A Few Observations Of Politics [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

Why, why, and why again must Neanderthal Northern Ireland persist with the cumbersome Single Transferable Vote for the purpose of electing three MEPs out of a list of only ten candidates? Surely a 'first-past-the-post', or to be precise first three-past-the-post solution is infinitely more preferable and far less time-consuming. Considering the fact that Northern Ireland's voters cast their preferences on the Thursday and then wait until the following Monday for the count to begin, and then after the yawn fest of several eliminations and vote re-distributions, the final two MEPs are not officially over the finishing line until the Tuesday, five days after the vote. It's a shambolic scenario which even Third World countries would be able to avoid. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from maintaining the same electoral system for the European parliamentary election in the six-counties constituency. Almost always, the top three first preference votes go to the three MEPs who are ultimately elected after the laborious nonsense of the redistribution of the votes of eliminated candidates. This drama simply prolongs the agony unnecessarily in a farce that is akin to much ado about nothing. Come on Norn Iron, let logic prevail.


Secondly, I've been watching a copious amount of election and general politics coverage on the BBC and let me assure the ill-informed that when it comes to confronting politicians, the highly competent Andrew Neil makes Jeremy Paxman seem like a pussycat. In fact, I find JP to be very affable and someone who relishes the opportunity for a tete-a-tete with all manner of people. Jeremy just loves interviews, even if he may protest otherwise. He is perfectly at home in such interviews.


This brings me on to another issue. Politicians are getting worse, not better, at evading questions and failing to give straight answers. The political swine even compound this disagreeable situation by generally starting most responses with "First of all, let me make the following point" which is the repeated formula of trying to clarify a number of points and promote a number of bits and pieces which the interviewer has not requested. Such manoeuvring from politicians does little to reinforce public confidence in a profession that is viewed in some circles as a playground for slippery characters whose commitment to honesty, straight-talking, and integrity is conspicuous by its absence. Please politicos, answer the flaming question and stop sidestepping issues. It's counter-productive.


Next of all, I am particularly amused and confused by all these deluded politicians who state that although their party is struggling terribly in the opinion polls, they retort with "That's not what I've been hearing on the doorsteps." Oh come off it. Has it not occurred to you that many people are merely agreeing with you and pledging to vote for you just to get rid of you from their door? When politicians try to persuade us that the feedback on the doorsteps is favourable, then they are only fooling themselves. Candidates really must stop persisting with this broken record about what they are hearing on the doorsteps. It's boring.


Furthermore, we find that when an election is over, the vanquished state that they didn't quite get the message across properly. Could it be that the voters are more than familiar with your message and just did not like what they heard?


Finally, the electorate also have unrealistic expectations of the various political parties. This usually explains why newly-elected governments are suddenly very unpopular one or two years after coming to power, such as 1967, 1976, 1981, and 2012. The stupid electorate expect the new incumbents to wave a wand and introduce all manner of reforms that will lead to increases in pay, cuts in taxes, a prosperous economy, better transport services and an improved transport infrastructure, better healthcare provision, improved education standards, oh and world peace too. People expect far too much of elected politicians and it is important that political parties dampen down the naïve expectations of the population, instead of wild-eyed daydreams of jam tomorrow and a brighter future, as they misleadingly promise in conference speeches and manifesto 'spin'. High expectations lead to hopes dashed and reveal elected governments to be impotent or incompetent or just downright dishonest about their vision of better times ahead. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

*****SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com

Tags: doorsteps; expectations; false promises

Ed Miliband: Unelectable? [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

There is a lot of silly talk doing the rounds in media circles about how unelectable and unconvincing Ed Miliband is. It's true that the clever one is still very much on a learning curve and that euphemistically his leadership is 'a work in progress', but it's important to make one or two points to defend this besieged individual.

First of all there is a lot of tosh about how Ed 'doesn't look like a future Prime Minister'. What drivel. Did Margaret Thatcher, pre-1979, seem like Prime Minister material? Did Harold Wilson appear to be authoritative and a commanding presence before he was appointed as the first among equals? Most people, David Cameron included, don't look like a Prime Minister until they actually become one. After all, we all know of countless individuals in our family and friendship circles who we struggled to imagine as becoming a doctor or a teacher until they were actually employed as such. Similarly, we all wondered with some alarm how a particular young guy or young woman could ever cope as a father or a mother, only to subsequently discover that they were 'naturals' in such roles - something that was not patently apparent before the event.
Secondly, poor young 'red Ed' is simply the latest in a long line of Labour leaders whom Fleet Street has taken an almost instant dislike to. Perhaps with the exception of Tony Blair [a bloke who could have charmed his way out of a room with no doors in it], almost all Labour leaders in living memory have incurred the antipathy of a media that is unashamedly right of centre and which almost automatically pulls up its drawbridge when a new Labour leader enters the bear-pit of British politics. After all, the hacks and journos may have had a begrudging admiration for the wily Harold Wilson, but they were less impressed with 'sunny Jim' Callaghan. The red tops thought that Michael Foot was more a laughable fool than a would-be statesman. The gutter press also stamped on Neil Kinnock, even though he took significant and courageous steps to move Labour away from the brink of militancy. Then there was Gordon Brown, another Labour leader whom the media mercilessly threw rotten tomatoes at.

Yes, it seems to go with the territory for any Labour leader that he or she will have to cope with the abuse from a prejudiced media that decides right from the starting pistol that the new incumbent is not worthy of the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, Ed Miliband spectacularly demonstrated in the Labour leadership contest that he should not be written off as a no-hoper. This should serve as an ominous reminder for the complacent Conservative leadership and complacent conservative press. Red Ed may not look like Prime Minister material but it wasn't so long ago that he didn't necessarily pose as Labour leadership material either. Life is full of little surprises. Could unelectable, unconvincing Ed be standing at the portico of ten Downing Street in May 2015? Stranger things have happened.

Mind you, if Ed does prove to be a dead Ed next May and is as unelectable as the doom-mongers would have us believe, then it is likely that he will fall on his own sword, post-election. We then could be faced with the very real possibility that the personable and media-friendly Chuka Umunna [or the talented Rushanara Ali] could be upgraded to the position of Leader of the Opposition. I would quite like to see this. In particular, I would dearly love to see Trevor Kavanagh of the Scum newspaper and the other Labour-haters in the press pour scorn on Mr Umunna. It would be interesting to see if they can find any angle to heap their customary abuse upon him, as to criticise a black person could be misconstrued as 'racist'. Oh it would be jolly nice fun to see the swine of the media belatedly button their big lips in the face of a Labour leader. Again, stranger things have happened.

In the mean time, we all must soldier on with the seemingly unelectable Ed Miliband. I suspect that although he lacks the charisma of Nigel Farage or the gravitas of David Cameron, young Edward just might be triumphantly waving from the doorstep of ten Downing Street next year.

*****SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com

'Racism' and UKIP by the author and commentator Gary Watton

Most people haven’t got the slightest notion what racism is. Let me explain for all you bandwagon-jumping slow learners who allow the Mirror, the Guardian, and the liberal media to misinform you. There are, broadly speaking, a handful of major races: Caucasian (eg white Europeans and white north Americans); negroes (more commonly regarded as Afro-Caribbean people), Semitic (or Jewish people), and Mongoloids (better described as Asian people). Each race can be broken down into a whole host of ethnic groups, which are basically drawn from a variety of nations, for example Brits and Irish and Poles are all Caucasians. If a member of UKIP denounces Poles and east Europeans, this is not a racist outburst.

UKIP are nationalists, not racist. If the BNP is uncomfortable with Asian and/or Afro-Caribbean immigrants, then that is racist. UKIP are not racist. They are perfectly entitled to express their concerns about the continuing net migration to soft touch Britain. How does an increased population contribute to a reduction in unemployment, health service waiting lists, or classroom sizes? Answer: it doesn’t. Labour are uncomfortable with the immigration hot potato because Labour traditionally win much of the votes from the immigrant communities. Therefore irresponsible Labour politicians are keen to admit all and sundry, knowing that such migrants are likely to vote for them, enabling their elected representatives to laugh all the way to the bank.

 The Conservatives, the Labour Conservatives, and the Liberal Conservatives have wanted to bury the burning issue of uncontrolled immigration under the carpet. For them, the economic folly of perpetual net migration to the UK is the great taboo. George Galloway, admittedly no lover of UKIP, has correctly identified the three major political parties as “a bum with three cheeks.” Well, the establishment-orchestrated smear campaign against the new kid in the playground, UKIP, has clearly not paid dividends. The ludicrous accusation of being racist simply doesn’t stand up. It just doesn’t follow that because someone denounces people of another nationality, this constitutes ‘racism’. It doesn’t. If I pour scorn on the people of Switzerland or Canadians or Austrians, this doesn’t amount to ‘racism’.

If denouncing people of another nationality is racist, then presumably all the Brit-haters in the Irish nationalist camp are racists.

*****SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com

Labour and UKIP [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

For the benefit of any slow learners out there in the so-called 'labour movement' who are perplexed by the swing from Labour to UKIP in the likes of Rotherham and other apparent working-class strongholds, permit me to enlighten you.

