Quick, look over there!

While the mongs are focussed on the results of our bid for the 2018 World Cup, a couple of excellent examples of how liberal and unstatist our new coalition overlords aren’t.

First, there will be regulation of what clothes shops are allowed to sell for children.

ORLY? Presumably, these children are feral orphans, who are turned loose into the world at 7 years old. They don’t have parents to raise them, guide them or retain responsibility for them. Enter Nanny. Presumably the same Nanny that Andrew Lansley says he’s making redundant from the Department of Health.

And as if that’s not bad enough,

The document also promised to create a new group of experts to tackle “low levels of body confidence” among children and teenagers. Ministers are concerned that many young boys and girls feel they have to live up to impossibly thin airbrushed images of celebrities in magazines and advertisements.

Oh. Okay. Because the 60s, 70s & 80s didn’t have skinny models.. anorexia wasn’t invented until 1997 after all..

And anyway, maybe ‘the kids’ feel that the images they have to live up to are impossibly thin because they graze on Greggs pasties and Krusty Cremes, and play Xbox all day.

In any case, what is is that the government thinks qualifies it to have opinions on any of these things, less still to start imposing whatever ludicrous, misguided and spendthrift schemes they have in mind?

Speaking of which…

I.. errr.. oh will you all just fuck right off.

AJ

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Tyranny of the NIMBYs

First they came for the motor racing, but you didn’t speak out, because you weren’t a motor racing enthusiast.

Then they came for the chiiiiilldreeeen’s playtime. You’re fucking paying attention now, aren’t you?

A school has reluctantly banned hard-ball games and reduced pupil numbers in outdoor breaks after neighbours complained about "excessive" noise.

Boisterous children have played in the grounds of Barlby primary school, near Selby in North Yorkshire, for more than a century, but governors say that modern legislation has forced the move.

Three nearby residents have complained repeatedly to Selby district council, and the school feared that a noise abatement order might follow, imposing more severe restrictions.

Well, look. I don’t have kids. Hell, I can’t even stand the grotty little sods. But I’m speaking out. Do you see?

Three people – fucking three! – complained about the noise of children playing. In a school playground. That’s been a school playground for more than 100 years.

And the school has to roll over because of stupid NIMBY-loving laws – probably brought in by Labour, but the other lot are just as big a bunch of cunts, so it’s a moot point.

Or perhaps the school could have had more robust legal advice? And just who are these three people who seem to be able to make the world bend their will? What is it I should know?

AJ

I have said it before and I will say it again

.. as if having kids isn’t a big enough challenge, in this country, having kids opens you up to a million new ways that the bully state can fuck you over.

Lincolnshire County Council can go fuck itself in the eye-socket with a cactus.

AJ

Brainwashing state-owned children

You probably think they’re your children. They’re not. They belong to the state. You’re merely charged with delivering them back to the institution daily.

Corrugated Soundbite brings word of this (via Filthy Engineer, via Counting Cats via.. oh never mind.), from one of the biggest unacknowledged powers behind big-government across the western world.

Here’s what they’re doing to children throughout the Western world. Far Left Communists and their useful idiots with a totalitarian agenda doing exactly what a Far Left Fascist and his useful idiots were doing in the 1930s.

Look at the hatred in the eyes. Listen to the way he spews all this having evidently been given no proof whatsoever to back up these claims. Only repetition. He’s known nothing else and not been shown how to find it.

Captain Ranty is right. These are the children of Mr and Mrs Normal.

This is just the tip of the Gramscian iceberg.

So, if you have kids, just remember that every time you drop them off at the school gates, they’ll spend the next 6-8 hours being turned into a collaborator.

Have you read 1984? If not, you need to.

Unless you imbue in your kids a balanced outlook and the reasoning powers and strength of character to see that Greenpeace scaremongering and propaganda is precisely that, they’ll be your downfall, and ours too. You’ll have failed as a parent and a reasoning adult. If you can live with that, okay, but I’ll bestow no mercy upon your ignorant spawn should they cross my path.

AJ

Déjà Mong

Once you’ve been blogging a while, you find that subjects frequently arise time after time, even though you’ve already dealt with them in no uncertain terms.

Today, it is the turn of the Daily Mail to prattle on …

…. about something I dealt with back in April.

