The problem with Britain

 Every day a thousand or more people, mostly young men of Muslim faith, arrive by boat or some other illegal means in England. They immediately seek asylum, claiming to be refugees escaping some risk of harm in the country they left some considerable time ago.

One thing is for certain: they were not at any risk in France, Belgium or The Netherlands where they set off from on their journeys across the Channel. Yet we seem obliged not only to rescue them when the boats inevitably collapse somewhere in the Channel but provide a sort of automatic Welcome Pack in the form of clothing, a phone, hotel accommodation and some money for food and essentials and, crucially, free legal assistance so that they can formally lodge their claims and start legal cases that will take years, if not decades, to resolve, by which time they may well have found a wife and started a family and the European Court of Human Rights will declare that any attempt by the UK to deport them will be contrary to their ‘human rights’. To my knowledge no-one has yet to be deported other than a few who raised no objection , possibly because they were housed in a particularly grotty part of a northern town and couldn’t cope with the accent or greasy food.

These illegal immigrants join many of their legal friends and commit all kinds of crimes, with violent and brutal attacks being hugely increased in the cases police have to deal with. It seems these immigrants have a far lower boiling point than most Brits and also a tendency to use a knife in any fight rather than a good old-fashioned punch. As for how they treat young white girls, let’s not go into detail other than to report that, after many many years of their activities being covered up by local Council officials and police departments in the areas affected, a National Enquiry has been launched into how so many thousand young white girls were groomed and sexually abused for years by gangs comprising predominantly Pakistani men. Towns across the north of England where Pakistani communities had become established - and thus their representation in the law and management of the areas became a majority - all have now been discovered to have an appalling secret which has been simply covered up. Or, where someone has been brave enough to talk about it they’re told by the Government to keep quiet for fear of upsetting race relations. Indeed, not long ago I would have been accused of racist expression merely by commenting on this here.

The new illegals seem to mix with the established Muslim communities and find jobs or just continue to receive funds in the form of unemployment benefits or assistance with rent and living costs. I would not be surprised to see them with cars and a driving licence. Indeed, once the community starts to manage all the relevant services then security breaks down and previously precious British documents like a passport or driving licence become something that can be purchased not applied for. No checks, just cheques. Get a few while you’re at it, guys, and change Mohammed to Muhammad and Mohamed and claim support benefits for three people.

The legal services are often provided by solicitors and legal staff from the same community and they know every trick in the book. We have seen people who came here illegally and who then raped women or were involved in serious violence found guilty by Courts but judges have been unable to deport them even them. The defendants’ barristers have argued that their clients would face serious emotional hardship if they were returned to this or that country - or several defendants turn out to be gay and thus likely to be subject to harm and great risk in their previous nation if returned. Often the gay defendant becomes remarkably butch when he arrives at prison and has an affair with one or more of the young women prison officers there.

I don’t know what bible they swear on when in Court to declare that everything they say will be the truth and nothing but the truth but in my book it’s mostly a load of lies.

Even where the new people now swarming around village greens or some local cheap hotel in town are reasonably well-behaved and even friendly, the families of Old England have so little in common with them. They can’t communicate easily, they don’t share the same views on many things anyway but can’t even argue if they wanted to. Schools become cluttered with paperwork in several different languages. Teachers try to be inclusive but only succeed in alienating the white kids. They get resentful but any parent showing some sign of concern is rapidly told to be quiet, if not charged with some sort of hate thought crime.

You look around some towns now and the shops have changed almost out of all recognition, run by people from the immigrant community and providing services and especially food for that community. The old English grocer, baker and butcher have long gone.

Naturally, when life around you changes for the worst in your view, you move to some other place where it seems better. Your place is rapidly taken by an immigrant who does like it there and so, before long, school photos show rows of black and brown faces and just a couple of white kids here and there. In some towns the takeover is complete. They’re simply places where I have no desire to go. It’s not that I specifically dislike the people there, it’s just that there is nothing there for me and I would feel quite ‘obvious’ walking down the street and even a little scared that there might be some of the new arrivals who have no sense of restraint built in to their upbringing and who might believe that I am offending them or invent the idea to justify having a fight if there’s nothing more interesting to do. So I don’t go there. Nor do many others like me.

