Reykjavík on the Thames: Hard Times Ahead for Britain

The UK had another debate last night, and the polls shows the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in a surprisingly close race, with Labour under Gordon Brown continuing to slip. We will be looking for more polls (not connected in any way to Mr. Rupert Murdoch thank you) over the weekend after yesterday's televised debates.

The election seems likely to result in a 'hung Parliament' with no clear majority for any party, suggesting the possibility of a coalition government.

As a reminder to American readers, most of whom do not even know that the Brits are holding an election or how their governments are formed, the Liberal Democrats would be considered the 'reform party' in this election, what the Yanks would call a 'third party.'

And to put an edge on it, the New Stateman reports that Mervyn King suggests that the coming austerity to be imposed on UK citizens to support the City Banks will ensure that the next party in power will not be elected again for many many years. more...

Kentucky... EXPOSED!... Whistleblowers Reveal U.S. Army Being Trained To Round Up American Citizens and Patriots!!!

In a shocking development that outstrips even the infamous MIAC report, it has emerged via whistleblowers that the U.S. Military in Kentucky is training to confront Tea Party protesters and anti-government demonstrators, who in official intelligence advisories are described as bomb-making terrorists.

On April 17, the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, reported on a military exercise dubbed “Mangudai,” named after the special forces of Genghis Khan’s Mongol army who could fight for days without food or sleep. The Kentucky newspaper portrayed the exercise as an effort to train soldiers to battle the Taliban in Afghanistan. more...

Greece Armageddon, Financial Ebola Sweeps Through Global Bond Markets

What does the end of the bond market world look like? Something like this… more...

Be Aware of the Most Common Over-the-Counter and Prescribed Killer Drugs

It has been confirmed that correctly prescribed pharmaceuticals rank among the five highest causes of death in the USA, and that the U.S. medical system is responsible for more deaths in the USA than anything else! And what dangerous ingredient is common to both prescription painkillers and over the counter (OTC) cold remedies and painkillers?

Acetaminophen. It is in over 100 OTC pain pills and other cold remedies, including cold, cough, and fever remedies for children. more...

There’s more to climate fraud than just tax hikes

By now we know that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has been built on a mixture of hype and massaged data. Various carbon tax schemes have been put forward, even unprecedented proposals for a world wide taxation authority to be overseen by the UN. Does it follow that the primary agenda behind the fraud was implementing these new taxes, or were these proposed tax schemes secondary and part of a proclivity on the part of the state to seize any opportunity to enhance revenue? more...

Project Prevention or Project Eugenics - the campaign to sterilise addicts

Surely one of the most controversial stories of the month is the opening of a helpline for UK drug addicts by US based charity ‘Project Prevention’?

This charity offers cash incentives to female drug addicts who undergo sterilisation in order to prevent them bearing children they will not care for. more...

Income tax 'must rise by 6p'

Income tax must be raised six per cent to protect Britain from the next financial crisis, according to a report released today by a leading think tank that advises the Treasury.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said Britain would need to raise taxes gradually to cut Britain's deficit to avoid being vulnerable to the next financial crisis. more...

Eurozone faces Lehman-style meltdown

The Greek debt crisis is "threatening to overwhelm" the eurozone, said Sean O'Grady in The Independent. Last week, after another upward revision to Greece's deficit, along with Greece's formal request for €45bn aid from the EU and the IMF, Greek bond yields soared. They rocketed further this week as ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Greek debt to junk status. Greek ten-year yields have hit 10%; two-year yields have gone beyond 16%. An S&P downgrade for Portugal caused a 0.5% spike in its ten-year yield. It also boosted the interest rates on the debt of other economies that are vulnerable to a debt crisis. more...

Inventor of Mann-made global warming feels the heat

This blog’s hero of the week is Ken Cuccinelli. He’s the new Attorney General of Virginia and he’s about to launch quite possibly the most delicious and worthwhile law suit in the entire history of litigation: one that could result in Michael Mann – arch-climate-fear-promoter, comedy You Tube Star, creator of the infamous, twice-discredited Hockey Stick – being fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged misuse of state grant funding. more...

