It's a shame they don't understand the difference between 'passport holder' and 'right of abode in the united kingdom'

An interesting story in the asian news highlights the need for those living on the indian subcontinent to receive a more complete education in English law and the English language.

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A 42-year-old mother claims she has been made stateless after two governments rejected her citizenship claims.

Shanta Kumari claims she is in limbo after the Indian government declared her an "illegal" while the British authorities say she must be out of the UK within six months.

Mrs Kumari, who is staying with relatives in Manchester, said she weeps daily over her desperate plight.Speaking through her husband Raj, who is with her in the UK, she said: "Both governments reject me so where am I to go.? "I have a British passport, I am a British citizen so why can't I stay here?

"In India, where I lived for 40 years they said I was illegal and fined me £2,500 and said I have to leave. What can I do?"

Mrs Kumar was born in the East African island of Zanzibar. Her parents and grandparents had British passports.

Prejudice from the indigenous population led many Asians to leave the Island and return to India. Mrs Kumari's mother was part of this exodus and she settled in New Delhi with her then one-year-old daughter more than 40 years ago. Her mother moved the UK in 1993 and in 1997 Mrs Kumari successfully applied for her own British passport. When she decided she wanted to visit relatives in Manchester she was told she would have to apply for permission to the Indian government.

To her astonishment the Indian authorities told her she was living in the country illegally and fined her. She went ahead with her visit but on arrival at Manchester airport immigration officials stamped her passport and told her she has a maximum time of six months to remain in the country.

Said Mr Raj, a trade union official in India: "We cannot understand what is happening. She was accepted in India for 40 years and then told she should not have been there. She has a British passport, which surely means she is a British citizen yet they say she will have to leave."

The Kumars are now seeking legal advice in the hope of establishing citizen status for Shanta.

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Notice the passports held up for the camera by the woman in this photograph. Yes they say 'British Passport' on the cover. But those of us who hold one of these magnificent documents by right of being born here as a descendant of the indigenous population of the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland know that for the last decade or two OUR documents have carried the magic words 'Holder Has The Right Of Abode In The United Kingdom' (which also means holder has the right to work in the EU without a work permit).

We also know that the other type of 'British Passport' issued to some people NOT born here have not got those magic words inside. Instead they have a lesser wording. I think a lot got handed out to the residents of Hong Kong in the last days of John Major's government, to the people who couldn't find the twenty million or so quid that once deposited in a british bank would guarantee you a slush-funded 'Right Of Abode' passport.

Of course, those of us who hold 'the real deal' by right of birth know all about this 'reclassification' which ensured that the hordes of people able to claim a pasport from our sovereign by virtue of being a subject in our former empire, were NOT able to gatecrash the party back home just because they felt like upping sticks from the country their parents made their own, and where their parents gave birth to them, and where they had lived for decades.

And that's the end of it.

So NO Mr Raj, just because this woman, who according to the text of this article is unable to make her own case and needs you to speak for her - presumably because she can't speak our language - has a "British Passport" it does NOT mean she is a british citizen. It has NOT meant that for one, maybe two decades. And I rather strongly suspect you know that only too well and are just trying to muddy the waters by claiming ignorance of the truth.

Mr Raj I see you're seeking legal advice on the matter. I hope you are the one who is paying for it. But somehow I bet you're not.

And Hey Mr Milliband do you notice how the INDIAN Government treat THEIR illegal immigrants ? Fine them Two And A Half Thousand Pounda and THROW THEM OUT of the country. Why the hell aren't WE doing that ?

ShamboBurgers Coming To A McDonalds Near You

At last!

It seems the voice of the majority has finally been heard and heeded in the hot air pit built over what used to be Cardiff Docks. This page on the bbc news web site reports that the law has at last taken precedence over the whim of a fundamentalist vegan religious minority.

"Rural Development Minister Jane Davidson has said she was minded to proceed with a slaughter order to put him (Shambo, the bullock which has tested positive for Bovine TB and must now be slaughtered in accordance with the law of the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland) down.

Speaking on behalf of the community, Sanjay Mistray said they expected Shambo to be slaughtered next Monday and would seek a court injunction in the meantime.

Campaigners at Skanda Vale have warned that they will try to save the animal by forming a human chain around the site where it was kept in isolation."

