Trafford Housing Trust - building towards a future without opinions... or flowerpots.

You might remember the story of Colin Atkinson from a few months ago. He is the 64 year-old former soldier who ended up in serious trouble from his employers, Wakefield and District Housing (WDH), for keeping a palm cross on his company van’s dashboard.

Now another Christian, Adrian Smith, who works for another housing trust, Trafford Council and Trafford Housing Trust, has been demoted, with a 40% pay cut, for stating on his own personal Facebook page that ‘gay church marriages’ are “a step too far”. Apparently, the only reason he wasn’t sacked is because of his eighteen years of service.

We are becoming a nation of informants:

Mr Smith was disciplined after a second colleague complained to the Trust’s ‘equality and diversity lead’, Helen Malone.

A few days later, Mr Smith was summoned from his home to a meeting at the Trust’s headquarters in Sale, where he was told he was being suspended while the complaint was investigated.

He was warned that even though his Facebook page could be viewed only by registered friends, rather than by the general public, those readers included colleagues who had taken issue with his comments.

Perhaps there is more to this story than meets the eye. It seems his ‘friends’ and colleagues were ganging up on him and perhaps using his rather unassuming comments as an excuse to get rid of someone they don’t like. If he was homosexual and being bullied and harassed, it would have been a totally different matter. One phone call to Stonewall would have left his bosses and colleagues panic-stricken.

A shocked Mr Smith, who managed a team looking after local housing issues, immediately removed the reference to where he worked from the page.

Why remove it? I have a feeling that allowing yourself to be cowed by these creeps will be seen as a sign of weakness. The Trust has 350 employees. Many of these will likely share Mr Smith’s beliefs and most will be afraid to speak out. And I hope those who grassed him up don’t get too complacent, or they could also find themselves the subject of a witch hunt if they are caught uttering a non-PC opinion (if they are capable). I would not have too many drinks at the office Christmas party if I was them. The walls probably have ears. (They will probably have a ‘Winterval’ party, of course, so as not to ’cause offence’.)

The following month he was called to a disciplinary meeting before Mike Corfield, the Trust’s Assistant Director, Customers. Although Mr Smith was allowed to put his case, insiders described the meeting as ‘tense and fraught’.

I can imagine. He would likely have been made to feel like scum by his interrogators. Like there was something wrong with him.

According to legal documents lodged at Manchester County Court, Debbie Gorman, a ‘neighbourhood manager’ also at the meeting, said Mr Smith’s comment could cause offence.

Indeed. A comment could ’cause offence’ but that is sometimes the price we pay to have freedom of speech. The alternative is far, far worse.

But because of his loyal service, Mr Smith was instead demoted to money support adviser, handling rent collection. His pay was reduced to £21,396, phased in over a year, and he was given a final written warning.

Mr Smith’s solicitor has said that, ‘Nothing he said was offensive or abusive. His comments were calm, measured and reasonable.

That doesn’t matter anymore. Freedom of speech has gone. You will comply – because someone, somewhere might be offended, especially when there’s money to be made.

‘Adrian has been treated disproportionately. Even those who disagree with his opinions will surely agree that he has been treated badly.’

I doubt it, actually. Some people are too far removed from reality now.

Last year, the Trust, which employs 360 staff, was awarded a ‘quality mark’ from a gay support group for its work training staff in recognising homophobic hate crime.

But it has also angered a number of elderly residents by ordering them to remove garden benches and flower pots from outside their flats for health-and-safety reasons.

Yes, they are clearly drugged up on a heady cocktail of political correctness gone mad and health and safety taken to insane extremes.

This is the future for everyone if this nonsense isn’t dealt with once and for all. David Cameron promised to end this sort of persecution, but as we know, he is a joker who has actually meted out similar treatment to some of his party members. It is no exaggeration to compare what is happening in the UK and EU to China and Soviet Russia. Clearly, it won’t just be Christians who will be browbeaten, but eventually, everyone but the most mindless drones will be forced to conceal their true feelings. For example, there are some people who want criticism of the EU to be a criminal offence. That would probably make criminals of the majority of the British people at the moment, but imagine it being an actual crime. How many detractors would remain?

One thing is for sure: I will never be employed by a housing trust. Nor would I want to be.

Please vote on Monday to allow the people of the United Kingdom to have a say in OUR future. We demand the right to a referendum on EU membership, denied for so long and promised by Labour and Tory.

The time is now. Please don’t believe the following two common misconceptions:

1) The EU has brought peace to Europe.

2) We would suffer economically outside of the EU.

The truth is that the European Union has only existed since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty 18 years ago. The EU Constitution (Lisbon Treaty) has been in effect for less than two years. Before this, were such groups as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC) or “Common Market”.

There has been ‘peace in Europe’ since WWII largely because of the vast numbers of allied troops stationed in Germany. And of course, this has nothing to do with the EU.

As far as economics are concerned, we should be better off out of the EU, just like two of Europe’s three richest countries, Norway and Switzerland. The former has oil and the latter has a major banking industry.

The UK has both, and tons more beside, yet inside the EU, we are poorer than the only two main Western European countries that never entered the EU or its predecessors. We have been over-regulated and impoverished by the organisation which we are *still* led to believe by some that we cannot live without. The delusion has to end for all our sakes, right across political divides and right across the Continent.

There seems to be a growing number of MPs in the Labour and Tory parties who are now tuning in to this reality and understanding the dangers of our continued EU membership.

But David Cameron wants to whip his MPs into obeying orders. He is bought and paid for by his masters in Brussels. He is happy for us to continue being part of a repressive regime with a President none of us voted for, or even had the opportunity to vote for, and which we pay through the nose to sustain in contributions and through other losses (and as in all tyrannies, corruption is endemic), and now after being forced to have this debate on the EU, he refuses to allow a free vote as if he also is an unelected president with dictatorial powers.

Where does the will of the people enter into the equation in our so-called democracy?

Ed Miliband has used the upcoming debate to attack the Tories. He has written on his website, “They are looking inwards. They are out of touch. They are squabbling about Europe and not fighting for Britain.”

Does he really not understand that ‘fighting for Britain’ means exactly that – fighting for Britain, not laying down and allowing ourselves to be controlled like some vassal state of old, whose people are kept in serfdom for the economic benefit of the parasitic invader.

I urge you, as a loyal citizen of our country, to vote to allow the people of our country to decide on its future. This is the very least we deserve and a referendum now would finally honour the promise made in Labour’s 2005 General Election Manifesto, and the promises and sentiments expressed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg before the 2010 General Election would also be honoured.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Stewart Cowan

————————–

Further reading:

Why the European Union MUST be dissolved

The EU must die, or Europe will die. It’s that simple.

Some popular social media icons.

The Daily Mail thinks so, as they rename the House of Commons the House of Twits. I’m sure that the name is appropriate generally, but I happen to think that the new social media, like Twitter and Facebook, not to mention MPs’ blogs, are a handy way for us to communicate with MPs and replies are often received, albeit often sarcastic ones. Surely anything which increases politicians’ interactions with us proles has to be a good thing?

The Mail reckons that,

They spend 1,000 hours a year chatting to constituents, friends and even complete strangers on the social networking site.

It is not clear if this is per MP or in total. It surely cannot be per MP as this would equate to about twenty hours a week each, so if the total amount of tweeting is 1,000 hours from 650 MPs then the average is about an hour and a half per year. Big deal.

In one week alone this summer, MPs tapped out nearly 2,500 ‘tweets’ on everything from energy policy, a joke about the Dalai Lama or meeting voters.

Of the 275 MPs who are said to use Twitter, this averages out at nine tweets per week each. Not a lot.

Of course, some MPs tweet quite a lot. Kerry McCarthy, the former Twitter Tsar (or Tsarina, as I used to call her, before she blocked me), is the champion MP tweetmeister (or tweetmeisterin, as we are being politically incorrect, but grammatically spot on) with over 27,500 tweets.

Number two is Tom Harris, with over 21,000 tweets, quite a few of which are insults directed to me! A few days ago he called me “insane” and then he insinuated that I was “daft” which seemed like a compliment in comparison.

At least he hasn’t blocked me yet, unlike several MPs, all Labour. Eric Joyce, at number 9, is one of the Labour MPs who had enough of me after we had what I thought was a good tweeting rapport. I even had a pet name for him: Brando (he knows why). But late one night, I took him to task for his bad language and he blocked me. I am sure that he broke one of the rules for sensible tweeting by doing it while having had too much to drink. Very soon after, he was arrested for alleged drink driving.