These immigrants invariably marry someone from the same ethnicity. They may be happy banging some young white girl but they’ll only marry and have children with the good Muslim girl their uncles or aunts recommend. That may well be a cousin so God help the development of humanity over time in that respect but that’s another story entirely. It also seems to be the case that our immigrant couples have far larger families than the old white people do. So gradually the world becomes theirs as we become a minority not only in our towns and cities but in our nation. The implications for Government are clear. Britain will change. It has already but we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Before it's too late,

As I watch in increasing dismay the similarly increasing number of idiot socialist Labour people getting seats in the next British Parliament, I have to wonder just how can it all have come to this? I know Rishi Sunak appears weak and a bit out of touch. He's no Boris Johnson and lacks David Cameron's standing and just being Indian will make some people unwisely cease to support him but surely the same people cannot have much by way of admiration for Keir Starmer? Tony Blair and Jerome Corbyn had a sort of charisma. I can see why Blair was popular in 1997 when John Major looked so tired and grey and he was most definitely assisted by Spitting Image's depiction of dinner at the Majors and the peas. I can see why Corbyn was popular - we forget at our peril how close the actual vote was in 2017; May 42% Corbyn 40%!! - as he was the epitome of conviction and really did believe what he said. I simply cannot see why Starmer is popular. 

In fact, I am not sure Starmer is that popular. There's simply nowhere else for the 'anything but Conservatives' vote to go for most people. Ed Davey is a non-starter for the Liberals and they're static on around 10%. Reform do get the pollsters' votes but they don't translate to seats. They might get 20%, maybe a bit more but they'll be lucky to get even one seat and, Nigel Farage is the only figure anyone sees in Reform and no-one thinks he'll be running the country anyway. So if you ask the question and are discouraged from what could be a genuine Don't Know (preceded by a long sigh) then it's Labour. Not Keir Starmer. Just Labour. After all, Labour isn't Corbyn, people think, and they were in power a while back so maybe it's time to give them another chance, or other reasons along those lines . . .

So I can kinda convince myself of how it could be that there is this ridiculous majority in July for a bunch of mostly inexperienced, objectionable, trade unionist, ill-educated or woke people who will decide who does what where and when for some considerable period. I used or in the last sentence because the exception to the inexperienced or ill-educated will be the experienced and very highly academically qualified woke contingent. They're terrifying. The others are mostly fools who will be quite out of their depth and get politically muddled up and very grammatically messed-up like Angela Rayner or Diane Abbott on a normal day. The woke ones are the people who have got us here in the first place, with a bit of help from Momentum, those who want Jeremy Corbyn back and friends of Russia.

I fear for the country as I know it. However, our traditional Conservative, middle-of-the-road government has failed miserably in so many respects to preserve important values and made so many silly mistakes along the way that it is highly unlikely to recover in time. The Conservative government have provided a good economy, a sensible foreign and defence policy and a preference for small government which most of the nation support but the very successful propaganda and activities of the opposition over the last 4 or 5 years has weakened them considerably.

What seems to have happened is that, whilst useless as an opposition in Parliament, the socialist Labour Party has managed to get its supporters installed in many many key positions in the ministries and departments that actually make things happen (or prevent things happening) as well as chairing quangos, government-funded research or implementation bodies, enquiries etc. This has resulted in laws being made largely on the hoof in many areas with no chance for Parliament to intervene. A classic example that has happened here is the incredible development of Equality, Diversity and Identity matters, initially within universities, then large organisations and now many normal day-to-day institutions. It is now the case in Scotland that one cannot make a joke about a particular gender or sexual preference, racial origin or religion. Well, let me rephrase that; it appears that there have been no prosecutions whatsoever for criticism of heterosexual males or females, white people other than those in the past who may have some feint connection with slave trade or colonisation, or Christians. We can all be criticised, moaned about, regarded as responsible for all that is wrong in the world and now to be held to account for basically everything unpleasant. But all the minority groups and those with lots of initials are 'protected' now and we have to be so careful of what we say.

In the rest of the nation we may not be prosecuted (Scotland went Socialist years ago with the SNP government - the same government that proposed that child could choose whether they were a boy or girl and instruct a doctor to give them the appropriate medication, without their parents' consent) but we still run the risk of falling foul of so many other 'regulations' and 'company' or 'corporate' policies that have arisen, untamed by any procedure whatsoever other than a committee which comprises socialist-leaning people.

I have witnessed all this 'woke' stuff happening and wondered how on earth it could have happened under a government that I have been supporting actively because I honestly believed that they were against all that kind of stuff. Indeed they are but as soon as Boris Johnson started to try and change some of the committees he was hounded out of office by a whole consortium of people chosen to dig up whatever evidence of misbehaviour they could find. Eating cake at parties held during a lock-down which should never have happened in the first place was enough to dispose of him and the Conservative Party fell apart. Rishi Sunak hasn't a chance. Decent bloke but he honestly does not stand a chance now.

Despite our continued backing for Ukraine, and the likely new Prime Minister's supposed support, the Labour Party has always had close ties behind the scenes with Russia and they will be under immense pressure to delay any further help and will take the route of suggesting a ceasefire and stop with existing 'new' boundaries as the settlement. What a disaster that will be. But will we see any demonstrations? No. They already support the Hamas side in the conflict in the Middle East and our Socialist Labour Mayor of London (for several years now) has allowed the Palestinian flag to be flown all over the place and for demonstrations to go ahead whilst cracking down on any support for Israel.

Finally, the Labour government will want to be seen to be green and expect there to be a raft of silly policies about new cars, road use, taxes on fuel and heaven knows what else the poor motorist will face while the chap in lycra on his bike or the old lady on the bus (and there is usually only one or two people on any bus that I see) will be given lots of tax breaks and assistance. Maybe that's nice for the old lady but I really have no time for the chaps in lycra. If only they would pull in to let cars go by on narrow country roads . . . no, they stay 2m away from the kerb and prevent anyone passing legally - it is now a new 'regulation' (remember what I said about regulations?) that we motorists have to allow 1½ metres minimum when passing. That's simply suicidal on a twisty country lane here in Northamptonshire. It's probably no big deal for people in flat big cities with massive straight and wide roads but here it does not make any sense. If the lycra guy just pulled in a bit the row of 86½ cars behind him at 18 mph could get by and have a pleasant journey.

Once established with their big big majority, we will not see much of what happens next. It will all be behind the scenes, in committee rooms, in new quangos set up to do this or that, as the people in the ministries that are supposed to do a government's bidding actually really can get on and just do what they think is right or, unfortunately, in most instances, left.

All we will see will be some big announcements of general policy directions. Propaganda, mainly, with plenty of posters and adverts and control over social media. Legislation similar to that already in place in Scotland will cover the UK and be further developed with 'protected minorities' left right and centre . . . no, just left . . . featuring increasingly and restricting more and more what we feel comfortable saying, writing, mumbling quietly to ourselves or even thinking.

Statues that the new committees disapprove of will disappear, as will art and books they dislike or think someone they seek to 'protect' will be offended by. If the Hate Crime Reporting Centres that were set up in Scotland are used to gather information more widely across the whole of the UK then I do begin to worry about informers more generally. When it is easy to report someone for writing articles or speaking publicly in opposition to developments then that's exactly what will happen. They'll be reported, probably knowing nothing about it. Until the committees find ways to ensure that they do know about it because they'll be made to suffer. Quite how remains to be seen but I cannot imagine the new regimes allowing dissent to flourish and, whilst they would not wish to echo Chinese restrictions, South American disappearances or old Soviet-style STASI operations, you know and I know that there'll be some way found. Maybe we'll find is less easy to get credit increases on our cards, our internet connection often gets interrupted for no obvious reason, our children come home spouting a load of crap in praise of something they probably haven't a clue about, our cars have more trouble than we expected getting a new MOT, the new certificate we need to work in this or that field or to rent this or that property is harder to acquire . . . you get the idea.