I hope they do build a human chain and try to obstruct the government vets in their attempt to carry out the law of the land. Because it's been a few years since the police were aboe to look forward to some midsummer fun beating the crap out of a bunch of nutters holding a party on some so-called shrine. I'm sure they're looking forward to the prospect of some much needed baton practice.

The silence from the member for Newport East is deafening ...

A fortnight ago I read this article in the Daily Mail Online.

Armed Forces Personnel maimed in the line of duty as a result of Blair's little overseas adventures end up being treated in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, where they are treated in the same way, and on the same wards, as the public.

Well, what's wrong with that ?

Now if the whole population of this country were all enlightened enough to be able to distinguish between the individual soldier, sailor or airman - who is obliged by having "taken the queens shilling" to carry out any lawful orders given to him through the chain of command from officers commissioned or warranted by the sovereign - from the lying, cheating, oily, slimy, teflon-shouldered bit of scum who sent him and his officers into an illegal war in the first place, then there would be no problem.

The problem is that because this teflon-shouldered lying git hides in a bulletproof limousine (while at the same time urging everyone else to keep riding the tube) and has no-go areas declared outside his "workplace" so no-one can go there and tell him what they think of him to his face, some people choose to take out their anger and despair on the poor buggers who've been injured by that same lying git's overseas adventures.

Which is why three harridans in 'traditional islamist dress' (political correctspeak for that interesting garment that allowed a MAN suspected of terrorism to flee the country through one of our airports by carrying a handbag and presenting his sister's passport at the departure security check) took it upon themselves to harrangue a Company Sergeant Major as he went to visit injured men from his unit.

Now it doesn't take much forward thinking to realise that garments as loose fitting as those can conceal a thousand things more deadly than the few harsh words that these women threw. So to anyone with half an ounce of brain it would be obvious why the Army felt it necessary to call for improved security and separate facilities for the treatment of our injured troops on their arrival back home.

Which makes it all the more puzzling that the Labour MP for the constituency. Lynne Jones, whose parliamentary voting record on the war is that of an out and out rebel, is on record as responding to those requests with the remarks "The soldiers seem to want a little empire consisting of their own designated staff and facilities, a fiefdom".

I thought those words were uncalled for and I wrote to my own Member of Parliament, the apparat-chick Jessica Morden, to say so.

Jessica Morden, you may recall, was parachuted into the Newport East constituency on an all-woman shortlist. Unlike her fellow parachutist Maggie Jones, who was pushed off the jump ramp over Blaenau Gwent, and whose parachute got stuck in a tree when the locals there rebelled at being told to abandon a man who had served his community at local level for thirty years, Ms Morden faced no such reaction, but you have to remember that the voters here would elect a donkey if it wore a red rosette, and indeed the seat was handed to our previous MP Alan Howarth as a reward for being one of the 'bastatrds' who stabbed John Major in the back, for having been elected to the house as a Tory, Mr Howarth crossed the floor of the house and took the Labaah whip.

Here is what I said ...

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Dear Jessica Morden,

I have recently been made aware of a rather interesting incident that took place at Selly Oak Hospital, to which British troops returning injured from Tony Blair's little adventures are being sent for treatment.

It seems a welfare officer visiting the injured troops were heckled by three women in what were described as traditional islamist dress.

Commenting on the incident, it seems your fellow party member, the elected representative for Selly Oak, Lynne Jones, refused to back calls for more secure facilities for troops. She is quoted as saying "The soldiers seem to want a little empire consisting of their own designated staff and facilities, a fiefdom".

Now I have seen more than a little of the Health Service over the last year or two, not least because when my father, terminally ill with prostate cancer, was told that he could not be admitted to a hospice bed for palliative care until 9am Monday morning, and that if he were admitted instead to Velindre for treatment of the pain he would lose that hospice bed. So he sat on his sofa in his living room all Saturday and most of Sunday. And when the pain finally caused him to break down at 11pm on Sunday Night he was taken by ambulance to Heath Hospital, where he was left to die for a fortnight in a filthy room, whose bins were not emptied and whose floor was not swept for all of the last week he was there, and whose walls still had the holes in them left when the central heating system installed when I WORKED there as a research
biochemist in the 70's were replaced in the late 90's.

So yes I have rather more insight into what you and your government have done to the health service. And I suspect the people your party leader's wars have maimed are treated little better than my father was.

