Little Brother, endorsed

Put aside for a moment your revulsion at the people prosecuted here. Yes, your first impression (and probably further ones, too) is that these are the sort of neighbours you'd move to Somalia to avoid.

Instead, read with horror the remarks of the judge:

Deputy District Judge Alan Fowler said the CCTV cameras, which had been pointed into the couple's back garden by the four neighbours, did invade their privacy but they were entitled to do this by law as they were detecting a crime.

Is behaving "very odd" a crime? Is simulating sex on your own property a crime? Vulgar, of course, but a crime? Every television executive in Britain should be arrested, they broadcast far worse.

But the coup de grace...you can set up CCTV cameras to monitor the private property of your neighbours if you are 'detecting a crime'. Of course, as Labour have introduced about one million new laws, there's a fair bet that you will catch someone doing something.

So, incredibly, it is now legal and permissible to film the private lives of your neighbours. The State is happy as it gets a cadre of willing spies and informants, and it is only a short step from private monitoring to State monitoring.

What is wrong with these people?

Would they rather the plane crashed with them on board?

parents were shouting and screaming and there were women and children crying.

Apparently, there were adults present but this makes you think there weren't. Again, were they demanding the plane flew regardless of how dangerous the weather conditions were?

These people are lunatics. Get a grip.

Beyond parody

You've gotta larf. (HT Julia)

A druid speaks

I normally have little time for the views of bearded progressive liberals, and for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the prima inter pares among them, I have almost no time at all. Still, his remarks yesterday bear some examination.

Britain...does not seem to like itself very much

Thanks, tell us something we didn't know. Perhaps an admission that thirty years of extreme liberalism and multiculturalism has fractured our culture and society? That people who are deliberately raised with no respect for themselves and their country, their culture, certainly aren't going to have respect for anyone else? A country whose first instinct is to reward the recklessly feckless, even though the consequences are even more fecklessness?

Nope, none of that. I enjoyed this, taking about what the average Briton says:

I'm worried about what will happen to me tomorrow because I've got nothing really in the bank.

Yes Rowan, it's called earning a living and paying your way. Archbishops don't have to worry about that, but ordinary people do. It isn't a sign of a broken society but a normal one. The only broken bit is that despite the longest economic boom in British history (certainly within the last century), the average Briton has no savings and is in hock to thousands. What better illustration of the liberal commandment of "Do what thou wouldst" could you want?

Still, I'm not convinced that Williams is the man to solve our problems. This is the man, remember, who is hot for Sharia.

Who says the State is running out of ideas in the fight against crime?

If you tried to make stuff like this up, people would laugh at you. This is how violence and drunkenness are policed in Britain today. I'm not surprised by it though; personal experiences can often reinforce a nagging feeling that things have gone terribly wrong.

For me, it was the time at a cricket match at Lord's a year or so ago. As I was walking past the Nursery end to leave by the North Gate, a vile drunk yob stuck his face to within three inches of a female steward and screamed "We fucking did you!". There were two police officers three yards away and they...smiled indulgently. I thought about remonstrating politely with them but realised this is the Met, they'd think twice about arresting a violent yob for assault but would nick me without thinking.

So, when I see stories like the above, it is all part of the same indulgent attitude. It is strange that on the one hand we have parts of the State making ominous noises about alcohol, while other parts of the State let the worst excesses of alcohol pass without notice. If I were paranoid I'd think that they wanted to let things get so bad that, after a few years of friendly media coverage, they'd be able to crack down seriously on anyone who dares to drink. I'm sure that's their fantasy scenario, but I imagine the reality is more prosaic - like all huge and powerful organisations, it is not a single identity with a common cause but a sack full of competing and contradictory interests, much like the Nazi party was.

On the one hand, you have the Department of Health, now vying with the Home Office as the most sinister department of government. These people have moved well beyond the old position of advising about health but letting people take the consequences of their own behaviour; their aim is now coercion, bending the public to THEIR will and their ideas of how people should live. Their excuse is cost, but never believe any public organisation which professes to be worried about costs - they are lying. This is about power.

On the other, you have the Police. The public 'services' in Britain have never been known for their German-like efficiency and devotion to duty, and the police are no different. Still, in the old days they knew what the law was and they enforced it. A generation of university educated (brainwashed) senior officers later, and now it is an organisation which believes that criminals are all victims and not responsible for their behaviour.

It is simple - if you want to cut down on drunken violence, spend a year arresting people for being drunk and violent, and publicise it widely. If, by some miracle, arresting people is permitted by the Human Rights Act, by the end of the year I think drunken violence would have declined somewhat. It's a new and exciting policy, but it might work.

Groan

Letters From a Tory is the inaugural winner of Pun of the Week, a new, regular...OK, we'll skip that.

Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

I admitted to not knowing what a 'hopolophobe' was (to be honest, as phobias go, it isn't the most talked about phobia in today's media). I am now doubting that the above is even a pun. Is it even ironic? After the furore over Alanis Morrisette's 'Ironic' song, where at least 90% of the instances she cites weren't, in fact, ironic, am I falling into the same trap?

I am also concerned about a possible over-use of commas and apostrophes.

UPDATE: I have just realised there is no such bank as 'Bonsai Bank'. I blame the beer and the late hour, not any innate racist assumptions about what the Nips might call their banks. Sorry, I meant Japanese. Sorry.