Please note that WitteringsfromWitney has moved to:
http://witteringwitney.blogspot.com/
The musings of a freeborn Englishman who is totally disenchanted with the present dictatorial attitude that poses as democracy
"It might not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always."Ballard
"The biggest error of any British politician, however clever they believe themselves to be, is to underestimate the intelligence of the British electorate and an unwritten national understanding that politicians are subject to the people’s desire for change – not the other way around. For Britain’s democracy is the people’s democracy. It should not be the plaything of the political establishment in Westminster."
Mark Pritchard - Mail on Sunday 02/01/11
"Not for them the other side of immigration – the transformation of familiar neighbourhoods into foreign territory. Not for them the schools where many pupils cannot speak English, and the overloaded public services. Not for them the mosque and the madrassa where the church and the pub used to be. Not that they mind that so much. These people have no special loyalty to this country, nor much love for it."
"Above all, they will destroy the standing and authority of the House of Commons, which has been the cockpit of British freedom and democracy since the 17th century.......At a stroke, the sovereignty of the Commons will be compromised.......Clegg has secured a vital victory in Cabinet: that members of his House of Lords will be elected under the so-called STV system of proportional representation."
".....what we lack above all, in these days of coalition and consensus, are politicians prepared to step outside the cosy little bubble and face up honestly, on our behalf, to what is going on in the real world."
"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it."
"People who are suffering from infertility are going through a very difficult time and sometimes innocuous phrases can make them upset. “I have certainly not come across anybody claiming that they have been offended by it at all but that is not to say that there are not patients out there who have been offended by it, sometimes it is the innocent remarks which offend. "I always thought it odd that 'crats appeared to have a 'common purpose language' all their own - but not any more!
"People must be able to communicate with the political structure. People must be able to communicate certain information to the leaders of the political structure. Information such as, “You’re fired!......Information is the essence of what might be called the “Attitude of Liberty” — the feeling of being free. There’s power in the Attitude of Liberty — a sense that one has some knowledge, some understanding, and therefore some control, if only control over one’s own ideas."
"Slick public relations can try to put lipstick on the pig—but underneath it's still a quadruped with a curly tail that grunts."A quotation not only applicable to the EU, but also to the vast majority of our politicians!
"A caged canary is safe but not free."
Walter Williams
"By nature I am an optimist – about people, about human nature and, above all, about the future of our great country.........As for politics, my approach is simple: politics is public service in the national interest.......But most important of all, particularly at times like this, is to deal with the real problem in front of us. And there can be no doubt what that is: the state of our economy and the budget deficit......But in the end politics is about national interest, not personal political agendas......We will shift power away from central bureaucracy and give choice to the parents, patients and local citizens who use public services. This will mean more open public services, more innovative, more responsive to what people want, and better value for money.......Fourth and finally, I want to say something about our national security.....But we must ask ourselves as a country how we are allowing the radicalisation and poisoning of the minds of some young British Muslims who then contemplate and sometimes carry out acts of sickening barbarity."
"It shows that political change comes because people make it happen."
Ed Miliband
"The next twelve months will be no different, because we will continue to build the Liberal, fairer, greener Britain that we all believe in."
Nick Clegg
"...not to use the term “as sure as eggs are eggs”. Apparently this may upset any women listening, especially those who may suffer from fertility problems..."
"If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist."
Joseph Sobran (1995)
"Most voters may not understand the specifics of coalition, but they like the idea."
"In the present state of British politics, it is hard enough to foresee the recent past, let alone the longer term."
"If those who govern us can spare a moment........."
"The populist rulers of Rome thought they had hit on a foolproof method of achieving a permanent curb on their patrician rivals when they created a dependent proletariat relying on them for bread and circuses; but in the end it destroyed the political stability of Rome, and so Rome itself fell, destroyed from inside. Are we to be destroyed from inside, too, a country which successfully repelled and destroyed Philip of Spain , Napoleon , [Kaiser Wilhelm II ] the Kaiser, Hitler , are we to be destroyed by ideas, mischievous, wrong-headed, debilitating, yet seductive because they are fashionable and promise so much on the cheap?"
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"On the truth of that adage it is worth mentioning that in seeking power and, once achieved, in wishing to retain that power, politicians very often say things that, later, they wish they hadn't. Witness:
"I joined this party because I believe in freedom. We are the only party believing that if you give people freedom and responsibility, they will grow stronger and society will grow stronger."Cameron has obviously decided that never again will the people be allowed true freedom and Heseltine ensured that for the first time in a thousand years the flag of an alien creed does fly throughout our islands.
