I was quite saddened to see the news recently that SAAB are likely to disappear as a major car maker. Of course, they have not been the SAAB of old since they joined the General Motors stable but I still have very fond memories of my old 99. It was one of the best second-hand cars I ever owned – a real pleasure to drive and lot of fun. When I bought it, the roof had some minor damage from some sort of chemical spillage that had eaten into the paint but I got it for a good price and took it to a specialist for a respray. The guy was a big SAAB fan. I asked if the chemical damage was likely to continue to eat away at the roof. He gave me a withering look and opened up the bonnet. “Feel that” he said, indicating the thickness of the bonnet. I put the edge between my fingers and had to agree that this was indeed a fairly solid chunk of metal. He seemed pleased and then said: “There’s more metal in that bonnet than in a whole Ford Fiesta”! And he might well have been right.

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“Microsoft has reached agreement with European Union anti-trust regulators to allow European users a choice of web browsers. The accord ends 10 years of dispute between the two sides.” That’s what it said on the BBC news website last week. Who exactly are these guys? Did we elect them? I don’t think so. But we have paid out of our taxes to fund this petty and ill-conceived war – first over the bundling of the Media Player In Windows and then later the bundling of Internet Explorer. And guess what? I am, whether I like it or not , a European – and for as long as I can remember now I have had a choice of web browser. It’s not rocket science. I really do not need some puffed up creep full of his self-imposed sense of importance to tell me that I can download Firefox any tme I want to. Or Opera. Or Chromium. Or Safari. I have never been forced to use either Microsoft’s Media Player or Internet Explorer. And nor have any other Europeans. And how come Apple are not being hounded by these idiots? Do they not bundle Quick Time and Safari in exactly the same way?

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On a personal note, I recently discovered – or perhaps a better word would be realised – that I was wasting a lot of shampoo and conditioner washing where my hair used to be but no longer is. The hairline has moved a couple of inches or so backwards but my method of hair washing had not kept up with the times.

The big news story over the last couple of weeks or so has, of course, revolved around not so honourable members of parliament caught with their hands in the public till and the general and predictable melt-down of the Brown government. Many thousands of words have been written on this subject by professionals and amateurs alike so nobody really needs my contribution. But I am going to give it anyway and it was prompted by visiting the BBC news website this morning only to find that for a change politics was not the main story. Swine flu has made a comeback as the lead.

I found the whole media frenzy over MP’s expenses to be both indicative of what is rotten in UK politics but at the same time found the public outrage to be somewhat hypocritical. Fiddling expense claims and trying to reduce income tax liability have long been considered an English sport from the hiring of advisers and accountants by the wealthy to the loading of overtime by the rank and file. Who can honestly say that at no time in their working life have they claimed a dubious expense, put in an overtime claim for work they did not do or even stolen a pencil from the stationery cupboard? A matter of degree perhaps but it is the same form of corruption. The difference, of course, is being found out so we can all sit sanctimoniously back and point an accusing finger while conveniently forgetting our own small victories against our employer or the tax man.

What was of real interest while these revelations were being published, was the frenzied reaction of various politicians. For a while there, many of them exposed our democracy for the sham it really is. Suddenly we were being very publicly told what is fundamentally wrong with our system of politics – an inherently corrupt system that so favours the government of the day that any election victor will automatically choose to maintain the status quo. In particular there were sudden placatory calls for alternative voting systems; for an ending of the ‘whip’; for back-benchers to have more say in law and policy making and for fixed term parliaments.

All of these proposals, calls for which have recently come from all shades of the political spectrum, would greatly enhance true democracy in the UK. A voting system that allows a government to be formed without a majority of nationwide votes is by it’s nature suspect. The whipping system that keeps MP’s in line with party policy has nothing whatsoever to do with representation of their electorate or with the convictions that drove them into politics in the first place. Fixed term parliaments would remove the advantage a sitting Prime Minister has to call an election based on current public opinion. And giving the majority of those who call themselves the nations representatives the actual tools they need to represent us could be the one, single act that could change our form of governance for ever and for the better. I suspect that the majority of our population do not fully understand the difference between ‘government’ and ‘parliament’ which is the way any incumbent government like it – but over the last couple of weeks, if they were listening properly, they should have found out.

