Tony Blair

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I can't see black people queuing up to join the party - there was a bit of a kerfuffle about a Turk's membership IIRC. And what was that in their manifesto about non-white people being "permanent guests" and that all non-white people would be "voluntarily" asked to go back to their own countries?

Haha.

Seriously, though, I think their policy is to offer financial incentives to foreigners who are here and don't wish to be British to return home.

Sounds good to me.

I don't think they have a positition on Jews (why should they?). As for gays, I believe that their policy is that sexuality is best kept between consenting adults behind closed doors. Nothing wrong with that, either.

Im hoping the war crimes trials will catch up with both of them eventually ... not that they will but one can live in hope

Look back a hundred years ago and the british empire started wars for territory and didnt claim any other reason - "worried about the suez canal?" "no problem! lets just invade egypt and the sudan!" now they dress it up as something done due to abstract concepts such as freedom or this fake "war on terror".

If you havent seen it I recommend "the history of oil" a tv show done by robert newman - its educational and funny! all at the same time!

Its on google vids if you search for "robert+newman+history+of+oil"

I cant apologise enough that my second post on here is about blair and geo-politics ... I was hoping to not start looking like an anarchist nutter straight away.

And in the 1930s the Nazi's were swept to power under a campaign to kill all Jews and conquer Europe.

There will be a death camp in Milton Keynes if they get into power...

Here's the 2005 manifesto:

http://www.bnp.org.uk/candidates2005/manifesto/manifesto_abbrev.pdf

And the homepage:

http://www.bnp.org.uk/

If you take the trouble to read some of it, although you'll disagree with parts, I'm sure you'll find bits of it interesting. They do voice the concerns of a lot of lower-middle and working class people.

As for the socialist side of it, although I was a Telegraph-reading Tory up until recently, I do find the mix of nationalism and socialism interesting, though not necessarily workable in the economic climate of today. To be honest, although capitalism has given us a good period of wealth and prosperity it will not — indeed cannot — last forever. Also, I think much of the greed and selfishness I see in this country stems from capitalism US-style that we seem to be pursuing. Of course, there are other factors at work, too.

I heard it was Bradford...

He has done an awful lot for education though and the NHS; It has certainly improved quite a bit.
Although it can be argued that New Labour is more right wing than most people would like it to be.

Nope, thats the site of the Gender Identity Re-assignment Centre.

I stand corrected.

Tony Blair is one of the reasons that the Routemasters are nearly extinct. Both him and Livingstone should be locked up in Jail.

Gosh, here I am actually almost agreeing with a WP mod — how things have changed!

Personally, and call me old fashioned if you will, I'd like to see their heads impaled on pikes at London Bridge.

Drag them round Britain's streets. Maybe we could have a 'wee on Cherie Blair's decapitated head' competition?

Incorrect. I own and drive two Alfa Romeos and a Suzuki (the back up plan!). I'm not the world's best behaved driver, but I take responsibility for my own actions, rather than crying "It's not fair!" like a spoilt child.



I agree there can be mitigating circumstances, and I would challenge anything misleading in Court. Most drivers knowingly speed, though. And how many times have you actually informed the Police and the local authorities about a half-covered sign or badly designed junction? The Law also states that you should drive according to the conditions. So if you are somewhere new, where you're likely to get confused, you should drive slowly.



Why? How come driving is different from everything else? People in this country seem to think that they have a "right" to drive selfishly, a "right" to affordable petrol, a "right" to be able to see speed cameras from half a mile away. This is nonsense. The privaledge can be taken away if you persistently choose to break the laws which are there to keep everybody safe and equal (the same as any other law which forms a "social contract" i.e. giving up an element of one's freedom for the common good).

So, I suppose that's an admission that you've contravened the very laws you'd send others to prison for ignoring, or inadvertently not complying with? Penalties for infractions of legislation should be reasonable and proportionate. Sending someone to prison for inadvertently doing something that may cause no harm is neither.



Several times, actually. I've also taken the opportunity at such moments to remind them what a bunch of hypocritical money-grabbing scumbags they are. Note, I'm referring to the local authority, here, I wouldn't go saying that to Blair's gestapo, even if it was what I thought!



But that's not an adequate response. Your train of thought (I reckon) is based on the premise that a "safe" and "slow" speed are less than a speed limit. Many 20mph limits have sprung up all over the country thanks to a bunch of tree-hugging guardian-reading liberals with too much time on their hands wanting to get their share of the do-gooding action. Sometimes it's true that these speeds are sensible, but there's a stretch of road near me with such a limit that you can drive along on a Sunday mornimg without there being another living human being within 500 yards. I could drive at 40mph and the probability of me killing anyone would be a big fat zero. Yet, you'd send me to prison!

Oh, why do "safe" driving speeds come in 10mph increments? Can you tell me?

Obviously they don't, and so the logical conclusion is that a large number of people are prosecuted for purely bureaucratic reasons — nothing to do with safety at all — and you'd send them to bloody prison, too!



Driving should not be a privilege confered by the state. That thought disgusts me, especially as the state has contrived to make the ability to drive almost essential as far as earning a decent living is concerned for the people who live outside a city. We are not living in some bloody totalitarian society here, I'm a free born Englishman not some Johnny-come-lately foreigner just off the banana boat. If you want to make the roads safer you should ban all those Eastern Europeans — that can't even read most of our road signs — who are over here from using them.

However, I agree that people who continue to drive dangerously should be punished, and their licences revoked if necessary. That's different, I think, than saying driving is a privilege. A privilege (to my way of thinking) implies that the state can arbitrarily revoke a driving licence. The system where everybody has to pass the same test, and forfeits their licence as a direct consequence of reckless behaviour does not mean that it is a privilege, but a right available to everyone under the same terms.

