around us in London as I write, today saw an example of British democracy at its best.

At an emergency statement Charles Clarke, David Davis, Menzies Campbell, and Elfyn Llwyd spoke as one in praise of the emergency services the need to remain calm and the importance of ensuring that this attack is not used by anyone as an excuse to undermine the democratic system.

Openess

2005-07-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

The government’s much trumpeted commitment to transparency is far from obvious to those who table questions to Ministers.

Questions about an investigation into the British Pregnancy Advisory Service have met with a confirmation that the report has been received but the Minister hasn’t looked at it so it would be “inappropriate to comment further” meaning that no further questions about it can be asked.

Questions about the amount each department has spent on taxis have been answered by some Ministers but others have said that “the information can only be supplied at disproportionate cost” (less costly than the taxi bills I suspect!)

Following the second reading of the Religious Hatred Bill which could lead to people being prosecuted for expounding their beliefs I tabled questions to the Home Office about the number of attacks on Jews Sikhs Muslims and Christians and the number of acts of vandalism on their places of worship.

Back came the enlightening answer “ this information is not collected centrally.” I can only wonder why the Government are so keen to introduce a contentious piece of legislation if they have no idea how big a problem “religious hatred” actually is.

A list of questions tabled by MPs can be found at www.theyworkforyou.com . It also gives an indication as to how hard they are working....

Bring on the multi-nationals Bob

2005-07-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I was taken around a township on the edge of Port Elizabeth in South Africa by a group of ANC members. The poverty was, of course abysmal, and descriptions of similar scenes can be found in any of the weekend papers.

One small part of the drive around took us past a huge Ford plant. My hosts were keen to point this out and talked happily about what Ford had done for the area. As well as paying decent wages to the workers they had set up health and education facilities for local people.

Now I can almost hear any of the usual anti-capitalist crowd decrying this and saying that Ford only went there because they could pay low wages and it is in their own interests to have a healthy and educated workforce.

In fact, whatever their failings, multinationals are not staffed with evil monsters but with men and women with families and concerns for the areas they live and work in.

Whatever their reasons the wages paid there were far higher than most of the youths living on that township would have earned elsewhere, and the health and education facilities were very welcome.

India and China are rapidly transforming themselves into first world countries and they have done so partly by encouraging inward investment from around the world.

Aid and debt relief might solve some of the immediate problems in Africa and I hope that the G8 summit helps to deliver this but they are not a long term solution. What is also needed is an end to the corruption and civil war which has blighted the continent, and, controversial though it may be, lots more multinationals like Ford going there to make a profit.

Time to remove Assembly powers?

2005-06-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

The Government are in the process of giving extra powers to the Welsh Assembly at present. Given the dreadful lack of competence in the areas in which the Assembly has got powers this is something I will be opposing.

With the latest figures showing yet another rise in hospital waiting lists I feel the time has come to seriously consider removing health as an area of responsibility from the Assembly. I have applied for an adjournment debate on this subject in Parliament but would welcome some online comment from bloggers.

PS apologies for the sporadic posts but for some reason I have not been able to log on from Parliament and I was visiting the in-laws in Hungary over the weekend.

Anyone remember "Top Cat"?

2005-06-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

The week before last presented an opportunity to ask a question to the Prime Minister during the weekly question time session. Firing off questions at Mr Blair in a packed House of Commons is a potentially nerve racking experience so I made sure I had rehearsed what I was going to say.

Unfortunately I had not bargained for the effect that my initials would have on the government benches as the speaker called "Mr David T. C. Davies". As I rose to my feet several hundred people opposite started singing the theme tune from the cartoon series "Top Cat." Peter Hain then performed a solo version the following week.

The kindly staff at Hansard had advised me to use the initials to differentiate myself from David Davis MP Shadow Home Secretary and Tory leadership contender. This seemed reasonable at the time. However if the Labour back benchers don't get bored of the joke soon we are going to have to think of something else.

Should the Assembly discuss debt relief?

2005-06-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

The need to alleviate the dire levels of poverty which persist throughout many parts of the third world, especially Africa, is something agreed upon by all political parties.

However I cannot support the call by one AM for the Welsh Assembly to debate the matter. Standards of living in the third world could be raised to some extent by western governments adopting different policies on debt relief and free trade. Britain’s contribution towards this is something that will have to be debated and agreed upon at national government level – ie in Parliament.

