Ted Kennedy Has Died.

Over night veteran US Senator Edward Kennedy finally lost his long battle with cancer. While Edward never rose to the political heights of his brothers John and Robert he became known as the Liberal Lion for his long career in the US Senate. In the last year of his life Gordon Brown had him Knighted for his work in education and health care reform. He was 77 years old.

While America has been coming to terms with his death the world has sadly not stopped turning. After a bad fortnight in which Britain has been reminded that it's current path will, at best, only end in failure they've decided to discuss opening up new high speed connections and pathways. Never ones to speak clearly they've decided to do this by proposing a new high speed rail link between London, Manchester and Glasgow so I apologise if the next bit is a little cryptic. The £34bn rail plan is expected to halve journey times by allowing trains to travel at speeds of over 200mph. The only problem is that the government thinks that the plan will take up to twenty years to complete. That is of course nonsense because I know a gang of talented navvies who can get it done in 18 months, they're just waiting for the state to give the go ahead.

More details have emerged about last nights riot between West Ham and Millwall which is being described, fairly accurately, as the worst rioting seen at a British football match in twenty years. This is no great surprise because West Ham/Millwall is one of the bitterest rivalries in football dating back to the days of the Greenwich docks. Perhaps rather fortunately the two teams rarely find themselves in the same division but do occasionally meet in cup competitions. The last time this happened was in April 2005 just as Britain was preparing to host the Gleneagles G8 Summit. That fixture was relatively peaceful and by peaceful I mean heavily policed but when the two teams met in 2004 one fan was thrown under a train and killed. This level of animosity means that the police have a well worked routine for dealing with the fixture. This involves getting the Millwall fans to assemble close to their home ground before the police march them to the local Tube station and put them on a specially dedicated Tube train that takes the directly to West Ham Tube station. From there the police in full riot gear form an armoured corridor along Green Street and the Millwall fans are marched into the ground without being able to interact with their surroundings in any way. Last night the police didn't bother do that citing a lack of resources due to Climate Camp as an excuse. As a result both sets of fans were allowed to congregate and get drunk by West Ham Tube Station breaking the golden rule of football policing. At around 18:00 this unsurprisingly led to clashes between the two groups of fans which quickly developed into a full scale riot engulfing most of the area in and around the Upton Park Stadium.

The good news is that aside from the man who was stabbed all the rioters who still have jobs turned up for work this morning feeling much more productive after being boosted by the adrenaline and excitement of the previous night. Those without jobs are expected to head down to help the police with their Croydon Community Style Policing of the Climate Camp which apparently "surprised" the police by setting up in Blackheath, South East London right on Millwall's home turf. Personally I wouldn't be too shocked if the whole thing gets a little bit rapey by the end of the week.

Today has also revealed the real reason behind British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday. It was simply a cover for a low key but high level meeting between a US negotiating team and an Israeli negotiating team which Britain offered to host in the hope of finding out about the Kosher Nostra case. The only item on the agenda was the issue of Israel's illegal settlements on the West Bank. As a lot of effort has been made to keep this meeting discreet it is difficult to find out how it is progressing. Given the run up to these talks I for one am not holding my breath because the Israeli's have long been looking on them as the moment the US drops it's opposition to Israel's, well I believe war crime is the correct term.

Riot Alert.

Tonight, 25/08/09, West Ham United met Millwall FC in the second round of the Carling Cup. Before the game serious violence erupted outside the ground. Although I've not heard the details this is hardly surprising because the West Ham, Millwall tie is perhaps one of the most vicious rivalries in English football resulting in several deaths and thousands of hours of police overtime. Seriously everytime I hear about it leaping out of the fixture computer I get the nasty feeling that the British brewing industry wants a riot.

Aside from that I've mainly been in the pub with my father and my brother.

Busy, Busy Day.

First up my father took my grandmother to opticians to assess the extent of her macular degeneration. As he's been in my bloodline for a number of generations Christopher Kerr is quite an impressive ophthalmologist. Aside from his private practice he is also a consultant for Croydon Health Authority, President of the British Contact Lens association and has published a number of research papers including one on the use of gas permeable contact lens to inhibit the progression of myopia. In his opinion my grandmother's condition is not beyond the point of no return and can be "treated" with special spectacles which my grandmother will have to pay for the privilege of having.

Then I went to my much trailed meeting which the Metropolitan Police's Croydon Borough Intelligence Unit (BIU). On the way there and on the way back the Croydon Voluntary Action network of community based agents were out in force. This meant I was treated to a number of third sector care workers leading round adults with learning difficulties, a man on a bike shouting abuse on me and a man who looked similar to our suspect walking along with a freshly applied plaster cast on his lower left leg. I arrived at South Norwood police station a little bit early and the BIU officer was there waiting dressed in a white T-Shirt bearing the slogan "Working Class Hero", shorts and flip-flop type sandals. This outfit is remarkably similar to what I wore to meet that Smash Edo Gold Commander although to complete the look the officer should have not slept for the last two days.

The WAD interview itself involved looking a 19 pages of 12 images per screen of mugshots and FIT photographs on a lap top. Although the 228 photographs didn't include anyone even vaugely like the suspect it did include a photograph of our dear Linda's ex-partner. The idea of this was to make me falsely identify him as the suspect giving the authorities the excuse to go digging around in their domestic violence case study. Of course this would not help bring the suspect(s) to justice and would have legal ramifications for me so unless I've been dramatically misled over British Intelligence's capabilities I cannot imagine how that would possibly be in my best interests. I also handed over my fingerprint elimination card and informed the officer that the suspect is identical to a man who attempted to carry out a robbery at my grandmothers house on 17/8/08.

While I was doing this Gordon Brown chose today of all days to meet Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in Whitehall so I guess this post should have been titled; OMG! Gordon Brown's an idiot, volume 3,007,489!

