I think we're past the tipping point, it shouldn't be "Fail Britannia" any longer, it should be Win Britarabia! or Al Britain! or something.
Britian is in the limbo between Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam. 
Case in point
Quote
The court accepted that the earlier shoe-throwing incident was simply a ritual form of protest and therefore not a criminal act of violence,” Holt said.

Judge Denniss agreed that the act of shoe-throwing should not be considered in a charge of violent disorder against the student because it was “a symbolic” political gesture.

Posted by: Veeshir at 05:39 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The headline looks good enough -- "Foreign workers 'to face English tests'", but it oversells the actual policy.

Apparently, the policy is only for public sector workers:

English tests will be made compulsory for all public sector migrant workers, under manifesto pledges to be announced by Gordon Brown today.

All workers in contact with the public - such as nurses, community support officers, social workers and call centre staff - will have to pass a test to get a job.

At present, the requirement covers only doctors from outside Europe, police officers and teachers.

Last week it emerged that virtually every extra job created since Labour came to power in 1997 has gone to a foreign worker.

Figures suggested an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants.

The Tories seized on the revelation as evidence that the Government has totally failed to deliver its pledge of 'British jobs for British workers'.

Posted by: JoeCollins at 08:06 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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When that silly Snowbilly rube Sarah Palin mentioned "death panels" on her stupid Facebook page, she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about, right? Right?

A dying mother last night became the human face of an election battle over the NHS.

Nikki Phelps, 37, who has a rare glandular cancer, has been refused the only drug that could prolong her life.

Despite pleas from her consultant, her local NHS trust says it will not meet the £100-a-day cost.

Labour ministers promised more than a year ago to give sufferers of rare cancers easier access to life-extending drugs.

But the rationing body NICE has since refused to approve ten such drugs. Experts say the rulings cut short up to 20,000 lives.

Note that Palin's detractors were correct, by the way. It's a "rationing body," not a "death panel." And it's even called "NICE." In your face, Sarah!

Also, just imagine how much they've been able to bend that awful, awful "cost curve" downward. Totally worth it.

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:14 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Airline gets stiff. Heh.

Posted by: conservativebelle at 11:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well I see the British certainly know how to control their populace. the people know their place over there, even when they're ostensibly harmless grandmothers, as is the case in this instance.

And what did this geriatric miscreant do? Why defy authorities and create an atmosphere of disrespect for good order all while placing a helpless animal in peril.
Her offence was to unwittingly sell a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy taking part in a trading standards 'sting'.

Posted by: Cristofer Buckley IV at 06:16 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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As I see these stories I keep thinking, "They can't let that happen." and I keep being wrong.
That's depressing.
Via Boortz we _{(still the editorial "we", but we're getting closer to the Royal We)} see this heartwarming story about the state of justice in Britain.
Quote
When a restaurant owner found two teenage yobs raiding his beer cellar, he chased them and held them while his staff dialled 999.

Yay!, right?
Quote
The married father-of-five spent five hours in a police cell and had his DNA, fingerprints and police mugshot taken.

Posted by: Veeshir at 03:34 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Two stories from the UK's Telegraph...

First, with my emphasis, Shoppers could face VAT on food:

The feasibility of introducing the food tax is being raised informally between civil servants, industry bodies and retail insiders.

So politically-sensitive is the move that all the talks are occurring "under the radar", according to retail industry insiders.

Basic supermarket groceries are currently immune from VAT, along with books, newspapers and children's clothes.

However a VAT levy on food of between three and five per cent would raise billions of pounds in tax and help reduce Government borrowings, which are expected to hit £180 billion this year.

So, they're trying to keep this quiet, huh? I wonder why they'd do something like that.

Oh, wait...

MPs demand right to travel first class:

They say they need the perk in order to be able to work during journeys to and from Parliament. One MP even said he needed a first class seat because of his height.

Their pleas are included in nearly 50 submissions made by MPs to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body charged with drawing up a new system of allowances to replace the discredited expenses system.

Documents published by the organisation show that many MPs also resent proposals by its chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy to:

* Ban them from employing relatives

* Scrap the payment of a 'Golden Goodbye' when they lose their seat

* Limit the amount they spend on running their office.

