Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I don’t read The Sun (is “read” the right verb?) and I stopped reading the Daily Mail when I realised it was either lies, exaggerations or designed to anger.

So I don’t often trip over columns of Richard Littlejohn’s. I recommend anyone who is interested in gay and black rights read his column. He captures what is entirely wrong with today’s left-wing-led ‘rights’ agenda.

Black people are no more or less able than white people to be police officers, nurses, teachers or priests. The very existence of the Black Police Association is a daft nonsense. As is the GPA.

It is important that there is no bullying of any sort in any part of life and most responsible companies and organisations have established ways of avoiding it. But to have an association which is aimed at a section of the population for superficial reasons which could not be reciprocated (the White Police Association and the Straight Police Association would make as much sense — none), is daft.

And I meant to use the word “daft” twice. It is.

On bullying, I was reading a poster in Adur District Council on Friday and the poster used an ingenious method of rooting out bullying. People throughout the Council have put their names down to be contacts for people who are the victims of bullying. Anyone who feels they are a victim can approach any one of the people who’s names are on the poster and have a sympathetic ear who won’t necessarily be part of their management hierarchy. I was struck by what a good idea this is.

A procedure like this ensures that a victim of bullying (whether, as in this post’s subject, it is about homophobia, racism or the size of their nose) can have their torment dealt with. There is absolutely no need to threaten a clearly sensible columnist with thought-crime punishments. Let’s make the next Conservative government the one which puts an end to this nonsense.

The debacle of Section 28 places us in an uncomfortable position on this subject, but it must be obvious to people by now that the majority of Britons do not think that homosexuality is a consort with the devil. The Conservatives are not the purveyors of hate of the 1980s and they can deal, if Cameron chooses, with this steady slip towards a gagged populace.

Now for some worrying:

1. Blair is right about animal testing
2. Blair is, today, going to announce he is in favour of a new batch of nuclear power stations — correct (though fusion’s the answer and we’re investing in that research).
3. Blair was right about criminal justice.

This, you may think, is a worrying trend. But be reassured, there is no chance he will actually do anything about these things.

What we should worry about is the Chancellor who, it must be assumed, has blocked Blair’s genuinely positive reforms since 1997 while at the same time shoving a truly socialist tax, tax credit and borrowing economic policy down all our throats. Let’s hope Brown’s Chancellor is as opposite to Brown as Brown is to Blair now.

Of course, the ideal solution would be a truly libertarian government running the country.

One final point, which I’ve been meaning to make for a while: Being liberal, as I am, does not mean you have to believe that Afghan hikackers have a right to residence in our country. Let’s stop pandering to idiocy and let’s stop damaging the good name of liberalism.

Update: Due to wake up calls from Devils’ Kitchen, Tim Worstall and many welcome visitors please note that my post below is littered with economic nonsense and that I focussed, for reasons that are beyond me, on the wrong enemy. I was wrong — let’s hear all elected representatives admit that…. Blair? Clarke? Reid? Brown?

Original post continues…

Sorry.

I am livid about the water ‘crisis’. Crisis is often an over-used word. A crisis really should be an event so sinister, so apalling that there is little hope of recovery. So, in the strictest sense, this isn’t a crisis — rather a period of stupidity caused, bizarrely, by OfWat, Water Companies and the previous administration. Let me explain.

The Conservatives privatised the water companies. It was a part of the general privatisation agenda which we also force on undeveloped economies when they need money from the International Monetary Fund (but that’s another gripe). Water is, in my humble opinion, an absolute. No-one in the West should want for water and no-one should be making a profit or loss out of its supply. In a modern country, water should be free and available to all.

That water is charged for probably serves a social function rather than an economic one. Maybe people waste more water if it’s free at the point of use…

But as a general point water should be free.

So I am shaking in anger that shareholders can be profiting while water companies have leaks that, at least in part if not mostly, are the reason for the drought order called for in Surrey. This doesn’t affect my part of the country yet, but it is likely to soon.

OfWat should have been told at the point of privatisation, that water companies should not be allowed to profit while drought restrictions are in place and their infrastucture is being wasteful. Of course individual leaks are going to occur, but systemic failures to deliver water should not be rewarded by profits.

The water companies should be investing in new infrastructure at a frantic rate. They should be doing all they can to avoid drought orders and, ultimately, this should result in the complete spending of shareholder-returned profits until this is achieved. Those of us who are unmetered are going to pay, now, for water we are denied while shareholders reap the rewards. Let’s make capitalism fair and just — otherwise, how can the right defend it?