I'm not sure if you know Mr Reader but Gordon Brown is making off with your wallet.

I was planning on rambling on about poor Myleen Klass today. She recently had some guys peering through her window at mid night when only she and her daughter were home. She waved a knife at them and they left. Nothing wrong with that, until the police came around and told her off for possessing an offensive weapon.

But the thing is it is a bit too obvious. Everyone knows that a woman at home having people considering breaking into their house should be able to use most means available to scare away the intruders, and when no one is hurt in anyway they certainly should be told off for it.

All this is straight forward though, and there is something a lot more important that has come into view. It is not more important as such, but it is less obvious.

I have recently read about Labour taking money from the government foreign aid budget and giving it to the TUC.

Let me put that plainly, Labour is taking money earmarked for Orphans starving in Africa and giving it to the Trade Unions, who, pay large amounts of money to Labour.

I don't mean Labour as in the government either, I mean as a political party. Labour is taking tax that would/should/could be spent on schools hospitals and infrastructure and they are paying it into their own party bank account (indirectly).

So tax is being spent on keeping labour in power, propaganda and so on. If you are a UK citizen you are paying money to brain wash yourself that Labour aren't an incompetent bunch of morons. Why you ask?

Well it is also in the news that Labour as a party (not as a government) is all but bankrupt. They have massive debts and there is no chance of money coming in. So they are either going to go bust or use their dying moments in government to embezzle money out of the public to keep themselves afloat.

Apparently 'Jim, they're gone for door number 2!!'

Now if you're British the standard reaction you will be having now is one where you say 'typical' or 'no surprise there then!' But I resent this response even if it is wholly and completely British in nature. It is typical for a government to renege on its promises, it may be typical for the government to be less than forthcoming with the truth. But I'm sorry when they start committing out right fraud the response should not be 'no surprise there then' but rather, 'lock the cheating fraudsters up!'

We went mental when the MP's claimed for a duck island or two, we Brit's went mad when they claimed expenses for having their huge gardens tended (which technically was perfectly within the rules) but now that they are paying their supporters millions to keep themselves afloat it hardly makes the headlines. That is a bit backward.

All I can hope is this, David Cameron (leader of the Conservatives, the opposition) will hopefully make a big point out of this. Elect labour and money will be embezzled from you under the pretense of being given to the poor and then given to those who line the pockets of New Labour.... when I think about it is makes the people who were going to rob Myleens house look almost open and honest!

We'd like a carbon neutral flying train please.

While I'm on the environmentalist war path I will just briefly continue with another point.

Lord Adonis recently hyped up a new train track that would take high speed trains from London to the North of England.

Now you're probably expecting me to slate it and say that the government is incompetent and they should have done bla bla bla. But no, I'm not.

Frankly I think it is an excellent idea. Lord Adonis, far from being a stuck up pretentious prat who has never done a day of hard work in his life is actually the son of a Greek Cypriot immigrant and through his own talent, skill, hard work and blessing (a LEA grant) manged to get himself to Keable College Oxford. As such he has my respect. But that isn't a reason for endorsing his idea. No, that just comes from good sense.

What wasn't impressive was the title the Times went with when reporting the storey. It ran with how it was going to cut up the countryside and as a result the world would be a worse place (I paraphrase).

Now let me just check, what are we meant to do? If we drive out nice luxury saloon from London to the North the Greens will consider us the spawn or all that is evil. If we try to build a train that can get us there quickly and efficiently (rather than using the 18th century relic we have at the moment) then we're cutting up the countryside. And if we fly over the country side so that there is no need for either new roads or new tracks then we are supporting those evil air transport companies who so cruelly provide fast, cheap (essentially public) transport and skilled jobs for pilots and air craft control.

So the strong clear message here is stay in your homes and don't leave... especially if you live on a hill, if you do walking back your heart rate will increase and that will cause you to increase the CO2 you're producing.

It is time to face facts; people need to travel, get over it! The sooner people do get over it and accept that modern life necessitates travel then the sooner we can start focusing on which type is best so we can plough a fat wod of cash into it and make it work properly. If it is trains then great, planes great, small light cars, whatever I don't care. Just quit whining about it and get one with it. All this complaining is just pointless, besides getting stressed increases your heart rate and that increases the amount of carbon you're wasting. So shut up and calm down. Thanks.