To summarise:

The reason these spaces exist and are right in front of the stores is simply this: Parents spend a fortune in the sort of establishments that have P&C parking spaces, so supermarkets, leisure parks etc have no problem affording this demographic special treatment.

Accordingly, they are a commercial enticement, not the fulfilment of a civic good, which is what disabled spaces are

Boo-hoo, breeders. Suck it up. You’re not special and neither are your screaming sprogs.

And in light of their apparent fury, it’s almost worth using P&C spaces just to drive the point home to them.

AJ

Here goes, then

As I promised yesterday, I have comments to make around the following article:

The tale is a tragic and touching one in many ways, and this woman’s battle to carry on and do the best for her kids is unambiguously heroic.

Mark Thompson pointed the article out on Twitter. He also correctly pointed out that, “Everyone’s situation is different. You know nothing about this woman and her situation.”

There are no comments enabled on the story, but if there were, I can’t imagine it’d be long before men and women piled in to condemn the ‘cowardly, selfish’ guy who killed himself, thus depriving his children of their father.

There are bound to be surrounding circumstances to what happened, and the way they are glossed over makes me suspicious.

Almost four years ago, my husband killed himself when our children were three and five. He had untreated depression; he hanged himself.

What exactly was the nature of this ‘untreated depression’? By whom was it diagnosed? How long had it been a factor?

Was it, in fact, a diagnosis from Cosmo magazine, or by perusal of any number of medical websites, that provide the DSM IV manual criteria for diagnosing depression, which actually enable pretty much anyone to be handily and summarily ‘diagnosed’ with depression?

We had been amicably separated for more than a year before he died,

‘Amicably separated’? Uh-huh. How did that happen? We have no details. We do know this, though:

While everyone else was grief-stricken, all I could feel was rage, which alienated people and made me feel even angrier. It was probably my anger that kept me going. I raged that he had hurt his children like this, that he had made me a single parent, that he had bailed out decades too soon. It took more than a year for any compassion to kick in.

We do know some things, then.

We know that she thinks he had untreated depression. We know that she thinks they were amicably separated. We know that she felt anger and resentment at what he’d done.

We also know that men can often suffer worse than women from relationship breakups. And that men are 3 times more likely than women to commit suicide. And that the family courts, CSA et al are all quite arbitrarily inclined towards mothers, and against fathers. And that women can and do use their children (and access to them) as tools of emotional blackmail and revenge against fathers. And that separated mothers flagrantly ignore court-ordered access for fathers, without fear of legal rebuke.

That an organisation called “fathers for justice” exists at all speaks volumes.

I have a close friend. A lovely chap and great father. Last year, the mother of his child ripped his heart out and took a bite.

He spent many weeks living at my place while he got his life back together. In darker moments, he considered taking his own life. Thankfully for all concerned, he didn’t and he’s well on the way back to an even keel.

However, I’ve known him, and his erstwhile partner, for a long time, and if, heavens forbid, he had committed suicide, I can quite vividly picturing her employing the powerful female mechanism of post-hoc rationalisation. I can imagine her using it to gloss over the ugly truth of the way she’d treated him.

And I can imagine her telling the tale in precisely the way Suzanne Harrington does.

It’s an obvious psychological strategy, to avoid dealing with a very important and powerful concept that doesn’t get a single mention Ms Harrington’s story: guilt.

Where is it? Would a genuinely blameless person be of such strong character that they’d never even consider the idea of their own culpability?

To me, it stinks of wilful avoidance of a difficult truth.

Let the abuse commence.

AJ

She who smelt it dealt it

A typically shit-stirring article in the Daily Mail caught my attention this morning:

Not a particularly alarming headline to me, since (i) I don’t have kids and (ii) I spend more than that on booze and pizza.

Moreover, the figure refers, in the main, to the cost of childcare for working mothers.

Then my interest was piqued:

The report, from the Family and Parenting Institute, highlights the spiralling cost of childcare in Britain, which is pushing many families into poverty.

Hmmm.. the Family and Parenting Institute. Rings a bell… It’ll come to me…

The report, due to be released tomorrow at a Westminster conference addressed by the Children’s Minister Sarah Teather, said that increasingly it was grandparents who were being hit with the burden of caring for youngster while the children’s parents go out to work.

Ugh, Teather. Okay, what else?

