In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lt. Col. John McCRae
1872-1918

Phone call.

The Sun carries a recording of a telephone conversation between our Prime Minister and Mrs Janes, which should be listened to alongside the full transcript. (Hat-tip to Dizzy)

Mrs Rigby is more than a little bemused that Mr Brown felt the need to make this phone call and, actually, she isn't sure how she would react if she answered her phone to find somebody claiming to be the Prime Minister on the line.

Do they understand the science?

According to an article in the Mail

Supermarkets should put doors on all freezer units to cut down on energy waste, [Consumer Focus] the Government's customer body has said.

and

Sainsbury's said it is looking at the idea of putting doors on freezer and chiller cabinets.

However, today it is pledging to change the gas used to keep its fridges cool in a bid to cut energy use.

The company is pledging to switch to fridges to CO2 gas in all stores by 2030 and has earmarked the first 135 stores for conversion by 2014. This will cut energy by around a third

Mrs R is interested to know that

Chief executive, Justin King, said: 'Fridges are by far and away the biggest source of CO2 emissions in any supermarket through both the energy required to power them and the refrigerants themselves.

If all supermarkets in the UK switched to this sort of refrigeration, the reduction in CO2 emissions would amount to around 2m tonnes a year.'

So what are they going to do?

They're going to use all the nasty CO2 to make their freezers colder :-

The gases most commonly used in supermarket refrigeration are HFCs and HCFCs, also known as ‘F-gases’. Where F-gases have a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 2,000-3,000, CO2 has a GWP of just 1 making it many times less ‘damaging’ in environmental terms.'

So, it would seem that according to Sainsbury's, government-run Consumer Focus and the Daily Mail, CO2 is not the worst bête noire, as AGW alarmists would have us believe.

A question of empathy and Mr Brown.

The media and the blogosphere are awash with comment regarding the letter Mr Brown sent to a dead soldier's family. Some are complaining because it is full of spelling mistakes, others say it was a kind gesture and he shouldn't be censured - moreso because he has a sight problem. Some are saying that Mrs Janes should not have contacted the media and is trying to make some personal capital.

Mrs R views it slightly differently. You see, she thinks that Mr Brown, as Prime Minister, represents her. It he and his political party who decides how Britain, and the British people, are portrayed on the international stage.

Mrs R has sent letters or cards to friends or relatives when somebody has died. Mrs Rigby knows that most people keep letters and cards like this for ever, they are a precious memento of their loved one and affirms their belief that the deceased was well loved and well respected. This is why, whenever Mrs R has decided to do more than send a card, it has taken her ages and she's made sure it has been carefully handwritten on decent notepaper.

The easiest way to offer condolences, and to make sure the right words are used, is to go into a shop and buy a preprinted card that contains a message, it avoids having to use your own words, avoids having to write too much and generally fits in with the way most people do things these days. So why, Mrs R wants to know, couldn't Mr Brown use a standard form of letter and simply sign his name at the end? Doing this would have avoided the current wave of controversy, criticism and condemnation, and would have avoided people having once again to take sides.

Mr Brown, as my Prime Minister and my representative, quite rightly contacts the grieving families of deceased troops to offer condolences. It is something Mrs Rigby had assumed he would do as a matter of course, rather than being something special or unusual. He does this as a representative of the nation, not as a private individual - it's the Prime Minister who writes these letters, not Gordon Brown who is only temporarily in the role.

Because of this Mrs Rigby believes he should always put the greatest effort into how such a letter is presented, and believes he should ensure that it is of the highest possible standard. Letters of such personal importance should never be rushed, should certainly never appear to have been written as an afterthought at the end of a busy day. The person who receives the letter needs to know, and needs to believe, that we people of Britain are sorry that their son/daughter/husband/wife/father has died whilst on active service, and that we are indebted to them, for ever - and it is the job of the Prime Minister to ensure that they know this.

Mrs Rigby doesn't think that a handwritten letter scattered with spelling mistakes, including that of the recipients name, is good enough.

