Smoking policy stinks!

If Government is determined to stop under-age smoking, why not fine the parents of those caught smoking rather than ban cigarette vending machines, packets of 10 and, unbelievably, branding and logos!?!

Police targets

Is is easier for Police to fine insured and licensed middle-class drivers or track down and prosecute uninsured or unlicensed drivers!?!

Infamy, Infamy!

Will a new Government campaign against knife crime reduce the chances that Gordon Brown will be stabbed in the back by worried Labour backbenchers!?!

Soft capital punishment?

If the courts believe that some people "deserve" to die because they are abusive or racist, why doesn't it apply to those convicted of murder or rape!?!

"A former hospital cook who baked a fruitcake laced with rat poison for her husband has been given a 12-month suspended prison sentence. "

"A Muslim elder who stabbed his neighbour in the back was dramatically cleared of murder yesterday after a court was told that he had endured a living hell of racism, threats and violence."

"Brown to meet oil industry chiefs"

"Please, please, please, increase the oil supply so that drivers don't notice my October tax increase, please, please, please"

PS If Gordon Brown has any 'green' credentials, he would welcome recent oil price increases as it encourage people to use fuel more efficiently!

Carbon Allowance

Would a personal carbon allowance include cremation!?!

Every little hurts!

How will MPs keep site of "the environment agenda" when they might award themselves an automatic tax free lump sum of £23,000 a year for second homes!?!

Lesser mortals will be expected to pay for increased fuel costs out of their existing taxed incomes!

Inconvenient Truth?

Did the BBC initially suspect that Amar Aslam was murdered by a group of white thugs in a "sustained and brutal" racist attack in Dewsbury and expect events to justify their suspicions!?!

"I can now confirm that the three men who are in custody are actually all Asian, which means that the race motive so far, perhaps, is not one that might be the cause of the death." - Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik - Version 15 of the BBC's report.

Knives out

Would banning the open display of knives for sale in shops prevent knife crime in the UK!?!

If England's first Children's Commissioner is worried that additional stop-and-searches could antagonize the young, when will unelected officials fret that speed cameras might antagonize drivers!?!

"Another aggravating feature is, what arrogance. The arrogance exemplified by your hand gestures [ V-signs] to the camera as you sped past it." - Judge Barbara Mensah

Dead Man Walking

"So what's it like to be stabbed in the back by your party!?!"

Tax credit income disregard!?!

How has HMRC managed to save the taxpayer £700m by reducing tax credit overpayments last year?

Simple, by increasing the so-called "tax credit income disregard" from £2,500 to £25,000 before an overpayment is recognised!

Toughly, toughly approach!

Did the reputation of Russia's Police and prisons ensure that neither Manchester United or Chelsea fans misbehaved in Moscow last night?

By contrast, "a decade-long government drive to cut youth offending has had "no measurable impact" in the UK!

Orwellian Doctrine?

What are the chances that MPs (and their families) would be exempt from a proposed new database that would contain details of every phone call and email sent in the UK!?!

"MPs are not supposed to be bugged, according to the so-called "Wilson doctrine"."

Agency workers

"Agency workers will be given the same employment rights as permanent staff after 12 weeks under proposals agreed between the government and unions."

How many of the UK's 1.4m agency workers asked to be represented by the trades unions!?!

Will most agency workers now be forced to leave their placing during their eleventh working week!?!

What's the trades unions real motive for protecting workers rights!?!

Education standards

Will education standards improve simply by raising pay levels or by sacking useless teachers and replacing them!?!

"20% of pupils go from primary to secondary not fully functional in literacy and numeracy" - Ofsted chief Christine Gilbert.

Schools should be able to determine their own pay rates for teachers. Private companies do!

The only way to identify when state education standards are genuinely improving will be when the number of pupils attending private schools shows a steady decline over time!

Making work pay?

How many new jobs would be created if incapacity benefits were reduced to the national minimum wage?

"Of the minority who said they would like a job, about a third of men and one in six women said they would need at least £300 a week after tax to make it worthwhile coming off benefits and going in to work."

Employers of unskilled labour are being priced out of the labour market as they cannot compete with the benefits available to unskilled labour!

Great leaders on adversity

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." - Winston Churchill.

"I have nothing to offer but taxes, taxes, taxes and taxes." - Gordon Brown perhaps!