The institute said maternity and paternity pay in Britain is ‘ inadequately low’.

The market dictates the rates. If you want small and medium businesses to go tits-up every time one of their employees has a child (or a partner who has a child), press on. Then wonder where your next pay cheque is going to come from. And where the tax revenue for your handouts is going to come from.

It warned that the Coalition’s decision to abolish child trust funds, cut child tax credits and freeze child benefit had left parents fearing they were on the ‘frontline’ for economic cuts.

Ahhh.. now I get it.  And that reminds me; The Family and Parenting Institute.

Ah yes. A fake charity chaired by Alastair Campbell’s Mrs, Fiona Millar.

And ‘like that’ with Harriet Harman.

Dr Katherine Rake, the institute’s chief executive, said: ‘The cost of raising a child has a lot to do with the cost of childcare.

‘The amount of affordable childcare is still limited and as a result people have to significantly adjust their working patterns.

‘So the cost in terms of lost earnings is even bigger, especially for women.’

Yeah – and until men are biologically capable – and willing – to spawn children, THAT’S THE WAY IT GOES.

Dr Katherine Rake, by the way, is a long standing contributor to the Guardian and former head of the Fawcett society.

It’s the “Old Girls’ Network.”

My point though, is this. These are Labour Stooges, once again completely neglecting to acknowledge that their beloved party has been in charge for 13 years, during which NOTHING WAS FIXED.

The report includes a school report card-style grading system, with A being the highest grade and D the lowest, for ten factors that the institute believes show the level of Britain’s ‘family friendliness’.

No factors were awarded an A grade and overall the institute concluded that Britain would gain no more than a C minus for family friendliness.

Hmm family friendliness. Let me have a quick think about this. Ah yes. Until 1997, ‘families’ rubbed along just fine with everyone else.

Then came New Labour. Who played the same trick as they did with every segment of society – divide & rule.

The state took an un-natural interest in ‘hard working families’, lavishing ever more benefits and tax credits on them. To be paid for by avowed non-breeders like me. You know – the ones who take our holidays at the convenience of the business, pick up the slack when maternity or paternity leave interferes with our ability to deliver for our customers. The ones who work late while you go and collect Tiffany and Jamie from their swimming lessons.

Paedogeddon was institutionalised by New Labour, spreading fear and mistrust throughout any part of society that fell within a country mile of any children.

Restaurants and ‘pubs’ have become a haven for families, while drinkers and smokers have little choice but to stay at home if they are to enjoy their peccadilloes in peace.

These things bred resentment where before there was none. We all pretty much rubbed along together until New Labour came along.

On top of this is a culture of laissez faire or ‘child-centric’ parenting, where kids run riot and go undisciplined. Thus everyone who isn’t of that mindset is irritated by selfish idiot parents who either don’t realise or don’t care that most people think their children are a noisy, messy, inconsiderate pain in the arse. Which all children will be unless they are properly parented.

And while we’re here, and the article highlights the problem of childcare costs, shall we rehearse, once again, the argument that gender feminists have forced mothers into the workplace and, ipso facto, forced house prices up to a point where both parents HAVE to work, if they are to have an adequate standard of living?

And that Labour intentionally allowed house prices to inflate, in order to create an illusion of wealth and consumer-driven growth during 10 years of real-terms stagnation?

So, in summary, the Family and Parenting Institute can put their report where the sun don’t shine – Scotland.

AJ

This must never be allowed to happen again

It’s the clarion call that follows every tragic incident and leads to the eternal ratcheting up of state control.

Safety notices, health and safety laws, regulatory requirements on manufacturers and suppliers, monitoring QUANGOs, consultative bodies, risk management professionals, kneejerk bans and swivelling of exopthalmic eyes.

Take this fine and pertinent example:

Oh dear kiddies died. Oh noes! Poor ikkle angels :o(

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!1111!!!!

The family of a Bridgend girl who died after becoming trapped in a sliding electric gate are supporting a campaign to ban them in residential areas.

Karolina Golabek, five, died on Saturday, less than a week after another young girl was killed in similar circumstances in Manchester.

The relatives of Semelia Campbell have told BBC Wales that both deaths were “pointless”.

Tragic as it is, their deaths were indeed pointless. As are most deaths. It’s nature. Life. Deal with it. Preferably not by turning this tragic but hugely unlikely accident into a crusade to interfere with other people’s lives and choices.