Maybe I should have given the no swearing advice to Tom. The Mail chose to reproduce this tweet of his from yesterday:

Hmm. I might consider supporting death penalty for the little sh**s who knicked the satnav and the fascia for my radio out of my car . . .

And I might consider the death penalty for the little bleeps who have committed treason against my country.

The most annoying thing about 7th placed Louise Mensch’s Twitter presence is that she has had that horrible green profile picture for about the past year.

Although not in the Top Ten, Ed Miliband gets a special mention. I had a brief Twitter encounter with him in November 2009, just before the big Copenhagen Climate Change conference, when he was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. I asked him,

Are you absolutely sure that your facts about ‘climate change’ are correct before promising away billions of pounds?

He tried to assure me that he knew what he was talking about,

yes,at met office today.CO2 concentrations highest for 650,000 years.co2 link to temp. clear, scientific effect

He didn’t respond to my point that it was much warmer in the Middle Ages.

This illustrates one of the negative aspects of Twitter. The other person can just stop talking to you. You can’t do a Paxman and say, “I really must press you for an answer” – “Did you threaten to overrule him?” – “Come on!”.

And they can block you from ever contacting them again as easily as ejecting Walter Wolfgang from Party Conference.

The Mail reminds us that…

Two years ago, David Cameron famously made clear he was no fan when he unguardedly told a radio station that ‘the trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it – [is that] too many twits might make a tw*t’. He later apologised for his language.

Were that true, he would have been top of the list. So come on, Dave, let’s have some tweeting. Unfortunately, nobody will believe a word you say.

[Picture from here]

As usual, I have dozens of tabs open on Firefox with news stories I was going to write about, but in a way, they don’t merit individual posts. The headlines are enough to make you sick. There is sometimes nothing more that needs to be said, because we all know the score by now. We know that the police don’t care much about catching criminals anymore and the judges don’t consider it their duty to deliver justice.

Moral relativism brings confusion (obviously) and very bad judgments are the natural result. Add to this “Human Rights” legislation and police targets and criminals have never had it so good.

Devon and Cornwall Police didn’t even bother to investigate 30,000 crimes last year.

Up the road in Bristol, Marie Wastlund beat off three thugs who were throttling and kicking a woman, while two policemen sat in their vehicle twenty-five yards away. The Mail reminds us of some of the other pathetic inactions of the boys in blue (or should that be yellow?). Remember the two PCSOs who let a ten year-old boy drown in a pond because they were “not trained” to deal with such an incident? Their (in)action was defended by police chiefs.

Then there are the usual reports of people with decades of unblemished service in their jobs who are sacked after of a non-event. Ronnie Lane was head of the art department in Liverpool’s West Derby School, but the testimony of one unscrupulous individual ended it. He restrained a 15 year-old boy who repeatedly tried to scrunch up another pupil’s work and alleged that the teacher had left nail marks in his arm. The boy told him, “get off or I will stab your eye out.”

It seems that all some children learn at school is their “rights”. It’s bizarre when you consider that by honouring his alleged rights, the teacher has no rights to maintain discipline in his classes and the other pupils have no rights not to have their work ripped to shreds or to learn in a civilised, safe environment.

Meanwhile, another 15 year-old, Tom Clarke from Oxfordshire, was playing with a football in his garden when he accidentally lobbed it over the fence and through a pane of glass in next door’s greenhouse. A patrol car was on the scene half an hour later and the police helicopter was diverted to search for the culprit with thermal imaging. “Officers said the incident was not a formal caution or criminal conviction but would be ‘recorded for future reference’ and could be seen by future employers carrying out an enhanced Criminal Record Bureau check.”

Imagine falling into a coma in 1970 and waking up today, oblivious of how society has changed, then reading the newspapers. What would you make of the burglar who was freed from prison because being locked up breached his family’s human rights or another prisoner who demanded to be a dad and a Justice Secretary so out of touch with reality that he approved the decision to allow him to artificially inseminate his “partner”?

It is now clear that David Cameron’s socialist party is just as determined to give everything away that our forebears worked and fought for as the traitors in the Labour Governments did. The agenda is the same. The behaviour of this new wave of Quislings is only a surprise to those who were naive enough to fall for Cameron’s lies before the election – and they were lies. Blatant and deliberate lies and for that alone he should be stripped of office.

