Today, a rather disturbing article appeared on the BBC news website about the complete and utter failure of yet another ill thought out government initiative.

Over the past four years, a team of financial investigators, lawyers and customs officers has been busy working away tracking down and seizing the proceeds of crime.

However the government has now decided to close the Assets Recovery Agency and transfer its entire caseload and powers to other parts of the criminal justice system., which some experts fear could mean that the initiative will slowly die out.

It was Tony Blair who launched the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) and with high hopes, they were going to hit the drug dealers, criminals and the Mr Bigs who were enjoying a champagne lifestyle in their luxury mansions.

"We are going to ensure they no longer profit from their life of crime," he said, "and once the ARA gets to work, no-one will be beyond their reach.”

But as with all Blair’s costly failures, reality was quick to dawn, and a complete shambles was established.

It was found that cases dragged slowly through the courts as a succession of Mr Bigs (or more often Mr Puny) used every legal ruse and loophole available to put off the day when their assets would be seized and did this really come as a surprise?

Faced with these and other difficulties, the agency brought in no money at all in its first year (just as expected in its business plan) and less than half its target in years 2 and 3. This meant that it failed to meet another target: to become self-financing by the financial year 2005/2006.

The BBC goes on to say:

And yet successes were beginning to roll in, and with them serious amounts of money for the Treasury.

In Northern Ireland, there were big hits against gangsters linked to a range of paramilitary organisations.

Then three months ago, the agency and its Irish counterpart went into settlement negotiations over a huge VAT fraud and walked away the proud owners of £18m, a villa in Marbella and four racehorses.

As a result, this financial year the ARA is on track to bring in more than its own running costs - target met.

Officials at the agency complain privately that they weren't given enough time to prove themselves.

In Belfast, the decision to scrap the ARA is met with ill-concealed anger from leading political parties, who weren't consulted, and even the Chief Constable has expressed his reservations in public.

There are mainstream party leaders who wonder aloud if it isn't a sop to help win Gerry Adams' support for policing.

The timing is at least a remarkable coincidence.

All this is denied by the government, which argues that assets recovery will proceed full steam ahead under its new banner when the ARA is abolished next year.

But people deeply involved in cases remain pessimistic and wonder if a golden opportunity is being lost, to seize the major proceeds of crime.

The above report begs the serious question as to how the government tackles finance amd assets of the extremists and terrorists, will Blair suddenly appease the Muslim extremists and unfreeze their assets, or is the department dealing with extremist assets actually succeeding in tracking the millions passing through into the UK ?

The Popular Alliance is appalled at this situation,but not surprised, and calls on the government to swiftly freeze all monies and assets linked to terrorism and the criminal. 

A spokeman said “A tough policy is needed to deal with this, as well as the criminals who profit from crime, but alas, it seems the appeasers and incompetent leaders of our nation just allow anyone to abuse the law and if there is money involved then just as in the cash for honours inquiry, turn a blind eye to any wrong doing, or as in the case of BAE systems, pull the plug on any criminal investigations.

Brian Buxton of the Popular Alliance commented “ It beggars belief”

As the road pricing policy has put the government in a corner with the e-petition coming close to 1,2 million signatures, it appears that Tony Blair and his minister in charge of the policy have been practicing tricky U turns.

They both seem to have by-passed this sticky manoeuvre after hitting the curb a few times with Mr Alexander suddenly saying there needs to be "deliberation and discussion".

The e-petition exercise was seen as part of Labour's wider policy review, or Big Conversation-style events aimed at involving large numbers of the public and potential voters in the policy-making process, probably not realising that sooner or later they would be embarrassed when a large number of “potential” voters signed on to give disapproval against one of their key policies.

As mentioned previously, Blair and his ministers debunked the idea of any form of discussion stating road pricing would go ahead regardless, with Douglas Alexander going one step further and commenting the petition was “nonsense”, that was until the news got hold of the story and forced it up the political agenda, and suddenly we find the “career politicians” are squirming around wondering how to get out of the whole sticky mess.

There are more traditional ways of delivering signed petitions to the government, or lobbying MPs directly, but these have often been criticised for achieving little, although some MPs insist they do have a indirect effect on their own positions that can sometimes feed directly into government policy.

Others, like the Popular Alliance, claim it is only when things get ugly ( think of the anti-poll tax or fuel tax protests) that things change, but Ken Wharton energy spokesman commented “this one looks like it may be a bit different as it is open and accessible to all who have internet connections. It seems to have been the “embarrassment” factor that could shame the government and lose them even more credibility (if that is possible) should it do nothing about the petition.”

Brian Buxton of the Popular Alliance said” It will be interesting to see how the government deals with this issue and what spin they will employ to make the problem go away” and Barrie Haycock, Chairman of the Scottish Branch commented “The killer question remains unanswered, will this new form of public engagement lead to changes of policy, or will the entire e-petition exercise be quietly forgotten? If the voters suspect they are being ignored there are bound to be claims the whole exercise was a meaningless con or just another piece of spin.

The Popular Alliance has to ask, which turkeys are running the country? Is it Bernard Mathews foul feathered friends or is it Blair’s foul incompetent friends. 

It turns out that neither are running the country, the top turkey in this sad affair is the corrupt, misguided and mismanaged EU.

It appears the UK government allowed turkey meat from an area of Hungary affected by bird flu to be imported by Bernard Matthews despite knowing that the area was the source of the British outbreak.

According to a report, a consignment of 20 tonnes of turkey was imported last Tuesday from a slaughterhouse in Hungary, three days after the avian flu was confirmed at the Bernard Matthews plant in Suffolk and government inspectors knew the meat was being imported but did nothing to halt it, according to the report.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has admitted it had the power to halt such imports but did not use it for fear of retaliation from other EU countries. 

They claimed they would fall “foul” of the EU free trade agreements and would be breaking the law, so therefore decided to put the whole nation at very serious risk.

But the Popular Alliance has to ask this very simple question to the government, How is it, that when a cow even sneezes in one of our farms, the French blockade our beef, the Germans go on the offensive and proclaim Britain is a CJD breeding ground, and then proceed to lock their doors to any UK livestock and meat imports within minutes of reading a rumour in one of their news rags.

Not only do they shut up shop and cost the UK billions in lost “free trade” they keep it locked for months if not years.

But, then again, they are not as stupid as our “headless political chickens”, they see a opportunity to freeze the UK out and generate vast revenue from their own home markets.

It would appear our government never learns, it opens its doors to every criminal, drug dealer, troublemaker and scrounger, and the EU love it, they can offload their rubbish into the UK and say its “free movement” , and now, they have gone one better, they can now offload their diseases into the UK and say it’s “free trade”, and it all makes perfect economic sense to them.

Why not give the UK taxpayer the joy of paying for the clean up, give the idiots running the place a nice big financial bill, and let’s cripple their business at the same time.

But it is so easy, when you have turkeys like Miliband, Reid, Prescott, Hewitt, Hutton, Jowell, Blears, Brown and Blair pecking away at the countries security and gobbling up your hard earned cash to pay for their mismanagement.

And if you think the cannabis conservative Cameron will be any better, then think again, no wonder happy hippy Cameron wanted hug a hoodie…….”hey those EU dudes are cool man, let them run the place, someone roll me another spliff yeh,”

Perhaps they are all at it, smoking the weed, it would not surprise us with some of the weird and wonderful policies the government and opposition are coming out with.

A spokesman for the Popular Alliance said "we must stop these “foul” ideas, stop this highly dangerous Euro interference, let’s govern ourselves, and when we need to, ban infectious diseases and control our own borders, read our Europe policy and see if you agree with us".