I Caught The Police

Well on the telephone at least. I've just being in touch with that burglary squad detective who called yesterday. It turns out he's neither DS Sherlock nor based at Addington police station but he does want me to come in on Tuesday (25/8/08) at 16:00 to look at the big book of mugshots to see if I can identify our suspect. This presents us with a bit of a problem because eye-witness testimony is not great at the best of times and my memory should have faded over the ten days between the report and the appointment. However here we've been struck by another bit of good fortune.

On the Tuesday before the robbery the ink supply in my favourite writing pen ran dry. This forced me to venture out into the badlands of Croydon's Whitgift shopping centre to get a fresh supply. While I was there I decided to build up a strategic reserve of two ink cartridges, two A4 notebooks and a new favourite writing pen. I also brought a new academic diary and as I picked up the diary I suddenly realised that the stationary shop was absolutely packed with school kids and their parents stocking up for the start of the new school year. This made me feel depressingly like a geography teacher and in my panic decided to also buy a pack of highlighter pens and an A7 notebook. Of these two items that I had no real use for at the time the A7 notebook has proved to be the most useful because it's quite a lot like the pocket books the police use and the pocket book I was drilled to use to write down every minute and inane detail when I was a traffic warden.

So when I sit down with the police on Tuesday it looks like we're going to be having a little battle of the pocket books. This will probably be more fun and less hassle then Wednesday's Climate Camp but I suspect I'll lose because I've already petulantly defiled my pocket book with blue ink.

A History of Violence

I mentioned yesterday that in response to my recent, I suppose you could call it a robbery the Brits have been making wild and unfounded claims about people being arrested. Perhaps confusingly the Russian's have also joined in making a big show about how they are also making arrests.

This stems from an incident in November 2006 when two Eastern European men carried out a distraction burglary on my grandmother. They stole a variety of property including a significant haul of jewellery. Despite being told that the criminals had used reasonably sophisticated surveillance techniques to track their victim, impersonated police officers in the commission of the crime and were specifically looking to steal passports the police took one look at the address and didn't bother attend for the best part of a week. Unknown to me at the time the Brits tried to hide their shame at this incident by translating "Eastern European men" into "Russian Special Forces" and proceeded to trash the Russian's reputation by blaming them for the crime. Although I can't go into much detail I can confirm that the two men who carried out that crime were non-state actors and most certainly not Russian.

As for the more recent robbery the burglary squad finally got in touch first thing this morning and it turns out DS Sherlock won't be handling the case after all so feel free to make up your own joke. I haven't actually had the chance to speak to the officer who is handling the case because he'd gone off shift by the time I called back. I will try and get in contact with him again tomorrow but in the meantime there has been a awfully high number of marked police vehicles parked in my street. This is part of the deal the police have done with the council whereby they will continue to protect the council's pet burglar providing the number of recordable incidents against me drops off for a few months.

The Police Have Been Back in Touch.

The delightfully named DS Sherlock hasn't yet contacted me to take a statement but in response to Tuesday's telephone conversation the police have sent out another "Sorry you've been a victim of crime" letter. As they've correctly addressed it to me this time I can now post it up for you all to read.

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Thrilling isn't it. What will happen next is the police will do everything in their power to screw up and delay the investigation because they think simply keeping the peace will be an acceptable compromise. I will then file a compliant about this investigation with the police. This complaint will then be investigated by a police Inspector who may possibly be the same Inspector that the complaints against and obviously found to be without basis. I will then file a second complaint with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and we've all seen how the IPCC investigate complaints. During this process, which may take up to two years, the police will do everything they can to antagonise me and try to tease information out of me. While deeply tedious and doing nothing to build up good will between me and the Brits it's nothing compared to that time I had to explain in open court why I was sitting in the cab of a police van while several police officers looked on crestfallen or that time I had to sit down and discuss, at great length, police tactics at a Smash Edo demo with the local police's Gold Commander or that time...Well this list could go on for quite some time but I've think I've made my point.

Normally I wouldn't bother because one of the British States favourite ways to crush dissent is by tying it up in long, expensive and ultimately futile legal actions. However this opportunity has landed in my lap through immense good fortune and I'm probably one of the best placed people in the country to follow it through. Besides I've been looking for something to keep me sharp for a while now.

After six months of talking to no-one but themselves the events of the last week have given the Brits something of a reality check on the progress of their current path. This has caused them to start scratching on the coffin lid again by making a series of ever wilder claims mainly about people being arrested. This is of course not true because if arrests had been made the police would need to contact me as a witness and this has not happened. One of the more interesting stories that has been in the news today is that Chelsea Building Society is to be investigated for mortgage fraud. This stems from events yesterday why I (Chelsea) deposited a sum of money into a bank in Croydon. This caused Croydon Council to run off to tell teacher to see what's going to be done about it. The answer of course is not much because the money is legally obtained and legally deposited. In fact you could say that describing it as fraud is a malicious falsehood so any conversation in which the Brits attempt to claim that I am a criminal or that they have either legal or moral authority is not really a conversation worth having.

Healthcare Reform.

Over the past few weeks America has been up in arms in opposition to President Obama's plan to reform the health care system. The fact that these protests seem to have focused more on people shouting for the sake of shouting then a debate over health care have led many people to think that the protests have nothing to do with health care reform. Instead they seem to be an expression of the general rage felt over the recession possibly fueled by July's arrest of a New Jersey Jewish crime syndicate. One significant recipient of this so called Kosher Nostra is believed to be a major contributor to Israel's ruling Likud party who also helps fund ultra-orthodox Jews trying to illegally settle the Palestinian West Bank. Within Israel these arrests are being seen as a direct attack by Obama on the Israeli government and their illegal settlement program and the Israeli's and the American Israeli lobby are said to be livid at the move.