Why do people keep voting for these liars? Do they think that lying is part and parcel of politics and is acceptable? I think they must. Or maybe they are delusional. Perhaps they think that he is going to stop lying any day now and everything will be just dandy when that happens.

This treasonous government is giving away more money to bail out other countries, plans to “drastically” cut carbon emissions which will cut jobs and increasing military union with other countries.

The Daily Mail never disappoints with its scare stories. The latest “research” suggests that drinking too much coffee can produce hallucinations of Bing Crosby. The volunteers were made to listen to “white noise” and told that “there may be parts of the White Christmas song and if you hear it, press the button.”

There wasn’t any Bing, but regardless, the power of suggestion apparently made them hear him crooning. A bit like people think they have heard a “cast-iron” guarantee from David Cameron when it is really just white noise (propelled by hot air).

But how long, I wonder, until coffee addiction is used as an excuse to avoid being punished for a serious crime?

“M’lud, after drinking five cups of coffee and playing with the dial on his radio, my client heard Bing Crosby telling him to kill the victim…”

“Case dismissed.”

And as always, we are to be afraid of the terrorists – this time, poisoning our food. The warning comes from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure [CPNI].

That’s a new one on me. But the terrorists are already poisoning us with aspartame and GMO, it’s just that they are known as manufacturers and scientists.

But let’s all be scared of al-CIAda while we eat our delicious cancer-causing food.

If I do give up blogging, just read this post every day. The current news will just be the same, or even more unsettling and bizarre.

But I will soldier on. I believe that more and more people are waking up to how the world really works, and this awakening is something I want to be part of, so expect continued blogging, God willing.

On the face of it, these differences would seem impossible to reconcile, but fortunately for the hideous-looking beast, the conservative side wasn’t conservative and the liberal part wasn’t liberal.

But whatever was to happen, the ConDem would surely be an improvement on the Brown Gorgon.

Or would it?

The beast soon fell passionately in love with the giant bloodsucking leech called EU. This came as no surprise, despite ConDem’s dad pretending to play hard to get before the election. The Dave part of this pushmi-pullyu clone soon forgot about his cast-iron guarantee and the Clegg head had always loved the idea of being dominated.

“Four legs good, two legs bad!”

Or as the first of the “Seven Commandments” in Animal Farm says: “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.”

That sounds like a good summary of ConDem’s policy.

A llama in la-la land.

One is a disgusting and unacceptable caricature. The other is a golliwog.

Husband and wife, Bill and Star Etheridge, were due to represent the Tory Party at the upcoming local elections. They also run their local branch of The Campaign Against Political Correctness. It has been clear for a while now that these two interests go together like chalk and cheese in David Cameron’s unconservative party.

The couple announced on facebook yesterday that they have resigned from the Party:

Forced Out Of The Conservative Party For Not Being Politically Correct

Until today, both myself and my wife were Conservative candidates for the May Council Elections.

I worked as a Campaign Executive in the run up to the last election and am a member of Dudley North and South associations. I am also Chairman of Claverley association.

We are openly Thatcherite and believe in an EU referendum. We also organise the local branch of The Campaign Against Political Correctness.

We received a letter today from Conservative Head office suspending us from the party as our activities with the campaign against PC could be considered to bring the Conservative party into disrepute. The main problem was that we had been pictured holding a toy Gollie

Our response was that a party which stifled free speech and was prepared to discipline members for holding a rag doll was no longer the Conservative party. We have both resigned with immediate effect.

We do not intend to be silenced and will increase our campaigning in favour of Freedom and Against Political Correctness.

This is why the couple simply had to be disciplined – they were photographed holding children’s dolls. Isn’t it heinous? Have you ever seen such an obvious and outrageous display of racial hatred? I feel faint. Pass the smelling salts, someone.

Awww. Too cute for Cameron.

Pictures of her husband posing with Golly can be seen here. Be warned: they are just as graphic as the one above. I will take no responsibility if these images cause you to hyperventilate or go into spasms. Please ensure that there are no sharp edges round about you in case you pass out at the sight of more of these nauseating pictures.

This is a copy of the letter the couple received from the terrified Tory Party:

BY POST AND EMAIL

18th March 2011

Following a decision of the Disciplinary Committee of the Conservative Party, I am writing to advise you that your membership of the Party has been suspended for a period of 30 days from today’s date.

