Jul 25th, 2010 by Oldfart
Starting to get really optimistic about the Dave & Nick show. Latest is the Government is going to stop centrally funding speed cameras and this means that local authorities will dismantle them - starting with Oxfordshire within the next week or two.
Needless to say the road safety lobby is up in arms but there is precious little evidence to support their contribution to road safety away from urban areas. More than that the British public just views them (rightly in my view) as another means of taxing the motorist. I openly admit I now drive the motorways looking at bridges where they place mobile cameras rather than the traffic around me. I am sure I am not alone in this so how exactly do the cameras contribute to road safety?
Amid some publicity a few months ago Swindon - who had an intensive mobile camera campaign as I know to my cost! - decided to abandon them as there had been no effect on accident figures. Why spend money on something that does not work.
More good news is that Lord Young, who was asked to review health & safety and related regulation is about to recommend:
- banning advertising by no win, no fee lawyers (something that drives me absolutely nuts - these are a bunch of pariahs living off the greed of people trying to make a fast buck)
- regulating health and safety consultants ‘robustly’
- cutting the red tape that prevents the police and paramedics from taking physical risks in helping members of the public.
Yipee! Linked to this is the decision that legal aid will be cut for asylum seekers, benefit claimants, parents suing schools and lots of other time wasters who chew up our money instead of getting off their butts and helping themselves.
At last I feel somebody is listening.
Tags: Health & safety, legal aid, speed cameras
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Jul 23rd, 2010 by Oldfart
Some press reports suggest Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is planning to introduce legislation to reverse Labour’s disastrous 24 hour drinking law. Not only that, she is going to ban supermarkets selling alcohol below cost price. And if pubs want to open late they will now have to contribute to policing costs ( a quarter of all police overtime is for policing late night drinking).
At last some sense. Since Labour introduced the new law we have experienced unprecedented levels of late night violence in our streets which local councils and the police have been powerless to control. Tony Blair in a fit of total naivety decided that if people could drink whenever they wanted to they would become sensible in their drinking habits - like the French. But history shows that whilst the French have always treated alcohol as just an adjunct to their excellent cuisine, the British have always been drunkards and unable to control their drinking. Letting them drink whenever they wanted to just made matters worse.
So good for Theresa May but it shouldn’t have required a change in Government to reverse this nonsense.
Tags: 24 hour drinking
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Jul 20th, 2010 by Oldfart
My friends are constantly sending me emails that circulate widely which clearly demonstrate that politicians and the chattering classes in this country are totally out of touch with how ordinary people feel on a range of issues.
The two latest to hit me are one on illegal immigrants and what an easy target this country is and the other on the way in which we go out of our way to respect muslims and the human rights of those amongst them accused of terrorism , whilst those same individuals care not a jot for the lives of the innocent people they would blow up.
Why is it that the perfectly valid views of so many people are consistently ignored? These are not extreme views but reasonable concerns. So why are they not listened to? Why do not politicians show a bit more respect for the wishes and concerns of those who elect them instead of going to extreme lengths of political correctness in dealing with issues like terrorism and immigration?
It is time we got tougher on the bad guys, those who do not respect our laws and values and laugh at us behind our backs. The former PM of Australia put it very succinctly on a number of occasions when dealing with such issues in his country. What is so wrong about tightening up on the abuses of the system by these people? It doesn’t make us all racist or intolerant to want a fair deal for those of us who respect our laws and pay our taxes.
Tags: immigrants, muslims, politicians
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Jul 18th, 2010 by Oldfart
Difficult to know what to choose from the Sunday Times today to get steamed up about or laugh at:
- There is the story of muslim bus drivers and/or their muslim passengers ejecting blind people and their guide dogs from buses - and taxis - because they think dogs are unclean (excuse me but whose country is this?)
- There are the astronomical pension/redundancy rights now evident in the public sector - specifically at senior levels in the BBC and the civil service (changed since I was there!)
- The Labour peers facing further enquiries into their outrageous expense claims.
- The memoirs of Andy Pandy that amazingly demonstrate the Labour Government was a nest of vipers and that the only person with any integrity and loyalty was guess who? (A man elected to represent the working class who hobnobed with the rich and famous and was obsessed by wealth.)
- Moats Facebook fan club - how sick is that?
- The C of E vicar leading the revolt against women bishops (And people wonder why the church has lost contact with people - this is 2010 and time to wake up and smell the coffee. Apparently it is something to do with Christ being a man. So is the bloke who delivers my milk but I am not making it an article of religious faith.)
- The squatting toilets that have been installed in the shopping centre at Rochdale after its bosses went on a ‘cultural awareness course’. (Bring back Thomas Crapper and the dark satanic mills!)
I would like to think I was making all this up but the sad fact about Britain today is that it is all absolutely true……..
Tags: Mandelson, Moat, muslims, women bishops
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Jul 16th, 2010 by Oldfart
One in five lie when they take a day off saying they are ill when they aren’t. So says a survey reported on BBC this morning. Instead of the work ethic we now have a sickie culture. Worse still BBC breakfast were hardly condemning the practice.
Even worse is that these people who should be working and making sure our investments grow are instead clogging up the motorways and shops on weekdays when they should be the preserve of old farts.
Time we brought back the work ethic and stopped making excuses. Then perhaps the economy would recover and business would look up. We have come a long way from the days when to be late was a disciplinary matter, leave alone not turning up at all. It also seems today that it is OK to lie about anything so long as you do not get caught. We really are occupying the moral low ground.
Tags: sickness at work
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Jul 14th, 2010 by Oldfart
The WI have gone so its safe to come out now - Henry the cat was terrified by a room full of women. In fact all our guests have now gone and we really have collapsed in an exhausted heap.
So now some local councillors have decided to award themselves pay rises way above inflation at the same time as the Government is showing leadership by taking a 5% cut. Councillors were supposed to do the work as their contribution to society; not as a way of making money. What planet are they living on? Don’t they watch the news?
Tags: pay rises for local councillors
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Jul 13th, 2010 by Oldfart
Family party was great on Sunday but we are exhausted. Too much to do. And today we have a coachload of WI women for tea from Mrs Old Fart’s former lodge. Think I will pretend to be the gardener.
Don’t knnow if you have been following the story of the youngsters encouraged by their parents to cycle to school as it would give them greater freedom and responsibility reported to social services for putting them in danger. Just the latest example of the cotton wool society wants us to wrap our children in. No wonder they grow up incapable of doing anything for themselves. At the age of 8 it was my task to look after my sister who was 6 when we walked a mile to school each day in open countryside. Nothing bad ever happened to us. Also from about this age I used to roam with my friends for miles across common land and get into all sorts of scrapes but the worst thing we got up to was a bit of scrumping.
Still I was so pleased to see that plain John Prescott has been made Baron Prescott of Kingston upon Hull. Great to see achievement and talent so richly rewarded. Not a trace of hypocracy as two jags takes his rightful place in society.
Tags: cycling to school, John Prescott
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Off to London today so guess it will be hot. Need to do a spot of ‘light repping’ as one of my so called friends calls it. Then the first of the family starts arriving for our family get together at the weekend. So should be good fun.
Interesting to see what all the current exercise on job/budget cuts in the public sector will lead to - departments have been told to prepare themselves for a cut of up to 40% in budgets and the unions are already taking up their positions along with the various lobby groups promising all kinds of dire consequences if the Government goes ahead.
What hopefully the Government is ensuring is that we get a ‘zero based’ budget approach where there is no simple incremental cut, but that a fundamental root and branch reveiw is taken of the services provided and whether they are still needed (or in the case of many introduced in the last 10 years, whether they ever were).
Already the whole atmosphere is so refreshing and at last there is a feeling that one is not talking to a Government that is not listening. I do so hope it all results in real change and a lessening of bureaucracy and meddling in our lives.
Tags: budget cuts, bureaucracy
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Interesting the drivel being spouted by the now Labour opposition about how tough it is going to be with the expenditure cuts being made. Seem to remember they were the ones who racked up all the spending knowing that they would have to make deep cuts after the election.
Personally I cannot wait to see some of the idle layabouts lose their benefits and have to go out to work. The number of people on incapacity benefits for example is a joke - the vast majority with nothing that you or I would class as limiting their ability to work.
Truth is the last government did their best to create a dependent society and crush individual initiative and personal responsibility. Everything will be all right just so long as you do what nanny state tells you. Oh the sense of freedom to have a government that is doing its best to roll back this dependency and get people off their backsides and forcing them to take responsibility for themselves.
Things are certainly looking up - unless you are Urban Eric that is.
Tags: benefit payments
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Jun 27th, 2010 by Oldfart
Research has revealed that women are better than blokes at recognising faces. I pointed this out to Mrs Old Fart but she insisted that there was no excuse for me failing to recognise her.
On a more positive note research has also shown that old farts - whilst we cannot remember what we had for breakfast - have very good long term memories and our experience enables us to take decisions and manage more effectively than the young’uns. So despite the BBC and most media companies being run by 22 year olds it seems us old farts could make a better fist of doing things (well lets face it anyone who wasn’t a left wing dyke could do a better job of running the BBC). Quite encouraging really except we do not want to work and would prefer to stay with our laid back lifestyles.
It also seems we blokes are catching up with the sheilas in terms of life expectancy which means they will have to put up with us for longer. So watch out for funny tastes in the cornflakes or the statistics might take a downturn…….
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