There is, I believe, very little likelihood of real change. The route from being an earnest and honourable candidate, through to a back-bencher drone making up the voting numbers, on to a junior minister, a cabinet member and finally Prime Minister is littered with compromise and an acceptance that without those very undemocratic processes at play life for a government would not be so easy.

And yesterday signalled quite clearly that we were back to business as usual. Gordon Brown announced a placebo enquiry into our voting and electoral system while another Labour party spokesman made it clear that any referendum on the subject would not be binding. But it was left up to David Cameron to hammer the nail into the coffin of the short-lived hopes for proper reform when he responded to Brown’s statement with the infantile and fallacious comment that the Prime Minister was trying to rig the system to ensure a Labour party victory at the next General Election. In that one statement, Cameron reduced what is an imperative for true reform to the usual playground behaviour of wanting to be the first on the swings. He is either stupid or – more likely – can already smell the scent of power floating on the winds. So why rock the boat?

I shouldn’t be doing this as I suspect I’ll just get myself into trouble again. Just like last time. But sometimes you just have to stand up and join the debate.

Exactly a month ago I wrote a piece entitled ‘Scary People‘. You don’t need to read it but it might help. It attracted around 37 comments and then, as always happens, it gets buried deeper into the stack and finally forgotten. And then up pops a new comment from someone calling themselves CarpetGuy (who is a first time commenter on this site) which I reproduce here:

When I first started reading this post, I was a bit offended, but as I read on, through the comments that followed, I could see that things here are as they are everywhere, a bit confused. Sarah Palin never got any orders from God, she simply prayed that what was happening was God’s will, as we all should. I am an American, but lived in Germany for more than a decade and my daughter is a citizen there. As for the reason of fearing Barack Obama, as an American it is simple, here in America, we DO NOT want to be a socialist society as in Europe. I know, as a European, you cannot understand this, but that is because you have never known the true Freedom of Capitalism in it’s purest form. No offense intended, it is just different here. Barack Obama represents everything that a true “Capitalist American” hates, as in Welfare and such. I know, it sounds crazy, but we believe that the people are in charge, not the government. We just want to be left alone, no taxes, no welfare, no social programs, simple right? The problem is that many Americans do not want to work, and want the government to send them a check, and that is what Barack Obama represents.

This is a clear, concise comment written, no doubt, from the heart and could probably have only been written by a true, patriotic American citizen. I have no real problem with patriotic Americans but I do have problems with historical inaccuracy and that overwhelming American belief that they all know how the rest of the world works. But let’s get Sarah Palin and God out of the way first:

Sarah Palin never got any orders from God, she simply prayed that what was happening was God’s will.

We are truly splitting the proverbial hair here. I did not say God ‘ordered’ her to do anything but if her statement that it was “God’s will” to build the new pipeline came through prayer then it seems to me she is making the statement that this is a project personally endorsed by her God. Actually, of course, as she resides and operates in a secular society where the separation of politics and religion is a constitutional directive one should question what God was doing advising her on a purely political decision in the first place. The woman just becomes scarier and scarier.

But on to the real issue here:

As for the reason of fearing Barack Obama, as an American it is simple, here in America, we DO NOT want to be a socialist society as in Europe. I know, as a European, you cannot understand this, but that is because you have never known the true Freedom of Capitalism in it’s purest form.

This truly is one of those marvellous statements that Americans of all persuasions come out with much of the time and, in my experience, have a rock-solid belief in. Let’s start with Capitalism, both in it’s ‘purest form’ and in it’s more modern form of a ‘mixed economy’. Capitalism, in it’s purest form, was not only a British doctrine but flourished here for a good 350 years much to the detriment of the vast majority of our citizens. On one side of the coin it created a huge Empire and kick-started the Industrial Revolution (both for good or bad). On the other side of the coin it also delivered America’s ‘Great Depression’ and notwithstanding the current markedly ’socialist’ activities of the current Republican administration, may well usher in another one. Unbridled Capitalism is like unleashing a rabid wolf into a dog pound.

Socialism, in it’s purest form, has never really been practised in European countries although we have all dallied with it and tried it on for size. What we have here is a watered down variant that is getting less and less support as time goes by. But it came about as a direct reaction to the long period of Capitalism that went unchecked for such a long time.

I may not personally agree with the policies of our more recent governments and I am the first to state that we are over-regulated and that government gets involved too much where it does not belong but I much prefer the compassion we show for the under-privileged and for those less able to compete for their daily meal.

