JUST A WEE REMINDER, CHICK...

IN SAUDI ARABIA THE PENALTY FOR ADULTERY IS STONING

OUR FLAGS WERE AT THE TOP OF THE FLAG POLES, WHERE THEY SHOULD BE

Look at the state of that prat.
I wonder what pantomime he's in!
Alibaba and the Houses of Parliament Thieves?

I've been reading on Twitter since yesterday about how the "UK" was flying flags at half mast because of the death of the Saudi king.

It is worth saying that wherever else they were lowered, flags were not flying at half mast in Scotland. 

A Scottish government spokesman said that it was not the custom in Scotland to fly flags at half masts for foreign heads of state who had died.

Both Ruth Davidson and Jim Murphy seemed to be in agreement about this. Ruth was particularly scathing about the Saudi regime, its treatment of women and of course its harsh regime of punishments for a wide variety of non offences, including blogging. Particular credit to her given that Cameron positively foamed at the mouth over his late majesty. Miliband was less effusive, but still diplomatically polite.

The Saudi king is a dictator. There isn't any sort of democracy in the country. And yet at the drop of a hat the UK, which seems to spend a great deal of money trying to force democracy on dictatorial regimes in the Middle and Near East, which are not overseen by royals, sends the prime minister and Charlie out to fete the new king at enormous expense. Surely Po-Face Hammond and some junior royal like Eddy or one of the ugly sisters, would have done fine, and possibly cost a bit less. Still spare no expense where the nobs are concerned, that's their motto!

Help yourself to anything you want.
The plebs are paying.

Of course we know that the regime in Saudi buys vast quantities of British arms. And, as it never seems to go to war with anyone itself, I can only imagine that it either uses them to keep its own people down, or it gives them over to terrorist organisations which support its hard line religious views.

But it seems that the UK economy is dependent on these weapons sales and that they can't afford to upset the sheiks lest they go to France or China for their weaponry.

Anyway, rant over about Saudi. I just wanted to clear up the lie that because England has lowered its flags in honour of the man, that necessarily means that Scotland has done the same.

YUK

Neither, should I add, did we lower the flags to commemorate the death of Mr Leon Brittan, although, listening to some of the tributes that he got from his Tory mates, you'd have thought the man was a saint and should get a £15 million state funeral like Thatcher. (Yes, I know it was reported to have cost £8 million, but that excluded security costs... and can you image the security for such a divisive figure?)

AWWWWW, sweet!

WE CANNOT STAND BY AND WATCH A DICTATOR SLAUGHTERING HIS OWN PEOPLE

Watching the television news tonight, I was reminded that a just a few short weeks ago Messers Sarkozy and Cameron were touring the world insisting it was vital for the West to take action against Gadaffi.

I particularly remember Mr Cameron saying, in what I imagine he considered his statesman voice (not unlike Jim Hacker’s attempts at Churchill), that we in Britain could not stand by and watch as a dictator murdered his own people.


He was hailed by the Tory Press as a world leader, quite literally, as he was leading the attempts to force the world into action against the Libyan dictator. The press were, of course, as happy to leave the mention of Sarkozy’s involvement to the 8th or 9th paragraph as they were to point out that President Obama was dithering and indecisive.

Of course they were wrong on all fronts. Mrs Clinton was infact, working on diplomacy behind the scenes, as is the job of the Secretary of State and Cameron and Sarkozy were well out of their depths in involving themselves in matters they didn’t fully understand.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think that it is easy to leave people to die at the hand of a heartless, cruel and murderous oaf like Gadaffi; and I wouldn’t want the responsibility of declining to get involved, but with my limited knowledge of what goes on in the world, I could see that what we were dealing with here was likely to be more than just Libya.

Tunisia and Egypt had already dispatched their dictator presidents and unrest was already apparent in other Middle East countries. Last night I mentioned in my ramblings the fact that in the tiny kingdom of Bahrain, whose crown prince will be the guest of the Windsors next week, medical personnel were being 'disappeared' because they had seen the dreadful carnage caused by the Bahraini police and their friends from across the causeway in Saudi Arabia.

Today over 50 Syrians have been killed on the orders, Mr Cameron, of their dictator, Bashar al-Assad (who fortunately is not invited to the Windsors’ wingding).

Surely if ordinary people could see that contagion was not only possible, but highly likely, what on Earth possessed Cameron to make such stupid pronouncement? Did HE not foresee that within weeks people would be asking why he was not equally affronted by the death of peoples of other countries at the hands of THEIR dictators?

It would appear that he did not; and neither did his foreign secretary, nor any other his numerous advisors in the FCO. Of course Bahrain and Syria are not the only countries to which this has spread. Unrest is rife in Yemen, and has even spread as far as the nailed-down-tight kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to Morocco and to the much easier-going Jordan, where it seems to have been contained by the swift actions of modernist King Abdullah.