We invented the train and yet at the moment with all the complaining the Chinese are making much better trains than we are! A few years ago they were on horse and cart and now they are travelling at 200mph in a train. We, mean while, are moaning because the new train track will have to be built within 500 miles of our house. Oh and in case you're wondering I live about 500m from a railway line and I have never once cared in my life, excluding the times I would specifically watch the trains go by when I was young.

Lots of light bulbs but not bright idea

NPower has just shipped out a ba-gillion energy efficient light bulbs, free of charge without request to its customers.

It has done this because a ban has just been implemented where unsolicited light bulbs are no longer allowed.
Why is it so desperate to give away light bulbs in the first place you ask?
Well there are regulations that the government has given out saying that the energy companies have to pay to make us all more carbon efficient and giving out bulbs like they are going out of fashion is a cheap way to do this.
The problem is that some peoples light aren't going to fit the bulbs and so they are just going to be wasted.
So to break it down to cut down waste they are producing more waste.

Don't get me wrong I don't think that it is a bad idea over all. Even if people don't need them immediately, only an idiot would throw them out. Therefore they will get used eventually, but this whole scheme shows just how unimaginative the companies and governments are being about all this.

They are pledging to cut carbon and they are are trying to do so by getting people to use less, less products, less food, less meat, less electricity, less petrol and so on. There are two problems with this:
1. This sort of change will only shave small amounts of carbon off our usage, if there were big savings to be made, chances are it would have been done already.
2. It goes against the whole character of the modern world.

Allow me to elaborate the second point.

The world is based on more, not less. Problems are solved by more and new, rarely are they solved with old and less.
There is good reason for this being the case. Lets take nuclear weapons as an example. There were lots of protests for nuclear disarmament in the last century. No one listened and a lot of people wasted their time. I'm sorry to say this but if you were in such a protest, you obviously didn't think that far ahead.

Once nuclear weapons were invented, they couldn't be 'uninvented'. If everyone instantly listened to the berks who were protesting it wouldn't have 'uninvented' the bomb. In fact it would probably have the reverse effect.

Once the US had the bomb Russia had to get it in order to be on a level playing field, but that was all. But essentially it was just a deterrent, no one would use it, because if they did they would have several coming their way too.

If the US burned all its papers and everyone gave up their bombs then that would give some real psychopath (read N Korea/Iran/Iraq/Libya) a real reason to make the bomb, because they would be the ONLY people to have it and therefore they would actually be in a position to use it.
Even if there was an international convention that everyone agreed to not to use nuclear weapons, the type of person who wants to blow millions of people into the next life, isn't the type of person who cares much for international conventions. As soon as the bomb was on the scene it was here to stay, the only thing which was more of a deterrent was more sophisticated bombs, or new anti missile technology. New, not old, more not less.

Now lets apply this to carbon. It is the same. If you shave off 5% of your carbon at a cost of £8Bn it means nothing because China is gong to increase their carbon by ten times as much and they are then going to make money from it. This means that those who care get weaker and those who don't get stronger.

The more restraints you put on your industries the more expensive they become and the better the prices of a Chinese factory look in comparison. Whatever you cut out, someone else will expand to fill the gap.

So essentially I'm saying sure having something that 5% more efficient is good, but it isn't going to save the world. And cutting things out altogether just make you poor as a country and as such you just lose influence... and with that goes your chance to change the rest of the world... which by the way, unless you're American or Chinese, is the bit that counts when it comes to carbon.

So then, how does my more and new policy work?

Simple instead of piddling into the wind by making energy companies buy you light bulbs (which by the way they are allowed to increase their charges for, so it is forcing you to buy them rather that getting anything for free in reality) they should be made to spent 10-25% of their profits on covering the sub Sahara in trees or solar panels. Either one, I don't care. Trees will taking carbon on a massive scale for the rest of time. Solar panels will give us free energy. We will have MORE energy and new technology can make it more and more efficient. I don't know how many panels £100m gets you but I bet it is a decent amount.