Jewish conspiracy theories aside one of the more bizarre aspects of America's health care debate have been attempts by various commentators, pressure groups and even the odd British Conservative MEP to compare the proposed reforms to setting up an equivalent of the British National Health Service (NHS). According to these commentators the NHS is a barbaric system where patients are routinely denied treatments that could save their lives, wait for months for substandard treatment in filthy wards and ultimately have to face a death panel of bureaucrats who decide who is allowed to live and who must die. Despite being far too silly to take seriously these ludicrous claims have started something of a heated debate within Britain itself with the Twitterati leaping to the NHS's defence and forcing the leaders of all the three main political parties to heap praise on the institution.

If nothing else this debate proves just how seriously British voters take the NHS and how proud of it they are. I have to say that I agree with them because my maternal grandfather and grandmother as a doctor and hospital pharmacist respectively were part of the generation that built the NHS. Since then at least one member of my family has worked within the NHS so the history of the NHS is pretty much the history of my family making the institution a rather confusing metaphor for me.

When the idea of the NHS was first conceived at the end of the second world war it was said to be impossible. It was said there simply wasn't the money available because Britain, having just emerged from six years of war, was so heavily in debt that food was still on the ration, everything we manufactured had to be sold on export and the only thing staving off bankruptcy was that the newly liberated Europe owed us a favour. Despite all this people, like my grandparents, decided that they'd had enough of watching the old, the young and the poor die from simply not being able to afford treatment and pressed ahead despite the nay-sayers. This tenacity left Britain with a world class health care system and where Britain led the world followed. Over the next thirty years the system worked incredibly well providing first rate health care along with dental care, optical care, mental health care and social care all free at the point of need. Then in 1979 Britain made a terrible mistake and elected Margret Thatcher as Prime Minister. Thatcher hated the NHS as much as she hated reality itself and set about destroying the NHS so it could be replaced with a privatised system. She mainly did this by introducing the Health care Trust system that forced hospitals to operate as separate entities independent of each other and the Internal Market which, for no good reason, forced all the different departments within a hospital like radiology, patient transport and the cleaners to act as independent entities that had to bill each other for their services using pretend money. At the same time as turning the NHS into a bureaucratic nightmare Thatcher also deregulated the private health insurance industry. The idea was that once the NHS began to collapse under the weight of needless bureaucracy it would become unusable and those who could afford to would take shelter in private health insurance privatising the health care system by stealth. In the end Thatcher's own party realised that she was quite, quite mad and forced her out of office although the NHS has never quite recovered since.

Getting members of the British Conservative party to compare Obama's health care reforms to the NHS helps the British Establishment in two main ways. Firstly it makes Obama's life very difficult because proud as I am of the NHS it is a shadow of it's former self and not the shining example it should be. Secondly it reminds the British voting public of the damage that the Conservative party have done to the NHS. This will play particularly badly with a key demographic Conservative pollsters have dubbed "Holby City Women". This group are single, often gay, females aged 30-55 who work in the NHS. They are pretty well represented by characters in the BBC1 Soap Opera that gives them their name, Holby City, and much as they are sick of Gordon Brown's Labour party they will find it hard to vote Conservative. A reminder of how much of a threat the Conservatives are to the NHS should be enough to get this group to vote for the Liberal Democrats forcing a hung Parliament and a coalition government. The hope is that this will be enough to draw a veil of credibility over what will be a puppet regime.

The reasons why the British state feels the need to interfere with American health care are manifold. It's partly a colonial hangover, the Israel situation is a factor and as anyone who has had the displeasure of, Royal Consort, Prince Phillip's company knows that some of it is just good old fashioned racism. The main reason though stems from the terrible time the British Army are currently having in Afghanistan. Since being forced to commit more troops at the NATO Summit in April the British Military seem to be doing everything in their power to antagonise the Americans in the hope that the Americans will get sick of them and allow Britain to withdraw from a war it was so desperate to start. Plus imagine how humiliating it will be for Britain if America is able to exit the current recession introducing universal health care while Britain exits much later being forced to do away with universal health care.

Of course none of this has anything to do with Obama's health care reforms because he's not trying to copy the NHS. If he's trying to copy any countries health care system it's France's which despite being French is widely recognised as the best healthcare system in the world. The French system is essentially a privatised one much like the current American one. The key difference is that in France the government contributes, I believe, around 30% of the cost of insurance/treatment and in extreme circumstances acts as the insurer of last resort.

In a way this already happens in America with taxpayer funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid picking up the slack for people who can't afford health insurance and senior citizens who get health insurance. The problem is that these programs are run more like a slushfund then an insurance program so taxpayers money goes in and then taxpayers money flows straight back out again in a massive loss making operation. As a result these programs will go bankrupt between 2018 and 2030 and will need replacing. Although I haven't had time to read Obama's plan in full I personally think that it would be very prudent to replace these Medicaid programs with a public insurer of last resort.

The Private Health Insurance People Have Been Round.

Seriously at about 18:00 (BST), just after my grandmother had met her new GP and his Iranian student doctor and just before I went to the pub with my father to discuss the policing situation, two attractive young ladies from Aviva insurance came knocking the doors in my street and the neighbouring street. After taking one look at the walking frame outside my grandmother's house and running away they knocked and my door. Once we'd discussed my long term mental health condition that would require cognitive behavioural therapy and my father's autism, deafness, high blood pressure and high cholesterol they decided there's no way on earth they're insuring any of us. Therefore I have to read from the following pre-approved statement;

"I [inset bloggers name] speaking of my own free will and in no way acting under duress have to assure you that the British Government along with Her Royal Highness the Queen of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and all her loyal subjects in the Commonwealth fully support US President Barack Obama and his silly little nigger plan to provide health care to all Americans regardless of their ability to pay. We are not currently attempting to manipulate the British voting public into electing a coalition government made up of the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party in order to further destroy the National Health Service."

