UK Column News - 21st September 2015

Figures indicate the number of minutes into the broadcast when the item in question begins.

01’]    Children as young as nine years old have been asked at school to draw a picture of a dead loved one. This has potential to cause mental disturbance.

04’]    Lord Ashcroft’s book has sharply criticised his former ally David Cameron. The UK Column’s abiding question about “Piggate” is who groomed Cameron to be Prime Minister from his childhood, as Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine have said (in an interview in the lobby of Parliament) that he was.

09’]    Kathryn Hudson, the Parliamentary ombudswoman who very surprisingly cleared Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind (who has since resigned as Chairman of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee) of wrongdoing was partly appointed by Rifkind. Miss Hudson’s press officer refused to tell the UK Column this morning whether Hudson had declared a possible conflict of interest when compiling her report.

13’]    UK Column research indicates that Sarah Champion, the MP for Rochdale whom Jeremy Corbyn has just appointed to a role in the prevention of child abuse, underwent Common Purpose training in the 1990s. Will she now be looking into the activities of Common Purpose around young children?

15’]    The Huffington Post quotes a general as threatening that if Corbyn downgrades the British armed forces, there is likely to be a mutiny or a military coup. The UK Column reminds viewers and listeners that Harold Wilson spoke of there having been two coup plots in the late 1960s against his allegedly pro-Soviet Labour government. It is fascinating that the onslaught is against Corbyn and his notional plans, while it is Cameron who has in actual practice been slashing the British armed forces to prepare for a common EU army.

18’]    The Crane Report (“Humanity vs. Insanity”) is at 19:30 tonight and focuses on ethnic cleansing in the Middle East. At 21:00, Fracking Nightmare, with Mel Kelly as Crane’s guest, focuses on Scotland and water rights.

19’]    In the Daily Telegraph, Liam Halligan warns Corbyn that “large-scale money-printing always ends in tears”. Mike Robinson reads a substantial extract of Halligan’s article, noting that he usually agrees with Halligan, and points out that the crucial question about quantitative easing (QE) is what the money is spent on. Since 2008, QE funds have been pumped into the banks to keep the FTSE above the 6,000-point level. Corbyn’s “People’s QE” plan is unfortunately based on using the Bank of England, but the whole point of the idea of national credit is to use the money for productive purposes and to raise national productivity, which in Britain has been sinking severely in recent years.

23’]    A reason why the BoE should never be trusted: Andy Haldane, one of the BoE’s committee members for the setting of interest rates, is suggesting (in the Daily Express) the abolition of cash. If this is done, it will of course be undertaken by the banks at a time when interest rates are low. If all money is digital and the only way to spend is to use a card, people will have no opportunity to withdraw funds from their bank accounts. How democratic is that? Brian Gerrish points out that with sufficient trust, local currencies could work perfectly well, but that the aim of such initiatives and suggestions is total control.

Robinson points out that shareholders are not equal to creditors, because savers are also a category of creditor. Therefore, insisting that “shareholders and creditors” must not have recourse to public funds if banks totter is dangerous language. It is evident that a bail-in of the banks is on the cards. Gerrish adds that it is becoming obvious that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not controlling the British economy, but rather international interests are doing so.

26’]    A financial adviser’s e-mail to Gerrish is read out and displayed on screen. He has noticed that moveyourmoney.org.uk has removed information on all but the supposed top three institutions per category, and he knows that the institutions selected are not actually the best performers.

    “It gives the impression of fighting against the big institutions, but it is not. I must say the baddies are far more clever than the awakened goodies.”

The UK Column notes that the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust is behind this website, as it appears also to be inevitably behind everything related to change.

29’]    Plymouth City Council has given a “Criminal Behaviour Order” to the owners, Nigel Healey and Karen Chan, of a building which the Plymouth Herald calls a “million pound slum”. The CBO requires the property to be tidied up by a certain date.

Yet Crown Prosecution Service guidance on the use of CBOs is very clear that it is a remedy available to councils upon conviction for an offence, “only after an application of the prosecution” in a criminal case.

The reason why the council has unlawfully used a CBO is because non-compliance with a CBO by the given date constitutes an automatic criminal offence.

If the council does not like the look of your property, therefore, you can be criminalised.

Gerrish calls this “very devious manoeuvring” around a seafront property that would be worth a huge profit if taken over and renovated.

32’]    The Stop the War Coalition published a poetic invective against the Queen (whose title begins “God save the Queen …”) on its website this past weekend. This occasioned Corbyn’s resignation as chairman of the StWC. Robinson notes that this is not an attack (which might be justified) on the incumbent monarch for her failures to act in accordance with her duties, but rather an attack on the monarchy as an institution.

Another article published by the StWC entitled “Queen long to reign over us? The truth about monarchy, money and guns” predicts a “constitutional crisis” upon the Queen’s demise.

However, as Robinson notes:

Lord (Robert) Salisbury (Con), Peter Hain (Lab) and Sir Menzies Campbell (Lib Dem), the “Constitutional Reform Group”, are calling for great constitutional change. Salisbury’s namesake, Robert Salisbury, negotiated the 1603 Act of Union after Elizabeth I’s death, and this Lord Salisbury is now calling for a “new Act of Union” and federalisation with the Commons merely an English Parliament. We will lose many rights and freedoms if this proceeds.

Gerrish describes how Scotland has already become a one-party state with English cities becoming republican city-states of the EU.

38’]    The Buxton Advertiser (Derbyshire) reports “[Rotherham] Council chiefs back police calls for an end to protests in South Yorkshire”. The expense to police of twenty protests about child sexual abuse in Rotherham has reportedly been £4 million and the protestors are now branded “far-right”.

The inference is: if you protests on British streets about the abuse of children, you are a far-right extremist and ought to be banned from the streets.

The Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, David Crompton, has already insisted that he will not resign as a result of the child sexual abuse scandal in the Rotherham area.

South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Alan Billings calls protestors “cynical and hypocritical”, alleging that they are not local.

Aangirfan blog reports many police failures and is worth reading.

41’]    The Cliff Richard investigation by police is looking unstable. Making sure that police do not investigate is a good way for there to be no crime recorded.

42’]    Gerrish concludes by saying that the freedom of the press is the only factor preventing full dictatorship in Britain.