The Committee received a complaint relating to images which appeared on a Facebook website in which you were photographed with a toy “golly” in support of a campaign against political correctness.

The Committee is satisfied that the complaint raises serious issues that might bring the Party into disrepute and/or that you may be guilty of conduct not compatible with membership of the Conservative Party.

You have the right to apply in writing to the Committee for this suspension to be lifted.  The Committee may allow you to make oral representations on the matter.  The Committee may then lift or confirm the suspension, or vary the terms on which the suspension takes effect.

Yours sincerely

STEPHEN PHILLIPS

Secretary to the Disciplinary Committee

It’s the same old story. “We received a complaint”. Did you, Tories? Did you really?

And the Disciplinary Committee may allow the couple “to make oral representations on the matter.”

“Thank you, Massa. We so grateful, Massa.”

Eureka! It has just dawned on me why golliwogs are personae non gratae. It is because they remind us of slavery and we are the new slaves!

So who did complain, if anyone? In 2008, I wrote a post for my old site, thelabourparty.org, called Who is Pulling Gordon Brown’s Strings on the Road to a One World Government?

I began by writing,

Clearly, the leaders of the main Western nations are following a script given to them, which is the reason Western Europe, North America and Australia in particular, are self-destructing under the weight of ‘human rights’, and ‘equality’ legislation, where reality is the opposite of the rhetoric.

Gordon Brown, like his predecessor, has been given the task of continuing to enslave the British people by taking our rights and dumbing us down in the hope that we do not notice and are unable to change things.

Further down the post, I wrote,

Have we been brainwashed into believing that golliwogs are offensive?

Well, some African-American sisters have inaugurated the Black Doll Collectors Convention.

“Among Britt’s favorite dolls is her collections of golliwogs — the century-old “black-faced” rag dolls that are seen as racially offensive-caricatures to modern day sensibilities.”

But Britt says they created in childhood stories to endear rather than offend.

“They are part of my history and I embrace them. You have to learn from the past. You can’t hide from it,” she says.

So I guess the agenda is to make a mountain out of – well – nothing at all.

It is just something else whereby innocent people can be harassed by ‘officials’ obeying orders from corrupt bureaucrats and unthinking politicians who want us to feel threatened continually.

Black folk can love and cherish their golliwogs, but if anyone else does, it means they could be racist. Or something.

As I wrote on Bill Etheridge’s Facebook page, WELL DONE!! Best thing that could have happened to you, I reckon. The Tories, like Lab and Lib, are too corrupt and full of traitors to care anymore.

There was another Gollygate two years ago after Carol Thatcher was suspended by the BBC for referring to French tennis player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, as “a golliwog” due to his hairstyle.

This wasn’t live on the telly, but in a private conversation in the green room with some of The One Show crew, including Adrian Chiles.

The Times wrote,

During a conversation about the Australian Open tennis tournament Thatcher used the word “golliwog” in what is understood to have been a reference to a player in the men’s competition.

A BBC insider said that Chiles, who also presents sports programmes, was “very shocked” by the remark and that others in the room told Thatcher that they considered her language offensive.

Could Miss Thatcher’s issue have been that she shares her mother’s love for the French? Is it also “racist” to have a dig at the French?

But friends of the journalist and author said that the remarks were made jokingly during a private conversation that took place after several drinks in the green room. They said that there had been no complaint at the time and that Thatcher only became aware of having caused potential offence 48 hours later when the BBC contacted her agent.

A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC considers any language of a racist nature wholly unacceptable. We have raised the issue with the individual concerned and are discussing it as a matter of urgency.”

A spokesman for Thatcher, who has been a regular contributor to The One Show for three years, said that the comment had been “an off-the-cuff remark made in jest”.

Her spokesman added: “Carol never intended any racist comment. She made a light aside about this tennis player and his similarity to the golliwog on the jampot when she was growing up. There’s no way, obviously, that she would condone any racist comment – we would refute that entirely. It would not be in her nature to do anything like that.”

If someone’s hair looks like a golliwog, why is it any more racist to say so than it is to say that a skinny blonde looks like Barbie? Someone might find it offensive, but that’s not the same as it being “racist.”

Jonathan Calder wrote at the time on Liberal England, about the view of morality that operates today in “vaguely liberal institutions” like the health service or the BBC – and now the Tory Party.