So I wondered whether you too subscribe to the belief that in calling for injured troops to be given more secure facilities in which to receive treatment, so they - and your government - are spared from finding out the hard way that the next fully robed islamist protestor is able to throw something more substantial than abusive insults, the army are seeking to establish 'their own little fiefdom'.

Yours sincerely,
JohnOfGwent

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Now an elected representative is required by the representation of the people acts to hear the views and voice of their constituents. That's why they are paid. That's why the Chartists felt it so important to protest about non-representation in parliament of the views of the ordinary working citizen and that's why the parliament of the day had those protestors gunned down in the street. Never forget that next time you want to go and protest to your MP about something.

Of course the MP is not required to DO anything except listen. But they are required to listen. And most feel it a good move to reply. Well, according to statistics kept by sites 'TheyWorkForYou' and 'WriteToTham' the successor to 'FaxYourMP'

So two weeks ago I submitted the above through WriteToThem. Within minutes I received an Out Of Office Reply from Jessica Morden's Email Inbox Robot. But that's all I ever got.

Demolishing the myth of underachievement.

For years I've heard "We must do something about deprived kids from ethnic minorities whose education is seriously at risk in our system". And I always thought that the people making these comments had an axe to grind.

And here's the proof. This graph, lifted from this story on the BBC website tells the truth. That when you truly break down the numbers by race and wallet size, the white man loses out every time.

Just look at those graphs again. About three in a hundred chinese kids leave compulsory education with bugger all to show for it, and the proportion is exactly the same regardless of whether the family wallet is so pitifully empty they get free school meals. For the Chinese in Britain it would seem money is no barrier to education.

Curiously, only Bangladeshi kids share this same equality of failure across wallet thickness. Maybe lots of them are 'just outside' the safety net. It wouldn't surprise me at all after years of having the welfare state poked about to the point where no-one knows what they can and cannot claim any more.

For the rest of us, it seems there is a marked divide across the wallet.

But look at those bright red columns by ethnic origin again.

FORTY FIVE PERCENT of 'white traveller' and FORTY PER CENT of 'White British' kids below the free school meals line might as well have not bothered wasting eleven years of their lives in school. Mind you, one perhaps wonders how many years some of them never bothered going anyway, so meybe one must take all this with a pinch of salt.

However, I find it hard NOT to believe that years of hand-wringing by the "politically correct" and probably millions of pounds of 'special targetted measures' intended to help the deprived ethnic minorities in this country have taken their toll on the academic achievements of those whose finances are equally stretched but whose skin colour precludes them from receiving the assiatance handed out to their non-white classmates.

A tale of two politicians

Yesterday the news headlines had more than their fair share of 'dirty tricks' stories.

It seems Gordon "I care so little about presentation I stand behind autocues placed so that Sky can't film my lying lips moving" Brown approached Paddy Ashdown to offer him a cabinet job, and did so after Ming the Merciless OAP had decreed in a style more suited the celluloid Ming vs. Gordon clashes that "No Lib Dem would EVER serve in a Gordy Government"

Well pardon me but I think Ming has shot himself in the foot. Take a look at Mr Ashdown''s 'biography' on wikipedia.

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Born in New Delhi, India in 1941. The last days of the British Raj. His father a Captain in the Indian Army, and a lapsed Catholic. His mother a protestant. The parents did NOT raise him as a Roman Catholic. I bet that pleased the Pope.

Raised in Ireland, Educated at Bedford School, England. At 18, he signed on with the Royal Marines, and served as an officer with them for thirteen years. It is said he 'did a stint' with the Special Boat Squadron. After which he moved into the Civil Service and Politics. And there are hints at more covert diplomacy. Publicly denied by him, I should point out.

Now let us see what the Number 10 website has to say about the CV of one Mr Des Browne. The text below is lifted verbatim, with spelling errors exactly as I found them. It looks more prefessional that way, don't you think ?

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Des Browne was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury in May 2005. A year later he became Defence Secretary in succession to John Reid. He was previously Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration at the Home Offiice. Mr Browne has also been Minister of State for Work at the Department for Work and Pensions and also held the position of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at The Northern Ireland Office.