The Police Have Been in Touch

Obviously they didn't do something as productive of sending round a burglary squad detective to take a statement. Instead they sent a standardised "Sorry you've been a victim of crime" letter that outlines what they're meant to do next and what I'm meant to do next. These steps are also outlined in the Office for Criminal Justice Reform leaflet VOC/09 which they also helpfully included a copy of.

I would post the letter itself up for you all to read however the police appear to have made a terrible mistake by addressing the letter to my father which makes the letter his confidential property. This mistake is unfortunate because as part of the Croydon network my father has already demonstrated that he feels it is his duty to protect the offender by impeding the investigation.

Being an upstanding member of society I immediately contacted the Croydon Borough Crime Management Unit and pointed out that because my father is neither the complainant, a witness or victim they have no business contacting him and such an error could potentially jeopardise the investigation. With little choice the police agreed with me and have promised to send out another letter to the correct person this time. They also informed me that the case is to be handled by a Detective Sargent Sherlock based at Addington Police station and advised me to give my fingerprint elimination card to him in person when he eventually gets in contact.

Although as a general rule if a police officer is talking then a police officer is lying there appears to have been an attitude change in the investigation overnight. That is to say that now it appears that the Queen is, quite reasonably, going to be held responsible for the investigation the investigation is going to have to proceed. As the suspect took money from the crown on the understanding that he will be prepared to give up his life for Queen and Country now would be a appropriate time for him to hand himself in and start paying his way.

Football Season's Here

On Saturday the English Premier League season began. Along with the Championship, League 1 and League 2 which began last week this means that all four divisions of the English Football (soccer) League have embarked on a season that will draw to a thrilling close in May 2010. Over the weekend 92 teams played 46 games scoring 101 goals between them. Some of these were legitimate sporting contests that were won by the best team on the day however a large proportion were fixed to either promote discussion or give certain English cities a boost to their collective egos. The sheer number of fixtures which would have taken 70 consecutive hours to watch means that I can't comment on all them so I'll concentrate on what I consider to be the most important.

Bristol City V Crystal Palace.

This Championship fixture because it featured the most blatant piece of match fixing ever seen. In the 34th minute Crystal Palace striker Freddie Sears put the ball so firmly and clearly into the back of the Bristol net that it bounced back out and onto the field of play. The referee then inexplicably awarded a goal-kick denying Crystal Palace the goal leaving Bristol to win 1-0. The cheating was so blatant that the referee has been suspended pending an investigation although the Football Association have refused to overturn the result.
This fixture is important politically because Crystal Palace is my local team, so local in fact that when I go shopping I go to a supermarket that is part of the stadium complex between one of the stands and the ticket office. Plus it's pretty obvious that Bristol City are the team local to the Bristol Abuse Case. Therefore matches between Crystal Palace and Bristol City are only ever going to be allowed to end in a Bristol win. This serves two purposes for the British Establishment. Firstly it allows them to, at least twice a year, to issue a statement announcing that Bristol in winning. I think the idea behind this is that if Britain says this forcefully enough and frequently enough some people will start believing it regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. Secondly when Crystal Palace lose, which they will do a lot this year, it pisses off my local football crowd and the hope is that eventually that anger will be directed against me.

Everton V Arsenal.

This Premiership game is important because the fact that Arsenal won 6-1 makes it the biggest opening day win in, I believe, the history of the football league. It is also politically important because when Britain invented their mythical Lesbian MI5 officer, Hannah, they went as far as making her an Arsenal fan. This fits in with the fact that Arsenal Ladies team are the most successful women's football team in England and the term "women's football team" is pretty much interchangeable with the term "bunch of lesbians". Therefore by drawing attention to Arsenal Britain is trying to claw back plausible deniablity over my burglary by blaming it on the lesbians.

This rather rush job to try and protect the Queen's reputation stems from a statement by the Russians on Friday. They felt that because Thursday's attempted robbery went so badly wrong and left me in a position of power against the Croydon network that it must've have been set up by my own side in order to make me look good. Flailing around in a bit of a panic Britain leapt on this idea of shifting the blame and ran with it by declaring the lesbians the winner of the weekend's events and have attempted to re-enforce it today by leaking a book by "Canoe man!" John Darwin in which he's set to reveal how he managed to fool the authorities for so long to the Sun newspaper. Whether you choose to believe that or not is your business but if the robbery was a set up or publicity stunt then all the police need to do is arrest the suspect and put me in the difficult position of having to prosecute one of my team mates.

Incidentally I'm still yet to hear from the Burglary squad. They're holding off in the hope that they can force me to call them and then put me on hold for a long time. The idea is to drive up my costs in what the Conservative party are referring too as a tax on city bonuses.

This Weekend I Have Mostly Been...

....taking my own fingerprints. Which is actually more difficult then it sounds and so counter-intuitive that after I'd finished I felt this strange urge to lock myself in a small room for 36 hours. While doing this the penny finally dropped and I realised that the description I gave to the police on Friday was almost identical to the description my grandmother gave after the last time she was robbed. This means the moment that my report was fed into the polices criminal intelligence database it should immediately link to my grandmothers robbery along with quite a few other similar incidents in the area flagging the suspect as a repeat and persistent offender. As such he should be flagged as a high priority arrest target for the local burglary squad who are supposed to be cracking down in preparation for a huge increase in burglaries during the recession. Strangely the burglary squad have yet to be in contact which suggests that the computer system must be broken although chatting to them isn't exactly high on my weekend priorities either.