No one now knows how long we will be involved in yet another war which has nothing to do with us; and in the meantime other poor, pathetically downtrodden people will be crushed by dictators to whom doubtless, our governments sold the wherewithal to do it...

And we simply have neither the money nor the manpower to do anything about it. Cameron’s Churchillian moment, which looked fairly daft at the time, now looks plain ridiculous.

BLAME ANYONE BUT ME, SAYS GEORGE

It’s nothing to do with me, says George Osborne, referring to the price of petrol which is at record levels in the UK.

He says that motorists are paying the price for mounting oil prices, and his friend at number 10 has said non-tax factors were mainly driving the cost at the pump.

The comments were in response to OPEC chairman Abdullah al-Badri who had told motorists to blame their governments if they thought they were paying too much for the fuel in their cars.

It is virtually the same message as King Abdullah gave to Gordon Brown, when at a conference a few years ago, Brown hit out at OPEC, which seems to be largely controlled by Saudi Arabia, asking them to control the price of oil by increasing production, and promising to increase production in Scotland.

The king pointed out, whilst looking straight at Gordo, that the price of oil was, in fact, quite reasonable, but that some governments chose to tax it more highly than others, thus causing greater strain to their citizens.

Prices of petrol have hit record levels at the pumps this week in Britain, despite falling in other European countries, including France and Germany.

So why’s that then George, if it’s all down to the oil producers?

Number 10 said that if the oil price goes up then that’s clearly going to affect the prices at the pump. Jeez, now we know why these people got to where they are.

But with petrol in the UK the second most expensive in the world and over 60% of that 2nd most expensive in the world fuel is tax, which has increased twice in the last two months, it’s a little disingenuous, to say the least, to blame the oil producers.

Pics: Our George: Have you ever wondered how much he understand of all this economics malarkey; Opec controls 40% of oil production; King Abdullah with some funny old bloke in a weird outfit inspecting troops; Breakdown of petrol prices based on 126.9p per litre.

SO THIS WEEK IT'S BACK TO MIDDLE CLASS ASPIRATIONS

Gordon Brown has warned middle class voters they could face a Tory squeeze and indicated that Labour would not fight the election class war strategy. He admitted that Labour would cut public spending but said the way out of recession was to “unleash a wave of social mobility not seen in this country for more than six decades”. Referring to his own middle class upbringing, he said the party would continue to campaign as "New Labour" and not shift leftwards in a bid to secure a fourth term.

In a speech to the Fabian Society Brown said: "I believe in an aspiration Britain. Opportunity and reward cannot be hoarded at the top, and it is not enough just to protect people at the bottom. I want to see the talents and potential of all the British people fulfilled: social mobility for the majority. And I believe that a fair society is one where everyone who works hard and plays by the rules has a chance to fulfil their dreams, whether that is owning a bigger house, taking a holiday abroad, buying a new car or starting a small business. So let me be explicit today; social mobility will be our theme for the coming election and the coming parliamentary term."

First question that comes to mind: Why has it taken till now for this to be the message of New Labour? If Brown believes in all this nonsense he spouts, where has he been for the last 13 years?

In his haste to rush back to the middle classes, and cover what appears in several ways to be a "Balls-up", will Brown remember the core vote, or are they to be ignored as they have nowhere else to go (or so he thinks)?

You see, in all this nonsense that is supposed, I imagine, to lift our spirits, I wonder if Brown taken into consideration that some of these aspirations are so far above some of our people as to be impossibe dreams? Millions of people work hard and “play by the rules” (whatever that means) and earn barely enough to eat and heat their tiny homes. For some owning a house is not an aspiration. Many will never be able to afford to get their foot on the property ladder, mainly thanks to the moronic house price boom allowed by this government and the subsequent crash, overseen by Brown. For some having a new car is something that will never happen; a 10 year old banger is a luxury, and as for starting a business.... don't make me laugh. The Prime Minister keeps on telling us that “up and down the country people say.... blah, blah....” Does he ever listen to anything people say, or are the ones that he meets handpicked to tell him what he wants to hear?

There is no doubt that to achieve the targets that government has set we have reduced the standards of every exam so that people pass them, but there are some for whom no exam will ever be easy enough (see the literacy figures discussed in Parliament only this week).

What aspirations should these people have Mr Brown? What jobs are you going to create for them? What aspirations should even the literate have; the ones who work for minimum wage? I'll tell you Mr Brown. Staying alive and feeding their kids next week. That's what!

I read somewhere that King Abdullah of Jordan disguises himself and wanders around the streets in Amman, going to cafés and shops, listening to what people are REALLY saying. I would suggest that Brown try that.