This has to be the most ridiculous discrimination against someone with a disability that we have ever heard.

UKIP has told a disabled man that he could not stand as a candidate,  because he is disabled.

Mr Jack Biggs, 65, of Wyke Regis, wanted to represent the Euro-sceptic party at the next Weymouth and Portland borough council election, but the party has told him he cannot stand as a full candidate because he has had both knees replaced.

Instead they told him he could be a paper candidate - the term used by major parties to describe a candidate who is not expected to win the seat.

Vicki Sharp, chairman of South Dorset Constituency Association, wrote in a letter: "Unfortunately, I have to tell you that, in view of your being registered disabled you will not be able to stand as a full candidate for UKIP. We would however like you to be a paper candidate.”

UKIP has recently been under the spotlight for financial irregularities and is also being legally challenged to pay back a third of a million pounds in donations which will go to the chancellor by the Electoral Commission over a minor technicality.

UKIP do themselves no favours in excluding disabled people from standing as either Local, National or European elections and politics should not be the domain of able-bodied people only.

It would appear the credibility of UKIP is shot to pieces, most in politics, with a sensible view, can accept that the Electoral Commission’s actions are petty in the case of Alan Browns donations and this is just being used to punish a political party that is a thorn in the governments side.

However, should any financial irregularities such as the MEP Tom Wise affair be conclusively proved then these problems will haunt UKIP forever and prevent them from ever reporting and condemning the EU on fraud and corruption without being labelled hypocrites.

UKIP have stumbled from one embarrassing disaster to another with Godfrey Bloom telling the world that women are only good for cleaning kitchens, then we have anti immigration Roger Knapman employing “European” Polish builders, Nigel Farrage showing his true Tory colours by stating he will not stand against his Anti EU conservative buddies, and suddenly UKIP don’t want disabled people anywhere near their “perfect” able bodied specimens unless of course you wish to volunteer as cannon fodder so that the career politicians can get their self serving snouts well and truly buried in the gravy trough.

We have only one thing to say about this anti disability behaviour ----DISGUSTING----

Full story may be read HERE

Royal Navy Fatal Cost Cutting...

Royal Navy or "Phantom Navy " -  You Decide

Confused Downing Street Government policy statements simply reinforce the hard fact of life that the UK Government has run out of money and ideas to redress the economic position of a once proud seafaring nation protected by the might of the Royal Navy.

Not so long ago, two huge new Aircraft Carriers were announced as going to be built. More recent reports indicate that this bold statement was probably yet more "spin" being released to the press in order to disguise the true reality from the now long suffering British Public.

Reporters have been looking at the situation in the last few weeks, and we have found that it is only when you place each piece of information side by side that the true picture reveals itself.

So what have we got:

The huge cost of building the new Aircraft Carriers suddenly seems to have shrunk, and then we notice that so has the size of the proposed Super Carriers.

Unions are alarmed at talk of base closures...

The defence secretary has visited Portsmouth Naval Base amid concerns over its possible closure under a major government review. Portsmouth is one of three docks that could face cuts under an MoD review.

Des Browne MP was met by commanding officers and MPs Mike Hancock and Sarah McCarthy-Fry at the base.

Mr Browne said precise details about what the future holds for Portsmouth will not be decided until the naval base review is completed.

Devonport in Plymouth and Faslane in Scotland, the home of the Trident missile-carrying submarine fleet, are also under scrutiny by the Defence Logistic Organisation.

Now, as Portsmouth is our major deep sea Naval Port, if it closes, where are these new aircraft carriers going to operate from - Yes, you got it, probably phantom ships...

But surely, we operate our Navy with a large number of other service warships?

Er, apparently, shock horror - No we don't!

The number of major warships has shrunk drastically in recent years, with the Navy's fleet of frigates and destroyers cut from 31 to 25. More than a dozen remaining vessels are mothballed in dockyards to save money.

The Government has admitted that 13 unnamed warships are in a state of reduced readiness, putting them around 18 months away from active service.

A need to cut the defence budget by £250 million this year to meet spending requirements has forced ministers to look at drastic measures.

It has been reported that six other warships are to be mothballed - the Type 22 frigates Cumberland, Chatham, Cornwall and Campbeltown and two Type 42 destroyers Southampton and Exeter.

It is likely that they will eventually be sold or scrapped. There are also fears in the Admiralty that two new aircraft carriers, promised in 1998, might never be built.