I mean, really. Get over yourselves, grieve your loss in private and have some dignity for pity’s sake.

I despair.

AJ

Dropping the kids off at the pool: Ur doin it wrong.

Muahahaha…

I’m sure there’s a whole raft of unacceptable hilarious jokes to be made, but I’ll leave that to others.

AJ

I’m off down the supermarket to dole out some advice

Pray for me.

I do, Oliver. I do. This looks like fun, though:

In his book How Not to F*** Them Up – the sequel to his 2002 book They F*** You Up – James writes: "As a parent of a child of this age, you need to realise that if things go pear-shaped it is actually always your fault, in the sense that if you keep a close enough eye on them you can prevent atrocities."

He says that young children "need to be in the presence of a responsive, loving adult at all times", warning mothers who go out to work that day care is associated with more boastful, disobedient and aggressive children.

Of course, there are a lot of factors at play here. I fully believe that a young child should have its mother close at hand most of the time, rather than some minimum wage couldn’t-care-less-assistant. Studies have linked young children put into daycare with antisocial behaviour patterns.

But, women have to work due to the cost of housing and the opportunity cost of being out of the workplace for years at a time. It could be argued that this is an iterative consequence of womens’ lib encouraging mothers into the workplace and thus inflating property prices due to larger – joint – buying power. Having been encouraged to work, mothers, even with husbands that earn well, soon found that they had no choice but to work, to help service a big mortgage.

There are a husband’s future interests at stake too. Divorce a woman who you’ve been supporting for 10 years and they’ll take you to the cleaners. If the woman has been earning & contributing significantly for most of the time, you’re probably on for a 50/50 split.

So, perhaps enabling your wife to run the household and share your income may be a wonderfully romantic and appealing image of marriage, especially if you earn plenty and your adoring wife keeps a pristine home. But ultimately, you’re sealing your fate.

Going back to James’ book for a moment though, the people likely to read, digest and understand the book are, I’d wager, a tiny proportion of women. Enlightened, self-aware, educated and emotionally grounded. And in those cases, it can only reinforce the case against breeding.

Meanwhile, the only women who do breed with alacrity, and do get to stay at home with their kids, are the ones we’re all paying for.

It’s all arse-about-face. Fat chance of IDS fixing any of it, I fear.

AJ

Meanwhile, in other perverse and vindictive applications of the law

Christopher Booker highlights this case:

Mother in court over a birthday card

Next Wednesday, Maureen Spalek, a spirited and loving mother, will be in Runcorn magistrates’ court to face a criminal charge of having sent a birthday card to her eight-year-old son – having already been arrested and held in a prison cell for 24 hours for the same offence.

Mrs Spalek is charged with breaking a court order forbidding her to have any contact with her three children, even though she has an order from another judge explicitly permitting her to send them birthday and Christmas cards. Yet a few days after she sent her younger son the card, on April 15, she was visited by two police officers who threatened to beat down her door unless she gave them entry. She was then taken to one of Runcorn’s 30 police cells where she was held in very unpleasant conditions for 24 hours.

Mrs Spalek, the former wife of a naval officer, lost her children some years ago after one of her sons was taken to hospital with a broken leg from a bicycle accident. When she complained about the attitude of a doctor who was treating her son, social workers were called in. When she then, in turn, complained about the “hostile” attitude they had shown to her, the affair escalated to the point where her three children were taken away, on the grounds that she had “problems working with professionals” – even though it was agreed in court that she was an “excellent mother”, that the children were well-behaved and well-looked-after and that they had suffered no physical or emotional abuse. Two were adopted, one lives with their father.

One of the many serious issues not raised in the recent election campaign, because all three parties have agreed not to discuss it, is the growing scandal of the abduction by social workers of children from responsible and loving parents. In too many instances, this gives the impression of a tightly closed system, in which the social workers, who have in the recent past been set “adoption targets” by central government, are aided and abetted by the police, by certain family court judges and even by those lawyers supposedly acting on behalf of the parents. I shall return to this very disturbing issue after Mrs Spalek’s case this week.

A video made in support of Mrs Spalek:

What kind of Kafkaesque hell have we brought upon ourselves in this country?

AJ

Perhaps there is another reason

… why people may be reticent.