I'm not against the last thing there, though I admit that I'm not familiar as to whether or not this involves public funds.

Anyway, one Conservative MP (and the Conservatives over there seem to be just as fucked-up as the Labour Party pols) named Anne Widdecombe, had the following to say:

"If I travel first class, I can plug in my computer, not a facility that is universally available in second class. I can therefore work throughout the journey.

"The 'at seat' service means that I do not have to interrupt the work to go and queue in the train's buffet bar.

"Second class being more of a thoroughfare, interruption and engagement in conversation is a great deal more frequent."

Oh, heaven forbid that you'd have to actually have to talk to someone from the hoi polloi while you're waiting to use your computer! And, I'm absolutely sure that you're using that first class intertubes access to exclusively conduct government business. Yeah.

I'm not sure which way the influence is running, but it sure seems like there's a cross-Atlantic current between our douchebags in DC and theirs in London.

Fuck 'em all.

Posted by: Sean M. at 03:31 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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...but when it runs out of money (which we already don't have) it's not like it could become a political issue, right?

Riiiiiight.

Posted by: Sean M. at 10:51 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Via the Agitator, we find this story about a UK pub owner going to jail for 6 months for refusing to pay fines forallowing people to smoke in his pub.

First, Radley Balko said he was going to jail for allowing people to smoke.
No, he's going to jail for not paying the fines for allowing people to smoke.
There's a huge difference.

I have to admit, I'm not outraged over this. They allowed the laws to happen, this is just the logical conclusion. In NYS, where they have a similar ban, some bars "rent" ashtrays. You pay for using an ashtray and when the SS comes and demands their squeeze, the bar owner has a stash of "ashtray rental" money for paying them off.
That's the law, NY doesn't really care if you smoke, they just like the extra income from the fines they collect.
It's funny, but in NYC many bars would prefer you smoke pot in them than cigs. If you're smoking pot, only you get in trouble. If you smoke cigs, the bar gets in trouble.

If this gives the British subjects an impetus for reversing the Nannarchy, well that's great.
But they have nobody to blame but themselves for this.

The law is the law. Unless you're a career criminal in Britain, you have to pay the consequences when you break it.

Posted by: Veeshir at 10:37 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Hey, doesn't socialized medicine sound great? What say you, Brits?

The report, which follows reviews by the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, said that “unimaginable” suffering had been caused. Regulators said last year that between 400 and 1,200 more patients than expected may have died at the hospital from 2005 to 2008.

Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said there could be “no excuses” for the failures and added that the board that presided over the scandal had been replaced. An undisclosed number of doctors and at least one nurse are being investigated by the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Mr Burnham said it was a “longstanding anomaly” that the NHS did not have a robust way of regulating managers or banning them from working, as it does with doctors or nurses. “We must end the situation where a senior NHS manager who has failed in one job can simply move to another elsewhere,” he added. “This is not acceptable to the public and not conducive to promoting accountability and high professional standards.”

A system of professional accreditation for senior managers would be considered and the Mid Staffordshire trust might lose its foundation status.

Some NHS chief executives have received six-figure redundancy packages or moved to other trusts despite poor performance. Martin Yeates, the former chief executive at Mid Staffordshire, received pay rises that took his annual salary to £180,000, while standards at the trust deteriorated.

The Liberal Democrats claimed that he had also received a payoff of more than £400,000 after stepping down last March, though Mr Burnham said he had received “no more than his contractual entitlement”.

Yeah, that sounds aweome. Sign me up.

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:51 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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So. Your wee spawn has a birthday and gets some birthday cash. Being a good dad, you take your kid to the mall to let him spend his cash. Boyo is on one of the little rides and, like a proud parent, you whip out your phone to take a picture.

At which point, a security guard comes over and tells you that you can't do that and implies you're a pedophile. You leave in a huff only to be confronted by the cops who tell you to delete the picture and threaten to arrest you for disturbing the peace.  Oh and btw the security guards reported you as a suspicious pedo.

