Manx Kippers

Well, as promised, I and a few pillars of the community were outside the Gaiety on November 11^th distributing anti-racist leaflets to blue rinse bigot groupies.
It was an eye opener. A real losers convention of cheapskates, petty tax avoiders and vinegar-titted, niggling nobodies in general desperately looking for approval from someone only slightly less inconsequential then their sorry selves. It was as if the entire Manx daytime TV and UK Gold audience had simultaneously taken out a pay-day loan to watch the kind of shyster who sold it to them.
These were people too unimaginative to even crave decent heroes. What a shower!
More seriously, about two thirds were pensioners, who took our leaflets politely enough as we wished them a good evening but invited them to read another side to the fairy stories they were about to hear. Others were classic white flighters of the kind a Manx government policy document of 1990 (with major contributions by a former PR officer for the apartheid era Sun City resort in South Africa) indicates our then leaders decided to attract to this island.
The dead wood of the current House of Keys were also there, though significantly no female, Jewish or other politicians with non white or European partners. The Chief Minister had apparently been invited to meet and introduce Farage, but passed that dubious honour to an MLC whose prejudices are so well known that hanging out in public with a Euro-fascist could not lower his reputation further. Presumably, as the public can neither elect nor dismiss this Klingon he and his chums could enjoy yet another night of free drinks without worry.
Odder still was the presence of Manx Labour politicians and various characters who like to pass themselves off as trade unionists. The official line is that they were there to observe the enemy, but why pay him to do so?
It might also be pertinent to know that they were asked to join us leafleting. One professional trade unionist gave the kind of rambling response which explains why he loses every battle with government over public service pay and conditions. The other, like the MLP's elected members, never even replied.
Another myth peddled is that the proceeds of the event do not go back to Farage or his party, and that they went to charity. Not credible.
Firstly, the only known charitable donation on the night was passing buckets round the audience for the British Legion, an empty flag-waving gesture which cost the organisers nothing.
Secondly, a Manx registered family trust can ( if professionally constructed) also be a registered charity - though not necessarily registered on the Isle of Man. The whole concept was actually dreamt up by a well known figure in the dark 1980's days of the Manx offshore industry.
A common wheeze is to register the charity in another jurisdiction where nobody would look ( e.g. Monaco or Gibraltar) but bind the trust itself by Manx law. Also, under current law only the trustees would know the name of any underlying company or where it is registered, and would only be obliged to reveal anything in the chain of structures if a police force or government agency had credible evidence of criminal activity. Given that such agencies rarely even know of the existence of such entities unless a criminal offers them up in a plea bargain this simply does not happen.
Thirdly, the lunchtime before the show, Farage supporters gave a reception for a carefully selected few at The Claremont which nobody seems to want to mention. To get some idea why this might be, take a look at http://awaitingawesternrenaissance.blogspot.com/2008/10/foreign-owners-channel-cash-to-tories.html and remember who owns the Claremont, and also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10106554/Dashwood-Bangers-and-cash-for-Nigel-Farages-Brussels-blow-out.html .
You may also find http://www.directorstalk.com/nigel-farage-jim-mellon-paul-kavanagh-and-merryn-somerset-webb-at-master-investor-2013/ , http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/02/ukip-donor-belize-mining-southern-africa and http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/04/ukip-donor-arron-banks-shows-tax-cheque-sent-hmrc helps to give some idea how these things work and why middle ranking businessmen with massively leveraged businesses might want to bother.

Slaveheart

“Management” found a new game at her workplace on Friday – taunting exiled Scots who, if they had a chance, would have voted No anyway.
As she so aptly put it, “I hear Mel Gibson's making a modern sequel to Braveheart . It's going to be called Slaveheart.”
Ouch! But couldn't you just predict that, once finally given a chance, all those Presbyterian dullards would opt for an English Nanny over free choice and responsibility?
A fear of freedom perhaps? I blame John Knox myself. Once you've internalised the doctrine of Predetermination, maybe you can never think and act for yourself.
If you do have enough self-respect to get involved in a major contemporary political issue, get down to the Manx Legion Club in Douglas tomorrow night (Monday 22^nd) for this (see http://positiveactiongroup.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=518:pag-public-meeting-disability-and-equality&catid=34:pag-meet ).
Gareth and Paul are two of my favourite Manx human rights activists. Since coming here just a year or two ago, Gareth has galvanised the whole local debate over disability and moved it on decades. As in the UK until the 1990's, it used to be dominated locally by patronising faith-led “charities” who would do anything to help the disabled except get off their backs and stop using them as an excuse for lifetime subsidised employment. Gareth, by comparison, has a practical grounding in the Disability Rights Movement, the kind of militant crips who, if you lay in a bath of baked beans to buy them a wheelchair, would quite rightly smack you in the mouth instead of thanking you.
Paul has been slogging away for as long as I can remember on equality issues. He was key to the abolition of the vacuous Section 38 (the Isle of Man's equivalent of UK section 28, which prevented schoolteachers assuring kids that there is nothing abnormal about homosexuality or gay relationships) and to various moves to abolish institutionalised Manx homophobia in the 21^st century. More quietly, he was the sole advocate prepared to help two Muslim guys refused bail because they could and would not attend daily prayer meetings at the island's bail hostel, run by a Christian charity. The case was also important because the Manx government's answer to the first local request for asylum was going to be to quietly ship them back to the UK and pretend the applicants had never been here, thus ensuring a legal judgement would not be made and a legal precedent could not be set.
But while Paul and Gareth will raise valuable issues, this Equality Bill is a much bigger deal and we all need to be thinking about how it might affect us.
For example, luckily I was married in a civilised country, and if my daughter ever gets round to being married or entering a civil partnership I will want the same for her. As long as a superstitious cross-dresser, calling on his imaginary invisible friend as witness, is deemed to be a fit person to pronounce her legally married but a responsible and rational adult is not that ceremony is unlikely to take place on the Isle of Man. I will advise her to go to Scotland or the Irish Republic instead.
Similarly, we all have to pop our clogs sometime, and I would rather my friends do not suffer the indignity of seeing me off in a room dominated by the amanita muscarita-inspired ramblings of ancient Middle Eastern goat herders, thank you very much. Some will say that as I will be dead at the time it does not matter, but, honestly..... Yuk! I would not EVEN be seen dead in a drab dump where the furnishings are that tacky, P-U-L-L-E-E-A-S-E!!!!
Maybe we should all get serious...or maybe not. When even some of my loved ones' jokes bear more serious analysis than what passes for the serious contemplations of the average Manx politician it may only be necessary to be awake, laughing and active to make a difference.

