Gary Monro’s blog

Due to large amounts of spam heading my way I am forced to moderate initial comments.

If you have never commented before your first post will need moderating by me. All subsequent posts by you will reach the comments section unmolested.

I apologise for this. I value highly comments made and am reluctant to be a hindrance to new arrivals who wish to agree with, criticise or otherwise remark on anything said on this blog.

I’m hoping though that the short wait to have your first comment posted is preferable to having to wade through comments sections full of adverts for poker sites, viagra and naughty schoolgirls - who should, in my opinion, actually be at school and not plying their wares in a respectable blog…

I shouldn’t be constantly shocked and dismayed by this kind of news but I am. Thanks, EU Serf, for ruining my day:

European commissioners yesterday hailed a landmark legal judgment that could give them the power to use criminal sanctions to enforce EU law.

But Foreign Office sources said that, although the judgment raised the possibility of Britain having to create new criminal offences against the wishes of the Government, in practice EU member states would never agree to such a loss of sovereignty.

So the law is made but will never be used? As my teenage daughter would say, ‘Yeah, right’.

The ECJ decision is hugely sensitive because until now the EU has only been able to use the criminal law to enforce its decisions in certain categories where all member states agree legislation by unanimity. In theory, qualified majority voting - which allows EU law to be made against the wishes of a minority of member states - could now be used to take decisions that would have to be enforced throughout the EU by criminal sanctions.

Oh look - there’s a Conservative Party leadership contest going on:

Liam Fox, the Tory foreign affairs spokesman, claimed the decision could be deeply damaging to British national interests.

“Despite all Tony Blair’s protestations, we in the UK are bit by bit losing control of our own ability to make our own laws,” he said.

Never fear, Liam - Ken Clarke will fight the buggers on the beaches blah blah blah…

A brief wander around the blogosphere today…

Gaffa’s blog is new and looks good - although I’m giving him a hard time in his post about Ken Clarke.

Blognor Regis does an interesting review of the old British movie, the Blue Lamp, featuring location stills from the film that depict late 50s England.

I ‘ve heard of House of Dumb but never actually visited. Put that right today and glad I did. A number of entertainingly well-written rants about… well, lots of things actually.

Driverchris pokes fun at the silliness of objecting to the misuse of shackles and handcuffs by protesting outside the gates of the manufacturers…

A Tangled Web is a fast and furious read… Fasten your seat-belts first. Almost everything on that blog is worth reading - and the comments can be a bit of a riot too.

If the stand-up comedians are to be believed, your mother-in-law is the bane of your life. The last thing you’d want to do is marry her. And, in fact, English law forbids it.

Ah, says the EU. That’s a breach of your human rights. Britain’s laws contradict Article 12 of the European Human Rights Convention. And that will never do…

[The] ruling means the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer must sweep away British law on the issue and replace it with new rules to allow such marriages.

The UK didn’t want to make this change - which basically allows marriage between parents-in-law and their children-in-law:

The Government had claimed the existing law protected the family and morality, prevented sexual competition between parents and children and shielded children from confusion, anxiety and harm.

[T]he Government’s lawyer Emily Willmott told the court there were moral and practical reasons why the British law should stay.

Children would be harmed and morals endangered if marriage to parents-in-law was allowed, she told the European judges.

In the couple’s case, she said, “the marriage would have the effect of making the first applicant stepfather of his grandson which situation could well be deeply confusing and disturbing for a child”.

Miss Willmott said there was “risk of such marriages undermining the foundations of the family and altering relationships between relatives”.

But, of course, the UK has no choice. Choice is something only free countries have. We are not a free country.

It’s not the bag of chips you eat that makes you fat. It’s the sitting in front of the television eating them that does the damage.

“After taking a range of other factors into account, our research showed that time spent watching television is a significant predictor of body mass index and being overweight,” said Dr Hancox.

“While there are a number of factors involved in childhood obesity, the strength of the association we found with TV viewing was greater than that commonly found for the effects of nutritional intake and physical activity. Clearly further work is needed to unravel all the critical factors and how they interact.”

No surprises there. When I was a pup we ate absolute rubbish (anyone for bread and dripping?) yet we weren’t fat and we didn’t have the range of disorders modern kids have. That’s because children’s hour on the idiot-box really was, more or less, an hour. After that was the news (boooooring) and then stuff which you either weren’t allowed to watch or was on too late for you to watch. What did we do instead? We played outside. Hence no fat.

An insightful politician would reasses our country’s relationship with the television. Incorrectly used - and it is often incorrectly used - television is a very bad thing and will be responsible for any number of social ills - illiteracy, poor behaviour and relationship breakdown to name a few.

If you fancy a giggle though you can read Polly Toynbee’s view that fat is a class issue (how could it be anything else?) The article’s a year old but retains its awesome power to make you laugh out loud…

Red Ken Livingstone, Mayor of Londonistan, believes Yusuf al-Qaradawi - a controversial imam who is banned from the US - is like the reforming pope, Paul XXIII.

“Of all the Muslim leaders in the world today, Sheikh Qaradawi is the most powerfully progressive force for change and for engaging Islam with western values,” Mr Livingstone told the Commons home affairs select committee.

“I think his is very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII.”

Red Ken suggests Qaradawi’s thoughts about executing gays is a ‘question of a philosophical nature’.

If you see this post of mine and click on ‘more’ at the bottom you’ll see a few examples of fatwas issued by Pope Yusuf. This includes a rather un-pope-like view on female mutilation.

Next week: ‘Osama Bin Laden like Mahatma Gandhi’