1053 days ago
As you may recall my thirsty daughter Olaf has been brought up in Islington and has therefore picked up some freakish liberal traits such as wishing to not only rejoin but to work for the accursed EU, bleating on about polar bears and the global warming cult and being a pescetarian. That means she will not eat meat so for her late Christmas meal with us, I prepared a whole salmon, not hooked in the Dee from our garden but bought in. Starting to fish in the river is a resolution for 2022.
1788 days ago
Some of you have suffered only three years of being branded thick, ignorant, xenophobic, narrow minded and racist since you voted to leave the EU. For my family there is 45 years of hurt. But on January 31 it is all over and so I have today invested a few quid for my own personal celebration, which I will – of course – record though it will probably be classed as a hate crime.
2150 days ago
Taxpayer funded, BBC Radio 4 has just run a long report on the problems Nigeria faces. It started with David Cameron slamming the country as being corrupt back in 2016. This, the BBC argued, was unhelpful. It was a bad thing to say. I am not normally one to defend Call Me Dave, but on this occasion.
2319 days ago
When I visit my dad, he urges me to take away one or two of the zillions of books in his house. Naturally I want to please him and do as requested but I am equally conscious that the Mrs reckons that our house in Bristol has too many books and that my suggestion that she bin her sociology books to make way for more of mine is not a runner. And now Joshua is collecting book after book as well...
3784 days ago
I have no internet at The Greek Hovel. And I am damned if I will drive back there in the dark from the local taverna along the long and winding road. And so I must miss the Germany vs Argentina World Cup Final. Shucks. Do I care who wins?
No. I’d like both teams to lose. The Argies are a conceited and dirty side and have not worked out that the Falklands are not called the Malvinas. As for the Krauts? They are also arrogant. There is the little matter of two contests at their National Sport during the last Century and a German win will undoubtedly see the Evil Empire claiming that “The World Cup has been won by the EU”. So I’d like both sides to lose.
Accepting that this cannot happen, I conclude that the Argies really are dirty cheats. And our contest with them at the National Sport of Germany was more recent than our bouts with the Hun. And so thinking of the Falklands if I care at all I rather hope that the Krauts scrape a win.
3858 days ago
Unless I am very much mistaken the poster below advertisers a worker’s day demonstration in Syntagma Square Athens, opposite the Parliament of Greece on May 1st. As you know I want to help the workers at every opportunity and so shall be there to show solidarity.
Of course workers would be far better off and have far more opportunity for material advancement ( i.e. higher take-home pay) if employers were encouraged to take them on by abolishing the minimum wage, scrapping employers NI, abolishing all “employment rights” laws, taking anyone on under £20,000 out of the tax system etc. But I am not sure that I will share my thoughts of anarcho-capitalism with the comrades tomorrow.
POSTER
Will it be a peaceful demo? Hmmm, I sense that rioting can become a bit addictive.
3905 days ago
The veteran Labour politician Tony Benn has this morning died aged 88. As is the case, even for Bob Crow, his family have my sympathies. So what to make of Wedgie? This may rather surprise you.
Anthony Wedgwood Benn was an aristocrat who renounced his seat in the Lords to fight for what he believed in from the House of Commons. And he certainly had strong beliefs. During the 70s and 80s as Energy Minister in the appalling Callaghan Government and then in opposition he tried to swerve the Labour party violently to the left and he almost succeeded. He did his part in making Labour utterly unelectable and thus gave the blessed Margaret a good stretch in office. For that he deserves our eternal gratitude.
My grandfather, Sir John Winnifrith, was a Bennite. After retiring from the Civil Service he was for the first time in his live, as head of the National Trust & War Graves Commission, able to speak his mind. And thus in the 1975 EU referendum campaign he found himself now and again speaking on the same platform as his hero. Their reasoning for opposing staying in the Evil Empire was that it was a construct to make rich farmers and industrialists richer at the expense, largely via food prices, of the working classes.
I am not sure that I follow their logic but at least I could agree with my Grandfather and Benn on one thing, the EU was a bad thing.
In his declining years Benn came to be seen as a bit of a National Treasure.