The first is that the individual is seen as weak and unable to defend his own interests, and at the same time as dangerous and in need of control. For both these reasons, modern workers are hedged in by all sorts of policies and codes of conduct that govern how they behave to their colleagues at work. At one time the left would have understood that this was a diminution of their freedom: now trade unions are enthusiastic advocates of the process.

Whether or not a particular word is offensive depends on many factors, notably the relationship between the participants in the conversation in which it is used. But officialdom insists on codes of conduct and allows no room for individual judgement.

And when Carol Thatcher used the g word, could it not have been left to those present to argue with her? Are they so weak that they need to be protected from any possibility of offence.

The second point is that these incidents show that the concept of a private life is rapidly being eroded. Would you like everything you say in private to an old friend to be repeated to the world? The need to avoid offence is now seen as overriding any concept of privacy.

The third point is that these incidents… show that we regard morality as chiefly a question of using the right language. In particular, it is a matter of avoiding the use of certain proscribed words.

I am sure we have all met people who imagine themselves on the left, use impeccably correct language but do not have a democratic bone in their bodies. Surely morality is about what one does as well as what one says?

The fourth point is that racism is just about the worst sin. Indeed, its wickedness sometimes seems to be the only tenet of modern morality.

Finally, it wouldn’t be an article about golliwogs without the author saying what a fond memory he has of them from his childhood, including the ones on the Robertson’s jam jars.

There, I’ve said it.

But seriously, we didn’t know what racism was growing up in the suburbs of Glasgow. Political correctness has created far more divisions than it has healed or possibly can ever heal because it is a vital component of the divide and rule/divide and conquer strategy of the ruling elite. I am convinced this is the reason they are so dedicated to it.

And as Liberal England says, this can also have the effect of making people think twice before saying anything, even to people they think are their friends. If folk feel offended, they should be left to sort it out themselves. It is what adults are supposed to do, not go crying to nanny state or nanny BBC (same thing). If the issue cannot be resolved amicably, then, and only then, is it reasonable to consider other options.

Top picture swiped from here.

New picture found from Lawson Narse:

I have just written a long post which I will double check after I have commented on a few things from the past seven days.

Norman Tebbit reckons that If David Cameron goes on like this, he could win the next General Election. On like what? Like saying that multiculturalism wasn’t such a good idea. Even Trevor Phillips said this years ago. Well done for catching up, Dave. But what will he do to undo the resulting ghettoisation? My guess is, nothing. Maybe nothing can be done to reverse Labour’s crusade to change society and “rub the right’s nose in diversity.” Maybe that’s why he has mentioned it now, because he knows it has probably gone too far and so he thinks that although he can’t won’t do anything about it, he thinks we’ll be glad that he has finally said what the rest of us have been saying for years.

I thought Norman was more shrewd!

Actually, his Spitting Image puppet just came to mind. He was a truncheon-wielding thug as I recall. I must find a video…

The EU, not content with banning many traditional medicinal remedies, now expects the NHS to employ foreign nurses who can neither prove their competence nor speak the lingo. Apparently, to assess them here goes against the EU’s freedom of movement laws.

Third World, here we come…

Remember when they started referring to the Third World as Developing Countries? I wonder what they are called when they become Third World countries, but on the way down to something worse?

Here is a petition calling on the European Commission to stop the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) which is set to remove access to the vast majority of herbal medicinal products.

THMPD abridges the rights of each European citizen to self-determination in managing health. It goes far beyond reasonable controls over dangerous products, and enters the realm of coercion by limiting options for treating health issues.

The public’s access to herbal products that have traditionally been freely available must continue uninterrupted.

Indeed. I expect leeches are still legal to use. Yes, life in the new Britain is becoming a delightful mix of Third World Africa and medieval European feudalism.

Other important news, and the Speaker’s wife, Sally Bercow, has posed for photographs wearing nothing but a sheet.

Sally Bercow posed in front of a window overlooking parliament, wearing only a bed sheet.

The 41-year-old says it was done as a bit of fun, but has backfired.

In the story for London’s Evening Standard, Bercow said her husband John Bercow had become a sex symbol since becoming speaker in 2009.

“Politics can be sexy because power is an aphrodisiac,” Sally Bercow told the Standard.

I expect John Prescott would agree.