Mr Browne has been MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun since 1997 and was previously Parliamentary Private Secretary to the late Donald Dewar MP 1998-1999 and more recently to Adam Ingram MP. He is a former member of Select Committees on Northern Ireland 1997-1998 and Public Administration 1999 and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights 2001.

Mr Browne also tabled the Register of Drug Trafficking Offenders Bill, a private Member's Bill to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act to establish a register of trafficking offenders.

Mr Browne was born on 22 March 1952 and studied at Glasgow University where he was awarded an LLB. He is married and has two sons. Before entering Parliament he was a lawyer, he was admitted as a solicitor in 1976 and was subsequently called to the Scottish Bar in 1993.

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So on one hand we have a man whose family 'bridged the divide' in British religion. Born in the exotic east shortly before the death of the British Raj, brought up in a mixed-religion-home in Ireland (although admittedly before the worst of "the troubles" and who as a young man found it within himself to satisfy the requirements of one of our most demanding meritocratic elite military forces. And who later served with another, even more demanding than the first. A man who on picking up his "demob suit" went out and made a name for himself as leader of a British Political Party In Westminster.

And on the other hand we have a Scottish Lawyer. Probably a competent enough scottish lawyer, certainly competent enough to get himself elevated to the trough and gravy train that is the 'Bar'

Now my question is this.

Even in today's army, where sixteen men are sent out into 50 degreee deserts, without maps, with only a quarter to a third of the amount of drinking water their medics say they need, and with guns whose magazine springs are so weak they sometimes fail to chamber the next round, and even in today's litigation-rich environment where Mr Browne's former fellow drinkers of the gravy boat that is the Barister's Guild are only all too happy to sue the arse off the MOD for 'failing to show a duty of care' to the men who sign up, which of these two men would YOU think would do a better job as Head of the Ministry Of Defence ?

No contest, is it ?

With Asian Supremacists Like This Guy, Who Needs The BNP ?

I've seen and listened to some wierd, wierd stuff in my time.

But for setting the gold standard in the Wierd Academy Hall Of Fame I give you Mr Kenneth Eng. The guy got himself fifteen minutes of fame by writing a column in the San Francisco Magazine Paper Asian Week titled 'Why I hate Blacks'. Well he's entitled to his opinion, according to the US Constitution, but it seems he's published other columns 'Why I hate Whites' and 'I ain't exactly fond of Asians either'.

Obviously remembering the way American Blacks make their feelings known when they're pissed - in the yank sense of the word - about something (here is a good example), the paper pulled the article from its website, issued a grovelling apology and took the guy off the payroll.

But when YouTube hosted this video in which a newsman promised to have the guy 'explain' why he wrote the article, I was fascinated enough to hit the 'play' key. And I laughed so hard I fell out of my chair.

Once I'd stoped laughing, I thought I'd share this priceless insight with you.

But I have one question ?

How much crystal meth do you have to snort, and how much LSD do you have to mix with it, in order to talk like this guy ? And what the hell is it with him and his evolving dragons ?

Nice place for a holiday ? Not if you're a Christian Iraqi

About ten years ago I was called to rescue a project in trouble in Chelmsford. I spent about 16 hours a day four days a week working my nuts off getting a radar system sorted for Marconi. After a 16 hour shift with no chance for food - the on-site canteen facilities - run by Arnie Weinstock's missus - were worse than the school dinners Jamie Oliver railed against - it was off to a wonderful little pub called the Orange Tree for several pints of Greene King Abbot Ale , followed by a serious pig out chicken kebab from "Mr Ram Kebab" down the road. And repeat three days running, and go home on day four for the frioday off and the weekend. Yeah what a healthy diet that was.

But the proprieters of that kebab emporium were keen to promote their country as a really nice place for a family holiday. And fair enough, I know people who've spent weeks out there diving off a small liveaboard ship. And of course the Turkish Government would LOVE you to come and spend your euros there.

But then I read this on CNN.COM.

KASTAMONU, Turkey (CNN) -- The phone calls were chilling. The voice on the end always delivering the same message: Don't work with the foreigners.

Gorges Toma, an Iraqi electrician who worked with Western contractors, did what he was told and stopped working. But it did little to help save his brother whose charred body was found in his car. "Right after I stopped [working], they killed my brother," Toma says.

He sold his car and anything else of value and moved his family of nine to Turkey, where they remain more than two and a half years later.