Some Manx jokes

I saw this today (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/should-isle-of-man-work-permit-holders-be-made-to-speak-english-1-6474791 )and cracked up laughing.
It's not just the idea of Peter Karran (nice guy, but not the most articulate man on the island – and probably even the least articulate in the House of Keys) saying anyone needs to learn English. It's not even the usual mongoloid mutters of support from semi-literates married to their cousins.
It's...
Story 1 – a lady, not from here, works as a voluntary literacy tutor on arriving on the island while waiting for job offers to come in. She applies for a government position teaching English as a Foreign Language and gets a written reply saying they want a native English speaker. It's so full of spelling and grammatical errors that for the next year she uses it to teach her Manx born pupils. This gets back to some local teachers, who mention that at least two Manx Education Ministers, even in their careers, have been blacklisted from presenting Speech Day prizes because they had such limited vocabulary that young kids would snigger.
Story 2 – me and same lady in Ramsey Co-op a few years back, chatting in Manx to the late Freddie Cowle – last of the original Manx language teachers and then very close to death. A local bigot behind starts grumbling to his wife on the lines of 'If you can't speak the language...' With a straight face, this lady asks Freddie (in fluent Manx) 'Do you think he knows there's a boat in the morning?'
Freddie doubles up with laughter. From his wife (a personal friend) I happen to know this was the last good laugh he had before he died soon after, because he was still laughing about it when he got home and she asked him what the big joke was.
Story 3 – Me and a carload of Hungarians passing through Randolph Quirk's birthplace, Cronk-y-Voddy. As we go along the straight, the whole carload, in true 'Wayne's World' style, are screaming 'We're not worthy, we're not worthy' at the tops of our voices while trying to bow in homage towards Lambsfell. Luckily there were no other cars around.
Actually, Story 3 is only for English language academics and my European readers in particular. Nobody under the age of 50 on the Isle of Man would understand the joke.
Which is what makes it twice as funny.

Smoke, mirrors and dog-whistles

Now this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/61583/smoking-ban-in-cars ) is one debate in the Wedding Cake madhouse I might actually follow next week.
It will be a litmus test, firstly of who in the House actually bothers to research health issues and secondly whether the Liberal Vannin project is finally dead in the water – or should at least have the decency to drop the world 'liberal' from their name.
If your only references to this smoking in cars issue are the BBC and some of what are laughingly described as 'serious' newspapers you won't have a clue. So try reading Chris Snowdon at http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/ and Dick Puddlecote at http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/ to get the real back story.
Also, you need to know that when the BMA first peddled this atrocious bit of 'research' to the press and TV three years ago the BBC had to take down the original piece within hours and every newspaper which used it printed a retraction in the next issue. This was because the BMA spokesman 'forgot' to mention that the research was a computer model (not a physical experiment) based on a stationary vehicle with the engine and air conditioning off and all the windows closed. In other words, a hypothetical situation which was not physically possible in the real world.
Despite those numerous, often badly placed, retractions after the original story, the only 'results' from the 'experiment' that have since been quoted by the BMA , various state-funded 'public health' bodies and tub-thumping populist MPs are the sensational (and physically impossible) ones. While I am a lifelong non-smoker I think it important to point this out.
For one thing because the demonisation of any subculture without objective proof of harm or wrongdoing is simply not on.
For another because it is a worrying sign that a self-interested pressure group is persuading politicians to introduce measures which weaken the family and interfere with the ability of responsible parents to raise children in a decent, life-affirming way (not to mention giving police and other government agencies increasing power to barge into people's houses on the off-chance of catching them doing something that Stepford stiffs don't like).
A pressure group of Stepforders, by the way, which is often dishonest, increasingly even worse educated than their predecessors, but who gain jobs for life and fat final salary pensions when their complaints are taken at face value.
Having once briefly been at the same workplace as Zac Hall, back when he was earning money for flying lessons, I have serious doubts about him. He was a bit of an automaton even then, and nothing in his political 'career' has caused me to think he has loosened up since.
The tests will be (1) if Hall wants the statement in order to see fair, open and informed debate or if this is just another dog-whistle issue he thinks will get him elected again and (2) if his fellow MHKs (and especially Liberal Vannin) will cluck like headless chickens until the state grants itself yet more powers to kick in doors and pester grown adults doing things they have (unlike Manx politicians)made informed choices to do, responsibly and without bothering anyone else.
If the answers are 'No' and 'Yes' respectively then the only honourable thing for Liberal Vannin to do is disband or rename, and the only sensible thing the public can do is to happily and relentlessly disobey and mock such a cretinous piece of legislation until the police find something more useful to do.