More than once Mrs R has thought that, somehow, Mr Brown lacks empathy. He seems to lack the ability to understand how other people feel when he makes mistakes and his own, or his office's, attempts to apologise only seem to make things worse. They seem to dig a deeper hole rather than trying to fill it in. They don't seem to realise that there is always something insincere in a quick apology, more especially when a few moments initial care, and a little attention to detail, would have ensured that no apology would ever be necessary.

BBC radio has reported that Mr Brown takes great care when writing these letters - if that's the case then why so many mistakes? Iain Dale carries a copy the statement issued by Downing Street on behalf of the PM. This are the last sentences. :-

I have at all times acted in good faith seeking to do the right thing. I do not think anyone will believe that I write letters with any intent to cause offence.

This is a typical instance of NLP and is designed to wrongfoot the recipient, to make them question their emotions and feel guilty for being unhappy. This sort of language is designed to ensure that one person, and only one person, retains the upper hand in any argument or dispute.

At the same time the Times reports, Gordon Brown 'mortified' over misspelt letter of condolence (by the way, Times, the words is "misspelled", although it is pronounced "misspelt"!)

Mrs Rigby looked up mortify on Ask Oxford. This is what it says

mortify

• verb (mortifies, mortified) 1 cause to feel embarrassed or humiliated. 2 subdue (physical urges) by self-denial or discipline. 3 be affected by gangrene or necrosis.
— DERIVATIVES mortification noun mortifying adjective.
— ORIGIN Old French mortifier, from Latin mors ‘death’.

Mrs Rigby has to ask if Mr Brown truly feels embarrassed or humiliated or does the word infer one of the other meanings? She also questions the probity use of the word 'mortify' when referring to mistakes written in a letter of condolence.

Moving onwards, now, and backwards in time.

On Saturday evening (7th November) the BBC broadcast the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance and yesterday it broadcast the service and marchpast at the Cenotaph. (video from aol because the BBC one disappears in 6 days) Mrs R wasn't able to watch either broadcast live, so caught up yesterday evening.

First of all she watched the service at the Cenotaph in London and thought she noticed that Mr Brown didn't bow his head as a mark of respect. She thought, first of all, that she was mistaken or that perhaps the camera had panned away at the crucial moment. It seems not, because many, many people are talking about it and are also making all sorts of excuses. Mrs Rigby wondered if, perhaps, Mr Brown was unsettled by the sombre and grand occasion, maybe he didn't want to bow his head to a pointy bit of granite, maybe he forgot what he was meant to do or maybe he decided to break with tradition. The thing is that none of these excuses hold water.

Mrs Rigby has never been to the Cenotaph, but she has watched the ceremony every year for as long as she can remember and has also attended a local service. She has noticed that every single person who lays a wreath also bows their head for a moment. She knows that they don't bow their head to the Cenotaph or to a War Memorial carved out of stone, she knows they bow their head at what the memorial represents - which is to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of British and Commonwealth troops who lost their lives in service to their country, so many that, apparently, if they stood in massed ranks preparing to march past the Cenotaph their line would end at Edinburgh.

Mrs Rigby notes what the Army Rumour Service thinks of what happened yesterday at the Cenotaph. You can read for yourself, here.

Within that thread somebody else picks up on another thing Mrs Rigby noticed while she watched the British Legion Festival of Remembrance, which was a wondrous thing that brought many tears to her eyes.

During the broadcast the cameras frequently showed what the Queen, Royal Family, Mr Brown and Mr Cameron were doing. Mrs Rigby noticed that whenever the camera panned on to MMr Brown during the hymns he was looking down at the service sheet, seemingly checking on the words - unlike anybody else in the Albert Hall and slightly surprising for somebody brought up as the "son of the Manse".

Whenever Mr Brown was shown seated, when he should have been watching what was happening below him, he was fidgeting and his gaze wandering around, almost always across to his right, past the Queen to where Mr Cameron was. It was as if he was monitoring other people's actions instead of doing what he was there for - which was to be Mrs R's representative at a Festival of Remembrance. He reminded Mrs Rigby so very much of a child who finds it difficult to sit still and do whatever they're meant to be doing because of other more-important-to-them things going through their mind that they're incapable of suppressing, even for a moment.