Economists urge deeper cuts and higher taxes

The new government must introduce deeper spending cuts and greater tax hikes to protect the UK economy from further financial crises but only when recovery is secured, a leading think-tank has warned.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said current plans for fiscal tightening in the March Budget were insufficient and £30bn of extra measures should be introduced, split equally between public spending cuts and tax rises. This would put the UK in a position to cope with future economic disasters but it would require actions such as a 6p rise in the national rate of income tax and a 5% reduction in public sector wages over the next five years. more...

Consortium developing world's first 'intelligent' surveillance robots

A project is underway to develop the first 'intelligent' surveillance robots in the world. The robots will feature 360° vision and have the capability to detect toxic gases, fire and water on the floor.

They will communicate using wired and wireless technologies, not only with other robots, but supporting tele and videoconference with humans as well. more...

Get ready for Base Rate rises

The shock jump in inflation has led to speculation that Base Rate could rise sooner than was previously thought

It’s one of the most commonly asked questions of financial experts and economists and yet a convincing consensus still eludes them. When will interest rates rise?

With the Bank of England Base Rate having now been at its record low of 0.5% for 13 months, both borrowers and savers are keen to know when it will go up. Because go up it will, that’s about the only thing the markets are agreed on. When it will rise and how quickly is the subject of much debate. more...

Ice Age theories warming up

One of the more interesting results from recent research into climate is that for the past million years or so, the earth’s climate has shown a distinct 100,000 cycle of long ice ages punctuated by a brief, warm intergalacials. We are in one of those brief warm periods, an interglacial period that is called the Holocene.

This cycle can be seen in the temperature graph below taken from publically available Vostok ice core data. The ice cores are very long sections of ice in which ancient climates can be worked out by careful analysis of atomic isotopes of layers of ice, where each wafer thin layer represents a year. Although there are other ways to determine past climatic conditions the Vostok cores (the site is in Antarctica but run by Russian scientists) are remarkable in being a connected track of temperatures of several hundred thousand years. more...

German scientists suggest per-person carbon emission quotas

Potsdam, Germany - German scientists called Tuesday for the world to accept per-person quotas for carbon dioxide emissions to kick-start a global trading scheme where poor nations will benefit.

The Potsdam Institute for Research on Climate Effects said everyone on the globe should be allowed 5 tons of carbon per year. That is just one quarter of the average per-person emissions for a US citizen, but still far above emissions in poor nations.

The government-funded institute said the current arrangement, in which some nations have made voluntary commitments to cut emissions, would not work. The institute says the world needs an effective way to hold global warming to no more than 2 degrees. more...

Former Nazi Bank To Rule The Global Economy

The global elite has chosen the Bank For International Settlements, which financed Hitler’s war machine, to boss the financial arm of the new world order

European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet’s announcement that the Bank for International Settlements is to become the primary engine for global governance is a shocking admission given the fact that this ultra-secretive menagerie of international bankers was once controlled by top Nazis who, in collusion with global central banks, funneled money through the institution which directly financed Hitler’s war machine. more...

Dagenham white working class prepare to ditch old Labour loyalties

The Cross of St George flies from car aerials and house windows or is tattooed on people's arms and emblazoned across their backs.

Here, in the white working class heartland on the far eastern perimeter of London — where people wear their allegiances not so much on their sleeves as on their bodies — even the grannies have tattoos..............

Gordon Brown lets slip plans for new stealth tax on pensions

Hundreds of thousands of high earners saving for retirement will be hit by another stealth tax on pensions after the general election, experts claim.

They say a passing reference by Gordon Brown during the televised leaders’ debate last night reveals plans to cut tax relief currently received by more than 300,000 people. more...

The $10 Trillion Climate Fraud

Cap-And-Trade: While senators froth over Goldman Sachs and derivatives, a climate trading scheme being run out of the Chicago Climate Exchange would make Bernie Madoff blush. Its trail leads to the White House.

