Coping With The Big Chill

In the interests of supporting the community during the current arctic conditions, the following is copied verbatim from the Manchester Evening News:

Vital numbers to help keep the vulnerable safe
January 08, 2010


POLICE and care organisations have advised people to make sure the vulnerable and elderly are OK during the freezing weather.


In emergencies people should still call 999 and also use 0161-872-5050 to report crimes. But in most cases, people should t contact their neighbourhood policing teams on the numbers listed below. People can also contact Age Concern on 0800 00 99 66.

Trafford

Urmston and Partington: 0161-856-7684

Stretford: 0161-856-7655

Sale: 0161-856-7865

Altrincham: 0161-856-7530

Tameside

Tameside West: 0161-856-9390

Tameside North: 0161-856-9350

Tameside East: 0161-856-9511

Tameside South: 0161-856-9484

Stockport

Stockport Central: 0161-856-5902

Stockport North: 0161-856-9786

Stockport East: 0161-856-9973

Stockport West: 0161-856-9770

South Manchester

Chorlton: 0161-856-4784

Northenden: 0161-856-4546

Didsbury: 0161-856-4973

Wythenshawe: 0161-856-4882

Salford

Salford North: 0161-856-5228

Salford East: 0161-856-5127

Salford Central: 0161-856-5084

Salford South: 0161-856-5317

Salford West: 0161-856-5284

Rochdale

Rochdale North: 0161-856-9961

Rochdale South: 0161-856-8549

Heywood: 0161-856-8589

Middleton: 0161-856-8701

Pennine: 0161-856-4556

Oldham

Oldham town centre: 0161-856-8903

Oldham West: 0161-856-8927

Oldham East: 0161-856-9028

Failsworth and Hollinwood: 0161-856-8914

Royton and Shaw: 0161-856-8983

Chadderton: 0161-856-8825

Saddleworth and Lees: 0161-856-4524


North Manchester

City centre: 0161-856-3221

Crumpsall and Cheetham: 0161-856-3925

Charlestown and Higher Blackley: 0161-856-4027

Moston and Harpurhey: 0161-856-4502

Ancoats, Clayton, Miles Platting and Newton Heath: 0161-856-3521

Bradford: 0161-856-3502

Bury

Ramsbottom: 0161-856-8181

Bury West: 0161-856-8025

Bury East: 0161-856-8127

Radcliffe: 0161-856-8291

Whitefield: 0161-856-8204

Prestwich: 0161-856-4538

Wigan

Pemberton: 0161-856-7188

Wigan: 0161-856-7124

Hindley: 0161-856-7436

Leigh: 0161-856-7225

Atherton: 0161-856-7319

Bolton Bolton Central: 0161 856 5619 Bolton East: 0161 856 5761 Bolton South: 0161 856 5608 Bolton West: 0161 856 5689 Metropolitan Gorton and Levenshulme: 0161 856 4288 Longsight & Arwick: 0161 856 4223Moss Side & Hulme: 0161 856 4466Fallowfield, Rusholme & Whalley Range: 0161 856 4423
.................


Obviously those numbers are specific to Greater Manchester. If you know of any other useful contact details, feel free to list them in the comments section.

Obviously as stories such as this one and the inadequetly-gritted roads show, we can't rely on officialdom to offer much help in a situation like this. So if you know any old, handicapped or otherwise vulnerable people in your neighbourhood, please take the time to check up on them and give what assistance you can.

Personally, I'm going to have a quick bite to eat after I've posted this and then I'm going out with a spade to see if I can clear some of the ice and snow from my road - there's no chance of the council doing anything, they haven't even bothered filling our salt bin this year.

Another good reason to boycott the airports.

Why anyone would voluntarily submit to these indignities is beyond me.

If minors are exempt from these airport pornography scanners, we all should be. I won't fly on principle.

New Year - New Party Meeting in Wirral

Wirral Libertarians New Year Party

Yes it is something to get really excited about. Not just a drink and the company of good friends although it will be that I am sure.

What this is really about is getting together to discuss the problems of Wirral and finding solutions through clean, decent, honest politics. In recent times our politicians have disgraced themselves by their secrecy, deception and fiddled expenses, but the truth is that we cannot do without government or politics. We have to do politics differently.

Instead of Party puppets who vote however the whips tell them, Libertarians believe in independence and individuals who are happy to be held to account for everything they do and say. The Government that has bankrupted this country is probably in its last weeks, but there will be no solution from Caneron's Tories who offer nothing other than Blairism with a blue rosette. The Liberal Democrats are a directionless irrelevance who will be used by one of the two big parties as crutch to help them cling onto power.

What has been happening to us for too many years now is that government has grown and taxes have been increased by stealth until the state now directly controls nearly half of the economy and you cannot move without being on CCTV, needing a Police check or permit, or having to follow endless amounts of expensive and useless red tape.
Libertarians know the way to get lower taxes, safer streets, full employment and freedom from officials interfering in the private lives and decisions of adult citizens, but I can't deal with all that in this note. We need to get together and discuss it.

Please come along and join us at 8pm on Wednesday 13th January 2010 at:

Punch Bowl Hotel
77 Market St
Hoylake
Wirral
Merseyside
CH47 2BH

The pub is a five minute walk from Hoylake railway station. If you are unsure how to find it please contact me for further directions.

