Monday 23 February 2015

Don't be taken in by Labour's lies and propaganda

From now until the general election in May the Labour Party are going to bombard you with the propaganda message that a vote for the SNP will mean the return of a Tory government in Westminster and that the only way to avoid this is to vote Labour. That is a complete lie and must be exposed for the lie that it is. Why is that a lie? Because the vote in Scotland is normally immaterial to the result of a Westminster election and it is normal for a resounding vote for Labour in Scotland to result in a Tory victory. Thus, a vote for the SNP will do nothing to jeopardise a Labour victory or encourage a Tory win. I give you  a sample of results from Conservative electoral victories that expose Labour for the liars that they most assuredly are.

In 1959 Labour gained 38 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 31. However the overall result gave the Tories 365 Westminster seats to Labour's 358. This means that if England and Wales vote Labour that is who will win and if they vote Tory then that is who will win regardless of what Scotland votes.
In 1970 Labour gained 44 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 23. However the overall result gave the Tories 322 Westminster seats to Labour's 287
In 1979 Labour gained 44 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 22. However the overall result gave the Tories 339 Westminster seats to Labour's 268

In 1983 Labour gained 41 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 21. However the overall result gave the Tories 397 Westminster seats to Labour's 209

In 1987 Labour gained 50 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 10. However the overall result gave the Tories 375 Westminster seats to Labour's 229

In 1992 Labour gained 49 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 11. However the overall result gave the Tories 336 Westminster seats to Labour's 271

In 2010 Labour gained 41 seats in Scotland whilst the Tories gained 1. However the overall result gave the Tories 306 Westminster seats to Labour's 258
As a result we can see that the success of Labour from 1997 to 2010 owed little or nothing to the Scottish vote. It matters little what Scotland votes because the result reflects the rest of the UK. For example throughout Labours victory years 1997 to 2010, they won 56 seats in Scotland in 1997 to the Tories zero, in 2001 55 seats to the Tories 1 and in 2005 40 seats to the Tories 1. Thus, even whilst their vote fell in Scotland from 56 seats to 40, it had no effect on the UK result, they still won because they won in England and Wales. Thus it matters not if the SNP win in Scotland in May because even when the Labour Party were winning in Scotland, we still returned 7 Conservative governments from  1959 till 2010. These are empirical facts, they are not propaganda and the facts tell us that a vote for Labour in Scotland is just as likely to result in a Conservative victory as a vote for anyone else. Do not fall for Labour's lies; if you vote Labour in Scotland you will probably get another Conservative government. The only way to safeguard Scotland is to vote SNP. If we continually get that then independence is an inevitability and following independence you can vote Labour to your hearts content. Indeed if you are really a dedicated Labour supporter, then a vote for the SNP is the only sensible vote for your long-term interests. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat


 



 

If you support the status quo you are not welcome here

If you are following the news you will be under no illusions as to how completely corrupt the elite in Britain really are. Two Foreign Secretaries and the head of HSBC have been exposed as being completely without any form of moral compass. Westminster is like a high class brothel where its personnel are willing to sell their bodies for immoral services, but only to the rich and wealthy. The difference is that a brothel is not necessarily immoral and the personnel in a brothel are offering an honest personal service that gives satisfaction. and does no harm to any other person. What the politicians are doing is selling their services fraudulently, deceiving the public, defrauding the people who elected them. This is a good example of legalised criminality. We actually had a serving MP who has an income of some £80,000 per annum from the public purse telling the programme that he was self-employed and had no income. One of the excuses given by the politicians is that MPs are not paid enough. Therefore, in an era when people in full-time work are using foodbanks we are being seriously told that £70,000 per annum is not enough to live on by the same politicians who will try to convince us that social security payments are far too generous, that the financial health of the nation is in jeopardy because of welfare and that we need to protect bankers bonuses and pay incompetents millions of pounds a year and benefits will have to be cut if we are to regain financial security as a nation.

