Inner turmoil

Quoted from an article in the Financial Times by Philip Blond conservative special advisor.

“Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic are narrowing opportunity, concentrating wealth and protecting monopoly interests. The centre right has almost ceased to do majority politics. It defines national interest in terms of the already powerful and increasingly abandons the middle and lower classes to their fate. They are persuaded by past fictions that what is in the interest of the winners percolates to those below them. In short, conservatives are unknowingly creating an oligarchy, one which will make us all plebs. By following the interests of a vested minority, conservatives may not win a general election for years. Of course, this is not conservative intention or wish but the rhetoric should not conceal the reality.”

The right wing of the conservative party is in a mess. Something has gone horribly wrong!

Strong talking

The Prime minister David Cameron has addressed the United Nations and the main topic was Syria.

He has spoken very strongly about the current situation and without naming names, pointed the finger at certain countries that have held back from condemning the Assad regime.


Four months ago I said this, my opinion has not changed and the civil war is still raging and there does not seem to be an end in sight...

http://caldariborderzone.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/syria.html

8 years

Abu Hamza and others are to be sent to America to stand trial.

This man had a public platform in Britain where he spread the word of terror. It took far too long to stop this man speaking probably because of the freedom of speech act. However, that does not excuse the length of time it took the British secret service to act.

And according to Frank Gardener on the Today programme even the Queen wrote to the home secretary asking why this man had not been arrested for behaving in such a dreadful way!

The question that still needs to be answered is why has it taken 8 years?

Lib Dems in Brighton

Vince Cable announces Business Bank.

Run professionally and at arms-length from Whitehall, it will not lend directly but act as a wholesale institution funding via small new banks and "non-bank" bodies.

If I've got this right, a government department will act as a bank and lend to banks at preferential rates, then the banks will lend to business as before. How exactly is this going to help the economy?


Quote of the day!

For the next two years Britain is a two-party system, and the Lib Dems are one of them.
[Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president.]

More apologies than policies

This morning Andrew Mitchell has reiterated last weeks apology to a Police Officer.

He is till refusing to deny that he used the word pleb to describe people below him generally, which can only mean he did and is not prepared to lie.

Now he should go...

What's the Square Root of Stupid?

I applied for a job to upgrade an antiquated legacy system to modern technology. This is in my remit and something I have done for the last twelve years as an infrastructure architect.

I expected all sorts of "How-would-you xxx?" type questions, but not like this!

Interviewer: How would you calculate a square root using java?
Me: Math.sqrt(double)

I: What if there was no square root function?
M: I would Google for John Carmack's formula to calculate it.

I: What if you could not use Google?
M: Assuming you mean no access to the internet, since I do not happen to know how to calculate a square root, I'd ask someone...

I: What if there were nobody to ask?
M: I am not a maths expert; I would go to the library and get a book on how to do it.

I: What if there were no libraries?
M: Ok, so you want me to come up with a formula I have told you I do not know, in the next 10 seconds, without access to any of the usual reference sources?


I thanked him for his time and got up to leave when the interviewer said "we're not through".

I pointed out that he knew nothing of my skills, but I now knew everything I needed to know about him, that he had failed the interview, that he had wasted enough of my time, and left.

Old debate back at the top

Two police officers [Fiona Bone, and Nicola Hughes] have been killed in Manchester in an incident involving guns and a grenade. A very sad day.

Nearly instantly the question of arming the bobby on the street has risen again.

I have to say straight away that I totally disagree with this idea unreservedly.

Robert Peel, the man given the credit for beginning the Police Force had 9 principles, I won't list them all but the important one for this discussion is:-

7.Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

That statement says it all, we should not arm the bobby on the beat.

One issue that has arisen from the shooting in Manchester that has surprised me is the fact that there was a ransom of £50,000.00 for the last month on the person concerned in this incident and "NOT ONE PERSON FROM THE COMMUNITY" has come forward!

This is what has to change, the attitude of the public, and we need to go back to not only reporting crimes but we should be reporting criminals...