The Welsh Assembly meets for 7 hours a week. If an hour or more is set aside for discussing a matter over which it has absolutely no control, but on which all it’s members are in full agreement, then up to 20 AMs will all get up and make essentially the same speech, describing the situation in identical terms, and calling on the government to do more. A resolution will then be unanimously passed.

AMs may feel strongly about poverty. They forget that everyone else does. If the Assembly is going to pass resolutions on international affairs perhaps every local council should also do likewise. Why stop there? The board of every health authority could just as logically suspend discussions on waiting lists and MRSA to debate debt relief, – over which they have as much influence as the Welsh Assembly.

If the Assembly must pass a resolution - then it should simply be tabled and passed without debate. Whatever influence they feel a resolution will have on the government can be allowed to take effect without the need for a long debate which will allow the Assembly to avoid discussing matters for which it does have responsibility.

Vive La France

2005-05-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

Three cheers for the French who have rejected the constitution. A majority do not support plans to supplant the sovereign nations of Europe and replace them with a highly centralised federal state run by an unaccountable bureaucratic elite.

Perhaps those running the European Union will take note.

Ministers Questions

2005-05-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous blog I exercised my right to table a question to Gordon Brown following the maiden speech. As luck would have it the question was selected and I duly stood up, looked Mr Brown in the eye from a distance of a few feet, and called on him to rule out an increase in National Insurance. Disdaining to answer a junior Minister sitting next to him arose and made a non-committal reply refusing to rule out a tax hike.

Firing questions at the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the floor of the House of Commons is certainly more challenging than quizzing his opposite number in the Welsh Assembly. The atmosphere is tense and confrontational. There is also the knowledge that if either the questioner or the Minister fouls up then it will be endlessly replayed the next day on various radio stations.

Is this good for democracy? Some say not but my gut feeling is that it is. Ministers and their opposite numbers on the Conservative and Liberal front benches go to the dispatch box knowing that they if they have not done their homework, it will quickly become apparent to all.

Commons protest

2005-05-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Messer’s Ferry, Tomlinson and others have today been found guilty of public order offences following their “invasion” of the House of Commons.

Whilst I sympathise with their viewpoint their actions cannot be justified. However their arrest, trial and fine in marked contrast to the treatment handed out to anti-war protesters who did the same thing in the Welsh Assembly.

They were merely detained by the police for an hour or so then quietly released. Rumour has it they even got a cup of tea….

Why are hunt protesters and peace protesters treated differently when they commit the same offence?

Two weeks gone

2005-05-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

Two weeks an MP and I have survived the "maiden speech" ordeal.

MPs are not allowed to take part in debates, ask questions, intervene, raise points of order and probably much else besides until this has been done.

By tradition the maiden speech contains little of relevance to the subject being debated. (Although this could be said of many speeches) Instead praise is heaped on previous MPs, a description of the constituency follows with perhaps a few moderate comments in support/criticism of government policy. In return those sitting on the benches opposite refrain from heckling or intervening.

As one MP said: "Enjoy it because it's the easiest speech you will ever make."

I was fairly relaxed about the whole thing until, with about a minute to go, a whip came up to me. "Brace yourself" he said grabbing my arm excitedly, in the manner of a parachute jump master, "because you are next!" At this point I will confess to a mild bout of nerves.

Fortunately things seemed to go reasonably well.

I celebrated by seeking out the Table Office and exercising my right to table, or register, a question for Gordon Brown. Which, if I am lucky I will get to ask him in the Chamber next week.

There followed a long explanation of the types of questions which may be asked of Ministers, along with a timetable showing the daily deadlines for allowable questions to the specific Ministers, and the day they will be answered. I came out in need of coffee.

Shortly afterwards my phone went: "Whips office. Get into the Chamber immediately. You must be there for the wind up speeches if you have spoken in a debate."

The fact that this was happening an hours earlier than expected was no excuse. It is going to take quite some time to understand Parliament.

I took my place on the backbenches which was just behind Ian Paisley. "I remember my maiden speech." he said cheerfully. "It was a bit controversial. In fact it was so controversial that the Speaker ruled me out of order."

Now that would have been a maiden speech worth seeing.

Life for a new MP

2005-05-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

If ever I thought that MPs spent their time drinking champagne, going for long lunches and rising to make the odd speech then this week has completely disabused me of the notion.

From the moment we arrived on Monday morning until leaving after taking the oath on Thursday it was a non stop marathon of induction courses, lectures on how to behave, and one to one chats with various people including the police who gave me an implement for opening mail and graphic description on what might lie therein.

