Isn't it shocking to read about the multitiple sclerosis sufferer who has been FORCED by the NHS to sleep in a chair for six years?

Lorraine Wolstenholme has not been able to get into bed since her local NHS trust banned nurses from lifting her out of her chair in case they were injured.  Mrs Wolstenholme, who is 5ft 3in and weighs less than nine stone, has been forced to sleep in a reclining chair her family bought for her. The case was revealed at the High Court yesterday, where Mrs Wolstenholme has lodged a judicial review against the local primary care trust and the council.  Mrs Wolstenholme, 51, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1995 and had been provided with nurses to lift her. But in June 2002 the Milton Keynes NHS Primary Care Trust withdrew the service because of health and safety legislation, saying three of its staff had been injured trying to lift the patient. (Bet they put in big claims) The trust said Mrs Wolstenholme's MS caused spasms which made her "hazardous" to its staff. 

This is lunacy. The poor woman has enough to deal with without the pc brigade ensuring that nurses will not lift her into bed where she can get proper rest. I say shame on the National Health Service Trust concerned.  Is THIS service "the envy of the world", really? 

It's just so predictable.  A confidential document prepared for the gathering of EU Finance Ministers in Brussels finds the "short-term" pay structure of modern capitalism has become deformed, causing firms to take on "excessive risk" without regard to the interests of stakeholders or society. While there is no concrete legislation on the table, ministers are eyeing curbs on stock options, bonuses and golden parachutes. The move is a clear sign that the EU noose is tightening on bankers, funds and corporate elites.

The EU is institutionally socialist and resents the concept that capitalism allows some people to make very large amounts of money. Instead it prefers the alternative of tightly regulating how much money people working in private enterprise can earn. The Finance Ministers who now plot to limit how business can function in Euroland demonstrate just how dangerous the Eurostate will become. We need out of it but our reliance on State Welfare is our Achilles heel, exactly as the politicians planned it to be. So instead I suggest that capitalism will become increasingly "regulated" and as a consequence, Euroland will watch in dismay as business moves away from it to those parts of the world which still encourage people to make profit.

You gotta love Gordon Brown - the man who stole our old age pensions.

You see for Gordon it's just not enough that he virtually single-handedly wrecked British pension provisions when he was Chancellor Prudence but now he has dreamed up a new plan that would take the form of a compulsory levy to force people to cover the cost of care home places in the last stages of their lives. The ageing tax is a central plank of a consultation launched by the Prime Minister in the face of a growing crisis over who should meet the bills for the care of the elderly. But the proposals raise the prospect of the modestly well-off having to pay twice. They include no guarantee of ending the hugely unpopular system which forces elderly people to sell their homes to meet care home bills and deny their children an inheritance. Instead, the consultation paper said, means tests will stay and working people who pay the planned tax will continue to meet the bills of those "in need" - many of whom have no savings or property because they have never worked or saved. Got that last bit? Yes, those who make no provision at all for their old age, and who choose not to work, will be funded by a double whammy tax onslaught on the going-to-work classes.  

It is understood that Soca is paralysed by a top-heavy management structure that has created rival fiefdoms. In addition to a chairman, director-general and ten-member board of directors, there are 31 deputy directors. The agency’s creaking computer systems,including intelligence databases, can only support limited numbers of users and many cannot share information with each other.  148 former police officers — many of whom were cherry-picked to join the unit — have retired or returned to policing, complaining of a lack of enforcement activity. A source said: “The experienced police officers are leaving in droves owing to management inefficiencies and incompetence and we are being left with a lot of very clever analysts and the like who wouldn’t know a Mr Big if he pulled out a gun and pointed it at their heads.”

 

There IS a problem with the British police. I believe it lies with the rise through the ranks of a bureaucratic management class which follows a quasi-political agenda in order to win patronage from the political elite. It is this tier of politically correct liberal-mined bureaucrats which has de-motivated Britain's many excellent and hard-working police officers who merely seek to do their job and track down criminals. As I have written before, I believe that many of our most senior Police Constables have forgotten what the purpose of the police force actually is. 

I see that Irish republican terrorists have exploded a car bomb just outside the town of Castlederg. 

The police officer who was driving the car concerned has been badly injured, though his injuries are not life-threatening, which is a small mercy.

Now then folks, let me say a few things here.

1. The very fact that the officer is a Roman Catholic means NOTHING to republican terrorists. The IRA specialised in killing and maiming any within the community it infested in order to prevail - remember the fate that befell young Roman Catholoc mother Jean McConville, whose only crime was to give comfort to a dying British soldier? The terror campaign was neve about religion as some pretend, it was about callous inhumanity.