Instead of becoming weaker because some moron is complaining about air travel, you country because stronger because you can manufacture the panels in your own company giving you more new jobs.

Or you get more new jobs planting trees, heck you could even run a gap year program where unemployed 18-25 olds spend their time baking next to a pool and planting trees (while not getting paid obviously). Good for bored unemployed, good for the environment.

The idea of less, just cripples an economy, decreases employment and standard of life. More energy production from new methods increases jobs, provides free energy and thus makes countries more efficient and increases the standard of life. Hippies, I hope you're listening.

Labour: keeping the working class where it is!

First of all a very Merry Christ-mas to you all!

There is so much to write about at the moment I don't know where to begin.

Maybe I'll split it into two?

First stop, Gordon Brown has decided to cut funding to Universities. This is highly amusing and yet altogether quite annoying. It is amusing because it shows just what a load of idiots run Labour. Even if your a labour supporter I'll explain why. If you support Labour you probably do so because you are a 'working man' or consider yourself 'working class'. Amusingly though Labours ruining... er I mean running of the Universities has done everything it can to screw the working man. It has made class mobility more difficult.

Lets consider a simple example to show this. You are 'Dave Smith' your mother is a hairdresser and your father works in a factory, there you go, that is working class (if a bit stereotypical, but that doesn't matter). I've worked in a factory and I know the wages are between about 6k (part time) and 14k per year generally. So lets say Dave's father earns 12k (full time). Dave's mother earns 6k because she doesn't have the time to do anymore (this is well below the quoted average on mysalary.co.uk.) So together they earn 18k. I could say they earn more but that would just make this even easier.

You Dave, are a genius, I mean you are amazing. You are so good that given the chance you would cure cancer, stop the destruction of the rain forest and cause crops to grow in the Sahara ending world hunger. But first you need to get to University.

Under the Tories you would have got a grant gone on to University got a good degree from a good University and then probably got a job and saved the world.

Under Labour, you don't get a grant you get tuition fees, big ones. Much more that a low income family could afford to pay. Even if you could afford it (or didn't mind risking everything on your debt) when you finished Uni (probably a lower Uni since the higher ones can often be more expensive) thanks to labour everyone has a degree, and so you're less distinguished and less likely to get a job. Presumably when everyone has good CVs you have to revert to good old nepotism to cut the pack. Which doesn't favour old 'Davey boy' now does it?

Essentially what Labour has done is tried to get 50% of the population in University, not think about whether it will actually help them, the economy or whether they are actually up to it.

You're not meant to say it (I'm told) but how do you know that 50% of the population is up to going to University? If they are surely they will manage on their own and if they are not surely they will just end up doing pointless degrees that are too easy, have no application, devalue degrees generally and worst of all waste 3 years and several thousand pounds when they could have been doing something useful?

And don't think I'm down on people who aren't 'academics'. As far as I'm concerned having a degree doesn't make you a better person. It is no mark of superiority over someone who just an academic type. After all thanks to this wonderful policy the UK is having to import all their plumbers because we don't have any of our own. No we don't Gordon, because all the people who would make excellent plumbers are doing a film studies degree!

But now the government has decided to cut the Universities budget. Which is great, I believe the phrase needed here regards a rug being swept from beneath ones feet?

Meanwhile the Universities are told not to let this effect their teaching. Presumably they should also try pulling rabbits out of hats and if that works working on a source of perpetual energy! Everyone knows that academics aren't that well paid in Universities anyway. They are there for a labour of love not because they want to hit 80k per year as soon as possible. Where is the space for cuts?

Still at least in all this we can be happy that the working man has benefited from it all... oh now wait, I've already covered that.

Maybe Labours next slogan should be "Labour; keeping our foot on the working class"

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A couple of facts about Universities

- Fees are set to rise... again
- Household income required to be gov' funded through University <£16,00
- Minimum wage of a house with two full time adult parents £22,000
(so the only people realistically who will get funded have unemployed parents)
- Minimum wage before you have to pay back your loans £15,000
(this is at any point in your life, so if you're 55 and you start earning £16,000
for the first time in your life you will have your loans and a life time of interest
to pay off).

Copenhagen is falling apart, oh dear...