Throughout the UK [England in particular] are many small towns and villages where one hundred years ago, all the young men, without exception, would have gone off to fight for King and country in the 'Great War'. Many of them didn't return. Then, in the post-war era, many men and women would all have been employed in the same local factory or colliery. The community spirit that would have arisen out of such shared experiences cannot be underestimated. Well, that community spirit is eroding, and the blame can peculiarly be laid at the door of well-intentioned, but insensitive and misguided Labour. How? Why?

Nowadays, people of a certain vintage who perhaps never went to university and have rarely drifted beyond the confines of their locality find themselves having to 'cope' with all manner of new migrant workers being parachuted into their presence from eastern Europe. Suddenly, it becomes strange to find that the two men queuing ahead of you in the post office are conversing in a foreign language. It is equally disconcerting to find yourself waiting at the bus stop with two women who also are engaged in a dialogue in a foreign language. Such circumstances may not have transformed the locals into racists with extreme views, but what they have undoubtedly done is left the locals feeling uncomfortable and somewhat uprooted by the changing demographics. It's not unreasonable to expect people to be disconcerted by the fact that suddenly in a small space of time at least half the people in their street or their block of flats were born in a foreign land. Suddenly, folk no longer recognise or can identify anyone in the street or at the local shops. Suddenly everyone is a stranger, speaking in strange tongues. Suddenly, many people feel that their community's own identity, and indeed the identity of their country has been radically altered. It's not unreasonable for many working-class people, especially in England, to be experiencing an identity crisis, as they try to make sense of the social upheaval.

The thing is that the smart Alecs amongst the liberal media and the bourgeois, cosmopolitan commentariat do not comprehend the extent to which many people feel that their communities have been put out of kilter by rapid population changes, arising out of a large influx of migrant workers. The trouble with the liberal elite among the governing classes, as well as the clever young things who scribe on behalf of the press, is that they all went to university [and possibly private school] where they were thrust among a variety of peoples from all corners of the globe and all walks of life. They can readily fit into any social setting with others from different ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds, but fail to see how difficult it is for others to adjust when there are many others from small towns and villages who have rarely strayed far from the community that they and their ancestors have cherished. While the city slickers are accustomed to cultural diversity, many others in the provinces are not. For those in the latter to have east Europeans thrust into their midst is not a comfortable experience. Admittedly, it is far from comfortable for the new residents either.

However, this scenario that I have outlined goes some way to explain why the Labour heartland feels like it has been left behind and even betrayed by a Labour Party that presided over a huge influx of migration from eastern Europe a decade ago. Labour just loves to welcome migrants from foreign shores, not least because such migrants invariably tend to then cast their votes for Labour in subsequent elections. Therefore, Labour's traditional enthusiasm for immigration is perhaps governed by self-interest, by the realisation that immigrant communities tend to be more favourably disposed towards the Labour party. Nevertheless, we may now be seeing chickens coming home to roost for Labour, because the party in its devotion to the open-door policy of the European Union has left the Labour heartlands and communities awash with migrants from distant shores. Now, the traditional Labour voters are feeling left behind, unable to come to terms with the rapid population change. They now denounce Labour as 'out of touch', with the Labour shadow cabinet stuck inside the Westminster bubble, putting in appearances on various television programmes, including the obligatory slot on Have I Got News For You. Suddenly it seems that the new Labour brigade have lost touch with their grassroots and that the party's pre-occupation with looking good on television is of paramount importance.

To make matters worse for Labour, the accusation that has been directed at them in recent days is that their politicos do not even give a straight answer any more to anything, and it is difficult to respect people who are evasive in interviews. Only the other week, Andrew Neil asked Douglas Alexander about the unfair electoral advantage that is presented to Labour by the current electoral system. Mr Alexander characteristically slimed his way out of the question. It would have been infinitely more preferable if Mr Alexander had stated that yes Labour do derive an electoral advantage but that this apparent benefit is negated by the fact that 1) the overwhelming proportion of the printed media is biased in favour of the Conservatives during election campaigns and 2) the Conservatives enjoy greater funding at election times, which collectively would perhaps nullify Labour's so-called advantage. Mr Alexander would have won himself credit for an answer of this nature, rather than the usual ducking and diving that the likes of Hazel Blears used to specialise at when she played all interviews with a tedious straight bat. Oh yes, Labour politicos mustn't veer off-message. They must instead repeat the same old parrot expressions about cutting too fast and too far; or harping on about the so-called 'bedroom tax'; or continually screaming about a cost of living crisis. Well, as far as I am concerned, Labour is both out of touch and liable to beat about the bush. In fact, the current Labour team are expert practitioners at beating about the bush. Just to quote an example of Labour's current follies is that when Yvette Cooper is confronted about the public disquiet over net migration, she states that yes Labour are 'concerned' about immigration, and then with her next breath she utters in the next sentence that Labour is especially anxious about the exploitation of foreign workers. Well, Yvette that sentiment is all fine and dandy, but thee are missing the point. Most people want a drastic reduction in foreign workers, first and foremost. It's not the exploitation of cheap foreign labour which is uppermost in the minds of the UK electorate. The Labour Party just does not get it.

Of course, the people who are now flocking to UKIP dare not speak out against immigration for fear that Kevin Maguire and the Daily Mirror and the chattering classes of the media demonise them as bigots and racists. As a consequence, the immigration debate is brushed under the carpet and largely treated as taboo by the liberals and leftists who are essentially a bunch of Utopian daydreamers. Instead, there is a silent mass of people who have concerns about the continuing net migration to Britain. Once they are in the privacy of the polling booth, then they are able to speak, and by Jove they speak quite emphatically in favour of UKIP. This infuriates the apologists for soft touch Britain. Such Liberal Democrats and Labour daydreamers wish for a cosmopolitan, heterogeneous United Kingdom which is effectively a united nations. Well, if these dreamers cast their eyes at the actual United Nations assembly in New York, they would find that even the reasonable, educated gents and ladies who are delegated to sit in that body cannot see eye to eye with one another, so what chance do we have in Britain of different communities being shoved together in an idealistic exercise of social engineering aimed at reinforcing the ideologies of left-wing and liberal daydreamers?

Another dimension which has so far dwelled under the radar, but which represents a slightly surprising source of simmering discontent is tension between the Afro-Caribbean community and the east European immigrants and between the Asian community and the east European newcomers. It's hard not to appreciate the concerns of Britain's ethnic coloured communities. They have toiled for decades, trying to get a foothold in Britain. They struggled to get the best jobs, the best houses, and the best schools for years, and now that the coloured people of Britain are belatedly no longer on the periphery of UK society, they find their social mobility being threatened by the hordes of east Europeans who are now muscling their way into the British workplace. In addition to this, there are precious few black and Asian people residing in the countries of eastern Europe, for one reason or another. Consequently, it is a culture shock for east Europeans and the coloured communities to be hurled together into the same neighbourhoods. One cannot underestimate how mutually uncomfortable this state of affairs is proving to be. It is an indication after all of how unaccustomed the eastern Europeans are to coloured people in their midst that when visiting British teams play soccer matches in eastern Europe, their black players are sometimes recipients of monkey chants and other awful racist taunts. This all goes a long way to explain why a surprising number of black and Asian people both join and vote for the inaccurately described 'racist' UKIP.

Until Labour faces up to the discontent fostered by the mass migration from eastern Europe that happened on their watch, then they will continue to reside in the low 'thirties in the opinion polls and linger in the low 'thirties crucially one year from now. It's something of a tragedy because I do have much sympathy for Labour's traditional desire for social justice and equality, but it just so happens that the current Labour party has travelled a huge distance away from its grassroots, leaving its voters feeling alienated and disgusted with huge payouts to high-flying civil servants, to others in publicly-funded organisations such as the BBC and a plethora of Quangos. Even Labour's devotion to the welfare state is in danger of creating a nanny state in which benefits claimants exploit a system that was established to help them. Labour needs to toughen up. I respected Theresa May's tough love speech to the Police Federation the other day. There was an individual who wasn't afraid to speak her mind and who wasn't courting approval from the assembled members. Could you envisage a Labour representative speaking in such terms? I couldn't. The Ed Miliband party is so obsessed with winning everyone's approval that its representatives dare not speak their mind any more. Sanitised new Labour has lost its soul.
It's no wonder that more and more of its supporters are 'migrating' to UKIP. They have my deepest sympathy.

Oh and let's not delude ourselves with the wishful thinking that support for UKIP will melt away between May 2014 and May 2015. I am far from convinced about that. UKIP's challenge is to tap into the massive reserves of people who don't ever bother to vote anymore at general elections and who amount to about one third of those eligible to vote. If UKIP can engage such disenchanted members of the electorate, then the UKIP phenomenon will prove to be more than a one-year wonder. At the very least UKIP ought to command about ten per cent of the vote share in the next national beauty contest, while a percentage of 25% is also achievable. Either way, the vote share of UKIP will be of a sufficient amount in a whole host of key marginal constituencies to throw a spanner in the works of the two major political parties. In much the same way as the SDP provided nuisance value to the Labour Party in 1983, so UKIP will similarly upset the plans of British politics' terrible twins. Quite frankly, the Labour Party's soft touch approach to immigration means that it only has itself to blame.