PS When will Gordon Brown let the people decide if he's the best person to "steer the economy through difficult times"!?!

Listen and lead?

How many of the voters in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election are demanding reforms to the House of Lords as proposed in the next Queen's Speech!?!

It's barely a couple of days since Gordon Brown had said he would "listen and lead" the British public!

Number crunching

£6.5bn: Revenue raised from residential Stamp Duty last year.

£100m: Government help offered to first time buyers in the next Queen's speech.

PS Is it appropriate for the Government to encourage first time buyers when house prices are starting to fall!?!

Undercover Mosque

Will West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service now prosecute the Imams featured in "Undercover Mosque" after they have apologised to the documentary makers who they originally condemned for misrepresentation and misleading editing!?!

Number Crunching

£3.1bn: Cost of Conservative inheritance tax proposals condemned by Chancellor Alistair Darling as "an example of where the Tories are making promises on tax which they can't afford to pay for" in October 2007. "If you do that, you create the very instability which is the last thing the economy needs and people in this country would pay for that."

£2.7bn: Unfunded income tax cuts proposed by Chancellor Alistair Darling eight months later. "the measures would be funded through borrowing so as not to take money out of the economy while it was slowing."

Social Care

As Scottish Prime Minister Gordon Brown has no responsibility for social care provision in Scotland since devolution, why is he worried about social care in Britain as opposed to just England!?!

PS Number crunching!

£6bn social care shortfall in England within 20 years.

£6bn Annual UK contribution to the European Union from 2011.

Ethnic tensions

Will the Department for Communities ever suggest that the best way to reduce local tensions caused by "rising migration and diversity" would be to reduce immigration!?!

"It calls on local officials to plan against tensions by:

Properly understanding who is living in the local area

Working with a wider range of people to better monitor local trends

Making better use of local intelligence, including warning signs from community workers

Learning how to counter rumours of scaremongering which lead to violent clashes

"

Brown mouse

Does Gordon Brown have the power or support to do "whatever is necessary" to preserve the United Kingdom!?!

He is a spent force in British politics.

Air heads!

Are domestic airside workers being discriminated against if they have to undergo criminal records checks that are "too long and too complex" to be carried out for foreign workers!?!

Number Crunching

33% - Confiscation rate for assets of convicted drugs dealer.

40% - Higher rate income tax.

BNP voters

Has anyone welcomed the election of a BNP member to the London Assembly as a victory for democracy and proportional representation!?!

Why should 130,417 voters be denied representation!?! They have as much right to be represented as any other voters whether you consider their politics to be distasteful or not.

They polled twice as many votes as George Galloway's Respect and were only 75,000 votes behind those crazy Greens! The same greens that the major political parties are all trying to embrace!

Personality defects?

Which Labour MPs have personality defects!?!

"There isn't - outside of those who have their own personal malice towards Gordon or indeed the odd ones with personality defects - a challenge against Gordon Brown." - Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party!

Politics of the snake?

How will Gordon Brown possibly reassure Labour backbenchers that he can lead them to success!?!

Labour face a double whammy of electoral defeat. They are unable to appeal to floating voters thanks to rampant tax increases and have shed too many of their core voters due to devolution and immigration.

Labour backbenchers are finally facing up to the fact that they cannot be replaced, unlike a snake!

In the Name of God, Go!

It's great waking up to discover that you are not alone in despising Gordon Brown!

"Labour is on course to suffer its worst performance in at least 40 years in the local elections in England and Wales."

Unions strike back!

If workers should not suffer when management make mistakes, should workers benefit when management do well!?!

"The workforce did not contribute to the situation which the bank now finds itself in and should not be expected to pay the ultimate price by being forced out of their jobs." - Graham Goddard, deputy general secretary at Unite on Northern Rock.

"This is a very profitable plant. It's made, we reckon, about a billion pounds over the last 10 years. Why is he attacking the workers?" - Labour MP Michael Connarty on Ineos

Mayday!

How do you vote in the local elections when you want to punch Gordon Brown and slap David Cameron whilst ignoring Nick whatsisname!?!

Ministry of Indefensible!

Why did the Ministry of Defence opt for a "cost plus" scaffolding contract rather than a fixed price deal!?!

It would then have avoided any possibility of fraud and offered the taxpayer better value for money too!

"It was an environment which was ripe for printing money but they did not have to print money." - Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith