Gut crumpets

Spectacular anger here at Mister Eugenides and Devil’s Kitchen for this report.

The government is to be asked to pay £12,000 to the families of all those killed during the Troubles - including members of paramilitary groups.

The families of paramilitary victims, members of the security forces and civilians who were killed will all be entitled to the same amount.

Be warned; the main posts and comments alike are larded with obscenities from the start.

Cool.

But setting aside any bitter, acid invective against the Olympic levels of all-my-ancestors-were-each-others’-cousins levels of stupidity and insensitivity to the innocent bereaved that this recommendation demonstrates, and manfully resisting the urge to speculate about what kind of dietary deficiencies or degenerative infections could produce brains feeble enough to generate moral equivalence of this nature from the start of the process; moral equivalence that led supposedly educated people to imagine that the deaths of uniformed professionals dedicated to preserving the lives of law-abiding British subjects were somehow similar to the deaths of plain-clothed war-criminals (as all terrorists are), I have to point out that there might be another problem here.

Where does this leave ‘The Peace Process?’

I mean, if it’s being done to ‘draw a line’ or ‘move on,’ is twelve grand going to be more than an insult to the bereaved? I have some pity for the orphans, but the IRA and UVF widows likely knew exactly who and what their lovely, Semtex-stained beaux palled around with.

So do the wise and the good think that twelve measly thousand’s going to bring somebody’s daddy back or make up for an adolescence of dreary commemorative visits by scary sods it nasty suits and putting absurdly large ‘patriotic’ floral displays on graves each year some how make it all better?

These lancet-minded former bishops and retired policemen must be thinking in the old money from when they were lads so maybe a dozen kilosovs looks just the job to them.

Or is it something else? Is this some part of a continuing squeeze operation against the British taxpayers for more protection money, or else the terrorists will go back to shooting prison officers on their doorsteps in front of their just-then widows and screaming children, or nail-bombing pubs?

Devil’s Kitchen and Samizdata point out a Times article that Northern Ireland is massively and overwhelmingly subsidized by the British taxpayers.

Nowhere in mainland Britain, however, comes close to Northern Ireland, where the state is responsible for 77.6% of spending, despite the supposed resurgence of the economy after the end of the Troubles.

So is that it – ‘Pay up and massively subsidize our sewer of an economy and our ‘paramilitary’ families at all times and in all places,’ or what…?

See, there’s a bit of a cash shortage about just now and, you know, someone’s going to have to start cutting public expenditure sometime.

I hated the Good Friday Agreement from its appeasing, morally-equivalent start with all its dreamy big-tent, hands across the sectarian divide, Phony Tony Things Can Only Get Better evasion of centuries of history and decades of monstrous terrorist cruelty.

And now the filthy thugs have their hands on our cash-flow and not a leader in sight to put a stop to it.

On a lighter note, I was able to use this cheering little story to put up the first contact post on the freedom directory thing here, showing the Consultative Group’s email box and email and other contacts for the lovely ex-bishop of ’Derry’ should anyone wish to comment upon the Group’s work...

Take a look if you like. I’ve nearly finished the framework pages, but apart from this cheery little tale of our tax pounds in action, it’s empty of data so far.

I hope to make it much bigger really soon…

Raw Dead Plant Diet Week.

Day One.

A little peckish after breakfasting on only two tins of fruit, and colleagues were quite happy brandishing and extravagantly praising some extremely chocolatey biscuits as my stomach rumbled, but I can take it. There’s nothing a right-wing blogger can’t do once he sets his mind to it.

This is Sparta!

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