3919 days ago
UKIP supporters are frothing madly at data showing that 600,000 EU citizens are living in the UK claiming welfare – the answer according to the fruitcakes is to stop them coming here. It is a populist line but a nasty one. On twitter I am lambasted: “You diss non-working Brits and ex-pats, but then defend benefit claiming EU folks.” Of course I do nothing of the sort. It is just that I am not an economic illiterate.
Do I enjoy EU citizens turning up her to claim benefits? Of course not. But I am minded that there are many British ex-pats living in the EU enjoying a range of state benefits paid for by the taxpayers of France, Spain, etc. This is not a one way matter as UKIP tries to pretend.
But there is a bigger issue. I am equally disgusted by our home grown welfare bums on Benefits Street. Frankly I “diss” all welfare bums equally wherever they were born. The way to deal with all welfare bums living in the UK is to drastically scale back the level of largesse of the British welfare state – reinvesting the savings in increase sing the thresh-hold at which all workers pay tax.
The answer is not as UKIP pretends simply to stop other EU citizens claiming welfare payments and State benefits (such as the NHS) here. Aside from the problems that would cause our ex-pats when other countries showed reciprocity, it would deter those from outside the UK who wish to come here to work but might take a few weeks to find work.
For the reality is that British workers simply refuse to take low paid jobs. Those jobs are filled by migrant workers from the rest of the EU. Adopt UKIP policies and British businesses would not be able to employ workers who would allow them to remain profitable. We would all be worse off – something Nigel Farage has admitted.
Showing real compassion to those who wish to work (by arguing for tax cuts for them), but also a grasp of basic economics (I'd like British businesses to thrive) I find myself concluding that UKIP is increasingly a party of populists, economic illiterates and frankly just very nasty people.
3920 days ago
Mr Björn Kjellström, the head of the UK office of the European Parliament has written to journalists asking us to remind our readers that most laws made today are made not in Westminster but by the Evil Empire. I am happy to assist Bjorn old boy.
Many on the Euro-poodle wing of the British Press (step forward ghastly old Guardian harridan Polly Toynbee) have for years insisted that most laws are still made in Westminster. Well Polly it looks like even your Evil Empire pals reckon that you were wrong and we Eurosceptics were right all along.
Bjorn states: "Clearly not all citizens are aware that possibly a majority of the laws that have an impact on their daily lives are decided on by MEPs in the European Parliament. That is a democratic problem, and you and other journalists are better placed than anyone to explain what the European Parliament and the European elections are all about."
No Bjorn it is an anti-democratic problem as the EU Parliament just does not reflect the views of most folks in this country.
Anyhow, little people you have been told.
I imagine Bjorn is right now being added to the Christmas card list of Nigel Farage and UKIP
4089 days ago
Anthony manages the restaurant in the uber posh hotel in which we are staying. He is a nice guy and last night, off his own bat, drive us to a superb seaside tavern so we could eat out. As he drove he told us his story…
When he was a boy in the 70s he moved to Germany with his parents who were Gasterbeiten – Greece was poor then, that is what folks did. Hence he speaks fluent German as well as Greek and very decent English.
As a teenager the whole family moved back to Crete as Greece won the Euro lottery and times improved. He now lives in a local town with his wife and two daughters. Aged 23 and 25 they live at home because, despite being well educated, there are just no jobs. 65% of Greeks their age are on the dole. Antony knows that they will soon have to leave Greece for good on a one way ticket to join family in the US, Canada or Australia or perhaps to London.
A noticeably old country will get older still. And his daughters will no doubt marry and stay abroad. Their kids will grow up Greek Americans/Australians/Canadians. Greece will get older still.
Meanwhile
4089 days ago
The Sod Off Spain T-shirt seems not to have caused a stir here in Greece. I guess not a lot of Spaniards can afford to travel abroad these days. And so today at breakfast it was time to wheel out the “It’s Time to Leave” T-shirt (red edition). The Greek waiters and waitresses were clearly onside but our fellow guests (all from the rich North of Europe) also perked up.
A stack of smiles and nods and a couple of “I love the shirt comments”.
Naturally I said that I designed it and that you can buy it only at www.TomWinnifrith.com in my online store.
Clearly this fashion item will be sweeping Europe…
4113 days ago
My immediate family, bar uber-enlightened step sister Flea, are all deluded lefties and thus take the view that if Uncle Chris (Chris Booker) holds one view they should naturally take the opposite line. I tend to take an alternative view. Other than his one little blind spot (a failure to support the only democracy in the Middle East), Booker’s judgement is never wrong. On issues such as the global warming scandal, the EU and inner City development he has for decades been way ahead of the curve.
Today my mother’s brother writes in his Sunday Telegraph column about the West’s failure to appreciate the Islamofascist threat from Iran. Again he is bang on the money. Perhaps we should all have listened to the Israelis a bit more?
But he also picks up on my piece last week about the National Trust and how it is losing the plot. In that snippet he observes correctly why my father’s father, Sir John Winnifrith, would today have been disqualified from being head of the National Trust. It is a good and fair comment which my immediate family will find it hard to disagree with. But on (misguided) principle they probably will do so anyway.
To read my piece on the National Trust’s failure click here
To read Christopher’s column today click here
4120 days ago
Recorded today I let rip on the subject of Spain & Gibraltar. The sabre rattling by our bankrupt EU comrades sums up all that is wrong with the Evil Empire. My discussion covers fishing tights, the lies of Ted Heath and the issue of self-determination as well as the drivel spouted by deluded lefties on this matter.
My financial video postcard this week covers the looming UK housing bubble, is now up on www.shareprophets.com and can be viewed here
4135 days ago
Call Me Dave this week boasted that he wanted “to export gay marriage” around the world. I support the idea that gay men and women should be allowed to get married and divorced just like straight couples. Why should the misery of this institution be the preserve of heterosexuals? Spread the pain. But at every level David Cameron MP just shows himself up as a member of a metropolitan Elite with a particular world view which makes me despise ever more.
My starting point is that as a libertarian I believe that you have every right to do whatever you want with your own body. As such there should be no differentiation in law between gay folk and straight folk. Homosexuality, like playing Hockey, watching Golf or going to Ibiza has never appealed to me personally but whatever floats your boat. So
4162 days ago
I was tempted to lead on the news that a Tory MP who I had never heard of was given a standing ovation and embraced warmly at a meeting of his local association this week. For saying that the EU was a joke? That he believed in low taxes, reform of the welfare state or that he took a tough line on law and order? Be serious this is Call Me Dave's new look Tory Party and so it could only be one thing...Daniel Kawczynski outed himself as the UK's first openly bisexual MP. Great..like we give a damn who you shag but it would be kind of pleasing if you could cut the deficit/stand up to the EU, etc.
Now if an MP were to out himself as the UK's first MP not to fiddle his expenses that really would be something. Anyhow it has made Dave Cameron happy. Whatever. But instead I turn to red blooded heterosexual MP William Hague, aka the foreign secretary who would like to be a real macho man ( a great song by those other neo-Cons the YMCA) and get us all involved in the war in Syria. Wow after all the success we have had with our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Egypt (in flames this weekend) lets make it five straight wins and send lots of weapons (paid for by the UK Money Tree) off to the Islamofascist rebels in Syria.
Please post your captions to this picture in the comments section below by 9 AM on Friday.
For what it is worth my entry is:
4209 days ago
As of now there are two weekly video postcards. Over on www.shareprophets.com my financial postcard went live yesterday. It covers the markets, investor delusion and Quindell.
Here on TomWinnifrith.com there is the non financial video postcard which covers the EU, Call Me Dave but focusses in on why cutting foreign aid to Somalia ( not increasing it) would be good news for most Somalis and all Britains. Why foreign aid helps no-one bar criminals and guilty liberal elites.
4218 days ago
I happened to be in a car passing through London and so caught Andrew Gilligan’s politics show discussing whether UKIP was a fraud. It was pure Westminster bubble stuff. It showed clearly why the establishment does not understand why folks voted UKIP and so is clueless as to how to respond for the political & media establishment is the problem not the solution.
Three political wonks (none of whom support UKIP or predicted its success) discussed how the established parties should respond with Gilligan helpfully chipping in every now and again to say “But isn’t it a fraud, let’s look at its 2010 manifesto.” The response was that the old three could see off UKIP by making policy shifts of emphasis that showed they cared/listened without actually “moving to the right” i.e. actually doing anything.
And that was it. Folks voted UKIP because they are sick of an elite that refuses to discuss certain issues or countenance certain policies while at the same time adopting a moral high ground as they embezzle money and display sleaze at every opportunity. And so the elite responds by saying “we can see off UKIP by saying we sympathise but not actually doing anything.” Just how stupid do the political classes think that the electorate is? They obviously hold us in complete contempt.
And then Gilligan took a few calls from plebs. A bloke opined that the immigration laws were unhelpful. Well yes they bloody well are. Do I have to use the magic words Abu Qatada to make my point? The main parties say they are listening but they are clearly not and Gilligan summed up their underlying attitude by going back to the bloke with “So basically you do not like foreigners.” Unluckily for Gilligan
4224 days ago
Just for the avoidance of doubt I am not a UKIP party member and will not be voting at all on May 2nd. However I cannot say that I am put off UKIP by Tory Grandee Kenneth Clarke labelling its leaders as clowns and anyone voting for it as a racist. In fact such a pathetic attack merely makes me think even less of Call Me Dave’s Tories and of the fat old fool that is Ken Clarke.
Clarke states that UKIP is largely a protest by folks against the established parties. He may be correct. The established parties have produced a political class which has engaged in systematic expenses fiddling and extraction of ever more cash from the public purse. And on issues such as the EU they are almost united in ignoring the wishes of most voters. They are an out of touch elite. And with his cushy non-executive directorships as a sideline and having supported every doomed Euro project from the ERM to Britain’s membership of the Euro, the fat complacent Clarke is a typical member of that class.
Rightly many of us view the lot of them with contempt. If the political class get a bloody nose from UKIP in largely irrelevant local elections on May 2nd they deserve it.
As it happens I disagree with UKIP on immigration. Listening to Nigel Farage’s speech at UKInvestor Show I winced as he touched on the issue and also on that of gay marriage which I support. My partner (female and British Asian) has real problems with UKIP on these sort of matters and I can understand why.
But the EU is an important matter for me as is the way that the mainstream parties are all committed to pissing away billions on tackling the non-issue of global warming and are failing to tackle the appalling finances of Bankrupt Britain. And I do hold the entire political class in contempt for their corruption. And so
4291 days ago
The UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, who has made a personal fortune peddling this bogus science of the back of bogus data has today ‘fessed up to the inconvenient truth. Dr P has admitted that there has now been a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office.
But Dr P is undeterred and insists that this pause needs to last “30 to 40 years at least” to break the long-term global warming trend. That is prize crap on two grounds.
1. The world got colder 1939 to 1976. It then got hotter 1976 to 1995 ( a spell of 19 years). In other words on the basis of 19 years warming you can demand wholesale changes in the behaviour of humankind but to prove a reversal of a trend you need 40 years? Put another way, in the past 73 years we have has just one 19 year spell of warming as opposed to cooling. What is the trend and what is the blip?
2. The changes and vast expenses we all face as a results of demands made by the global warming nutters were based on computer programmes that predicted clear and linear warming from 1995 onwards directly linked to carbon emissions. Carbon emissions have carried on increasing. The world has not got hotter. The programmes have been wrong 17 years out of 17 so far. So why would anyone sane place any bets on their 50 and 100 year predictions being correct?
At least we see one sinner starting to repent. Who next? Al Gore? The BBC? The EU, Polly Toynbee? Chris Huhne? Call Me Dave? Line up, line up.
4378 days ago
It was not UKIP that called for a pact but a Tory MP who wears the silliest syrup on this planet – Michael Fabricant. But Downing Street has today ruled out a pact between the Tories and UKIP.
That is good news for UKIP. I took me about one minute to think of 10 very good reasons why I’d be less likely to vote UKIP if they aligned themselves with the Conservative Party.
Before I start, if anyone in Islington Social Services is reading this, I am not a UKIP member or even a loyal supporter so there is no need to deny me access to my daughter on the grounds that she is half Welsh and so may be damaged by my views.
Ten Good Reasons