Three months later, and an answer arrives

Back in May (see http://clingingtoarock.blogspot.com/2012/05/who-is-helping-who.html ) I wondered why a professional religious bigot – a pariah, so I understand, even within Westminster Tory circles – would be visiting the Manx government’s Overseas Aid Committee. Perhaps, I idly mused, she was doing nothing more than paying a UK taxpayer funded visit to local pro-life chums. But I also wondered why, even though a government press release was issued, the usually compliant Manx media ‘forgot’ to run it at the time.

Today, at http://www.gov.im/lib/news/cso/isleofmangovernm18.xml, I found the answer. 

Just to explain a little more. While in theory the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (England & Wales registered charity number 1107341) has seven trustees, in practice Caroline Cox founded it, very much runs the show and is indeed the sole official contact.

I’d like to believe Manx money will go to a needy cause and be used wisely. Because there are certainly people in the Sudan who desperately need our help. 

Unfortunately, given that the charity’s founder hangs out with career Islamophobes and homophobes, and seems to favour the sort of ‘overseas aid’ where rich countries give poorer ones a choice between starving or letting the donor countries choose the government and control their import/export trade, I am not too confident that we will help the victims, rather than a new set of opportunists. 

Shame really, because I also have little doubt that Phil Gawne has nothing but good intentions, and bravely continues a massive uphill struggle to maintain any sort of overseas aid funding.

Of government and its sock puppets

People still ask why I take a dim view of charities and the ‘Third Sector’, especially on the Isle of Man. I would have thought that by now it was obvious - especially if you ever had the painful experience of sitting in a room while those behind the worst examples try to beg money, or excuse derailing the democratic process and delaying the introduction of open, transparent government to the Isle of Man (I know, open, transparent, democracy….or even government….pigs might fly first).

Luckily the excellent Chris Snowdon of Velvet Glove Iron Fist (see right) has just produced a paper for the Institute of Economic Affairs which pretty much sums up the problem. The paper is called Sock Puppets: How the government lobbies itself and why (Chris Snowdon, IEA Discussion Paper No. 39) – probably the funniest, but most accurate, title for a serious survey on a growing social problem you will see in a long time.

The paper begins: “In the last fifteen years, state funding of charities in Britain has increased significantly while restrictions on political lobbying by charities have been relaxed. 27,000 charities are now dependent on the government for more than 75 per cent of their income and the ‘voluntary sector’ receives more money from the state than it receives in voluntary donations.”

Staggering stuff (unless, perchance, you have taken note of all the local examples of such chicanery I have banged on about, and are already worried about it). 

While, as more of a left libertarian, I do not share all the ‘areas of concern’ identified by the IEA and other free market ‘think tanks’ (and would add a problem they don’t identify – links between religious groups and the state and their effect when, for example, the ‘charity’ economic framework is abused by religious bigots for their own nasty theo-fascist ends), I do share their concern about the principles. I certainly share their conclusion, that instead of government-run pseudo-charities “….it would be better to restore the independence of the voluntary sector, safeguard taxpayers’ money and rebalance civil society in favour of grass-roots activism.”

 There’s a brief summary of the paper at http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/how-the-government-uses-charities-to-lobby-itself, or if you prefer to just go straight to the paper itself you can find it at http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Sock%20Puppets.pdf .

In the comments after the IEA summary, I was particularly taken by Phil Taylor, who says: “Could I suggest a rule of thirds? The Charity Commission should insist on the use of some designation such as "Government sponsored body" for any organization that accepts more than one third of its income from government sources of all kinds but still wishes to be treated as a charity. Once a body exceeds two thirds of its income from government sources it should cease to be a charity and should formally become an agency of the relevant department. It could then be monitored by the NAO and use a .gov.uk web address, etc. Then we would all know what we are dealing with. To re-iterate: - You could call yourself a charity as long as less than one third of your income came from the state. - Above one third you could still be regulated as a charity but you would not be allowed to use the word charity when describing yourself and would have to use a designation such as “Government sponsored body”. - Above two thirds just call yourself what you are – a part of the government.”

Now, consider the devastating (for them) but liberating (for the rest of us) effect on the Manx pseudo-charity racket if Tynwald looked at that idea.

Oh, of course, they can’t. That would involve identifying which black holes they’ve been throwing public money down, explaining why they thought it was a good idea, and then taking back responsibility for the public services we thought we were paying them to provide.

More rantings from the madhouses

According to this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/local/article.aspx?article=43483 ) the ringmaster at a notorious Manx freak show has confirmed the exhibits will continue talking to the fairies before the daily performance starts for real, the dogs jump through the hoops and the chimps throw excreta at each other.
So, no news there then.
Seems he was questioned after a well researched and executed campaign by the National Secular Society stopped the compulsory prayers which kick off council proceedings in England’s most deluded backwaters, which in turn has caused the most under-employed and ill-informed sections of the superstition industry to worry they might get culled.
How can you kill something if it is already brain dead?
The whole point of the ruling is that, as before, those who choose to can pray, but prayer cannot be a compulsory item on the council agenda. But the inability of Lords Spiritual to understand something which my 10 year old daughter grasped in seconds when she asked about it today is more evidence that they are unfit to be part of any serious political assembly. Not that the House of Lords could be described as a serious political assembly.
And talking of political assemblies which lack gravitas…
I have even less faith in Manx politicians than most of them have in the Imaginary Magical Friend they ask for help before another day spent trying to shaft the island.
But, thankfully, neither politicians nor civil servants have ever run the island anyway. Their task is merely to distract straw-sucking peasants by looking as dignified as anyone can while passing wind dressed in a bad suit. Meanwhile, those who actually make the decisions which determine whether or not we stay fed and housed for the foreseeable future do so, safe in the knowledge that they will not be chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob who would view the ability to use a calculator as evidence of witchcraft.

Beyond the lunatic fringe - and beyond a joke

According to http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=42869 and Manx Radio:
“A former Lord Mayor of Belfast is speaking in Port Erin this weekend about how he turned his life around from an unpromising start. With dyslexia and little education, Reverend Eric Smyth was told at a young age he wouldn't amount to anything. However, after finding religion he went on to become Lord Mayor of the city and, in that role, met former president of the United States Bill Clinton, and was awarded an OBE for his charity work.”
Well, that’s one interpretation of it. Possibly provided by someone with little or no link to the real world, or just a compulsive liar.
It might be nearer the truth to consider Smyth as a professional bigot who became a DUP councillor in 1981, only keeping his seat for most of those years because he moved house after the wards were redefined in 1985, which meant the only constituents he had to please were the Shankill hardliners. He also tried regularly to run for the Northern Ireland Assembly in its various forms but failed – dismally - eventually even quitting the DUP in 2000 because they would not back his mayoral campaign.
He only met Clinton because he was contractually obliged to welcome him to Belfast in his role as mayor between 1995 and 1996. After Clinton had gone he told the press that "the President stands for republicanism and is a supporter of it". There was an election looming, but being such a fair minded Christian this cannot have been connected.
And as such a firm Christian man, what about his involvement in any ecumenical efforts which might have brought an end to Northern Ireland’s ‘troubles’? You can get a sample of his stance on those things by his call for a boycott of Catholic shops towards the end of his mayoral year in 1996.
The ‘charity work’? Well, both his sons were jailed for drug dealing, so rather than just apologise for being a poor parent he spent time conning free trips abroad under the banner of a bogus social campaign called European Cities Against Drugs then coming home and preaching about it. Not too seriously though, as upsetting the drug rackets which funded rival Shankill paramilitaries at the time would have lost him votes. Actually, considering Smyth went on record in 2004 supporting a Shankill hardline view that Loyalist paramilitaries should not give up their weapons, we can be fairly sure he is no pacifist or critic of violence either – at least not violence inflicted (with state help) by one Christian faction on another one without such friends in political high places.
As Northern Ireland left the dark ages and Smyth’s political career nosedived he spent more and more time as Reverend of the Jesus Saves Mission Church, a sorry bunch of chancers he founded which is closely aligned with the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, which is in turn a breakaway of Paisley’s similarly monikered freakfest. He disagreed with the DUP's implementation of the St Andrews Agreement, and following Paisley's agreement to stand down as Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, he stated that Paisley "has gone back on everything he ever preached and there was no way he could continue as leader although I do think he should have stood down years ago."
So, a freeloading halfwit who not only broke away from Ulster’s most right wing political party because they got softer on Catholics, but also broke away from a church run by Paisley (which was in turn little more than the DUP at prayer) because it didn’t hate women, gays and most other people enough, then tried to form a hardline splinter group to the right of the hardline splinter group….
Hmm. Just the kind of wholesome character you need to spend a weekend taking moral advice from, isn’t he?

A new generation of parliamentary privilege

An article (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=40226) by someone I recall as a local paper editor some years back caused me to raise an ironic eyebrow, and gave me a giggle or two. Nothing similar has appeared on radio or in the local print press yet, which doesn’t surprise me for the same reasons that it caused me so much amusement.
The thing is, I pottered about in Manx journalism 20 or so years ago when Hazel Hannan, then MHK for Peel, one day used parliamentary privilege to ask impertinent questions of the Minister for Tourism about Charles Kerruish. More specifically, she was trying to clarify what funding Kerruish might have received from the Tourist Board (as it then was) towards the costs of some holiday cottages he was having built, and with what guarantees.
Doubt later emerged as to whether they really were holiday cottages, and if any part of the possible grant conditions required him to pay back some or all of the grant if he, say, sold them on as private housing after a year or two because tourists didn’t rush to rent them – because tourists weren’t tending to rent a lot of holiday accommodation (or even to visit the island) at the time.
If this sounds familiar that might be because, some years later, similar questions about holiday accommodation were the undoing of a Chief Minister who Kerruish regarded as a protégé. They also went unreported until a court case some time after the questions were being asked, by which time most of the Manx public had obtained answers elsewhere.
Sadly, it seems only two journalists were in the Keys when Mrs Hannan made her enquiries. One was the hardworking Charles Guard from Manx Radio, the other was the equally conscientious and quite elderly Jennifer Leece, then working for the tiny Peel City Guardian, as was I.
Actually, this wasn’t unusual at a time before Johnston Press bought out the island’s two ‘rival’ larger newspaper groups. In fact it was something of a joke between Jennifer and Charles that the other papers only attended Tynwald if one of the MHKs who spoon-fed them was about to make a speech. Much of the time, so printworkers from that era who had to handle last minute page changes say, they just listened in to Charles’s reports and made notes, or used tip-offs from any MHK who was using them as unpaid PR, or just asked Fred Kissack (then Chief Secretary).
Charles, as I remember, did not include Hazel Hannan’s queries in his report that day. Perhaps, like Jennifer, he saw nothing startling in them. It was the usual practice, then as now, that any backbencher querying the actions of the political senility had been primed to do so by the subject in order that such wasters could make a carefully scripted reply to reassure the unwashed masses.
Jennifer, however, did report them, and they appeared in that week’s paper, as from my memory the editor also saw nothing remarkable and expected the Greatest Living Manxman (as he was then regarded) to make a routine explanation in due time.
Only he didn’t. Indeed, there were then claims the paper had misreported the questioning and the GLM even brought considerable influence to bear on both Mrs Hannan and the island’s smallest newspaper to retract all mention of such matters.
At which point the editor dug in his heels, backed the ever accurate Jennifer and said he would wait for the Hansard report to prove she had recorded it word perfect. Which she had. And then, as the editor also ran Manx Life, he continued to ask questions. Meanwhile, the island’s ‘national press’ remained silent, having simply not been there to hear the questions, even if they would be prepared to break the habit of a lifetime and for once demonstrate the gumption or tenacity to follow up.
Which they did not, as they also had not when senior civil servants (or even local police on at least one memorable occasion) ‘advised’ local newspapers not to follow up other stories in those years. The point being, unlike our shoestring operation, those papers received considerable income from government advertising and were expected, in return, to run numerous flattering stories helpfully and exclusively supplied to them.
There was, so I was told, an ‘understanding’ between senior civil servants and the two larger papers that government would prefer it if it was able to place public notices in two publications (as then and now required by various laws) but only pay once. Therefore it would sit back and wait while the papers got into a war for other advertising (which would handily also wipe out smaller, more troublesome publications) and reward the winner when the rival folded.
As it happened, Johnston Press was playing the same game on a larger scale around Britain, intent on monopolising the regional market which was then the only press growth area. When the two Manx rivals had near bankrupted themselves it stepped in, bought them both and captured the entire government contract. JP also found a huge potential one in return for bigging up drunken lunchtime pronouncements from finance sector figureheads who, in the name of all decency, should really be left to ramble incoherently into a hotel urinal until they pass out.
So, in these new and desperate times are we about to see elected politicians and the local press being told by senior government figures who lack even a public mandate what to ask, what to report, and about whom?
Or is just business as usual? In which case I predict the press won’t even need to be ‘advised’, as Manx journalists once were in quite a heavy-handed manner. They already know, and will.
As for the politicians in a parliament where procedure and access to power is controlled by characters who are not used to being questioned (or even having to suffer the indignity of seeking election)……
What do you think?