The old timers told us that we are lucky. In their day there was no induction course and members were left to drift aimlessly around finding out for themselves where everything was and what they were supposed to be doing. Sometimes it would take months!

One thing I find very frustrating is the lack of an office - one will be allocated to me in "a few weeks." I have never shirked from criticising the Welsh Assembly but in fairness within minutes of arriving we were given an office with phones and a computer so that we could start dealing with the mail.

Fortunately Nigel Evans MP has taken pity and allowed me the use a corner in his office so replies are starting to go out to those who have written - as many have.

Priority will go to letters from constituents - even the one who believes that Monmouthshire is English and that those of us who live here have been the victims of a wicked conspiracy which has seen us annexed into Wales against our wishes! If he is reading this he might find the following link informative http://www.oakdalevillage.net/history3.html )

the election

2005-05-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

The blog has been a little neglected over the past few weeks as I competed with four very able candidates for the privilege of representing Monmouth in Parliament. I was delighted with the result and sincere in wanting to pay tribute in my acceptance speech to the others, particularly Huw Edwards the former MP and Phil Hobson the current Mayor of Chepstow.

Many times I was asked what I would do about my position as the Assembly Member if elected, and my answer was that I would be standing down by the time of the next Assembly election. Contrary to comments from some Labour MPs this does not mean that I continue to collect an Assembly Members salary although I receive an extra allowance for the workload this entails.

This therefore means that I am currently saving the taxpayers quite a lot of money. (Although I suspect it will be wasted on something else anyway!)

The other comment was that I would be “doing two jobs”. In fact most of an AMs time is not spent in the chamber of the Assembly at all – this amounts to only 7 hours per week. The rest is spent dealing with constituency casework, problems raised in surgeries, fighting local campaigns and much else besides. All of this work is identical for an MP representing the same area.

The Labour MPs who have criticised should consider the fact that their Ministers have to take on a full time extra job which has nothing to do with their work as an MP, and for which they are paid an enormous salary on top of their MPs wage. Does Peter Hain neglect his duties as the MP for Neath because of his Ministerial posts? Perhaps he could tell us.

I suspect that we will hear more calls for my immediate resignation from the Assembly, but unless I am being a little cynical those making them will be more interested in the opportunity that an expensive by-election might present for themselves or their political party rather than considering the interests of those who live here.

Meanwhile I look forward to beginning work in Westminster first thing Monday morning, and perhaps to enlightening bloggers as to what it is like to be a newly elected MP.

Who mentioned immigration?

2005-04-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

I have lost count if the times I have stated the Conservative position on immigration during this campaign in public meetings and on TV and radio interviews.

Yet in every instance it was always in response to a question on the lines of "why are the Tories spending so much time talking about immigration." Last night it even came up during a debate organised by the NUT on education matters.

I am quite happy with Conservative immigration policy but it is only one of at least 8 key issues. It deserves to be mentioned but, speaking personally, I am just as happy to debate the NHS, school closures, council taxes, pensions, agriculture law and order or the environment.

My advice to anyone wanting to hear less about the Conservative immigration policy is very simple. Stop asking questions about it!

new site

2005-04-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

For those who are not sure how to vote (or even those who are) the following website offers a few minutes of entertainment. http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/

Are they serious?

2005-04-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Labour politicians have descended on Dorset demanding the resignation of a Conservative candidate who altered an election photo which highlighted immigration policies.

Like most of us this candidate was happy to help individuals, including asylum seekers, who he felt had been wrongly treated. Labour sees this as hypocrisy - I prefer to see it as humanity.

It was a mistake to alter a photograph on an election leaflet, but the people calling for this man to be sacked are the very same people who were happy to allow the public to be given doctored evidence to support their case for a war in Iraq.

If altering documents were a sacking offence Blair would have gone a long time ago.

Housing policy humbug

2005-04-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

On the radio this morning Labour were trumpeting a sudden found commitment to the idea of a property owning democracy, and saying they wished to increase the percentage of people owning their own homes.

Naturally I assumed this was a clever April Fools joke on the lines of the one about the failing spaghetti harvest, but it is still being said on the evening news so perhaps we are meant to take it seriously.

If it were true it would be a laudable intention, but for the last 25 years, ever since Mrs Thatcher gave council house tenants the right to buy in 1980, Labour have thrown up their hands in horror at the idea that we should try to extend home ownership.

Since Blair took office the right to buy has been systematically eroded, and Labour have strongly opposed Conservative plans to offer the same rights to housing association tenants.