But, Gordon Brown isn't a child and he isn't a private individual, he is Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland representing many, many people. The Festival wasn't very long, not even long enough for Mrs R to put it on hold so she could wander off to make a cup of coffee. So why on earth couldn't such an important man sit still for an hour or so?

Why does Mrs Rigby have to be represented by somebody who is, so often, more than a bit embarrassing?
.....
P.S.
Read Charlotte Gore's opinion of the Brown letter, take note of the comments.

Read Paul Waugh's thoughts here.

For The Fallen

For the Fallen

Written in 1914
by Robert Lawrence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

How many police officers does it take to control a bus queue?

Precisely how many Police it takes to control a bus queue is uncertain, but it includes a PCSO who was originally supervising the queue and :-

Local safer neighbourhood teams, safer transport teams and police officers from Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich were all drafted in to deal with the mob.

The Met’s dog unit and territorial support group were also called to the scene.

It all started when students going home after a day's hard work at Orpington College were told they couldn't get on a bus because it was full. Some of them thought it would be a good idea to :-

... force their way onto the bus, kicking the front and back doors.

Unfortunately

The violence quickly escalated and a 25-year-old PCSO sustained a cut above his left eye.

and

Two other police officers were also struck during the incident.

and then,

The high street was shut for around an hour while officers fought running battles with the teenagers.

Mrs Rigby was interested to read the comments beneath the article in the Newshopper (thanks to Ambush Predator), including this from a bus driver,

I am a regular driver of route 51, it does not surprise me at all what happened in Orpington High St. on Tuesday. We are subjected to a barrage of verbal abuse from the time we start until we finish and we would get physically assaulted if we were not protected by an assault screen. This abuse is usually because of fare disputes, but often it is because the bus is full and we can't let any more people on. As a bus driver we are legally responsible for the safety of the bus and if it were involved in an accident and found to be overloaded we would definitely be sacked, could lose our PCV licence and could be fined or even jailed.

Arguments also occur frequently about baby buggies, we can only carry 2 unfolded in the disabled bay and 1 folded in the luggage rack, why don't young mums ever walk anywhere with their babies any more? They are amongst the most foul mouthed when we refuse them entry!

We get sworn at on a daily basis because we refuse people entry who are carrying pots of paint and inflammible liquids and people seem to think we are exempt from traffic jams and swear at us for being late, usually implying that we have been sitting in the canteen.

When the buses are turned because of late running despite the blinds clearly stating the destination and the in bus information announcing the destination, we are again verbally abused.

The 51 is actually no worse than any other route in London as I sometimes drive other routes. Fortunately I don't have many years to go before I can retire and get away from what is now a stressful and un-satisfying job.

From students, who clearly have plenty of spare time after college, there is this

wer d future so wen ur old well b der...

and this

excusee mee i dnt kno where all dis story is coming from nd i dnt kno y ppl r over exagerrating nd gettin scared chattin rubbish about orpington college students. i am a student dere nd dats not even how it happened IT WAS THE POLICE CAUSING A SCENE. nd to dat fed dat got hurt good 4 him he deserved it. all u old ppl dat live in orpington y u gettin shook 4 did n e wun touch you? NO so shut up. any way freeeeeeee da ppl dat got knickd it was'nt ur fault dese feds r gettin xcited coz dere in uniform. nd ppl if ur scared STAY IN UR HOUSE. nd stop tellin stories like u woz dere frm beggining FOOLSS

In response to concerns about the quality of teaching there is this,

Orpington college have grammar exams in place when you first apply and actually go out of their way to make sure that students who have problems with their English and grammar recieve special help. Whether or not they accept this help is another story.

But it would appear that some students have their own special reason for attending college,

i had good reason to further my edercation at orpington: free gym, ema, socialising and to learn..

