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Over at Guido Fawkes…

When Sarah Palin said Obama’s healthcare plan would result in “death panels” that would see bureaucrats making subjective judgements on life and death, she was furiously howled down by Obama supporters. So how should we describe the expert panel of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which decided that patients will be denied a new cancer drug on the NHS under draft guidelines, because it is too expensive?

What makes this situation even more disgusting is the objection to “co-payment”. Pay for what the NHS won’t provide and they’ll throw you off the system completely, withdraw treatment and kick you out - all in the name of “equality”. Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Andrew Dillon, the CEO of NICE, is no doubt on a very hefty salary. But he and his death panel of evil accountants deem that a “quality year of life” is worth £30,000 and not a penny more. By contrast they pay Analysts at NICE £39,000 p.a. If another year of “quality life” on Earth will cost more than £30,000, they’ll pull the plug… And who determines “quality”?

The “quality life” value of £30,000 a year equates to…
…two thirds of Speaker Bercow’s home refurbishment bill
…£576 per week (equal to Margaret Beckett’s hanging basket bill or one-third of a duck island)
…£82.19 per day
…£3.42 per hour (six chocolate Santas)
…6p per minute (equal to a minute’s phonecall from BT)
…0.5p per breath*
…0.1p per second

Do you think your last breath was worth more than 0.5p? The government doesn’t.

Vince Cable was, according to Socialist Economic Bulletin, “one of the first to call, rightly, for the nationalisation of Northern Rock.” Back then the Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman wrote in The Times;

The Government dithered for far too long before concluding that Northern Rock had to be nationalised.

And in December 2007…

Vince Cable, acting leader of the Lib Dems, told the BBC this morning that nationalisation was the “least worst answer” for the bank, which is currently “bleeding to death”. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Cable has urged the Government to introduce a Bill in Parliament before Christmas to allow public ownership of the bank.

But now in Total Politics…

When the Northern Rock crisis broke, my view was that that [the banks going bankrupt] probably should have been what happened - the government should have rescued the depositors and let the bank go.

Bit different, isn’t it?

Sinn Fein President and devil lookalike Gerry Adams has started blogging. There’s one that won’t be appearing in my blogroll links!

Worth noting however is the truly odd way Mr Adams refers to himself in the third person so often. Sure sign of a self important egotist.

Apart from refering to himself as “your man” at every possible opportunity - almost as often as he bashes Britain and the British, who’s cash he gladly takes as an MP however - he rather comically refers to himself as a blog. “This blog has had a busy week.” You can call Gerry Adams many things, but I never knew he was a blog!

Labour’s poster depicting David Cameron and George Osbourne as the so bad they’re funny X Factor twins John and Edward (”Jedward”) with the tagline “You won’t be laughing if they win” has got a good deal of press coverage, far exceeding the impressions the paid billboards will chalk up. In this sense it’s already a hugely effective piece of viral advertising.

But it’s another story that makes me think.

Jedward have faced huge public hostility, hate campaigns on Facebook, and deafening booing at X Factor performances. But last Saturday it was all cheers. The criticism became so unfairly harsh and personal, and they held up so strong, that they have become popular.

Could Labour do the same? The recent argument over Gordon Brown’s letter suggests it’s possible. If The Sun and others don’t want a Labour victory, they mustn’t victimise Brown.

Dr Rowan Williams said that taxation should not be seen as a way of stifling business or redistributing wealth but helping to make the world a better place in which to live. He called for new levies to be introduced on financial transactions and carbon emissions, and an end to the idea that unlimited economic growth is desirable.

The above quote from The Telegraph should shock me, but it doesn’t. Dr Williams, the most senior cleric in the Church of England and a self-confessed “hairy lefty”, is just the latest in a series of barmey bishops making moralising judgements over economics.

I’m reminded however by that quote from Margaret Thatcher: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions - he had money too.”

Quite how a World without economic growth and with excessive taxation would be better I cannot understand - unless envy is your primary emotional influence - and evidently I am not alone. People vote with their feet, and the C of E hardly needs crowd control. Perhaps they should stick to their job and be a Church rather than a leftist economics think tank.

The Union Flag…

How do you fly yours, Mr Griffin?

…The wrong way up evidently. Doesn’t every true patriot know how to fly the flag properly?