Everyone is welcome. You do not have to be a member of the Libertarian Party UK. The meeting will be relaxed, friendly and informal. At this first meeting we will be getting to know each other and having a chat about what Libertarianism is. I am delighted to tell you that Councillor David Kirwan, Prospective Independent MP for Wirral West, is in agreement with the Libertarian approach and will be coming to our meetings. This is your opportunity to meet the man who will break the grip of the failed Parties in Wirral and take a truly independent, honest voice to represent us at Westminster.

We look forward to meeting you.

Best regards

Malcolm Saunders

Scary Terrorists

The old mantra 'terrorist threat' has been wheeled out so many times to justify more and more oppressive measures by New Labour that it lost its impact a long time ago. Indeed many of us doubted the seriousness of the threat from the start. Apart from the odd nutter or two the threat has never been as severe as that from the IRA a few years ago, and we lived in a state of relative freedom then in spite of them.

Then, over Christmas, the authorities wheel out a nutty Nigerian who used a syringe on a plane to make something on his leg go 'pop' and spout a bit of smoke. There you are, no doubt they will now ratchet up airport security even more, and install even more CCTV cameras in Kendal and Kirkby Lonsdale.

But last time I flew I had a bottle of over-sized shampoo confiscated because they thought I was going to use it as a terrorist weapon. Rub suds in the pilot's eyes perhaps causing the plane to crash? So how did nutty Nigerian chap get a syringe and a thing that goes 'pop' and makes smoke through all that hi-tech security? Perhaps it was actually time for the state to show us that there is a threat and that removing our freedoms and liberties is justified, but they didn't want to actually kill anyone in the process, not at Christmas.

The other thing that concerned me was that this nutty chap has a mechanical engineering degree from University College London. Now I don't expect they teach bomb making at UCL, but what happened to education, education, education under New Labour if that is the best an engineering graduate can do? On top of that his family are very wealthy it seems, so he could have afforded the best ingredients.

I think it's all very odd.

Big Brother Really Is Watching You

I have just come across an organisation that seems to be doing some very good work.

Big Brother Watch is researching and exposing the intrusion into our lives, and erosion of our civil liberties, by the state.

Big Brother Watch was founded by the founders of the Taxpayers' Alliance.

The worrying figures given below are taken from this research done by them:

There are currently at least 59,753 CCTV cameras controlled by 418 local authorities in Britain, up from 21,000 in 1999
This equates to 1 council owned CCTV camera for every 1000 people in the country
Portsmouth and Nottinghamshire Councils are in control of the most CCTV cameras with 1,454 each

Residents in the Outer Hebrides are the most watched people in the UK with 8.3 CCTV cameras controlled by the council for every 1000 people. Portsmouth has the second highest number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people with 7.8

The council controlling the highest number of CCTV cameras in Scotland is Fife with 1350 cameras
The council in Wales controlling the highest number of CCTV cameras is Swansea with 326 cameras
The council controlling the highest number of CCTV cameras in Northern Ireland is Belfast with 400 cameras
The total number of CCTV cameras controlled by councils in London is 8,815, which equals 1.3 CCTV cameras for every 1000 people living in the capital. Wandsworth is the most watched borough in London with 1113 CCTV cameras, or 4.3 cameras for every 1000 residents

In recent months I've become weary of meeting foreigners who comment on how intrusive the British state is, citing the worrying numbers of CCTV cameras spying on the public. It has been commented on by Americans, Australians and most recently by a Belgian, well a Fleming actually.

Make no mistake, Big Brother really is watching you.

North West Regional Meetup, 13th December

Just a quick reminder that on Sunday 13th December, there will be another regional Libertarian party meetup in the Lounge Bar of the Royal Station Hotel in Carnforth, Lancashire, starting about 12.30pm. This is just across the road from the famous railway station which was used as a location for the film "Brief Encounter". This is a nice bar that does decent food - the Station Burgers are both reasonably priced and very filling. It's also intended that this meetup should serve as the Christmas get-together for Libertarians in the region, as the next meetup will be in January (exact date to be decided shortly).

Both of these meetups are open to anyone interested in libertarian ideas, if you'd like to come along, talk about libertarianism and see if we're the sort of party that you'd like to support.

Democracy?

Pondering the vote this week in Switzerland I couldn't help thinking that the people of France, Holland and Ireland voted against the Lisbon Treaty but they, and we, got it any way.

Then the bleeding heart liberals go all self righteous and condemn the Swiss for voting against more minarets going up than the four that already exist in that country. The chances are the decision will be overturned when the Council of Europe stick their long noses in anyway:

“Bearing in mind that it is a fundamental right of democratic states to debate and vote on issues of importance to their societies, the referendum held yesterday on the construction of new minarets in Switzerland raises concerns as to whether fundamental rights of individuals, protected by international treaties, should be subject to popular votes,” said the council’s secretary general, Thorbjørn Jagland, a former foreign minister of Norway. “The ban on the construction of new minarets is linked to issues such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion and prohibition of discrimination guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Therefore it would be up to the European Court of Human Rights to decide, should an application be submitted to the court, whether the prohibition of building new minarets is compatible with the convention.”

What I take exception to is the following:

“The ban on the construction of new minarets is linked to issues such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion and prohibition of discrimination guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights".

Like the veil, the burqa, the crucifix and other symbols, minarets are not a necessity. The vote not to allow the building of more minarets does absolutely none of the above. If churches were not allowed to be built with steeples it would be exactly the same, we could still practice our religion, minarets and steeples are not that important in religious terms.

So forgive me for asking, but exactly what type of 'democracy' are the forces in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting to impose on those poor sods? Is it the one that says the people can have their say, as long as they agree with the political class?