Alternative York

Right now I’m watching Question Time, formerly an excellent and unmissable programme, where members of the public could put eminent politicians and broadcasters on the spot about important issues. Now I don’t think I’ll watch it ever again. The BBC have once again demonstrated that they do not represent Britain. Let’s look at some of tonight’s panel and see why Sir Robin Day will be spinning in his grave.

Tony McNulty: for “Minister of State for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing”, read, “Minister of State for let’s pretend that Labour care about Muslim extremism”. If Labour were that bothered about terrorism plotted and planned from Britain then they wouldn’t be proposing pointless extensions of 42 from 28 days to detain terrorist suspects, they would simply deport them. Cheaper, very effective and, oops… alienating for Muslims in Britain, who are Labour’s only hope of staying in power. The Labour Party have sold out on every single indigenous Briton who just happens to be white. Only the muslim vote can save Labour so their policies are geared up to them while being dressed up as “good for Britain”. Only a complete idiot can’t see through this.

June Sarpong MBE: Token black woman best known as a presenter of Hollyoaks on Sunday mornings on T4 a few years back. If she can get an MBE for “services to broadcasting and charity”, then Charles Bronson deserves one for services to the British penal system. This woman hasn’t a clue about politics and what it’s like to live in Britain today. Why does she get a voice when the average pensioner who has spent his life paying taxes and, in many cases, risking his life for Britain, get nothing? Good PR for “multi-cultural” Britain that’s why! If the BBC wanted a good black representative then why didn’t they choose someone who actually understands what it’s like to be black and British? Someone who has been attacked in the street and fought from nothing to make a career? Someone articulate like Lynval Golding? No way though Mr BBC! He wouldn’t represent the correct point of view would he?

The truth is that Britain, to some extent, has always been multi-cultural. It’s just that until the last 10 years, no-one ever thought it necessary to shove it down our throats. The National Front danced to Ska, skinheads loved reggae too. Black music! Surely a racist would shun such offensive stuff?

Racism only exists in the mind of the true imbecile. Being fiercely protective of one’s own culture should be applauded, not vilified. Other than most muslims, the vast majority of immigrants happily blend into British Society and make friends easily.

Why don’t Labour admit the truth? Why don’t they just make their election slogan “New Labour, Sharia Law within 50 years”?

It frightens me I tell you. When the BBC desert British people then we really are in trouble!

See you soon…

I reckon I’ve been to over 500 gigs in my life. I’ve seen some of the greatest live acts ever to grace a stage. I’ve wept at The Chameleons unlikely reunion in 2001, been deafened by Motorhead in 1985, been thrilled by Springsteen, thrown paper at The Mission, been trampled at New Model Army, and chilled out to Al Stewart - but nothing can prepare me for July 6th, at the Hop Farm Festival in Kent, when I will finally get to see the mighty genius that is Mr Neil Young.

I fully expect this to be the only time I see him play in my lifetime and, thanks to Lisa, it is a dream about to come true! The only thing that could top it is to be transported back to 1976 to see The Who in their prime. That can’t happen so July 6th is gonna be a very special day in my life. Having said that - rumour has it that The Specials are touring in the autumn - maybe there can be another day to remember in 2008?

Of course, a full review of Neil Young’s performance will be available on this site as soon as possible after the show.

See you soon…

I got back from Canada this morning. In fact I landed at Manchester International Airport at 07:45 hrs. I got off the plane almost two-and-a-half hours later after a Keystone Kops style cock up that could only possibly happen in Britain.

When we taxied towards the terminal the captain announced that we would have to wait for a plane to depart before we could take our position: fair enough! 30 minutes later the captain informed us that we were waiting for the stairs, which are the responsibility of outside contractors, to be brought to the plane for us to disembark: almost fair enough. A further 40 minutes later the obviously frustrated captain, who had by now missed his own flight back to Glasgow, informed us he has spent all this time trying to find out why such a simple task has proved beyond the staff at the airport: unacceptable.

Then the miracle occurs. Five men in yellow hi-viz jackets arrive with the stairs and we all cheer and get ready to leave the plane: mistake. These five McAirport numpties spend the next twenty minutes trying in vain to align the stairs to the 757’s door without success. As the frustrated throng of passengers wanting to go home start to jeer, unheard, inside the fuselage - the McStair people do what British manual workers do best when faced with a crisis; they sit down and spark up cigarettes!

Eventually they manage, between all five of them, to line up the stairs so we can leave the plane and the door opens, giving us all a welcome breath of polluted Lancashire oxygen. A fellow passenger made a very valid point that at least while we had been stuck on the plane all our luggage would be waiting for us on the carousel: wrong! They didn’t start unloading it until the stairs arrived - leaving us to wait at the carousel for a further 45 minutes to get our bags. It is times like these that make me feel ashamed to be British. At least the yanks can blame paranoia and in-breeding for all their failings - ours is all down to indifference and idleness.

The ironic thing is that the only part of my journey home that was faultless was the train from the airport to York. This, coming less than two weeks after Lisa and I had been left stranded at Manchester Piccadilly for three hours after going to see Bruce Springsteen, was the most surprising, and satisfying, part of the day.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my homecoming day was ruined by the incompetence of British service industry which has left me catnapping and feeling knackered instead of being at Lisa’s relaxing and enjoying my return to Blighty.

My actual trip to Canada was very eye-opening and I will reflect on it over the next few days. Highlights will include meeting a man more intolerant than me, the world’s most unsafe internet cafe, and a bar in Toronto where non-whites have to wait to be served if whites are in the queue.

See you soon…

You may recall that at the back end of last year I blogged on the subject of Cllr. Christian Vassie standing for parliament at the next general election after having a very public court case with his neighbour.

Well Cllr. Vassie has been in touch with me asking to give his side of the story and, while I am not in possession of enough facts to pass judgement myself, his version does indeed make interesting reading.

Rather than paraphrase Cllr. Vassie I will let you read his email (which he is happy for me to do), in order that you, the public, can make up your own minds - or at least understand, like I have, that maybe not everything is a clear as it seems.

Here is the email - minus some parts that are irrelevant to the issue of the neighbour dispute.

Steve hi,

Thanks for your email.

In response to your questions: I WOULD hugely appreciate it if you were to acknowledge on your blog that I have contacted you and that sometimes things are more complicated than they are painted. I would be happy for you to report that the Rawlinsons signed an agreement in August 2007 accepting that they knew our extension to have been built entirely on our own land and that, therefore, the claims on the Morning Flight website are ill-informed or disingenuous.

We still have far too much petty harassment from our neighbours. For example, they have recently erected a fence some four inches from several of our windows to block light to our rooms and to make it impossible for us to maintain the windows. We are seeking legal advice on this.

I would also be happy for you to report that the City of York Council’s Head of Legal Services involvement was restricted to perfectly legitimate concerns about the civil rights issues relating to a CCTV camera the Rawlinsons had installed to snoop on the entirety of our front garden. The city council was concerned that residents should be free to visit their ward councillor without being spied on by a CCTV camera installed by a third party. Following this intervention and letters from ourselves the offending camera was reoriented [a fact that is confirmed in a letter from the neighbour’s solicitors, which you could see a copy of]. The police also visited the Rawlinsons to check that the camera was no longer illegally monitoring our garden. The matter was investigated by the Standards Board of England who found no merit in the Rawlinsons’ claims.

More important than what people think of me, however,is the broader issue. You write that ‘Regardless of the rights and wrongs of your court case etc, all it says to me, as member of the public, is that yet another politician is involved in an ugly, public, scandal that paints a poor impression to the electorate. My ‘trust’ issue was an attempt to demonstrate this point.’

You are, of course, right - stories of this type do exactly as you say. ‘Poor pensioner bullied by nasty councillor’ is a great story that panders to people’s assumptions and prejudices. It suited my neighbour and a fringe fundamentalist religious group to claim a boundary dispute was a public scandal but boundary disputes are very common, they happen to all sorts of people and they are nearly always a tragic waste of time, energy and money. In any event, court papers show this dispute was started by the Rawlinsons - not the other way around - and he eventually admitted that his claim that our extension was built on his land was without foundation.

Does feeding the general cynicism about politicians encourage better politicians or simply drive anyone who wants to challenge orthodox thinking away from politics? The more you want to change things the more you generate enemies, as you know yourself.

Christian

Fair play to Cllr. Vassie for at least having the nuts to stand up for himself and challenge me on what I write rather than resorting to sly, backhanded, methods favoured by other councillors who put themselves in the kitchen yet can’t handle the heat. Eh “Barnaby”?

Now I really am going on holiday!

See you soon…

Please join my new Facebook group to show that you too are sick of Britain’s seemingly terminal decline under New Labour.

I’ve always loved the Australian view of life. Tough competitors on the sports field, hardened drinkers in the pub and always waving two fingers at political correctness and ‘right on’ attitudes. If an Aussie thinks something, then an Aussie will say it. If that offends someone then so be it. What you see is what you get!

The latest piece of Aussie news to find itself in my inbox centres around the residents of the small town of Camden in New South Wales who are not at all happy about Islamic group, The Quranic Society, who have purchased 15 acres of land in the town and are planning on building an Islamic school on the site. The proposed school will cater for 1200 muslim only pupils in a town that currently has approximately only 150 muslim families living there.

Not for the Aussies is the sound of lefties and liberals gleefully announcing what a culturally enriching experience this will provide for the locals. Instead we get a far more sensible and forthright response to these plans.

According to the BBC website the town has already twice managed to rebuff the fast food giant McDonald’s. Now it has mobilised to block the construction of the Islamic school. Back in November, more than 1,000 local people took part in a public meeting. Many participants expressed themselves with little regard for political correctness.

“This has to be one of the nicest places in New South Wales,” said one woman, who has lived in Camden for the past nine years.

“Everywhere is being destroyed. Why don’t we tell the truth. They’re wrecking Australia. They’re taking us over,” she said.

“Why hasn’t anyone got any guts? They’ve got terrorists amongst ‘em… They want to be here so they can go and hide in all the farm houses… This town has every nationality… but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK.”

Some of the loudest cheers of the night greeted a speech from a local man in his late 70s.

“Can I just say this without being racist or political?” he said. “In 1983, in the streets of London a parade by Muslims chanted incessantly ‘If we can take London, we can take the world’. Don’t let them take Camden.”

When the chair of the meeting invited anyone in favour of the development to speak up, no one stepped forward.

Camden does not harbour a large Muslim community, therefore most of the pupils at the proposed school would therefore be bussed in from Sydney, a journey that takes about an hour each way.

“When you have no Muslims living in Camden, why have a Muslim school here?” said Andrew Wynnet of the Camden/Macarthur Residents’ Group. He was also concerned about its long-term, demographic impact.

“The character of the town will change. When you have a large facility like this, the parents will follow. That amount of parents will change the character of the town.”

“If you introduce 1,500 Muslim people to the town they’d be a majority. And that’s not what this town is about.”

How refreshing to see people actually saying what they think and not pandering to the fools who are terrified to offend muslims.

It’s a sad reflection on our own country that if such a plan was proposed in York, for example, it would no doubt be embraced with open arms and compounded with grants and funding too.

Three cheers for Aussie honesty and common sense.

See you soon…

It is with great sadness that I announce the death of justice.

If there really was any justice Leeds United would this evening be celebrating their rightful promotion (that was earned on the field!) to the Championship instead of preparing for another season in the depths of League One.

Regardless of whatever off the field shenanigans happened in the Leeds boardroom, the team won enough points to be promoted as of right.

The only consolation is that Chelsea are the next big club who ‘lived the dream’ that are going to follow Leeds into the mire. All the signs are there, and I hope they do suffer like Leeds have done as Chelsea really do take arrogance to a new level.

We’ll go up next season, and the next!

See you soon…

Check out this story about an old friend of mine from the pool circuit who has just completed a trek to the north pole. Carl is profoundly deaf but, as can be seen, he is a daredevil and an inspirational character. He is also a pain in the backside when playing pool. You haven’t heard moaning until you come across this man!

See you soon…