Copenhagen is falling/has fallen apart apparently.

Gutted.

I really thought that for a moment the world would be united in its fight against a common enemy and they humanity would reach out and join together to take a sweeping blow against this powerful foe.

Actually that is codswallop. I didn't think that at all.

But let me explain why:

Lets be honest, climate change is an interesting problem. Most interesting of course because in reality we have no idea whether is anything to do with us and arguably whether it is even happening at all.
No I know that this is heresy to most people and as a result I should be burned at the stake, ok not burned that would release more CO2, they think I'd need to be topped using organically grown cyanide. But let me explain how someone who has done little to no research can be pretty sure we have no idea:
how long have we had the ability to record the temperature of the world accurately? 10 years? 15? 20? 30? It is undoubtedly under 50 years because the first man made satellite was in space in 1957, and that wasn't checking temperatures, it was doing nothing but sending out a ping every now and again to say it had made it.

That means we have a tiny amount of time where we are actually aware of what changes are being made. This means that we have no idea what is going on at all. Imagine measuring my height changes between the ages of 15 and 18. That is three years out of a probable 75. This is more of my age than 40 years is of the earths age. But imagine the conclusions you would have if you made assumptions based on those 3 years of my life. It would mean I'd be 70ft tall by the time I'm 75, it would mean that would expect to be shaving the palms of my hands by 25.

Having a tiny amount of information about the worlds temperatures and drawing conclusions from it is tantamount to making a guess.

That is not to say that I think it isn't happening. I would be a fool to explain that we don't know anything and then draw from that that everything is fine. It just means we don't have the slightest clue.

Next is the small detail that people don't like, the worlds temperature has been falling for the last ten years. Is this conclusive? No, of course not, haven't you been listening to what I just said about short periods of time? What does it mean? Once again, we have no idea what is going on.

Then we get on to what we do know. What we do know is that every human being is liable to use what they know to help their own ends. I'm not saying everyone does do this, but this should always be taken as a possibility.

So why would the world politicians jump on to this? Well everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. It is a drug that gets you addicted and them kills you. However when this was discovered, it had already taken off and everyone was already smoking. This gave the government something wonderful. A cash cow. Every year for years more tax has been added to the cost of tobacco, and alcohol. The government doesn't even need to both justifying itself anymore. It say does it. The fact is smoking is evil and therefore should be taxed to 'help people give up'. Except the government doesn't really care if you give up, on the one hand you'll cost them more via the NHS but in the short term (which is all a present government will care about) it gives you lots of revenue.

But we in the UK have 'big government' which is a nice way of saying the government loves spending our money and thinks it does a better job of it than we do. Which is why it gives money to companies to teach 14 year old joy riders how to drive so that when they steal cars they drive them safely (I kid you not) and they offer Iraqi families £150,000 to go home because it is cheaper than them staying here and being entitled to all the benefits. Neither of these examples come from any paper I've read, they have come from people who were involved or close to those involved.

This means a couple of pence on fags (that is cigarettes not the pejorative term for homosexuals for any Americans out there) and booze just isn't going to pay the bills. Then the knight in shining armour arrives! CLIMATE CHANGE!

Hurrrrah! Now everything is evil and so everything can be taxed until we're penniless!
Everyone who does anything ever, anyone who is useful to society in anyway needs a car (unless you live in London where you can survive without one). If you leave your house anywhere outside the M25 London ring road you are going to need four wheels to get about. The government now has a licence to tax this as much as it wants.
Petrol? Tax it
Roads? Tax them
Cars? Tax them too
Cooking oil (which is carbon neutral when used in a diesel engine) Tax that too!

If people moan because you are taking away what they have worked hard to obtain, just tell them that it is for their own good! You have an excuse now. When they say they need their cars to work, tell them that they need to use more public transport. Public transport isn't a viable alternative (you know that, MP's work in London, the one place they could actually use public transport and they of course have several driven cars to take them around to where they need to go) but who cares about the fact it doesn't work, but it sounds like you have an answer and a 'good' reason for taking people's money off them.

But why stop at cars? Tax flights too! Pretty much anything you like really because at some stage everything has to be transported by something with an engine.