Lost in the recent headlines was Al Gore's appearance Monday in Denver at the annual meeting of the Council of Foundations, an association of the nation's philanthropic leaders. more...

Organ donor scam - presumed consent

Recall when the unelected Brown assumed PMship, he tried to force "presumed consent" on the populace, such that the state can take your organs, on your death, without your permission, unless you explicitly opted out.

There was such a huge outcry that the policy was dropped - or was it? The government would have us believe that the taking of people's organs without their consent was an "IT blunder".

Yeah, right.

Now, America is attempting to introduce the same policy. It is clear that this is a G20 issue - or, more accurately, a NWO issue.



What incentive does the a hospital have to keep you alive, when it can profit from the sale of your organs?

Cross-posted

Gold hits four-month high

The gold price has risen to a four-month high after Standard & Poor's, the rating agency, lowered Greece and Portugal's credit ratings, spurring demand for the metal.

The price of gold later fell back after speculation that economic growth would erode demand for the precious metal as an alternative asset.

In sterling terms, gold hit a new record of £767. more...

Debt crisis: UK banks sitting on £100bn exposure to Greece, Spain and Portugal

Shares in UK lenders slide amid fears of renewed credit crunch but French, German and Swiss most at risk from Greek default. more...

Use your finger to pay for shopping

SHOPPERS in France could soon be able to use their finger to pay for everyday shopping, in a move that aims to tackle fraud and speed up supermarket queues.

High-street bank Accord has been given permission by the French data protection authorities to start a six-month trial into the new biometric payment system.

The idea had been rejected by the Commission Nationale Informatique et Liberté on several occasions in the past because of fears that storing fingerprint data posed a privacy and security risk. more...

EURO COURT HANDS OUR BENEFITS TO TERRORISTS

FAMILIES of suspected terror­ists can claim thousands of pounds in benefits from British taxpayers, a European court ruled yesterday.

In a judgment that sparked a ­furious response, the European Court of Justice said handouts to suspects’ wives were unlikely to fund terror activities.

As a result, they can continue to claim income support, disability allowance, and child, housing and council tax benefits. And those payments should not be monitored by the Treasury. more..

Google discloses demands for censorship, user data

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Google Inc. has set up a new tool to show where it's facing the most government pressure to censor material and turn over personal information about its users.

The country-by-country breakdown released last week on Google's website marks the first time that the Internet search leader has provided such a detailed look at the censorship and data requests that it gets from regulators, courts and other government agencies. The figures, for the roughly 100 countries in which it operates, cover the final half of last year and will be updated every six months. more...

Why YouTube's Censorship Seems Dubious

I don't want to fight with YouTube. My relationship with YouTube has been one of the more fulfilling and reliable ones in my life. Hence my deep disappointment that it not only buried (rather than, as originally reported, deleted) MIA's "Born Free" video—in which American-flag-wearing troops embark on the rounding up, detaining, and killing of redheads—but also couldn't come up with some better excuse for doing so than the video's "gratuitous violence." more...

New slump is on the way, says Lush boss

we’re in for higher inflation and VAT and another economic slump, whoever wins the general election.

That’s the future according to Mark Constantine, co-founder of Lush, the handmade cosmetics company in Poole.

Speaking at the 10th anniversary of the Poole Business Women’s Lunch Club, he said: “I suspect VAT will go to 20 per cent and I expect inflation will go to much more.

“There’s going to be some other kind of drop coming in the next 18 months in the UK because the government is going to have to put some money down,” he said, referring to Britain’s £163bn deficit – the largest since the Second World War. more...

Global Warming-Tragic for Some, Lucrative for Others

The polar region extends from the Barents Sea to the Arctic Ocean and was, until recently, essentially a large expanse of ice between Norway and Russia. For four decades negotiations between the two countries about claims to the region's oil and natural gas were carried along at a slow, often static pace. However, as a result of global warming, the icecap has receded and interest in delineating clear economic zones has multiplied. The leaders of the two countries, both proud of their co-operative resolves, excitedly spoke of a joint venture into the world’s unexplored - possibly extremely lucrative - arctic seabed. The Chairman of Norway’s Ocean Research Institute, Mr Ostreng, said: “Both parties believe the disputed area contains rich deposits of mineral resources, in particular oil and gas, but they don’t know for sure. And when you don’t know for sure, you act as if the area is extremely rich. It is not easy to give up strategic resources.” On Tuesday, a delimitation line was approved, outlining the claim of each nation to the arctic territory. more...