Different arseholes, same old shite

Well, the Manx election is over, and now the dust has settled we see that although a few different arseholes got elected all we can expect is the same old shite as before.
My experience as a Ramsey voter was fairly typical of most working people outside the capital.
As there are few jobs in the town, most of the working population commute 15 miles each way to Douglas and back, which should have meant a rush to the polls after 6 PM. Nope, just the election supervisors, the candidates and their blue-rinsed back-up teams when I got there.
Only exception was the campaign workers for Laurie Hooper, at 24 the youngest candidate and one of only two brave enough to say that, if elected, he’d push for scrutiny of government spending and policy-making procedures. Neither he nor the other guy making that promise (a junior civil servant, as it happens) got in. Thankfully neither did the truly scary woman from Liberal Vannin – a party with a campaign run by Robert Kilroy-Silk’s former campaign manager, so more UKIP-lite than liberal in values.
Various crinkly folk tell me that all the top four polling candidates visited them, but no working people recall seeing more than one candidate on the doorstep – and he was a working guy himself who could only make the rounds over evenings and weekends.
In fact, one neighbour, a sprightly ex-schoolteacher, deliberately went on holiday to Italy during the election week. She correctly forecast that (1) almost all of the votes in Ramsey would be cast by retired people, as commuting workers won’t be able to get to the poll in time and the unemployable don’t vote, being too illiterate to read candidate names (2) knowing this, career con-artists always make a point of touring retirement complexes and known homes of retired people and (3) if elected they never keep their promises.
Therefore, rather than becoming so irate she clocked one of the lying sods (which would be undignified for a genteel lady of advancing years) she would sit in the sun until the lying stopped and the toads most able to get frightened, superstitious half-blind biddies to leave the house, daytime TV and the Daily Mail long enough to put an X in roughly the right spot were declared the winners. At that point the highest paid civil servants can continue cutting deals with the skankiest local employers and the rest of us can carry on as normal.
Incidentally, as a lapsed member of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (I participated during the Wild Willi Beckett years, when a combination of inspired lunacy and more serious campaigns on homelessness and sleaze actually got us York and Bradford council seats) I will be informing the party hierarchy of a Manx politician canvassing under false pretences. In this story (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=39810), Leonard Singer is clearly sporting an OMRLP rosette with the centrepiece altered. Ironic really, as the original said: “VOTE FOR INSANITY. You know it makes sense” .
Come to think of it, the Isle of Man may be one of the few places outside Washington DC or Tehran where, rather than restrict the voting rights of the clinically insane, we just employ them as politicians to keep them off the streets.

Parish Capers

Now here (see http://www.manx.net/news/1961/public-meetings-for-the-parishes-of-lezayre-and-jurby ) is an odd story. The Manx Church Commissioners calling public meetings to discuss the future of two churches.
This has never happened before, so why do it now? And, apart from the falling away of congregations which all Manx churches are experiencing, is there anything unique about either failing church here?
Well, a few unique things actually.
Lezayre looks like a picture postcard country church, and has the kind of catchment area that ought to bring in enough well-heeled punters to tick over. Problem is, both Lezayre and the tiny Auldyn Church down the road used to be run by the local Freemasons. In fact Auldyn Church was built with Freemason money for strictly masonic purposes, and, amusingly, without a funny handshake no-one gets through the door to a church so architecturally challenged it would make a gargoyle puke.
Then the Lezayre vicar got a bit concerned because these rolled-up trouser merchants kept picking his parish council. When he put it to them that such bodies are supposed to be open for any churchgoing villager to participate in they demurred. After all, they also pick the Commissioners, and the (anti-)social programme for the village hall, and make sure only their mates get planning applications through (even if it means blind or disabled people can’t get their homes adapted)…
In fact, nothing in the area happens without Masonic approval. So when they decided the vicar was a bit too uppity most of what’s left of the congregation (as subservient hat-tippers who need what unskilled work remains in Ramsey, being unemployable anywhere else) left too.
Jurby Church is a different matter.
If Jurby was twinned with Chernobyl then Chernobyl would be insulted – that’s how bleak the landscape is. And that isn’t my cheap crack – some kids visiting FROM Chernobyl actually said that! Some great, if impoverished, folk live there, and they’ve tried to make it a decent community – despite the Manx government – but they’re on a hiding to nothing.
It grew out of an ugly housing estate built round a run-down military airfield. Then the airbase closed, then the collection of Nissen huts that used to house an eclectic range of junk shops that made a great Sunday out closed. Then the government grants to various enterprises that were supposed make it a thriving industrial estate ran out, and that closed.
Most recently the racing circuit on the airfield lost the ACU licence because the approach roads which formed part of the circuit were too potholed by heavy lorries delivering materials to construct the new prison…..at this rate even the new prison will close. Actually, that wouldn’t surprise me either, as judging from the build quality who knows how much money was skimmed off the ludicrous sums paid to the local contractors (not counting what they saved by employing cheap foreign labour instead of local workers).
Jurby Church is a windswept building clinging to the coast just outside of all this. It has a tiny, elderly congregation who, most Sundays, probably can’t even brave the Force 9 gales to get there. The one thing that might save it is some Norse/Celtic stonework enclosed in the entrance, which the Manx government is not allowed to lose for the nation (though they would probably give it a go).
On the other hand, Jurby School is infested with visiting evangelicals, and the Methodists must have worked out that Sandygate Chapel – a mile or so in the other direction - is a pretty, well situated building which any developer would pay enough for to clear the Isle of Man Methodist Circuit debt. Oh, by the way, Lezayre has a saleable little vicarage too. Oops, almost gave the game away.
So, various possibilities there then. Sadly, none of which will benefit ordinary decent churchgoers, but it will be interesting to see which scams win, and how they are excused.

Imminent election, first race card played

You can tell there is an election coming when our dimmest politicians, having gone through the other horse-frighteners in the pack, play the race card.
So see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/education/places_at_nurseries_1_3276571 to spot an MHK who is desperate.
Knowing Malarkey’s history, you can see why. He piggybacked on the new Liberal Vannin party network to get into the Keys. Once in there, he immediately jumped ship. The whole point of Liberal Vannin was to stay on the back benches and hold government to account. Peter Karran, the party’s leader, has done this for years by (a)not signing up as the ‘political member’ in any government departments, where his sole role would have been to plant Tynwald questions which make ministers look good on knee-jerk topics, and (b) not getting sidetracked into pointless ‘committees’ which, like the government departments themselves, simply rubberstamp policies pre-decided by career civil servants with little or no knowledge of the public sector area they run down or hand over to even less qualified private and ‘third sector’ companies and faith based charities.
I saw exactly where Malarkey was going when I saw him huddled with semi-pro temperance nazis at a conference they held at Nobles to try and validate folk myths about ‘rising’ drink statistics. That, in turn, got them government grants for another two years, and Malarkey a seat on the Chief Minister’s Task Farce on Drugs and Alcohol. He is well qualified for that, having not only no professional or academic knowledge of the subject matter – which puts him on a par with his fellow committee members – but also a total reluctance to ask questions about the source or validity of the folk myths passed off as ‘academic research’ or ‘expert opinion’ which keep them all in a job.
By now, there is no excuse for such pig-ignorance. Check http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2011/04/more-binge-drinking-fiction.html for a recent example of the prolific debunking of myths peddled to excuse government interference into everyday life and keep self-appointed alcohol ‘experts’ in business. Or you could look at http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2011/04/another-day-another-lie.html to defuse a new myth which will soon be expounded to the financial advantage of not one but two classes of parasite on the Manx public sector host.
So why is Malarkey now playing the race card? I suggest because a couple of years ago the BNP paid a well publicized visit to the island to leaflet his constituents. Any politician of principle would take on the racists, but in my time on the island I have yet to see one candidate in any of the constituencies where I have lived who has not groveled to racist scum on an election manifesto. And until one does, is there any point in voting?
But the funniest thing about his question is that newcomers to the island are more, not less, likely to use private nurseries. For one thing because places in education department schemes go first to families registered by social services as ‘problem families’ (i.e. the work-shy or those rendered unemployable by past education and social policies) and not kids with working parents, for another because we have a public sector culture where professing bigotry or general ignorance, rather than education or social commitment, remains a valid career choice.
Both our civil service and our politicians are living proof of that.

A good read for a bad man

Reading today that MP Jim Devine is being jailed for his expenses fiddles (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/31/jim-devine-sentenced-expenses-fruad ) made me laugh. It’s not just the idea of a real crook being put behind bars for once, but that I remembered me and Jim have some history.
Thing is, a year or two ago there was a half-baked campaign for humanists to send a copy of that Dawkins tome The God Delusion to every UK politician. This seemed to hinge on the idea that politicians actually read books or newspapers, rather than getting researchers to scan them for useable material. So, not thought up by anyone who has ever watched the political animal in action then.
The geezer behind the plot was given contact details for BHA affiliated groups, and, me being secretary of Isle of Man Freethinkers at the time, he was soon bending my ear. Bit of a dullard to be honest, who couldn’t grasp that we can’t elect politicians to Westminster (though they impose a bishop on us) and wouldn’t take a polite ‘maybe’ for an answer. So, to get him off my back and go back to….well, staring at paint drying or some far more riveting pastime than listening to him waffle on…..I agreed, and was alloted Jim Devine.
I duly sent Devine a copy of the book, suggesting that if he didn’t want to read it he could just bung it at any passing bishop with my compliments.
Well, if Devine didn’t do that, and he’s still got it lying around somewhere at least he’ll have something to read in the cell.

What a waste

I had to laugh today at a Radio Cowshed headline which read: "MHK welcomes rubbish initiative".
Can anyone remember when one of the Wedding Cake's inmates welcomed anything that wasn't rubbish, and/or expensive, and/or involving free foreign holidays or brown envelopes full of used fivers?
Still, ever optimistic and expecting a rare piece of honest reporting, I went to http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=48258 for a closer look.
Sadly, it was just a political layabout trying to make something out of the astoundingly dull if sensible news that two villages will use the same dustcart.
The only remotely newsworthy aspect of all this is that an elected official from our Deep South actually had enough braincells to suggest it, and that others could be dragged away from the church or lodge meeting long enough to vote.
Still, if any MHK was that serious about waste, they could always jump on the cart, instead of the bandwagon.

Why, oh Why, oh W.I.?

Coming out of the local post office this morning I saw a startling poster.
It seems the local jam and Jerusalem brigade want to encourage a new generation of women to wear sensible shoes. They have an odd way of showing it: or maybe they’re just odd anyway.
Because the W.I. are putting on a major lecture in November with a star speaker to get some new blood.
And that speaker is............(drum roll, pause for dramatic effect)........Anne Widdecombe.
(Cymbal crash, nervous cough, stunned silence)
Yes, Anne Widdecombe, former Tory MP, leading light of the Conservative Christian Fellowship and well known campaigner for the rights of women and other folk held back by bronze age belief systems.
For example, Widdecombe (until then a devout Anglican) converted to Catholicism in 1993 along with fellow Tory John Gummer in protest over the decision to allow women priests. And in 1996 Widdecombe, then prisons minister, defended her government's policy of shackling pregnant women prisoners with handcuffs and chains when in hospital giving birth.
Then there’s her more recent attempt to become the UK’s Ambassador to the Vatican. Amusingly, for once there she met with opposition from nutters even more stuck in the dark ages than she is. Because Benny and the boys know – infallibly - that the only true position of women in the Catholic church is barefoot, pregnant and polishing the church baubles.
Oh, another joke too. She’ll be giving her lecture at the Gaiety Theatre.
Is this wise, knowing Widdecombe’s views on gays?
Along with fellow prominent CCF throwback Edward Leigh she led attempts to prevent the repeal of Section 28. And in 17 recorded government votes on issues which would help equalise the legal position of gays, 15 times she voted against, with two no shows.
The poster prominently states that the purpose of the W.I. is ‘inspiring women’.
Some inspiration!
Never mind "And did those feet in ancient times". They’ll be running for the hills after this farce.

Christian politician turns down free lunch shock

I haven’t seen this in the rest of the press yet, but Pink News has a story on the world’s only openly gay prime minister and her partner being snubbed by Christian politicos.
The snub happened while Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was visiting the Faroes, where, Pink News tells us:
“The prime minister of the Faroe Islands, Kaj Leo Johannesen, invited all seven of the Faroe Island's party leaders to dine with Ms Sigurðardóttir and her wife, Jonina Leonsdottir. However, Jenis av Rana MP, leader of The Centre Party, a Christianity-based conservative party, declined the invitation, reportedly saying it was against his religion and that he wouldn't "dream of attending such a banquet".”
See the full thing at http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/09/07/faroe-islands-mp-refuses-to-dine-with-icelands-gay-prime-minister-and-her-partner/
Stupid, of course, but at least it could never happen in the Isle of Man.
No Manx politician in living memory has ever turned down a free lunch, and neither have many of our clerics - espcially when the taxpayer is footing the bill.
(hat tip Mike Tidmus)

Military Intelligence? A contradiction in terms

Here’s a little Monday quiz.
Who said the following………

"In my business, asking people to risk their lives is part of the job, but doing so without giving them the chance to understand that there is a life after death is something of a betrayal...Qualities and core values are fine as an acceptable moral baseline for leadership, but the unique life, death, resurrection and promises of Christ provide that spiritual opportunity that I believe takes the privilege of leadership to another level."

Before I identify the pillock, also ask yourself if you would trust him to run a boy scout troop.
No? Thought not!
The speaker was General Sir Richard Dannatt, formerly Chief of General Staff for the UK Armed Forces. Seems he’s a bit of a godbotherer, as he proved last weekend while (thankfully) the only damage he was doing to humanity was boring the arse off local spookchasers at a prayer breakfast. He’s just the latest in a long line of losers, deadbeats and minor fraudsters to have received this less than prestigious insult. (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=27383&area for more).
With a superstitious bampot like that running ‘our’ contribution to the cock-up in Afghanistan is it any wonder a few beardy wierdos armed with little more than knackered potato peelers can run rings round the world’s most expensive armies?
Lions led by donkeys doesn’t even begin to cover it – and, anyway, as my grandfather told me several times, the pack mules he worked with in World War One were far cannier than Army generals , so it would also be an insult to donkeys.
The good news is that at least he isn’t planning to move here, so won’t be joining other intellectually challenged ex-military buffoons running events like yesterday's that insult ex-servicemen.
But the really bad news is that one of Eton’s worst alumni is still rumoured to be finding a place for this chump in the Lords.
Yet another argument for abolishing the Second Chamber then.

