More from France.

This is from France Echos. There is plenty of information to be found on that excellent blog, about the lawlessness which followed the protests, and who the main Marxist protagonists were.

Iraq

Reading Taki's excellent column in the Spectator a week or two ago, I was struck by his description of Peter Galbraith. His (Galbraith's) opinion on the current crisis in Iraq was the part which really struck a chord. He had been - like myself - in full support of the war back in 2003. He then saw "the dark light at the end of the tunnel"; again, like myself. Galbraith is quoted as saying "as of now we are far worse off than we were before 20 March 2003, and in two years time it will be worse than it is now". Depressing stuff, but it looks very much like an accurate prediction of the future of Iraq. The next quote is quite staggering, "three months before the start of the war, President Bush did not know the difference between Shiites and Sunnis".

The current situation of ethnic conflict, and the growing confidence and influence of Tehran are disastrous results of this war. It takes a big man to admit he was wrong, but I will now admit I shouldn't have supported the war in Iraq.

Cameron’s ‘bananas’ idea.

David Cameron has emulated his great hero Tony Blair; in the art of contradiction and playing to the audience. In a speech to be given today on social justice; he stressed the "growing inequality in housing" which, “is caused in large part by inadequate supply of homes and government policies that do not support less well off first-time buyers.” Nobody in their right mind would disagree with the first part of the statement. Due to the rise in prices and my own fairly low salary, it is unlikely that I could afford a house in the area where I was born. However, the second part of this statement is absolutely wrong.

Cameron said "the failure to provide an adequate number of new homes in Britain has contributed to the affordability problem". This is where Cameron starts going off-track. Thinking of where I live – in the suburbs - there are numerous housing developments, mainly blocks of flats within a mile of my house. If you replicate this all around the country then the question is – is the problem really a lack of housing? The truth is that house building is being driven by a massive increase in 30-something singletons, who are well off but unwilling to cramp their bachelor lifestyle, and settle down to marriage. Two people, who would in the past have to wait until marriage before buying a house, are now able to purchase a house separately. Modern me, me, me mentality and the lack of tax relief for married people has lead to us to this stage. Now I am sure that there are many people who are very happy with this situation but according to a Daily Mail report a few months ago new housing developments, has lead to 4 reservoirs in the south-east being concreted over. We have also seen building on previously off-limit flood plains. In addition to this we have to factor in every house’s water consumption:

About 150 litres a day per household, on average

Bath: 80 litres approx

Shower 30-60 litres

Dishwasher wash: 16-25 litres

Washing machine load 50-100 litres

Toilet flushing: 30-40 litres per day (From the Environment Agency).

And then, think of central heating in winter, every house has it whether there is one person or ten, living there. The environmental impact of all this is massive. David Bellamy has rightly criticised the government on this very point yet Cameron wishes to emulate this very same policy. The South East Plan blog has another point about the deterioration of the quality of life, which will happen if hundreds of thousands of new houses are built, “Who in their right mind would want to move into a house in an area that has constant water shortages and a hosepipe ban every summer?”.

The environmental impact will be huge and the loss of green belt will also lead to a decrease in the quality of life. My solution is that there needs to be massive tax-breaks for low income married couples and marriage, as an institute, needs to be vigorously promoted by the Conservatives. A trendy policy – certainly not - but for me this is the only way to stop further environmental degradation and the loss of the green belt.

With this speech, Cameron has shown – like Tony Blair – that his policies are designed solely with headlines in mind. His commitment to environmentalism is superficial and has been forgotten when the next policy idea came around. So the Labour comments about flip-flop policies is the best summary of Cameron that there can be.

Goodbye Forever!!

Book List

Formerly I wasn't much of a novel reader, preferring instead to read mainly historical non fiction. I look at a large number of political blogs and always take an interest in the author's reading list. Unsurprisingly - for political blogs - they read only political books, which although understandable tends to lead to a rather narrow point of view. I have certainly broadened my literary horizons recently and my belief is that this enables a far more rounded personality, which simply doesn't happen when you read political books only.

Although I have began reading novels in a far higher quantity than before, I am still a long way behind the majority of serious book readers. And I have a huge Amazon.co.uk wishlist of novels which I will try to read within the next couple of years. However, I have now read enough to compile a list of my 5 favourite novels here:

1. The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas.
   

Quite simply a magnificent adventure story with a central theme - revenge - which I have always found enthralling. The quality of the writing is wonderful and despite being the book being huge I was never bored reading.

2. The Mayor Of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy.

A fantastic novel with the air of a Shakespearean tragedy . The end pulls on the heart-strings and one can't help but feel sorry for Michael Henchard.

3. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell.

Perhaps the strongest polemic against totalitarianism when it was at it's height of power in the 1940's. It's uncomfortable reading but I couldn't put it down - probably the best summary is "Horribly Compelling".

4. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger.

It just seems to flow - page after page, sentence after sentence, I was simply unable to put it down.

5. This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson.

This is the last novel I have read and it covers the friendship between Charles Darwin and Robert Fitzroy. The central theme is their conflicting search for the meaning of life. Maybe the fact that large parts of the novel revolve around one of my favourite subjects - the sea and the age of sail - makes this one of my best read's.

Parisian "Youths" again.

The coverage of the Parisian riots in November was one of the most stark reminders of the bias of media coverage. The rioters were predominately described as 'youths' and the pictures of the riots consisted only of burnt-out buildings and dark shadows. The face's of the 'youths' were shown only in dark grainy pictures and most pictures consisted only of shadows. The contrast with the "white youths" of Cronulla (shown here) was obvious. The pictures on that riot are all crystal clear. And the MSM certainly had no problem using the word 'white'.

Now we have further disturbances in Paris. The original protests and strikes were typically French i.e. something as ludicrous as middle-class students protesting about employment law! However, there has been yet more of these bands of 'youths' appearing on the back of these protests and the lawlessness has reached even worse levels. The picture above shows riots in a park but in some of the papers today I have seen even clearer and graphic pictures of these 'youths'. One picture shows them stealing a woman's handbag and the face's are there for all to see whooping, delighted and gloating - like a pack of hunting dogs. They probably regarded the riots in the autumn as a sucess, and now any protest will be used as an excuse to defy the French state.

The two obvious conclusions that emanate from these pictures is that the French problem is the disaster of mass-immigration. And the correct and truthful word to describe these 'youths' is immigrant's. The reason why this word is never used in connection with these 'youths' in the MSM is fairly obvious, but it also proves the staggering bias that exists.

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Update.

I have managed to locate the picture that sparked this article.

Returning to Blogging.

I am returning to Blogging. The main reason is that I evolved slightly different political ideas and cultural ideas, and these ideas are not really represented in enough quantity on the blogosphere. I will also try to concentrate more on the things that matter to me rather than the slightly spurious comments I have previously posted on this, and my previous blog.