China's Perspective: There's reason to be skeptical about global warming

Climate change has been happening on Earth ever since it was created. The Earth has undergone periods of cooling and warming even before man made his presence felt. Why does China feel it has the power to control the forces of Nature on a global scale?

Recent events have made a lot of people skeptical about man-made climate change (aka global warming). These events include: more...

War with China? The Dangers of a Global Conflagration

Will the intensified conflicts between the US and China inevitably lead to a global conflagration? If recent past history is any indication the answer is a resounding yes. The most destructive wars of the 20th century were the result of confrontations between established (EIP) and rising (RIP) imperial powers. The practices and policies of the former serve as guides to the latter. more...

Salmond justifies response to Lockerbie question

Alex Salmond claimed yesterday that he had been wholly consistent when he said that the Dunblane killer Thomas Hamilton would not have been released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds in the way Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was last year.

The First Minister was responding to accusations at First Minister’s Questions, at Holyrood, that his position on the two mass murderers was “irreconcilable and contradictory”. more...

Teachers may strike over spending cuts

Teachers in Scotland could strike for the first time in more than 20 years over cuts to education budgets.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) is to vote on whether to ballot its members over industrial action, starting with a one-day strike.

Scotland’s largest teaching union will consider a motion by its Glasgow branch at its annual conference in June. more..

Battalion is granted freedom of Perth

THE FREEDOM of the city of Perth is to be granted to a locally-based Scottish army infantry battalion next weekend.

A day of celebrations has been organised for May 8 to enable people to pay tribute to the 51st Highland, 7th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (7 SCOTS). more...

Alex Salmond pressed to divulge SNP's minimum pricing level for alcohol

Opposition parties repeatedly called on ministers to name their preferred figure during a heated First Minister's Questions.

The price is critical to the success of the policy – too low and it will be ineffective in preventing harmful drinking, too high and it will do massive damage to Scotland's drinks industry.

Scottish Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives all oppose the policy, and at least one party must be won over for the plan to become law. more...

Cameron makes late bid for Scots support

SCOTTISH voters received a late appeal from Conservative leader David Cameron last night to support him on "the day of destiny", in a special party political broadcast north of the Border.

The broadcast comes as some activists have been privately grumbling about the lack of showing from Mr Cameron, who has only strayed into Scotland once since the election was called, while a new poll has suggested that the party could be facing another 1997-style wipe-out. more...

5 Terrifying Parallels Between What's Going On Now And The Great Depression

I blogged yesterday about the disaster in Greece, and its rapid spread to other European countries. Today the fish-eye is turning on countries outside of the PIIGS, including Japan, Britain . . . and us. According to the Financial Times, "The Fund has calculated that almost all advanced economies need to tighten fiscal policy significantly in the coming decade in order to stabilise debt at 60 per cent of national income by 2030 and the tightening needed in the US, Japan and the UK is just as bad as that required in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal." more...

£8BN TO PAY FOR NEW LABOUR BENEFITS

LABOUR has created new welfare payments costing taxpayers more than £8billion a year – the equivalent of 2p on basic income tax.

And billions more has been added to public spending by boosting existing payments, research showed yesterday.

The new payments include help for pensioners costing about £2.5billion a year, free TV licences for the over-75s, costing £520million a year, and free bus passes, costing £1billion a year. more...

Modern Civilization: This Sucker Is Going Down

George W. Bush was onto something in the fall of 2008 when he remarked apropos of the Lehman collapse: “…this sucker could go down.”

It’s my serene conviction, by the way, that this sucker actually is going down, right now, even as I clatter away at the keys — perhaps in slow motion, so that not many other bystanders have noticed yet, and the few who have noticed are mostly too crosseyed with nausea to speak. more...