Spreading the hate, or the Isle of Marmite

I think the Tourist Department is missing a trick.
On 29th March, Marmite unleashed a spoof election campaign featuring the Love Party and the Hate Party, running in tandem with what passes for a chance for Brits to choose their next oppressor, complete with smarmy party leaders, unlikely election promises and what have you. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/29/marmites-ads-parallel-election for a brief idea, and http://www.facebook.com/MarmiteHateParty?v=app_4949752878 for an example of one party line.
Now when I saw the latest Hate Party telly ad I could have sworn they were threatening, if victorious, to ban Marmite-lovers to Guernsey. Bit rough I thought, and anyway, the Isle of Man already has past form running internment camps where Mosleyites were treated as royalty, while black International Brigade veterans and Jewish refugees were treated like scum. We also have current form on locking up minority religion remand prisoners from the Asian and Indian subcontinents (before deporting them quietly without so much as a court hearing) and pretending asylum–seekers don’t exist, so why not us?
But as it happens, the Hate Party are only threatening to round up Marmite stocks, not Marmite-eaters. Even so, it seems to have stirred up Guernsey residents (see http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2010/04/03/guernsey-targeted-in-marmite-ad-campaign/ ).
Mind you, if the idea is to regard Marmite as a pollutant, even the combined ranks of Manx treehuggers and their greenwashing government and corporate sponsors cannot deny that the Isle of Man has pollution problems already. In fact, in less literate parts of the island, major pollutants actually get elected.

Amnesty doesn't always do the right thing

Not long ago I blogged on the suspension of one of Amnesty International’s leading advisors on womens rights (see 'Amnesty, the Taliban and womens rights - getting the balance right') and mentioned a petition to get them to see sense.
Though the petition was signed by numerous academics and womens right activists from around the world, and taken up in the UK by groups like Women Against Fundamentalism and Southall Black Sisters, it hasn’t worked.
Gita Saghal and Amnesty have parted, and I suspect she was pushed rather than jumping. There’s a story on it at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7095732.ece .
As some of the right wing drivel in the comments section shows, the worst UK victims of her departure will be those Amnesty needed to support most. Women around the world facing male violence, and nearer home especially lesbians, gays and abused women who might have been safe if only the UK’s racist mess of an asylum policy worked as it should.
I cannot believe Amnesty screwed up this badly. As it happens, I also don’t think the UK should have caved in to CIA thugs who snatch and torture UK citizens to fit racist myths used to perpetuate the US war industry. But a personal friend, currently writing a Ph.D. around whether Islamism is one of the new religious varieties of fascism (and also a hardcore anti-fascist rather than the wishy washy UAF variety) has convinced me we should be wary of Moazzam Begg and his Cageprisoners group.
Without doubt, serious Amnesty membership has problems. I’ve had my own - airy-fairy liberals who only want to back safe celebrity victims and think pointing out unpleasantness gives the general public ‘negative vibes’, faith organisations who tried to dictate local group policies at my old college or more recently.
You end up wondering if your limited time could be more profitably used elsewhere. Which is a shame, because even as you wonder some poor sod somewhere is having their fingernails pulled out or their relatives bumped off to shut them up, and then you worry some more that you might have stopped that.
I don’t know the answer either. But I’m mad at Amnesty’s kneejerk, play safe bureacrats for making me reconsider membership of the group I used to be proud my daughter first played a part in when, aged two, she drew a picture used for a greetings card sent to an Iranian trade unionist.

The weak-minded are a long time in Manx politics

It must be lonely for Allan Bell in the Council of Ministers. In fact, he probably finds it difficult enough being a Manx politician who can count to ten and spell his own name.
Most Manx readers will immediately know what I mean, but for everyone else, this (http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=44001 ) is Allan Bell talking about the long overdue Civil Partnership Bill he pushed to a second reading last week.
And this (http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=44002 ) is some turnip-munching throwback who, after causing international embarrassment as Education Minister, then failed as the minister responsible for traffic jams and is now (for some reason nobody except another turnip-muncher squatting in the Chief Minister’s office can fathom) being allowed to run the Health Service.
Yes, world, we really do have it this tough. We really do have politicians in charge of an entire Ministry of Transport who, elsewhere, couldn’t even get a job filling in potholes. And you think Uganda has problems!
For the record, as for some reason an insightful piece on the second reading of the Civil Partnership Bill by Adrian Darbyshire in the local press hasn’t made it to the IOM Newspapers website (Update – there now at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Are-dark-days-of-intolerance.6205221.jp ) , the voting was 19/3 in favour of the Bill. The three dullards who voted against were the aforementioned turnip-muncher plus John Houghton and Geoff Corkish, none of whom have a sparkling record on such matters.
It will be no surprise to anyone that they claimed to be protecting ‘family values’ and traditional Christianity. I think it might be nearer the truth to regard them as simple bigots who, unfortunately, got voted in because they stood in constituencies where literacy is so basic that many voters only communicate with the world verbally and probably don’t even know which name they put their X next to.
In passing, I also think it safe to say that even on the Isle of Man only two types of nominal Christian still oppose civil partnerships. One are outright bigots who hide behind faith. The other are sheep-like dullards who prefer to have mystical leaders tell them what to do rather than use faith as a means to think for themselves and explore the world.
Once you realise that the tactics used by seriously homophobic Christians (i.e. random Biblical quotes wrenched out of context instead of serious textual analysis followed by discussion with other serious, and fair minded, believers) are exactly those used a century ago to oppose mixed race marriage and half a century ago to oppose equality for women the rest is clear enough.
We should not waste further time on these chumps. But we should make sure they are no longer in any position to harm humanity.