(http://www.politics.co.uk/issues/right-buy-$3277298.htm)

Has Gordon Brown undergone some sort of damascene conversion and suddenly become a supporter of one of Mrs Thatcher's key reforms, or has this announcement got something to do with the impending election?

Having heard numerous Labour politicians denouncing council house sales, I suspect that hell will freeze over and weapons of mass destruction will be found nestling in the sands of Persia before anything is done by a Labour Government to increase property ownership.

German humour

2005-03-31T14:39:00.000-08:00

Showing a group of Germans around the Welsh Assembly committee rooms this morning I commented that on a visit to a committee in the Berlin State Parliament a few years ago I had been amazed to see caterers pushing trolleys loaded with coffee, cakes, chocolates and other delicacies around the room for the politicians to help themselves to whenever they felt the need for sustenance.

“when we are discussing policies in the committee rooms” I said “ We are allowed only tap water.”

“Ah” said one of my guests “we give our politicians food because the more they eat the less they can talk.”

I think he was joking…..

How accurate are school inspections?

2005-03-29T12:15:00.001-08:00

Ensuring that their child’s school is performing well is of the upmost importance to all parents. State schools are inspected by a Welsh Assembly body called Estyn whose reports are supposed to highlight any problems. But questions have arisen about how rigourous these inspections really are.

I have been informed by the former head of education in Gwent, who went on to work as a schools inspector, that he and his colleagues were actively discouraged from writing reports which suggested that a school was failing.

Following his complaints about the system, the gentlemen in question found that his services as a schools inspector were no longer required.

Needless to say I am making further investigations into this matter and more information will be published tomorrow in the Western Mail.

Cutting taxes - no tall order

2005-03-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

There has been much gnashing of teeth over Howard Flight's comments. Labour are now saying that there is some secret agenda to cut spending on schools hospitals the police or other frontline services. There is no such thing and Conservatives like myself actively campaign for better public facilities in our areas. However there is no doubt that large amounts money are wasted in the public sector. This morning I revealed in the Western Mail that the Welsh Development Agency had spent £43,500 sending eight members of staff to the exclusive resort of Cannes in the South of France where they visited a "property conference." This is just a drop in the ocean compared to the millions which have been wasted on schemes like the Welsh Assembly debating chamber, Welsh Embassies around the World, not to mention the millions earmarked for free schools breakfasts. And this is just a sample of what is going on in Wales. Cut out the waste and we can cut taxes without cutting public services. Simple.

Why Council taxes are going up

2005-03-23T01:40:00.000-08:00

Given the comments on my previous post I think a brief lesson on why Council taxes have been going up is in order:

Council tax is largely determined by the amount of money which a local authority (eg Monmouthshire County Council) receives from the Assembly. The lower that amount is, the more council taxes have to rise to make up the difference.

There are two reasons why council taxes have risen each year at levels that are way above the rate of inflation.

The first is that the each year the Council faces a rise in their costs, often due to initiatives which are imposed by the Assembly without being properly funded. The Council has faced a rise in costs because of these extra regulations such as the Teachers Workload Agreement. The difference between what the Council gets from the Assembly and what it has to spend is made up by the Council tax.

The second problem is that formula which is used to determine how much money each local authority gets from the Assembly, (and therefore how much extra they will have to levy in Council tax to meet their costs) is shamelessly skewed against more rural areas such as Monmouthshire.

Monmouthshire suffers from the misconception that it is a “leafy area” which, to quote the former leader of Blainau Gwent, “can afford to pay.” This is simply not true, but on top of the poverty that exists here the costs of maintaining services in a rural area are much greater than in neighbouring urban areas. Road maintenance alone will be vastly more expensive, and as the Free Press recently reported Council officials are warning that the roads are turning into cart tracks because of a lack of upkeep.

This County also has a relatively high elderly population many of whom need help from social services. None of this is properly factored into the formula which the Assembly use to decide how much money to give to each of the 22 local authorities so our taxes go up.

On numerous occasions both inside and out of the Assembly I have spoken out about this issue and highlighted the way in which Monmouthshire is being short-changed. Money which should be coming into this area as of right is being diverted to other local authorities which, in many cases, have consistently failed to spend to within their targets.

The Conservative group in the Welsh Assembly have been trying to get changes to the formula used for distributing funding to local authorities so that it properly reflects the genuine needs of each area of Wales.