You are probably fed up with hearing me tell you that Westminster is beyond repair. If anyone can seriously advance an argument to the contrary with daily news like this then I will be fascinated to hear it. One of the things I seriously ask anyone reading this to consider is to ask yourself how these people will behave if we leave the European Union and lose the regulatory mechanisms that exist under European institutions. Westminster politicians are genuinely disgusting. It is a moral necessity to get rid of them. The only way we can get shot of them is to vote for an independent Scotland and then ensure that the mechanisms are in place to ensure that such things do not happen here.

One of the things that the Scots need to do is to get control of the decision-making that affects the NHS. There is no doubt that the NHS is being progressively privatised by stealth and unfortunately that appears to be happening in Scotland. Any politician of whatever party who is exposed as supporting measures to privatise or to 'outsource' any of its functions must be named, shamed and removed from office. Privatisation of health means people will die, its as simple as that. A privatised health service is based exclusively on private insurance and private insurers will not insure the poor, the unemployed, the disabled and those with a chronic illness.  Such people are simply left to die. If that is the kind of nation you want to live in then I ask you to never read this blog again, you are not welcome. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat    

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Are you a useless eater?

It seems that I was somewhat misinformed when I told you in my last post that the government was going to introduce a luxury tax on female sanitary products, because that tax is already in place. I apologise as I was unaware of such a tax. My ignorance does nothing however, to lessen the shocking revelation that Westminster could even consider such a measure let alone implement it. I fail to understand how a woman's period can be considered a luxury? It does, however, tell us a great deal about the mentality of the female members of the Westminster mafia that they support such measures.

There is an excellent programme on the documentary channels on television entitled "The Nazis: a Warning From History!" This programme is the outcome of an excellent book by the same title which I have in my collection. I recommend it. What worries me is that whilst we can sit and watch a programme we can also completely fail to heed the warning contained within as the rise of fascism in the world, typified by the demonisation of peoples and minorities, is genuinely alarming. We are witnessing this phenomenon within the UK. It is not just in the increasing attacks on Jewish people and Judaism, but in the same attacks, probably by the same people, on Muslims. Not all Jews agree with the policies and strategies of the Israeli state, just as all Muslims do not agree with the policies and strategies of Isis or Al-Qaeda. In such an environment that is developing, begins the process of demonising and dehumanisation of such minorities. If you can successfully characterise Jews and Muslims as being somehow subhuman then it is obvious that you are superior and have rights that should not be extended to such inferior minorities. It is a grave error to suppose that the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Dachau etc. could not happen again. I ask you to consider Guantanamo Bay.

On the same theme, we see the increasing demonisation of the poor, people on benefits, the unemployed and the disabled in this country. Westminster increasingly portrays such people as scroungers, skivers, the undeserving etc. Such people are increasingly being portrayed by this government and its odious supporters in the right wing media as undesirable. The Nazis had a habit of referring to the unfortunates within their society as 'useless eaters' and 'untermenschen', lesser people, and it is only a matter of time before a Tory uses the same language. David Cameron is a genuinely dangerous man, a real wolf in sheep's clothing who panders to all the lower instincts within humans. Westminster is supposed to be driven by a concern for the well-being and care of the nation. This Westminster and its personnel are driven by hate and contempt for the majority of the British people. You have been warned 

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat 

Monday 16 February 2015

In Britain sanitary products are luxury items

The word democracy comes from the Greek demos (the people) and kritas (rule). Now, if we claim to be democratic then it is permissible for people like us to examine what democracy is, or should be. In my last post I noted how the Greeks claimed to be ruled by law. Aristotle wrote that

"It is more proper that law should govern than any one of its citizens: upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians, and the servants of the laws".

To return to Pericles, he told us that;

"Our polity....is called a democracy, because not the few but the many govern. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by obscurity. Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if the law is master of the government and the government its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state".

If we take such ideals as the starting point for our investigations then we can only conclude that Britain is indeed a barbarian state. I wrote how politics is a decision-making process. Today we read that the average Scottish wage has fallen by £1900 since this government was elected in 2010. At the same time, a CEO in one of our major companies earns the average working annual salary every 2 days. That situation is the result of deliberate political policy decisions. Such situations don't happen spontaneously or by the workings of the 'market' despite what politicians consistently tell you. British politicians took the conscious decision in the late 1970's to erect an economic system that would quite deliberately transfer wealth from the poor to the rich and to strip as many rights from workers as possible to remove the constraints on such an economic policy.

What gives Westminster politicians the right to make such decisions that have such consequences for people? They cannot claim that they have a mandate from the electorate. No government in Britain has been elected with more than 42% of the vote since the 1950's. Today we see the news that the government is going to impose a 'luxury' tax on female sanitary products. Thus, tampons are now a luxury. I am sure that some people reading this will be sure that I am making this up because it smacks of genuine insanity. The word government comes from the Latin word gubernare, to govern. The Latin in its turn takes the word gubernare from the Greek kubernetes. In Greek a kubernetes was the pilot of a ship, the steersman or the helmsman. So government is the art of steering, of guiding and governing the ship of state. These Greek and Latin roots were translated into the English as governor, or ruler. The position we have in Britain today is that the government not only steers the ship but determines its course, its speed and its ultimate destination. This is not the function of government. I will return to this again.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.

Sunday 15 February 2015

Britain a democracy? Is that a serious question?

One of the fundamental problems with our modern Britain is that we have lost all understanding of the concept of democracy. Throughout its history Britain has been little more than a pale reflection of a democratic nation,  but even in its periodic attempts to reflect democratic principles it could not bear to shake off its class and privileged nature and whenever it had the opportunity, it ruthlessly removed as many democratic gains that it could. If Britain ever had a claim to be democratic, it certainly ceased to be a democratic nation many years ago, and that is one of the reasons that Westminster and all its personnel are so paranoid about the Scots, because Scotland is in danger of rediscovering democracy and insisting that its principles are respected.

Democracy is much more than simply allowing for one person one vote. Most tyrannical regimes in the world not only provide everyone with a vote, but insist that they use it. The problem is that they also control it. When you begin to consider the fundamentals of political life you are faced with  some dilemmas that are uncomfortable for politicians who desire that the general public assume that they are actually different from the rest of us and should be in the positions they are in because they deserve to be. For example, in terms of fundamental rights, are we really all born equal? The answer is obviously yes. There are no class, race, wealth etc. distinctions in the birth process. All human beings come into the world exactly the same way and by the same process. Differences only emerge after birth and they are all socially conditioned. Thus, no-one is born with an essential right over anyone else. In addition, once in the world we are all totally dependent and must be cared for and nurtured else we will not last more than a few hours. A result of this basic fact is that all distinctions of wealth, class, race, etc are socially determined and are most certainly not natural. The extent to which these distinctions are apparent in any society is the result of the decisions that are taken within that society, and that is where politics enters into the equation.

The great Athenian statesman Pericles said that the distinction between Greeks and barbarians was that the Greeks were not ruled by people, but by law. That is an essential component of a democratic system and is a reflection that all people are equal because the law is supposed to be blind to all social distinctions between people. However, for democracy to work, law is necessarily just and not biased towards any group, class or sector. Only a moments reflection tells us that Britain is findamentally failing in all those respects. It is naive to assume that lawmakers must always be totally impartial, but they must at least be seen to be trying. In Britain we do not even make the attempt. Thus, democracy and a fair and just society is dependent on such fundamentals as who makes the law, how the lawmakers are chosen or appointed, how representative of the society are they and how accountable are they to the rest of society? The same principles must also apply to those who are tasked with administrating the law. I will explore these themes in future posts.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat. 

Monday 9 February 2015

The reality of modern British politics

I have been asking you to think about and discuss reality. The reality we are faced with in today's Britain has been graphically explained on all of our news channels all day. In the real world today we are governed by two major parties who have been actively supporting major banks in corruption and criminality. Both Labour and the Tories are knee deep in scandal as to their conduct with respect to the banking and financial system in the full knowledge of massive tax evasion and avoidance by people who are intimate with the top party leaders in Westminster. It beggars belief that these people did not know what was happening, but another reality is that even if they did not know, they have still not done a thing about it since they were made aware.

In other news the police in South Wales have been let off another corruption scandal in that they knowingly sent innocent men to prison for murder, that they lied, hid or destroyed evidence and convinced people to go into the witness box and perjure themselves with the intent to send five innocent men to jail for life. That is reality in modern Britain, corruption, lies, cover-up and a refusal to hold the guilty to account while happily destroying innocent people's lives for no other reason than that they have the power to do so. If the police don't do it Westminster will.

As I repeatedly tell you, Westminster is finished, it is beyond parody and beyond repair. How anyone can seriously ask us to vote Labour, Tory or Lib/Dem at the coming election is beyond me. What is worse is that people will actually ignore the evidence that is now overwhelming and cast a vote for either of these criminal organisations.

The next time you listen to a Westminster politician persecuting people on benefits and demanding that they are sanctioned as cheats and scroungers, ask them, if you get the chance, what they intend to do about bankers and businessmen who are actively and persistently breaking the law, and about the politicians who have been encouraging them and making the conditions that will allow them to continue doing so. If you're looking for the real reasons, if you are seeking a clear picture of the political reality that has brought Britain to financial crisis, to the edge of bankruptcy, to the era of foodbanks and one million children living in poverty and bringing the United Kingdom to the brink of losing Scotland, then look no further than the cesspit that is the Westminster Parliament.You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Friday 6 February 2015

Want a reality worth having?

Still on the subject of reality, I have already noted that reality is a relative concept, but it is also dynamic. Each person can come to control their reality, to adapt it and to change it. Your reality will alter with your environment and if you change your environment you will change your reality. You can also change your environment by changing your thinking. Most people do not really know why they think the things that they think, they just do. This is because we accept what we have been taught as we grow up and rarely challenge what we have been told by parents, family, teachers etc. The first step in education is the process of unlearning. We must begin to unlearn many of the things we have been taught, and that is a difficult process. Most people hate to be confronted by alternative narratives to those that they deeply believe in. Regular readers will know that I am not religious, but there is a very good precept in the Bible that tells us to 'prove all things and hold fast to that which is good'.

To prove or disprove something you must put it to the test. However, it is essential that you do this as tolerantly as possible and be prepared to accept that you may be wrong. I can assure you, if you find that a long cherished belief is actually false, it can be the most liberating experience imaginable. Trust me! Similarly, if you strengthen a belief by this process, that can be equally liberating. By putting your innermost thoughts and beliefs to the test you are in a win win situation, you cannot lose. Either way you gain, in knowledge, in confidence and in intellectual satisfaction.

It is essential that you read and develop your reading skills. Words portray meanings and develop a sense of perspective. We broaden and deepen our meaning system and our grasp of the world by developing our reading skills. Books are a vital component of understanding the human condition. If you want to make a start at understanding politics and the role of politics and politicians, try reading Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. Read the American Declaration of Independence and then read the American Constitution and see where they designate slaves as only constituting three fifths of a human being to understand the genuine relative nature of reality. Ask yourself, how can the man who wrote that it is self-evident that all men are created equal, then justify slavery and the dehumanisation of black people. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, but he was a human being who was a product of his environment, a rich educated white man of the 18th century. That was his reality.

But be tolerant, because despite being a white man who could not see blacks as his equals, Jefferson gave us many other important insights. George Washington was a slave owner. Similarly, Karl Marx was a genius, never make the mistake of  neglecting to read people like Marx because you have been brought up to hate communism, or Jefferson because you abhor slavery. Marx was wrong about many things, but he was right about so much else, why? because like Jefferson and Washington he was a human being and therefore flawed. Reading Marx does not make you a Marxist as if Marxism was some kind of infection, but it will make you wiser and enrich your reality. Similarly with Adam Smith. Go back to the basics, and read the founding fathers of politics, sociology and economics. In the process you will be enriched, enlightened and develop a life-long passion for understanding and knowledge. In the process you will have a rich and meaningful reality and begin to see through the charlatans and gangsters who are in charge of our society today. Paine will show you the type of 'democracy' you live in, and Smith will allow you to see the lie and fraud that is the free market economic system that dominates our lives. If you ever read Marx, Adam Smith, David Hume, Alfred Marshall to name a select few, I can assure you will have done far more than Cameron, Osborne or Miliband ever have. Justice is the interests of the strongest. That was written over 2000 years ago by the Sophist Thrasymachus and it is as valid today as the day he wrote it. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Thursday 5 February 2015

Your reality is as valid as anyone elses.