Boundary Changes Needed Urgently [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

For the three celtic nations of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, I have recorded the 2010 General Election electorate total for each Westminster constituency.
Northern Ireland:(18 seats; should be 14)
Belfast East – 60,050
Belfast North – 66,825
Belfast South – 60,726
Belfast West – 60,520
East Antrim – 61,253
East Londonderry – 64,546
Fermanagh and South Tyrone – 68,979
Foyle – 67,810
Lagan Valley – 66,327
Mid Ulster – 65,655
Newry and Armagh – 75,856
North Antrim – 74,094
North Down – 61,615
South Antrim – 64,254
South Down – 72,092
Strangford – 61,566
Upper Bann – 76,209
West Tyrone – 62,258
TOTAL: 1,190,635
There should be fourteen House of Commons constituencies of approximately 85,000 voters each in the six counties of Northern Ireland, which represents a reduction of four seats. Belfast would be amended to comprise three constituencies, namely Belfast Central, Belfast North, and Belfast South. This boundary change ought to be automatically replicated for the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, meaning that there should be fourteen constituencies returning six [or better still five] MLAs each. This would represent a vastly more sensible and realistic total of seventy or eighty-four MLAs instead of the grossly outrageous amount of 108 MLAs, thereby enabling a huge saving to public expenses on behalf of the hard-pressed taxpayer.

Wales:(40 seats; should be 28)
Aberavon – 51,233
Aberconwy – 45,407
Alyn and Deeside – 62,196
Arfon – 41,138
Blaenau Gwent – 53,791
Brecon and Radnorshire – 53,882
Bridgend – 59,533
Caerphilly – 61,876
Cardiff Central – 64,225
Cardiff North – 67,194
Cardiff South and Penarth – 75,175
Cardiff West – 64,295
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr – 54,557
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire – 58,994
Ceredigion – 56,942
Clwyd South – 54,895
Clwyd West – 58,544
Cynon Valley – 52,372
Delyn – 54,405
Dwyfor Meirionnydd – 45,006
Gower – 62,389
Islwyn – 54,792
Llanelli – 59,266
Merthyr Tidfil and Rhymney – 55,409
Monmouth – 65,432
Montgomeryshire – 48,910
Neath – 57,823
Newport East – 55,224
Newport West – 63,056
Ogmore – 55,851
Pontypridd – 60,275
Preseli Pembrokeshire – 58,343
Rhondda – 52,862
Swansea East – 60,809
Swansea West – 62,769
Torfaen – 61,806
Vale of Clwyd – 56,585
Vale of Glamorgan – 71,585
Wrexham – 53,733
Ynys Mon – 49,721
TOTAL: 2,302,300
Under my proposed boundary review, there would in future be 28 Welsh constituencies comprising just over 82,000 voters each. This would represent a reduction of twelve seats. There would, for example be three Cardiff constituencies, instead of four.

Scotland:(59 seats; should be 49)
Aberdeen North – 64,753
Aberdeen South – 64,330
Airdrie and Shotts – 62,789
Angus – 64,178
Argyll and Bute – 67,692
Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock – 73,708
Banff and Buchan – 65,183
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk – 74,115
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross – 47,572
Central Ayrshire – 69,243
Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill – 70,537
Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East – 65,317
Dumfries and Galloway – 74,414
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale – 67,066
Dundee East – 65,702
Dundee West – 63,065
Dunfermline and West Fife – 74,621
East Dunbartonshire – 64,186
East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow – 77,985
East Lothian – 74,320
East Renfrewshire – 68,117
Edinburgh East – 60,594
Edinburgh North and Leith – 69,580
Edinburgh South – 59,285
Edinburgh South West – 66,262
Edinburgh West – 65,526
Falkirk – 82,473
Glasgow Central – 67,521
Glasgow East – 66,482
Glasgow North – 54,620
Glasgow North East – 64,171
Glasgow North West – 64,522
Glasgow South – 69,122
Glasgow South West – 62,378
Glenrothes – 68,393
Gordon – 74,394
Inverclyde – 61,038
Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey – 72,764
Kilmarnock and Loudoun – 75,001
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath – 74,247
Lanark and Hamilton East – 76,190
Linlithgow and East Falkirk – 81,756
Livingston – 76,580
Midlothian – 61,986
Moray – 66,726
Motherwell and Wishaw – 66,949
Na h-Eileanan an lar – 21,837
North Ayrshire and Arran – 75,201
North East Fife – 63,349
Ochil and South Perthshire – 75,848
Orkney and Shetland – 33,755
Paisley and Renfrewshire North – 65,847
Paisley and Renfrewshire South – 63,268
Perth and North Perthshire – 73,064
Ross, Skye and Lochaber – 52,064
Rutherglen and Hamilton West – 77,729
Stirling – 66,743
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine – 67,060
West Dunbartonshire – 66,738
TOTAL: 3,929,956
In Scotland there ought to be forty-nine constituencies, with just over eighty thousand voters each. This would represent a reduction of ten seats. Obviously, there are constituencies such as Orkney and Shetland as well as the Western Isles of Na h-Eileanan an lar which cover a huge expanse of territory, both land and water. However, even such remote localities still benefit from their own councils, as well as MSPs and MEPs.

A boundary review, based on the premise of a minimum of eighty thousand voters per constituency would lead to a total reduction of 26 seats from the celtic nations who already benefit from the extra layer of a national assembly. Of course, such a boundary review for Scotland would be rendered obsolete if the Scots vote yes for independence, which seems slightly unlikely but by no means impossible. Ultimately, independence might sound good, in an idealistic sense, but when push comes to shove, I suspect that the Scots are no different from most other peoples in recognizing that change equates to upheaval. It’s surprising how often people’s conservative instincts come rushing to the surface when confronted by the potential turmoil of political and constitutional reform.

In short, the celtic nations are over-governed by four main layers of representation, namely local councillors, members of the national assembly, members of the House of Commons [and House of Lords], and members of the European Parliament. There are clearly far too many public representatives being delegated by small populations and at considerable expense to the over-stretched public purse. In Northern Ireland for example, an electorate of less than 1.2 million is paying for 108 MLAs. This ludicrously amounts to little more than one MLA per every ten thousand of the populace! This is scandalous in the extreme. Surely it is pure logic to cut back on the huge volume of excessive representation, thereby enabling the savings in salaries and expenses to be diverted to the real and urgent need for more doctors and more schoolteachers, or is that just too sensible to be entertained by political parties whose own interests and hidden agenda frequently bypasses the need for fairness.

Tags: constituency review; Westminster

Britain's Greedy Pigs [by Gary Watton]

This hall of shame represents the apparent crème de la crème of the civil service of the Disunited Kingdom. These selfish swine are laughing all the way to the bank while countless thousands have to endure benefits and the minimum wage. Of course, don't expect the bourgeois politicians to address the obscene disparity in salaries any time soon. Unfortunately, the horse has bolted from the stable door and a reduction in the disproportionate pay awards of the fortunate few will never be tolerated, yet the underpayment of the many will prevail. Besides, the bastards below possess not just wealth, but the influential friends in an assortment of interest groups, including right-wing media apologists such as silly old David Buik, to ensure that their voice will drown out the cries and pleas of the disadvantaged. It's kind of weird but if I attended a barbecue or a buffet and I piled my plate sky high with a copious amount of food, I would be scorned as a greedy pig. Yet, in this perverse society, it is infinitely more socially acceptable for an elite group of high-fliers to stack huge amounts of money onto their silver plate, or more particularly their bank accounts. So long as the funds being transferred to their bank accounts are done without anyone seeing the actual appropriating of the massive amount involved, then that is fine and dandy, according to the duped fools of this country. A whopping great credit transfer is perfectly permissible because such transactions are invisible. If the rich had to queue to have their disproportionate salaries publicly doled out to them, would disgusted onlookers be so tolerant of such privately-executed robberies of public funds? I think not.