Not to get us on another watch list, here's the shocking photo:



(Loser boy on the left is the guard) (Also that train is clown scary)

This is where we're at, ladies and gents.  Take a picture of your own kid doing the most innocent thing possible and OMG PEDO.  I'd say this is just Fail Brittania but I recall hearing mention of similar accusations being made here in the States.  Of course, here in the States the security guard would probably have been popped one as serves him right.

I've said it before but it bears repeating:  I will no longer have any interaction with a child in public and I will not be alone with a child at any point in time.  If I were still a good church going girl, I would not teach Sunday School.  I would not babysit during the services.  I would not play with the kids at the church picnic.  There's far far far too much risk with no reward. 

The presumption that every adult, especially every male adult, is a budding pedophile is utterly chilling. 

Posted by: alexthechick at 02:42 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Yes, they are. This is still Fail, but there's some Win! in there.
David Fullard, 47, was prosecuted for attacking the two strangers who forced their way into his home and threatened to rape his partner and kill his two teenage children.

Posted by: Veeshir at 02:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Simple syrup can be used as a weaker form of napalm. 

Ah, the things we'd learn if only we went to prison.  Like how to punish someone who should have gotten the death penalty, except that the UK doesn't have the death penalty.  Except, wait, he shouldn't have been in a position to end up needing a good death-imposition, because the nanny state observation of children and making sure that each child has adequate medical care through socialized medicine should have made sure that this guy was never in a position to need the death penalty applied to him, but it didn't.

Posted by: Alice H at 10:48 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The more nanny the state, the stupider the government, I think.

In the U.K., apparently, there are nearly 90,000 alchohol related "glass attacks" a year.  That's a nice way of saying that ninety thousand drunk Brits have someone smash a glass over their head every year.  Instead of attacking the source - binge drinking, which is an issue that causes the NHS an estimated £3 billion a year - the nanny state put its mind to perfecting the technology for shatterproof pint glasses.

Yep.  That's right.  Now, when you get into a bar fight, you can get clubbed in the head with a glass that can't break, as opposed to having someone slash your skin open with ragged glass.  I bet those Brits feel safer all ready.

The government is touting the prototypes as the first significant improvement in bar glassware in decades. The plan is to introduce the new glasses for use on a voluntary basis in pubs if tests show they are durable, cost-effective and safe.

 Alcohol Concern, a charity working to lessen alcohol abuse in Britain, praised the new designs.

 "We're very much in favor," chief executive Don Shanker said. "There has been good local research showing this could reduce the use of glass in violent incidents."

 Half of all violent assaults in Britain are alcohol-related and it has become common for drinkers to smash glasses and use them as weapons, he added.

 "You are five times more likely to be involved in a violent incident if you are in or around a licensed bar," he said. "There is a clear correlation."

 The government estimates that "glassing" attacks cost the National Health Service roughly 2.7 billion pounds ($4.3 billion) per year.

Posted by: Ember at 09:05 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I don't understand how the Brits were able to rule the largest empire in the world when they can't even manage to get shit like this right...

The Government’s controversial equality watchdog was last night accused of ‘rank hypocrisy’ for flouting its own policies on fair pay.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has angered business leaders by ordering a crackdown on hard-pressed companies that fail to pay the same rates to employees doing similar work.

But official figures show that more than two years after it was set up to stamp out discrimination, the commission is paying its own ethnic minority workers almost ten per cent less than white staff – an embarrassment for its black chairman Trevor Phillips.

I don't care what color he is; that ought to be an embarrassment for anyone. When you're running the government agency that's supposed to "stamp out discrimination" and you're discriminating against your own fucking employees, that's some FAIL right there.

Posted by: Sean M. at 09:01 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Police in the Nanny State get creative when they write tickets.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 03:11 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair faced an inquiry today into the Iraq war, and, to his credit, he stuck by his guns and said he'd do it all over again to remove Saddam Hussein from power.  The Iraq war was unpopular in Brittain, and as he left the inquiry today, he was booed by the audience.  I give the man sincere props for sticking to his guns and saying that the world is a better, safer place without Saddam Hussein. 

"This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception," he told the panel.

"It's a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?"