Install microchips in illegal immigrants, GOP candidate says

From the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I microchip an illegal?

“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said. more...

Volcano Crisis: Europe to Fast-Track Single Sky, Compensate Airlines

BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 28, 2010 (ENS) - The closure of European airspace due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland has cost the aviation industry between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion euros (about US$1.7 billion), the European commissioner responsible for transport said Tuesday.

Vice-President Siim Kallas said, "The Commission considers that the exceptional circumstances of recent days may justify support measures to offset losses incurred," as long as compensation is granted on the basis of uniform criteria established at European level. more...

Goldman Sachs: US opens criminal investigation into fraud

US federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc or its employees committed securities fraud in connection with its mortgage trading.

The investigation by the Manhattan US Attorney's Office, which is at a preliminary stage, stemmed from a referral from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wall Street Journal reports. more...

Raise income tax by 6p in the pound, UK told

Britain should raise income taxes by 6p in the pound to make bigger inroads into its huge deficit or risk being vulnerable to the next financial crisis, according to a leading thinktank that advises the Treasury.

Current plans by the political parties to reduce spending and pay down debt would not be enough to prepare the country for a collapse like that of Lehman Brothers and a deep recession, said the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The hard-hitting criticism of plans by all political parties to cut the deficit, and especially the reliance on "mythical" efficiency savings, came as Europe was convulsed for a second day by the aftershocks of Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade Spanish government debt. more...

Police turn up the heat with new hand-held thermal cameras that let them see in the dark

Thieves, consider yourselves warned – police can now see in the dark.

This image, taken with a thermal imaging camera, shows how officers can catch and record night-time marauders in the act.

They have been using the heat-seeking technology from helicopters for several years, but now will have a hand-held camera they can carry along on patrol. more...

Belgium bans burkas: Women who refuse to show faces to be jailed for a week under draft law

Belgium became the first European country to impose a full ban on wearing a burka last night.

Its parliament approved a draft law which states women can be jailed for hiding their faces in public.

The bill - which must be rubber-stamped by the Belgian senate - is set to become law by July. more...

Nick Clegg's fantasy finance exposed in final debate

It’s the most crucial election issue but voters learnt nothing new and neither did the markets.

True, it got a bit nastier than the previous two debates but there was precious little to inspire voters. What did come through, however, in contrast to previous debates, was Nick Clegg’s illiteracy when it comes to the subject of economics and finance. That’s a dangerous failing at times like these. more...

Rudd on taxes - a lesson too late for Gordon?

The Angry Exile, Upside Down Correspondent.

From The Age:

The federal government aims to cut the amount of tax faced by the vast majority of Australians, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

In a key speech delivered three days before release of the long-awaited Henry tax review, Mr Rudd hinted he was also aiming to help small businesses and working families.

The review, by Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, is due to be published on Sunday when financial markets will be closed.

OECD table: How Australia ranks in tax take

The government is due to deliver its response on the same day. Speaking to the NSW Business Chamber today, Mr Rudd said the review and the 2010/2011 budget, due to be delivered on May 11, presented an opportunity to usher in a new "generation of prosperity".

"In our response to the Henry review, the government will make the tax system stronger and fairer," he told a breakfast meeting of the chamber.

"Improving the structure of the tax system by replacing inefficient taxes with more efficient ones and streamlining governments and administrations reduces complexity and makes the Australian economy more productive.

"Australia needs to respond, to remain an attractive place to invest and to do business."

Perhaps this makes him a bigot in Gordon Brown's book?

This lesson is probably - hopefully - too late for Gordon Brown who seems unlikely still to be PM this time next Friday, but it's not for the UK. Whoever is Prime Minister then could do the country a favour and start thinking along similar lines. It would mean more pain for the public sector but with £50 billion or so a year spent on quangos there's no shortage of heads to swing the axe at.

Al Gore buys another mansion

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a Montecito-area property to their real estate holdings, reports the Montecito Journal.