The Toma family is among the growing refugee population to have fled Iraq since the war began in March 2003. According to the U.N.'s refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 2.2 million Iraqis have sought refuge in neighboring countries, most of them in Syria and Jordan. Another two million Iraqis have been displaced inside their own country, according to UNHCR.

In Turkey, there are an estimated 10,000 Iraqi refugees. The Toma family, from Mosul, Iraq, are now living in Kastamonu, a picturesque northern Turkish city nestled in foothills near an ancient castle.

They expected to only be here for a few months. But months turned into years of waiting.

"We just want to get out of here. We have no money, nothing. God is kind, we just want to get out," says the family matriarch, 77-year-old Isin Yelda.

"They killed my son," she says, weeping as she clutches a childhood photo of her son who drove water trucks for the U.S. military.

When the Tomas left Iraq on December 10, 2004, they spent three months in Istanbul, Turkey, where they say they felt welcomed by just about everyone. But the Turkish government places refugees like the Toma family, who are waiting to be resettled, in 21 locations outside of the country's major cities.

And so they ended up here, in this small Muslim city of 60,000 without a church. The Tomas are Christians.

Assimilating to life in Kastamonu has proven extremely difficult. So difficult, that the family's oldest daughter, Sura, 25, chose to return to Iraq to a convent.

"I miss my sister," 11-year-old Raghad says, breaking down in tears in their cramped two-room home. Her mother, also sobbing, tries to comfort her.

Gorges Toma explains that it was just too hard for his oldest daughter to stay -- not able to speak the language, not feeling accepted, and being confined.

"She prefers the hell that is Iraq than Turkey. That was the psychological impact of this place on her," he says.

Leaving the town without permission is illegal. Every day, with no exception, all members of the Toma family over the age of 18 must report to local authorities. So each day, they head to the police station to sign next to their names.

Under Turkish law, they also cannot legally work.

"We are barely getting by," says Toma.

The family is able to make ends meet with the help of relatives and others chipping in.

"How am I going to pay off this debt?" the father asks.

"We're able to get odd jobs once in a while, but sometimes we work, and then they don't even pay us."

They all say they never imagined that after leaving Iraq, life would continue to be just as hard, but for different reasons.

"I have to get out [of Turkey]," says 27-year-old Salwan Toma. "I have no desire to go back to Iraq, but here, it's almost like a prison. I want stability, a house, car. I want to get married, to have a life."

He spends most of his time at an Internet cafe chatting online with friends. He just found out that a friend of his was killed in Mosul in a drive-by shooting at a church.

The life they call a nightmare might be coming to an end. The family has been notified that they will be resettled in the United States, and they are just waiting to complete the final steps. But they remain anxious until they get that final phone call.

"I don't really have dreams anymore," says Gorges Toma's wife, Selwa.

"America -- it will be better than here."

If they do make it to America, they will be one of the few Iraq refugees. According to the U.S. State Department, 701 Iraqi refugees have been allowed into the United States since April 2003. The U.S. government has pledged to let in 7,000 Iraqis this year.

The UNHCR says of the ten thousand Iraqis in Turkey, 556 cases have been accepted to go to the United States.

"Whatever is in America," Toma says, "it will be a thousand times better than what we had in Iraq or Turkey because there are work opportunities. There is no discrimination, no hatred."

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No discrimination and no hatred eh ? Best not get resettled in Alabama then.

Blair Up For Middle East Envoy Job

You'll have to bear with me on this one. I can't find a recent picture and only This BBC News Video Link carries the story.

But in brief, when the outgoing lying bit of scum that is shortly not going to be our Prime Minister Any Longer wandered across the pond last month to visit his old chum and fellow war criminal George Dubya, George seems to have put forward the idea of Tony becoming a 'Middle east Envoy'

Now we all remember this story about an open microphone don't we.

Oh, have we forgotten ? Let me refresh your memory. During a G8 summit, Blair approached Bush on the top table, and started to put forward a few ideas. But someone left the mike in front of them on .... and so we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of Blair grovelling with george to go over to the middle east and be walked over, just to pave the way for Condi Rice to go over there later and play the 'No One Screws With Me' card.