The problem is that many Americans do not want to work, and want the government to send them a check, and that is what Barack Obama represents.

You heard it here first folks – Barack Obama wants to send all lazy Americans government checks. Which, of course, he doesn’t. Any more than any world government does. Any more than any working citizen of any nation does. Apart from those on the receiving end, nobody can actively want to see their hard earned tax money get spread around like this. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Socialism and probably has more to do with the Capitalist way of disenfranchising people. It is most certainly a symptom of a society with problems. But the notion that any politician actively supports such behaviour is quite obviously ludicrous. Britain’s most recent right wing government was unable to solve a problem it loathed in it’s 18 years of tenure as has the current right wing American administration. Perhaps this is because to a certain extent it is not quite so easy as it sounds.

In pure Capitalism, the small few get educated, can look after their health, can own property and ride roughshod over the majority who remain doomed by the circumstance of their birth. In pure Socialism the incentives, challenges and goals that people need are removed. Neither doctrine can work without seriously diminishing the growth and progress of a nation. The world saw this clearly in the downfall of the Soviet Union and the legacy that was left behind. CarpetGuy predictably sees this event as the direct result of US policy – whether of the late President Reagan by negotiation or – as he would have it – the sheer dominance of American armed forces firepower. Indeed it seems to have become part of the American collective myth that they alone were responsible for the breakup. It wasn’t, of course, the primary reason, although it may have helped a little. The Soviet era finally unravelled because the will of the people made it happen. It is what eventually happens to all extremes of political doctrines imposed by the few on their nation. The nations with stability and longevity steer a course somewhere between extremes and accept that to have the good bits, you need to deal with the bad as well.

After I had my little rant recently on the spectre of Enoch Powell coming back to haunt politicians and talked about the fear that public figures have of voicing honest opinions and beliefs due to the politically correct and barren nature of political debate, it suddenly occurred to me that these people who sow this fear – faceless, nameless but all powerful – do not appear to have a collective name. There has always been woolly talk about ‘liberals’ and liberal talk about ‘woolly hats’ but in reality we neither know who these people are, where they came from, where they hide out nor where they will strike next.

Let’s be perfectly honest for a moment. To the vast majority of ordinary people – like you and me – and I suspect the majority of those in the public eye, political correctness is something you practice – not something you believe in. And you practice it and go ‘tut, tut’ when others make so-called inappropriate remarks, because if you stray everyone else practicing it but not believing it is going to hunt you down and string you up. In the Powell item, I called it ‘the cul de sac of fear’.

But somewhere out there, peeping out from behind their metaphoric net curtains, there really are people who believe one hundred percent that we are all equal. That gender, race, nationality, skin colour, religion are all irrelevant. That intelligence, ability and talent are the wrong measures of success. That there can be no winners because for every winner there have to be losers and there are no losers. Because we are all equal. Everyone is a victim and those who commit crimes are the real victims and more in need of our time, money and understanding than those they commit crimes against. The list goes on and on.

What has always amazed me of course, and I have said this many times before, is how these people, these true zealots, managed to get not just their foot in the door of public debate, but their whole set of warped ideals onto the public agenda. How did we let this happen? And we don’t even know who these people are. They needle away in the background, orchestrating the fear that surrounds people from having honest and useful debate yet they are faceless. And this, of course, is the exact same model that terrorist organisations use. Which is exactly what these people are: social terrorists.

Which brings me back to my original question. What is their collective name? When normal folk talk about these people there is no term or name to hang on them which in turn leaves you virtually inarticulate and floundering. They need a name. Give them a name and we have something tangible. Talk about an Islamic fundamentalist and it sounds harmless. Name it Hezbollah and you can immediately measure and catalogue it. You can join it and preach it’s sermon or you can stand up and fight. Talk about a Northern Irish Nationalist and it sounds like a guy you met in a pub. Name it the IRA and suddenly it has teeth and is chasing you.

All good, honest terrorist organisations and movements have a name. And it’s about time we discovered the real name of the terrorists who have destroyed our way of life and manipulated our world into the mess it’s in today. Give it a name, expose it’s members and we have something to fight against.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has suggested the European Union should work towards including Russia, Middle Eastern and North African countries.

Then shoot him.