The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms. Read more...

Record numbers of Britons declared insolvent

Almost 400 Britons are being declared insolvent every day as numbers reached a record high last month, it was announced today.

Latest figures suggested that despite the recession being officially over, households are struggling to make ends meet.

Experts warned the so-called debt lag – where the number of unpaid bills accrues over a series of months before insolvency hits – can last from anything between nine months to two years. Read more...

Government Report Calls For Global Authority On Planetary Geo-Engineering

The House of Commons report, entitled The Regulation of Geoengineering, was compiled by the government’s Science and Technology Committee in collaboration with the U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee.

It demonstrates how seriously both governments are looking at the idea of manipulating the planet’s climate.

“…we may need geoengineering as a ‘Plan B’ if, in the event of the failure of ‘Plan A’—the reduction of greenhouse gases—we are faced with highly disruptive climate change.” the report states. “If we start work now it will provide the opportunity to explore fully the technological, environmental, political and regulatory issues.” it continues. Read more...

A GREEK TRAGEDY THAT COULD SOON BE STAGED IN BRITAIN

DEBTS out of control. Spiralling unemployment. A bloated, unaffordable public sector. Leaders fiddling statistics and refusing to be honest with the public about the depths of the economic crisis facing the country.

This is the reality of Britain after 13 years of Labour’s spectacular mismanagement. But exactly the same disturbing
picture can be painted about Greece, the once idyllic Mediterranean land whose financial meltdown now threatens to drag down the economies of Europe, including our own. Read more...

Illegal war and the myth of global warming

It is wrong that our military is being used to oppress a nation that cannot harm people on the streets of Britain.

The vast majority of Afghan people are far too impoverished to be able to reach Britain. Therefore, with stringent border control here in the UK it would be possible to keep out those that would venture to Britain to harm us. Read more...

Global warming: Business as usual

I can now declare with confidence that the debate about global warming has returned to more or less the same position as was extant prior to the release of the Climategate emails.

The media is reporting on far fetched claims of possible damage due to climate change without any independent thinking--witness today's story on climate change causing cancer due to flooding of toxic waste repositories. Global warming will also apparently increase mental illness, according to the report, not to mention asthma and other respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, heat-related deaths, human developmental effects, neurological diseases, waterborne diseases, weather-related deaths, and infectious and animal-borne diseases. Monkey business as usual. Read more...

Who's next? Greece debt crisis fuels worries of new global contagion

The debt troubles in Greece are intensifying and, even more dangerous, spreading fear across Europe and beyond.

That is triggering talk of a potential global contagion, similar to what happened after the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, setting off the worst financial crisis in the United States since the 1930s and contributing to a deep global recession.

"Greece as an economy is tiny but the danger is contagion and market panic," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. Read more...

Ad agency launches civil liberties campaign

Creative Orchestra, the not for profit advertising agency is running a campaign using an image based on Hitler, in an effort to raise debate over civil liberties in the UK.

The hard-hitting campaign is non-partisan, but aims to stimulate debate about freedom and civil liberties in the final week before the general election.

The creative uses the distinctive image of Hitler and uses a CCTV camera icon as the dictator’s moustache Read more...

£8M SCANDAL OF THE ILLEGALS TOO VIOLENT TO DEPORT

FAILED asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who turn violent to avoid being kicked out of Britain are costing the taxpayer £8million a year, it emerged ­yesterday.

In just 18 months, 1,118 people became so disruptive it was deemed unsafe to escort them out of the country. Read more...

Health scheme on brink of collapse

Glasgow’s pioneering model of merging social work and frontline healthcare to save hundreds of millions of pounds is on the verge of collapse, The Herald can reveal.

The future of the groundbreaking community health care partnership (CHCP) system, often cited as a model for the rest of Scotland, has been thrown into doubt after the reluctance of the city council to commit to £400 million up front despite an agreement from last year.

The council wants its contribution, which would be added to a £490m share from the health service, paid in stages and will agree to this approach at its executive committee tomorrow.

However, the authority has been told by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde that this could make the CHCP plans “unworkable”.