Contrast this with a real woman – Supergran – who tackled a gang of six jewel thieves – and won.

Here is the Chingford Skinhead in action…

So, okay, there is this bloke who is the head of a church and also a head of state (Vatican City) who says things many people don’t like. He also has many priests who fiddle with kiddies and whose church has tried to hush up a multitude of very serious crimes. There is the question of whether the touted £20 million bill to host him is money well spent.

Actually, I’m thinking it’s not such a good idea!

But as Cranmer points out (welcome back, Your Grace),

Those who shame the British spirit of generosity and offend against Christian notions of hospitality with cries of ‘No Pope Here!’ are doubtless those who uttered not a syllable of protest against the state visits of Mugabe, Hirohito, Ceauşescu, Abdullah, Jintao…

Not, of course, that Pope Benedict may in any sense be considered a rogue, vagabond, tyrant, dictator or mass murderer.

Other than by Peter Tatchell or Stephen Fry.

To be fair to Peter Tatchell (did I really just type that?) he has bravely protested the heinous psychopath Mugabe.

Stephen Fry used to entertain, but he now seems primarily to be a quasi-intellectual whose opinions are formed by way of his sexuality. As with that other leading quasi-intellectual pest, Richard Dawkins, some people think he can’t say anything wrong and so provides others’ opinions so they don’t have to come up with their own.

Mr Tatchell is involved in the Protest the Pope campaign. Their list of supporters is mainly humanists and homosexuals. The “usual brigade” if you like. It also includes the laughingly-named Young Freethought. If they want to encourage freedom of thought, why do they support atheism? As I have said before, denying the Divine and one’s own spirituality is the opposite of free thinking.

The Rev. Ian Paisley and his entourage from the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster are also protesting against the Pope’s visit. Is it really because of the £20 million price tag?

The Rev Wesley Irwin of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in Rutherglen, where a protest meeting will be held tomorrow night, said: “We reject sectarianism – there is nothing like that in our protest. It is not our intention to cause anger or upset. But we feel that at this time of financial restraint it is sad that tax payers are being used to fund this event.”

To put £20 million into context, it is little more than one day’s net contribution the UK hands over to the European Union. Why aren’t the various protestors concerned about this? If they showed some consistency then we could have our referendum and vote to escape the devilish plot which is totally destroying our country. Could it be because the EU has provided the legislation which has allowed humanists and homosexuals to ride roughshod over the rest of society?

It looks like the majority of the British people have no more fight left in them. It is now all about I; me; mine. And containing oneself within one’s comfort zone.

The comments under the Scotsman’s article on Ian Paisley’s protest in Edinburgh are mainly negative. Many don’t want the Pope here, but they also don’t want a Presbyterian protest. See: no fight left. No fire in the belly. No side to take. No opinion that hasn’t been made for you. Just keep pretending there is no God and become immersed in junk telly, junk food and junk science. If it is popular, it must be wholesome!

A statement from the current moderator in Ulster, Ronald Johnstone said: “The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster views the state visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom with dismay and abhorrence.

“Many citizens do not welcome the visit by the head of the Vatican State to this country on financial, constitutional and on moral grounds.”

So it’s not just about the money. Good. I’m not sure if he is correct about the constitutional situation. As a head of state he can surely be invited here. Whether it is right that he has been is another matter entirely. Certainly, the moderator has a point regarding the cost.

Someone called Billy Boy left a comment about Dr Paisley,

He is leading a mob just as he has always done. Any other gang setting out to cause a public nuisance would be carefully watched by the police. Mr Paisley is one of the most evil human beings I have ever met!

To which I replied,

I met him last December in Stranraer, so I know you are wrong. I’m not a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, but I have met many of their clergymen and quite a few members and they seem to me to be among the finest of our citizens.

They have the right to protest anything they wish, just as you or I have.

I used to believe a lot of the negative comments about Ian Paisley before I actually had the pleasure and privilege of hearing him preach the gospel with power and passion and spending some time with him afterwards.

He has strong views and personal convictions and a lot of people don’t like that. (I can vouch for that too!) They believe we should all be reformed into obliging, non-partisan, super-cool Euro-persons.

David Cameron has offered Pope Benedict XVI a “very warm welcome” to Britain ahead of his “incredibly important and historic visit”.