Almost nine out of 10 people would not feel completely confident in knowing what to do, according to the survey of more than 2,200 people to mark World Asthma Day.

Well here’s some news. I’m not a doctor, but I’d know precisely what to do. I’ve suffered from asthma for 30 years. It abated as I grew into my 20s, but it never goes away.

But if some kid is having an asthma attack, I’m not in the slightest bit inclined to get involved.

Guess why.

AJ

Daddy doesn’t want you in his car

Which is why, like everything else he doesn’t want to do, he just does it badly.

I suppose it’s too great a leap to ascribe this to the pussificatious bubble-wrapping of kids.

I certainly preferred my dad’s driving, precisely because he drove faster and more aggressively. It was interesting and exciting – and he was a good driver. Good observation, good anticipation, mechanical awareness and sympathy. Where as my mum could drive, and that’s about it.

As for mums being good drivers, hmm.

In addition, 70% say their mums happily sing while driving, and 52% say they talk constantly to keep the family entertained.

Perhaps a bit more concentrating on their driving would be good for everyone. But apparently:

[Mums] are more considerate to other drivers

Orly? I drive over 20,000 miles a year and when it comes to queuing, changing lane, coming out of a side-road, only women have perfected that knack of pretending you’re not there, not to be beckoned on, no gap to be left.

And when you let a motorist into traffic, as men are wont to do, male drivers will acknowledge your courtesy with hand signal or flash of lights etc. Again, women apparently think that you acted not out of courtesy, but obligation or patriarchal condescension, and will ignore you with the disdain your feeble and patronising gesture deserves.

Exceptions to every rule and all that, but this is rock solid experience of years on the roads.

AJ

Parent and Child Parking

After a slow start to the day, Tom Harris has managed to light my blue touchpaper. And that was before he accused me of being a fucking Tory**.

In fact, I was fairly relaxed about his analysis of the titular issue, until this:

I don’t want to encourage or exacerbate our transition to a selfish*** society by behaving like those I see arrogantly manoeuvring their work vans and two-seater sports cars over the “pram” logo painted on the monoblock.

A comment preceded by the statement:

That’s not me being sanctimonious

ROFL. Oh yes it is Tom.

In any case, did no-one ever convey their offspring round in a work van or a two-seater sports car? Hmm?

So what about this question of parent and child parking?

Well, of course, there are arguments from several quarters.

Parents find them convenient – of course they do. Anyone would find them convenient. They’re close to the store and wider than regular parking spaces.

Women whose hitherto detectable spatial awareness was last seen in a puddle on a delivery room floor find them invaluable, considering that the arrival of their first born apparently mandated a car the size of Leicestershire.

And there are, perhaps, valid points about it being difficult to install and remove children in normal width spaces.

None of this, however, justifies the spaces being right by the store-front. All of these child-friendliness arguments work just as well if you put the P&C spaces right at the back of the car park. Such car-parks almost always have pedestrian gang ways. And supermarkets have trolleys.

No, the reason these spaces exist and are right in front of the stores is simply this: Parents spend a fortune in the sort of establishments that have P&C parking spaces, so supermarkets, leisure parks etc have no problem affording this demographic special treatment.

Accordingly, they are a commercial enticement, not the fulfilment of a civic good, which is what disabled spaces are.

So, frankly, if I want to park in a P&C space, be it because I’m a lazy twat or because I don’t want my pride & joy dinged by fuckwits, I will. And thanks to consumer choice, I think there’s a pretty strong commercial enticement for the retailer not to slap a £60 ticket on my car.

I would never, on the other hand, park in a disabled space, and would expect to be ticketed if I did.

AJ

** Okay, I admit it, I am a Tory. Unlike the Conservative Party.

*** He’s right, I am selfish. Although I didn’t know it until someone scratched the word into the boot-lid of my BMW. And no, you cunts, it wasn’t parked in a P&C space at the time :o(

This twat deserves his very own Fuck You post

Via Ed West:

Martin Dockrell, director of policy at the anti-smoking group ASH and one of the report’s authors, admitted the ban on smoking in all cars would be an injustice to those who never carry children as passengers.

But he said: “That injustice is completely outweighed by the current injustice of the harm that’s done to kids.”