Mrs Rigby is delighted to know that the main reason this young person wanted to go to the college was because it has a gym, because the government Rigby Family would pay them £30 a week Educational Maintenance Allowance so they can build some nice muscles, (especially irritating because Junior Rigby is still waiting for this year's student loan to appear) so that when they spend time with their friends they don't look too puny. Then, in their spare time, they might be able to relax study learn to spell.

Mrs Rigby thinks students like these will, presumably, be the ones that nice Lord Mandelson wants to give prior right to a University place, over and above any student who has had the misfortune to have been brought up to behave decently and to have attended a school that makes them work hard.

From the Mail

Middle-class pupils face being bumped off prestigious university courses under plans to give youngsters from poor homes an A-level 'head start', it emerged yesterday.

Unveiling a ten-year blueprint for universities, Lord Mandelson declared that published or predicted A-level grades would not be enough to win places at leading universities.

and this is what Lord Mandy says,

'What we are saying is that nobody should be disadvantaged or penalised on the basis of the families they come from, of school they attended ...

It sounds to Mrs Rigby that this scheme does disadvantage and penalise students, on the basis of the families they come from and the school they attend, which of course isn't what he intends to do - or does he?

It might be a good job that he might be out of a job in a few months.

72,324 sign a petition - with no positive outcome.

Kalvis Jansons' "Please-Go" petition is now closed, and the 72,234 signatories will have received their response.

The petition said:-

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.”
Details of Petition:
“There are many reasons why we might want Brown to resign, but rather than having lots of narrow petitions on this topic (most of which have been rejected), I wanted one for all of us.”

The response says :-

The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.

Luckily for Mrs Rigby she noticed her email from Number10 had been automatically consigned to her Junk Folder!

Power cuts and costs

Mrs Rigby was wandering through the Guardian today, and noticed a couple of interesting articles.

Apparently UK only has storage for a few hours worth of gas,

The UK could run out of gas within six hours this winter, the Observer has learned. The revelation has sparked a row between the Conservatives and Labour over who is doing more to keep the heating on. Last winter, the UK was left with only three days of reserves when foreign energy companies started exporting gas to supply their European customers after Russia cut supplies that used a pipeline through Ukraine.

A spokeswoman for Ed Miliband's energy and climate change department said that under a civil contingency act he had the power to halt exports from the UK if the Queen had signed the order.

So it's the Tories fault - but Mrs Rigby would be interested to know who has been responsible for demolishing all the gasometers. She'd heard they were got rid of because they were a health hazard and a possible target for terrorists.

She's a little bemused by mention of the Civil Contingency Act though, and wonders if not enough gas coming through the pipeline from Russia is really enough to declare a state of emergency.

The Guardian has uncovered 'secret' plans to make those of us who have fuel bills pay an additional tariff tax to fund construction of nuclear power plants. Not very secret now, is it?

The government believes that only by artificially increasing the cost of electricity generated by coal and gas stations through an additional carbon levy on household bills can nuclear become more competitive and encourage new reactors to be built.

One European utility executive told the Guardian: "New nuclear will not happen without sorting out the carbon price." The Guardian understands that the Office of Nuclear Development (OND), set up by Lord Mandelson's business department, has promised nuclear companies that the price of carbon under the EU emissions trading scheme – now about €13 per tonne – will not be allowed to fall below €30 per tonne, and ideally €40. According to the energy consultancy firm EIC, the new carbon levy would add £44 to the £500 annual electricity bill paid by an average household.

Mrs R notices the dreaded C-for-Carbon word again. This Carbon is obviously terribly expensive stuff. She wonders if she can buy some in a shop, or if it's only big governments who can buy and sell it whilst the rest of us pay the bills, with new taxes piled on top of old taxes until we haven't a clue what's going on.

Great?

According to 'Burning our Money' Britain has become great again, but not in a good way. We have the greatest government deficit of the developed world

Here's an extract :

we must just record an eye-popping chart recently published by the OECD. It shows their estimate of the fiscal deficit each of their members will clock up this year (as a percentage of GDP). And as we can see, we are at the very bottom of the league.