Almost by definition, if you are earning more than the average pay in Britain and/or have assets more than the value of an average property in Britain then you'll be paying a lot more next year to the government. And by a lot more I suspect that it will be sufficient to bring many people much closer to that average, especially with higher Council Tax or equivalent charges that are bound to come for homeowners and private renters.

Run a small business at your peril as these will be difficult to control and the new government will want to control. There will be a lot more forms to fill in. Ultimately, if they get their IT act together, then AI will increasingly determine what we can or can't have by way of allowances, permissions, and the like, with only more and more forms to deal with to complain or seek reviews.

Truly terrible times are ahead. I am very likely to get into trouble as I shall do my very best to help those who will try to resist the changes and get rid of the socialist government as soon as possible. Even then, however, much damage will have been done with the courts, schools, universities, many institutions already being managed by the left and the woke and the running of the country having been handed over to committees and self-interest groups to the extent that, even if opposition is effective and MPs get kicked out, the new ones will be pretty powerless.

It will actually take some hard-headed and truly committed and business-like MPs from parties such as Reform to succeed where the soft Liberals and Conservatives have failed. A combination of new Conservatives and the likes of Reform may do the trick but they need to start now. Just one or two of the right sort of really committed and open-eyed politicians getting elected now might help us get a small view through the chink of some committee room doors and assist our resistance plans.

Or I might just move to Ukraine, which really may be the better bet if we can get the better of the Russians in the next few months. Before it's too late there too.

General Election 2024: Voting for the best opposition

 Nigel Farage taking over the leadership of the Reform Party will make some differences I had not expected so the table needs a bit of revision.

Party	Seats	% of vote
LAB	455	41
CON	100	24
LIB	55	11
NI Parties	18	3
SNP	13	2
REFORM	4	15
IND / PC	5	1
GREEN	0	3

I see quite a dramatic effect on Conservative seats now with more people voting for Reform and that also allowing the Liberals in to one or other extra seats. I still don't see much of an overall total vote for either Reform or Liberal but I can now see Reform's enhanced promotional reach pushing a few of their candidates over the finishing line whereas before I had expected none.

So we have an even larger majority for Labour now predicted as the joint Liberal and Reform group really hits the Conservative's chances in seats all over the place. They may even struggle to get 100. There is just a chance that Reform really do look more appealing than the Conservatives to all the new people voting Conservative last time, as well as a number of disillusioned supporters who see Nigel Farage as a better opposition than Rishi Sunak. In that instance, where people, reluctantly accepting that Labour will win, are going to be voting for the best opposition, there is that possibility of Reform taking quite a few seats and crossing that barrier which has always prevented the Liberals from making any serious headway.

It is not likely but it is possible and events over the campaign will be what makes voters switch if they're going to. In many ways they will feel they have nothing to lose. The Conservatives appear almost certain not to have a chance of any majority and look likely to lose a lot of good voices for opposition. They have also not exactly endeared themselves to even their core supporters with the extraordinary rise in all things woke, equality, diversity and inclusivity training et al in recent years, making Britain unrecognisable in many ways. So this is an opportunity for those people to vote for someone who will strongly oppose any more advances along those lines and who will be vocal about immigration controls.

These Reform people, assuming they do win some seats, will still be too small in number to make much difference but they're likely to make more noise than the group of chaste and embarrassed  Conservatives who do manage to survive. They'll be spending a lot of their time answering reporters' questions about why their party did so poorly, looking for a new leader and not making any positive impression at all for some considerable time. None of the predicted new leaders inspire much enthusiasm either, with talk that even Liz Truss could return, God help them. That's because many of the better candidates will lose their seats and simply not be available any more. Liz Truss is one of the few with a very large majority and maybe sufficient energy to encourage the local constituents to help her retain her seat.

A handful of Reform people and a much reduced Conservative group will still not make much of an opposition, I'm afraid. So people who are making these calculations will need to influence a lot of their friends and somehow make a significant boost to Reform's predicted vote so that people can see a chance that they may, after all, make a decent number of seats - say 30+ - and perhaps that will encourage others who are wobbling to make the move to back Reform. 

