Looking at the weather forecast and talking to Jim Dowson in Ulster an hour or so ago it appears that my handiwork will be put to the test in the very near future. The predicted heavy rain will eliminate any possibility of me spending time in the garden and reluctantly my weekend will gravitate towards B & Q and other unpleasant places wasting my precious Saturday in the process.
I see the truly wretched John Bercow developed a hissy fit today whilst administering a session of the Youth Parliament in Westminster. The Metro newspaper covers his outburst this evening:
Speaker John Bercow attacks 'evil' BNP
John Bercow Speaker John Bercow won a standing ovation from the UK Youth Parliament today when he launched an extraordinary attack on the "evil" of the BNP.
At the end of an historic day's sitting, which had seen the Commons benches occupied by non-MPs for the first time ever, Mr Bercow said the BNP was a "poison which we could well do without".
The Speaker is traditionally expected to remain impartial while chairing sittings of the House and he acknowledged this in his impromptu comments.
But he insisted: "I'm under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to be impartial as between the forces of democracy on the one hand and the forces of evil on the other."
Apparently he was applauded for his rant, which by the way will mean that he will be, by his own admission, incapable of maintaining The Speaker's role should BNP MPs be elected next year. One thing he did not tell his audience was that in the financial years 2007-8, 2006-7, 2004-5 and 2002-3 he occupied joint first position in a league table of highest-claiming members of the House of Commons, while in 2003-4 he was the joint third. I don't think he would have received so much applause for his undoubted prowess at the trough. Neither for the fact that the troughmeister changed the designation of his second home on more than one occasion – meaning that he avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of two properties. Let's face it with a pedigree like that I'm rather happy about his uncontrollable and very public hatred of the BNP.
Following on from the EHRC link I provided you with yesterday, you might want to examine the latest developments in this sordid little tale detailed in Personnel Today. This is the part that I like considerably, so much so that I've purchased a bottle of Blossom Hill Californian CabSav to enhance that bitter bitten experience:
Jeya Thiruchelvam, employment law editor at XpertHR, warned the alleged actions by the director could constitute race discrimination.
She said: "Ironically, the act of requesting or instructing non-white employees to join the BNP, even if the aim is to highlight the assertion that the BNP is continuing to restrict its membership on racial grounds, and is therefore inherently racist, may well constitute direct race discrimination.
"This is because you have a situation where employees are being selected on the grounds of their race (or ethnic or national origin) and being treated less favourably - by being requested to a join a far-right extremist political party – than their white colleagues."
I did say they would regret the day they crossed swords with us and don't be surprised at all if this does not become a criminal matter. There are better legal minds than mine who understand all too well the implications of what is being alleged considering the circumstances in which we were dragged into court just fifteen days ago by these people.