Anyway, going back to stuff that comes to mind with regard to your punishments of motorists theme, I'll add that I think we've become ridiculously obsessed in this country with safety in general. We have the safest roads in the World, yet people still wish to impose more and more ill-conceived legislation, and increasingly disproportionate punishment. There's something called the law of diminshing returns, and it's very relevant to motoring legislation. It's something the do-gooders conveniently ignore. The upshot of considering this is that you realise that to reduce the current annual 3000 death toll by, say, 50% would be virtually impossible. In fact, going to the extreme, even if we all went around on pushbikes, and employed summary execution of those going more than 30mph downhill, there'd still be a death toll of several hundred (ontop of the executions), I reckon. We could go back a century and each employ a chap with a red flag to walk in front our car, but people would still die.

The trouble is that the state has continually mollycoddled us and so led us to believe that life can be risk free. A life worth living always has the risk of death. I'd rather accept my chances on the road as they are, and enjoy the freedom to drive around the country making the most of my time on this planet without the thought of being locked up and losing everything, than submit to the oppression of the safety zealots.

I haven't jumped a red light, as it happens. That's because, despite being an idealist in your eyes, I don't approach traffic lights expecting them to stay green, and I do think about the mess I'd cause if I hit a pedestrian or another vehicle through my stupidity. And anyway, where exactly did I say I wouldn't apply such a law to myself? That's my whole point: we all know the rules (or at least we should), so we should take the flak for disobeying them. Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.

Your argument against punishment is seriously flawed by the premise that most driving offences are completely accidental. Yeah... right.



Speed limits are, by nature, generalisations. Unless you want to come up with some amazingly complex and expensive system for setting speed limits via a head-up display in each car, based on the vehicle, road conditions, traffic density, proximity to housing, psychological profile of the driver, load etc.. (which could be slightly bureaucratic, could it not?), you're going to have to poke up with the current system with its 10mph increments. You're making a mistake which the majority of drivers make - they assume that they are superior to the Law, which therefore applies to everybody except themselves. Wrong.

And yes, if you broke the limit on the road you mention, I'd quite happily penalise your stupidity in breaking a limit you knew to exist. That's your choice, but don't expect any sympathy when you get caught. If the limit appears daft, I'd be in total agreement with any efforts you made to have it changed, but that's slightly different.

The state can take away your licence if you behave like an idiot. Treat other motorists with respect and obey the law, and you can keep driving. Simple. The fact that the law is an ass sometimes is a separate issue - the fact is, we have to live within the system as it stands while we attempt to change it for the better. Knowingly break the law: risk the consequences. That's the way life works.


Hmm.. why d'you think that is, then? Could it be anything to do with the legislation we have? Just a thought.


I have no objection whatsoever to you dying on the road. I just don't want you thinking you have some sort of God-given right to take out somebody else's son or daughter at the same time. 3,000 deaths a year is still way too many.

This is not to say that I agree with excess bureaucracy, because I hate it. There are schemes at the moment to improve safety by REMOVING road signs etc. because it has been found that drivers are much more careful when they feel vulnerable. That's why town centre streets are made deliberately narrow now, because it makes them more worrying to drive down and so people slow down. Same with roads without markings - ever noticed how people slow down when they're not sure how much of the road is actually "theirs"? Perhaps there is a solution here which appeals to both of us.

But you've exceeded a speed limit? To be honest, anyone who drives and says they haven't is a liar.



So, you'd be happy to go to prison for exceeding a speed limit, or if you misjudged a light? You'd be locked-up, no way to pay your mortgage, no way to earn a living, and you'd find that acceptable? You'd possibly lose everything, and that would be just fine and dandy because you made one stupid mistake?

I don't think so!


The point is that I get no choice. The government is continually bringing in more and more legislation that just punishes ordinary people going about their business. I can leave my house, park my car up somewhere and come back to find it's been broken into. When I finally get home I may find my house has been burgled. But you'll not even get a policeman visit. Nobody's interested unless you're committing some minor offence in your car.


That's completely inaccurate. I've stated that reckless behaviour needs to be punished. My point is that many offences are completely inadvertent; not all, but many. It's not reasonable or proportionate to send people to prison under those circumstances — and that's what you've stated you believe should happen.


No, I'm not making any mistake. I'm just pointing out the facts: speed limits come in 10mph increments. The laws of physics don't work like that, therefore neither can "safe" driving speeds. So, that means that as you'd like to send people to prison for breaking speed limits, then you're happy to do so just for technically breaking a law, rather than potentially causing any harm. Fining people is one thing, sending them to prison is a completely different kettle of fish. If that's the sort of system you're proposing then I'd contend that ethically I was superior to that law, and those who drafted, and policed it. Any government that takes that position in this country will have stepped over a line that makes them oppressors. They will suffer the consequences, I hope.


We had that up to about 10 years ago, they were called traffic police officers, I think. They used a wonderful piece of equipment called the human brain, exercising their own judgment according to the conditions prevailing! You see, in the good old days if it was a dry, clear day, and the M4 was nearly empty, you could drive from Bristol to London at 85mph and they'd just ignore you. Of course, if conditions deteriorated they'd quite rightly pull you over and issue a ticket.

Yes, speed limits are generalisations, but you shouldn't summarily convict a person for something they'll go to prison for using a criterion that is arrived at by generalisation. That does offend most peoples sense of fair play.

So, you'd still send someone to prison for going through a red light or speeding?

Btw, I do stick to speed limits, even if they are ridiculously low. I suffer the consequences, too, being tailgated by every gormless fuck-faced half-wit that's ever owned a Vauxhall Nova.