The head of the Royal Navy has warned that Britain's fleet is shrinking to the size of Belgium's.

Sir Jonathon Band, the First Sea Lord, has openly said, if that happens, he will quit in protest at spending cuts.

The Belgian navy seemingly has just three frigates and fewer than 2,500 personnel.

Britain's top admiral warned that spending cuts are reducing the nation to a third-rate sea power.

He has said: "We are at a scale of operations that requires a certain amount of investment to stay at this level. If we drop down a scale, then we may throw the baby out with the bathwater".

The Admiral, who is tipped as a future head of the armed forces, warned that the Government must boost Navy spending by £1billion a year or give up trying to remain a first-rank naval power.

It is quite obvious that more money is needed simply to cover day-to- day costs, such as training and spares.

Senior officers have spoken out over the shocking state of military accommodation, while the overstretched forces are having to cut back on training exercises because of severe budget problems.

Oh, and of course we have the promotion freezes - still, you can't promote highly trained seamen if you have no ships...

Sir Jonathon has also called for a public debate on the kind of defence Britain wants - and is prepared to pay for.

So - Question for our dear friend Mr Blair, how are we to protect our UK coastline from Drug Running and Immigrant Smuggling - or have we given up on that as well.

I guess readers have already worked out the answer to the question...

With billions being spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq we know what the priority is don't we Mr Bush?, just as we know our governments priority of converting our profesional armed forces into a second rate European force when Blair signs up to the rejected EU constitution on March 25th 2007

SAVE THE ROYAL NAVY

Today’s news is a question for the reader, it is something for you to mull over and ask yourself this very simple question.

Should the UK use preventative military force against Iran if it does not stop its nuclear build program?

The Popular Alliance foreign policy has this clause written in:

“We could then begin to repair the damage done to our relations with the countries of the Middle East. Never again would we commit forces from the United Kingdom into any situation such as Iraq.”

But first, let’s travel back in time, a time just after the first world war when we had a Germany that was defeated. She was told in no uncertain terms that she would never be allowed to posses an army over 100,000, she would not be allowed to build battleship class vessels and had tonnage restrictions, and she would never be allowed to build bomber squadrons which were considered to be offensive rather than a defensive capability.

This was all agreed and imposed by the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations Organisation.

History shows us that the League of Nations was a complete failure and in probability aided the onset of the Second World War, it bickered, was indecisive and failed to stop Germany rearming and becoming the most dangerous military nation the world had ever seen.

But how did the Germans go from a broken smashed humiliated nation that had such restrictive laws imposed on it to become a mighty military machine that very nearly achieved its objective?

Basically, they pulled the wool over the eyes of the weak and bickering League of Nations, who’s politicians, diplomats and servants did not have the spine, political will, or know how in dealing with a resurgent Germany or the new political system of national socialism.

Instead of building bombers, Germany built research and passenger planes, that could double up as bombers or fighters with very little conversion. They build thousands of gliders to train fighter pilots and they invested in, and experimented with, new aero technology in the name of peace leading the world into believing it was building commercial good and products.

She built hundreds of hi tech submarines, which were well under the limit of weight restrictions, but more importantly, built new manufacturing plants that were adaptable from civilian to military production.

And last but not least were the infamous pocket battle ships that were super modern, under the battleship weight limit, and had sacrificed armour in favour of speed, manoeuvrability, technology and of course the their massive firepower.

All of the above built under the guise of commercial, civilian or defensive use, yet the league of nations did nothing to stop this obvious and blatant rearming of Germany.

They also failed to put a stop to the extreme ideology and the persecution of the Jews, the main superpowers continued to disarm and turned a blind eye whilst discussing false hopes of peace believing they were in control and wallowing in their own self importance and ignorance.

Now, lets fast forward seventy to eighty years.

We now have a situation in the middle east with a nation that believes Israel must be wiped off the map, all Jewish people are filth and building uranium enrichment plants (for civilian use they tell us) but built in heavily fortified underground bunkers.

This nation has an extreme ideology that not only hates the West and non believers but has actually stated and condones the mass murder of millions of Jews through the annihilation of the state of Israel, and yesterday, the Iranian news told the world that this nation had successfully launched its first space rocket with a payload, although the Iranian leaders told us it was for peaceful research.