A senior CHCP source said: “I believe there’s now a serious threat that the whole thing could break down and be disbanded.” Read more..

Washington to use Armenian territory to attack Iran - Azerbaijani MP

According to MP Eldar Ibrahimov, the United States is planning to use Armenia for offensive against Iran.

“The United States intends to dislocate its military bases in Armenia”, Public TV channel reports that the due statement was made by chairman of the committee on agrarian policy of Milli Medjlis Eldar Ibrahimov at a meeting with representatives of the Iranian parliament on April 27.

“Iran is actively cooperating with Armenia that occupied the fifth part of the Azerbaijani territory. If not for the comprehensive support of Tehran, Armenia would have withdrawn from the Azerbaijani lands long before”, he said. Read more...

Bigot Gate, Does Gordon Brown Despise Labour Voters In Private?

UK General Election Tipping Point Against Labour - After an 10 minute exchange with a Gillian Duffy a 66 year old life long Labour voter concerning issues such as the National Debt and Immigration, Gordon Brown when getting into his car left his radio microphone on and referred to the Labour voter as a bigot. Read more...

Britons turning back on car ownership as cost of motoring soars

Britons are turning back on car ownership because of the soaring cost of motoring, according to new Government figures.

Statistics released by the Department for Transport have underlined the impact of spiralling fuel prices last year, during which the cost of filling an average tank rose by £10.

The most dramatic drop was in the number of new cars registered which fell by 6.8 per cent in 2009 compared with the previous year. Read more...

Farce of police paperwork exposed as officers spend up to 80 minutes filling in holiday request forms

Officers in one of Britain's largest police forces have been forced to take over an hour filling out a single holiday request form.
Greater Manchester Police blamed the lengthy process on the number of copies of each form that had to be printed, signed and filed away.
Chris Burrows, chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation, said: 'Some divisions and departments seek to interpret force policy in their own way and add extra levels of bureaucracy that are unnecessary. Read more...

Villagers' fury as £300,000 spent on project to help fish... after flood defences to protect homes are refused

Village residents are furious that £324,000 of public cash is being spent on a river project to help fish instead of flood defences to protect their homes.
Some householders in Darfield, South Yorkshire, have only just returned home after devastating floods three years ago. Residents have been frustrated by the refusal of the authorities to build barriers to stop the River Dearne bursting its banks and flooding nearby homes.
Now they have watched with incredulity as hundreds of thousands of pounds have been poured into an Environment Agency scheme to build a fish ladder designed to help fish swim upstream for breeding. Read more...

Grandmother tagged for selling goldfish to teenager wins battle to get sentence overturned

A grandmother tagged for selling a goldfish to a teenager today won her legal battle to have the electronic shackle removed.

Joan Higgins, 66, declared the ruling 'a victory for common sense' and pledged to celebrate her freedom with a visit to the bingo with her sister.
She is also looking forward to going to see her favourite star Rod Stewart in concert, which her curfew would have made her miss. Read more...

All your house are belong to us... sort of.

The Angry Exile, Upside Down Correspondent.

Let me take you back to mid-February when I blogged on Pauline Hanson.

Pauline Hanson, one time federal MP for the Queensland seat of Oxley ... is apparently going to migrate to Britain. She's apparently fed up with the nanny state here and says that this is no longer the land of opportunity...

Ahahahahahahahaha. Ha hah hahahahahahahahahaha. Ahahahahahahahaahhahaahahahahaahaahaaaaahaa.

Pauline, love, if you think Australia is over taxed and over regulated just wait till you get off the plane at Heathrow.

Oddly enough it was just the other day when I found myself wondering if she'd gone yet, and then the very next day it turned out that she was in fact still here. Can't sell her house apparently. Actually it's more like not allowed to sell her house, at least not on her terms. Being who she is it's not a great surprise to learn that she doesn't want to sell to certain people, namely Muslims or non-resident asians. You can call it stupid, unreasonable and xenophobic if you want but it's her house to sell to whom she wants, right?