Aside from that I've been doing thrilling and exciting things like laundry and washing up.

Calling The Police.

After calling the police last night I know that I'm going to get a lot of stick and called a grass, a snitch and all the rest and normally I'd agree however I think this is a little bit different. What is causing all the break-in's and other minor harassment that has been going on is that Croydon Council in conjunction with the police have taken several housing association properties near me and allowed people on the waiting list to jump the housing queue on the condition that these people are prepared to pass on information about my movements a take part in the occasional attempt at harassment. The reason that this activity has increased recently is because the summer climate camp and the anti-Dsei protests are coming up at the end of August and the police think that at those protests I'm going to be giving them hell

That means that these people are being paid to work for the police and provide the police with information so as far as I'm concerned these people are some of the biggest grasses in town and I so no difference between calling the law on them and filing a complaint against the police. Something which because of last night I am now fully entitled to do.

To put the whole incident in perspective my father, who is a well established grass, was so dead against me calling the police that he actually spent most of this morning on the phone to his contacts at the council asking for advice on what to do next. He took it so far that when the Scene of Crime Officer (SOCO) turned up he went to the extent of trying to obstruct the SOCO accessing the crime scene by pretending he'd lost a key which he suddenly "found" when the SOCO threatened to have him arrested. On top of that the thing I'm really pissed off about is that the only reason I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt last night was because I thought he might have been trying to hide from the police.

As for today's event's the SOCO was due to attend at 10:00 so I got up at 09:00, had breakfast and settled down to await their arrival. While I obviously can't be sure of this I could have sworn that at 10:05 a white Belingo van, the type used by SOCO's, pulled into my street and waited there for just long enough for the onboard GPS to established it's presence in my street. At 11:30 no SOCO had turned up so I phoned the police station to enquire what had happened to them and the operator assured me that they would find out and call me straight back. By 12:40 no-one had called back and no SOCO had turned up so I phoned them again. My first call was cut straight off so I redialled and had a quick conversation with the operator about at which point pissing about becomes attempting to pervert the course of justice. Low and behold 5 minutes later a SOCO turned up with two PCSO's in tow one of whom seemed more concerned with re-creating the infamous Gates arrest then doing the job for which she is being paid. After that incident with my father the SOCO was able to recover a number of partial prints from the scene although obviously the delay in collecting them meant they had degraded to somewhat.

Although I don't want to complicate this further by making it a racial incident I do have to say that I told the police that they were looking for 5'10'', heavy set, white male. The suspect the TSG detained was a 6'2", skinny, black male. If that was you I'm really so sorry for having you disturbed in that way. I'll see if I can find a way to work that into a complaint.

Well That Was A little Adventure

Which is technically still going on so excuse my vagueness.

About a hour ago I just stepped outside to a have a cigarette when this gentleman emerges from my shed. Obviously this led to a little bit of a conversation during which the rather drunk gentleman may have been a little bit free and easy with the information about who he was and which council run property he lived in. After the guy had left my property I went into the shed and discovered that he'd been helping himself to the contents of my freezer.

Given the suspiciously high level of crime that seems to plague this very small area of Croydon I decided to call the police. This prompted of a major manhunt involving a patrol car, a patrol van, a van load of TSG and the helicopter. The TSG stopped a guy that possibly fitted the description so got to have a nice little ride in a police van to go and identify the guy who'd been stopped. It wasn't the right guy but on the plus side I did get to have a ride in a police van when I was neither in the front seat nor the cage in the back which is a new experience for me.

We're now waiting for the Scene of Crime Officer to come round tomorrow.

Birmingham Barney!

On Saturday 8th of August a protest by a group called the English Defence League (EDL) led to a mini-riot in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

When it was started around a year ago the EDL was little more then a small blog obsessed with flying the English national flag, the St George's Cross, and steeped in the so called "Lionheart" culture which dominates the British military and looks on Britain's war in Afghanistan as chance to recreate Richard the Lionheart's Crusades against Islam in the middle ages. I'm not sure who exactly is behind the EDL but I don't think they're directly linked to the British military so much as sad little wannabes who copy the military culture in order to compensate for the fact they can't make the grade themselves. After March's much publicised protest against a parade of British soldiers returning for Afghanistan by the less then credible Al Muhajidroun Islamic group the EDL found itself swamped with interest from new supporters. A large proportion of these are so called "football casuals" who are basically casual football hooligans not affiliated with any major hooligan firm who go to a couple of games a year mainly to drink lots of beer and get into fights. Alongside and probably overlapping with the football casuals the EDL has also attracted support from members of two extreme right political parties the British Peoples Party (BPP) and the British Freedom Fighters who choose to be known by the slightly gay acronym BFF. Ideologically both the BPP and the BFF are very close to the larger British National Party (BNP) but the BNP like to distance themselves from these two groups because the BPP and the BFF are far more interested in violence then they are in politics.

Due to the ultra-nationalist ideology of the EDL and the open racism of some of their supporters the local branch of Unite Against Fascism (UAF) called a counter-demonstration as part of their no platform policy for racist and fascist groups. This forced the EDL to change the cause of the demonstration from simple anti-Islam to anti-Islamic Extremism at the last minute. The UAF are yet another front of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) who are well known in British protest circles for being next to useless as it's absolutely riddled with MI5 assets although that infiltration tends to be concentrated at the national level.