2. There will be plenty arguing today that this bombing is the actions of a "tiny minority£ and that those who carried it out do not have "the support" of the wider nationalist community. I heard the exact same thing when the IRA was butchering those it disliked. It's pure spin. Terrorists always represent a tiny minority, the problem is when the majority sanitise the actions of the violent few

3. The IRA won its way into government by bombing and killing. Our society, largely, approves of this. Those who do not - such as myself - are veritable outcasts. As you sew, so shall ye reap. Reward terrorism and you get MORE terrorists, and the scum that planted this bomb are NO DIFFERENT to the same scum that authorised the Poppy Day Bombing (Martin McGuinness, we are informed) and the La Mon House hotel atrocity (Gerry Adams, if Peter Robinson is to believed).

The sad fact is that terrorism pays here in Northern Ireland. Welcome to the peace process and drive carefully. Pragmatism uber alles is the national motto and God help anyone who speaks up plainly against the institutionalising of terror.

First there was the devastating cyclone that hit Burma which may have killed over one million people. Now there is a huge earthquake that has devastated south-western China, killing thousands. In both instances, the governing tyrannies have shown a lack of will to allow "outsiders" onto their soil to help bring aid.  In essence they are prepared to sacrifice their own people in order to preserve their sovereignty. The question is; what should our response be?

The NGO's have been clamouring to gain access. Many foreign politicians have been demanding that Burma in particular allows help in. But the reality is that the Burmese dictators want to keep outside help OUT and unless we are prepared to invade then against their will then we must grant them their wish. I know it's not in vogue but we should stay out where we are not wanted.

'Britain enjoying the hottest May since 1772'

Unionism Decayed is essential reading for an outsider interested in Northern Ireland.  It is well written, but not a historical work and doesn't pretend to be a balanced discussion of the issues.  However, it does provide a window into the mind of a unionist, and such an opportunity is very rare on American shores.   The book is an attempt, like that of a salmon, is to swim against the rushing tide of what the author would call appeasement.  Mr. Vance is in a minority opinion, and that certainly will not stop him from arguing against what he sees is the decay ofthe Unionist political movement.     

The book offers real grievances held by the unionist community.  Mr. Vance notes correctly and often personally of the atrocities committed by the modern day IRA,  the double standard of media in the UK, the unapologetic opportunism exhibited by Sinn Fein, and the duplicity of many politicians.  To his credit he never excuses loyalist paramilitary groups, and condemns their acts with obvious sincerity.

The author mentions but does not dwell upon the unrequited love that exists between Unionists in Northern Irealnd and, ahem, the mainland.  The two main parties in the UK have their foolish moments, but neither is so self-destructive as to seriously attempt to organize in the tribal enclave that is Northern Ireland.  Unionism is the red headed (not red handed) stepchild that loves its mother, but doesn't really find that love returned.

Absent at times from the work, which seems at times stream of conscious cynicism, is the Vance wit known to readers of ATW.  One suspects the topic and the opportunity are too heartfelt for the author.  A shame, as humour deployed in a judicious manner can be very persuasive.  But the author is on a mission, and perhaps his tone is the correct one.

We meet politicians, large and small.  Most are dispatched as undeserving, unintelligent and unprincipled.  Suprise!  Mr. Vance was never a main player on the political stage, and his encounters with some of the movers and shakers reads like someone who got front row seats at a concert.  A nice chance to see Trimble and Paisley up close and personal, but little chance to engage them directly on the issues.   The heavyweights of the Unionist community come in for the strongest drubbing, disappointment being an understatement.  

The author sees the claim of the nationalist community as ludicrous, which is a difficult position to start from when a united Ireland has been and is the hope of millions of people.   The course of Irish History is left unexamined, and perhaps wisely so, as an objective analysis would undermine the work.  Also, the conflict is such that people will disagree as strongly over something that happened centuires ago as they would over something that happened yesterday.  The eternal irony of Unionist insistence on majority rule, which of course favors their position, is that it is based on one of history's great gerrymandering moments in which their majority was created.  A necessary moment for the creation of the Republic, but too often played down by the Unionist Community and hinders their understanding of their opposition.

The book is too coy in describing the Orange Order and its parades.  One thing the Orange Parade involving Drumcree was not, and that is a simple attempt to memorialize World War I dead.  The Orange Parades have always involved triumphal in your face intimidation of the Catholic population, and it serves neither history or the author's arguments to pretend otherwise.  Another issue I have is the failure to give credit where it is due in temrs of the actual peace.  True, the IRA and its hooligan element have never really gone away.  But they have been placed in check, the level of violence has gone down and there is a hope for the future that never existed before.