I made the comment that I make my observations on this blog according to my opinion of reality and I was asked to explain this. It appears to many people that reality is a given, that there can only be one reality, and this is a very common misconception because people reason that surely there cannot be more than one reality? However, reality is actually a relative term. What do I mean by that?

Your reality is conditioned by your environment. Each individual is a social being whose character and consciousness is the result of their socialisation. That is the great error of modern day free market neoliberalism, that people can be seen as individuals in their own right. As Marx tells us quite correctly, the atomised individual of free market theory is an impossibility. Each of our personal individualities is determined within our social environment. As a result, what appear as reality to you will be the result of you environment, where you live, the lessons you've learned from your parents, your school, you family and your peers. As a result, reality will appear to you as an ideological construct according to many social factors. Reality for a Catholic will be different from a Protestant or a Muslim. The reality of someone who lives in Glasgow will be quite different to someone who lives in London etc. The reality of a millionaire is a very different reality from someone who lives on benefits.

It is the same with communities. We all need electricity, gas, our refuse needs collecting and we need access to shopping facilities etc. However, the installation of gas and electricity, the problems of refuse collection are, in reality, markedly different in London where you can have upwards of 10,000 people per square mile, to that in Ross and Cromarty where you have 4 per square mile. There are not many supermarkets north of Perth. That is why a proper democratic system requires genuine representation both in personnel and in the community. It is absurd to have a system where 80% of political control lies in London and 80% of that control lies with white middle aged privately educated males.

To the people who govern us, reality only exists within the elitist circles that they spend their lives in. In addition, they genuinely believe that if your reality is not the same as theirs then it should be. It is painfully obvious that London does not even attempt to understand Scotland except from the perspective of what they perceive as reality. However, the same is true with respect to Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester etc. In reality, London has no real concern for them any more than they have concern for the Scots. How often have you heard someone who has returned from a visit to an area of the country that is quite distant from where they live remark that it was like being in another country? That is because it is like being in another country. The reality of life in Devon and Cornwall is markedly different from that in Glasgow or Dundee.

That is another compelling reason for Scotland to gain control of their own affairs, because the people who represent us neither share our reality nor even try to represent what the Scots perceive as reality. I don't care if Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander are born and bred in Scotland because they quite genuinely make no attempt to represent us, they only represent what their masters in London tell them to represent. What they persistently do is attempt to persuade us that our reality should be perceived in Westminster's terms. The Tories are even worse.

There is no right or wrong reality and you're reality is as important as anyone elses. What you need is a political and economic system that not only respects your reality, but attempts to represent it in a meaningful way. But most importantly, we need a system that ensures that all realities are respected and protected. However, if your reality is negative and oppressive then it must be challenged and alternatives made available. You must have an environment where you are able to control, shape and alter your reality. That is real democracy, that is real politics. I will continue this theme later as this post is getting rather long and I suspect many people may not read this far.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Labour are the authors of their own misfortune

Hubris, if you want to know how the Labour Party has reached the state it is in Scotland just look to the Greeks. It is Labour's overweening arrogance that has brought them to their present sorry state and it is to be welcomed. Labour are a disgrace and nowhere more graphically so than in Scotland where they went round team handed telling pensioners that they would lose their pensions if Scotland voted Yes and telling immigrants they would be deported. As I have continually told you, all Westminster personnel are pathological liars, it is all they have as they are devoid of self-respect, dignity or decency, and Labour are the most guilty as they have sold their soul for power and wealth. To call a Tory vermin is to demean genuine vermin. A Tory is not as good as that. However, they have the distinction of at least knowing what they are, Labour on the other hand pose as some kind of decent and honourable group who we should be able to trust, when in fact they have actually sunk lower than the Tories since Mad Tony took office.