Now some people, myself included, do not believe such things were an accident. Just like the famous 'headless gordy' photo where Gordon Brown would like you to believe the biggest control freak in the world - him - doesn't give a shit about how he looks on TV - I am less than convinced that this 'open mike' incident - which gave Bush the opportunity to tell the world he quite fancied pointing his next batch of cruise missiles at Damascus, just as soon as his boys have wiped the iraqi desert sand off their boots - was anything like as accidental as it seems.

But it is nice to see that Tony Blair's head still fits comfortably up George Dubya's arse.

UK Local Electorate Still turning their back on mainstream opposition ...

Labour Party Hacks Make Merry After Only One In Four Voters Could Be Bothered To Turn Out To Vote.

It would appear that well balanced and perfect example of political correct thinking in todays forward looking multicultural British society, the Asian News, has been forced to scrape some barrels for headlines recently. This Link which is actually a story lifted from the "North East Manchester Advertiser" celebrates the labour party 'comfortably seeing off' a 'Far Right Breakthrough'

Taken from the article ...

"The result, declared just after midnight, saw Coun Kirkpatrick poll 1,373 votes, with the BNP’s Joe Finnon on 628 and the Lib Dems’ Carol Connell 239. Kim Glasspole, of the Conservatives, was fourth on 188 and the Greens’ Jackie Smith fifth with 81. The turnout was just over 26 per cent."

Well if I was an activist for one of what might still be called 'the mainstream opposition parties' I wouldn't be cheering anytime soon. Only one in four of the people eligible to vote could be bothered to get off their fat backsides and do so. Yes I *know* it's only a by election for some backwater council seat and it's probably a constituency in which a donkey would get elected if it had a red rosette pinned on its arse.

And Yes the Acolytes of Blair got more than twice the number of votes of their nearest opponent. But the British National Party got more votes than all the other opposition parties put together.

So I have some questions to ask:

To every party hack in every 'mainstream opposition party' up and down the land:-

"ARE YOU HAPPY that this part of the electorate are so hacked off with you that they have so overwhelmingly turned their back on what you have to say and offer"

"So just why do you think more people voted for the BNP than voted for all of the other opposition parties put together".

And I have some special questions too:-

To Ming The Merciless the OAP in charge of the Lib Dems, i ask "How much of this disaster is down to your party being led by a boring old fart ?"

And to the bright eyed boy in charge of the Tories I put the question "Why don't you take a leaf out of one of your party's grandee's book of memoirs, pedal your bloody bike up here and start making a difference ?"

Because if none of you wake up and smell the coffee ......

Sir Salman Rushdie "A Justification For Suicide Bombing"

I could not allow the lead story carried throughout today by British News Broadcasters to go without comment. But as the BBC themselves admit to bias on single issue groups I chose to go elsewhere for the detailed information on what was, and was not said. Read it for yourselves here before the khaleej times censors reach for their blue pencils and denounce this reporting of rather unparliamentary language as doubleplus ungood.

So what is all the fuss about ?

Well, here's text of the Khaleej Times article.

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ISLAMABAD - Pakistan demanded on Monday that Britain withdraw a knighthood awarded to author Salman Rushdie, as a government minister said the honour gave a justification for suicide attacks by Muslims.

Angry protesters in several cities torched British flags and beat them with their shoes in protest at the accolade for the Indian-born writer of ‘The Satanic Verses’ and chanted ‘Death to Britain, death to Rushdie.’

Rushdie, 59, was forced to go into hiding for a decade after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a death sentence over his book ‘The Satanic Verses,’ claiming it insulted Islam.

Iran has already accused British leaders of ‘Islamophobia’ after Rushdie -- now Sir Salman -- was awarded the knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday to mark her 81st birthday.

‘If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet, then it is justified,’ Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul-Haq told the national assembly.

The minister, the son of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq who died in a plane crash in 1988, later retracted his statement in parliament

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I bet he retracted ..... As soon as he realised what he'd done.

We all know that Pakistan is absolutely bursting to the seams with "madrassas" - so called 'faith schools' dedicated to raising the next generation of moslem martyrs. In fact, quite a few of our home grown human anti-personnel mines travelled to this country for inspiration, theology and practical tuition on the art of taking out the occupants of London buses and tube trains.

And don't forget that this is a bloke whose father, that well known benevolent military dictator president Zia - was taken out by saboteurs who caused the plane in which Zia and a lot of others were travelling to 'go into a steep dive, pull out, and then dive again just before exploding shortly after takeoff'. Doesn't sound much like a 'plane crash' to me.
I think the minister should bear in mind that it wasn't so long ago that this image proved beyond all doubt that "Women of India Say Nuke The Bastards Across The Border".