Both demonstrations began at 17:00 BST with the EDL protest taking place outside Birmingham's Bullring shopping centre while the UAF assembled further down the pedestrianised News Street at the junction with Stephensons Street. The police, who were out in force, immediately moved to kettle the 500 or so UAF supporters while the 300 or EDL demonstrators were surrounded by a porous cordon made up of a smaller number of officers. The next hour was tense but peaceful as the two groups chanted, waved placards and attracted onlookers while staying out of reach of each other. This changed at around 18:00 when a group of around 100 EDL protesters who had either been allowed the leave the main group or formed up separately began to make their way up New Street towards the UAF demonstration. The police quickly caught the group in a "bubble" which is a containment tactic similar to a moving kettle but seemed to lack the numbers to prevent the EDL continuing up New Street. Once they were in earshot of the UAF demonstration the EDL began chanting things like "We Are England!", "This is our Country!", "Allah was a Christian!". "Stick your Allah up your Arse!" and the totally irrelevant "No Surrender to the IRA!" Given that Birmingham is a very multicultural city with a large Muslim population I would say that the EDL group was doing everything in it's power to start a fight.

At this point the police brought in a line of riot vans to block the street and prevent the two groups getting sight of each other. They then made the crucial mistake, possibly due to a lack of manpower, of removing the bubble around the EDL group. This allowed the EDL to disperse amongst the, by now, very large crowd of onlookers, passers by and late comers. A number of fights began to break out as the English Defence League's brand of racism didn't go down well with the local Birmingham residents. In response the police deployed Nato helmets, short shields, batons and dogs as reassuringly ethnically diverse groups of black, white and asian brummies proceeded to chase small groups of the EDL through the city centre kicking the hell out of them whenever they got the chance. After about two hours the EDL had been run out of town and clashes continued between local residents and the police as the police battled to regain control of the city. By around 22:00 the violence had fizzled out leaving 35 people arrested for violent disorder and 3 people, all members of the EDL, requiring hospital treatment.

All things considered I think Saturday's events were exactly what they appear to be. That is a small group of casual racists with little history of political activity went to Birmingham looking to start a fight. They attracted a larger group of local residents who found their point of view abhorrent and when the police lost control of the situation the racists got their heads kicked in. It is what happens next that will be interesting because it's pretty obvious that the English Defence Leagues behaviour in Birmingham was not a legitimate political protest so much as an attempt to provoke violent disorder or even possibly conspiracy to riot so the police will have little option then to take action against them. After all, as I'm so often being told, rioting is such a heinous crime that the state is obligated to break all sorts of laws and any sort of moral code just to stop it happening. Therefore if the EDL do manage to stage a repeat performance there is little choice other to conclude that the police and therefore the British Establishment are endorsing the group, it's agenda and it's actions. This is reminiscent of the last time Britain was in recession in the late 1980's/early 1990's when riots stemming from a demonstration by the extreme rightwing National Front and a counter-demonstration by the SWP backed Anti-Nazi League were pretty much a weekly fixture. In times of economic hardship this was particularly useful to the establishment because while the poor people wasyed so much time fighting amongst themselves they were far too busy to starting asking why the ruling elite were still getting rich.

Plus the racist blogosphere and I'm sorry to say the BBC have gone to great efforts to portray Saturday's riot as decent, hardworking, patriotic British people being attacked by dangerous Muslim thugs. This is of course not true because if you watch any of the raw footage you can see that the crowds chasing off the EDL are made up of black people, white people and plenty of non-Muslim asian people. A pretty fair representation of British society unlike the all white English Defence League.

Well I Win Because I've Just Shampooed A Cat.

Which seems the perfect end to an evening of unholy aggression. It started about 18:00 when me and my father were leaving for the pub so I told my grandmother to lock one of her doors but because my father had been preaching her all day long she just flatly refused so we left it. Then the moment we arrived in the pub a couple of people to the right of me started having a massive row. I don't know what it was about but it resulted in the bar staff sensibly and professionally asking one of the gentlemen to leave.

After my father and I had a tense and loaded conversation over dinner I stepped outside for a cigarette. Just as I'd put my pint on the table and lit my cigarette I realised that the gentleman on the right of me and the gentleman on the left of me were having something of a war. As the phrase "I'm going to fucking stab you!" rang through the air I decided that it was time for me to pick a side in this battle and invited the gentleman to my right to sit down and shut the fuck up while another person invited the gentleman on my left to go forth and procreate.

As I was trying to work out exactly what the hell was going on my father and I went back to the car and proceeded to drive off. In the process of performing a U turn my father slightly cut up a guy who got a bit angry. While my father's driving style probably entitled the guy to punch him in the face we were in a bit of a rush to get home so we left. After a long chat with my grandmother it became apparent that while on her earlier shopping trip she'd had a long chat with the gentleman on the left in the earlier argument. After a time this confused the both of us so we decided that i was all the cat's fault for being a flea ridden old rat bag so he was rewarded with a bath.

Anyway that was my day. I hope yours was better but if not just think, at least you're not the cat.

Baby P's Killers Named.

Baby P was a 17 month old boy who died after suffering over a year of torture at the hands of his mother, his stepfather and his stepfather's brother while Haringey Council and the Metropolitan police stood back and gave their tacit support for the abuse. Throughout the ensuing trial a High Court injunction prevented the victim and his killers from being named in order to allow Baby P's siblings to be settled with new adoptive families. At 22:00 GMT on 10/8/09 that injunction expired and the British media were, for the first time, allowed to give Baby P back his name - Peter Connelly and name those who killed him. They are;

Steven Barker.


Steven Barker is clearly and evil man. As a child he used to break the legs and then skin alive pet guinea pigs and frogs. This disturbing behaviour led to him being sent to a special needs schools where he was labeled a sadist addicted to inflicting pain. At the age of 19 Barker and his older brother were reported to the police for attacking their own grandmother repeatedly beating her and locking her in a cupboard in an attempt to get the 85 year old to change her will in their favour. Although the allegations were eventually withdrawn the police kept a record of Barker because of his apparent love of violence. By the time he met Baby P's mother Steven Barker had developed a fetish for the military and the Nazi's in particular amassing a large collection of weapons and Nazi memorabilia and covering his body in neo-Nazi tattoos. Aside from torturing Baby P and his siblings Barker was also convicted of anally raping a two year old girl.