Ian Nolan; Chief Investment Officer at the Green Investment Bank: £330,000
Shaun Kingsbury; Chief Executive Officer of the Green Investment Bank: £325,000
John Clarke; CEO at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: £275,000
Rob Cormie; General Operations Director at the Green Investment Bank: £275,000
Peter Knott; Chief Risk Officer at the Green Investment Bank: £275,000
Anthony Marsh; Head of Transactions and Portfolio Management at the Green Investment Bank: £275,000
David Batters of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: £220,000
Keith Bristow; Director General for the National Crime Agency: £220,000
Bernard Gray; Chief of Defence Materiel at the Ministry of Defence; £220,000
Professor Dame Sally Davies; Chief Medical Officer: £210,000
David Flory CBE; Director General for NHS Finance Performance: £210,000
Stephen Soper; DB Regulation Executive Director: £210,000
Steve Cowley; Chief Executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority: £205,000
Andrew Trotter; Chief Constable of British Transport Police: £205,000
Chris Saunders; Interim Counsel at the Green Investment Bank: £200,000
Fiona Smith; General Counsel at the NEST Corporation: £200,000
David Joy; Chief Executive of London & Continental Railways Limited: £195,000
Professor Sir Bruce Keogh; NHS Medical Director: £195,000
John Taylor; Executive Team Member at the NEST Corporation: £195,000
Mark Lesinski of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: £195,000
Tom Winsor; HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary: £195,000
Ian Cumming; Chief Executive of Health Education England: £190,000
Gretchen Haskins; Group Director at the Civil Aviation Authority: £190,000
Stephen Otter of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary: £190,000
James Ballingall; a Deputy Director at HM Treasury: £185,000
Qutubuddin Syed; Regional Director at the Health Protection Agency: £185,000
Simon Fraser; Permanent Under-Secretary and Head of the Diplomatic Service: £180,000
Timothy Kelsey; National Director at NHS England: £180,000
Andrew McNaughton; Technical Director at High Speed 2 Limited: £180,000
Michael Pitt; Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate: £180,000
Mark Sedwill; the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office: £180,000
Sir Michael Wilshaw; Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of OFSTED: £180,000
David Brown; Director of VRD at the Health Protection Agency: £175,000
Professor Kevin Fenton of Public Health England: £175,000
David Haslam; Professional Advisor to the Care Quality Commission: £175,000
Edward Kaczmarski; Consultant Microbiologist at the Health Protection Agency: £175,000
James Justin McCracken; Chief Executive at the Health Protection Agency: £175,000
Andy Nelson; Director General at the Department for Work and Pensions: £175,000
Iain Osborne; Group Director of Regulatory Policy at the CAA: £175,000
Sir Nick Parker; Commander of Land Forces: £175,000
Sir Stuart Peach; Commander of Joint Forces Command: £175,000
Nick Sex; Director of Programmes at the NEST Corporation: £175,000
Sir Richard Shirreff; Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Europe: £175,000
John Watson; Head of Department for Respiratory Diseases at the Health Protection Agency: £175,000
Rob Whiteman; Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency: £175,000
Gerald Barling; President of the Competition Appeals Tribunal: £170,000
Graham Bickler; Regional Director at the Health Protection Agency: £170,000
David Green; the Director of the Serious Fraud Office: £170,000
Stephen Henwood; Chairman at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: £170,000
Gillian Leng; Deputy Chief Executive at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence: £170,000
Brian McCloskey; Regional Director at the Health Protection Agency: £170,000
Geoffrey Spence; Chief Executive of Infrastructure UK: £170,000
Doug Sutherland; Chairman/ Chief Executive of BRB [Residuary] Limited: £170,000
David Bott; Director of the Technology Strategy Board: £165,000
Jonson Cox; Chair of the Water Services Regulation Authority: £165,000
Christine Outram; Director of Intelligence and Strategy at NHS England: £165,000
Beth West; Commercial Director at High Speed 2 Limited: £165,000
Peter Westmacott; HMA Washington: £165,000
Sir George Zambellas; Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff: £165,000
Michael Bradley; Finance Director at the Ministry of Defence: £160,000
Martin Donnelly; Permanent Secretary at the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills: £160,000
Mark Farrington; Consultant Microbiologist at the Health Protection Agency: £160,000
Richard Heaton; Permanent Secretary for the Cabinet Office: £160,000
Bronwyn Hill; DEFRA Permanent Secretary: £160,000
David Jordan; Director of Operations at DEFRA: £160,000
Iain Lobban; Director of Government Communication Headquarters: £160,000
Mark Lowcock; Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development: £160,000
Adrian Masters; Managing Director of Sector Development at Monitor: £160,000
Una O'Brien; Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health: £160,000
Andrew Rose; CEO at the Homes and Communities Agency: £160,000
John Saunders; a Senior Director at the Panning Inspectorate: £160,000
Noel Shanahan; Director General at DWP Operations: £160,000
Chris Wormald; Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education: £160,000
Lucy Wylde; General Counsel at the Treasury Solicitor's Department: £160,000
Michael Bracken; Executive Director of Digital: £155,000
Stuart Cook of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets: £155,000
Paul Crowther; Deputy Chief Constable of British Transport Police: £155,000
Mark Davies; Executive Medical Director at the Health and Social Care Information Centre: £155,000
Yvonne Doyle; Regional Director of Public Health, South East Coast; £155,000
Padhraic Kelleher; Head of Airworthiness Division at the CAA: £155,000
John Kingman; Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury: £155,000
Steve Morgan; Director at the Ministry of Defence: £155,000
Professor John Newton; Regional Director of Public Health, South Central: £155,000
Alan Price; Director at the Office of Rail Regulation: £155,000
Nandini Shetty; Medical Consultant at the Health Protection Agency: £155,000
Catherine Staples; General Counsel & Secretary to the CAA: £155,000
Jo-Anne Wass; National Director at NHS England: £155,000
Dr Nicola Anderson; Consultant, Haematology at NHS Blood and Transplant: £150,000
Timothy Brooks; Head of Medical Affairs at the Health Protection Agency: £150,000
Catherine Brown; Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency: £150,000
Rona Chester; Chief Operating Officer of Sport England: £150,000
Tom Fothergill; Director of Finance at NHS Litigation Authority: £150,000
Michael Fuller QPM; Chief Inspector of HMCPSI: £150,000
Robert Gent; Medical Consultant at the Health Protection Agency; £150,000
Jenny Granger; Director General of Enforcement and Compliance: £150,000
Jim McLaughlin; HR Director at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: £150,000
Dilys Morgan; Medical Consultant at the Health Protection Agency: £150,000
Stephen Morton; Regional Director at the Health Protection Agency; £150,000
Jon Phillips of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: £150,000
Philip Rafaelli; Surgeon Vice Admiral: £150,000
Sir William Rollo; Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff: £150,000
John Savill; Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council: £150,000
Eleanor Smith; Consultant Medical Microbiologist at the Health Protection Agency: £150,000
David Walker; Deputy Commander of Allied Joint Forces: £150,000
Douglas Oakavee; Chairman of High Speed 2 Limited: £120,000
Lord Robert Smith; Chairman of the Board at the Green Investment Bank: £120,000
Anna Walker; Chair of the Office of Rail Regulation: £115,000
Geoffrey Rivlin; Adviser to the Serious Fraud Office: £100,000
***SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com and http://aftu.blog.com