And while Pakistan's parliamentarians condone suicide bombing in britain, why should we lift a finger to stop them ?

The threat to a great british institution.

In this post I asked why there appeared to be one rule for a white man in england running a farm and keeping a pet cow for his daughter and another for a group of people in west wales keeping a pet cow as a god.

As you will recall, even the copious volumes of whitewash applied to the Avian Flu Incident on Bernard Matthew's farm failed miserably to stop official reports on the affair pointing out the ease by which THAT disease could be vectored between animals at the site given the state of repair of the place. So you won't be surprised to hear that cattle farmers in west wales are rightly concerned for the health of their herds, and the health of their business, both of which are being put at risk by the shilly-shallying demonstrated by the Welsh Assembly Hot Air Talking Pit.

And it does not help that the Minister for The Rural Affairs Of Little England (well, what else can you call him now that nationwide control of food safety issues has been sacrificed on the pagan altar of devolution) has emulated pontius pilate by making this statement on his ministerial blog page.

While this is the attitude of the Mother Of Parliaments to a matter that threatens the health of the nation then May Your God Help You.

Seeking enlightenment on this matter, I took the opportunity to follow the request on the Skanda Vale Temple website, and sent an email to the self styled "Welsh Assembly Government" Member with responsibility for Rural Affairs, Jane Davidson.

I wrote to her on the 5th of June. And because this is a matter that affects Human as well as animal health, I wrote to Edwina Hart, the AM with responsibility for Health Matters a few days later.

Here is what I said

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Good Morning

As an omnivorous, former christian, and somewhat reluctant constituent of the Welsh Assembly - I would much sooner see it abolished and universal standards of government returned to the whole of the United Kingdom - I wondered if you would spare me a few moments of your time.

I have sat back over the last few weeks utterly amazed that this part of the United Kingdom has descended into a society where appeasement of a religion that worships a cow takes precedence over the execution of measures designed to protect our food chain. I refer of course to the shilly-shallying that the Welsh Assembly has demonstrated over the animal that seems to have been elevated to the status of godhood by a religious community in West Wales.

I see from the Skanda Vale website that they are now putting up the thoughts of "Shambo The Earthly Representative Of Lord Shivas Bull". And I also see that they have placed a link on their website encouraging all who come to it to e-mail you their thoughts on the matter. So I hope you will forgive me for exercising my right as a resident of a constituency in the South East Wales Region to do just that.

I would begin by asking what right a religious community have to demand that an animal be exempted from the public - and animal - health measures that have been in place, and have been imposed on farmers without mercy, often to their financial ruin, for the protection of the food chain as a whole, for as long as I can remember.

Now I must confess a vested interest here.

Out of sheer outrage at the way I and my fellow passengers are treated like cattle of the edible variety every time we have tried to leave the country to go on holiday, and IN NO WAY out of any interest whatsoever in reducing my carbon footprint, I have not FLOWN anywhere for over ten years. I wonder if any of your fellow workers in that hot air pit in Cardiff Bay can say the same. And I recently ploughed the money I would have spent on foreign holidays into the purchase of a static caravan in Pendine. Not a milion miles away from the location of this bunch of cattle worshippers.

As a semi-retired semi-resident of this village community I try hard to support the local economy in the area in which I have purchased my new holiday home. As an omnivore I find one local establishment does a particularly splendid sunday lunch, the raw materials for which include locally raised organic welsh beef. And if anyone wants to fully understand what cattle are SUPPOSED to be used for, send them to me and I'll stand the bill for a plate of Paul's Special Sunday Lunch for them so they can have their eyes opened.

But it seems to me now that a tiny minority of fundamentalist vegans are being allowed to flaunt the rules designed to ensure the ready supply of desease-free meat for my table. They demand that an animal that has tested positive for a debilitating disease that threatens the health of all cattle in the neighbourhood, and therefore threatens the supply of locally produced beef to establishments, and omnivores throughout south west wales, be spared from the ending every other animal with this disease has met.

