Cllr. Gavin Ayling

Some of my friends tell me that the incremental steps towards a facist state that V for Vendetta so excellently illustrated, is my imagination run away with me.

So why does the law now stop Chris Eubank from behaving as he wishes (harming no-one) and resulting in a warrant issue for his arrest?

When will it be time to resist these steady erosions of our… Well, I was going to say liberty, but that is now definitely gone.

Like most people I try to avoid public transport wherever possible. Not only is a car normally, cheaper, but it’s more comfortable and quicker too.

But to be fair to the services available, I had not yet tried the journey from my new home to my old work. My new home is only a two minute walk from the railway station and Legal & General in Hove is a pacy fifteen minutes walk. So the combined journey time, with the fifteen minutes on the train itself, is about half an hour. This compares very favourably with the rush hour journey time by car (because, of course, of the lack of public investment in viable roads from Shoreham past Chichester).

So, in future, if it weren’t for the frankly bizarre prohibitive cost, I would be more than keen on using this alternative. Actually, I’ll have to again tomorrow as my car remains at the garage.

On the cost, I still need to have it explained to me. How can it possibly cost more to transport many passengers than to transport one? And if you can share your car not only is the cost halved instantly, but it also becomes even more competitive. The do-gooder socialist environmentalists wish to correct this imbalance by charging car drivers more for the privilege of moving about their own country by private means (where do-gooder socialist environmentalists could, without too much squinting, be replaced with the single word “facists”).

As a short exercise, here is a comparison of the costs:

1. Private car: 13 pence per mile (if through town) or 10 pence per mile (if using the A27 trunk road which I do). This is a total of £1.20 for the 9.2 mile journey.
2. Train: £3.10 in each direction (ignoring spurious discounts if you choose to use the train every day)

Even if we add the 48 pence per day of road tax (which presumably exceeds expenditure on roads these days) the car remains a cheaper option. And if we removed the imbalance caused by fuel duty the car would be nearly a half cheaper again.

But why? How do economies of scale not come into play here? The train was full and the train in front of it was full too (I had to watch it pass as it does not stop here in Lancing) so the passengers on the train were not subsidising empty seats. The train uses electricity which everyone knows is created relatively efficiently (much more efficiently than burning a small amount of petroleum under the bonnet of several hundred vehicles) and, to cap it all, the train companies are largely subsidised by Her Majesty’s wealth-suppressor (sorry, the tax man).

So, someone, tell me why!

I was described, not inaccurately I believe, as a right-wing anarchist last night.

But what’s so wrong with that? I believe that the law should provide protection for people from the cruel twists of fate that life brings and from those members of society who do not act with consideration for others — to use religious parlance those who do not “treat others as they would wish to be treated”.

And that should be the end of it.

If I want to drive without a seat belt and potentially injure myself, if I want to take mind altering drugs in the privacy of my own home, if I want to do anything at all that harms no-one else, I should be allowed.

And who would object? Actually, the answer is surprising to my naive mind!

There are several groups of people who would object. There are those Tories who supported Section 28, the Road Traffic Act 1991 and the Single European Act. There are those socialists who believe in positive discrimination, redistribution of wealth and behaviour modification (state-funded anti-smoking adverts for example).

But worst of all are the so-called ‘centrists’. These people believe that because there are large-ish numbers of people on the ‘right’ and ‘left’ of them that they represent some form of better political ideology. Of course, they are wrong.

There is nothing admirable about sitting on a fence but when the fence means that you believe in ‘modest’ redistribution of wealth, ‘minor’ racist treatment of the indigenous population and when you believe only in legislating in behaviour management some of the time you are not helping anyone. Small steps towards a police state are worse than large steps because people notice them less. Being between a clear, well thought through ideology of socialist equality and the clear, well thought through (and superior) ideology of libertarianism (classical liberalism or right-wing anarchy — call it what you will), then you are standing for nothing at all.

For once I am ranting about political ideology without complaining about religion in politics. And I think this is not because religion in politics has become less of a problem (as Cllr. Eade well knows), but because right now our political leaders are being made aware, through polls, that policy-theft is no longer to be tolerated.

Policy-theft is a symptom of being ‘centrist’. You cannot hold a clear, respectable ideolological position and find any benefit in the opposition’s policies. The truth is, if you feel able to steal policies (or believe it is likely your policies could be stolen, actually) then you’re not sticking to your ideology and, by default, you are suffocating democratic choice.

Say 50% of people want a government that does not interfere, does not impose behaviour-modifying legislation and does not support so-called ‘good racism’, who should those people choose? A-list Cameron? Ethnic-training-programmes Brown? God-forbid Mr Campbell?

If we want to have a healthy democracy then we need fewer people to vote ‘the way their Dad did’, more people to be adventurous in their voting, and more people to care what the politicians do with their vote. And this from a people’s representative.

But the blame is not only the electorate’s. It’s massively the media’s fault obviously, but it is mostly the fluff-spined politicians. Stand up for what you believe in, and stand for election on that too. Don’t change your opinions because there’s been a change in leader, and don’t change your opinions as a result of opinion polls. Please.

“Never have so few decided so much for so many.” The Sun

This is how The Sun launched its campaign today against Gordon Brown’s momentous decision to abandon democracy and his party’s manifesto on which he was elected by said democracy.

Sign the Sun’s petition too.

And irritate is not the word I wanted to use in that heading!

Today, as always, I was undertaken by a motorcycle. I think, so long as the motorcyclist knows the danger that he places himself in, that he should be allowed to do that. But the reason I mention it today and the reason it has irritated me so much is because it was done by a police motorbike.

This same police motorbike (and its friends in a lay-by) had caused a tailback on the A27 near the Lancing Manor roundabout because everyone was having to slow down to the (presumably arbitrary) speed limit.

So for a police officer (not policeman, I watched Hot Fuzz again the other day) then to commit a road traffic offense is just [Devil’s Kitchen would swear at this point] annoying.

So if you’re ever stopped by a policeman on a bike with registration plate GX51 UZC, tell him (after he’s let you off) that he’s no goody goody either.

If speeding was so dangerous, why isn’t almost every driver on almost every main road having an accident on almost every journey?

The End of the World is Nye, say nutters in urban legend.

But I don’t think that what I want to say about this is scare-mongering or nutty.

It is proof, as it were needed, that if the governments of the UK (including our socialist rulers, the EU) and the US had their way as much in normal life as they do at ports and airports, we would be monitored all the time.

Passports used to be a reasonable measure to know who was entering the country — but now they’re becoming an effective way of spying on us and it is time for us to say, as an electorate, enough is enough!