David Cameron 2005
"The red flag has never flown throughout these islands yet, nor for a thousand years has the flag of any other alien creed."
Michael Heseltine 1976
"Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that it is mainstream
Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of
life, not the other way around.”
David Cameron, “What I learnt from my stay with a Muslim family”
The Observer, Sunday 13 May 2007.
"Frankly I'll give it another 10 years before it explodes in the politicians faces at the latest."
"To make good citizens. And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps."
H.L. Mencken
"The last time this matter came up only 42 of us voted against the EU budget, on the grounds that it was too wasteful and expensive. All three main political parties advised their MPs to vote for it, and most did."
"The blogosphere is not an area that is open to sensible debate; it is dominated by the obsessed and the fanatical and we will get crazy ideas coming forward."
"The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with the political elite"
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
Abraham Lincoln
"The problem with Mr. Cable and his fellow Liberal Democrats is not that they are afflicted with a surfeit of high principle. It is that they have more faces than the town hall clock - and a willingness to display whichever one a particular audience wants to see."
"Every minister has faced exactly the same problem. There are things going on in government which they, personally, do not like. Yet one thing they cannot do is talk about any of that. It is called collective responsibility."
"These are challenging times for climate jihadists. Last week the Met Office was forced to issue a press release stating it "categorically denies forecasting a 'mild winter' ". In fact, in October, its long-range probability map predicted an 80 per cent probability of warmer than average temperatures from November to January in Scotland. It claimed Scotland, along with Northern Ireland, the eastern half of England and Cornwall, would experience temperatures above the 3.7°C average, more than 2°C higher than last winter. Perversely, those are precisely the regions most ravaged by blizzard conditions; but the Met Office now insists that was not a forecast. Apparently, just as weather is not climate, a Met Office map predicting an 80 per cent likelihood of higher temperatures is not a forecast."
"Our MSPs - mostly people who give cretinism a bad name - have gone overboard for a world-leading role in climate crusading. How much energy did Scotland's ice-bound wind turbines generate this month? The regulation director at Scottish Power Renewables has stated: "Thirty gigawatts of wind maybe requires 25 GW of backup." Few Scottish windfarms attain even 28 per cent of capacity. Cutting-edge technology, eh?"
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."
Justice Learned Hand*
"In my view, the Britain of 1912 was more democratic than the Britain of 1932. And every succeeding year up to the outbreak of war saw us retreating farther and farther away. It was of course mainly the fault of the people themselves. Too few of them took a critical interest in public affairs. Too many allowed themselves to be gulled by any nonsense, chiefly appearing in newspapers that could no longer be regarded as serious organs of opinion but were simply a mixture of propaganda sheets and comic turns....... Let it be admitted, once and for all, that you cannot have a democratic government long, cannot make a democracy function properly, if you have an apathetic and passive people."
"We are organising No 10 more along the lines of how it was run under Tony Blair," a source said. "David feels he needs experts in policy areas. He has asked, 'Where's our expert on crime?' for example, and not got what he wants."
"We will be strong in defence of freedom. The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused and eroded fundamental human freedoms and historic civil liberties. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with Britain’s tradition of freedom and fairness."
"We need police forces that have greater freedom from Ministerial control and are better able to deal with the crime and anti-social behaviour that blights people’s lives, but which are much more accountable to the public they serve."
"The Government believes that we need to take action to safeguard our national security at home and abroad. We also recognise that we need to do much more to ensure that our Armed Forces have the support they need..."
"The Government believes that climate change is one of the gravest threats we face, and that urgent action at home and abroad is required. We need to use a wide range of levers to cut carbon emissions, decarbonise the economy and support the creation of new green jobs and technologies. We will implement a full programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for a low carbon and eco-friendly economy."
"The Government believes that Britain should play a leading role in an enlarged European Union, but that no further powers should be transferred to Brussels without a referendum."
"We will bring forward early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents.......We will fund 200 all-postal primaries over this Parliament, targeted at seats which have not changed hands for many years.....We will ensure that any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament......We will give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue."
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators."
P.J. O'Rourke
"The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not keep 'protecting' you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring that you do this and forbidding you to do that."
Lysander Spooner.
"The limitation of tyrants is the endurance of those they oppose."When will the British lion awake? Is it so fast asleep that it needs a kick up the rear? Or do those Bulldogs amongst us have to act, on the basis that the British lion is presently now no more than a state-owned - and house (of Commons) trained - pussy cat?
Frederick Douglass