Gordon's Council tax gimmick

2005-03-21T13:40:00.000-08:00

The Chancellor’s announcement of a one-off council tax rebate of £200 for pensioners will do little to assuage the anger of those who have worked hard all their lives and are now being clobbered by tax rises which, as I know from my surgeries, they can ill afford to pay. In a few weeks time, those of us living in Monmouthshire will receive bills for what would have been the lowest increase in Council taxes for years, were it not for the revaluation, which has resulted in nearly half of the houses in the county being put into a higher band.

I have doubts as to whether we should actually continue with this method of taxation given the unfair impact it has on pensioners and those living on fixed incomes. However it is worth remembering that it is not the tax itself which causes the problem – when I first stood for the Assembly the issue was barely mentioned. The issue has come to the fore because over the last 6 years the tax has been forced upwards by the Assembly who have kept local councils short of money, forcing them to raise council taxes at high levels to make up the difference. Any change in the method of taxation would therefore be worthless unless it were accompanied by a commitment from the Assembly to fully finance the extra obligations which they impose on local authorities.

Abortion - lets have the debate

2005-03-15T14:33:00.000-08:00

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O Connor was quite right in suggesting that abortion is a legitimate topic for debate in the next election. It is grotesque that we allow healthy babies to be aborted at 24 weeks when they could survive if born prematurely.

We should also be told what came of the enquiry into the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Back in September they were caught by an undercover journalist advising women on how to get abortions at 25 weeks.

The BPAS continue to recieve large amounts of public money every year.

Who shut the pits anyway?

2005-03-07T14:46:00.001-08:00

to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the end of the miners strike I thought I would pose an easy question to which everyone knows the answer:

Which government has shut down the most pits in the last 40 years?

Easy one that - we all know it was Mrs Thatcher and the Tories who shut down the all pits don't we? The BBC were showing a drama about it only the other day.

Actually no!

Here are figures I obtained from the Assembly in the number of mines closed between 1963 and 1990:

1963-1970 - 303 pits closed (Labour were in power from 1964-1970)
1970-1974 - 35 pits closed (Conservatives in power during these years)
1974-1979 - 37 pits closed (Labour in power during these years)
1979 - 1990 - 127 pits closed (Conservatives in power with Mrs Thatcher as leader)

So in actual fact in just 6 years Harold Wilson closed down around twice as many mines as during the 11 years Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister who closed the fewest mines was Edward Heath whose Government was, ironically, brought down by the politically inspired miners strike.

Are we so intolerant?

2005-03-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

Celebrating the legal ruling allowing her the right to wear the jilbab - a long outer garment favoured by some Muslims, Shabina Begum read out a long statement condemning the "prejudice and bigotry" of western society.

I rather think that a society which allows a 17 year old to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money on a legal battle over school uniform is remarkably, indeed overly tolerant.

There are many countries in the world where women of any age have no legal rights whatsoever. Had Ms Begum been living in such a place she would not have been given any more than a rudimentary education and would been the victim of a forced marriage many years before reaching her late teens.

Having won her case I hope she will be as outspoken in defence of the rights of any of her peers who may now be "encouraged" by their families to wear the jilbab against their wishes.

Labour's stereotyping of minorities

2005-03-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

Labour Assembly Member Carl Sargant displayed exactly the sort of prejudices which Labour are usually fond of condemning. During a debate on the Right to Roam Act he got up and to cheers from his colleagues referred to "gunslinging landowners." who he suggested posed a threat to the safety of ramblers. I wonder what the Labour AMs would have said had any other minority group been described en masse as gunslingers, bomb throwers or terrorist supporters.

Gender mapping cost

2005-02-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

Further to my recent blog about Torfaen Council's "gender mapping" exercise I have now received the costs. £10,000 was spent on consultants and another £3,000 was spent on a conference to discuss it all which was attended by over 100 local government officers. One wonders how much time they spent discussing the future of one of their best schools, Ponthir, which along with three others faces closure because of Torfaen's chronic shortage of money.

Human Rights and New Labour

2005-02-23T11:02:00.000-08:00

Labour are trying to suggest that anyone who opposes the idea that former Marxist Charles Clarke should be allowed to imprison people without trial, is willing to see British citizens being murdered by suicide bombers. In reality they themselves brought about the situation, whereby foreign terrorists can roam freely around the country, when they signed the Human Rights Act. As a result of this act the "human rights" of British subjects are about to severely curtailed.
If Labour are really concerned about terrorism they could admit they made a mistake and renounce the act. This would then allow them to give foreign terrorist suspects the choice of remaining under lock and key in the UK or being put on the first plane back to wherever they came from.