Now I can understand that the people who consider this animal a god also consider me a heathen destined for the deepest pit of hell for having the audacity to wish to kill and eat their god. I can live with that, not least because I don't believe in their god, or their vision of hell, or anyone else's for that matter anymore. And I, unlike the followers of what are thankfully still mionority religions in the United Kingdom of Great Britain And Northern Ireland, am happy to have my food stunned before it is killed.

I can also see the obvious benefit to the feel-good factor in the people of this country as a whole in allowing these fundamentalist vegans the PRIVILEGE to follow THEIR way of life in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Not least because to deny them that PRIVILEGE puts this country right up there with Saudi Arabia.

However, I believe that when a person legally resident in this country gratefully accepts the privilege accorded to them to follow the tenets of their faith, they must also accept this does not extend to them the right to endanger the health and well being of others, nor does it give them the right to impose upon others the tenets of their faith. So whilst I would support the Hindus of South West Wales being allowed to worship the HEALTHY animals they wish to elevate to GodHood, I strenuously object when those practices deny me and the still overwhelming majority of the population of this country, who practice an omnivorous diet, the right to indulge in the traditional rite of consuming a sunday dinner of roast beef and yorkshire pud.

After all, decades before your government started mucking about with our rights and freedoms, it was the right of anyone to stand in Hyde Park Corner and say what they liked, to whoever they liked, save only for the fact that if what they said incited those assembled to riot, then they went to jail. Directly To Jail. Because I believe the right and freedom of the person standing next to me in the street to swing his fist ends roughly where my nose starts. Something Peter Tatchell recently found out isn't always observed in the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain.

So, I would in summary like to ask you whether, now that David Milliband has followed the example laid down by Pontius Pilate, you are going to take measures to maintain the disease free state of the cattle herds in west wales, or whether you wish to introduce fundamentalist veganism by the back door by allowing those herds to become infected with Bovine Tuberculosis, thereby destroying the livelihood of a number of welsh farmers raising good quality beef for the table.

yours
John Of Gwent

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I didn't expect a reply and true to form neither of these people have had the courage to answer my questions. But Jane Davidson did pass my e-mail to an underling in the 'TB Team' (would that be Tuberculosis, or Tony Blair, I wonder).

And the reply, although it says nothing of substance, and shows that nothing is being done to protect our food chain, does throw some insight into the way the country must now be run with sensitivity to those who wish to peddle their religion of fundamentalist veganism and put those whose businesses depend on the eating of (non-halal) meat out of business. An extreme view ? Well, here's the reply. What do YOU think ?

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From: Griffiths, Claire (EPC OCVO)
To: johnofgwent
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 12:16 PM
Subject: FW: Have You Killed That Cow Yet ? Why Not ?


Dear John Of Gwent
Thank you for your email of 5 June 2007 sent to Jane Davidson AM, Minister for Sustainability and Rural Development about the Skanda Vale TB reactor bullock. I have been asked to respond.

As you may be aware, TB in cattle is an infectious disease that has a significant impact on the health and welfare of the national cattle herd in Wales. It is a disease that is transmissible to people and other mammals, which means it has serious implications beyond the health of cattle.

An animal kept by the Community of the Many Names of God has tested positive for bovine TB. The policy of the Welsh Assembly Government, in common with many other countries, is that cattle which have tested positive for TB should be slaughtered to protect public health and the health of other animals. The Welsh Assembly Government is sensitive to the beliefs of Hindus and of the Community and is continuing to assess all the issues surrounding this very difficult case. There is currently no timetable for the slaughter of the bullock, though the slaughter notice remains in force. We will continue to deal with this matter in as sensitive a way as possible with the Community.

Yours sincerely

TB Team

Office of the Chief Veterinary Officer

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So there we have it ladies and gentlemen.

1. An admission that 'Shambo' HAS reacted to the test for bovine TB.

2. An admission that this disease is infectious and can SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECT THE NATIONAL CATTLE HERD (this silly woman of course thinks the disease respects the River Dee and River Severn. As those who had to deal with the Avian Flu outbreak on Bernard Matthew's farm will tell you, bugs don't carry passports and disease doesn't respect immigration control, so Look Out England And Mr Milliband you're at risk too)

3. An admission that the disease IS transmissible to humans and other mammals.

4. And an admission that the people given the responsibility for protecting our health are sitting on their bums, wringing their hands for fear of annoying a tiny minority who call this diseases animal a god.