If the Reform vote appears stuck at low numbers, around the expected 10-14% then they'll be lucky to get more than 1 or 2 seats as not many people will see the point of voting for them. If it does happen to get a lift, however, and there is a prospect of some really useful, albeit mostly still just vocal, opposition to the Labour's tirade of awful government for a decade, then I hope a lot of voters do go for it.

I shall be watching developments closely as that successful opposition is the key from July onwards for Britain.

Who will rescue Britain from the Woke Brigade?

 Here are in 2023 and it's time to put this country to rights now. The Conservative government have really let us down, in my view, over the last few years. And I am normally a pretty passionate supporter. Well, I was a supporter of David Cameron and Boris and I have a lot of respect for Rishi Sunak. The less said about May and Truss the better, although I do not blame them for the things that have gone wrong at all. It's society that has changed and the attitude to a key group of unknowns in positions of influence in organisations which effectively control our lives.

The main things that have gone wrong for me all tend to be concerned with freedom, freedom to say what we like, write what we like and, for that matter believe for what like. There's also the freedom to drive a car running on petrol in a city and the freedom to decide for myself whether I need a mask or can meet more than three and half people on a Tuesday morning in Tescos and the freedom to fly somewhere without a portfolio of paperwork and worrying about the contents of my bag being in the wrong size of plastic bag.

I had always thought that it would be socialists who would be more inclined to take away these freedoms, to want to control me more with the Nanny State imperatives but all that has annoyed and frustrated me has occurred under a Conservative government.

The main loss of freedom has been the advent of 'woke' in our daily lives. I am not going to list all the examples of what I find wrong or just plain bad nowadays. It's actually the whole concept that's wrong. There have always been charities, NGOs and CICs who get money from government for their activities to champion 'minority' causes, be they in regard to sexual preference, gender, ethnic background, disability or whatever. We've tended to leave them to their own devices. We might not particularly wish to support some organisation that speaks for left-handed Tamils with one leg but we don't make a fuss as for every one we don't particularly agree with.  

These organisations have mostly existed in a sort of grey, little-visited world in the past, with one or two notable exceptions and no-one has really paid them a great deal of attention. Lottery money and our tax has funded many of them and they've provided a large number of well-paid jobs for groups of people with a passion for the causes. Slowly, however, with a great deal of help from some top class legal advice and the Equalities Act 1970, many have found ways to influence staff in HR offices across the country and convince middle managers and boards or controlling bodies in councils, hospitals, public employers generally, academic institutions and more that policies need to be updated to comply with legislation. Now, no-one wanted to be seen not to be doing their bit as regards diversity, equality of whatever in the early 2000s but now it has been taken to a whole new level.

The 'woke' thing really stook off a few years ago when almost every organisation wanted to show how they supported minorities and wanted it made bright and clear so that no protesters would damage their buildings or directors' cars. The big 'minority issues' have been race and gender, with sexual preference getting a close third as far as I can determine. These have dominated discussion and all the organisations dealing with them have had a surge of funds and interest and support in so far as all those organisations and institutions have needed reassurance that they're behaving as they should be, whatever that may mean. And there's the rub. 'Whatever that may mean' is how the legislation has been interpreted and given rise to even someone saying something which offends someone else being seen as a crime. For all I know, I may already have a string of Hate Crime Incidents reported against me for the things I have written or said over the years. I know that I take my life in my hands if I criticise the dreadful Black Lives Matter people and say how embarrassing I find the whole business of taking the knee can be with some colleagues at work. I am white and, apparently, privileged and usually get a ten-minute lecture should I dissent from some woke idea when mentioned.  I tell you, objecting to anything woke is hard work.

Organisations are now very fearful of being on the wrong side of the argument (or even the law, as it stands) and the risk of being sued by a member of staff or a student or a client adds to that fear to such an extent that they feel they need protection. Along comes one of those charities, NGOs or CICs - think Stonewall for it is they who are more than anyone else responsible for this disaster - and gets someone appointed as Diversity Manager or Lived Experience Director, or even good old-fashioned Personnel Manager will do and they arrange lots of training sessions at huge expense. Who provides the training? Oh, people arranged by Stonewall or one of the others, of course! Even more money flows into the coffers and these groups are now seriously well-managed and well-funded in the vast majority of cases, with government keen to ensure they get what they need. Even government departments are now getting this new training and staff being told how they need to re-examine their attitudes to black people, or whatever minority or shade of gender is the flavour of the day! So once government staff themselves get either indoctrinated by the message or genuinely get convinced that it's all good stuff then so too do the Ministers they advise who decide what you and I need to do to keep out of trouble.

Before we know it Stonewall has effectively robbed us of so many freedoms - especially the one to criticise Stonewall - that we're not just dumbfounded but simply dumb. We dare not speak out or we'll be shot down in flames by some clever activist who has rehearsed answers to almost every question we might wish to raise or idea we may wish object to. It's not that there might not be alternative views it's just that we're not allowed to express them as someone may be offended and sue the company who own the room where it happened.

It's not only Stonewall but they're the one we hear about. The training has been going on for some time now and seems to have started after some black chap in America died when he refused to accompany the police quietly to the local station and they didn't treat him very well. After that the world went mad and many of the so-called black minority organisations were on a roll and could do no wrong.

Now staff are being told that as well as their grandparents being responsible for slavery or something they also need to specify their pronouns, whatever that means, and by no means should they twitch or raise an eyebrow should someone walk into the room with a large penis poking out from under a flowing dress and say his name is Keith/Miss/Their. That's a microaggression, apparently Very bad. Don't let any facial expressions upset someone. Better wait until Keith has left the room and then join the rest of the crowd and burst out laughing.

Some staff in a government office had been fired because they refused to go along with the pronoun thing. Since when was that a condition of employment? What happened to having to agree to a change of contract terms? I give up. Well, I nearly do. But I hold out some faint hope that there are enough people out there who really do agree that enough is enough and the whole woke business needs to be cut out of our society. Completely. I totally want to respect every minority and treat them nicely and I don't care what colour you are or whether you like to dress up on Fridays. I don't even care if you want to wear a BLM badge and go down on one knee at football matches or when meeting the boss. It's your choice and you're entitled to your choice. Just as I am entitled not to want to do those things. And if I want to say something rude about some prophet in private at home then I would consider it unreasonable if my kids were to report me and I find myself with a criminal record in Scotland. 

It can be done. The government could amend legislation to make a lot of this 'training' unnecessary or even desirable from a legal point of view. They should immediately ban such training across the board and review the funding of every body getting taxpayer or lottery money above a certain level, looking at exactly where the funds go and whittling out some causes which don't merit any public funds by virtue of being essentially plotting to change Britain or remove sections of British society from history.

Academic freedom of staff to express their views and students to do so too must be restored, if necessary by amending the basis on which institutions get our money. No more cancelling speakers because someone doesn't like what they may say. No more getting away without being arrested for damaging property or statues just because the property of statue might have been associated with some disagreeable action in Britain's past. No more National Trust lectures on how bad we white people are or were when the properties they're responsible for looking after were built. No more museums deciding that this or that artefact must be put out of sight or have a message attached explaining how bad the white man was who dug it up or how we shouldn't have been in that place anyway.

By all means let people write about whatever Britons may have done wrong in the past but where we are providing information to the public, let this be an even-handed and fair account showing several viewpoints or sides to the history involved. This, finally, brings me to the BBC and much of television's output these days. There, too, the HR departments and production and writing committees have been taken over by the Woke Brigade, giving rise to tediously biased stories every night in soap opera discussions and casting as many ethnic minority people as possible in new series, lambasting government and business in documentaries at every turn so that a casual observer of Auntie's output would think the country is one third BAME, one third LGBTOOQ+ and the other third can't be bothered to object.