BBC Executive Greed

To be fair to the BBC, they have at least published the salary figures of their highest-earners, although presumably such a gesture is more borne out under duress and obligation than by any noble duty to the rest of us hoi polloi. So here folks is a snapshot of where some of your hard-earned Licence Fee gets re-distributed to. This list of greedy bastards is but the tip of the iceberg. The disproportionate and obscene amounts recorded here still don’t compare with the outrageous and disgusting amounts creamed off the BBC by their plethora of ‘presenters’ and assorted broadcasters, celebs, and ‘stars’. Is it any wonder that I no longer partake of the television licence? You won’t find me funding the lives of these mega-rich, selfish swine. Perhaps you the reader should consider doing likewise. It’s only by boycotting your television licence payments, akin to the Poll Tax revolt of 1990, that the BBC will take any heed of public disquiet. Unfortunately in modern Britain, the public have been cowed into submission and are about as likely to protest for a fair redistribution of public funds as a docile sheep. Baaaahhhh to the silly populace. Perhaps the BBC and their foolish feepayers deserve each other. xo
Here follows the hall of shame for the following greedy money-hoarders:
Natasha Adams; HR Director, Digital and Strategy: £137,800
Tony Ageh; Controller, Archive Development: £185,560
Shane Allen; Controller, Comedy Commissioning, Television: £207,000
Philip Almond; Director, Marketing and Audiences: £210,000
Jenny Baxter; Former Controller of Production, News: £130,212
Isabel Begg; Head of Commercial and Business Development: £136,000
Zai Bennett; Controller of BBC Three: £219,900
Philip Bernie; Head of TV Sport: £161,200
Nick Betts; Controller of Business, Drama, Films and Acquisitions: £217,800
Anne Bulford; Managing Director, Finance and Operations: £395,000
Richard Burdon; Human Resources Director, Corporate: £144,100
Karl Burnett; Human Resources Director, News Group and Radio: £128,900
Colin Burns; Executive Creative Director, Future Media: £175,000
Shirley Cameron; Finance and Business Director, Radio: £130,212
Kieran Clifton; Controller, Strategy, Future Media: £135,450
Andy Conroy; Chief Operating Officer of BBC Future Media/BBC Online: £159,300
Ben Cooper; Controller of Radio One and 1Xtra: £169,400
Richard Dawkins; Controller, Strategy, News and Radio: £145,665
Leighton Davies; Director, Finance Centre of Excellence: £150,490
Claire Dresser; Chief Adviser: £114,233
Phil Fearnley; General Manager, News and Knowledge; £199,700
Tessa Finch; Head of Development, Television Productions: £161,350
Mike Ford; Director of Risk and Assurance: £160,815
Mark Freeland; Head of Comedy: £234,800
Joe Godwin; Director, Children’s: £169,400
Jim Gray; Head of TV Current Affairs/Deputy Head of News Programmes: £155,000
James Harding; Director of News and Current Affairs: £340,000
James Hardy; Head of Communications, News Group: £105,800
Cassian Harrison; Editor of BBC Four: £160,000
Mark Harrison; Controller of Production, BBC North: £161,648
Kate Harwood; Head of Drama, England: £209,800
Ian Haythornthwaite; Director of Finance: £170,966
Polly Hill; Head of Independent Drama: £179,800
Susan Hogg; Executive Producer, Television: £185,085
Tamara Howe; Controller of Business, Comedy & Entertainment: £187,800
Ian Hughes; Finance Director, News: £128,172
Natalie Humphreys; Controller, Factual Production, Television: £210,000
Sarah Jones; Group General Counsel, Operations: £227,800
Damian Kavanagh; Controller of BBC Daytime: £194,000
Christine Langan; Head of BBC Films: £176,500
Roger Leatham; Controller of Rights, Legal and Business Affairs: £160,000
Ken Lee; Human Resources Director, BBC North: £146,200
Charlotte Moore; Controller of BBC One: £244,800
John Moran; Former Head of Commercial and Business Development: £134,799
Paul Mylrea; Former Director of Public Affairs: £170,000
Sanjay Nazerali; Former Director of Marketing and Audiences, News: £163,340
Lisa Opie; Controller of Business, Knowledge and Daytime: £207,800
Nick Patten; Former Head of In-house Features, Television: £156,300
Richard Payne; Head of Finance Service Delivery: £170,659
Clare Pizey; Head of Factual Entertainment: £149,800
Gautam Rangarajan; Director of Strategy: £162,800
Ralph Rivera; Director, Future Media: £309,000
Nicki Sheard; Former Director of Marketing and Audiences, Radio: £132,801
John Shield; Director, Communications: £144,000
Kim Shillinglaw; Controller of BBC Two and BBC Four: £160,240
Rhodri Talfan Davies; Director, BBC Cymru Wales: £167,800
Katie Taylor; UK Controller of Entertainment Production: £187,800
Ceri Thomas; Head of News Programmes: £166,448
Emmet Townsend; Systems Development Director: £175,000
Charlie Villar; Director of Corporate Finance: £186,500
Cary Wakefield; Director, Marketing and Audiences, Television: £186,800
Jonathan Wall; Controller of Radio 5 live and 5 live sports extra: £142,800
Jane Weedon; Former Director, Business Development: £129,000
Gwyneth Williams; Controller of Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra: £191,418
Emma Willis; Head of Commissioning, Documentaries: £150,878
Pat Younge; Former Chief Creative Officer: £255,800
The following can be located among the list at http://aftu.blog.com/greedy-bastards/
Lucy Adams
Helen Boaden
Jessica Cecil
Danny Cohen
Dominic Coles
Rachel Currie
Clare Dyer
Graham Ellis
Mark Friend
Paul Greeves
William Greswell
Andy Griffee
Janice Hadlow
Tony Hall
Mary Hockaday
David Holdsworth
Peter Horrocks
Sue Inglish
Peter Johnston
David Jordan
Richard Klein
Mark Linsey
John Linwood
Ken MacQuarrie
Anne Morrison
Roger Mosey
Derek O’Gara
Zarin Patel
Matthew Postgate
James Purnell
Liz Rylatt
Peter Salmon
Bal Samra
Bob Shennan
Barbara Slater
Paul Smith
Ben Stephenson
Emma Swain
John Tate
Beverley Tew
John Turner
Francesca Unsworth
Adrian Van Klaveren
Alice Webb
Roger Wright
Alan Yentob
[These lists were compiled by the anti-fascist commentator Gary Watton; See also http://gw930.blog.com]

Losing My Religion

It would be more apt to state that my faith [what's left of it] is hanging by a thread. Everything has been going wrong for far too long now. I'm on an almighty [or should that be Almighty] losing streak. I actually have nothing left to live for, so it is becoming increasingly difficult to be motivated. It seems that everything that I touch turns to shit. To quote one of many examples, my Blackberry broke down in November. After a labyrinth of attempted repairs and time-wasting and money-wasting, I had little choice but to buy a replacement 'phone. I chose a Nokia Lumia 520 [reduced from £160 to £80]. Well, I can scarcely afford to be making such luxury purchases. [Some people probably consider this a cheap acquisition, but that's where they are financially that they can think along such condescending terms.] Well, this not very clever, smart 'phone was bought at the end of January and by the end of March it has broken down, a bit like its owner. I've paid eighty pounds for two months' use. This scenario, for me, is the norm rather than the exception. I had to write my last car off for scrap and am still tramping about the streets of my smalltown, hometown on both feet. Tis good for my improving fitness and athleticism, yep, but definitely not a good step [excuse the pun] to wards any remaining street credibility. To live in the smallville of Cold Rain and not possess a car is akin to pauper status. It further undermines any pretension or delusion about presenting myself as 'the catch of the century'.
Anyhow, I digress. I have had it up to here [here being the top of me bonnet] with the big Fella above. He has been a monumental disappointment to me, and God knows [He probably does] that I've been equally a monumental disappointment to Him! Well the difference is explained thus. Whereas I am led to believe that 'God smiles when He thinks of you', well I certainly don't smile when I think of Him. Actually I frown, big style. His followers amongst the doo-lally, happy clappy, middle-class churchgoers only serve to undermine my evaporating faith further. Some like to harp on [or cling to] the notion, sourced from the Book of Jeremiah, that God has big plans for us, plans to do us good, and not to do us harm. Well, this is not a blueprint for a positive outcome to everyone's existence, be they believers or non-believers. Ya see, this is an ideal, an aspiration. The notion that this is a concrete promise from an accountable God is just mischievous. What happened after all to God's great plans to the nation of Israel [i.e. the Jews] when they were carted in their millions like tins of sardines to the gas chambers and death camps in the early 1940s? Did God go on holiday for several years? Was He on a sabbatical perhaps? Did he go on a holy retreat, while the rest of humanity wholly retreated from the satanic horrors of Nazism? Where is God's great promise for my life [and for yours?]. Is it on the bottom of the pile of his 'To Do' list? Incidentally, is the return of Jesus Christ still on the 'To Do' list? Funny how we were assured in various passages of the New Testament that Christ will be "coming soon". Soon?! Well, two thousand years is not my idea of "soon". Are you coming round to my house? Yes, I'll be there "soon". When is my bus coming? Oh it will be along "soon" - like maybe in over two thousand years time - that kind of "soon". I have to concur with Stephen Patrick Morrissey when he asked 'How Soon Is Now?'
Oh no, but that would be too soon. You see, I get the impression that God likes to play with us, His cretinous creation, and that He plays us a little too well. Have you had many prayer requests accepted and granted recently? Is your prayer perhaps held in a queue? Your prayer is very important to us and one of our agents [or angels] will deal with it as soon as possible. Is a prayer to God equivalent to a call to a contact centre? It certainly feels like it. My prayer supplications have all got one terrible thing in common - they are constantly snubbed. It is very difficult to proceed when one feels under a curse and that God refuses to grant any of my requests. My requests incidentally are quite reasonable and tend to be far removed from any demands for world domination. Maybe I'm not praying in the right tone of voice, maybe I am not prostrate enough on the floor. Maybe my attitude stinks. Maybe I never donated enough money in the Sunday collection plate.
Well, I marvel at how good God is to the heathen sons of bitches and assorted low-life around me. There are copious amounts of people, past, present, and future who are richly blessed with all manner of possessions and abundant company and opportunities by Yahweh but none of these pagans give a hoot about their Creator. Why does he shower such riches on people who don't love Him? Is He trying to buy their adoration? Is there any chance that he might buy a little affection from me with several belated, long overdue opportunities and blessings in my desert of hope? No doubt the preachers will butt in and remind me that Jesus bought my love when He died on the cross because I am such a horrible person. Look, Your sacrifice on Calvary is outstanding and remarkable in the extreme, but do you really think that I am going to praise you night and day, whilst I have nothing else going on in my life of any meaningful or positive value? Shall I just lie in bed ad nauseam and fondly reminisce upon Jesus' painful death on my behalf?
Oh come on God. If You've really given me a life, then let me lead one and stop snubbing all my hopes and dreams, while allowing other bastards to flourish. The injustice of it all makes me angry and bitter in the extreme. This is not how I want to go forward as a human. Keeping me alive just so that I can continue to be an embarrassment is downright cruel. If You're not going to help improve my sad existence, then take me out of this world now, today - away from a dysfunctional family and a disapproving neighbourhood and a greedy society full of selfish swine who earn disproportionate and obscene amounts, while the rest of us paupers must feed off the remaining scraps? Thanks be to God!
The more I hear Christian bullshit from various voices, the more I wish to flee in the direction of the haven of logic from the late Christopher Hitchens.
It's all very well stating that God "can" take a broken person and restore he or she to a thing of beauty. It's all very well stating that God "can" heal. I have never doubted His abilities and never will. What I doubt is his willingness, not his potential or his capabilites. After all, not everyone gets healed. Not all prayer requests are granted. I mean, don't you think that maybe at least one or two of the poor souls being transported to the extermination camps in the early 1940s might have called out to God to intervene and rescue them? You see, God intervenes whenever He feels like it. His interventions don't appear to be consistent or constant, or fair. He does what He wants when He wants. That appears to be His will. To suggest that God perpetually heals each and every person and restores all broken lives on request is very much open to question. I am beginning to wonder if the Depeche Mode song is close to the truth: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour, and when I die, I expect to find Him laughing."
I have stuck up for my 'Father' in Heaven when people have scorned or questioned his existence. I've sang to Him in church. I've pleaded to Him in private. It seems to have been all in vain. It's like the other great Christian line about 'ah you might suffer in this life, but in Heaven you'll have luxury and great times every day forever and ever'. Is that another Christian untruth or exaggeration? I mean, there are so many billions of people, past, present, and future all apparently going to Heaven from Joe Stalin to Jade Goody to Frank Lampard's mum that there is not going to be much else besides massive overcrowding! Oh but God's got that all figured out, right?
I'm left to echo what Elijah remarked when he teased the prophets of Baal when they called out to their gods. Maybe God in Heaven is daydreaming? Maybe I need to pray louder? Maybe God is busy relieving Himself? Well, I don't know but I'm heartily sick to the armpits and beyond of promises, promises. Perhaps this illustrates the very essence of our lives on earth - the problem of managing expectations and how we react to unfulfilled expectations. It seems to me that I and others have expectations of God that He has no intention of realising. This only serves to reinforce the fact that God's promise as embodied in that passage in Jeremiah is not a blanket pledge to all humanity. The bottom line is that God is selective. He heals who He wants to heal. He intervenes when He wants to intervene. For any Christian daydreamer to suggest otherwise is pure mischief-making and only serves to drive the rest of us far from the kingdom of God. God help us.......though He seldom does.