Am I just being cynical though? Well lets think about what actually causes global warming. Releasing CO2. Now just lowering the amount of CO2 we make surely won't make much of a difference because the same effect will be achieved just over a longer period of time. Unless all the trees absorb the lower amount of CO2 being produced... which leads me on to my point. If the gov really give a crap about it why aren't they planting trees?

This is cheap (I bet you could even rope some people into doing it for free if they really care about this stuff) and it would have much greater impact over the years because it would suck in all the CO2 which is being made, taking it straight out of the atmosphere. It would be really pretty too! There are many areas of the UK (and I'm sure every other nation) that cannot be farmed because they are inaccessible or the soil isn't of the right quality. Most of these places used to have trees on them until our ancestors cut them down for various reasons. In fact North Africa was wooded until the Romans arrived. Now if the government really cared about these sorts of things they could easily start afforesting the moors and other grounds.

It would probably increase the tourism in the area and for years to come it would act to absorb tons of CO2 every month. When successful this could be implemented over all of Europe and most of the world.

Of course the government isn't going to do this. You see, you can't tax trees. You can't fly to Denmark drink some good wine argue 'for your cause' and then come home and make money taxing businesses by planting trees and actually helping the environment. All you do is... well help the environment; and what government cares about that?

eBay: One Madrid Sewer system; unused

Just got back from Madrid, Spain, lovely place, beautiful architechture. It has great tasting food and the people are quite charming.

I few observations however:

1. Everyone smokes.
Really now, I think if Spain wanted to cut its carbon foot print just stop people smoking. The inner city is easy to get around and there isn't much congestion so they won't have much of a carbon foot print through cars. Smoking however must constitute most of their emissions! Whatever it is they smoke also smells about ten times as strong as what they have in the UK, it smells like pipe tobacco. Lovely... I also think maybe this ties in with number 2 which is:

2. Everyone is about 6" shorter than me.
Is this to do with genetics or smoking or something else? I don't know. What I do know is that wondering around I was about 6" taller than the average male. Back in the UK I'm about 2/3" taller but over there I was a giant.

3. The Madrid sewer system is presumably superfluous.
I don't know how any Spaniard has ever passed a single stool. For breakfast they have coffee. For lunch they have great tasting food, but none of it, really contains any fibre! The ratio of bread, rice etc to meat and cheese was about 60/40 meat. The result; great tasting food, and presumably a completely unused sewer system.

4. Very few people actually speak English... or should I say hable inglés.
This isn't a criticism, it is just an observation. I am sure that many have gone to Barcelona and found that everyone speaks English and expects Madrid to be the same. It isn't. Not even slightly. However, I actually prefer this to an extent. It forces me to get off my lazy English speaking back end and learn some of the lingo. It also means I know the magic of instantly, without thought, rememebering; 'one minute, please' when the cleaner starts walking into your room while you're still naked.

5. La Finca de Susana, if you're in Madrid and you can get to it, go.
Restaurant opening time 8:30, time I arrived 8:32... just managed to catch the last tables before it was full. Passing the next day twenty minutes before the place opened, there was a quene stretching down the street. This queue was there for good reason. When you can eat a stunning veal steak for under €10 and a bottle of wine costs the same as a glass over here in the UK you can hardly believe you're eyes. All this in a capital city. Can you imagine having a bill for two people come to about £35 in London? A bill for one maybe... Oh and it tasted ambrosial, just in case you were wondering.

6. Freemarket capitalists, they are not.
I was on my way to park Retiro when I couldn't cross a road. Unfortunately 200,000 people had turned out to support the workers Union the OOCC. At first this was all very interesting and a bit like a festival. There were lots of people drums and banners. Things seemed less friendly with the helicopters flying over head all the time and someone setting off fireworks that sounded like bombs going off. While I took the opportunity to pick up a leaflet and read about the protection of public jobs and so on, strangely I didn't take the time to explain to the crowd the benefits of free market capitalism. Strangely I didn't think it was the ideal time, unless I was in the mood for taking on 200,000 Spaniards in a Matrix revolutions tyle fight. Although one does see a strong correlationg between countries with economies that could do with a bit of a kick and a strong socialist contingent. I mean even before the recession Spain had 10% enemployment and so it isn't a surprise that people aren't happy about it. Although I am not sure what they think socialism is going to do for them.

7. The weather man was wrong.
One day of sunshine and the rest cloudy... that is what you think Mr Weatherman...

New York, New York!

I am thinking I should fly to New York with British Airways. After all they are the best airline in the world, and since they are losing money I may not get too many chances to use them again. First class maybe? It would be a nice way to arrive at the beginning of a new chapter living on the other side of the pond.

Now I'm pretty patriotic, so why am I talking about moving state-side. Well this comes with the news that the newly appointed economic minister for the EU is French. Why then is this a reason for me to consider a flat (or should I say apartment) in Manhattan. Well, the new economic minister of the EU is French, this means that the UK is quite possibly screwed.

The problem with this is rooted the the differences between the French and British economy. They are completely different. The French economy is based on government protectionism, a strong leaning towards socialism and of course the desire to strike every five minutes. The French don't seem particularly bothered that their economy is accepted a stagnant. But they why would you when you can stay up until 6 in the morning on warm nights in the South of France sipping an espresso watching the moon light reflect off the sea...

Where was I? Oh yes. So essentially the French economy is stagnant and the government protects it as best as it can from competition from other nations (eg CAP). As a friend of mine from Notts once said 'if you want to get on the good side of French people rememeber how to say "I love to strike".

In contrast the UK has a completely different work ethic. In the provinces, sure, life is quite laid back, you go to work at your customer telephone helpline from 9 until 5 and then you come home and enjoy your life. But that isn't the case in London. London is the free market on cocaine (sometimes literally). If you live in London the next deal/case/contract is your next breath, if you miss it you're going to die. I would say in London people eat and sleep work but that would be misleading, it would imply that they get to sleep occasionally. In London once you've worked for a week with 4 hours of sleep each night to close a contract, you don't finish and then sleep for the next two days, you hit the clubs with your fellow workers and stay awake for another 24 hours, just for the fun of it.

As a result London wages are substantially higher than everywhere else in the UK. Deservedly so too. But the real heart of London, the beating heart of the UK economy is finance. Without it would would have a deficit so big we'd be... well the United States (jk). We don't make anything in the UK after all. We don't do cars (not outside of F1 racing anyway). We don't make ships. We don't make most of the things with a high value, we just make money. This works very well for us and as a result we are the country of finance. We have two rivals (New York and Hong Kong) but we are on the top of the pile. Well, we are right now.

But now we are going to have a man making our regulations who was brought up in a French economy. This will mean that he will want strong regulation for more stability and less profit.
The thing is 'less profit' rings in a bank managers ears like the trumpet of the horsemen of the Apocalypse. It will cause any bank directors hairs to stand on end. They will have a shiver down their spine like the coldest ice and then after being planted on the spot for 10 minutes without a single movement they will reach for their phones call their board and tell them they are moving to New York or Hong Kong, or hades, whichever one has the lowest income tax.

This the French won't care about because they have no banks to lose anyway. Britain on the the other hand have a lot to lose.

So what can be done. Well what should have happened in the first place is that the democratically elected representatives of the British people should have done what they are mean to and represent the people! This would mean that we wouldn't have the Lisbon Treaty in the first place and we wouldn't have to care about Michel Barnier or Sarkozy or anyone else for that matter. But then 'politicians do know best' don't they?

Anyway, I'm focusing too much on the past, to the future!

What is going to happen now? Well thankfully regardless of what the EU thinks it is going to do if it tries to over regulate then the UK hopefully will have the 'stones' to tell them that we've not going to agree to have our country sent back to the stone age. The EU likes making these noises about how they are going to make us suffer but realistically we have a Tory government coming up who would love to have some good ammunition to shoot at the Euro-philes. Europe isn't so stupid as to provide it for them.
Anything damaging to the UK in the next few years will be equally damaging to Europe.

So maybe I won't have to move to New York, maybe there is still hope that I can live in the UK and it won't fall apart in the immediate future, still it does make you wonder what berk thought that two countries were going to get on economically when one is as red as you can be without calling each other comrade and the other is as blue as you can be without calling each other 'dude'.