So. I don’t have kids. I don’t like kids and I don’t have anything to do with kids. I have a convertible, and every time I lower the roof, I have to put up with a face full of diesel fumes from buses, taxis, lorries, penny-pinching pikeys etc.

Yet you’re telling me that I can’t smoke in my car? And that the greater good is somehow served by this?

Remembering that Gordon Brown’s car taxation scheme has shoved motorists violently towards diesel engines, let’s look at diesel for a moment.

Small particles found in diesel exhaust fumes can penetrate into the lungs of children, research indicates.

The study is the first offering what is said to be conclusive evidence that particles from diesel exhaust reach, and are taken up by, cells that reside on the deepest part of the lung.

…

The government has estimated that there are 24,000 deaths of adults a year, which can be attributed to the inhalation of PM10.

Dr Grigg said: “This research, which shows particles in cells that are known to cause lung injury, supports epidemiological studies which demonstrate an adverse effect of particles on the respiratory health of children.

“PM10 are one of the most damaging pollutants and can penetrate far into the lungs – causing inflammation, coughing, respiratory symptoms and even permanent damage.

“This biological evidence is very important in furthering our understanding of air pollution and its effects.”

So, back to my main point, which is this:

Fuck you in the eye socket with a tiger’s cock, Martin Dockrell, you swivel-eyed sanctimonious control freak.

That’s better.

AJ

UPDATE: Some form on Mr Shitface.

This should be entertaining

Surely this isn’t a special interest group to be taken on lightly. A bunch of tired hormonal women, with torn vaginas? Oh yeah – I’d taunt that like I’d poke a rabid wolverine with my finger.

Mothers with buggies face a crackdown in a government campaign to improve the public transport ‘experience’.

Officials have identified parents with prams as a priority target, alongside passengers who drink or smoke.

Obviously, I’m not in the habit of using these so-called ‘buses’, but this is a classic Niemöller sequence and I have no sympathy.

Next to persuade airlines to ship children in the baggage hold. It’s not cruel – their parents are welcome to join them.

AJ

A perfect storm is brewing

AJ

Mumsnet site wiped out by hackers

Expect that headline tomorrow.

Am glad I haven’t had lunch yet – sorry if that tableau has ruined yours.

AJ

A future fail for all

It’s only a few days ago that I pointed this out:

A security company based in Essex is to be given some police powers to tackle anti-social behaviour.

…

Regency provides security staff at shopping centres

And today, via @PoliceStateUK on Twitter, we see precisely the sort of total fucking bell-end these powers are to be dished out to.

And just so we’re sure that real plod are much more sensible and tactful:

Geraghty-Shewan said: “He said there was no way of proving what I was doing was innocent.

“I told him Ben was my own son and that he was blowing everything out of proportion.

“Five or 10 minutes later a police officer approached and asked for my name and address.

“I raised my voice, as I was getting a little annoyed by this stage, and he threatened to arrest me for breach of the peace.

Fuck’s sake.

In a statement The Bridges said safety was taken “very seriously” at all its shopping centres.

The statement said: “We do ask our security guards across the estate to be diligent in implementing our security measures, which includes monitoring photography in our centres.

“Unfortunately on this occasion what should have been a simple polite conversation led to a misunderstanding and we apologise for any offence caused.

Too little. Too late. You total and utter retards. Have you sacked this little Paedofinder General fuckbasket? I’ll bet not.

AJ

Bullying is in the black eye of the beholder

This bullying storm really is quite entertaining.

Like other progressive demons, it isn’t found where it doesn’t exist, because where it is perceived it, de facto, exists.

Moreover, all sorts of things are now considered bullying that would have been laughed off 20 years ago.

So it’s no surprise that the Labia team have been able to find examples of past activities of prominent Tories that could be framed as bullying.

My real concern is with these ‘adults’ who phone what amounts to Childline for grown-ups.

Did they not feel a loss of pride & self-esteem as they picked up the phone and hoped someone could help them? Does the shiny robe of victimhood hang well on their shoulders? WTF is wrong with people?

Well, when I grew up, we had to learn for ourselves how to deal with bullies at school. Any appeals to teachers were likely not only to be futile, but counterproductive. Appeals to parents usually met with the suggestion of returning any violence in kind. You’d think, to listen to the left, that a return to such tough love would have half of the school-aged population committing suicide. Still, at least the half who didn’t would be better prepared for adulthood.

AJ