You see Britain's problems all stem from its devotion to neoliberal free market economics and its political bedfellow, the neoliberal elitist and centralised political model that is so deeply embedded in Westminster. Karl Marx was correct when he told us that the political and social superstructure was a reflection of the economic infrastructure and as long as political parties are wedded to neoliberal economics then the political model will remain corrupt and elitist because that model is necessary for the success of the economic model. Labour have already committed to sustaining and entrenching the neoliberal economic model before the election has even happened and therefore, as I said yesterday can expect no support from anyone with even a scintilla of intelligence. Thus, there is no Westminster party even willing to offer any form of meaningful change to the austerity driven economic programme or the elitist and inequality driven political structure. For any hope for the majority of the people the Westminster model must be broken. As there is no possibility of that happening on a UK level (because the English electorate is largely supportive of the dominant economic and political model) then the only alternative is for Scotland to get as much independence as possible, govern as much as they can on their own terms and demonstrate that there is a real and workable alternative to the Westminster model. There is no possibility of that happening under any form of Labour government. The only hope for Labour is that it gets hammered in Scotland, divorces itself from London and reforms as a genuine Scottish Party.

Now I must admit that even if that happened I would never vote Labour again. I would never trust a Labour politician again. As I have repeatedly told you I am not a nationalist and my support for the SNP is strategic as the only hope of escaping the poisonous clutches of Westminster. However, if that happens then there will be other parties that may well offer me what I seek from a democratic party offering genuine social justice. On the other hand, the SNP may well deliver a genuine democratic solution that will hold my support. There are alternatives. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Tuesday 3 February 2015

I'll have another go!

I know that I said yesterday that I may not post again, but the peculiar thing is that I have had the highest number of views in one day for a long while. I am not sure if that is because people are happy to see the back of me, or whether I was wrong to stop. No-one has commented so, buoyed up by this sudden surge in interest (which I accept may well be negative) I will continue for a little while (because I am taking an optimistic view) at least in the hope that some people have an interest in my opinion of reality.

I hope I have shown over the life of this blog that I take politics seriously and approach the study of politics from the viewpoint of attempting to analyse politcs and political life from its fundamentals, that is, what is politics, and what is its roles and functions? For example, what is the proper role and function of an elected politician? What should the limit of their power be, and what should happen if they abuse that power and the office we elect them to? If there is one thing I have learned in my life it is that politicians actually know very little about politics. To the modern politician politics is all about winning elections and once they have gained office being able to do what they like. I suspect that the vast majority of political office holders in this country think that John Stuart Mill and David Hume are jockeys who ride horses called Plato and Aristotle.

Now, it is not necessary for political office holders to be familiar with the works of the aforementioned thinkers, but if you achieve a position in government you should at least have a passing knowledge of what it is you are supposed to be doing and what your proper functions are. That is why I have tried to remind you that politicians are no different from the rest of us and have no special rights and privileges. It takes no knowledge or skill to be an elected politician it only requires garnering one more vote than your closest opponent. It is this peculiarity that makes the modern British politician such a consumate and shameless liar. The modern British Westminster politician doesn't actually know their job or what they are doing. As a result, they are in thrall to vested interests who tell them what to do and they then spend their entire career trying to justify the unjustifiable.

The result of this is that politicians must be held to account at all times and must be answerable for their decisions. Politics is a job and if you make a mess of your job you get dismissed. In my job I make sure that I know what my job description is and seek to master my roles and responsibilities. It is the job of Parliament to monitor the government and to hold it to account. The Westminster Parliament is therefore a miserable failure and should be dismissed. Westminster demonstrates that its inhabitants don't even begin to understand their job.

With that in mind I will attempt to hold our politicians to proper scrutiny and analysis. I trust you will stay with me and will in turn hold me to account.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Monday 2 February 2015

I suspect this is goodbye

I have not posted for a while because I am sure no-one is interested in what I have to say. In addition, I suspect that my posts are too long for most people to be bothered reading. I am uninterested in the mainstream social media because I have no interest in posting short messages that beg more questions than they answer. I fear that the British public have lost the ability to read or to concentrate on any matter beyond a few sentences. That is a shame. The English language is a lost art and reading now appears to be a chore rather than a pleasure.

What I suspect is that people like me are a dying breed. I am indeed out of touch. I have no interest in celebrities, I do not watch soap operas and I actually enjoy reading. Should anyone still have an interest in anything I have to say, please respond and inform me and I will continue. If not, I thank all who have read me over the years, and hope that I have at least given you something to think about.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat