Caught briefly on the radio – the Government intends to use Emergency powers to bail out feckless, useless councils who’ve found themselves utterly unprepared for snow by raiding the grit and salt supplies of useful, competent well prepared councils who’ve still got supplies.

If this doesn’t entirely sum up the ‘you have something we want, so we’re going to take it’ approach to governing that we suffer, what does? Just be glad they’re not using Emergency Powers to confiscate grit from private companies.

Coming soon to a Airport near you – Your naked body on a computer screen. As someone who’ll never be subject to these full body scanners, Gordon Brown has pledged his full support to the roll-out of these machines to every airport in the country – presumably focus groups are pointing to this as being a vote winner. In itself that’s horrifying enough.

And, as if to point out what I think most people already know about Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats have added their support too, complaining that they should have been rolled out sooner. Thanks Chris.

It’s 2010 now. My dad used to tell me that by this time they expected us all to have flying cars and all that sort of jazz. Instead of that rather cheerful and optimistic vision of the future, what we have instead is onerous queuing, being herded through checkpoints by uniformed goons and  now the possibility that you’ll be randomly selected to be stripped naked by an electromagnetic scanner.

Bin Laden was reported as saying his mission was to destroy liberty in the West. I’d say he’s done pretty well. I was thinking recently about the Twin Towers atrocity and how, even then, we knew that this somehow heralded the start of much darker times. This last decade has felt obsessed with muslims, terrorism, war and oil and then, in the end, economic crisis. The result has been a monumental enlargement of the Government and its power – and almost no discussion or debate around this in mainstream politics. It’s difficult to be optimistic.

So yesterday was the Pre-Budget Report, and as predicted Alistair Darling (the one that looks like a badger) did indeed make a list of the naughty and the nice. Let’s break it down: (Warning: Activate sarcasm detectors…. now!)

Nice:

The Government tops the Nice list, of course! The last forecasts they made were wildly wrong, but these new forecasts show that the emergency’s over now, the debt’s under control and there’s no need to panic. Well done them!

The Bingo Industry are next. In a move that will no doubt cheer the Old Lady vote, the Be-badgered one has bestowed his beneficence upon this key, vital, industry.

Zany Companies with ‘Green’ In Their Name will be falling over themselves to secure the £160m of money floating around for miscellaneous environmental ‘projects’ and £200 million for insulation fitters.

Anyone who makes Wind Turbines or Electric cars – tax rebates! exemptions! Green Industry of Tomorrow… TODAY!

Training Course Providers – Unemployed Under 24s are guaranteed a job or training after 6 months. GUARANTEED! Current a million of the little blighters, so that’ll be 1,000,000 training course places needed – we’re not quite living in the sort of socialist state where walking carbon based units of production are told where they’re going to be working, nor can the Government make a company employ a certain person.

School Catering Suppliers – thanks to free school meals being extended to half a million of Labour’s core vote, expect a big rise in demand for raw chips and beans.

Naughty:

Everyone who works for a living – Increase in National Insurance, because we all know that the reason we’re all in this economic mess is because we’re all just not generous enough with the fruits of our labour as far as the state’s concerned. If we’d been giving extra tax voluntarily we wouldn’t be having this problem but NO, we’re too greedy, so this selfishness will be corrected.

If this BBC report is true (and it seems plausible enough) then there’s a very simple moral and lesson we can all learn.

As soon as you accept help from the Government, you become their bitch forever.

A 50% tax on bank bonuses though? People already pay income tax on cash bonuses anyway… is this an additional tax, or simply stating that all bonuses for one particular category of people will be subject to a different threshold?

In other words, instead of these bonuses being taxed at 40% as they already are, they’ll be taxed at 50%… assuming, of course, that someone getting a more than £10k bonus isn’t already going to end up in the Government’s new ultra-f**k-you band of income tax. Instead of getting£4k from a £10k bonus the state will now get £5k.

And how do they justify applying this tax to Barclays or HSBC workers? In fact, why not apply this rule to all cash bonuses?

The idea of arbitrary taxation like this, the idea that the Government will now start tweaking taxation to target people in specific companies is horrifying for me. I expect Hayek would positively explode at this one.

But, hurray, we’re all saved! I’m sure the taxation raised will make up for the hideous precedent they’re setting.

Told you: WONDERMENT.

What a weekend. I’ve been linked to by lots of lefty blogs (always a first time), been called a limp wristed, hand wringing liberal (a new experience). I’ve been called a stupid, ignorant bitch. I’ve been told I can’t do maths and alternatively patronised and slagged off for daring – yes daring – to call out Rod Liddle. I’m, apparently, bullying a poor unfortunate man having an extended mid-life crisis and I should leave him alone. Diddums.

In the row that’s unfolded I’ve been amazed at the arguments people have been making on both sides, but the most alarming is that people have been defending Rod by saying that (at least in London) blacks commit a disproportionate amount of the crime according to their distribution in the population.

That’s an argument. It’s probably backed up by statistics. And it’s been repeated ad infinitum by a lot of people who feel this urgent need to defend Rod Liddle.

But that’s not the argument Rod has made. His argument is that ‘the overwhelming majority’ of certain types of crimes are committed by black people, and that when horrible atrocities are committed we shouldn’t be surprised because, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

What disgusted me is that when I checked the official figures I couldn’t find evidence to support this claim. Rod has not provided a source for his figures. He’s simply made a throwaway assertion without backing it up, behaving like any old crazy on the internet. He writes for the Spectator – he should aspire to better than tabloid bullshit like this.

The point is that the only rational response to Rod’s piece is to go look up the figures – which I did. I called Rod a shit for brains for making a fallacious argument. If rebutting the argument Rod actually made makes me a stupid, ignorant bitch then bring me the dunce’s cap, because I’m thick and I’m proud.

For the record I’m not a fan of multiculturalism, never have been. I think segregated communities are a recipe for disaster, separate schooling a complete nightmare, but then any ‘community’ is a dirty word for me anyway. I’m a full-on welfare crushin’, NHS dismantlin’, bureaucrat firin’, regulation destroyin’ swivelled eyed free market loon. I’m against ‘affirmative action’ and pro-freedom of speech. I’m against a no-platform policy for the BNP (although admittedly I’ve just dumped what looks like a BNP spammer in the spam bin. No free advertising for you, mate).

If all that makes me a Guardian readin’, water drinkin’, hand wringin’ lefty then… well…. guilty as charged I guess.