Wrong. There's actually a law against it.

Ms Hanson this afternoon hit back at Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission for saying she would be breaking the law if she knocked back a potential buyer on the grounds of their race or religion.

"I'm the one who decides if I want to put my signature on my contract, it's my right I will decide whether I want to sell my land to a certain person on that contract or not," the former One Nation leader told Fairfax Radio 4BC.

Personally I think she's an idiot but she has got a very good point. It's her decision to sign the contract and it's very hard to see how the law can make her sell to someone she doesn't want to deal with. More to the point it's hard to see why it should even try. If she's offered X dollars from someone who slots neatly into her views as being okay by her and is willing to turn down a much larger offer from someone else because of his religion then she's the one losing out. And beyond that all this anti-racisim pro-tolerance legislation is having a rather nasty side effect which means all of us, not just Pauline Hanson, lose out. The right to associate freely is sliding slowly away from us, and while we may chuckle and sneer at the Pauline Hansons of this world we do so at our peril. Today it's them being told what they can and can't do and who with. Tomorrow it could be any of us.

Needless to say Chez Hanson is now off the market, though that hasn't stopped the hate mongers - no, not the xenophobes but their equal and opposite counterparts - abusing the poor real estate agent who was unfortunate enough to have been hired by Hanson before the controversy broke.

[LJ Hooker Yamanto agent Keith Edwards] expected the fall-out to continue, with the real estate agent receiving a "torrent" of abusive emails and phone calls.

Anti-racists once again becoming something very much like that which they say they hate.

London 2012: one big party or one big prison?

Security precautions for London 2012 include the construction of a 17.5 km, 5,000volt electric fence, topped with 900 daylight and night vision surveillance cameras spaced at 50 metre intervals. On first sight of the fence you could be forgiven for thinking you had slipped through a wormhole in the space-time continuum to find yourself on the perimeter of a Soviet era Gulag. Read more...

Trichet Calls For Corrupt BIS To Boss Global Government In CFR Speech

In a speech before the elitist Council On Foreign Relations organization in New York earlier this week, President of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet called for the imposition of global governance to be bossed by the G20 and the corrupt Bank of International Settlements in the name of safeguarding the global economy.

In an address entitled “Global Governance Today,” Trichet proclaims how the elite need to impose “A set of rules, institutions, informal groupings and cooperation mechanisms that we call “global governance”.

During the course of the speech, Trichet uses the term “global governance” well over a dozen times, outlining how “global governance is of the essence” to avoid another financial crisis. Read more...

20 Things You Will Need To Survive When The Economy Collapses And The Next Great Depression Begins

Today, millions of Americans say that they believe that the United States is on the verge of a major economic collapse and will soon be entering another Great Depression. But only a small percentage of those same people are prepared for that to happen. The sad truth is that the vast majority of Americans would last little more than a month on what they have stored up in their homes. Most of us are so used to running out to the supermarket or to Wal-Mart for whatever we need that we never even stop to consider what would happen if suddenly we were not able to do that. Already the U.S. economy is starting to stumble about like a drunken frat boy. All it would take for the entire U.S. to resemble New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina would be for a major war, a terror attack, a deadly pandemic or a massive natural disaster to strike at just the right time and push the teetering U.S. economy over the edge. So just how would you survive if you suddenly could not rely on the huge international corporate giants to feed, clothe and supply you and your family? Do you have a plan? Read more...

Baby boy survives for two days after botched late-term abortion

A baby boy abandoned by doctors to die after a botched abortion was found to be still alive the next morning and died the following day.

The 22-week infant later died in intensive care at a hospital in the mother's home town of Rossano in southern Italy. Read more...

Do CCTV and the DNA database make us safer?

Welcome to Reality Check. Today I'm scrutinising Labour's claims that Conservative policies on CCTV and DNA would be bad for public safety.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said the Conservative Party is "seeking to restrict the police's ability" to solve crimes.

He says they would do this by taking DNA profiles off the database as well as through their opposition to greater use of CCTV on the basis that it is "all part of a surveillance society". Read more...