We were all told, not so long back, that Iran could not pose an immediate threat to world security, as its rocket technology would take “years” to develop and such technology would prove far more difficult than producing weapons grade Uranium.

We are told the UN and EU have been considering sanctions over the past few years, while all the time this “peaceful” nation has been telling the world it was full steam ahead on its “civilian” atomic energy project and whilst this was being drilled home by Tehran, the UN and European politicians have been “discussing” possibilities of what action to take against Iran.

We are all taught we must learn from history, so we are asking you, do you see any comparison between the “civilian” programmes of yesteryears Germany and today’s Iran?

According to this BBC report, the launching of a rocket into space seems to have taken the western politicians by surprise because those in the picture know that all of a sudden Iran has the delivery capability not only to threaten Israel, but Europe is suddenly under the Iranian umbrella of a nuclear missile attack.

On Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered another defiant speech insisting there is no going back on Iran's nuclear programme.

In a speech in Tehran, he likened his country's nuclear programme to a train with no brakes and no reverse gear.

One of his deputy foreign ministers, Manouchehr Mohammadi, said they had prepared themselves for any situation arising from the issue, even for war.

So, our question to you is, should the Popular Alliance revisit its foreign policy? Should we risk leaving defence of the UK in the hands of the EU or UN. Are you confident that the politicians can sort this out with sanctions and sabre rattling? Or, do you think Iran is pulling the wool over the eyes of the UN and EU politicians and will go for broke thus becoming a nuclear threat which it will use to bully the middle east into capitulating to extreme Islamic law, bully OPEC into restricting oil supply and maybe even attack Israel or Europe?

Is the Bush administration correct on this one single issue “maybe it’s better to destroy the Iranian capability with conventional power now before it becomes global nuclear threat that would threaten regional and possibly world stability.

Let us know your thoughts, suggestions and comments in our forum, just log on, leave your comments and we will read them with interest, maybe you have a solution we could discuss and add to our Foreign policy.

Thanks PA

Bizarre is the word that springs to mind. The government, specifically the MoD, has been wasting tax payer’s money on trying to get a bunch of people to use psychic powers to guess what is in an envelope.

Which government loon came up with this extraordinary brain wave on how to waste yet more tax payers money (while the Royal Navy is being mothballed) is the question we should all focus our brain energy on.

Maybe if we all concentrate hard enough, we just may be able to name the culprit (Don't forget Cherie Blair is a buddy of that old fraud Uri Geller, maybe he impressed the Blair's with his spoon bending that the Blair's asked him if he could help them "bend" the rules) or maybe someone thought they could use these people to predict the next general election results, even hypnotise the head of the Electoral Commission into forgiving or forgetting the LibLabCon donations scandal but concentrate all his efforts on finding a very minor and insignificant technical reason to knobble UKIP

The previously secret tests - conducted in 2002 - involved blind-folding volunteers and asking them about the contents of sealed brown envelopes according to this news report HERE but the subjects consistently failed to establish what was in the envelopes.

The MoD said the study was to assess claims made in academic circles and found the theories had "little value".

I am sure we could have told the MoD the exact same conclusion that these half baked theories had “little value” and it would not have cost the tax payer a single penny.

During the tests, defence experts attempted to recruit 12 "known" psychics who had advertised their abilities on the internet.

However, when they all refused to take part in the research, "novice" volunteers were drafted in.

Surely this must have told the government something was amiss, the penny must have dropped, someone somewhere must have cottoned on to the reason why these so called “known” experts declined, was it because if they were found out, as they surely would be, they would not be able to carry on conning the public out of their hard earned money with their hocus pokus nonsense

So what did the MoD do instead ?, (remember now, this government is heavily committed to finding totally useless projects to waste “your” money on) they drafted in some crackpot volunteers (all probably told they would be serving their country with honour and could be proud of their sacrifice) unfortunately one subject fell asleep while he tried to focus on the envelope's content (It would seem he did not eat his shredded wheat that morning but proved beyond any doubt he had real potential to sit in the house of lords).

"We would hazard a guess that had the final report landed on one of the desks at the Popular Alliance in a "sealed brown envelope", the recipient would have had no need to open it as the person would have anticipated the conclusion reached in the report, even Derek Acora, Mystic Meg and Uri Geller would have guessed that one …….spooky uh"

Well maybe not Derek Acora