Jason Owen.


Steven Barker's older brother who changed his name after the 1995 attacks on his grandmother began lodging at Baby P's house in June 2007 in the last few months of his life. An Active member of the far-right National Front Owens taught the toddler to make a Nazi salute and shout "Seig Heil!" for the amusement of him and his brother. The fact that Owens was living in the house was apparently unknown to Social Services and the Police because the 37 year old father of five was hiding out whilst on the run with his 15 year old "girlfriend."

Tracey Connelly.


After giving birth to baby P in 2006 Tracey Connelly quickly lost interest in both her husband and her going on to have two affairs including one with Barker. Once she'd forced her husband to move out of the house and moved Barker in she stopped Baby P's father from visiting his son and participated in the torture of her won child. Despite being described as a none too bright slob who kept a filthy house soaked in urine and littered with dog mess Connelly was apparently able to outwit teams of social workers and police officers by keeping both the abuse and the presence of Barker and Owens in the house secret. Interestingly she bears a more then passing resemblance to a British Comedian called Katie Brand who is probably best know for her TV sketches mocking the British Army and the Queen of England.

Despite the heinous nature of their crime the trio received shockingly light sentences of 7 years, 3 years and 5 years respectively. Tracey Connelly has already been moved to a new prison in order to prepare her for her release. As the three all have to be kept under 24 hour close protection whilst in prison the probation service have already suggested that they will probably require new identifies and round the clock police protection for the rest of their lives. The MP for Haringey, Lynne Featherstone has today issued a statement saying that she would support such a move regardless of cost because once they have served their sentence punishment will have been served. This is of course nonsense because if any of these three ever leave prison then British Justice will have failed miserably.




Edited at 19:25 because I used the wrong photo of Steven Barker. Sorry my fuck up.

Probably Shouldn't Laugh But...

Back in May a group calling themselves the English Defence League held a demonstration in Luton against Islamic Extremism. After all of five minutes any pretence that this was a legitimate protest and those attending were anything other then simple racist thugs was dropped when the crowd went on a violent rampage vandalising shops, beating up random Asians and smashing up cars with heavily tinted windows. Yesterday, 8/8/09, the same group tried the same thing in Birmingham, UK and few people turned up to meet them. This was the result;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ_JTJVvMrA

As is probably appropriate for a protest called by a bunch of racists yesterdays events were met with something of a media brownout so I, like many others, are left still trying to pieace together yesterday's events.* From what I have seen though I do sadly have to call into question the BBC's reporting of events; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8191833.stm which includes a video shows a large group of protesters, some in Islamic dress, chanting "Who's streets? - Our Streets!" contrasted with a group of protesters singing the national anthem. The text of the article speaks to only one eyewitness who talks of systemic groups of (Muslim youths) turning up in cars to get involved in violence and burning the Union Flag. To me that sounds like bad journalism.

*My research may have been a little bit impaired by the fact that my grandmother slightly set fire to her kitchen. In her defence she put the fire out herself while me and my father were standing outside like Laurel & fucking Hardy going "Look at that one of our neighbours have started a BBQ and it's set off their smoke alarm, ain't they stupid!"

Time For The IPCC To Get a Name Change.

On Thursday August 7th the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) published their report into complaints of the police using excessive force at the G20 Climate Camp. Having read the report I think it's high time the IPCC dropped the word Independent from their title or changed their name to something more appropriate. Perhaps to something like the Intentional Police Cover-up Committee.

While the media, led by the BBC, have claimed that the report strongly criticises the police if you go through the report, which can be read here; http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/Bishopsgate_Report.pdf it soon becomes clear that the IPCC have conducted their investigation in such a way as to make sure that the only action they are able to take against the police is to offer a strongly worded rebuke. The main problems with the report are;

• The IPCC received around 40 complaints about the polices use of force at the Climate Camp but only decided to investigate one in the hope that it is representative of the others. They have justified this by arguing that because the complaint included the possibility that the polices actions may have caused a woman to suffer a miscarriage it was the complaint that would cause the highest degree of public concern. However as the woman did not know she was pregnant at the time of the incident it is impossible to prove whether or not she did suffer a miscarriage. Likewise because the woman was involved in what the report describes as a scrum between the police and protesters it is impossible to prove which specific, if any, blow led to her vaginal bleeding. By comparison the complaints the IPCC chose not to investigate included two incidents where police officers were filmed punching protesters full in the face. Therefore it seems that the IPCC have deliberately chosen to only investigate the complaint that was the least likely to uncover evidence of police misconduct.

• In the report the IPCC claim that the polices use of short riot shields have only been in use "in response to events at the G8 Summit in Scotland in July 2005" and are not mentioned in the polices national public order training program. This is a factual inaccuracy so severe that it could be described as a blatant lie. The idea of using short shields began in the Brixton and Toxteth riots of the early 1980's when police officers unable to get their hands on traditional long shields picked up dustbin lids and began using them to deflect missiles. The tactical use of so called short shield serials has been featured in national police public order training manuals since the mid-1980's and their use is now so widespread that it is considered the first choice solution in public order situations. Prior to the Gleneagles summit short shield tactic were extensively used at J18, Mayday 2000, 2001, 2002 and the anti-Iraq war protests along with various football riots.

• The IPCC's report was released just 21 days before the start of the summer Climate Camp at a time when a number of first time campers were making their final decision whether to attend or not. Therefore releasing a report that draws attention to Climate Campers being beaten up by the police while concentrating on the gory details of the very personal nature of the vaginal bleeding suffered by the complainant could be seen as an attempt to discourage people from attending Climate Camps in the future. In that case it would appear that far from rebuking the police the IPCC actually seem to be rewarding them for their violent conduct.
  

