A father was stopped from taking a photo of his son on a children’s train ride after an over-zealous security guard accused him of being a paedophile.

Kevin Geraghty-Shewan, 48, was approached by the guard after he took the picture of his four-year-old son Ben on the toy engine outside a shop. He was then threatened with arrest after refusing to hand his mobile phone containing the picture after a row with a policeman.

Personally I would seek legal action against this guard – it is time we confronted this PC bullying and the assumption that every man photographing a child is a paedophile!

You will recall that during the Hillsborough “negotiations”, the DUP came out of it boasting they had secured a  major victory for the Loyal Orders. Now, WE all know that this was just a bit of DUPE spin to cover their naked shame of handing over the keys of Policing and Justice to a terror-inclusive Executive, but even the spin is no longer that good!

You see earlier this week, the working group which was set up to look into the Parades Issue, reported back to the OFMDFM. In an act that is so typical of how this tyranny works, the conclusions of the Report were not made public. Secrecy is the order of the day and secrecy is the basis for Government. In that sense alone, the Stormont shambles is entirely unacceptable.

WHAT does the “Working Group” have to hide from the public? Why are their deliberations to be cloaked in secrecy? We know that those within the Loyal Orders who have been shown the contents of the output from this group have been less than impressed. The DUP will do everything possible to imply, suggest and mislead on this issue. It is their way of diverting attention within Unionism away from their roll-over on Policing and Justice. That’s why the content of their work is now kept away from the public.

Interesting article here by Liam Clarke on the issue of “celebrity” politicians. He zones in on what he imagines is the Ulster Unionist policy of picking “celebrity” candidates for the forthcoming General Election in an attempt to restore fortunes.

“Here the Ulster Unionists, the province’s oldest political party, is trying to freshen its image and broaden its appeal with an injection of famous names. The first in the ring were Trevor Ringland, a former rugby international who campaigns on victims’ issues, and Flash Harry Hamilton, the Freddy Mercury impersonator who hopes to win back David Trimble’s old seat in Upper Bann from the DUP. The latest to throw his hat in the ring is Mike Nesbitt, the former TV anchorman turned Victims’ Commissioner.

I remember encountering Trevor Ringland on “Let’s Talk” some years ago. He was less than memorable. Being a Freddy Mercury impersonator is not an obvious route to gaining the support of Ulster Unionist voters fed up with Trimble, and it is hard to see why Mike Nesbitt has suddenly developed this great interest in frontline politics. But we live in the age of celebrity, of course, and that does count for something these days, alas.

Naturally, Ringland, Hamilton and Nesbitt are not the only people who aspire to bring about political change and we shall see in a few months time just how effective celebrity unionism can be. Should the DUP hold Strangford, Upper Bann and East Belfast (and that is a big “IF”) then the UUP may end up with no seats. Surely this would cause the end of Empey? It’s a high risk strategy using “celebrity” appeal over political substance.

I see that immigrants with unpaid NHS bills could be excluded from Britain under proposals aimed at reducing foreign healthcare tourism.

The Department of Health is trying to recover £22 million from foreign nationals who have had NHS treatment in the past two years and not paid their bills. 

Those who do not pay for the healthcare they receive in Britain could in future be banned from entering the country or refused permission to extend their stay.

COULD? Listen, the NHS is not in place nor indeed funded to provide free healthcare to the world. The grotesque bureaucracy which typifies the NHS need radical surgery if we are to ensure that health provision is in line with economic reality. Immigrants should not be provided with free healthcare beyond the statutory provisions and there is a duty of care on the NHS to make certain that taxpayer funds are not wasted on those who scarper without paying.  

….weatherman. The government has fixated on bankers and their bonus payments but now read this..

STAFF at the Met Office have been awarded £12million in bonuses despite repeatedly getting forecasts wrong, it was revealed yesterday. The “performance-related” pay was handed out over the past five years even though the national weather centre has been guilty of a long list of embarrassing howlers, including last year’s infamous ‘barbecue summer’ prediction. The news comes just weeks after it was revealed the organisation’s chief executive is now better paid than the Prime Minister after receiving a 25 per cent pay rise.

Given that the Met Office is part of Government, can we assume that Government will seek to stop all such bonus payments? Poor performance and bonus payments – the public sector recipe for success? 

Let us assume that many of the talking heads who were wittering on about the “improved” performance of the UK economy in Q4 2009 do not know what they are actually saying. I think that’s a fair assumption. Instead consider this…

“Andrew Lilico, chief economist at Policy Exchange, pointed out that the lower estimate of GDP would have far-reaching consequences for the public finances.

He said: “A political consequence is that, since the economy will now be smaller at the start of the 2010/11 budget year, tax receipts should now be expected to be lower, so the 2010/11 and 2011/12 deficit projections will need to be revised up – perhaps to above £200bn – even if the deficit ends up fractionally down this year. That makes early spending cuts more urgent.”

There are also concerns that the increases in GDP will be short-lived, since they are largely powered by strong growth from car manufacture and sales, retail sales and government expenditure, which are being supported by the car scrappage scheme, the VAT cut and crisis-related spending. All three of these supports are either set to expire, or already have, raising the prospect that GDP will slide back again in the coming quarters.”

What you weren’t told by the media yesterday was the crunch fact that GDP was revised DOWNWARDS and as Andrew rightly observes the consequences will be felt in the next two years, making cuts NOW even more desirable if we are to help our economy and improve conditions in the medium-term. There is a scorched earth economic policy in place, put there by  Brown, and it explodes mid-year.

Wait til 1:20 on the clip

Because Friday night’s Music Night – can’t have too much of a good thing edition.

A sad landmark for all us fans, but nothing lasts forever and The Jam’s final track wasn’t just one their best, it was three minutes of truly great English pop music -

Responding to the rush by David Ford to be the faux Justice Minister, TUV Leader Jim Allister says…

“I suppose we should never expect too much from a man who described himself as “the back end of a pantomine horse”, but the desperation of  David Ford to be promoted above his station is laughable.  He pretends a principled stand of holding back till he sees a Shared Strategy in place, but then settles for the reported existence of a document which he hasn’t even seen.
 
“His biggest claim to fame to date is as ‘leader’ of an Opposition which doesn’t exist, but suddenly, when the option of being a puppet within the Excecutive is proferred, opposition doesn’t matter. Puppet or pantomine horse poor David can’t resist a role, any role in Cirque Stormont., even if its only till 2012 – if he survives the 2011 elections! But just to get keeping the seat warn for Gerry Kelly will be an honour for salivating Alliance.
 
“Though the notion of Alliance as a serious Opposition was a joke in itself, the admission of Alliance to the Executive will remove last fickle semblance of normal political and democratic credibility from this Stormont. This consequence of the Sinn Fein/DUP Hillsborough deal, in extinguishing the presence of a token Opposition, will not concern the practitioners of mandatory coalition, but it does highlight how that tyrannical system tramples on the fundamental building blocks of democracy – the right to vote a party out of government and the right to have an Opposition.”