Tags: bullshit; exaggerations; lies; promises

An Invisible Man

A few years ago, a Christian friend of mine gave a Sunday morning teaching session at his church in which he talked about the story of the rich man and Lazarus. He entitled his piece ‘The Invisible Man’. He stated that the poor man, Lazarus the beggar, had been at the gates of the rich man’s house on many occasions, but that the rich man had
completely ignored him. He was almost literally ‘invisible’ as the rich man consciously or unconsciously chose to overlook the beggar. Of course, when the rich man died [so the story goes], he looked up from his fiery pit and exhorted the former ‘invisible man’ to go to his brothers and warn them of the awful fate that awaits them if they don’t repent. Funny how the formerly ignored man suddenly became an individual of extreme importance!
Anyhow, this isn’t intended to be a Christian sermon, but I can certainly relate wholeheartedly to the plight of the invisible man.
Time and time and time again I have tried to engage members of the media and received the cold shoulder from ‘busy’ people who just don’t have the time nor the basic courtesy to reply to my emails. If I am extremely lucky I am treated to the occasional terse response. Even allowing for the fact that members of the media are snowed under with emails, it is an act of bad manners to ignore this poor man, just as Lazarus the beggar was overlooked.
I am moreover slightly amused about the print media’s refusal to accept regulation, declaring that they can manage themselves and that they have learnt their lessons from the self-inflicted wounds of the ‘phone hacking scandal. I don’t see many lessons having been learnt. I find editors and their assistants to be unresponsive to the likes of me, but they would drop their newborn baby if an important personage sent an email or if there was a scandal or breaking story that they could get their teeth into. Perhaps liaising with the media is akin to swimming with sharks. I have had to reach the view that journalists are just not very nice people, a consequence of the culture of their profession.
Fool that I am, I have tried to engage the media in an effort to being appointed with one or two assignments that would make use of my expertise, an expertise that in many instances far exceeds that of their own staff. I incidentally receive £71 state pittance per week while lesser talents earn that amount or double that each day. How fair does that sound? It’s hard not to feel bitter when confronted with such injustice.
Last summer, the Independent’s Neil Robinson strung me along on the possibility that I could/might contribute to the Independent’s coverage of the Ashes series. Mr Robinson had even suggested the amount that I would receive, which I had agreed to. Well, no such undertaking came to pass. That was the latest in a litany of shabby treatment from the British and Irish media.
Again, this year, as a psephologist and elections numbers cruncher, I have attempted to engage various media outlets in the hope that they would recruit me to assist them with their election coverage, whether that merely be the election results and analysis of the forthcoming European poll. Well, again, Lazarus here is confronted with a wall of
silence. I am offering to help and add value and I am not even treated to an answer. I feel genuinely like the youngster in the school playground watching the other children play and not being permitted to join in the game. It’s bloody cruel.
I have much to offer as a knowledgeable and engaging writer, whose expertise can be filed under ‘sports statistician’ or ‘psephologist’. I have a nerdish attention to details and am extremely literate and numerate. Yet for all my apparent abilities, I am constantly snubbed while lesser talents prevail at various media organisations. A relative suggested the other week that I was “depressed”. It would be nearer the truth to declare that I am demoralised, as opposed to
depressed.
It’s a real tragedy, not just for me, but for others in the print media that my talents are not being utilised. Maybe I should finish with a famous bit of biblical scripture again: “The stone that the builders refuse turned out to be the cornerstone.”
My abilities can be scrutinised at the following sites:
http://whocomments.org/wiki/Gary_Watton
http://gw930.blog.com
http://psephologist.blog.com
http://sporthistorian.blog.com
http://ireland.rugbynetwork.net
http://yorkshire.cricketnetwork.co.uk
http://chelsea.thefootballnetwork.net
from: Gary Watton; invisible man

Britain's Dreadful Legal Shitstem by the commentator Gary Watton [http://gw930.blog.com]

In the light of the miscarriage of justices that brought Nigel Evans MP to near-bankruptcy and all but ruined the names of Michael Le Vell and Bill Roache, may I humbly propose the following two suggestions.
First of all, there ought to be legislation [aside from libel and slander laws] which ensures that false accusers and false witnesses are penalised. It seems scandalous that anyone can denounce someone to the law and the CPS [the Crown Persecution Service] and such individuals get away with their half-baked accusations scot free, while the accused must suffer enormously during the pre-trial period as well as during their court ordeal. Nobody wants to deter witnesses or anyone speaking up against criminal activity, but by the same token there needs to be a mechanism in place whereby anyone who wrongly accuses someone is penalised with say a £1,000 fine if the accused is acquitted in a subsequent trial. It simply won’t do for all and sundry to be afforded carte blanche in future to accuse anyone on the back of dubious charges and flimsy evidence.
Secondly, I think that solicitors have a lot to answer for. Many solicitors are at least as reptilian as the much-reviled bankers and expenses-claimers. It strikes me that solicitors mischievously ‘egg on’ their clients to pursue legal action [irrespective of the potential outcome] safe in the knowledge that he or she has a big payday coming their way. It seems to be in the monetary interests of many mercenaries within the legal profession to pursue legal cases because they are a “nice little earner”. Again, some form of regulation is belatedly overdue to ensure that solicitors don’t gain enormously from other people’s suffering. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we frequently find solictors advising clients whose chances are clearly hopeless to plead not guilty and contrive to engineer a costly trial which is a drain on the public purse while solictors and barristers laugh all the way to the bank.
Just as there is a real need for regulation of bankers, and of newspapers, and of parliamentarians, so there is also a need to review and legislate against abuses and injustices in the law.

Double Standards From The Sinners!

DOUBLE STANDARDS FROM THE 'SINNERS'
In Norn Iron, folk sometimes refer to members and devotees of Sinn Fein as the Shinners. At least when we're being polite, we do. However, maybe Sinners is much more apt. Along with many people on both sides of the Irish Sea, I have been horrified by the recent revelations that IRA suspects have been given written assurances that there is an amnesty on the unsolved crimes that they have been implicated in. It's all very well absolving the Irish republican terrorists of responsibility for a catalogue of atrocities and assorted offences, but surely the same standards must then be applied to the perpetrators of Bloody Sunday.
Don't get me wrong. The more that I've launched my own personal inquiry into the terrible events of the 30th of January 1972 [a much cheaper inquiry than the publicly-financed version], the more that I've been horrified by the trigger-happy soldiers who shot unarmed people in cold blood and sometimes from behind. The greatest tragedy of all is that there have been countless, yes countless, acts of compassion, courtesy, heroism, and humanity from the British security forces over the course of 'the troubles' but they never got reported or placed under the microscope of public scrutiny. Instead, the actions of the Paras totally undermined all that and provided the Brit-haters and Brit-begrudgers literally with the ammunition to embark upon a three-decade campaign of wickedness against the British citizens of Ulster and the rest of the UK. The Irish republicans have always harboured hostility towards the big bad brutal Brits but Bloody Sunday kind of legitimised their antipathy. In much the same way as the Islamic extremists truly wish to regard their American and British foes as worthy of their vile behaviour, so too the Irish militants share a similar perverted stance towards all agents of British rule.
The thing is that I now have much sympathy for the plight of the Derry families and extended community who were subject to this act of unacceptable aggression on that notorious winter's afternoon. Furthermore, I even buy into the rationale behind a thirty-two county state. I find it ludicrous after all that Ulster unionists would want to remain united to a 'mainland' that is remote both geographically and emotionally from the bothersome six counties of Northern Ireland. I mean, what on earth do the protestant, working-class loyalists of Norn Iron have in common with the middle-class, Middle Englanders of the shires and the home counties? Such folk are poles apart. Furthermore, where is the common ground between the almost exclusively, white smalltowners of Ulster and the cosmopolitan, multi-cultural burghers of L'Angleterre? Given the fact that the neanderthals of Ulster are so committed to their own culture, it seems illogical that they could accommodate a plethora of different cultures which are requisite in the large urban centres of the UK? Ultimately, the Norn Irish citizens have more in common with their southern counterparts, more than they care to admit. Even the age-old scaremongering about Dublin rule equates to Rome rule or Pope rule is now sheer and utter drivel. The Republic of Ireland has ventured away from its theocracy towards a secular society, partially driven by public disdain at the scandal-ridden catholic church, whose bunglings and incompetence have been much closer to the Craggy Island parody than even the writers of 'Father Ted' dared to imagine. The folks north of the border have little to fear from unity, other than financial meltdown! Given the recent economic incompetence of Paddy the Irishman, this remains the biggest deterrent to the re-unification of the Emerald Isle.
Right, so we have established that I am broadly in sympathy with Irish republicanism and with the victims of Bloody Sunday. However, the Irish republican constituency then proceeds to shoot itself in the foot with its insistence upon retribution against the English soldiers whilst shrugging their shoulders at the recent acquittal of John Downey and the news that Provo suspects will be 'above the law' in terms of the unsolved wickedness of past decades. Funny how the 'oppressed' Oirish demand their pound of flesh when they feel aggrieved but then equally call for forgiveness and no prosecution of their vile 'volunteers'. This is complete hypocrisy in all its ugliness.
The slippery Downey recently observed the well-rehearsed twofold policy of terrorist suspects.
Firstly, he denied responsibility. It's a pity that such heroes cannot be man enough to admit their culpability. Instead, they delude themselves that if they confess to their priest or to God behind closed doors, that this washes away the Shinner's sins. I guess that the bottom line is that in the affluent west, it simply won't do to spend an extended spell in prison as everyone is in the business of preserving their quality of life and keeping up with the Joneses or the O'Joneses perhaps. A stint in clink seriously jeopardises one's custodianship or aspirations towards another Chelsea tractor or semi-detached residence. So much for the socialism of James Connolly. The modern Irish republican is a capitalist wannabe. He hasn't the honesty or integrity to admit his part in Irish 'acts of war' because the family's place in middle-class society is at stake. Who says that crime doesn't pay? 
Secondly, Downey, we are informed, is a committed follower of the peace process. This is another piece of skullduggery practised by all terror suspects in Norn Iron. They are briefed by their 'brief' to tell the judge that they are innocent and that they are now devoted to the peace process. This double whammy, it seems, is sufficient to acquit any Ulster terrorist nowadays. Why bother arresting them now in the first place if they are such blameless pacifists?!
Oh it all stinks. The British soldiers must be prosecuted [or persecuted?] while a plethora of republican suspects go scot free. Where is the justice and equality there? It is still repugnant for many people that the past unsolved atrocities of the thirty years [or thirty thousand tears] conflict must be whitewashed while any British wrongdoing must be dealt with severely. Even more laughable is the Irish republican insistence upon their misbehaviour merely being excused away as 'acts of war' while the British response of shoot to kill in this same 'war' is deemed as beyond the pale. If the Irish republicans regard bravely shooting people from behind, or burying unarmed and innocent women, or bombing children in English shopping centres as legitimate acts of war, then how can they complain [as they interminably do] that the actions of Special Branch or the SAS are unjustifiable. It seems that the British were expected to treat the conflict as if it were a cricket match, with a whole host of rules and regulations to observe, whilst the enemy guerillas could run amok in west Belfast or south Armagh. Well, it's just not cricket. In fact, strictly speaking, it wasn't a war either. In the accepted sense of the word, a 'war' is a conflict between two states. However, the Republic of Ireland never declared war on the UK and indeed 'colluded' [that word again] with John Bull in their joint efforts to counter the insurgency of the Brit-haters. In fact, the Irish republicans have been getting away with the same, twisted terminology for way too long. Not only is it erroneous to speak in terms of a war, as if it were some military contest between two states, but just as preposterous has been the republican insistence upon 'collusion' between the British state and loyalist terrorists. I am not denying the practise of the latter. Far from it. However, has it never occurred to anybody to describe the teamwork between the Provos and Sinn Fein as itself a grand act of collusion? Ah yes, it's okay for them to collude and shoot to kill, but dearie me, the Brits dare not shoot to kill or collude. Smell the hypocrisy folks. It absolutely reeks.
I cannot quite decide who is the more repulsive: the union jack dinosaurs or their polar opposites in the militant republican ranks. Between the two of them, they seem to be in league to completely ruin any opportunity for the normalisation of the north.
Disgusted
Gary Watton; commentator

New speed-dating venture [SEE ALSO http://firstimpressionsdating.blog.com]

A new speed-dating company has been established. Of course there are several in operation, and good luck to them. However, this latest incarnation's mission is to take speed-dating to various towns and provinces, and to demonstrate that it's not merely a vehicle for city slickers, and that such events don't always have to be held in expensive and posh venues. The company is called First Impressions and their events take place on any night of the week and typically last from 8pm to 10pm, so don't feel that you have to stay out until the early hours. You won't be ruining your work routine next morning. Instead, you will have a chance to go out for a few hours during the week, without having to restrict your socialising to the weekend. There are a number of speed-dating companies operating at present. First Impressions are not aiming to compete against them or to undermine them. Check out their website at http://firstimpressionsdating.blog.com

Here is the itinerary for March for First Impression's speed-dating events:
The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: Everglades Hotel; Prehen Road; L'Derry
Date: Friday 7th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 7pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: the Ramada Hotel; Portrush
Date: Saturday 8th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: the Eryl Mor Hotel; Bangor; North Wales
Date: Monday 10th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: La Tasca Restaurant; Broadgate; London
Date: Tuesday 11th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 6.30pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: Lucozade Powerleague; Newham; London
Date: Wednesday 12th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: the Royal Hotel; Bangor; County Down
Date: Thursday 13th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 7pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: Lucozade Powerleague; Hamilton
Date: Monday 17th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: the Portmann Hotel; Kilmarnock
Date: Tuesday 18th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: the Parkway Social Club; Middlesbrough
Date: Monday 24th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: Harrogate Cricket Club; Harrogate
Date: Tuesday 25th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

The next First Impressions outing will be held at
Venue: the Romany; Northampton
Date: Wednesday 26th March 2014
Time: The event will begin at 8pm sharp.
Format: A series of five minute 'dates'
Age range: 25 to 45
There will be one interval of fifteen minutes.

SCUM by the commentator Gary Watton

I was watching one of my favourite films the other night, 'The French Connection'. There is a remarkable scene mid-film in which Charnier and his heroin-smuggling associate are both seated in a New York restaurant, indulging themselves in helpings of fine wine and cuisine, like a couple of respectable bourgeois gents. However, this duo represent evil. Across the road, sheltering from an icy cold winter's day in the Big Apple is detective Popeye Doyle and his partner Cloudy Russo. These guys purportedly represent the forces for good, namely the law. Well, the good guys are huddled in a doorway, drinking tea from a plastic cup. This scene is something of a microcosm of modern society as it expertly reminds us how perverse our world is. The criminals are enjoying an extravagant lifestyle while the law-abiding, hard-working souls suffer hardship by comparison. This regrettable disparity must not be allowed to prevail - but it does.
Meanwhile, I was particularly struck by a characteristic outpouring of vitriol from Kelvin Mackenzie, the fomer tabloid newspaper editor, who was appearing on 'Pienaar's Politics' on Radio Five Dead. Motormouth Mackenzie described the looting and rioting perpetrators during the street disturbances of early August 2011 as "scum." There may be some validity to such a remark, but I would venture to suggest that such an unenviable epithet need not be confined to the so-called 'feral underclass'.
Fast-forwarding to recent days, the British nation (and beyond) has been treated to the unedifying spectacle of Nigella Lawson and her ex-husband Charles Saatchi having their dirty linen washed very publicly, at Isleworth Crown Court to be precise. From the court proceedings we learn that Charles Saatchi appears to be a horrible, nasty, vindictive megalomaniac (perhaps not a new discovery for those in the know). Futhermore, we are also informed that Nigella's pampered lifestyle features a regular intake of such substances as cocaine. Now, Nigella isn't the first and won't be the last rich bitch to partake of some illegal, naughty 'medication', so her misbehaviour is scarcely exceptional. However, what is more revealing is just how trashy the lives of the wealthy and famous really are. I guess that there have been sufficient tabloid exposures since Profumo's scandal in 1963 to reinforce this. Maybe indifferent Joe Public has grown immune to the shock value of such sensational stuff. Well, for me, the sorry episode of Lawson and Saatchi's private lives perfectly encapsulates the fact that when you strip away the glossy veneer of the opulence of the rich and assorted celebrities, one finds murky, trashy lives lurking underneath. I would therefore argue that people who present themselves in slick suits, shirt, and tie, and elegant frocks and gowns are probably at least as scummy as the 'feral underclass'.
Mick Jagger once sang "raise your glass to the hard-working people/say a prayer for the lowly at birth" in the excellent 'Salt Of The Earth'. I totally concur. Meanwhile, it is high time that people woke up to the fact that our so-called superiors and the high-fliers in our society and expenses-claiming fraudulent members of the Establishment are indeed just as worthy of the word "scum." Of course, one could go further and state that our greedy financiers, politicos , and bankers are on a par with pedophiles - or is such a comparison too harsh and disrespectful towards child molesters?

UB40: A Critique [by the author, historian, and musicologist Gary Watton]

A couple of months ago I rescued about eighty of my old vinyl albums from almost ten years of captivity in my late mother's attic. (Actually, she's never late nor even dead.) Anyhow, I have proceeded to re-acquaint myself with the music that entertained me during my 'bedroom years' of bygone days of yore. In the last ten days I have bravely endured my collection of UB40 LPs. Regrettably, I now find such product rather dreary and uninspiring from a combo that I once held in the highest esteem in my mistaken youth.
What strikes me most about this Brummie outfit is the unremitting politicising, pontificating, preaching, and downright gloom that characterises the large majority of their own compositions. They basically set the tone on their debut album with the delightfully cheerful 'Burden Of Shame' (a critique of British imperialism) and well ever since, their output has been almost exclusively a musical rant. Each track appears to remind us that capitalism is wicked and poverty is wicked and Apartheid is wicked and inequality is wicked and racism is wicked. Oh come on fellas. Change the record, please. You don't have to perpetually persuade me of such dogma. The truth is: I believe you, and indeed most of your listeners are presumably equally sympathetic. I doubt whether the UBs feature prominently amongst the musical preferences of bankers, financiers, and racists!
The only occasions when UB40 mercifully strayed from the tiresome evangelising was when they ventured into the territory of cover versions of classic reggae love songs on the outstanding 'Labour Of Love' project and its inferior successor, 'Labour Of Love II'. There has probably been a mark III and maybe even a IV. Happily, I am blissfully unaware of the group's post-1990 material, with the exception of the awful karaoke rendition of Elvis's 'Can't Help Falling In Love' (a 1993 UK chart-topper which just about sums up the poor musical taste of the British record-buying public.) Oh yes, I did chance upon a new UB40 offering from 2005, 'Who You Fighting For?' which the Mail On Sunday (or possibly the Daily Malice) cruelly supplied as a freebie to every lucky (or unlucky) reader. Not surprisingly (to quote another west Midlands singer, Mr Robert Plant) "the song remains the same". Unfortunately, the Campbells and their cronies just cannot resist the temptation to revisit the same old themes in almost every track.
Not surprisingly, my favourite UB40 tunes hail from their earliest days when they treated the listener to a whole array of fine reggae instrumentals on their debut 'Signing Off'. Then they atoned for the typically depressing 'Present Arms' project by releasing the marvellous (and largely undiscovered gem) of 'Present Arms In Dub' when the lads jettisoned the left-wing wailing and merely provided the tunes in instrumental dub versions.
In my semi-humble opinion, the UBs missed a trick when they failed to take a leaf out of the book of their contemporaries Madness or such luminaries as the Kinks by providing observations of modern life and the quirky individuals that they encountered along the way. Whilst Madness delivered the anecdotal 'Bed And Breakfast Man' and 'Mrs Hutchinson', UB40 were providing the non-joyful 'One In Ten' and 'Don't Do The Crime'. However, don't get me wrong. UB40 have composed the occasional gem. 'Tyler' was a worthwhile tribute to an unjustly convicted murderer, Gary Tyler. However, their song-writing formula almost always seems to be confined to pouring scorn at the same old injustices. The gang rarely stretch their creativity towards mini-dramas and soap operas about everyday people and places and events. The guys may be uneducated [a fact that they certainly don't hide] but you don't need to have gone to Oxbridge to be able to compose a variety of very different songs about a whole range of non-political subjects.
When UB40 did wander into film-making with their half-hour 'Labour Of Love' movie, the result was distinctly drab. The flick lacked any originality and culminated in a scene of police brutality and racism that even the most ardent Trotskyite dramatist might not have conceived for a Channel Four late-night production. The only redeeming feature was the glorious video to the perennial favourite, 'Red Red Wine' in which Ali comes to the pub to meet the woman of his dreams, only to find her arrive afterwards with his brother [and rival]. As if that isn't bad enough, Ali gets his car keys nicked whilst being hoodwinked at the bar by a couple of chancers, masquerading as friends. All of this would be enough to drive anyone to drink, and Ali C doesn't disappoint, as he ends the tune doing a fine impersonation of a drunk, down on his luck, being helped home by his Dad. T'was superb stuff.
For me, UB40 were okay musically until they added the brass sounds of the Tenyue brothers in the mid-80s which only succeeded in drowning out Robin's lead guitar and Mickey Virtue's fine keyboards. Admittedly, the big brass sound of the poptastic 'If It Happens Again' was a glorious exception, but thereafter the band just got submerged in an over-reliance on brass instrumentation.
Sorry UB40, but I have long since fallen out of love with you. Perhaps this is symptomatic of a 'maturing' codger who is no longer easily impressed by anyone or anything, musical or otherwise.
Yours Insincerely,
Gary Watton (a former fan)

My UB40 albums and my favourite song on the LP:
Signing Off (1980) - King
Present Arms (1981) - Don't Let It Pass You By
Present Arms In Dub (1981) - The Return Of Dr X
UB44 (1982) - The Prisoner
UB40 Live (1982) - Sardonicus
Labour Of Love (1983) - She Caught The Train
Geffery Morgan (1984) - D.U.B.
Baggariddim (1985) - Demonstrate by Admiral Jerry
Rat In The Kitchen (1986) - The Elevator
UB40 (1988) - Where Did I Go Wrong?
Labour Of Love II (1989) - Kingston Town

Tags: ali; astro; brian; earl; jimmy; mickey;

England's Poor Starts In Australia by G Watton

http://www.cricketnetwork.co.uk/main/s740/st184618.htm

England's perpetual woes in Australia [a few notable exceptions aside]
all appear to stem from an inability to hit the ground running in the
first test of each series. Or, if that sounds too simplistic, then
there is a massive body of evidence that reinforces the apparent fact
that England go missing at the business end of the Ashes which is
actually the first three tests and then only arise from their slumber
when a series is done and dusted, and the Poms proceed to console
themselves with triumph in a so-called 'dead rubber'. To be slightly
fair to England, there is no Australian cricket XI past, present, or
future that will happily concede defeat to England in any test match,
irrespective of whether the Ashes is still at stake or not.

However, the horrendous truth prevails that England simply do not
excel at the outset of many overseas test series, and this is patently
the case in Australia. If one looks back [in anger] at England's last
nineteen test series in Australia, the tourists have dismally only
recorded a victory in two opening tests in a spell dating back to
1945. This shocking statistic needs to be addressed and remedied
sooner rather than later, or Australia can look forward to re-visiting
their growing tendency of settling an Ashes series at the third
skirmish in Perth, long before the tests arranged for the hallowed
venues of Melbourne and Sydney even appear on the horizon.
Furthermore, equally of grave concern for the English cricketing
contingent is that since 1900, the English visitors have only twice
lost the first test of an Ashes series in Australia and bounced back
to win the series, achieving this cricketing equivalent of Halley's
Comet in 1911 and 1954 - and not since! In future England needs to
face up to the perils of the first test and recognise that
historically when they go behind in a series in Australia, they stay
behind, and indeed go further behind.

Whether this all indicates a lack of preparation ahead of the first
contest is open to question. Surely if England are flopping in the
first battle in Brisbane, the logic must be to begin in Australia one
week earlier the next time. Regrettably, England's hapless cricket
warriors are all too often engaged in one-day internationals for much
of September or first-class fixtures at the tail-end of the County
Championship. This leaves our weary troops only a few weeks in October
to recover. Is this adequate? History would suggest otherwise.

Alternatively, there ought to be an argument proposed for England
playing a pre-Ashes warm-up test in New Zealand or the Indian
sub-continent en route to their Ashes commitments. If England are
going to maintain their time-honoured bad habit of being all too rusty
at the start of a winter's test series, then let that
under-performance be exposed in a pre-Ashes test, before the main
course is served, and England end up well and truly cooked in Perth,
long before the Christmas turkey.


ENGLAND'S RECORD IN THE FIRST ASHES TEST IN AUSTRALIA SINCE 1945:
The following is an appalling chronology of 11 defeats, six draws, and only two wins!
2013 Lost
2010 Drew
2006 Lost
2002 Lost
1998 Drew
1994 Lost
1990 Lost
1986 WON
1982 Drew
1979 [non-Ashes series] Lost
1978 WON
1974 Lost
1970 Drew
1965 Drew
1962 Drew
1958 Lost
1954 Lost
1950 Lost
1946 Lost