THE VERY WORST GOVERNMENT DEFICIT IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD.

You should remember this chart next time you hear Brown/Darling or one of their media apologists telling us we are helpless victims of an international problem. The reality is that we are worse placed than anyone else - including basket cases like Ireland and Iceland.

See the chart here and weep, for us, our children, our grandchildren and probably our great-grandchildren too.

Who would have thought that a mere twelve years of socialism could do this - thanks Gordon!

Spilling secret beans.

The Times reports conversations between the now Lord Irvine of Lairg and Tony Blair relating to the decision to abolish the position of Lord Chancellor :-

[Lord Irvine] first discovered that the office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished and the job transferred to a Secretary of State in the Commons in early June 2003, just days before it happened. “I had no intimation of this but when The Times and the Telegraph carried the rumour I determined to see the Prime Minister.”

That was at No 10 on June 5. Mr Blair hesitated and then said that it was being considered but nothing had been decided. Lord Irvine asked “how a decision of this magnitude” could be made without consultation with himself, the permanent secretary within government, the judiciary, House of Lords authorities and the Palace.

“The Prime Minister appeared mystified and said that these machinery of government changes always had to be carried into effect in a way that precluded such discussion because of the risk of leaks.”

What makes Mrs Rigby more than a little bemused is what might have happened had these plans been "leaked" - presumably to the opposition and the media - and if these matters had been discussed, debated and voted on in Parliament, which is where we ordinary folk expect such wide reaching decisions to be made. With a massive majority it would have been surprising if things hadn't gone according to plan.

The end result is that Jack Straw, MP for Blackburn, is "Lord Chancellor" and "Secretary of State for Justice", in charge of the brand new Supreme Court which the "Justice Department" says :

... provides greater clarity in our constitutional arrangements by further separating the judiciary from the legislature.

This is the same Jack Straw that avoided answering a QT questioner, who asked, "Can the recent success of the British National party be explained by the misguided immigration policy of the government?", by coincidence only a day before other secret discussions were revealed (quoting from Minette Marin's article in today's Times) :-

Andrew Neather — a former adviser to Straw, Blair and David Blunkett — revealed that Labour ministers had a hidden agenda in allowing immigrants to flood into the country.

According to Neather, who was present at secret meetings during the summer of 2000, the government had “a driving political purpose” which was: “mass immigration was the way that the government was going to make the UK truly multicultural”.

What’s more, Neather said he came away “from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended — even if this wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”.

and

“There was a reluctance ... in government,” he wrote, “to discuss what increased immigration would mean, above all for Labour’s core white working-class vote.” The social outcomes that ministers cared about were those affecting the immigrants. This, Neather explains, shone out in a report published in 2001 after these confidential deliberations. One must question whether this is true. Needless to say, Straw has denied all this and Neather has since tried to back-pedal.

Mrs Rigby can't, from any of the reports she has read, work out what the truth is. She simply hasn't a clue. But, she does know that Britain has changed so much that it no longer even vaguely resembles the Britain of pre-1997 when Labour were first elected.

Since 1997 a whole generation of young people have grown up, they seem to accept that it's normal to be watched by CCTV cameras, that it's normal to be asked for identification by any number of either uniformed or non-uniformed individuals. It's normal for the Police to close roads without saying why, and it's normal for DNA to be taken at the slightest opportunity. It's become normal for summary justice to be served through the post, without the chance of time in a Court of Law to plead innocence.

Since 1997 it's become normal for people's personal and private opinions to result in dismissal from work, and words said in private conversations to be reported to the authorities. It's become normal for ordinary people to be criminalised for trivial 'new' offences, whilst thugs are let off with a warning, or taken to Alton Towers.

It's also become normal for our MPs to be subjects of scorn and derision - unworthy of the trust we, the public, place in them.

Mrs Rigby thinks it will be quite a tangle for the next government to unravel, if they have either the time or energy to do so whilst they are also dealing with the financial mess they will inherit.