You can listen to Mr Cameron talking about it here. I had to for writing this post. Whoever wrote the spiel for him had his nose firmly buried in the LibLabCon politically-correct phrasebook, with such classics as,

all our faith communities… people of every faith and none… multi-faith dialogue

I feel that Cranmer too has been too kind about the Pope, although his piece today is well worth reading, for gems such as this,

And now it appears that a religious leader who happens to believe that homosexual practice is an ‘objective disorder’, that abortion is murder and that contraception is a mortal sin, is reviled severally by the secularists, atheists, liberals and Richard Dawkins.

It may have taken 500 years for the wheel to come full circle, but is it not ironic that this Pope comes to defend those very liberties which his forebears sought to deny us? When he talks of the imperative of the liberty of the Christian conscience, he takes the Protestant theme, for which many suffered horrifically and even paid with their lives.

And for this we cannot thank the pope, but rather, we must despise the weakness of most of our church leaders in the way they have caved in to every type of ungodly behaviour. They have sat back and watched wickedness become mainstream.

This has not been the case with the church Ian Paisley founded.

We have to realise that we live in a fallen world. For this reason there will be no cuddly, all-inclusive, Disneyesque future if we will just become obedient clones. A people with no fight in them cannot remain a people for very long.

So after all this, what do I think of the Pope’s visit? I don’t like my taxes being spent on it, but they are being spent on worse things every day of the year. Let those who wish to protest do so for their various reasons. My wish would be that Catholics would realise that the pope cannot get them saved and neither can prayers to Mary. Only repentance for sins and faith in Christ provides salvation from the fate we deserve, which is an eternity in Hell. This is the only possible way there could be peace on earth, but false dogma and the pride and lusts of the natural man will always lead the majority of folk down the wide road that leads to destruction.

Our Dave has appointed himself chief supporter of Turkey’s entry to the EU. Instead of offering us a way back out from behind the New Iron Curtain, Cast-iron Cameron wants an EU with another 70 million Muslims in it.

Dave considers Britain’s best interests, and is as in tune with public opinion, as Gordon Brown at his best worst.

Although 37% of those surveyed would be ‘happy’ to go on holiday to Turkey, only 14% of the public would like to see the country join the EU, while double that number (28%) would ‘definitely not’ like to see Turkey join. These findings clearly indicate that PM David Cameron’s views on the matter are not shared by the general British public.

I would love to visit Turkey and see as much of the fascinating historical remains as possible, but I don’t want my taxes paying for their upkeep, while the Turks come here and take our jobs while demanding special treatment – or rather, given special treatment by British cowards terrified of losing their jobs or facing humiliation for saying or doing the “wrong” thing.

The debate about the EU has to move away from an economic one. “We would be worse off out, financially” say the EUrophiles. Even if that were true, which I doubt, “so what,” is what I say. What’s the use even of being a millionaire if you are serving a life sentence in jail?

David Cameron is just the latest globalist puppet defending Airstrip One against the powers of truth and freedom. Sovereignty will continue to leach out to the EU, UN and envirofascists as the government tries to get away with handing over our money to any EU or global institution demanding we pay for everything from renewing infrastructure in Eastern Europe to paying penance for the alleged climate change damage done to third world countries due to our industrial success.

The giant transnational corporations must also be made fatter. The corrupt WHO/UN just has to say the latest ‘flu scare is a “pandemic” and the government will order 50 million shots from Big Pharma. As with climate change, facts won’t matter. Someone in Brussels, Geneva or Washington will shout, “Jump” and Cameron will reply, “how high…would you like the British people to pay this time?”

To destroy this country and keep us as a deprived backwater of the globalists’ empire, they need to do exactly what they are doing:

Bankrupt us economically, via: ludicrous membership fees to be dictated to by the EU; the use of climate change laws/carbon credits to relocate our industry to the third world; wars; low wage migrants; a huge underclass on state benefits; getting half of school-leavers into further education which will leave them unemployed and with huge debts, when many of them should have been working all along.

Bankrupt us morally, intellectually and as a society, via: mass immigration; promotion of promiscuity; dumbed down ‘entertainment’; state education replaced with indoctrination; fearmongering; creating barriers to people meeting together via such devices as the smoking ban and ludicrous health & safety restrictions.

How can Cameron not see this? How much is he wilfully complicit in the destruction of our country?