Well I do object. I find a lot of mainstream television now almost offensive in how so much more time is given to opinions and causes which I don't believe need such highlighting, if, indeed, they're relevant at all. Dr. Who had really awful story lines a few years ago. Now it seems to be compulsory that there is a non-white face in every news bulletin and ITV don't escape criticism with the laughably 'correct' group of black, brown and olive people replacing the whites in adverts. I understand that some departments now have to write a report justifying why they recruit a white person for a post but this is not required for a non-white recruit. That's mad and, like the concept of positive discrimination, which we heard of a decade or so back, absolutely stupid! The Spectator magazine managers have a wonderful way to recruit new interns; a team of people strip the applications of anything that might identify the age, gender, background, locality of the applicants and they're all asked to complete an aptitude test. The people deciding who should be interviewed have no idea about whose material they're looking at and the decisions as to who gets an interview are based purely on the scores given to the tasks and tests. Brilliantly simple, inexpensive to set up, takes a bit of organisation but totally fair and meets every criteria for whichever flavour of diversity or equality or opportunity you like best.

Put that sort of thing in place across businesses and organisations throughout the country and give the job to the people best qualified or suited to the job in every case. Argue against that if you can.

Finally, there was a YouGov poll conducted recently which should be more widely circulated as it really does put into perspective what has gone wrong and may explain why the government have been so stupid recently. In every case listed the perception of the proportion of the population who were in a particular minority was hugely over-estimated. Not by a small amount, but hugely so. There are about one half of one percent of the population that is transgender. Just over one in a hundred say they're gay or lesbian. A fraction more are bisexual. But when asked, people's average estimates were around ten times as many! They thought that 20% of the British population was black. It's a mere three in every hundred, that's all. Watching the BBC, you get the impression that their people casting the presenters for their programmes were the survey's responders.

HS2. Neither Here Nor There.

Only the cow seems to be in focus with HS2 Ltd

Lots of speeches and stuff about the new high speed rail link this week. It doesn't seem to be coming particularly close to here so my comments are not in the NIMBY category, just what I've been thinking over the last year or two generally.

Two things bother me: it's going to cost an extraordinary amount of money and take an extraordinarily long time to complete. It's being sold to us on some strange North | South lines, somehow making Northerners feel more connected to us Southerners. No way is some railway going to do that. Admittedly they may be better connected in 2030 or whenever but I can't see that making much of a difference to anyone's attitude either side of Rutland or wherever South becomes North.

The one good thing that the project could have going for it might be the large number of construction jobs that it would create, so removing a good few hundred thousand from the Job Seekers' queues and I suppose I might be a little more convinced if it were being mostly funded by the savings in welfare benefits but no-one's come up with those figures yet which tends to make me believe it won't be by any stretch of Treasury imagination. That's pretty long-term, too, and the vast majority of beneficiaries over the next few years, when we most need the jobs and something to boost the economy, would be lawyers, planners and people on both sides of all the inevitable negotiations promoting or denigrating this and that. Graphic designers, too, should do well as there'll be logos, leaflets and lots of lovely web sites to make. If you take a look at the current rambling and impenetrable bundle of text and PDFs that comprise the on-line information for all this you'll see why there'll need to be a lot of money spent on that!

So we're trying to pay off the huge debts inherited from Labour's crazy spending years and holding back everyone's pay, encouraging people to work longer and cutting back here, there and everywhere but feel it's OK to spend vast amounts on a railway line that's not going to produce any discernible benefit to the nation or most people or businesses until most current CEOs have long retired and moved to Spain or Switzerland or gone back to India? I can just about swallow tough times ahead if the debts do get cleared but if there is money to spend on a project or three then this is most definitely not one I can support.

Things are changing dramatically and will continue to do so apace. More people are now working from home. Firms don't need to be in cities anything like as much. The internet has developed to a point where communication and working on-line are just natural. The speed and reliability of internet services is such that it hardly matters where you live now and, once the providers really get their acts together, anyone anywhere will, before the tunnelling and flattening commences, be able to work efficiently wherever they happen to be, North, South, East and West. Even in the Midlands. Yes, there'll always be goods to transport from one place to another but I'm not so sure we shall be looking to transport people across vast distances or that there will be a particularly strong demand from those who do have to travel from London to Leeds to be able to do so that much more rapidly.

Wherever they start from and wherever they fall out of the new carriages, they'll still have that tricky problem of getting to a station in the first place and, unless every Yorkshire manufacturer is housed in some huge multi-storey factory next to New Leeds Station they'll need to travel along M, A and maybe even B roads and avoid sheep to reach their actual destination.

The reason why people don't travel around as much as they might is because the two ends can often be a pain. We don't need super links between the big cities. We need good, uncluttered links between all the little places and the big places. We're all scattered across the country - even those who think they live in big towns probably actually live on estates several miles out from the dot on the map that the town's name is attached to. Sort of under the P of Northampton.

If I want to go to Leeds or Manchester I get in my car and get to my destination near one or the other 2½ hours later. I have attended meetings galore where colleagues have taken far longer travelling from nearer points by public transport and who tend to start looking at their watches in the afternoon as they have to take this or that train at 4:56pm whereas I can just wander out, walk a few yards and drive away whenever the business is done. I have no problem with those who genuinely prefer the train or hate driving or even the few that actually like buses but I do get frustrated with those who try to tell me that it is more convenient or, worse, better for the environment. And it is, I believe, this annoying group of people who say that the train is the only way to take the strain, who seem to have won the day and influenced thinking behind this massive planned expenditure of our stretched resources.

I have never heard of anyone saying that they want to get from A to B more quickly by rail. But I have heard hundreds say they'd like to get from D, E F and G to H, I J and K via L, M N and O less stressfully and with a more reliable timing. If they're going by rail they'd like to be able to get to a station easily and park their car there at a reasonable cost and without walking miles. If they're going by car they'd like to avoid having to go through narrow town centres in long queues, lose shock absorbers from potholes or be stuck behind someone doing 62mph in the fast lane of a motorway. (He thinks he's doing 69¾mph but most speedos still tend to over-read by 10% - check your GPS speed one day!)

I have never heard of anyone going daily shopping by train, visiting relatives by just train or taking the kids to their friends parties by train on Sundays. This is Britain, not China or even France with their great tracts of land separating communities where high speed trains can really make a significant difference to journey times and whether they happen at all. Here we all live within a few hours of each other and knocking a bit off the middle bit of that journey time isn't going to make that much difference. We need nice roads that are well maintained, car parks, maybe more buses and links between out-of-town car parks and centres or even trains for that. Many would even appreciate the reopening of lots of little local train services between little places and some East-West lines too. But we don't need any particularly high speed, super tilting and whizzing bullet trains to make life more pleasant on our travels.

The anti-car brigade will already be shouting CO emission, of course, but great advances are being made in electric motors and I've always had doubts about the mass transfer to diesel. I find it hard to believe that all the soot that comes out of most diesel engines once their off the forecourt is that much better for my kids to breathe in. The diesel-lovers go on about economy but they have to do one hell of a big mileage to balance the extra initial cost, the higher fill-up costs and what can often be heavy servicing costs too on older models. Their cars also make horrible noises after a few months too. Give me the whoosh of a high speed train a few hundred yards away any day. So rather than moan about me driving a 2½ litre petrol car why doesn't the anti-car group join me in objecting to this high speed link thing and urge their buddies in Government departments to put the investment into expediting development of electric engines, other power devices and making roads smoother and car parks more friendly and all the things that would help us all get about more happily, less stressfully and more healthily too.

I have no idea how much could be achieved in improving normal rail services and facilities, roads and park-and-ride type things with the money being budgeted for the next 20 years on the High Speed Link but my guess is that not only would it be sufficient to make massive improvements right across the nation - even in Northumberland and Sussex and Cornwall who seem to get overlooked these days - in fact why not help Wales too - but it would also bring almost instantly lots of new jobs for a much wider range of people and proportionately far less top level planners and negotiators of the calibre the train thing will attract. By the end of 2013 we could all see a difference and some of us might even say Thank you, David and vote for him after all in 2015.