Somehow, though, it seems that the world disagrees, and would rather have a genocidal megalomaniac in charge of Iraq than to let the country try its hand at freedom.  Enough so that they're saying Tony Blair could be charged with fucking war crimes for standing by its ally - the United States - to wipe a derranged, power-mad, murdering dictator off the map.

Fuck that.  Fuck it with a rusty chainsaw attached to a steel dildo.  Fuck it ten ways from tomorrow sideways with a baseball bat.  These are the same fuckers wearing Che t-shirts like he's some sort of motherfucking saint; the same people who think that we should cut plea deals with fucking terrorists and let terrorists go free for the sake of our "image."

Fuck our image and fuck your t-shirt, you fucking buckets of fail.  If it's the right-wing that's so evil, why is it that we're the ones who are deposing oppressive dictators and fighting desperately for the freedom of people to whom we owe nothing?

Just fucking curious.

Posted by: Ember at 08:08 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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In some non-Scott Brown news, there's a British group called The National Association of Muslim Police who are kvetching (heh) about anti-terrorism policies being an "affront to British values."

The policies are aimed at stopping Muslims from becoming radicalised through measures such as sponsoring moderate community groups.

Ministers insisted that the strategy, which costs more than £140 million a year, had “real successes”. More than 200 people were convicted of terrorist offences in the past eight years.

But the NAMP claimed the policies had led to “hatred against Muslims” which “has grown to a level that defies all logic and is an affront to British values”.

Well, I guess they're right. I mean, it's not like anything else could ever possibly lead to an anti-radical-Islamist backlash as far as terrorism in the UK is concerned. Nothing at all. Nope, I'm sure the NAMP's contention that the British government should be focusing on "far-right extremists" instead of Islamist fanatics isn't at all ridiculous.

Hell, just ask Janet. She knows how well systems like this work, after all.

By the way, the article goes on to mention that the NAMP is concerned with the BNP, which I don't know a whole lot about, but I've read some stuff suggesting that they're a racist/nativist party. If that's true, they can fuck off. That said, I don't recall anything about BNP members blowing up subway trains or double decker buses. 

I'm just saying is all.

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:14 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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In an effort to keep people from drinking, the UK is banning having fun while drinking.

 LONDON (Reuters) - Tough new rules for pubs and clubs -- including a ban on drinking games like the infamous "dentist's chair" -- will be introduced in Britain this year in a bid to curb a heavy drinking culture that costs the country billions of a pounds a year.

Other promotions like "all you can drink for 10 pounds ($16)," speed drinking competitions and "women drink free" nights will also be prohibited.

But, controversially, bulk offers of cheap alcohol in supermarkets -- widely regarded as one of the main sources of Britain's problems with under-age and excessive drinking -- will not be affected.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said he did not want to target responsible drinkers on low incomes, but that the government and the industry had a duty to act on booze-fueled promotions.

"These practices have a real impact on society, not to mention the lives of those who just want to enjoy a good night out," he said.

The dentist's chair, where drinks are poured directly into the mouth by others, was made famous by the celebrations of footballer Paul Gascoigne at Euro '96.

It will be banned from April and publicans will have to ensure free tap water is made available to revelers.

Posted by: Ember at 07:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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So, if I'm not reading this incorrectly, if you clear snow or ice from a sidewalk in front of your property in the UK and someone subsequently slips, you'll be liable for their injuries. If, on the other hand, you leave the snow or ice there and the fall and injure themselves, you're off the hook...

Clearing a public path “can lead to an action for damages against the company, e.g. if members of the public, assuming that the area is still clear of ice and thus safe to walk on, slip and injure themselves”.

Legal experts said home owners could fall victim to the same laws if they tried to clear an icy path but failed to do the job properly. John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, admitted: “If you do nothing you cannot be liable. If you do something, you could be liable to a legal action.”

Ann Widdecombe, the former Tory minister and critic of Britain’s burgeoning “compensation culture”, said last night: “The idea you can be sued for being helpful is absolutely ludicrous.”

Um, if you hadn't noticed, you live in an increasingly ludicrous country.

Posted by: Sean M. at 01:30 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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