I Got Mail

On Tuesday 5/8 I received a letter from the agonisingly named Croydon Integrated Psychological Therapies Service (CIPTS) which I've posted below if you're really that interested. Personally I wasn't and after giving it a quick read I put it in a drawer until today. Beneath the envelope stamped Private & Confidential the letter simply acknowledges that I've been ont he waiting list for Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT) for quite some time and attempts to reassure me in a rather sinister turn of phrase that I "not been forgotten." The letter is a little unusual because it doesn't actually tell me anything and if there's one thing I'm sure of it's that Croydon Council won't be forgetting me for some quite time.

The trigger for the letter appears to be that recently, in a context I'm not going to explain, I visited some of the pubs I used to drink at when I was working at Enterprise House and was observed doing so by the police which is hardly a surprise as the pubs are by a police station. The caring profession appear to have interpreted that as a form of depressive pining and sent me the let in the hope of showing me that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Either that or they've sent the letter in the hope it would provoke me into clarifying the context of the situation although that would certainly be out of character.

The letter does reveal an interesting point though that may have set a few people awobble. Eventually I will come to the top of the waiting list for CAT which incidentally a treatment that is so complicated, labour intensive and expensive that most private health insurers simply won't offer it. When that happens I will be faced with a very simple choice. I can either take part in what is a very invasive treatment that not only requires you to draw on your personal experience it also requires you and the therapist to identify your cognitive process which basically govern the way you think and how you will behave in certain circumstances. Alternatively I can refuse the treatment and risk that refusal being used as grounds to wipe me out financially. I suspect this choice is going to play a large part of the Brits next move against me but it would just be careless of me to let them know that I know how they plan to attack me now wouldn't it.

Incidentally I also found out on Tuesday that a group of British researchers have published a paper proving that autism inhibits the ability to react to non-verbal communication. I'm surprised they managed to get published because they've yet to contact me to find out how I would like to be credited for providing the hypothesis that they've merely tested. I wander if the authors can spell plagiarism or whether they'll need someone to explain that to them too.

Anyway arrogance over for today, here's that letter;

Madeline McCann Case Gets Even Sillier

Madeline McCann was a three year old British girl who went missing on a family holiday to Portugal in May 2007. The Portuguese authorities believe she was murdered by her parents who dumped her body in a deep water lake making a prosecution impossible. The parents claim that Madeline was abducted by an organised crime gang who sold on to people in Africa as part of a elaborate white slavery ring. The British authorities sided with the parents and helped set up an international search fund to help "Find Maddie". This caused a bit of a diplomatic incident between the two countries. While the search focused on North Africa the human interest element of the story gripped Europe and the USA for about a year until it went cold and the McCanns were left to indulge in the psychologically questionable practice of sending their other two children birthday and Christmas while pretending they were sent by the missing Madeline.

Now, in the middle of an Ashes series which is probably one of the most deep rooted and important sporting rivalries in the world, detectives working for the McCann family have announced that they are looking for an Australian woman who apparently resembles Victoria Beckham and was reported to be heard discussing the case in a bar in Barcelona, Spain. I think it's pretty safe to assume that this announcement has little to do with the search for Madeline so it appears to be an attempt to provide a local link with and therefore boost interest in a story in a part of the world where it hasn't received that much attention. It could simply be that Britain have done this is response some well founded Australian accusations that the first three ashes tests haven't exactly been played within the spirit of the game of cricket. It's as if that because the Australians have accused the English of match fixing the English have accused the Australian's of kidnapping little girls, a form of institutional sledging if you like.

Personally I think that analysis along with a terrorism connection are probably being used as a bit of a confuser to draw attention away from the real reason. The Madeline McCann story has previously been used as a metaphor or allegory to discuss one of my Bristol based associates in the sense that they both feature the fundamental question; "Was she sold into slavery by strangers or was she simply murdered by her parents?" Therefore I think that Australia is being brought into the McCann story because Britain is trying to gauge public opinion in it's colonial outpost before deciding it's next move against me. I suppose I should give Britain the benefit of the doubt and hope they are planning something nice however experience tells me that's unlikely and because it's Britain they're planning something violent. Of course, in the short term, that unpleasantness would involve using the McCann story, the Ronnie Biggs release, the fourth ashes test and this post as way of turning up the tension on that Bristol based associate over the weekend in the hope that Britain will be able to salvage something from their current disaster.

Bring On September 2nd.

As part of the G20 protests on April 1st a group of performance artists known as the Space Hijackers drove a tank through the streets of London I what believe to be a satirical statement about the heavy handed tactics the police were expected to use against the demonstrators. Perhaps unsurprisingly the tank was stopped by the police who, after establishing that the vehicle was 100% road legal, decided to arrest all 11 of the occupants on a charge of impersonating a police officer. After 4 months the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have decided that they are going to continue with the prosecution and the 11 will stand trial on September 2nd 2009.

As this is now an ongoing court case I am obviously limited in what I can publish on the matter however I think it is fair to say that the offence the 11 are charged with is section 90.2 of the Police Act 1996 which states;

"(2) Any person who, not being a constable, wears any article of police uniform in circumstances where it gives him an appearance so nearly resembling that of a member of a police force as to be calculated to deceive shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale."

So in order to secure a conviction the prosecution must prove that a person dressed like this;


can reasonably be mistaken for a person dressed like this;


by a sighted person during daylight hours.

Of course the trial will be made more interesting by the fact that a recent Parliamentary inquiry into the policing of the G20 protests found a number of police officers were unable to dress themselves in proper uniform so my advice to anyone who is planning to go along to watch the trial is to get there early.