Too often, Irish-Americans heard one side of the story, and too often many in the Irish-American community held a view of the IRA that ranged from naive to morally complicit.  One of Mr. Vance's great accomplishments is to point out the details of the bombings, shootings and attacks, so it reads more like a human account with real victims, instead of an impersonal news item.  It is important to read works that set forth another view, especially on Northern Ireland, where so many enter the debate and never listen.  The Unionists are not going away.  Their homes and heritage are there.  They have a right to their opinion and a right to seek to maintain what to them is the proper political state.  Mr. Vance ends with a quote from the Prophet Jeremiah, after writing more like Job.  It is hopeful that the two communities look to their better angels, to develop a future where all might not live in agreement, but at least live in peace.     

Just to let ATW readers know that my new book, "Unionism Decayed" is reviewed in the Newsletter today in the Alex Kane column. If you rush out and buy it, you can check out what Alex has to say about it. Usually the column is on-line so I will link it for readers further afield in due course. It's an interesting review and all I will say at this stage is that I am glad not to be a pragmatist! Alex is a decent soul and always worth a read - he and I agree on many things though the state of Unionism is not one of them. And talking of reviews - has anyone out there managed to read the book yet, and if so, remember my offer to publish YOUR review also stands!

Shock horror - house prices in Northern Ireland are falling and will continue to do so for some time!

It's called the free market and it is what happens when supply exceeds demand. Too many overpriced properties, too expensive mortgages, increasing taxation, rising energy prices - I  mean who would have guessed this would happen?

Everywhere I look in Northern Ireland there are new houses and apartments going up. Some of this is entirely speculative, as property developers try to guess which way the market is going. Well folks, the market is going down for a while and that's the unpalatable truth that the political class and those with a vested interest in sustaining the property bubble (two groups not entirely unconnected btw...ahem) are going to have to face. In the final analysis, the market prevails. I reckon there will be some great bargains around in about 12 months time - who knows, I might even buy one then! But first, the heat has to subside...

It's a fruity disaster! Millions of pounds worth of soft fruit and vegetables are likely to be left to rot in fields this summer because of a shortage of foreign pickers caused by the falling value of the pound and new restrictions on the number of seasonal labourers allowed to enter Britain, farmers' leaders have warned. Oh no! If ONLY we just opened our borders to whoever fancied coming in then this strawberry apoclayse might be averted. 

Listen, this is a faux problem. There are PLENTY of people who can do this work - and guess what? - they already reside in Britain!They are the work-shy welfare parasites. Stop their benefits and hey presto - we will never want for Strawberries again. Now, if only this can be done in time for the Wimbledon fortnight!

Showing the set of priorities that now dominate our judicial and penal system, it is revealed that UK Prison bosses have been instructed to let pagan inmates keep twigs in their cells...to use as wands.

Officers have been told to allow prisoners to collect and decorate the twigs which they need for their rituals. It is the latest in a series of rulings to protect convicts' rights and ensure equality among different faiths. Followers of other faiths are allowed items such as a prayer mat to allow them to worship. The policy regarding pagans was announced by Justice Reform Minister Maria Eagle in a parliamentary answer.

What more need be said? It's a magical policy for sure. Prison is increasingly pointless, with the concept of punishment having been ameliorated to the point where it seems invisible. I could tell you what I think we should do with the Pagans twigs but no doubt the PC police would have me under incitement to hatred so I will merely leave that one to your imagination. 

Well, will wonders never cease!  Results from a recent poll: the majority of voters in Britain think that the “green” movement is, first and foremost, a means to raise taxes!

It looks like the Global Warming advocates will have to find another hobby horse to ride. The last 10 years show a definitive  global cooling trend;  much of the manipulative hysteria behind the Global Warming panic is rendered moot. Sometimes the globe warms up…and then the globe cools down! Who knew?!  :)

From the Independent:

More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.

The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes. 

 _{ht: Instapundit.com}

So, we ALL know that the IRA has embraced peace and should rightly be hailed as paragons of new age virtue. Only old rejectionist unionist curmudgeons like me think otherwise and naturally I am out of touch with what is going on with the new washes whiter than white IRA. Yes? 

Anyway...

" A Dublin man was charged with possession of explosives and membership of the IRA at a special sitting of the Special Criminal Court today. Noel Mooney (aged 29), Leo Fitzgerald House, Dublin 2, was charged with membership of an unlawful organisation, namely the IRA, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann on Thursday last. Mr Mooney was also charged with the unlawful possession of explosives, namely an improvised explosive device, at Sean Moore Park, Ringsend, Dublin 4, on the same date. Sergeant Robert Lackey told the court that he arrested Mr Mooney in Blackrock today and that he made no reply when cautioned."

I presume he was preparing for a radical peace mission when the police came a calling? Or maybe he was contemplating some extreme eco-tourism? You can expect to see this story downplayed by the usual suspects - if they don't report is, why it never happened.

Here's one from long ago that still sounds great..!.